"a utility optimist and a revenue pessimist"

Tyler Cowen attaches that epithet to himself (specifically in the context of a story about Japanese baseball, of all things). The position on capitalism this implies is extremely interesting: it amounts to accepting the unavoidably crisis-prone character of the system, indeed its probable stagnation in the near future, while insisting that this will not be reflected in much concrete harm. In other words, we might be more anxious about our economic situations, we might feel less affluent, but in real terms our standards of living will continue to improve steadily.

That would be nice. I'm not sure it's born out by the experience of the U.S. and Europe in the past 4 years, though Japan is more arguable.