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According to this week's Newsweek, in this bad economy, a lot of wealthy people are feeling what's known as luxury shame. They're embarrassed about their wealth while others are hurting. Although they say, after a few bottles of Cristal, that feeling goes away.

Well, a lot of Wall Street experts are saying there are incredible bargains right now in the stock markets. This is a good time to buy. Oh, it's a great time to buy, yeah. Like kind of after a huge car crash, there are auto parts laying all around. Same thing.

Little bit of history trivia. It was this week, actually yesterday, in 1961, Fidel Castro announced that he was a Marxist and would turn Cuba into a Communist country, where the government would take over all the major industries. Or as we call that today, a bailout.

And AIG, you know the insurance company who's getting over $11 billion of our dollars in bailout money? Well, they announced they're giving 130 of their executives cash awards of up to $3 million. These are cash awards, not bonuses. They say they are payments to guarantee that their top executives stay with the company. Oh, yeah, God forbid AIG should lose any of these business geniuses. Imagine what kind of shape they'd be in without these people. Again, these are cash awards, not bonuses. So we should send them to jail, not prison, see?

The Labor Department announced that over 1,100 lawyers lost their jobs last month. Think about it. So lawyers are losing their jobs. ... CEOs are being forced to work for a dollar a year. Ann Coulter's jaw is wired shut. In many ways, this could be the greatest Christmas ever.
Last Friday was, of course, Black Friday. And if you had money in the stock market, today is Black Monday. The stock market lost 679 points today. Not even a stock market, that's a flea market.

Today was the big day for online shopping. This is known as Cyber Monday. Did you know that? And of course, tomorrow is Identity Theft Tuesday.

And this week, they will flip the switch on the White House Christmas tree, which has over 25,000 lights on it, one light for every CEO that's looking for a bailout.

Another good day for the stock market. Up almost 400 points today. Yeah, listen to this. If this keeps up every day for the next three years, we'll almost be even again.

It looks like the government is going to bail out CitiGroup, yet they don't want to bail out the auto companies. See, I don't think this is fair. I mean, blue collar guys who make our cars, they don't get the bailout. But the white collar guys on Wall Street, they get the bailout. You know what I think we should do? I think they should work together. I think the guys in Detroit should keep making the cars, and the guys on Wall Street should be making the license plates. See what I'm saying?

And the car companies don't like the word 'bailout.' They prefer to call it a '24-hour bail-a-thon! Come on down! Everything must go!'

Hey, do you believe how much the price of gas has dropped? It's unbelievable. Given today how far it's gone down, I saw somebody driving a Prius today without a smug look on their face.

Now, because of the recent controversy, AIG, remember they got the big bailout, AIG? Well, they're now paying their CEO a salary, $1 a year. How many think that's fair? Yeah? How many still think he's overpaid? No, that's pretty good. I think that's a nice gesture, having the CEO work for just $1 a year. Oh, he'll still get his $300 million bonus, but the salary will be $1.

And this is true, the Big Three automakers are now talking about driving back to Washington in December. Remember the big uproar last week when they all flew to Washington in private jets? Well, now they're going to carpool. No, this is true. And to make sure there aren't any problems, they're driving a Toyota.

I tell you, the economy is bad. In fact, today -- you know the White House turkey? Turned down the pardon. Said all his money's in the market. Nothing left to live for.

Welcome to 'The Tonight Show.' I have some wonderful news for you. Everyone in our audience tonight is getting a Federal bailout. Congratulations!

Yesterday, President-elect Barack Obama announced his new economic team. You know what he should do? Hire those people who were in charge of his fundraising campaign. We can pay this thing off in like a week.

No, I was watching one of the network financial people on cable news today. And they said, with this bailout thing, the government has set a precedent that if you're a large corporation losing money, you know, due to lack of creativity and poor business decisions, well, the government will just send you a check. So, good news for NBC. We're getting a check! Yeah!

