RALEIGH — With all the bad news about North Carolina’s economy over the past couple of years, one can get to feel downright gloomy. The national picture appears to be brightening a bit — helped along by the quick and relatively bloodless end of the Iraq war and the latest round of Bush tax cuts, both of which encouraged business confidence and investment by converting chaotic uncertainty into predictable and profitable risk (a key distinction that first made the late economist Frank Knight famous).

Still, our state can’t seem to get out of the doldrums. Being an optimistic sort, I’d like to see us collectively turn that frown upside down. And I know just how to do it. There’s an old notion in investment circles that the time to buy is when the news gets so bad that one cannot imagine it seeming worse. A turnaround must be in the offing.

Along those lines, we may have finally reached an inflection point in our state. After all, you can be sure that North Carolina has pretty much hit rock bottom when:

* The capital city newspaper runs a major front-page story on a Sunday suggesting that the state is running a “trade deficit” with the rest of the world. Yes, North Carolina’s manufacturing economy is ailing, but it is just plain silly to suggest that a single state’s economy has a trade surplus or deficit. It is too interrelated with business enterprises in other states. Indeed, many products shipped from other states may well have components from or are financed or serviced by North Carolina firms. If newspapers have to try this hard to sell bad news, maybe the worst is behind us.

Another indication that North Carolina has hit rock bottom is that:

* Kinston considers replacing its state-subsidized push for a Global TransPark with a new state-subsidized push to be the next Hollywood. Advocates of a regional commission for Down East moviemaking actually propose that the state train a cadre of writers, directors, and others to build the necessary capacity. You could keep the same initials: GTP (for North Carolina’s Grips & Techies Program).

And yet another sign of rock bottom status is that:

* Many state lawmakers apparently believe that creating a new state tax-credit program for sports arenas and other tourism projects will significantly expand the state’s economy. Yes, a private enterprise or even a single community might enjoy a net gain from a new attraction, but a large percentage of “out-of-town” visits to all but the most unique and popular national attractions are from relatively close by. An NBA arena for the new Bobcats franchise in Charlotte, for example, is a likely beneficiary of the grant program, and perhaps the most high-end attraction to be financed by it. Yet most of the business that will ever be generated by the arena will come from the Charlotte area and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the state (South Carolinians will come, too, but they’ll be strongly outnumbered).

I don’t agree with government subsidies of any such ventures, but at least they should be local subsidies. State subsidies will do little more than rearrange how consumers spend their money, with other entertainment choices in the state losing business as the arena gains it.

These and other trends suggest that it may be time to buy stock in North Carolina. Could things really get much worse?

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.