Market crash: fear in the suburbs

The market drop stunned people in Boston's suburbs. Read what some of your neighbors had to say, and tell us what you are thinking by posting a comment.

In Lexington, Mike Minerd, a 64-year-old retired chef from Newton, admitted he was scared.

“Being retired, living on fixed income, it gets pretty scary,” he said Monday. “I think it’s a real tough situation, very uneasy. When you hear the word depression, that’s scary.”

In Framingham, Peter Pleshaw was feeling pretty good about ignoring experts advice to stay in the market. He switched to cash earlier this year.

And if he hadn’t taken his money out of the market? “I’d be sitting there crying,” he said as he emerged from the Fidelity office Monday.

Pleshaw stopped by yesterday just to get reassurance -- which he said he got -- that his cash account would be okay if Fidelity Investments went under. “If you can foresee the future, great,” Pleshaw continued. “But we can’t foresee the future. You might as well go to the dog track and lose your money.”

Judy McGann, a 55-year-old worker at a bank in Lexington, blamed the government's financial overseers.

“Why I could foresee it but they couldn’t, it’s beyond me,” she said. “They (the government) got us in this mess they should get us out.”

“Most of us have some type of 401(k), stocks. It’s affecting the economy, it affects my job and the security of my job.”