Banks

Gold is quickly becoming the go-to investment as the U.S. dollar loses its value. But what should we do with it? Kai Ryssdal chats with James Picerno from The Atlantic magazine about the valuable commodity.

As chairman of the FDIC, Sheila Bair oversees the takeover of failed banks and examines more than 800 other troubled institutions for their soundness. She talks with Tess Vigeland about whether she's concerned over the number of bank failures this year and if enough has been done to prevent a repeat of what caused our last financial crisis.

Kai Ryssdal talks to Marketplace's Jeremy Hobson about how the latest mortgage scandal will affect the economy.

Kai Ryssdal talks to Leigh Gallagher from Fortune magazine and John Carney from CNBC about whether they feel better that they know what caused the Flash Crash and if TARP was a success or not.

The TARP, also known as the bank bailout, ends this weekend. Well, maybe "ends" is a strong word. But the Treasury Department will stop spending and lending new money from the current $475 billion fund. It's about two years old. Jeremy Hobson reports the program become less popular than most screaming toddlers.

David Brancaccio looks how decisions made by the world's central banks will affect business owners and lenders.

Marketplace's Jeremy Hobson takes a look at the beginnings of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and why it has such a bad rap even though it did help stabilize banks.

David Brancaccio has been studying new international banking rules as part of a new beat on Marketplace called "Economy 4.0," about tracking efforts to re-engineer the financial system. He talks with Bill Radke about how the new "Basel III" rules work and how experts feel about them.

Kai Ryssdal talks to the New York Times' Eric Dash about how the federal government is stepping into help wholesale credit unions, which support hundreds of credit unions around the country.

Big banks may be loosening its purse strings a bit -- Citigroup just made a multi-million-dollars-a-year hire. Is this a sign that Wall Streeters can expect pre-recessionary salaries?