We're close to recession. It's probably going to start in September 2017- early 2018. I don't think that one can just artificially start a recession.
You can definitely artificially cause a recession. The Fed did it a bunch of times in the 80s. It was intended to end a period of persistently high inflation.
Anyway, the economy is doing all right but could definitely be strangled if the Fed suddenly increased rates substantially (i.e., not the increase to 1-1.5% that's expected by year-end but instead to a historically moderately high but not totally outrageous figure like 6-8%).
Also, Gass, sorry, deleted that post myself before your post when I realized how off-topic it was. But I guess this thread is getting into a bunch of off-topic considerations.