I'm advised that if I have 20 years, I should just hang in there as the market is bound to come back.

but I do feel like a sucker.  I just try to look.

My husband's company folded a month ago, and this is not a great time to be looking for work . . . he's disabled, he's over 50, but he's great at what he does.  So far, nothing.

So we set it up a couple of weeks ago to be good to pay tuition for the rest of the school year, as long as I keep working.  I've got to believe he'll be employed again before next fall; if not it will probably mean that college tuition is the least of all our worries.

The thing that frustrates me is how hard it is to know what the hell they're not telling us.  Don't they really know, or do they just not want to say?  How frightened do they have to be to make all this trauma?  What are we supposed to make of them taking a few days off for the Jewish holidays?  Is it really not that big a deal?

Sheesh makes you wonder what good is government for any more?

I think as progressives its important to look at the big picture. And the big picture is that its sad that in the richest country in the world, your mother has to fend for her own health care and pension after retirement. I think thats what needs to be fixed.

This bill doesnt fix the economy or even the markets in the long run. The economy is broken because of 30 years of Reaganomics or free market facism. And this bill is just extortion by Wall Street. Pay us or we got your pensions.

I think as progressives it behooves us to reject this bill. That doesnt mean we do nothing. Lets move bills which really fixes main street, regulates the gamblers/extortionists in wall street, provides health care for all, strengthen the unions and their bargaining powers.

They need to take money out every year to live on.   The same living expenses coming out of a much smaller pool means they "run out" far faster.

Many retirees had far more than they might have had historically in stocks because interest rates have been so low for so long.  They needed to try to earn enough to live on.   At some point everybody freaks and just "sells"  --be it down 20%, 30%, 40% or whatever - almost everyone has their breaking point.

Even if Jeralyn is right and it "comes back" they and many others who sold won't be in the market to benefit.  They'll be net losers.

texas instruments is still here, IBM is still here, proctor & gamble, etc., all still here. if your broker urges you to sell, sell, sell(!), get a new broker, your's is an idiot. plus, he makes money on every transaction, regardless of how well you do.

remember the "great fall" of '87? the market dropped roughly 300 points in one day. the sky was falling, the earth was breaking apart, great serpents roamed the land! except, well, they didn't.

astonishingly, the next morning, everything was still there, and life went on. the market recovered (as it usually does, once the henny pennies are butchered and eaten), and things went back to normal.

Frankly, our reliance on bubble-inflated assets (either stocks or homes) was always going to catch up with us.  And it was always going to be painful.  The scary thing about what's happening now is that it's very likely that the loss in that 'wealth' could be the first shoe dropping.  The second would be a hit on the real economy as a result of a credit squeeze following a collapse of the financial industry.  THAT would put a hurt on everyone.  We haven't had a serious recession in a generation, let alone a depression.  But we might get to revisit what that's like now.

The WSWS writes today:

The working class must put forward its own solution. The banks and major financial institutions which now threaten to drag down the economy and plunge millions into poverty must be nationalized, without compensation to their executives and big shareholders.

These institutions should be transformed into public utilities, controlled democratically by the people, with their resources utilized not for the creation of profits for the rich, but rather for productive purposes, including the creation of jobs, a halt to foreclosures and evictions, the rebuilding of the social infrastructure and the funding of education, health care and other vitally needed social programs.

Those directly responsible for this crisis, the Wall Street executives who oversaw fraudulent forms of financial manipulation that generated multi-million-dollar compensation packages for themselves, must be held accountable. Their assets should be confiscated and they themselves should be subject to criminal prosecution.

The struggle for this program is possible only through the mobilization of working people in their own independent political party, fighting to replace the political rule of the banks and big business defended by both Democrats and Republicans with a workers government.

We need to forget about these trickle-down-economics (the mere name of which is offensive to those in the middle classes) and get back to believing in what the great Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay and FDR believed....in the American School of Economics

FDR:
"Let us . . . highly resolve to resume the country's interrupted march along the path of real progress, of real justice, of real equality for all of our citizens, great and small. . . . There are two ways of viewing the government's duty in matters affecting economic and social life. The first sees to it that a favored few are helped, and hopes that some of their prosperity will leak through . . . to labor, to the farmer, to the small businessman. That theory belongs to the party of Toryism. . . . But it is not, and never will be the theory of the Democratic Party.

"The people of this country want a genuine choice this year; not a choice between two names for the same reactionary doctrine. . . . What do the people of America want more than anything else? Two things: Work; work, with all the moral and spiritual values that go with work. And with work, a reasonable measure of security--security for themselves, and for their wives and children. Work and security . . . are the spiritual values, the true goal toward which our efforts of reconstruction should lead. Throughout the nation, men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the government of the last years, look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth. . . . Those millions cannot and shall not hope in vain. I pledge to you, I pledge to myself, to a New Deal for the American people. This is more than a political campaign, it is a call to arms. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people"

Henry Clay:

"Two systems are before the world;... One looks to increasing the necessity of commerce; the other to increasing the power to maintain it. One looks to underworking the Hindoo, and sinking the rest of the world to his level; the other to raising the standard of man throughout the world to our level. One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other to increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilization. One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace. One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world."

"There's got to be some kind of bailout, but the bottom line is that I just don't trust these guys." Look at the Iraq war, he said. "Everything this administration has touched has gone to hell."

Simple and concise.

How did it come to be that people believe the stock market, bonds, money markets and the like aren't gambling?  Granted, some gambles are riskier than others, but at the track the favorite only wins a third of the time.  There is no such thing as a sure thing.

I don't have any investments