The closing of a calendar year often encourages reflection and review. This is true both in our personal and professional worlds, so it is no surprise to see our Top Newsmakers and Top News Stories lists among the most clicked-on articles of the week. For the fifth year in a row, the editorial team from aftermarketNews has selected the people and events that most significantly shaped the industry in the past year.

While we may be looking back for the moment, the auto industry keeps marching forward. And, this week we learned that General Motors was given a second loan from the U.S. Treasury, to aid the automaker in its quest to keep afloat during these tough economic times. The U.S. Treasury will provide an additional $5.4 billion in loans to General Motors Corp., as part of the $13.4 bill rescue package announced in Mid-December. This is in addition to an initial loan of $4 billion for the automaker.

Also in our review of most-viewed news items this week was a report on the final attendance numbers for Automotive Aftermarket Industry Week. In total, 107,000 business professionals attended AAPEX and the SEMA Shows during Automotive Aftermarket Industry Week in Las Vegas in November. While this number is down 9 percent from 2007, the quality of attendees and the value of the event continue to increase, according to show owners.

Back to the theme of retrospection, the final story in our round-up of the week’s top news shared the results of our most recent AMN poll, which asked readers to share their New Year’s resolutions. Results of the survey showed that most want to make cutbacks in their lives, whether it be spending or food intake. Of the options we offered up, 50 percent of survey respondents said they want to reduce debt; and 22 percent said they want to lose weight. Saving money and working more tied at 5.5 percent each;17 percent of respondents chose ‘other’ resolutions.