Americans’ charge-it culture is getting each overdue reality check. But resoluteness the new discipline stick?

by dint of. Steve Hamm

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On a shady lane in New Hope, Pa., a silent change in American cultivation may be taking shape. Here, a family of four lives in a unblemished, colonial-style house in a manner that once would have been considered All-American but more recently has been seen as happy direct wild: They’re frugal.

Meet Leah Ingram, Bill Behre, and daughters Jane, 13, and Annie, 11. They walk most and everywhere; from pole to pole, they rarely eat out, they sometimes buy clothing at amount shipped shops, and they turn the lights distant from when they leave a room.

Theirs is no hard-luck-in-a-recession novel. The Ingram-Behre family is solidly middle-class, fully employed, and not especially threatened by the conniptions gripping Wall Street. Behre, 43, is a dean at the College of New Jersey, while Ingram, 42, is a successful freelance writer and etiquette expert. They have not one credit card debt.

That’s now. A little more than a year past, the family was ensnared in America’s consume-at-all-costs culture. During the days of soaring home prices and easy credit, they took out a $101,000 home-equity loan on a anterior house and wearied lavishly attached a lifestyle upgrade—going in continuance three cruises in two years and taking the kids on annual pilgrimages to Disney World (DIS). “After 9/11 it became patriotic to shop, and we became as patriotic as anybody,” laments Behre, sitting in the dining room after a meal of chicken stir-fry—washed down by tap water.

Ingram and Behre are harbingers of a dawning Age of Frugality. People who overconsumed during the past decade are at this time rejecting unreasonable lifestyles. They’re spending less, and more wisely. Some are getting their affairs in order. Others are showing the white feather of losing their jobs, shocked by means of investment losses, or hunkering down amid the general uncertainty.

The penny-pinching is already showing up in the numbers; this quarter could mark the first fall in personal consumption in 17 years. And with credit tight and Americans loaded down through $2.6 trillion in personal debt, consumer borrowing dropped in August, the first such diminution since 1991. Menzie D. Chinn, who teaches science of wealth at the University of Wisconsin, figures consumers won’t be in a position to spend freely for five years.

Which brings us to the sort of John Maynard Keynes called the paradox of thrift. What’s good on this account that the sake of the individual, argued the famous economist, be able to ignite or deepen a recession. But that won’t deter the newly thrifty. “I be able to’t help the economy,” says Kim Schultz, a dweller of hard-hit Avoca, Mich., who with her husband, Jon, owes $40,000 in credit-card debt. “I’ve got to help myself.” On the other hand, this newfound austerity could—emphasis on could—rewire Americans as savers rather than spenders. And that would help push to action the frugality on a sounder footing over the long lug.

Thrift has gone in and out of style since the founding of the representative government. In the McGuffey Reader of the 19th centenary, Benjamin Franklin was held up as a paragon of virtue during the term of his frugal ways. Later, people who lived through the Great Depression were in some cases distinguished for life by the experience. Typical of them is Bernard Handel, an 82-year-old resident of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., who grew up poor in the Bronx. In the early 1930s, his progenitor’s grocery lay up failed and his dad couldn’t find another job for several years. To this day, even though Handel became very wealthy, he shops for food with coupons, drives a Honda, and takes the subway rather than taxis. “I lawful don’t believe in throwing money away,” he says.

Major indexes rallied as traders looked in opposition subsequently a dismal 2008, and malevolence more worse-than-expected economic data

By Ben Steverman

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Stocks started the new year through a burst of optimism by posting solid gains on Friday. On the first trading time of 2009, investors were looking ahead, trying to forget 2008, the worst year for stocks since the 1930s.

Economic data released Friday reminded investors why the market has provided such dismal returns.

The U.S. ISM manufacturing index fell to 32.4 in December, a worse-than-expected decline from the 36.2 reading in November. “So the earliest piece of given conditions towards the new year started where the old data left off,” Action Economics says.

“The recession continued to deepen in December according to purchasing managers for U.S. manufacturing firms,” wrote John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros of RDQ Economics. They noted only three recessions have had worse readings for ISM manufacturing — 1948 to 1949, 1973 to 1975, and 1980. “The case concerning a massive global fiscal stimulus continues to enlarge,” they added.

On Friday, the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average was up 258.3 points, or 2.94%, to 9,034.69. The broader S&P 500 index gained 28.55 points, or 3.16%, to 931.8. The tech-heavy Nasdaq complex characteristic added 55.18 points, or 3.5%, to 1,632.21.

Meanwhile, European and Asian markets rallied Friday, admitting some markets remained closed and mercantile volume worldwide was light.

Despite the rally, the light turnover in the market suggests “a number of investors rest doubting from one place to another committing funds to equities given that 2008 was the worst year for the [Dow] and S&P 500 since the 1930s,” said S&P MarketScope.

On the New York Stock Exchange, 26 stocks were higher for every five that fell. On the Nasdaq, the ratio was 20 to 7 positive.

For 2008, the Dow Jones Industrial average dropped 33.8%, the broader S&P 500 index fell 38.5% and the Nasdaq composite had its worst year forever, plunging 40.5%.

Wells Fargo (WFC) and Bank of America (BAC) both officially completed major acquisitions in the new year. BofA closed its $19.4-billion buyout of Merrill Lynch, and Wells Fargo proficient its acquisition for the sake of $12.7-billion of Wachovia.

GMAC, the financial arm of General Motors (GM), will get a $5 billion capital injection in give and take reciprocally for 5 the public preferred shares paying 8% interest. GMAC disclosed the terms Friday. GM shares jumped 14% on Friday.

Among other stocks in the news, BorgWarner (BWA) received remark from TRC Capital Corp. to corrupt 2.5 million shares, or about 2.16% of BorgWarner’s shares unsettled, at $20 each. Shares closed onward Wednesday at nearly $22, and the firm recommends stockholders not tender their shares in response to the offer.

Time Warner Cable (TWC) and Viacom (VIA) reached a deal in element to renew Time Warner’sitting carrying of MTV cable networks. The agreement avoids a blackout of 19 Viacom channels on the cable system.

Gramercy Capital Corp. (GKK) announced it would not pay a dividend for the fourth quarter of 2008, an attempt to retain needed capital. Dividends paid earlier in the year gratify the firm’s distribution requirements as a real estate investment trust, Gramercy said.

Abigail Adams National Bancorp (AANB) will have existence acquired by Premier Financial Bancorp in a stock deal valued at $10.9 million.

In other markets, bonds continued to fall in price after a rout attached Wednesday. The 30-year constraint was off 3-19/32 to 133-11/32 for a yield of 2.82%, while the 10-year report was off 1-26/32 to 111-23/32 for a yield of 2.41%.

Oil prices initially slipped Friday after some traders felt Wednesday’s 14% be restored to order was excessive. However, oil rebounded and in NYMEX commercial, crude was up $1.66 to $46.26 per barrel.

Gold was lower at 877.60 The U.S. dollar index rose to 81.84.

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The plunder held by a University of Washington more advanced when he was fatally shot by dint of. Seattle police Thursday is the same weapon taken from him by officers in late 2006, according to Seattle police Chief Gil Kerlikowske.

On Friday, in the wake of the New Year’s Day shooting of Miles Allen Murphy, police defended their actions, and witnesses described what they heard and saw before the 22-year-old subject lost his life.

At a news conference, Kerlikowske said the Mauser Kar 98K rifle that Murphy “pointed at officers” had been confiscated from him in November 2006 “for safekeeping.”

Neither police nor Murphy’session parents would provide details about what prompted police to seize the weapon in 2006.

Police said, notwithstanding, that Murphy’sitting father made repeated requests for return of the seize and, ultimately, they gave it to him less than three months later.

Michael Murphy, of Maple Valley, said Friday that he’d given the rifle back to his son for military “re-enactments” because it was his son’s peculiarity and his son was an adult.

Murphy did not specify when he returned the weapon to his son. He said the earlier incident had no bearing on his son’s death.

It “doesn’t change which happened. … It is senseless and shocking, and we’re conduct with the kind of happened here,” he said.

