President-elect Donald Trump has pledged a $1 trillion infrastructure spending program to help jump-start an economy that he said during the campaign was in terrible shape.

Speaking on Capitol Hill Thursday, Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen warned lawmakers that as they consider such spending, they should keep an eye on the national debt. Yellen also said that while the economy needed a big boost with fiscal stimulus after the financial crisis, that’s not the case now.

“The economy is operating relatively close to full employment at this point,” she said, “so in contrast to where the economy was after the financial crisis when a large demand boost was needed to lower unemployment, we’re no longer in that state.”

Yellen cautioned lawmakers that if they spend a lot on infrastructure and run up the debt, and then down the road the economy gets into trouble, “there is not a lot of fiscal space should a shock to the economy occur, an adverse shock, that should require fiscal stimulus.”

In other words, lawmakers should consider keeping their powder dry so they have more options whenever the next economic downturn comes along.

Trump was harshly critical of Yellen during his campaign. But testifying before the Joint Economic Committee, Yellen said she is not going to quit just because Trump won the election. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., asked Yellen, “Can you envision any circumstances where you would not serve out your term as chair of the Federal Reserve?” “No, I cannot,” answered Yellen, “It is fully my intention to serve out that term.” Yellen’s appointment goes through January 2018.

Another target of Trump’s during the campaign came up at the hearing: the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, cited Trump’s criticism that the Dodd-Frank banking rules were stifling lending and stunting the economy. But Yellen gave her support to Dodd-Frank, saying:

“We lived through a devastating financial crisis, and a high priority for all Americans should be that we want to see put in place safeguards through supervision and regulation that result in a safer and sounder financial system, and I think we have been doing that and our financial system as a consequence is safer and sounder and many of the appropriate reforms are embodied in Dodd-Frank.”

Yellen added, “We wouldn’t want to go back to the mortgage lending standards that led to the financial crisis.”

She also said she thought banks were actually willing to lend to small businesses, but that sales haven’t been growing sufficiently fast to justify borrowing, suggesting the demand for loans was the real problem.

As far as the ever-present question about when the Fed will raise interest rates, Yellen signaled that she didn’t see any reason to alter the Fed’s prior guidance now that Trump has been elected as the next president.

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In today’s show, we visit Buffalo, New York, and get a window into a rough business: Debt collection. This is the story of one guy who tried to make something of himself by getting people to pay their debts. He set up shop in an old karate studio, and called up people who owed money. For a while, he made a good living. And he wasn’t the only one in the business—this is also the story of a low-level, semi-legal debt-collection economy that sprang up in Buffalo. And, in a small way, it’s the story of the last twenty or so years in global finance, a time when the world went wild for debt.

For more on Buffalo and the debt underworld, see the book Bad Paper by Jake Halpern, and also Jake’s articles in the New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine.

Music: “Loving You” and “Clap Your Hands.” Find us: Twitter/ Facebook.

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“Our time is now.” That’s the message from Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association, to his group’s members and gun owners across America, following last week’s election.

With a Republican-held Congress and Donald Trump headed to the White House — helped, in no small part, by the support of the NRA — big changes could be coming to the nation’s gun laws.

At an NRA-sponsored event Monday, in the desert north of Phoenix, more than 1,000 gun owners and enthusiasts gathered for a so-called 1000 Man Shoot. Men and women from 16 states lined up shoulder to shoulder to fire 1,000 Henry Golden Boy Silver rifles simultaneously. They fired two rounds at a long row of targets. In the cheers after the second, a shooting safety officer in a lime green shirt and red hat said: “Can you hear us now, Hillary?”

“We made history last week,” Pete Brownell, the first vice president of the NRA, told the crowd. “And I have to tell you it feels great to be on offense again.”

Brownell and other gun rights advocates say that they’ve had to be on defense for the past eight years under the Obama administration.

“We’ve always had to be looking out for how our rights are going to be taken away from us as individuals; how our constitutional rights are going to be impinged upon,” Brownell says. “Now, the ball’s going to be in our court.”

