Central Perk

joi, 30 septembrie 2010

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

How to Turn Google Analytics Into Your Own Rank Tracker Using Custom Variables

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 02:02 PM PDT

Posted by MikeCP

Today I want to talk about tracking organic ranking in Google Analytics. Previously, we were able to determine the page from which a Google organic click was coming from (detailed on the Distilled blog by Will Critchlow). This was nice because we could append this to the end of our keywords in Google Analytics for some interesting data (André Scholten's post at Yoast.com has a step by step) as seen below.

Keyword Page Rankings
Image courtesy of Yoast.com

This solution provides limited utility, and if you're like me, you implemented it, maybe checked it out once in a while, but never really turned this into actionable or otherwise meaningful data. I'm going to detail how rank tracking in Google Analytics can be made a lot more useful thanks to custom variables and a change in Google's referring URLs. But first...

Some History

When Google began testing an AJAX search interface in early 2009 there was a flurry of concern that it could mean the end of traditional rank tracking, web analytics packages, and I'm sure someone said SEO was dead, too. The concern wasn't without merit; Google was serving results in AJAX with the URL pattern as http://www.google.com/#q=keyword, and most analytics packages ignored the hash and everything after.

Fast forward to September 8th, when Google introduced Google Instant. The AJAX SERP usage had been steadily increasing over time, but shot up in usage when Instant was rolled out. Fortunately for Omniture, WebTrends, and other third party analytics packages, Google worked out a way to pass the referrer information from the SERPs, rank tracking still works, and I'm still working as an SEO in a living industry.

As it turns out, Google includes even more information in the AJAX SERPs than they previously did, including one really interesting parameter: "cd=". The cd= parameter contains the exact ranking position of the search listing, which makes for some really awesome possibilities, especially when paired with Google Analytics' custom variables.

Why Custom Variables?

Custom variables are a bit of an enigma to even advanced Analytics users. I'll admit that I never really made much use of them in the past. You'll often see examples where custom variables are used to track logged in vs. unlogged in users, which is definitely a great use. Rob Ousbey's 6 cool things YOU can do with custom variables is a good set of examples to get your feet wet.

In André Scholten's example above we're using Google Analytics user defined value, isn't that just as good a custom variable? Well, the difference depends on how you intend on using your data. With custom variables, you're granted much more flexibility within Google Analytics for slicing and dicing data. For instance, through the use of either custom reporting or advanced segments with custom variables, I can pretty easily track how much revenue a keyword has brought in when ranked in the 2nd position, as opposed to the 4th. While this may be possible with the user defined variable, it would require quite a bit of work after an excel data dump.

Now, let's get to business:

The How

Getting this properly set up was remarkably easy for me, and I have so very little programming knowledge, so I would imagine most wouldn't have much issue. I used PHP, as I was working with a WordPress site, but I'm sure you crazy hackers can do the same in most any language.

Update: See Joost and André Scholten's comments below for a JavaScript method of passing the cd= value

Step One - Extract cd= Value from Referrer String

I used this snippet to do this.

 <?php preg_match("/cd\=(\d+)/",$_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'], $matches); $str = $matches[0]; preg_match("/(\d+)/",$str,$matches); $rank = $matches[0] ?>

Please don't make fun of my hacky coding

This assigns the cd= value to the $rank variable. We'll reference this in...

Step 2 - Call cd= Value in our Google Analytics snippet

Now, we want to insert the custom variable call between the setAccount and trackPageview lines in our Analytics snippet (shown below using the asynchronous code):

 var _gaq = _gaq || [];   _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXXX-X']);   _gaq.push(['_setCustomVar',1,'Google_Ranking','$rank',2]);   _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);"

We've set the custom variable slot to 1, and the scope to the session-level (the last argument, set as 2). If you are already making use of custom variables, be sure to not overwrite a previously occupied slot. For more information on how the custom variable is formatted, see Google's help page on the topic.

