• Germany’s Angela Merkel backed France’s Sarkozy’s speech yesterday calling for tighter fiscal integration across euro zone nations. She also rejected demands for the ECB to act quickly as the lender of last resort, or to step in and make massive bond purchases now. She noted the obvious in saying fiscal integration will take time. Markets are celebrating the concept of fiscal unity in Europe. The tough details are yet to be hammered out. From Bloomberg News.
• Payroll numbers due out today are estimated to show an increase of 125,000 workers, with many economists reaching higher. The additions are unlikely to put a dent in overall unemployment, however. From Bloomberg News.
• The Bank of England’s Mervyn King called the meetings that led to the move by six of the world’s large central banks to cut dollar funding rates this week. From Reuters News.
• ECB overnight lending jumped to 8B Euros Thursday as short-term funding appears very strained in Europe. The overnight rate rose to 2%. From The Financial Times.
• The U.S. Senate defeated competing bills to continue the payroll tax cuts. Republicans widely defected in the vote on their party’s version, which relied on U.S. government employee cuts for funding. Lawmakers have until the end of the year to tackle the issue, along with unemployment benefit extensions, and doctors’ allowed payments through medicare. From The Wall Street Journal.