Current Events in March 2017

It has become all too common for a person to explain one idiosyncrasy or another by saying that they have OCD, or obsessive compulsive disorder. In actuality, these quirks don’t truly embody what OCD is.

In one form of the condition, a person may be compelled to ritualistically wash their hands due to a fear of dirt or bacteria. However, even after just washing, invasive thoughts over new contamination force them to return to wash their hands again, regardless of whether the excessive scrubbing is causing skin irritation or damage.

The disorder occurs in around 2% of the population and can be completely debilitating. Current methods to treat it rely on antidepressants, but researchers from Maximillians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Germany believe they may have found the cause, giving hope for new potential therapies in the future.

Missing protein

The findings of the study indicate that a missing protein may cause the urges and intrusive thoughts that drive OCD sufferers’ behavior. Named SPRED2, the protein is normally found in high concentrations in the basal ganglia and amygdala  regions of the brain. Its function is to inhibit a particular neural pathway, but the researchers explain that when it is missing the pathway becomes more active.

"It is primarily the brain-specific initiator of the signal pathway, the receptor tyrosine kinase TrkB, that is excessively active and causes the overshooting reaction of the downstream components," says biologist Dr. Melanie Ullrich. In laymen’s terms, the pathway causes obsessive-compulsive symptoms when the protein is not there to do its job.

To explore the function of SPRED2, the researchers used mice models and introduced an inhibitor that reduced the influence of the neural pathway. They found that the animals became less compulsive as a result. "Our study delivers a valuable new model that allows the disease mechanisms to be investigated and new therapy options for obsessive-compulsive disorders to be tested," stated Professor Kai Schuh.

Ullrich points out that the drugs used in the study were primarily used to treat cancer, since overactivation of the neural pathway is also a frequent trigger in that disease. They believe that further studies into the effectiveness of these drugs may prove beneficial to OCD sufferers.

The full study has been published in Molecular Psychiatry.

For women, retirement can come with special challenges. Women live longer than men, but during their working lives they tend to earn less.

The Social Security Administration estimates a 65-year-old woman can expect to live to age 86.6, compared to an average male lifespan of 84.3. Complicating things further, women can expect to have higher healthcare expenses than men.

As the huge Baby Boom generation enters its golden years, more financial planners have begun to focus on the special needs of women.

Protection and security

“The financial industry speaks the language of risk tolerance and investments," said Jeannette Bajalia, president of life planning firm Woman’s Worth. "I speak the language of protection and security, not being a burden to anyone. I want my money to last as long as I last."

Bajalia's firm offers financial advice tailored to women clients' special needs, including lifetime income planning and healthcare planning.

The personal finance publication Kiplinger addressed the issue last year, suggesting the gap between the money a man needs in retirement and what a woman will need is more than a quarter of a million dollars.

"This is off-the-charts severe," Manisha Thakor, director of wealth strategies for women at BAM Alliance, told Kiplinger. "There's a trainwreck happening, and society is saying, 'the train may have some problems.'"

What to do

The Kiplinger editors say women are already saving at about the same rate as men, though neither are doing a great job. They advise women to put off drawing Social Security as long as possible, to maximize the benefit.

That said, for women age 65 and older, the average Social Security benefit is not quite $14,000 per year, while men average $18,000. Kiplinger says men are also more likely to receive income from a pension.

AARP says that makes Social Security even more important for women. It notes that Social Security benefits are structured to replace a larger portion of income for a low earner than a high earner. Since women generally earn less over their careers, putting off retirement as long as possible maximizes that benefit.

A recent study by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies found more than half of women plan to keep working after they hit retirement age, with 40% saying they will look for a part-time job.

In fact, working part-time at a job you enjoy is not a bad part of retirement strategy. It helps stretch your retirement savings while keeping you active and engaged.

Auto service businesses, whether a dealer, franchise, or independent garage, appear to be doing a better job of serving their customers these days.

The latest J.D. Power U.S. Customer Service Index (CSI) study shows "significant improvement" in the quality of automotive service. This includes things ranging from an oil change to a complete engine overhaul.

J.D. Power measures service on a 1,000 point scale. In this year's survey, auto service businesses logged a score of 805, up from 779 the previous year. Customer service rose from 800 to 813.

