Watching the Dow on the back side of the roller coaster is a sickening experience.  What makes it worse is that it’s not a rational thing, like the law of gravity that forces a roller coaster to fall, but an emotional/psychological thing where a bunch of people in ugly vests pretend to see the future and bet the farm on it.  And it’s our farm they’re betting.

One dirty little secret has been revealed.  The geniuses who run our financial and investment systems don’t really know what they are doing.  They talk as if they do.  They act as if they do.  But they don’t.  Which is why they are doing just as poorly as the rest of us.  They tell us that they have answers, but their answers don’t work.  Then they have new answers.  And they don’t work either.  So they come up with more answers. 

We keep paying for their answers, and losing at an ever-increasing pace the monies we earned, invested and expect to someday enjoy.  So much for the contention that Americans don’t save enough.  To the extent we did, it’s gone.  So who was smarter, the person who saved or the person who spent and enjoyed?  At the end of the journey, neither one is looking so smart, but at least one group enjoyed themselves.  The other?  We’re gasping for breath right now.

So I offer a proposition.  It’s not a solution, but more of an admission of reality.  Let’s take a time out.  Let’s stop trading equities worldwide, acknowledging that we haven’t got a clue what is happening and have no basis to buy or sell anything at the moment.  To keep the markets open and functioning is to engage in sheer recklessness.  They are moving blind, without any idea of what direction to go, and ultimately acting out of mindless fear. 

It’s foolish to lose trillions of dollars of apparent investment from the system, and thus generate ever-increasing fear and anger for the general public, when there is no fundamental reason for it.  Let’s just call it a long weekend, bypass the subway stops at Wall Street, and close the doors of the New York Stock Exchange for a week or two.  Let’s give those who have official charge of the system a chance to catch their breath, think things through and come up with a way to stabilize the system. 

They say that closing doors will cause panic.  Do we not have panic already?  Would it cause greater panic to say that we need to retrench, put some hard thought into how to deal with a transitory problem and not go back until we have some real answers?  It strikes me that this would be appreciated by the public, and not cause them to run screaming to their banks to take out all their money. 

The biggest problem would be that Wall Streeters would not be generating any commissions if we closed the doors.  They might have to take a week or two of vacation without pay.  Bummer.  I think we could live with this.  I think they could as well, and might prefer it over the other option of being in the Lehman Brothers bread line.

What keeps running through my head is that nothing has changed really.  We are still healthy, and have hands to build things to sell to each other.  We have plenty of houses that are empty, but plenty of people to fill them.  They aren’t going to be worth what they were a few years ago, but they will still keep people warm and keep the rain off the heads of beloved children.

In the midst of litigation, when a particularly vexing problem arises, a judge will ask for briefs, take them under advisement and adjourn for a period of time necessary to consider the question.  He will deliberate, and the litigation will wait until the judge has had a chance to render a decision.  I realize that finances aren’t law, and that law isn’t perfect by a long shot, but this may not be an unreasonable analogy.

Why not close the doors for a week or two, let everyone step back and catch their breath, and do nothing else until somebody has a clue how to address our financial system?  What benefit is there to allow things to go as usual and cause needless and irrational market swings to make everyone miserable while providing nothing useful in return?

Why not?

Update:  The Dow swung over 1000 points today for the first time in its history.  To what end?  All that to close down 128?  I don’t get nearly enough appreciation as a financial guru.  Hello?  Anybody listening?