Clarkhoward.com - Clark's LTC insurance honor roll
kajeet.com - Pay-as-you-go phones
net10.com - Pay-as-you-go phones

Today's topics are "Best Of Clark" repeats from recent shows

Sadly, it’s much easier to steal music these days than it is to buy music. The four music labels put all kinds of restrictions on the music that you buy, so people just don’t do it. Finally, one of the labels - EMI - has broken ranks with the rest of industry and eliminated “digital rights management.” That means you’ll have a choice of paying either 99 cents a song or $1.29 cents a song. If you pay 99 cents, you can only use the song once and all of the other current restrictions apply. But if you buy the $1.29 version, you can use it however you’d like. The rest of the industry should pay attention to EMI. The sale of CDs dropped 20 percent this year and there are nearly no music stores left. The industry is changing and the labels need to get with it.

For several weeks, Clark has been talking about the shameful college loan programs that have been duping students into high-interest loans. Well, now that one of the largest banks in the country has been named in the scandals, the story has made national news. Citibank is the latest shoe to fall in this ongoing travesty, and a number of schools in the Northeast must now pay back students who were overcharged on loans. The University of Pennsylvania, NYU, Syracuse, St. John’s and Fordham are just a few. You would think that the financial aid office at a college would be the safe zone. But it’s just the opposite. Colleges have been cheating you - and your son or daughter - so administrators could earn kickbacks from the banks. Clark thinks people should go to jail over conduct like this. Instead, the banks get a slap on the wrist and never have to admit to any wrongdoing. And, the layers just keep shedding. In addition, people with no kids in college and no student loans are still paying huge subsidies to banks to pay for those loans. It’s out of control and it calls our current tax system into question once again. Now would be a great time to revamp the tax code so the system is fair to taxpayers and does not allow for the lining of legislators’ pockets.

The Kaiser Family Foundation recently conducted a survey and found that the average American child sees up to 50 hours of food commercials each year. That’s about 6,000 commercials a year. And, of those, 90 percent are for junk food. Zero of them were marketing fruits or vegetables. At the same time, one in five American children are obese today. See the connection here? The American Academy of Pediatrics wants to ban all junk food ads during any children’s programs. They want the same thing that happened to cigarette commercials to happen to junk food commercials. We’ll tell you what happens.

The sale of small, fuel efficient cars has grown in the past few years and will continue to do so. People who have been hit by the gas increases of recent years are making people reconsider what cars they buy. As a result, GM is jumping on the bandwagon. GM is about to introduce a car that is smaller than Honda’s Fit and Toyota’s Yaris. It has a 1-liter engine and will get about 40 miles per gallon. These cars start at about $10,000, which is very affordable. The average car sold in the States is about $25,000. The trade-off is that they are not as safe in an accident. So, you must be careful driving them.