luni, 5 septembrie 2011

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


Before and After Hurricane Irene Pictures

Posted: 05 Sep 2011 12:01 PM PDT

The Hurricane Irene swept through a handful of states, doing a lot of damage to some areas. These before and after pictures illustrate how powerful Irene was, and the destruction it wreaked on some communities.

North Carolina


Manville, New Jersey


Manville, New Jersey


Cohoes, New York


Scoharie, New York


Westchester, New York


Westchester, New York


Quechee, Vermont


Scotia, New York


Connecticut River


Bartonsville, Vermont


Newark, Deleware


Vermont


Brandon, Vermont


Newport, Rhode Island


Hatteras, North Carolina


Margaretville, New York


Labor Day 2011 [infographic]

Posted: 05 Sep 2011 11:29 AM PDT

As a tribute to all of the hard working Americans out there, we have compiled some interesting facts and figures about the U.S. work force just in time for Labor Day.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Source: creditdonkey


SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog


How to Find Link-Worthy Data

Posted: 04 Sep 2011 01:42 PM PDT

Posted by MarkJohnstone

You might be a little tired of hearing 'content is king'.  And it's increasingly difficult to make content stand out online.  But a few sites are leading the way with their innovative use of data.  There's the Guardian Datablog, Information is Beautiful and the ubiquitous OK Trends to name but a few.

But sites like these are still in the minority.  So there's ample opportunity to turn data into links.  But first you need to know...

How To Get Your Hands On Some Tasty Data

data cake

There's data practically everywhere.  There are tonnes of different sources you can use.

APIs and Scraping

If you’ve got some developer resource available, you can pull data from a shed-load of APIs all over the web.  Mining Twitter and Facebook are obviously popular, but there are lots of other opportunities.

Programmable Web has a massive list of APIs you can tap into.  Speaking at a recent Distilled conference (Boston ProSEO), Dharmesh Shah suggested signing up to the RSS feed from Programmable Web – not because you need to know everything that’s coming out, but for the ideas it will trigger as you go along.  It can save you bucket-loads of time if you’re able to pluck out an idea from a while back that 'll work perfectly for a new project.

If there’s no API, scraping is always an option.  And even if the API is available, scraping can be preferable for doing things on the fly, and for the less technically-able (like me).  There are a couple of great resources that have already been written on this - check out the following:

And if you’re really getting into scraping, you should also check out ScraperWiki.  You can find out more about ScraperWiki here and here - especially for those who don't code.

Surveys

This is a pretty simple one really.  You can create surveys using Mechanical Turk in the same way as Will’s Panda questionnaire.

If you’re using Mechanical Turk, there are some challenges you should be aware of with regards to statistical significance, i.e. are the people doing work via Mechanical Turk really representative of the intended population?  But these kinds of objections can often be worked around by being upfront about where your data has come from.  Don’t try to bury your sources – if people can’t find them, they won’t trust you.  And if they have to seriously dig to get them, somebody will oust you.  Put them up front.  Be very transparent.

The beauty of using survey data is you can ask exactly what you want to ask.  There can be nothing more frustrating than having a great idea, and searching for hours to find a dataset to support it, only to abandon the project.

Open Data

This is a huge one.  Open data is a very hot topic, with more and more governments succumbing to pressure to open up their data.  As an example of how you can use open data, the following graphic by 97th Floor was created using a publicly available data source.  And Open Site Explorer shows 203 root domains linking to the page on which it appears (!).

where does the money go

Rather than searching through various government datasets, the Guardian Datablog have a search engine that allows you to search all of the open data sources from around the world.  And they're continually adding to it as more and more countries open up their data.

For other publicly available datasets, the following sites have some fairly extensive lists:

Academic Papers

In a similar vein to open data, academic papers and journals can be a great source of valuable information.  The problem with academic papers is they aren’t written for the public.  They’re buried in the depths of the web and barely anyone outside academia reads them.  They tend to be very dry and completely inaccessible.  But they often contain really valuable content.  You just need to turn them into something appealing and easy to understand.

You’re not necessarily being rewarded for being the source of the information, but for digging it out and turning it into a much more consumable and enjoyable format.  If might take a bit of effort, but that’s where you’re adding the value.

