Monday, 2 December 2002 8:30 am
Optimism is back!  In a near vacuum of substantive good business news, the tech-heavy NASDAQ has risen 33% since October 9.  Given that the stock market is really a mirror in which we see our own collective mood, the obvious explanation is that we are shifting from pessimism to optimism.

This new optimism is not the passive type of optimism that simply observes the world and sees things getting better. Instead, it is the quintessential American, active, can-do, confident, enlightened type of optimism that believes that we are able to solve problems and create a better future.  It was severely shaken by the stock market crash, 9/11, allegations of corporate malfeasance, the Washington snipers, the WorldCom and Enron bankruptcies, and the economic slump.  But now the attitude is shifting back to “we can deal with this – let’s get on with it”.  

In the recent mid-term elections, one party ran on a pessimistic platform, the other on a “can do” optimistic platform.  We voted for the optimists overwhelmingly. 

We overthrew the Taliban.  We caught the Washington snipers.  We are arresting senior al Qaeda officials every week.  We are facing down Iraq.  The UN security council is now unanimously forcing Sadam to back down.  Hans Blix  (a can-do optimist if ever there was one) in now in Baghdad with his team and says he can find the weapons, given the chance, and he has now been given the chance.  The publicity-hungry bin Laden is now afraid to show his face, and is reduced to bragging about bombs in third world countries.

We are bringing the corporate robber barons to justice.  When the world’s largest audit firm failed in its duties to investors, we put it out of business.  We are reorganizing the federal government to fight terrorism.  We are strengthening the SEC. We are marching to Iraq to do whatever is necessary to bring that situation under control.  The Russians are even supporting us.  NATO just grew by seven nations, all from the former Soviet block. 

Welcome back to optimism.  Welcome back to the can-do spirit that created America and made it the envy of the world.  We are tired of worrying and thinking negatively.  Many of us are bored and want to start creating things once again, making a better future once again.  We are anxious to fix the problems and get on with it.

There is much to be done.