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Are Autos The Next Big Bargain?

Yes, the world economy has been battered and people are filled with fear and uncertainty. But there is a bright side or two for consumers. For one thing, gasoline prices that were the bane of our existence just a couple of months ago have been falling as fast as the Dow Jones Industrial Average. According to AAA, the national average price of a gallon of unleaded fell by five cents from Thursday to Friday. In three states, the average price is below $3. And by the way, next year may be a great time to buy a new car, assuming you have cash or can get a loan. Read more...

Melamine Isn't China's Only Export Problem

China exports to the world, and the world likes it because what we get from China is dirt cheap. But cheap comes at a price, we have learned. Melamine in pet food poisoned dogs and cats last year. Melamine in milk poisoned Chinese babies this year, and has crept into a host of other food products. Now, China has banned the sale and use of a popular brand of Siberian ginseng. Read more...

Financial Crisis Is Profitable For Some

Scammers are always looking for "the next big thing." After Katrina and the Asian tsunami, they used bogus relief operations to steal money. The financial crisis was hardly a week old before scammers were rolling out all manner of ways to exploit consumers' fears and anxiety. In Indiana, authorities have sued a mortgage broker for allegedly trying to scare homeowners into needlessly parting with their hard-earned money. Read more...

Shell Game

Kids still want to smoke, but health officials have worked hard over the last two decades to prevent them from buying cigarettes. One by one, retailers have signed onto the campaign to reduce youth smoking. With the "persuasion" of 46 states and the District of Columbia, Shell gas stations and convenience stores are the latest to change their policies. Read more...

Stay Cool

Granted, these are scary times. The Great Depression has probably been invoked more times in the last 30 days than in the previous 30 years. And while there's no doubt there's plenty to be concerned about, stashing money in your mattress seems a little extreme. Back in 1929, the government pretty much sat on its hands while the Depression began, and Congress passed a tariff that made matters worse. Today at least, the government seems to be vigorously working the problem. And you know what? It just might work. So buck up! It's no time to panic. Read more...

MSG Wars

Baby boomers are getting older and watching what they eat, so its not surprising that food companies are trying to position their products are being healthy. It can be a problem for soups, which all contain a lot of sodium – even those with sea salt. Now the emphasis is on "added monosodium glutamate," or MSG, a sodium-based flavor enhancer most often associated with Chinese food. Thanks to an ad campaign by Campbell's Soup, soup makers can't get MSG out fast enough. Read more...

Is Cheaper Money The Right Prescription?

Much like a sick patient that doesn't respond to the initial treatment, the stock market continues to remain ill, despite the many remedies beign thrown at it. In a dramatic move Wednesday, central banks around the world joined the U.S. Federal Reserve in cutting interest rates. It was taken as a sign that the world is serious about reversing the financial crisis. But investor Marc Faber, who correctly predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the current meltdown in 2006, says this was the wrong move. Faber, publisher of the Gloom,Boom & Doom Report, says we should be raising interest rates and rewarding savers, not punishing them. As retirees lose more and more of their savings in the stock sale frenzy, Faber may once again be worth listening to. Read more...

The Little Car That Could--Or Can It?

This isn't exactly the best of times for carmakers, who have been hit this year with the triple whammy of skyrocketing fuel prices, growing worries about the economy, and fewer auto loans due to the credit crunch. But so far this year, BMW's Mini Cooper seems impervious to it all. Motor Trend Magazine reports Mini's U.S. dealers are selling nearly every Cooper and turbocharged Cooper S they can get their hands on. And a new model, the Cooper Clubman, has just joined the line up. But the little car is not without its problems. Read more...

What Do Food Companies And Investment Banks Have In Common?

The current financial crises started all because some "contaminated" securities got into the world's financial system. Subprime mortgages, almost guaranteed to go into default, got cut up and mixed in with otherwise sound loans and packaged into high-yield securities. But when it was discovered some of those contents were "toxic," no one would buy those securities, at any price. The next thing you know, we have a credit crisis on our hands. Now, food companies around the world are having a similar experience – not with money but with ingredients. Chinese milk laced with melamine has shown up in everything from infant formula to candy, and it seems to be spreading. Read more...

