LLBean Celebrates 100 Historic Years of The Bean Boot.

AP - Oscar Mayer has its famous Weinermobile. Now outdoors retailer L.L. Bean has a Bootmobile.

The average lifespan of a company listed in the S&P 500 index of leading U.S. companies has decreased by more than 50 years in the last century, from 67 years in the 1920s to just 15 years today, according to Yale University’s Richard Foster in a recent BBC article.

AP - Outdoors clothing retailer L.L. Bean says sales dipped again in 2009 but the company managed to beat its own projections. The company also said online sales beat catalog orders for the first time.

AP: US war costs last for more than a century, monthly payments to Civil War vet families OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — If history is any judge, the U.S. government will be paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the next century as service members and their families grapple with the sacrifices of combat.

Like-for-like sales rose 0.3pc for retailers in December, the British Retail Consortium and KPMG sales monitor said, suggesting that the high street avoided a calamitous Christmas, reports The Telegraph. Helen Dickinson, director-general of the BRC, said the results are “not a cause for celebration, but not a disaster either”.

By CommodityHQ: By Jared Cummans