joi, 20 septembrie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Help Stop Special Interest Groups and Unions From Buying Politicians; Vote Yes On Proposition 32
Greek State Tries to Stem Neo-Nazi Rise; True Finns Surge in Election Polls
Eurozone Steepest Contraction Since June 2009; Unwarranted Hope and Reflections on Panic! Economists Can Neither Think Nor See
Japanese Exports Sink 3rd Month; Flash China Manufacturing PMI Shows Output down at Sharpest Rate in Ten Months

Help Stop Special Interest Groups and Unions From Buying Politicians; Vote Yes On Proposition 32

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 06:09 PM PDT

In general, if union leaders and organizers are raising money for some political purpose, I am against the proposal (and vice versa).

In the case at hand, public unions are raising money to defeat proposition 32, so it is nearly automatic that I would be for it. And I am.

But what is California proposition 32?

Proposition 32

Vote Yes on Proposition 32 if you want to ...

Prohibit corporations and unions from giving to candidates
Prohibit the deduction of political money from worker paychecks, making all political contributions truly voluntary
Prohibit contractors from giving to politicians who approve their contracts

Please consider the following You-Tube video on prop 32.

Unions of course are fighting this tooth-and-nail. In general that is all you need to know.

Opponents claim there are loopholes that allow contributions to super-PACs. If so, it is relatively even-handed although arguably not perfect. Nothing stops unions or corporations or anyone else from voluntarily giving money to PACs.

The biggest gripe of the SEIU and unions is point number two. Point number two is thus the biggest strength of the proposal.

It is long past the time to rein in public unions and I look forward to the time the entire notion of collective bargaining for public unions goes into the ashcan of history where it belongs.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Greek State Tries to Stem Neo-Nazi Rise; True Finns Surge in Election Polls

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 02:17 PM PDT

Euroskeptics have surged once again in Finland according to reader JT who writes ...

Hello Mish

The message of the True Finns, the Finnish anti-bailout, anti-euro party in the local elections is crystal clear: They do not think it makes any sense to cut local services due to budget deficits and at the same time, shovel billions to bail out Southern Europe.

That message is resonating. According to the latest poll, True Finns are going to more than triple their support, going from about 5% to at least 17%. Final numbers could be even higher due to the fact that the polling company, Taloustutkimus Oy, is owned by a member of the largest party, Kokoomus (National Coalition in English), and his polls have consistently underestimated True Finns popularity.

Will anything change even if True Finns win big? Probably not. The six other governing parties have not changed their policies at all despite the popularity of True Finns.

Here is the link to the surge of the True Finns. You can probably google translate it.

http://yle.fi/uutiset/perussuomalaisille_tulossa_jattivoitto_kuntavaaleissa/6303417 JT

True Fins Become Giant in Municipal Elections

Via Google Translate of the link sent by JT, please consider True Finns Become Giant in Municipal Elections

Yle News fresh municipal election survey, the basic Finnish vote for 17.2 percent of the respondents, and the party treble the last municipal elections, voting prey. The biggest loser would be center, but would have to lose all the other parties except the Greens.

The True Finns has risen from the previous, August AWARD measurement of almost one and a half percentage points.

The National Coalition Party is still the most popular by 21.5 per cent. SDP was measured at 19.9 and 15.9 per cent in the center of the readings. August SDP has risen by 1.2 percentage points. The Conservative Party's popularity has dropped to 1.2 and 0.7 percentage points of the city center.

Finland Polls

KOK - National Coalition Party
PS - True Finns
SDP - Social Democrat Party
KSEK - Centre Party

Support for True Finns dropped as low as 5% but is now back to being the third largest party again, with a good shot at moving higher.

Rise of Neo-Nazis in Greece

Things of a far more ominous nature are picking up steam in Greece. The Raw Story reports Greek State Tries to Stem Neo-Nazi Rise.

Following its unprecedented election to parliament, Greece's neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn has been engaged in 'law and order' crackdowns and solidarity gestures that have boosted its popularity, alarming the state.

Tightly regimented and dressed in black T-shirts stamped with the meander, an ancient Greek motif, Golden Dawn is also suspected of orchestrating a rising trend of racist violence against foreigners, legal or otherwise.

The group's ratings have risen to over 10 percent in recent opinion polls.

"It's a strategy reminiscent of Italian neo-fascism in the '70s," she said. The self-styled nationalist party, which campaigned in June elections with pledges to "scour the country clean", has capitalised on the perception that undocumented migration has been allowed to run rampant.

