The world economy can shrug off the gloom that has engulfed stock markets and maintain a steady recovery through 2002 and 2003 with the help of low official interest rates, according to a Reuters survey.
"For the consumer, equities are terrible, house prices are good and job prospects are improving," said Mr Holger Schmieding at Bank of America. "It's not all doom and gloom. It's a mixed outlook but not a bad outlook."
That's partly because economists have also pushed back their forecasts for when the US Federal Reserve will start raising official interest rates, from round about now to the end of this year or even later.
Economists point out that the record-breaking bankruptcies that dominate the headlines and spook investors are deflecting attention from the many companies that have been making and selling more goods and services.
"Of course attention focuses on the big failures and not on the many companies that are scraping by," said Bank of America's Mr Schmieding. "They are now becoming more profitable and need to build up their stocks of goods again."
In the United States, there has also been a boost from tax cuts and higher public spending.
All that, plus "the fact that interest rates have stayed as low as they have and look like they're going to stay low for longer, is what ultimately will drive the economy," said Mr Trevor Williams at Lloyds TSB in London.
"The stock market doesn't drive the economy...What the economics are suggesting is that the stock markets at some stage will stop falling because there is value in some of these companies."