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Congratulations, America! We’ve gone longer without a recession than at any time since economists began keeping track of such things. The economy has been expanding for 122 months, beating the previous record of 120 months which was set in the 1990s. However, over the last 30 days we have started to see the rock and roll of changing times; inverted yield curve, market volatility, and to top it off we have an election year looming next year. Economists like to say that expansions do not die of old age. The average U.S. expansion has lasted just 58 months, less than half as long as the current one, but periods of extended growth have been common in many other nations. Australia is enjoying its 28th straight year of growth. Canada, the U.K., Spain and Sweden had expansions that reached 15 years and beyond between the early 1990s and 2008. Without the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks the U.S. might have, too.  The current US expansion has seen GDP grow just under 25%, the slowest GDP growth of any modern-day expansion.  The economy has grown about 2.3% per year since June 2009 when the great recession ended. That’s almost half the 4.3% average growth rate of the 10 previous economic expansions.