It has benefited from judicial inertia and a suspiciously soft-handed response by police, who usually fail to arrest Golden Dawn members even when under direct attack by them.

And it has exploited anger towards Greece's political system which is blamed by most people for the country's economic ills.

"It's a new phenomenon that is very dangerous for the parliamentary system," said Yiannis Mavris, a political analyst whose polling institute Public Issue recently recorded the party's rating at "nearly double" its score at the last election, where it picked up over 425,000 votes.

Golden Dawn "is here to stay," Mavris said.

A former police unionist who is now a lawmaker recently warned the ruling coalition that planned pay cuts to police "would send 300,000 families directly to Golden Dawn."

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Eurozone Steepest Contraction Since June 2009; Unwarranted Hope and Reflections on Panic! Economists Can Neither Think Nor See

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 11:00 AM PDT

The global recession which started in Europe, is strengthening led by further declines in the eurozone. Markit reports Eurozone sees steepest contraction since June 2009 despite downturn easing in Germany.

Key Points

Flash Eurozone PMI Composite Output Index at 45.9 (46.3 in August). 39-month low.

Flash Eurozone Services PMI Activity Index at 46.0 (47.2 in August). 38-month low.

Flash Eurozone Manufacturing PMI at 46.0 45.1 in August). Six-month high.

Flash Eurozone Manufacturing PMI Output Index at 45.5 (44.4 in August). Five-month high.

The Markit Eurozone PMI® Composite Output

Index fell from 46.3 in August to 45.9 in September, according to the preliminary 'flash' reading, based on around 85% of usual monthly replies. The index therefore signalled that the private sector economy contracted for the twelfth time in the past 13 months, with the rate of decline accelerating slightly to reach the fastest since June 2009.

The September reading rounds of the weakest quarter since the second quarter of 2009, with the average PMI reading for the third quarter at 46.2, down from an average of 46.4 in the second quarter.

Markit (Flash) Eurozone PMI and GDP

Manufacturing and services saw similarly steep rates of decline in September. However, while manufacturing output fell at the slowest rate since April, the service sector saw the largest drop in activity since July 2009. The faster rate of decline in output reflected an accelerated rate of loss of new business – the largest monthly fall since May 2009.

France saw output and new orders both fall at the fastest rates since April 2009, with rates of decline accelerating markedly in both manufacturing and services.

Employment fell for the ninth consecutive month across the Eurozone, dropping at the fastest rate since January 2010. The rate of job losses in services was the highest since November 2009 and steeper than the cut seen in manufacturing, which was the lowest for five months.

While only a marginal fall in employment was seen in Germany, French payroll numbers were cut at the fastest rate since November 2009, and elsewhere across the region employment showed the largest monthly fall since July 2009.

Unwarranted Hope

Markit senior economist Chris Williamson was hoping moves by the ECB would spur confidence: "We had hoped that the news regarding the ECB's intervention to alleviate the debt crisis would have lifted business confidence, but instead sentiment appears to have taken a turn for the worse, with businesses the most gloomy since early-2009 due to ongoing headwinds from slower global growth.
This gloom is clearly reflected in headcounts falling at the fastest rate since January 2010 as companies seek to adjust to weaker demand."

The recent moves by the ECB and Fed were hardly confidence-inspiring. Rather, they were a sign of Panic!

Things are deteriorating rapidly, more austerity is coming to Spain and Italy. France is hiking taxes and fees like mad, as well as considering plans to prohibit businesses from firing employees, and economists are expecting or hoping interest rate cuts will inspire confidence!

Economists Can Neither Think Nor See

Not only are such economists unable to think, they cannot even see what 20 years of monetary and fiscal stimulus did for Japanese "confidence", which is to say nothing at all. However, lower interest rates and fiscal stimulus did leave Japan a confidence-eroding mountain of debt in its wake.

Japan is now hooked on low interest rates, a mere rise of one percentage point would consume all revenues. Is that supposed to inspire confidence?

Nonetheless, Bernanke and Draghi have vowed to keep doing what they are doing until it works, and economists are hoping it will. It's pure insanity.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Japanese Exports Sink 3rd Month; Flash China Manufacturing PMI Shows Output down at Sharpest Rate in Ten Months

Posted: 20 Sep 2012 12:28 AM PDT

As the global recession deepens, bad news in Asia continues to mount. China and Japan are leading the Asia-Pacific decline.

The HSBC Flash China Manufacturing PMI™ is negative once again with Output down at Sharpest rate in Ten Months.

