Business check: The Gallop poll UBS/Gallup Index rose to 79 in October. Or as the consummate engineer Buckminister Fuller puts it, don’t fight forces; use them. The index results were 26 points above the August 2006 low of 53.

Falling energy prices and rising stock markets added to the optimism and is reflected in the poll question, "is it a good time to invest in financial markets." The stock market is in a confirmed rally. Contrariness will, for the meantime, scowl sadly.

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, a s possibility!" - Soren Kierkegaard, theologian