Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Bangkok this week. While she was fighting for stronger democracies, her staff went jewelry shopping. On Tuesday they visited Venus Jewelers, which is a five-minute walk from the American Embassy. They bought things like black-star sapphire-and-diamond gold pendant earrings for $650, a gold elephant pendant, a white-pearl ring, green-jade earrings, and gold earrings. In total, the ten staffers spent almost $4,000 in one hour. A Venus spokesperson said, “We didn’t expect them to spend much money because of the state of the economy." [WWD]