Archive for July, 2008
Posted by: in Money News
Filed under: International markets, China, International Business Machines (IBM), Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), PetroChina Co Ltd ADR (PTR), Huaneng Power Intl ADS (HNP), Johnson Controls (JCI), Honeywell Intl (HON), United Technologies (UTX), China Life Insurance ADS (LFC), Headline news, Aluminum Corp of China ADS (ACH), China Mobile Limited (CHL), China Med Technologies Inc. (CMED), East West Bancorp (EWBC)
 The Summer Olympics are only eight days away and what the Chinese had hoped would be their coming out celebration to celebrate all that is good, may instead become quite the opposite.
The air pollution in Beijing is so bad that even reducing vehicle traffic by 50% has not helped much. China is now considering a 90% reduction according to news reports. Athletes are staying in other countries until the games begin so that they might train somewhere they have the ability to breath. There are also reports that many athletes involved in stamina events will be forced to wear masks to protect themselves from the particulates in the air.
Now Reuters is reporting that “Some International Olympic Committee officials cut a deal to let China block sensitive websites despite promises of unrestricted access, a senior IOC official admitted on Wednesday.”
So the world media won’t be able to do their jobs in a manner they’re accustomed to. But who are we actually referring to? Western media, of course, because half the world still limits access to information to some degree.
The biggest problem for the Chinese and the West is, and has always been, one of communication. The Chinese have made great strides to improve the paltry conditions that I will not even refer to as a living standard for their people. And yes, they are control freaks. I’ve witnessed that here too, even though it is the western media that tries to balance this out. But we want to impose our rules and our timetable on another country and another people without walking a mile in their shoes.
They too don’t understand much about the West and have been a closed society for so long that what some see as limited progress is actually gargantuan. Then there’s Tibet, another controversy that will not go away in our lifetime.
In the meantime, investors the world over have been supporting Chinese markets and most massive companies can’t stop salivating over the expansiveness of China’s market potential. I own Chinese stocks and our site has posted a multitude of stories on the subject. Some of the companies worth watching include:
American companies that are likely to benefit or continue to benefit from the Chinese economy as related to pollution clean-up, management, health care and maintenance include:
Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I own shares of ACH, HNP, JNJ, PTR.
Share This
Share This
 No Comments »
Filed under: Real Estate, Ripoffs and Scams
 According to his website, Tom Hopkins is one of the top sales gurus in the world: “His first book, How to Master the Art of Selling, has sold over 1.6 million duplicates and been translated into ten languages.” He is known as “the builder of sales champions.”
So it’s fair to state that the techniques he suggests are probably employed by a good number of successful real estate agents. Here’s a sample of his “advice” for real estate agents looking to increase sales, from his book Mastering the Art of Selling Real Estate:
“If there is a charge to refinance the property prior to the maturity date, don’t call it the prepayment penalty. Who wants to be penalized? No one. Call it the prepayment privilege.”
I comprehend the it’s the real estate agent’s job to put his ideal foot forward but, to me, that language is incredibly misleading. The truth is that everyone who buys a house has the privilege of prepaying; a prepayment penalty just adds a special cost for doing so. This tricky euphemism has no basis in reality.
Continue reading ‘Prepayment Privilege’: Misleading Realtor-speak
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Share This
Share This
No Comments »
Filed under: Extracurriculars, Ripoffs and Scams, Health, Fraud
.jpg) One of my favorite scenes in Man on the Moon occurs near the end: Andy Kaufman, played by Jim Carrey, is in the Philippines, awaiting a miracle treatment for the cancer that’s killing him. Looking over at the physician, Kaufman sees him hide some chicken gizzards in his hand before pretending to pull them out of a patient. As he lays back against his gurney, Kaufman smiles; a lifelong prankster, he realizes that he, himself has fallen for a trick.
