Schizo America

Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.

Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld told Congress on October 6 that the Wall Street investment bank was destroyed by a “financial tsunami”—a natural disaster, an act of God.

In other words, it wasn’t his fault.

But the truth is that Lehman’s fall in the subprime-mortgage crisis was a man-made disaster. The white-shoe firm was not just deeply involved in the murky subprime-mortgage market; Lehman and the other dominant Wall Street investment banks, experts tell the Voice, actually created the demand for the mortgages that they would then package and swap for enormous returns. Addicted to the profits that such securities brought in, Lehman was desperate for the risky mortgages they required.

Here‘s an interesting fact: Lehman’s still spending cash it doesn’t have, even as its in bankruptcy court.

And, lest you think its all the men doing the irresponsible spending, Mrs. Kathy Fuld is front and center in an article about rich women hiding their designer purchases in unlabeled bags (kind of like the tranched mortgages her husband sold).

Since the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, Mrs. Fuld has still been a regular Hermes client, visiting the boutique once a week and spending $5,000 or $10,000 each time, says the associate. Now, she doesn’t want any one to know. (Through a spokesperson, Mrs. Fuld declined to comment on this article.)

Here is what $5000 can buy you, at www.net-a-porter, and ITS ON SALE, down from $8,435!!!!!  Its a plain sheath dress, with gilded embroidered wings, because when you go to your $1000-a-plate fundraising dinners where you can buy fur in private, you are an angel:

Opportunities for altruism may have eased the consciences of the 250 guests at the International Fashion party, a by-invitation event held last week at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco to benefit Rebekah Children’s Services, which aids children with emotional and behavioral problems. But the party, which attracted the social figures Vanessa Getty, Sloan Barnett and the wives of several Silicon Valley executives, was also a magnet for trophy hunters. Filigreed chokers and diamond-studded earrings with an ornate Asian cast were offered alongside hair and eyelash extensions and a rack of furs supplied by Saks Fifth Avenue, which saw an opportunity to reach affluent clients. Prices ranged from $100 to $10,000 — or, furs apart, about 10 percent above the wholesale cost.

Josephine Kathan of Saks, with a Russian sable jacket.

After checking in at the door and filing by a phalanx of security guards, guests sipped Champagne, fingered baubles arranged on muslin-draped tables and tested the heft of new handbags, happy all the while to be mingling with their own.

“These parties can be social networking opportunities,” said Susanna Stratton-Norris, a London-based knitwear designer who offered her opulent cashmeres for sale last month in a suite at the Regency Hotel in New York. She pulled her guest list together from a roster of clients she had cultivated in an earlier career as a decorator.

“These people felt as if they belonged to a club,” Ms. Stratton-Norris said, one that caters to their tastes “and where they could meet like-minded people.” Socially at ease, they were free to indulge an acquisitive streak, “not embarrassed to purchase in multiples or to tell me, ‘I’ll have one of these in every color.’ ”

Perhaps you’d like to add in some sparkling shorts, that went from $1000 to 776 ON SALE – geez, the price, is almost patriotic, isn’t it? You’d buy them if they were $1,776, I bet.

And if you are looking for some work boots, something to take you around town like regular working people, how about these python boots?

available for only $2,580…

And, since you order via the internet, no need to be embarrassed about your excessive, gaudy shopping while the rest of the country can’t make their mortgage payments because your husband decided to sell financial instruments that have no actual money in them, except of course the money to be made by selling those crazy financial instruments…  does that make sense? no? well, that’s okay, she’s go to run, has to stop in to a favorite storefront to buy a few more $2500 cashmere blankets…

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