In other instances when countries contemplated the same thing, they were not as sanguine. Hence, the Soviet Union, the US, Egypt, and India decided that it is better to live with a nuclear armed China, North Korea, Israel, and Pakistan, respectively, than risk war.

Saying her father, who had worked as a BBC cameraman before being inspired to write the children's book by a small toy bear, would have been sanguine about his work being rejected, she added the 60th anniversary of the books publication was bittersweet after his death last year.

Professional forecasters are considerably more sanguine, with the consensus forecast for US growth in 2009 at around 1.5 , after a similar contraction in the second half of 2008. This would be a painful recession, but far short of the 10 15 output drop normally associated with a full blown depression.

My colleagues and I addressed this question in a review published in The Lancet in April 2004. The review showed that while the published data generally indicated minimal risk, the unpublished trial data were far less sanguine, and even suggested an increased risk of serious adverse events, including suicide related behavior.

The sanguine view is that as long as those selling expertise compete vigorously for the attention of discriminating buyers (the mass media), market mechanisms will assure quality control. Pundits who make it into newspaper opinion pages or onto television and radio must have good track records otherwise, they would have been weeded out.

China, which has 77 nuclear reactors at various stages of construction, planning, and discussion, has said that it will review its program. Though Russia has formally announced that it will go ahead with its program, former President Mikhail Gorbachev on whose watch the Chernobyl meltdown occurred 25 years ago is not so sanguine.

Americans should hope for all of this, though I am not sanguine that they will get much of it. amp More likely, America will muddle through here another little program for struggling students and homeowners, there the end of the Bush tax cuts for millionaires, but no wholesale tax reform, serious cutbacks in defense spending, or significant progress on global warming.

I was in China primarily in my role as Chair of the British government s Review on Antimicrobial Resistance but I also sought opportunities to speak to people about the challenges facing the economy. Many international observers have been worried about the country s oversupply of housing and the related credit boom, making me wonder whether I have been overly sanguine about these risks.

Americans should hope for all of this, though I am not sanguine that they will get much of it. More likely, America will muddle through here another little program for struggling students and homeowners, there the end of the Bush tax cuts for millionaires, but no wholesale tax reform, serious cutbacks in defense spending, or significant progress on global warming.