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About six weeks ago, Clark talked about a breakthrough from Kodak. The company was facing a bleak future because so few people use film cameras or buy Kodak film these days. Everyone uses digital cameras because they are so much easier and more convenient. The problem with digitals is that printing the images can be a big hassle. Home printing has been very expensive to this point. Hewlett Packard, for example, has a very good photo printer that is easy to use, but it costs about 27 cents a picture. Clark has an HP printer and his family uses it all the time. Needless to say, he’s not happy about how much it costs him. Well, now Kodak has come out with a new EasyShare printer that it spent $400 million manufacturing. The technology is so good on this printer that the company only charges 10 cents a photo. Clark ordered one recently and it just arrived. He brought it into work so the team could compare the photos he printed to those developed at a photo processing store. By the way, Best Buy is the only place you can buy the printer and the ink right now.

Clark printed out some shots with his new Kodak Easy Share printer and compared them to some Christa had developed at a photo processing store. When asked what they thought about the quality of each, Joni said the money Christa spends on the more expensive prints is well worth it. Kimberly agreed that Christa’s shots looked better but said that that ones from Clark’s printer were the nicest she’d seen from a home printer. Clark isn’t backing down, though. He thinks his new toy is going to be a huge hit.

A recent study by the Insurance Institute on Highway Safety shows in which vehicles you are most likely to die. The most dangerous vehicle you can drive is the two-door Chevy Blazer. Ironically, the safest vehicle is also a Chevy – the Astro Mini-Van. The Blazer had a 232; the Astro had a 7. These two have gotten the most coverage. But what about the type of vehicle that is the safest overall. Four-door mini-cars, for example, are not safe. They have the highest number of traffic-related fatalities. SUVs also did horribly,. But Electronic Stability Control systems are going to make SUVs much safer in the future. So, which cars did the best? Luxury cars are apparently the safest. That may have something to do with the characteristics of the driver. People who drive luxury cars are middle-aged and drive much more cautiously. The Mazda Miata, for example, seems like it wouldn’t be very safe. But it gets great ratings because people who buy them are middle-aged. Mini-vans and mid-sized cars are also in the safe category.

Big news in the financial world is the Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting an all-time record. But what is the Dow and should it make any difference to you? First of all, the Dow is not the stock market. It’s a historical symbol that is not really important to regular investors. It represents the value of the 30 largest companies in the U.S. The S&P 500 is much more important in terms of financial outlook of the company. The most important thing is that you are diversified in your investments. Too often people go after one industry or what’s considered the hot money trail, meaning “emerging markets.” Back in the 90s, the hot thing was tech stocks. Then, we hit 2000, and people saw their stock values drop as much as 99 percent. You have to decide whether you are an investor or a gambler. A lot of people in the financial world want you to think it’s too confusing or hard to figure out what to do with your money. They want you to think that you need them. But it’s really pretty easy. The best thing you can do is put your money in index funds for a long period of time and you’ll be fine.