The stock market this week has been like one of those scary horror movies. The investor is the movie-goer who has bought a ticket to the movie in hopes he can live through the ups and downs and come out of the show reasonably satisfied with the experience. But, inevitably, there are times when he has to shield his eyes because the blood and gore is too much to take.

With "the Dow" going down hundreds of points day after day, many investors just couldn't bear to look. We've overheard more than one player in the 401(k) market say they won't open their quarterly statement when it arrives in the mail.

As editorialists, we specialize in public policy, politics and the occasional whimsical remarks about the weather, sports, the birds, the bees and, once, seed catalogues. We will opine about what's right for the economy, generally maintaining an oft-tested faith in the free market while backing government oversight to keep a modicum of control over the excesses of capitalism.

But we're no better at advising readers on their investments than we are predicting election results, pennant races and the first snowstorm (oops, sorry to bring that up in August).

Most experienced financial advisers will try to keep their clients from panicking and selling in a "down market." They will cite persuasive data that an investment portfolio that is well-balanced, that adjusts risks to your personal circumstances and that takes advantage of something called "dollar-cost averaging" (putting a little in every week or month) will probably come out of this debacle just fine -- in the long run. The key words here are "probably" and "long run."

Meanwhile, we expect that the country's central bank -- aka the Federal Reserve -- will finally have to lower the interest rate it charges banks, a move that Wall Street usually likes because it means businesses can then afford to borrow money, expand -- and make more money for their stockholders.

Of course, it was banks -- well, not banks so much as the bottom feeders of the home mortgage business -- that went bad and caused most of this mess.

Some people do not "believe" in the stock market. That is, they think it's no better than betting on the horses or throwing your hard-earned cash into a slot machine. That thinking isn't supported by the data (the house eventually wins when you gamble), but this week the "stuff it in the mattress" crowd looks pretty smart.

Do the market woes signal a fundamental problem in the economy, an economy perhaps based too heavily on lending to people who are in over their heads?

Will the bad debtors among us bring down the solid citizens who pay their bills on time and expect their retirement savings to chug along nicely in mutual funds and bonds?

We don't know, so we've turned to the words the of the country's No. 1 money man, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who is supposed to know more about this than we do. In a forthcoming interview in Fortune magazine, he says that the "current strained situation" in the markets "will take time to play out, and more difficult news will come to light. Some investors will take losses, some organizations will fail."

But, he stresses, global economic fundamentals remain healthy, providing a solid base for financial markets to continue to adjust. "The overall economy and the market are healthy enough to absorb all this," Paulson said.

Let's hope that the economy and the stock market is one of the areas the current administration can still get things right.