ok time for my 2c

the way i look at the Australian share market is:
the reason the share market looses so much money ( oh yeah this doesn't only apply to the aussie one btw:P ) is because people are panicking and selling their shares, therefore pushing these shares down. other shares are pushed down by other circumstances, such as bad returns etc, but the main thing that pushes the market down is panic. This started when the American banks gave out loans they couldn't collect on, and then spiraled into what we see today, way to much debt and the inability to pay it off. This leads to the banks having incollectable debt, which makes them loose money and therefore pushes their shares down more.
Then our very own RBA, cuts the interest rate by 1%, which is HUGE, which in turn, makes Australia less attractive to invest in, which in turn again lowers our dollar in comparison to international currency. making me sad

sadly, a large number of investors really have no idea what to do properly. i know that when i see the market bottoming out, ill be buying shares like crazy, and i know that ill make a good profit, and eventually the market and the world will even itself out. this has of course happened all before, although the decline stage that we are in now is happening much faster than what it has happened in the past, that's why we are so worried, if the dollar only dropped say 4c a month, people would still be annoyed but wouldn't worry as much as they do when it drops >4c a day :S

the share market is run by panic, when a new mining deposit is found by a company, so many people buy those shares, making the share price go up heaps, but this time it is happening in reverse.

so in short, im aiming to be rich when the crisis is over :P and remember it will all be over eventually, because the sunlight always comes after the rain