Central Perk

miercuri, 22 iunie 2011

Watch Live at 8 p.m. EDT: President Obama Addresses the Nation

Your Daily Snapshot for
Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Watch Live at 8 p.m. EDT: President Obama Addresses the Nation

Tonight, President Obama will address the nation from the White House to lay out his plan to draw down American troops from Afghanistan. The President first unveiled this strategy in December 2009.

Watch the speech live at WhiteHouse.gov/live.

Photo of the Day

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden hold an economic meeting with senior advisors in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, June 21, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

SEOptimise

Using Social Media to Create Topical Content Around Trends

Posted: 21 Jun 2011 03:51 AM PDT

In the latest video blog from SEOptimise, Marcus Taylor and Dan Bianchini take us through how to use social media to create topical content for SEO benefit. They cover how to find the latest trends, how to write the content and finally how to promote it to get publicity and links.

Seth's Blog : The Grateful Dead and the Top 40

The Grateful Dead and the Top 40

I wonder if Jerry ever got jealous of acts that were able to put songs on the radio. (The Dead had exactly one hit record...)

I hope not. Jerry was in a different business. Sure, he played music. Elton John also plays music. But they were in different businesses, performing for different audiences, generating revenue in different ways, creating different sorts of art.

In a world filled with metrics and bestseller lists, it's easy to decide that everyone is your competitor and easier still to worry about your rank. Worry all you want, but if it gets in the way of your art or starts changing your mission, it's probably a mistake.

It used to be that the non-customers, passers-by and quiet critics of your venture were totally invisible to you. They drove by, or muttered under their breath or simply went to someone else. Now, all is visible. Just because you're vividly aware of your shortcomings in market share doesn't mean it's important.

The next time you have a choice between chasing the charts (whichever charts you keep track of) and doing the work your customers crave, do the work instead.

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marți, 21 iunie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Interactive Map: Employment History Since 2001 by Job Type (Healthcare, Education, Mining, Construction, Finance, Real Estate, etc)

Posted: 21 Jun 2011 01:10 PM PDT

When it comes to jobs, this is the weakest recovery ever except for health-care.

In the first of a two-part series, please consider the following interactive map, using Tableau Software, with data courtesy of Economic Modeling.

This interactive map may take a bit to load. Please give it time on a slow connection.

Change in Employment by Industry: '01-11

In a followup post I will look at job gains and losses since 2008, by job classification.

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

Time for Plan B; Unfortunately there is No Plan B

Posted: 21 Jun 2011 12:16 PM PDT

How long can the ECB kick the can down the road? How big a hole will Greece dig before the ECB, the EU, and IMF realize that "Plan A" (austerity will fix problems by 2013), cannot possibly work? Is the amount of money the EU, IMF, and ECB willing to throw at Greece unlimited?

Those are the questions on my mind as I read How the Euro Became Europe's Greatest Threat on Der Spiegel

In the past 14 months, politicians in the euro-zone nations have adopted one bailout package after the next, convening for hectic summit meetings, wrangling over lazy compromises and building up risks of gigantic dimensions.

For just as long, they have been avoiding an important conclusion, namely that things cannot continue this way. The old euro no longer exists in its intended form, and the European Monetary Union isn't working. We need a Plan B.

If it wasn't for the euro, Greece's debt crisis would be an isolated problem -- one that was tough for the country, but easy for Europe to bear. It is only because Greece is part of the euro zone that Athens' debts are a problem for all of its partners -- and pose a threat to the common currency.

If the rest of Europe abandons Greece, the crisis could spin out of control, spreading from one weak euro-zone country to the next. Investors would have no guarantees that Europe would not withdraw its support from Portugal or Ireland, if push came to shove, and they would sell their government bonds. The prices of these bonds would fall and risk premiums would go up. Then these countries would only be able to drum up fresh capital by paying high interest rates, which would only augment their existing budget problems. It's possible that they would no longer be able to raise any money at all, in which case they would become insolvent.

But if the current situation continues, the monetary union will invariably turn into a transfer union, a path the inventors of the euro were determined to prevent.

Democratic Deficiencies

The euro's founding fathers did not anticipate such a crisis, and thus did not include any provisions for it in the European Monetary Union's set of regulations. The euro welds together strong and weak countries, for better or for worse. There is no emergency exit, and there are no rules to follow in an emergency -- only the hope that everything will turn out well in the end.

