Many Medicare Advantage plans will ultimately get paid less next year due to several other variables like a premium tax that is called for in the health care overhaul, the massive federal law that aims to cover millions of uninsured people.

NPR: CMS Softens Medicare Advantage Funding Changes

David Sanders, an Essex University academic who studies the relationship between economic variables and voting intentions, finds his equations ever less trustworthy.

ECONOMIST: It would take a miracle to save the Tories on May 1st

Nevertheless, due primarily to the negative impressions many people have about so-called "trailer parks, " the value of a manufactured home is less than a third of a comparable site-built home, even when variables such as neighborhood, structural characteristics and geography are controlled, according to an analysis published in the Journal of Real Estate Research.

WSJ: 'Luxurious' Mobile Homes?

And while smoking is hardly the only reason--low income nations have many variables affecting life expectancy--the habit has always been picked up most heavily by the less well-to-do, exacerbating the health and earning problems even more.

FORBES: The World's Heaviest-Smoking Countries