It has been taken for granted now for almost ten years and with few voices of opposition that a (stock) price to earnings, "PE"  ratio of 25:1 is really a useful number and one to be expected when calculating the profitability and stability of a company. Who's to argue? Reality supported theory. Never mind that for the previous 100 years a PE ratio of 10:1 was considered wonderful, even extravagant. "It's a new world" they would say. 
    Any economy shouldn't be confused with the tools by which it operates, modern or otherwise. The live bodies in an economy is really the driving force and has been throughout written history. And guess what folks, people do not always act predictably. They often act against their own best interest and often illogically. There is no fail-safe way to predict except to say that what goes up must come down. 
     Just as the runup of the stock market was money or better yet, value that didn't exist for those fortunate enough to be in at the time of the runup. For these same people, a return to previous levels is a return to "normalcy", like it or not. Anyone else, literally buying into the "reality" in the interim either got lucky or didn't. What we're really saying is that it was no more, no less than a gamble and any long term attempt by the government to prop up or support any other concept is doomed to be an expensive failure, historically.
    We have no particular expertise in the financial world but, we feel safe in saying that history will out. Neither the stock market decline nor the WTC disaster signal the end of civilization as we know it. It doesn't even reflect the real strength or lack thereof of the "economy". You are the economy. Statistically you probably weren't even part of the stock market prior to 1987 and this country accomplished one or two things prior to 1987. We've heard most of the arguments and statistics to the contrary and we think, eventually, the chickens will come home to roost anyway. This advice is worth what you've paid for it, but we suggest you adjust your portfolios accordingly...realistically or maybe just use it to make more money. 

   We're afraid the real long-term aftermath of the WTC terrorism will be the loss of more freedoms in this country. With few exceptions in specific instances throughout history,  most people, understandably, care more about their safety than they do their freedoms. Heck, many claim to care more about a relative few Alaskan Caribou that they do their own freedoms. While recognizing the obvious differences and  not wanting to compare apples to oranges, this country loses 40,000 people a year in highway accidents and as far as we know only some environmental terrorists are calling  for the destruction of the car companies.
     Remember the government is using your money. Re-arranging priorities and getting control of some of these terrorist problems will be costly. Mostly because we've ignored them for so long. Meanwhile many government resources are spent worrying whether or not people should be held responsible for their own personal habits and to what extent the government should mitigate the consequences. 
   Although highly unlikely,  the demise of this "old world" philosophy and other wasteful government practices would be welcome.
    While we may already have been sliding slowly toward fewer and fewer individual freedoms, in a vain attempt to reach utopia, we hope the various Federal, State and local government agencies don't use this as an excuse to accelerate the process. If so, the terrorists win again.