There are a number of laws that the NRA and gun enthusiasts would like to see change under the Trump administration. We’ve listed some of those laws below and asked Adam Winkler, a constitutional law professor at the UCLA School of Law and author of Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, what the chances are for each proposal.

We should note that this is not a comprehensive list. And if you’re wondering why it’s not longer, Winkler says, “It’s because the NRA has been so successful over the last 40 years in American politics that it’s already accomplished almost everything on the list of its agenda items.”

1. National reciprocity for concealed-carry permits

This is the biggest-ticket item for the NRA and it’s the most likely to happen. Trump, a concealed-carry-permit holder, has said that concealed carry “is a right, not a privilege,” and that a permit should be valid in all 50 states, similar to a driver’s license.

That’s what national reciprocity would do — it would give a concealed-carry-permit holder in a state such as Texas the right to carry a gun in a state such as New York, regardless of New York’s concealed-carry laws. There are two versions of this law that have already been proposed in Congress, the broader of which would allow a person to get a concealed-carry permit outside his state of residence.

“That’s the more controversial version of national reciprocity,” Winkler says. “I’m not sure that’s the one we’ll get, but the NRA is most likely going to push for the broadest version of national reciprocity.”

Winkler believes that some version is likely to pass, but he says that Democrats could filibuster. He also notes that some Republicans could withhold support from national reciprocity because of states’ rights.

“If you believe in any local autonomy, as Republicans claim to, then the broad version of reciprocity undermines that significantly,” Winkler says. “Because a state or city like Los Angeles would no longer be able to control who carries guns in public.”

2. An end to gun-free military zones

At a rally in January, Trump said, “My first day, there’s no more gun-free zones.” He was talking about schools and military bases. He later clarified his position on schools, saying that school resource officers or teachers should be allowed to carry them. He has not publicly changed his opinion on military bases.

Currently, most gun owners on military bases must register their firearm and store it in an armory while on base. The only people who can carry guns while on a military base are on-duty military, state or local police.

There have been pushes by the NRA and Republican lawmakers to allow more military personnel to carry firearms on base, following mass shootings at Fort Hood in 2009 and the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard in 2013, but the Department of Defense has not changed its position. Under Trump, it might.

“This is very easy,” Winkler says. “Allowing carrying of firearms on military bases is something that the president will probably be able to do through executive order. I believe that [Trump] will.”

3. Removing suppressors from the National Firearms Act

Gun owners can already use suppressors — or silencers — in most states, but gun rights groups say that the process to get one is onerous. Suppressors are regulated under the National Firearms Act, which was originally enacted in 1934 following the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre to tax the making and transfer of certain firearms. The underlying purpose of the act, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was to “curtail, if not prohibit, transactions in NFA firearms.”

Gun rights advocates and shooters have long argued that suppressors should not be regulated by the NFA and have made a public health argument for their use: Guns are loud. “Everybody that you know that’s an old shooter is deaf,” says Michelle Camp, the leader of the Utah chapter of The Well-Armed Woman. “To have the ability to get [suppressors] easier would be really helpful.”

Winkler says it would take legislative action to get suppressors off the NFA list and that a piece of legislation already exists: the Hearing Protection Act of 2015, proposed in the House of Representatives. Winkler says he doesn’t expect it to be a priority for Congress, but “if the NRA decides to get behind silencer legislation, I think it will pass,” he says. Hours after Trump won last week’s election, the NRA dropped this tweet:

4. Revamping federal background check process

Nobody is entirely happy with the federal government’s current background check process or its database, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Gun control groups argue that there are too many loopholes in it, and many gun rights groups concur — a rare show of agreement — though not in the details.

The system is supposed to prevent a felon or someone who is mentally ill from purchasing a gun, but it has obstacles like underfunding and inaccurate, out-of-date data. Gun control groups would like to see things in the current system fixed, including the straw purchasing loophole. Gun rights groups say they’d like to find ways to get the system better data to work with.

