About the Authors

Justin Fox: I'm the business and economics columnist for TIME. Before joining the magazine in January 2007, I spent more than a decade writing and editing for Fortune, which is in the same building (but, crucially, on a different elevator bank). I was Fortune's chief economics writer, but also covered topics ranging from international business to technology to investing to high-end Japanese cuisine. In 2000 and 2001, I was the magazine's Europe editor, based in London. I started this blog, the Curious Capitalist, on CNNMoney.com (Fortune's Internet home) in 2006.

Way back when, I also worked at the American Banker, the Birmingham News, and the (Tulare, Calif.) Advance-Register. I grew up outside San Francisco, went to college at Princeton, and lived in the Netherlands for a while. I'm married and have a son, and we live in New York.

Oh, and I'm working on a book. Have been for years. Its tentatively titled The Myth of the Rational Investor, and HarperBusiness signed me up to write it on the basis of this article in Fortune. It's almost done, I swear.

E-mail me at capitalist@timemagazine.com

Barbara Kiviat just celebrated her 5-year anniversary covering business and economics for TIME magazine. Over the years, she's written stories about Ben Bernanke, Starbucks, Atlantic City, the zany worlds of real estate, private equity and hedge funds, ING Direct, J. Crew, the people who are buying up our public roads, how Verizon really got her angry by asking for her Social Security number, and why you shouldn't go shopping when you're sad. It's a pretty good gig.

Before this, she worked at Mutual Funds magazine, where she got to know everything she possibly could about 529 college savings plans. She also used to work at The Arizona Republic newspaper in Phoenix. Her most indelible memory from that experience is standing in an asphalt parking lot on a 113-degree day accosting Honeywell employees about losing their jobs. She now very happily lives in Manhattan. Barbara grew up in Salisbury, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, so even though she's a vegetarian, she knows a whole lot about growing chickens.