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Many people are getting ready for daylight-saving time to end this week. Clark's 8-year-old daughter will probably be much harder to get out of bed in the mornings for school. She must take after her father, who admits to having seasonal-affective disorder (SAD). The switch back to standard time will take place across the nation -- except in Arizona, Hawaii, throughout the Navajo Nation, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and a select few other spots. The reason for the annual time change is to save energy by having extra daylight time. That's because people use less energy in the early evening hours. Clark thinks it's interesting that our clock is controlled by economics. He probably needs to be a two hemisphere kind of guy -- he should move to South America during the winter to take advantage of their opposite seasons! There is one person who is even more affected by the time change than Clark -- that's Mike, the husband of Clark's executive producer Christa. When daylight-saving time ends on Nov. 4, he'll say we're entering "The Tunnel." If you're wondering why daylight-saving time was pushed back a week this year, it's so that kids across the country could do their early Halloween trick-or-treating in sunlight. One word of caution to all drivers: Dusk is the most difficult time to see children in the streets.

Health benefits are becoming more and more expensive for employers to provide. The Dallas Morning News estimates that the average employee will cost their company $9,312 next year. In classic cost-shifting mode, your share is going to steadily rise too. Employer costs are up about 50 percent over the last five years, but employee portions are up around 60 percent! Healthcare accounts for 1 in every 6 dollars spent in our country. So this hot potato issue is only going to keep getting hotter. Clark advises people to pay close attention during open enrollment periods. You need to make the smartest choice you can. If you choose unwisely, you may have limited and expensive access to certain services should you become ill. The latest stats show that the average employee will pay $165 out-of-pocket every month in 2008. But Joel -- one of Clark's producers -- is 23 and can buy an individual policy for about $65 per month because of his young age. That's without any employer subsidy. Meanwhile, Clark at 52 years of age would be charged big bucks for the same policy. The cost rises as you get older. Yet older workers rarely call out sick unless they're truly ill -- unlike younger folks who take mental health days. But it all balances out because older workers tend to be out for longer when they actually do get sick.

As listeners know, Clark steers away from political talk on his show. But columnist Jonah Goldberg recently wrote an op-ed piece about government spending that really interested Clark. Goldberg analyzed how spending grew in the 25 years following Reagan's 1981 inauguration. During that time the U.S. population grew around 30 percent, yet government spending rose almost 90 percent after adjustments for inflation. The reason behind the surge in government spending growth is pretty simple really. Human nature dictates that there's a natural tendency to want a "free lunch" from the government. That's an inclination that goes beyond whether you live in a red or a blue state. We as a nation need to decide what we're about; so far we've been about wanting it all. We have become some of the highest taxers in the world, Clark says, and that's irrespective of party affiliation. So there's a question we must ask ourselves: Do we want to grow our economy and have more in the long run, or do we want to curtail growth in order to have more money to redistribute to people? Colorado has been particularly effective in controlling the growth of government spending with their Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, which limits spending to the growth in population plus inflation. There's a difficult balance to be struck here. Clark thinks we may be tying one hand behind our backs with our spending, and we're growing weaker and weaker compared to other capitalist economies.

Clark was recently pulled up at a red light with his children when he heard the faint sound of a siren. As the light turned green, some motorists who couldn't hear the wail growing louder started taking off. Those that did almost had a collision with an approaching fire truck. It seems that technology has caused unexpected problems for motorists -- between people driving while listening to iPods, chatting on their cell phones or blocking out exterior noises with massive sound systems. Sometimes Clark thinks drivers are in a nuclear arms race to see how many speakers they can pack into their vehicles! But what if you could silently alert people to the presence of oncoming emergency vehicles? An Illinois company called Federal Signal Corporation has come up with a device called "The Rumbler" that's being tested in New York, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia. This noiseless siren system emits low-frequency vibrations that make your car shake. You can feel it from 200 feet away. Clark also read in The Washington Post that D.C. police are using this system in four dozen patrol cars and plan to install Rumblers fleetwide. Technology started the problem of making drivers oblivious with loud music and cell phones; now technology is trumping technology to make the roads safer for emergency vehicles and you!