Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, unfortunately the answer is no. It looks like recently - and by recently, we mean the first quarter of this year - the downturn in North Carolina has accelerated. Now this actually follows our typical pattern. If you look at previous slowdowns or recessions that both the country and North Carolina have been in, North Carolina begins the slowdown later than the nation, but then we also have a deeper slowdown or a deeper recession. So we are following the pattern with beginning later. The big question, the big question is are we going to have a deeper slowdown or a deeper recession here? That is, will our recession turn into an avalanche? Now, one good sign that suggests that maybe not this time that will happen is that our job losses during this slowdown have been much less than during the comparable period in the last recession. And I think this is because of - number one - the booming export market is helping our manufacturing companies. And number two, our traditional manufacturing sector has become much leaner, and they simply don't have the number of jobs there to lose. So we hope these trends continue."