So in fact, this market blows..

Stop watching the Fidelity commercials people. The market isn't cheap.  Investing for the long term is only a good idea, by the numbers, when the market is cheap.  We're at least 20% above the typical valuation of a bear market trough.  Look at 1992 (12 P/E), 1980 (sub 10 P/E).  The credit crisis is not masking the fundamentals.  The credit crisis is inextricable from the fundamentals.  We have no idea how fast (or if) the global economy can grow without cheap money.  Hedge funds bought stock with borrowed money, from companies funding their growth with borrowed money and buying back their stock with borrowed money. 

Byron Wien had a good point.  When he got started as an equity analyst, they typically made as much ching as a good doctor or lawyer.  The divergence that began in the 1980s has gone so far, it's impossible to know what the financial industry will look like in five years.  Not a lot of great things can happen while the financial industry finds itself, much like a high school grad travelling Europe and smoking weed is unlikely to find the cure for cancer.  You dig?