The Browns looked promising this time last year, eventually notching ten wins and sending six players to the Pro Bowl, but in 2008 it's all come to tears -- an 0-4 pre-season record and an 0-3 start to the regular season, along with a rash of injuries and a roster full of underachievers.
Then this dysfunctional squad squashed the Super Bowl champs. Maybe it's time to dust off our dreams of the Browns making the playoffs -- after all, it's fundamentally the same team that raised our hopes so high a year ago. Would that be wrong?
Yeah, probably.
I can imagine investors asking themselves similar questions this morning. Last October the markets were flying high, only to crumble over the next 12 months and burst into flame last week. But given yesterday's record-setting gains -- 936 points on the Dow, more than double the previous one-day jump -- would it be wrong to be optimistic that the worst is behind us?Probably so.
The markets aren't the economy -- they're only one indicator of one segment of the economy. Market forces almost certainly will correct the irrational gains we saw yesterday, especially in light of investors' overall skepticism. Most of the rest of the U.S. economy is weak and getting weaker, and it'd be naive to predict that we're headed for anything but an unprecedented global recession, one that'll hit hardest right where you and I live.
I mean, I can tell myself that "The fundamentals of the Cleveland Browns are strong," but repeating the mantra is an exercise in delusion. That surprise whupping of the Giants, momentarily inspiring, was "sound and fury signifying nothing." Likewise yesterday's move in the markets -- both the Browns and our economy have more losses ahead.
Probably.
