In a move that would make even Ryanair's president jealous, China Springs Airline has been working on the details required to let passengers stand, or sit on a barstool-like seat, in order to fit more people on its planes.

The relatively young airline is looking at retrofitting its current planes with the new standing-room-only seats to keep pace with the incredible demand it has experienced.

These barstool-type seats -- which would still feature a safety belt -- would allow Spring Airlines to cut costs 20% and carry 40% more passengers per flight. No details about the actual seats are available but I can only imagine that they will look similar to the seats on stand up roller coasters. Despite the futuristic look, many people, myself included, find this type of seat horribly uncomfortable.

Here's some creative super-sizing: If you want to rent a Volkswagen Beetle from Alamo Rent A Car, you'll pay the price of a midsize car, despite the fact that VW itself calls the vehicle a compact.

Customers have it bad enough at the rental car counter now that the big companies are slashing inventory to create scarcity and drive up prices. They're also playing fast and loose with definitions.

Christopher Elliott called out the company for re-classifying the Beetle in contradiction of its manufacturer, yet in a way that pumps up Alamo's bottom line. The car rental outfit also considers the Toyota Corolla to be a midsize car, and not a compact or subcompact, the way pretty much everyone else does. The difference between the two categories starts at about $8 per day.

California filed a $222 million lawsuit against the owner of 22 Midas Muffler shops after uncover agents discovered a "massive" scheme in which consumers were charged for unneeded repairs, California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced.

"These Midas shops were running a massive bait-and-switch scam, in which customers were lured in with the promise of cheap brake specials and then charged hundreds more for unnecessary repairs," Brown said in a statement. "This investigation revealed a shady and deceptive operation that violated the trust of its customers."

In a thought-provoking column in Jeffrey Tierney's blog, Geoffrey Miller, author of a new book on consumer behavior, asked readers to make two lists; one of the 10 most expensive items they'd ever paid for (including services, experiences, taxes, divorce settlements, etc.) and one of the 10 things they'd paid for and had made them most happy. In a follow-up column, Miller and Tierney analyze the 207 comments.

Unfortunately, due to the great number of times those lists overlapped, the two decide that money does buy happiness (or, money buys cognitive dissonance, which is more likely in my opinion).

More interesting, I thought, were the items that appeared most often on one list, but not the other. Two that appeared on the "most expensive" list frequently, but not so much on the "happiness" list: cars (including insurance, gas and maintenance) and wedding ceremonies.

On the other end of the spectrum, appearing far more often on the "happiness" list and not on the "most expensive" list were bicycles (of all kinds, from commuter bikes to mountain bikes) and meals shared with friends, from dinner parties to potlucks.

Airfares may be reasonable, and gas prices aren't killing us the way they were a year ago, but there's one travel essential that's bleeding Americans: car rentals.

The New York Times reports that compared to May 2008, the price for a rental car shot up by 73% last month. In June, they were up 63% compared to a year ago.

Those leaps are extraordinary for any product, and the reason is simple: The major renters have cut capacity, selling older stock and waiting to buy new cars. The airlines have done the same thing in order to stabilize what would otherwise be a dramatic collapse of airfares. Even though demand for rental cars has dropped by 15%, the supply of vehicles has plummeted by more.

This is a round-up of the most popular finance links from Tip'd, the social media site for finance, in the past week. This week's stories includes the run-down on Cash for Clunkers and powerful tips to improve your life.

Cash for Clunkers Explained (25 Tips)
An explanation of The Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Program, more commonly known as the Cash For Clunkers Bill. Looks at what qualifies as a trade in and what you have to purchase to get the vouchers. Read what people are saying about it.

Powerful Ways to Improve Your Life (24 Tips)
Today I thought I'd step outside of the purely financial realm and talk a bit about self-improvement. While many of the following thoughts can improve your finances, they have the potential to have a much broader impact on your life. Check out the comments.

Do You Keep Money Secrets From Your Spouse? (23 Tips)
Do you keep money secrets from your spouse? What is your motivation? Here are some reasons why you might be and some better reasons why you shouldn't keep money secrets. Read what people are saying about it.

