Petit Fours and Metit Fours

Sculptors Nora Liganno and Marshall Reese created this work of carved ice entitled 'Main Street Meltdown' to personify the ravages of disappearing wealth over time. The ice made its debut on 79th anniversary of Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that caused the Great Depression, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2008 in New York. By Friday, what had not evaporated was mingling with angry Yankee-sweat in street-level gutters and trickling down to the sub-strata that are the New York City sewage and subway systems.

I thought the pic was pitch-perfect with respect to the continuing dull ache of business and financial reports that are due to drip our way in the coming week. The one I'm looking most forward to is The Home Depot's earnings report. I say this because I've been surfing the company's website and noticed they recently got into the electronics and office supply game. The stuff is priced pretty terribly out-of-whack, though, and I'll specifically mention a Canon MF-3240 all-in-one laser printer they'll sell for $495 plus tax and shipping that you can get for $100 and shipped free from Amazon. Same printer, $400 more at The Home Despot!

Home Depot: http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100528347&categoryID=503331
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-imageCLASS-Multifunction-Printer-0989B001/dp/B000EILTCQ/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1226904651&sr=8-1

Yummy! Home Depot forecasts an 8% revenue decline for 2008, further souring previous estimates of 5% and 6.5%, which slightly exceeded market expectations. Maybe selling printers at a 500% retail mark-up saved their bacon, nevermind the slaughtered electronics customers.