It allows you to hand-wave weak sales or bad reviews and blame outside factors like pirates or server failures in the event the game struggles.

FORBES: EA Employee Chastises Company Over SimCity in Public Letter

If the housing market remains weak, we may have only seen the first wave of foreclosures on subprime loans.

FORBES: Subprime Foreclosures On The Rise?

Moreover, in fields like solar cells, travelling-wave tubes and read-out integrated circuits, there is either only one domestic supplier or a financially weak supplier.

ECONOMIST: Space technology