Maybe shutting down the DOW etc etc might help???
No, in fact that breeds bad behavior.
You can't shut down the "DOW", as the DOW is nothing but a collection of stocks.
So I think what you mean is, why don't we shut down the stock market.
Well the reason we don't, is because you can't.
That's like saying, you are not allowed to buy food.
If I have something to sell, and you have something you wish to buy, and you can't stop it from happening. I can meet you at a rest-stop, and we can make the exchange there.
From the outside, the market appears to be things carefully controlled thing, that you have to buy and sell stocks through a computer, or the stock market floor.
The reality is, stocks are just like anything else. I could sell you stocks in person.
Trading stocks during after-hours trading sessions can have a big effect on the price that an investor will pay.
www.investopedia.com
This is why sometimes you'll hear about a particular stock, or even the market in generally that will open up the next day, typical when their is a fall in prices. Meaning that investors, knowing that the price will fall the following day, will sell off stocks before the market opens.
So you can close down the markets, and then you won't be able to actually see the DOW dropping, because the last publicly known trades will be all the information we have. But outside of the market, stocks will still be traded, and values will still be falling, if they are falling. Or rising if they are rising.
If the value of something is going down, turning off the TV, or shutting down the markets, doesn't make the value magically stay the same.