The Best Business Stories of the Year

Annotation. "Spend! Spend! Spend! Where Did Tyco's Money Go?" by James B. Stewart, from "The New Yorker"The Decline and Fall of the Cult of Equity" by Andrew Hill, from the "Financial Times"The Death of One American Dream" by Shirleen Holt, from "The Seattle Times"Shattered Dynasty" by Suzanna Andrews, from "Vanity Fair"For Richer" by Paul Krugman, from "The New York Times Magazine"In Defense of the Boom" by Michael Lewis, from "The New York Times Magazine"The Telecom Boom's Dark Remnants" by Michael Guillen, from "The Oregonian"Rich Man, Poor Company" by Chris O'Brien and Jack Davis, from the "San Jose Mercury News"Deciding on Executive Pay: Lack of Independence Seen" by Diana B. Henriques and Geraldine Fabrikant, from "The New York Times"How It All Fell Apart" by Johnnie L. Roberts, from "Newsweek"Planet Starbucks" by Stanley Holmes, Drake Bennett, Kate Carlisle, and Chester Dawson, from "BusinessWeek"The Google Gods" by Stefanie Olsen, from CNET News.com"Up Against Wal-Mart" by Karen Olsson, from "Mother Jones"Is Our Children Learning?" by Julie Landry, from "Red Herring"The Investigation: How Eliot Spitzer Humbled Wall Street" by John Cassidy, from "The New Yorker"Inside the Rock" by Loch Adamson, from "Worth "Unfair Disclosure" by Bob Drummond, from "Bloomberg Markets"Inside McKinsey" by John A. Byrne, from "BusinessWeek"Alliance Capital's Bad Bets" by Edward Robinson, from "Bloomberg Markets"Where the Money's Really Made" by Andy Serwer, from "Fortune"The Economics of Empire" by William Finnegan, from "Harper's Magazine"The Debt Bomb" by Jonathan R. Laing, from "Barron's "Big Bucks, Small Town, Bond Haven" by Noelle Haner-Dorr, from "Orlando Business Journal"Flight into the Red" by SteveHuettel, from the "St. Petersburg Times"Full Price: A Young Woman, an Appendectomy, and a $19,000 Debt" by Lucette Lagnado, from "The Wall Street Journal"The Fall of Andersen" by Delroy Alexander, Greg Burns, Robert Manor, Flynn