Is losing 83% of your money typical for investors in the stock market? I hope not! Judging by the several freepmails I read, I did much more poorly than some, who never lost more than about 2-3%.
I money-back guarantee my story is MUCH closer to typical than your stupid friend who lost 83% of her principle. Holy crap, didn't she have ANY damage control measures in place? Someone with close to a mil ought be a little more intelligent than that. My kids do better on investments at ten years old than this dingbat!
As much as you try to doom-and-gloom, and piss on the economy, there are a lot of us out there making nice money, and are diversified enough to survive these minor bumps in the road.
I lost a small percentage for 2001-2002, but it was upsetting enough to think that might be a long trend! However, I hung in and invested more aggressively in the down market. That's hard for some people to do, and it's easier to imagine that she stopped buying, and even removed money from the market - and so did not have the right position to make money for the following years, as so many of us have.