Hey Ivy League students, did you think that the walls of the Ivory Tower would shelter you from this global financial crisis? Figured you'd be able to continue pulling in your financial aid and frolicking in your school's brand new buildings full of fancy professors who teach one class per year and spend the rest of the time writing little-read books? Think again! Because it looks like even the mighty Harvard is losing billions in the current market downturn. More billions than you might expect:

Ron Burkle, supermarket magnate and friend of Bill Clinton and sleeper-with of models, used to own a magazine, with his friend Yusef Jackson. The magazine was called Radar. Last Friday, Jackson and Burkle closed the magazine and sold its carcass to AMI. It's not really clear why Jackson and Burkle invested in Radar to begin with, except that they wanted to be media moguls, maybe? Then it turned out that being a media mogul doesn't mean publishing one sarcastic niche title, really. Burkle made his money with supermarkets. It is quite profitable, of course, to own all the supermarkets, because people need to eat. But, you know, it's not very glamorous! And Burkle enjoys flying around on his private jet with famous people, and globe trotting with politicians, and partying, and models. He likes models. One can enjoy this lifestyle with supermarket billions, but isn't it more fun to enjoy it with media holdings? So at some point he and Jackson decided to invest in Maer Roshan's crazy magazine about "pop and politics and pop culture and scandal and pop" or whatever the hell the tagline of Radar 3.0 was. And they gave him 15 issues to do with as he pleased, and he did eventually turn out a pretty good product. But the money wasn't there, because it was a new magazine, and there's not even money for old magazines anymore. And honestly it was probably not as exciting and fun to own a magazine as Burkle thought it would be! It's tough, because he also wanted to secretly own the magazine, and no one who secretly owns things gets the same pleasure Rupert Murdoch does from personally tearing up the Wall Street Journal and remaking it in his image. And Murdoch loves newspapers. There's really never been any evidence that Burkle loves magazines. Murdoch will take a loss for years on something like the New York Post. Burkle didn't give Roshan the five years he said it'd take to break even on Radar before he pulled the plug. Because if it's not subsidizing his lifestyle, it's not worth the cash. He's a capitalist, obviously, and Radar was not a charitable endeavor, but if we had his fortune we wouldn't mind wasting it on the talent Roshan brought together. Back to controlling distribution and sales of food! Unlike media, mac and cheese is recession-proof!

That's Piper Palin, Alaskan governor and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's 7-year-old daughter. In her hand is a $790 monogram Louis Vuitton handbag. That's over a hundred dollars per year of lil' Pipe's life! So maybe part of her mom's $150,000 Neiman Marcus shopping spree was picking up sweet ass designer shit for her chic and worldly seven-year-old. Or maybe Piper just saved her allowance for a real, real long time. Orrr... heh. It's fake. Who knows! [via Deceiver]

Neel Kashkari is the intense young man tapped by the Treasury Department to lead our nation's financial bailout. The national media could paint only the most basic picture of him: a high-achieving Republican ski bum who rose quickly from Wharton to Goldman Sachs to, today, a position of national import. But guess what, friends: we have obtained Neel's 1991 senior high school yearbook page. Yes, the same page that a former teacher at Neel's school told us truly reveals his egocentric, douchebag nature. And it is epic. Rush quotes! Bush quotes! And the infamous Ferrari! Luxuriate in the awesomeness of our savior:

Suze Orman is, essentially, a hustler. It's not that she necessarily gives bad advice—it's that she sells the idea that anyone needs Suze Orman to give them advice in the first place. Here's an example: the strongly-haired CNBC personality wrote a book called Women and Money. You know what women need to know about money? The exact same stuff that men need to know. Stuff which is primarily available for free, on the internet. Like "don't spend money on books full of facts available for free elsewhere." Unfortunately, Americans are more seduced than ever before by Suze Orman's steely gaze. She's not your friend! During the total economic meltdown of our nation's financial system, who do people turn to? Suze freaking Orman. She's now the face of FDIC, for god's sake. She may not be as dangerous as her closest competitor, mad man Jim Cramer, who actually gives specific advice that will cause you to lose your life savings. But she's insidious nonetheless; if people want financial advice, they definitely shouldn't turn to someone who's really an ad pitchwoman.

