A stock market observer since the early 1970s. I still recall the DOW average hitting the high 500s in 1975. Yes, that is the 500s, not 5000s. People were convinced that America had become one huge rust belt. Our economy would NEVER be what it once was. That our ingenuity and inventive free economic spirit was dead. One well know commentator thought we were becoming a third world country. Of course, it all turned out to be nonsense and static. Let Americans be creative, imaginative, and inventive in a true free spirit economy and we will go on to greater endeavors. This is the nature and character of the greatest civilization ever produced on earth!