When Western Union Co. (WU) was founded in the mid-19^th century, the “Western” referred to the most distant reaches of the U.S. telegraph system at the time, in the Mississippi Valley. Today the company operates in 200 countries and territories – every nation, in fact, but North Korea and Iran.

And while Western Union no longer handles singing telegrams, its unique network of half-a-million money-transfer agents allows customers to send cash whistling virtually anywhere on the globe, from Times Square to a remote Asian village.

Western Union has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 1865; it developed the first successful stock ticker in 1869 and, in 1884, became one of the original 11 members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It's now a company that helps knit together the 21^st-century global economy, with its ever-deepening cross-border economic interconnections and unprecedented mobility of labor and goods.

Skeptics abound

But neither Western Union’s pedigree, its

On Tuesday, October 1, Americans can sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare). You've probably heard repeatedly arguments for and against the new law, including bits and pieces from Republican Senator Ted Cruz's (R-TX) 21-hour talkathon quasi-filibuster on the Senate floor earlier this week.

Related: Gullible Americans Fuel Obamacare's Bad Rap

Aaron Smith is a fan of Obamacare. He's the co-founder and executive director of Young Invincibles, an organization dedicated to expanding economic opportunities for young people. Smith tells The Daily Ticker that about 90% of the 19 million uninsured young people in the U.S. will "qualify for tax credits that are going to make health insurance more affordable than ever before and [with] higher quality."

How much coverage they get and the price they pay will depend on what plan they choose, where they live and the tax credits--i.e., subsidies--they qualify for. Health care insurance exchanges are