The data generally seem to agree with them. In recent years the U.S. economy has managed to shrug off internal and external shocks, and it is showing every sign of powering through both tax increases and sequestration. The private sector has created nearly 7 million jobs since early 2010. The U.S. economic engine may be revving in a low gear, but it’s not in neutral or reverse, as most developed economies are. And economists have been ratcheting up their growth forecasts for 2014. “When the facts change, I change my mind,” economist John Maynard Keynes is believed to have said. Some economic thinkers, following suit, have reacted to the changing facts by changing their minds too.

That’s where Mosaic comes in. Essentially, it’s crowdsourcing investments for small-scale solar projects, like a Kickstarter for green energy. But it isn’t seeking donations, and it’s not offering silly rewards like tote bags or invitations to launch parties. Rather, it’s offering fixed financial returns, much like a corporate bond, or a bond backed by a mortgage. It’s an example of financial engineering meeting electrical engineering. “Our mission is to create shared prosperity through clean energy,” said Mosaic’s CEO Dan Rosen. “We see a huge opportunity for transitioning our world to clean energy ahead of us and we want to make it possible for communities to prosper from this massive transformation.”

When you construct a solar energy system, you’re basically constructing a stream of income that will flow over a period of many years. But you need a lot of money up front in order to build it. Mosaic is trying to bridge that gap. Among the many models being used to finance solar development is one in which a company builds and owns the solar array on the roof of another company’s store, or a government building, or a public agency, and then agrees to sell the power to the building owner at a fixed price for a long period of time. Mosaic is in the business of providing financing to the people who build the arrays. It raises funds not from venture capitalists or banks, but from individuals. And as the solar array owner receives revenue, it pays back the loan that Mosaic made. Mosaic then makes payments back to its investors. (Here’s a brief description of how it works.)

Started in 2011, and based in Oakland, Mosaic did a bunch of pilot projects in California—like putting 120 panels on the Asian Resource Center in Oakland, California. Then at the beginning of this year, it launched real projects, like one in which 293 investors kicked in $95,275 (that’s an average of $325) to build a 78 kilowatt installation on an affordable housing project in Salinas, California.

To learn about Mosaic in more detail, I opened an account. Most of the projects are available only to investors who live in California. But some are available for people out of state. So I was eligible to buy a piece of a $350,000 loan backing a 487-kilowatt, 1,694-panel system that was constructed on a convention center in Wildwood, New Jersey, and went into operation last year. The promised return: 4.5 percent interest, and the return of principal over a 114-month period.

The spending side was a little different. In general, the trend so far this year has been for spending to be down a bit, thanks to the sequester, and less spending on defense and unemployment benefits. But there was a wrinkle in May. As Treasury noted, “since June 1, 2013, the normal date for these expenditures fell on a non-business day, outlays for military active duty and retirement, Veterans’ benefits, Supplemental Security Income and Medicare payments to Health Maintenance Organizations moved to May 31, 2013.” As a result, spending for the month rose sharply from last year, to $335.9 billion, up 10 percent. Thus far this year, spending is up about 1 percent.

So what makes this a golden age? Well, according to Thomas Simons of Jefferies & Co., without the shift in spending, “the [May] deficit would have been approximately $103 billion.” That’s significantly lower than the $124.6 billion deficit reported in May 2012.

Next, consider that for the next four months, assuming no big shocks or great changes, the government will essentially break even. That hasn’t been done in well over a decade. In the first eight months of the fiscal year the deficit was $626 billion, down about 25 percent from the first eight months of fiscal 2012. But the Congressional Budget Office is predicting that’s all the red ink we’ll print this fiscal year. It is projecting the deficit for the entire fiscal year will be $642 billion.

Why? Well, as the economy continues to expand, revenues will continue to rise and spending will fall. The government often reports smaller monthly surpluses, and occasionally surpluses, in June and September, as people and companies make quarterly payments. But it will likely come in with a big surplus this June, in part because some spending that usually takes place in June was pushed into May and in part because Treasury is anticipating a humongous $59 billion dividend from the government-owned mortgage company Fannie Mae. Combined with an anticipated surplus in September, the gusher of revenues anticipated in June will more than wipe out the anticipated deficits for July and August.

Chobani has also overturned some long-held prejudices about the American consumer. For decades, Pepsico, Coca-Cola, General Mills, and Kraft have pushed processed, sugary, unhealthy junk into grocery stores because they think that’s what American palates demand. And then they watch, at first in bemusement and later in alarm, as niche, higher-quality products go mainstream and gain mass. It happened with Sam Adams beer, Starbucks coffee, and Chipotle fast food. Now it’s happening with Chobani. Greek yogurt—essentially, thicker, strained yogurt—offers a lot of protein without much cholesterol or many carbs. And because the process removes the sour watery material, it has a milder taste than other yogurts. “Chobani figured out that if they made it thicker, that people would like it better. And they did it without adding sugar,” said Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of nutrition who is frequently a harsh critic of the packaged-food industry. “Even Stonyfield,” the organic-yogurt pioneer, “has added an awful lot of sugar to make it more palatable. So lots of applause for these guys.” With annual sales of more than $1 billion, Chobani is the leading Greek yogurt brand in the U.S. And it has a healthy chunk of the market for all types of yogurt; in the 12 months that ended in April 2013, Nielsen says all yogurt sales totaled nearly $6.1 billion.

Ulukaya talks about his company in organic terms. When entrepreneurs start businesses, they tap into their own natural resources. “What you brought wasn’t the money or the clothes, you brought what you learned from your culture. Mine was learning from my father how he dealt with the business, and the products which he loved. That’s my seed,” he says. “But this is an amazing soil in which that seed can grow.” We’re sitting in Hamdi’s office—everyone calls him by his first name—at Chobani’s plant in New Berlin, New York. His office is spare—there are no deal-commemorating Lucite plaques or glory photos of him with big shots, just some dairy-themed pictures, a few pieces of basic office furniture that could have come from Ikea, a white lab coat for when he goes into the production facilities. Ulukaya, 41, is trim. He arrives with two big German shepherds, who loudly lap up water as we speak. He wears jeans and a little red bracelet with the Turkish blue eye good-luck symbol. With his salt-and-pepper beard, angular nose, and expressive eyes, he’s an unlikely industrialist.

Ulukaya is a transplant from his native soil of Ilic, a town of fewer than 1,000 people in the Kurdish region of Anatolia, some 400 miles east of Ankara, where his family tended sheep and made cheese and yogurt. One of seven brothers, Ulukaya came to the U.S. in 1994 to learn English. He studied at Baruch College and Adelphi University, and after visiting a nephew in Albany, took to the rolling hills of upstate New York, which reminded him of home. At SUNY Albany, assigned to write an essay about making something, he wrote what he knew: making feta cheese. Impressed, the professor invited him to come work on her farm.

When Hamdi’s father came to visit, the dutiful son tried to find the best feta cheese to serve. When his father complained of the quality and said Hamdi could do better, he started Euphrates, which makes cow’s milk feta and sells it to wholesalers. With limited business experience, and no mentors, Ulukaya figured out things by trial and error—making the cheese, hiring people, loading the product into a beat-up car and driving around the East Coast to find customers. “I think that the two years from 2002 to 2004 was the most difficult time of my life,” he said. “After two years, it started to stabilize on a small scale, but at least I could breathe.”

But government contracting is a different ballgame. When a company screws up, the government delivers a slap on the wrist—and then awards the company with new contracts. Based on recent history, investors could be forgiven for having a blasé attitude about Booz Allen’s prospects. Overcharging and being overbudget on high-profile fighter contracts hasn’t stopped Lockheed Martin from getting lucrative new high-profile contracts. A 2011 government report found that Boeing overcharged the Army for spare helicopter parts; This morning, Boeing announced it received a $4 billion contract to make helicopters for the Army.

