The sanctified average fell below 10,000 yesterday and was still sinking today, bringing back memories of those best-sellers of not so long ago predicting Dow 30,000, Dow 36,000 and even Dow 100,000.
For those whose 401(k)s are intended to pay for approaching retirement or children's college educations, this is a silent disaster, a Katrina of family finances obscured by headlines of bank failures and bailouts.
There is no FDIC insurance for the stocks and mutual funds that are going south and taking the futures of hard-working Americans by the millions with them.
On Wall Street, the brokers are still collecting their commissions as the panic selling goes on unabated. Isn't it time for the masters of the stock market to consider a suspension of trading to stop the bleeding until the wave of fear recedes?
For the long run, Washington has to get moving on a bipartisan effort to deal with the financial mess. January seems a long time to wait, especially for those who are seeing everything they worked so hard for go down the tubes with the Dow every day.
It's always worth it to remind U.S. citizens that Bush and McSame both wanted to privatize Social Security to the stock market. Imagine where people's retirement plans would be if the Republicans had their way on that issue.
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