Segments From This Episode

• NY cigarette tax puffs up prices

  by Jeremy Hobson

  The New York State legislature passed a bill that will increase taxes on cigarettes by $1.60. That could mean New Yorkers might pay upwards of $9 to puff. Cigarette taxes are an easy way to raise revenue, but Jeremy Hobson reports other states aren't racing to follow New York's lead.

  ShareDownload

• U.K. aims to control deficit with big cuts

  Britain's new government unveiled its first budget, and austerity was the main theme to put it mildly. It was the most draconian budget in the U.K. for three decades. The aim: to convince investors that the country is serious about getting its massive deficit under control. Stephen Beard reports.

  ShareDownload

• China’s only children carry family hope

  by Scott Tong

  Imagine a life with no siblings, cousins, aunts or uncles. For many children in China that's the reality almost 30 years after the country banned hundreds of millions of Chinese from having more than one child. Scott Tong takes a look at life as an only-child in urban China.

  ShareDownload

• Letters: Hedge fund, BP, retail music

  by Marketplace Staff

  Kai Ryssdal reviews what listeners had to say about stories involving an Upright Citizens Brigade hedge fund manager skit, Britain's view on the BP oil spill, and shopping music.

  ShareDownload

• Economic troubles lead to ‘end of men’

  by Marketplace Staff

  Some of the few industries still hiring are dominated by women, while other industries classically staffed by men are slowly dying out. The Atlantic's Hanna Rosin talks with Kai Ryssdal about an article she wrote that discusses why men are getting squeezed out of the economy.

  ShareDownload

• The problems with home mod. program

  by Stacey Vanek Smith

  

  The Treasury Department's latest report says the Home Affordable Modification Program has only helped about 340,000 people get their loan payments reduced. And more than a third of the borrowers enrolled in the program have dropped out. Stacey Vanek-Smith reports.

  ShareDownload

• A divide over sustaining global recovery

  by Marketplace Staff

  U.S. and Europe are at odds over how to steer the global economy. Europe, and much of the world, is sailing toward austerity. The U.S. wants more government spending. Nancy Marshall Genzer reports.

  ShareDownload