But, while credit card delinquencies have grown rapidly, optimists say that their overall volume does not seem threatening.
In recent months, George, ever an optimist, had grown worried about the safety of the program and the people to whom he'd committed the last 11 years of his life.
Is it time to stop worrying about the sustainability of America's foreign borrowing?High time, argues a growing band of optimists, most of them American.
But there is also a growing band of optimists, people who think that growth overall this year will be higher than last and see things such as rising oil prices as evidence of faster-than-expected growth rather than a phenomenon that will depress growth.
Should the optimists grow weary of the stocks downtrend, they could close out their long positions, creating more selling pressure on the shares.
As the crisis has spiralled and government intervention in the sector has grown ever more dramatic, the optimists have become quieter.
And with commodity prices falling and China slowing, it is hard to see how other emerging economies will accelerate, even if America is growing.Optimists see the stronger dollar as a simple means to export America's recovery elsewhere; but that too is more complicated than it first looks.
But with near-daily market gyrations stemming from fears about the American economy, even some of the greatest optimists are growing leery.
This year the strength of the euro area's economies has continued to surprise even optimists: GDP grew by 0.9% in the second quarter and may have managed 0.7% or so in the third, judging by robust data on industrial production and retail sales, and by business surveys.
Optimists point to the growing use of solar, wind, and other renewable power sources and the success of some nations, such as Denmark, in curbing emissions.
