America is, beyond doubt, a world power and one of the great civilizations of mankind’s history. We are the nation that built the Panama Canal and Hoover Dam, invented the digital computer, went to the moon, and any of myriad other things.

Perhaps the greatest of our monuments, however, is the American economy – financial markets, banks, corporations, commodities exchanges, brokerage houses – the great throbbing, beating heart, distributing the lifeblood so that the country may continue to do its business.

Lately, however, this American powerhouse has developed a case of arrhythmia. With the downturn in the housing market brought on by the implosion of the subprime mortgage business, waves of supposedly impeding economic doom have rippled across the country and the world.

Like the cavalry in a John Wayne western (they would have us believe) Congress has rushed – taking only weeks, instead of the glacial pace to which they’re more accustomed – to our collective aid, hammering together an economic stimulus package topping out at more than $150 billion.

Despite the best efforts and exhortations of the screaming heads and supposed “experts” in the media, our economy is highly unlikely to entirely collapse. We are still the most prosperous, safest, richest, most well-fed people on the face of the earth, and our free market system inherently guards against a tendency toward collapse. The Almighty Dollar may have lost a little of its luster lately, but it’s not called “almighty” for nothing.

The dollar is, of course, the lifeblood of this great economic wonder and, while Wall Street in New York and LaSalle Street in Chicago may be the two great ventricles in this circulation, the arteries, veins, and capillaries have much more mundane names like Main Street, North Grand and Welch Avenue.

To that end, here are a few ideas, the Top Ten Most Helpful Ways to Spend Your Tax Rebate:

10. Go to a movie. Let’s face it: Most good movies are produced by American production companies. They spend their money in all sorts of places, but all the man-hours of labor and the million-plus-dollar mansions the actors build employ a lot of people.

9. Buy season football tickets. Somebody’s got to fill the new stadium renovation, which is currently employing several contractors and using some otherwise inventoried building materials.

8. Buy a newspaper. Newspapers employ tons of skilled and unskilled labor – from editors, writers and designers to delivery people. Massive quantities of paper products come from firms such as Weyerhaeuser and others in the Pacific Northwest. They purchase a lot of heavy machinery, as well as covering the costs for transporting their inputs and products via truck or rail.

7. Pay your outstanding parking tickets. Your fellow college students in the service of the Parking Division have to be paid somehow. They also drive sharp little Ford Rangers, made in places like Detroit.

6. Pay your taxes. As counter-intuitive as this may seem, our government is also the largest spender in this economy, accounting for upward of 30 percent of GDP.

5. Actually buy those more expensive textbooks.Similar to the newspapers, the paper and cover material has to come from somewhere. The vast majority of books are written, edited, printed, and bound domestically.

4. Fill your gas tank with ethanol. A lot of petroleum dollars end up in places like Saudi Arabia. While not an ideal solution, ethanol has quickly become the mainstay of American crop agriculture, and helps fuel commodity markets. Farmers tend to spend their surplus revenues on high-dollar goods like combines, tractors and pickup trucks.

3. Invest. Stocks, bonds, mutual funds: They’re all effectively on sale right now. With interest rates this low, your savings account can’t be expected to make much traction for awhile. “Buy low. Sell high.”

2. Have a steak dinner. Same theory as the ethanol, only tastier. If you’re feeling particularly hungry, spring for the Maine lobster too. A lobster boat is pretty much the definition of a durable good.

1. Buy a domestic beer. Ethanol again, in a tastier form. Beware, however: Many domestic beers are owned by foreign parent companies. Regardless, though, the cans, hops, and barley all have to come from somewhere, and brewed by someone. The economies of Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Golden, Colo., will thank you. Experimenting with micro-brews is also recommended.

– Ryan Frederick is a senior in management from Orient.