Step 3 - Create an IF Statement so the CustomVar isn't Called Every Time

We only want to include this line when we have a cd= value, otherwise every new click will overwrite the last value. To do this, I used the following IF statement, again coded in PHP. This is the final step, and the complete Google Analytics snippet:

 <?php if ($rank != '' ) { echo "<script type=\"text/javascript\">\n   var _gaq = _gaq || [];   _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXXX-X']);   _gaq.push(['_setCustomVar',1,'Google_Ranking','$rank',2]);   _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);"; echo "\n";   } else { echo "<script type=\"text/javascript\">\n    var _gaq = _gaq || [];   _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXXX-X']);   _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);";     } echo "\n"; ?>    (function() {     var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;     ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';     var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);   })();  </script>

Here we're checking if $rank has a value. If it does, we'll include the custom variable call with that $rank value, if not, we'll print the Google Analytics code as normal. Also included in the above are some line breaks (\n), so that the code formats correctly.

The Most Important Part - Analyzing Our Data

What's the point of going through all this effort if it doesn't provide you with any analytical insight? None, of course. But this rank tracking solution has some added benefits over the traditional rank tracking software that may be really useful to some SEOs. These include:

Rankings by City, Region, Country

Traditional rank tracking software suffers in that its ranking results are dependent on the location of the servers. With custom variable rank tracking and a little spreadsheet pivot table magic it's pretty easy to get your site's rank for any location.

Historical, Definite, Data

Once this is properly set up you've got access to definite rankings within your Analytics data from that point on. So as holiday season 2011 rolls around, its easy enough to review where your site ranked during the 2010 holidays, helping to set budgets, goals, and expectations.

Bounce Rate/eCommerce Data/etc. by Rank

Whatever your KPI, you can compare it against search ranking. Reporting the ROI of link building efforts or on site optimization becomes much easier when you've got rankings included in your dataset.

Some of the quick ideas I had around this include:

Average rank over time for top 50 keywords
Average rank over time for 4+ word keyphrases
Bounce rate for 2nd+ page clicks
Revenue % increase for Keyword X when ranking increases from 2 to 1

I should note that getting averages is a lot easier in Excel with a pivot table, as seen below:

Average rank pivot table
This can also be adjusted to show your minimum rank, as well

Creating Custom Reports and Advanced Segments

Custom variables aren't included in the default reports for Google Analytics, so unless you do all your work in Excel, you'll probably want to create some custom reports or advanced segmentation to work with the data directly in Analytics.

Advanced segmentation is great for this data. Below is the function one would use to track rankings between 11 and 15, which might be strong candidates for on-page optimization that could provide the boost onto the first page:

Advanced Segmentation
You can apply this particular advanced segment with this link.

The Downsides

The most obvious downside is that you're only receiving a ranking when a listing is being clicked on, so for very small sites there may be limited utility. Ranking data will be spotty past the 2nd page, as well.

Additionally, the AJAX SERPs are not being served to all users in all locations. Small sample size warning here, but I'm seeing about 40% of organic Google traffic coming from the AJAX SERPs (done through a simple calculation of visits with our custom variable divided by total Google organic visits over the same time period). Michael Whitaker is seeing this number over 50% in his data. This number is likely going to increase as Instant is rolled out further.

The #-pack local listings can really throw things off, too. If a particular query gets one of these to start the SERP, the cd= continues after:

cd= rankings

Lastly, there does exist the possibility that Google discontinues its use of the cd= variable for whatever reason.

Go Analyze

I hope some of you can make some good use out of this functionality. I've only had it installed on my sites for a short time, but I've definitely found it interesting to play around with. If you don't already have Excellent Analytics installed in your Excel I would highly recommend doing so, even if you don't implement this tracking, and especially if you do.

I'd like to thank Michael Whitaker of Monitus for his help. He's been installing this setup for his clients for a bit now. Monitus offers proper eCommerce Google Analytics installation for Yahoo! stores, which is surprisingly difficult without Monitus.

If you've got any other ideas for working with this data, sound off in the comments or let me know on Twitter @MikeCP. Personally, I'm really excited to have this data rolling in and the possibilities are nearly endless. I'll be sure to report any interesting ways to manipulate the data in future blog posts. Cheers!

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Seth's Blog : Good stuff: 3 day free seminar plus LA and Atlanta

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Good stuff: 3 day free seminar plus LA and Atlanta

On November 1, 2 and 3, I'll be hosting 12 of you in my office for a free three-day seminar. It's by application only and it's only for women entrepreneurs. If you think you can benefit from and contribute to this intense roundtable experience, I hope you'll apply. Or tell someone who might benefit. And surprisingly, please follow the guidelines as closely as you can, because it's the only way we can consider your application.

