We know how much is in her savings account and what she's got in her penny jar at home, but we don't know her name. Who is Boston Gal? Tess Vigeland delves into the mystery.
Rico's friend Rick is in the last stages of scoring a beautiful loft in downtown LA — and that means a mortgage contract. In this last installment of our housing market series, we get to call it home.
Your kids can have bad credit before they even hit their teens if they're victims of identity theft. Aside from monitoring credit reports, some groups would like to see this prevented on a congressional level. Amy Scott reports.
How far are your investment dollars taking you? Wall Street uses the P/E ratio as their preferred measure. Economist Chris Low takes us through the math.
New York City's Chanterelle restaurant offers menus decorated with limited-edition art, a 5000-bottle wine cellar and some of the best cheese in the world. Better have a good fromager.
With six weeks to go until the big day, the heat is on for engaged couple Michael Fox and Tiffany Lee-Youngren. Good thing they have a supportive network of family and friends to help keep the costs down.
Once upon a time, publishers would go the extra mile to help their first-time writers. But no longer. Sally Herships reports that the book party, which used to be a staple of the publishing industry, has largely vanished.
Now that Bear Stearns has told investors in two of its high-profile hedge funds that their money's essentially gone down the subprime drain — all $1.5 billion — threats of lawsuits are flying. Alisa Roth reports.
The country's big banks are making big money. Citigroup, Wachovia, Bank of America and SunTrust have reported strong profit growth. But a closer look shows some cracks in the system. Amy Scott reports.
Some Harry Potter fans have been trying to find advance copies of the latest book on the black market. Which got The Marketplace Players thinking about how the series is addictive — really addictive.
Debate continues in Congress on the $250 billion farm bill. On Thursday, the House Agriculture Committee voted to end payments to the wealthiest farmers. Commentator Stephen Moore says it's a small step in the right direction.
Faced with a falling birthrate, Singapore has taken an unusual approach to pushing couples down the path of having babies. Rachel Louise Snyder reports.
The Senate has passed the Higher Education Access Act, which would direct more money to grants and student aid. If approved by the president, it's expected to make paying for college easier for students. Jeremy Hobson reports.
Dieter von Holtzbrinck stepped down from his position on the Dow Jones board after it voted to endorse the sale of the company to Rupert Murdoch. But not everyone thinks Murdoch will send the Journal off course, Stephen Beard reports.
The EPA's new list of Energy Star-compliant computers comes out today, and PC makers have even set their sights on far exceeding the federal standards. Good news for the environment, not to mention all the money we'll save, Helen Palmer reports.
Congress is taking a closer look at Google's plan to buy DoubleClick. The $3.1 billion deal announced in April is awaiting approval from the FTC, but first it'll have to endure an investigation and hearings on Capitol Hill. Jeremy Hobson reports.
The final Harry Potter book due out tomorrow has already set sales records, but JK Rowling's boy wizard has also given rise to a new genre of music: wizard rock. Rachel Dornhelm has the story behind the bands.
A Virginia judge today will hear from parents before sentencing three execs responsible for mis-marketing prescription painkiller OxyContin. The parents say their children are addicted to heroin because of it. Monica Brady-Myerov reports.
More bad news for subprime mortgage investors over the last 24 hours: Bernanke says losses could hit $100 billion and a new report estimates mortgage defaults will keep rising and eating into profits until at least the end of '08. Ashley Milne-Tyte reports.
Citigroup has had a very good run this quarter. The nation's biggest bank says growth is up 18 percent. The record revenues were bolstered by international growth, while its consumer business was down. Janet Babin reports.
As Barry Bonds inches closer to Hank Aaron's career home runs record, we're not seeing the type of fanfare that would usually accompany such a feat, points out Diana Nyad, because advertisers don't want to risk being associated with the S-word.
Virgin America Airlines started selling tickets today for flights out of San Francisco — a crowded and competitive market. But some analysts say it might take off if it keeps its focus on customer service. Jeff Tyler reports.
Democratic presidential candidates John Edwards and Barak Obama have been focusing on poverty as a key issue. Commentator Angela Glover Blackwell says the attention is valuable, but the politicians have a long way to go.
The candy maker says profits over the past three months tumbled 96% compared with last year. The slide comes as Hershey is cooking up ways to fix its milk chocolate business, get into the premium chocolate market, and expand abroad. Jill Barshay reports.
Soccer star David Beckham is slated to play his first game for the Los Angeles Galaxy on Saturday night, assuming his injured ankle is OK. Tess Vigeland spoke with our sports-business expert Ed Derse about all things Beckham.
The steam-pipe explosion in Midtown Manhattan reminded New Yorkers just how vulnerable their aging infrastructure is. We asked Alisa Roth to look at the cost of keeping it up.
