"As" we did then ++ comments

I hope you're wrong about the Dow hitting 13,000. We don't need another period of wild speculation a la the tech boom/bust of the 1990s. The worst thing for the economy now would be for investors to lose their minds like they did back then. Dow hitting 12,000 is good news. Hitting 13,000 in only a few weeks -- that would be unsettling. Have we not learned from the past?

Ben's response:

People criticze my grammar, so I'll criticize yours.

It should be "as" they did then, not "like" they did then.

Yes, the Dow tanked.

Investors got hurt; including some "little guys," who can afford it least.

Some big guys went to slammer, some deserved to be incarcerated, others not.

I think we put too many high profile people in jail.

If Martha Stewart were not Martha Stewart I doubt that she would have been put in the pokey.

But the various indices have rebounded above all-time highs --- although not price-adjusted.

Does this help rich people? Yes.

Does this help not-rich people? Yes.

It means more if a family goes from a $30,000 income to a $60,000 income than it does for a family with a $5 million dollar income to go to a $10 million dollar income, although the absolute amounts involved are staggeringly different.

(What do you do with $10 million dollars coming in every year. What do you do with it if you are George Soros with billions coming in every year?

I think we are in what Wassily Leontiff called "a long boom." The markets will go up, down and sideways --- but, over the long haul up, up and away.

Be cautious. Diversify. But stay invested for the long term in good companies.

Warren Buffet is not rith about everything, but he is right about that.

Ben