Recession Dispatch from…Miami

As I write this, a gleaming, blue-hulled yacht about 100 feet long is gliding by on Biscayne Bay. Speakers on an empty rear deck blast the Gipsy Kings.

If Miami were a person, it would be well-toned and tanned, somewhat imperious and, of course, superficial to the Nth degree. It’s an image that goes a long way toward describing the city’s condition in the midst of national economic doldrums.

Sure, we’re hurting—with foreclosure rates among the nation’s highest, a building boom stopped dead in its tracks and tourism down—but the business and political elite tend to ignore flaws or alter them cosmetically. Think of it as a boob job for a sagging economy…