you and I and everyone are stuck to some extent.

it may take a decade or even a decade and a half, but you are better off leaving the money there for the market to work its way back. you've already lost a bunch, don't we all wish we could read the future, and it you want, pull some fraction out to soothe your mind. But keep a good portion in the market and let it come back. I worry more about the retirees and old people who do not have time to wait for the market to come back.

also, what worked for me, rethink where your money goes from now, do something else with the new money. This way, you can rationalize that though you may be losing now in THIS segment, maybe your judicious or safe investing elsewhere will help balance out your WHOLE portfolio

frankly, I cannot blame you for feeling stupid and betrayed. The system IS designed to squeeze the hard earned dollars out of our pockets and INTO the pockets of the TRillionaires. The reprieve we get, is that if we are lucky and play the lotto right, we get to keep our hard earned money and maybe earn a bit more.

you see where I am going with this... after the housing market comes back in a decade or so, I PERSONALLY am selling and not investing or borrowing a GODDAMN dime from any fiscal entity for the remainder of my life. we are on this planet too short a time to hand over our hard earned dough so we might earn a pittance more while risking losing a whole hell of most of what we have in our lives. I will bury it, I will stick it in the mattress, but FUCK EVERYONE, I lost not only all my hard work from the past decade but ALSO, to top it off, owe my family $100k of THEIR money.

So, I ask (to all) why the fuck are these banking criminals, Bush and Cabal, and all the lobbyists STILL NOT IN FUCKING PRISON!!!

Do we REALLY have ZERO power and control over our fates????

IS THIS WHAT THE MEANING OF FREEDOM IS?!??!!?

when you do business with a bank, be it to borrow money, or invest it, you are putting trust in that entity that it will not do anything that weakens the position of the investors, you and me.

when banks decided to become reckless, getting lobbyists to prevent government from overseeing the business, they became liable to their investors for their irresponsibility.

IF A DOCTOR became reckless and decided to perform an operation while stoned, do you think he could get bailed out by the government to the tune of a million dollars?

SO??? Isn't the United States so overloaded with attorneys just BEGGING to find work so they can enrich themselves??

So where ARE these Goddamn lawsuits being filed against the banks? Are the banks STILL not rich enough???

Where ARE the onslaught of lawsuits against the lobbyist system, questioning of the very BASIS that government cannot be sued or somehow otherwise compelled to perform its DUTIES and OBLIGATIONS on behalf of the 350 million people it PRETENDS to serve???

Lawyers virtually RUN Washington. Should ALL lawyers be rounded up and shot at GITMO as payback for what the government CONSPIRING WITH THE BANKS is doing to us all?

Do not mistake what is going on now in the economy to being somebody's HONEST mistake. These criminals are pulling the SAME EXACT stunt on America that they pull periodically on MOST nations, releasing overloads of money, letting the market become lax, then letting everyone get frightened and coming in and buying up the assets for pennies on the dollar.

THIS IS A CALCULATED PROGRAM. You and I are INSECTS to these evil thieves.

SO??? What will you do about this??? Oh, go watch teevee, your favorite 'reality' show is on. Bread and Circuses.

Your kids will be poor and starving (after you worked your whole hard life), but at least you did not risk your own comfort to make sure these was a semblance of honest government above you.

This planet is DOOMED.

Please stop beating yourself up. You're in the position that most of us who've invested are, and you've got a long time horizon in which to recover. A couple things to remember: until you actually need the money, it's paper profits. Over time (more than a century) the markets' direction has been upward (although with some NASTY plunges, one of which we're now in).

I'm frankly more concerned about several things I read from your letter:

1. Are you buying individual stock positions? It's going to take a long time to achieve financial diversification that way. Mutual funds? Are they diversified? Growth and value, various levels of capitalization? Are they suitable for the level of risk you can tolerate?

2. Your husband is buying CDs. What if inflation shoots up?

3. You seem to be doing this separately -- and you have at least 25 more years to go until retirement. You are not working as a team, which is not the best financial habit to develop.

4. You're afraid to tell him. This is not a pair of Manolos you've splurged on; this is your family's future, and you should be in this together.

5. You're not doing this with an advisor. Find yourself someone you respect and ask for a referral or two. Interview these advisors. They will give you complimentary consultations. See what they recommend. Make an informed choice, if you intend to continue investing.

6. You are not in this alone.

And it doesn't make you a bad person. The two of you need to work together rather than behave like Lucille Ball sneaking a hat past Ricky Ricardo. For you, perhaps a workshop on women and investing could give you more confidence. What's interesting is that the two of you seem to have reversed gender "styles." Start over now, and good luck.

I'm not sure why you would be afraid to talk to your husband about this. Is your husband an unusually mean and judgmental person?

Most Americans are in your position. They drank the kool-aid. They are guilty of being a little gullible, but it wasn't them who screwed up, it was people much higher up who decided to pitch 401Ks as a good way to save for retirement. Lending money, which is what buying stocks is, was presented as saving money. People like your husband (and me, incidentally) were said to be idiots. Looks like we weren't so dumb after all, huh? But it's hardly something to gloat about, not when so many people got hurt.