Absolutely. Where have you been for the last 9 years?
As some of us like to say, Paul Krugman has predicted 9 out of the last 1 recessions.
The media and like-minded pundits were aggressively cheering for a downturn since 2003. They finally got one in 2008. It's not all that hard, really; just a case of convincing enough people that even though they and everyone around them might be doing okay, somebody somewhere else they they don't know may not be.
Now, trying to do the same for a boom (as they've been trying for the last 3 years now; "Recovery Summer III" wasn't any better than I or II) is much more difficult. It's much more difficult to convince people that things are looking up when everybody is or personally knows someone who is unemployed, underemployed, or has just given up.
