A first-time homebuyer with limited earning power and a sketchy credit history would seem to have little in common with a blue chip corporation. But thanks to some creative investment vehicles they've now been tied together.

Like ripples from a pebble pitched into a pond, the federal law passed to combat white-collar crime has resulted in booming demand for the specialists who can comb through financial records and follow a trail of evidence.

A controversial regulation creates a "safe harbor" from antitrust laws for certain aspects of the relationship between suppliers and group purchasing organizations (GPOs) in the healthcare industry.

The dollar has been in sharp decline in recent months — the greenback is now worth less than the Canadian dollar, and against the euro, it has lost 60 percent of its value since 2001. A doomsday scenario has the U.S.

If the federal government really wants to stem the financial crisis, it must decisively address the huge — and still growing — number of delinquent and soon-to-be-delinquent mortgages, according to finance and real estate Professor Anthony Sanders.

In Part 2 of our five-part series on the subprime market, real estate finance Professor Anthony Sanders maps the occurrence of subprime loans in the metro Phoenix market.

It's understandable that some economic forecasters, spooked by gloomy indicators, say the U.S. is heading into or already in a recession — but they may be overlooking key factors that buffer negative forces, according to Richard Kovacevich, chairman of Wells Fargo & Co.

Within the span of a week, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have gone from saviors to Satans.

The ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite claims an impressive 95 percent market share. Yet since 2000, a free suite of software that includes spreadsheet and word processing programs similar to Excel and Word has evolved.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is moving to replace existing rules-based accounting standards with principles-based, international ones in filing requirements.