A bit rich

One area of growth in the current recession is the cottage industry of former spendthrifts -- the Rosie Millards and India Knights of this world -- lining up to tell everyone how wonderful it is not to have to spend money any more. The lovely India has even parlayed her embrace of the new puritanism into a "how-to" book, explaining how to survive when you're down to your last pair of Manolo Blahniks. It's all vaguely nauseating: these folks still have their well-paying jobs, but they're peddling advice on how to avoid spending too much money on Christmas presents for the family.

Now the media are starting to move on from these posers. We're starting to hear from people who really have lost money in the crash. The Bernie Madoff scandal is producing some truly distressing stories of people who entrusted this creep with their entire life savings and now face being wiped out. The worst story I have heard so far involved a newly-widowed lady who handed her nest-egg over to Madoff less than two weeks before his scheme collapsed.

One of Madoff's victims, the artist and writer Alexandra Penney, pitched up in the Sunday Times this past weekend. It has to be said that she may not have done much to generate sympathy for the cause. It didn't help that she was pictured wearing a fancy mink coat. It didn't help that she owns three houses. It didn't help that she may have to camp out for a while with her son in, God save us all, Malibu. It didn't help that she hasn't had the heart to fire her maid. (Earth to Alexandra Penney: if you didn't have enough money to pay the maid, you wouldn't have to fire her. She'd simply stop showing up. She can't afford to work for nothing).

A lot of people responded to the story when it first appeared on the Daily Beast blogsite by abusing Ms Penney, saying that rich people like her deserved to lose all their money. That's an awful thing to say. Ms Penney is entitled to be angry and distressed, and she's surely entitled to sue Bernie Madoff from here to kingdom come. But it's in bad taste for someone in her position to whine that she may never be able to afford to use a taxi again. Half a million workers in the US are losing their jobs each month; 27,000 in the UK will lose their near-minimum-wage jobs at Woolworths during the holiday season. For Ms Penney to compare her plight to theirs -- her blog is called "The Bag-lady papers" -- is a bit, well, you know...