Warms your heart--"A bright spot in health insurance--WellPoint reports a 46 percent rise in profit. Managed-care firms post gains on rising premiums"--Headline, Los Angeles Times, April 25.

May his tongue shrivel--"Last year, fresh coffee was dropped from the menu at the Klamath County jail. This year, condiments like salt, pepper, mustard, and mayonnaise are being eliminated. Sheriff Tim Evinger considers seasonings a luxury."--News item.

Must be plenty overtime--One of our favorite big-business media verbs is "earns." Like, the Los Angeles Times reported that at the city Dept. of Water & Power, general manager David Wiggs "earns" an annual salary of $284,000, plus a $3,500 monthly housing allowance.

Like we were saying--"Online brokerage firm E-Trade Group paid Chief Executive Christos Cotsakos $77 million last year--more than quadruple what any other Wall Street CEO earned."--News item.

House of cards--"Legions of less affluent consumers are falling behind on credit card bills, pushing late payments to the highest level in nearly five years....Higher late fees and penalty interest rates are compounding the problem. Many card issuers have raised the late fee to $35."--News item.

Here’s a surprise--"A new study finds people of color in U.S. cities often pay higher fees to refinance their homes than whites."--News item.

What ‘idle rich’?--Elizabeth Johnson, heiress to the Johnson & Johnson Band-Aid empire, has been unable to sell off her 20,000 square feet penthouse space on the 50th and 51st floors of Manhattan’s Trump Towers (she lives on the 48th). So she cut it up into four "apartments." The top-of- the-market, a 6.5 bathroom suite is priced at $21.5 million. The cheapest, which also has 6.5. bathrooms, is yours for $7.7 million.

P.S.--If Trump Towers sounds cramped, consider the idea of a castle. A good number are available these days, many of them vacant for some time.

Obviously, they’re not in mint condition. But they’re as cheap as they are spacious. (In Poland, as low as $80,000.) But, one European Castle broker advises: "It’s not unusual to have 50 bedrooms and one bath--and no roof."  
 
 
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