This morning I woke up, had a nice breakfast and sat down at my computer to begin work for the day. At this point the breakfast in my stomach was still feeling good, I felt alive with plenty of energy and I didn't have a care in the world. That was true until I went NewYorkTimes.com and saw a graph that any college kid could understand; lines plunging downward like the businessman that jumps out of his window because of the lines plunging downward.

Graphs representing various stocks from other nations all have the same residing theme; we're all going down. Now I don't know much about the stock market, but I think I know what lines going down means, and they all have the same thing. Whether it's Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Hong Kong, or the United States (of course), essentially the same graph is being provided.

But what does this all mean!? I've never gotten into the stock market, because every time I've gambled I've gone home with less money and broken spirits. Yet every news analyst is saying I should care and is making it sound like the economy is going down and now - based on these graphs - it seems like the rest of the world's economy is going down!. And if the world truly is flat - as Thomas Friedman says - then I would assume that also means we're screwed, I just haven't heard a news analyst tell me precisely why yet.

In the midst of all these spiraling economies, bailout - I mean - rescue plans and countless news stories, I find myself wondering what it all means besides something new for politicians to talk to us about. Despite what may seem obvious to economics majors, I'm still in the dark. I understand that some banks are going under due to bad loans, which in turn will make it harder to get loans out of the remaining banks, I understand that some say this happened because of too little regulation and I also know that this has all been kryptonite for the McCain campaign. But why are some analysts calling this the economic 9-11 or better yet, why are some Americans being so pessimistic saying that another Great Depression is on the horizon?

None of this makes sense to me, because I never put any damn money into the stock market, yet people are saying the tax payer is getting screwed with the BAILOUT plan and I've always known Americans to be the most determined, hardworking, and other corny politician descriptions of our people in the world! I guess eventually I'll start to see how this is all going to effect us as college students, but right now the only thing that I've notice is dropping gas prices, so please explain to me economy gods why I should bother being scared right now?