Now say the words: 'economic cycle'

Even Pessimists Feel Optimistic Over Economy

By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ, NYT

For more than a decade, the economy has failed to grow the way it once did. Unemployment has not stayed this high, this long, since the 1930s.

But could the New Normal, as this long economic slog has been called, be growing old?

That is the surprising new view of a number of economists in academia and on Wall Street, who are now predicting something the United States has not experienced in years: healthier, more lasting growth.

The improving outlook is one reason the stock market has risen so sharply this year, even if street-level evidence for a turnaround, like strong job growth and income gains, has been scant so far.

A prominent convert to this emerging belief is Tyler Cowen, an economics professor at George Mason University near Washington and author of “The Great Stagnation,” a 2011 best seller, who has gone from doomsayer to a decidedly more optimistic perspective.

(More here.)