In his State of the Union address, President Obama proposed to spend $30 billion to help small businesses weather the tough economy. This is the latest move by the administration to support small business owners, but has any of these plans materialized into practical help? We put the question to small business owners in different parts of the country.

• WASHINGTON TAKEOUT: In this week's State of the Union address, President Obama is expected to announce a three-year freeze in budget spending. Takeaway correspondent Todd Zwillich looks at the plan that will save an estimated $250 billion over 10 years.
• BUSINESS TAKEOUT: Yesterday, the U.S. Justice Department cleared the way for a massive merger between two of the world’s biggest concert promoters, Live Nation and Ticketmaster. The New York Times' Louise Story tells us more.
• LISTENER TAKEOUT: On yesterday's show, we talked with two doctors about how much child sex abuse is traumatic to the victim and when. It inspired one listener to call us about her own experience.

In our regular series, "The Value: What Matters to Us Most," correspondent Farai Chideya interviews a father of three in Newark, NJ, who is a repeat felon trying to stay straight.

• MONEY TAKEOUT: The Red Cross has collected more than $5 million for its earthquake relief fund from text message donations. We talks to New York Times finance reporter Louise Story.
• SPORTS TAKEOUT: Sports Contributor Ibrahim Abdul-Matin talks about this weekend's NFL faceoffs: Indianapolis vs. Baltimore, Arizona vs. New Orleans, The Jets vs. The Chargers, and Dallas vs. Minnesota.
• COMEDY TAKEOUT:  It's musical chairs at NBC as Leno moves back to late night and Conan O'Brien refuses to move the tonight show past midnight.

The CEOs of the country's major banks came under a grilling yesterday, as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission kicked off hearings on the causes of last year's economic meltdown. We get reaction from Elizabeth Warren, who heads the group charged with overseeing the U.S. banking bailout, the Congressional Oversight Panel. 

As Harry Reid’s comments about Barack Obama’s light complexion remind us, race still plays into people’s perceptions of who can be elected. But there are companies and industries that are trying to close that race gap.

Can a checklist save a life? Dr. Atul Gawande thinks so. He talks with us about his new book, “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right,” and about how the simple act of checking items off a well-designed list can transform healthcare, workplaces, and our response to life’s disasters. 

You may think that internships are for kids, but they can be the perfect way to relaunch a career or reinvent one if you’re in your 30s, 40s, or older. In this week's work segment, we get the scoop on adult internships from our work contributor, Beth Kobliner. We also chat with Kelly Barbieri, a 41-year-old who went from laid-off print journalist to managing editor of relocation.com, thanks to an internship she did this past fall with YourTango.com.

Beth recommends the following sites to those who are seeking adult internships:

weddles.com
vault.com
careerbuilder.com
craigslist.org
wowowow.com

What goes down, must come up, and then go back down again...at least that's been the story of our economy over the past ten years. As we continue our week-long look back at the decade that was, Zanny Minton Beddoes of the Economist puts the topic of money into perspective: from the major milestones of the 2000s to the aftershocks we'll be dealing with from years to come. 

It's Tuesday, our day on The Takeaway to consider how work affects our lives. With millions of Americans scrambling to find work after layoffs, and millions more who will have to work longer because of losses in the stock market, we talk wtih Marci Alboher, Senior Fellow at Civic Ventures about whether it's possible, even in today's competitive job market, to find a job that is meaningful. James Smallwood, a union carpenter and the founder and CEO of the nonprofit The Choice is Yours Inc., says it is possible. He explains how he did it and how his employees are helping to benefit society.

A few stories about the future of TV caught our eye this week that we wanted to follow up on.  The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple may begin to offer TV subscriptions via the internet.  The thought of Apple competing with your cable box made us wonder if making the switch from cable or satellite TV to watching everything online. Nick Bilton and his wife Danielle recently said good riddance to their high cable bills and switched over to using their computer to watch TV.  Nick is the lead writer for the Bits Blog, for our partner The New York Times.

You might have heard of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and the role they played in the housing crisis, but have you heard of a 'synthetic CDO?'  Gretchen Morgensen and Louise Story report in today's New York Times, ("Banks Bundled Bad Debt, Bet Against It and Won,") on how banks used this special category of bundled debt to bet against the housing market, and win. Sometimes it meant the banks profited while their clients lost out.

