The dry weather meant I opted for plenty of cushioning and stability with Salomon's XA Pro 3D Ultra.
A falling currency means that the rouble value of oil sales has dropped less than its dollar value, cushioning tax revenues and limiting the budget deficit.
In America, Charles Murray, a sociologist, leads a group of right-wingers who argue that assistance to the poor, by cushioning the short-term consequences of irresponsible behaviour, masks the long-term effects.
It also rolled out products with new features, such as lighter shoes with better cushioning, to try to retain consumers.Executives at Nike, in the language of their trade, like to talk about playing "offence" when it comes to corporate strategy.
So seniors' pensions will fall a bit if people live longer than expected, or if there are fewer workers to support them, cushioning the effect on public finances.Two looming budget issues remain, however.
In the coming months, senior music executives may spend as much time hyping up the harmful effects of piracy on their business as they will fighting it.Mergers would allow music companies to cut their costs further, cushioning their profits against falling revenues for a while.
Unfortunately, the signal is not getting through to homeowners in Florida, because the government is cushioning the blow.
The preliminary results show that it worked rather well.The mechanical cushioning system that Mr Kellas has designed has flexible hinges at the junction of each cell in the honeycomb.
As a result, tax cuts in response to a slowdown have typically arrived too late, fuelling the next boom rather than cushioning the impact of a recession.During the 1970s and 1980s, not only did fiscal fine-tuning fail, but budget deficits rose alarmingly.
After cushioning the economy from serious recession by slashing rates to 1%, Mr Greenspan now faces an equally tricky task: to tighten today's extraordinarily loose monetary policy without derailing the economy.So far, the Fed's strategy seems to be gradualism.
This period of high growth should be cushioning painful but necessary reforms of the public sector, particularly in health and education.
