Landings

I hope Barack Obama will be as steady-handed and lucky with the US economy as Capt. Sullenberger was yesterday as he carefully ditched his US Airways flight into the Hudson River after both engines lost power.

Thanks to multiple bird strikes - the collapse of the housing bubble, the credit freeze it precipitated, and two ongoing wars (do I need to say that wars cost a lot of money?) the economy's engines have choked. Inflation in 2008 was 0.1%, with the last three months of dropping consumer prices figured in. Usually, annual inflation is about 30 times greater - 3%.

Congress is mulling over a landing package of 825 billion dollars. Even if we land just right, without breaking off our wings or turning over in the water, it's likely that many of us will have to stand with freezing water up to our waists for a while, anyway.

The key to yesterday's rescue, and perhaps to the longer economic one will be not only the skill and luck of our pilot, but the fast arrival of ferries and rescue teams - a collective team effort - to make sure that not one person is lost beneath the freezing waves.

Storms

I paid $16 to fill up my gas tank today, which about matches the prices we were paying when I was in college 10 years ago. Because of inflation, this is actually much less expensive, even than it was then.

While it's nice to pay less, I can't help but think that this is something I've never seen before, and it makes me nervous. What I'm used to seeing the price of gas do is go up, sometimes in big increments, sometimes in small ones. Occasionally, it will fall back down, too. But not by well over half its cost.

It reminds me of the tsunami at the end of 2005. As the ocean drew away from the shore, farther and farther, the people rushed out onto the uncovered land, picking up fish and marveling at how far out the ocean had gone. They didn't know that a wave was coming back - huge and ominous and as fast as a train.