Omigod! The stock market tanked a few weeks ago! It descended into proper “bear” territory, as in “Bear Market”.

Commentators panicked. This may be the beginning of the end, they suggested. This may bring markets down around the world. An army of big-time pontificators told us to be worried. Think about working ‘til you’re 90, they suggested.

And, like sheep, millions of Americans did fret. They gnawed on their pillows at night and screamed at their investment advisors by day. Many sold out. They grabbed their money and ran from the market as you would a falling building. They bought extra mattresses, under which they could stash the cash.

Nothing, it seemed, would calm them. Nothing, it seemed, would encourage them to step back and gain a bit of perspective.

Here is that bit of perspective they missed.

First, declines of 10 percent or greater in the stock market are rare. By June of this year the market had - omigod - dropped over 10 percent. The nasty rare event had occurred. Woe wuz us.

Let us look at other times when the market fell dramatically.

In October 1987 the market did not fall so much as crash. It crashed 23 percent. Woe wuz us in bold-faced capital letters fifty feet high. Festooned with a dozen exclamation marks. The pundits envisioned bread lines. They foresaw execs hawking apples on Madison Ave, their elbows peeping through their pinstriped jackets.

Well, a year later the S&P 500 was up about 15 percent. Six months later it had climbed 60 percent. How about them apples?

Three years later the market fell over 10 percent again. In August. Horrible! Terrible! What’s an investor to do, before committing hari kari? The end is nigh - whatever that word means. The market’s got a terminal disease.