There aren’t many in this WSJ piece, but I did one teeny one:

Companies, at least those outside of the banking and housing sectors, might also take some of the sting out of a recession. Their finances are in far better shape now than they were in 2001, and credit so far is still widely available. As they repaired their balance sheets in the wake of the 2001 recession, companies were also slower to hire than in past economic expansions. That may mean they won’t be able to cut jobs as deeply, saysGoldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius.

Robert Gordon, an economist at Northwestern University in Illinois who is also a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research committee that determines (usually long after the fact) when recessions begin, is hopeful that overseas growth may continue to bolster the U.S. economy. He notes that exports, which have been growing rapidly and account for more than twice as large a share of GDP as home construction does, will continue to post strong growth, easing the pain of the housing decline.

Still, he thinks a recession is probably coming and that the challenges facing consumers, in particular, are more severe than they were in the two previous downturns. In addition to the housing troubles and mortgage-market woes, higher food and energy costs are cutting into household budgets, he says.

“While energy is not as important a part of the consumer budget as it was in the ’70s — nor is food — nevertheless, the squeeze will push out consumption in everything else,” Mr. Gordon says. “Across the board, I think we’re going to have significant ongoing pressure in inflation-adjusted retail sales.”

Robert Barbera, an economist at New York trading-services firm Investment Technology Group Inc., agrees. “Consumers will be part of this recession in a way that they weren’t in 2001,” he says.

Even if the country is in for just a mild recession, the pressure on spending, coupled with what has happened in the housing and mortgage markets, may make it feel a lot worse for most Americans than the last two downturns did.