Oh boy… Like Bill Clinton, he refuses to just fade away. Vladimir Putin has released yet another display of his own masculinity: a DVD entitled ‘Let’s learn judo with Vladimir Putin’.

‘Let’s Learn Judo with Vladimir Putin’ is the product of collaboration between Putin - a black belt - and former World and Olympic judo champion Yasuhiro Yamashita.

Putin is a one-time judo champion of his home city St. Petersburg - called Leningrad at the time. At least the ex-president is in great shape at 56. Good for him.

Scientists are searching for innate traits that might not appear to be related to sexual orientation or even to standard clichés. Scientists don’t always agree on how to interpret the results, and more progress has been made with regard to men than to women. So after many many studies, here’s what they’ve come up with…

• Big brothers. Study after study has found that gay men have more older brothers than straight men do. Only big brothers count. Lesbians don’t show such patterns. Each older brother will increase a man’s chances of being gay by 33%. Psychological influences are probably not at work, because the pattern holds even for gay men who weren’t raised with their older brothers. Instead, the mother’s womb might be key. After giving birth to a boy, her immune system might create antibodies to foreign, male proteins in her bloodstream. Subsequent sons in the womb could be exposed to these “anti-boy” antibodies, which might affect sexual development in the brain.
• Left or Right Handed. The hand you use to sign your name might have something to do with what gender you are drawn to. More lefties — or at least more somewhat-ambidextrous folks — crop up in the gay population than among straight people.
• Hair whorl. How does your hair grow? A 2004 study found that hair on the heads of men on the gay beach was 3.5 times more likely to grow in a counterclockwise direction.

There are plenty of signs of ageism in corporate America.

American culture relentlessly celebrates youth. But in the corporate world, 80 is the new 50. Advances in medicine make a retirement age of 65 seem like a relic. Until recently, aging big-shot executives were generally happy to play golf, become ambassadors, or just sail away on their yachts. Today, not so much.

Most Type-A M.B.A.s could outpace these old-timers in a 100-meter dash. (Self-proclaimed workout stud Sumner Redstone, the 85-year-old chairman of both Viacom and CBS, might give the youngsters a run for their money.) But these are marathon men, not the sprinters who thrive during bubbles. In recent months, fiftysomething CEOs of Wall Street firms and large banks have been decimated by the credit crunch, just as twentysomething tech stars were crushed in the 2001 NASDAQ crash. Unlike their younger counterparts, today’s headline-making grandparents have experience managing through the last serious oil shock and prolonged period of financial pain in the 1970s. Kirk Kerkorian began his career during the Great Depression. These ancient rock stars have also proved willing to learn a repertoire beyond their greatest hits. Rupert Murdoch, 77, beat younger moguls in the race for MySpace and is now busily remaking the Wall Street Journal.

As they’ve moved through life, the baby boomers have altered societal attitudes on everything from smoking marijuana to Botox. As boomers coast into their golden years, it’s likely the acceptance of older workers at every rung of the corporate ladder will grow. In the 1960s, the boomers’ mantra was: Don’t trust anyone over 30. In the 2010s, it’ll probably be: Don’t trust anyone under 70.

Expand your possibilities. If you can get citizenship, why not?

For a new generation of Americans of European descent, the Old Country is becoming a new country full of promise and opportunity. The creation of the European Union and its thriving economy is very appealing for Americans in a global economy. Americans can claim citizenship in any of the 27 European countries that are in the EU based on the nationality of their parents, or in some cases, grandparents and great-grandparents. Citizenship in one of those countries allows you to live and work in any EU nation.

Since the United States doesn’t keep statistics on dual citizens, it’s impossible to know exactly how many people have applied for citizenship in Europe. But it’s estimated that more than 40 million Americans are eligible for dual citizenship, and a growing number of Americans want to try their luck elsewhere.

Dual citizenship became a major issue during the War of 1812, when the British military tried recruiting, and in some cases forcing, British-born American citizens to fight on Britain’s side. For years, being a dual citizen was seen as unpatriotic, and until 1967 it was possible for the United States to revoke American citizenship for people who voted in foreign elections. Today, immigrants who become American citizens have to swear that they renounce their previous citizenship, but it’s more of a symbolic gesture.

For those who are moving for the EU economic boom, Hudson Institute senior fellow John Fonte - one of the nation’s leading immigration experts and critics of dual citizenship - warns that it might not last. Noah Pickus, the associate director at Duke University said he’s heard stories of parents getting their children European citizenship as an 18th birthday present - “We didn’t get you a car, but we got you an Italian citizenship.”

Dual Citizenship Criteria

Ireland: Automatically grants citizenship to the child of an Irish-born citizen. A person can also claim descent based on a grandparent or great-grandparent as long as a grandparent had also claimed descent on or before the date of the person’s birth.

