Hank Paulson has had an interesting time as Treasury Secretary, stepping into the role as the US was about to enter not only a possible recession but one of the most complex and worrying financial crises of recent decades.

He was on his feet again today,  proposing reforms for mortgage brokers and credit rating agencies, defending the dollar and talking about how Wall Street firms and regulators all made mistakes that contributed to the turmoil.

Although events are hardly within his control, there is something comforting about having a former chief executive of Goldman Sachs in the hot seat in Washington at the moment. Whether or not he is correct about everything, he knows what he is talking about and is willing to take some risks.

In fact, I don’t think he has been right about everything. The Treasury’s earlier plan for a “super-Siv” to support one corner of financial markets struck me as not only out of place but likely to cause more harm than good.

But, in general, his presence is reassuring. At a time when policymakers are in danger or either doing too little and doing too much, Mr Paulson seems to be both thoughtful and determined. I would give him a decent review so far. 

Further to Eliot Spitzer, I agree in principle with the surprising editorial in the Wall Street Journal this morning, arguing that Client 9 should be treated on a par with Clients 1 to 8. The Journal is no fan of Mr Spitzer, and neither am I, but it is correct to say that, now he has resigned, state-backed vengeance is inappropriate.

Not being a US legal expert, I don’t know whether he broke federal prostitution laws by paying for “Kristen” to take a train down to Washington, or money laundering regulations by “structuring” his payments to avoid tax or scrutiny.

But it is fairly clear that Mr Spitzer was not laundering money - he was simply trying to hide his use of the Emperors Club. So it is not obvious why he should now be treated any differently from the others. He is plainly suffering quite a lot anyway.

In my Financial Times column this week, I return to the compelling topic of Eliot Spitzer. I have nothing here to say about prostitution; instead, I argue that crusading populists rarely achieve what they promise in office. You can read it here and please comment below.

One thing I regretted when we moved from London to New York two and a half years ago was that my then seven-year-old daughter was just starting to learn about Tudor kings and queens. We had visited the Tower of London to look at the spot where Anne Boleyn was executed.

The move across the Atlantic meant that she instead got to learn about American Indian tribes. Without any disrespect to Native Americans, this struck me as being a poor substitute in terms of wealth and intrigue.

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I was talking recently to the head of alternative assets at a financial institution and he told me about its recent experience of bidding for a $1bn portfolio of US mortgages that a bank wanted to shed by its financial year-end.

The portfolio comprised about 500 5,000 mortgages that were spread across the US and ranged from sub-prime to AAA quality - it was a real mixed bag. The bank was offering to sell the portfolio at a significant discount to face value to get it off its balance sheet - more than 20 per cent.

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Further to the Eliot Spitzer scandal, I recommend to readers the comment left on my earlier post by Ava Xi’an. It starts as follows:

As a highly-paid escort in New York City, I have to say that I’m completely unsurprised by the events that have unfolded the past few days. I am curious, though, as to how it will affect my industry in the coming few months (the Empire Club was one of the top 5 “VIP” agencies in the tri-state area).

I’m sure a lot of women in this particular sex industry will be keeping very quiet on this issue, so I’d like to take it upon myself to offer at least a few words in our defense.

Miss Xi’an goes on to make some interesting points about the role and legality of escort services and prostitution. You can read her comments here.

Reading the federal complaint against the prostitution ring in which Eliot Spitzer, the New York state governor, apparently became caught up is an insight into how even this sort of business is just that - a business.

The Emperors Club VIP was clearly at the top end of prostitution enterprises. It operated across borders - in Paris and London as well as in US cities - and it was very expensive. Clients had to pay between $1,000 and $5,500 per hour for its services.

Like other service businesses, it had a loyalty club for the most elite clients who paid even more than $5,500 per hour, known as the Icon Club. It allowed some clients to “buy out” their favourite prostitutes, permitting the men direct access to the women without going through the Emperors Club.

The 47-page complaint shows the Emperors Club also faced many operating challenges. The federal wiretaps of conversations show the organisers facing problems such as having too few prostitutes for the demand from clients in one city and having to hassle clients to pay bills.

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I have just spent a few days in London for work. As always, when I return from New York, it feels richer and more cosmopolitan than the place where I grew up.

One thing that struck me was the nationality of the aircraft passing overhead in west London. When I was a child, I used to gaze up at the aircraft coming in to land at Heathrow and try to identify the countries from which they came.

I remember that there used to be quite a lot of tail fins painted with the blue emblem of PanAm, which is sadly no more. There were quite a few TWA aircraft as well. In those days, a lot of the aircraft - particularly the Boeing 747s - seemed to be flying to or from the US.

This week I did not look up so much but, on the two occasions that I did, the aircraft I saw were painted in the colours of Emirates and Qatar, two Gulf airlines that have been growing rapidly. Heathrow traffic is a fair indicator of global development, it seems.

Opinions vary on whether, when the financial system eventually recovers from the credit crisis, which it does not look like doing any time soon, things will work differently in future.

Some argue that the shock caused by over-complexity in the credit market is so great that investors will pull back permanently from putting money in collateralised debt obligations and the like.

Instead, there will be a long-term swing towards “re-intermediation” – banks providing credit directly from their balance sheets rather than acting as intermediaries that transfer that risk to investors by selling them sophisticated securities.

Personally, I do not believe it and Exhibit A for my scepticism is Carlyle Capital, which has got itself into trouble by leveraging its equity 28 times to buy supposedly impeccably safe AAA-rated mortgage-backed securities.

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Bernard Arnault presumably knows a thing or two about what sells Louis Vuitton bags, or he would not feature so prominently on the Forbes list.

Still, I was struck by seeing the well-worn face of Keith Richards, the Rolling Stones guitarist, in an advertisement in a glossy magazine for Louis Vuitton. You can see the photo here.

One British brand consultant sums it up thus to Bloomberg:

Keith Richards is timeless and ageless. He’s lived his life on the edge, but he’s not a sleaze bag. He’s lean and mean and he’s still current.

So then, not a sleaze bag but the kind of man whose bag you covet.  According to Mr Arnault, Mr Richards is one of several “achievers who’ve changed things” to be featured in ads for the luxury goods company.

The lesson I take from this is that baby boomers buy a lot of luxury goods and that any baby boomer icon - including one renowned for drug-taking and louche living - is therefore a potential front man.

I don’t suppose that Keef envisaged when the Stones started, nor after Altamont, that he would wind up as the face of Louis Vuitton. But sensibilities change, and so does the luxury market.