Another great thing about these papers and journals is they've been properly researched in an academic fashion.  And you're quoting very respected sources, which will give your content added weight.  Nothing like quoting a few .edus to add some gravitas.

To find academic journals, try Google Scholar or SpringerLink.

Google

One massively overlooked data source – especially by SEOs – is our old friend Google.  As well as providing lots of tools to process data, they're a useful source as well.  For starters, they have this list of data sources you can explore.  But there's also the headsmackingly obvious - Google Insights and Google Keyword Tool.

Yes, I'm serious.  Although we're in a niche where everybody knows about them, the majority of the public still have no idea you can see behind Google and find out what everyone’s searching for and what the trends are.  When I first showed it to some of my friends, they were genuinely amazed.  

There could be some really easy wins you could make without much effort at all.  For examples of simple things you could do, check out these 2 posts by David McCandless.  You could easily do a quick and dirty press release on online trends that could get some decent coverage.

google insights by david mccandless

Client Data

Client data is ideal but there can be a few difficulties.  The advantage of using client data is you can announce something genuinely new - that wasn't previously in the public domain.  However, there are a number of things to be aware of when using internal data:

  • Some companies will be reluctant to give you access, mostly due to concerns about competitive intelligence
  • There may be delays in getting the data to you, which can impede your ability to deliver on time
  • The data will often have missing entries and errors, and may even be completely unusable
  • The dataset may be too small to be reliable (especially when you start segmenting)

It's worth raising the above when you first discuss the possibility of using internal data, so you manage expectations.  If you do end up using the data, you have to be careful you don't over-state your findings.  As mentioned previously, you should clearly state how you sourced your data, so as not to be misleading.  As long as you do this, you can still create something worthwhile.  It’s still a story - or at least it should be if you're planning on putting it out there.

Anything I've Missed?

So there you have it - you need never be short of data again.  But if there are any major sources of data you think I've missed, be sure to add them to the comments below.


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"The Entire Country is Behind You"

The White House Your Daily Snapshot for
Monday, September 5, 2011
 

"The Entire Country is Behind You"

Yesterday, President Obama traveled to New Jersey to tour areas damaged by Hurricane Irene and reassure residents affected by the hurricane that the federal, state and local governments will be there to help them rebuild.

Learn more.

President Barack Obama comforts a resident in a neighborhood hit with flooding from Hurricane Irene in Wayne, N.J., Sept. 4, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

In Case You Missed It

Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog.

Answering your questions about We the People
The White House answers your questions on the We the People tool coming soon to WhiteHouse.gov.

President’s Jobs Council Listening and Action Sessions in Portland and Dallas
The President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness holds Listening and Action Sessions in Portland, Oregon and Dallas, TX.

Weekly Address: Time to Act on the Transportation Bill
President Obama calls on Congress to pass a clean extension of the transportation bill to keep America moving and avoid costing nearly one million workers their jobs.

Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).

11:05 AM: The President arrives Joint Base Andrews

11:10 AM: The President departs Joint Base Andrews en route Detroit, Michigan

12:30 PM: The President arrives Detroit, Michigan

1:15 PM: The President delivers remarks at a Labor Day event in Detroit WhiteHouse.gov/live  (audio only)

2:40 PM: The President departs Detroit, Michigan en route Joint Base Andrews

3:15 PM: The Vice President delivers remarks at the Cincinnati AFL-CIO’s Labor Day event WhiteHouse.gov/live  (audio only)

4:00 PM: The President arrives Joint Base Andrews

4:15 PM: The President arrives The White House

WhiteHouse.gov/live Indicates events that will be live streamed on WhiteHouse.gov/Live

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Seth's Blog : Back to (the wrong) school

Back to (the wrong) school

A hundred and fifty years ago, adults were incensed about child labor. Low-wage kids were taking jobs away from hard-working adults.

Sure, there was some moral outrage at seven-year olds losing fingers and being abused at work, but the economic rationale was paramount. Factory owners insisted that losing child workers would be catastrophic to their industries and fought hard to keep the kids at work--they said they couldn't afford to hire adults. It wasn't until 1918 that nationwide compulsory education was in place.

