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A report in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine says the U.S. spends more on treating dementia than any other disease including cancer and heart disease.

Annual spending already tops $100 billion for direct treatment; tack on $50-100 billion for informal care like the cost of leaving your job to care for a parent. That works out to $50,000 per person. And those costs are expected to double by 2040.

Dementia carves away the ability of people to care for themselves. Rand economist Michael Hurd, who authored the study, says it’s no mystery why we spend more treating this disease than any other.

"The big cost is the cost for nursing homes, and nursing homes cost a lot," says Hurd, who adds that nursing homes and in-home care makes up at least 75 percent of all spending.

About 4 million Americans suffer from some form of dementia today. By 2040, that number is expected to reach 9 million.

"The message is we need to do some science," says Hurd.

Drug companies like Eli Lilly and Pfizer are trying, but IHS analyst Gustav Ando says so far, no dice.

"Company executives will kind of sit there and wonder, ‘well, if Pfizer couldn’t do this, or if Lilly couldn’t do this, then why on earth should we enter this area?’" he says.

Several drugs are in early trials, but analysts say viability is likely years away. Meanwhile, the financial -- and emotional -- costs continue to grow.

A report in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine says the U.S. spends more on treating dementia than any other disease including cancer and heart disease.

Annual spending already tops $100 billion for direct treatment; tack on $50-100 billion for informal care like the cost of leaving your job to care for a parent. That works out to $50,000 per person. And those costs are expected to double by 2040.

Dementia carves away the ability of people to care for themselves. Rand economist Michael Hurd, who authored the study, says it’s no mystery why we spend more treating this disease than any other.

"The big cost is the cost for nursing homes, and nursing homes cost a lot," says Hurd, who adds that nursing homes and in-home care makes up at least 75 percent of all spending.

About 4 million Americans suffer from some form of dementia today. By 2040, that number is expected to reach 9 million.

"The message is we need to do some science," says Hurd.

Drug companies like Eli Lilly and Pfizer are trying, but IHS analyst Gustav Ando says so far, no dice.

"Company executives will kind of sit there and wonder, ‘well, if Pfizer couldn’t do this, or if Lilly couldn’t do this, then why on earth should we enter this area?’" he says.

Several drugs are in early trials, but analysts say viability is likely years away. Meanwhile, the financial -- and emotional -- costs continue to grow.

Japan is fed up with years of deflation and a sluggish economy, and now its central bank is getting aggressive. Today, the Bank of Japan launched a sweeping bond-buying program to pump money into the economy. Traders liked what they saw, but do the Japanese people think it will work?

BBC Tokyo correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes joined Marketplace's Mark Garrison to explain the plan and why the central bank is backing it.

Jamaica has some of the highest rates for electricity in the Caribbean. And with unemployment at 12 percent, many people in the poorest communities have devised ways of getting electricity for free, though illegally. Jamaica's main electricity supplier has lost millions of dollars over the years through this theft. Now they have finally decided to crack down by cutting whole communities off the grid.

On the streets of Jones Town -- a poor community in Kingston -- Omar, one of its residents, showed me how to steal electricity. It's something he was taught to do as a child.

"You see those two wires there, one is live the other is ground, so you get a line, stick a bamboo stick that can reach from the ground, or you can stand on and you hook it up and it goes into your yard," says Omar.

He says he would prefer legal jobs, but as long as Jamaican electricity prices stay high, he'll always find work, no matter how many communities are disconnected.

The average consumer pays around $75 a month -- which for some is a third of their salary. The electricity company, however, has had enough of electricity theft and whole communities have now been completely cut off. Many worry that cutting the power off could lead to violence. The disconnection of this entire neighborhood has seen an increased security presence to make sure it doesn't flare up, but there are entire generations who have never paid in parts of the city.

JPS is the sole distributor of electricity in the country. Last year alone, 15 percent of their total output was stolen, $30 million worth.

