That affair is costing you a small fortune
Everything is a numbers game—and marital infidelity is no exception.
According to a recent survey, the average affair lasts six months and costs $444 a month, or $2,664 in total.
But experts say the cost of having an affair is actually higher. Much higher. "Secret cell phones, airline tickets, secret credit cards, hotel rooms—the costs can be astronomical," said Ramani Durvasula, a licensed clinical psychologist based in Santa Monica, California.
Durvasula believes smartphones and social media have helped contribute to what she says is an enormous rise in marital infidelity.
"We've created the ultimate cheating tools," said Durvasula. "Social media is an accelerant. It's like giving children matches to play with."
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Is all that back-to-school shopping angst really necessary?
When it comes to back-to-school shopping, there are seemingly two kinds of parents: The early-bird bargain hunter who’s done by July, and the perennial procrastinator who races through stores cursing the calendar in a haze of panic and adrenaline.
“Actually, most parents are both of those things,” noted consumer psychologist Kit Yarrow of San Francisco. “Initially there’s the earnest phase, when you have all your good intentions and the world seems sane. And then suddenly you’re at the end of August and there’s panic. Everyone’s in the same boat.”
Marketing experts say the late-August shopping ritual is becoming somewhat obsolete these days anyway, due to the lengthening retail season. Stores are offering back-to-school sales all summer long in a calculated effort to compete with online retailers for consumer attention. And it's working.
Marlene Morris Towns, a professor of marketing at Georgetown University and a member of the Association for Consumer Research, said the recession has been a key factor in the way retailers and consumers play cat-and-mouse.
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Are You Waiting to Dance with Lady Luck?
Lady Luck is a mercurial, sometimes cruel mistress. Ask anyone who plays the stock market, the ponies or the blackjack table. Today may be your lucky day. Then again, maybe not. It does no good to beg, pray or shake your fists. Lady Luck will do as she damn well pleases.
Recent news stories are testimony to this:
* The California couple who found a $10 million bag of rare gold coinswhile walking their dog.
* The Virginia couple who are $2 million richer after winning the lottery three times in two weeks.
* The Chicago man who won the lottery three times in three weeks.
Events like these seem beyond the realm of possible. Not to mention unfair. As F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, "Nothing is as obnoxious as other people's luck."
The concept of luck, in all its mystery and elusiveness, has confounded people since the beginning of civilization. Craving a logical, ordered universe, people turn to religion, mythology, numerology and complex scientific analysis to explain why things happen as they do. But sometimes the question, "Why?" is simply unanswerable.
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NBC NEWS / CNBC/ TODAY
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How Employers are Tapping the Talents of Disabled Workers
A long-overlooked player in the American workplace is finally getting some extra attention: The disabled worker.
In March 2014, the Department of Labor updated its requirements regarding the recruitment, hiring, promotion and workplace retention of individuals with disabilities. The legislation, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, sets a utilization goal of 7 percent and aims to meaningfully change the prospects of disabled workers in the U.S.
But the increased recognition isn't all about affirmative action. Some disabled workers with specific neurological capabilities are becoming increasingly valuable to employers for a different reason: global competition. Traits like extreme mathematical, scientific and mechanical aptitude are so coveted by certain industries that accompanying conditions, such as social anxiety, have become an accepted part of the equation.
"The number of strengths that are common to the autistic brain is something that can be leveraged toward vocational advancement," noted Ari Ne-eman,president of the Autistic Self-AdvocacyNetwork (ASAN) in Washington DC and a member of the National Council on Disability. "Our society has come to recognize different kinds of brains from a strength-based perspective, rather than a challenged-based perspective."
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