Part of the rationale to sell this major transformation to industrialists was that educated kids would actually become more compliant and productive workers. Our current system of teaching kids to sit in straight rows and obey instructions isn't a coincidence--it was an investment in our economic future. The plan: trade short-term child labor wages for longer-term productivity by giving kids a head start in doing what they're told.

Large-scale education was never about teaching kids or creating scholars. It was invented to churn out adults who worked well within the system.

Of course, it worked. Several generations of productive, fully employed workers followed. But now?

Nobel-prize winning economist Michael Spence makes this really clear: there are tradable jobs (making things that could be made somewhere else, like building cars, designing chairs and answering the phone) and non-tradable jobs (like mowing the lawn or cooking burgers). Is there any question that the first kind of job is worth keeping in our economy?

Alas, Spence reports that from 1990 to 2008, the US economy added only 600,000 tradable jobs.

If you do a job where someone tells you exactly what to do, they will find someone cheaper than you to do it. And yet our schools are churning out kids who are stuck looking for jobs where the boss tells them exactly what to do.

Do you see the disconnect here? Every year, we churn out millions of of worker who are trained to do 1925 labor.

The bargain (take kids out of work so we can teach them to become better factory workers) has set us on a race to the bottom. Some argue we ought to become the cheaper, easier country for sourcing cheap, compliant workers who do what they're told. We will lose that race whether we win it or not. The bottom is not a good place to be, even if you're capable of getting there.

As we get ready for the 93rd year of universal public education, here's the question every parent and taxpayer needs to wrestle with: Are we going to applaud, push or even permit our schools (including most of the private ones) to continue the safe but ultimately doomed strategy of churning out predictable, testable and mediocre factory-workers?

As long as we embrace (or even accept) standardized testing, fear of science, little attempt at teaching leadership and most of all, the bureaucratic imperative to turn education into a factory itself, we're in big trouble.

The post-industrial revolution is here. Do you care enough to teach your kids to take advantage of it?

 

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duminică, 4 septembrie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


Telegraph Reports Italy Needs to Rollover Record €62-Billion of Bonds in September; On September 7, German Court Rules on Bailouts

Posted: 04 Sep 2011 06:10 PM PDT

On September 7 Germany's top court to rule on euro bailouts.
The Karlsruhe-based Federal Constitutional Court will announce its verdict on September 7 at 4 a.m. EDT, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

The court is considering three lawsuits brought by six eurosceptic plaintiffs -- five academics and a lawmaker from the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats -- against German-backed international bailout schemes for Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

The plaintiffs argue that the bailouts, which total 273 billion euros ($393 billion), violate property rights and other protections in the German and European constitutions, and break the "no-bailout" clause in the European Union's treaty, which says neither the EU nor member states should take on other governments' liabilities.

Legal experts believe the court is extremely unlikely to block Germany's participation in the multi-year bailouts, or in an additional 109 billion euro package of official aid for Greece that euro zone leaders announced last month.

However, many legal experts and some government sources say they expect the court to set conditions for German participation in future bailouts, perhaps giving the German parliament a bigger say in approving it. That makes the court's verdict key for the whole euro zone.

For example, the eight judges could require German contributions to the European Stability Mechanism, the planned regional bailout fund which will start operating in 2013, to be subject to a vote by Germany's parliament. Currently, this is not formally mandated.
Any changes, even parliamentary approval will leave the door open at a later date for saying enough is enough.

Biggest Ever Italian Bond Rollover in September

The Telegraph reports Italy needs to rollover €62-billion of bonds in September. The Globe and Mail claims €46-billion.

Either way, September will be a big month.

Please consider German endgame for EMU draws ever nearer.
Finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble could hardly have chosen a more toxic term than "Bevollmächtigung" or general enabling power when he requested blanket authority from the Bundestag for EU rescues, as if Weimar were so soon forgotten. He was roundly rebuffed.

You can feel the storm brewing in Germany. Within days of each other, President Christian Wulff accused the European Central Bank of going "far beyond" its mandate and subverting Article 123 of the Lisbon Treaty by shoring up insolvent states, and Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann said bail-out policies had "completely gutted" the EU law.

