In the past couple of days, I’ve led a pretty optimistic quarterly call for investors, given a couple of pretty optimistic TV interviews, and written some fairly optimistic pieces here on the blog. Although I stand by all of my statements, it occurs to me that, for someone known as Eeyore, I’ve displayed an unusual amount of optimism lately.

Today, America carried out the peaceful transition of power that is at the heart of our democracy—except that we don’t actually have a democracy but a republic. In a democracy, the people make the decisions. In a republic, they elect representatives who make the decisions for them. This is a subtle but important difference, and one that represents a very deliberate decision by the founders, who distrusted popular sentiment.

Recently, several readers have written in questioning the current optimism about the economy. Is it sustainable, and is it realistic to expect faster growth?

Now that the election is over and the Republican Congress has taken office, now that the stock market is close to all-time highs and confidence has ramped up to levels not seen since the dot-com boom, it’s time to think about what could go wrong.

Looking ahead into 2017, one big theme that will carry over from last year is the positive change in confidence. Consumer confidence has increased dramatically, especially since the election, and just spiked to a point last seen in 2001. Business confidence continues to rise and is now at a level not seen since 2007.

I usually begin thinking about my economic forecast for the next year around the third quarter. At that point, the current year is largely on the books, and we know enough to start looking ahead a bit.

As I mentioned last week, Donald Trump’s administration could have a number of positive effects on the U.S. economy. With government spending growth set to ramp up—and taxes and regulations set to be cut—you can almost see a potential boom forming. It could be a good couple of years to come.

As predicted, the world did not end upon Donald Trump’s election to the presidency. In fact, from an economic and market perspective, it has appeared to be good news, at least so far. Of course, it’s still early days, and the question now is, What happens next?

We woke up this morning to a new era.

For the past several years, the United States has had either a Democrat-controlled government or a divided government. As a result of yesterday’s vote, Republicans will soon control the presidency, the Senate, and the House.

It’s finally Election Day, the moment when all the sound and fury comes down to one thing: a voter, standing in a booth, making a decision about how he or she envisions the future. Everything up until now has been so much noise, but this is what matters.