VALETUDINARIANS ARE IMPERVIOUS TO REALITY:

The past few months have been brutal for economic doomsayers.

The U.S. economy has not succumbed to sequestration budget cuts, runaway inflation, or tax hikes. Potential triggers for disaster such as negotiations to increase the federal debt ceiling have been pushed off until autumn, calming down any anxiety about the possibility of a default.

The recovery from the 2008 financial crisis continues at its slow and steady pace. State governments are no longer resorting to survival mode. Federal Reserve officials are openly discussing how to unwind their quantitative easing policies that were designed to stimulate growth.

Housing prices have sustained a rebound, with prices increasing year-over-year in the Las Vegas and Phoenix markets that were the epicenter of the burst bubble, according to the Case-Shiller index.

PNC Bank chief economist Stuart Hoffman said in a client note that improvements in real estate coupled with a stock market surge "will support consumer spending this year through the wealth effect."

Things are far from perfect. Millions of Americans remain unemployed. Average wages are close to stagnant. But it might be time to get pessimistic about economic pessimism, a lesson worth considering for both Democrats and Republicans.

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