An odd thing is going on beneath the surface of the economic news. Several odd things, in fact. There is no question that all, or almost all, of the economic news is grim. New claims for unemployment insurance soared above the half-million mark last week. Over one million unemployed workers will run out of insurance coverage next month. The housing market shows no sign of recovery, and one government estimate is that the oversupply won't be worked off for several years. Consumers have holstered the plastic, driving retail sales down by record amounts. Once-mighty General Motors can only hope that Barack Obama takes the oath of office and pushes a rescue package through Congress before it runs out of cash. Share prices fluctuate wildly, but always seem to end up lower. Uncertainty reigns, as the Obama team leaks plans for tighter regulation of the financial services sector, more vigorous and costly enforcement of environmental and health and safety regulation. And the opposition to more intrusive and growth-stifling tax and regulatory policies has been weakened by the sweeping victories of the Democrats in the congressional races. There's more--fill in the blanks with your own favorite bit of bad news.

We Americans, of course, never miss an opportunity for dark humor, what cynics might call whistling in the graveyard. Business Week reports that New York City's twentysomethings "are throwing Depression parties, where the clothes are '30s vintage and the playlists favor Big Band numbers and Dust Bowl ballads." Rentals of "The Grapes of Wrath" and sales of John Kenneth Galbraith's 1955 best-seller, The Great Depression are on the rise.

But in my conversations with economists who have been worth listening to in the past I detect some skepticism about the consensus that we are in deep trouble, headed for still more, and that we are in a tunnel in which no light is discernible. They sense unreasoned panic among consumers, related more to media fixation on share prices than to an appraisal of their own economic circumstances. The overwhelming majority are paying their mortgages on time, and quietly but importantly benefiting from the collapse in oil and petrol prices. They are adjusting by prowling the aisles of Wal-Mart rather than up-market retailers. It might be less fun to share a pizza while watching a rented DVD than dining in style before a night at the cinema, but that sort of hardship is tolerable if unpleasant. That is not to say that there is no real suffering out there. There is, especially among the unemployed. But this isn't the 1930s, or even the early 1980s.

These mavericks do not share the view that we are in for a long, deep recession. The note, for example, that highly regarded money manager John Paulson (no relation to Hank) has begun purchasing mortgage-backed debt securities--after making billions last year by betting against subprime mortgages. They are predicting that the slide will abate by mid-2009, and a slow recovery begin later that year, or by early in 2010.

The second oddity is the beginning of a fight-back against the idea that there is no limit to what governments can and must spend to turn things around. The leaders of the G20 nations left Washington pleased with themselves for pledging to put together stimulus packages, financed in most cases by large increases in borrowing and deficits. And such fiscal loosening--spending and borrowing in the tradition of John Maynard Keynes (everyone seems to know what the great and highly pragmatic economist would recommend in current circumstances)--is surely the course many countries will follow.

But a funny thing happened on the way to unlimited spending. In Britain, the pound began to buckle under the weight of increased deficits, and the Tories found their nerve, arguing that any increase in spending should be offset by cuts in some government programs.