Question: What do you make of the Madoff sentence? Paul Solman: I’m tempted to say that, at 150 years, he may have gotten off lightly. In today’s email came the regular newsletter of one of the world’s most provocative and…

Question: Who pays the rating agencies, like Moody’s? What is the source of their income? Paul Solman: That’s been the scandal. They’re paid by the issuers of the bonds and stocks they rate. They thus have a huge incentive not…

As her husband, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, faces public disgrace over revelations that he frequented a prostitution ring, Silda Spitzer now shoulders a burden familiar to political wives throughout history. Essayist Anne Taylor Fleming reflects on this role.