During his campaign, Trump said that he was against expanding background checks and that the current system needs to be fixed.

“Unfortunately, I feel the efforts to ‘fix’ the background check system will be really efforts to gut the background check system,” Winkler says. “To make it less effective, less streamlined, and make it harder for prosecutors to find gun criminals. That’s been the NRA’s practice with regard to background checks in the past.”

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Mary Jo White, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, will step down in January, a move that leaves the future direction of the regulatory agency more uncertain than ever.

“It has been a tremendous honor to work alongside the incredibly talented and dedicated SEC staff members who do so much every day to protect investors and our markets,” White said, in a statement released today.

“I am very proud of our three consecutive years of record enforcement actions, dozens of fundamental reforms through our rule-makings that have strengthened investor protections and market stability, and that the job satisfaction of our phenomenal staff has climbed in each of the last three years,” she said.

A former U.S. attorney, White is known as a moderate who tried to navigate a politically divided agency known for internal battles.

Under her leadership, the commission implemented most of the rules stemming from Dodd-Frank, the landmark financial overhaul law passed in the aftermath of the financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported:

“During Ms. White’s tenure, which began in April 2013, the SEC overhauled the regulation of money-market mutual funds, credit-rating firms, stock exchanges, and electronic trading venues. She frequently navigated political infighting at the SEC to complete Dodd-Frank requirements, and such friction could continue under a Republican chairman.”

But White was sometimes criticized by liberals such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren for not pursuing Wall Street wrongdoers more aggressively.

With White gone, the commission which is supposed to have five members will be down to just two people, one Democrat and one Republican.

While President Obama has nominated two additional commissioners, the Republican-controlled Senate has refused to vote on them.

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to have an easier time getting his nominees approved.

Trump is expected to pursue a more conservative approach to regulation than his predecessor, but hasn’t spelled out what he will do, beyond repealing Dodd-Frank.

The heads of other financial regulatory agencies are widely expected to follow White out the door by announcing their departures over the next few weeks.

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Last month, Donald Trump released his plans for his first 100 days in office. He talked about dismantling NAFTA and repealing the Affordable Care Act. He called for deporting millions of undocumented immigrants and building a wall along the southern border. He promised to slash taxes and ban White House officials from lobbying for five years.

Now that Donald Trump is President-elect, what can he actually do? What’s possible and what would it would actually take? We look at the laws on breaking trade agreements and how much concrete he’d need to construct a wall along the border.

Music: “Bout That Live,” “Move Your Feet,” and “Shimmer Sunrise.” Find us: Twitter/ Facebook.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up more than 1 percent Thursday at an all-time high of 18,807.88, as investors bet that the Donald Trump presidency will mean less regulation and more potential stimulus spending.

Specific policies remain to be seen, but the president-elect pledged during the campaign to dismantle regulations, especially the Dodd-Frank financial law, which is now boosting financial stocks. Pharmaceutical stocks posted more gains Thursday, on the anticipation that the Trump administration is much less likely to scrutinize the drug industry than his rival Hillary Clinton.

Trump heavily emphasized more infrastructure spending, pledging to offer tax credits to encourage private financing for investment. With an all-Republican Congress, political gridlock is also less likely, and the anticipation of stimulus pushed manufacturing and defense stocks up.

On the other hand, the prospect of more government spending spurred a selloff in the bond markets. The yield on 10-year Treasury bonds posted its largest one-day gain in three years.

The stock market’s gains in the industries that stand to benefit were partially offset in other industries, like hospitals. Trump’s promises to dismantle the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act would hurt hospital bottom lines.

The technology-focused Nasdaq fell 0.81 percent, to 5,208, on the day. The tech sector declined because those companies rely on immigrant talent, which those companies anticipate will be harder to attract during the Trump presidency.

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U.S. stocks closed up Wednesday. It was a dramatic reversal from the deep losses in overnight trading. Investors were concerned that Donald Trump’s unexpected victory would create uncertainty and damage the overall view of the U.S. economy. Overnight financial markets reacted with fear as Hillary Clinton’s loss became apparent.