But Audrey Williams, a communications officer for JPS, says it's not only poor people who steal electricity.

"It spans the range, we are talking about every type of residential customer, business customers," says Williams.

Literature and art help us explore the mysteries of the human mind. But understanding the minute circuitries of the human brain takes science, technology, and according to the Obama Administration, quite a bit of federal money.

This week the president unveiled his $100 million BRAIN initative -- short for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies. Modeled after the Human Genome Project, in which the goverment worked with science foundations and private enterprises to map human DNA, BRAIN funding is aimed at understanding, treating and eliminating diseases such as Alzheimer's.

"If you look at the history of success of large scientific enterprises, unless there is a central focus on the basic science, which government is really the best and most effective supporter of, then the project isnt really going to get off the ground," says Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, which will disburse the research money.

Dr. Collins has high hopes for the initiative, which include memory enhancement and brain-computer interfacing "for people who have impairments, like a quadroplegic, where you want to be able to give them the ability to move an extremity just by thinking about it," he says.

To hear more about the experimental technology that Dr. Collins thinks may get us there, click on the audio player above.

They should have called it the "Cooper Communicator" or maybe "Marty's Mobile."  Forty years ago, Motorola engineer Martin Cooper invented the cellphone to the dismay of a competing team at AT&T's Bell Labs.

Chris Ziegler, senior editor at the tech publication The Verge, joins Marketplace Tech host David Brancaccio to discuss the rivalry between these two companies as they raced to release the cellphone.

 

Batteries can be expensive and the industrial batteries that store solar power for use when the sun goes down are especially pricey. But a promising technology, which use a non-toxic, water-based solution with salt, could make storing electricity for the grid much cheaper.

This week, Aquion Energy of Pittsburgh, who is working to mass-produce these batteries, reached a major funding milestone with an investment from Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

"These would be very big and they would improve the performance and efficiency of the whole power grid," says Aquion CEO Scott Pearson, who adds that the batteries could also be used for a residential home or on or off grid cellphone towers.

The Aqueous Hybrid Ion batteries are cheap in bulk but not that useful in miniature sizes, so don't expect them powering individual cellphones or flashlights.

Joanne Rutherford’s first graders at Peshine Avenue Elementary School in Newark, N.J., start class by drawing constellations. The classroom is equipped with a smartboard and a fancy projector, but those weren't bought with the $100 million donated to the city's public schools in 2010 by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. In fact, you won't find any of Zuckerberg's largess in Mrs. Rutherford's classroom. At least, not obviously.

“In some ways it’s less tangible," explains Newark Public Schools Superintendent Cami Anderson*, "but in many ways, it’s a lot more systemic and a lot longer lasting.” Anderson says Zuckerberg’s money isn’t buying things, it’s changing how things are done.

“Most significant from our standpoint," she says, "has been the support that he and other philanthropists gave to achieve a breakthrough labor contract with the Newark Teacher’s Union.”

Yes, a labor contract. Some $50 million helped broker an agreement with the union to accept a new teacher evaluation system and pay based on performance.

Kim McLain, who heads the Foundation for Newark’s Future -- the group in charge of doling out Zuckerberg’s money -- says this wasn't dictated by Zuckerberg, but it fits with the vision behind the donation.  

“One of the things that we firmly believe in is that in order to have a really good educational system, it starts with the teacher in the classroom,” she says.

Zuckerberg’s gift has also been used to help open several new schools, including charter schools, and to create a centralized system for tracking student progress.  

This doesn’t mean that everyone in Newark is toasting the founder of Facebook.

“It’s an agenda about which I have serious doubts,” says Paul Tractenberg, founder of the Institute on Education Law and Policy at Rutgers. He disagrees with the new approach, arguing that it will “weaken collective bargaining, weaken job security of teachers, [and] hold teachers accountable based largely on standardized test scores of their students.”

Superintendent Anderson says Newark’s underperforming schools need bold ideas and a break from the past.

“Private philanthropy can be a critical catalyst to remove systemic barriers that the system can’t remove," she says, because "the system is the problem sometimes.”

What will the changes mean for the first graders in Mrs. Rutherford’s class? It will be some time before these reforms can be judged on student preparedness and graduation. Like most investments, the returns aren’t instant.

Click here to see how the Foundation for Newark's Future has divied up Zuckerberg's $100 million donation so far.

*CORRECTION: The original article misspelled the name of Newark Public Schools Superintendent Cami Anderson. The text has been corrected.

Today the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that companies are now allowed to use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to make important announcements, as long as investors are told the information beforehand. One of the key controversies leading to the decision was Netflix CEO Reed Hastings' post on Facebook about company metrics.

But Hastings wasn't the first to make a major faux pas on social media (and he surely won't be the last). We've compiled a slideshow of some of the worst corporate messages that have been tweeted. Vote on which is the worst, and let us know of any others in the comments below or by tweeting us @MarketplaceAPM.

Which was the worst corporate tweet #fail?

The Securities and Exchange Commission caught up to the 21st century today. The agency issued a ruling basically saying that  posting corporate news on Twitter or Facebook is just as legitimate as a media release or a regulatory filing.

The SEC even said it "encouraged" companies to "seek out new forms of communication to better connect with shareholders." Memo to the SEC. Facebook's about a decade old.

The controversy over tweeting and Facebooking corporate news started last summer with a Facebook post by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. He wrote that Netflix had surpassed a record for streaming content: 1 billion hours in a single month, a stat that prompted Netflix's stock price to shoot up.

 Joseph Grundfest is a former SEC commissioner who teaches business and law at Stanford.

The SEC's argument against the Netflix post was "that this information material non-public information... and shouldn't have appeared on Reed Hastings' personal Facebook page without prior notification to the market," says Grundfest. 

The ruling today makes clear that Hastings' Facebook post was fine. Investors simply need a heads up when a company may be releasing new information through social media, and where to look for it. 

But don't expect companies to start live tweeting their regulatory filings.  

"The typical disclosures by publicly traded companies... the very large forms will continue to be disclosed the regular way." Grunfest says. "You can't post that on Facebook and you certainly can't tweet all that information. "

But experimentation will prevail. After the ruling, Goldman Sachs sent the SEC its thanks in a tweet. 

 

Hastings' post ultimately held up under SEC scrutiny. But a company's faux pas on social media can go oh-so much further. We've compiled a slideshow of some of the worst corporate social media fails. Cast your vote on which was the worst here.

These days when you go to the doctor, many rely on an electronic health records system. With just a few clicks of a mouse, they can bring up your medical history, prescribe you medication, or chart your test results.

The 2009 Recovery Act actually set aside $20 billion to help health care providers ditch the paper records and go electronic. The idea was to cut soaring health care costs in the U.S. But while physicians backed by large health care groups can afford the system, many rural physicians are struggling to make that transition.

At the Fayette Medical Clinic in rural Missouri, Shauna Young brings her one-year-old daughter Caroline in for a checkup. Dr. Kevin Frazer pulls up a graph of Caroline’s weight on the computer in the exam room.  Because Caroline’s electronic health record shows her weight has dipped, Frazer talks to Shauna about Caroline’s eating habits.

Health care providers generally have accepted electronic records as an efficient tool. It can cut costs and time. Frazer says he can use the computer to help diagnose conditions, bill patients, and show them changes in their weight or glucose levels.

“It gives us more information that the patient can see in real time,” Frazer says.

The federal government has set a deadline. If health care providers don’t implement an electronic health records system by 2015, they’ll get dinged with Medicare penalties. The problem for many rural health clinics is they don’t have the money to make the switch.

A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research last year suggests that costs rise sharply in the first year of adoption for health centers in less tech-savvy locations. And they can remain up to 4 percent higher for years.

