Why is losing years of gains tragic? The stock market is not a savings account. It was always the case you invested in the stock market for the long term with a time horizon of decades. And if a big bear market happens you get to buy even more stocks on the cheap . And well before your retirement you diversify out of stocks while they are high to something more safe. Now the stock market cant ever be allowed to go down and the fed panics if it does.
What the hell kind of "market" would it be if it can barely drop 10% and all kinds of idiots are in a panic?? No, "investors" and "free-riders" or "trump-believers" should NOT be bailed out! Too many jerks got lucky during GFC with bailout on bonds and QE's afterward at the cost of MILLIONS of retirees' loss if interest incomes. Let the market DROP 50% and see who's standing then....
Well blame the fed and wallstreet bitches for the extreme levels the markets went to from 2009 to 2020, non stop gains for over a decade and anytime a little blip the fed was there to save the markets. It's been a rinse and repeat process for decades now. I have said this a million times that the market was completely in complacency mode without any worries knowing the fed could prop it up with its QE and rate cuts... Now here we are falling into collapse mode and after just a small 10% drop it literally feels like the end to most. This drop will wreak havoc on the economy. Consumer spending is going to drop like a rock, and since the consumer is the economy you can expect a full blown recession in the next 6-12 months...I have said numerous times to let the free markets take control but of course that never happened so here we are today with trillions and trillions of dollars being wiped away. A 50% drop is very very possible and I would not rule it out now, in fact I never ruled it out and still believe markets can easily fall continously wiping out the last decade of gains.