Freaky...!

So the other day one of my teachers told our class that due to the dying economy they just lost quite a bit of $ from the crashing stock market. How lovely right? So I dont' know much about the stock market, except that it goes up and down alot. But I don't know how likely I'll do something like putting money in the stock market in my life time. IRA's are probably much more safer...but it really freaky to actually know of someone whose lost $ to the bad economy. Because it's most definately quite easy to be in college and be just fine and not having to worry about the economy. So that has made it so that I'm kind of oblivious to it all...until now!