It seems that the "Market" doesn't need much of an excuse to manipulate the day's trading! Whether we see a rise or a fall in the indices, there always appears to be a profit for the "Market" inner core.

And it does appear that they have blinders on as to what happens to the rest of the population who have little or no investment in the stock market. Your point on the "cold winter" for some is well spoken. To try to send a message to the Fed's is surely only in the interest of a very few.

The fed knows that lowering the rate will not help the inflated market. It does know that lowering rates will devalue the dollar and increase inflation. They gave the street a 1/4 point. I believe they should have raised the rate 1/4. I would rather have my home valued at it's purchase price in 1987 and have a " buck worth a buck ". Than have a home at today's market price and be broke trying to heat it. The fed is not the answer. Financial responsibility is. Stop the bleeding , let the market drop to it's fair market value , repay our debt , become solvent. For our children's sake.

Seems that even in a refinery squeeze, which no doubt will be corrected by passing the bulk of that squeeze off to the optionless consumer, Exxon Mobil continues to print massive amounts of dollars opposed to previous years, and theres no tailoff of that in the forseeable future. Here's some persepctive; This quarter, where Wall Street was disapointed, Exxon Mobil made 9.41 billion dollars, which represents 82% of their full year profit in 2002! We're talking almost 40 billion dollars a year, that used to take them 5 years to make that kind of money a few years back, and its not going to let up any time soon, given the forseeable environment. Once the refinery issue gets absorbed, they'll be moving to 50 billion a year and beyond. Until then, take the 3.6 billion they just saved in litigation relief from the Supreme Court Appellate reversal today for punitive damages, and they'vew more than made up the difference.

the market is critical to the american public.many people have their life savings in ira's and 401k's tied directly to the market.let alone the multitude of people who invested inthe good faith of the american dream.the oil situation is tough. as long as we are importing we have to pay the price. well, its time to exercise savings and initiate alternative solutions. a rude awakening for the american people. the sooner we develope alternative solutions the faster we will be become independant of the middle east moguls.if interest rates have to come down, so be it. the foreignors will pay for it more so than domestic investors.

Seems to me that everybody is looking to an external source to stop the bleeding of home foreclosures and the falling home prices. The Feds are not the answer. When most of us are 4-6 paychecks away from bankruptcy, maybe the problem is us. Maybe, we fuel home inflation by buying homes we really cannot afford. By eating out, buying more car then we need, etc. Look around your house and ask yourself if you really and truly use all the space in your house? The master room really needs to be as large? We then pay to heat the big house, pay tax on th inflated appraisal, maintain the extra space, and on and on.

The bottom line is that we seem to have lost our ethics of living within our means. So we borrow, borrow, borrow. And as borrowers, we then worry about external events destroyin our balancing act of matching the money coming in (unsure due to job losses, layoffs) with the money that MUST be paid out, no matter what.