For optimists, these signs of measured productivity improvements are evidence of economic changes they have long claimed to see in specific firms.
The greatest moment of success for optimists will occur at the peak of a boom, when they will feel their instincts have been justified.
These weaknesses may play to pessimists' fears, but at least for now the optimists have something to cling to.
For example, when the researchers asked the MBA students about their likely salary package in their first job, the optimists tended to predict that their starting earnings would be higher than average for their peers--but the optimists didn't, in fact, end up with above-average starting salaries.
This may, for instance, explain why optimists work longer hours and tend to earn more.
For all its travails, the optimists will tell you that the Moscow Conservatory remains a bastion of Russian musical life.
But even if Spain (and later Italy) are forced to enter a rescue plan, there is now a clear sense of what that would imply, and that certainty gives optimists a second reason for confidence.
Optimists reckon that many ingredients for an economic rebound are already in place.
Optimists also emphasised the prospect for faster long-term growth in the economy.
Critics, however, say that the railways are not expanding nearly fast enough to meet the needs of an economy that is expected to grow by as much as 7% this year, a rate that optimists say can be sustained for years.
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In general, optimists did turn out to be perceived by their peers as more charismatic, but that accounted for only a fraction--approximately one-third at most--of the optimists' greater success in the labor market.
The future is bright for shares in News Corp. according to some optimists dabbling in January 2012 contract call options today.
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This takes place at the family home in Connecticut, which has become, for the occasion, a multiethnic menagerie of liberal optimists, many bearing musical instruments.
The die-hard optimists also think Bonn will keep Japanese support for the treaty intact.
Still, say the optimists, India does not have long to wait for an election.
When America's Treasury stopped issuing 30-year bonds in October 2001, the optimists in government thought the federal budget was set for eternal surplus.
But even the optimists are not expecting the crisis economies to actually grow for many months yet.
In fact, optimists pointed out, so long as equities are held for the long term, they can be safer investments than supposedly riskless assets such as government bonds, whose value can be wiped out by inflation.
Heretofore still pessimistic on the prospects for equities, this week Ms. Whitney joined the ranks of the optimists.
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Over the New Year the optimists had a good run, but the time-scale for growth returning is forever being pushed back.
Optimists say the danger is less acute than many fear, for three reasons.
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The optimists point out that risky behaviour has been recorded in Asia for years, and few countries have seen a major epidemic.
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And so, referendum optimists have been telling me since springtime, the bidding wars for both the oil and the export pathways would provide the new state with all the economic autonomy and prosperity it needed.
Even the most hardened optimists are finding it difficult to remain upbeat about the prospects either for the American economy or for the rest of the world.
Optimists in the fund-management industry, therefore, are waiting for the markets to start rising again, hoping that investors will come back to equities and high profits will return.
Optimists can point to only 8 goals conceded in ten games and for the first time in many seasons Arsenal has conceded fewer goals than any other Premier League team after 10 games.
Optimists will point out that 500bn euros of bailout money should be available for use reasonably quickly to prop up the likes of Italy and Spain, as a result of the leaders' decisions to expedite expansion of the European Financial Stability Facility and bring forward the launch date of the European Stability Mechanism.
Optimists like to think that a wave of post-partum euphoria will, for example, help boost consumer spending.
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