Both believe the EU Project has taken a dangerous turn. Fiscal powers are slipping away to a supra-national body beyond sovereign control. "This strikes at the very core of our democracies. Decisions have to be made in parliament in a liberal democracy. That is where legitimacy lies," said Mr Wulff.

We will find out to what extent Germany's constitutional court shares these fears when it rules this Wednesday on the legality of the EU rescue machinery, and delivers its verdict of life or death for monetary union.

The assumption this time is that the eight judges will insist on beefed up powers for the Bundestag, but will not disturb the existing nexus of bail-outs and bond purchases. That is the most likely outcome.

Whether they go any further is the existential question for EMU. If they rule that the permanent bail-out fund (ESM) after 2013 breaches treaty law, they will queer the pitch greatly since the viability of the current fund (EFSF) depends on a hand-over.

If they rule in any significant way that the EFSF itself breaches Lisbon's `no bail-out' clause, or even that Germany cannot participate until the Treaty is changed, market confidence in monetary union will collapse instantly.

Whatever the court does, the simmering revolt in the Bundestag over recent weeks lays bare the salient strategic fact that Germany is not about to embrace fiscal union or quadruple the EFSF to €2 trillion, as deemed necessary by City analysts and EU officials to stabilize Italy and Spain. Nor will it pay for a third Greek rescue.

The EU-IMF Troika left Athens abruptly on Friday, blaming Greece for failure to comply. The equal failure is the scorched-earth austerity policies imposed by the EU itself. Fiscal deflation cannot work in a rigid economy with a large trade deficit and a high debt stock. It ensures a Fisherite debt deflation spiral.

The IMF must know from its errors in Argentina a decade ago that Greece needs a 40pc devaluation and 50pc debt forgiveness to claw back to viability. Yet the EU has blocked both, and the Fund has until now acquiesced.

Needless to say, battered banks, insurance companies, and pension fund will not wait for further rounds of punishment. They know that Italy must redeem €14.6bn of debt this week and €62bn by the end of September, the highest ever in a single month. It must roll over €170bn by December.

The ECB can in theory hold the line by soaking up the entire public debt of Italy, the world's third largest at €1.84 trillion. The question is whether it can plausibly act on such a theory when the president of EMU's dominant power deems this to be illegal.
Troika Abruptly Walks Out of Talks in Athens

In case you missed it, last Friday Inspectors leave Greece after talks are suspended

THE STRUGGLE to keep the ailing Greek economy afloat took a further turn for the worse as the EU-IMF "troika" abruptly suspended talks in Athens on the release of the next round of rescue aid to the country.

A team of troika inspectors unexpectedly left Greece yesterday after the emergence of divisions with the government over the execution of reforms agreed in its first international bailout.

With the release of each round of bailout loans contingent on the delivery of agreed reforms, the latest breakdown raises fresh questions about the government's capacity to implement the rescue plan.

The dispute comes as Greece tries to persuade private creditors to bear investment losses as a condition of its second bailout. The terms of the second rescue were finalised in July after months of dispute which intensified the sovereign debt crisis.

With Italy and Spain under pressure, the latest turmoil in Athens unsettled bond markets yet again. Greek two-year bond yields soared to a new record of more than 46 per cent and Italian and Spanish borrowing costs also rose.

The troika – comprising the EU Commission, the ECB and the IMF – sent an inspection team to Athens a fortnight ago for the fifth quarterly review of the first Greek rescue. Top officials from the three institutions joined talks with Greek ministers on Monday but the deadlock persists.

"At a certain point you reach the conclusion that there is no point in having new meetings every day – and you leave the Greeks a chance to do their homework," said a source close the troika.

At issue is the Greek government's failure to deliver promised reforms to public sector pay and its tax collection system. The troika is also unhappy with the government's failure to liberalise a number of professions.

Although the IMF had hoped to wrap up the talks next Monday, the troika said yesterday that its inspectors now expected to return to Greece by the middle of the month. It wants Athens to complete technical work by then and to continue talks on policies needed to complete the review.
Can Italy rollover debt without help from the ECB? I highly doubt it, but we are about to find out.

