Busting the Chip Cartel
U.S. antitrust prosecutors sent 15 executives from four companies to jail for price fixing of memory chips. There was a rub: The collusion failed. (June 2008)

The Subprime in the Schoolhouse
The mortgage contagion has hit state-run investment pools that handle $200 billion in funds for schools and cities. Taxpayers are in the dark. (Jan 2008)

Ethanol's Deadly Brew
Thousands of Brazilian sugar cane workers are injured and scores die each year in the rush to produce a fuel that Presidents Bush and Lula celebrate as a path to energy independence. (Nov 2007)

Unsafe Havens
U.S. money market funds have invested $11 billion in subprime debt, much of it managed by Bear Stearns. (Oct 2007)

The Insurance Hoax
Property insurers use secret tactics to cheat customers out of payments—as profits break records. McKinsey's advice to Allstate: Use "boxing gloves" instead of "good hands." (Sep 2007)

The Ratings Charade
Subprime mortgages have swept into the booming collateralized debt obligation market, often in CDOs awarded the highest grades by Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch. (Jul 2007)

The Poison in Your Pension
Banks are selling the riskiest CDO portions, known as toxic waste, to public pensions and state trust funds. (Jul 2007)

The Secret World of Modern Slavery
Steel used to build cars and appliances in the U.S. starts with forced labor in Brazil. (Dec 2006)

Playing the Odds
Doctors disagree on how to treat the more than 230,000 men who will learn they have prostate cancer this year in the U.S. (Sept 2006)

The Risk Nightmare
A new financial crisis may be brewing in the $62 trillion credit-default-swap market. The panic among traders as Bear Stearns faced bankruptcy shows how a meltdown in this opaque and unregulated market might occur.

Great Plains Gusher
Rampant energy demand and surging oil prices have turned a thin layer of rock beneath North Dakota's topsoil into one of the most enticing pockets of crude outside of Saudi Arabia.

Will the Doomsayers Have Their Depression?
David Tice, whose Prudent Bear Fund has gained amid the credit crisis, says the S&P 500 Index will plunge 40 percent within 24 months, stocks will enter a 15-year bear market and the U.S. economy may crash. Bulls say he's wrong—again.

Aegon Calling
A unit of the Dutch insurer is winning fees and building U.S. revenue by selling investments that may be bad bets for some retirees.

Chávez's Petrostate Blues
As their oil wealth surges, Venezuelans wait in lines to buy milk and beans. They're boxed in by exchange controls, fixed prices and sagging investment. To beat inflation, they buy cars.

Chile: Wine Woes
Vintners are falling on hard times as a rise in the peso forces them to choose between lower profits and price increases that may damage their reputation for bargain reds and whites.