This Boston Globe story on a Hong Kong family that decided to hire the "admissions consultant" firm IvyAdmit—led by a former Harvard professor—to get their kids into Harvard must be read to be believed. There is a lawsuit now, of course. Briefly:

Selling used cars is a pretty good business: you buy crappy old cars at rock-bottom prices from desperate people; sell these crappy cars to desperate people at inflated prices; repo the cars when the desperate people run out of money; and then sell the same cars all over again.

Congratulations are in order for the for-profit college industry, which won a major court ruling this week—a judge ruled that the Department of Education could not penalize these fake schools just because they routinely destroyed the financial future of their graduates. Here are the outrageous DoE rules, which were…

Heady development from the cutthroat world of slogan trademarking: Pepsi is officially not "The Choice of a New Generation" any more. Pepsi Co. poured countless millions into promoting the slogan, but stopped using it 20 years ago. Now, Ad Age reports that it has been scooped up by Malt-O-Meal! Which is called "MOM…

The New York Times Sunday Review section invites professional editorial cartoonists to draw cartoons for free and submit them to the paper; one will be selected to run each week. The winning cartoonist will be paid $250. Everyone else gets nothing.

Hating Lana Del Rey is now the internet's favorite past time. It culminated today when LDR burn book Hipster Runoff accused the plumped-lipped singer of stealing her song "Video Games" from some old Greek ditty whose name we can't even spell. He cites his source as unnamed "indie music message boards" which I thank…

Faith and begorrah, my ancestors on the Emerald Isle have finally launched their own version of Jersey Shore and it is something else. It's the same bad behavior with a fraction of the budget and way more brogues. How can we get this in America?

Lots of people enjoy traveling from their far-flung American hometowns here, to the "Big Apple," the "City That Never Sleeps," a place "Where Stars Are Born," and "You Will Probably Get Robbed." Please, gentle tourists, heed this Public Service Announcement: Do not let anyone "borrow" your credit card, here in…

Have you used a Chase ATM near Union Square in Manhattan this year? If you live in or have traveled to Manhattan any time this year, I bet that you have! So, you should know that your ATM card information has been... not definitely stolen. But possibly! I'm sure you're just fine.

How, big, grand, and downright awesome is the November issue of Rachel "Rachael" Ray's magazine, Every Day With Rachel "Rachael" Ray? So god damn awesome that they decided to charge subscribers double for it! From the NYT:

Lisa Belkin used to write a parenting blog called Motherlode for the New York Times. Earlier this month, she was hired by the Huffington Post. Now, she finally gets to spread her wings and allow her creativity to flourish.

I have an idea: I ask you to loan me some money. Then when it's time for me to pay you back, I'll charge you a fee, for holding that money, and another fee, for giving the money back to you. Welcome to the modern American consumer banking system.

You like your precious "free checking?" I bet you do. More like freeloader checking. Sadly, your "free checking" is hurting the needy banking industry, which is why it is going to disappear.

"Xanadu" was the original name of a plan dreamed up by Satan to blight the earth, in the form of an outrageously large, atrociously garish, criminally expensive, and blatantly unwanted shopping mall in New Jersey, Satan's earthly dominion. It costs nearly $4 billion! It's been in the process of being built for eight…

Law school is a huge ripoff—a catch-all haven for slackers and the existentially aimless, where you'll go into a huge amount of debt in order to surround yourself with beer pong-players and cute little dogs, and emerge unemployable, with nothing to do with your worthless new skills except sue to try to get your law…

Textbooks cost way too much money, as any college student knows. Take Peter Lawrence's The Making of a Fly, which for a moment last week would have run you a cool $23,698,655.93 on Amazon.

Sarah Lawrence is America's most expensive college. It'll cost you a cool $59,000 to send your whelp there to sit shoeless on a grass lawn, becoming a lesbian. Why so pricey? The school's president has all sorts of dubious explanations.

In your chilly Tuesday media column: Michael Ware's rugged face will not return to CNN, the NYT's remarkable government-friendly duplicity, the Time Inc. executive shakeup continues, Men's Fitness's editor is out, Chicago mag ripped off, and a reporter's mysterious death.

Soon you'll be able to pay $10 (or more) for a bottle of Glace Rare Iceberg Water taken straight from an iceberg in Greenland. What a deal! The producer says "It is so tasteless that it actually creates a taste."

Kim Kardashian's new credit card, The Kardashian Kard, has a terrible pricing model. It's a prepaid card, which means it targets kids. But it costs between $60 and $100 to activate—an unprecedented starter fee for prepaid cards.