ALSO: I'll be taking the road trip to Los Angeles on November 9th. It's my only public gig in LA for a while, and it's being done in conjunction with the Peter Drucker Business Forum. There are a very limited number of tickets for the entire 8-hour session (use the code sethsblog to save some money on the full day ticket), or if you only have an hour or two in the morning, you can buy a ticket just for breakfast ($20) and the on-stage interview I'm doing with journalist and author Lisa Napoli.

Before that, on Friday, October 8, I'll be in Atlanta. (We'll try to top Chicago, which was probably the best yet... here's a video with feedback from some attendees).

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Daily Snapshot: New Video - White House White Board

Your Daily Snapshot for
Thursday, September 30, 2010

White House White Board: Austan Goolsbee Explains the Tax Cut Fight

Introducing White House White Board. One of our key players on the White House team will cut through the political back-and-forth you hear every day and break down an issue affecting American families into simple, understandable terms. Today, Austan Goolsbee, the new Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers here at the White House, tackles the fight over tax cuts. Watch the video

Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Daylight Time

10:30 AM: The President and the Vice President receive the Economic Daily Briefing

11:00 AM: The President receives the Presidential Daily Briefing

12:45 PM: The President meets with Democratic Congressional leadership

12:45 PM: Briefing by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs

2:00 PM: The President meets with senior advisors

3:00 PM: The Vice President attends an event for Congressional candidate Tom White

7:00 PM: The Vice President attends an event for Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish

7:35 PM: The President attends a DNC dinner

9:15 PM: The President delivers remarks at a DNC Gen44 event

Indicates Events that will be livestreamed on WhiteHouse.gov/live.

They're Holding Your Tax Cut Hostage


	Good afternoon, Ten years ago, Congress passed broad income tax cuts. But in a cynical accounting trick designed to mask their long-term impact, they scheduled these cuts to expire next January. Now we are approaching that cliff, and millions of Americans are facing thousands of dollars in higher taxes on January 1. That's why President Obama is fighting to extend the tax breaks for middle class Americans. Under the President's plan, the tax cuts would be permanently extended on incomes up to $250,000, which includes 98 percent of American taxpayers. This is fair, just and crucial for our economy. Middle class Americans saw their incomes shrink during the last decade, and have borne the brunt of the recession. They need the relief, and America needs a strong, thriving middle class. Because middle class families are most likely to spend this money quickly, these tax cuts give our economy a much needed shot in the arm. Seems like a no-brainer, right? Not to the Republican leaders in Congress. They're holding these tax cuts for the middle class hostage, demanding that we also lift the cap and extend the breaks to millionaires and billionaires. Austan Goolsbee, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, explains what’s going on in this video: The Congressional Republican tax cut plan would add an additional $700 billion to the deficit over the next ten years and give America’s wealthiest people an average tax break of $100,000. To top it all off -- the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has found that giving a huge tax break to the wealthiest Americans is one of the least effective ways to stimulate our economy. Adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit while doing very little to grow our economy, put people back to work or strengthen America’s middle class is exactly the kind of economic policy that got us into this mess in the first place. We simply cannot afford to go back to their failed policies. It’s time for Congressional Republicans to stop playing politics with tax cuts for the middle class. Sincerely, David Axelrod Senior Advisor to the President

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Seth's Blog : Getting better at seeing

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

Getting better at seeing

A giant pitfall in the way small companies and individuals market themselves, particularly online or in presentations, is that they're often cheesy, ugly or unreadable.

I don't think people deliberately set out to be ugly, but they end up that way. And a quick look at your own buying behavior should tell you that you don't often buy from the sketchy-looking sites, ads and media that are often pitched at you.

No, I think the problem is that people don't realize that their work is ugly. They don't see it. Just like the close-talker down the hall from your cube doesn't realize that he's a close-talker. I'm not talking about skill or talent or even guts. I'm talking about learning to see what others see.

John McWade taught me how to see. I'm not great at it, I'm certainly guilty of designing my own not-so-ideal materials. But the gap between the one-eyed man and the blind is pretty big.

It might take a few weeks of hard work to start to notice what looks right in the world (and why). I think it's worth it.

