In a recent trip to China, we came across a shop that specialises in the sale and distribution of real jade. They shared with us some of the simple tips to determine if a piece of jade is real or fake.

Check out this article by Renee McGaw:

Colorado’s most recent alleged Ponzi scheme involved Merriman, owner of Aurora-based investment firm Market Street Advisors. Merriman allegedly raised $17 million to $20 million from at least 38 investors in Colorado and elsewhere, according to a civil complaint the SEC filed in federal district court in Denver on April 7.

The investors believed that Merriman was investing their money in stocks and options. Instead, he used it to support a lavish lifestyle, including purchases of classic cars, motorcycles, a cabin in Idaho and millions of dollars worth of art, including works by Rembrandt, the SEC claims. Funds obtained from later investors allegedly were used to repay earlier investors, which is the definition of a Ponzi scheme.

The South Sea Bubble was one of the earliest British stock market bubbles. But it was more than just a bubble, like the dot com bubble of recent years -- it was an example of a scam of massive proportions, with the snouts of businessmen, management, and government firmly in the trough.

Check out this video of new scams in the News. The reporters acknowledged that scams are not new, but people may fall for them especially in times of need. As we mentioned, scammers used baits and confidence tricks to target the weak points in people, e.g. greed, needs, love, etc.

Although the news reported them as new scams, they are not really new to us, e.g. secret shopper scams (fake check scam), lottery scams, and an elderly man was scammed $90k over a few years thinking that his money is invested in a South African gems (precious stone) business. Another possible scam is fake investment in Gold. A good point emphasised in the video is this "If you need to pay money to get money, it is a SCAM!" Well-said.

If you have never heard about this, there is a speculation that 2012 is the end of the world, aka Armageddon.

At least, according to the Mayan (Aztec) Calendar. Does it really mean end of the world, or a new beginning?

Check out this video. 5-Stars, thanks for sharing. Karma +100 points.

Searches on the internet have skyrocketed for the best list of home based businesses because of the current economy. Looking for additional income and setting up a business at home to make money online shows great foresight.

Beware when searching for a business to set up at home to make money online because there are many MLM companies currently marketing on the internet. They all sound good, but they all have one major flaw, they recruit people to sell that usually do not have any sales experience.

It seems as though many experts are predicting that house prices will level out or even fall over the following months Whilst this news will not be greeted with open arms by current home-owners, for those trying to get on to the housing ladder, it should mean a mortgage will be that little bit more affordable

Just like with any other business ventures, currency trading would involve a lot of different strategies. Although there are a lot of strategies to choose from, there would always be the popular ones, and one of which would be Forex scalping. So what is it really about scalping that majority of traders yearn to master it or at least know the principles behind it? Read on and find out!

Do you know someone whose past has you curious? If you're just mildly curious or there is a situation that makes it imperative that you reveal their past, running a background check may be the perfect solution.

Before the birth of the internet the only method that was reliable means to discover a person's history was to use the services of a private investigator. Now it is possible to use the internet to uncover the desired information, right from your home.

The stock market crash of 2008 is the worst that the world has ever seen in terms of the number of points erased from the major indices. At its lowest point to date, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost a historical 6749 points! To put this into perspective, the 2001 to 2003 bear market merely erased 4153 points off the Dow. In fact, many veteran economists and investors swear that this is the worst economic and stock market crisis since the Great Depression with unemployment rate already higher than the peak unemployment rate of the last crisis (according to unemployment rate of Oct 2008).

With so much economic uncertainty, more and more people are searching for ways to begin making money at home.

The problem is knowing which opportunity is the right option for you. There are so many different ways of making money at home; the trick is finding one that will make great income while still giving you the freedom you deserve. This type of work will provide you the income you want within time limits you set for yourself.

This article is not really informative, but it does give us some ideas how to do a background check about someone or a company.

Have you ever wanted to find out more about someone's past? You probably thought about running an instant background check on them. By running these checks, you can find out a lot about someone's history.

Social networks are websites like Facebook and Bebo which have become incredibly popular with kids, teens and adults all over the world They give you a great way of catching up with old friends or even just staying in touch with your current group of friends and co-workers

We love the starting line of this article:

Recession? What on earth are you talking about!

That’s the riposte you’ll be able to give when you understand what to do to ride out bad economic times and emerge triumphant. Commerce has not ground to a halt, after all. People and companies are just much more choosey about where and how to spend.