The study limited its scope to customers driving vehicle one to five years-old.

Doing it right the first time

"The quality of work—doing the job right the first time—can noticeably affect customer satisfaction and loyalty, but it shouldn't be viewed in a vacuum," said Chris Sutton, vice president, U.S. automotive retail practice at J.D. Power. "Proactive communication with the customer, especially while the car is being serviced, is one element that has a direct influence on loyalty."

That may be an area where auto service businesses have increased their focus in recent years. Of those consumers in the survey, 55% said they will "definitely" return when their vehicle needs service. Customers who received text message updates and reminders from the business were significantly more loyal.

Helpful technology

Sutton said the research found that consumers of all ages prefer texts as a way of communication, yet only 3% said they get them on a regular basis. Sutton says auto service businesses that want to improve customer service and consumer loyalty should consider adopting text updates.

In fact, the study suggests the adoption of technology by service providers may be the key to rising levels of customer satisfaction. It found the use of tablets by service advisors and online scheduling tend to boost customer satisfaction. The use of tablets rose from 17% in 2015 to 24% last year.

One area where dealers fall short is servicing the increasingly sophisticated infotainment systems. Only 80% of consumers in the study said a dealer was able to repair problems with vehicle radios the first time.

Mild, short-term “baby blues” are considered normal in the first week or two after giving birth. In fact, it is thought that around 75% of newly minted moms experience feelings of anxiety and moodiness after childbirth.

However, women who suffer from severe postpartum blues are the most likely to go on to have full-blown postnatal depression. Now, researchers say a special supplementation regimen may help banish temporary baby blues and lower the risk of longer-lasting postpartum depression.

In a study, women who took a combination of fruit-based supplements containing amino acids and antioxidants experienced no drop in their mood on day five after giving birth, when postpartum blues peak. Those who didn’t take the supplements had showed a “robust” increase in their depression test scores.

Wards off temporary sadness

The supplements -- which contain blueberry juice with blueberry extract (antioxidants) and the amino acids tryptophan and tyrosine -- were designed to “address specific changes that temporarily occur in the brain,” said Dr. Jeffrey Meyer, co-author of the study.

Feelings of sadness in the earliest days of motherhood are thought to arise from a surge in levels of a brain protein called monoamine oxidase (MAO-A), the researchers explained. MAO-A is the brain protein responsible for breaking down mood-related brain chemicals, including the 'feel-good hormones' serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine.

“We believe this is the first study to show such a strong, beneficial effect of an intervention in reducing the baby blues at a time when postpartum sadness peaks,” Meyer said in a statement.

Further research needed

The key ingredients in the supplements were not shown to increase levels of tryptophan or tyrosine in breast milk. But while the initial trial may have produced promising results, Meyer stressed that “people should wait until the regimen is approved for general use rather than trying it themselves.”

Meyer and his colleagues at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) say the study’s results could have been thrown off by a “placebo” effect. 

The study of 41 women was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

There's a good chance that the nation's economy will continue to chug along in the months ahead.

The Conference Board reports its Leading Economic Index (LEI) rose 0.6% to 126.2.

“After six consecutive monthly gains, the U.S. LEI is at its highest level in over a decade,” said Ataman Ozyildirim, director of Business Cycles and Growth Research at The Conference Board. “Widespread gains across a majority of the leading indicators points to an improving economic outlook for 2017, although GDP growth is likely to remain moderate,” he added, pointing out that “only housing permits contributed negatively to the LEI in February, reversing gains over the previous two months.”

The LEI, a closely watched forecast of economic activity, is a composite average of several individual leading indicators. It's constructed to summarize and reveal common turning point patterns in economic data in a clearer and more convincing manner than any individual component -- primarily because it smooths out some of the volatility of individual components.

The ten components of the LEI include:

• Average weekly hours, manufacturing
• Average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance
• Manufacturers’ new orders, consumer goods and materials
• ISM Index of New Orders
• Manufacturers' new orders, nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft orders
• Building permits, new private housing units
• Stock prices, 500 common stocks
• Leading Credit Index
• Interest rate spread, 10-year Treasury bonds less federal funds
• Average consumer expectations for business conditions

California led the nation's housing recovery, with home prices in Southern California and the Bay Area zooming past their previous housing bubble highs.

