marți, 4 august 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Capital Controls Destroy Greek Small Businesses; Bank Shares Plunge Again; Record Contraction
More on Ukraine's "Right Sector" Movement
Factory Orders Rise 2nd Time in 11 Months, Led by Aircraft; The "Bounce" in Five Pictures
3D Printing an Ornate Bridge Over a Water in Amsterdam

Capital Controls Destroy Greek Small Businesses; Bank Shares Plunge Again; Record Contraction

Posted: 04 Aug 2015 05:16 PM PDT

Record Manufacturing Contraction

Greece may as well have gone to hell in a handbasket. Carnage is everywhere one looks, but let's start with the Markit Greece PMI report that shows record manufacturing contraction.

July saw factory production in Greece contract sharply amid an unprecedented drop in new orders and difficulties in purchasing raw materials. The headline seasonally adjusted Markit Greece Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index® registered 30.2, well below the neutral 50.0 mark and its lowest ever reading.

Record contractions were registered for almost all variables monitored by the survey, including output, new orders, employment and stocks. There was also a record lengthening in suppliers' delivery times.

July's sharp decrease in the level of new business at manufacturers surpassed the previous record set in February 2012. Panel members commented on the impact of capital controls on demand, and also cited a generally uncertain operating environment which further weighed on sales. A sharp and accelerated decrease in new export orders (also a series record) added to the overall reduction in new work.

July's survey signalled the steepest drop in factory employment ever recorded during the 16-plus years of data collection. The decrease was the fourth in successive months, following marginal job losses throughout the second quarter of the year.

A lack of availability of supplies meanwhile contributed to a rise in average purchase prices, with the rate of cost inflation accelerating from the previous month to the second-fastest since September 2012.

In contrast, prices charged by manufacturers for goods decreased to the greatest extent for over two years, the rate of decline notably more marked than the moderate pace of deflation recorded during the month before.

Greece Manufacturing PMI

Businesses Gasp Over Capital Controls

The Financial Times reports Greek Businesses Left Gasping as Capital Controls Bite.

"Good and healthy companies that survived the crisis have been rendered helpless because they can't import raw materials," said Constantine Michalos, president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

As frustration mounts, the Piraeus port in Athens has become a maritime parking lot to about 8,000 shipping containers waiting for importers who cannot yet pay the outstanding bills on their shipments.

Rena Simou, a clothing retailer who operates outlets on several popular tourist islands, said her business is headed for collapse if she cannot deliver stock before mid-August when the summer tourist season begins to wind down.

"My boxes are waiting in customs but I can't send the rest of the money from my Greek account. It's a business disaster," she said. "If the controls aren't lifted soon retailers like me will become like east Europeans in the 1990s . . . We'll be suitcase traders."

Question for Rena

Why did you have a Greek bank account? The smart money got out long ago.

I'm not blaming people for being dumb. Rather, I simply point out that being economically illiterate has its consequences. Those lowest on the totem pole will take the hardest hit.

And the bailout?

No one but creditors have been bailed out. The average person on the street has been brutalized.

When the carnage appears to be over, those who were smart enough to get the hell out, will have plenty of money to come back in and purchase bankrupt businesses and properties at rock-bottom prices.

Market Reopens Shares Plunge

The stock market collapsed yesterday following its restricted reopening.

On Monday Greek Bank Shares Crash 30% as Market Reopens.

Shares in Greek banks crashed 30% Monday as trading resumed on the Athens stock exchange for the first time since the country was nearly forced to abandon the euro last month.

The benchmark index in Athens opened nearly 23% lower, with banking stocks the biggest losers. The country's four biggest lenders -- Piraeus (BPIRF), Alpha Bank (ALBKF), the National Bank of Greece (NBG) and Eurobank all plunged 30% -- the daily limit -- immediately after the open.

Stocks in other sectors recovered slightly during the session but the index still shed more than 16% by the close.

Bank Shares Plunge Again

Today, Bank Shares Hammered Again.

Capital controls will destroy what's left of Greece.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

More on Ukraine's "Right Sector" Movement

Posted: 04 Aug 2015 12:36 PM PDT

In response to Ukraine's Ultra-Right Militia Threatens Military Coup, I received an email from Jacob Dreizin on statements made by the Financial Times that I quoted.