While I wouldn’t call myself an herbalist, a naturalist, or a witch doctor, I definitely have an appreciation of alternative remedies. When I’m feeling under the weather, I try to eat a couple of oysters or a plate of ceviche: both are high in zinc, and often get me back on my feet. I take fish oil each day, and have been known to indulge in mushroom pills, garlic supplements, Kava-kava, and the occasional glass of absinthe.
That having been said, I’m also aware that the FDA exists for a reason. Recently, the government agency cracked down on 25 retailers who were selling so-called “cancer cures” under false pretenses. Because the internet has made it possible for overseas con artists to sell fake cures to Americans, it is nearly impossible for the FDA to absolutely police all of the snake-oil salesmen out there. With that in mind, they have produced a list of warning signs that a product is not legitimate:
Continue reading Miracle cures: How to separate the solutions from the snake oil
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Share This
Share This
No Comments »
Filed under: Home, Ripoffs and Scams, Health
 In the United Kingdom, Officers of Trading Standards are warning consumers there, that electric adapter / chargers which have been imported from China are posing a potentially significant safety hazard to users. At this point, it appears that no similar warnings have been officially issued to American consumers.
Tests in the UK have shown that the charges, most of which are being used for portable gaming units such as the popular Nintendo DS and DS Lite machines, are prone to overheat or short circuit. A report from the BBC indicates that the units might not have been properly inspected at the point of manufacture. Officials say that the UK might be littered with hundreds of thousands of the substandard units. The BBC report also states that the death of one 7 year old boy, 18 months ago, has allegedly been attributed to a failed charger. What’s worse, is that some of the chargers may even carry counterfeit safety certification markings.
Officials in the UK informed BBC that the offending chargers generally cost about one third as much as safe chargers do. Consumers would be well advised to take into account the old adage; “You get what you pay for.” Although there has been no mention yet of a full scale product recall on the offending units, it might be just a matter of time before China has to take “the big bite” on yet another consumer product category.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Share This
Share This
No Comments »
Filed under: College, Ripoffs and Scams
 Yesterday I wrote about colleges teaming up with textbook publishers to screw students out of just a tiny bit more of their hard-earned money.
Not wanting to miss out on the orgy of exploitation, credit card companies are also collaborating with colleges on misleading credit card offers loaded with undisclosed conflicts of interest. Basically, credit card companies are paying colleges in exchange for student information, and working out licensing deals that put colleges in a position to prosper by trapping their undergrads into a cycle of debt. Find out more about this sordid tale in this BusinessWeek story.
Here’s how students can avoid this trap: if you receive a credit card offer in the mail, throw it in the trash. College students should never have more than one credit card — there’s just no reason to and, given that they’re new at this, there’s no reason for them to complicate their lives juggling multiple accounts. Log-on to creditcards.com’s special card finder for college students, pick one with no annual fee, and pay off your balance each month.
If you know any college students, forward this post to them and save them some agony.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Share This
Share This
No Comments »
Filed under: College, Ripoffs and Scams
 Public-private partnerships are a favorite of politicians — what’s superior than people working together for the public good?
But a recent Wall Street Journal piece (subscription required) exposed a disturbing trend: public colleges and textbook publishers teaming up to ripoff students. Here’s how the scam — and there’s noting else to call it — works: The University of Alabama requires freshman composition students to buy a writing textbook called “A Writer’s Reference,” by Diana Hacker.
But: not just any edition will do, they’ve to purchase the special edition for the school for $59.35, when the regular edition could be had for half that price used. Worse still, the campus bookstore won’t purchase back or sell the special edition. The only difference is a special cover and a writing guide that’s available free on the college’s website.
What can college students do? Ignore the directions and purchase a regular used copy. What could possibly be so special about the college edition? In all probability, everything you need will be in the original book or in the professor’s presentations and, if for some reason you actually do need something from the special edition, they’ll have a copy of it at the library.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Share This
Share This
No Comments »
Posted by: in Money News
Filed under: Good news, Products and services, Industry, Headline news, Agriculture
 Park Falls Wisconsin is just like any of the hundreds of other bustling small towns across America. At least, it was until Monday July 14, 2008. That was the day when it was announced that the Department of Energy had awarded a $30 million grant for the construction and operation of a bio-refinery at the existing Flambeau River Papers, pulp and paper mill. The project shall be a show piece, and the first of it’s kind.
