No bottom?

Before the invention of the fathometer, when a ship's captain or pilot needed to find out how deep the channel was for safe navigation, he would call for sounding, using a weighted line marked with the divisions of a fathom - six feet in landlubber terms.

The lead man would call out "Mark 6" - "Mark" was the response of his partner. "Mark four! Mark Twain!" "Mark! Mark!" "By the green rag!" "There ain't no green rag!" "THERE AIN'T NO BOTTOM!"

Critical participants at the New York and worldwide markets are looking for the bottom of the sharply decremental fall in the stock arena these past several weeks. The crash has represented something like a 50 percent decline in the value of stocks, with credit crunch as tight as the drum heads on which doomsayers beat the warning that the icy breath of Depression is stalking every citizen.

Although matters were not so grave until just this recent period of time, things were ominous since the spring of 2008, when the housing bubble burst, smattering buyers of mortgages as well as those who sold them, knowing full well that their customers were "sub prime" credit risks.

It's beginning to look a lot like October 1929. What is there in common? Fear - naked, unreasoning fear invades the very soul of investors, owners of 401K accounts, and those who are still employed.

Panic comes next, paralyzing ordinary folk like it did when deep anger replaced the apathy of the helpless afflicted. The disease is worldwide contagious.

Today's president speaks out of a 20 percent approval rating and cannot allay these ailments with his feeble attempts at reassurance. The unemployed and those whose savings have been wiped out will not be at any sense of well being until the massive infusions of money will have done the job. (If that ever happens.)

This president is a lame duck who will have full authority until January 20, 2009. Whoever wins the election will step into the worst quagmire since FDR relieved Herbert Hoover back in the "bad old days." We will support him but will not envy him when he takes the oath.

Let us work together now, when the campaigns are heating up to nasty exchanges. Let us try to stay in focus while we make the most important decisions in our lifetimes.

Although we have no solutions to offer, we must advise one and all to look ahead with confidence and accept what we cannot change. We will not only survive - we shall prevail!