Throughout the summer and into the fall, U.S. markets had behaved quietly, as investors became confident of a Clinton victory. In late October, when it appeared the FBI would reopen an inquiry into Clinton’s email, stocks began a steady fall.

But with the election settled, each of the major indexes closed up by more than a point on Wednesday. A closer look reveals that investors poured money into sectors that could potentially benefit from the Trump presidency.

Shares of most oil and gas producers, energy companies, construction and pipeline operators rose while crude oil prices also went up.

“The market’s basically looking at old economy stocks coming back … and those stocks did pop up today,” says Juli Niemann, an analyst with Smith Moore and Co.

Health care companies did poorly, with the anticipation that the Obamacare insurance coverage law will end. And tech stocks dipped. “That’s the new economy,” she continues, “and [investors think] this is not going to be a new economy kind of president.”

Financial stocks were up in part because analysts believe interest rates will rise because the dollar is declining. Europe and Asia are worried about the Trump presidency, and their investment money could potentially move out of U.S. markets.

“We’re not alone in this [new economy], ” says Niemann, “So this rally was nothing more than Alka Seltzer bubbles relieving election pain and fizz. Now the ulcers are developing nicely — isolationism and protectionism.”

One of the sectors facing uncertainty is automotive. Auto stocks were mixed upon news of the election, with car companies — one of the industries Trump criticized during the campaign — vowing to work with the president-elect. The Detroit News looks how the auto industry is reacting to the impending Trump presidency.

“Carmakers have banked on using Mexico, which offers low labor costs, to aid small-car production, which have lower profit margins. Mexico represents about 20 percent of light vehicles made in North America, according to a recent analysis of the country’s impact on the automotive industry by the Center for Automotive Research.

” ‘We agree with Mr. Trump that it is really important to unite the country – and we look forward to working together to support economic growth and jobs,’ Ford, which congratulated Trump, said in a statement.

“Trump repeatedly used an April 2015 announcement by Ford to invest $2.5 billion for small car production in Mexico as a talking point throughout his campaign. The Republican businessman has said he would renegotiate NAFTA. If that’s not a success for Trump, he has indicated he would end the trade pact with Canada and Mexico and slap a tariff as low as 10 percent, or as high as 35 percent, on vehicles and parts made in Mexico that are imported into the U.S. He also has threatened tariffs of up to 45 percent on China for goods exported to the U.S.”

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Financial markets like certainty.

On Tuesday night, as the presidential election’s outcome headed towards a Trump victory, stock futures plunged. Investors had bet heavily Monday on Democrat Hillary Clinton. But as Republican Donald Trump picked up many more votes than polls had predicted, markets reacted violently to the change in expectations.

Across the board, it turned ugly for equities, currencies and Treasurys. The CBOE Volatility Index, a measure of investor fear, showed a 30 percent spike.

Japan’s Nikkei Index closed down more than 5 percent. Pre-opening trading in Dow futures was down 4.6 percent at one point but recovered somewhat as the night wore on, down 2.9 percent.

The shock of this presidential race is hitting markets just months after voters in Britain stunned the world with their Brexit vote to leave the European Union.

Throughout the summer and into the fall, U.S. markets were relatively quiet as investors became confident that Clinton would win. Then in late October, when it appeared the FBI would reopen an investigation into questions about Clinton’s email, stocks began a steady fall.

For nine straight days, the S&P 500 drifted down. But that sentiment turned around when the FBI said it had found nothing new that would trigger further action. On Monday, markets rebounded, with investors again becoming confident of a Clinton victory.

Investors generally saw her as a well-known figure whose economic policies would be similar to President Obama’s. In contrast, Trump’s positions are less clearly spelled out, and businesses generally oppose his key position — tearing up existing trade agreements.

With so much uncertainty, investors shifted money out of stock futures and into safe havens. The Japanese yen shot up against the U.S. dollar while the Mexican peso fell. Gold rose. Ten-year U.S. Treasurys fell.

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