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Easy Street

Easy Street: The Vindication of Ben Bernanke?

Heidi Moore May 10, 2011

Easy Street is Marketplace’s daily roundup of the most interesting news stories and commentary about Wall Street, Washington and the curious world of finance. You can see more of what we think are the biggest stories of the day on our News in Brief page. Every day, you can download Marketplace’s daily show on iTunes and follow us for more headlines at twitter.com/mktplaceradio. If you want to listen to Marketplace on the radio, find out [which stations carry us and what time we’re on](().

The Image Rehabilitation of QE2

When the Federal Reserve decided to buy back $600 billion of Treasury bonds, it was called quantitative easing, or QE2. At the time, it was considered controversial and a last-ditch attempt to get the economy back on track. Now, it might be actually working, suggests Bloomberg News.

What are U.S. companies buying?

We all know that U.S. companies are sitting on piles of cash. They’re even spending some of it. Michael Mandel tells us which companies are the American heroes that are deploying that cash.

Markets

The SEC hasn’t yet decided what to do about sales of shares on private markets. Gather ye Facebook shares while ye may, then.

The Washington Matrix

The budget deficit has to get cut somewhere, right? The Senate suggests that we start with tax breaks to big oil companies.

Recreational Reading

Lady Gaga is debuting her video on Farmville. Choire Sicha is rightly suspicious.

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