The extraordinary rescue of the passengers and crew of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 gives me time to think about what might be considered an almost 1930s film-like event, and, of course, a great distraction from our economic woes. The outcome couldn't have been carried off any better than it was if the rescue had been choreographed by Busby Berkeley, the great designer of the factory-like mass production dance numbers found in Thirties and Forties musicals. Moreover, we also had a pilot who literally brought in his plane on a wing and prayer, the title of a popular song from my war-ridden childhood during the 1940s.

I am sure that those plucked from the Hudson River have had enough of my flights of fancy. Let me get serious. It is really great that we don't have to consider the alternative to the rescue­--multiple deaths and massive destruction--because there was something going on here that validates several important lessons from 9/11 and other disasters. First, our governments have become obsessed with breaking down the silos between agencies. So the Mayor of New York, the popular Michael Bloomberg, could sing the praises of both the Police and Fire Department's coordinated responses. Increasing the ferry traffic between New York and New Jersey to reduce commuter traffic in our bridges and tunnels didn't hurt either as both private and public ferry captains were jolly on the spot to assist in the off-loading of passengers. In some ways, we were very lucky.

Yet as Branch Ricky, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers many years ago, put it: "Luck is the residue of design." Marine emergency preparedness and a busy river and harbor helped make it happen in a big way. On land, the emergency medical teams were there to take care of people who suffered from hypothermia and whisk them to hospitals in record time. This is a lesson that shouldn't be forgotten when funds are handed out from the economic stimulus package. We could also raise state and city taxes on those with incomes at $250,000 and above and show them what these new revenues help to maintain. After all, affluent people may need to be rescued as well as having their banks bailed out.

We also should note that once we are recovered economically, we should preemptively put an end to the claims that government, as Ronald Reagan put it, cannot solve the problem because it is the problem. It was a lot of hooey in the 1980s and it is a lot of hooey now. Maintaining public services is not something that should occur only during a great recession so that we can prime the pump. It should be done during prosperous times as well since the dangers of falling planes does not end when people are spending and lending and spreading it around, as the chorus girls sang to us in Busby Berkeley’s Forty Second Street: "We're in the money."

Arnold Birenbaum