Bernie Madoff was sentenced yesterday to the maximum term of 150 years, but what happens to any remaining wealth, and what can his victims do to get some of their money back? Diana Henriques, a senior financial writer for The New York Times has been following this story and joins The Takeaway.

Countrywide was once the nation’s largest sub-prime mortgage lender. But yesterday, its former CEO, Angelo Mozilo, was charged with fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC says Mozilo misrepresented Countrywide's shaky business practices to its investors. Joining The Takeaway this morning to go over the details is Tami Luhby, a Senior Writer at CNNMoney.com.

Lawmakers have touted the credit card reform bill heading to the president's desk as "a victory for every American who holds a credit card." But Donna Rosato, a senior writer at Money Magazine, says consumer behavior is unlikely to change. She cites studies that say the mere act of carrying a card (credit or debit) increases the likelihood that you’ll spend more money, pay more for a specific item, and lose track of what you've spent. She also says this new bill will force credit card companies to raise fees and even add annual fees to make a profit. Ms. Rosato joins The Takeaway to talk about the reform bill — and how you should reform your own habits.

At this point everyone has heard of disgraced financier Bernie Madoff, but the name J. Ezra Merkin may still be unknown. That is about to change. In a lawsuit filed Monday by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, it is alleged that Mr. Merkin convinced his clients to invest with him and then funneled all their money into Madoff's scheme. Mr. Merkin's private clients lost over $2 billion in the collapse of Madoff's Ponzi scheme and most did not realize they had ever invested with him. New York Times reporter Diana Henriques is covering the story and she joins us now with the details on these new "feeder fund" lawsuits.

For more, read Diana B. Henriques' article, Cuomo Sues Over Madoff Investments in today's New York Times.

The G-20, a group of finance ministers and central bank governors from around the world, is set to meet this week in London to tackle the global financial crisis. Dan Price, the White House official responsible for the preparation of the G-20 summit in Washington last November, joins The Takeaway from London to talk about why this G-20 is so important for the U.S.

This week the Chinese called for a new global currency to replace the dominant dollar. China has the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves, valued at nearly $2 trillion, with more than half of these holdings estimated to be made up of dollar-denominated bonds, including United States Treasury bonds. Earlier this month, the Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, said he was concerned about the safety of these assets. Russia has made the same plea before. How serious are these countries? Jeff Madrick is the director of policy research at the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy at The New School. He says this issue shows "the tide of history is turning" when it comes to the global dominance of the dollar. He joins us now to discuss whether a new currency reserve system is a possibility or just some pre-G20 maneuvering by China.

In 2004 the typical black family had twelve cents for every dollar held by the typical white family. By 2007, that number had dropped to ten cents. Why is the gap getting wider? Today the Color of Wealth 2009 Policy Summit in Washington will bring scholars, policy experts, and advocates together with lawmakers to analyze the reasons for the growing gap and devise ways to close it. Meizhu Lui, Director of the Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative at the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, joins John with a look at some of the issues addressed at the conference.

The Federal Bank’s latest move to inject $1 trillion into the economy has created quite a stir this week. But what does it mean when the bank of all banks creates money from what some may see as “thin air”? Many may ask where does money come from anyway? Since the 1970s U.S. currency is not measured against the gold standard, so how do we measure it these days?

Helping us to decipher what this all means is Dan Gross, columnist at Newsweek and Slate and author of the new book, Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation. He joins us today from WSHU in Connecticut.

Want to see how money is really made? Here's a clip from Modern Marvels:

An ambitious social experiment will launch later this year that will test Americans’ ability and willingness not just to give, but to give to one another. Kiva, an online micro-lender that has so far worked only in developing nations, will be launching here in the U.S. Americans have been more than willing to give small loans to businesses in Africa and South America. But will they loan to one another? To help answer that question, The Takeaway is joined by Premal Shah, the president of Kiva.

