Where will the Dow Jones industrials end 2009?

After 8 years of a constant free fall I think most of america would be satisfied if he could at least stop the falling.  Theres so many areas that have caused the problem and most if not all would have to be changed drastically to repair things.   Immigration, outsourcing, health care costs, fuel costs and future fuel options, gross wealth imbalance, overpopulation and infrastructure, global environment...  the list goes on and on. 

8 years of a constant free fall ?????  I'm beginning to think you liberals actually believe some of these insane comments you make..... THe facts are DOW 10,912 (Apr 2001) fall to 8847 (Sept 11 2001) and continue to fall to 7591 (August 2002) then a 5+ year runup peaking at 13,930 (October 2007) ... now down to 9,000 which is higher than post 9/11 and is certainly not a 8 year free fall.... but let's not let facts get in the way of what you truly believe.

Really, Steve from Massachusetts?

 Well you seem to be forgetting the effect of the market chill when it looked like Bush would bring the 90s talk show, brain dead, , Neo-conservatives to power. In August of 2000 the Dow was at 11,000+. By August of 2001 Bush and his buddies had it driven down to 8500. It has recently been at 7500 due to the lack of economic savvy, and past misdeeds of the current administration. Lately, as folks have begun to have some the faith that the destruction is over and a new day is coming, it will trend up.

How do you prove this theory? Look at your 401K if you have one left.

when world currencies are not representing actual wealth ie gold/silver,

we live in an artificial economy.wealth is created not earned.

world currencies are created via Fractional Reserve Banking.

They do not represent a countries wealth.only a Fraction!Its Pure Money Created From Nothing.

We Are Seeing The Expansion/Creation of money in reverse.

Everthing must return to its source and that source is Tiny.

if what you say is true than the dow means nothing , only as far

as numbers go , people have lost trillions in the market over

the past few years , retirements destroyed, you have seen all

this happen , you will see more , only the wealthy will gain from

this free fall , as they always have in the past and will again , it

all stems from the u.s.a. `s leadership , thank god john mccain

did not get elected , that would have been the final nail in our

coffin. obama is a last gasp at hope , may he and his family be

safe .

and we will soon see the end of the current administration! Obama will do what he can but congress may not help. congress will try their usual additions and delay the stimulus package that is so badly needed for jobs, jobs. and more jobs.

The market will be up conservatively if the stimulus begins to work as expected.

right. Let's have the government slap some good old fashioned wage limits on those greedy auto workers. That'll show 'em. Hey, maybe a maximum wage to go with the minimum wage. You can't make any more than X, with the value of X depending on which industry you're in.

While high paid auto workers may be part of this economic uncertainity, what about the american consumers themselves?  We keep buying foreign products year after year, and also export american jobs overseas!  It's a vicious cycle and nobody wants to except responsibility for their own lack of frugalty.  Gutless politicians and greedy ceo's are only the tip of the ice berg.  Our biggest problem being the vanishing middle class and lack of quallity health care for the average citizen..!  Let's all learn to tighten our belts and start putting quality back into American products and stop outsourcing jobs to india etc.  Jesse Ventura for President!

"We keep buying foreign products year after year..."

You probably even think that your "Hecho en Mexico" Chevrolet is more patriotic than my made in Alabama Toyota.

Don't by the hype, and if American companies manufactured products that American's wanted to buy, they could even afford the labor to make them.   Fire the executives, they choose the product mix.  The factory floor just folows orders.

 High paid auto workers? The ones who actually produce something?

 But 25 million dollar a year ball players are perfectly acceptable?

 What a country.

I agree- the energy which is normally in the economy from the consumer in the near term past was an artificial energy fed by "free" credit in the form of either equity loans or "low interest" credit cards.  Now that this fuel has dried up, the engine now has to restabilize on a new baseline which will consist primarily of cash, and in an environment where there is no large cash pots out there (for the average individual) this will be a long time coming for a reversal to better fortunes.   If you consider that the 700 billion package alone added approx. 2400 per every man, woman and child in the US to the debt, and to the taxpayer base almost 6500 per working taxpayer, there is no short coming out timeline for this one.

Anymore bad news Debbie or (Don) Downer?

I think it will be far more ranging and cataclysmic than what we have historically seen. Mankind has evolved since then now we are far more predisposed to agressive and violent nature and far less tolerant of others. Too many rats in the cage.