Key Points

Flash China Manufacturing PMI™ at 47.8 (47.6 in August). 2-month high.
Flash China Manufacturing Output Index at 47.0 (48.2 in August). 10-month low.

PMI

Production

Japanese Exports Sink 3rd Month

The Financial Times reports Japan suffers steep fall in exports.

Japan recorded another steep fall in exports in August, highlighting the vulnerability of the nation's finances amid persistently high imports of fuel.

Thursday's government data showed that shipments slipped almost 6 per cent from a year earlier to Y5tn ($64bn), the third monthly fall in a row, while imports were 5.4 per cent lower at Y5.8tn. The resulting trade deficit of Y754bn was among the widest since last March, when the Fukushima crisis led to the staggered closure of the country's nuclear reactors.

Adjusted for seasonal variations, Japan has recorded trade deficits in each of the 18 months since the earthquake and tsunami, after decades of more or less uninterrupted surpluses.

Now, as the government edges towards a gradual phasing-out of nuclear power, increasing its reliance on imported fossil fuels, many expect these deficits to linger.

Provisional data from the ministry of finance showed that in August shipments to western Europe fell by 28 per cent from a year earlier, thanks to big falls in exports to Germany (18 per cent) and the UK (42 per cent). Exports to China, meanwhile, posted their third successive decline. August's 10 per cent fall was only slightly better than a 12 per cent slump in July.

Trade Deficits for 18 Months

Japan has been in a trade deficit position, seasonally adjusted, for 18 months. Territorial disputes with China are likely to cause further economic damage. Should China withhold rare earth elements from Japan, the result could be crippling.

Rare earths are used in cell phones, computers, bombs, DVD, batteries, catalytic converters, and numerous other devices.

For now, Japan still has a current account surplus in spite of an ongoing trade deficit, but that situation will not last forever. When it ends, Japan will need external financing of its mountain of debt, or it will end up turning to the printing presses.

I remain bearish on the Yen, but I am not able to put a specific time frame on when Japan's serious issues start to matter.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Damn Cool Pics

Gangnam Style from Hitler [Video]

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 09:18 PM PDT

Check out this clips of Adolf Hitler from the famous German film Downfall mashed with a viral Korean-pop anthem by PSY. Not only is this video hilarious, but catchy too.

New on Mozcast - 5 Real-time Top-view Metrics

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 08:02 PM PDT

Posted by Dr. Pete

When we started reporting the Google “weather” on MozCast, we knew that one number could never paint the entire picture of something as complex as the Google algorithm. Over the last few months, we’ve been exploring other ways to look at ranking data from high altitude, and have reported on metrics like domain diversity and EMD influence. Today, I’m happy to announce that we’re rolling out five of these “top-view” metrics on MozCast, updated daily.

From the new “METRICS” page (top menu), you’ll see five tabs:

Each metric defaults to a 30-day view, but you can also see 60-day and 90-day data. Please note that Y-axes all auto-scale to emphasize daily changes, so make sure to note the scale when interpreting this data. I trust you all to be grown-ups and draw your own conclusions.

So, let’s dive right into the five top-view metrics…

(1) Domain Diversity

The domain diversity graph shows the percentage of URLs across the MozCast data set that have unique subdomains. Put more simply, it’s the number of unique subdomains divided by the number of total URLs/rankings. The more diversity, the less SERP “crowding” – here’s a 30-day view:

Domain Diversity Graph (30-day)

Keep in mind that the range over the past 30 days has been pretty narrow (less than 1%), so let’s take a look at the broader, 90-day view:

Domain Diversity Graph (90-day)

You can hover over any data point for dates and more precise percentages. Here, you can see that diversity increased when Google rolled out 7-result SERPs (from about 8/12-8/14), but has gradually declined over the past 90 days. When we started collecting data in early April, domain diversity was closer to 61%, but it dropped significantly after the Penguin update (on 4/24).

On September 14, Matt Cutts announced on Twitter that Google had made a change to improve SERP diversity:

Matt Cutts tweet

We saw a small bump (about 0.4%) from 9/6 to 9/9, but otherwise have no evidence for major improvements. Please keep in mind that this is one data set and one way of measuring “diversity” – I’m not calling a Matt a liar, and I’d welcome other analyses and points of view. My goal is to create transparency where we currently have very little of it.

