As he battles the economic downturn, President Barack Obama is bracing Americans for a recovery different than any in recent memory – not a go-go return to prosperity like the 1990s but a slow, steady climb to stability.

“We know that an economy built on reckless speculation, inflated home prices and maxed-out credit cards does not create lasting wealth. It creates the illusion of prosperity, and it’s endangered us all,” Obama said recently.

But what Obama rarely says about ending the “cycle of bubble and bust” is this: He’s prepared to intervene to make sure that kind of red-hot growth doesn’t occur.

And he’s willing to do it with added government regulation if needed to prevent any one sector of the economy from getting out of balance – the way the dot-com boom did in the 1990s and the real-estate market did earlier this decade.

According to Austan Goolsbee, a key Obama economic adviser, the president plans to focus on stopping bubbles along with preventing busts.

Should we really kill the ups of our economy to get rid of the downs? Do we really want our economy to be like the kiddie ride pictured above? Safe, but with no thrill or chance of solid gains.