It is like surgery--you don't heal up in one day--and may take weeks. This is such a complicated mess, it will take years to recover, if ever. People still want to invest their money, get big interest, have big houses, big wages, but expect to pay little prices. It it not the farmer, builder, small business person that makes the money, it is the middle people and also realize that way too many of our jobs are in too many countries. We Americans refuse to pay a living wage to a person making clothes, but expect to pay low prices for products. Ordinary dresses made in other countries who pay there people pennies, sell here for hundreds. Loggers who lost their job, saw mills closed down, and even our oil is shipped across seas, returned because we have only 2 (TWO) refiniers in the entire US, because the government refuses to build more. We need to stop all "pork" for all states, fix the roads, improve our medical, stop suing everybody for dumb things, insist our precription companies charge so much: example
those tiny strips diabetics use to test their blood $116.00 for 50. We need to tell our elected officials, enough is enough. Even the poll calls on the phone are coming from across the seas.

The bailout was to address the credit squeeze between banks and businesses. It was never intended nor aimed at propping up the price of stocks per se.

In addition, as no one knows yet how the 700 bil will be parceled out and to which entities and what conditions may be attached and/or enacted(such as the Wall St. dirty word "regulation") so investors are still hoarding their cash..and banks are still wary of lending each othe rmoney.

Honestly....who would anybody trust right now in terms of making an investment?

When there is blood in the streets,its time to buy...Anyone who buys into the stock market at these levels,will likley be very happy 12 months from now...Yes, there is still downside risk,but,imho,not as much as upside potential...The world is not ending, this is not a depression,interest rates are still very low by historical standards,unemployment(for now) is 6% +-....

When everyone is selling,i am buying...
And as a contrarian,when everyone thinks the market can't lose,i am selling

Mariend - what two refineries in the US are you referring to? There are more than that on the East side of Houston. And the government doesn't build refineries - companies like Shell, BP, EXXON build refineries. (but I do agree there are too many jobs done overseas that could be done in the US).

Carolyn

Sorry about the # of refineries but no new once 1976. Here in ND we have so much oil avaiable that we cannot get it shipped out as fast as needed. One of the reservations had everything set to go, permits, money, etc and at the last minute was told NO we don't need it. Had people ready to build, and to work and one of the biggest fields here in ND, MT and Canada. Still trying to get it up and going.

$700 Billion is a teensy amount compared to a $10 Trillion market. I was never convinced it would make a difference, and still am not. Admittedly, I didn't think the 20,000 troop surge in Iraq was enough to make a difference either, so I can't claim to own a working crystal ball. But I realistically see no real fix for this except to let asset values reach levels that are supported by fundamentals.

Today they announced that the $700 billion is going to be directed by a new government agency, the Office of Financial Stability. Ugh. That sounds almost as big brother-ish as the Department of Homeland Security. I thought I heard them say that a 35 year old from Goldman Sachs was being put in charge but at that point I couldn't believe my ears and I think maybe I misheard.

The TARP bill sets up a whole new agency under the Treasury Department. Anything that's big enough to have its own Inspector General with a $50 million budget is not just some temporary setup thats going away in a few months.

There was also news this past weekend about the government hiring "asset management firms" from wall street to help Treasury sort out all this stuff Paulson is about to buy.

Once you cut through all the talking head noise on the TV, you'll find a number of experienced people who thought buying all these assets was a really bad idea. They weren't against the bailout - just the method of providing the assistance.