Jacob writes ...

Hello Mish,

The FT was inexcusably sloppy in its writing. Here's a quick clarification.

The Right Sector is not a battalion, nor do they call themselves one. A battalion is at most 300 men in a compact location, whereas Right Sector has thousands of members across Ukraine.
The Right Sector is more like a "movement", almost a political party, albeit with guns and some for-profit criminal operations.
The FT confuses Right Sector with a number of smaller, battalion or regiment-sized groups operating in the occupied parts of the Donbass, some of whom are openly Nazi in orientation.

Despite the threats, the Right Sector is not capable of a coup. It was humiliated in Transcarpathia last month, when it attacked the local mafia over a business dispute, then had to run and hide once the military showed up.

Its threat to launch protests in Kiev fizzled after only a few hundred showed up. After this sad performance, its leaders have had to talk of a coup/revolution in order to save face.

However, it has succeeded in making Poroshenko look even more ineffectual in the eyes of the Western media and perhaps Western governments as well. In that sense, the group is a real threat to Kiev.

Jacob

More Questions Than Answers

Jacob's comments shed some needed light on Ukraine, but in doing so, created another series of questions.

Whether or not the "movement", as Jacob accurately calls it, is technically capable of a coup may not matter. Might some rogue members try anyway? Alternatively, instead of a coup, might they simply opt to take out Poroshenko and see what happens next?

Kiev was willing to tolerate the Right Sector because its troops took the side of Kiev against the separatists.

However, by calling for a nationwide no-confidence referendum on president Petro Poroshenko, followed up with threats of a coup (idle or not), the movement has created a huge problem for the president.

Another Simmering Pot

Can Poroshenko make the Right Sector an officially recognized unit of the regular army as they demand, even though they call for Poroshenko's removal by force? Should Poroshenko ban them? Ignore them?

Meanwhile, the pot simmers. Attempts by the government to put a lid on the pot could cause it to explosively boil over.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Factory Orders Rise 2nd Time in 11 Months, Led by Aircraft; The "Bounce" in Five Pictures

Posted: 04 Aug 2015 10:50 AM PDT

Factory orders rose for only the second time in eleven months, in line with the Consensus Estimate.

Factory orders rose nearly as expected in June, up 1.8 percent for only the second gain in the last 11 months. The durable goods component, initially released last week, is unrevised at plus 3.4 percent in a gain distorted by aircraft orders but one that does reflect a pop higher for capital goods. The non-durables component, data released with today's report, rose 0.4 percent on order gains for oil and chemicals.

Orders for civilian aircraft jumped 65 percent in the month following, in routine up-and-down fashion for this component, a 32 percent downswing in May. Industries reporting respectable gains include 0.5 percent for furniture and 0.6 percent for motor vehicles as well as a 1.5 percent gain for machinery. Orders for energy equipment bounced back 5.5 percent after sinking 25 percent in May. Year-on-year, energy equipment is down 51 percent.

Looking at totals again, shipments rose a very solid 0.5 percent with shipments of core capital goods up 0.3 percent. The latter, which is a key reading that excludes aircraft, isn't spectacular but is still a solid gain for business investment. Unfilled orders, which have been in contraction most of the year, were unchanged in June. Inventories rose 0.6 percent in a build that falls in line with shipments, keeping the inventory-to-shipments ratio at a manageable 1.35.

Chart Perspective On the Bounce

This was a decent but not spectacular report and only the second in nearly a year. A chart of new orders and shipments provides a good perspective.

Here are a few more charts from Fred, all showing notable weakness on a year-over-year basis.

Durable Goods New Orders

Export New Orders Excluding Motor Vehicles

New Orders for Nondurable Goods

New Orders Excluding Transportation

Year-over-year new orders were down once again, in many ways.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

3D Printing an Ornate Bridge Over a Water in Amsterdam

Posted: 04 Aug 2015 12:46 AM PDT

Every month, 3D printing possibilities get increasingly elaborate.

