Empee hit the nail on the head: the future in the US is based on one thing and that is growth.
If we don't grow enough we will suffer and all the bad things the bears worry about will come to pass. What is especially worrying to bears is that they don't see where this growth is going to come from and the bulls seem to take for granted that it will just happen. I think it could go either way and maybe the next election will push things in one direction or another.
The world is more competitive than it has ever been, long gone are the days when most of the world was hampered by communist regimes that essentially made life impossible for their entrepreneurs making living in the land of the free a huge edge in and of itself. Also, gone (or significantly lowered) are many of the barriers to entry in almost every industry and sector you can think of from human resources, to financing, to market access. The point being that US entrepreneurs are going to have to work much harder to create the growth needed in todays global economy than at any other time in history.
At the same time we can more easily take advantage of the opportunities that a globe economy offers but we need to have something that the world needs. Bill Clinton has been making speeches for the last few years that may offer a solution and that is for massive government incentives to drive the emergent alternative energy and nascent green technology evolution. Such support would give US entrepreneurs the competitive advantage they need and would spur tremendous growth ala Y2K.
I am also optimistic that all the new tools that have been created in the last decade(greater computing power, more sophisticated AI, advances in material science, biotech, all serving to increase the speed of innovation) will result in several decades of technology led growth and continued gains in global productivity that will drive global growth (we are already seeing this in the the advances made in genetics and now epigenetics), in other words I am a global bull. The question for Americans is whether we will be able to grow at a rate that, while it will undoubtedly be slower than the EMs, will maintain our standard of living.
Living in Boston with friends from the major academic institutions here who are feverishly bringing new concepts to market and patenting things left and right I am optimistic. What gives me pause is the seeming lack of emphasis on competitive education on a national basis and the waste of trillions by the government on domestic and foreign activities that do nothing to enhance our ability to compete with the rest of the world at a time when we need that edge.
As far as Roger's goes, anyone who looks at reality with their eyes rather than through the imperfect lens of a ass-umptive model can see that he is nobody's fool.