There is lots of Eurozone action in September, that's for sure.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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Merkel's Credibility Shattered; CDU Party Defeated in Regional Election, Merkel Coalition at Risk

Posted: 04 Sep 2011 03:10 PM PDT

The Telegraph reports Angela Merkel slumps to defeat in home state elections
Exit polls for the vote in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern gave Mrs Merkel's Christian Democrats just 24 per cent of the vote, down from the 28 per cent they garnered in the last vote in 2006. Adding to her woe was the performance of the Free Democrats, her coalition allies, who could be wiped out of the regional assembly, with just 3.6 per cent of the vote.

If the results stand, the Christian Democrats face the unpleasant possibility of being ousted from their current state coalition with the Social Democrats. Exit polls gave the left-wing party 37.7 per cent, and it could decide to strike an alliance with the Left Party or the Greens instead of maintaining the coalition.

To lose on her home turf will come as an acute embarrassment to Mrs Merkel.

She made nine visits to the state of 1.4 million people in the lead up to the election, and the defeat will raise question marks over her credibility and leadership.

Before the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern vote, the Christian Democrats had already suffered a series of humiliating pummellings in five regional elections this year. In March the party lost control of the prosperous state of Baden-Wurttemberg for the first time in 60 years after the Social Democrats and a resurgent Green Party pushed them into a lowly third place.
Coalition at Risk

The Financial Times reports Merkel suffers blow in regional election
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, suffered a blow on Sunday as the parties underpinning her national government were on course for big losses in a regional vote in the Baltic Sea state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Exit polls published by ARD, the broadcaster, shortly after voting closed suggested that Ms Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats faced their worst ever result in the state, with the Free Democrats likely to be kicked out of parliament.

Social Democrats and Greens, the main opposition parties and potential partners in government at national level, gained strongly, although a so-called red-green coalition did not look likely in Mecklenburg.

Manuela Schwesig, a leading Social Democrat and the state's social affairs minister, said the vote gave Erwin Sellering, the state premier, "a clear mandate" to continue governing – though she did not say with which partner.
Voters have clearly had enough of Merkel's Eurozone bailout policies. Whether she has the votes to ram through expansion of the EFSF remains to be seen.

As noted yesterday, Two-Thirds of Germans Oppose Expanding EFSF, Believe Merkel has "Lost Grip" on Euro Crisis.

Today voters took it out on her at the polls. Merkel's only concern now is her legacy. She does not want a breakup of the Eurozone on her watch.

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


Nevada Dramatically Expands Lawsuit Against Bank of America; Recap of Recent BAC Events

Posted: 04 Sep 2011 09:47 AM PDT

Last week the state of Nevada amended its previous complaints against Bank of America.

The Amended Complaint accuses Countrywide Financial of a "pattern of pattern and practice of deceptive conduct ... misconduct cut across virtually every aspect of Defendants' operations - from originating to servicing and, all too often to foreclosing on the loans and homes of Nevada consumers".

Please consider Nevada Wallops Bank of America With Sweeping Suit
The state of Nevada dramatically expanded its lawsuit against Bank of America today, turning the narrow case it filed late last year into a broadside that targets virtually all aspects of the bank's mortgage operations. Bank of America has previously denied wrongdoing.

The sweeping new suitcould have repercussions far beyond Nevada's borders. It further jeopardizes a possible nationwide settlement with the five largest U.S. banks over their foreclosure practices, especially given concerns voiced by other attorneys general, New York's foremost among them.

Nevada's attorney general charges that Bank of America and the now-defunct mortgage giant Countrywide acquired by the bank in 2008, deceived borrowers and investors at almost every stage of the process.

According to the suit, borrowers were duped into unaffordable loans and then victimized again through a misleading mortgage modification program that homeowners tried to use to avoid foreclosure. Finally, the suit alleges, the bank filed fraudulent documents to move forward with the foreclosures.

"Taken together and separately, [Bank of America's] deceptive practices have resulted in an explosion of delinquencies and unauthorized and unnecessary foreclosures in the state of Nevada," the suit alleges.

The state's suit had previously been confined to the modification issue. At that time, Bank of America also said homeowners would be best served not through litigation but through reaching a multistate settlement that would "broaden programs for homeowners who need assistance."

