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What did America buy with the auto bailout, and was it worth it?

Nov 13, 2018
About $80 billion helped save GM and Chrysler, but autoworkers and auto-dependent communities haven't fully recovered.
From left, G. Richard Wagoner Jr., CEO of General Motors; Robert Nardelli, CEO of Chrysler; and Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford, testify at a hearing on the U.S. auto industry on Capitol Hill on Dec. 5, 2008. GM and Chrysler were bailed out with TARP funds; Ford  received other federal assistance.
Photo by Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

How a piece of software helped fuel the 2008 financial crash

Sep 17, 2018
The seeds of the Great Recession included a lot of greed, fraud ... and some technology.
Michael Osinski developed software that turned mortgages into securities for Wall Street banks. He retired years before the 2008 crash and now farms oysters on Long Island.
Tavner Murphy/Marketplace

Once "too small to thrive," now some banks are "too big to fail"

Sep 11, 2018
There was a time when most banks were small. They liked it that way. Today, just six banks manage more than half the assets in the entire U.S. banking industry.
Chris Hondros/Getty Images

Lessons from the financial crisis: risks, regrets, and learning to say "this is enough"

Aug 1, 2018
Chef and entrepreneur Peter Hoffman says there are risks he didn't take, "but there’s also the work towards coming to accept that — this is enough."
A view of chef Peter Hoffman outside his former restaurant Savoy.
Courtesy Peter Hoffman

One legacy of the housing crisis: risky rent-to-own deals

Jul 2, 2018
The contracts often saddle would-be homeowners with expensive taxes and repairs.
The house Maureen Seymour has been trying to buy could be condemned by the city and demolished, along with her $25,000 investment.
Amy Scott/Marketplace

How the financial crisis changed the way we think about home

Jun 29, 2018
Designers, architects and the president of IKEA U.S. weigh in.
Home stager Meridith Baer says after the recession, people looked for clean, simple home design.
Courtesy of Meridith Baer Home

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Who controls the data that fuels real estate deals?

Jun 5, 2018
A decade ago, the government told the real estate industry to start sharing its data. What has that meant for competition?
David Paul Morris/Getty Images

The best advice for college students unlucky enough to graduate into a recession: Be flexible

May 24, 2018
While studies suggest recession graduates tend to fall behind their nonrecession peers in terms of salary and don’t catch up for 10 to 20 years, there are ways to catch up more quickly and make up the gap.
Christopher Furlong/ Getty Images

How good is it for the class of 2018?

May 23, 2018
This year's college graduates enter one of the best job markets since the Great Recession.
Saul Rivera has just graduated from the University of Texas-Austin with a degree in astronomy. He's been applying for entry-level jobs at planetariums, museums and observatories around the country.
Mitchell Hartman/Marketplace