On a trivia note, as we're on Y News: Zed Shaw (from Rails Is a Getho rant fame - http://zedshaw.com) works at Bear Stearns and they have lots of RoR projects over there.
Apparently Bear Stearns employees were partially paid in stock, and a third of the outstanding shares are held by the employees. According to the NYT:
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/the-cost-of-bea...
the drop in stock price averages $375K per employee. Of course, the stock was not evenly distributed across the company, so some employees lost much, much more than $375K, and some lost less. But, still... that sound you hear is the sound of 14,000 Bear Stearns employees losing substantial portions of their life savings.
Index funds. Index funds. Index funds.