Central Perk

vineri, 27 iunie 2014

A Day in the Life

Featured

Yesterday, President Obama had lunch in Minneapolis with a woman named Rebekah, who wrote him a few months ago, to share the challenges facing her family and how hard they need to work just to make ends meet.

The President and Rebekah spent the day together -- grabbing burgers and holding a town hall with other members of the community. He spoke with folks about what's on their mind, and the issues that Americans across the country deal with every day.

Follow along to see updates and highlights from the President's trip to Minnesota.

Seth's Blog : Three marketing lessons from Broadway

Three marketing lessons from Broadway

Understand who it's for.

Almost all the casting, play selection and advertising done for Broadway shows is designed to appeal to tourists and to those that rarely come to the theater. After all, there are a lot more of them than there are the diehard fans who see three or four of nine shows a year.

And so the producers focus on celebrities and popular topics. They run bus ads and reach out to hotel concierge staff. Makes sense.

Until you do the math. The math makes it clear that the people who go to the theater regularly are often the ones who fill the seats, pay the bills and spread the word. It turns out that activating people who already like you is far more productive and profitable than it is to spend time and money yelling at people who are ignoring you.

This one shift, a shift to building relationships between and among the core audience, to make plays for your audience instead of finding an audience for your plays, is the golden lesson that applies to just about every organization.

Understand the worldview of those you're trying to reach.

In this revealing article, we see SpotCo, the leading Broadway ad agency, working their way through the creation of an ad. The good news is that they were insightful enough to realize that this musical, with its lack of edginess or big stars, is going to appeal to the kind of people who have been coming to see it--older folks, mostly women, people looking for a reliable, pleasant night at the theater.

Here's the ad they just ran. It completely misses the goal of telling a story that matches the worldview of those they're trying to reach. Instead of talking about what other people "just like me" have said, it quotes the awards it's won, but the skeptical theatregoer in this category has seen award-winning plays before, plays she hasn't liked very much. Bragging about all the awards makes perfect sense if you're trying to reach the people who have to see the plays that everyone is talking about, if you're trying to reach the buzzhounds and the completists, but that's not the worldview of this group. Worse, for the skittish ticket buyer, it doesn't tell us what the play is about.

Most of all, it fails to create a sense of urgency for those that share this worldview. In almost every non-essential situation, people are likely to choose, "later," as their response to a pitch. Why do it now if I can do it later? This group in particular, a group that doesn't need to go first, is likely to respond with 'later'.

(PS If you end up making an ad that compromises enough that it pleases the committee you've been assigned but doesn't accomplish your real goal, I think it's better to frame that ad to hang on the wall and not waste the money actually running it).

Realize that you don't have enough ad money.

Just about every organization doesn't have enough cash to run enough ads to do what ads are best at. Overwhelming the chosen audience with a consistent, persistent message is how display ads do their job. (Absolut vodka). One ad, one time, isn't going to change much. That means that the cash-strapped ad buyer needs to obsessively focus and trim and find an arena where they can reach fewer people, more often. The New Yorker is not that place. One of the advantages of building and connecting a tribe is that you can talk to them directly, and honestly. The other advantage is that each time you show up, you don't have to pay $50,000.

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joi, 26 iunie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Bitcoins to Become Legal Currency in California; Bill Awaits Signing by Gov. Brown; Commodities vs. Currencies

Posted: 26 Jun 2014 01:05 PM PDT

California Bill AB-129 Lawful Money passed the California Senate on June 19, and the Assembly on June 23. The bill now awaits signing by Governor Jerry Brown.

Existing law prohibits a corporation, flexible purpose corporation, association, or individual from issuing or putting in circulation, as money, anything but the lawful money of the United States. AB-129 would repeal that provision.

Coindesk reports California's Bill to Make Bitcoin 'Lawful Money' Heads to Governor.

AB-129, authored by Assembly Member Roger Dickinson, would recognize digital currencies – along with a host of other commonly-issued forms of value including points and coupons – as lawful alternatives to the US dollar. The state-backed currency would still have legal superiority, as Californian residents are not required to accept forms of lawful money.

Dickinson recently commented that the law is primarily designed to allow California consumers the ability to continue using a variety of common payment methods, and to remove penalties currently on the books for their usage.

Comments from Bill Author

Let's tune in to what Roger Dickinson has to say in his Bitcoin Press Release.

Assembly member Roger Dickinson's (D-Sacramento) bill AB 129 addressing alternative currencies passed the Assembly. Modern methods of payment have expanded beyond cash or credit card. AB 129 repeals an outdated restriction on the use of "anything but the lawful money of the United States." The literal meaning of the restriction indicates that anyone using alternative currency is in violation of the law. However, people commonly use digital currency, community currency, and reward points without penalty.