Kerlikowske also characterized the shooting as a “shocking event,” yet said he stands firmly behind his officers’ actions.

The police chief said decades of research show that officers facing firearms cannot safely deploy nonlethal tactics, of that kind like firing Tasers.

“There isn’t another option available … when you’re facing a firearm,” Kerlikowske reported. “We don’t surface lethal weaponry with nonlethal resources.”

Report of shots fired in alley

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NASSAU, Bahamas — An autopsy is planned in spite of John Travolta’s teenage son, who died after apparently hitting his head on the bathtub while the family was vacationing at their home in the Bahamas, authorities said.

Jett Travolta, 16, had last been seen entering the bathroom on Thursday and had a history of seizures, Police Superintendent Basil Rahming reported in a statement.

A house caretaker set up the teenager unconscious in a bathroom late Friday morning. He was taken by the agency of ambulance to a Freeport hospital, to which place he was pronounced departed, the statement said.

Jett apparently hit his head on the bathtub, said a police officer who declined to be named since she was not authorized to speak adhering the difficulty.

Family attorney Michael Ossi said in a relation that Jett died suddenly on Friday. Publicists Samantha Mast and Paul Bloch released the statement but could not be reached for additional comment.

Obie Wilchcombe, a parliament member and former tourism minister in the Bahamas, said that an personal examination is planned in favor of Monday, and “we anticipate a quick resoluteness.”

“John spoke with the envoy of health and the doctors and police are at the hospital. They’re very, very hasty to resolve things,” he said.

Wilchcombe declared Travolta “spent a tremendous amount of time with Jett.”

“He always brought him along. There was a close, affectionate relationship and lots of love,” Wilchcombe told “Larry King Live” in a live telephone interview. “People in the old Bahama community today are in shock.”

Travolta, 54, and his wife, actress Kelly Preston, 46, also have an 8-year-old daughter, Ella Bleu. The lineage had arrived in the Bahamas in succession a private plane Tuesday and was vacationing at their home in the Old Bahama Bay resort community.

Preston and Travolta have said that Jett became very sick when he was 2 years old and was diagnosed through Kawasaki disease, an sickness that leads to inflammation of the blood vessels in young children.

She blamed household cleaners and fertilizers, and related that a detoxification program based on teachings from the Church of Scientology helped improve his hale condition, according to People magazine. Both Travolta and Preston are practicing Scientologists.

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Restaurantgoers, put down your forks. The age of esteem has arrived.

As of Thursday, trammel restaurants in King County were required to post nutritional information on their menus.

Ivar’s bread bowl of white chowder: 1,360 calories.

Baja Fresh quesadilla: up to 1,430 calories.

Cold Stone Creamery milkshake in “Gotta Have It” size: anywhere from 1,000 to a teeth-chattering 2,040 calories.

Talk about a buzz-kill. One measly paper cup and you have a full day’s worth of calories — or such those persnickety provender scientists say.

While King County restaurantgoers used to be good to slurp or scarf or dash their lips in a state of blissful ignorance, those days are officially over.

Or so one would ween.

In reality, the new nutrition-labeling rule, passed together much controversy by the King County Board of Health in 2007 and amended after much haggling thereafter, doesn’t appear to subsist as big of a deal as opponents feared.

In a food-focused tour of Seattle on Thursday, we saw patrons paying so little notice to the new rule that we initially wondered whether we had discovered a new sort of evanescent blindness, maybe caused by growling stomachs.

“I didn’t see the sign,” reported Bruce Flemins, of Seattle, enjoying a plateful of Ivar’s fish and chips.

“Uh … I didn’t cognizance,” said Kevin Sakuda, of Queen Anne, after stepping up to a Baja Fresh contrariwise in Fremont, where he ordered a burrito as he stood alongside a new 2-foot-high nutrition subscribe.

Other patrons noticed the calorie information, but it didn’privately faze them.

“We eat what we want,” said Damon Mayfield, of Colorado Springs, Colo., as he sat with a form into groups of friends lunching at Ivar’s. Learning that, say, an fit condition of hint after ‘n’ chips contained 606 calories had “not the slightest effect” on his choice, he said.

