Wednesday was a bad day for global markets. Or was it?

Although it felt terrible to see stocks down so much in one day, the reality is that they fell back only to where they were about 10 days ago, and the market didn't seem so bad then. In fact, it felt pretty good at that point, with stocks more than 6% off their bottom in early July.

There's debate over what triggered the selloff, as there always is when the market makes a big move. A lot of people blame the Federal Reserve for bad-mouthing the economy in the statement following Tuesday's Federal Open Market Committee meeting. That makes no sense to me. The Fed just said what everyone can plainly see: The economy isn't growing as fast as it was earlier in the year. If that's true, then it's good for the Fed to say it because that means the deceleration will guide its decisions.

I think the selloff was more about Europe. Before U.S. markets opened Wednesday, a lot of bad news came out of the Continent, which reignited fears of possible defaults in Greece and other poorer nations. That's ironic because in the otherwise gloomy FOMC statement, the Fed removed a sentence from the previous meeting's statement on concern over European risks to credit markets.

On Wednesday, Greece reported a horrible gross domestic product number, down almost 6% in the second quarter on an annualized basis. At almost the same moment, the new parliament of Slovakia voted not to participate in the European Union's rescue fund for Greece. It's not that little Slovakia makes such a difference -- it's that this was the first sign of disunity within Europe's resolve to step up to the plate and help Greece and, implicitly, any other nation that may need it.

So take your choice of explanation. Either way, the selloff was a case of "here we go again." Another credit panic. Another round of paranoia about economic growth.

I don't mean to dismiss these things lightly, but emotions get in the way here. They keep investors from making profitable decisions.

First, let's talk about the economy. Obviously, we're not experiencing a lot of growth. This isn't what we're used to in America, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're in a recession, or about to enter one -- the second round of a so-called "double dip."

A lot of people seem to think that if the economy is shooting higher, it has a natural tendency to fall and that the absence of strong growth itself implies the inevitability of outright contraction. I don't think that's right at all. The natural tendency of the economy is to grow, not shrink. People want to work. They want to make money. They want to be innovative. They want to take care of their families. All these common normal motivations are what make the economy tend to naturally grow, unless something intervenes to hold it back.

In 2008, a lot of stuff intervened. A global banking crisis and oil prices near $150 a barrel were a double death-blow, and a deep recession naturally followed. Now, we're picking up the pieces after that scary experience, and the fear we still feel is holding things back. But does that mean another recession? I don't see why it should.

We may have to get used to something highly unusual in modern American life -- a couple years where not much happens. Not a recession, but not an expansion, either. I call it an "expansionless recovery."

Maybe it's a little like what Japan has been through over the last decade. That sounds terrible, right? The conventional wisdom is that Japan has had a "lost decade" -- that it's been in what amounts to permanent recession, and that it's being dragged down by persistent deflation.

That is a myth. Japan has had a touch of deflation -- less than half a percent a year from the 1998 peak in its consumer price index. That's about as close to "price stability" as any modern nation has ever achieved.

Around here we're used to inflation of 2% to 3% a year, and if we don't get it, we think something's wrong. But that's just what we're used to. Wouldn't you rather have stable prices like in Japan, than constantly inflating prices like the U.S. usually has?

And it's not like Japan hasn't had any growth over the last year. In fact, over the last ten years, adjusted for population, growth in Japan has been identical to growth in the U.S. On the surface, it seems that the U.S. has grown more, but that's an illusion -- it's just that our population has grown more. And yet we call it a "lost decade" for Japan. That's just not right.

So how about the threats in Europe that arose on Wednesday? They're real threats. I'm not saying something terrible couldn't happen there. But it probably won't.

In early May, the nations of Europe got together and committed, with the International Monetary Fund, to a $1 trillion bailout fund. Unless you think that's just a lie, then what is there to worry about, really?

Instead of worrying about recession, we ought to be worrying about what we can do to remove impediments to growth. Take those impediments away, and growth will happen. What would I do to achieve that?

For me, the big impediment is FUD -- fear, uncertainty and doubt. Here's how we can de-FUD the economy.

First, the Fed should stop saying that interest rates will stay at zero for an "extended period," as they've done for the last year and a half. No one knows what an "extended period" is, so that breeds uncertainty. The Fed should say that rates will be zero for at least a year, or at least 18 months -- let's put a number on it, guys! Don't keep us guessing.

Second, Congress should immediately freeze U.S. tax rates where they are now, so that we don't have to worry about what will happen next year, when the Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire. It's bad enough to have tax rates rise -- but it's a killer to not know for sure one way or the other. Let's kill two birds with one stone by eliminating the uncertainty, and keeping rates from rising.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Just stop and imagine how different the world would feel if you didn't have to worry about tax rates or interest rates! That tells you that there's nothing so terribly wrong with the economy, per se. We just need to eliminate the FUD. Then the economy will take care of itself very nicely, thank you.