Articles to read together — see “The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia” by Matt Taibbi (and also recent posts on Taibbi’s blog at Rolling Stone) and also “Rigged Rates, Rigged Markets” at the New York Times. The behemoth global financial houses are rigging the system in a way that is “virtually indistinguishable from the kind of thuggery practiced for decades by the Mafia, which has long made manipulation of public bids for things like garbage collection and construction contracts a cornerstone of its business,” Taibbi writes.

When you’re done with that, see Poor Land in Jail as Companies Add Huge Fees for Probation.