It will be interesting to have front row seats. Now that I have closed my 5 retail stores and am on the verge of loosing my home and everything else, nothing else left to do but pop some popcorn.

Michael,

I am with you.  The government and the media have been under-reporting the severity of this downturn.  It is horrible.

Salary was cut in 1/2 in September, and was cut completely January 2nd.  After being unemployed for 4 months at the beginning of 2008, we have no reserves left.

My wife and I are right with you on the popcorn.  I figure we have 3 months before the bank takes our house.

Bankruptcy, here we come...

And, thus the story unfolds . . . Great Depression II

It's all about our confidence in the future.  If your pessimism can convince the masses you will be correct.  On the other hand, a more optimistic outlook can do wonders on the upside.   Go buy a car!

OldPhart, You've pretty much said it all.

You're right. You are creative, intelligent and insightful. Do you have any ideas that could stem the tide without violence and distruction? If not, I do and it is a simple solution but, I cannot see to get enough people with clout to listen. Any ideas with that problem?

Old fart-I can identify with this monicer personally, i'm afraid

However,

Your assesment of the precipitants of the current situation is dead on to my research and conclusions. Perhaps I am incorrect but am still hopeful that anarchy will be averted by a wave of hyperinflation, but granted this would require the new regieme to utilize the one time opportunity this will represent to reduce federal deficites instead of using the dollars to increase spending. This is highly doubtful however, as I fear that the new President at heart really wants to redistrabute the wealth under an entirely new socialist political system. This will of course precipitate unavoidable anarchy--- 

Paranoid BS has been written here.  The free market Republicans are the people who screwed up the "free market" and played loose with creative derivatives.  Henety and Limbaugh have been lying to you about a lot of things.  So chill out.  come out of your demonizing fantasies.

Seeing Republicans in the administration freeked out by the collapse of the economy gave me hope.  They learned, experienced and saw that the capatalists they trusted are crooked, greedy and untrustworthy.  They were too smart for their own good.  And, boy, did they lay an egg!  Yes, we will be living with the consequences for a long time.

This one is due to lack of government discipline and oversight.  Republicans and Democrats now know that government needs to play a role in getting the economy back.  Yes, there are no easy answers.  No, we can't fix it in a couple of months.  The fact is our USA geniuses of commerce and banking have triggered a world wide recession by creating complicated and toxic derivitives.  It will take a long time to recover.  Government will be leading the creation of a response for setting the stage on which will come a regaining of confidence in the market.  Market confidence is near zero. 

I don't think common working people are the cause of the problems of industry decline.  The lack of innovation by industry leaders is the real failing when it comes to cars, transportation. etc.  If the UAW hired back for minimum wage, the car companies will still be selling product for the last century, not for the future.  They just don't get the fact that hog cars and trucks are last century.  They have a lot of changing to do.  Maybe this jolt has awakened some of them to reality.  That's my hope.  And there is a lot of hope for the future in alternative energy development and innovation.  That's the part of the economy that will be growing while other parts of the economy will lag.  So there is some good coming even though we've been led as a country by people who still seem to believe in a flat earth and don't get the environmental crisis our humanity faces.  I am still hoping we are not too stupid to survive on this planet.  The jury is still out on that one, I believe.

Yes, you are an old fart. What about public optimism? Yes, we've been overspending, overbuying, overbuilding, etc. We are a product of what we wanted for our own children, and somewhere selfishness and greed took over. Now is the time to get real. We don't need a mall for every other city block, nor do we all need that new home and 3 cars. I think a good dose of reality will teach us a lot.  I have every faith that Obama will come up with a great plan; mainly (besides tax relief and incentives) by creating jobs to fix our infrastructure. This is a MUST and cannot be ignored. He and his Cabinet and new Congress will also put forth plans to promote a new energy. Our last president did not listen, but let's not get into how incompetent he was. That would fill a book. I've already reinvested thousands (after losing about 40% of my future retirement funds) in large equipment building stocks and communication stocks and they've gone up almost 6% already. Let's have some faith. Let's go forward. Let's 'Pay It Forward' and help our friends and neighbors in trouble. We can do it. Bless us all!!

