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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Traditional hearing aids can be too expensive for many people. But a new type that uses Bluetooth technology costs only about $300. The company that makes the new devices aims to reach millions of people around the world who need hearing aids but have trouble paying for them. -
The stock market fell again on Thursday, a day after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke outlined plans to phase out the Fed's stimulative bond-buying program. The Dow was down 350 points in late afternoon trading.
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Investors have been nervous about the Federal Reserve's intentions after hints that it might reduce its massive bond buying program. Amid volatile markets, traders and investors complained they wanted more clarity. Chairman Ben Bernanke obliged on Wednesday after a regular two-day meeting of Fed policymakers.
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This week, the European Union gave some of its member nations more time to meet deficit-reduction targets — in other words, to ease back on austerity. The programs have crushed growth and sent European unemployment to a record high 12 percent.
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Tim Cook will address reports that his company pays billions less than it should in U.S. taxes each year at a Tuesday hearing in Washington. According to a report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Apple avoids the tax payments by shifting profits to subsidiaries in Ireland. -
On Thursday, President Obama named Daniel Werfel, 42, acting IRS commissioner. The announcement comes a day after the resignation of Steven Miller, who got caught up in the controversy over the IRS targeting Tea Party groups.
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Japan has embarked on a massive effort to stimulate its economy. Both the government and the central bank are collaborating to end a long period of stagnation and deflation. But the effects are also being felt outside Japan.
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Healthy increases in construction and home sales are boosting things like sales of pickups and landscaping, which, in turn, lead to more hiring. But federal budget cuts may undermine that momentum, economists say.
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Regulators are warning some of the nation's largest banks to stop offering loans that are hard to distinguish from those given out by storefront payday lenders. The banks have been offering high-interest-rate, short-term loans to customers with direct deposit as an advance on their paychecks. -
Few expected the Bank of Japan's program to buy up government bonds to dwarf the Federal Reserve's similar effort in the U.S. Japan's stock market has soared and the yen's value tumbled. Thus far, the move is boosting exports, but is also making Asian competitors nervous.
