Stock Market

Editor's note: Due to the high number of calls, The Herald-Mail cannot print all of the comments called or e-mailed to Mail Call. To read more comments, go to www.herald-mail.com. "I'm calling in response to the two callers from Boonsboro, on Tuesday, 12/9. The first caller, who said that Barack Obama can pardon O.J. Simpson in four years, that's just insulting and ridiculous. The second caller saying that because of the Iraq war, we'll be fighting terrorists over here in America with the next president, that again is another scare tactic that neoconservatives continue to use to scare us into keeping wars going.

Rescue plan will help economy To the editor: While the stock market continues to show some volatility from day to day, the financial rescue plan approved by Congress in early October was a major step toward stabilizing the economy. The rescue plan will be helpful to small businesses, in particular, because they often need to borrow money to expand, add equipment or hire employees. There must be liquidity in financial markets so that businesses of all sizes are able to grow.

Dorothy Carlisle was working her first job at a Boston law firm when she heard two of the lawyers talking in the hall. As she walked by, one said something worrisome about the banks, recalled Carlisle, 104, who lives near Williamsport. "Whatever it was, when I went out to lunch that day, I went to my bank and withdrew about $100," Carlisle said. Taking inflation into consideration, that's about $1,200 in 2007 dollars, according to an inflation calculator. "The next day when I went to work and I came off the subway the banks were all closed," she said.

NEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street suffered through another extraordinary and traumatic session Monday, with the Dow Jones industrials plunging as much as 800 points - their largest one-day point drop - before recovering to close with a loss of 370. The catalyst for the selling, which also took the Dow below 10,000 for the first time in four years, was investors' growing despair that the spreading credit crisis will take a heavy toll around the world....

Bad investments sparked the financial problems that have spread through the U.S. economy and the situation is threatening the health of America's infrastructure, a local expert says. Bill Anderson, associate professor of economics at Frostburg (Md.) State University, said the country's economy will have to hit rock bottom before it rebounds. The good news: It will rebound. Anderson said he believes that about 18 months after "rock bottom," the economy will begin to experience slow growth.

SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. -- Like in Monopoly, it was play money that the 254,000 contestants in the CNBC.com Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge used to buy and sell stocks and currencies, but the $500,000 that went to the winner of the 10-week contest was for real. In the end, it was not a stock broker or fund manager who prevailed, but a freelance musician and cancer survivor with a passion for golf who tripled his initial portfolio to win the challenge. "It takes the pressure off and my goal is a stress-free life, if that's possible," said Edward Burke, 54, who on Monday was moving out of a Shippensburg apartment complex to new digs in Camp Hill, Pa. Half a million bucks is not what it used to be -- Burke still has to pay state and federal taxes -- and paid out over 20 years the remainder does not take him directly from Meadow Drive to Easy Street, but it certainly puts him in a better position than a few months ago. "Eleven weeks ago, I didn't have anything," said Burke, who has not owned a car in eight years.

I remember hearing the old people tell their stories about the Great Depression. In my attic, I still have some of the old rationing coupons that my in-laws Leon and Ethel kept to remind them of those days when some 11,000 banks collapsed, unemployment was around 30 percent and food was scarce. Many of our citizens had lost their investments in the stock market, and life, in general, was very difficult for most Americans. As I examine the political and economic landscape today, and the status of our spiraling economy, I wonder to myself if those conditions of the 1930s could possibly repeat themselves in my own lifetime.

Editor's note: Each week, The Herald-Mail invites readers to answer poll questions on its Web site, www.herald-mail.com. Readers also may submit comments about the poll question when voting. Each Sunday, a sampling of edited reader comments will run in The Herald-Mail. Last week there were three poll questions. The first question was: Should Karl Rove be immune from testifying before Congress under subpoena? "Rove can sit and declare the 5th all day, but he should be obligated to appear before the Congress.

Is your retirement savings portfolio suffering as a result of ongoing stock market fluctuations? Yes 222 votes (86 percent) No 37 votes (14 percent) · Results of votes received online as of 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Teacher Larry Stockslager's team won the Western Region Stock Market games this spring. The Williamsport High School students who made up the winning team are, standing from left, Zach Zeger, Michael Lilly and Corey Moser. Seated is Mark Rohrer. The students, who won in the High School Division, were recognized at an awards presentation hosted by Citi Hagerstown on May 14. They "earned" more than 11 percent and turned their portfolio of an imaginary $100,000 into 111,062.38 in 10 weeks of the game.