(Easy to recommend books from Nancy Duarte and Garr Reynolds too)

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miercuri, 29 septembrie 2010

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Pentagon Loses Control of Laser Guided Bombs to China; Shades of "Avatar", Rare Earth Metals a Potential "Unobtanium"; The "Bright Side"
Cheap, (I Mean Really Cheap) Stores
Open Dissent at the Fed: Charles Plosser (Philly Fed) Opposes QE2; Thomas Hoenig (Kansas City) attends Tea Party
Why the Statistical "Recovery" Feels Bad

Pentagon Loses Control of Laser Guided Bombs to China; Shades of "Avatar", Rare Earth Metals a Potential "Unobtanium"; The "Bright Side"

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 06:37 PM PDT

Last Sunday in Prepare for Currency/Trade Wars; How Might China Respond to US Tariffs? I mentioned the possibility China might shut off exports of rare earth metals used in making glass for solar panels, motors that help propel hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius, and laser guided bombs.

Indeed, it was the shutoff of rare earth metals to Japan that caused Japan to "cry uncle" and release a Chinese boat captain detained by the Japanese in disputed waters.

For details, please see Rare Earth Diplomacy: Japan Holds Chinese Boat Captain;China Blocks Rare Earth Exports to Japan;China Holds 4 Japanese on Spy Charges;Captain Set Free

Rare Earth Metals a Potential "Unobtanium"

In light of the above, it should be no surprise to see Bloomberg report about the sudden growing concern Pentagon Losing Control of Bombs to China's Monopoly

"It's a seller's market now," says Bai Baosheng, 43, puffing a cigarette in his office in Baotou, China, where his company sells bags of powder containing a metallic element known as neodymium, vital in tiny magnets that direct the fins of bombs dropped by U.S. Air Force jets in Afghanistan.

The U.S. handed its main economic rival power to dictate access to these building blocks of modern weapons by ceding control of prices and supply, according to dozens of interviews with industry executives, congressional leaders and policy experts. China in July reduced rare-earth export quotas for the rest of the year by 72 percent, sending prices up more than sixfold for some elements.

Military officials are only now conducting an inventory of where and how U.S. suppliers use the obscure but essential substances -- including those that silence the whoosh of Boeing Co. helicopter blades, direct Raytheon Co. missiles and target guns in General Dynamics Corp. tanks.

"The Pentagon has been incredibly negligent," said Peter Leitner, who was a senior strategic trade adviser at the Defense Department from 1986 to 2007. "There are plenty of early warning signs that China will use its leverage over these materials as a weapon."

While two rare-earth projects are scheduled to ramp up production by the end of 2012 -- one owned by Molycorp Inc. in California and another by Lynas Corp. in Australia -- the GAO says it may take 15 years to rebuild a U.S. manufacturing supply chain. China makes virtually all the metals refined from rare earths, the agency says. The elements are also needed for hybrid-electric cars and wind turbines, one reason supply may fall short of demand in 2014 even with the new mines, according to Kingsnorth of Imcoa.

Just how far U.S. manufacturing has waned is apparent at a factory in Valparaiso, Indiana, where dogs skitter across a bare concrete shop floor, their nails clicking. This brick plant on Elm Street once made 80 percent of the rare-earth magnets in laser-guided U.S. smart bombs, according to U.S. Senator Evan Bayh, a Democrat from Indiana. In 2003, the plant's owner shifted work to China, costing 230 jobs.

Now the plant houses Coco's Canine Cabana, a doggy day care the current tenants started to supplement sagging income from their machine shop.

It's taking as long as 10 weeks to get neodymium magnets, double the previous wait time, said Joe Schrantz, group supply chain manager at Moog Inc. in East Aurora, New York.

For Western companies, China's policies are creating the real "unobtanium," the fictional mineral fought over in James Cameron's 2009 film "Avatar."

Rising neodymium prices are forcing up the price of magnets, which typically cost between $2 and $30 apiece. That's having a "significant" effect on profit, and suppliers say costs will keep going up, Schrantz said. The company is considering buying blocks of raw material and storing it.

"If everybody does that, then it's going to get really crazy," he said.

There is much more in the article. Please give it a look.

The Bright Side

Although "unobtanium" is a cause of concern for warmongers everywhere, being the ever-optimist that I am, I prefer to look at the bright side.

Prices are soaring. Isn't that what Bernanke wants?

