Unbelievably, one in two Americans walk through the doors of some fast food outlets and shops each month. Wonder who the top retailers are? Find out which shops command the most loyalty in our slideshow of most popular shops in America:

Oh what a tangled web we weave when we practice to make personal gain from taxpayer money. Canadian politics has been rocked in recent weeks by revelations from the Senate expenses scandal. Already, four Senators have resigned from their respective caucuses and the Prime Minister's chief of staff fell on his sword for cutting a personal cheque to cover Senator Mike Duffy's inaccurate living expense claims. Alas, political expense scandals are not uncommon but they are invariably entertaining and, as a taxpayer, infuriating. Here are five of the most egregious expense scandals so far this century.

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By Eamon Murphy
Daily Finance

I just bought a movie ticket online. It cost me $16, and the truth is that I really shouldn't have spent that money. I'm behind on rent, unsure of my checking account balance 36 hours ahead of payday, and still suffering from recent expenditures connected to my five-year college reunion. But I want to see the movie very badly, as infantile as that desire is, and the price of admission isn't going to get cheaper. The sooner I see it, I tell myself, the sooner I'll stop thinking about it. Then I can move on to other, less consumption-based concerns.

What enabled me to make that purchase was a credit card. I could have gone debit, but I'd rather not involve my checking account at this time of the month; I needed to be able to put off the reckoning of my overpriced ticket. (At least I didn't "upgrade" to 3D.) Which goes to show what Derek Thompson argues at the Atlantic: "Yes, Credit Cards Are Making You a Bad Person" -- "dumber, fatter, poorer," like some nightmarish Daft Punk song.

By Nicole Seghetti
The Motley Fool

Hey, dads: You know that "World's Greatest Dad" T-shirt you sport every Father's Day? Well, you deserve it! You not only work hard from 9 to 5 to provide your family with a good life, but also dutifully slog through your honey-do list and coach the Little League team.

In return for the love your kids will show you this Father's Day, give back to your family by implementing these four financial planning musts.

Toothpaste was created to do a myriad of things: clean, polish and whiten those 32 incisors, canines and for some us, wisdom teeth.

But what about its use around the house?

This product went from a tooth powder with disparate ingredients such as charcoal, cream of tartar, cinnamon and even burnt toast back in the day to the modern paste and now gel, with fluoride and peppermint oil.

Commonly found in every bathroom in the country, there are many more ways to use toothpaste than just to clean the pearly whites.

By Claire Gordon
AOL Jobs

When NSA contractor Edward Snowden reportedly blew the whistle on two enormous government surveillance programs, he did it old-school, leaking documents to two esteemed reporters. But a recent report finds that more whistle-blowers are publishing the secrets themselves -- online (like the infamous hackers of Anonymous, pictured right). This leaves them vulnerable to employer-retaliation as the laws lag behind the new realities of cyberspace.

Miriam Cherry, a professor at Saint Louis University School of Law and author of the report, calls them "virtual whistle-blowers." Unlike past generations, they're blogging, dropping surreptitious videos onto YouTube or leaking documents to online groups such as WikiLeaks, as Bradley Manning allegedly did. Cherry points to a growing army of "whistle-bloggers," employees who blog -- usually anonymously -- about illegal activities at their places of work. No state so far, she notes, has whistle-blower laws on the books to explicitly protect bloggers -- let alone the people who post YouTube videos or leak to Wikileaks.

Daily Finance

On the eve of the latest Superman movie, "Man of Steel," comes news that a comic book featuring the superhero's first-ever appearance just sold on comic book marketplace ComicConnect.com for $175,000 -- and that's considered a bargain for the comic book in question.

Two years ago, another copy of the 1938 Action Comics No. 1 sold for more than $2 million. This one, found by a Minnesota man in the wall of a house he was rebuilding, started off in less than mint condition and suffered further damage when the back cover was ripped off in an argument shortly after its discovery.

The renewed focus on Superman in the run-up to his movie reboot surely played a role in driving up the bidding price, as did the media attention surrounding its unusual provenance. But of course, what really made it so valuable is its utter rarity, with less than a hundred original copies estimated to still exist. So it's unlikely that you'll be finding a copy in your grandma's attic or hidden in a wall (or, for that matter, in a cornfield in Kansas).

You may not know me, but you might be familiar with my jeans. Not to brag, but they're the top-selling item on the Home Shopping Network, and I created them specifically for women over 40.

To some people, the most fascinating aspect of my story is my dramatic success as a fashion designer. But personally, I'm most proud of the fact that today, in my 60s and after a lifetime of struggles, I am finally attaining everything I ever dreamed of -- professionally, personally and even romantically. To call my early life traumatic is a huge understatement. I grew up with a violent, abusive father and a cold, unprotecting mother. But I overcame my demons and have made it my mission to help others follow their dreams. That's what inspired me to write my first book, "Good Jeans: 10 Simple Truths About Feeling Great, Staying Sexy and Aging Agelessly" -- the desire to teach people how they can not only reinvent themselves, but maximize their fulfillment and happiness at any age.

People are always on the lookout for scams. You kind of have to be, these days.

While a website may assure you you're that millionth visitor, you probably don't want to risk it for an iPod. Believe it or not, "male performance enhancements" are probably just playing into people's own self-doubts. And most infomercial products won't revolutionize your life.

The issue with this, of course, is that sometimes awesome products that actually work get written off because people's spam filters just think of them as a scam. These days, how exactly do you sell something that really is "too good to be true?"

Luckily, Reddit recently had a thread where people mentioned things that seem like scams but are actually legitimate.

Here are the 11 most interesting of them: