Throughout most of this bull market, there has been too much panic. In the minds of investors, a return to the 2008 crisis or the second coming of the Great Depression was always just around the corner. In the last couple years, however, the U.S. economy has returned to full employment, the output gap has closed, real GDP growth has moved away from being stuck at slightly above 2% to perhaps trending closer to 3%, and the global economic recovery has synchronized in a positive way.