<You mean the 52% of Americans the Republican platform celebrates as newly-minted capitalists?

Just because 52 percent of Americans are in the stock market doesn't mean they all did it stupidly, or went in the tank. And I never said so. Almost everybody lost at least some money. A chunk of my IRA is in an S & P 500 mutual fund, which doesn't get much more vanilla and risk-free as far as equities go. It's at about 70 percent of what I bought it at, which sucks, but doesn't break me. The stuff I kept in money market funds has been piddling upward, but at least in the right direction. A tech mutual fund went into the toilet. I'm not blaming anyone else for it.

The people who lost big time were most often the ones who were trying for the big scores, the tulip-bulb speculators, buying and selling individual stocks on rumors, fads, newspaper stories, tips, or yes, advice from brokers and advisors (hey, if brokers and advisors really knew where the stocks were going to go, they could make a lot more money by playing the market and not telling you.) Maybe the victims have a legal case against such advisors, particularly the ones who proved to been "cooking" numbers. I'm no lawyer.

The purpose of equity investment, particularly in a retirement account, is the long term. Years. Anyone in the market ought to know at least that much. As you admit yourself, anyone who started investing a few years before the dot.com looniness is probably still ahead of the game. If you think you're going to become an overnight millionaire in the stock market, you're already in trouble.