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Jordan's King Abdullah says his country stands ready to respond to any threat from a spillover of the civil war in neighboring Syria, a day after the U.S. announced it would leave fighter jets and Patriot missiles in his country after joint military exercises end this week.

"If the world does not help as it should, and if the matter becomes a danger to our country, we are able at any moment to take the measures to protect the country and the interest of our people," Abdullah said, speaking to graduating military cadets.

He said Jordan "will emerge victorious in the face of all challenges, the way we always have in the past."

As NPR's Deborah Amos reports from Amman, the Pentagon's decision to leave the F-16s and missiles in Jordan at the conclusion of the exercises has led to speculation they could be used in establishing a no-fly zone over Syria.

The White House last week said it would provide direct military support to rebels fighting the regime of President Bashar Assad after it established that Syria had used sarin gas against its people.

Amos says Jordan has backed the U.S. campaign against the Syrian regime and "has become a transit route for secret arms shipments and hosted a covert rebel training program."

White House economic adviser Alan Krueger took some ribbing from his boss this week. President Obama noted that Krueger will soon be leaving Washington to go back to his old job, teaching economics at Princeton.

"And now that Alan has some free time, he can return to another burning passion of his: 'Rockanomics,' the economics of rock and roll," the president said. "This is something that Alan actually cares about."

In fact, Krueger gave a speech this week at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, where he said the music business offers valuable lessons about the broader U.S. economy.

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In recent years, programs that double the value of food stamp dollars spent at farmers markets have generated a lot of attention. The basic idea: Spend, say, $10 in food stamps and get an extra $10 credit for purchases at the market.

The model, which has spread to more than 25 states, has been hailed as one of the most effective ways to help low-income consumers get better access to fresh fruits and vegetables, while also supporting local farmers. But it has one major flaw: Most people don't shop at farmers markets.

That's why the Fair Food Network announced Friday that it's taking its food stamp incentive program to a new frontier: grocery stores.

The Fair Food Network already runs one such program, called Double Up Food Bucks, at 100 farmers markets in Michigan and Ohio. The program gives consumers a credit of up to $20 a day for using food stamps, or SNAP benefits, at the markets.

But Fair Food is well aware of the shortcomings of this approach. So the organization will soon pilot a new version of its program — the first of its kind — at three independent grocery stores in Detroit. This time, shoppers who use food stamps will get a $10 reward card for local produce with the purchase of $10 of groceries.

According to Oran Hesterman, president and CEO of the Fair Food Network, involving grocery stores in healthy food incentive programs is a critical step in reaching even more people who rely on federal food assistance.

"Ever since we started the program in 2009, we never conceived of it as just a farmers market program," Hesterman tells The Salt. "We knew that while farmers markets were a great place to demonstrate that people would use the program, if we were going to have an impact on a big scale, at some point we would have to move from farmers markets to grocery stores, where most people get their food most of the time."

So why Detroit? It's notorious for its food deserts, and fruits and vegetables are especially expensive for its poorest residents. But, Hesterman says, the city has a billion-dollar food economy, and half of that is spent by people on food assistance, "so it's the perfect place for us" to test the idea. (The Fair Food Network is based in Ann Arbor, Mich.)

One in 7 Americans receives food stamps, known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance, or SNAP, benefits. The average recipient receives about $133 a month. As one of the biggest government assistance programs at $80 billion, SNAP has been highly successful at reducing food insecurity and poverty in the U.S. Still, there's long been a debate about which foods should be allowed in the program and how to encourage healthful choices.

That's one reason why Fair Food Network and Wholesome Wave, another organization offering SNAP incentive programs, decided to partner with farmers markets. (Check out our Q&A with Wholesome Wave CEO Michel Nischan for more on their work.)

But Osterman says the programs are not just about encouraging people to buy fresh fruits and vegetables; they're also about building a market that local farmers can depend on.

"The more we can capture those SNAP dollars in the community, the more wealth and jobs we can generate," says Hesterman. "We're trying to demonstrate that we can think about using SNAP not just as a hunger and food insecurity program for low-income families, but also as an economic development tool."

In the new grocery pilot program, he says SNAP recipients will have about 15 Michigan-grown fruits and vegetables to choose from at the three participating stores. This local produce will be in a special section of the stores, labeled as eligible for the program.

Each store will have a different selection, depending on the season, but Hesterman says he expects most will be offering tomatoes, eggplants, squash and a variety of fruit.

"This year we are going to have a fabulous fruit crop in Michigan," he says. "So these stores will likely have apples, peaches, cherries and blueberries galore."

The participating stores are Honey Bee Market, Metro Foodland and Mike's Fresh Market; the pilot will run between July 1 and Oct. 31.

Despite the success of the incentive program at farmers markets, there's some uncertainty about whether it will work in grocery stores. The program isn't yet integrated in the grocery stores' computer systems, which is why the recipients will get their credit for produce purchases on a separate card.

"My biggest fear is that people won't know about it," says Hesterman. To get the word out, his group will be advertising the program on the radio and through billboards.

Miguelo Rada doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd have extra cash. He just spent 32 years in prison, he lives in a halfway house in West Harlem, and his current income comes only from public assistance.

He uses food stamps for food, wears hand-me-down clothes and buys almost nothing. He is also an unofficial bank.

"If somebody asks me, 'Can I borrow $20?' If I have it I'll say, 'Here!' " he says.

This kind of borrowing is one way people do what economists call "consumption smoothing" – basically making spending more regular, even when income is not.

Some people use credit cards or banks to smooth consumption. Others use each other, says Jonathan Morduch, an NYU professor, who studies how ordinary people make ends meet.

"Sometimes we do see people who say, 'I'm getting my money on the 17th, you're getting your money on the 2nd,' and they actually split their checks," he says.

Rada says the people he's lending to often have bad credit, so they can't borrow from banks. His version of a credit check is asking people "What's the problem? Is there a way out?" His ledger, he keeps in his head. And he says he doesn't charge interest.

Rada also accepts deposits for people like his brother, who have a hard time managing their own money. "I say, 'You want me to hold something for you?' So he gave me a hundred, and I held his hundred."

A while later, when his brother came back for the money, "I asked him, 'What's going on? What do you need this for?' " Rada says. "He told me, 'I gotta take care of this bill,' and I went with him."

There are downsides to informal lending. Borrowers don't build up a credit history that allows them to get credit cards and formal loans. And borrowing from friends and family can be a downer.

"When you put family in, then they have the right to critique," says Tamara Bullock, a funeral director in Harlem.

Bullock is part of a bank-like savings club called a sou-sou. In the last one Bullock was in, 13 people promised to pitch in $100 each every two weeks. And every two weeks, one member of the group got $1,300.

Bullock says she loves sou-sous because they force her to save. "There's no 'ifs' and 'buts' because other people are depending on you," she says.

Bullock has been working her way out of deep debt. When she got her most recent $1,300 from the sou-sou, she used it to pay off a debt to a collection agency.

But it isn't always about getting out of debt; a while back, Bullock and her colleague Patricia Hamilton used some of their sou-sou money to go sky diving. Hamilton wants to celebrate her 62nd birthday by taking Bullock sky diving again with her next sou-sou payout. Bullock is trying to get out of it.

For more on Jonathan Morduch's work on how people make ends meet, see the U.S. Financial Diaries Project.