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The effects of the eurozone crisis on the everyday lives of ordinary Hungarians in Budapest. The impact is particularly severe on retirees and other people with home loans that were taken out in swiss francs or euros because of the depreciation of the Hungarian currency, the forint. There is a loss of confidence in politicians, and the government of prime minister Orban is seen as having worsened the crisis by losing international credibility and confidence . Hungary's debt is denominated mostly in euros which make repayment difficult. Yields on its bonds are over 10%.

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The ECB's effort to attract talent from national central banks to fulfill its role as supervisor of 7000 banks in the eurozone countries by the second half of 2014. Supervisors who are hired will be located at the ECB's headquarters in Frankfurt. The ECB positions offer attractive perks for young workers with families and children.

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How private labels of stores like Costco and Target, and of supermarket stores like Kroger and Safeway are changing the retailing business by drawing attention to them with better products and marketing compared to brands like Kraft and Sara Lee and other brands. Archer Farms, Targets label brand, has a catchet of its own now.

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Janice Turner writes about all those empty calories that are being taken without a thought. For children obesity starts with cereals such as Frosted Sugar Flakes with extremely high sugar content, and other cereals that have high sugar content with fancy names, says this report of how people unconsciously take in so many empty calories. Sugar content that can range to as high as 37%. This builds up disease in our bodies, and obesity. Obesity acts during this time of coronavirus to create a wild fire.

 

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The work on the 760 mile Nord Stream pipeline- connecting Germany to Russian natural gas supplies from Siberia- was completed in September 2011. The natural gas flows through the pipeline under the Baltic Sea. The project was completed at a cost of 8.8 billion euros. Gazprom will provide secure longterm supples of natural gas to Germany. The secure supplies take on new significance with Germany's decision to phase out nuclear energy.

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President Obama presents a $3.73 trillion budget proposal for fiscal year 2012, for the year beginning October 1, 2011. The budget calls for $1 trillion in deficit reductions over 10 years. Three fourths of this comes from spending cuts and the rest from tax increases or elimination of tax breaks. In fiscal 2012 the budget shows savings by reducing or closing 200 federal programs for deficit reduction of $33 billion. This includes a cut to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program of $2.5 billion. Most of the reductions are in the discretionary on-security spending portion of the budget, which is only 12% of all federal spending. No changes are made to Medicare or Social Security. Defense spending is cut by $78 billion over 5 years in this budget to bring the defnse budget to zero real growth. The Dept of Education funding would be increased from $64 billion in 2010 to $77 billion, with additional funding to increase the number of science, engineering and math teachers in schools by 100,000. The President's Deficit Commission recently proposed deficit reductions of $4 trillion over 10 years, including larger reductions in defense and reductions in spending on Medicare and Social Security....