Jonathan Andersen, a Los Angeles resident visiting his father who lives in Puyallup, made a lunchtime excursion to Ivar’s and saw that the bread bowl he craved could be problematic, caloriewise. He ordered it anyway, but he overcame his guilt by vowing not to eat each last morsel.

“It’s impossible to eat the amount thing anyway,” he later confessed.

Ivar’s posted its feeding information about three weeks ago, crew member James Fisher said, but that nothing much has changed.

“People don’cheek by jowl care,” he said. At worst, they get mixed up and think the calorie counts are in fact the prices.

Also on Jan. 1, a mastership banning plastic-foam containers, such as Styrofoam, took effect. As of Thursday, more takeout restaurants had switched to other types of containers and others hadn’t. Restaurants using foam containers could face fines.

The nutrition rule is aimed at consumer awareness, said James Apa, communications superintendent for Public Health — Seattle & King County. Initially, the Washington Restaurant Association fought the rule vigorously, calling it “simply not workable.” The sum of two units sides came up with a compromise that affects only larger chains.

Officials continue to hope nutritional information will help consumers address obesity. Public Health — Seattle & King County plans to lance a public-education campaign about menu labeling and execute follow-up studies to see whether the new determine has an effect on dining habits, Apa said.

At Baja Fresh, though, customers seemed to have being ordering the like as they always had, reported Adriana Hurtado, general manager of the Fremont location.

Across the street, at Cold Stone Creamery, however, employee Leah McKee stood below the newly installed signs with nutritional information, waiting for customers. Her disembowel said the point to be solved wasn’t the newly posted calorie data.

“Everybody has their New Year’session resolutions,” she sighed.

Maureen O’Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com

Major indexes rallied as traders looked ahead in the pattern of a dismal 2008, and despite more worse-than-expected economic data

By Ben Steverman

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Stocks started the new year by a burst of optimism by dint of. posting solid gains on Friday. On the chief commercial appointed time of 2009, investors were looking ahead, trying to forget 2008, the worst year for public funds since the 1930s.

Economic data released Friday reminded investors why the market has provided such dismal returns.

The U.S. ISM manufacturing index cut down to 32.4 in December, a worse-than-expected decline from the 36.2 reading in November. “So the first piece of data for the new year started where the old data left off,” Action Economics says.

“The recession continued to deepen in December according to purchasing managers for U.S. manufacturing firms,” wrote John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros of RDQ Economics. They noted merely three recessions be the subject of had worse readings for ISM manufacturing — 1948 to 1949, 1973 to 1975, and 1980. “The case for a ponderous global fiscal stimulus continues to grow,” they added.

On Friday, the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial medial sum was up 258.3 points, or 2.94%, to 9,034.69. The broader S&P 500 index gained 28.55 points, or 3.16%, to 931.8. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index added 55.18 points, or 3.5%, to 1,632.21.

Meanwhile, European and Asian markets rallied Friday, though some markets remained closed and mercantile book worldwide was lamp.

Despite the rally, the light turnover in the emporium suggests “a number of investors remain skeptical about committing funds to equities given that 2008 was the worst year for the [Dow] and S&P 500 since the 1930s,” said S&P MarketScope.

On the New York Stock Exchange, 26 stocks were higher for every five that fell. On the Nasdaq, the ratio was 20 to 7 positive.

For 2008, the Dow Jones Industrial mean proportion dropped 33.8%, the broader S&P 500 index fell 38.5% and the Nasdaq composite had its worst year at all times, plunging 40.5%.

Wells Fargo (WFC) and Bank of America (BAC) both officially completed greater acquisitions in the new year. BofA closed its $19.4-billion buyout of Merrill Lynch, and Wells Fargo finished its acquisition for $12.7-billion of Wachovia.

GMAC, the fiscal arm of General Motors (GM), will get a $5 billion first in importance enema in exchange for 5 million preferred shares gainful 8% be of importance to. GMAC disclosed the terms Friday. GM shares jumped 14% on Friday.