Italy: For those born after 1948, citizenship is granted if their father or mother was a citizen at the time of the applicant’s birth.

United Kingdom: Descent based on a grandparent allowable only in exceptional cases.

Greece: Native-born parent or grandparent.

Holland, Finland, Germany and Norway: Applicant must have been born in wedlock with one parent a citizen, or he can claim descent based only on the mother.

All other European Union countries: A parent was a citizen of the given country. People who can’t claim descent can apply after living in the country for a certain number of years.

One out of every 20 job applicants screened last year had a criminal record

When one company found $3 million dollars and their CFO missing, they called Ken Springer, the president of Corporate Resolutions, a business investigations concern.

Mr. Springer, a former white-collar crime specialist at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, started Corporate Resolutions in 1991 in New York, and has expanded it to 25 employees and offices in London, Boston and Miami, with a fifth planned for Hong Kong in October.

Most of his clients are private equity lenders and hedge funds that ask him to conduct management background checks at companies they are looking at, and to look into suspicions of wrongdoing at companies they hold stakes in. As layoffs increase, so does employee theft. And as loan defaults rise, so does the need for banks to track down the assets of borrowers.

There is plenty of wrongdoing out there. Employee theft alone exceeds $400 billion annually.

After spending nearly three decades investigating larceny in the workplace, Mr. Springer has some suggestions, especially for smaller companies, which are particularly vulnerable.

• Mr. Springer’s primary recommendation is to screen all potential employees, starting with their résumés. If you detect a single lie, he says, throw the résumé in the wastebasket. Be wary, too, of claims that are difficult to verify, gaps in applicants’ job histories and vague descriptions of what they did. If, for example, the computer hardware company tried to contact the three references listed by the candidate for chief financial officer, it would have learned that one was dead, one did not exist and the third had a low opinion of the candidate. Mr. Springer suggests that after authenticating the facts in a job candidate’s résumé, a background check should be done.
• Require job applicants to sign an agreement that allows you to do background checks and drug tests on them at any time during their employment. Make it clear that you plan to conduct such investigations. The troublemakers and other bad eggs will probably walk away.
• Make sure current employees know that everything on the company computer is company property, and that you have the right — and intention — to monitor their use and their e-mail messages.
• Never let the chief financial officer write checks or open mail.
• Buy fidelity insurance to cover theft by employees and vendors, which on average represents 5 percent of a company’s revenue.
• Look for red flags, for example, employees who never take a day off, a sign that they may be covering up a fraud.

One billion dollars is no longer enough to gain entry to Russia’s rich list.

Ten billionaires failed to make Forbes magazine’s annual list of the 100 richest Russians that is led by those who built their fortunes on the country’s metals resources. Russia’s richest 100 people had a combined fortune of $522 billion - 3.8 times more than the total when Forbes first published a Russian list in 2004.

Another reason for the increase in dollar billionaires was the fall in the value of the U.S. currency. Boo!

Older Americans Are The Happiest

Americans grow happier as they grow older. The study also found that baby boomers are not as content as other generations, African Americans are less happy than whites, men are less happy than women, happiness can rise and fall between eras, and that, with age the differences narrow. The happiness measure is a guide to how well society is meeting people’s needs.

Charted happiness across age and racial groups, Yang Yang, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, found that among 18-year-olds, white women are the happiest, with a 33% probability of being very happy, followed by white men (28%), black women (18%) and black men (15%).

Differences vanish over time, however, as happiness increases. With age comes positive psychosocial traits, such as self-integration and self-esteem; these signs of maturity could contribute to a better sense of overall well-being. Second, group differences in happiness decrease with age due to the equalization of resources that contribute to happiness, such as access to health care, Medicare and Medicaid, and the loss of social support due to the deaths of spouses and friends.

Looking over the study’s 33-year period, she noticed definite upticks when the nation flourished economically. For example, she found that 1995 was a very good year on the happiness scale.

The Right Pressures or Incentive Will Cause Anybody To Lie

Here are some stats and tips on how to tell if someone is lying to your face:

• Skilled liars don’t break a sweat, but the rest of us get a little fidgety. Four possible giveaways: shifty eyes, higher vocal pitch, perspiration and heavier breathing. Of course, not everyone who doesn’t meet your gaze is a liar. Certain behavioral traits, like averting eye contact, could be cultural and not indicative of a liar

• Another clue: imprecise pronouns. To psychologically distance themselves from a lie, people often pepper their tales with second- and third-person pronouns like “you,” “we” and “they.” So when we lie, we pause longer and speak slower than normal and often experience speech disturbances that serve as gap fillers, such as “um,” “er” and “ah.”

• Upward inflections: We upwardly inflect our words when asking a question. You may have noticed that some salespeople will upwardly inflect certain statements of fact. This is a red flag that should alert you to potential deception.

