We cannot compare market dynamics prior to 15 years due to the involvement of technology. Buying and selling shares instantaneously in the last decade has changed everything. Economic truisms like the law of supply and demand are twisted and masked so that they are no longer truisms but mere possibilities. To think that you are permitted to sell shares that you don't own at progressively lower prices and make a profit until the company seeks protection is warped. The repeated selling of debt by financial institutions to make money is warped. Financial institutions allowing people to gorge themselves with debt without qualification is warped. There is absolutely no telling what the bailout of the perpetrators is going to accomplish but you can predict one thing: these same companies who put the world in this position are plotting to feed at the trough again. The sign says $700 billion about to be served. Cynicism comes so easily these days.