So how do you know if your best supplier or customer is about to hit the skids?

FORBES: Small Biz Bum Alert

Unfortunately, the lumbering sturgeon proved all too easy to catch, and their U.S. population quickly hit the skids.

FORBES: Roe Rage

Actress Drew Barrymore's nuptials to comic Tom Green hit the skids after five months.

FORBES: Most Expensive Celebrity Divorces

Cheyne Capital's SIV was one of many to hit the skids last summer, when investor appetite for debt all but evaporated.

FORBES: Goldman Only Brushed By Credit Crunch

Because, as any smart investor knows, you buy at the bottom of the market, and Bordeaux recently has hit the skids.

FORBES: Wine Investing: 3 Blue Chip Bordeaux Bargains

Former stalwarts like Liz Claiborne and Blockbuster have hit the skids, too.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Net profit at Malaysia's biggest lottery operator grew by more than 25% over the past year, even as the country's economy hit the skids.

ECONOMIST: Betting on Asia��s poor

Then the rate of adoption hit the skids, slowing to 12.4% growth last year as a result of strong price pressure from Bluetooth devices and an overall slowdown of new phone production.

FORBES: MEMS The Word

But the factories hit the skids.

FORBES: Companies & Strategies

With Obama and the Democrats in power, many conservatives, including such keen observers as Charles Krauthammer and Victor Davis Hanson, believe the country has hit the historical skids.

FORBES: It will take more than a recession to keep the country down.