Most Recent Posts

Starting a new job is always tough. You want early success to prove you really were the right pick.

That's especially true if you happen to be the first woman to hold that job. Ever.

So when President Obama on Wednesday nominated Janet Yellen to lead the Federal Reserve, she might have had two reactions: 1) Yippee and 2) Uh-oh.

As Fed head, Yellen would have to guide interest-rate policy in a way that boosts economic growth without triggering inflation.

The pressures would be enormous. Example: Just as Yellen's appointment was being rolled out, the International Monetary Fund was warning that if the Fed were to mishandle timing of a gradual move to higher interest rates, it could cause $2.3 trillion in global bond portfolio losses.

So from Day 1 on the new job, any slip-up could trigger an economic calamity.

But when introducing her as his choice, Obama expressed confidence, saying she's "extremely well-qualified" and "renowned for her good judgment."

Most of her peers predict Yellen, 67, will be able to handle the pressure.

"Dr. Yellen is superbly qualified," said a letter signed by more than 500 leading economists who urged the White House to nominate her. "She has shown consistently good judgment in all her roles leading our nation's financial institutions and economic policy."

Even many economists opposed to White House policies have voiced respect for Yellen.

"Her forecasts, as it turns out, have been more accurate" than those who feared the Fed was being too loose with monetary policy, according to Stephen Oliner, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group.

For weeks, economists and bankers have been warning that there will be catastrophic consequences if Congress fails raise the nation's borrowing limit.

They say it will mean the nation will default on its debt, which could rock U.S. and global markets. The Treasury has warned that it will exhaust the "extraordinary measures" it has been using to keep paying the nation's bills by Oct. 17.

"To actually permit default, according to many CEOs and economists, would be — and I'm quoting here — 'insane,' 'catastrophic,' 'chaos,' " President Obama has said. "These are some of the more polite words. Warren Buffett likened default to a nuclear bomb."

But to a small group of Republicans in Congress, these warnings are just a lot of hype. They believe the country will not default, even if the debt ceiling is breached, and all the fuss about the debt limit is just fear-mongering.

"To suggest that we can't pay our debts — that's absolutely not true," says Rep. Phil Gingrey of Georgia.

The Republicans in this group have different theories about why the country is not going to default, but the conclusion is the same: Let Oct. 17 come and go without raising the debt ceiling, and America's going to be A-OK.

One common theory: The U.S. will have enough cash on hand to pay Treasury bondholders and everybody else for a long time.

"We can honor our Social Security claims," Gingrey says. "Social Security checks will go out. Medicare claims will be honored."

The problem with that theory is twofold. First, cash-flow: The money going out can be more than what's coming in on any given day. Second: The total going out is a lot more than what's coming in. In the last fiscal year, the U.S. ran a $600 billion deficit.

Economists say if the U.S. can't borrow more money after Oct. 17, a lot of people — including Social Security recipients — won't get paid.

Related NPR Stories

Planet Money

What A U.S. Default Would Mean For Pensions, China And Social Security

Most business interests would do anything to avoid a public fight with the most powerful man in the Senate.

Not Koch Industries.

The privately owned conglomerate of conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch is busy trading volleys with Majority Leader Harry Reid in the battle over the Affordable Care Act and the government shutdown.

What's unusual here is the word trading. It wasn't so many years ago that the Koch brothers and their company would have said nothing, just absorbed political slams without comment.

But that reticence has been steadily fading as political temperatures rise. And this week, when Reid accused the Koch brothers of leading a two-pronged campaign against the ACA and for a shutdown, it took less than a day for Koch Industries to punch back.

Philip Ellender, an executive at Koch Companies Public Sector llc, distributed a letter on Capitol Hill Wednesday, taking on what he called "false information presented about Koch [Industries] on the Senate floor by Senate Majority Leader Reid" the day before. Ellender expressed hope that Reid "and other politicians will stop misrepresenting and distorting Koch's position."

Reid, citing a New York Times article that ran Sunday, had attacked David and Charles Koch and said the brothers and former Attorney General Ed Meese led other conservatives in "raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars" to fight the health care law and instigate the shutdown.

"By shutting down the government, and that's what happened, we're satisfying the Koch brothers and Ed Meese, but millions of people in America are suffering," Reid said.

Ellender's letter says that Koch Industries believes the ACA will increase deficits, bring down health-care standards and raise taxes. But he wrote that Koch Industries "has not taken a position on the legislative tactic" of linking the government funding resolution to a provision cutting off money for the ACA, "nor have we lobbied on legislative provisions defunding Obamacare."

But that still leaves the political groups backed by the Kochs — and they haven't been so hands-off. Americans For Prosperity, which the brothers have long supported, has campaigned hard to repeal Obamacare. And Heritage Action for America, which spearheaded the defunding effort, in 2011 got $500,000 from Freedom Partners, a business association that's part of the Koch network.

Just to add to the Koch confusion, Michael Needham, the head of Heritage Action, was asked Wednesday about that $500,000 contribution: It came from the Koch brothers, he said.

We had a complicated problem on our kitchen table in Jerusalem. A stack of homemade birthday thank-you notes, tucked in brightly colored envelopes, ready to be whisked off to friends in the U.S.

Postage Around The World

In the U.S., it costs $1.10 to send an overseas letter weighing up to 3.5 ounces (or approximately 100 grams). How does the rest of the world compare? Here's a roundup of what it costs for a U.S.-bound missive.

South Africa: 66 cents (up to 50 grams)

Russia: 88 cents (20g ); $2.19 (100g)

Brazil: 95 cents (50g)

Saudi Arabia: $1.07 (50g)

U.S.: $1.10 (approx. 100g)

Jamaica: $1.15 (15g, Caribbean, North and South America), $1.35 (Europe), $1.74 (rest of the world)

Ireland: $1.22 (50g)

Mauritania: $1.23 (100g)

Great Britain: $1.41 (10g); $5.59 (100g)

China: $1.63 (50g)

France: $1.90 (50g)

Japan: $1.96 (50g)

Australia: $2.46 (50g)

Denmark: $2.64 (50g)

Argentina: $2.75 (20g, within the Americas); $2.92 (outside the Americas)

Note: Converted to U.S. dollars on Oct. 8 and 9, 2013