I am so confused, I get the market and the economy are different

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. If you think of it that way, if you think the only thing to do is to "play"

the market, buying and selling, hoping to time things correctly, then yeah. That way is a rich person's game. But if you're in it for the long haul, as people should be, staying in and not panicking at every downturn, then over time you make money. Sometimes a lot of money.

It's better to invest in a diversified group of funds. You can either do a lot of research yourself, or find a good investment advisor. I have the remarkable good fortune to have the latter, and even in the sharp downturn earlier this year, my portfolio went down, but considerably less than the market as a whole.

One strategy that some people swear by is to purchase stocks with a strong history of good dividends. You can either re-invest those dividends, or use them as income. The only caution here is that if every bit of your money is in such stocks, and you need every penny of those dividends to live on, you're in deep trouble if the dividends are cut. Hopefully you can avoid that precarious situation.