The euro, created with the aim of permanently uniting Europe, has become the greatest threat to the continent's future. A collapse of the monetary union would set Europe back by decades, dealing it a blow from which it might never recover, especially with Europe's position already threatened by the fast-growing Asian economies. How is a fragmented Europe to prevail against this new competition?

This is why Europe's politicians want to defend the euro at all costs, and why they are approving one bailout package after the next. They are playing for time, hoping that the markets will settle down and the reforms will take hold.

Those snips were all from the first page of a five page article. Inquiring minds may wish to give the link a closer look.

Lend-and-Pretend (Plan A) is clearly not working. Yet ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet insists it "must" work.

Why?

Because there is no Plan B, and more importantly Because Trichet insisted there be no Plan B. Such is the nature of stubborn, arrogant fools.

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

Damn Cool Pics

World's Biggest Shave - Roger Federer
Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 23
Design Ideas Inspired By Nature
The Grossest Things Bear Grylls Has Eaten
Social Gaming: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
Owner Describes How Car Crashed into his Aquarium
Colorful Crayon Sculptures by Herb Williams

World's Biggest Shave - Roger Federer

Posted: 21 Jun 2011 07:26 PM PDT

To promote their Fusion ProGlide razors, Gillette asked their Facebook fans to help them make this giant, painted version of tennis star Roger Federer. After his huge portrait was painted on the grass, foam was sprayed on it to simulate shaving cream. Then, of course, they shaved him.

Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 23

Posted: 21 Jun 2011 04:31 PM PDT

Design Ideas Inspired By Nature

Posted: 21 Jun 2011 01:52 PM PDT

No matter how advanced our society and technology is, we can never forget our origins, and we will always need something green around us. Of course, the best idea is actually spending some time in the countryside, but it's not always possible, so the only thing left is probably bringing some nature to your house instead.

Wearable Planter

Living Moss Bath Mat

Table With Removable Planter

Dilston Grove

Green Bed

Green Umbrella Stand

Growing Jewelry

One Pot, Two Lives

Metamorphosis: Bookshelf

Growing Chair

Grass Car

Green Knuckles

Bloomin' Designer's Business Card

Grass-On Green Lamp

Grow Up Cup

Grass Covered Mouse

Pooktre Chair

Fly Tower

Outdoor Living Room

Organic Clock

Life Drawing

Grass Flip Flops

Flower Pots by GOOD!

Green Roofs

LED Mushroom Lamps

Ivy Bike Lock

Source: boredpanda

The Grossest Things Bear Grylls Has Eaten

Posted: 21 Jun 2011 01:25 PM PDT

"If it can keep you alive, then eat it." – Bear Grylls

On the Discovery Channel's show, Man Vs Wild, the host, Bear Grylls, has eaten many things to display how to stay alive in desperate situations. I have compiled a list of the grossest things I have seen this guy eat.

Bear Grylls eating scorpion

Snake

Siberia

Tree Frog

Turtle

Live Salmon

Zebra Carcass

Large Beetle Larvae

Social Gaming: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

Posted: 21 Jun 2011 01:05 PM PDT

Social gaming is huge and companies like Zynga are cashing in big. Here's an interesting fact: FarmVille users outnumber real US farmers by a ratio of 80 to 1 and 90% of Zynga's revenue comes from virtual goods (like buying crops for FarmVille). The infographic below takes a good look at the social gaming scene and some of these numbers are quite mind numbing. By the way, are you a social gamer?

Click image to enlarge.

Source: singlegrain

Owner Describes How Car Crashed into his Aquarium

Posted: 20 Jun 2011 09:10 PM PDT

Australian talk show The 7PM Project covers the story of a car crashing into an aquarium in Sydney. The owner describes the incident.

Colorful Crayon Sculptures by Herb Williams

Posted: 20 Jun 2011 08:18 PM PDT

Herb Williams was born in Montgomery in 1973, and then received a BFA in sculpture from Birmingham-Southern College. In 1998, he started his unique creation, that is, creating original sculptures out of individual crayons that may require as many as hundreds of thousands. He received The Joan Mitchell Foundation Museum Purchase Grant in 2004 and the Next Star Artist Award in 2008.

Herb Williams is one of the only individuals in the world with an account with Crayola. His works have got highly laudation by numerous news papers and museums, and have reached many countries as America, China, England, Canada, Belgium, Germany, Australia, Croatia, and Japan. Are you curious about how great his works are? Let's have a look at them together.