The U.S. economy has been amazingly resilient over the past twelve months. If presented with the scenario of collapsing real estate prices, oil at $140 per barrel, gasoline prices in excess of $4.00 per gallon, and hundreds of billions of dollars of charge offs in the financial sector of the economy, with many of the largest financial companies brought to their knees, most economists would have predicted a fairly severe recession. At the moment, we appear to have escaped a sharp downturn. Economic growth has decelerated, but remains positive at this point in time. However, economic recessions seem notoriously difficult to call and we may find that once economic data is revised, a recession is already underway.