Amid the horror evoked by the carnage in New York and Washington, there really isn’t much for most long-term savers and investors to do.

“In the long term, which is where most investors should focus, the financial markets are driven not by emotion or reactions but rather by fundamental economic conditions,” said John Brennan, chairman of the Vanguard Group, the second largest mutual fund firm with $570 billion in assets, in a statement published on the firm’s web site.

“Investors rarely are well served by hasty decisions,” Brennan said. “Our people, our economy and our markets have proven their resiliency over and over again.”

Sir John Templeton, founder of the fund management firm Templeton Worldwide Inc., said: “I was immediately saddened. From a financial standpoint, though, this act of terrorism isn’t likely to be followed, so it will have no lasting effect on the consumer or on the world economy.”

No panic

In a telephone interview, Brennan said the first response among Vanguard investors was calm. “I just came off the phones,” he said. “We see people asking questions, but no sense of panic. People are reacting appropriately.”

Investing, not to be confused with short-term trading, is a process based on faith in the successful working over time of the U.S. system of democratic capitalism, which serves as an anchor for financial dealings around the world.

That system has survived many past times of shock and fear the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, the stock market crash in October 1987 and the Gulf War in January and February 1991 come to mind.

As the threat of war loomed in the Persian Gulf in the summer of 1990, against the backdrop of a developing recession in the domestic economy, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 15 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index 23 percent in two months from late July to late September.

But in the ensuing six months, a period that included the shooting war, the S & P; 500 rallied 27 percent and the Nasdaq Composite 41 percent.

I have vivid memories from the ’87 crash of investment analysts remarking that “things will never be the same.” In time, though, as the bull market revived and kept unfolding, that severe break in the market came more and more to look like just another zigzag on the stock market chart.

No question, last week’s mayhem is different in many ways from anything seen before. All the more reason to look cautiously at immediate attempts to sort out its prospective effects.

Whether it causes a sudden drop-off in consumer spending, for instance, is an obvious concern. Quite conceivably, that could push the economy, already growing at a sharply reduced rate from a year or two ago, into a recession defined as a period of decline in the total output of goods and services.

But for the purposes of a long-term investor, the distinction between “slowdown” and outright “recession” is academic. If people stop buying cars for a few days or weeks, most of that business is merely postponed, not lost forever.

The shock of the terrorist attack reminds us, if we needed reminding, how little certainty there is in life.

“Mutual funds will be ready to resume business as soon as the U.S. financial markets reopen,” said a statement issued by Matthew Fink, president of the Investment Company Institute, the largest fund trade group. “In the meantime, investors can rest assured that their mutual fund assets are fully protected.”

On its record, we have a strong system in which to place one’s trust. If we’re going to plan for the future and invest for the long term, no alternative I can think of even comes close.

Chet Currier is a columnist with Bloomberg News.