You shouldn't panic. If you are young the world is full of opportunities. We will get through this. But the stuff I grew up aspiring to. I think these places may not be there. The world will be fine. But this little world is going to get hit with a Tsunami. The aspirations are no longer there. The tastes have changed.

I sat on one of those boards and said at the time: We are a recession away from going out of business.
    We shall see if I was right. But nothing I hear sounds good. I loved the world of society dance bands, White Tie Assemblies, summer beach clubs.  These place weren't thriving in the good times. and the good times are gone for some time to come.

That Lebenthal girl who knows all about the bonds posted a possible scenario for an NYC couple in their late 30s on the New York Social Diary. Very ugly.
     I owe a work colleague two dinners at the 21 Club on account of a foolish bet. I hope the menu prices decline next year.

A lot of changes, Tom. Most painful, some not all that bad, in the long run.

Where we live in the Northeast US, there have been many in the financial community that have reaped huge amounts of money in the form of year end bonuses. Many of these are gone, as well as the underlying job.

This has occurred in the lives of many very young people that assumed that the lifestyle would continue on an uninterrupted increase. They never lived through tough economic times, and are totally unprepared, in many instances. Many of these young people left the local university and went directly to Wall Street and huge incomes. Many of these have been seen carrying their office belongings out of buildings in pasteboard boxes, with a glazed look on their face.

Those that post here, have adopted a lifestyle called "Ivy" because it involves understated elegance, and classic items that endure. Most of the men that I started doing business with on Wall Street in the 60s had survived the depression. The philosophy that stayed with them was "use it up, wear it out, or do without." These were the guys that first introduced me to the " Boston cracked shoe " look. One or these guys died about 10 years ago; always drove beat up old cars, and lived in a modest house, but his name is on a University building about a mile from where I sit. Not a bad trade off for society.

About 10 years ago, there were a number of guys that didn't want to go through the waiting list to join the existing golf club on Nantucket. They put up $250,000 each, to start their own. Our society may be better off in the long run, if this mindset disappears.

Over the past decade, there has been an escalation of conspicuous consumption in many areas of our society, that are rapidly going out of style. The grossly expensive watch, summer home, automobile, luggage, children's pampering etc, are on the way out. Some of that may be a plus for society.

Impact is being felt in many areas. Colleges with multibillion dollar endowments are having to cut back. On ESPN last night, there was a blurb on the fact that Notre Dame may want to fire Charlie Weiss, as head football coach, but it will cost something like $20 million to buy out his contract. The alums that had resources like this in the past no longer do, so they seem to be stuck with Charlie for a bit.

Many changes happening so rapidly that they may not register in the short run. Tom points out the City clubs. Probably many other areas, over the next few years.

Last edited by Matt (2008-11-12 02:52:40)

Best pithy summary of the current state we're in. You beat all the pundits.

What about going back to before we were a global economy. Isolationism, some call it. Produce in the US, and sell in the US. Of course there will be exceptions, but we need to take care of our homeland. We seem too concerned with other countries troubles and dont do anything about our own.

Seemed to work fine for many years.

Since when does "promoting democracy" mean we have to stick our noses into everybodys business?

My God, you're all a miserable lot.