One-third of the houses in Nantucket are $1-million-plus, and these days, when you have a local economy that is based on the until-recently rich, you know they'll take you down with them. Good news (?) then that allegedly (?) the upswing is back on: "Wall Street vacationers are spending money freely once again, especially since July 4th weekend, when the super rich seemed to have finally returned, wallets open." Fortune's example of that? "That week, ex-Goldman Sachs honcho Jon Winkelried finally signed a contract to sell his property for just below the new asking price of $29 million — an island record and a figure that has some [...]

To live in Los Angeles is to tolerate much, from a local ecosystem prone to catastrophe to the adoption of the automobile as a virtual exoskeleton to the assholic hubris of all things Laker-related. Usually there's some trend-conscious rationale for these routine affronts to dignity and reason: Between lo-cal mojitos, a diehard Angeleno will regale you with the one about how southern California is a vital new millennial portal to the Pacific Rim, say, or reprise the hoary old line about the Golden State being the experimental group in the adoption of bold new popcult trends and lifestyle formations.

It's harder to claim such cutting-edge cachet, though, [...]

Economic crises are notoriously the great testing grounds for the restlessly innovative spirit of capitalist enterprise. Adversity refines the mettle and taxes the imagination of your plucky entrepreneur, who doggedly carves new fortunes out of the main chances the chastened market affords for his wares. In the shadow of economic defeat, a thousand crisitunities bloom.

Or you know, maybe not. From across the pond comes an arresting Financial Times dispatch on how the global credit crunch has been an enormous boon for the hoariest brand of economic elite: the titled aristocracy. As global land speculators pack up their debts and head for the exits, the cash-rich beneficiaries of [...]