Hoping to get another weekend or two at the cottage before school starts? You may soon see some relief from the convoys of motor homes lined up ahead of you.

The sluggish economy and high gas prices are forcing many monster RVs to the side of the road. And, it seems, the newer models that are taking their place are that much smaller.

"Fuel prices are driving it, but this is a cultural shift," says Bob Wheeler, CEO of Airstream, which converts delivery-van-style Mercedes-Benz Sprinters into low-key motor homes. "There's a shift away from conspicuous consumption," he told US Today.

Though these units are still priced upwards of $125,000, they typically don't have the panache of larger units. But they do get triple the gas mileage of some big gasoline-powered motor homes.

The stock market's gyrations over the past few days have spooked even the most savvy investors but those who run for the hills at this point will likely regret it, maintains Burton Malkiel, author of the popular "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" and now a Princeton economics prof.

"Investors who have sold out their stocks at times when there have been very large declines in the market have invariably been wrong. We have abundant evidence that the average investor tends to put money into the market at or near the top and tends to sell out during periods of extreme decline and volatility," Malkiel wrote in the Wall Street Journal yesterday.

Good advice but tough to do when many believe a mean, old bear has been unleashed. Nonetheless, investors should stay the course, Malkiel advises.

As the recession wanes but joblessness stays high, out-of-work Canadians have good reason to feel ostracized.

After all, at a time when 7.4 per cent of Canucks remain unemployed, any job that reaches the market is a prize. In some global sectors, there is something like 83 applicants for each new opening.

But while at least those are the breaks – with so many out of work, there’s bound to be a flood of hopeful employees rushing to any opening – what if a level of unfortunate discrimination was facing job seekers?

What if you were only considered for a job listing if you were … already employed?

It’s fair to say that some Canadians find it troubling that First Nations citizens don’t pay much in the way of taxes. Well, now those folks are really going feel hard done by.

In a decision aboriginal leaders are hailing as a major affirmation of Indian status rights, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that a Huron business man who invested in term deposits at a credit union located on his Quebec reserve doesn’t owe any tax on the interest he earned on his investments.

The landmark decision overturned lower-court rulings claiming that the estate of the late Rolland Bastien was required to pay taxes on the passive investment income he earned from the sale his longstanding moccasin business.

Section 87 of the federal Indian Act dictates that income earned by natives working on-reserve isn’t taxable. However, income earned off-reserve is taxable.

As the wave of baby boomers begin to retire, the strains of funding Canada’s health-care system will only grow over the next decade.

Combined with rising costs for most things in general, economists say health care spending, left unchecked, will become unsustainable.

Add to that the prospect of reduced or even total elimination of company health benefits, and aging boomers may be right to be worried.

As it is, doctors are already having a hard time dealing with aging boomers and their increasing caseload of chronic illness, according to a recent survey. 

Almost three quarters of them say their caseloads are taking up more of their time, and they blame chronic conditions, extra paper work, an aging population and increasing patient expectations.

If you’ve been confused about headlines detailing the economic recovery, you’re not alone.

That’s because, there’s two stories going on right now. For every group that’s bouncing back, another is slugging behind. Canada’s aerospace industry is doing well, for instance, while our nation’s youths can’t find work anywhere.

The most prevalent recovery discrepancy? That would be between the rich and the poor. Chances are, you hear plenty about how the well-off are back, or close, to pre-recession normal, but new research suggests the same isn’t true for low-income families.

Compared to most developed countries, Canada has a relatively low tax and social security burden on labour income, according to recent OECD figures.

The average tax wedge, which is calculated by adding income taxes to employee and employer social security contributions and deducting cash transfers as a percentage of total labour costs, is lower than the OECD average for every family type, says the organization’s most recent Taxing Wages Report.

What’s more, the difference between Canada’s tax wedge and the OECD average has increased in the past 11 years, according to the report.

Looking to take free trade right to your door step, the United States has asked Canada to raise its duty-free limits for day trips across the border, perhaps to as much as $1,000.  

Americans can buy and bring back $200 worth of Canadian goods in the first two days before they have to settle up with U.S. customs. Over two days, the exemption is $800.

Conversely, after one day, our “exemption” at the border is a mere $50; between two and seven days, you can bring back $400 worth of goods and, after one week, it’s a $750 exemption on most goods.

Earlier this year, former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson proposed that the government increase these exemptions tenfold: raising the one-day allowance from $50 to $500 per person; the three-day allowance from $250 to $2,500; that longer-stay allowance from $750 to $7,500.

Determined to get that project done on time, even though you feel like crap? Worried about staying home lest your boss think that you're not totally committed to your job? Or maybe you don't have any paid sick days to begin with?

If that sounds familiar, you're probably guilty of "presenteeism" — the insidious act of showing up at work even though you should be at home getting over whatever it is that ails you.

Presenteeism isn’t as obvious to spot as absenteeism, because it’s harder to tell how much an illness affects a person's performance than to know how often someone simply doesn’t  show up for work.

One American study suggested that presenteeism costs the U.S economy up to $150 billion a year, thanks to workers who perform well below their usual levels all the while passing on their ailments to their co-workers.

Canadians are paying 20 per cent more on average than Americans for identical products even though the value of the loonie has soared to three-year high above the U.S. greenback, according to according to a recent study by BMO Nesbitt Burns.

That difference was only 7 per cent when the firm conducted a similar study in July 2009, even though the loonie was trading around 92 U.S. cents at the time.

This only confirms what most of know already. Nearly four years after the dollar first hit parity, we’re still paying a big premium on imported goods.

“There has been precious little movement in underlying relative prices in the past two years despite the currency’s record sprint,” Porter says.