Euro heroes
The European Union is yielding to the idea of ac cepting that Athens de fault on some of its bonds as part of a new bailout plan for Greece that would reduce the finan cially and fiscally chal lenged nation’s overall debt to manageable lev els, FT.com reported, cit ing sources. Among other strategies, the EU may also press for new con cessions by Greece’s Eu ropean lenders to trim Athens’ debt, such as fur ther lowering interest rates on bailout loans and a broad-based bond buy back program. That would likely mean the abandonment of a French-backed plan for banks to roll over their Greek debt.
Jobless jab
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who is ex pected to leave his post later this year, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the jobless recovery “is going to feel very hard [for a lot of people], harder than anything they’ve experi enced in their lifetime now, for a long time to come.”
Falling gas
The average price for regular gas fell 1.33 cents to $3.615 a gallon, accord ing to a two-week na tional survey by Trilby Lundberg, which said prices have dropped more than 38 cents a gal lon since May 6.