• Daul Kim's boyfriend was the first to find the body of the 20-year-old Korean model, artist, and writer, who died by asphyxiation. Police believe Kim's death was a suicide. Her agency has confirmed that her mother is en route to Paris. [AP]

• Don't want to wait until December 1 to watch the whole Victoria's Secret show? USAToday has video highlights, including Marisa Miller anxiously awaiting post-show cupcakes backstage, and Miranda Kerr doing a little dance on the runway to the Black Eyed Peas. [USAToday]
• Women's Wear Daily says it was "pandemonium" outside. [WWD]
• Eva Mendes has signed on to do more ads for Calvin Klein. When was the last time she was in a movie, anyway? [Elle UK]
• Valentino: The Last Emperor has been short-listed for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. [SB]
• Karl Lagerfeld, on Lily Allen: "I love Lily's humor, her cheekiness, her talent, her little upturned nose, and her perfect décolletage." [Elle]
• Rumor has it that Ungaro's two top executives, Asim Abdullah and Mounir Moufarrige (who once said of bringing Lindsay Lohan aboard, "It might work") are fighting over whether the actress should be fired or not. Her first collection for the brand was poorly received by buyers, the press, and the peanut gallery of the Internet; even Emanuel Ungaro himself called it a "disaster." [Elle UK]
• Claudia, Eva, and Helena share the new cover of i-D, like it's 1992 or something. [FWD]
• Shanna Moakler just launched a cosmetics collection. Called Smoak. [People]
• Moncler and Pharrell Williams are doing a line of clothing. It'll incorporate fabrics from Bionic, the eco-fabric company Williams invested in earlier. [WWD]
• Yves Saint Laurent's pots and pans sold for 15,000 Euros (just over $22,000) at the ongoing auction of the designer's household effects. [AFP]
• Sarah Ferguson will not be doing an apparel line with QVC. Pity. [WWD]
• Hand model Christina Ambers fell in love with Angel Rotger, one of the doormen at her Upper East Side building. Their romance and subsequent marriage cost Rotger his job, and led to them both being treated as pariahs by the other building staff, the two now allege in a $10 million lawsuit. Allegedly, the superintendent's wife got drunk and hit Rotger in the groin hard enough to cause a contusion. [NYDN]
• Here's an odd choice of knight in shining armor: supermarket magnate and modelizer Ron Burkle. Burkle has, through his company, invested millions of dollars in buying some of Barneys New York's debt from Citibank, for a reported 60 cents on the dollar. Barneys took on around $500 million in debt in 2007, when it was sold to current owners Istithmar. [WSJ]
• 100 new stores by March 31 is quite a clip, but Tommy Hilfiger thinks it can do it. [WWD]
• Gap's profits rose 25%, to $307 million, for the quarter ended October 31. It made $246 million during the same period last year. [WSJ]

• Barack Obama made it official with Tim Geithner today, announcing that he will nominate Geither to the Treasury Department. Former Treasury Secretary Larry "Math Is Hard For Girls" Summers is headed to the top of the White House Economic Council and Berkeley economics professor Christina Romer will head the Council of Economic Advisers. Betcha she does math pretty well. [NY Times]
• Former Joe Biden aide Ted Kaufman has been appointed to fill Biden's Senate seat for two years, at which point everyone in the state assumes he'll quietly step down and let the currently-deployed Beau Biden run for it. [Associated Press]
• Susan Rice, who most people thought was about to get dicked over when it leaked that Jim Jones will head the National Security Council, is actually in the running to be our Ambassador to the U.N. [Washington Independent]
• Former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack swears he's not in the running to be Secretary of Agriculture. [Washington Post]

• Obama aide and transition co-chair Valerie Jarrett has her first graduation speech almost totally written, but it still makes her sound kind of like a cool woman to know. [NY Times]
• Speaking of cool women, Moe Tkacik fucking breaks down the financial and auto industry crises, and you'll be smarter for reading it. [New York Magazine]
• And now that she might not be running against one of them anymore, Republicans all just love Hillary Clinton. [The Daily Beast]
• Alan Colmes is leaving Hannity and Colmes but not Fox News. Yeah, Hannity's feet really do smell that bad, but he's got a contract through 2012 so somebody is buying stock in Odor Eaters. [USA Today, Politico]
• In the mean time, we're rescuing Citibank, and the Dow is going up but it's all only temporary because it's not the end of the financial fall-out anymore than today is the end of Alan Colmes. However, if you're a Citibank stockholder, it is the end of your dividends for three years. [NY Times, NY Times]