"In an era of evolving payment methods, from Amazon Coins to Starbucks Stars, it is impractical to ignore the growing use of cash alternatives," Dickinson said. "This bill is intended to fine-tune current law to address Californians' payment habits in the mobile and digital fields."

Bitcoin, a growing digital currency, has gained recent media attention as businesses have expanded to accept Bitcoins for payment. Long before the introduction of digital currencies, various businesses created point models that allow consumers to use points to pay for goods or services. Many communities have created "community currencies" that are created by members of a community and the merchants who agree to accept the alternative currency. These "community currencies" are created for a variety of reasons, some of which include encouraging consumers to shop at small businesses within the community or increasing neighborhood cohesiveness.

Commodity vs. Currency

Three cheers to Dickinson. At the federal level, we need a more commonsense ruling that bitcoin is a currency, not an ordinary commodity like copper.

By the way, money is a commodity as well as a currency.

In Man, Economy, and State, Murray Rothbard explains "Money is a commodity that serves as a general medium of exchange."

What About Oil?

Some believe oil should be money. The idea is silly. Oil is not easy to store, not easy to transport, not easily divisible, and most of all, oil is used up.

What About Gold?

In contrast to oil, bitcoin has no commodity use other than to facilitate trade. Similarly, gold has very little industrial use. But unlike bitcoin, gold cannot be manufactured out of nothing.

Gold's overwhelming role is still as a currency even though it is not in general use as money. After all, central banks still cling to it. They don't cling to copper, oil or even silver.

Many think gold cannot be money again "because there isn't enough of it". Others believe "the production of gold does not expand fast enough for the economy".

Both statements are easily proven false.

On page 29 of What Has Government Done With Our Money, Rothbard explains: "An increase in the money supply, then, only dilutes the effectiveness of each gold ounce; on the other hand, a fall in the supply of money raises the power of each gold ounce to do its work. We come to the startling truth that it doesn't matter what the supply of money is. Any supply will do as well as any other supply. The free market will simply adjust by changing the purchasing power, or effectiveness of the gold-unit. There is no need to tamper with the market in order to alter the money supply that it determines."

I strongly recommend people read the above link from start to end. It is easy read, easy to understand, and does not contain any mathematical equation gibberish.

In case you missed it, please also see Truly Inane Bloomberg Analysis On Gold.

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

Consumer Spending Weaker Than Expected, Autos Still Holding Up; What About Housing?

Posted: 26 Jun 2014 12:21 PM PDT

Curve Watcher's Anonymous has its eye on the yield curve following a disappointing (to those who believe consumption drives the economy) consumer spending report.

Let's start with a look at the department of commerce spending report on Personal Income and Outlays.

Personal income increased $58.8 billion, 0.4 percent in May.
In April, personal income increased $49.9 billion, or 0.3 percent.
Real DPI increased 0.2 percent in May, the same increase as in April.
Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $55.6 billion, 0.4 percent, in May.
Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $18.3 billion, 0.2 percent in May.
DPI increased $50.8 billion, or 0.4 percent.
PCE increased $2.3 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, based on revised estimates.
Real PCE - adjusted to remove price changes - decreased 0.1 percent in May, compared with a decrease of 0.2 percent in April.

Durable Goods and Autos

Purchases of durable goods increased 1.0 percent, in contrast to a decrease of 0.9 percent in April.
Purchases of motor vehicles and parts accounted for more than half of the [durable goods] increase in May, and more than accounted for the decrease in April.
Purchases of nondurable goods decreased 0.3 percent in May, compared with a decrease of 0.1 percent in April.
Purchases of services decreased 0.2 percent, compared with a decrease of 0.1 percent.

Services down two months in a row as are nondurable goods.
Was the weather bad in April and May too?

What little strength left in the economy is related to autos. Auto sales bounced back after a decline in April. How long can this last?

$TNX

Yield on the 10-Year treasury is above where it was a year ago, below where it was 2 years ago.

If the yield is here in July, there will have been no change from July of 2013 or July of 2011, but significantly higher than July of 2012.

Housing

It was the increase from 1.394% in July of 2012 (or 1.614% in April of 2013) that helped put the damper on housing.

Housing affordability is down for two reasons:

Interest rates are higher
Prices are higher

If wages stay down or interest rates high, housing is not going anywhere. There was a nice discussion along these lines on the Daily Ticker with Fannie Mae Chief Economist Doug Duncan.

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