The good news about the economy:

Televised celebrity basketball star LeBron James signed a contract with the Miami Heat and will soon become an American billionaire. Actor George Clooney has a palatial estate on Lake Como in northern Italy and (on camera) he invited talk show host Regis Philbin to visit him, but Regis has a huge estate of his own.

Tiger Woods’ wife, Elin, is jockeying (actually golfing) for a $775 million settlement at the breakup of their marriage made in heaven. And our former presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat John Kerry, when asked how many estates they own, were confused about whether it was “six or seven� estates. Both men married very rich women which proved that they were qualified to run for the presidency because they were clever enough to sidestep hard work in order to achieve the American Dream.

Charlie Sheen dumped another Mercedes down into a ravine in the California hills (easy come, easy go). Bill Gates wants to give away half a billion dollars and wants to talk other billionaires into doing the same but they usually give their money to charities on other continents since they obviously believe that Americans are all too rich to need any help.

Vampire films starring young weird-looking untalented actors grossed $80 million at the box office and a small cottage in the Hamptons is a summer rental at ten grand per month. For $3,000 and all the free ice cream sandwiches you can eat you can sit in the lower front rows at Yankee Stadium. A restaurant called Per Se in Manhattan and also the Waverly Inn in Greenwich Village offer dinner for two for as little as $5,000. A Picasso painting recently sold at auction for $106 million and (also at auction) someone paid $40,000 for two of Marilyn Monroe’s chest X-rays. I suppose they’ll brighten up his lonely room.

Late-night talk show host Conan O’Brien whose ratings on NBC-TV were insufficient to allow his show to continue, was fired, given $32 million in severance pay and is now preparing to launch another evening show on cable television. Actress Mariska Hargitay (of TV’s “Law and Order�) recently purchased a $7.5 million estate in the Hamptons. A new car, the Porsche Spider, with costs exceeding $300,000, is selling very well in New York City. A stuffed horse formerly owned by Roy Rogers (aka king of the cowboys) named Trigger was sold at auction recently, bringing in a sale price of more than $265,000.

CC Sabathia, a baseball pitcher from the Cleveland Indians, was given a $125 million contract to pitch for the New York Yankees. The infamous Tony “I’d like my life back� Hayward of BP took time off from work as then-CEO in order to participate in a yacht race. Upscale wine lovers in China are paying $5,000 for forged labeled bottles of imitation French wines.

Former Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin campaigned for office promising to devote her time and energy to the well-being of Alaska and its people. Halfway through her elected term she resigned in order to lecture, sell books and earn millions of dollars while thinking nothing of abandoning the folks who voted for her.

George Steinbrenner passed away at an opportune time since the Inheritance Tax Bill has lapsed this year and will not be renewed until next year. Mister Steinbrenner’s heirs have been spared a tax payment in excess of 600 million dollars!

Feel better now? We’ll save the bad news for some other time.

Bill Lee lives in New York City and Sharon.