Here's an antidote to the Bear Stearns disaster. It's from a paper by Robert Milnamow, chief investment officer of Legg Mason's Barrett Associates. He wrote this late last month, but that doesn't make it less valuable.

It is important to remind ourselves that these financial maladies are always remedied -- it is only a question of time. In most circumstances we have found ourselves back on track within a year, though sometimes it takes longer. We are confident that housing prices will decline to a level that will induce buyers with solid credit and sufficient equity to reduce the inventory overhanging the market. Mortgage delinquencies and defaults will eventually peak and the securities that have afflicted Wall Street and their humbled investors will stop having to be marked down. Balance sheets will slowly improve and lending will pick up again.

No doubt some will predict a much longer timeframe -- until 2010 -- before we see a resolution; others will worry about additional shocks to the system. We are not sure how long it will take. Our perspective is that US stocks will withstand the current crisis and are outstanding values. We have seen this before, or at least a close duplicate.