But if China were to stall, the economic pessimists would be quick to reclaim Japan as their native land.
In a direct contradiction to point 1, the pessimists suggest there is no meaningful alliance for China to balance against.
It would take another three years before the addition of Chivas USA in Los Angeles and Real Salt Lake took the league back to an even dozen but still the pessimists out-numbered the optimists.
For reasons to be explained shortly, they are much closer to being right than the pessimists.
Can similar good news be ahead, or will Honeywell fall victim to the economic slowdown that pessimists say is imminent?
But, pundits and pessimists to the contrary, an important step forward for tax reform, I predict, will take place in 2013.
Tindle explained that, in general, optimists tend to experience less stress than pessimists when faced with problems, and they tend to assess the situation, cope with the problem head-on, and mobilize support to solve issues, more so than pessimists.
To this, the most resolute pessimists reply that neither a cheap yen nor anything else will spur the Japanese economy.
But if that fails to come about, pessimists see the country turning into a kind of Somalia with oil, an anarchic collection of wealthy competing fiefs, with tribes to the fore.
No one is very certain about what drives a Santa Claus rally, but there are numerous explanations: tax considerations, sentiment on Wall Street, putting Christmas bonuses into the market, or simply the absence of the pessimists, thought to be on vacation.
Slightly to his own surprise, the posh, effete Mr Mount is thrilled by the prime minister's suburban certainties and high moral seriousness in combating the sophisticated pessimists who believed it was the job of government to manage the country's inexorable decline.
Pessimists worry that the descent to that point may do serious and lasting damage to the financial system.
Pessimists compare China to Japan in the 1990s, when a rising economic power, gaining ground on America, suffered an asset bust that has haunted it ever since.
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The petro-pessimists' most forceful argument is that the Persian Gulf, officially home to most of the world's oil reserves, is overrated.
So far, all the pessimists scolding us for our addiction to debt have been proved wrong.
The pessimists said it was simply impractical to bring complicated drug regimens into poor regions with little infrastructure.
Some very creative and determined pessimists at the FCC have managed to turn a thrilling victory into an agonizing defeat.
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But in Germany the pessimists are ahead by 70% to 23%, in France by 66% to 33%, and in Britain by 61% to 28%.
The other worry of pessimists is that alternatives to oil simply cannot be brought online fast enough to compensate for oil's imminent decline.
The pessimists, meanwhile, believe that flat to low single digits will be the new normal for the back half of 2012 and into 2013.
These weaknesses may play to pessimists' fears, but at least for now the optimists have something to cling to.
Pessimists retort that the Stalinist regime is about to demonstrate its contempt for international rehabilitation by launching a new missile.
That means, pessimists fear, that African countries may fail to navigate the virtuous cycle of industrialisation, growing employment, increasing productivity and prosperity.
Pessimists say any agreement will be negated by the compromises needed to win universal approval.
It turns out that the U.S. current account deficit has been easier to finance than pessimists think.
But if the pessimists are correct, and a good number of Western consumers stick to the frugal habits they have learned in recent months, branded products will continue to suffer.
Pessimists think that, after a breathing space of three to six months, the crisis will resume as viciously as ever.
But even if the pessimists are right, it only reinforces the need for every philanthropic dollar to achieve the greatest possible impact.
But, even pessimists would have hesitated to predict that Britain would still be struggling to put the crisis behind it, in the middle of 2012.
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