U.N. officials said today they desperately need $7 billion to help people cope with disasters, but they're having a hard time getting people to send rescue money. Here's what the UN should do: Invest in bad mortgages, run a bank into the ground, give yourself a bonus, get some spa treatments and, in no time, the government will send you $750 billion.

General Motors announced they are selling two of their private jets. The bad news? They're being bought by the executives at AIG.

Well, it doesn't look as if the U.S. automakers are going to get their bailout money. Congress said yesterday they were concerned about giving the Big Three automakers money just to keep making the same stupid mistakes. And, believe me, when it comes to making the same stupid mistakes, Congress knows what it's talking about.

International maritime officials say 39 ships have been hijacked by pirates this year on the high seas. See, luckily, we don't have pirates in America that rob and plunder. We just have CEOs.

Today, Congress demanded a business plan from the three automakers before they'd even consider giving them taxpayer money. A business plan? How come we didn't get to see a business plan before Congress gave away 750 billion of our dollars?

I've got an idea. How about this idea? Instead of giving $25 billion to the car companies, give it to us, with the provision it can only be used to buy a Corvette. They get the money, everybody back to work, and we all get a new car!
The three big domestic automakers are now saying they are working jointly on a new hybrid car. It runs on a combination of state and federal bailout money.

That's the big debate in Washington, now, whether to bail out Detroit automakers. Because if they went under, we'd lose millions and millions of jobs. You know what we need to do? And this is what I think would work. We need to get Oprah to buy everybody a car again, that would turn this thing around!

The three C.E.O.s made a huge mistake today. You may have seen this -- they each flew to Washington in their own private jet to ask for $25 billion bailout. Even A.I.G. executives are going, 'What are you thinking?'

They each took their own private jet that cost $20,000 round trip. And here's the sad part, today the Japanese announced they have a jet that costs half that and gets better mileage.
Forecasters at the Federal Reserve in Philadelphia said the U.S. has been in a recession for the last 14 months. Thank you, Nostradamus! That's how you know things are slowing down, when forecasters are now predicting the past.

You know what the definition of recession is? A recession is two consecutive quarters of declining productivity. Or, as the Clippers call that, 'halftime.'

Barack Obama says one of his top priorities once he becomes president is closing down Guantanamo Bay. To make sure it closes, he's going to turn it into a bank.

It's great to be here in Los Angeles, what's left of it. These wildfires continuing to burn here in LA. I haven't seen anything go up in smoke like this since my 401(K).

Well, it looks like Guantanamo Bay is going to be closed. Hey, that shows you how tough times are, when even terrorists are losing their homes.

In a speech about the economy, President Bush said, 'Our actions are having an impact.' Yeah, I think it's called a recession.

American Express is now looking to borrow three and a half billion dollars from the taxpayers. Three and a half billion dollars. You know what? I think we should lend them the money, but, do like they do with us: charge 18% interest, which will go to 34% if they miss a payment. I think that's the way to do it.

The United States Postal Service said the economy's so bad, it will have its first layoffs in the history of the post office. May lay off 40,000 workers, yeah. Company officials said they have no idea what happened. They don't understand why people aren't using the mail like they used to, and they said all 40,000 workers would be notified by email. I don't know. Is that a good idea, 40,000 disgruntled postal workers at holiday time? That doesn't sound like a good thing.

And there have been rumors that if the economy continues to get worse, that Barack Obama may have to suspend plans for any income or capital gains tax increases. In fact, they say Obama's considering suspending all tax increases, except those on Joe the plumber. His are going to go up.

Actually, according to the papers today, the economy is hurting prostitutes. They say the prostitutes working the brothels in Nevada are having a hard time making enough money to pay their mortgages. Yeah, business is way down. Which is kind of sad. I mean, you hate to see these women just out walking the streets, you know?

And according to a federal report, unemployment claims went up by 300,000. And that's just Republicans in Washington.

Happy Halloween, everybody. Man, I saw the scariest costume. A little kid knocked on my door dressed as a 401(k). Scared me half to death.

As you know, tonight's the night kids going around asking for handouts. Same thing Wall Street did about a month ago.