The Park Falls Herald reported that, when in full operation, the bio-refinery is expected to produce a minimum of six million gallons of sulfur-free diesel fuel annually from nonfood-based, timber and agricultural waste materials. Additionally, the bio-refinery is expected to generate at least one trillion BTUs of process heat annually, which will be sold directly to the paper mill. That exchange is expected to make Flambeau River Papers the first integrated pulp and paper mill in North America essentially free of fossil fuel usage.
The project is expected to reach operational status by 2010, and is also expected to garner the close attention of substitute energy investors and governments world wide. The project is, in part, a response to the current presidential administration’s nationwide call for increased energy independence without additional pressure being put upon the food supply. It is widely hoped that these types of refinery operations shall soon be considered for development in other suitable locations across the country.
Share This
Share This
No Comments »
Filed under: Bargains, Ripoffs and Scams, Shopping
Dollar stores are great places to find bargains on any number of household needs but you can’t always assume that, just because it’s only $1, you’re automatically getting the most bang for your buck. Prices and quantities may vary according to stores in your town, but going by my shopping list, here are 10 things you might want to go elsewhere for:
Toothpaste This is one of the things I leave on the shelf at the dollar store. A 2.54 ounce tube of tartar control or cavity protection Crest or Colgate cost a buck, obviously, and that seems like a lot less than you’d pay for a full-sized tube in your local drugstore.
But the same brands, in the same size, cost only 63 cents a tube at my local Wal-Mart store, so it still pays to shop around and read your local store flyers to find the sales and the best everyday prices for your favorite brand of toothpaste.
A word of caution when buying toothpaste at the dollar store: Don’t buy unknown brands and be careful of boxes that look like name brands but actually aren’t. Toothpaste was one of the household items to get caught up in the tainted products from China scare of the past several years. Toothpaste containing diethylene glycol, a sweet, syrupy poison used to make antifreeze, was found in several dollar stores.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Share This
Share This
No Comments »
Filed under: Ripoffs and Scams, Technology
 Last week, Google was sued for fraud based upon a claim of selling low-quality advertising through its AdWords program. Attorney Hal K. Levitte says he paid for AdWords advertising in 2007 that was bogus. Part of the money they paid was for 202,528 impressions from pages that were parked domains.
Parked domains are essentially websites that haven’t been established yet, but have a generic page as a placeholder. Google AdWords appear on many of these parked pages, and advertisers are charged when people visit these pages or click on the linked ads.
The problem is that when I see a parked page, I immediately leave it. Yet the advertisers who are paying per view of the page are being charged because I went to the page. They’ve almost no chance of me even considering their ad because I leave so swiftly, yet they pay for my page view nonetheless.
Continue reading Google accused of fraud with AdWords program
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Share This
Share This
No Comments »
Filed under: Ripoffs and Scams
 Back in April, I wrote about a little case of Reunion.com spamming people’s entire address books without explicit permission. It’s a easy scam. You get an email from Reunion.com saying that Jane Smith has been searching for you, and you’re asked to go to the site and sign up for a free account. Once you sign up, you get a message saying “We’ll find your friends and family who are already members and also automatically invite any nonmembers to join (it’s free!).”
You agree to let Reunion.com access your email address book, thinking that you’re going to have an chance to decide who gets invited and who doesn’t. Instead, Reunion.com immediately sends an email to everyone in your address book. How embarrassing to have business contacts receive an email that you were looking for them on a high school reunion website! What about an ex-boyfriend receiving this email? Or a potential employer?
I’ve read comments from consumers all over the internet who fell victim to this scam. But now justice might be served as a law firm in San Francisco is investigating the case for possible legal action.
Continue reading Reunion.com lawsuit may be on the horizon
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Share This
Share This
No Comments »
|
Entries (RSS)