Gerald Herbert/AP

A coastal zone director lifts an oil-covered pelican out of Barataria Bay.

What’s the price of a pelican? The total for a turtle? The dollars for a dolphin?  Its not a philosophical question anymore. The BP oil spill killed hundreds of these animals, and the Feds want to make darn sure that BP pays the total bill.  But coming up with a precise economic value for wildlife has stymied economists and scientists for decades. There’s no market for most of these animals. No catalog for endangered species. No eBay or Craigslist for migratory birds.

That’s not going to stop us from trying, though.  Today on the podcast, we come up with 5 different ways to put a pricetag on a pelican.

Damian Dovarganes/AP

A tablet version of the Blackberry is coming in time for the holidays

If there's one cure for a Blackberry addiction, it's an iPad addiction.

Now, executives at RIM, makers of the Blackberry, are heading off any defections with their own version of the iPad, Bloomberg reports. The copycat— er, RIM spin on the tablet device is set for November release. An iPad costs $499 for the basic wifi-only version; Bloomberg didn't report pricing for the RIM device.

With Amazon's announcement of a $139 wifi-only version of its ereader Kindle, it looks like iPad battles could provide a lot of fall entertainment.

Anonymous/AP Photo

An undated photo of a New York slum.

Putting off philanthropy until you make your millions?

It doesn't work that way, according to a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

In a game where 115 participants had credits to give away or keep, poorer people tended to give away more credits, the Economist reported. That's even after participants learned any remaining credits at the end of the study would be worth real money that they would be able to keep.

In a survey of the group, rich people said 2.1% of income should be donated to charity, while poor people said it should be 5.6%.

Rich Pedroncelli/AP

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger responds to a question about his revised state spending plan

Logic tells you that a state with as big a budget mess as California should be paying the price in higher interest rates when it comes to the bonds it issues.

But in this case, logic is wrong. As Tom Petruno writes in the Los Angeles Times, the annualized tax-free yield on California's five-year general-obligation bonds has fallen to 2.1 percent from 3 percent in mid April. That compares with 4 percent in mid 2009. And it's despite California's budget impasse.

California bonds are simply benefitting from investors' disgust with the lackluster stock market, fears about the overall economy, and desire to have some kind of return for their cash.

Paul Sakuma/AP

This unemployed guy could have told you the economy was no great shakes.

The nation's economy grew at a modest 2.4 percent rate last quarter, according to the Commerce Department, which also revised down estimates going back three years.

That means the recession was worse than previously believed. The government revised down its estimates for seven quarters dating back to the first quarter of 2007.

But the Commerce Department said the first quarter of this year showed more growth than previously reported, 3.7 percent compared to 2.7 percent. The second-quarter data showed businesses are investing more in equipment and buildings, while consumers are keeping their spending in check. Consumers are also saving more than previously reported.

Colin Purrington/flickr

Look at a wedding by the hourly cost instead of the total tab, suggests the WSJ's Brett Arends, and get ready for even bigger sticker shock.

Measured that way, Chelsea Clinton's upcoming nuptials cost $270,000 an hour, assuming a $3 million overall tab and a celebration that lasts 11 hours. At $2 million, that's still $180,000 an hour. "How much fun can anyone have in an hour? Even if you're, say, doing the tango with Oprah Winfrey?" asks Arends.

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard is worried about deflation, and he has a new paper out today, that has caught the attention of Fed watchers everywhere. Here's the money quote:

The U.S. is closer to a Japanese-style outcome today than at any time in recent history.

For a quick review of what happened during Japan's "lost decade," listen to our interview with Adam Posen, author of Japan's Financial Crisis and Its Parallels to U.S. Experience.

Citigroup has agreed to pay the SEC $75 million to settle charges that the company misled investors about the amount of its subprime exposure. According to the complaint,

...Citigroup repeatedly made misleading statements in earnings calls and public filings about the extent of its holdings of assets backed by subprime mortgages. Between July and mid-October 2007, Citigroup represented that subprime exposure in its investment banking unit was $13 billion or less, when in fact it was more than $50 billion.

