The day after Easter was thankfully quite, the rest of the week will heat up measurably. Some catchy headlines today are as follows

Aso’s $153 Billion Boost to Japan Economy May Incur `Massive’ Future Cost-Not much in the stimulus to promote medium term growth. Worse, “The government needs to address its debt ’so the Japanese consumer feels comfortable that their pension system is viable. They will then start to unlock those savings,’”  said Kirby Daley.

The debt burden will be borne by a shrinking population that will be hard pressed to keep the economy growing fast enough in years to come, said John Richards, head debt-market strategist for the Asia-Pacific region at Royal Bank of Scotland Plc in Tokyo.

“The burden of this debt is going to be felt and it’s going to be much worse than people thought,” Richards said. “It’s going to result in higher interest rates and slower growth than Japan can otherwise achieve.”

A record 84 percent of Japanese are worried about retiring because they say they lack savings, an annual Bank of Japan survey showed in October.

“What households and the elderly need to see in order for them to start spending money is evidence that they don’t have to worry about retirement,” said Shirakawa at Credit Suisse. “The government isn’t providing any relief or convincing plans for the future. It’s all cheap talk by politicians.”

Sounds all too eerily familiar on this side of the Pacific too.

Wall Street in Wells Fargo Moment as Obama Stress Tests Earnings Euphoria

April 13 (Bloomberg) — No amount of enthusiasm for Wall Street earnings reported this month — and there was plenty on April 9 to send Wells Fargo & Co. shares up 32 percent after the bank announced a record first quarter — can overcome what President Barack Obama may soon have to say.

That’s because the results that matter, the ones that will determine whether San Francisco-based Wells Fargo and 18 other U.S. banks need more government cash, won’t be revealed until the end of April

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said he expects some lenders will require “large” amounts of capital, and that could take the bloom off any rosy first-quarter report.

“There will be a pregnant pause until the outcome of the stress test is known,” said Dino Kos, a managing director at Portales Partners LLC in New York who has worked at Morgan Stanley and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.