People will invest in GM or GE or AT&T when they feel that the risk of investing in them will pay off more than sticking the money in the bank or a bond. That means they think the company will have growing profits. That generally results from growing sales, meaning more customers or the same customers buying more.

So, people have to buy stuff so that prices will stop falling. Then, stock prices would stop falling.

You're right that the press conflates the DJIA will the stock market as a whole, and worse than that, as the economy as a whole. TV especially, likes nothing more than reducing complicated topics to an "objective number". The stock market and the economy exist in the same world, but they aren't a proxy for each other.

That's why I made the flippant remark about 20th century. Remember the .com boom? How some people argued that profits had nothing to do with stock values? It's wacky the things that get published. I think that sober people are recognizing that fundamentals eventually have to be paid attention to...

Cheers,
Scott.