Reading the comments below, I can not understand how these companies can be worth what they were before the melt down? Do they have that many less employees and price increases, that their profits have returned?

"Look at the 2 year chart of companies like American Express and Atlas Air ), and you'll see that they've nearly fully recovered to pre-crisis levels. For example, AXP fell from the $40's to below $11, and now is back to the $40's. Here's where big money remains to be made from here - there are a lot of companies that will make a full retracement to pre-crisis levels (as AXP, AAWW have already done), only they're just now getting started."