Baraka_Guru

With all due respect to the reasonable criticisms of neoliberalism, this issue shouldn't have come as a surprise, but it always does.

Herd mentality and short-term memories tend to mislead people into thinking that things could always and should always improve. This sort of market movement could have very well been predicted, and some have done so. The S&P has operated at a net loss since 2000 and the Dow Jones has returned to a level it hit in 1999 and again in 2000, 2001, and 2006—and both had a good climb between 2006 and the end of 2007. Those who have this whole time expected (or at least prepared for) such things as this week's events call these past ten years a secular bear cycle.

Individual investors should get to know what this means so they can protect themselves (eg, sometimes holding a lot of cash is better than having everything in the market).

The government, Wall Street, and others more directly involved should stop being so greedy or power-hungry and understand these issues as well. A relatively unregulated economy is ludicrous when you know how the machine works. Do you know of any other elaborate machinery that has no mechanics, no operators, no "reconfigurators"?

Neoliberalism is a travesty of economic theory and practices.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot