America enters 2015 with more momentum than it has had since 2007. Hopefully, our fire power can pull the rest of the world out of its doldrums. Despite this week’s plunge in the stock markets, let me share with you why I am so positive.

A survey by Economist magazine showed that most experts expect the U.S. economy to grow 3 percent this year.

Job growth is accelerating. Non-farm employment grew faster in 2014 than in any year since the 1990s. Unemployment has fallen to 5.8 percent.

The Federal Reserve can continue its easy monetary policy because inflation remains low. In October, Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen told reporters that she would like to see unemployment fall further because it might nudge wages and prices higher.

The Federal Reserve might not raise interest rates until later this year. According to Fed projections released Dec. 17, it now thinks inflation will be 1.3 percent in 2015. Inflation is not expected to reach its 2 percent target before 2018.

Hou sehold spending, the most important component of demand, grew 4 percent or more in the fourth quarter of 2014, according to Morgan Stanley.

Med ian household real income was up 1.2 percent for the first 11 months of 2014, according to Sentier Research, a private firm. This contrasts starkly with our experience between 2008 and 2011 when median incomes dropped 8 percent.

Con sumer sentiment in December was more positive, according to the University of Michigan.

Investors remain buoyant. The average 2015 forecast of 15 top Wall Street strategists is for a roughly 6 percent gain in the S&P 500 to 2,220.

The big drop in the price of oil, from $110 per barrel in June 2014 to close to $50 now, enables Americans to spend more money on other things. “It would not be surprising for U.S. consumers to save $50 (billion) to $75 billion on gasoline in 2015 if prices remain low,” said Michael Green, a AAA spokesman.

The weak global economy is not likely to derail the U.S. economy because only 13 percent of it is based on exports.

There are concerns

What are my areas of concern?

The dollar has risen to its highest level against major currencies since September 2003. This poses risks to America’s manufacturing and tourism sectors. A stronger dollar makes everything from hotel accommodations to restaurant meals more expensive for foreign tourists. They spend about $200 billion a year here, according to the World Bank.

The dollar’s gain reflects concerns about weakness in China, Europe and Japan, which could become a drag on U.S. growth.

But the U.S. has weathered global weakness before, and international turmoil has a history of denting U.S. growth but not stopping it.

Plunging oil prices, while good for consumers and their spending power, will slow economic growth in the petroleum sector. Energy companies are cutting drilling plans and laying off workers. The five largest energy-producing states accounted for about 25 percent of our gross domestic product growth in 2014.

Housing remains weak, primarily for two reasons. First, tight credit makes it difficult for many Americans to get mortgages. Second, households are forming at an unusually low rate. After the Great Recession, many young people kept living in their parents’ homes or crowded into apartments.

I have personal reasons to applaud a robust U.S. economy. I started writing my column for the Herald-Tribune in March 2008, the month Bear Stearns failed. It would be nice to balance my inauspicious tenure.

As I write this, I am painfully aware of the stock market’s plunge. The stock market offers its predictions, and, occasionally, it’s even right.

As economist Paul Samuelson once put it: “The stock market has called nine of the last five recessions.”

Originally published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune