I got an e-mail from a reader the other day that really bothered me. A former investigative journalist worried about where the world was heading, she sent me a list of concerns, backed up with citations from more or less reputable sources.

The concerns themselves were nothing unusual—the U.S. debt and deficit, America’s position in the world, the status of the dollar. What struck me was the writer’s absolute conviction that the entire financial/economic system is broken.

In my post on Friday, I noted that employment is, in many ways, approaching boom times. Although it’s not there yet—the proportion of part-time jobs and the level of high-paying jobs continue to be concerns—employment is moving in the right direction and doing so at an increasing rate.

The missing piece here has been wage inflation. If things are so good, why aren’t we all making more money?

For some reason, when things are good—and they are—I start thinking about the next set of problems. Call it the Eeyore mindset, or just a deep need to try and see around the corner. This gets me into trouble sometimes, as I usually identify five out of every three problems that show up. But to the extent that it lets me think through issues before they become urgent, it’s usually a helpful tendency.

Based on the retail sales data that came out yesterday, it’s time to take a serious look at the prospect that U.S. economic growth is slowing down.

I’m not suggesting that we’re moving back into a recession—just that growth is quite possibly slowing below expectations, and an acceleration may not be coming any time soon. We need to consider why that might be.

Every year or so, I do a postmortem of my analyses and predictions in order to figure out where I was wrong, and how to avoid making those mistakes in the future—a useful, albeit uncomfortable, exercise. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in the past decade has been to underestimate the power of governments to influence markets.

A major demographic transition is under way in the U.S., with the baby boom generation aging into retirement as the millennials (or echo boomers) start to enter their prime earning and spending years. This is a well-known story, but lately I’ve been thinking about a worrying new take on it.

Today, I want to revisit a post I wrote just over two years ago. I’ve updated some of the data, but the concerns and the conclusions remain timely. In keeping with one of my recurring themes, this is also an example of how rising interest rates won’t mark the end of the world but, rather, a return to a more normal environment.

I closed yesterday’s post with the thought that, based on positive U.S. economic trends, we should now be planning for the problems of success. Sure enough, the economic data released yesterday highlighted a big one: inflation, with the monthly increase in the Consumer Price Index topping 0.4 percent.

Both Greece and yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting are in the news today, but nothing particularly new or significant is happening in either case. The Fed will or won’t raise rates in September, and Greece will or won’t default at the end of the month. There’s not much else to discuss right now.

Instead, let’s raise our eyes a bit and look at the big picture. The ongoing narrative about the U.S. economy is that it continues to struggle, and the future is uncertain. I’m becoming increasingly dissatisfied with that view, as it doesn’t capture the good news and trends we’re now seeing.

I started this blog three years ago today, on June 10, 2012. At a guess, I’ve written almost 800 posts, including links to media appearances and monthly videos. That’s about 400,000–500,000 words on the economy, the markets, and, of course, lobster rolls.