But now, there are signs suggesting that the market may have peaked, at least in terms of number of sales.

In its monthly report, the California Association of Realtors (CAR) says February sales of existing, single-family detached homes fell 4.7% from January, while they were up compared to February 2016 sales -- which were the weakest of the year.

CAR President Geoff McIntosh says the Fed's promotion of a rising interest rate environment could affect housing a couple of different ways.

"In the short term, the specter of higher interest rates may push buyers off the fence to purchase a home before mortgage rates move even higher," he said.

Makes homes more expensive

But over the long haul, higher interest rates will make California's already expensive homes even more costly. That's already being reflected in what buyers are willing to pay.

In February, the median price of an existing, single-family detached California home fell below the $500,000 mark for a second straight month. That doesn't necessarily mean sellers are reducing the price of their homes, but more likely means buyers are increasing their purchase of less expensive homes.

Downward trend

McIntosh says there's one thing that's holding back California home sales at this point -- and it's basically a nationwide problem. There are just fewer homes for sale.

"The number of active listings has been on a downward trend for the past 20 months and has shown no signs of improvement," said CAR senior vice-president and chief economist Leslie Appleton-Young. "As we move into the spring home buying season, we should see a marginal increase in listings, which will be offset by a pickup in sales. The inventory level is not likely to get better in the upcoming months."

Homebuilders aren't helping much either. Construction of new homes is taking place at a pace that's about half of what it was during the housing bubble. Contractors complain of a shortage of construction workers and rising costs.

Job openings edged up slightly during January, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

On the final business day of the month, there were 5.626 million job openings, compared with 5.539 million in December, for a job openings rate of 3.7%.

The number of job openings was up a bit for the private sector -- from 5.065 million to 5.173 million, with most of them in professional and business services, and down for government -- to 452,000 from 474,000.

Hires

Hires during the month went from 5.303 million in December to 5.440 million, with a hires rate of 3.7%. There were 5.104 million private sector hires and 336,000 for government. Other services (+54,000) and finance & insurance (+41,000) led hiring in the private sector. The number of hires was little changed in all four geographic regions.

Separations

Total separations includes quits, layoffs and discharges, and other separations, and is referred to as turnover. There were 5.258 million total separations in January, versus 5.084 in December. The total separations rate was 3.6%. The number of total separations was little changed in all four regions.

Net employment change

Over the 12 months ending in January, hires totaled 63.1 million and separations totaled 60.7 million, yielding a net employment gain of 2.4 million.

This includes workers who may have been hired and separated more than once during the year.

The full report may be found on the BLS website.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) is at its highest point since June 2005.

The HMI, a measure of builder confidence in the market for newly-built single-family homes, shot up six points during the month to a level of 71.

“While builders are clearly confident, we expect some moderation in the index moving forward,” said NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz. “Builders continue to face a number of challenges, including rising material prices, higher mortgage rates, and shortages of lots and labor.”

Still, “builders are buoyed by President Trump’s actions on regulatory reform,” said NAHB Chairman Granger MacDonald, “particularly his recent executive order to rescind or revise the waters of the U.S. rule that impacts permitting.”

The HMI uses a monthly survey to gauge builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as “good,” “fair,” or “poor.” Builders are also asked to rate traffic of prospective buyers as “high to very high,” “average” or “low to very low.”

Scores for each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor.

A strong March showing

All three HMI components posted robust gains during the month. The component gauging current sales conditions was up seven points to 78, while the index charting sales expectations in the next six months rose five points to 78. Meanwhile, the component measuring buyer traffic jumped eight points to 54.

Looking at the three-month moving averages for regional HMI scores, the Midwest rose three points to 68 and the South rose one point to 68. On the other hand, the West dipped three points to 76 and the Northeast inched down a point to 48.

RBR Meat Company of Vernon, Calif., is recalling approximately 21,220 pounds of frozen pizza product that may be adulterated with Listeria monocytogenes.

There have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products.

The following item, produced on February 23, 2017, is being recalled:

• 50.6-oz. corrugated box containing 1 shrink wrapped 16” pizza labeled as “Marketside Extra Large Supreme Pizza,” with lot code 20547.

