Feel the Burn

Remember 1996? The Chicago Bulls set the record for the most wins in a season, the Menendez brothers killed their parents with shotguns, and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest was published. I wasn't even in high school yet, so at the time I was more concerned with the price of a happy meal than the S&P. But thanks to today's drop, we get to relive the joy of pre-"irrational exuberance" stock markets. Three cheers all around. Some are calling it The Lost Decade, and Niall Ferguson has coined it as The Great Repression. My personal favorite: GDII. It sounds like a movie sequel.

Unfortunately, heads will be rolling rather than credits. Unemployment continues to rise, everything else under the sun continues to fall, and the market isn't expecting good news for quite some time. The Dow and the S&P have now been officially halved since their peaks back in late October 2007. Enjoy your worries.