2008 is turning out to be a year for the history books. I have been watching as the markets have been decimated over the past few weeks.  So far, the DJIA is down over 5,500 points off its high in October of last year.  Percentage-wise, we’ve taken a blood bath to the tune of some 35% loss.  Unbelievable.

This is my world, and on this day where the Dow dropped 678 points, I just felt the need to vent a little, so here it is.

I have been in financial services for just over 11 years.  Not terribly long in the great scheme of things, but certainly it’s long enough.  Long enough to know what’s going on.  Long enough to be saddened by it.  Long enough to know that we’re headed into really dangerous waters…especially if the government keeps sticking its big, fat nose into places it doesn’t belong in the name of trying to “fix” it.  The fact is that government intervention is not the way out of this mess.  The government is not some sort of beacon in the night.  They are not – and cannot – be our savior although it seems they believe they’re up to the challenge.  Did I say “dangerous waters” before?  Perhaps “shark-infested” would be more appropriate.

So we have a market acting like it has bipolar disorder, an underlying real estate fall-out with unreal foreclosure rates and the banking industry has turned cannibalistic in order to avoid total failure.  In the past few weeks we have seen the collapse of companies with century-long track records and household names come crashing down (Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch to name a few).  In my life and my 10 years at Merrill, I would never have expected that to happen…but who would?  Then again, we know this kind of thing can happen (can you say “Enron”?) so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, but I tend towards optimism.

Then as if all of this wasn’t enough, we have a presidential election in less than a month.  I don’t think they could have planned a worse time to be listening to politicians make empty promises.  While we’re trying to work through a major financial crisis, I come home to find my mailbox stuffed with direct mail campaign pieces (for Obama mostly) which surely couldn’t have been free to produce.  Is all that really necessary?  Even in watching the debate this week, I found myself getting frustrated.  At one point I wanted to scream at them, “Could you two just stop your pissing contest for two seconds and freakin’ LISTEN!”  Sorry – I don’t like politicians much…can you tell?  (As a sidenote on the election and politics, I found a really cool website resource called OpenSecrets.org – check it out).

Anyway, so there’s a lot going on.  It can seem overwhelming.  In fact, I’m sure it IS overwhelming for a lot of people.  A lot of people don’t really understand everything that’s happening in the markets – all they know is that their 401(k) is going down in value like a rock right now.  The sad thing is that ignorance is the mother of fear and fear’s best friend is rashness, and when money (or the loss thereof) is the reason for the fear, I think it shoots people into a whole ‘nother orbit of emotion.  I was watching Fox Business News tonight and they had a panel of financial experts with phone lines open.  One woman called in and said she had gotten so scared she sold all of her mutual funds today.  I cringed.  While I don’t want to be cavalier about people’s fear because it’s certainly real enough, if I’ve learned nothing else on Wall Street, it’s that when it comes to your investments, emotion has no place in your decision-making process.  Emotion will cloud your judgment and make you do things like sell all your investments at the bottom (or near bottom) of an already bad market.  I felt so sorry for that woman because I honestly believe selling everything was the wrong move.  Suffice it to say, I’m leaving my 401(k) alone.

In any case, there are lessons to be learned here for everyone – from John Doe to Congress.  Good ‘ol Johnny boy needs to learn how to better manage his personal finances (hey, maybe that Dave Ramsey guy knows what he’s talking about…go figure!)  And Congress?  Well, Congress needs to stop trying to act like a bunch of socialists…and that goes for our future president too – whoever he may be.

So that’s 2008…and it’s not over yet.  I’m not sure this is quite the way we would have WANTED to have the year remembered, but there it is.  The media is screaming (because that’s what they do) and the sky indeed may seem like it’s falling, but I’m not worried because at the end of the day, I know the One who is holding it up.

For now, I’m praying.  Praying for our government, for the election, and the economy.  Praying for sanity and for opportunities.  Most of all, I’ll be praying that one of the things we’ll all see is how unstable the world really is at its core, and therefore how foolish it is to put trust in it. Instead, we need to put our faith and trust on something solid, steady, and unchanging. We need to build our metaphorical houses on the Rock because there it doesn’t matter what winds may blow (or what markets may fall) – the Rock doesn’t move. And I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in this storm.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.” (Matthew 7:23-25)