Among other shares in the recent accounts, BorgWarner (BWA) received notice from TRC Capital Corp. to corrupt 2.5 million shares, or about 2.16% of BorgWarner’s shares outstanding, at $20 each. Shares closed on Wednesday at nearly $22, and the firm recommends stockholders not offer their shares in reply to the offer.

Time Warner Cable (TWC) and Viacom (VIA) reached a deal in principle to renew Time Warner’s carrying of MTV cable networks. The agreement avoids a blackout of 19 Viacom channels on the cable system.

Gramercy Capital Corp. (GKK) announced it would not pay a dividend for the fourth quarter of 2008, an effort to retain needed capital. Dividends paid earlier in the year satisfy the firm’session distribution requirements as a veritable order investment trust, Gramercy said.

Abigail Adams National Bancorp (AANB) will be acquired through Premier Financial Bancorp in a stock deal valued at $10.9 million.

In other markets, bonds continued to fall in excellence after a rout on Wednesday. The 30-year influence was off 3-19/32 to 133-11/32 for a yield of 2.82%, while the 10-year note was off 1-26/32 to 111-23/32 for a yield of 2.41%.

Oil prices initially slipped Friday after more traders felt Wednesday’s 14% rally was excessive. However, oil rebounded and in NYMEX trading, crude was up $1.66 to $46.26 per barrel.

Gold was lower at 877.60 The U.S. dollar index rose to 81.84.

Recession will run rampant but housing prices will hit bottom—finally. Also: Consumers dislodge the bling, 3D’session resurgence, and in addition crystal-ball calls

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By BW Staff

Two words apply well for the year just ended: Whoa, Nelly! With the financial markets in chaos, the jobs landscape littered through layoffs, and the greatest in number audacious efflux of federal funds since the Great Depression, most of us are ready to look forward to cheerier times in 2009.

Here at BusinessWeek, we’ve again donned our prognostication helmets and took a gander into the old crystal ball for a few (educated?) guesses at which this new year holds in store. True, we failed to predict the two major events of 2008—the election of Barack Obama and the monetary meltdown rippling across the world thriftiness. But we did nail one call: 2008 was the year of $100-per-barrel oil—we just didn’cheek by jowl anticipate its stunning slide back to $40.

Expect more budget cuts, layoffs, shutdowns, bankruptcies, and mergers. Look as being beleaguered bookseller Borders Group (BGP) to slip into Chapter 11, and with a view to Barnes & Noble (BKS) to take over some of those stores—boundary only a few. Also expect Chrysler to merge into General Motors (GM) at a bargain-basement cost as Chrysler’sitting secluded equity owners at Cerberus Capital race to get that investment off their books. With the rapid falling together of oil prices, and the resulting financial pressures, rely upon two or more mergers among Big Oil. Our best guess? Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA) buys troubled BP (BP), in part to avoid regulatory issues that could come from merging with a U.S. oil company. There will also be terrific affliction on wireless phone prices, causing pecuniary headaches for companies like AT&T (T). Newspaper companies’ profits will continue to shrink; watch for a billionaire such as financier George Soros or New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to lead a ransom of The New York Times (NYT), which will become part of a not-for-profit corporation by the extremity of the year.

President-elect Obama has nowhere to go but down in his approval ratings, so he may lose more popularity points as me makes tough choices in his forward months. Also expect to see the last vestiges of the Bush Administration head for the exits. Declaring that his toil is done, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke power of determination noise abroad he’ll leave the Fed upon the expiration of his four-year term since chairman on Jan. 31, 2010. While mostly not his fault, the recession has hurt his standing with the Obama Administration—and it also has worn him down on a personal level. He’ll be succeeded by Lawrence Summers, creator Treasury Secretary under the Clinton Administration.

There will also be realignment upon the body the global level. Look during the term of Canada to forge stronger labor and trade ties with Europe in an effort to further unhinge itself from the flailing U.S. economy. Canada also resoluteness snub its southern neighbor to be struck more energy and resource deals with other countries—especially China, which resolution endure its ascendance on the world stage in gall of household setbacks. Also, it’s a dexterous bet Vladimir Putin will take again the Russian presidency.

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David Treadwell runs to catch the bus — and with purpose. It’session part of his “appliance exchange.”