Bruno Vincent/Getty Images Europe

Internet gambling could soon be legal again.

Faced with huge budget shortfalls, Congress is considering legalizing and taxing Internet gambling, a move that could generate billions of dollars in tax revenue for the government.

A House committee yesterday approved a bill that would legalize online poker and other non-sports betting. A companion bill, which has yet to be voted on, would allow the Internal Revenue Service to begin taxing online gambling businesses.

"This is money sitting on the table," a spokesman for a Washington-based Internet gambling initiative told Bloomberg News.

Goldman Sachs employees are going to have to be a lot more careful about which words they use in emails, text messages and instant messages. The WSJ reports that the company has warned its employees it will soon be screening their electronic communication for swear words and acronyms (even words that contain *** won't fly.)

Why the stepped up enforcement? Well it's likely got something to do with that infamous Senate hearing back in April, when Senator Carl Levin, quoting from a Goldman memo, said the word s****y at least 12 times in under 5 minutes.

The Federal Reserve says "sluggish" activity in real estate markets contributed to slower growth in some areas of the country, in the last two months. In its latest survey of the 12 Federal Reserve Districts, known as the Beige Book, the Fed found that while "economic activity has continued to increase, on balance, " many districts reporting increased activity noted that it was only "modest."

Nearly all Districts reported sluggish housing markets in the months since the homebuyer tax credit expired on April 30. While some Districts, such as Boston and St. Louis, reported an increase in May and June home sales on a year-over-year basis, some contacts noted that these sales may reflect closings of homes under contract by the April tax credit deadline.

Commercial and industrial real estate markets continued to struggle in all twelve Districts. Overall, vacancy rates were flat to slightly increased and continued to exert downward pressure on rents. Construction activity remained weak in most Districts.

Areas that saw improvement include the manufacturing and service sectors.

The report is in line with comments made by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last week, during which he said he expected "moderate growth," but expected the housing market to remain "weak, with the overhang of vacant or foreclosed houses weighing on home prices and construction."

Nick Ut/AP

Rick Norsigian of Fresno, Calif. bought a set of glass negatives for $45 at a garage sale a decade ago. Today, his find may be worth $200 million.

A set of glass negatives purchased a decade ago at a garage sale may have gained $199,999,955 in value yesterday. A team of experts on Tuesday identified the set as the work of the iconic American photographer Ansel Adams, the WSJ reports.

But the folks at Adams' publishing rights trust aren't buying it.

"Do you have any idea how many people were photographing Yosemite in the 1920s and 1930s? Millions! It could be anyone," the managing trustee told the WSJ.

The controversy over whether the negatives may be millions of dollars worth of art, or just a dusty pile of glass shards, calls back a question we investigated last month: How do you decide how much a work of art is worth?

Monkey Business Images

What do you remember from kindergarten? Maybe your teacher or your best friend's name, but what about what you learned? Can you recall what you were taught?

A new study about kindergarten education suggests that what took place in that classroom may play a much larger role in your future than previously thought, particularly in regards to earnings potential.

Chana Joffe-Walt/NPR

This house in Florida was sold into what may have been a mortgage-fraud ring.

Recently we learned from a group of reporters at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that one of the mortgages in Toxie, our toxic asset, was part of a real-estate scheme being investigated by the FBI. It's a scheme that allegedly involves $200 million in fraudulent loans.

So we traveled to Florida to find out how the scheme worked. The reporters there told us it all centered around a man named Craig Adams, who was flipping houses back and forth among a circle of friends and business associates. The people in the circle would buy homes for higher and higher prices, taking out larger and larger loans from the bank and then divide that money amongst themselves.

The first person whose home was sold into that circle was Dr. Fred Bloom, who watched the price on his former home rise rapidly for 10 years, before he finally learned the truth.

Robert Smith/NPR

At the $7 million playground that opened today in New York City, there are hundreds of giant foam shapes for kids to play with, and not a swing set in sight.

The Imagination Playground is the latest in a string of fancy, innovative playgrounds that have opened recently in the city. For anybody who has ever gone down a slide, this raises a few questions:

Why were playgrounds so boring for so long? And what's suddenly changed?