Harley-Davidson, the iconic American motorcycle maker, said today its profits are roaring ahead overseas. But here at home they've slipped into reverse. Why? Stephen Beard takes a look.
Farmers in Cuzco are resisting a government drive to grow genetically modified potatoes, fearing they might contaminate indigenous varieties and kill efforts to market their organic produce. Janet Babin reports.
Big business is in a mad scramble of last-minute lobbying to sway Congress on the issue of patent reform, but there are competing camps with opposing goals. Jeremy Hobson lays it out for us.
Mariane Pearl, the widow of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, has sued Pakistan's biggest bank. The suit, filed in New York, asserts that Habib Bank knowingly funded the terrorists who killed her husband. Ashley Milne-Tyte reports.
Things will be quiet around Japan's auto factories for the next few days. The earthquake earlier this week damaged a major parts supplier, so three of the nation's car makers are shutting down plants. Alisa Roth has more on the economic aftershocks.
Independent coffeehouses are finding it increasingly challenging to compete against the big corporate chains setting up shop all over New York City. Rents are rising and cafes operate in small change. Lisa Chow looks at what they're doing to survive.
Sunday marks 20 years since the enactment of the first federal legislation to tackle homelessness, but the number of homeless has since more than doubled. Jeff Tyler looks at what happened and how advocates suggest we turn things around.
China's government has been trying to put the brakes on its booming economy, but officials announced today that 2nd-quarter GDP grew 11.9% and consumer prices rose 4.4% in June. But they also say it's not necessarily overheated growth, points out Muir Dickey.
The U.S. has promised additional food aid to Zimbabwe as the humanitarian crisis there continues, a move that the country's officials are calling a trick to turn the people against them. But they'll still take the help. Gretchen Wilson reports.
More people are combining tourism with cheaper dental care. Hungary is a big draw, and India's becoming a popular destination, too. But commentator Jean Roznik says some dentists offer the same service to a select few, right here at home.
The investment rating service has made it harder for mortgage-backed bonds to get its top rating. As a result, it says it's now losing business. Jill Barshay reports.
Hickey Freeman has been making men's suits for more than a century. The American company refuses to outsource production, but it still has had to make unconventional changes. Daniel Weiss reports.
U.S. and African trade officials are reviewing a deal intended to improve markets for goods made in sub-Saharan Africa. Its unintended effect? Creating opportunity for Chinese firms. Gretchen Wilson reports.
The Federal Trade Commission heard today from food companies that market to children. And the mere mention of government regulation prompted those companies to crack down on themselves. Janet Babin reports.
Fed chief Ben Bernanke told Congress today that core inflation shows signs of increasing, the Gross Domestic Product isn't looking so hot and, oh yes, there's that subprime mortgage thing.
Following troubling reports from a U.S. researcher about diabetes medication Avandia, German researchers have found that GSK's second-biggest seller doesn't appear to work, but does have plenty of negative side effects. Stephen Beard has details.
There are trends toward improving air pollution in parts of China, says Financial Times reporter Muir Dickey, but the government of the rapidly industrializing nation has given economic growth top billing for the past 20 years… and it shows.
Here's a twist on the housing market: A wide range of opportunities awaits a new breed of scaled-down homes. Allowing wannabe homeowners to make a start with less, for one. But the idea had humble beginnings. Elizabeth Wynne Johnson has the story.
Hedge fund and private equity fund managers are taking big risks and raking in fortunes. But the employees of all these public and corporate pension plans now investing in the funds have a lot more at stake, warns commentator Robert Reich.
Health insurance woes abound in this country, but people with eating disorders often face an even steeper uphill battle with insurers, many of whom provide very limited coverage for what doctors call a very complex disease to treat. Rachel Dornhelm reports.
The dollar continues its decline against the British pound and the euro today. But while American tourists headed overseas may be rethinking their budgets, U.S. companies stand to profit. Stephen Beard explains.
American, Delta and Southwest release their earnings today. The airlines are expected to have had a good second quarter, but not good enough to make up for years of losses. And some say the government is partly to blame. Jeff Tyler reports.
Democrats have made insurance coverage for psychiatric disease a high priority this summer. Separate bills are making their way through both houses of Congress, but business interests are supporting the Senate's version. Helen Palmer tells us why.
The FTC looks into food ad and marketing campaigns aimed at kids. Some of the sugary food products, like perennial breakfast favorite Cap'n Crunch cereal, have youth-oriented Websites. Janet Babin reports.
The FTC meets tomorrow to talk about how advertising and marketing are directed at children. The food industry is trying to get out in front of possible regulations by announcing rules of its own. Monica Brady-Myerov reports.
