• Los Angeles alone will receive $4bn

• Crimes rising against economy

• Bank of England injects £50bn into economy

• It’s 2008 Again

Remember house buyers in 2006 who believed that house prices could only go up. Remember the dot-com crowd of 2000 who never anticipated a sell off. Markets have the ability to stoke dead certainty about one-way price moves at the absolute worst times… The bubble this time is forming in the NASDAQ as I warned about here. It’s definitely not in the Gold market.

• Stock trading ‘fractures’ may warn of next crash

• House approves insider-trading ban

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Thursday in favor of legislation to curtail insider trading of securities by lawmakers and officials in the executive branch, including a provision inspired by an alleged trade made by the husband of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. The legislation seeks to prohibit lawmakers and their families and staffs from buying and selling securities based on their knowledge of nonpublic information. The vote follows passage of similar legislation in the Senate last week. The House voted 417 to 2 to pass the bill.

Stacy Summary: Once again, more precise satellite data which has been collected in past few years providing more precise data for scientists to understand the totality of our great ( in terms of size and complexity) ecosystem in which satellite data is now confirming sea levels are rising exactly in the range as predicted by paper models:

• Scientists melt mystery over icecaps and sea levels

U.S. scientists using satellite data have established a more accurate figure of the amount of annual sea level rise from melting glaciers and ice caps which should aid studies on how quickly coastal areas may flood as global warming gathers pace.

John Wahr of the University of Colorado in Boulder and colleagues, in a study published on Thursday, found that thinning glaciers and icecaps were pushing up sea levels by 1.5 millimeters (0.06 inches) a year, in line with a 1.2 to 1.8 mm range from other studies, some of which forecast sea levels could rise as much as 2 meters (2.2 yards) by 2100. Continue reading →

• Greece Responds To Troika Deal With Immediate Two Day Strike, Threatens With “Social Uprising”

• Holidays In The Greek Sun

Somehow the anger of the sex pistols, the sound of boots marching in the background, seem right to me today. Greek Industrial Production dropped 11.3% in December. The unemployment rate jumped to 20.9%, up from 18.2%. The charade of negotiations and a bailout can go. Some deal is likely to be announced. I’m not even sure it will be relevant by the March 20th bond maturity deadline. The economy is getting worse, fast. People are getting angry, fast. The “force feeding of austerity” and plan after plan that is really just a focus on banks at the expense of the people is getting old. While we wait for whatever plan is about to be announced, to some fanfare and some small pop in stock futures, the markets are mixed.