But I rate the odds on this optimistic scenario at no better than 1-in-3.
The most optimistic scenario for Microsoft is that it is playing catch-up by leapfrogging.
ENGADGET: Editorial: Turning point for the tortoise and the hare
At this point, therefore, the optimistic scenario involves avoiding the fiscal cliff altogether, most likely through policy postponement.
In a more optimistic scenario, a recovering economy might encourage the Federal Reserve to start increasing rates to head off inflation.
FORBES: Worried About Rising Interest Rates? 5 Things You Can Do
But there are others who predict a less optimistic scenario.
Even in 2035, with the most optimistic scenario, the International Energy Agency estimates that just 2.4% of the world's energy will come from wind and only 1% from solar.
Some caution is warranted regarding the optimistic scenario.
On the other hand, however, in an era where doing nothing is an optimistic scenario, the can-kicking approach to fiscal policy can be a misleading panacea, as it avoids addressing the issues that postponement causes.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies, for example, reckons the OBR will put the structural current deficit this year at 4.9% - even under its most optimistic scenario, where Robert Chote and his colleagues consider the loss of growth this year to be temporary.
Oryx expects to learn more when it drills Banan this year. (See and excellent map of all the Kurdish oil and gas concessions here.) In an optimistic scenario laid out in the Oryx prospectus, Demir Dagh has the potential to give up 215, 000 bpd of oil by 2017, with the entire Hawler block (65% Oryx interest) producing more than 300, 000 bpd by 2018.
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Saltz is not optimistic that this scenario will come to pass.
The UK government's Chief Scientific Adviser Sir John Beddington, meanwhile, has had to revise his previously optimistic assessment to include the "worst case scenario" of radiation reaching Tokyo, albeit at a level which could be protected against.
BBC: Japan nuclear threat: The tsunami is the bigger tragedy
An overblown scenario perhaps, but the scare over dividends suggests that many investors are still too optimistic.
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