Most websites don't have a search function, or if they do, it performs poorly. So, today the company synonymous with search stepped in to offer its services. Janet Babin reports.
The Dow Jones board was set to vote today on a deal that would sell the Wall Street Journal's parent company to Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp for $5 billion. Forbes magazine's Dennis Kneale talked with Kai Ryssdal about it.
The FDA pays some of the biggest employee bonuses in the federal bureaucracy. Yet, it's struggling to fund improved food safety. Those facts led to some grilling at a congressional hearing today. Jeremy Hobson reports.
When Marketplace's Shanghai correspondent Scott Tong arrived in China last January, it didn't take him long to learn that business is done differently and buyer beware.
Congress is taking a closer look at the safety of our food supply. Recent concerns over imports may have given new life to a proposal that's been stalled for years to require country-of-origin labels on meat and produce packages. Jeremy Hobson reports.
Life settlements, viaticals, mortality and longevity bonds — investors these days are finding all sorts of ways to cash in on life and death. Amy Scott explains.
The search-engine juggernaut launches a new service that allows individual websites to use the famed Google search engine as their own. Janet Babin reports.
Beauty products seller Avon announced it's laying off an undisclosed number of employees and shipping others overseas. Seems its business model is a great fit for emerging markets like China's. Jill Barshay reports.
Heavy rains in central China have led to deadly landslides and floods that have driven billions of rodents out into the open. So some enterprising folks there are catching the critters and selling them to restaurants in southern China. Stephen Beard reports.
Casual gamers may not display the same devotion and enthusiasm as their hardcore video-gaming counterparts, but there are some 200 million of them and that number's growing fast. Ashley Milne-Tyte reports.
It wasn't so long ago that the idea of a company pension didn't exist, points out business historian John Steele Gordon. He says the current pension system is tailored to a mid-century workforce and it no longer fits.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met at Airbus headquarters to put their seal of approval on its parent company's latest management shake-up. Stephen Beard reports.
The World Food Program says it's going to be harder to feed the world's hungry on its budget. Gas prices and the production of biofuels are pushing produce prices off the charts. Helen Palmer reports.
Commentator Sandra Tsing Loh says she doesn't need to escape with a book about having a male domestic helper, as a friend recommended. She's got the real thing: Her husband.
Despite some recent struggles, Mattel has proven that playing with dolls can turn a profit. The biggest U.S. toymaker announced 2nd-quarter sales rose about 7%. But Jeff Tyler reports that the success is coming from a place you might not expect.
You might think good times are here again on Wall Street, given the last few sessions. But investors in the options market seem to be indicating that things have gone too far, too fast. Economist Mark Zandi explains.
In Seattle, the real estate market is still strong. Which could explain why a 12-acre parcel near the city's Space Needle is getting so much attention. Cathy Duchamp reports.
Disney is fighting to block a massive apartment complex near its Disneyland resort that would include units for low-income residents. And that upsets some of its lower-paid employees. Jordan Davis reports.
The recording industry has made some major concessions that will allow webcasters to stay in business while the two sides try to hammer out an agreement on royalty rates. Pandora's Tim Westergren says it's a win for musicians and listeners.
Late last week, China banned imports from major U.S. food suppliers. The companies say the Chinese government is just lashing out and trying to create the impression that dangerous food is everywhere to take the focus off its products. Scott Tong reports.
Ford says it ain't so, but there's word this morning that the company's putting Volvo on the auction block along with Jaguar and Land Rover. All those luxury foreign brands have cost car maker $5 billion over the last few years. Stephen Beard reports.
The United Auto workers will begin hashing out its next contract with the Big Three automakers this Friday, and many are predicting the outcome will be a make-or-break moment for the future of the U.S. auto industry. Sam Eaton reports.
Former Fannie Mae chairman Franklin Raines is one of several past execs seeking compensation from the company. He's suing to recover millions of dollars in stock payouts that a federal agency has put a hold on. Ashley Milne-Tyte reports.
Fortune's Allan Sloan shares some advice for all the financial big hitters considering joining the world of Internet forums and chat: 1. Don't hide under a pseudonym. 2. Remember that the world is bigger than your keyboard and monitor.
A survey finds at least one in 12 workers used illicit drugs every month. But one expert says marijuana isn't the biggest danger to health and safety. It's abuse of prescription drugs. Janet Babin reports.
The subprime mortgage crisis has focused government scrutiny on lenders who cross the legal line. Now federal and state officials have turned up the heat on all sorts of unsavory lending practices. Steve Tripoli reports.
Universal health coverage will be one of the top issues in the '08 election, so the Massachusetts experiment to require it is getting lots of scrutiny. Two weeks in and people have been signing up by the thousands. But who are they? Helen Palmer has more.
