For anyone who pays attention to the DOW, It was a ridiculous day. For those who trade heavily in stocks, You probably lost Your lunch. The market tanked nearly 1000 points today and then recovered a little over half. Most of the price action came around 1:30 pm and only lasted a few minutes. seems somebody hit the Billion contracts sell button instead of the Million contracts sell button. This caused an artificial drop in the market and was a mistake. I hope the Dow goes back and makes some corrections to accounts that were affected in this time window. There were thousands of contracts that were sold by computer at target prices that were triggered at the plunge. Causing an even bigger exaggeration. The market was down big anyway today over the financial problems of Greece and those who are scared that the problem is going to spread around the world like a virus sold anyway before the plunge happened. I think where the close was is probably pretty close to the actual value of the DOW today. We need several things to happen to help. #1 the fear over the spreading of countries going into default needs to calm substantially.#2 The dollar needs to go way down in value so We can compete over seas on our exports. The dollars has been skyrocketing because investors are scared of the Euro and are dumping the Euro and buying the dollar for safety. Until this stops, our Exports will suffer and our economy is very dependent on exports. #3 our government is going to have to cut spending and lower taxes or we are going to be right behind Greece here in short order. Our debt to GDP is around 10% and can be managed at this level but is difficult. Greece is at 20% of GDP. That difference of 10% is the difference between still being able to manage the debt and having to have a bailout from other countries and getting a loan from the International Monetary Fund (who usually lends to third world countries). Our Government can't just keep spending money like they are in a deep recession. the revenue is just not there. This kind of spending is what is causing all the social programs to fail. Social Security is broke. If You are older and receiving that check, Thank God every month when it comes because it could be the last one You get. They spent Your money that You put in along time ago and now they are spending Mine to cover You but there is not enough Young people to cover the old now. this program is going to come to an end in some fashion. It will have too. there may be a cut off year that anyone after that date will not receive SS benefits but will continue to pay the tax until current beneficiaries have died. The older generation should not have to suffer on this. If this had been carried out as it was sold to everyone, it would still be solvent. Just can't trust the government to do it. Like just about everything else they do. Social security, Welfare, The medical overhaul bill, and other major social programs just cost too much for our economy to sustain. If something isn't done to reign in this spending and cut taxes instead of adding new ones. We will run out of revenue and kill the economic engine that creates revenue. Something has to be done and very soon or we will be Greece.CF