I went on the New York Times website around 5 PM today and saw one of the stupidest financial headlines I've seen in a while: "Despite End of Credit Freeze, Dow Drops 5.7%." The stupidity of this headline wouldn't have been so glaring at CNN or Fox News, but right below it, there was another headline, "Wachovia Reports $23.9 Billion Loss" and next to that "Merck Announces Big Job Cuts." Anyway, the Times must have realized how stupid they sounded, because now the headline reads "Stocks Dive as Crisis Erodes Earnings; Dow Drops 5.7%". People really do have a tendency to mystify the markets, as if rubbing one's hands together and saying "alakazam" (and injecting hundreds of billions in cash) should cure all the problems of the economy in one fell swoop. My only explanation is that the people who don't understand how the markets could plummet after the press and the President had declared that the markets shouldn't plummet anymore are so personally invested in stock market performance that they can't see any other facets of the economy besides the stock market.