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I hope that light at the end of the tunnel isn't a freight train ready to run us down.

After consulting their crystal balls and magical Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books (or whatever it is they consult), a growing number of U.S. economists say there are signs the faltering U.S. economy is starting to bottom out.

The recession, those crafty economists add, could end sometime this year. And they'll soon be showing us important signs that things are finally moving in a positive direction.

In coming weeks, they may point to numbers that show life returning to the housing market, retail and even consumer lending. That recent — and annoying — upswing in gas prices? That's probably one of them, too.

Sounds positive, right? (Well, everything but gas prices.)

Yes, probably. But let's not get smug.

There's an important lesson all of us should be taking away from this trying time: Greed will knock you on your ass.

Let's review.

The real estate and banking industries got greedy when they put people in houses they couldn't afford. Consumers got greedy when they agreed to move into those houses they couldn't afford. Financiers got greedy and played games that blew up in their faces.

In other words, greed got us into this mess.

And as all of us tried to make ends meet during the crisis, we hunkered down, saved our money and worked to pay down our debt. Debt we probably took on because credit was easy and we were just plain greedy.

The recession has been painful — we have the pink slips and dismal 401(k) statements to prove it — but it also caused many of us to rethink our economic lives.

Let's not forget that lesson once the economy improves.

I hope we've learned to leave our credit cards in our wallets unless it's an emergency. That we not buy more than we can afford. And I hope regulators and elected officials have the cojones to hammer on bankers and financiers when they can't show similar restraint.

If the economy really is bottoming out, we should be thankful that many of us will have survived only somewhat worse for the wear. But, remember, if we get greedy all over again, that light at the end of the tunnel may be accompanied by a shrill train whistle.