Business & Economy

Writer and social critic Barbara Ehrenreich (air-en-RIKE). Her new book, "Fear of Falling," examines the middle class in America and the many myths associated with it. Her articles and essays appear in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Ms magazine, and Mother Jones.

Author and humorist Paul Rudnick sees shopping as a reward, a way of exploring different cultures, and an enjoyable activity in its own right. His new novel, inspired by his many shopping trips with his mother, is called I'll Take It.

Writer Stuart Brand joins Fresh Air to talk about the technology-focused business culture that's developing in the Bay Area. He says it's turned San Francisco into a kind of global frontier town.

Business writer Rosabeth Moss Kantor says the past decade's trends of rugged individualism in the workplace and excessively long hours are unsustainable. Looking ahead, she believes corporations should be leaner, foster an independent an entrepreneurial spirit in its employees, and allow for a better work-life balance.

Critic Stuart Klawans reviews the new Mike Leigh film, about working class people and their gentrifying London neighborhood. It's the director's first movie since the 1970s; Klawans says it was worth the wait.

TV critic David Bianculli calls the new sitcom, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Richard Lewis, has an intriguing premise and promising cast, but it follows a familiar, cookie-cutter formula, and its writing needs work.

Hernando de Soto says that the inefficient and often corrupt bureaucratic system in Peru makes starting a legal business nearly impossible for most people. As a result, a robust, informal, and technically-illegal market has emerged. De Soto explores this phenomenon -- and similar cases throughout Latin America -- in his new book, The Other Path.

The British director and screenwriter's latest movie examines the life of London's working class in the age of Margaret Thatcher.

Journalist Isadore Barmash joins Fresh Air to explain the process of leveraged buyouts and hostile takeovers of corporations, and how these affect employees, customers, and shareholders. His new book, Macy's for Sale, offers a case study.

Smith is host of a popular PBS television program and author of the best-sellers The Money Game, Supermoney and Paper Money. His new book, titled The Roaring 80s, looks at the previous decade, which he says has been characterized by easy debt, easy spending and an amiable hands-off attitude by Washington. Smith says a camparison with another era of high living - the roaring 20s - is unavoidable.

MIT professor of political economy Bennett Harrison co-wrote The Great U-Turn with Barry Bluestone. The book explores how and why the United States is creating fewer full-time, well-paying jobs. He points to the deregulation of industry and the financial system as the primary culprit.

Investigative reporter Howard Kohn has covered stories like the Patty Hearst kidnapping and the death of Karen Silkwood. When his father's health started to fail, Kohn decided to move back to the family farm in Michigan. His new memoir, The Last Farmer, documents that experience, and considers the relationship between parents and their adult children.

Father Ralph Beiting's ministry serves the poor of the Appalachian region, which he says was overlooked by the reforms and social programs of the 1960s. He links poverty to the degradation of family life. Despite the difficulties associated with his work, Beiting has fallen in love with the area and its people.

TV critic David Bianculli is in Los Angeles for a press tour. Now that the five-month long writers' strike has come to an end, he discusses the upcoming television season -- which he finds largely unimpressive -- with Fresh Air guest host Sedge Thomson.

TV critic David Bianculli still needs to deliver a column each week, even as the ongoing writers' strike affects programming. He shares some of his more inventive ideas of what to write about.

Journalist John Hoerr's new book, And the Wolf Finally Came, looks at the collapse of the steel industry in the Monongahela River region. He points to the breakdown between union-management relations post-World War II as the central cause for the closing of plants throughout Pennsylvania.

Celebrity financial advisor hosts the investment show Wall Street Week, which also features a number of colorful guests.

Financial writer Connie Bruck. Her first book, The Predators' Ball: The Junk Bond Raiders and the Man who Staked Them, is a profile of the controversial junk bond financier Michael Milken, and the junk bond department of the investment firm of Drexel Burnham Lambert. Milken's financing schemes, and Drexel Burnham's resources, have been the engine behind many of the hostile takeovers and mergers that have rocked Wall Street over the last six years. Bruck is a reporter for The American Lawyer magazine.

John Rothchild. His new book, A Fool and His Money is a personal account of his adventures as an average investor trying to figure out the complexities of the stock and commodities markets.

Television critic David Bianculli discusses how the writer's strike has benefitted "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour," and what the show's revival means for the concept of a weekly variety show.