You and Yours - 27/11/2008

Presented by Winifred Robinson. The administrators are in at MFI. Will everyone get a full refund or the goods they've paid for? John Field, of government funded advice service Consumer Direct, discusses. US economist Robert Shiller outlines his ideas for solving the global financial crisis that was triggered by the explosion in subprime housing loans. The organisers of the 2012 Olympics face the toughest economic circumstances in which to stage the games apart from wartime. That was the view of one member of the international Olympic committee which has been in London this week. Melanie Abbott has been catching up with what they have been up to. Britain is a nation of gardeners but nothing, it seems, is immune from the economic downturn. Horticulture Week, the magazine for the gardening industry, is full of stories about a fall-off in trade and how to get customers back. The idea of a wild garden might strike some people as a lazy option but many gardens are now too tidy for local wildlife to inhabit. So what can you do to make your garden wild again? A report out today by the Commission for Integrated Transport says the future of rural public transport lies in schemes that allow people to travel when they want and where they want, and that that can often be better provided by subsidised taxis than buses. Mark Holdstock looks at how some of these personalised schemes work. Credit card lenders have been called in for a meeting with ministers and sent away to look at the interest rates they are charging customers, particularly those under pressure. Pula Houghton attended the meeting.