There are big upfront costs for licensing the software and purchasing the computer equipment, according to Brock Slabach, senior vice-president of the National Rural Health Association. “It could be $30,000-$40,000 per physician possibly in terms of getting one of these set up in a clinic -- possibly more depending upon the complexities that might be present within that particular facility,” he says.

Those complexities often include adding a broadband connection, training staff to use the system and convincing patients they won’t lose their personal relationship with their doctor.

Across Fayette’s town square is Family Health Inc. Behind the receptionist, you’ll find about a dozen metal bookshelves packed with yellow file folders. That's because Dr. Hope Tinker still uses a paper system.

“My financial resources as an independent physician are limited,” she says.  “If you’re in a big group and you’re a primary care physician you reap the financial benefits as having access to their technology.”

While Frazer’s clinic has benefited from being part of the massive University of Missouri Health Care, Tinker has been on her own. That’s changing this month, though, when Tinker’s practice becomes part of a county hospital system -- something she says was necessary to survive and remain in Fayette. The larger organization will foot the bill to update her practice with electronic records and a T-1 connection line to hook into the hospital’s network.

Now, there is federal incentive money available to help health care providers go electronic. Many of the big health care groups are using it. But that money only comes as a reimbursement after physicians have installed the system. And in 2015, those funds disappear -- right when the Medicare penalties kick in.

That’ll affect doctors, like John Ward of Boonville, Mo.

“For every year that I don’t participate in electronic medical records, they dock me a small percent,” he says, “and it will get bigger as the years go by to the point where it would be prohibitive to see Medicare patients.”

Ward, who is past retirement age, says he is opting out of the electronic world. It’s partly the price but also he wants to maintain face time with his patients.

“I fully recognize that I’m a dinosaur,” he says. “And in time, I and people who think like I do will die out and that electronic medical records are here to stay. That’s the way it’s going to be and we just have to get used to it.”

Ward does say if he were younger, he would take a harder look at making the financial leap for an electronic system.

Add one more line to Jay-Z’s long and lucrative resume: sports agent. The hip-hop star nabbed New York Yankee second baseman Robinson Cano, who fired one of sports' most aggressive agents to become Jay-Z's first client. The rapper is partnering with the powerhouse talent agency CAA to start a sports management company called Roc Nation Sports. The move could be good for Jay-Z and perhaps even for baseball in general.

But first, Jay-Z would have to best the short but rather checkered history of rappers as sports agents. It’s an especially low bar. The contract Master P got for NFL running back Ricky Williams is often cited as among the worst in modern sports. But Jay-Z has shown a talent for smart partnerships and deal-making. He has a small but influential stake in the Brooklyn Nets basketball team.

“It’s a very lucrative business to represent players,” Smith College sports economist Andrew Zimbalist points out. “Grabbing a superstar like Robinson Cano is a great first step and potentially a very positive move for Jay-Z.”

This could mean top sports agents have to raise their game, as Jay-Z and his high-powered partners stalk their clients. It could be positive for the sport itself. Jay-Z taking an interest in baseball could help with an issue that has recently frustrated the game.

“There is a significant problem facing Major League Baseball in terms of the diversity of their audience,” says Temple University sports economist Michael Leeds.

African-American baseball fans and players have dwindled in recent years. Now one of the most famous African-Americans on Earth is firmly in the baseball business. A growing Jay-Z presence might drive new ticket sales and stronger TV ratings, by getting a new audience to give baseball a second look.

“Any positive impact would be appreciated by the game,” says Kenneth Shropshire, director of the Sports Business Initiative at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “It’s gonna be interesting to see if this plays a role.”

But of course he and other sports business observers are quick to add that it’ll take much more than one rapper’s involvement to fix baseball’s audience problem.

Sarah Gardner: You don't have to wait for this news: Jay-Z, the new Jerry Maguire. The hip-hop star is now a sports agent, nabbing New York Yankee second baseman Robinson Cano. Cano fired one of sports' most aggressive agents to become Jay-Z's first client. The rapper is partnering with the powerhouse talent agency CAA to start a sports management company called Roc Nation Sports.