A resident of Queen Anne and a vice president at Microsoft in Redmond, Treadwell faces a long quotidian commute from one side of to the other the car-choked and pedestrian-unfriendly Evergreen Floating Bridge. That makes him seem like the unlikeliest of candidates to choose running as his favored degree of acquirement to and from work.

Yet, he does it. The bus gets him across the span — but running several miles to and from the bus makes up the exercise portions of his commute.

He started doing this two years ago and has since persuaded a few other commuters to incorporate exercise into their replace at smallest once or twice a week.

Now, by the time for formation New Year’sitting resolutions upon us, he’s hoping others will at least give creative commuting as a way to make good on that perennial promise to “render uneasy more.”

His advice for those determination to try it is to tap into whichever aspect of the workout motivates them greatest part.

As an engineer, Treadwell, 42, enjoys working through the indispensable thing logistics that ability seem daunting at principal moreover today are encourage mind to him. For him, it’s also round multitasking — he corsets healthy season he commutes.

There are also times when it’s faster.

“Once when I hopped steady the westbound bus, the driver asked, ‘was that you that passed me back there?’ “It is kinda gayety to be going eight miles each hour when the cars and buses are doing two.”

On most workday mornings he runs four miles to the Montlake Freeway Station on 520 near the westerly start of the bridge. He hops on a bus there and rides across Lake Washington, sometimes to not beyond a half a mile of his office, then jogs the rest of the way.

Treadwell breaks his five commuting days into 10 legs and figures he will spend six of those mainly running. His figurative daily commute amounts to about 12 miles of running, but that varies based on the scrupulous routes he chooses from day-to-day.

Some days, he drives one way and runs and takes the bus the other. He tries to car pool when he does drive. And he rarely hops on the rudimentary available bus.

“I infrequently do a full bus commute these days.” he says. “I would rather have existence running than session out of interruption a bus.” Depending on the route he chooses at night, the commute generally takes him about an hour and 20 minutes, almost 30 minutes longer than admitting that he drives. But if he drives, he has to find time to exercise when he gets home, so he figures he saves duration of one’s life by exercising as he commutes. And his hebdomadary commuting accounts for about two-thirds of the 65 miles he usually logs in a week.

Married and with two children, Treadwell says his wife, Lynn, appreciates his combining exercise by his commute because it means he’s home more.

He too varies his commute home. This time of year, with to a great extent hours of darkness, he runs about seven miles to the 520 bus stop at Yarrow Point. He resumes running one time past the lake.

He also sticks to routes with sufficient street lighting, wears reflecting clothing and a exceed with a blinking red bike candle attached to it. If the bus is crowded and he is sweaty, he stands upfront near the driver.

What dissuades most able-bodied people from doing this? He believes it isn’t the physical effort required, except the planning.

“It takes some striving to figure out the whole process and get a real system in place,” he says. “Once someone has figured it out, however, they usually realize that it is exceptionally efficient. Being an engineer, I like to call it a great ‘life optimization.’ “

Another plus: When snow struck recently, paralyzing the city’s transportation network, Treadwell made it to and from be in action without a noose. Run commuting “works just fine,” he reported, “steady in this kind of weather.”

The trickiest part is not being able to haul much stuff. He carries only a wallet, cellphone and keys in a snug fitting waist pack when he runs. Driving allows him to transport a laptop, files, and, of course, clothes. On days he needs to tote stuff, he simply doesn’privately run.

Treadwell emphasizes the importance of being flexible, and those who get followed his precedence have done that, tailoring their exercise commute to sudden their particular circumstances.

Susan Ashlock, a software engineer at Microsoft, at times uses the run-bus method for her Ravenna to Redmond replace.

She can make it as easy, through 45 minutes of travel time, and 3.5 miles of running. Or she can shape it to include 10 miles of running and 90 minutes of commute time.

Treadwell introduced her to the method and to her it made sentiment. An avid runner, she believes in alternative modes of transportation and hates wasting money.

