Credit Card Legislation

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As Congress considers measures to stop credit card companies from charging excessive fees and arbitrarily hiking rates, credit card companies are expected to respond by targeting the people the industry calls “deadbeats,” the customers who pay their bills every month. We speak with Gail MarksJarvis, personal finance columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

Crisis in Higher Education

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For a long time, the American Dream has been predicated on the belief that anyone who wants to should be able to go to college. Andrew Delbanco says the US is falling behind other developed countries in sending its citizens to college. Delbanco is a professor at Columbia and author, most recently, of “Melville: His Work and World.”

A Creative Job Search

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After 10 months of unemployment, a Massachusetts software engineer decided to get creative in his approach to finding work. Larry Fowler took out a $1500 radio ad, which will play for the next three days on a classical music station. He’s advertising himself.

Indonesia’s Economy

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Indonesian girls play near a railway track at a slum in Jakarta, Indonesia. More than 30 million Indonesians live below the government poverty line. (AP)

What’s the effect of the global financial crisis on Indonesia? BBC’s Clare Bolderson joins us for a reporter’s notebook of what she’s found.

Novelist Reif Larsen

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We speak with Reif Larsen, whose stunning debut novel “The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet” ignited a bidding war among publishers last June. It tells the story of Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet, a 12-year old mapmaker who embarks on a journey to Washington D.C. to accept an award from the Smithsonian. Larsen not only tells the tale, but drew the maps and wrote the margin notes that give the reader insight into T.S. Spivet’s world.

Music from the show

• Calexico, “Crumble”
• Freddie Hubbard, “Gibraltar”
• Sonny Rollins, “Get Happy”
• The Lickets, “Meat City”
• Steve Earle, “Transcendental Blues”
• Mark O’Connor and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, “Johnny Appleseed Suite: The Life and Times of Johnny Appleseed”