Oh my God! What's happening to all my investments?

Woh! What’s going on? How is this possible? We were doing such smooth sailing and then all of a sudden...is in just a bad memory? 1930 come back to haunt us? Let’s not panic, but, well, would’t it be better to put my cash on secure options? Of course that might make things worse....but at least that way I can save my neck, can’t I? Well, to tell the truth, that’s what the system is all about, isn’t it? I mean you put your money down, cross your fingers, and, well, if you make a killing you laugh in relief...and then keep on gambling...pardon me...investing...Investing?

Just look at those faces on that photograph that appeared today on the New York Times and then try to come to your own conclusions concerning why the Lehman Brothers, a firm founded in 1850, a firm that has survived the Great Depression and every market trauma before and since, is suddenly bankrupt? Why Merrill Lynch, has been gobbled up by the Bank of America? Remember? If you read the papers a couple of months ago you might have realized that Lehman assured investors that it had enough liquidity to weather the crisis, while Merrill raised some $15 billion over the last year to shore up its balance sheet. Now they’re both as good as gone.

Maybe you were still half awake last week when it was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (What if it happens to the Big Mac?) So there are only about two solid U.S. investment banks left: Goldman Sacks and Morgan Stanley...and Republican candidate John McCain tells us not to worry because the U.S. economy is basically strong?

Really? Is this literature or reality or surrealism?