What does that mean, exactly? It means that spending and consumer confidence, as evidenced by holiday shopping, are up to their highest levels since the beginning of the recession. The effect is across the board, but it all started in the luxury markets. The way analysts see it, luxury retailers saw increases first, and eventually the gains spread to mid- and uppertier consumer markets.

Part of the increase is due to what economists call pent up demand. In plain English, consumers have been waiting and waiting to buy, until finally, this holiday season, they’ve returned eagerly to the malls in droves. Increases surpassed even generous expectations. Seriously, is there any better Christmas gift than a stabilizing economy? That’s something we can all unwrap.

This is turning out to be a major problem, as it costs 12.5 cents to produce each $100 bill, which means that if all 1.1 billion of the bills that have been printed so far have to be destroyed, the Treasury will lose $137.5 million. Not only that, but retailers will also lose money. $100 bills are the most frequently counterfeited. I would recommend trying it at home, but all counterfeiters need is to bleach a bunch of $1 bills and print a $100 image on top of them with a laser to printer to get past most watchful eyes.

This fiasco brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “printer error”. Let’s hope the government gets this figured out ASAP.

The list is up 102 from last year, with 793 billionaires listed, I’m sure the NAGG’s are already on the case.  The fortunate who made it on this year’s list are worth a combined $2.6 trillion, up 18% since last March.  Wow, think of all the people we could feed with that load of cash.

India is home to 10 new billionaires this year, more than any other country besides the US.  Newcomers include India’s biggest real estate developer, Kushal Pal Sigh & the liquor tycoon behind Kingfisher beer, Vijay Mallya.

China now has eight billionaires to call their own, doubling last year’s total.  Solor power mogul Zhengrong Shi joins the list at $2.2 billion.

You go girl!  Seventy-eight women made the list with Oprah Winfrey (of course), Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling & eBay’s Meg Whitman.

Who’s at the top of the list this year?  As if you have to ask.  Don’t worry, Microsoft god  Bill Gates rests high above us all at $50 billion.

Every year the well-publicized Academy Awards ceremony draws nationwide attention, not just for keeping tabs on their favorite films, but to admire and critique the glamorous celebrity fashions. Clothing, cosmetics, hair styles, and jewelry worn to star-studded events like the Oscars can influence fashion trends for months or years to come.  We can thank J Lo for some awful trends after some of her appearances. 

It’s not surprising that fashion designers are willing to make significant sacrifices to get their designs onto the bodies of celebrities who attend these big events.  Product placement is older than ET & Reese’s Pieces.  For years, the big fashion design houses have allowed celebrities to borrow their designs, free of charge, to wear to high-profile events.

Today, popular celebrities are paid large sums of money by designers to wear certain designs to public events. So your favorite actress might not even like the high-priced necklace and earring set you see her wearing. She could be working a paid advertisement for a design house, even though she appears to be on her own free time.

Consider the luxurious little Chopard diamond earrings worn by Best Actress winner Hilary Swank at the 2005 Oscars. According to TimesOnline Swank originally borrowed jewelry from Harry Winston for the event, but returned it after accepting an offer from Chopard to pay her an estimated $90,000 to wear its design instead, apparently she had fallen on hard times.

The L.A. Times reports that both Swank and actress Charlize Theron returned their loaned Harry Winston jewels within 24 hours before they planned to wear them to the Golden Globes, reportedly receiving “6 figure checks” from Chopard to wear its designs to the event.

Swank wasn’t the only celebrity wearing Chopard on Oscar night, although its unclear whether other stars received similar compensation from the company. The list of Chopard wearers reportedly included Mary J. Blige, Natalie Cole, Nicolette Sheridan, Penelope Cruz, Star Jones Reynolds, and even Al Roker god bless him.

Lesson to be learned:  You can never have too much money, so say yes to product placemement.  I’m eating a Chiquita banana with Peter Pan peanut butter.  What are you eating?

The National Association of Colleges & Employers (NACE) stated last summer that some type of applied science degree make up seven of the top ten highest starting salaries.

Get your chemistry set back out, because chemical engineering was the highest paid major with an average starting salary of $53,813 followed by computer engineering at $52,464 and electrical engineering at $51,888.

The rest of this list, in descending order, is aerospace engineering, systems engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, engineering technology & information sciences and systems.  Whew!  I’m not sure I want to see the word ‘engineering’ for quite a while. 

So, get out there and add another notch to your resume.