Many Latin American countries depend on remittances from migrant workers who leave their home countries for financial opportunities across the globe. But according to a study done by the Inter-American Development Bank, in this global recession a lot of migrants aren’t able to send as much money as they used to. Joining The Takeaway is Efrain Jimenez, a 34-year-old auto mechanic in the San Fernando Valley in California who moved to the U.S. from Mexico. He’s been able to send his parents as much money as he used to because of the slowdown in business at his shop. Also joining the show is Robert Meins a remittance specialist for the Inter-American Development Bank who does research on the amount of remittances sent across the globe and its economic effect.

Wrapped up as we are in our current recession, it’s hard for many of us to think about giving to charity. But Professor Peter Singer says that it is our ethical duty to give to charity even, maybe especially, now. He joins us in studio to talk about his latest book, The Life You Can Save.

Watch Peter Singer discuss the country's foreign aid spending.

AIG's bonus payments of $165 million to executives made no one happy. Well, the executives probably didn't mind them. From Ben Bernanke to Lawrence Summers, we're all mad at these guys. But what do we do next? How do we navigate the rule of law versus operating with the knowledge that we're compensating people for bad decisions? For more, The Takeaway talks to our friend Dan Ariely. Dan is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University and author of Predictably Irrational.



Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke discusses AIG.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said today that he's worried about the safety of the the U.S. Treasury Department's large holdings and other debt. He noted nearly half of China's $2 trillion in currency reserves are invested in U.S. treasuries making China the largest creditor to the U.S. Joining The Takeaway to discuss the prime minister's remarks is BBC correspondent James Reynolds in Beijing.

In light of the anticipated guilty plea from Bernard L. Madoff, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a public speech this week about his take on how to prevent another Madoff scheme. On The Takeaway, Oliver Ellsworth, a law professor at the University of Connecticut and a white collar criminal specialist, provides a legal perspective on Bernanke's speech.

Watch part of Ben Bernanke's speech to the Council of Foreign Relations below.

President Obama’s economic adviser Lawrence Summers is urging world leaders to pump more public money into their economies. This global move would be part of a coordinated effort to lift the world out of recession. Joining The Takeaway to discuss the possibility of a so-called "global stimulus" is Raymond Torres, the director of the International Labour Organization.

Hundreds of children and teenagers were sentenced to juvenile detention centers by Judge Mark Ciavarella since 2003. That was when he and another judge began participating in a multimillion dollar kickback scheme for sending teens to privately run youth detention centers. One of those children is 17-year old Hillary Transue. She and her mother Laurene join The Takeaway to talk about what it was like to get caught up in the scheme.

For some background on this story, listen to our segment with New York Times writer Ian Urbina. For additional details on this story, read Ian Urbina's and Sean Hamill's article, Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for Profit, in the New York Times.

Before every new technology there comes the moment of invention. Before there was ethanol, someone had to look at biomass and say, "There's energy in them thar leaves." For the last day of our Power Trip energy series, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla joins The Takeaway from the TED conference in Long Beach, California. Khosla, whose company risks millions of dollars every year to fund upstart energy technologies, ruminates on creating billion dollar industries out of wild ideas.

Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and philanthropist, addressed the crowd at this year's TED conference with his thoughts on saving the world with a new kind of philanthropy. It's long, but funny. Really.

Congress is currently debating the possibility of bankruptcy reform, a measure that may come too late to save companies such as GM, but what about the little guy who is being crushed by personal debt? Does the legal insulation meant to protect the American worker still function in this economic climate? Does filing for bankruptcy in our current economy offer relief? Alvin Hall joins Adaora and Todd with some advice that might make you pause before considering declaring bankruptcy.

What lessons have investors learned from Bernie Madoff? And what repercussions are still to come in the largest Ponzi scheme in history? Diana Henriques is the senior financial writer for the New York Times. She talks with John and Adaora about the state of the disgrace, the global finance markets, and how one gets away with global fraud.