• Ravi Singh, who retired from Goldman Sachs late last year, appears to be having a tough time unloading the four-bedroom apartment at 15 CPW he picked up last March for $15.87 million. Since listing the home for $32 million in September, Singh has cut the price three times, and it now has an asking price of $22.5 million. [Cityfile, BHS]
• Hess Corp. chairman and CEO John Hess has paid $5.5 million for a condo at Tribeca's 101 Warren. [Cityfile]
• Ira Lipman, the head of the security firm Guardsmark, has paid $2 million for an apartment at the Sherry Netherland. [Cityfile]
• Folk artist Thomas Langan and his wife Penelope have put their waterfront home in Roslyn Harbor on the market for $2.9 million. [Newsday, PDE]
• Kimora Lee Simmons has lowered the price of the manse in Beverly Hillst hat she first listed for $7.75 million in June. It's now yours for $6.9 million. [BTL]

Bernie is going to jail! The judge just ruled that Bernie Madoff will not be able to go home pending sentencing, a ruling that generated a round of applause in the courtroom. And guess what? It seems Madoff isn't going to be very popular when he heads over to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in a few minutes. Apparently, Madoff "may have to fight off prison inmates who want to squeeze him for money or blame him for the Wall Street crash." [Bloomberg]

As expected, Bernie Madoff just pleaded guilty to all the charges against him. He also says he's really, really sorry about everything that's happened, if that makes you feel any better. [NYT]

Liza Minnelli turns 63 today. Darryl Strawberry is 47. James Taylor is turning 61. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is turning 62. Playwright Edward Albee is 81. Pete Doherty is 30. Author Dave Eggers is turning 39. Publicist Ken Sunshine is 61. Director Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious, XXX) is 60. Al Jarreau is turning 69. Actor Aaron Eckhart is 41. Novelist Carl Hiaasen is 56. SportsCenter anchor Steve Levy is 44. And the most famous male porn star in history, Ron Jeremy, is 56 today.

• Guess John Mayer didn't buy Jennifer Aniston an engagement ring after all. It's now rumored Mayer ended the relationship right around the time Aniston got back from her world promotional tour for Marley & Me. [E!, Us]
• Tim Gunn supposedly has a "secret crush" on Anderson Cooper. He says he's been trying to set up a lunch date with the CNN anchor for more than a year now, but it hasn't happened. Yet! [OK!]
• Mandy Moore and Ryan Adams got married on Tuesday in Savannah. [Us]
• Breaking! Katie Holmes has long hair again! [DM]

• Bernie Madoff will appear in court this morning to plead guilty to 11 counts. Then it wil be up to the judge to decide if he gets locked up immediately or is allowed him to remain free on bail pending sentencing. [DB]
• Meanwhile, the investigation into Madoff's Ponzi scheme is now focusing on the accounting firms that may have helped him carry out the scheme. [NYT]
• Base salaries on Wall Street may double as bonuses drop. [BN]
• Andrew Cuomo says Merrill Lynch misled Congress over the timing of its plans to award billions of dollars in bonuses last December. [NYT, WSJ]
• BofA is putting a private bank it inherited from Merrill up for sale. [Reuters]
• Texas billionaire Allen Stanford took the Fifth yesterday. [AP]
• Carl Icahn has abandoned his bid to take over Lionsgate. [BN]
• GE has lost its triple-A credit rating from Standard and Poor's. [DB]
• Foreclosure filings in the U.S. jumped 30% in February. [BN]

What is the world coming to? Not only are Goldman Sachs employees visiting NYC no longer permitted to stay at the Ritz or Carlyle, the company is forcing them to stay at the Embassy Suites Hotel in lower Manhattan. Really. But it comes with a few perks: "The nightly manager's happy hour features free beer and popcorn. Flash a room key and earn a seat at the complimentary all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet and a 10% discount at the Chevy's Mexican-style restaurant next-door." [WSJ]

Forbes's somewhat suspicious list of the world's billionaires is now online. You can look through the complete list here, but as you can probably imagine, it wasn't a very good year for members of the ten-figure club. The 2009 list includes 793 people—it's down 30 percent from last year—and a handful of notable New Yorkers (like Sandy Weill and Hank Greenberg) saw their names vanish. NYC's richest man, according to the mag? That would be Michael Bloomberg, who saw his net worth jump 39 percent from $11.5 billion to $16 billion. So did the mayor have such a fantastic year? No, Forbes had just been underestimating his stake in Bloomberg LP in years past, although they didn't bother to mention that. [Forbes, NYP]

• The recession ain't stopping Marc Jacobs: He's opening seven new boutiques this year. [WWD]
• Alexander McQueen stunned crowds at Paris Fashion Week with a collection that "oozed with imagination," but was "plenty unsettling," too. [IHT, WWD]
• Reviews from some of the other shows in Paris the past couple of days. [NYT, WSJ, Vogue UK]
• Détente! Anti-fur crusader (and PETA honcho) Dan Mathews was spotted shaking hands with none other than Anna Wintour. [NYP]
• Apparently the economy is forcing women to rush over to consignment shops to sell their "beloved Louis Vuittons at pennies on the dollar." [NYP]
• J. Crew is thinking of opening a bridal salon. [Racked]
• You can credit Twilight for boosting sales at Hot Topic. [NYM]
• Neiman Marcus reported that sales dropped 21% last quarter. [Reuters]
• A peek at a new collection by Kimberly Ovitz, daughter of Michael. [Pipeline]
• At John Galliano's show in Paris, "toxic" fake snow had editors like Hamish Bowles, Grace Coddington, and Glenda Bailey most unhappy. [Fashionologie]

