Certainly, banks played a role in helping Parmalat arrange elaborate financial structures, reminiscent of Enron's gymnastics.

ECONOMIST: Parmalat

They have built overly elaborate management structures that make it harder for people to do their jobs.

ECONOMIST: Schumpeter

Look for more such cases as baby boomers find flaws in the elaborate tax-avoidance structures their parents set up before they died.

FORBES: Getting Theirs

According to research published in the journal Science, the Anasazi -- the ancestors of modern Pueblo Indians, who built elaborate stone and adobe structures in the American Southwest -- also may have succumbed to decades of intense drought and cooler temperatures during the 13th century, in addition to factors like warfare and religious turmoil.

CNN: Past may hold clues to climate's future