Such gloom may well be as overblown as the promises made by many vendors.

ECONOMIST: Always-on people

In both the early 1980s and the early 1990s, such gloom heralded a big drop in manufacturing output (see chart).

ECONOMIST: The economy

On Wall Street such universal gloom is rare, and often turns out to be a bullish signal.

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Once-thriving border towns, such as Amritsar, slid into relative gloom.

ECONOMIST: India and Pakistan: Clever steps at the border | The

Nevertheless, amid the gloom there are some bright spots, such as growing export volumes (see article).

ECONOMIST: South Korea

Stymied by a Republican legislature, he wound up spending much of his time blocking urban sprawl, and in his third term, he warned about the dangers of runaway deficits and entitlement spending with such Wagnerian brio that he came to be known as Governor Gloom.

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Many times over the past two years (such as Armageddon Fears Are Overblown on June 1, 2012 and Can Doom and Gloom Save the Market? on September 16, 2011), I have made the case that the internal strength of the stock market was signaling that the economy was actually stronger than most thought.

FORBES: The Week Ahead: Are Stocks Too Far Ahead of the Economy?