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The federal government's new consumer protection bureau notched its first major enforcement action today. Capital One Financial has agreed to shell out $210 million to settle allegations that it tricked credit card customers into buying unwanted services — mostly credit insurance and similar products — while activating credit cards.

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On Monday, Microsoft unveiled the latest version of its office suite. CEO Steve Ballmer called it the most vibrant, exciting new version of Windows in years. He said it feels to us a lot like 1995, which happens to be when our commentator Andrei Codrescu got a close-up look at the company.

In the documentary Fixing the Future, reporter David Brancaccio traveled across America to talk to people who are working to reinvent the American economy. Through innovative approaches to creating jobs and wealth — like time banking, worker cooperatives, local currencies and community banking — Americans are rethinking how we measure prosperity and calculate GDP.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden talks with Brancaccio about new experiments in the economy of the future.

Irwin M. Stelzer is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard, director of economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute, and a columnist for the Sunday Times (London).

Noam Scheiber is a senior editor at The New Republic.

John Nichols is a Washington correspondent at The Nation.

As lies go, none is greater than the one that suggests banks are capable of "self-regulation."

Given authority over their own affairs, through fantasies such as "self-reporting," CEOs, CFOs and COOs who travel in limousines, wear very expensive suits and give to all the right charities will do what comes naturally to them: lie.

Friday's pieces on the Red Cross and the lasting harm it suffered after it briefly charged soldiers for doughnuts during World War II drew a big response. (A longer version made up the bulk of Friday's show, while a shorter version aired that afternoon on All Things Considered.)

There's more evidence that the housing sector is on the mend and may be the sector of the economy that's got the most going for it these days.

According to the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development there was a 6.9 percent increase in "housing starts" last month. At an annual rate of 760,000, ground-breaking for construction of single-family homes, apartments and condominiums the pace hit a four-year high, The Associated Press says.

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This next story is for people who go for old-school technology. If you're the kind of person who owns a tube television - not one of those flat screens - nothing wrong with that. Or maybe you're the kind of person who has an old Walkman with cassette tapes hiding in a drawer somewhere. Maybe you even still use it. And if you're holding on to technology that others have deemed obsolete, you are not alone.

Reporter Tracey Samuelson found some dated devices in a place that might surprise you.

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We begin our program with two very different views of the economy. Two observers of the economy think the long-term looks very good, as we'll hear in a moment.

Steve Inskeep talks to David Wessel of The Wall Street Journal and Zanny Minton Beddoes of The Economist, about the U.S. economy. What kind of a recovery are we looking at, and where is the growth coming from?

The city of San Bernardino, Calif., is expected to declare a fiscal emergency, and officially file for bankruptcy on Wednesday. The declaration would be the third by a California city in recent weeks. Some analysts believe San Bernardino's problems may be more about its dysfunctional local politics.

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Some surprise earnings are at the top of NPR's business news.

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And the nation's homebuilders are feeling more optimistic than they have since March, 2007, just before the beginning of the Great Recession. What's more, the National Association of Home Builders' Housing Market Index has posted its largest one month gain in roughly a decade.

NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports.

WENDY KAUFMAN, BYLINE: David Crowe, the chief economist at the Home Builders Association says things are definitely looking up. It's a trend that began last September.

One big reason Canadians have pulled ahead, is the U.S. housing bust destroyed a lot of wealth. Home values in Canada have remained steady, and lately, they've even enjoyed a housing boom.