The recalled product, bearing establishment number “EST. 1821” inside the USDA mark of inspection, was shipped to retail distribution centers in California, Nevada, Utah and Washington.

What to do

Consumers who purchased the recalled product should not consume it, but throw it away or return it to the place of purchase.

Consumers with questions regarding the recall may contact Eunice Wu at (323) 826-2144 Ext. 190.

Advanced Sports International of Philadelphia, Pa., is recalling about 650 Fuji bicycles.

The rear wheel freehub can slip during pedaling, posing a fall hazard.

The company has received four reports of freehub slipping while pedaling. No crashes or injuries have been reported.

This recall involves Advanced Sports International’s 2017 Fuji bicycles with Oval Concepts Rear Wheels. The aluminum or carbon fiber bicycles come in a variety of colors. The bicycle model name is printed on the frame of the bicycle. The wheel model number is printed on the rim of the wheel. The hub model number is printed on the drive-side hub flange.

Recalled models include:

The bicycles, manufactured in China and Taiwan, were sold at Fuji Bicycle and Authorized Oval Concept dealers from April 2016, through October 2016, for between $2000 to $8000.

What to do

Consumers should immediately stop riding the recalled bicycles and contact Advanced Sports International to receive a free replacement freehub body.

Consumers may contact Advanced Sports International toll‐free at 888-286‐6263 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (ET) Monday through Friday or online at www.fujibikes.com or www.ovalconcepts.com and click on “Recall Notice” at the bottom of the page for more information.

During the height of the Zika virus scare last year, as women in Brazil learned that they faced a stark choice of risking a pregnancy that could result in severe birth defects or putting off motherhood altogether, pharmaceutical executives saw a rosier prospect: making millions of dollars off of Americans who want to visit Brazil but who are also afraid of becoming infected with the Zika virus.

"If you consider just a portion of the U.S. traveler population, we can conservatively envision a Zika market opportunity exceeding $1 billion,” Inovio Pharmaceuticals’ CEO Joseph Kim told Reuters last year.

While it’s normally rare for western drug companies to reap huge profits off of exotic mosquito-borne viruses, Zika is different. Experts have linked Zika to an epidemic in Brazil of microcephaly, a birth defect that causes a shrunken head and intellectual disabilities. The virus has spread across Central and South America as well as some parts of the United States, leading the World Health Organization last year to declare Zika a global public health crisis.

The chance to rescue people from this scary infection could soon fall into the hands of Sanofi, a French drug corporation that is already anticipated to make $900 million by 2020 from its vaccinations for dengue, another mosquito-borne virus.

Sanofi gets federal aid and potentially a monopoly 

Congress has already authorized the National Institutes of Health to give Sanofi $43 million for the purpose of developing the Zika vaccine. Then, on December 9 last year, the Department of Defense published a notice that initially attracted little attention, announcing its intention to grant Sanofi an exclusive license on patents to develop a Zika vaccine. The exclusive license deal, which the DoD initially gave the public only until December 23 to comment on, ensured that Sanofi could exclude competition and price the vaccinations as they see fit.

Such an arrangement has alarmed doctors who help people in developing countries and war-torn regions. In public comments, for which the DoD has now extended the deadline until March of this year, numerous nonprofits and lawmakers raised major red flags about this arrangement.

Among the groups leading the fight is Doctors Without Borders, which writes in a letter that  it “urges the United States government to consider the negative impact an exclusive agreement will have on the development, affordability and availability of a Zika vaccine, which is urgently needed for people affected by the Zika virus in the United States and worldwide.”

Under United States law, federal agencies can only grant an exclusive license if doing so provides “a reasonable and necessary incentive...[to] promote the invention’s utilization by the public.” Granting an exclusive license to Sanofi wouldn’t follow that law, Doctors Without Borders argues. Several other drugmakers, such as the executive who anticipated $1 billion in profits, have already expressed interest in developing a Zika vaccine.

A coalition of four NGOs, along with Doctors Without Borders, all argue in statements to the Army that granting Sanofi an effective monopoly over a Zika cure will not guarantee “utilization by the public.” Rather, they say the deal will hinder innovation. They also raise concerns about price-gouging.

