Your typical pessimist, as I say here on occasion, believes himself the realist, and the optimist the idealist… I’ve suggested however that, given how far we’ve come (generally-speaking), the optimist has clearly cornered the market on realism…

That said, as recent columns attest, my bleary-eyedness has been waning a bit of late (I see the glass half full about half the time these days)… I just can’t resist voicing/penning my frustration with the present (and previous) administration’s reckless exploitation of the resources (the printing press in particular) we’ve entrusted to them… They are inexcusably ignorant of the fact that all of history’s major financial crises have one glaring element in common; excessive debt… And, sadly, the just-endured Greatest Recession since the Great Depression didn’t even come close to curing that ill. In fact, in true Keynesian fashion, it exacerbated it…

In the end however, I remain [legitimately] optimistic… For, the above notwithstanding, there is yet plenty for even the most practical optimist to hang his hat on. Such as:

The device on which I type, etc…. Technology is a wonderful, world-changing thing. Companies are gaining efficiencies we couldn’t imagine just the other day…

Corporate balance sheets… Unlike most governments, most companies have cleaned up their acts and now sport cash-rich, very clean balance sheets… Vastly different than where they were three years ago…

Consumer balance sheets… Recent data suggests the consumer has cleaned up his act measurably as well… Vastly different than where he was three years ago…

Frontier Markets… According to African Entrepreneur June Urunga, merely 300,000 Kenyans had access to a telephone ten years ago. Today over 10,000,000 own their own cell!!

*International trade… Like it or not, the lines are thinning… And make no mistake, the measure of our future prosperity will be determined largely by our ability to tap the rich resources that lie beyond our borders… Politicians, labor unions and the sorely misinformed consumer are the headwinds we absolutely must buck…

A general air of skepticism… I would concur with the late great Sir John Templeton; “Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria”…

*Please take a moment and listen to Milton Friedman on trade:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0pl_FXt0eM&feature=youtube_gdata_player