>On Wed, 2 Jan 2002, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> [The bourgie consensus is now that the U.S. economy is bottoming, or
>> has already bottomed, and is about to turn up, perhaps strongly. The
>> leftie consensus is that it's only begun worsening. Hmmm.]
>
>Isn't that always kinda of true, though? I mean that Wall Street
>forecasters always err on the side of optimism and lefty forecasters
>usually err on the side of pessimism? Because the former think capitalism
>is always glorious until proven otherwise and the latter think it's always
>a crock until proven otherwise? Y'know, hermeneutical assumptions :o)
Yup, exactly. Given the contours of the business cycle over the years, the optimists are proven right more often than the pessimists. Me, I try to read the turns as they occur, hermaneutical assumptions be damned!
Doug