In recent weeks I’ve noticed a number of Wall Street analysts turn to Yeats’ haunting poetry of foreboding portent.

Turning and turning in a widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

The reasons are obvious. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict. High gas prices. The fear of a double-dip recession. The deep mistrust of corporate chieftains. The pervasive pessimism of investors. The WorldCom debacle.

Well, let’s take a deep breath. At its core, the dominant view that the future is mediocre at best rests on the gloomy suspicion that any bounce back from a mild downturn must be anemic—or worse. But the economy isn’t a pendulum or zero-sum game. The surprise could be how quickly growth resumes at a steady pace reminiscent of the late 1990s.

The economy expanded at a 5.8 percent rate in the first quarter of this year, an encouraging number even though the pace of activity has slackened somewhat in recent weeks. Technological innovation is flourishing. Management continues to reap greater efficiencies from their investments in information technologies. The Federal Reserve is under no pressure to hike interest rates with consumer price inflation running at a low 1.4 percent rate over the past year.

Yes, the unemployment rate could climb as high as 6 percent over the next few months. But that increase would largely reflect the impact of laid off, discouraged workers deciding it’s worth their time to look for a job with the economy improving. The government data keepers will count these newly optimistic job seekers as unemployed. But as the summer unfolds, entrepreneurs will start complaining bitterly about a dearth of workers.

To be sure, all bets are off if the Middle East blows up and "anarchy is loosed upon the world." But absent a military or geopolitical disaster, the expansion will sustain itself.