The bottom line

Treasury’s 36% return; Loans from retirement accounts at an all-time high; Sales of pickup trucks up 14%; Earnings power: Wall Street vs. Main Street; The value of “vanity” mobile numbers

Treasury’s 36% return

The Treasury Department’s Public-Private Investment Program, in which the government partnered with private money-management firms to invest in devalued mortgage securities, has returned 36 percent in its first year. Stocks returned about 10 percent during the same period; bonds, about 8.2 percent.

Bloomberg.com

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Loans from retirement accounts at an all-time high

Some 17.5 percent of participants in 401(k)s and other defined-contribution retirement savings plans had loans outstanding from their accounts as of June 30, up from 16.5 percent at the end of 2009, the Investment Company Institute says. Borrowing from retirement accounts is at an all-time high.

Marketwatch.com

Sales of pickup trucks up 14%

A boom in U.S. agricultural exports is generating an unexpected side benefit: with farmers’ incomes rising, sales of new pickup trucks are up 14 percent so far this year, compared with a 10 percent increase in new-car sales.

USAtoday.com

Earnings power: Wall Street vs. Main Street

The average financial industry employee earned slightly more than $100,000 in the first three months of 2010, a 20 percent improvement over the first quarter of 2009. The average American worker earned $10,668 in the same period.

The New York Times

The value of “vanity” mobile numbers

A bidder in Kuwait has paid $750,000 to reserve the eight-digit mobile phone number 5555-5555. “Vanity” mobile numbers are a popular form of conspicuous consumption among the wealthy in the Middle East. In 2006, a bidder at an auction in Qatar paid $2.7 million to reserve the number 666-6666.

TheAtlantic.com

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