“The high price of vaccines is already a key medical and operational challenge for MSF [Doctors Without Borders] and many governments,” the organization says, adding that vaccine prices are dramatically rising in the world's poorest countries. “By 2014 the price to fully vaccinate a child in the poorest countries of the world was 68 times more expensive than it was in 2001." Children in poor and middle-income countries continue to die from vaccine-preventable diseases, the NGO says.

Doctors Without Borders also describes a "tragic" decision by the Canadian government to grant an ebola vaccine to a different company. After getting the exclusive license, the drugmaker then stalled on its research. "Despite the fact that the government licensed this vaccine to a U.S. company, NewLink, four years before the West African Ebola outbreak, the project stalled and the vaccine was not made available to people at risk for more than five years." 

A dozen congressmen ask that DoD drop the deal

Some lawmakers have also begun questioning how Americans will benefit from an exclusive deal with a single drugmaker, especially since Americans have already invested $40 million into the deal via their tax dollars. Eleven members of Congress, all House Democrats, last month signed an open letter to the Army that voices their objections to granting Sanofi an exclusive patent. Should the DoD grant Sanofi an exclusive license anyway, the lawmakers ask that the Army at least impose price controls and stipulations that the federal government can intervene if Sanofi does not make the vaccine accessible to the general public. 

Senator Bernie Sanders also joined the small but vocal voice of opposition last week, pointing out in a New York Times op-ed that other pharmaceutical companies have also benefited from contracts with the United States government only to then turn around and charge United States customers an enormous amount for the drug developed with taxpayer dollars. He points to the drug Xtandi, a prostate cancer treatment which was developed with taxpayer dollars and now has a list price in the United States of $129,000. 

In response to the opposition, Sanofi has stated that its license is legitimate and fully within competitive parameters. "There is plenty of competition in the field of Zika and the granting of the exclusive license to Sanofi will not affect other companies working with other technologies. All statutory requirements, including Bayh-Dole Act, will be complied with, where applicable," the corporation told ConsumerAffairs.

We eat a lot of chicken, but it takes a lot of chicken feed to raise all those birds and a lot of money to butcher them and clean up all the waste that's left behind. It doesn't do much for the chickens either.

A San Francisco area food technology firm may have the answer: Memphis Meats is producing chicken strips from self-reproducing cells. Call it Frankenchicken if you want, but it could be the beginning of the "clean meat" movement.

The company unveiled its product this week and offered tastings of chicken and duck produced solely from cells. Those who sampled the wares found them tasty and said they'd eat them again, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The procedures used to produce the chicken strips could, in time, also be used to make beef, pork and other meats while bypassing the animal stage. This is something that has great appeal to financial types as well as environmentalists and, presumably, animal rights advocates.

Eliminating all those cattle, hogs and chickens would free up a lot of land now used for grazing, eliminate damaging runoffs, and greatly reduce processing and transportation costs. It would also eliminate many of the health threats and antibiotic overuse that are a consequence of factory farming.

There is still the existential question of whether it's better for an animal to be butchered after a short and perhaps bestial existence or never to be born at all, but that is, as the saying has it, above our pay grade. It would perhaps be some comfort to those upset by recent reports that chickens are not as dumb as they look. 

Standard Innovation, an Ottawa-based company, has agreed to pay a $3.75 million settlement over allegations that its We-Vibe vibrators secretly track and record user information, according to Courthouse News.

We-Vibe vibrator models have been sold since 2014 and feature the ability to connect and be controlled by users’ smartphones through the We-Connect app. However, lead plaintiff N.P. accuses the device of recording information on how it’s used in real time and transmitting it to servers in Canada.

“While the We-Vibe device gives a unique way to intimately communicate and interact, Plaintiffs allege that Standard Innovation also programmed – without its customers’ knowledge or consent – the We-Connect application to collect a substantial amount of information about its customers’ usage habits,” the suit states.

Collecting “intimate details”

N.P. claims she bought the $130 We-Vibe model without knowing that it recorded her most “intimate details. . . including the date and time of each use, the vibration intensity level selected by the user, the vibration mode or pattern selected by the user, and incredibly, the email address of We-Vibe customers.”

Preliminary approval of the class settlement was granted on Monday by U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall. It solidifies an agreement that Standard Innovation will pay $3.75 million to a settlement fund that will provide restitution to the approximately 300,000 consumers who bought the product and the 100,000 who used the linked app.

