Also

My spelling is more rotten than normal because this bloody phone keeps
auto correcting me / not ( when it should) and it is waaaay too
painful to go back and correct, so do grit your teeth and turn a blind
eye.

Addenum

Additionally, I'm glad:
4. I'm young and don't have much ( to loose) yet. I do not have to
wake up each day seeing my 401k shreaded to bits
5.My parents do not have to as well-- one with a pension the other
with money in a mandatory provident fund (which cannot loose money--
and bound by law to give a MIN 2ish %return yearly ... It's about 5ish
on average).
6.I did not end up purchasing a house. When prices retreat to 2001
prices , then I'll do something.

And
Just for fun; 3 things of value in a Depression... Besides food water
1. Cigarates
2. Beer/alcohol
3. Guns & ammo.

(3)is not because I'm painting a post apocalyptic, post collapse of
govt, state of anarchy: but you would seriously want some solid self
defense to protect your self,family, and the meager supplies you have.

JUST FOR FUN TALK ok.

The Bull Shits!

:)

There is a Chinese proverb that goes, "may you live in interesting
times"... And short of a war, a depression/recession is pretty close
to being up there.

And of course things won't be as bad as 1929-- but things will not be
pretty for a long time. Job scarcity, economic stagnation,
inflation... Get used to it, learn to live with it, and make the best
with what we have. The ingenuity, entrepreneurial and innovativeness
that truly separates us from other live beings will be allowed to
flourish. :)

That said, if you think the american markets are doing poorly, have
you taken a look at the Chinese, hong kong, Russian, Japanese indexes?
Bloodbath!

For this, I am thankful that:
1. Because of the nature of my job I had to liquidate all equity
holdings before starting (or transfer to our internal broker and live
with insane restrictions to trade-- which I wouldn't have time to
monitor anyway). I can imagine being so busy, that I might have been
on this hellride right now - if not for this.
2. That Im gainfully employed, with a good pay and not much
liabilities and get dinners free when I work over 7.
3. That when (if) it ever gets that bad, I know how to survive on an
egg and rice a day, I know how to make bread, cook soup, brew alcohol,
and dude... Maybe I'll finally find some good use for my girl guide
skills. Wow. And that excludes barbequeing, although I do think that
was a great skill to have learnt.