Sometimes it seems as if the New York Yankees inhabit some alternate reality, a bizarro universe in which the AL East race is not a competition among ballclubs, but among bank books, one in which the recession doesn’t exist, unemployment has been eradicated and depression is a word for shrinks, not sharks.

For them, it’s always a bull market, money is plentiful, credit readily available and cheap, and the World Series not something to be played, but purchased.

Obviously, they haven’t noticed that unemployment is way, way up, wages are way, way down and morale among American workers is lower than Eddie Gaedel’s strike zone.

Or that the enemy they always seem to be fighting, the Red Sox, is not the one they should fear.

Tuesday, the Bankees added Mark Teixeira to the pile of high-priced free agents under their Christmas tree. This brought their winter shopping haul to a total of three blue-chip players, at a cost of nearly a half-billion dollars.

And they may not be done yet. Manny Ramirez is still out there. Take that, Boston!

Except that Boston is no longer the enemy, and money is no longer the answer, if, in fact, it ever really was.

While the dinosaurs of the division were sleeping, the Tampa Bay Rays shot past both of them. The Rays return in 2009 a year older, a year more experienced, a year better. But not a penny more expensive. Unlike the Yankees, they win baseball games the old-fashioned way — on the field, not on the balance sheet.

The times, they are a’changin. But the Yankees? Not a bit.

Once again, they remind us that they don’t really want to compete, they want to be coronated. Just hand them the rings now, because on paper, they can’t lose. George Steinbrenner may be out of the loop, but his philosophy of winning is alive and well.

When the going gets tough, the tough go free-agent shopping. Forget about scouting, or player development, or even making a trade. See it, buy it, and let the market be damned.

We all knew last season, when it became obvious Derek Jeter was going to spend October trick-or-treating for the first time in 12 years, that some dead presidents were going to roll this offseason.

But no one could have imagined the kind of shameless shopping spree the Yankees have been on this month — $167 million for CC Sabathia, $82.5 million A.J. Burnett and now, a reported $180 million for Teixeira — at a time when more than 10 million Americans are out of work and another 4 million might join them in 2009.

Even for the prototypical Yankees fan — and you know who you are and what I’m talking about — this manner of excess is distasteful at best, wastefully insane at worst.

And besides, there’s no evidence that it actually works.

After winning four of five World Series between 1996 and 2000, with relatively modestly financed rosters built around pitching, timely hitting and skilled role players, the Yankees went big-ticket with the likes of Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez, Hideki Matsui, Carl Pavano, Johnny Damon, etc., etc.

They have won nothing since.

Nothing but the bragging rights to yet another December, which, no matter how many millions you pay for them, aren’t worth a nickel in October.

Even in the bizarro universe they inhabit, that’s one law of baseball the Yankees’ money hasn’t been able to abolish.