• Liars are also more likely to ask that questions be repeated and begin responses with phrases like, “to tell you the truth,” and “to be perfectly honest.“

• Touching the nose: We have erectile tissues in our noses, which engorge with blood when we lie. This causes a tingling or itching sensation that requires a nose touch to satisfy.

• Neck rub: We rub our necks because of the stress we experience when we feel that an obstacle may be insurmountable.

• Eye rub: An eye rub is an indicator of disbelief.

• Women are more likely to lie to make other people feel good, while men tend to lie to make themselves look better.

Study Shows Average Age of Management Positions Now 25 Years Old

Generation Y people born after 1981 tend to climb to managerial posts in companies at a relatively much younger age than their older counterparts. Employees born after 1980 tend to first become managers at an average age of 25.3, compared to 31.8 for their counterparts who were born in the 50s. The Y-generation people seem to climb the career ladder faster as they tend to have stronger ability to learn and a stronger work ethic, according to the poll.

Most of the business executives said they do not particularly consider employees’ ages when they are choosing new leaders within their corporations. They choose according to negotiation and coordination ability. The ability to solve problems and professional abilities are more important factors when they are considering promotions.

Interestingly enough, the Y-generation people do not necessarily perform well in management terms. According to company executives, managers aged 39-48 were the best performers.

Are people having four or five children just because they can? Because they feel that it shows their wealth and status?

Raising kids today costs a fortune. Last month, the Department of Agriculture estimated that each American child costs an average of $204,060 to house, clothe, educate and entertain until the age of 18. What’s worse, the desire to have another child opens one up to charges of elitism and status consciousness. In many major U.S. cities and their suburbs having three or more children has now come to seem like an ostentatious display of good fortune. The family of five has become “deluxe.”

We not only wonder, we marvel, we get jealous, we gawk. “Having three kids in the city is a way of showing off, absolutely,” says Elisabeth Egan, who, like many families she knows, moved out of New York to the suburbs of Montclair, N.J., to manage the feat. “A third child in the city is definitely a luxury good.”

A February analysis of Current Population Survey data by the Council on Contemporary Families found that in the past 10 years, the top-earning 1.3% of the population has seen an uptick in families with three or more children. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 12% of upper-income women had three children or more in 2002, compared with only 3% in 1995.

For a couple’s every conceivable wish or worry, the parenting industry knows the precise formula of guilt, fear, hope, love and desire that will empty the parental wallet. Rather than fret about spending too much money, most parents these days are consumed by the anxiety of underspending on their children.

So parents quickly adjust to the demanding realities of the child-rearing industry. Today’s American children, by contrast, get an average of 70 new toys a year.  Baby showers have replaced bridal showers as the blowout du jour; American women today have an average of three. The accompanying baby registries have mushroomed into a $240 million business. In upscale urban areas and tony suburban enclaves, where luxury families are flourishing, that can translate to $800 a week for child care alone. So-called high-end nannies (those who hail from licensed agencies and come equipped with working papers and even driver’s licenses) can cost more than $50,000 a year on the books.

Most families simply can’t afford all this. And surely it can’t all be necessary.

As our economy worsens, middle-aged Americans move in with their parents.

Taking shelter with parents isn’t uncommon for young people in their 20s, especially when the job market is poor. But now the slumping economy and the credit crunch are forcing some children to do so later in life — even in middle age. Financial planners report receiving many calls from parents seeking advice about taking in their grown children after divorces and layoffs.

Parents “jeopardize their financial freedom by continuing to subsidize their children,” says one financial planner. “We have a hard time saying no as a culture to our children, and they keep asking for more.” Plenty of well-meaning parents must delay retirement or scale back their dreams because they have to help their children.

A new survey by retiree-advocacy group American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) found that one-fourth of Generation Xers, those 28 to 39 years old, receive financial help from family and friends.

You just know in your gut whether or not you can work with your spouse.

For many, the notion of working with a spouse sounds, at best, dangerous, and, at worst, like a direct path to marital collapse. But for a growing number of American couples, running a business together offers the best of both worlds: pursuing a professional dream with someone you love and respect, while getting a chance to spend more time with them. According to the National Federation of Independent Business, there were approximately 1.2 million husband- and wife-owned small businesses nationwide in 2003, the most recent year for which the group has data. Anecdotally, family-business experts say that number has only continued to climb.

The increase in the number of women choosing an entrepreneurial path is playing a role in the growth of husband-wife teams. In the past, men tended to open a business and often a wife is helping, but he doesn’t always see her as his partner. Now, women are more entrepreneurial and recognizing that more in themselves than they used to.

