ExxonMobile

This year's NFL championship will set records both for stadium attendance and for event fund-raising, and North Texas corporations haven't been shy to put out the welcome mat for their favored clients. How much will communities and local businesses score from the big game?

What happens when companies pollute? Sometimes -- though not always -- they have to pay. BP's $20 billion fund to compensate for damages to the Gulf of Mexico ranks as the biggest environmental payout of all time. What other industrial giants make the list?

When you start looking at economics, there's a tendency to become bound up in the endless series of twists and connections. Every little thing in the economy seems to be linked to every other little thing, which means that any change or attempt at improvement is almost guaranteed to have endless,...