I know it's horrible, but I had my first instance of schadenfreude about the effects of economy today when a very distasteful lawyer I know might have to downsize his mansion to smaller one.

My perverse father, on the other hand, has taken great delight in the stock market for the past few months.  "Finally, we're going to sort everything out."

Joseph Stiglitz makes the point that real estate fueled the most recent bull market and asks, rhetorically, what is going to replace re, going forward, to drive the next bull market.  Granted, economists generally make lousy stock market seers, even Nobel Prize-winning ones, but, still, his point is well taken.  Maybe bespoke apparel will be the next hot asset class.

Bernard Madoff's so-called "split strike" strategy, which sounds impressive but, in reality, turns out to be completely bogus, should be a lesson learned to investors about the potential pitfalls of exotic alternative investments.