Facing the Future with Hard Heads, Soft Hearts

How do you approach the future? The old joke about economists (attributed to the late Paul Samuelson) is that they have successfully predicted nine of the last five recessions. Some of us are born economists in that sense. Others are like Pollyanna Whittier, the eternally sunny character from Eleanor Porter’s 1913 novel, Pollyanna, who gave us the modern meaning of a “Pollyanna” as a person excessively optimistic.