...So I was talking to a very big deal hedge-fund manager the other day and he had this rather grim perspective."People say you buy a stock because it entitles you to a share of company earnings, etc., but the real reason you buy a stock is because you think down the road you can sell it to someone else at a higher price. But what happens if people stop believing that?

"Like now. All the assumptions we made, that stocks go up, that earnings are climbing, that the debt can be paid off. Well what if it's all not true? To me there was a sort of Clintonian denial that was in the markets. Oh that wasn't really sex. That wasn't really a write-off. NO IT WAS A WRITEOFF!...

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