November 26, 1990

Many credit market analysts say inflationary pressures have begun to ease significantly, even though oil prices remain substantially above the levels before Iraq invaded Kuwait and could go higher still if war erupts in the Persian Gulf. The moderating trend has come as a welcome surprise to many credit market participants, who feared that rapidly rising oil prices would in turn push up the prices of other goods and services.

Joyce Ford, the daughter of laborers, fled the hand-to-mouth world of Washington's black housing projects and now has amenities of the middle class: a good job in the Government, an office across the street from the White House, a merit raise and an American Express card. But she still has the bone-deep worries of the poor. Sitting at her desk the other day, she got yet another call from a frantic relative with bad news and high expectations. "Your brother's sick," the caller said. "He needs to see somebody. What are you going to do?"

Retailers are urging affluent consumers to buy expensive cars, boats, jewelry and furs before the new Federal "luxury tax" takes effect on Jan. 1. And many consumers appear to be accepting the advice, with some retailers of luxury goods reporting a surge in sales. Numerous car dealers and boat brokers are publicizing the tax in an effort to stimulate business in the remaining five weeks of the year. So are the Neiman Marcus Company department stores. And jewelers like Cartier Inc. and Van Cleef & Arpels Inc. say they expect a brief upturn in business.

Monica Getz's marriage to a famous jazz musician lives on, at least along the paneled walls of Shadowbrook, the mansion here where she makes her home, high above the Hudson. Above the staircase is a portrait of her with her former husband, the saxophonist Stan Getz, and their children. Nearby in the library is a snapshot taken in the halcyon days of their courtship. The couple's 32-year marriage had disintegrated, the victim of charges and countercharges of drugs and alcohol, adultery and cruelty, long before a Westchester jury declared it defunct in 1987. But the legal fire rages on, and now even Shadowbrook, the estate from which Irving Berlin's bride eloped 64 years ago and which the Getzes have owned since 1966,could be consumed in the blaze.

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, just imagine where Manhattan's West Side Highway would lead. Two decades have gone by since a cadre of urban planners conceived an underground thoroughfare, buried beneath parks, apartments and commercial development built on landfill in the Hudson River. That ambitious proposal, called Westway, collapsed of its own bureaucratic weight five years ago this fall after an investment of $250 million -- nearly a tenth of its projected budget.