Yet our analysis of more than 5,000 companies across the last four business cycles suggests that slowdowns bring opportunities as well as challenges: some companies were able to actually benefit competitively during and after a downturn, and a common set of actions led to that success.
"The economic slowdown offers real opportunities for Chinese domestic car makers," said Klaus Paur, Shanghia-based TNS Automotive Director for North Asia.
One can only conclude that just as Mr. Bush sees the economic slowdown as an opportunity to sell tax cuts, he sees the power crisis as an opportunity to sell weakened environmental protection.
She has seized on the economic slowdown as an opportunity to persuade Brazil's private banks to lower interest rates, which until recently were among the highest in the world, by pushing Banco do Brasil and Caixa Econômica Federal, another large state bank, to cut their own rates.
Godrej says he has used the slowdown as an opportunity to add talent and buy ad space for the rebranding campaign sensibly.
Even founders of startups that are up and running use the summer slowdown as an opportunity to think of new products or services they could introduce into their existing ventures.
Many expect the billionaire to use the slowdown to spot more opportunities.
Indeed, the slowdown may provide an opportunity for China, too, to reinvent itself with investment in a greener economy.
Like Japanese automakers, Saturn committed itself to never lay off a worker, using business slowdowns, for example, as opportunities to provide extra training.
Nandan Nilekani, a former boss of Infosys, which has $2 billion in the bank and no debt, says a slowdown will be an opportunity for some useful "re-tooling .Mr Nilekani is loth to dre-tooling .MroNilekanihe previsus glothl downtorn, in 2001, when growth in Indraws computer-services slowed down a bit and then rebounded vigorously.
Speaking at a debate on biodiversity organised by the journal Nature at Kings Place in London, Meacher also described the economic slowdown as a "priceless opportunity" to reduce climate change emissions and stop the destruction of tropical forests and coral reefs.
