By JIM DOWNING, Sacramento Bee

As the federal government's bailout of the financial sector takes shape, where's the smart money going? The Sacramento Bee asked five finance and business experts what they've been doing with their own investments in the last two weeks, and how the bailout has changed their thinking about the future.

Brad Barber

Professor of Finance

From nuts to milk, the fight for the right to eat raw, unpasteurized food is broadening.

This week, a collection of 15 California almond farmers and brokers sued the federal government in an effort to overturn a year-old pasteurization requirement that has effectively banned the sale of California-grown organic raw almonds in U.S. stores and via the Web.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Sandra Henderson has shopped for groceries at Raley's for 30 years. So what was she doing wheeling a cart into the West Sacramento, Calif. Wal-Mart Supercenter on Tuesday?

"It's the economy," she said.

Your carbon emissions will soon be good in Quebec.

This week, officials from California, six other Western states and four Canadian provinces released the draft of a plan to set up a vast market for greenhouse-gas emissions that aims to ease the burden of the war on global warming.

Produce industry leaders, furious over the muddled federal investigation of a major salmonella outbreak that led to hundreds of millions of dollars of dumped tomatoes, are demanding the government be more certain the next time it banishes tons of vegetables to the garbage.

Now the feds may be coming for your salsa.

As the trail goes cold in the Food and Drug Administration's investigation of a nationwide outbreak of salmonella first thought to be due to tainted tomatoes, the agency has expanded its focus to include hot peppers, onions and cilantro.

After falling more than a third from March's record highs, wholesale egg prices have shot up 27 percent since mid-May.

That's an unusual jump for this time of year, when egg prices tend to slump.

Economists tie the increase to ever-higher corn prices, which have made egg farmers hesitant to expand their flocks.

Fresh tomatoes at the market pass through many hands before we sink our teeth into them.

Most of the time we can bite with the confidence that they're not going to make us sick. But, as the salmonella outbreak shows, the food safety system isn't fail-safe. Harmful bacteria can colonize a tomato at many points on the path from vine to salad bowl.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- As flooded rice fields the length of the Sacramento Valley turn emerald, farmers who watched in disbelief this spring as prices broke record after record now face a stomach-churning decision:

Sell? Or hold?

As the weak dollar makes the fruits of American farms ever more attractive to overseas buyers, big exporters like California's Blue Diamond Growers are finding it tougher to get their products to far-off customers.