Louise Story joins us to explain synthetic CDOs and the three government investigations that are already underway about the practice. The government wants to know if investment firms may have exacerbated the housing crisis as they tried to hedge their vulnerable mortage positions. We also speak with Sylvain Raynes, a structured finance consultant, to give us details on how firms used synthetic CDOs and how they pitched them to clients.

• Money Takeout: Louise Story of the New York Times explains why U.S. media companies just scored a victory in the ongoing US-China trade war. 
• Airline Takeout: New York Times reporter Matthew Wald tells us about a new law intended to prevent airline passengers from being kept on the tarmac for long periods of time while waiting for their flights to leave.
• Listener Takeout: From health care to holiday songs, Takeaway listeners are coming through loud and clear. 

• Money Takeout: Yelp walked away from an acquisition deal from Google worth more than $500 million... why? John Abell, of Wired.com, joins us to put the story in context. 
• Environment Takeout: Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) is looking to make more than a million acres of the Mojave Desert into a national monument. Daniel Stone of Newsweek explains why this ambitious environmental effort might get government approval. 
• Sports Takeout: After a brief discussion of the Redskins' trouncing at the Giants' hands last night, Ibrahim Abdul-Matin kicks off our series on the ten most memorable sports stories of 2009 with the fastest man alive, Usain Bolt. Watch him run!

We've spent the whole week talking about the fine print – on our student loan bills, on our bank statements, and on our mortgages – but that's just a small portion of what we see in fine print everyday. How do we manage all the other fine print in our lives? And when do we throw in the towel and decide it's not worth reading anymore? Gary Belsky, author of "Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes And How To Correct Them," and Beth Kobliner, Takeaway contributor and author of "Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance In Your Twenties and Thirties," share and debate their differing strategies.

• Business Takeout: Louise Story tells us why the Federal Trade Commission has filed a complaint against Intel, just as Europe has dropped their anti-trust suit against Microsoft.
• Supreme Court Takeout: Carole King takes us through Justice Sonia Sotomayor's first visit to Puerto Rico since becoming a Supreme Court justice.
• Sports Takeout: Ibrahim Abdul-Matin says it would be a mistake if the undefeated Colts benched their starters in tonight's game. His suggestion? Play hard, all the way!

So you want to get in the real estate game while rates are low and affordable property is abundant? Before you hop on the gravy train, be wary of the fine print. As part of our weeklong series on Life in Fine Print, we talk with Dan Green, loan officer at Waterstone Mortgage and author of themortgagereports.com. He explains why all those ads promising low APRs and fantastic terms might be concealing a slightly more complicated truth.

Some businesses go green by having bicycle-operated blenders. Others do it by redefining what "acceptable packaging" is for an entire category of retail products. We talk with Sean Meenan, owner of New York's first solar-powered restaurant, Habana Outpost, along with Candace Taylor, director of sustainability for the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart. They share with us the unique challenges and opportunities they each face – as a small business and an enormous one – in staying green, staying afloat, and setting an example for businesses and consumers.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended his extension of TARP on Thursday, saying it will help fight foreclosures and increase lending for small businesses.  But many banks have already paid back the bulk of their TARP money: Bank of America returned the entirety of its bailout funds on Wednesday, and Citigroup is playing catch-up, trying hard to get out from under government ownership by repaying $45 billion of TARP money.  We speak with Andrew Ross Sorkin, chief acquisitions and mergers correspondent for The New York Times and author of "Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System - and Themselves." We also hear from Richard Bove, an analyst with Rochedale Securities in Lutz, Florida, on whether the paybacks mean the economic crisis is over, or just that banks want out of the program's regulation.

Today, on what's marketed as “the biggest shopping day of the year,” we check in with two small business owners facing their first Black Friday: Michael Sclafani, who operates the Park Delicatessen skateboard, flower, and dry goods store in Brooklyn, New York; and Julie Lapier, who owns a Dresscode, a consignment shop in Plattsburgh, New York.

We also chat with Spencer Ante, Businessweek writer and author of "Creative Capital," about the the rise of entrepreneurship in a recession.