RANDOM REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

-- The price of titanium dioxide--the bright, white industrial staple--has flattened out for the past five months after dropping sharply in January. Titanium oxide goes into paint, paper coating, ink, food coloring, cosmetics, and toothpaste. When prices stabilize, it's a sign of steadying manufacturing demand.

-- The bad guys who helped make this mess--at least some of them so far--have been dealt with or are being pursued. Swindler Bernard Madoff is serving a prison term that is supposed to end in 2159, if he somehow lives that long. (Warn your great-great-grandchildren!)

-- Banks aren't so panicky, judging from the big drop in the London interbank offered rate (Libor). At the height of the crisis last October, the three-month Libor shot up to an unprecedented 3.6 percentage points above the risk-free borrowing rate in the federal funds market. That meant banks were hoarding cash and fearful of lending to one another. As of early August the spread was back down to less than 0.3 percentage points.

-- The Baltic Dry Index, which measures the cost of moving freight by ship (worldwide--not just in the Baltic Sea), plunged a breathtaking 94% from May through early December of 2008 as shipping lines slashed their rates in response to a falloff in international trade. But demand seems to be slowly recovering: As of early August, the index was back to 2006 levels.

-- Honest, hardworking metals are in demand again. Nickel prices doubled from their March low through early August. Gold, which people buy when they're in a panicky mood, hasn't done as well. Its price has stayed in the general vicinity of $950 an ounce.

-- Rail freight traffic is down, but the decline is easing. In June carloads were off 19.5% from a year earlier, whereas in April and May the decline was about 23%, according to the Association of American Railroads.

-- Everybody talks about weak consumer confidence, but what about CEO confidence? The Conference Board says nearly 55% of the chief executives it surveyed in the second quarter expected conditions to improve in the next six months. That's up from only 17% who felt that way in the first quarter. If the boss is confident, the boss might spend and hire. Or at least not lay you off.

--Women's fashion is signaling a rebound in the economy and the stock market--if you buy Wall Street folk wisdom. The hemline indicator is less useful than it once was because designers no longer move in lockstep. But the general mood is upbeat, says Women's Wear Daily Executive Editor Bridget Foley. "In the fall collections, we saw color ... maybe on the cusp of flamboyance. An exuberance. We didn't see people sober, sour, dour."

-- Recessions aren't all bad. Health tends to improve during those periods, for one thing. When the unemployment rate rises by one percentage point, the death rate falls close to half a percentage point, according to research by Christopher Ruhm of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Ruhm finds declines in traffic deaths, heart attacks, severe obesity, smoking, and heavy drinking. Mental health does suffer, however. And a Yale study finds that the eating and drinking problems of people over 50 tend to get worse in downturns.

-- True, this last one isn't about economics, but it's kinda sweet. Natalia Paruz, who plays the musical saw in New York subway stations, says her music recently managed to get a Christian family, a Jewish family, and a Muslim family into a conversation. In an e-mail, Paruz writes: "If people can relate on a personal level like that--then there is hope that world peace might be possible after all."