Where is the heard headed?

Not trading tomorrow will give me a much needed day of observation to the overall market.  If the market continues to show weakness, perhaps we have finally arrived to the correction to this run up the past few months.   The bull market since march has been fantastic to my 401k, however its an incredible reaction to an economy which seemingly has many fundamental flaws left within it.

There have been no regulatory or policy changes within the financial industry.  And there are still very troubling companies out there which would not exist without the backing of some serious taxpayer cash.  If something doesn't work...and you don't fix it. don't you think that I will fail again?  I am sure you've heard the saying that goes something like "try something different and every time get the same thing is not crazy, what's crazy is repeatedly trying something the same way, and expecting something different." Have we learned nothing from Chrysler?  Don't get me wrong, I do think the fed's reaction to the situation kept the initial downturn from being much more catastrophic.  However the root of the problem in this downturn, in my small and humble opinion, lies in an American consumer who had run on empty with a negative savings rate, a banking system  with an obscene amount of leverage and low holding requirements.and an unregulated derivatives system driven by default swaps that absolutely dwarf the stock market in value (outstanding derivatives are estimated at 592 t. vs. the stock market's puny 36.6 t.)

So long story short, the problems are still there, the rules are unchanged, the players are essentially the same (the firms left standing are even more interwoven with the economy and 'too big to fail'...could you imagine what would happen if Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan went down now?).  And the market is still shedding jobs with a battered US consumer, the DOW his 14k high in '07 because investors were toking up and high on credit.  Well, the fumes have cleared, and I don't really see how this market in its current state could be worth 10k.

Does it mean that it can't?

Absolutely not, I have read that bull markets and bear markets have a tendency to continue long after they have exceeded all expectations.  And while I am a novice trader, I try to learn from the past as much as possible, its the only free advice out there.  My wife is a history major, is a big believer in that history is a study into the human experience, technology changes, however people don't.  Very profound words translated for stock trading - because what is trading but participating in human emotions.