The quarterly "" by Financial Executives International and Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business released this week --- part of a series of surveys taken between July 8-24, and returned by 228 U.S. finance chiefs. (Italy also had 78 CFOs participate, and France 44, for a total of 350 on some questions.) The responses rolled in, of course, while the debate still was raging about the U.S. raising its national debt ceiling, and before the shock of the Standard & Poor's downgrade of the U.S. to AA+ from AAA. taken in July have had similar overall optimism or confidence results, although each survey picks different subtopics.

For the FEI/Baruch survey, overall index numbers showed a decline in optimism among U.S. CFOs from the previous quarter --- to 59.40 from 61.70 -- although the index number remained higher than their counterparts in Europe, where the dip was about the same degree.

When it came to evaluating their own companies, however, the CFO optimism level was much higher (72) and consistent with the prior quarter's.

And no wonder.

Over the next 12 months, U.S. CFOs said they were expecting an average 21% increase in net earnings, 11% in revenue, and 15% in their capital spending. (European CFOs anticipated increases in all those areas, as well, although they were more modest.)