If worldwide economic collapse pegs the price of gasoline at $2.97 a gallon, I don't suppose we should argue. But still. I guess it's like this: We can buy gasoline, we just can't retire. The other day, a few of us joked that we'd have to continue working past the time we were dead.

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Wednesday night's debate was far and away the best of the three. I don't think either Sen. McCain or Sen. Obama "won." I think both gave credible and at times inspired performances. If there's a winner here, it was the public. The public and this Joe the Plumber fellow. Future campaigns should include more debates.

Obama, I think, sounded more eloquent about the economy, while McCain's economic ideas didn't have an overarching thread. Make no mistake about this: Neither man will be able to implement these grand plans he has given today's difficulties. We are in for a time of difficult choices across the government.

Here's one of the most critical, often unremarked economic issues: The capital gains tax. In a slowdown-headed-toward-a-possible-depression, as we are now in, this is exactly the wrong time to increase the capital gains tax, regardless of whether those who are paying it are wealthy or not. Obama desires to increase it for households earning more than $250,000. But the thing we need now is to free capital. The tax receipts are important, but they're secondary to the greater point.

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Meanwhile, we are nationalizing huge chunks of the economy, on a scale not seen since the Great Depression and not seen anywhere else except Europe. This, friends, is a situation. It is good, I think, that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is a student of the Great Depression. It's bad that he finds that experience helpful now, because it indicates unwelcome parallels. Dangerous parallels.

In any case, I think it's also good that adults have again seized control of the situation on Wall Street. Wouldn't be a bad thing if propriety came back into vogue, too, but that might be too much to hope for.

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Know this: The oil producers understand that worldwide economic collapse would mean a reduction in the demand for oil. Remember also that the difference between tightness and surplus is only a few percentage points, maybe 1 or 2 points. If we are to drill for oil, we should do it now. If we are to build nuclear power plants, we should build them now. In fact, nuclear power plants could almost be a WPA-like effort. Building 25 of them would go a long ways toward easing this energy mess we face. Surely Oklahoma has some land to spare.

Invariably, the naysayers will note this won't solve today's problem. No, it won't. But if we'd drilled in more off-shore locations 10 years ago, we'd have more oil today. Not enough, but more than we have now.

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