Jezebel: Why is this happening now? I know Lehman has been showing signs of weakness for a while now — what was the trigger?
Katharine Parker: Similar to Bear Stearns, LEH had a great deal of exposure to sub-prime mortgage-backed securities. Because of this, they were forced to “write down” nearly $700M last year (devalue their assets), which included commercial property and mortgage exposure. One year later, the economy has not improved, housing prices have not gone back to “hey-day” levels, we have plunged further into a recession and the value of these assets had to be written down again by ~$7.8B, which is the largest net loss in the history of the bank. The bank still continues to have a large amount of exposure to these devalued securities. Wall Street, knowing the impact of this write-down and realizing that LEH would have severe liquidity issues forced the shares of LEH to plunge, resulting in the lack of capital to cover these losses.

J: Why did the fed agree to bail out Bear Stearns and not Lehman?
KP: Bear Stearns was the first to go down and they had a first mover advantage in this case. As this continues and the markets worsen, the Fed cannot continue to use tax payer’s dollars to support investment banks that made huge mistakes and that didn’t take the necessary corrective actions. They are addressing the moral hazard issue. John Thain at Merrill Lynch was smart. As soon as he realized that there were going to be liquidity problems, he began selling assets and raising capital. The government is helping the economy in other ways, i.e., making sure there is available liquidity for regional banks. If we continue to operate in an environment where the Fed bails out every investment bank that fails, we set ourselves up to take risk without consequence.

J:: I know the fed is considering lowering interest rates. Is this a bad call?
KP: No. Although some think a cut will signal panic (like we’re not already in a PANIC???), the facts remain clear: we are in a recession, fears of inflation have abated (due to lower commodity prices and labor costs) and financial stresses have intensified.

J: Beyond the employees at Lehman and the other struggling firms, how does it affect people in finance? And how will affect the rest of us — those who don't work in finance or industries directly dependent on finance?
KP: It affects pension funds, banks (domestic and international, all those that have exposure to the credit default swap market), hedge funds, private equity firms and every entity that has business ties to LEH. It affects institutions that have put their money in LEH because they will now have liquidity issues and it is an opportunity cost of their capital. The credit crunch will tighten, which will not only affect lending to buyout firms and companies for acquisitions, but it will affect the average joe who needs a loan to start his own small business. The fundamentals for entrepreneurship and risk are seriously threatened.

It affects EVERY industry, because we need capital to do business and continue operations. In the current environment, access to capital will continue to be difficult for companies that need even a minimal amount of leverage (debt) to operate. Without the growth of new businesses and the expansion or even continuation of existing businesses, we will inevitably enter a depression.

Consumer confidence overall has plummeted leading to less demand for consumer goods / durables and decreasing discretionary spending. The best companies will be those that sell the fundamentals, those that experience inelastic demand and / or have lower-priced substitutions.

The real estate markets will drop even further. With the flooding of unemployed professionals, supply will come on-stream and people will be forced to move out of high-cost urban centers. Additionally, the constrained amount of capital available to homebuyers will prevent any short-term recovery of real estate values to further fuel the economy. We are in a state of devastation across all areas of finance and business.

Last, but not least. This affects the families, friends and colleagues (at other institutions) of the employees at LEH. We are all saddened by the demise of a really talented group of people.

J:: Is there any hope that things will turn around in the near future, or should we start stuffing our 401K's under our mattresses? What can we do to keep ourselves financially solvent?
KP: Never put money under your mattress. Believe it or not, this is a losing proposition because you can always earn a modest rate of return in very liquid investments and your money will be worth less just by the basic rules of time value. Money markets are still safe. I am mostly in cash right now and have done better than most of my friends who have been trading in and out of their PAs (personal accounts) on a daily basis.

The only thing I am going to do with my money right now besides keeping substantial liquidity is invest in U.S. and European fixed income.

To stay financially solvent, make an investment in yourself and your career through education and hard work. I know it sounds old school, but it’s a great hedge. I don’t know what other advice to give when the world is blowing up.

Related: Wall St. In Worst Loss Since ’01 Despite Reassurances By Bush [NY Times]