The following is 'shaken out'

1. What effects on world money supply will the global rate cuts have and most specifically-
2. What effects on the dollar the cumulative 'throw the printing press at the problems' strategy the US followed with the various and sundry bailouts to date.
3. How deeply the Credit Default Swap and derivative problems run, and just how enmeshed they are in the private and governmental financial/debt markets.
4. What Oil and oil producing countries do
5. How deep the US recession is
6. How Debt-Averse does the US consumer get
7. How far will the US residential realestate market fall before bottoming out, because via (3) its now tied in to the entire damn financial system of the globe!
8. Will this recession spread to Europe
9. Will (5,8) 'pop' the Bubble Economy some people think China has been in for 8-10 years, and how bad will that get.
10. If sovereign wealth funds and China decide to bail on the Dollar (links to 9,4). If one of the major 'Dollar Sinks' decides to 'purge' for any reason, then every big holder of Dollar Debt will go charging for the door as fast as they can, and the dollar, not the DOW will be dropping 10, 15% per day.

If this cross-linked and interconnected fabric continues to deteriorate (and all it takes is just one thread in that crosslinked morass of factors), then the stock market won't bottom out for a loooong time.

If it does not, and improves, then I think we'll se Dow 20,000 before 10 years are out.

Frankly, I'm putting my money in stocks while they are cheap. If this is the end of the world, so to speak, then it won't matter where my us-dollars are (and Gold can always be confiscated by the Gov't as it was beofore). If it isn't, well, I want to be there when the champaign corks start popping.

Yeti