Q. I plan to fly from Chicago to Dublin next spring. Do you think airfares will go up or remain down after the start of the new year?

A. It's completely dependent upon the state of the economy. If the economy continues to spiral downward, fare prices will keep dropping. Likewise, if things start looking up, consumer confidence is restored and people start spending money again, fares will go up.

Unfortunately, we're not economists (not that most of them have been all that effective lately!) so we really can't venture to guess what the state of the economy will be next year.