We figured we'd weigh in before the elections, just to get some of the estimates from various spots on paper as to what happens in the upcoming elections. The Senate is currently composed of 57 Democratic Party, 2 Independents caucusing with the Democratic Party, and 41 Republican Party Members. The House of Representatives is composed of 255 members of the Democratic Party, and 178 Republican Party Members. Republicans need to gain 10 seats to control the Senate, and the Vice President breaks ties in the chamber. Republicans need to gain 39 seats to control the House of Representatives.

It's October and fantasy football is in full swing. Fantasy football, for the neophytes out there, is a game played by fans of the NFL who select players to fill a simulated team and then are awarded points based off of their real life performance. It has left an indelible mark on the viewing patterns and marketing techniques of NFL firms. Over 27 million people play today, leading Jake Plummer to claim that "it has ruined the game".

The number to keep your eye on, obviously is a $200,000 annual salary if you're single and a $250,000 combined salary if you're married. These, as you likely know, are the lines in the sand drawn by the current administration to determine who is 'rich' and who isn't. Does the electorate agree? For the most part. A Marist poll showed that 55% of Americans believe that a household income over $250,000 means you are wealthy, while 45% disagreed.

Is it okay to welch on a financial commitment? Yes, I know that 'welch' is a gambling term - and we're about to talk about mortgages. If an unproportional amount of recent mortgages were actually bets that house prices would continue to increase, maybe 'welch' is the right term after all? Anyway, Pew recently polled people to ask their opinion on the practice of 'walking away' from mortgages.

Close your eyes or do whatever it is you do when you meditate... ponder the following question, "At what salary would you be content?" Okay, end the meditation. Were you thinking $75,000 annually? That's the number that an analysis of 2008-2009 Gallup poll data by the economists Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman came up with. So, what does that mean?

The official U-3 unemployment rate is now 9.6%, up a tick from the 9.5% we saw last report. However, private employers added 67,000 jobs in August, while July's numbers were revised upwards to 107,000 private sector positions and June numbers were also adjusted to 61,000.

Carnivals and sweet posts for the week,

The incidence of a tax (who truly pays for it) is very significant in welfare analysis. Cameron Daniels analyzes this concept using the real life example of gas prices.

The Mission: Introduce a friend who’s been living in a cave to rock and roll, three albums at a time. Even he (she?) couldn’t help but be exposed to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, so you can give him other material. You have five care packages available, with spots for three albums each. No greatest hits albums. Also, write your friend a letter telling him what you found hard to leave out and what you had no problem removing.

... is higher than credit card debt in our country (hat tip: Wall Street Journal). How can this be?, you may ask, when the number of news stories on credit cards seem to vastly outweigh the corresponding reports on student loans. Well, yes, credit card stories seem to outnumber student loan stories by a ratio of about 15 to 1, according to StudentLoanJustice.org. How did this happen?