How To Save On Your Property Tax (22 Tips)
If you received higher property tax bill, here are a few steps to help you lower it. Read what people are saying about it.

Should There Be Mandatory Personal Finance Classes In High School Or Junior High? (22 Tips)
What do you think? Would mandatory personal finance classes in middle or high school help? How does teaching personal finance in the home help? Read the discussion.

You can get more of today's hot finance stories at tipd.com. At Tip'd, the community chooses which financial stories go "hot" and appear on the homepage. The links above are those links which got "tipped" the most in the past seven days by the community members.

Drive without insurance? Then you'd better stay out of Ohio, where the state is considering a program that uses red-light cameras and insurance company databases to check passing traffic for uninsured motorists. The system would use license plate numbers to verify driver insurance. According to the Columbus Dispatch, officials in Chicago, who are considering the same system, from InsureNet of Novi, Michigan, think that such a program could generate $200 million in additional revenue for the Windy City.

When the system identifies an uninsured motorist, the driver would be sent a letter instructing him to take care of the problem. If he doesn't, a fine will soon follow. In Ohio, that fine is $125 for a first offense, $300 for a second and $550 for a third.

The system is already being provided to law enforcement, free of charge, so even those uninsured drivers who managed to dodge the cameras can be busted if they catch the attention of a local gendarme. The system can also provide them lien reports in real time.

I'm all for requiring drivers to carry insurance, but I'm not pleased by the prospect of insurance company databases being opened for InsureNet's searches. I can see how this would be a good deal for the insurance companies, because it will drive business their way. For the general public, however, this feels like another step toward a Big Brother future.

A lot of Americans are understandably peeved by the fact that General Motors received a massive taxpayer-funded bailout designed to rescue the company from a long series of poor business decisions.

Some people are upset about it enough to refuse to buy GM's cars as a matter of principle and a show of commitment to the ideals of free market capitalism.

There are some logistical problems with the boycott: So few Americans are buying GM's cars anyway that you have to wonder what percentage of the people who claim to be boycotting the company actually would have bought cars from it anyway.

But the larger problem is this: Why would you refuse to buy from a company that you now have a major financial interest in the success of? For better or worse, the United States government owns 60% of the company and a boycott seems like a pretty classic case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

If anything, the bailout should make Americans more willing to consider GM cars. It's our best chance of making the bailout something other than a total and unmitigated disaster.

A low-cost airline's attempt to celebrate its fifth anniversary turned into a free-for-all for onlookers trying to grab $50 coupons for the Budapest airline.

Before balloons with coupons worth 10,000 Forints, or $49.45, could be released into the air, some onlookers noticed the coupons attached to each balloon and started popping and grabbing them, according to a Reuters story.

The balloons were to be released from a giant net in the center of Budapest as a way for Wizz Air to celebrate its anniversary.

"Someone popped one of the balloons, hoping to get the gift coupon that was attached to it," said Wizz Air communications director Natasa Kazmer. "As if on cue, the entire crowd attacked the net."

Some people scrambled after balloons, chasing as many coupons as they could. One young woman kneeled over a grill in the gutter to grab coupons out of the rainwater underneath.

"The idea was that the balloons would spread far and wide, so we did not place a limit on how many vouchers they could use for a single purchase," Kazmer said.

The crowd and the vouchers were mostly gone before the airline, the largest in Eastern Europe, could outline its long-term vision at a press conference.

When I was a kid, lo these many moons ago, a bike light was to a kid what fog lights were to our parents' cars; a delicious add-on.

We all wanted a shiny new bell or handle bar streamers so the other kids on the block would ooh and aah over our latest acquisition. Today, as I watch the kids riding up and down the sidewalk in front of the house, these bicycle accessories are not often seen. Still, someone must be buying them, because hardware stores and dollar stores alike, still stock them.

Here are a few available at dollar stores:

Cable locks with key -- Unfortunately, a bike lock is pretty much a necessity in most neighborhoods. The dollar store version is vinyl-coated and 27 inches long, an adequate size for a kid's bike. It costs $1.25. The hardware store cable lock is similar but is 6 feet long and costs $14.99. Neither one of these is going to stand up to a determined crook with a good set of cable cutters but they will keep an opportunistic thief from swiping your kid's bike from where he parked it outside the video store.

