♦ John Paulson, the hedge funder who testified on the financial meltdown in front of a congressional committee yesterday, is having a meltdown of his own in the Hamptons. Seven months after he put his mansion on the market for $19 million—and after lowering the price to $16.9 million in August—he's dropped it once again. The Southampton spread is now listed at $13.9, which is getting close to the $12.75 million he paid for the property in 2006. [WSJ, PDE]
♦ Murat Ozyegin, the son of Turkish mogul Husnu Ozyegin, paid $6.2 million for a three-bedroom apartment 40 East 66th Street. [NYO]
♦ The 12,000-square-foot Harlem house built by Barnum & Bailey co-founder James Bailey is on the market with a $10 million listing price. [WSJ]

Possible the most poorly-timed project in the history of television will soon be upon us: Joan Rivers is launching a new show in which she talks to very, very rich people about exactly how they got to be so very, very rich. "She knocks on the doors of mega-mansions, and approaches drivers of luxury cars, to ask how the heck they have all that money," explains Mark Burnett, the show's producer and the man responsible for unleashing the Survivor phenomenon. Could there be a worse time for a show like this in, say, the last 100 years or so? Probably not, which explains why even Burnett has trouble explaining the concept's awkward timing. "This show is about the super-rich. And, in this climate, the super-rich get richer." Tell that to billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who has lost $30 billion (or $100 million a day) in recent weeks—or Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Sergei Brin, or Larry Page, who have each lost 11-figure sums since the start of the financial crisis.

You would think that after the dismal performances of the contemporary art sales at Christie's and Sotheby's earlier this week, sellers might recognize the need to reduce reserve prices if they were to have any hope of selling anything. At Phillips de Pury & Co.'s auction last night, estimates set before the markers unraveled remained in place, despite the fact that the auction house had tried to persuade people that the figures were now too optimistic. Sellers "had a luxury of eight years of the climbing prices,'' said Phillips senior partner Michael McGinnis. "They were not receptive.''

Fox News anchor (and former CNN hottie) Bill Hemmer turns 44 today. Prince Charles is celebrating his 60th. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice turns 54 today. Fashion designer Stefano Gabbana is 46. Reverend Run is 44. Writer P.J. O'Rourke is 61. Actor Josh Duhamel is turning 36. Jonathan Landman of the Times is 56. And Travis Barker, who almost didn't make it to his birthday this year, turns 33 today. Weekend birthdays after the jump.

♦ Things are going from bad to worse for Damon Dash and Rachel Roy: Three months after a bank foreclosed on their two Tribeca condos, Dash's Chevy Tahoe was seized this week after he failed to make the monthly lease payments. Does this mean he's already lost his Maybach? [NYDN]
♦ Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson were supposedly getting engaged yesterday. Today the relationship is supposedly "heading for choppy waters," because Lindsay wants to "explore her heterosexuality." [The Sun]
♦ How is Lindsay's publicist explaining her client's description of Barack Obama earlier this week as the country's first "colored President"? She says no one knows what LiLo really said, since it was "unintelligible." [MSNBC]
♦ Katie Holmes is supposedly refusing to move back to LA after she's finished on Broadway. Why? Because she doesn't get dragged to as many Scientology events when she's in NYC. [NYDN]

♦ Things may be about to get worse at Citigroup: The Times reports that the bank may be forced to lay off another 25 percent of its workforce as it deals with continued losses, a plunging stock price, and a lack of investor confidence. [NYT]
♦ In a show of faith, Citi CEO Vikram Pandit and three deputies bought a total of 1.3 million shares yesterday after the stock fell below $9 for the first time in 12 years. [Bloomberg]
♦ Is the $700 billion bailout working? Not so much: More than a month and nearly $300 billion into it, "many of the nation's financial arteries seem nearly as sclerotic as they were before. Some of them, in fact, appear to be hardening more." [NYT]

If you're planning to be in the vicinity of Rockefeller Center tomorrow, keep in mind that a 115-foot long trailer will be depositing an eight-ton tree in the middle of the Midtown during the early morning hours. Did your company cancel its annual holiday party and/or festive office decorations? Consider this your substitute! [NYDN]

♦ Did you attempt to get your hands on some Comme des Garçons for H&M today? You're braver than us. [Racked]
♦ Cathy Horyn provides a clear-eyed assessment of Barack Obama's sartorial style, pointing out that "his jeans are the loose, jingle-the-change-in-your-pocket type. He belts them at the waist, and when he wears them with white sneakers and a windbreaker, one could almost say he had stolen the look from Jerry Seinfeld's character on the television series." [NYT]
♦ At Diane von Furstenberg's party for Financial Times editor Vanessa Friedman, André Leon Talley broadcast his delight over Obama's victory in the most appropriate way: The back of his coat was emblazoned with "The New American Dream" in crystals. [WWD]
♦ Also gushing about the Obamas? Donna Karan, who says: "I'm hoping to get to work with them—it would be my dream. They are so committed to ideals that are much in alignment with mine." [WWD]

It was another roller coaster of a day on Wall Street. After falling more than 400 points this morning, the Dow rebounded in the last three hours of trading, closing up 552 points, making it the third best single-session point gain in history. (Both the S&P and Nasdaq were up more than 6 percent.) Don't let the momentary boost get your hopes up: The outlook is still pretty bleak, as the hedge fund kings who turned up on Capitol Hill today made clear. And there's always the stream of layoffs to remind us. Dow Jones said today it plans to lay off an unspecified number of employees, the law firm of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe let 40 lawyers go, National Geographic cut staff, Entertainment Weekly dismissed 25 staffers, and one in ten employees at Morgan Stanley were given notice today. Any good news? Not really. But Dick Fuld didn't seem too depressed when he was spotted buying some yogurt and granola for breakfast this morning, if that's any consolation.

