The Eurozone’s leaders still haven’t managed to pull out a workable deal for the single currency, and the group or 17 countries is perilously close to technical recession. Britain’s RPI inflation index has just blipped back up to 3.2% – an ominous sign, by the way, at a time when oil prices have been subdued – and George Osborne has been told by the IMF that his severe austerity programme is throttling our chances of recovery. America’s blissful return to spend-spend-spend is clearly flying in the face of the fiscal disaster that still awaits at the end of this year, if and when President Obama’s automatic budget-slashing regime comes into force. And so forth.

But the last few days have posed some genuine questions for the pessimists to answer. The Footsie’s close on Thursday was 11% up on the start of June, and the battered FTSE Eurofirst 300 was a full 16% up. (Although admittedly still 32% down on its all-time high of 1611 in May 2007.) And yes, the gold price is showing no signs of heading for the $2,000 mark that so many have been predicting. Its dawdling around $1,600 since May is a clear enough proof that nobody is in panic mode.

Ah yes, say the pessimists, but is that enough? Consider, for instance, the fate of Facebook, whose shares have just dropped below $20 after the expiry of the deadline that prevented IPO purchasers from selling. Many of them are nursing 50% losses. And could it be that the main reason why mineral prices are still so subdued is that food prices in the developing world are expected to soar, thanks to climatic disruption and a lousy harvest? Surely that doesn’t point toward a resurgent Asian economy?