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The Internet is truly going to be everywhere. Chrysler is putting a wireless Internet service called UConnect Web in all its cars. The hope is that people won't create a road hazard by surfing while they drive!

This idea of the Internet in vehicles became popular with the high-end bus services that operate on city-to-city routes throughout the Northeast. The bus carriers put in wireless Internet capabilities in a bid to attract business travelers.

Meanwhile, American Airlines is testing Internet for it fleet of planes. AA is using strategically placed towers -- similar to cell phone towers -- to implement the technology. Clark expects the market price will be around $10 a flight.

Boeing lost money when they tried equipping their planes with Internet capabilities using a satellite-based technology. Their price point would have been around $30 a flight.

Some travelers see airplanes as the last sanctuary away from work, but Clark would like the ability to surf the 'Net at 30,000 feet -- if the price is right.

The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas has released several predictions about future workplace trends.

There's been so much talk about the idea of telecommuting, but so little action. Yet in the future, more of us will work independently and some of us will do so from home.

The only downside Clark foresees is that more of us will be contractors, especially with big companies and small start-ups. Most mid-sized companies will retain their regular staffs going forward.

Clark thrives on the kind of worker independence that Challenger is predicting. There was only one time in his life when he worked in a true corporate bureaucracy, and that was at IBM. His entrepreneurial spirit sometimes conflicted with the corporate world during his tenure there.

One serious implication of more contract work comes to mind: How will we provide healthcare in this brave new world? Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney took a lot of heat over his state's efforts to eliminate employer-provided healthcare. But the reality is that more people in Massachusetts have coverage than before, especially among the self-employed.

Returning to the Challenger predictions, more companies are expected to switch to 4-day workweeks. That would mean four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour ones. Wouldn't that be nice?!

CLARKONOMICS: Several surveys -- including the official one from the feds -- show that payrolls are shrinking. Yet the unemployment rate stayed steady at 5.5 %. How can that be? Some economists think job seekers are discouraged and have stopped looking for work. That's still anecdotal at this point.

Yet the reality is that while things have gotten tougher, it's not a disaster. Many people hear the news about the job market and think things won't improve. But that's not the way capitalism works -- we go through cycles.

Unemployment likely will rise over the next year. But even so, there's always someone hiring. Networking can help you ferret out those offers.

Meanwhile, if you've been unemployed and have exhausted your benefits, Clark has some good news. Pres. Bush signed a law that extends benefits for 13 additional weeks for those who are actively seeking work. For full details, see the text of the new law.

Don't delay or you may forfeit a portion of the benefit. Contact your state's Department of Labor to renew.

CLARKONOMICS: It's not often that we have back-to-back Clarkonomics segments on the show. But there's been so much in the media about the bear stock market that Clark felt compelled to do it.

A bear market is when things are down 20% from their peak. That understandably has people frightened. So many folks stop Clark on the street to tell him they're dumping their mutual fund stock-type holdings and going into safe stable-value kind of things.

It got Clark thinking about how far down he is this year. After crunching the numbers, it turns out he's down 4.8% over the last 12 months. Sure, that hurts, but it's not a decline of 20%.

So how is he "beating" the market? The secret is not that he knows about special stocks or has an exotic investment strategy; it's that he's taken a meat-and-potatoes approach to investing.

His largest allocation is putting just under 40% of his money into tax-free municipal bonds. The rest is divided evenly among large companies, small companies and the international markets. Clark also has a small amount of money in commodities and REITs.

In a word, he's diversified.

The penny-pincher also benefits through dollar-cost averaging. This means he keeps buying more shares every month instead of playing red light/green light based on market conditions. So as the market declines, his dollar buys more shares. T. Rowe Price's Automatic Asset Builder allows you to take advantage of dollar-cost averaging by investing as little as $50/month automatically out of your paycheck.

The purpose of investing is to create financial security. If you have a need to treat investing as a sport, Charles Schwab advises the "core and explore" approach. Put the money you really need to have into your core investments, similar to those that Clark described above. Then take a small amount that you won't lose sleep over and spread it around among the more volatile investments you crave.

As always, check Clark's investing guide if you're just getting started. He particularly likes the targeted retirement funds for those who want to take a "set it and forget it" approach to investing.