The number of California homes lost to foreclosure in the first quarter surged 327% from year-ago levels — reaching an average of more than 500 foreclosures per day.

The Result: 517 foreclosures every day in the first quarter of 2008. The main factor behind this foreclosure surge remains the decline in home values. Additionally, a lot of the ‘loans-gone-wild’ activity happened in late 2005 and 2006 and that’s working its way through the system. The big ‘if’ right now is whether or not the economy is in recession. If it is, the foreclosure problem could spread beyond the current categories of dicey mortgages, and into mainstream home loans.

Greed does terrible things. People going through foreclosure don’t deserve any kind of sympathy. They should’ve read the fine print. Too many people living above their means to impress the guy next door who is also sinking.

 Equitable is unlikely to mean the same on every dimension

Women seeking a lifelong mate might do well to choose the guy a notch below them in the looks category. New research reveals couples in which the wife is better looking than her husband are more positive and supportive than other match-ups. The reason, researchers suspect, is that men place great value on beauty, whereas women are more interested in having a supportive husband.

Researchers admit that looks are subjective, but studies show there are some universal standards, including large eyes, “baby face” features, symmetric faces, so-called average faces, and specific waist-hip ratios in men versus women.

Past research has shown that individuals with comparable stunning looks are attracted to each other and once they hook up they report greater relationship satisfaction. These studies, however, are mainly based on new couples, showing that absolute beauty is important in the earliest stages of couple-hood, said lead researcher James McNulty of the University of Tennessee. Overall, wives and husbands behaved more positively when the woman was better looking. Men are very sensitive to women’s attractiveness. Women seem to be sensitive to men’s height and salary.

In couples with more attractive husbands, both partners were less supportive of one another. Men who are more attractive than their partners would theoretically have access to partners who are more attractive than their current spouses. The “grass could be greener” mentality could make these men less satisfied and less committed to maintain the marriage.

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.

This billboard and press campaign is now running in Mexico, is a colorful map depicting what the Americas might look like in an “Absolut” — i.e., perfect — world. The U.S.-Mexico border lies where it was before the Mexican-American war of 1848 when California, as we now know it, was Mexican territory and known as Alta California.

The campaign taps into the national pride of Mexicans, according to Favio Ucedo, creative director of leading Latino advertising agency Grupo Gallegos in the U.S. Ucedo, who is from Argentina, said: “Mexicans talk about how the Americans stole their land, so this is their way of reclaiming it. It’s very relevant and the Mexicans will love the idea.”

The U.S. is the largest importer of Absolut in the world, so I’m perplexed that it concluded there could be a net gain by this ad campaign. Absolut really blew it by uncorking this one. Perhaps it has consumed too much of its own product. They’ll have plenty of surplus stock to drown in though. But don’t worry, folks. This is in no way a threat to our national sovereignty.

To some, Larry Ellison’s $200 million reproduction 16th-century Japanese emperor’s estate in the hills above Silicon Valley sums up everything wrong with America’s out-of-control real estate market. Imagine how upset Ellison’s critics became this week when they found out that the the world’s 14th-wealthiest person had negotiated a 60% tax break on his property. As a result, his local assessor’s office is sending the 63-year old $3 million.

Ellison won the tax break by essentially arguing that he had squandered money on Larryland, and would never be able to get his investment back. Ellison said that the property had suffered from “significant functional obsolescence” and was therefore worth $64.7 million, not the $166.3 million on record (substantially less than the $200 million it cost to build).

Larry’s 23-acre Japanese emperor estate property ended up featuring a 2.3-acre man-made lake filled with drinkable water, 2,000 tons of imported Chinese granite, a waterfall with a built-in fog machine and an on/off switch, several miles of underground tunnels for domestic staff, a 30-ton boulder in the master bedroom shower, and a replica 16th-century bridge that was built by craftsmen in China.

5 Things NOT To Do On Your Computer At Work 

If you’re reading this at work, you should probably be asking yourself: Am I actually allowed to browse online and read news stories at the office? The parameters for computer use at work (and even at home) are often confusing. We communicate, network, watch our TV shows, do our grocery shopping, and get our news on our computers. But it’s no free-for-all. Employees should know exactly what their employer’s policies are for e-mail and Internet usage, because workers are losing their jobs after computer-based missteps. Here are five ways to log on and lose your job:

1.) Blogging. While some blogging advocates say a well-executed blog can boost your career by presenting your best side to the HR executives Googling you, there are limitations.

2.) Playing. Solitaire, that ever seductive way to while away the hours, is probably not a great choice for the workplace. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg caught sight of a solitaire game on a city employee’s computer screen in 2006 and fired him. “I expect all city workers, including myself, to work hard,” Bloomberg said then.

Richard Bayer, chief operating officer of the Five O’Clock Club, an outplacement and career coaching organization, says employees who use a company computer for personal matters on company time — whether playing solitaire or checking on their 401(k)’s — are essentially stealing from their employer. “It’s a new, 21st-century form of theft,” Bayer says.

3.) Look at Dirty Pics. Nearly one third of bosses have fired workers for misusing the Internet, according to a recent study by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute. 84% of those employers said the reason was the viewing, downloading, or uploading of inappropriate or offensive content. The computer system belongs to the company, and courts have consistently sided with employers when it comes to computer-related terminations. So look at that stuff on your own time.

4.) Posting Your Pictures. Social networking may quickly gain an air of formality. Employers are beginning to monitor social networking sites. Not only do companies fear employees posting proprietary information, but they also don’t want to find photos of the boss dancing on the table drunk at the holiday party. Opinions posted that run contrary to company values can also get employees into trouble.