Now that the "Cash for Clunkers" bill is federal law, it's a good time to see if your car is eligible for the $3,500 or $4,500 rebate when buying a new car with better gas mileage.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has 30 days to implement the program, although trade-ins will probably be able to start in about three weeks. The government Web site for the program, cars.gov, targets the program implementation to begin in late July. The program ends Nov. 1.

Everyone knows it's been a cruel summer for General Motors. What gets less press is the lone bright spot in the company's current situation: the new Chevrolet Camaro.

The muscle car stars in the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (out today), and it's also a hero in real life -- for while its parent company crumbles like a skyscraper swiped by Decepticons, the Camaro has been ordered by more than 25,000 people. Not bad for a car that was built to appeal to retro-minded gearheads.

Those who hate bigger government can slip on their tinfoil hats now. A congressman from Illinois, Dan Lipinski, has introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives to have the TSA take control of the size of carry-on bags.

Right now, each airline is responsible for screening each passenger's bags to make sure they'll fit and that no one person is taking up more than their fair share of space.

But if Lipinski's notion survives to maturity, the people who handle the security screening will be in charge of measuring your stuff. They'll have a one-size-fits-all set of standardized maximum numbers to which your bag must conform.

Presumably, the size screening would take place at the same checkpoint where we go through metal detectors, and if your bag doesn't fit, you'll have to turn around and return to the check-in counter to pay a checked baggage fee.

UPDATE

Less than 24 hours after closing its service to move frequent travelers to the front of airport security lines, Clear announced on its Web site today that no, it won't be refunding any customers who bought $199 annual memberships.

And for any of its 250,000 customers worried about having their iris scans, fingerprints or other personal information sold or somehow ending up in another company's hands, Clear's Web site says: "Applicant and member data is currently secured in accordance with the Transportation Security Administration's Security, Privacy and Compliance Standards. Verified Identity Pass, Inc. will continue to secure such information and will take appropriate steps to delete the information."

A TSA spokesman told me that the agency doesn't "really have a dog in this fight" and said in a press release that 'TSA has no comment on Verified Identity Pass' announcement. The Clear program was market-drive, private sector venture, offered in partnership with airports and airlines in certain locations."

Verified Identity Pass couldn't negotiate credit to continue operating and closed service Monday night at the 20 airports it operated in across the country.

Clear -- the company that runs paid security lanes at 20 U.S. airports to speed its 250,000 members through airports -- is out of business.

Before the company's announcement that its "Clear lanes" would cease operation at 11 p.m. PST Monday, June 22, travelers were already complaining on the Internet that the traveler's best friend was out of business and that more people would have to wait in line again.

Most of the company's Web links were left with the simple message that Clear is ceasing operations and that its parent company, Verified Identity Pass, Inc., "has been unable to negotiate an agreement with its senior creditor to continue operations."

Clear members paid up to $199 for an annual membership for access to designated security lanes at participating airports nationwide. Some members paid three years in advance, and the company bragged of a 90% membership renewal rate.

As the recent economic downturn has sent unemployment skyrocketing, it has also highlighted several problems with the American way of work. While many jobs once carried a host of cradle-to-grave benefits, it's gotten harder and harder to find work that provides basics like health care, dental care, and cost-of-living increases. Moreover, this trend seems likely to get worse. On one side, universal health care could, potentially, decouple work from health insurance; on the other side, the growing popularity of consulting or freelance work means that many once-common benefits like vacation seem likely to become a thing of the past.

With this in mind, it is hardly surprising that many people are dreaming about the kind of jobs that their parents had. If you're one of these people, you can take heart in the fact that, while rare, full-benefit jobs aren't quite dead. Granted, you might have to learn how to kill mercenaries, take care of college-age kids, or make beds on a moving ship. However, if you're willing to look far -- and perhaps put up with a lot of travel and adventure -- we may have the perfect job for you.

And so, without any further ado, Walletpop presents 17 jobs that you can run away to right now!