It’s notoriously hard to predict a recession but the people who seem to do best at it are getting mighty nervous reports New York Times columnist David Leonhardt. We’ve gone through a summer that started with the Fed trying to slow things down and ended with recession in the next 12 months a real possibility.

Leonhardt talked to the Economic Cycle Research Institute where the economists have done better than most at predicting the business cycle. “We’re not calling for a recession yet,” Lakshman Achuthan, the institute’s managing director, told Leonhardt. “But the risks to the economy have materially increased.”

Those include the housing slump, falling car sales, high gas prices and the retail sales slowdown that started at Wal-Mart and has spread to upscale outlets like Starbucks and Whole Foods.

Leonhardt likes the Economic Cycle guys better than either the Fed or Wall Street for predicting recessions. The Fed is nervous about creating a self-fulfilling prophecy if its experts announce a recession and Wall Street is always trying to walk on the sunny side of the street because their business is getting people to invest in American business.

And the other indicator Leonhard likes is the “Anxiety Index” — a survey done by the Philadelphia Fed of Wall Street economists who are asked the odds of a recession in the next four quarters. They don’t see it this year but the odds rise dramatically that the first two quarters next year will go negative.

And the latest minutes from the Fed show much the same thing reports the Times. The minutes show it was not a close call to halt interest rate rises and the vast majority hoped that the slowing economy would contain inflation. In fact, they felt another increase could slow things too much. But the balancing act between inflation and recession will keep the Fed busy over the next few months.