For example (with thanks to reader Tim Wallace for the links): The Goal of MX3D is to 3D print a steel bridge. Really.

With our robots that can "draw" steel structures in 3D, we will print a bridge over water in the center of Amsterdam. We research and develop groundbreaking, cost-effective robotic technology with which we can 3D print beautiful, functional objects in almost any form. The ultimate test? Printing an intricate, ornate metal bridge for a special location to show what our robots and software, engineers, craftsmen and designers can do.

The bridge will be designed by Joris Laarman. That process using new Autodesk software will be a research project in itself. It will sync with the technical development and take into account the location. The project is a collaboration between MX3D, design software company Autodesk, construction company Heijmans and many others.

From September 2015 the progress of the project can be followed in our visitor center. MX3D and the City of Amsterdam will announce the exact location of the bridge soon.

MX3D's engineers, craftsmen and software experts bring together digital technology, robotics and traditional industrial production in the MX3D Bridge project; they research the construction site of the future, test and share their knowledge within an AMS-3D Building FieldLab.

Conceptual Design

Tim Geurtjens, CTO MX3D:

"What distinguishes our technology from traditional 3D printing methods is that we work according to the 'Printing Outside the box' principle. By printing with 6-axis industrial robots, we are no longer limited to a square box in which everything happens. Printing a functional, life-size bridge is of course the ideal way to showcase the endless possibilities of this technique."

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

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Distance from Perfect - Moz Blog

Distance from Perfect

Posted by wrttnwrd

In spite of all the advice, the strategic discussions and the conference talks, we Internet marketers are still algorithmic thinkers. That's obvious when you think of SEO.

Even when we talk about content, we're algorithmic thinkers. Ask yourself: How many times has a client asked you, "How much content do we need?" How often do you still hear "How unique does this page need to be?"

That's 100% algorithmic thinking: Produce a certain amount of content, move up a certain number of spaces.

But you and I know it's complete bullshit.

I'm not suggesting you ignore the algorithm. You should definitely chase it. Understanding a little bit about what goes on in Google's pointy little head helps. But it's not enough.

A tale of SEO woe that makes you go "whoa"

I have this friend.

He ranked #10 for "flibbergibbet." He wanted to rank #1.

He compared his site to the #1 site and realized the #1 site had five hundred blog posts.

"That site has five hundred blog posts," he said, "I must have more."

So he hired a few writers and cranked out five thousand blogs posts that melted Microsoft Word's grammar check. He didn't move up in the rankings. I'm shocked.

"That guy's spamming," he decided, "I'll just report him to Google and hope for the best."

What happened? Why didn't adding five thousand blog posts work?

It's pretty obvious: My, uh, friend added nothing but crap content to a site that was already outranked. Bulk is no longer a ranking tactic. Google's very aware of that tactic. Lots of smart engineers have put time into updates like Panda to compensate.

He started like this: a few posts, no rankings

And ended up like this: more posts, no rankings

Alright, yeah, I was Mr. Flood The Site With Content, way back in 2003. Don't judge me, whippersnappers.

Reality's never that obvious. You're scratching and clawing to move up two spots, you've got an overtasked IT team pushing back on changes, and you've got a boss who needs to know the implications of every recommendation.

Why fix duplication if rel=canonical can address it? Fixing duplication will take more time and cost more money. It's easier to paste in one line of code. You and I know it's better to fix the duplication. But it's a hard sell.

Why deal with 302 versus 404 response codes and home page redirection? The basic user experience remains the same. Again, we just know that a server should return one home page without any redirects and that it should send a 'not found' 404 response if a page is missing. If it's going to take 3 developer hours to reconfigure the server, though, how do we justify it? There's no flashing sign reading "Your site has a problem!"

Why change this thing and not that thing?

At the same time, our boss/client sees that the site above theirs has five hundred blog posts and thousands of links from sites selling correspondence MBAs. So they want five thousand blog posts and cheap links as quickly as possible.

Cue crazy music.

