The optimism is not hard to miss in the stock markets, the US especially.

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Last year, Ireland faced England with optimism following a hard-fought victory over Wales.

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While I try to enter each year with optimism, I find it hard to be overly optimistic as we enter 2013.

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It is, indeed, hard to look ahead anywhere with much optimism.

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With home prices materializing a double-dip and banks holding a massive inventory of unsold homes, it is hard to see where Goldman derives its optimism from.

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We still have that spirit of invention, and that sense of optimism, that belief that if we work hard and we give it our all, that anything is possible in this country.

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But after South Africa secured a hard-fought 34-31 win, captain John Smit suggested all that Welsh optimism flying around nearly sent his players 'bananas'.

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It is that fundamental faith -- that American optimism -- which says no challenge is too great, no mission is too hard.

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Yet, even as the optimism of a year ago far outpaced the reality of the marketplace, so too now it is hard to find anyone out there in the media or the general public who sees anything but a bleak future for e-Commerce.

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