Re: What is your outlook?

Description: There's not much cause for optimism, Andersen says.

Transcript:

I am . . . oh, I am . . . it depends on the day how optimistic or pessimistic I am.  I’m never . . . I never . . . I never find myself being erratically pessimistic or erratically optimistic.  I find myself going, you know, up to 55%, 56% one way or the other.  So my needle sort of stays, you know, pretty close to, you know, the glass is both half full and half empty all the time.  And . . . and . . . and that can be affected by, you know, how many people were blown up in Baghdad today or any number of things.  But I think . . . I think . . . and certainly in the near term, there’s not much cause for optimism.  Having just written a book set 150 years ago which inclined me toward the long view, when I take the long view I can at least kind of grapple towards some . . . some more hopeful version of the next 100 years.

I think this age will be remembered as a time of . . . of . . . historically as . . . at least as far as the United States is concerned, as a time of tremendous confusion and squandered opportunity in the

. . . in the now 15 years after the end of the Cold War.  And . . . and as a . . . as a kind of _______ today, roaring 20s time of . . . of . . . of a kind of acceptance.  A kind of bland acceptance of, you know, pretty grotesque examples of economic inequality.  So is that cheery enough for you?