“Rosy forecasts for American Dream also fly in the face of predictions that, ultimately, Internet shopping will all but eliminate brick-and-mortar shopping.” Just like The Great Gatsby!

Last night's Undercover Boss was 7-11 CEO Joe DePinto. He "worked" with some really sweet, friendly-faced employees that any company would be more than thrilled to have. Question is: where the hell did they find these people?

Ross Douthat, the New York Times op-ed conservative who does a better job of pretending to be reasonable than Bill Kristol did, is kind of sad about this Palin thing. Because it means the death of the American Dream.

It's worthwhile sometimes to stop and think about the real victims of today's tanking American economy. Like Sanjay Sanghoee, a hedge-funder who's running into trouble financing the film version of his corporate intrigue novel. The novel, Merger, is your standard tale of "an Indian corporate titan who begins a hostile takeover of a satellite company that transmits information from the C.I.A." Obviously, it'd make a great little indie film. So Sanghoee, none of whose Law & Order spec scripts were ever accepted, raised millions in private money from his hedge fund friends. They loved the book, and the pitch, and the fact that it was a movie made by a banker about bankers. But then, the mortgage crisis! Suddenly, not even a verbal agreement from Lara Flynn Boyle "to take a supporting role as a sultry henchwoman" was enough to keep the checks rolling in.

Maybe it's just the effect of repeated, unending exposure, but Dov Charney, the self-described "Jewish hustler" and lech behind American Apparel, seems to get cuter every week. This weekend, the WSJ intoned about the company recently going public: "American Apparel is opening the kimono — and it's not necessarily a pretty sight." A totally fun WSJ video of Dov follows.