Get your facts straight. The government deficit soared under Reagan, then again under (deficits don't matter) Bush/Cheney. But the government is only a part of the problem. Businesses and consumers have found it just as attractive to deficit spend as the gov't.

Just wait until world oil production peaks, if it hasn't already.  The only thing that might delay that is the Nigerian and Iraqi oil that has been offline coming fully online.  When Saudi production peaks and then starts to decline within the next few years, the free ride we have all gotten from cheap oil will be over.

Then nothing but increasing prices, followed by economic and agricultural collapse, probably around when oil hits $400/bbl.  When farmers cannot afford fuel for tractors, fertilizer (derived from natural gas), pesticide (derived from oil), and truckers cannot afford diesel, the grocery stores will go empty.  WHEN this happens (not if), people will starve to death; probably 5 billion world wide and probably a hundred million in the US, if not more.  The beginnings of this process will start in 5 to 10 years at the most; it will probably only take a couple years after that for starvation to set in.

Right on in my book. You said a lot in a few words, thank you

Why are you the only person brave enough to write this comment?  The sludge in Congress must go.

No I don't think so, I will keep trying, keep believing otherwise why even get out of bed tomorrow???

I see examples in my everyday life that people are trying, people DO care, you can't quit trying it is your right, isn't that GREAT! We can BE DIFFERENT!

", a lot of hard work, saving and perseverence"

Sure, if you still have a job, if you aren't just trying to pay for meds and buy food for your family, and sure, if you have any hope left.

I am working at a job, making barely over minimum wage, it only insurse me not my husband or 2 small children, but what are one choices, quit? go on some assistance trap?

I will take my chances trying, working, pushing forward for a better day,

"the sun WILL come out tomorrow"

"IT WILL"

we all should give it 110% and it would be a different world, instead of complaining or riding the backs of other taxpayes!!

Deepak Chopra has a spiritual answer to our problems.  He says we would benefit by embracing uncertainty.  Not a completely novel concept it does nonetheless address much of the negativity of these many thoughtful and heartfelt posts.  If we think the worst, then we will realize our dreams.  There are opinion people, unencumbered by reason, discipline and accountabilty and then there are the "doers" and problem solvers.  I hope we can count on the Obama administration to help set a direction for all of us.  You gotta have a plan.

Optimism only gets you so far.   My sister went to a grocery store (still under construction) to apply for a $10/ hour job.  She had to stand in line for the whole day with two thousand other people.  She has not gotten a response from any place she has applied.  The mortgage will soon become a burden that she cannot pay.   I will tell her that everything is all right and at least she still can see the sun tomorrow.  

Regarding the "where are the inventors" question. Many of the inventors are unemployed since the US businesses don't do much R & D any more. Just look at what happened to Bell Labs. The place where the transistor and cell phone technology was invented. A great institution ruined by corporate (A T & T / Lucent) greed.

People in college are no longer going into disciplines like Computer Science and Computer Engineering since there is no demand.

I'm with you Ginny C!  The only way out of this is to improve our confidence in the future.  In fact that's really the entire story.

My advice is to quit participating in the stories of gloom and doom.  The news media needs to start reporting the good stuff and stop scaring everybody.  Things will get better. 

That's the American spirit that brought up this country.  I was laid off just after 9/11 and came close to losing my house.  I worked any job I could get.  Since then, I've worked two jobs to make up the loss of being out of a career job to ensure that I had a back up plan.  I help out a friend to help pay her mortgage after she was laid off.  I doubled my yearly contribution to the charity that would help out the community most and do as much as I can for others who are hurting during this recession.  Those who are working do need to help out as much as they can.  That's what made America great and that's what will help to keep her great.  If we don't, we all lose.  It can be done and it will be done.  If you need help, find someone who will help.  If you don't need help, find someone to help.  We're in this together.

hear!hear! don't you realize it's easier to blame somebody else for your problem, instead of getting off your ace and doing something about it

I took a minimum wage job myself after looking for more than a year, I am a lucky one, I live in a small town where you are lucky to have 2 helpwanted a month, the choice is an hour commute to find anything, but I will flip burgers or push carts to get by for my family, I know better times will come, I have to for my children, 5 years ago I made almost 40k a year, but what matters is faith in family, friends and beleive it or not each other

Oh, poor thing . . . must be rough to loose $250,000.  You play, you pay.