Cash For Clunkers A Boom For Foreign Cars

The "Cash for Clunkers" program is now over. The government spent almost all of the 3 billion dollars it had allotted for the program and it seems that the people who benefited the most were foreign car makers. As it turned out the American public ran to the dealerships to trade in their American cars and exchange them for foreign ones. The list of the top five cars that were traded in during the program were: 1. Ford Explorer 4WD, 2. Ford F-150, 3. Jeep Grand Cherokee, 4. Ford Explorer 2WD, 5. Dodge Caravan.
The list of the top 5 cars that were purchased during the campaign are: 1. Toyota Corolla, 2. Honda Civic, 3. Toyota Camry, 4. Ford Focus, 5. Hyundai Elantra. Basically the American public threw out its American "clunkers" and replaced them with brand new foreign cars that were in most cases far more fuel efficient and more reliable overall.

U.S. Traffic Deaths Set To Hit Modern Low This Year

It seems that in The United States fewer and fewer people are dying in auto accidents this year. The country is on pace to have the lowest casualty total since 1961 in fact. In the first three months of 2009 the total number of motorists who had died in auto accidents was 7689. If that rate continues it would put the years total at 30,756. To give you an idea of how low that is in 2007 the total number was 37,621. In 2008 this figure was even lower than that by almost 10%. The decline has been attributed in large part to the recession. There is less economic activity going on and therefore fewer cars on the roads and therefore fewer accidents and fewer casualties. Another factor adding to the reduced volume of traffic has been the rising price of gas which has forced many motorists to due less driving simply as an economic necessity.

Smoking On The Rise Worldwide But Down In The West

There is good news and bad news as far as smoking goes these days. The good news is that smoking in the U.S. is at its lowest rate since records have been kept to track it as a statistic. It's currently at about 24%. The trend is the same in other western countries as well and it is mostly due to the ever rising taxes that western governments are placing on cigarettes in order to make the habit less and less affordable to the masses in an attempt to get people to give it up. The latest example of this came from President Obama who earlier in the year signed a law raising the federal cigarette tax on a pack of smokes from 32 cents to $1. The bad news is that smoking in all other parts of the world is rising sharply. It has been estimated that tobacco companies worldwide produce over 5 trillion cigarettes each year. That is over 800 cigarettes for every man, woman, and child on the planet. Here now is a list of the world's top ten countries for smokers and the percentages of their populations that currently engage in the habit: 1. Russia 48.5%. 2. Britain 35.7%. 3. Turkey 35.5%. 4. China 31.8%. 5. France 31.7%. 6. Germany 31.6%. 7. Japan 29.4%. 8. Malaysia 28.8%. 9. Ireland 26.3% 10. Italy 26.1%. (The U.S. ranked 15th on the list at 23.9%) These rankings come from the World Health Organization.

Michael Jackson Poised To Top Highest Earning Dead Celebrity List

Most people struggle in life to make enough money to live on but if you are a successful celebrity you know nothing of such struggles and if you are a dead celebrity the same holds true. Most observers agree that with Michael Jackson's passing an economic window of opportunity will open for his estate to grow over time exponentially. Michael Jackson was a big spender. Anyone who saw the Special hosted by Martin Bashir (who now is a co-host on Nightline) where in which he went on a shopping spree with the "King of Pop" and watched him drop over 6 million dollars in less than an hour on items like an oversized chess board game and alike can easily understand why he was estimated to be about 500 million dollars in debt. Jackson and his out of control spending habits were the biggest reason for that. Now that he is not around to spend money like crazy his estate will be in a position to just take in money and most observers agree that his estate's debt can likely be wiped out in less than ten years and function in the black every year after that. It is believed that he will someday take over the top spot on the list of highest earning dead celebrities and surpass people like John Lennon and Elvis who have been dead and earning millions for years. The current list of the top ten celebrity money earners goes like this according to the Forbes list: 1. Kurt Cobain - 50 million per year. -- 2. Elvis Presley - 42 million. 3. Charles Schulz (creator of "Peanuts" comic strip) - 35 million. 4. John Lennon - 24 million. 5. Albert Einstein - 20 million. 6. Andy Warhol - 19 million. 7. Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) - 10 million. 8. Ray Charles - 10 million. 9. Marilyn Monroe - 8 million. 10. Johnny Cash - 8 million. Most of this revenue is due to licencing agreements, book and record sales.

Russian Birth Rates In Steep Decline

The Russian government in addition to the many other problems it has been having to deal with over the years has a new one that recently has come to light. The birth rates are falling fast and that kind of a situation just won't do for a superpower wannabe. The current population of Russia is just over 142,000,000 people. Compare that to the 305,000,000 that make up the United States. There are estimates that by the year 2050 at the current rate of decline that the population of Russia may fall below 110,000,000. The biggest reason most experts believe has to do with Russian men and the fact that they just do not take care of themselves very well. Alchoholism in Russia is rampant and in addition to that Russian men have begun to take on the habit of smoking in larger numbers than ever. The result of this is not only lower birth rates but the average life expectancy of a Russian male now is only 58 years. Compare that to the 76 that you can expect if you are an American male or Western European male. The Russian government has been so alarmed by the trend that they have begun offering couples who marry and have more than one child cash rewards for doing so in order to promote large families and higher birth rates. If you start a family and you have more than one child you can receive a cash reward of about $1,150. That is about what the average Russian earns in a month give or take.

The Worlds Nations Spent Record Amount On Arms in 08

You would think that with the worldwide economic downturn it would leave the worlds most powerful nations in a bind in terms of increasing their spending on arms but the opposite is in fact the case. In 2008 the world's nations spent a total of 1.46 trillion dollars on weapons which is an all time high. At the top of the list of course by far is the United States. The U.S. spent a total of 607 billion dollars last year on war related spending. A distant second on the list was China at 85 billion. Third was France at 65.7 billion. Fourth the U.K. at 65.3 billion. Russia was Fifth at 58.6 billion. Germany sixth at 46.8 billion. Japan seventh at 46.3 billion. Eighth was Italy at 40.6 billion. Ninth Saudi Arabia at 38.2 billion. Last on the top ten list was India at 30 billion.

A-Rod Tell All Book Not Selling

Anybody who follows baseball can tell you that Alex Rodriguez is the king of controversy. It does not seem to be helping Selena Roberts out very much nor the publishers of her tell all book on the Yankee slugger. The book is called "A-Rod: The Many Lives Of Alex Rodriguez" and was released in early May to coincide with the return of the Yankee Third baseman to his team following an early season injury. 150,000 copies of the book were published in advance in anticipation that there would be a demand for it. The first week it was out the book sold about 11,000 copies which was good enough to place it at number 9 on the New York times best seller list for that week. Since then the book has not sold very well at all. By the end of May it had only sold a total of 16,000 copies.