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STORIES:
Germans trust pragmatic top judge to walk euro tightrope -
(www.reuters.com) Angela Merkel may be the most
powerful woman in Europe, but this week the chancellor's plans to save the euro
lie in the hands of Andreas Vosskuhle, the supreme court judge known asGermany's most powerful man. In a ruling
with global ramifications, the Constitutional Court is expected on Wednesday to
allow an EU bailout fund and budget pact, although most legal experts expect it
to impose conditions to show that parliament controls Germany's budget. Wednesday's
verdict will test the authority of the court, and of Vosskuhle, its youngest
ever president at 48, a pragmatist who must balance the issue's weighty
theoretical questions with its tremendous real world consequences.
Investors Corner Fed - (online.wsj.com)
For some investors, bad news
is good news. The U.S. economy added 96,000 jobs last month, the government
said on Friday. That is fewer than Wall Street analysts were expecting and the
latest sign of a sluggish recovery, some economists said. Yet the prices of
everything from stocks and gold to Treasury and mortgage debt rose. The rallies
reflect near certainty among investors that the Fed will announce additional
monetary easing as soon as Thursday, when a scheduled two-day policy meeting ends.
The reaction shows how markets have come to depend on central bank stimulus
since the financial crisis, and underscores the high stakes for the Fed and its
chairman, Ben Bernanke.
Euro zone may collapse if states reject reforms - German trade
association - (www.reuters.com) The euro zone could break up
if people living in crisis-stricken southern European countries do not accept
structural reforms in the coming years, the head of Germany's BGA trade association said on
Monday. Anton Boerner also dismissed concerns that Germany, Europe's largest
economy, could sink into recession in 2012 and said he expected German exports
to increase both this year and next. "If people do not say yes (to
structural reforms), then the euro will not be able to exist in its current
form," Boerner told Reuters in an interview.
Euro Zone Will Pay ‘Terrible Price’ - (www.cnbc.com) A “terrible price” will be paid for the euro
zone crisis eventually, whether the European Central Bank (ECB)
embarks on mass bond purchases or not, Jim Rogers, investor and co-founder of
the Quantum Fund with George Soros, told CNBC Monday. Rogers said: “These guys have been saying the same old
garbage for a long time. It’s not a game-changer – it’s good for the market for
maybe a month. The debt keeps going higher and higher and eventually we’ll all
going to pay a terrible price.”
Not Looking, but Still Wanting to Work - (www.nytimes.com)
Most of the Americans who are
“not in the labor force” are categorized as such because they are retired,
stay-at-home parents or otherwise not interested in holding a job. But there
are also a lot of people who really want to work but have decided not to bother
looking for jobs because they think the job market is too discouraging or
because they are too busy with training, family responsibilities and so forth. This
group of people who want to work but aren’t looking are sometimes referred to
as the shadow unemployed. Their share of the not-in-labor-force population has
generally been rising since the recession began almost five years ago:
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