USA Retail Spending rose in Jan, rebounding from a weak holiday season. Seasonally adjusted @ 0.4% it fell short of market expectations for a 0.8% gain. Never the less, it is considered encouraging as deals bring money out of the mattresses.

The NBA’s newest sensation Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks beat our Toronto Raptors with another heroic performance. With 0.5 seconds left he sunk a three pointer to win the game. Lin a Taiwanese American and Harvard Grad is earning the NBA minimum salary. In his first 6 games as a starter, he has simply smashed prior records. Lin mania has driven the MSG stock price to record levels. Lindarella has given people in general a  renewed vigour of excitement, the best line I heard from a Chinese fan, “We can not only do math but we can play basketball as well!”

Some in the Euro Zone doubt the bailout will work even though the Greek Parliament passed legislation to meet tough conditions to qualify for the 130 Billion Euro rescue. Since the first rescue May 2010 of 110 billion, things  have changed. The attitude of wealthy nations, like Germany, Netherlands and Finland have grown tired of missing budget targets, implementing promised spending cuts, delaying the sale of state assets…etc. Regardless of the effort, the Greeks fall further into a steep recession while the economy continues to shrink. In my opinion the Greeks should just walk away and start picking up the pieces. The problem is that this will set a chain reaction that could have detrimental consequences for all. For the wealth nations continued support of the dead weight may be political suicide.

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