NPR: Business Story of the Day Podcast

One key part of the $700 billion rescue plan requires the government to take "toxic assets" off the books of financial institutions. The Treasury Department has said it will use market mechanisms where possible, such as reverse auctions. But a reverse auction, in which the government agrees to purchase a specific number of assets at the lowest price, is complicated.

The Wall Street bailout plan was supposed to calm financial nerves and markets. But since it was passed by Congress, the Dow Jones industrial average has plunged more than 1,000 points. Many investors are looking for guidance from their financial advisers.

The man tasked with heading the government's $700 billion bailout plan is used to complex problems. Before becoming a vice president at Goldman Sachs and later, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's right-hand man Neel Kashkari, 35, was a rocket scientist.

U.S. policymakers trying to fix the nation's housing crisis may have a blindspot: rural America. A company relied on for foreclosure data says it doesn't report on 900 rural counties. Critics say the omission may foil attempts to help homeowners.

The Wall Street crisis has a lot of ordinary investors worried about their portfolios. Knight Kiplinger, editor in chief of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine and the Kiplinger Newsletter, says people should ride out the bear market. If investors want a safer environment, he says, they should move their money into CDs or money market funds.

The third quarter of the financial year just ended, and investors are starting to get their latest mutual fund statements. "I wouldn't say any of the stock categories came out unscathed, except for probably real estate," one analyst says.

The financial crisis on Wall Street is leading to lots of anxiety among investors, especially retirees. Many financial experts are calling on investors to be patient and wait for the stock markets to rebound, but retirees don't have the luxury of taking that advice. Now those experts are cautioning would-be retirees in their 60s to keep on working.

A group of 200 economists has signed a petition against the $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan. They believe the government must act but they call the sweeping rescue a broad response to a narrow problem.

The rescue package for the financial sector failed in Congress Monday. Stock markets fell overseas. Now many people are wondering what will happen next with the U.S. economy. Will all those apocalyptic predictions come true now that the bailout bill has failed?

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is more than just the man of the moment. He's likely the man who'll get the credit or the blame depending on what happens with the economy. Paulson is the chief architect of the government's $700 billion bailout plan. One friend says Paulson is actually better under pressure.

A set of equations drawn up by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke considered the effects of shocks to the financial system. A co-creator says that the model predicts disaster if there's not a quick intervention, and it guided Bernanke to take action now.

Skittish about the stock market and credit crisis? There's another place to park your money: collectible tractors. The sector is growing like never before it has even been attracting European investors.

Amid all the uncertainty on Wall Street, investor Warren Buffett is giving a $5 billion vote of confidence to Goldman Sachs. The investment bank is considered to have a relatively strong balance sheet, but its stock has dropped sharply in the fallout of the subprime mortgage disaster.

Bush administration officials want Congress to approve a $700 billion aid package for Wall Street, and they want it to happen soon. Democrats say they're willing to help shore up the financial markets, but they want a bill that includes relief for homeowners and taxpayers as well.

Leverage is a word heard frequently during the current financial crisis. It means borrowing heavily to maximize investment returns. The problem is that leverage was used to invest in mortgages that went bad. The new buzzword in the financial world is deleverage.

After the $85 billion bailout of American International Group, a question remains: What went wrong with the giant insurer? The problem may stem from AIG's efforts to apply familiar business practices to unfamiliar ventures.

The government stepped in to help Bear Stearns and recently orchestrated a takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. How far will the government go to rescue other firms like Lehman Brothers? Business journalist Joe Nocera talks with host Scott Simon about the moral and practical hazards.

Conventional wisdom holds that during economic downturns, hemlines drop and colors darken. Simon Doonan, fashion writer and Barney's creative director, talks with Renee Montagne about fashion week as an economic indicator.

Since it turns out that genes play a big role in how an individual responds to certain drugs, the pharmaceutical industry is looking at genetics. Entrepreneurs are developing and marketing products to try to determine whether a particular drug will work for a patient.

Wilmington, N.C., on Monday became the first major city to permanently switch TV broadcasts from analog to digital. Most of the country will make the transition to digital TV on Feb. 17.

Thanks to the trade deficit, every day China ends up with a billion new U.S. dollars. By buying bonds from the mortgage giants, it has a reliable way to send those U.S. dollars back to us so we can buy more Chinese stuff.

With the NFL season under way, the New England Patriots are asking fans, "Are you ready for some shopping?" Team owner Robert Kraft has built a huge new mall next to Gillette Stadium that costs as much as the stadium itself: more than $300 million.

The bike messenger business is changing. Electronic document transfer especially for legal documents has cut into the business. But now, high gas prices and new bikes that can carry bigger loads mean that bike messengers are branching into bigger deliveries.

David Wessel, economics editor of The Wall Street Journal, talks about the beleaguered housing finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. "If they get bailed out, then mortgages are easier to get than if they go under, and that's what this is all about," he says.

With oil prices soaring, Ky-Tenn Oil Inc. is digging deep to find forgotten profits, reactivating low-producing wells to eke out the last 150 barrels or so.

Times are tough; city officials in Duluth, Minn. are hoping the sale of a stained glass Tiffany window can help solve some of the city's financial woes. The window, which depicts Longfellow's fictional princess Minnehaha, has been a part of Duluth's landscape since 1893.

An image of Barack Obama by artist Shepard Fairey has become one of the most popular images of the campaign. But Fairey, whose posters have helped raise money for the campaign, says he has little patience for people who have copied the image for peronal profit or resold his posters at huge markups on eBay.

There is growing concern that the home foreclosure crisis may worsen next year as lenders are hit by a new category of loans that haven't caused much trouble. Bank analysts say they expect delinquency rates on so-called "option ARMs" to continue rising, and those loans could cause as much trouble as subprime loans did.

One Laptop Per Child was an ambitious promise to children in the third world. The project has had trouble with its leadership, finances and competitors. Instead of the legacy of education for third-world children, the One Laptop Per Child program has spurred an industry in low-cost laptops for consumers.

The retail giant defines produce grown in the same state as "locally grown." But advocates of locally grown food say only produce with short traveling times deserve the label.