SEO lacks clarity

SEO is, in some ways, for the insane. It's an absurd collection of technical tweaks, content thinking, link building and other little tactics that may or may not work. A novice gets exposed to one piece of crappy information after another, with an occasional bit of useful stuff mixed in. They create sites that repel search engines and piss off users. They get more awful advice. The cycle repeats. Every time it does, best practices get more muddled.

SEO lacks clarity. We can't easily weigh the value of one change or tactic over another. But we can look at our changes and tactics in context. When we examine the potential of several changes or tactics before we flip the switch, we get a closer balance between algorithm-thinking and actual strategy.

Distance from perfect brings clarity to tactics and strategy

At some point you have to turn that knowledge into practice. You have to take action based on recommendations, your knowledge of SEO, and business considerations.

That's hard when we can't even agree on subdomains vs. subfolders.

I know subfolders work better. Sorry, couldn't resist. Let the flaming comments commence.

To get clarity, take a deep breath and ask yourself:

"All other things being equal, will this change, tactic, or strategy move my site closer to perfect than my competitors?"

Breaking it down:

"Change, tactic, or strategy"

A change takes an existing component or policy and makes it something else. Replatforming is a massive change. Adding a new page is a smaller one. Adding ALT attributes to your images is another example. Changing the way your shopping cart works is yet another.

A tactic is a specific, executable practice. In SEO, that might be fixing broken links, optimizing ALT attributes, optimizing title tags or producing a specific piece of content.

A strategy is a broader decision that'll cause change or drive tactics. A long-term content policy is the easiest example. Shifting away from asynchronous content and moving to server-generated content is another example.

"Perfect"

No one knows exactly what Google considers "perfect," and "perfect" can't really exist, but you can bet a perfect web page/site would have all of the following:

Completely visible content that's perfectly relevant to the audience and query
A flawless user experience
Instant load time
Zero duplicate content
Every page easily indexed and classified
No mistakes, broken links, redirects or anything else generally yucky
Zero reported problems or suggestions in each search engines' webmaster tools, sorry, "Search Consoles"
Complete authority through immaculate, organically-generated links

These 8 categories (and any of the other bazillion that probably exist) give you a way to break down "perfect" and help you focus on what's really going to move you forward. These different areas may involve different facets of your organization.

Your IT team can work on load time and creating an error-free front- and back-end. Link building requires the time and effort of content and outreach teams.

Tactics for relevant, visible content and current best practices in UX are going to be more involved, requiring research and real study of your audience.

What you need and what resources you have are going to impact which tactics are most realistic for you.

But there's a basic rule: If a website would make Googlebot swoon and present zero obstacles to users, it's close to perfect.

"All other things being equal"

Assume every competing website is optimized exactly as well as yours.

Now ask: Will this [tactic, change or strategy] move you closer to perfect?

That's the "all other things being equal" rule. And it's an incredibly powerful rubric for evaluating potential changes before you act. Pretend you're in a tie with your competitors. Will this one thing be the tiebreaker? Will it put you ahead? Or will it cause you to fall behind?

"Closer to perfect than my competitors"

Perfect is great, but unattainable. What you really need is to be just a little perfect-er.

Chasing perfect can be dangerous. Perfect is the enemy of the good (I love that quote. Hated Voltaire. But I love that quote). If you wait for the opportunity/resources to reach perfection, you'll never do anything. And the only way to reduce distance from perfect is to execute.

Instead of aiming for pure perfection, aim for more perfect than your competitors. Beat them feature-by-feature, tactic-by-tactic. Implement strategy that supports long-term superiority.

Don't slack off. But set priorities and measure your effort. If fixing server response codes will take one hour and fixing duplication will take ten, fix the response codes first. Both move you closer to perfect. Fixing response codes may not move the needle as much, but it's a lot easier to do. Then move on to fixing duplicates.

Do the 60% that gets you a 90% improvement. Then move on to the next thing and do it again. When you're done, get to work on that last 40%. Repeat as necessary.

Take advantage of quick wins. That gives you more time to focus on your bigger solutions.

