I talk to Bloomberg TV

Congratulations, Janet

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President Obama has made a great decision in choosing Janet Yellen to chair the Federal Reserve.

The image above, by the way, is one of the illustrations in the next edition of my favorite textbook (which is now in production). When supervising the artist, I had to guess who the next Fed chair would be.  As you can see, I guessed right.

Addendum: Someone asks whether the helicopter in the picture is a reference to the current chairman's somewhat pejorative nickname "Helicopter Ben."  The answer is no, not at all.  I used a helicopter in this interior illustration since the third edition, which predates Bernanke's becoming Fed chair.  Ben has used the helicopter metaphor for monetary policy, but the metaphor is not original to him (or to me).  I would guess it started with Milton Friedman, but I am not entirely sure.

The Top of My To-read Pile

I am a friend and fan of the University of Chicago's John List.  (I had the pleasure of working with John about a decade ago at the Council of Economic Advisers.)  So at the very top of my pile of books to read is John's new one, with Uri Gneezy, called The Why Axis.

No Risk of Default

My Harvard colleague Martin Feldstein writes me in an email:

The WSJ and FT continue to write about the risk of default, quoting the Treasury, Boehner and others.There really is no need for a default on the debt even if the debt ceiling is not raised later this month. The US government collects enough in taxes each month to finance the interest on the debt, etc. The government may not be able to separate all accounts into "pay" and "no pay" groups but it can certainly identify the interest payments. An inability to borrow would have serious economic consequences if it lasted for any sustained period but it would not have to threaten our credit standing.

Britain should not take its credit status for granted

From Ken Rogoff.

Update: And a follow-up from Ken.

The Coming Tax Hike

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From Casey Mulligan.

The shutdown hits econonerds

The BEA website is no longer operative.