Unfortunately no one is protected from this catastrophic financial crisis. Your money will always be taken from you! Just ask Teresa Escamilla, a 47-year-old woman living in a crispy brown corner of the wasted and ruinous San Fernando valley. First of all, her house just burned down in that out of control wildfire they've got going on over there. So yes, like so many foreclosed upon before her, Ms. Escamilla is without shelter. But wait! There's more awfulness! She also, like so many who invested in precarious stocks or stashed their money in crumbling banks, has lost her entire life's savings. She kept $12,000 in a shoe box in the trailer. Which burned down. Her money, you see, went up in flames:

You young people probably once sat farting in a hollowed-out pumpkin for your Anne Geddes baby pictorial, but old timer silver foxes like CNN anchor Anderson Cooper posed for the real deal: legendary maverick and possible Furry Diane Arbus. Yes, at left is a strange, somewhat unpleasant photograph by Ms. Arbus—Coop's skin looks thick and almost Plasticene, his lips appear painted—but it's going to fetch a lot of clams no matter what! (Unlike Cooper, who will never fetch clams for any reason.) It's up for auction today at Christie's for around $8-12k. You should probably buy it and add it to the rest of your shrine. (I'm talking to you, Sam Champion.) Click for larger baby-to-adult comparison. It's pretty uncanny.

Jim Cramer has changed his mind! Just last week, you may recall, the shouty CNBC stock picker appeared close to tears as he begged Americans to pull all the cash they'd need for the next five years out of the crippled stock market. Well, whatever, that was last week. Now he says that we've already reached "the beginning of the end of the crisis." That sure was fast! This, of course, is in line with his (physical and intellectual) penchant for wild gesticulation. Let's take a brief look back at Mr. Cramer's unpredictable recent past, shall we?

Looks like old Viacom chief Sumner Redstone is the first media mogul to take a significant hit from the present awful economic climate for media companies (Pictured: Viacom's stock chart for the last year). And by "significant hit," we mean "being forced to sell $400 million worth of stock."

So the New York Times has a great story on Barack Obama's shady illegal fundraising. Because the system is utterly broken and Obama is taking advantage of that fact to win this election. His unprecedented fundraising is democracy at its worst! Of course millions in donations from thousands of random people is not so bad, and McCain's taking advantage of the GOP bundling system that Bush developed which is really just a laundering service. Still, hey, lots of people are donating way more than is legal to Obama's campaign and that campaign is maybe not being as vigilant about checking up on this as they should be. Though honestly this story is primarily an excuse to print the funny fake names and occupations of these mysterious illegal donors:

Unpatriotic dissenters are expressing doubts about Neel Kashkari, America's new young bullet-headed money whiz who's been tapped to lead this great nation out of the pit of financial despair. How dare they! It was almost humorous how little anyone knew about the 35-year-old AC/DC fan when the Treasury Dept. assigned him to lead the massive bailout earlier this week. But now we know more about: his family! His politics! His hobbies! And his wall art:

How does "maverick" everyman John McCain stack up to "elitist" Barack Obama? Why, this handy charticle illustrating their assets in a side-by-side comparison speaks for itself. Spin this, you filthy rich basket case. Click through for bigger pic. [ProseBeforeHose]

The "serious" finance/econ press (ranging from liberal Krugman to conservative Rich Lowry) agrees that the House Republican plan—insurance??—is a joke. McCain lending his ostensible support to it (though he won't come out for it, his intervention pushed the rebelling Repubs to the forefront of the debate) is designed either to scuttle a compromise he had no part in (vanity) or to provide Republicans the opportunity to avoid supporting an unpopular but arguably necessary bill (sabotage). If Dems were smart, they'd recast their compromise bill as a liberal response to the Bush/Paulson plan. Hopefully it is that, too! I.e. play up the laregly symbolic golden parachute bullshit, etc. Most likely, some version of the Dodd/Frank bill will pass this weekend, with Republican support (and probably with some minor concessions John McCain can crow about). Right? Unless McCain makes good on his threat to travel back to DC after the debate and, you know, win this war on banks. Here's John Carney on what House negotiations will look like now:

Bill O'Reilly got a $5 million dollar advance for his new book, A Bold Fresh Naughty Piece of Humanity Learns to Say 'No' To Drugs. But who's looking out for you? (Hint: Nobody, loser.) [NYP]

