The stock markets plunged even further today. See the blue line in the chart down there?

I think now would be a good time to buy stock. After all, you have all these people selling like crazy, and as long as there are goods of value being produced and consumed, the market will bounce back up eventually.

The problem with the finan­cial system today is that everyone has these little bits of paper and no one is quite sure how much each piece is worth. If the paper is stock, we end up with a volatile market. If it is currency, we end up with infla­tion. Either way, we might be better off with some kind of barter system in which what you see is exactly what you get. Of course, when it comes to the stock market, we have people trying to guess how much the stock will be worth, which makes life even more difficult.

The big question that needs to be answered is: how much is this economy really worth? I wish someone would come up with nice round figure and announce it to the world. If people believe it, then the market won’t slide too much below that point. All we need to do is keep up the pretense that every­thing is hunky-dory. This game is based on hope and wishful thinking.