Recent good news from the local real estate industry reminds us to keep economic news in perspective.

The economy has suffered a bumpy 2008. Nationally, the housing market stalled, gas prices soared above $4 a gallon, Wall Street trembled, and news reports warned of economic catastrophe.

Some areas were especially hard hit. Developers, real estate brokers and construction workers have had a tough time. Anyone trying to sell big gas-guzzling vehicles has faced big challenges. Credit has tightened, and experts warn us that the credit crunch will continue to drag down the economy.

That's a painful reminder that the web of government regulations meant to safeguard the economy has holes in it. Both political parties have discussed a wide range of topics at their conventions but said little about how the government might help keep markets stable without strangling them with red tape. (Could that be because financial firms are such big donors to politicians of all kinds?)

There's no question that the past year has revealed vulnerabilities in the world's economic structure. The most obvious is the price of oil. The spike not only shook our economy, it filled the coffers of nations such as Iran, Russia and Venezuela to overflowing.

Oil prices are slipping again, which is good, but that shouldn't lull us into a false sense of complacency. The United States needs to develop all its energy resources -- now.

But perhaps the worst is passing. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said last week that current economic difficulties will be largely over in months, not years. "This is a very manageable situation," he said, adding that "99 percent of the banks with 99 percent of the assets" were in good shape in terms of capitalization.

The Utah County Association of Realtors says sales have increased every month since bottoming out in December, when 269 units were sold. In July, 445 units were sold, a 65 percent increase.

That still puts July sales slightly under July 2007, but local real estate experts say that was one of the hottest years ever. Sales this July were akin to those of early 2005, when the market was is good shape, before becoming overheated.

All year, economic experts in Utah have predicted that the state would weather any downturn relatively well. The economy was so hot in 2007 that even a cooling leaves it strong. The state's unemployment rate is 3.7 percent, a stellar performance in most eras. The state's many advantages keep drawing new people who need homes and who boost the economy.

Moreover, the U.S. economy continues to show a mixed picture. The gross domestic product grew at a 3.3 percent rate in the second quarter which is pretty good. And it's worth noting, as Investor's Business Daily said, that 6.1 percent unemployment is pretty normal. Since 1970, the jobless rate has averaged 6.1 percent. That's neither a cataclysm nor a depression.

There's been a lot of talk about negatives in the American economy in recent years. But as the Wall Street Journal recently noted the U.S. has done better than most nations so far in this decade.

• Since 2000, U.S. output has increased faster than that of most nations: The president who takes office in January will inherit an economy 19 percent bigger than it was when President Bush took office. The U.S. gross domestic product per capita is more than one-third higher than the per capita output of the United Kingdom, German and Japan.

• The average per-capita consumption in the U.S. was second in the world, behind only Luxembourg, and again far ahead of many prosperous nations.

• The number of people covered by health insurance grew by 3.6 million from 2006 to 2007.

• U.S. employment, in some ways a better measure of prosperity, was about 5 percentage points higher than in the European Union in 2006.

This is not to be a Pollyanna. Thursday, for instance, the stock market slipped when a weekly government report showed an unexpected jump in the number of filings for jobless benefits. Most of the experts see economic headwinds for the rest of the year.

But there is good news, too, though the media don't trumpet it as loudly. On Thursday, the Labor Department revised up its estimate of second quarter productivity growth to 4.3 percent from its previous estimate of 2.2 percent.

That will help fight inflation in the short run because when enterprises are more productive they produce things more cheaply. In the long run, higher productivity creates more jobs and more wealth for Americans.

That's why perspective is so important. In the Internet boom, it seemed that everyone believed that anyone could become a dot-com millionaire. By contrast, the current slowdown has some pundits fretting over a replay of the Great Depression.

Both extremes, of course, are likely out of whack. It's true that there are dangers, and no one should be complacent. The oil shock and credit crunch are timely reminders that problems can strike suddenly and let the air out of America's tires. Yet the great American machine is still riding pretty high.

It is reassuring to hear that the local real estate market has been recovering. This news doesn't mean there won't be rough patches ahead. But with a little perspective, we ought to be able to navigate them without either unrealistic euphoria or irrational panic.