Liz Claiborne Inc. (NYSE: LIZ) dropped a bombshell today, announcing that it will move decidedly down-market and give up the department store business that made the name an icon.

Instead, Liz Claiborne and Claiborne will be sold exclusively through JCPenney in the United States, and the much-anticipated Isaac Mizrahi-designed Liz Claiborne New York line will be sold exclusively by QVC.

In a press release, the company touted the financial prospects for the deal: "As a result of these agreements, the company expects the Liz Claiborne wholesale brand franchise to swing from a meaningful adjusted operating loss in 2009 to a targeted adjusted operating profit in 2010."

Popular home shopping television network QVC will be at Obama's inauguration this month to sell a full line of "limited edition" and "collectible" trinkets. The network will broadcast live from the festivities.

QVC has already sold more than 100,000 Obama items. The Associated Press reports that "Among the items QVC has been selling since the election are a Barack Obama stamp collection, with stamps from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Grenada, St. Vincent and The Grenadines ($38.88). One set has an Obama-Biden half dollar coin and a 1939 stamp depicting George Washington taking the first oath of office ($23.75). An Obama throw blanket is marked down from $41 to $36.84."

It appears to be a case of life imitating art: With just a couple weeks left before the election -- and Senator McCain's presidential hopes looking increasingly dismal -- McCain appeared on Saturday Night Live in a skit featuring him and Tina Fey as Sarah Palin hocking collectibles. Watch the video below:

Move over, American Girl dolls and corporate parent Mattel (NYSE: MAT). Ellis Island dolls are vying for the collectible budget of hyphenated Americans with a unique version of Americana through various online channels.

What may have been the first wave of Ellis Island dolls surfaced as early as 1992 after the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation let Lenox, today known as Lenox Group (OTCBB: LENX), create a limited edition of six dolls to mark the centennial of Ellis Island. With porcelain heads, hands and legs and costumes, the dolls each measured 1.5 feet tall or slightly smaller and portrayed immigrants of various nationalities, such as "Eva," from Germany, "Stefan" of Poland and "Katrina" of Russia. Artist Pat Thompson served as designer for three of the dolls, which originally cost $152 a piece.

While Lenox Group has created many art ceramics, collectibles and figurines over its 120-year history, since November 23 it has been reorganizing under Chapter 11.

This post is part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst in Money 2008 feature.

The digital revolution? The frugalista movement? Social networking? Or As-seen-on-TV products? 2008 has changed the landscape of how we recreate, communicate, shop, and dream. What product would you consider the Best Breakout Product of 2008?

Amazon Kindle

Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) Kindle is not the first attempt to replace the paper book with an electronic reader, but it has succeeded (and how -- even now, over a year since its launch, the wait time for a new unit is a couple of months) where others failed for several reasons. The first is the reading experience. The Kindle's cutting-edge electronic paper technology provides crisp, clean print in any light conditions. The device is thin and light enough to carry anywhere, and can store hundreds of books at your fingertips.

The second reason for its success is the access to a huge library of literature, which can be accessed via a built-in wireless link (no computer needed) through the Sprint cell phone system. Virtually all new books are available in Kindle format, and many, many others (190,000 and counting). Top newspapers such as the New York Times also offer Kindle subscriptions, and schools are beginning to adopt it as the platform for electronic versions of textbooks. In the race to lead the transition to electronic books, Amazon's Kindle has broken free of the pack.

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and check out other Battle of the Brands posts.

The battle between QVC and HSN is really about celebrity entrepreneurs.

QVC counts the likes of Joan Rivers and Marie Osmond in its stable of shills. Suzanne Somers and Susan Lucci hock their wares on HSN, which is owned by Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ: IACI) conglomerate.

Somewhere around the 1980s or 1990s, Rivers lost her sense of shame and began opening up about everything, including her numerous plastic surgeries. Rivers still is hysterical. Typical is a recent blog post about Passover in which she joked that people eat Matzo (unleavened bread) "Because, you pig, you inherited your mother's big, fat thighs and you should lay off the carbs for at least one day every year."

Anyway, you just gotta love Rivers. She's survived her husband's suicide, the scorn of Johnny Carson and the ridicule of celebrities on the red carpet. Granted that I won't be buying products such as the Joan Rivers Lilly of the Valley Bee Pin, which according to the QVC website "shines with orange and green epoxy enamel and cream simulated pearls as the buds."

Sounds lovely, no?

Jessica Vascellaro of the Wall Street Journal [subscription required] reports that the Home Shopping Network HSN is ready to announce a deal with Satellite-TV operator EchoStar Communications Corp (NASDAQ: DISH) to allow its subscribers to buy merchandise through their remote controls rather than making a phone call.

The deal with Echostar, which has 12 million subscribers, is expected to be fully launched nationwide in a few weeks. HSN, owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ: IACI) hopes to offer the "Shop By Remote" service through other satellite and cable operators in the future.

A few years ago, a similar concept by HSN's rival, QVC, owned by Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ: LINTA), launched an interactive TV shopping service in the .

Analysts believe it could be years before this concept takes off. I know the technology already exists on current set-top boxes. On my set-top box for Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), I could order movies and have them charged to my monthly bill, without taking out my wallet - without even getting up.

I believe this is going to be the standard format for making purchases in today's world. With the development of technology, people will use less "paper money" on a daily basis. My handy ATM card can swipe for everything and even give me cash if I really needed it from millions of machines around the globe. My job pays through direct deposit and I have most of my bills paid automatically on certain dates.

While I can't stand the HSN or its competitors, I think they're finally reaching out to the younger generation's need for instant gratification and their impulsive shopping habits. Think of everything you could buy from your couch without even calling someone! Now we just have to wait for a teleportation device to be made and we'll never have to see the delivery man again!

What do you think? If you had the ability to use this service, would you?

This post is written as part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst 2006. You can vote for Suze Orman as the most annoying money expert.

For some of us, certain names come more readily to mind than others when a phrase like the "most annoying money expert" is bandied about. For her critics, financial guru Suze Orman is one such name.

Besides being the author of best-selling personal finance books and the host of CNBC's The Suze Orman Show and QVC's Suze Orman's Financial Freedom, Suze (rhymes with doozy, not snooze) has won two daytime Emmy Awards. A pitchwoman par excellence, she has raised millions of dollars for PBS. She's also a Certified Financial Planner who has worked at both Prudential and Merrill Lynch. With well-known catchphrases such as "Truth creates money. Lies destroy it," and "People first, then money, then things," she's a popular columnist and public speaker -- a favorite with Oprah and Larry King.

Orman claims that she does not multitask, which she says leads to mediocrity. While having neither a husband nor children to distract her, Orman also claims to have no personal assistant and no permanent employees -- she's a one woman show.

She has a reputation for offering practical, easy-to-understand, and down-to-earth financial advice that's nonjudgmental towards those who have made poor decisions. But her advice can also verge on New Age mystical. For instance, Orman sometimes asks audience members to rip a dollar bill in half. Most cringe at the idea, which she claims is due to that fact that money has an energy field that other objects don't have, almost as if money were alive.