What do I tell my son?

He's a 35 yr old... married with a kid. Both of them work. Hard. House with mortgage. No investments except a small 401k.

How will this hit him? What can he do to lessen the impact of this whole thing?

(Of course, I'm asking how this whole thing is going to effect the vast majority of people NOT in the investor class.)

knowing more about his situation.

I assume you are talking about this big financial debacle---

Will this impact his or his spouse's job? I have a friend who is a mortgage broker---he has been doing very well--now he expects his job to go down the toilet. But many industries won't feel the impact as much.

His 401K --well who can predict that? At least he has plenty of time to go until retirement---plenty of time for things to turn around....

His mortgage--well that depends. I don't have a crystal ball, but I think most of the people that will have problems are the "subprime" mortgages---once would love to hear from the experts what will happen--but if he was sitting on a bad mortgage--and was at the brink of foreclosure--this is probably good for him--as the taxpayers will be bailing those people out (to some extent--at least for the short term).

from moron*. Other than that, your guess is as good as mine, since after all it's us, the prols, that will be paying for this mess certainly not the rich.

your sons childrens childrens childrens might have hope of paying off half the national debt at this point in time.