Those who used the linked app will receive approximately $500, while those who simply purchased the product will be paid around $40. The agreement has not yet stipulated how much of the settlement fund will be paid to the class counsel.

While Standard Innovation has not admitted to any wrongdoing, it has agreed to destroy any data that it collected through the product and will revise its privacy policy.

What to do

Editor's note:  This story is about a class-action lawsuit. If you are among the class of consumers described in the suit, you may eventually be eligible to participate in whatever compensation the court awards, if any. Unlike what many people think, you do not "join" a class action -- you are either in the class covered by the action or you are not. 

Often, consumers included in an award do not need to take any action, as the defendant is required to contact them directly. In other cases, the court and the attorneys who brought the case will issue instructions when the case is settled.

Please note that under our Privacy Policy, we cannot provide you with the names of other consumers who may be similarly affected. 

Please see our Class Action Guide for more information. 

One way or another, flights to Europe are going to be cheaper. Norwegian Air recently unveiled $65 one-way fares on some trans-Atlantic routes and now JetBlue says it is doing a "major review" of its fleet with an eye towards European flights.

Air Canada's CEO, meanwhile, says he thinks President Trump's plans to cut taxes and regulations will be good for U.S. carriers but won't hurt his company's growth prospects. 

New York-based JetBlue must decide whether it thinks it can profitably fly the Airbus A321LR (the LR stands for "long-range") from the East Coast to the United Kingdom and perhaps other Western European destrinations, according a report in Skift, an industry newsletter.

JetBlue and other airlines recently inaugurated service to several destinations in Cuba, only to scale back after passenger levels were below expectations. 

JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes said the decision boils down to whether it can make a higher rate of return flying the aircraft to Europe than to other destinations.

JetBlue has lately been making waves in the transcontinental market with its Mint business class cabin, which features lie-flat seats and other amenities at lower fares than those offered by legacy carriers. Even road warriors who have elite status on other carriers have switched to JetBlue for coast-to-coast flights because of the cut-rate premium class, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report. 

Hayes made the comments Tuesday at the J.P. Morgan Aviation, Transportation & Industrials Conference in New York.

Canada flights

Canadian airlines have been working to increase their trans-Atlantic business by routing passengers -- including many from the U.S. -- through their Toronto and Vancouver hubs. But Air Canada's CEO says the Trump Administration's plans to cut taxes and regulations may make it harder for Canadian carriers to compete. 

"The U.S is about to become even more competitive," Calin Rovinescu said in a Bloomberg report. He said Canadian carriers will be hurt if Canada proceeds with plans for a carbon tax and if a plan to privatize airports raises costs. 

Trump has said he wants to rework the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) but Rovinescu says he doesn't expect any changes to hurt Air Canada.

“We will be able to do a lot of business” with the U.S., he said, according to Bloomberg. “My sense of the border dynamics between Canada and the U.S. is that it won’t become more complicated, indeed it may well become more transparent from a commercial perspective.”

When it comes to savings, the priorities of Gen Xers and Millennials are more alike than you’d think. A new survey by online loan marketplace LendingTree showed that members of both generations agree that saving for an emergency fund should be a top priority.

Millennials choose to sock away money in an effort to save for the following ten things, according to the survey:

• Emergency fund (14.86%)
• A house or an apartment (12.50%)
• Vacation (8.44%)
• New computer (6.72%)
• Retirement (6.44%)
• Travel abroad (6.06%)
• New car (5.81%)
• Clothing, accessories, or shoes (5.11%)
• Holiday gifts (4.72%)
• Education (4.36%)

Gen Xers prioritize retirement savings

In contrast, Gen Xers were much more likely to make saving for retirement a top priority. Almost 11% percent of Gen Xers said their second priority for saving was retirement, but only 6.44% of Millennials ranked saving for retirement as one of their top ten priorities for saving.

And while many of the 2,000 Millennials who responded to LendingTree's survey were still saving for a home or an apartment, Gen Xers seem to be more focused on saving money to fix up the residence they're currently in. 

Around 8% of Gen Xers said saving for home repairs or improvements was a top priority. Home repairs or improvements didn't crack the top ten savings priorities for Millennials.

