Positive thoughts about the economy? Really?

— -- It may be hard to believe, but the heretofore bumpy economic recovery is gaining momentum and is likely to deliver a positive surprise in 2012.

Though it's a still a contrarian view among economists, more are starting to profess optimism, abandoning the reflexive pessimism of recent years, when the economy often disappointed.

"People are primed for what's going to go wrong next," says Chris Rupkey of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, who's among the most optimistic. "Part of the problem is people think we're not back to where we were before the crisis, so they downgrade their forecast," he says. "I think we're working through this. There's no pushing us off the recovery track."

Comparisons with pre-recession numbers are both unrealistic and unwelcome, goes the thinking. For one, recoveries from financial crises are often long and difficult; second, some of the growth of the previous two decades was driven by excess leverage and speculation.

For instance, few expect the auto sector to sell 17 million vehicles a year, as it did for most of the 1999-2006 period, anytime soon. Auto sales, however, have rebounded strongly from the depths of the recession, when just 10.6 million vehicles were sold, and are expected to remain an area of growth in 2012, surpassing a projected rate of some 14 million in 2011.

"We know there was a bubble; it absorbed a lot of resources," says Ram Bhagavatula of the hedge fund Combinatorics Capital.

Economists like Rupkey and Bhagavatula are forecasting GDP growth of at least 3% in 2012, well above forecasts of the Federal Reserve (2.0%-2.5%) and Wall Street consensus (2.0%).

Such optimism may seem somewhat fanciful given the current environment. On the international front, there is trouble in the Europe's sovereign debt crisis and China's economic slowdown. Meanwhile, the U.S. faces its own potential debt explosion, and a host of lingering question marks, from jobs to housing to the consumer's balance sheet.

"We're still pretty cautious," says IHS Global Insight's Nigel Gault, echoing the common view. "We don't have enough domestic strength to really take off, and at the same time, the rest of the world is decelerating."

The optimists say fallout from Europe — and in a similar way, China — is less of a threat than widely perceived.

"People put a lot of stock in the financial market crisis and how it can bring down the real economy," says Rupkey. "It doesn't always happen. After October '87, it didn't happen, " he says, referring to the global stock market crash.

List Of Positives

Though the optimistic camp is apt to play down potential negatives, it's more likely to accentuate the positive forces behind an improving economy.

"There's a lot of pent-up demand," says Bhagavatula, who thinks growth could be as high as 4%. "People are starting to spend on the margins."

Rupkey, citing the Fed's most recent flow of funds survey, says consumers are spending more as the debt load eases.

Household debt service payments as a percentage of disposable personal income hit a new 27-year low in the third quarter, and at 4.82% are more than 25% less than the 2004 peak.

Mortgage debt and consumer credit also continue to shrink from 2007 highs.

Consumer spending is showing signs of life.

Retails sales in November were 6.7% higher than a year ago.