THE PAST IS STILL PROLOGUE

  

   Every day on Wall Street is now becoming "the end of days," save for the fact that there is 

No Rapture on the faces of the people toiling in its vineyards at the crossroads of Wall and Trinity.  The first Monday in October this year, October 6th, was no exception to the string of disasters being chalked up in the cauldron of collapse.  

   The day's tumult came on the heels not only of  doubts about the newly-inked Rescue Bill for the Street, but on the no-holds-barred comments of a popular "telefinangelist," who blithely recommended on the "Today Show" that viewers divest themselves of all their stocks if they think they might need their money in the next 5 years...and who among us doesn't need their money in the next five days or weeks, let alone five years, apart from Warren Buffet , Bill Gates, et al? 

   Down by 800 points during early trading, the DJIA rallied, closing down 369.88,  falling below 10,000 for the first time in 4 years.   

   To even casual observers. this is cataclysmic, because in the 21 years since "Black Monday" of October, 1987, a whole new generation has grown up in the market believing they were bona-fide geniuses, having found the alchemist's formula for turning dross into gold - at least until the Tech  bubble burst, followed by the Real Estate bubble, now by the Financial bubble, all to be followed by the Disappearing Consumer bubble, coming soon to a mall near you.

   

   If  there's an iota of truth in the dictum that those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it, then it's "Come to Jesus Time" as the horizon for a meaningful, lasting turnaround recedes further and further into an uncertain future.  

   To a generation accustomed to being acclaimed "brilliant," which rejected authority to establish its own game-rules, and whose own expectations of instant gratification were fueled by Cristal Roederer at $500 a pop, if not Crystal -Meth, this is nothing short of disaster: being in free-fall is a new out-of-body experience.  

   This is the perfect storm of uncertainty, the combination of earthquake and tsunami in every touchstone of one's life.  The carnage is ubiquitous.

   Unfortunately, unlike the market's fairly quick rebound after the October 1987 debacle, this recovery is more likely to be reminiscent of the market's excruciatingly slow ascent after its December 6, 1974 close at 577.60, a twelve-year low that ended the worst Bear Market since the Depression of the 30's.   

   I know; I was drinking Maalox on that December 6th.  

   The next day, December 7th, was my birthday, which no amount of bubbly could make happy. At the time I had won my hard-earned "ticket to ride," I was the youngest woman hired by

 E.F. Hutton & Co., Inc.  During my tenure on the Street, the market experienced no less than 3 recessions in 9 years:  the Market was in a perennial Bear Market mindset for my entire Wall Street career.   Given that nothing matures a broker like a Bear Market, I was mature as Methuselah by the time I giddily  left Wall Street for greener pastures.  

   The collateral damage from unfolding events can't be foreseen, much less guesstimated. 

But old-fashioned American resiliency, tenacity and the shoulder-to-the-wheel, still very much in evidence along Main Street, are the inherent values that will see us through.

   In the meantime, to paraphrase Bette Davis'  character, Margo Channing, the fading movie star, in All About Eve, "Fasten your seat belts - it's going to be a bumpy ride."