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

Cheap, (I Mean Really Cheap) Stores

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 02:05 PM PDT

Reader Jed writes ....

Hello Mish,
Here is a humorous image of a sign I took yesterday at the Southdale Mall in Edina.

Jed

Thanks Jed but that store has a long, long way to compete with stores in Japan that sell things for 10 Yen (about 12 cents by current calculation).

Here is a Forex Currency Conversion Link.

¥10 Shops in Japan

Mike in Tokyo Rogers reports ¥10 Yen Shops in Japan! Proof of Deflation!

The Asia Times Online shows what 20 years of Japan's economic policies have brought us: Severe deflation.

We have ¥10 yen shops selling daily items and doing brisk business in Japan.

The ¥10 yen shops sell loss leader items to attract the customers but the other items sell for about ¥88 each, so they even beat out the ¥100 yen shops.

The store that accomplishes all of this is called the Recycle Garden.

Deflation Dilemma

The article Mike Rogers referred to is Ten-yen stores capture deflation dilemma

With many worrying that the United States economy headed towards a painful Japanese-style deflation, the concept of "Japanization" is increasingly being bandied around the world. But what is "Japanization"?

One answer is found in Kawasaki City, about 20 kilometers southwest of downtown Tokyo. There, a 10 yen-shop called Recycle Garden (equivalent to a 10 cent store in the US) is attracting large numbers of customers by word of mouth. The outlet is one of nine Recycle Garden branches operated in the Kanto region centered on Tokyo and including Yokohama, Kawasaki and Atsugi.

At Recycle Garden, 10 yen buys the customer everyday items such as chopsticks, kitchen goods, nail-scissors, hand sanitizers, or air fresheners. A colored plastic hair clasp is also 10 yen. In the Kawasaki shop alone, the product lineup consists of about 1,000 items at 10 yen, with the number of goods totaling around 30,000. It's all there.

Surprisingly, most of those products are made in Japan, not in China, Vietnam or Cambodia, from where usually cheaper and lower-quality goods flow into Japan.

"Everything is incredibly cheap," said Kyoko Yamada, 52, a careworker, who lives in Tsurumi Ward adjoining Kawasaki, who on a recent visit to Recycle Garden bought 10 items such bath agents.

How is such unprecedented price-slashing possible?

The mechanism is this: amid an increasingly fierce pricing war among neighborhood retail shops such as 100-yen convenience stores, Recycle Garden makes bulk purchases of those goods from bankrupt shops and firms as from deceased manufacturing and wholesale merchants. In most cases, on hearing the news about a bankruptcy, Recycle Garden workers dash to the failed firms with large dump trucks, and buy up and take away immediately to their chain store a vast amount of goods.

"We are cutting prices to the bone," said Tadafumi Fukuda, 41, manager at Recycle Garden's Kawasaki outlet. "Since we also sell other items at 88 yen and above, 10-yen goods serve as a crowd puller." The number of customers visiting the shop has increased 20% from a year ago, when the shop started to sell 10-yen goods, he said.

Can this happen in the US? I think it can, no matter what Bernanke thinks.

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

Open Dissent at the Fed: Charles Plosser (Philly Fed) Opposes QE2; Thomas Hoenig (Kansas City) attends Tea Party

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 11:58 AM PDT

An open battle exists at the Fed concerning Bernanke's second round of Quantitative Easing (QE2).

Hoenig Attends Tea Party

Bloomberg reports Fed Dissenter Hoenig Wages Lonely Campaign Against Easy Credit

Thomas M. Hoenig, dressed in a gray suit, white shirt with French cuffs, and baby-blue tie, faces an edgy crowd of 150 people in a hotel meeting room in suburban Lenexa, Kan. A large "Kansas City Tea Party" banner covers a table at the door. Attendees wear anti-tax stickers on their lapels. This is not an after-dinner speech for which most central bankers would volunteer.

Hoenig smiles at his audience and begins: "This is a support-the-Fed rally, right?"

Dead silence. Then the room erupts in laughter. Disarmed, the Tea Partiers listen politely as Hoenig defends the Federal Reserve as an indispensible institution, even if at the moment, he says, it happens to be heading in the wrong direction.

And, by the way, if it were up to him (though it's not, really) he would break up the biggest Wall Street banks.

