On thursday bernanke said 100 of 1600 banks would fail, lets say thats 1000 times 100 ,thts 100,000 jobs in banks alone,those bank failures would have a large part of credit and housing debt unpaid,would you buy a house,a car now, would you be able to find a new job now, no. So every consumer driven industry is going to lose a little,income and employees, consumer spending is 65-75% of our budget. I think Bernanke, the economy, have no control over this, lowering the interest rate has slowed this down,hopefully they have figured we will survive this blow,but the value of things has to decrease so the mrket will go lower and that is happening now. The interest rate reduction has been used as a pseudo failsafe and it has had some impact but all the bad news isn't out yet and the impact of the damage is not yet known. The people with the deep pockets are all bargain hunters and would not buy now if they can buy it in a month for 10% less.