Toyota/Lexus is recalling over 3 million vehicles.

Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Wed, Sep 30 2009 | 1 Comment

If you own one of the following cars, you really need to pay attention to this post. You might be in trouble of having a serious problem due to the accelerator pedal and your floor mat:

This is the list of the Toyota and Lexus car models that are affected by the recall:
2007-2010 Camry
2005-2010 Avalon
2004-2009 Prius
2005-2010 Tacoma
2007-2010 Tundra
2007-2010 ES 350
2006-2010 IS 250 and IS 350

If you own any of these cars you need to take the floor mat out of your driver’s side floorboard and throw it somewhere where it cannot affect your driving at all.

A problem has arisen with the floor mats where they are actually not the right size for the cars and have been known to cause the accelerator pedal to get stuck against the floorboard. That means that you, the unsuspecting driver, will be careening out of control down some road if this unlikely event were to happen to you.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had this to say about the recall:

“This is an urgent matter,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “For everyone’s sake, we strongly urge owners of these vehicles to remove mats or other obstacles that could lead to unintended acceleration.”

NHTSA notes that there continue to be reports of accelerator pedal clearance issues which provide the potential for an accelerator pedal to get stuck in the full open position. A stuck accelerator may result in very high vehicle speeds and a crash, which could cause serious injury or death.

NHTSA said that Toyota has announced that it will soon launch a safety recall of various model year vehicles to redress the problem. However, the safety agency warned owners to remove all driver-side floor mats from the models listed below immediately as an interim safety measure in advance of the recall.

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Tags: national highway traffic safety, recall, death

Income Streams for Life

Michael Bowler | RSS | Thu, May 14 2009 | 5 Comments

“Now his pension plan’s been cut in half and he can’t afford to die,” sings John Rich, of the country music duo Big & Rich, in his new, controversial song, Shutting Detroit Down. Two things nobody is ever financially ready for, especially if he or she is a money spender: retirement and death. Financially speaking, it is hard to die at the right time, unless you know much more than anyone else and can plan your death. People are so wrapped up in saving for retirement, 401k plans, life insurance plans, IRAs, money markets, or anything else they can find that will provide extra money for retirement and death. If you die too early, the paychecks your family was living off of are gone. If you die too late, you impoverish your family or confine yourself to an unpleasant local retirement home by depleting your savings.

One unexpected side effect of the recession is a jump in sales of fixed immediate annuities, which dispense guaranteed income for life. New York Life reported an 82% sales increase this quarter alone. A man at retirement age paying them $100,000 now will receive $650 a month for life, which is perfect for a retired man whose house and vehicle are paid off and bills are low. That’s equal to 7.8% of the total each year, double what most retirement investments pay out.

Christopher Blunt, who runs New York Life’s retirement division believes that annuities offer the best way to lock in guaranteed retirement income. Retirement income is  generated from a stock-and-bond portfolio requires keeping plenty of assets in reserve in case they’re needed to fund a long life or contend with a nasty bear market,” he says. The point is that you can get the same retirement income as you could from your portfolio, with 25% to 40% less principal.

The way they generate superior retirement income is by transferring it from those who do not collect it to those who do. For instance, if you pay them $100,000 and die three days later, your money is lost and goes to someone who is still collecting. However, if you live until you’re 85 and you have been collecting since you were 65, you have received $156,000 over the tenure of the relationship, over 50% profit. If you are lucky to live to 95, you have likely received $234,000, with a profit of nearly 150% of what you paid. For those who are healthy at 65, it is a good investment, especially if that person also has savings and stocks to tide over through bad times or to leave to their families. Assuming you are in good health, there are few downsides to a fixed annuity, especially if you keep your product features simple. You pay $100,000 of your savings to provide for the rest of your life. If you have been saving well for retirement, you likely still have $350,000 to leave to your family whether you collect or not.

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Tags: retirement, investment, for life

New York police say that stores are responsible for crowd control for events

Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Thu, Jan 01 2009 | 0 Comments

Following Black Friday’s tragedy where a man working for Wal-Mart was trampled to death, police and long island retailers met. Two weeks after the meeting, the police released recommendations to stores that would help prevent another event lie this from happening.

The report recommended setting up barricades or rope lines to manage crowds before the sale, handing out wristbands or numbered tickets to arriving customers, positioning store employees in the parking lot and providing them radios to share information.

Patrons should enter the stores in smaller groups, not all at once; retailers should have maps showing where to find the hottest sales items, and patrons should be kept out once the store reaches maximum occupancy, the report said.

Stores should call police if crowds become unruly and plan whom to call in a medical emergency, but they should also have defibrillators on hand and staffers trained to use them, the report said.-AP

Hopefully these measures will prevent another tragedy like that…however, crowds can and will still be unpredictable.

Source

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Tags: information, yahoo, share information