Marketplace's Mark Garrison reports on what that could mean for Jay-Z and for the baseball.

Mark Garrison: There’s a short but rather checkered history of rappers as sports agents. The contract Master P got for NFL player Ricky Williams is often cited as among the worst in modern sports. But Jay-Z has shown a talent for smart partnerships and deal-making. He has a small but influential stake in the Brooklyn Nets basketball team. Andrew Zimbalist is a Smith College sports economist.

Andrew Zimbalist: It’s a very lucrative business to represent players. Grabbing a superstar like Robinson Cano is a great first step and potentially a very positive move for Jay-Z.

That could mean top sports agents have to raise their game, as Jay-Z and his partners stalk their clients. And it could be positive for the sport itself. Jay-Z taking an interest in baseball could help with an issue that has recently frustrated the game.

Michael Leeds: There is a significant problem facing Major League Baseball in terms of the diversity of their audience.

Temple University sports economist Michael Leeds is talking about how African-American baseball fans and players have dwindled in recent years. Now one of the most famous African-Americans on Earth is in the baseball business. He might drive new ticket sales and stronger TV ratings. Kenneth Shropshire is a sports business professor at University of Pennsylvania.

Kenneth Shropshire: Any positive impact would be appreciated by the game and it’s gonna be interesting to see if this plays a role.

He and others are quick to say that it’ll take much more than one rapper’s involvement to fix baseball’s audience problem. In New York, I'm Mark Garrison, for Marketplace.

Apple has one, so does Microsoft and Google. And there are rumors swirling that Facebook might be introducing a Facebook phone at its Menlo Park headquarters tomorrow.  

One reason the phone rumors seem believable is because Facebook wants to be your one-stop shop for everything. And the phone is the obvious way to do that, says Scott Steinberg, an analyst at Tech Savvy.

“What were rapidly seeing with companies is  there not simply looking to help you out with specific functions from time to time, but as your only port,” said Steinberg.

By one estimate, of the 1 billion people who are on Facebook, nearly 70 percent of them are active mobile users. With more people interacting with Facebook through mobile, the more Facebook is making the push, says Charles Golvin is an analyst at Forrester.

“That’s where most of the pictures and videos are being uploaded that’s where much of the communication happens,” Golvin said.

And that’s just the basic Facebook app -- you know, it looks like the one on your computer. Facebook has other apps that have fueled speculation that its going to bundle them all into a phone.

Rakesh Agrawal, a consultant at Redesign Mobile, says the social media giant is gaining ground with its Facebook Messenger app. It allows you to send instant messages over Wi-Fi and avoid racking up charges on your cell phone bill.

“And that’s increasingly becoming a threat to SMS where people are just using Facebook Messenger instead of paying their carriers $20-a-month or 20 cents a message,” said Agrawal.

And of course, we can’t forget Instagram, the hugely popular photo sharing app that Facebook acquired last year. But Agrawal says if the Facebook rumors are true the company might be getting into the business for the wrong reasons.

“A lot of companies build products because they feel the need to be in a certain space,” said Agrawal. “It’s possible that the Facebook phone ends up being the same thing that they feel the need to be there, but consumers don’t feel the need to buy it.”

We’ve been seeing signs for months that the housing market is coming back, but President Obama thinks too many people are getting shut out because of lackluster credit.

Now the Obama administration wants banks to let their guard down and start lending to a wider range of borrowers, according to the Washington Post.

The president is basically promising not to punish banks that start lending again to people with weaker credit. If those homeowners later default, the Federal Housing Authority insures the loans. And the FHA wants banks to size up potential borrowers more subjectively, by looking at factors like savings.

“Somehow making it a procedure to use more intuitive judgment about the borrower is probably a good idea, if it’s done right,” says economist and Yale professor Robert Shiller. He compares banks that are holding out for borrowers with stellar credit to colleges that look only at applicants’ SAT scores.

