Is chrome the key to recovery?

At a Christmas party the other night, I met the owner of two Ford dealerships just outside New York. Given the kicking the American car industry has taken these past few weeks, you would think he would be sobbing in a corner. But there he was doling out the Egg Nog as jolly as Santa Claus. I asked him to explain his indecently good mood.

First, he was just back from a holiday in South Carolina. He had driven down with his family in a "recreational vehicle", a souped-up caravan, which he had bought out of foreclosure, used for his holiday and flipped at a profit.

Second, he remained a romantic about American cars. Sure, these were tough times. Detroit's Big Three, Ford, Chrysler and GM, have become a laughing stock, pleading for a Federal bailout. Anyone still inclined to splash out on a car seems to want some Japanese micro-car, capable of 50 miles to the gallon.

"But what would you prefer to drive?" the car dealer asked me. "A big Ford with leather seats, every convenience? Or a Honda Civic?"

I could see his point. One of the few pleasures of business travel is renting a big American car and feeling it float down a highway. For all their critics, these cars retain echoes of the great chrome-finned beasts of yesteryear.

As bad times provoke a return to economic nationalism, and the car companies heal themselves, the love affair with American cars is bound to be rekindled.

TINA Brown's new website, The Daily Beast, reports that the wife of the ex-Lehman Brothers boss, Dick Fuld, has been shopping like it is 2007. She is said to have been spending thousands of dollars a week at the Hermes store on Madison Avenue since Lehman collapsed in September. Most recently, she bought three cashmere throws, but asked that they be put in a plain white bag rather than Hermes' familiar citrus bag. For discretion's sake. The habit is apparently spreading among New York's remaining rich. It's called "secret shopping".

IN my tattered investment file, I keep an article quoting David Swensen, the revered manager of Yale University's endowment. He recommended the amateur investor keep a portfolio made up of 30% US stocks, 15% non-US, 5% emerging market, 20% real estate and 15% Treasury bonds and inflation-protected securities. Yesterday we learned that Yale's investments have fallen by 25% since June. So much for diversification.