The argument for optimism

This man gives probably the most solid argument for optimism, even if he has proven incorrect a year later. Shortly, I will present the argument for pessimism, which is unfortunately the camp that I stand in.
Because this "recovery" is different in that there is not real recovery in sight. All signs of "recovery" are driven merely by monetary inflation propping up prices. But whereas some of that may have worked for awhile, we are honestly getting much closer to the collapse of the current unsustainable system. The difference is that many of the more astute market participants can sense this.

It is possible that we will see a temporary lift in some indicating factors, but it is nearly certain that the fundamentals like job growth are going to remain anemic at best for the near future. This is not a confidence problem in the sense that there are real reasons for low confidence. Namely the problems that the recession is supposed to have exorcised from the system have not been filtered out..
because prices have not been allowed to drop, bankrupt businesses were not allowed to go bust and public money is pouring in to areas of the economy that private money is fleeing (so the new destinations for private money are not allowed to surface). The reason both cannot grow is that this time there is a huge hulking fed gov't that's getting to the breaking point and is making no room for the future. And the portion of wealth it is eating with continuing malinvestments is reaching the magical limit wherein it is too much for the profit producing sectors to carry.

Namely, people see that the bills on public losses haven't been paid yet and will need to be in the near future -- in the form of inflation. Further, the bad debt must be liquidated, and many investors have remained invested in publicly propped up bankrupt firms.. and many investors remain deeply in debt themselves.

This specter of doom, and the bankrupt firms' wealth destruction, is keeping enough money from finding new investments and creating jobs. Add to this uncertainty from new legislation, and it is fairly clear why investors are sitting on their funds and saving.

I would argue that any "recovery" can't last long because the problems with the previous boom have still not been ironed out.

Nonetheless, the soundly reasoned positive outlook:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204518504574420811475582956.html