More bad news today for the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. After suffering the embarassment of having senior partner Fred Tanne's STD test results laid bare for all to see earlier this week, employees were informed today that Tropicana orange juice, cereal, and yogurt has been cut from the firm's free breakfast menu. We'll assume the change has more to do with budget cuts and less to do with an aversion to sharing orange juice containers with a guy who has herpes, but we'll leave that up to you to decide. [Above the Law]

There's a new entry on the list of New York's most expensive apartments. A 78th-floor penthouse at the Time Warner Center hit the market today for $65 million, reports Max Abelson. The 8,300-square-foot pad comes with everything you'd expect for that kind of cash—screening room, gym, 360-degree views—but it also comes with $29,693 in monthly maintenance fees and taxes, which means it'll cost $356,316 a year to live in the apartment, even after you've plunked down the $65 million, which works out to a nutty $7,831 per square foot. Photos and floorplan after the jump.

♦ Alex Raij, the former chef at Tia Pol (left), is opening her 28-seat tapas bar named Txikito (pronounced chee-KEE-toe) tonight. [GS]
♦ A play-by-play of what went down at Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz's $1,500-per-person dinner at Per Se on Tuesday night. [NYT, NYT]
♦ Another look inside David Chang's forthcoming Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar, which is set to open on Saturday morning at 8 a.m. [Eater]

While New York women hoping to bag themselves an investment banker have seen the pool of potentials tragically dry up, take a moment to spare a thought for the girls in Tokyo—at least the ones whose lives revolved around dating Wall Streeters who'd been transferred to work in the city's Roppongi Hills complex. Now, as 25-year-old Haruna Hiraki gloomily says to her friend at a bar that had once been a prime spot: "I told you this place was finished. Lehman, Goldman: They've all been sacked or gone back to America."

Ever watch Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC and wonder if you were watching a rerun? You weren't. But given Olbermann's tendency to use the same phrases over and over again, you're officially excused for thinking so! [Jossip]

Today is a good day for literary agent Dan Strone and the dark-haired Jewish comedians on client list. Leon Neyfakh reports that the bidding for Sarah Silverman's first book has topped $2.5 million. But Strone may have an even bigger deal in hand for one of his clients by the end of the week. It seems Jerry Seinfeld's latest book proposal has resulted in "two publishers crazy enough to submit bids in the $7 million to $8 million dollar range." [NYO]

Just in case you have some extra cash burning a hole in your pocket and you happen to be totally obsessed with Jonathan Adler, W Hotels has introduced the "Design Dream" package. The basic promotion includes a "stylish" room rate and a basket of Adler-branded goods. But for $10,000 more, "design-daring guests" will get a "personal one-on-one session with the legendary potter himself" when he joins you for lunch and then accompanies you on a "private shopping spree at one of his stores in New York City." Alas, no word on whether you can throw in a little extra and get Simon to show up, too.

If you're the sort of magazine industry obsessive who looks forward to the first week of December when Condé Nast releases its holiday luncheon seating chart—wherein Condé overlord Si Newhouse either exalts or punishes his editors according to where he seats them at the Four Seasons, and with whom—you're going to have to wait until next year. The company's CEO, Chuck Townsend, informed staffers yesterday that the lunch has been canceled. Of course, you probably don't need a chart to surmise that if the lunch had taken place, Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman could have expected to nibble on her Cobb salad in the coat room. [WWD]

You thought the only news these days was depressing? Not necessarily! The Port Authority reports traffic at the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels dropped 6.4 percent in October, compared with last year, and traffic fell 4.4 percent at the bridges between New Jersey and Staten Island. Much of the decline, of course, can be explained by the thousands of people who have lost their jobs in financial services in recent months. But if you're looking for cheery news to brighten your day, you can probably assume that some percentage of the dropoff consists of oiled-up dudes from New Jersey or Staten Island who have been having second thoughts about cruising around Manhattan in a white Hummer limo with neon trim on Friday nights. And in these tough times you've got to take the positive news anywhere you can get it.

♦ The Times has the skinny on "Martin Eisenstadt," the supposed McCain consultant who leaked info to the press. (He's an aspiring filmmaker, not surprisingly.) In the meantime, MSNBC's retracted its story. [NYT, AP]
♦ You might be enjoying CW's Stylista, but the ratings thus far haven't been especially encouraging. [NYO]
♦ Two new cast members, Michaela Watkins and Abby Elliott, will join Saturday Night Live beginning this weekend. [NYT]
♦ Showtime is developing an hour-long show by Stan Lee about a gay superhero. [Variety]

Peaches Geldof carrying takeout in Brooklyn ... Ed Westwick walking around town in a velour track suit ... Kate Winslet talking on her cell phone in the West Village ... Kelly Rutherford buying a pretzel on the street with her baby Hermes ... Salma Hayek carrying her baby Valentina ... Taylor Momsen and Connor Paolo filming scenes for Gossip Girl in Midtown ... Katie Holmes heading to yoga class and later getting out of an SUV outside her East 13th Street apartment ... Russell Brand and Jack Black standing outside the Late Show with David Letterman ... and Whoopi Goldberg protesting Proposition 8 outside a Mormon church on Columbus Avenue.