Maybe Coughing Isn't So Bad

It's October and time for your flu shot, but maybe you should skip stocking up on the over-the-counter cough syrup this year. In recent years researchers have raised questions about the medicine's effectiveness and many pediatricians have posed serious questions about its safety for young children. The makers of these products have agreed to label them "not for children," but some critics say they should be withdrawn altogether. And one doctor assures parents that it's OK to let their kids cough. Read more...

The Check's Not In The Mail

Standing in line at the grocery checkout counter, we are often annoyed when the person in line ahead whips out a checkbook to pay for their purchase. It usually involves a check of ID as well, slowing down the process even more. So 20th century! Banks most likely feel the same way, since the cost of processing electronic payments is much less than processing checks. And it turns out more consumers apparently are coming to that conclusion too. Read more...

Get The Lead Out

For a while there, we were reporting weekly – sometimes daily – recalls of products because of lead paint. After a lull, the lead paint recalls are back. Tween Brands is recalling about 12,000 children's necklaces, CD and MP3 players sold at Limited Too and Justice Stores. Surface coatings could contain excessive levels of lead, violating the federal lead paint standard. Read more...

Throwing The Book At Kevin Trudeau

When marketer extraordinaire Kevin Trudeau writes a book, you can bet he's going to sell thousands of copies, thanks to his informercials that show up on late night TV. But a judge is putting an end to Trudeau's broadcast pitch, at least for a while. He's been banished from the airwaves and will have to fork over some of the profits from "The Weight Loss Cure They Don't Want You To Know About." Read more...

Where Are Those Speculators Now?

It was just a few months ago that motorists were angrily railing against commodity speculators who bid up the price of oil to record levels. Back then no one foresaw the economic train wreck that lay just around the curve. Now, oil prices are falling almost as fast as the Dow Jones Industrial Average. As a result, gasoline prices are also falling, and might be even lower if not from the recent supply disruptions caused by Hurricane Ike. Unfortunately, the cost of heating your home this winter will not be lower than last year. Read more...

Beyond The Bailout

In its first full session since Congress passed a pork-laden bailout bill, Wall Street rendered its vote of no-confidence, in unmistakable language. With financial madman Jim Cramer urging investors to get out of the stock market, the possibility of the average American escaping the economic crisis seems nil. But meanwhile, a number of states have reached a settlement with Countrywide Financial that just might help thousands of people avoid foreclosure--which is what set off this financial crisis in the first place. Read more...

Update This!

Microsoft is accused of looking the other way while PC makers pushed low-end machines as "Vista-capable," when there was no reason to believe they were up to the task of running the complex operating system. But how to contact all 15 million affected consumers about the class action suit? The lawyers came up with a fiendishly clever idea. Read more...

Can't Keep Up With Car Notes

The automotive sector has been seeing its fair share of carnage as a result of the economic crisis. But now even the purchases themselves are becoming a problem, as nearly $25 billion in auto loans are going into delinquency from nonpayment. A new study found that loans 30 days past due were up 9 percent year-over-year in the second quarter, while loans 60 days past due were up 11 percent. If people can't keep up with the loans they have, and lenders won't extend credit to buyers for new loans, the auto market may be facing a fast downhill roll, with a very harsh stop at the bottom. Read more...

FDA On Melamine: No Problem Here, Sort Of

The Food & Drug Administration issued an assessment of the dangers of the chemical melamine in food which boiled down to "It's really not dangerous in small amounts, except in infant formula, when it really is dangerous." This glowing recommendation didn't please Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, who issued a scathing critique of the FDA as condoning the intentional contamination of food. Nor did it placate scared consumers, one of whom spoke to ConsumerAffairs.Com's Lisa Wade McCormick about her fears of buying tainted food for her family. Read more...

Is It The Recession Yet?

For months the economy has held up in the face of wave after wave of bad news. Predictions of a recession--which is two straight quarters of negative growth--have failed to materialize. But Black September may be changing that. The latest report that showed the loss of 159,000 jobs in September has gotten economists’ attention. The long awaited recession may be finally showing up. Read more...

