Last September Michael Daly of the NY Daily News did a piece on the economic indicator he called the High End Girlfriend Index ("HEGI"). <link> Premise was that one of the conspicuous luxuries of life on Wall Street was to be able to afford the kind of woman who had ignored you in high school. Conversely, the crash led to their being -- very, very reluctantly -- let go. Daly quotes a New York lawyer as follows:

"You have a Wall Street guy and he looks like one of the seven dwarfs," Hayes says. The schlub finds himself with a fabulous girlfriend such as used to brush past him as if he were a wall. He will do almost anything to keep her if his magic millions suddenly evaporate, even selling his watch and cuff links.

"The last overhead to go is a really high-end girlfriend," Hayes says. "If you're a short, ugly 40-year-old guy and you're throwing over a high-quality girlfriend, you're desperate."

The absolute economic low comes with a realization that Hayes summarizes in a sentence. "I can't afford her anymore!"

When he hears of one tumbling titan after another giving up a fabulous girlfriend, Hayes knows we are in the direst of economic times, no matter what the Dow says.