Jake
I am truly glad you can be optimistic and not cynical about economic experts efforts to extricate this country from the economic mess we're in. They say for every economist theres a different opinion - and whilst it may not be quite that bad theres a lot of disagreement among them over what to do. Even the governer of the Bank of England and our government disagree !
I find all this "expert " disagreement the most frightening thing. All these professional experts - economists, politicians and bankers etc. - yet we're in the biggest economic mess since the great depression or maybe ever.
Economics is an imprecise science which deals with human economic / financial behaviours which are not always that predictable. Arent a load of economic experts blaming the ultimate expert - the economic guru, Alan Greenspan - for his failure to forsee and therefore prevent the very deep USA/global economic crisis arising and developing. Indeed I think I've heard he now blames himself to some extent.
Gordon "prudence" Brown, the ultimate iron chancellor, claimed repeatedly that he had ended boom and bust - enough said.
From all I've heard and seen its far more logical to be cynical and pessimistic than optimistic - that includes anything that's being done to control inflation/deflation including Quantative Easing. Inspite of the theory of how QE will work to save us - based on the "expert" proficiency over the last years - unlike youself, I wouldnt bet on it. I sense from what I see and hear inflation is still with us and likely to rise to well above 2% target - although I feel hyperinflation is extremely unlikely - touch wood !
I do very much hope Im wrong and everything shapes up as smoothly as you appear to suggest - but i am absolutely sure there is no certainty about when and if we will get back to economic "normality"