they cannot see their fantasy world ending(by mannfm11)

who the hell would own a portfolio ofstocks at these valuations? I'm 52 years old and I saw the 1960's and1970's and it took to the mid 1990's to get the PV of the Dow and SPXto where it was in 1966. The market had to go to extremes, which ithasn't ever been before, yet has been for the past 10 years. Add tothat experience, I have a degree in finance and a clue as to how longterm return is created out of owning stocks. The current trend ofrunning companies as managements toy and making decisions to supportstock prices rather than reward stock ownership doesn't paint a prettypicture for owning stocks. It seems to elude you guys that we are going25% of GDP in debt, which means that 25% of the transactions in the USare being financed with credit that won't be paid back. That means thatwhen the typical guy goes to McDonalds and spends $4, $1 goes on acredit card or mortgage or somewhere to never be paid, but be reflectedas income for the country. The $75,000 guy is living like the $100,000in essence.

That dance is about to end. It is going on inChina as well, don't let the numbers fool you about trade surpluses anddeficits. IF this mattered, Japan would have never hit a big hole inthe road.

I think Yogi gave as good an answer as possible, butremember the rate cuts in 2001 didn't help. In fact, one created apanic for a few days in March 2001.

Look at CNBC. There aren'tany pessimists per se on that box. They bring in a bear here and thereand the other 80% continue their pollyanna ways, because theireducations are in making money, not economics. When out of ideas tomake money, they make something up. What has been made up over the pastfew years is going to turn out to be millions of empty houses andthousands of empty commercial real estate buildings and thousands ofempty banks. Most importantly, they cannot see their fantasy worldending and realize they have been LYING all these years, contrary towhat they have been taught.