Shutdown embarrassing - but will damage last?  It's going to
take a lot more political bungling to do any permanent damage to
America's reputation or wreck its financial markets.  The US
government's partial shutdown and a near-miss with a debt
default were a worldwide embarrassment that distracted political
leaders and likely slowed the economy.  Yet the world still runs
on US dollars. Foreign investors still see Treasury debt as the
safest place to put their money. And foreign companies still
view the United States as an ideal place to do business.  "It's
a paradox," says Eswar Prasad, a specialist in international
economics at Cornell University and the Brookings Institution.
"Even when the US is at the centre of the financial turmoil,
there is no other place that investors can turn to for safety."
Congress certainly stirred up financial turmoil the first two
weeks of October with a duel over President Barack Obama's
health care law.  But investors didn't panic. The yield on the
benchmark 10-year Treasur