Well, the first line of your comment did include the phrase "to the detriment of America’s economic well being," and since the only thing that went down recently was the American stock market (followed by declines on the stock markets of other countries), it's hard to understand your reply.

A lot of people (market experts) are still struggling trying to determine the causes of the decline. For all the theories out there, it could be something simple: everyone knew the market was getting oversold with so many stocks having price-to-earnings ratios above their historic highs. And it just took a slight nudge for people to say, "okay, I'm cashing out while I can." If there are far more sellers in the market than buyers, prices drop. That's just simple "supply and demand" theory from Econ 101. And the "nudge" could have been the sudden uptick on the 10 year Treasury note with a possible early sign of inflation (from a report on wages). Compound that with the fact that a new Fed chairman just came in, and no one will know what the heck his policies are until he gives his first speech near the end of the month. Does he think it more important to fight deflation? Or does he fear inflation more? It makes sense that the herd could get spooked and stampede.

I generally don't embrace conspiracy theories. They are usually concocted by people who don't understand, but want to pretend they understand. Like Alex Jones. He's just a big bag of wind.

As for the Fed, it does a lot of good, too. We can disagree with some things, but overall, it's managed to pull us out of the Great Recession on monetary policy alone ... no small trick, considering the fact that fiscal policy was nonexistent because of a Congress that has been asleep at the switch. Better to play politics like football team rivalries than discuss individual policies and laws on their merits! LOL