This is Tom Hoenig's moment, and it's a strange one. In Washington, he is the burr in Fed Chairman Bernanke's saddle: the rogue heartland banker who keeps dissenting alone -- for the sixth straight time on Sept. 21 -- to protest the Fed's rock- bottom interest-rate policy. Hoenig warns that the Bernanke majority is setting the country up for an as-yet-unknown asset bubble: the next dot-com or subprime craze. He can't tell yet where the boom-and-bust will materialize, but he can feel it coming, like a Missouri wheat farmer senses in his bones the storm that's just over the horizon.

In abundant speeches and articles, Hoenig has condemned the political influence of the financial elite. "We've had a Treasury Secretary from Goldman Sachs under a Democratic President and a Treasury Secretary from Goldman Sachs under a Republican President. The outcomes were not good," Hoenig says while being driven to a luncheon talk at an affordable housing conference in Topeka, Kan.

Hoenig harbors powerful misgivings over not dissenting more often and more forcefully during the Greenspan years. "He regrets going along with the votes when Alan Greenspan was chairman to get rates so low and keeping them so low so long," says his friend Fisher.

There is much more in the article including a discussion of the open debate between Krugman and Hoenig.

Philadelphia Fed president Charles Plosser joins Hoenig

Please consider Economic Outlook Charles I. Plosser's speech to The Greater Vineland Chamber of Commerce September 29, 2010.

My basic message is this: I believe we are in the midst of an economic recovery – a modest one, but a recovery nonetheless. Over the last few months, we have experienced something like the summer doldrums. The tail winds that helped propel the economy earlier in the year have waned. Yet such a slowdown is not unusual in the early phases of recovery, and we should not overreact to data that can be volatile and may be revised over time. My assessment of the recent data leads me to expect that the recovery will continue at a moderate pace over the next several quarters.

Inflation and Monetary Policy

On the inflation front, recent data indicate some deceleration, which has led some observers to voice concerns about sustained deflation – that is, a prolonged decline in the level of prices. In my view, inflation will remain subdued in the near term, but I do not see a significant risk of sustained deflation. I anticipate that inflation expectations will remain relatively stable and core inflation will run in the 1 to 1-1/2 percent range this year and accelerate toward 2 percent in 2011.

Inflation in this range is not a problem – indeed, low inflation is desirable. Most people forget, or are too young to know, that from 1953 to 1965, the average inflation rate measured by the consumer price index (CPI) was just 1.3 percent. For the last 15 years, Switzerland's average inflation rate has been less than 1 percent. In neither of these episodes did low inflation lead to economic stagnation or fears of deflation.

Were deflationary expectations to materialize – and let me repeat, I do not see much risk of this – I would support appropriate steps to raise expectations of inflation, including, perhaps, aggressive asset purchases coupled with clear communication that our goal is to combat deflationary expectations. But for such a strategy to be successful, the public must believe that the Fed can and will act to combat those expectations.

The Fed must be credible. Protecting that credibility is why, based on my current outlook, I do not support further asset purchases of any size at this time. As I said earlier, asset purchases in our current economic environment can do little if anything to speed up the return to full employment. But if the public believes that they can and is disappointed, it may have less confidence that the Fed will act to raise inflationary expectations if needed. Because I see little gain at this point, and some costs, I would prefer not to engage in further asset purchases at this time.

There is much to blast Plosser for. For starters, Quantitative Easing does not work as noted in Sure Thing?!

Moreover, inflation targeting is pure idiocy. For some explanations as to why please see Fallacy of Inflation Targeting.

For further discussion, please see Does Inflation Targeting Make Any Sense?

Finally, it is perfectly clear that Plosser does not even know what inflation is. Yet, even if one did think inflation was about prices, the idea that the Fed can control prices in a global economy is sheer lunacy.

Nonetheless, it is interesting to see multiple dissents regarding Fed policy. Hopefully that dissent continues to mount.

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

Why the Statistical "Recovery" Feels Bad

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 02:26 AM PDT

Inquiring minds might be interested in charts of GDP minus the effect of increased government spending. The charts are from reader Tim Wallace who writes ...

Dear Mish -

Take a look at the following spreadsheets of GDP from 2001 to 2010, in chained 2005 dollars to account for [price] inflation.

U.S. GDP and Net GDP (subtracting government spending)

click on chart for sharper image

The above chart clearly demonstrates that there really is no recovery, just increased federal spending and debt.

