Where is the bottom?

Is there a bottom to this? The television news shows told the gruesome news: The Dow dropped nearly 700 points again today. The market is down 20 percent in about a month. The Dow is on its way to half its peak over 14,000 just a year ago. No matter what Congress, the administration and the Federal Reserve do, investors run away in panic.

It only gets worse. The president is going to make an announcement Friday morning. That ought to get everyone's weekend off to a good start.

Being in the middle of a hotly contested presidential election doesn't seem to help things any. The two nominees are trying to ride the crest of voter anger over this issue and blame the other party for all the problems. There seems to be plenty of blame to go around. Both Democrats and Republicans took money from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Wall Street brokerages and, in turn, ignored their risky, dangerous and greedy business practices. Republicans wanted to deregulate the markets, but Democrats wanted  everyone to own a house, whether they could afford it or not.

The election isn't likely to fix the problem, at least not right away. This will be a long and painful recession. It might even rival the Great Depression. People's futures have been wiped away as IRAs and 401(k)s have been chopped in half. No investment seems safe now. I've heard that home safes are being sold as fast as mortgage securities were six months ago.

Remember the last 1970s and early 1980s, when financial insecurity spawned a "survivalist" culture. People stocked up on gold coins, canned goods and firearms, preparing for the dark days when money would be no good, and everyone would have to fend for himself. A return to those dark days don't seem so far away.