Other prominent priorities

However, both generations agreed on the importance of saving money for an emergency, such as an unexpected car repair or trip to the hospital. Nearly 15% of Millennials and 16.11% of Gen Xers said saving for an emergency fund was their top saving priority.

Young people and Gen Xers may also be on the same page regarding vacations. In the survey, around 8% of Millennials and 10% of Gen Xers said they were saving for their next vacation.

Other popular purchases to save for included:

• A new car -- almost 6% of Millennials and nearly 8% of Gen Xers
• A new computer -- almost 7% of Millennials and about 5% of Gen Xers
• Holiday gifts -- roughly 5% for both generations

If you operate a small business, it's helpful to keep personal and business expenses separate. That's why many business owners have at least two credit cards -- one for business and the other for personal use.

But it pays to give some thought to each one. Some cards will reward personal spending and some are better when it comes to buying things for a business.

To sort them out, card comparison site CreditCards.com has picked what it says are 2017's best business credit cards. It ended up with three top choices.

Chase Ink Business Preferred card

Topping the list is the Chase Ink Business Preferred card. It's new to the lineup, introduced late last year with a generous sign-up bonus and offering lots of points on common expenses.

The authors of the report gave the card high marks for its rewards program and sign-up bonus, which includes 80,000 points after you spend $3,000 in the first three months the card is active. Even though the card carries a $95 annual fee, the authors say the rewards more than cover it.

The card also doles out triple points on a wide range of business-related expenses like shipping, internet, phone, cable, and travel. It even pays three points for every dollar spent on social media and search engine advertising.

Capital One Spark Cash for Business

The Capital One Spark Cash for Business card is another favorite. It provides 2% cash back on every purchase and has a rewards program that is easy to use.

"The card's flat rewards rate saves precious time that business owners might otherwise have to spend learning how to navigate a card's complicated rewards program," the authors write.

"It also offers a relatively generous $500 sign-up bonus for spending $4,500 in the first three months, business-friendly benefits such as free employee cards, downloadable purchase records and no foreign transaction fees."

Starwood Preferred Guest Business card from American Express

Third on the list is the Starwood Preferred Guest Business card from American Express. This is an especially attractive choice if your business requires a lot of travel.

It might lack the number of earning opportunities as other business rewards cards, but CreditCards.com argues that Starpoints are "significantly more valuable" than other credit card rewards points.

Starwood has also increased the value of its points by offering one-to-one transfers with several travel partners. The card hands out a 5,000-point bonus when transferring points. When signing up, cardholders get an extra 25,000 points if they charge $5,000 in the first three months the account is active. If they spend another $3,000 over the following three months, they are rewarded with an additional 10,000 points.

For college students, landing a summer internship in their field can be a real advantage. Lots of former interns leave school with both a diploma and a job offer.

CollegeGrad.com, a website focused on the entry-level job market, has issued its annual ranking of top employers who offer internships. This year, it says there are about 7% more internships being offered than last year.

Brian Krueger, CEO of CollegeGrad.com, says getting an internship is closely linked to getting a job after graduation. So that means students should act quickly.

"If college students do not yet have their summer internship secured, finding that internship should be first priority during spring break and during the remainder of the Spring semester," he said. "Now is the best time to start an internship search."

Who's hiring

Topping this year's list is ORAU, a nonprofit federal contractor that provides scientific and technical solutions to advance national priorities in science, education, security, and health. According to the list, it's offering only 198 entry level jobs but nearly 7,000 internships.

Plenty of financial services firms offer internships too. New York Life will offer about 3,500 internships this year, KPMG will have 3,300, and Deloitte will have 3,000.

Among tech firms, Intel will hire 1,600 interns and Amazon.com will take on 1,500. Check out the full list here.

Connecting academics with practical experience

Krueger says internships serve as a connection between academic studies and practical experience.

"Having a great internship sets apart college students looking for an entry level job after graduation," he said. "In addition, employers often use internships to conduct a full summer interview of potential entry level candidates."

Getting established early with a firm in your chosen field may be even more important now. A new study by employment site CareerBuilder.com has found that employers are now hiring college graduates to fill slots they formerly filled with high school grads.

The study found 38% of employers have boosted educational requirements over the last five years. As a result, 41% of employers are hiring college-educated workers for jobs that had been primarily filled by those with high school diplomas.