January 9, 2010

Shoppers must be sceptical of sponsored links on the search giant but there are ways to avoid falling victim

Internet shoppers have been told to be on their guard as scam websites are dominating the sponsored search results for many branded goods on the internet search giant Google.

Fraudsters, mostly based in China, are duping Britons into buying fake items such as Ugg boots and Links of London jewellery that appear as Google-sponsored links. In many cases the goods never arrive and customers’ credit card details are put at risk.

Cadmium, which is known to cause cancer, is a soft, whitish metal that occurs naturally in soil

LOS ANGELES: Federal and state watchdogs opened a new front Monday in the campaign to keep poisons out of Chinese imports, warning Asian manufacturers not to substitute other toxins for lead in children's jewelry and beginning an inquiry into cadmium found in the products around the United States.

Regulators reacted swiftly to an Associated Press investigation reporting that some Chinese manufacturers have been using cadmium in place of lead in children's charm bracelets and pendants, sometimes at extraordinarily high levels.

Published: Monday January 11, 2010 MYT 12:10:00 PM

LOS ANGELES: Barred from using lead in children’s jewellery because of its toxicity, some Chinese manufacturers have been substituting the more dangerous heavy metal cadmium in sparkling charm bracelets and shiny pendants being sold throughout the United States, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The most contaminated piece analysed in lab testing performed for the AP contained a startling 91 percent cadmium by weight. The cadmium content of other contaminated trinkets, all purchased at national and regional chains or franchises, tested at 89 percent, 86 percent and 84 percent by weight. The testing also showed that some items easily shed the heavy metal, raising additional concerns about the levels of exposure to children.

By Andrea Sachs

Wednesday, Jan. 06, 2010

Sick of high household bills? Shopping maven Stephanie Nelson, founder of the popular website couponmom.com has developed a method that she promises will slash your food and drugstore costs. She describes her techniques in her new book, The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half (Avery). TIME senior reporter Andrea Sachs visited with the thrifty author, who lives in Atlanta, Ga., during Nelson's recent visit to pricey New York City:

Is it really possible to cut your grocery bills in half?
Easily. My mantra is that strategic shopping isn't changing the way you eat; it's just changing the way you buy the food that you like. In the book, I use the example of pork chops costing $5 a pound. But if you ask the butcher to cut up the pork loin, it's $2 a pound, and for the same amount of money spent, you have more than twice as much food. I tried to bring out what I think are some pretty frugal practices that are so old they're new. Like washing your own lettuce. People are so used to convenience items they're not even thinking of them as convenience anymore; they're thinking of them as minimum requirement.
(See TIME's "It's Your Money" blog.)
 

Major economic crises are inevitably also structural milestones. There is no simple return to a pre-crisis normalcy. Something changes permanently.  
 
As we learned in 2009, patterns of expectations and demand take a new shape. Our current crisis is not simply a blowback effect of financial globalization. Financial globalization misfired because it took a bet on a type of economy that was becoming unsustainable. During the past quarter-century, but especially over the five years leading up to 2008, the world seemed to revolve around the American consumer.