It's deeply frightening. I was depressed enough checking my retirement account balances a week ago; I don't dare look again now.

I was working for an investment office on Black Monday in 1987, which was then the biggest one-day percentage decline in history. I remember the investment analysts just huddling around the stock ticker screens in a state of shock. Yet I don't remember feeling scared myself. Maybe because I had so much less to lose, back then. No investments, no house, no kids, no debts.

Everything is scarier when you've got hostages to fortune.