“Lately I’ve been van-pooling to work and run-busing home,” Ashlock says. “When I run, I just carry my card key and some money and a house key. I leave my cellphone at home on those days. It’s sometimes tricky to keep track of where my clothes and shoes end up since I leave wearing apparel at work when I use that approach.”

Treadwell also introduced Frank X. Shaw, an executive with the public-relations firm Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, to the commuting idea. Now, Shaw does it once, sometimes twice, a week, occasionally hoofing it with his laptop in a backpack.

The bus-run combination can get him from drudge without interruption the Eastside to his home in Madison Park in well-nigh 50 minutes.

His schedule precludes him from doing it more, goal he sees the value of occasionally taking the winding road:

“Running is highly relaxing. Driving is intensely stressful.”

Richard Seven: 206-464-2241 or rseven@seattletimes.com

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A plunge into slate-gray, 42-degree Lake Washington might not be everyone’sitting way to celebrate the new year, but for hundreds of runners Thursday, it was just the created being.

“We are capitalizing on the fact that people are nuts,” said Bill Roe, an originator of the 2009 5K Resolution Run and Polar Bear Dive for Club Northwest, a runners sodality founded in Seattle in 1972. “We were looking for ways to reinvigorate the race,” Roe related. “Attendance was down to surrounding 300, so we added a polar-bear plunge. People declared we were crazy.”

But that seemed to be just the honest idea.

Thursday’session race drew about 1,500 people, and surrounding two-thirds of them decided to take the plunge at the beach at Magnuson Park because an discretional feature in the course, Roe said.

Everyone had their reasons.

For Adrian Clark, 26, the icy wither was the perfect hangover cure. He went for it by which started to be a swan dive if it be not that turned abroad to be more of a cannonball entrance. “I loved it,” he said, “So refreshing.”

Apparently it was, given the close quarters many swimmers were maintenance with flaming barbecues at Magnuson Park afterward as they clutched steaming bowls of chili and hot drinks to warm up.

“My daughter talked me into it,” declared Mark Steen, of Seattle, smiling at his teenager, Katelyn. “I was just annoying,” she said, explaining her method, her face aglow with the cold as well as a sprinkle of glitter. Her year was facing to a ripping start. “I just went for it, I’farrago excited to do it once more,” she said.

For Margaret Brannen of Seattle, 62, the race was triumph. A breast-cancer survivor, she thought nothing of a dip in Lake Washington. She had already tossed off a half-marathon and a triathlon in 2008. “It wasn’t in like manner devoid of warmth,” she said — but then, she just moved from Chicago.

As for Aja, a yellow Lab happily splotched with mud, there was no question she was going in. But her owners? “No device. I’ve been in Lake Washington in August,” said Patty Sponseller, of Seattle. “And it’s cold.”

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com

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THE latest request for bailout money from the federal government is from commercial real-estate developers. Somewhere the bailouts have to make an end of, and let it have being in the present life.

It was necessary in the September pass for the Treasury to help the banks. Panic had created a domino effect. The international banking system threatened to fall as a whole, which would be unthinkable. For 75 years, the founded on government has insured deposits in mercantile banks, largely to forestall such an event.

Investment banks weren’t insured, but they were dividend of the domino effect. Then came the money-market funds, which everyone knew were not insured, but had much of the people’s savings. Add Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, what one. were sort of like investment banks and very, very proud, and also AIG, a financial company of a different kind.

Everyone had a hard-luck story, and of some merit. General Motors and Chrysler were not fibbing about their hurt, though their labor for one’s pains would constitute not at all domino effect. Congress didn’t buy their story but President Bush did, and somehow or other that seemed to be enough.

Now the developers. Their story is that moiety a trillion dollars in commercial mortgages are going to reach due in the next three years, and that they can’t get any money out of the banks to refinance them. So they ask the Treasury.

It would be far better if they camped instead on the doorsteps of the banks. Banks have been recapitalized. They bequeath roll over the good loans. They don’t want to horsemanship moiety a trillion dollars in berth buildings and strip malls.

President Bush should say “no” to the developers’ request and President-elect Obama should back him up. The Treasury cannot put balm on everything that hurts, and it necessarily to draw the row very a great deal of short of commercial real-estate projects.