This regulation required the balance sheets of financial institutions to list assets at their current market prices every day, rather than their historical costs or their expected values based on their probable future income streams.

FORBES: Media Parrot Obama Financial Crisis Campaign Propaganda

On his list of the most actively traded tobacco stocks all have strong balance sheets and other virtues (see table).

FORBES: Marlboro Man

Or you could go to Personalfund, plug in your current holdings and get back a list of investments that should--based on historical patterns--balance out your portfolio and reduce the risk that it will underperform the market.

FORBES: Custom-Made Mutual Funds

The new bylaws, written with guidance from the Paris Bourse, require balance sheets that meet international accounting standards and list a minimum of 25% of the company's shares.

FORBES: Rebuilding a market

Banks do not make the list because their balance-sheets are so leveraged that lobbying expenditures are small as a percentage of assets.

ECONOMIST: Ask what your country can do for you

On balance though, the fulfilment, and with luck demise, of the waiting-list pledge should be welcomed.

ECONOMIST: Health