Business & Economy, business and economy

By BARRIE McKENNA
Real estate agent Andrea Gaus knew the market was out of whack when the price of a typical four-bedroom house near good schools in the leafy Maryland suburbs outside Washington shot past the $1million mark.

"It got to the point where appreciation was so high that it priced people out of the market," Gaus said.

But the peak has passed, and the consequences of the deflating bubble are buffeting the housing market, in Washington and across the U.S.

What sold in a weekend here last year is taking months to unload.

By BRUCE FREEMAN
Dear Professor Bruce: I am considering taking some entrepreneurial studies courses at a local university. My long-term goal is to go into business for myself, but people tell me that either you have it or you don't and that taking courses won't make you an entrepreneur.

By M.B. OWENS
Career experts say most job seekers do not know how to effectively seek employment. Understanding the five major ways can help you develop a search strategy.

Each of the five major ways utilizes traditional methods and today's technology.

By TOM ABATE
Silicon Valley has weathered business cycles and foreign competition, but in recent months, a cloud has appeared on its horizon _ a shortage of the highly purified form of silicon essential to making most computer chips and solar cells.

Produced by a handful of chemical plants around the world, this substance, technically known as "polysilicon," is made by putting pulverized quartz through some extraordinary refining processes to create one of the purest materials ever known.

By ROBERT COLLIER
Underneath the high, scrub-covered rangeland of northwest Colorado is the world's biggest oil field. Getting the oil out of the ground, however, is one of the world's biggest headaches.

The area's deposits of oil shale are believed to be larger than all the oil reserves of the Middle East.

By MAX MESSMER
"QUALIFICATIONS: I'm a multitasked individual."

In this day and age, aren't we all?

There are certain terms and buzzwords that seem to be included in nearly every resume or cover letter.

By STEPHEN WINDHAUS
It is so common for many start-up companies to take the approach that the best way to beat the competition from the very outset is to establish lower prices for like products and services.

By KATHLEEN PENDER
Few chief executives are more synonymous with their companies than Apple Computer Inc.'s Steve Jobs. He helped rejuvenate the company he co-founded, first with candy-colored iMacs, then the iPod and now Intel-based computers, all the while skippering another hugely successful company, animation studio Pixar.

By BRENT JANG
Canada's airlines want their crews to be exempted from proposed U.S. rules that would force them to go through high-tech fingerprint screening, an extra layer of airport security that the carriers fear will delay flights.

Canadian pilots and flight attendants already undergo rigorous security checks, and it would be inefficient to add yet another U.S.

By DAVID ARMSTRONG
The days of languorous lounge lizards exhaling curling wisps of cigarette smoke in hotel bars or lingering over cigars in the lobby _ already a thing of the past in states with no-smoking laws _ could be numbered nationwide, too.