(2) SERP Count (“Shrinkage”)

Over a roughly 2-day period in mid-August, Google rolled out 7-result SERPs (for page 1), and our data shows that it impacted roughly 18% of the queries we track. We originally reported this as the number of SERPs with <10 results, but that presented two problems: (1) less results made the graph go up – which is a bit confusing, and (2) that metric doesn’t change if the result count changes. In other words (hat tip to Moz teammate Myron on this one), if all of the 7-result SERPs suddenly changed to 6-result SERPs, our original metric would never show it. So, we’ve replaced that metric with the average result count. Here’s a 60-day view:

Average Result Count (60-day)

In this case, an average drop of 0.5 results is massive, and the graph tells the story pretty well. The 30-day data shows much, much smaller variations, but this metric will help us track any future changes, including a return to 10-result SERPs (if that were to happen).

(3) EMD Influence

The influence of Exact-Match Domains (EMDs) is a hot topic in SEO. Our EMD influence metric shows the percentage of Top 10 rankings that are currently occupied by EMDs. Specifically, if the keyphrase is “buy widgets”, than we consider only “buywidgets.tld” (any TLD) to be an exact match. Here’s the 90-day data:

EMD Influence Graph (90-day)

My recent post goes into more detail and there are a lot of ways to dig into this data, but we’re seeing a slight uptick in EMD influence recently over the past 3 months.

(4) PMD Influence

Similarly, PMD influence measures the influence of Partial-Match Domains on the Top 10. For the keyphrase “buy widgets”, we count any URL with either “buywidgets” or “buy-widgets” in the subdomain as a partial match. This metric does not include EMDs. Here’s the 90-day view:

PMD Influence (90-day)

In line with the broader history reported earlier, PMDs seem to be steadily declining in influence. Keep in mind that this doesn’t mean that any particular PMD won’t rank (they still hold over 4% of Top 10 rankings) – it just means that their overall impact is trending downward.

(5) Daily Big 10

Finally, we have a new metric I haven’t covered in any previous blog post, the “Big 10.” Apologies to college football fans (I’m a former Hawkeye), but I didn’t want to confuse this with the “Top 10.” The Big 10 influence is the percentage of Top 10 rankings accounted for by the ten most powerful subdomains on any given day. This list changes daily, and any single day’s data represents the influence of the Big 10 for that day. Currently, the Big 10 domains account for about 13.6% of Top 10 rankings in our data set:

Big 10 Graph (90-day)

Below the graph for this metric, we also list the Big 10 subdomains for the most recent day. Like all of the MozCast stats, this list is currently recalculated each morning. Here’s the data from 9/18:

en.wikipedia.org
www.amazon.com
www.youtube.com
www.facebook.com
www.ebay.com
www.walmart.com
www.webmd.com
www.yelp.com
www.overstock.com
allrecipes.com

Currently, the roughly 9,500 URLs in our data set (Top 7-10 for 1,000 keywords) represent about 5,300 unique subdomains, so the fact that just ten of them take up almost 14% of the real estate is pretty amazing. Wikipedia alone holds 4.6% of the Top 10 URLs that we track (today). There’s a fair amount of movement in the bottom couple of domains, and Twitter dropped out of the Top 10 earlier this year.

What Would You Like to See?

There are a lot of ways to slice the data and we have quite a few ideas in the pipe, but if there are specific, large-scale metrics you’re interested in, let me know. We’re trying to incorporate community feedback into the product development plan. Also, feel free to make suggestions on the @mozcast Twitter account.

I’d like to quickly thank Devin and Casey for doing the behind-the-scenes work to get this page integrated, and to Devin in particular for turning my single, rambling page of stats into a pretty slick design. Thanks as usual to Dr. Matt Peters for feedback on the math, and to Rand for putting up with dozens of emails and somehow reading them all on top of his other 23 hours/day of work.

Pardon a shameless plug, but if you’d like to hear more about the history of MozCast, I gave an hour-long presentation about it at MozCon in July. The online MozCon videos just went on sale yesterday. Even if you hate me, there’s 16 hours of other great content and you can just fast-forward over my part – I won’t mind, really *sniff.*

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President Obama Meets with Aung San Suu Kyi

Your Daily Snapshot for
Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012

President Obama Meets with Aung San Suu Kyi

Yesterday, President Obama met with Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese Nobel Laureate and leader of the National League for Democracy Party.

The President expressed his admiration for her courage, determination, and personal sacrifice in championing democracy and human rights over the years. Bo, the First Dog, was kind enough to sit in on the meeting as well.

President Barack Obama and Burmese Opposition Leader Aung San Suu Kyi pet Bo, the Obama family dog, at the conclusion of their meeting in the Oval Office, Sept. 19, 2012. Attendees included Danny Russel, Senior Director for Asian Affairs, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)