War On The Web

The Internet has given first amendment rights to lots of people who, while they had them in the past, weren’t in much of a position to exercise them. Now they can, and some people--especially businesses-- don’t like that very much. Increasingly, they’re turning to the courts to force citizens to be quiet and behave themselves. Read more...

Help for Struggling Homeowners

Although it didn't receive nearly as much press coverage, the $300 billion "Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008" -- passed back in July -- may provide more immediate relief for struggling homeowners than the much-ballyhooed $700 billion economic bailout. The recovery act lets troubled homeowners avoid foreclosure by refinancing with an FHA mortgage, provided Uncle Sam gets a piece of future equity growth and the lender agrees to voluntarily write down some of the loan balance. The plan is a little complicated and some homeowners may need a lawyer to get the deal down, but it could be well worth the trouble and expense, Broderick Perkins reports. Read more ...

Three's A Crowd

Right here in the middle of the credit meltdown, it looks like we're about witness a fight between two banks over Wachovia. Earlier this week Wachovia agreed to sell its banking operations to Citigroup, but Citigroup needed some help from FDIC to swing the deal. Now, Wells Fargo has stepped in and said it can buy Wachovia without help. Wachovia dumped Citigroup and signed the Wells Fargo deal Thursday night. Now, Citigroup has indicated it won't take that lying down. Wells Fargo and Citigroup are both in solvent positions because they aren't holding many bad mortgages, while Wachovia is. Meanwhile, state officials around the country say mortgage lenders still aren't doing enough to prevent even more mortgages from going bad. Read more...

"Do You Feel Lucky?"

The credit crisis is getting more dire by the day, or is it? Many consumers, trying to make sense of what's happening, are confused. In their gut they feel the proposed $700 billion bailout bill is nothing more than a naked attempt to stick taxpayers with the bill for Wall Street's mistakes. But what are the costs of doing nothing? We appealed to a wiser head than ours, in Dr. Stephen Rose, who explains our next steps, regardless of what they are, will be something of a roll of the dice. So to borrow a line from a Dirty Harry movie, the question we have to ask ourselves is, "do we feel lucky?" Read more...

Trick Or Treat

Uh-oh. With Halloween less than four weeks away, there is reason to pay attention when shopping for treats, and as you might guess, it has something to do with China and melamine. First, it was melamine-tainted milk that got into infant formula. That was less of a problem for Americans because the formula wasn't imported into the U.S. But lately that milk has been showing up in all sorts of other things, including candy. And it looks like some of that melamine treats have actually made it onto store shelves in the U.S. Read more...

Good News and Bad News

The good news is job cuts reported in September aren't up all that much, and don't appear to have been impacted by Wall Street's turmoil all that much. The bad news is, those numbers will probably go up this month. Even companies that have declared bankruptcy are still sorting out what segments of their businesses will continue under new ownership. So far, the job loss seems to be from a downsizing in the tech sector. Read more...

What A Difference A Month Makes

The current financial crisis that has gripped Wall Street and Washington but enraged Main Street was a long time in the making, but it seemed to break over us this month like a tidal wave. Just a couple of months ago we were complaining about record high gasoline prices. Seems kind of trivial now, doesn't it? Read more...

The Bailout's Back; Senate Revives Measure

The Senate passed a slightly gussied-up version of the plan Wednesday night. It now goes back to the House, where every member must stand before the voters in a few short weeks. A massive publicity effort has cranked up over the last few days, trying to convince Main Street that it should save Wall Street. Truman Lewis cuts through the smoke and mirrors ... and we invite your opinion. Read more ...

A Shocking Recall

Here's something you don't want on your breakfast menu – a nasty shock when you try to retrieve a piece of toast from your GE toaster. Not only that, the appliance can also be a fire hazard, according to the recall notice. Read more...

Not Much Of A Boost

Years ago parents piled the kids into the car and went on their merry way, not worrying too much about seat belts, not to mention child safety seats for infants and toddlers. Today, you wouldn't think of doing such a thing. There are even booster seats for small children who have outgrown child safety seats, to increase their safety when using seatbelts. But it turns out many of those booster seats aren't providing that much safety. Read more...

Graphics by Marisa Lisante. Photos, unless otherwise noted, by iStock.

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