Here are the GDP numbers chained to 2005 dollars (Millions):

Year	GDP	Gov't Spending	Net GDP
2001	11,371.3	2,056.4	9,314.9
2002	11,538.8	2,188.6	9,350.2
2003	11,738.7	2,303.3	9,435.4
2004	12,213.8	2,377.7	9,836.1
2005	12,587.5	2,486.0	10,101.5
2006	12,962.5	2,578.5	10,384.0
2007	13,194.1	2,570.1	10,624.0
2008	13,359.0	2,753.3	10,605.7
2009	12,810.0	3,210.8	9,599.2
2010	13,191.5	3,470.0	9,721.5

Note that the chained GDP number less the federal spending nets out to a number less than the GDP of 2004. So basically, our economy is back where it was seven years ago.

Private Sector GDP

click on chart for sharper image

Private sector GDP continues to shrink as the above chart and following table shows.

Year	Private GDP%
2001	81.9%
2002	81.0%
2003	80.4%
2004	80.5%
2005	80.3%
2006	80.1%
2007	80.5%
2008	79.4%
2009	74.9%
2010	73.7%

Moreover, over 40% of government spending is deficit spending. That increase in deficit spending accounts for the alleged rebound in GDP. Clearly that deficit spending is unsustainable.

How much of that increased government spending made it into your pocket or benefited you in any way? While your are pondering that, remember that all government spending adds to GDP whether or not anything is actually produced.

The "Feels Bad" Recovery

These charts help explain Good News: The Great Recession is Over; Bad News: It Doesn't Feel Like It.

So far, we do not even have an admission by the President, by Congress, or by most economists as to what the problems are. Instead everyone wants to "stimulate" something, typically by throwing money at problems.

This is why the problems are unlikely to be fixed, and this is why we are likely to remain in a stagnant economy that produces few jobs for the remainder of the decade.

While the recession is over, it certainly does not feel like it. Moreover, because we fail to address the structural issues, the odds of slipping back into another recession are exceptionally high.

Keynesian and Monetarist Stimulus Both Failures

Neither Keynesian stimulus (deficit spending) nor monetary stimulus (Quantitative Easing) have done anything to speed up the recovery. In regards to the latter, the QE Engine Revs, but the Car Goes Nowhere.

Just as happened in Japan, all we have to show for our stimulus is bigger and bigger deficits with a corresponding increase in the percentage of revenues needed to finance that debt.

All this talk of a "recovery" is nonsensical. Careful analysis shows the alleged recovery is nothing more than an illusion caused by unsustainable deficit spending. Meanwhile, the real economy is mired at the 2004 level. Simply put, the recovery "feels bad" because there is no recovery in the first place, only a statistical illusion of one.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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joi, 30 septembrie 2010

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

Some History

Why Custom Variables?

The How

Step One - Extract cd= Value from Referrer String

Step 2 - Call cd= Value in our Google Analytics snippet

Step 3 - Create an IF Statement so the CustomVar isn't Called Every Time

The Most Important Part - Analyzing Our Data

Rankings by City, Region, Country

Historical, Definite, Data

Bounce Rate/eCommerce Data/etc. by Rank

Creating Custom Reports and Advanced Segments

The Downsides

Go Analyze

Seth's Blog : Good stuff: 3 day free seminar plus LA and Atlanta

Good stuff: 3 day free seminar plus LA and Atlanta

More Recent Articles

Daily Snapshot: New Video - White House White Board

They're Holding Your Tax Cut Hostage

Seth's Blog : Getting better at seeing

Getting better at seeing

More Recent Articles

miercuri, 29 septembrie 2010

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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Arhivă blog

joi, 30 septembrie 2010

Some History

Why Custom Variables?

The How

Step One - Extract cd= Value from Referrer String

Step 2 - Call cd= Value in our Google Analytics snippet

Step 3 - Create an IF Statement so the CustomVar isn't Called Every Time

The Most Important Part - Analyzing Our Data

Rankings by City, Region, Country

Historical, Definite, Data

Bounce Rate/eCommerce Data/etc. by Rank

Creating Custom Reports and Advanced Segments

The Downsides

Go Analyze

More Recent Articles

More Recent Articles

miercuri, 29 septembrie 2010

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

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