Just what we need: another overreaching state attorney general trying to make a name for himself. Arkansas's attorney general wants to shut down payday lenders in his state, and he's sent letters to some 60 companies doing business there, telling them to pack up, ship out, and -- oh yeah! -- forgive all the debts of the people who borrowed money from them.

I'm easily obsessed by what I read. Too much Tom Wolfe and my sentences are paragraph-length head trips. If my bedtime stories come from Stephen King, it'll be a week of sewer-dwelling monster-clowns and the "coppery taste of blood and fear" on the back of my tongue.

If you believe the headlines, the long run in commodities prices ended last week. But retirees shouldn't start celebrating just yet. Before you begin scaling back your inflation expectations and make changes to your retirement portfolio, get some longer-term perspective -- and see how small last week's correction looks compared to price gains in recent years.

Malibu, Calif. -- Despite struggling real estate markets across most of the United States, beach-front homes in Malibu, Calif., are going for up to $150,000 a month.

Story:

The record-setting $150,000 Cliffside Drive property, which has eight bathrooms and four bedrooms, is one of many Malibu summer homes that seem to be untouched by the country's struggling economy, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

Even the most commonplace shore-side homes in the celebrity-studded area are going for monthly rental prices of $70,000 or more and are predicted to be filled by April.

"Malibu in the summer is where the United States ends and life begins," actor Daniel Baldwin told the Times.

Homes priced at $10 million or higher, which includes nearly all Malibu beach-front properties, have been virtually unaffected by the flailing U.S. real estate market, said John Karevoll of DataQuick Information Systems, in the newspaper article.

In a savvy effort to reduce their ad-revenue losses, roughly two dozen newspaper companies have joined a cooperative group to offer advertisers access to multiple papers across the United States.

Here's a short timeline of events that could have netted you more than $12 million:

Three of the five best days the Dow Jones Industrial Average has ever experienced occurred in one 10-day stretch in 1987: Oct. 20 (up 5.88%), Oct. 21 (up 10.15%), and Oct. 29 (up 4.96%).

The "Rule of 72" is a great way to calculate compounding interest in your head. To find the number of years it would take a figure to double, simply divide the number 72 by the assumed growth rate. For example, if you think your stock will grow at a rate of 7.2% per year, it will take roughly 10 years for it to double (72/7.2 = 10).

Ben Bernanke: Bail Bondsman
The Fed has been busier than your office NCAA tournament pool this week. On Sunday, it helped bail out Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC) by guaranteeing $30 billion in questionable loans to facilitate a buyout and avert a bankruptcy.

Monday
How does kicking off the week with breakfast at Tiffany (NYSE: TIF) sound? The high-end jeweler reports its fourth-quarter results on Monday morning. Analysts expect earnings to climb 13% to $1.21 a share during the holiday period.