Jill Kargman's new novel, The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund, was written before the economy came crashing down, which explains why if you pick up a copy—it came out last week—you may feel like you've been transported back in time to the middle of 2006, when everyone walking down Park Avenue was full of optimism and no one had any problem spending $50,000 on a two-year-old's birthday party. Things have changed a bit since then, although Kargman isn't allowing the unfortunate timing of her novel derail her PR campaign. Quite the opposite, in fact: Her book party this evening will feature a blood-red cocktail called the "Nightmare On Wall Street," and she's using the financial crisis to detail how some of the city's richest women have been coping with the downturn.

You heard about the 25 men—and they are always men—who were ranked the top-earning hedge fund managers of the year, walking away with a collective $11.6 billion during 2008. What about the biggest losers? Alpha magazine will publish that list tomorrow, but Dealbreaker has the deets on the top three people on the list: In first place is Ken Griffin, who watched $2 billion vanish, while Eddie Lampert came in second, having witnessed $1 billion evaporate into thin air. Right behind him is Steve Cohen, who was mercifully spared a 10-digit loss but still ended up down $750 million on the year. That doesn't account for the unrealized losses related to Cohen's massive art collection, naturally, but you can't really expect Alpha to tackle that. We're counting on you, Artforum! [Dealbreaker]

Institutional Investor's Alpha magazine released its ranking of the top 25 hedge fund managers today. You'll be happy to hear that even though most people ended 2008 on a gloomy note, a handful of men who were already worth billions made billions more last year thanks to their canny trading strategies or the fact they predicted (correctly!) that a major shakeout was headed our way. In first place was Jim Simons, the former math professor who started the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies and who earned $2.5 billion on the basis of his complex computer-driven approach to the market. In second place: John Paulson, who totally saw the housing market was going to hell in a handbasket, bet big as a result, and has $2 billion to show for his efforts.

• Congress's efforts to recoup bonuses at AIG appear to have cooled over the past few days. And President Obama will make an effort to repair relations with Wall Street when he sits down with a dozen bank CEOs on Friday. [WSJ]
• More on Tim Geithner's proposal yesterday that the government be given the authority to take control of troubled financial institutions. [NYT]
• HSBC is planning to lay off 1,200 people in the UK. [DB]
• Hedge funders may see pay drop by as much as 25 percent this year. [BN]
• A Steve Rattner-less Quadrangle Group has decided to temporarily suspend efforts to raise a third private equity fund. [peHUB]
• More big names have decided to leave Merrill Lynch. [FT, WSJ]
• AIG says it sold two of its jets and has cancelled delivery of two more. [ABC]
• An employee with AIG shares his resignation letter: He says he's been "betrayed by AIG" and "unfairly persecuted by elected officials." [NYT]

It isn't easy to be a gold digger in a deep recession. You can't just expect to hit a club and find bankers standing on banquettes with a bottle of Cristal in one hand and a handful of $100 bills in the other. And you can't just stand outside the Lamborghini dealership on Long Island and expect to meet that special someone. Conspicuous consumption is out and even the men who could afford a Lambo if they wanted one aren't buying them. Fear not! You just need to make a few small adjustments and boost your chances of meeting an absurdly wealthy man willing to shower you with gifts for years and years—or at least until someone younger, blonder, and cuter comes along. After the jump, a few suggestions!

It looks like it's been a good year thus far for Phil Falcone, the hedge fund kingpin who resides in the ornate Guccione mansion, is the owner of a pet pig named Pickles, and made a fortune last fall betting against the British bank HBOS. (He also controls a big chunk of the New York Times, which probably won't go down as his best investment of the year.) Hedge Fund Alert reports that Falcone is now buying out Harbert Management, the firm that provided him with $25 million in start-up capital in 2001, a figure that blossomed into many billions before later crashing back to earth. Falcone is buying back the stake for an undisclosed sum and the deal will give him "100 percent control of the firm," which is precisely what "greedy pig billionaires" very much like. Or so we've heard. [NYT/Dealbook, previously]

Some of these women are still riding high. Some may soon be packing up their homes in East Hampton and taking a final spin on the Gulfstream jet. Their identities after the jump.

Here's comforting news for investors in Dan Loeb's hedge fund, especially those who may have been under the assumption the hedgie's been hard at work to make up for his disastrous performance in 2008: Loeb spent time at the World Economic Forum in Davos hanging out with fameseekers Julia Allison and Meghan Asha, and kindly flew the duo back to New York aboard his (rentable!) Gulfstream jet. We're sure his pleasant-sounding wife is positively delighted. [Gawker]

Grim news for residents of Greenwich: Real estate prices plunged the most in three decades in 2008—the median home price fell 7 percent—and the number of houses sold dropped by more than a third as the financial crisis roiled the finance-heavy suburb. Billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen isn't selling his 31,642-square-foot, nine-bedroom palace, as far as we know. But if he were going to do so, it's safe to say having a 6,734-square-foot ice skating rink on your property isn't worth as much as it once was. [NYP]

We've reported on a number of companies (Citigroup, Travelers, Bristol-Myers) that have been looking to unload their expensive corporate jets in recent weeks as the U.S. heads into a deep recession. Dan Loeb, the prickly hedge fund manager best known for castigating CEOs for their profligate spending, demonstrates another path to reducing costs in these challenging economic times: He's renting his plane out to other people. Yes, for $5,800 an hour, you can take 12 of your closest friends for a ride on Loeb's Gulfstream IV-SP, a fact you'll be reminded of every time you look out of the window since the "TP" stamped on the tail reflects the name of his hedge fund, Third Point. (You can contact Key Air if you're interesting in making a reservation.) After the jump, a few photos of the interior and the creamy leather seats where Loeb sits in front of his laptop and drafts those vicious letters of his.

♦ Citigroup isn't getting Wachovia after all: Just four days after the banks agreed to a deal, Wachovia has changed course and will now sell the company to Wells Fargo for $15.4 billion. [WSJ, NYT]
♦ The $700 billion bailout bill will reach the House for a vote today. This should be interesting. [NYT]
♦ JPMorgan Chase, which purchased a failed Washington Mutual last week, is already cleaning out the executive suite. [Bloomberg]

Just in case the reports of Wall Streeters not making millions this year has softened your resentment of ostentatious master-of-the-universe types and their role in the recession, a profile of London hedge fund manager "Mark" will ensure that any sympathy you might have had vanishes instantly. Meet the bespoke suit-wearing, modern art-buying, A-list-schmoozing thirty-something who's only worth £30 mil. and now has to figure out how to achieve his plan of earning £50 mil. more by 2010. [Independent]

It's no longer cool being a banker—at least as far as real estate developers are concerned. While Wall Streeters might be reluctant to spend big on an apartment during this economic downtown, doctors don't seem to share their concerns—"people are always getting sick"—and so now developers and brokers are focusing their attention on physicians. A bunch of MDs aren't going to be able to save the entire Manhattan real estate market on their own, of course, especially since many of them are "quite a bit more conservative" than the young Wall Street turks who used to plunk down eight-figure sums for sprawling lofts about as quickly as they'd drop $500 on a $29 bottle of vodka at a Marquee. But newly-unemployed bankers who miss the old days needn't dispair. Just ace the MCATs, go through four years of medical school and another four years of residency, and your broker may start returning your calls again.

• Goldman Sachs reports that earnings slipped 11% in the second quarter, but still better than expected [WSJ]

Forbes takes a look at a survey of hedge-funder spending: