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After the publication of one of my recent articles (BusinessWeek, 8/14/08 ), I received many passionate e-mails from parents and educators thanking me for writing the piece and sharing their beliefs in the importance of instilling the entrepreneurial spirit in young people.

Each night during a recent sales trip to Rio de Janeiro, Black & Veatch Senior Vice-President Michael Perry would review the day's progress over dinner with several junior staffers accompanying him. After watching Perry in action, they had plenty of questions: Why had he worked toward a compromise when the Brazilian client clearly wasn't going to budge? How was he accounting for the different cultural perspectives of the British, Japanese, and South Korean businessmen who were potential partners in the deal?

David Giantomasi says he vigilantly paid his credit-card bills each month. Even if he could only make the minimum payment, he made sure to get all his monthly payments squared away. So he was shocked when the interest rate on his Chase credit card suddenly jumped to 19.99% from 7.99%. When Giantomasi called the card issuer to demand an explanation, he was enraged. He was told that overall turmoil in the credit markets meant higher rates for a number of customers.

Robert Curet, the owner of Little Wonder Studio in Burbank, Calif., has all the high-powered software you'd expect a modern toy developer to use: Rhino 4.0 for industrial modeling, Autodesk 3ds Max for animation, ZBrush for digital sculpting, and Maxon Cinema 4D for graphics, for starters. But one of his most recent creations didn't require any of them. Instead, Curet turned to the free tools available in the virtual world called Second Life, sketching out a model and mechanisms for a windup toy and making a rough estimate of the size of the parts. ...

Four days before Senator Hillary Clinton conceded the Democratic nomination to Senator Barack Obama, she made a final, thinly veiled appeal to her supporters for cash. "I hope you'll go to my Web site," she said. "Share your thoughts with me, and help in any way you can."

On Wall Street, the yearlong credit crunch continues to hog headlines. For example, the future is still in question for investment banks like Lehman Brothers and mortgage financiers (BusinessWeek.com, 8/22/08) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac .

Upscale brands like BMW , Saab, and others are cutting back on leasing for some of the same reasons Chrysler quit leasing outright, effective Aug. 1. Ford Motor and General Motors have also said they are taking incentive money out of leasing and putting it toward cut-rate loans and cash rebates.

House hunting? Forget the listing agents and classified ads. Now you can find homes for sale with a few taps on a smartphone.

From Standard & Poor's weekly investing newsletter The Outlook

An entire industry has been built up around the pursuit of happiness. A stroll past any bookstore window demonstrates the explosive popularity of the feel-good, self-help movements of recent years. And whether these products are genuine paths to ultimate happiness or just pleasure-peddling scams, the trend seems likely to hold.

Happiness hunters have done it again. They've used an army of pollsters and a mountain of data to uncover the world's happiest countries. But this year, there are some unexpected winners -- for unexpected reasons.

Shortly after graduating from Harvard University in 1988, Lydia Icke dived into a high-powered career as an investment banker at Citibank . An ambitious undergraduate, she snapped up one of the hardest jobs she could find, she said.

My avatar -- a bronzed brunette in jeans and a purple sweater -- recently visited an island in the virtual world where INSEAD, an international business school with real-world classes in France and Singapore, is building a virtual campus. Although she nearly drowned on a guided tour of the still-under-construction island, it was an eye-opening experience.

Sitting in his new office overlooking Austin's bustling 6th Street, Spacial Audio Solutions CEO Bryan Payne can't help but see a silver lining to the topsy-turvy economy: cheap rent. Last year, Payne hunted for office space in this same area and came up empty-handed.

With home prices tumbling in some of the country's most attractive second-home destinations, it might be tempting to pick up a bargain on a beach cottage, a cabin in the woods, or a pad close to the Vegas strip. But wait. It may make more sense to rent and take the financial stress out of owning a vacation home.

Jazmin Zavala, an office cleaner in King of Prussia, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb, expected a regular shift when she reported to work July 31. But her day turned to worry when her employer, ABM Industries , called a mandatory employee meeting at 4:30 p.m., the time workers usually collect their checks.

The sports industry in the U.S. is a $200-billion-plus powerhouse, with superstar athletes, lucrative endorsement deals, and all the free press an ego can handle. But if you're not the rare athlete who can hit a 93-mph fastball or sink a 15-foot jumper, how are you supposed to cash in on such a lucrative business?

A heated discussion is taking place in the economic blogsphere over the rival tax plans of Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. Of course, the battle of rival tax blueprints has been in force ever since the two hopefuls sewed up their respective nominations, but a new round of fighting recently erupted. A number of important points have been made. But the fiscal policy dispute, while informative and fascinating, has focused too much on tax regimes and not enough on the real challenge: health care. ...

Why is it so hard to stimulate innovation inside big corporations, while at the same time VCs are awash in innovative business plans and people?

How do you get ahead on the job when the labor market is crumbling? Michael Donaldson, an entertainment lawyer and author of Fearless Negotiating (McGraw-Hill; $16.95), says workers often have more power than they think they do, even in tough times. Personal Finance Editor Lauren Young asked Donaldson for negotiating tips.

About two years ago I landed my dream job as a territory manager for a midsize technology company. I knew the sister of my prospective boss; she had been a business partner of mine for a number of years. She is a very relaxed, hardworking salesperson, and is well-known in the industry for being professional and effective. Unfortunately, the calm, effective, professional gene seemed to have skipped my friend's sibling. I took the job, and in a short period of time, I found that I was working for the classic toxic boss.

Growing evidence suggests American consumers, businesspeople, and political leaders should all be bracing for double-digit inflation, probably as early as 2009.

As a Gen Xer who has worked in Silicon Valley for nearly a decade, I've been at small startups like Netflix and large corporations like Plantronics, where I'm currently manager of public relations. I've cheered on Gen Yers as they've entered the workforce and admired their self-confidence and willingness to push back on authority. (I know two who have actually requested new bosses!)

Gen Y has been described as "Gen X on steroids." Is it stereotypical of us to see a new generation with eyes of the previous and try to confine them within definitions of the past? Or is it an effort to use familiar terms while communicating across generations? It's like we acknowledge the similarities but still whine about the differences. And it seems that our collective memory is so short that we forget our times and do not enjoy finding ourselves on the other side of the coin. ...

I'm leery of saddling a whole generation -- whether it's boomers (the group I belong to), Xers, or Ys -- with a lot of categorizations. Any generation is made up of individuals with unique talents, quirks, strengths, and weaknesses. But if we're going to talk about Gen Ys as a whole, let's say this: They're not as two-dimensional as we've been led to believe.

Never was the generational divide more starkly exposed than when we posted a piece by Tammy Erickson at BusinessWeek.com on why Gen Xers are unhappy at work. We received more than 350 responses from readers sharing their own experiences, frustrations, aspirations, and solutions. Below is just a tiny sampling of the stories you told us about being sandwiched between boomers and Yers in the workplace.

When I tell people I work at an insurance company, I feel I need to explain myself. Sure, I work in insurance, but I'm "in insurance" about as much as a Giants Stadium security guard is "in professional football." See, I'm a temp. An outsider. My industry? Survival.

If you answered "no," I would be surprised. Anyone who works for an organization that has more than a dozen employees has to deal with bureaucracy.