Halliburton and its subsidiaries had a series of problems providing services in Iraq. But the revelations didn’t sink its stock. And in 2010 its subsidiary KBR got a fat no-bid contract to provide services in Iraq.

The reality is that these contractors have become, in effect, arms of the government. The national-security and defense apparatus needs them to carry out essential operations as much as the private companies need their federal benefactor to deliver returns to the shareholder. Government agencies these days simply lack the resources, permissions, and wherewithal to hire all the people they need to conduct operations. Using contractors is a necessity.

On the one hand, it is a fiercely competitive industry in which big firms compete with one another. On the other hand, the fix is in. The government spreads its contracts around between large companies. Small businesses and start-ups have a tough time competing for the biggest of the contracts. And there is a limited number of domestic large players, especially in sensitive defense areas. Lobbying also plays an important role. Big contractors hire lobbyists, make campaign donations, and advertise in the publications that politicos read—all in an effort to work the system to their disadvantage.

What? The state Senate has passed a measure that would single out hybrid and electric car drivers for special treatment. (The House will consider the measure but hasn’t acted yet.) Here’s the reasoning. The state relies on gas taxes to fund highway construction. But gas consumption has been falling, in part because the American auto fleet has been getting more efficient. In effect, people who drive cars that get 50 miles per gallon are contributing only half as much to the upkeep of roads as people who drive cars that get 25 miles per gallon. And so the North Carolina Senate is suggesting that people who drive hybrids pay an extra $50 for the annual registration fee, and that folks who drive all-electric cars pay an extra $100. This Prius tax would raise about $1.5 million each year.

Of course, the government is punishing people who are making more efficient use of a polluting, scarce, and expensive energy source. But even if it were a good to punish efficiency, North Carolina would be missing the target by taxing only hybrids and electric cars. There has been a quiet revolution in the American (and international) auto industry in recent years. Thanks to innovations in materials, engines, and transmission systems, consumers now have a dozens of high-mileage vehicles to choose from: electric cars, hybrids, and plain old sedans and coupes. The manual Dodge Dart, for example, gets 39 miles per gallon. The 2014 Chevrolet Cruze Eco that runs on diesel will get 47 miles per gallon. In fact, there are plenty of hybrids on the market that get worse mileage than regular vehicles. The Ford Escape hybrid gets about 30 miles per gallon on the highway. The Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid gets only 23 miles per gallon on the highway. The drivers of those hybrids are already paying their fair share for the upkeep of the state’s roads.

If the principle is that those who use less gas to get around should pay a disproportionate amount of tax, then the legislature should single out anyone who drives a car that gets above a certain number of miles per gallon. Or they could go the route of taxing people based on usage—effectively, a toll for the number of miles you drive.

North Carolina’s beef, it turns out, isn’t really with hybrids. It’s with more fuel-efficient cars, or, as others might describe it, with progress.

The value proposition of Booz and others is that it is supposed to carry out many functions that governments used to—for less money and hassle while ensuring superior performance and impeccable security. In its most recently concluded fiscal year, it collected $5.76 billion in revenue and reported a healthy operating profit of $446 million. After paying $149 million in income taxes, it was left with net income of $219 million.

Essentially, Booz Allen is a conduit for taxpayer money to contractors, shareholders, and employees, many of whom, like Snowden, are highly paid. The Guardian pegged his salary at $200,000. According to the company’s proxy filing, CEO Ralph Shrader earned a $1,162,500 salary last year, plus nearly $2 million in stock awards and other compensation.

To a large degree, Booz Allen Hamilton is a low-risk, high-reward type of business. It doesn’t assume all that much financial risk. And it doesn’t have to worry too much about collecting its bills. Its main client, the government, isn’t in danger of going bankrupt.

Why? First, exports are rising. Even though America tends to get down on itself, the U.S. is in fact a global export powerhouse. The megatrend of continuing global growth has translated into rising demand for American-made planes and grains, and for American hotel and dormitory rooms. U.S. exports rose 4.6 percent in 2012 to a record $2.2 trillion. Through the first four months of 2013, even with the global economy slowing, exports are still up 2 percent.

That’s one side. The other side, of course, is imports. The U.S. doesn’t so much have a trade problem as it has a China-and-oil trade problem. We have a big trade deficit because we import a lot of stuff from China and a lot of oil to feed our transportation and industrial complexes. In 2011 the U.S. imported $250 billion of petroleum products and exported $68 billion of petroleum products, leaving a deficit of $184 billion in that sector.

But something has happened in the past few years. There has been a quiet, unappreciated revolution in energy production and consumption. Domestic energy production, especially oil production, is booming. Thanks to developments like the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and the use of fracking to get at oil all over the country, the U.S. in 2012 produced 28 percent more oil than it did in 2007, and more than it has in any year since 1995.

If demand was simply staying constant, we’d have a lot less use for imported oil. But domestic demand for petroleum, and for gasoline in particular, is falling. We’ve written before about the revolution in efficiency for automobiles. Beyond marketing hybrids and electric cars, automakers have been making a concerted and successful effort to boost the efficiency of new vehicles. And so as the American auto fleet slowly turns over, it gets more efficient. According to researchers at the University of Michigan, the average mileage of the fleet sold in May was 24.8 miles per gallon, a modern-day record, and up more than 20 percent from late 2008. Meanwhile, school buses, trucking fleets, and delivery vehicles are being converted to run on compressed natural gas. And with every day, smart, stylish people are seeking nonpetroleum alternatives, from trains to bike sharing.

Well, maybe.

Look at what Tesla is up to. The electric sportscar manufacturer has been on something of a tear—notching its first profit, ramping up production, and paying back the big government loan it took.

The high price of the Tesla Model S—about $60,000—is inhibiting more widespread adoption. But the more practice it gets making cars, and the more volume ramps up, the greater the ability to cut prices. This week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company is aiming to produce a version of the Tesla that would retail for about $30,000 in “probably three to five years.” 

Meanwhile, other electric and plug-in hybrid makers aren’t sitting still. With the advent of the Nissan Leaf, the Chevrolet Volt, the Tesla, and plug-in hybrids from Toyota and Ford, there are now more than a handful of cars on the market that rely in part, or entirely, on electricity. (Cadillac appears to be joining the fray as well.) And as they ramp up production and fight with each other for customers, they are effectively lowering the price of the vehicles.

I’ve been excited about the prospect of bike sharing for a while. My office is on the far west side of Manhattan, not particularly close to any subway station, and adjacent to the unobstructed bike path that goes along the West Side Highway. A bike-sharing system would offer a way to shorten the trek to and from Grand Central Station, whence my train departs, all while getting some exercise, avoiding expensive cabs, and being carbon-free.

I signed up in early May—$95 for an annual membership—and received my key last week. On CNBC yesterday I showed it to the skeptical New Jersey–based hosts.

On Monday the bike-sharing system was opened to annual members like me. So this morning I gave it a trial run. As my train rolled into Grand Central at about 7:15, I opened up the free app on my (natch!) iPhone and found there was a station at 43rd Street and Vanderbilt, just outside Grand Central, with several bikes available, and that the docking station across from my building on 18th Street and 11th Avenue had several open slots.

Corporate America has never been more profitable or had more cash. It dominates labor, bosses around the political system, and manipulates the tax code the way Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello. Corporate profits have soared from $1.1 trillion in 2008 to $1.95 trillion in 2012—up 77 percent. The amount of cash on companies’ books has risen from $1.39 trillion in 2008 to $1.79 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2012—also a record. The stock market has more than doubled since March 2009.

And yet this spring, a set of seemingly unconnected events—the unmasking of America’s most admired company as a serial tax avoider, the collapse of a factory in Bangladesh, empty aisles and falling profits at America’s largest retailer, the relentless prosecutorial pursuit of hedge-fund titan Steven Cohen—shows that businesspeople can, and often do, take things too far. In other words, it seems that corporate America may be in danger of becoming too brutally efficient for its own good.

