Over the past two centuries, the American economy has gone through repeated up and down cycles. Sometimes these cycles have been dramatic, such as the Great Depression of the 1930s, the runaway inflationary spiral of the 1970s, and the deflation-inspired downturn since 2000. At other times, their impact has been so muted that their occurrence has gone virtually unnoticed. Most of these cycles fit somewhere in between these two extremes and have left a trail of fairly reliable business cycle patterns that have averaged about four years in length. This means that approximately every four years the economy has experienced a period of expansion, which is followed by a contraction or slowdown. Those slowdowns usually coincide with or follow dow....presidential cycle