Despite California’s economic trials and tribulations of the last couple of years, going to school there and becoming an engineering major can really thousands of dollars difference in salary per year for college graduates.

PayScale.com released a report Thursday revealing that petroleum engineering majors and graduates of Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California are bringing home the most bacon. Mid-career salaries were shown to have fallen 1.5% between 2009 and 2010, but in the long run, engineers, scientists, and mathematicians continue to make bank.

“Our society values something practical…that’s why poetry isn’t popping up on the top of the list,” said Al Lee, director of quantitative analysis at PayScale.

Data collection from 999 bachelor degree institutions during the last year regarding median starting salaries of employees who graduated within the last five years as well as median mid-career salaries of graduates with more than 10 years of experience in his or her field revealed these interesting conclusions.

So back to those at the top of the list, Harvey Mudd graduates in the sciences, who on average, earn a mid-level salary of around $126,000.

“Harvey Mudd is the nexus of all good places to be in terms of graduate earnings,” said Lee. “Not only do engineering majors make good money and this happens to be a specialized school for engineering, but southern California is an area that tends to have some of the highest wage earners in the country.”

Meanwhile, the former school with the highest paid graduates, Dartmouth College, fell to number two on the list, only to tie with Princeton, at a mid-career salary of $123,000…still nothing to sneer at.

At the opposite end of the pay scale sits Coker College in South Caroline, with a starting salary average of $28,900 and a mid-level salary of $40,300.

As far as individual degrees go, petroleum engineers take the top of the list at a starting salary of $93,000 and a mid-level salary of $157,000; about $49,000 ahead of the next most profitable major, aerospace engineering and chemical engineering.

“Petroleum engineering has been an incredibly profitable sector for the last few years,” said Lee. “It’s a very cyclical field and depends largely on the price of oil, and we’re very much on an up cycle right now.”

Electrical engineering was the third-highest paying major on the list, followed by nuclear engineering, applied mathematics, biomedical engineering, physics, and computer engineering.

A new study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute suggests that almost half of baby boomers will have trouble paying for basic expenses and uninsured health costs after retirement. The study estimates that 47% of baby boomers between the ages of 56 and 62 will come up short of the cash needed to pay for these expenditures.

On the other hand, seven years ago in 2003, an estimated 59% of boomers were expected to run short, a much higher value than today. So what’s changed since 2003? A broader use of policies governing work-based retirement plans like automatic enrollment in 401k plans ensure that more is available to workers for retirement living expenses.

“This makes a huge difference, especially for low-income workers,” said the study’s coauthor, Jack Vanderhei, research director of EBRI.

However, every individual is somewhat responsible for maintaining their own expenses based on factors like how much they make presently and the amount of time their will spend in retirement.

For instance, people making roughly $31,000 to $72,000 a year today have a 13% chance of not being able to pay all their expenses after 10 years in retirement and a 29% chance after 20 years. So of course those making less than $31,000 a year will are at much higher risk of running out of money too soon. Even some of those in a higher income bracket of over $72,000 who are expected to have the most money in retirement will be scrambling to make their financial obligations.

The main offender? Uninsured health costs.

“Nursing home costs are wiping them out,” Vanderhei said.

The solution to this problem? Boomers are going to have to save more, but how much more? That depends entirely on how much you’ve got in your bank account, how many years until you retire, your expected Social Security and pension benefits, and how much return you’ll get off your investments.

All good things must come to an end…the question is, to what end? The last ten years have been full of low interest rates and a government focused on spending and borrowing as much as possible and this last frivolous decade may end in quite the bust. Are we truly headed towards a perpetual cycle of economic boom and bust?

June 23rd marked the federal decision to continue to keep interest rates near zero; however, if this approach doesn’t serve to prod the economy into a fruitful frenzy, the government may take further steps like printing more money.

This supposed ‘magical cure’ for the economic issues we face is called quantitative easing, more simply put, printing more money, but it remains the same process used by governments worldwide. When the economy looks a bit puckish, plunge those interest rates and whip out a lot of dollar bills. All of a sudden, everybody has enough cash to entice them into putting a down payment on that dream house or new car they’re been wanting.

So what seems to be the problem with this methodology? Before long, merchants and property sellers will raise their prices, leveling out the influx of greenbacks, resulting in big spenders left deeper in debt. The economy dips, and the cycle is perpetuated again.

So it could be a triple-dip or a quadruple-dip recession, you never know. But why stop there? At least something’s relieving the monetary gloom, even if it is only for short periods of time.

Trying economic times are resulting in more debtors being unable to pay back their loans. This, in turn, leads to debt collectors getting involved and they are starting to fight dirty as they become more and more desperate.

Threats of violence, harassing phone calls, vulgarity, and shake-downs are becoming more common as debt collectors struggle to amass overdue loans that people simply don’t have.

“The American consumer is really hurting and collectors are having to fight harder to get money,” said Robert Andrews, a senior analyst specializing in the debt industry at research firm IBIS World.

The Federal Trade Commission announced that 2009 saw a significant rise in complaints of harassment by debt collectors, mounting by 50% to 67,550. A projected jump of 13% this year is predicted to occur based on the number of complaints recently filed within the last six months. The most common complaint deals with the bombardment of consumers with back-to-back calls, often causing many to switch phone numbers in attempts to escape harassment. Complaints of the use of obscene or abusive language spiked to an overall high of 35% last year, making consumers even less likely to answer the phone.

An anonymous New York native said a collection agent called her home repeatedly, using abusive language and bringing up personal details about her and her husband. Her fears were not without reason, considering that complaints of debt collectors threatening or even resorting to violent tactics more than doubled last year. Under the FTC’s Fair Debt Collection Practices Act passed in 1977, not only are these practices considered stressful and rude, but illegal.

The industry responded by claiming that an increase in complaints of harassment should not be blamed on merely the collecting agents, but also on consumers attempting to live high off the hog by filing frivolous law suits.

“There’s a growing industry of consumer attorneys and savvy consumers who have learned that they can sue a debt collector fairly easily and collect very easily,” said Mark Schiffman, a spokesman for The Association of Credit and Collection Professionals.

It is true that consumers are well within their rights to take a collector to state or federal court for harassment, even if the accusations fall short of reality. If the case proves productive for the debtor, any medical bills or lost income proven to be a direct result of the harassment must be paid by the collector.

The impressive economic growth attributed to China just after the economic crisis that cost so many people their jobs has started bearing fruit. The strength of the yuan and a promising economic stability is attracting external money into the stock market and property industry. This was confirmed by a foreign exchange spokesperson on Monday.

Reforms aimed at transforming the exchange rate policies are much needed to further boost the performance of the economy in the short run. Speaking to the official “People’s Daily” representatives, Deng Xianhong, a senior State Administration Exchange vice head urged the China government to spearhead the reforms in order to allow the market to regulate the value of the yuan to continue attracting investors.

He continued to state that influx of foreign money has been seen to be as a result of strengthening the yuan and a positive difference between local and external markets. This is a good indicator of China’s positive economic growth which comes just after the economic down turn.

Other factors that helped the economy were overshadowed by the aforementioned factors. However, he also confirmed that several illegal businesses in excess of seven billion dollars were noticed by the authorities. This calls for international cooperation to help the people’s republic of China curb the vice. For China to continue enjoying the investment, so much needs to be done to gain confidence of long term potential investors.