The story of Cook’s testimony on the Hill crystallizes the ways in which that single-minded pursuit might endanger even a strong brand such as Apple, which otherwise epitomizes the socially progressive Silicon Valley ethos. (Cook has let it be known that he has a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. on his wall.) But then Apple also epitomizes the profit-at-all-costs mentality that drives technology leaders today.

Musk responded, on Twitter, with a mixture of sincerity and snark: “As many have already noted, @Chrysler is a division of Fiat, an Italian company. We specifically said first *US* company.”

And then: “More importantly, @Chrysler failed to pay back $1.3B. Apart those 2 points, you were totally 1st.”

Oh, snap.

Tesla’s taunting of other car companies wasn’t confined to Twitter. Check out the company’s press release announcing the payment: “Following this payment, Tesla will be the only American car company to have fully repaid the government,” the company said. Tesla noted that the program under which it received the credit, the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program, was created by President Bush in 2008. “This program is often confused with the financial bailouts provided to the then bankrupt GM and Chrysler, who were ineligible for the ATVM program, because a requirement of that program was good financial health.”

This has been going on for a while. When General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt was named head of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness in 2011, critics on the left and right made hay over the company’s feeble tax contribution. Immelt’s tenure on the Jobs Council ended with a whimper, and it’s unlikely that Eric Schmidt and Tim Cook will be more effective as voices for tax reform. These esteemed CEOs have lost sight of a simple truth. In the corporate world, paying taxes may make you a chump, but in the public world, it makes you a citizen. And it is citizenship—not title or money—that gives you the right to be heard.

While noting the positive developments, Bernanke said the economy is still sort of meh. So what’s the problem? In a word: government. I’ve noted that we are living in a Golden Age of Deficit Reduction™—the combination of higher taxes, the end of the payroll-tax holiday, the sequester, and growth are helping to bring down the deficit rapidly. The Congressional Budget Office now projects the fiscal 2013 deficit will be $642 billion, down $441 billion, or 41 percent from $1.089 trillion in fiscal 2012. That’s huge. But it may be too much, too soon.

Indeed, Bernanke complained that fiscal policy was dampening growth. First, for the last few years, state and local governments, which have to balance budgets every year, have been hacking spending and employment. “Notably, over the past four years, state and local governments have cut civilian government employment by roughly 700,000 jobs, and total government employment has fallen by more than 800,000 jobs over the same period,” Bernanke noted. I’ve dubbed this the “conservative recovery,” since all the jobs growth has come from the private sector. That’s not how it usually goes, even when Republicans are in the White House. Bernanke: “For comparison, over the four years following the trough of the 2001 recession, total government employment rose by more than 500,000 jobs.”

Now that states are doing much better, with many sporting surpluses, the job carnage is ending. But if it’s not one thing, it’s another.  While states may be loosening up, Bernanke noted, “at the same time, though, fiscal policy at the federal level has become significantly more restrictive. In particular, the expiration of the payroll-tax cut, the enactment of tax increases, the effects of the budget caps on discretionary spending, the onset of the sequestration, and the declines in defense spending for overseas military operations are expected, collectively, to exert a substantial drag on the economy this year.” How much? Bernanke noted that “the deficit-reduction policies in current law will slow the pace of real GDP growth by about 1 1/2 percentage points during 2013, relative to what it would have been otherwise.” That doesn’t sound like much. But 1.5 percent of GDP represents more than $200 billion in economic activity.

Congress, of course, is the main culprit here. But the White House is complicit as well. So too are the professional deficit hawks, who, having failed to encourage a grand bargain, continue to advocate for more cuts in the face of massive deficit reduction. Bernanke suggested that Congress ease up on the whole budget-cutting thing. The U.S. still has long-term issues, Bernanke noted, but that’s no reason to let the sequester continue. To boost short-term growth and ward off giant long-term deficits, “the Congress and the administration could consider replacing some of the near-term fiscal restraint now in law with policies that reduce the federal deficit more gradually in the near term but more substantially in the longer run.”