Reasons to be economically cheerful.

What this means is that the worse things get, the more willing the world is to lend us money at low rates. That reduces the government's cost of borrowing and makes it easier for it to prop up our banks. It also puts the brakes on U.S. interest rates, greasing the wheels of the economy and letting us come in for a softer landing. The world's fear is a big, soft mattress.

3. Nothing Stops the American Consumer. The U.S. consumer is the Energizer Bunny of world commerce. Basically, we just keep spending, and the world loves us for it. In fact, the East Asian countries whose economic drive we've been urged (with justification) to admire would kill to have domestic consumers who spend like we do.

Without question, Americans have been relying on credit cards and home equity to fuel a rate of consumption that would embarrass Nero, and it's going to fall. How much and how fast, though, is something we don't know. The credit industry (one of the great successes of the U.S. economy—if you don't think so, you can look at the interest rates consumers pay in Turkey or Brazil and see if you really prefer tighter credit) will be rolling out new products and offers as soon as some of the smoke clears. Is that a good thing in the long run? Well, we're already overextended on credit. That's another bubble that'll have to burst—but we're better off dealing with that later.

4. U.S. Industrial Strength Is Deeper Than You Think. Five years ago, anybody who thought that Boeing would survive the pincer attack of the twin-engined A350 and two-deck, massive four-engined A380 would have sounded like they'd had a little too much Washington state pinot. Boeing's consumer business was badly troubled, its hopes resting on what seemed like the aptly named 787 Dreamliner. Now the A380 is looking too big, the A350 too late, and the 787 is a big success.

Moral of this story: Don't count U.S. industrial giants out. Companies like Boeing can get up and show surprising resilience. GE, in which Warren Buffett has just invested, is still one of the world's great manufacturers. There are industrial success stories scattered across the landscape. You've heard about the travails of the old steel industry, but maybe not about the successes of the new one. U.S. Steel (yes, it's called U.S. Steel again) is profitable, Nucor one of the better-run industrial companies in the world. Not all U.S. industry is going the way of GM and Ford. Speaking of which, remember that Toyota makes 1.3 million vehicles in the United States—and is now exporting trucks from here to the rest of the world.

5. Oil Is Headed Down a Double-Diamond Slope. When Goldman Sachs analyst Arjun Murti predicted that oil could shoot up to $80 or $105 a barrel, he called the sudden rise in the price of oil he was anticipating a "super spike." The idea was that the world was so close to using all its available oil that conditions were right for a supply shock that would send prices skyrocketing.

Somewhere along the line, the "super spike" turned into the permanent new world order that would involve upending everything from how we travel to what we eat. That new order was short-lived. Oil prices are collapsing as quickly as they rose, a drop that in a few months you'll see reflected in gas prices and heating bills and that helps cushion the blow of the financial crisis for industries like airlines (though never underestimate the airline industry's capacity to lose money: Having gotten killed by oil prices, it's now getting killed by bad bets on oil futures). And against this backdrop, there's still a burgeoning alternative energy industry that got a big push from high prices and may survive as a driver of real economic growth.