there really is a lot of confidence in the market, and i've been pointing it out for months - people want to believe that the economy can ride without training wheels, that a free market economy is more than a naive abstraction, that government intervention is at the root of all problems, etc. and, of course, they want to believe that they can put money into a market and profit from it, regardless of what the fed is doing.

and, yes - democracy is a powerful force. if people could vote their portfolios up, you can be sure they would.

so, how do you explain to people that have shown up, cash in hand, that this is simply a bad time to invest? they want to invest, dammit!

they should invest in a local charity, instead - if they're insistent on throwing their money away.

these swings are happening because the bubble is so deep that there's no concept of reality in sight. you can throw an anchor out from this market, and you won't hit anything. there's no reference point. it's lost in space.

and, i'm as interested as anybody else in the question of how long the power of delusional thinking can offset the empirical and quantitative reality of a shrinking money supply.