Explaining Pessimism to Robert Samuelson

As Robert Samuelson tells us in his weekly column in the Washington Post, there is a big market for people saying that things are great. Samuelson cites a number of authors and statistics telling readers that things are getting better.

He then speculates about why we have so much pessimism. He suggests that the media is at fault for using the word "crisis" too frequently and tells us:

"But some of today’s pessimism is simply a political fad. It 'became fashionable, starting in academia and e...