Lawmakers have until Monday night to reach a deal before hundreds of billions of dollars in automati

BANGKOK -- Asian stock markets rose Friday, hours before President Barack Obama and key lawmakers were to meet at the White House to try to hammer out an 11th-hour budget compromise to avert the so-called fiscal cliff.
Lawmakers have until Monday night to reach a deal before hundreds of billions of dollars river cruise ratings in automatic tax increases and deep cuts to government spending kick in. Such a drastic reshuffling of money could throw the U.S. into another recession, economists have warned.
However, failure to avoid the fiscal cliff doesn't necessarily mean tax increases and spending cuts would become permanent, since the new Congress could pass legislation canceling them retroactively after it begins its work next year.
Asian stock markets rose Wednesday as traders snapped up stocks before the end of the year, while the Tokyo benchmark neared a high for the year after a new, pro-business government prepared river cruise ratings to assume leadership in a country plagued for years by economic lethargy.
Stocks fell in light trading Monday during a shortened holiday trading session with lawmakers running out of time to reach a budget deal that would prevent the U.S. from going over the so-called fiscal cliff.
The stock market river cruise ratings struggled for direction Thursday morning as investors river cruise ratings were torn between encouraging news about a decline in claims river cruise ratings for unemployment benefits and discouraging signs that a budget impasse in Washington is far from being solved.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index marched higher, hitting its highest level since March 20, 2011. The Tokyo benchmark rose 1 percent to 10,428.36. Export shares posted big gains as the country's currency continued to recoil against the dollar. Mazda Motor Corp. jumped 4.2 percent and Isuzu Motors Ltd. surged river cruise ratings 4.3 percent. Nintendo Co. advanced 3.4 percent.
Investors river cruise ratings have been cheering newly named Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his calls for more public works spending to reinvigorate the economy. He also wants the Bank of Japan to raise its inflation target from 1 to 2 percent to drag the country river cruise ratings out of two decades of deflation, or steadily declining prices that have deadened economic activity.
"He will increase the deficit, print more money and try to spend out of the recession. If you print or borrow money, you give the economy a sense of false hope," he said. "It's like taking opium. You feel good but eventually you have to come down."
river cruise ratings "The fiscal cliff seems to have lost its negative influence on global markets," said Lun. "Even if it falls into the fiscal cliff, you will only reduce the deficit by about $100 billion. In Chinese terms, it's like trying to douse a fire with a cup of water. They should do what Europe has done and try to impose austerity."
Markets got some lift from optimistic data out of the U.S. on Thursday and a statement from the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, who said in an interview that the worst of the debt crisis in the 17 European Union countries that use the euro appears to be over.
Worries river cruise ratings over U.S. budget negotiations sent Wall Street slightly lower on Thursday. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.1 percent to 13,096.31. river cruise ratings The Standard & Poor's 500 fell 0.1 percent to 1,418.10, and the Nasdaq river cruise ratings composite index fell 0.1 percent to 2,985.91.
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