John Ydstie
John Ydstie has covered the economy, Wall Street, and the Federal Reserve at NPR for nearly three decades. Over the years, NPR has also employed Ydstie's reporting skills to cover major stories like the aftermath of Sept. 11, Hurricane Katrina, the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, and the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. He was a lead reporter in NPR's coverage of the global financial crisis and the Great Recession, as well as the network's coverage of President Trump's economic policies. Ydstie has also been a guest host on the NPR news programs Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. Ydstie stepped back from full-time reporting in late 2018, but plans to continue to contribute to NPR through part-time assignments and work on special projects.
During 1991 and 1992, Ydstie was NPR's bureau chief in London. He traveled throughout Europe covering, among other things, the breakup of the Soviet Union and attempts to move Europe toward closer political and economic union. He accompanied U.S. businessmen exploring investment opportunities in Russia as the Soviet Union was crumbling. He was on the scene in The Netherlands when European leaders approved the Maastricht Treaty, which created the European Union.
In August 1990, Ydstie was one of the first reporters on the scene after Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army invaded Kuwait. He accompanied U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia as a member of the Pentagon press pool sent to cover the Iraqi invasion for U.S. media outlets.
Ydstie has been with NPR since 1979. For two years, he was an associate producer responsible for Midwest coverage. In 1982, he became senior editor on NPR's Washington Desk, overseeing coverage of the federal government, American politics, and economics. In 1984, Ydstie joined Morning Edition as the show's senior editor, and later was promoted to the position of executive producer. In 1988, he became NPR's economics correspondent.
During his tenure with NPR, Ydstie has won numerous awards. He was a member of the NPR team that received the George Foster Peabody Award for its coverage of Sept. 11. Ydstie's reporting from Saudi Arabia helped NPR win the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award in 1991 for coverage of the Gulf War. In 2016, Ydstie received a Gerald Loeb Award for financial reporting for his contributions to an NPR series on financial planning.
Prior to joining NPR, Ydstie was a reporter and producer at Minnesota Public Radio. Ydstie is a graduate of Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, where he is now on the Board of Regents. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude, with a major in English literature and a minor in speech communications. Ydstie was born in Minneapolis and grew up in rural North Dakota.
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Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended Thursday the administration's handling of the financial crisis, as he again urged Congress to pass a regulatory overhaul that has been months in the making. Geithner faced tough questioning on the bailout of insurance giant AIG and Wall Street bonuses. Republican Congressman Kevin Brady even demanded Geithner's resignation.
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The government says the nation's unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent last month, the highest since 1983. Economists had expected the figure to rise to 9.9 percent.
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The Treasury and Federal Reserve both announced new rules Thursday that seek to curb soaring pay at U.S. financial institutions. U.S. pay czar Kenneth Feignberg laid out the details of his plan to slash pay for top executives at seven firms that received government bailout money. The Fed intends to reduce "systemic risk" by monitoring compensation practices for the first time.
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The U.S. dollar has fallen more than 12 percent from its recent peak. Amid worries that it will continue to weaken, some central banks are keeping more of their reserves in euros and yen. There has even been talk of finding an alternative to the greenback as the world's major reserve currency. -
The U.S. dollar has fallen more than 12 percent from its recent peak. Amid worries that it will continue to weaken, some central banks are keeping more of their reserves in euros and yen. There has even been talk of finding an alternative to the greenback as the world's major reserve currency.
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G-20 leaders will likely leave Pittsburgh with an agreement to have banks build up their capital reserves while cutting back on bonuses and other forms of compensation. The new capital rules will be phased in and banks would have until the end of 2012 to meet the new requirements.
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The Obama administration hopes to discuss growing trade imbalances at the summit of the Group of 20 economic powers in Pittsburgh Thursday and Friday. The meeting is to discuss the global economy, which is slowly recovering from the worst recession since the Great Depression.
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President Obama announced that he is nominating Ben Bernanke to another four-year term as head of the Federal Reserve. The president said Bernanke shepherded the U.S. through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
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The surprising loss of 467,000 jobs in June, far more than expected, is fueling Republican criticism of the Obama administration's stimulus program. After the numbers were announced Thursday, President Obama called the huge job losses sobering. The continuing fallout in the labor market is causing problems in the housing sector, and vice versa.
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President Obama unveiled a plan to overhaul regulation of the nation's financial institutions Wednesday. He blamed the current economic crisis on a culture of irresponsibility by Wall Street, Main Street and Washington. Obama also said the government had to do more to protect consumers. The effort requires congressional action and would represent the most substantial revamping of the regulatory structure since the Great Depression.