Whenever the media say anything about John McCain that isn't "he is the coolest hero ever and sooo dreamy" his campaign accuses every journalist in the country of being "in the tank" for Barack Obama. And whenever the press goes a day or two without talking exclusively about John McCain, the McCain campaign accuses the media of ignoring him. Kind of a biased-if-you-do, biased-if-you-don't situation. But we'll give the McCain campaign credit: they're consistent. In their attacks on the media, anyway. The enemy seems to shift a bit. Like, this week, apparently the media is ignoring John McCain in favor of... the rapidly growing financial crisis and the government's unprecedented plan to end it. Seriously, the McCain campaign is totally upset that no one will write about his "commission of technicians" but they all find time to talk about Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson! McCain economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin—the guy who said McCain invented the BlackBerry and yet somehow retained his position as McCain's least bad economic advisor—sent a snippy email to like a thousand financial reporters yelling at them for not covering John McCain's secret plan to end the war on banks. "I cannot believe the absence of recognition of the policy substance," Holtz-Eakin wrote, followed by a list of all of McCain's fantastic vague ideas that he can't implement until January. Financial reporters who received the email were like, ok? What? Old man, there are more important things to talk about right now, like the end of capitalism!

This week's New York contains a brief story on the "sudden-onset poverty" — poverty, huh? — of an anonymous Lehman Brothers trader. There are million dollar mortgages and million dollar options packages gone to shit and wives who "can't" work and a sobbing nanny and mostly, lots and lots of blistering infinite anger in search of a target other than the indefensible practices and corrupted culture of an industry he bought into willingly. It's like, "Oh I'm so happy these guys get to stay home and spend time thinking about what's really important while instilling their own unique values systems in their kids!" Except the opposite:

When, back in April, we wondered what exactly political newspaper/website Politico was up to (and do they make money?) we said this: "once the presidential thing is done, Politico will have to go back to what we thought it'd be in the first place-a wonkish, Roll Call-like little trade paper for Congress-watchers and DC insiders." Because pure politics does not make money, and Politico has a lot of big salaries to pay. But Politico didn't listen! Once the election is over, The Times reports (from their new media desk!), Politico will expand! And then the Washington Post will copy them!

"Trinity Church, which became an emotional refuge amid the fallout at ground zero, is offering services to its neighbors during a time of crisis: free spiritual and psychological counseling for workers who have been affected by the current Wall Street financial turmoil." Oh ha, it's the 9/11 of bankers getting fired! Will the free spiritual counseling encourages downtown assholes to renounce materialism or something? (Is that likely from the this particular church?) More: "And because they are typically measured by the size of their paychecks - bonuses, in particular - their self-worth is deeply threatened when the money evaporates." Words fail! Anyway. Free counseling! As usual, self-medication is by necessity self-financed. So far that's not stopping anyone!

What timing! A flack reports: "the Ad Council just launched a ‘Financial Campaign' for the Department of Treasury, to educate the youngin's about debt management, credit history, credit cards, and the like." It is called ControlYourCredit.gov, and it seems to be inspired, appropriately, by Psycho and Barton Fink, two hellish tales of psychotic breaks with reality that take place in hotels, like this website, and our economy. Cute! You are supposed to somehow play this game in the lobby of this creepy hotel in order to make it to "Room 850," because ha ha, even though you now have perfect credit you still cannot afford a house, stupid millennial. Here is why this is sad:

SeamlessWeb, the high-class Kozmo.com of the new millennium (this means they deliver you meals from local restaurants, while you are at work, if you are too lazy to call a restaurant) (oh hah one of the founders of Kozmo.com went back to Lehmann Brothers when that site shuttered), might be in a spot of trouble! You see, the financial sector is melting down and thousands of Wall Street people are going to get laid off. Those Wall Street people and their Wall Street firms make up a large part of SeamlessWeb's client base! (Not out fault you guys list like two restaurants in Brooklyn, losers.) But don't worry, SeamlessWeb employees! The CEO sent out an email this morning promising that even though all their corporate clients are facing upheaval and chaos, SeamlessWeb will continue to deliver sushi: "Regardless of whether people are at work or away from work, they need to eat. And, SeamlessWeb provides a highly efficient and cost-effective way for them to order food from local restaurants for both takeout and delivery." Poor dopes. (Of course, SeamlessWeb is owned by food service giant Aramark—so they may ride out this hiccup yet.) Click to read the sad email.