You can't get to the town of Ruili by plane or train. There is only the road. Or, to place Ruili more precisely, two roads. One winds down through the rolling hills of Yunnan province's far west. The other comes up from hermetic Burma. Ruili is where the roads meet, and much else besides: two countries, one expanding in all directions, the other penetrated only at soft spots such as Ruili. More than two ethnicities intermingle: Han ...

You can't get to the town of Ruili by plane or train. There is only the road. Or, to place Ruili more precisely, two roads. One winds down through the rolling hills of Yunnan province's far west. The other comes up from hermetic Burma. Ruili is where the roads meet, and much else besides: two countries, one expanding in all directions, the other penetrated only at soft spots such as Ruili. More than two ethnicities intermingle: Han ...

Shai Agassi, the founder of Better Place, the most sophisticated electric-car enterprise in the world, projects the ebullient confidence of a man facing a giant wave of money. "Within less than this decade the No. 1–selling car in the world will be the electric car," he says. "It's the biggest financial opportunity the world has ever seen. We're seeing a $10 trillion shift in an industry in less than a decade. It's the Internet, and add another ...

Anders Dahlvig recently hit the 10-year mark as CEO of Ikea. Under his leadership, the Swedish furniture giant has nearly tripled its number of stores and employees, and committed to a broad new slate of policies on the environment. The company maintains a mixed reputation on quality, though, in the midst of an increasingly tough economic climate. In a series of recent conversations, Dahlvig spoke with TIME's Jeremy Caplan about why the tough business climate works in ...

The budget is the main arena in which the nation as a whole decides on the allocation of resources. What we spend money on — and what we don't — reflects what we value as a nation. But making those choices isn't at all simple. It is in the federal budget that the breakdown of consensus in America is most vivid and most dangerous. One side of the political divide wants to cut taxes and shrink existing ...

People say money doesn't buy happiness. Except, according to a new study from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, it sort of does — up to about $75,000 a year. The lower a person's annual income falls below that benchmark, the unhappier he or she feels. But no matter how much more than $75,000 people make, they don't report any greater degree of happiness. Before employers rush to hold — or raise — everyone's salary to $75,000, the study ...

Late in 2005, developer Peter Wells was in Tucson, Ariz., ready to begin selling units in a condominium with his partner Marcel Arsenault. He didn't have to do much selling: people were camped in front of the condo office, begging to buy. It was a sign from the real estate gods, says Wells: "We started selling everything." Not only did the pair unload their real estate portfolio; they also began betting against anything real-estate-related. They shorted homebuilders and mortgage companies. ...

With an assist from Duarte, Reagan reassures Congress and critics The Reagan Administration wants to give billions of dollars to Central America, it says, to support liberty and political pluralism. Yet democracy in Central America is a patchy business at best. From among the few authentic democrats in the region, the U.S. has staked most of its money and hopes on Jos Napolen Duarte, who will assume El Salvador's presidency on Friday. Last week he came to Washington for four ...

In the hierarchy of activities that people despise, getting a car repaired is in pole position, sort of the auto equivalent of having a tooth pulled, except you bleed money and don't get a smiley sticker as you leave. Garry Rosenfeldt, marketing-research director for Midas International, knew this. After their cars were fixed, only 1 in 4 Midas customers returned to buy other services. Even dentists see their customers more often than that. To ascertain what might make ...

Personal-finance guru Suze Orman is famous for her no-holds-barred advice. And in her latest book, The Money Class , she urges recession-battered Americans to be just as honest with themselves. Says Orman, whose past eight books have all been New York Times best sellers: "The whole purpose of this book is to learn how to create a new American dream, a dream that is based in reality, not fantasy." TIME spoke with Orman about credit cards, student loans and the death ...