This recovery is different because it was spawned and subsequently nurtured on the back of asset appreciation alone. Greenspan and company have high hopes that investment and then employment will ultimately kick in and work their self-sustaining magic one more time, but jobs and investment these days go to Asia at the margin, and domestic animal spirits have been squelched by the looming inevitability of reduced returns on risk capital in a low interest rate world. I’ll leave the Asian story for another day or let you turn on CNN at 11:00pm EST to get your fill of Lou Dobbs – the Dobbsian spectre of foreign competition on the march is undeniably real. My point in this Outlook will be an extension of the thoughts expressed over the past few months that this recovery is on fragile legs because it is asset-appreciation-based and that future asset appreciation is vulnerable based on the weakening stimulative power of interest rates. Therein lies the potential for a white hot speculative blaze turning into a destructive recessionary fire. Such an analogy inevitably suggests that in future years, Rome, Georgia, may not be on fire, but burning.