US Debt Ceiliing - Crisis Over, For Now

Available for over a year

As Congress cuts a last-minute deal to avert an imminent US debt default, Manuela Saragosa asks whether the crisis is really over, or has it merely been postponed? And have the machinations in Washington done lasting damage to America's international standing as a financial safe haven? Simon Jack reports from New York on the reaction on Wall Street - a mixture of exasperation and equanimity - and gathers the views of Federal Reserve advisor Robert Hockett and of Nomura economist and ex-government official Lewis Alexander. And the BBC's economics correspondent Andrew Walker tells us why Washington could head right back into the same crisis as soon as this January, and what government officials from around the world had to say about the debt ceiling stand-off at this year's International Monetary Fund shindig. Also in the programme, Lucy Kellaway delivers the fifth installment of her history of the office. Where would we be without the telephone, she asks? Perhaps sending boys to deliver our messages instead?