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Marketplace for Monday, October 1, 2012
Oct 1, 2012

Marketplace for Monday, October 1, 2012

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Macy's has recently announced plans to hire on about 80,000 seasonal workers to staff its stores and call centers in the 2012 Holiday season. Does this mark the economy's very-merriest Christmas since the Recession? Also, political ads and the ones that sell you corn chips finally collide: Tostitos, USA Today, 7-11, Boston Market are all using the election to sell you stuff. We take a look at what that means for consumers (and voters). Plus, Marketplace's Rob Schmitz begins his series on China's migrant workers at the site of the recent Foxconn riot, and Adrienne Hill asks whether the explosion of a Japanese chemical plant is poised to cause the Great Global Diaper Shortage of 2012.

 

Segments From this episode

Grocery stores squeezed by new competition

Oct 1, 2012
For the past 30 years Thompson shopped at her local grocery, a Keyfood that sat just a couple of blocks away. It was an easy walk -- but in June the Keyfood closed.

The end of the Great Migration: A factory town's downward slide

Oct 1, 2012
Nearly a quarter of a billion Chinese workers relocated from the country's interior to the factory towns on the coast in one of the largest human migration the planet has ever known. Now, 20 years later, the great migration is drawing to a close.

Oh, to live in a swing state

Oct 1, 2012
Take a journey through "campaign land" in the latest from our series examining election issues in swing states

The product election

Oct 1, 2012
Companies are using the presidential election as a theme for their ads
A screenshot from a recent Tostidos ad that makes the most of the campaign season.
YouTube

Holidays will bring more hiring

Oct 1, 2012
Several big retailers will increase their ranks of seasonal workers, as consumer spending picks up.

No, you don't have to start hoarding diapers

Oct 1, 2012
An explosion at a Japanese factory shut down production of an absorbency chemical used in disposable diapers. But for now, at least, it looks like the global diaper market can absorb the disruption.

Who lost the middle class?

Oct 1, 2012
Commentator Michael Casey says the standard answers from the right and the left miss the point

Libyan oil production almost back to normal

Oct 1, 2012
Civi war combatants mindful of the importance of oil on the economy, left infrastructure largely undamaged.

Made in IKEA?

Oct 1, 2012
IKEA says it regrets a decision to airbrush women out of its Saudi Arabian catalogs. The images included one of a mom in her p.j.s, standing at the bathroom sink with her young son.

Macy’s has recently announced plans to hire on about 80,000 seasonal workers to staff its stores and call centers in the 2012 Holiday season. Does this mark the economy’s very-merriest Christmas since the Recession? Also, political ads and the ones that sell you corn chips finally collide: Tostitos, USA Today, 7-11, Boston Market are all using the election to sell you stuff. We take a look at what that means for consumers (and voters). Plus, Marketplace’s Rob Schmitz begins his series on China’s migrant workers at the site of the recent Foxconn riot, and Adrienne Hill asks whether the explosion of a Japanese chemical plant is poised to cause the Great Global Diaper Shortage of 2012.

 

Music from the episode

Missed the Boat Modest Mouse
Love Jones J Dilla