5.) Write R-rated e-mails. More than a quarter of employers have sent an employee packing for e-mail-related offenses, according to the American Management Association/ePolicy Institute survey, and 62% of those said it was for inappropriate or offensive language. When you write, just assume that someone inside the company is reading it. Most of the 43% of companies that monitor e-mail do it automatically, but 40% have live human beings reading and reviewing it.

Employers largely are concerned with their legal liability noting that a growing number of companies are choosing to archive electronically stored information, rather than erase it, and it’s subject to discovery in a federal lawsuit.

Whatever it takes to watch in style, right?

Home cinemas. huge screens, incredible sound systems and luxurious seats are popping up in seemingly spare rooms and basements. Take a look.

It’s weird and irrational, but it’s the way it is.

Would you rather earn $50,000 a year while other people make $25,000, or would you rather earn $100,000 a year while other people get $250,000? Assume for the moment that prices of goods and services will stay the same. Surprisingly — stunningly, in fact — research shows that the majority of people select the first option; they would rather make twice as much as others even if that meant earning half as much as they could otherwise have.

This result is one among thousands of experiments in behavioral economics, neuroeconomics and evolutionary economics conclusively demonstrating that we are every bit as irrational when it comes to money as we are in most other aspects of our lives. In this case, relative social ranking trumps absolute financial status. Here’s a related thought experiment. Would you rather be A or B?

A is waiting in line at a movie theater. When he gets to the ticket window, he is told that as he is the 100,000th customer of the theater, he has just won $100.

B is waiting in line at a different theater. The man in front of him wins $1,000 for being the 1-millionth customer of the theater. Mr. B wins $150.

Amazingly, most people said that they would prefer to be A. In other words, they would rather forgo $50 in order to alleviate the feeling of regret that comes with not winning the thousand bucks. Regret falls under a psychological effect known as loss aversion. Research shows that before we risk an investment, we need to feel assured that the potential gain is twice what the possible loss might be because a loss feels twice as bad as a gain feels good.

Hunter vs. Gatherer: According to research, men and women are as different as Target and Tiffany when they shop.

Men, who have often been accused of being merely replacement shoppers, tend to be more utilitarian when they hit the malls and shopping centers. It’s a mission. Get in. Get what’s needed. Get out. Quickly. Women, on the other hand, generally like to look around, talk to sales associates and experience the shopping. They walk around, smell perfume, touch clothes, dab on cosmetics.

Men are very task oriented while women are very much more about the relationship and the engagement and the interaction with the people at the stores. Women told surveyors that they liked it when associates showed them different styles and new items. This isn’t terribly surprising: Women run into more problems when shopping than men. On the tribulations scale, women’s No. 1 issue was not being able to find help when they needed it. One in three women who were so miffed by the issue that they said they would never go back to the store again. Men’s biggest headache: Parking. One in three said they hated not finding parking close to the store entrance.

Men ditch stores, too, but their biggest reason to do so is when products are out of stock. Men complained they experienced that when shopping 24% of the time compared with it happening to women 21% of the time.

Age made a difference, too, in shopper loyalty. The younger the shopper, the more likely he or she was to pooh-pooh a store for poor service. The pickiest of all groups were men 18 years old to 35 years old.

Women and men both are four times more likely to relay a good-news experience than a bad one. Still, when all is said and done, women are the shopping queens. They spend an eye-popping $4 trillion annually, which accounts for 83% of U.S. consumer spending

Sell Your Soul For $1.5 Million

With the wealth boom creating unprecedented riches and greater opportunities for gold-digging by both genders, price-tag partnerships and checkbook breakups are increasingly making headlines. Even more surprising, according to a new survey, are the going rates for today’s mercenary unions. Yet even among the workaday (or wannabe) wealthy, marrying for money has become a popular pursuit.  In an infamous personal ad posted on Craigslist this summer, a twentysomething New Yorker who described herself as “spectacularly beautiful” wrote that she was looking for a man who made at least $500,000 a year. You can read her ad here.

According to a survey by Prince & Associates, a Connecticut-based wealth-research firm, the average “price” that men and women demand to marry for money these days is $1.5 million. The survey polled 1,134 people nationwide with incomes ranging between $30,000 to $60,000 (squarely in the median range for nationwide incomes). The survey asked: “How willing are you to marry an average-looking person that you liked, if they had money?”

Fully two-thirds of women and half of the men said they were “very” or “extremely” willing to marry for money. The answers varied by age: Women in their 30s were the most likely to say they would marry for money (74%) while men in their 20s were the least likely (41%).  Women aren’t the only ones with the gold-digging impulse. In the Prince & Associates study, 61% of men in their 40s said they would marry for money. As men get older, they become more comfortable with women being the bread-winners.

The Matrimonial Price Tag Varies By Gender and Age

Asked how much a potential spouse would need to have to be money-marriage material, women in their 20s said $2.5 million. The going rate fell to $1.1 million for women in their 30s, and rose again to $2.2 million for women in their 40s. Men are cheaper! Their asking price overall was $1.2 million, with men in their 20s asking $1 million and men in their 40s asking $1.4 million. Why so low? Men’s numbers are lower because they would feel threatened by women worth several million dollars. The men aren’t going to say they want $10 million, because they wouldn’t be comfortable with a woman who’s worth so much more than they are.

Whatever the case, the prices for both men and women seem surprisingly low, given the new landscape of wealth. While $1 million or $2 million may sound like a lot to people making $30,000, it’s hardly enough to transform someone’s life or make them “rich” by contemporary billionaire standards. No one in the survey quoted a price of more than $3 million. Of course, when the mercenary marriage proves disappointing, there’s always divorce. Among the women in their twenties who said they would marry for money, 71% said they expected to get divorced — the highest of any demographic. Only 27% of men in their 40s expected to divorce.