NYC luxury spending continues -- for some

NEW YORK, April 14 (UPI) -- Luxury spending in New York City has not dried up entirely in spite of the economic slump, say business owners who cater to very wealthy people.

Three-thousand-dollar-a-bottle cognac is still available -- and still selling -- at the GoldBar lounge in Manhattan, The New York Times reported Monday.

A luxury yachts salesman, Eric Lepiengle, reports he sold three $8 million to $35 million yachts since January.

Apartment sales for the very wealthy continue at a brisk pace. In 2008, 71 Manhattan apartments costing more than $10 million each have been sold, compared with 17 in all of 2007, the Times reported.

"When times get tough, the smart spend money," David Monn, an event planner, told the Times.

Perhaps emblematic of luxury spending in these financial times, Bear Stearns Chairman James E. Cayne spent $25 million on a 14th floor condo at the Plaza Hotel just day's before Stearns, the fifth largest investment bank on Wall Street, collapsed

The fall of Bear Stearms triggered a $30 billion federal intervention and a fire sale of the bank to J.P. Morgan and Chase and Co.