Market stumbles; Yogi provides words of hope

Yes, that’s right, it’s Friday and I was all set to tackle a provocative issue dealing with Jewish ritual. Then the Dow got my attention. As Yogi Berra once famously said, “It’s déjà vu all over again!"

In the last months I was working at that place with the printing press, I often sat at my desk monitoring the wires and watching the Dow – and my retirement savings – go down the toilet. It was a bleak and dismal time, not at all for the faint of heart.

I recall that for at least a year before the bottom completely fell out of the market, there was this constant talk of a recession. Everyone agreed that it was just around the corner when any fool could pretty much tell that we were already, um, standing in it!

If you’ve forgotten, it was on Sept. 29, 2008 – just about three years ago – that the Dow dropped 777 points. Yikes. Don’t look now, but it cratered again on Thursday, losing over 4 percent of its value, down a whopping 512 points.

Once again the “r” word is being mentioned by economists and bloviators of all stripes and colors. The global economy is teetering on the abyss and it seems there’s little in our economic toolbox to address the issue.

The cupboard is empty and our leaders and politicians seem fresh out of ideas after the recent little dust-up in Washington over the country’s debt ceiling. All the shouting seems a little silly now that we’ve been floored – again!

Susan, a friend and colleague, assured me back in 2008 that the market would rebound. It goes up and it goes down, but over the long haul it always seems able to advance, she opined. I nodded in agreement, but wasn’t convinced. Something felt different, something about the whole global thing that had taken hold of the economy over the last decade.

BTW, if you think it’s dark and frightening here, it’s absolutely nightmarish in Japan, Greece, Italy, Spain and Ireland. Like dominoes, once one of these countries tips over, the others will soon follow. Welcome to the global village!

The world has changed and continues to change. For a day, anyway, all seems a bit bleak and dismal yet again. But I take solace in something else Yogi – the New York Yankee Hall of Fame catcher and philosopher – had to say years ago: “It ain’t over till it’s over!” I’m choosing to spin this Yogism in a positive way; and here’s hoping that his words are prophetic.