“Right now lower income borrowers are just shut out of the market. That is a problem,” Shiller says.

Critics of the plan say lenders should still apply lessons learned from the housing crisis -- requiring larger down payments and shorter loan terms.

“FHA’s lending standards still remain way too risky for many working class families and this push would just make people who should be able to achieve the American dream, give them a nightmare instead,” says Ed Pinto, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Fannie Mae executive.

But the head of the Mortgage Bankers Association, David Stevens, says lenders are starting to allow for the fact that they may have over-corrected.

“The devil is in the details, and only by seeing the actual real policy proposals to be considered will we know what this ultimately may do to help the credit markets expand,” Stevens says.

So what are those details? The FHA declined to comment.

Despite some discouraging numbers on new jobs today, the economy, we know, does seem to be slowly getting back on its feet. But when it comes to the ability of individual families to make a comeback, the results can be shockingly inconsistent. A new study out today by the Pew Economic Mobility Project looks at the role race and assets have in people’s ability to weather the economic hardships of sudden unemployment.

When I looked at the study, I realized my own experience with unemployment fits right in to the results.

To explain what I mean, let’s compare my unemployment story to the story of a man named Billy Lowe.

Billy Lowe is a 36-year-old man from Philadelphia who lost his job last summer. I am a 36-year-old woman from L.A. who lost my job a few years before that. There are plenty of similarities and differences between us, but for the purpose of this story, here are the main ones.

We both have college degrees, and consider ourselves middle class. But Lowe is black, and I am white.

After losing his job 10 months ago, Lowe is still unemployed. “I basically lost my house. I lost my car. I mean, everything just basically fell apart,” he says.

After I lost my job? I was freaked out, but I had lots of resources to draw upon. And luckily, I got another job almost immediately.

These differences between Lowe’s situation and mine reflect larger national trends, according to that study by the Pew Economic Mobility Project. It found that between 1999 and 2009, 11 percent of white households surveyed had experienced unemployment for six months or more, compared to 23 percent of black households.

The study also found that a household’s ability to weather the economic shock of unemployment differed dramatically, largely because of the historic obstacles to building assets that black families face, according to Erin Currier, director of the Pew Economic Mobility Project.

“White families were more likely to hold employer-based pensions or retirement savings accounts,  they were more likely to inherit money or receive large gifts from relatives, which are often some of the  first resources that families draw upon when they  face financial hardship,” Currier says.

So back to Lowe and me. In many ways, my situation echoed Currier’s research.  I did have a retirement savings account I could draw upon. I knew I could ask my mom to help with rent, and I didn't have to worry about car payments because she'd given me her old car.

As for Lowe, he had no retirement savings, and though his parents wanted to help, they didn’t have many assets they could draw upon to offer.

“It was basically ‘This is all I got. I can hand you $50 here or $50 there,’” says Lowe. “But it was not enough where they could pay my rent for two months or pay my car note for two months to try to buy some time to get another job.”

The fact that I could lean on my family’s assets while Lowe could not has ripple effects, says Janet Boguslaw, a co-author of the Pew study and Associate Director of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University. Boguslaw interviewed dozens of black families for the study, and she says in many cases their limited assets going in to unemployment hampered their ability to recover financially from the shock, even once they found a new job.

“They've depleted all of their wealth. They may be in debt. They can't start the recovery in the same way that people who have either a personal safety net or an extended family safety net would have.”

Boguslaw says there should be more policies put in place by government and private lending institutions “so that people don’t have to deplete all of their resources” when they lose their jobs.  She also suggests policy makers consider using the tax code to encourage more savings among lower-income families, to create more assets to fall back on in times of need.

All charts and graphics courtesy of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Paying taxes is generally regarded as every American's least favorite activity in April. It's an angst-ridden experience -- so much so that more than half of us now pay someone else to do it for us. Still, there's a hefty chunk of the U.S. tax bill that goes unpaid each year -- about $450 billion.

