The past few weeks have certainly been a major wake-up call for those who invested most, if not all, of their savings in stocks and mutual funds.  For a materialist, it must be really difficult to deal with.  Fortunately, I'm not a materialist so I can handle these things without a lot of hand wringing, screaming, or painting graffiti on politician's houses.  Let's do a quick reality check for those who haven't caught on yet.
    A stock certificate is a piece of paper.  It's actual worth is two or three cents.  Period.  Anything more than that is part of a game were playing, like Monopoly.  Just because you bought the stocks at fifty dollars a share doesn't guarantee it will be worth more than fifty when you're ready to sell.  It doesn't even guarantee it will be worth the fifty you paid for it.  It's still a two-cent piece of paper regardless of what you paid for it.
    And what's with the market?  Down 500 one day, up 300 the next.  Up, down, up, down with no real reason for it.  Many of the corporations have not lost any real value so why should their stock drop twenty or thirty percent?  It doesn't make any sense, but then, playing the market rarely does.
    Like most people today, I do have most of my 401k money in mutual funds, but I also have some in bonds and CDs.  If you are relying on your 401k for retirement and you plan to retire in the next ten years, you probably want at least 25% in bonds or precious metals, anything but stocks.  That doesn't mean we should panic and sell all stocks.  That will only cause a major depression and nobody wants that.  The stock market will recover, but it will likely take several years to recover completely.