Segments From This Episode

• Mixed signals on jobless numbers

  by Janet Babin

  Unemployment hit its highest rate since 1983, though the pace of layoffs let up in May. So have we turned a corner in this recession? Janet Babin reports.

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• GM to help firm buy Delphi with capital

  by Bob Moon

  General Motors will help a private-equity firm buyout bankrupt auto-parts company Delphi with some of the $30 billion it will receive from the government. Bob Moon reports.

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• Housing numbers don’t tell whole story

  by Jeremy Hobson

  Many of our current economic woes can be blamed on the housing market. And it turns out the worst may not be over in the housing sector. Jeremy Hobson reports.

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• Competition doesn’t always cut it

  by Marketplace Staff

  Competition is considered healthy, but it doesn't always produce the best result. Commentator K.C. Cole says another strategy may help you finish first.

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• Weekly Wrap: Recovery roadblocks

  by Marketplace Staff

  The Atlantic's Megan McArdle and Reuters blogger Felix Salmon talk with Tess Vigeland about what may hamper our economic recovery, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's trip to China, and provide a reality check on the economy.

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• Are states fixing jobless programs?

  by Mitchell Hartman

  State jobless programs are billions of dollars in debt, which could spell disaster for unemployment benefits. Mitchell Hartman talks with Tess Vigeland about whether states can turn their programs around.

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• Turning the recession into fiction

  by Ashley Milne-Tyte

  John Steinbeck took Great Depression hardships and turned them into 'The Grapes of Wrath,' an American masterpiece. Now some novelists are at work on books that involve our own economic woes. Ashley Milne-Tyte reports.

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• Small talk: Pesticides, robots, Japanese

  by Marketplace Contributor

  Marketplace's Brendan Newnam and Rico Gagliano talk with fellow staffers George Judson, Amy Scott and Stacey Vanek-Smith about their favorite under-the-radar business stories this week: Pesticide industry protesting, robotic farmers, and bureaucratic training in Japan.

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