"They own. you know, the banks in this country, the newspapers. Just look at where the Jewish money is." That heedless remark, evoking the cliches of hoary antiSemitism, was the worst-aimed bomb of four-star Air Force General George S. Brown's 33-year military career. When it exploded last week, President Ford called Brown, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, into the Oval Office for a ten-minute reprimand. New York Republican Senator Jacob Javits demanded an investigation. Democratic Senator William ...

The buzz at Pivot25, a conference for mobile-phone software developers and investors held this June, is all about the future of money. Ben Lyon, the 24-year-old business-development VP of Kopo Kopo, wants $250,000 to produce his app for shops to process payments made by text message. Paul Okwalinga, 28, describes his money app — called M-Shop, it allows you to buy travel tickets and takeout via mobile phone — as "not reinventing the wheel but pimping it." Kamal Budhabhatti, 35, ...

Here's a literary parable for the 21st century. Lisa Genova, 38, was a health-care-industry consultant in Belmont, Mass., who wanted to be a novelist, but she couldn't get her book published for love or money. She had a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard, but she couldn't get an agent. "I did what you're supposed to do," she says. "I queried literary agents. I went to writers' conferences and tried to network. I e-mailed editors. Nobody wanted it." So Genova paid ...

The search for a cancer vaccine has largely been a painstaking, systematic chore of isolating some agent that might produce cancer-killing antibodies in human patients. Last week Swedish Immunologist Dr. Bertil Bjorklund announced that he was taking a shortcut. Rather than waiting for time-consuming analysis, he will inoculate humans with a complex substance that has produced favorable cancer antibody responses using rabbits and horses. Over a seven-month period. Bjorklund vaccine will be injected into 100 Swedish volunteers between 60 and ...

You're competing at Wimbledon, so you haven't gone home to China since you won the French Open. What do you expect the reception to be? I knew if I went back to China, many people would come to me and be crazy. So I [stayed] in Munich for four days and turned off my phone. After Melbourne I went back to China, and I couldn't concentrate on the tennis court. I didn't want to make the same mistake. One ...

Helen Clark of Kennebunk, Maine, is a smuggler of sorts. At 77, the retired registered nurse doesn't look the part. She still does volunteer work--administering flu shots, cutting toenails and organizing blood drives--at the Southern Maine Medical Center, where she worked for more than four decades, first in the maternity ward and later in the operating room. Clark is a model of frugality as well. She and her husband Dorrance raised 10 children on modest salaries. When he developed lung ...

The slopes of the Rockies beckoned for spring skiing. The airfare seemed reasonable enough on short notice: New York City to Denver for $386 round-trip. But United wasn't finished trying to pry money out of me. At the self-service check-in kiosk, I was offered a chance to upgrade to Economy Plus for $40. Did I have bags to check? The first was $25, the second $45. Did I want to shortcut the security line and board early with the swells, ...

If the U.S. economy had leaped from its worst five-month stretch in recent history to a record-breaking surge, Barack Obama could proudly announce, "The Great Recession is over." The country's finances have seen no such dramatic upturn, but in the movie business they're singing "Happy Days Are Here Again." The Hollywood hills are alive with the sound of money, and on this holiday weekend the cash registers were caroling with the top Memorial Day frame ever. Moviegoers ...

As the crisis in Syria continues, many observers are beginning to say that if the protesters cannot overthrow the regime, the economy will. With political uncertainty at a suffocating level, the Syrian pound has fallen against the U.S. dollar. As a result, Syrians are feverishly hauling their money out of banks — about 8% of all banks deposits have been withdrawn — and shifting it into more stable foreign currencies. GDP was predicted to grow at a ...

Sending your money to Nigeria — just not in response to a scam e-mail from a deposed ruler's secret son — might actually be a smart move. A growing number of Wall Street pros have been talking up Africa as the next great investment. Goldman Sachs asset-management chief Jim O'Neill, known for spotting the opportunity in Brazil, Russia, India and China and coining the term BRIC, says Africa has interesting potential. Top value investor Chuck Royce has been hunting in ...