Sites that are "fine" are pretty far from perfect

Google has lots of tweaks, tools and workarounds to help us mitigate sub-optimal sites:

Rel=canonical lets us guide Google past duplicate content rather than fix it
HTML snapshots let us reveal content that's delivered using asynchronous content and JavaScript frameworks
We can use rel=next and prev to guide search bots through outrageously long pagination tunnels
And we can use rel=nofollow to hide spammy links and banners

Easy, right? All of these solutions may reduce distance from perfect (the search engines don't guarantee it). But they don't reduce it as much as fixing the problems. Just fine does not equal fixed

The next time you set up rel=canonical, ask yourself:

"All other things being equal, will using rel=canonical to make up for duplication move my site closer to perfect than my competitors?"

Answer: Not if they're using rel=canonical, too. You're both using imperfect solutions that force search engines to crawl every page of your site, duplicates included. If you want to pass them on your way to perfect, you need to fix the duplicate content.

When you use Angular.js to deliver regular content pages, ask yourself:

"All other things being equal, will using HTML snapshots instead of actual, visible content move my site closer to perfect than my competitors?"

Answer: No. Just no. Not in your wildest, code-addled dreams. If I'm Google, which site will I prefer? The one that renders for me the same way it renders for users? Or the one that has to deliver two separate versions of every page?

When you spill banner ads all over your site, ask yourself…

You get the idea. Nofollow is better than follow, but banner pollution is still pretty dang far from perfect.

Mitigating SEO issues with search engine-specific tools is "fine." But it's far, far from perfect. If search engines are forced to choose, they'll favor the site that just works.

Not just SEO

By the way, distance from perfect absolutely applies to other channels.

I'm focusing on SEO, but think of other Internet marketing disciplines. I hear stuff like "How fast should my site be?" (Faster than it is right now.) Or "I've heard you shouldn't have any content below the fold." (Maybe in 2001.) Or "I need background video on my home page!" (Why? Do you have a reason?) Or, my favorite: "What's a good bounce rate?" (Zero is pretty awesome.)

And Internet marketing venues are working to measure distance from perfect. Pay-per-click marketing has the quality score: A codified financial reward applied for seeking distance from perfect in as many elements as possible of your advertising program.

Social media venues are aggressively building their own forms of graphing, scoring and ranking systems designed to separate the good from the bad.

Really, all marketing includes some measure of distance from perfect. But no channel is more influenced by it than SEO. Instead of arguing one rule at a time, ask yourself and your boss or client: Will this move us closer to perfect?

Hell, you might even please a customer or two.

One last note for all of the SEOs in the crowd. Before you start pointing out edge cases, consider this: We spend our days combing Google for embarrassing rankings issues. Every now and then, we find one, point, and start yelling "SEE! SEE!!!! THE GOOGLES MADE MISTAKES!!!!" Google's got lots of issues. Screwing up the rankings isn't one of them.

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Seth's Blog : The other kinds of laziness

The other kinds of laziness

There's the obvious sort of laziness, the laziness of not trying very hard, of avoiding strenuous tasks or heavy lifting, of getting others to do your work or not showing up for many hours each day.

We're quick to point fingers at others (and ourselves) when we demonstrate this sort of sloth.

But there are other sorts of laziness, and they're far more damaging.

There's the laziness of racism and sexism, which permits us to write people off (or reward them) without doing the hard work of actually seeing them for who they are.

There's the laziness of bureaucracy, which gives us the chance to avoid the people right in front of us, defaulting instead to rules and systems.

And the laziness of rules of thumb, which means we won't have to think very hard about the problem in front of us, and don't have to accept responsibility for the choices we make.

Don't forget the laziness of letting someone else tell us what to do, ceding the choice-making to anyone bold enough to announce what we're supposed to do next.

Or consider the simple laziness of not being willing to sit with uncertainty...

Emotional labor is very different from physical labor. It's hard to measure, for starters, and it's easier to avoid, but the consequences are significant.

When we find ourselves looking for a shortcut, an excuse or an easy way out, we're actually indulging in our laziness.

The hard work involves embracing uncertainty, dancing with fear and taking responsibility before it's given to us.

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marți, 4 august 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Supercars, Single parenting and other interests to follow

Distance from Perfect - Moz Blog

Distance from Perfect

A tale of SEO woe that makes you go "whoa"

SEO lacks clarity