Are you all getting ready for Halloween? The good news is, with the economy so bad, people don't have to work as hard to make their houses look scary. The lights are out, the windows are boarded up, the lawns not cut. Everyday is Halloween in America now.

Financial experts say that the economic crisis has cost $2.8 trillion dollars. That's such a huge amount of money. It's hard for people to visualize how much that is. Let me put that in terms you understand. $2.8 trillion is enough money to buy Sarah Palin clothes for a year.

In Pontiac, Michigan, five bodies and the cremated remains of 22 others have been evicted from a funeral home. Evicted! That's when you know the real estate market's bad, when you're dead and they still foreclose on you.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, Americans drove 15 billion fewer miles in August than they did the year before. To which President Bush said, 'See, that's one of the advantages of not having a job to go to.'

According to a new poll, women are more pessimistic about the economy recovering than men. You know why? Because men are in charge of the economy.

And this week, President Bush announced a $250 billion -- everything's billions now, millions don't even count, have you noticed that? Millions is like chump change -- plan for the government, to directly buy shares of the nation's leading banks, to make sure they're run properly. They're going to make sure they're run properly, yeah. Because one thing we know is the people who gave us a a $9 trillion debt, they know how to handle money.

Well, the market went down over 700 points today. Oh, that reminds me. You know, we turn our clocks back soon. We're turning it back to 1929, I believe.

Hey, look, I don't want to say the stock market is unstable, but this morning, the opening bell was rung by Paula Abdul.

And they gave out the Nobel Prize for economics this week. Interesting. It went to a highly intelligent economist. His theory is a little hard, I think, for the average person to comprehend. I'm going to break it down. This is his theory. He determined that it was bad business to give loans to people who can't pay them back! Apparently, we don't understand that in this country.

I think the economy is starting to turn around. In fact today, instead of just shooting animals for food, Sarah Palin is back shooting them for fun again.

According to a group of Nobel prize-winning scientists, because of the economic crisis, the planet might actually improve from the damage of global warming, because we're using less fossil fuel and we're saving energy. See, this shows the brilliance of President Bush's plan. He was killing the economy, yeah, but to save the planet! The man is a genius!

I think the economy is starting to turn around. In fact today, instead of just shooting animals for food, Sarah Palin is back shooting them for fun again.

And the finance ministers of the world's top economies met in Washington for an emergency meeting on the banking crisis. I thought this was nice. While they were meeting, they gave President Bush some Monopoly money to play with so he'd feel involved.

You know, do you think President Bush really understands any of this stuff? Like today, he was asked about General Motors. And he said, 'I think he's doing a fine job in Iraq.'

The average price of a gallon of gas has had its biggest drop ever this week also. It's now down to $3.30 a gallon. Remember $3.30 a gallon? That's the price you used to get outraged about a year ago.

Happy Columbus Day, everybody. Today is Columbus Day, which means all the banks are closed. At least I think that's why they're closed. God, you realize Columbus is the only person to have closed more banks than President Bush. Isn't that amazing?

Today, they gave out the Nobel prize for economics. Why? Believe me, in this economy, there weren't many people to choose to give it to. You know who would up getting it? You know who got it? Gary Coleman for those cash call commercials. That's right, he was the only guy.

Former President Jimmy Carter blasted President Bush, blaming the financial crisis on him. Carter called this the worst financial crisis since the Carter administration. Good news, the stock market went up over 900 points today. That's good news. This is the best thing to happen to the John McCain campaign since ... actually, it's the first good thing to happen to McCain.

They found that Americans actually eat more during bad economic times, that people become fatter during bad financial periods. Isn't that amazing? This is the only country in the world, when the economy goes south, not only don't you lose your ass, it gets bigger.

Well, this weekend, representatives from the world's 20 richest nations will get together to try and figure out how to solve this global economic meltdown. They're called the Group of 20. Given how bad things are, they used to be called the Group of 50.

All these countries are going to get together and brainstorm. So I guess that pretty much leaves President Bush out of the picture.