Walking around my suburban neighbourhood in the past few months, I have been surprised by the sudden sprouting of "for sale" signs.

Did the neighbours know something I didn't? Over at the shops, "hiring" notices are also proliferating. The fast food outlets are also hungry for "assistants".

Information technology companies in the Washington area are even more voracious in their demand for talent. Some are offering a "no brainer" of $250 dollars "on the spot" just to be interviewed. And if you get hired there is a $2,500 "sign-on bonus".

America Online, my Internet server, is offering up to $5,000 to employees for referring others to the company for vacancies.

Hardly a day goes by when I am not solicited to take out another credit card. Two years ago I could not get one because I "lacked a credit record".

Senior executives and professionals like doctors and lawyers earning up to $200,000, who once thought they had it made, are enviously watching younger men and women in high-tech industries and Wall Street pulling in much higher earnings and buying up luxury homes and yachts.

It's what's called an economic boom, the likes of which the US has never seen before. The only question is, how long will it last? Everyone knows booms don't go on forever. But this one has been tearing along for years.

They happen to be the Clinton years and the current prosperity ensured his re-election in 1996 and explains his remarkably high poll ratings in the middle of the Lewinsky scandal.

There are worrying signs, however, that it could all be coming to an end. The economists are finding it hard to call as the second-quarter economic results showed much lower growth than the record 5.4 per cent of the first quarter. For April, May, June it decelerated to 1.4 per cent, due in part to the General Motors strike which has now been settled.

This is both bad news and good news. The over-heating economy needs to slow down to keep inflation at bay. That is good. The Asian crisis has finally hit the US economy, but the worst is still to come from a slowly drowning Japan. That is bad.

The pundits are rubbing their crystal balls and going on about the "Goldilocks economy" not too hot, not too cold, just right. Or the "Jekyll and Hyde economy" as Mr Allen Sinai, a Boston economist calls it. "There is tremendous weakness on the international front and tremendous strength on the domestic side. That doesn't leave a lot of room for error," he told the New York Times in an article called "The Storm Clouds of Asia".

Even Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, whose every word is scrutinised by Wall Street for clues, is at a loss. He told the House banking committee on Capitol Hill last month: "I have been in the forecasting business for 50 years and I know when I can forecast something reasonably well and not. This is a tough one."

One man who knows what he is seeing is William J. Hudson, the chief executive of the AMP electronic components company in Pennsylvania. In the past year, as company profits have halved, AMP has laid off 3,500 workers and closed three factories. "From our standpoint, we're seeing a recession," Mr Hudson told the Wall Street Journal last week.

A recession? He can't be serious, can he? The unemployment rate is at a 28-year low and consumer confidence at a 29-year high and home ownership has hit record levels?

The Nobel Prize winning economist, Milton Friedman, when consulted, pointed out: "Nobody has a good record of predicting when a recession comes. If you look at the historical record, the first quarters of most recessions have been regarded by most commentators at the time as a continuation of prosperity."

What is not in doubt is that the Asian crisis has pushed up an already enormous US trade deficit to new records as exports to the region fall and the strengthening dollar draws in cheaper Asian imports.

US farmers are especially hard hit with a slump of 35 per cent in exports to Asia and falling commodity prices. The continuing drought is not helping either.

But the US economy is to some extent cushioned from the bad news from Asia which accounts for only 5 per cent of exports. US exports themselves are only 15 per cent of the economy.

Here domestic consumer spending makes up about two-thirds of the economy and it is roaring along. The strong dollar has sucked in capital getting out of Asia and helped push down interest rates. This in turn has boosted home buying and the building industry. Some five million homes are expected to be sold by the end of this year and new home sales hit a record in June.

Sales of cars, TVs, video recorders, furniture, household equipment, food, footwear are all well up compared to last year. So it is no surprise that savings are at a historic low.

Indeed, despite the turbulence on Wall Street this week, low long-term interest rates, the near absence of inflation and the strong consumer sentiment were the basis of a general view among traders that a stock market crash was unlikely.

But those second-quarter figures could still be more serious than the "speed bump" the optimists call them. The Wall Street indexes like the Dow Jones blue chip industries hide some worrying statistics about small poor performers with shrinking profits.

The consumers are not worrying as they spend like there's no tomorrow with all those credit cards. But last year 1.3 million filed for personal bankruptcy and this year is not much better.

So is it Jekyll or is it Hyde? Is it "Good Times Keep Rolling" as the New York Times titled one of its editorials this week or is it "Heading for Recession?" as a Washington Post op-ed article by economist James Glassman was headed?

Your guess is as good as mine.