Pick up any newspaper, turn on your TV or radio, or go online and it’s hard to escape the gloom, doom, panic and despair.

The magnitude of the Australian stockmarket losing $106 billion dollars in just one day has occupied mountains of newsprint, not to mention the obligatory David Koch TV specials on how to survive the crisis.

But comparisons with the great depression are a big stretch.

Let’s put things into perspective here. Most of us have a house, two cars and decent-paying jobs; we sometimes go on holidays; our kids wear decent clothes, and we eat meat and vegies most nights. Apart from pensioners, of course.

It’s hardly the days when we’re cutting up old dresses to make handkerchiefs, begging for food or living in shelters, like one 106-year-old great depression survivor relayed the other night on TV.

What is different this time round is the speed of the information flow – and the sheer panic that creates.

On Friday, we logged onto our websites and literally watched the Australian stock market crashing.

Fear feeds fear and the end result is that people dump their shares – at the worst possible time – in the hope that they will be able to somehow avoid the financial meltdown.

Human nature being as it is, we are not so gripped by reports that the sharemarket had regained half the losses of Friday by lunchtime.

As financial planner Cheryl Macnaught, of Whittaker Macnaught, pointed out on the weekend, the pace of the rollercoaster ride has got a lot quicker – thanks to the internet.

“It has taken 11 months to get to this dramatic point, but it took 30 months during the great depression for the stock market to fall. So we’ve done this in 11 months, and I wonder if it could turn around quickly because it’s happened quickly.

“We are in very different times compared to the depression and the early ’70s. There were no computers then and now the messages are moving a lot quicker.

“That could have exacerbated this freefall ... are we over-reacting or shooting from the hip as a reaction to what is thrown at us so instantaneously?”

Ms Macnaught had good advice for all of us.

We all need to watch our spending, but in the knowledge that the fundamentals of the Australian economy are still strong.

When you look at the profits and growth projections of our banks and blue-chip firms, the dive in share prices makes little sense.

And no doubt the smarter players will be looking to buy into the market soon – and see some solid growth in the next few years.

One thing the current crisis has highlighted is the need for all of us to better analyse our own spending, and to develop a decent savings and investment strategy.

For some of us that will mean developing our own superannuation strategy; others will feel more comfortable investing in property, and many will find a properly managed share portfolio the way to go.

But the last thing we need to do is adopt knee-jerk moves like cashing out super or withdrawing stocks and miss out on a likely rebound.

As 74-year-old Twin Waters resident William Cox shared: “A lot of people have lost a lot of money, but people are foolish to pull it out of shares, because it won’t stay like that forever.

“If you’ve lost 25% of your money in shares and you pull it out, you’ve still lost 25%. But if you leave it in there, and it goes back up, you’ll still get your 7% return.”

It’s good advice – and comes from someone who’s not even a sharemarket investor.

Let’s not touch base

Cliches and over-used phrases – we’re all guilty of using them, but some of them really rub you the wrong way.

I used to have a work colleague who prided herself on requesting reports giving the “heads up” on what to expect. She used the phrase so often that whenever one of us would see or hear it, we would cringe.

Apparently, we weren’t alone.

A nationwide survey has come up with some of the most over-used and hated phrases. Among them are “let’s do lunch”, “touch base”, “I’m not ruling out anything”, and one of my sins – “at the end of the day”.

My personal dislike at the moment – a favourite for teenagers who don’t want to engage – is “whatever”.

My teenage son and I have the nightly routine down pat.

“What did you get up to today?”

“Nothing.”

“Who did you see?”

“Nobody.”

“What are you going to do tonight?”

“Nothing.”

“Isn’t that a little boring?”

“Whatever.”

Log him onto MySpace with his mates, however, and you can’t shut him up.

So what do they talk about.

“Whatever.”