• It's two stars for 10 Downing and chef Jason Neroni in today's Times. [NYT]
• Chef Michael Citarella is out at Freemans. [TONY, TONY]
• It's confirmed: Michael Psilakis and Donatella Arpaia are expanding and opening a restaurant at the Viceroy in Miami. [NYP]
• Capitale's Seth Greenberg may make a bid for Tavern on the Green. [NYO]
• The Biltmore Room is reopening in April as The Gates. [BB]
• Matthew Schaefer is taking over the Mermaid Inn's East Village location. [GS]
• The old Florent space, which became R&L, is no more. [Eater]
• One rather unusual item on Silvano Marchetto's menu at Scuderia: limited edition hand-painted sneakers that are made to order and cost $895. [GS]

Has Anthony Weiner decided not to face off against Michael Bloomberg this fall? It's hard to say! In a letter to campaign supporters today, Weiner said he plans to put off a final decision about his mayoral campaign until the summer, since he doesn't feel this is an appropriate time to engage in politics. Rest assured it is still a fine time to cavort with models. [NYT]

The problem with the economy isn't that financial institutions took obscene risks over the past few years in search of extraordinary returns. Or that tone-deaf banking CEOs have been undermining the system (and the terms of the bailout) by handing out bonuses and sending execs on lavish trips. The problem is that too many people are making fun of bankers! At least that's what JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon says: "When I hear the constant vilification of corporate America, I personally don't understand it... I would ask a lot of our folks in government to stop doing it because I think it's hurting our country." Are you listening, Washington? If this sort of stuff continues, Dimon might be forced to resort to The Claw! [BN via NYM]

It looks like Olivia Palermo has returned from London. It also appears she, too, is feeling the effects of the recession. Reports an anonymous tipster: "I spotted Olivia Palermo coming out of the Strawberry's store on Worth and Broadway and then she walked up Broadway and into her apt building on Leonard street. Tried to snap a picture but it came out blurry." Feel free to send anyway! Even a crappy pic of Olivia rifling though the discount bin at Strawberry's is worth a small fortune.

You didn't expect Russell Simmons to be counseling Ashley Dupre out of the kindness of his heart, did you? The pieces are beginning to come together: Dupre's heartfelt account of her new mentor and yoga master today just so happens to have coincided with Dupre's debut as a blogger on Simmons' news aggregation website GlobalGrind.com. And it's not just Ashley sharing her story on the site. Russell is now blogging about meeting Dupre for the first time, too—his piece is entitled "Meeting Miss Ashley"—and both articles are currently the featured stories on the site's homepage. For the past year, Hollywood studios, record labels, fashion brands, and adult movie companies have been running around in circles looking for ways to cash in on Dupre's infamy. But it looks like Russell is going to walk away with the PR victory.

It's no fun being Sheldon Solow these days. In December, Citigroup filed suit against the developer, alleging he'd failed to pay back more than $80 million in loans related to the development of a series of buildings along the East River waterfront. Now it appears Solow has another legal mess to contend with.

Editor & Publisher's Mark Fitzgerald and Jennifer Saba report that the New York Times Co. is selling its private jet, news that the company apparently included in its annual proxy, which was filed with the SEC this morning. But it looks like they've been trying to unload the 1997 Dassault Falcon for close to two months now: It appears the plane was first officially listed back in mid-January. Isn't there someone out there who can come to Arthur Sulzberger Jr.'s rescue? It's just $9.5 million! And it's loaded with extras! You'll find the full specs below. [F&J via Politico]

• Jon Stewart ripped Jim Cramer apart once again on his show last night. And now Cramer is planning to appear on The Daily Show on Thursday. [Gawker]
• William Morris and Endeavor are said to be in merger talks. [NYT]
• Time Inc. chief Ann Moore says the company is thinking about turning Time.com and People.com subscription-based sites. [Folio]
• For its part, Disney is launching a new "portal." It's 1999 all over again! [WSJ]
• Former NBC prez Katherine Pope is said to be in talks with News Corp. president Peter Chernin about joining his new production firm. [THR]
• Is liberal talk radio host Ed Schultz destined for a gig with MSNBC? [NYO]
• Needless to say, the Daily News is taking issue with the list suggesting the paper is likely to go out of business in the near future. [Crains]
• The plug has been pulled on David Alan Grier's Comedy Central series, Chocolate News. Let's all take a moment to mourn, okay? [NYT]

The population of millionaires in the U.S. fell 27 percent last year, according to a study by a research firm called Spectrem Group. "There's no question that the crisis has had a huge impact on wealth," said the firm's president. Really? You think? [WSJ]

In a study that can either be deemed horribly pertinent or totally superfluous in light of every other newspaper headline, two Stanford professors have demonstrated that the phrase "drunk on power" isn't just a metaphor: Anyone placed in a position of power, they say, will automatically overestimate their abilities and the control they have over events, and basically turn into deluded megalomaniacs.

The man with the worst job in Washington, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, has put his Westchester home up for sale: The five-bedroom Tudor in Larchmont is now on the market for $1.635 million. But as smart as he may be when it comes to economic matters, one thing is for certain. If, as some are suggesting, Geithner's career comes to a premature end, the former president of the New York Federal Reserve will not be turning to a career in interior design. A video tour of Geithner's painfully furnished home—accompanied by the cheesiest soundtrack you've heard in ages—is below.