"Most of the non-collected money, for example, could be tracked and hunted down if you went and required small businesses to really report everything about their activity," says Austan Goolsbee, a former White House economist. "But nobody wants to do that because it would be so onerous and such a pain in the rear for small business owners that, as a policy decision, they don't want to do it."

So how can we close that gap and make paying for government a little more ... fun?

Stephen Dubner looked at the work of a small British government unit called the Behavioral Insights Team, which uses the work of behavioral economists and other social scientists to inform new public policy initiatives. Among the experiments are small, cheap nudges, like changing the way people are asked to pay their taxes. In one trial, a note was handwritten on some letters saying, "This is important."

In another, there was an appeal to the herd mentality in all of us. "We simply tell people something, which is true -- we check by the way that it is true -- which is nine out of 10 people in Britain pay their tax on time," says the unit's director, David Halpern. "By putting that single bit of information into the top of a letter, it makes people much more likely themselves to pay the tax on time."

Dubner also talks to the psychology professor Dan Ariely, who says that people would feel better about paying their taxes if they could direct a small portion of their payment to the parts of government that they care most about.

In a move that could change the way companies communicate with their investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission has ruled that company executives can use sites like Twitter and Facebook to release market moving news.

Whenever a big economic crisis happens, investors usually flock to the safety of gold or U.S. government bonds. But the banking crisis in Cyprus brought another store of value to the fore -- Bitcoin, an online currency that’s seen a notable surge in price over the last few weeks.

Monsanto beat expectations in its earnings report Wednesday. The company's recent strong performance opens a window into the explosive technological growth in Latin American agriculture. The biotech farm supplier has cashed in selling its genetically engineered seeds and other products to farmers there.

The payroll processing company ADP reported this morning that 158,000 private sector jobs were added last month. The latest figures, which come just two days before the official monthly jobs report from the Labor Department, fall below analyst expectations.

Gus Faucher, senior economist with PNC Financial Services Group, joins Marketplace Morning Report host Jeremy Hobson to explain the dip in private sector job gains and how the sequester is likely to effect government hiring.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is giving companies a freer hand in using social media. The SEC ruling, which allows companies to announce business and financial information on the likes of Twitter and Facebook, could change the way investors and company officials communicate. 

When Netflix exceeded one billion hours viewed last summer, it posted the news on Facebook. That post drove the company’s stock higher, which drew the attention of regulators. The problem here for the SEC, says Peter Cohan of the venture capital firm Cohan & Associates, is that not every investor is on Facebook.

"Their concern was that some investors would be getting information over Twitter or Facebook that other investors wouldn’t get," says Cohan, "and that would lead to unequal disclosure of information and make the markets less fair."

The SEC ruling potentially clears that up. Now, companies must tell investors which sites they will use to release corporate news. There is some fear that companies will use multiple social media sites -- forcing stockholders to scour the Internet to keep up. But Chris Whalen with Carrington Investment Services expects that issue to sort itself out.

"There are all sorts of different ways invewstors get information," says Whalen, "and I think the SEC has recognized that fact, that evolution."

Whalen says if anything, more investors are likely to check Twitter and Facebook for news than some corporate website.

Tax day is less than two weeks away. As you prepare for this year's returns, Marketplace's Senior Producer of Personal Finance Paddy Hirsch brings you tips to avoid an audit.

1. Avoid entering round numbers: If you round up to the nearest thousand, the IRS may think it is a made up figure.

2. Make sure your numbers actually match up: Figures like your stated income should equal what your employer has entered on your W2 and 1099 forms.

3. Be meticulous about your home office expenses: Home office deductions are one of the most abused deductions out there, and often garner attention from the IRS. Keep all of your receipts and records of home office expenses. Avoid unusual home office deduction claims, like underwater basket weaving classes.

4. Back up your charitable deductions: Keep receipts for donations greater than $250. Photograph clothing, food, furniture or other charitable donations.