By expanding the suit, Nevada's Catherine Cortez Masto joins New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in stepping up investigations of the bank. In addition to initiating a broad investigation of banks' securitization practices, he recently filed a suit charging that Bank of America had fraudulently foreclosed on homeowners.

Last week, fissures in the coalition became public when Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who leads the 50-state coalition, removed New York's Schneiderman from the group's executive committee because, he said, Schneiderman had "actively worked to undermine" its efforts by opposing any quick settlement. As part of any settlement (reportedly in the range of $20 billion to $25 billion), the banks have been seeking a wide-ranging release from future legal claims, not just those related to foreclosure practices. Schneiderman has publicly rejected that idea and pushed ahead with his investigation.

Masto's suit signals that Nevada may also reject any settlement in the near future on the foreclosure issues. Two other attorneys general, notably those from Massachusetts andDelaware, have also voiced concerns recently about any broad waiver of claims.
Bank of America Broke 2008 Mortgage Settlement Agreement

The New York Times covered this on August 30, in Nevada Says Bank Broke Mortgage Settlement
The attorney general of Nevada is accusing Bank of America of repeatedly violating a broad loan modification agreement it struck with state officials in October 2008 and is seeking to rip up the deal so that the state can proceed with a suit against the bank over allegations of deceptive lending, marketing and loan servicing practices.

In a complaint filed Tuesday in United States District Court in Reno, Catherine Cortez Masto, the Nevada attorney general, asked a judge for permission to end Nevada's participation in the settlement agreement. This would allow her to sue the bank over what the complaint says were dubious practices uncovered by her office in an investigation that began in 2009.

In her filing, Ms. Masto contends that Bank of America raised interest rates on troubled borrowers when modifying their loans even though the bank had promised in the settlement to lower them. The bank also failed to provide loan modifications to qualified homeowners as required under the deal, improperly proceeded with foreclosures even as borrowers' modification requests were pending and failed to meet the settlement's 60-day requirement on granting new loan terms, instead allowing months and in some cases more than a year to go by with no resolution, the filing says.

The complaint says such practices violated an agreement Bank of America reached in the fall of 2008 with several states and later, in 2009, with Nevada, to settle lawsuits that accused its Countrywide unit of predatory lending. As the credit crisis grew, the settlement was heralded as a victory by state offices eager to help keep troubled borrowers in their homes and reduce their costs. Bank of America set aside $8.4 billion in the deal and agreed to help 400,000 troubled borrowers with loan modifications and other financial relief, such as lowering interest rates on mortgages.
This Nevada lawsuit is in addition to the FHFA $196 Billion lawsuit against 17 banks accused of "misleading Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about the soundness of the mortgages underlying the securities".

For details of the FHFA lawsuit, please see Is it Acceptable to Present a $196 Billion Sac-O'-Sheet to Sophisticated Investors as Diamonds-in-the-Rough?

Bank of America insists it does not need to raise capital but it raised $5 billion from Warren Buffett on very onerous terms and it has been busy shedding billions of assets.

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism reported Bank of America Death Watch: Unloading "Non-Core" Assets Aggressively

Indeed, actions speak louder than words.

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


If Donkeys Could Vote; Orwellian Madness

Posted: 04 Sep 2011 08:23 AM PDT

On the lighter side ...



Link if video does not play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6etfJgZQ7A&feature=player_embedded

Orwellian Madness

Here is something straight from the insane asylum: Reich: Government Has To Spend More To Get Out Of Debt
"At this point, there's a huge shortfall between consumer spending, businesses are not going to hire, on the one hand, and also on the economy's potential at full employment or near full employment on the other hand. Government is the spender of last resort. The only way to restart not only jobs, Simon, but also economic growth, which is terribly important for every purpose including deficit reduction. the only way we're going to get the deficits and long-term debt under control is if we get back growth. The only way to get back growth is for government to be this spender of last resort," Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich told CNBC.
Such idiocy did not work for Japan and it will not work here. Of course the nutcases will simply respond that "Japan did not spend enough".

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


Seth's Blog : People looking for 'more of the same' aren't actively looking

People looking for 'more of the same' aren't actively looking

While there may be a lot of them, they're satisfied with what they've got, which means that they're hard to attract.

No, the real opportunity is in reaching out to the dissatisifed, to those in search of something new.

 

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