Don't Be Too Pessimistic About the Financial Crisis

"The most dangerous words in investing are: 'This time it's different.'"

- the late John Templeton

Usually, investors are warned against excessive optimism during bull markets, but Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard recently had a column where he cautioned against excess pessimism in bear markets.

He went on to write about 1975. At that time, even Berkshire Hathaway stock had been cut in half. New York City was almost bankrupt, and the mood was extremely pessimistic.

As we all know, New York City and Warren Buffett recovered just fine.

Then, as a further mood lifter, Karlgaard mentioned a long list of successful companies that were started during hard economic times:

1. General Electric - one year before the Panic of 1893

2. Disney - the recession of 1923-24

3. Hewlett-Packard - 1939

4. Hyatt - the recession of 1957-58

5. Intel - 1968 (year of assassinations and political upheaval)

6. FedEx - launched during the Arab oil embargo of 1973

7. Microsoft - 1975

8. Apple and Genentech - 1976

9. Wikipedia - 2001