It’s nearly impossible for couples to completely separate their work and personal lives. Other couples say that a key to maintaining both a strong business partnership and healthy marriage is to establish distinct responsibilities that do not overlap. Still, it’s not for every couple. When personalities and business acumen mesh in a couple’s professional life, these married entrepreneurial teams say the personal relationship often follows suit.

Those with net worth of $1 million to $10 million reshape U.S. culture

• Middle-class millionaires now account for 10% of the U.S. population.

• 7.6% of American households, or 8.4 million households are middle-class millionaires

• The average middle-class millionaire works 70 hours per week

• Middle-class millionaires are five times more likely than the average worker to say they are always available for work

• 89% believes that anyone can attain wealth through hard work

• 62% believes that networking, or knowing many people, is the key to financial success

• 9 out of 10 middle-class millionaires say they made a bad career or business move, but almost three-fourths say that was crucial to their business success

• They are five times more likely than the average middle-class person to continue on in the same business course in spite an earlier failure

• 65% of middle-class millionaires characterize their approach to negotiating as “doing whatever you need to do to win“

• They say they need a net worth of $24 million to feel wealthy, and $13.4 million to be considered rich.

Bosses who never need to work any more, but go to the office anyway

While many billionaires do enjoy a blessedly unhurried existence, some embrace a very different approach: They hit the office every day. The most prominent working rich? The world’s wealthiest chief executives. These are people who don’t have to work another day in their lives. And yet they choose to devote untold amounts of time and energy to the arduous task of running a company and answering to shareholders.

Who are they? By perusing the ranks of the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans from September and our annual billionaires’ list from last March, Forbes found the 10 richest CEOs around, some of whom founded their own companies, others who benefited from large inheritances and still others who built their fortunes through other means.

1. Warren Buffett Net worth: $52 billion

   Chairman and chief executive, Berkshire Hathaway

2. Lakshmi Mittal Net worth: $32 billion

   Chairman and chief executive, ArcelorMittal

3. Sheldon Adelson Net worth: $28 billion

   Chairman and chief executive, Las Vegas Sands

4. Bernard Arnault Net worth: $26 billion

   Chairman and chief executive of LVMH Group

5. Lawrence Ellison Net worth: $26 billion

   Chief executive of Oracle

6. Mukesh Ambani Net worth: $20.1 billion

   Chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries

7. Anil Ambani Net worth: $18.2 billion

   Chairman of Reliance ADA

8. Michael Dell Net worth: $17.2 billion

   Chairman and chief executive, Dell

9. Azim Premji Net worth: $17.1 billion

   Chairman, Wipro

10. Charles Koch Net worth: $17 billion

    Chairman and chief executive, Koch Industries

Once a buyer falls in love with a property, they actively collude in the whole fairy-tale process, swallowing whatever the seller says without thinking to question it.  

1. “My neighbors are wonderful!”  Really? Why not check it out for yourself? Knock on the wonderful neighbor’s door. Tell them you are thinking of buying the house next door and ask them what they think of the neighborhood.
2. “The roof leaked once, but we fixed it.”  The seller may not even think they are lying here, but if the repairs have been done in some half-baked way, you need to know. Get a professional home inspection. 
3. “I’ve only seen one termite on the deck.”  If there’s any hint that there might be problems with pests, you should get an insect inspection. These creatures are not wandering hobos dropping in on a house for a look around then moving on their merry way. They come in groups.
4. “There’s no radon — ever.”  Nearly one out of every 15 homes in the U.S. is estimated to have elevated radon levels. To find out about radon gas levels in your area, contact your local Environmental Protection Agency office.

5. “I didn’t know I should have told you about the foreclosure.” Get title insurance. Judgments, tax and mechanical liens are covered by title insurance.

6. “The planes from the airport don’t fly over this house.” You can find this out for sure by contacting the FAA.

7. “There’s never been any flooding.” Most older homes do have some flooding in the basement when there is excessive rain, so it is quite possible a seller could lie to you about this.

8. “Our schools are great!” For an objective view, get a free school report from HomeFair.com or GreatSchools.net.

9. “They can’t build on that lot across the street.” Why can’t they? If the lot is too small, they might get a variance. Talk to the planning board to find out.

A List Of Important Things You Should Do:

• Get a professional home inspection. Qualified home inspectors routinely uncover problems with houses that you can’t see. The most common problems involve plumbing, cooling and heating systems, leaky roofs, kitchen appliances and cracked foundations.

• Spring for extra inspections. These include insects, radon, leaky underground tanks and bad well-water.

• Visit the property during rush hour and on Friday or Saturday night. It’s the only way to see what the next-door kids are like, how traffic is on the weekends, and how noisy it really gets around the neighbor’s pool.

• Get a signed disclosure form from the seller or the broker representing the seller.  If they don’t disclose the defect, they’re subject to suit.