No More Bling? Even the Jet Set Feels the Pinch

Not even the super-rich are immune to the present crisis, prompting Christina Binkley to wonder in the Wall Street Journal: "Is this the end of bling?" In a word, maybe. The world, of course, will always have rich people, but they may not want to flaunt it as much amid all this "anti-wealth sentiment."

"It's not necessarily a good thing to show up at the tennis club with a new $30,000 crocodile handbag when your friends' net worth has been halved,” Binkley writes. That, in turn, could hurt those who sell luxury goods. Said a rep for high-end retailer Bergdorf Goodman: "We're sharpening our pencils." Is that too little, too late? On a recent trip to Paris, Binkley "raced from one grand new store opening to another, feeling vaguely as though we were all fiddling while Rome burned.” (More luxury goods stories.)