A major rating agency last night “Downgraded the Nation’s Credit Rating” for the first time in history, after a wild day on Wall Street that saw stocks swing from triple-digit gains to triple-digit losses and back into positive territory as investors weighed the strongest US job gains in months against debt problems here and in Europe.

Gold has been plunging in New York on speculation that financial markets may be stabilizing, eroding the appeal of the precious metal as a safe haven.

The Roaring Twenties, the decade that led up to the Crash, was a time of wealth and excess. Despite caution of the dangers of speculation, many believed that the market could sustain high price levels. Shortly before the crash, economist Irving Fisher famously proclaimed, “Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”