When the iPad first came out, like many people, I didn't really get it. My initial thoughts were something along the lines of "Steve... what the hell?! You've produced a giant iPod and are somehow trying to claim its some sort of brilliant new product." I resolved never to buy one, considering it simply a folly for overly wealthy businessmen or an iPod designed for the visually impaired.
18 months later, a lot of words have had to be eaten with very little garnish or dressing. Now the proud owner of an iPad 2, I consider the tablet to be the coolest gadget ever made and the piece of technology I use most at home and when out and about.
My belief is that the form-factor of the tablet PC will become the primary device for personal computing over the coming decade and will form conduit for the bulk of consumer search queries.
While this “tablet revolution” may end up meaning very little for the classic SEO model, unaffecting the nature of link-building, keyword targeting, on-page optimisation, content creation or social media; It will form a catalyst of change for the world of CRO, analytics and offer new vertical opportunities so far mostly untapped...
In this post I hope to scratch the surface of things that will need to be considered by the SEO community going forward.
Why the iPad?
Tablets have been common-place now for a over year and a half. Yet, the world as a whole, still seems relatively baffled by them. Where do they fit in relation to the notebook and the smart-phone? Are they a mobile device or a static home-based device? Are they more useful in a personal or a business environment?
The answers to these questions remain somewhat elusive as we see tablet devices used creatively and strategically in numerous different arenas for multiple different purposes, but without a singular, uniting core function.
Some of these uses have been inspiring in their creativity and originality...
Some of these have amused us with their breathtaking ill conceived stupidity.....(fast forward to 0:24)
In beginning to question the exact USP of the iPad, it becomes clear that the mutually exclusive definition of “personal computer” and “mobile device” is broadly defunct, false dichotomy.
By displaying multifunctional appeal, eluding concrete definition, yet morphing its value and form to fit the subjective perspective of the user, the Tablet PC defines itself as a post-modern tool for personal computing - doing nothing particularly new, but a number of things much better, than any other device.
The defining feature of the tablet is clearly its UI. While the touch screen technology used in smart-phones and tablets is essentially the same, the way that translates to end usability differs considerably. The size of tablet allows for multiple fingers to be used simultaneously, allowing for a wider frame of user interaction with content previously viewed primarily on laptops or desktops; made navigable through the integration of a full two-handed QWERTY keyboard.
The touch-screen tablet interface on the iPad is extremely intuitive, feeling responsive, flexible and mutable to the chosen behaviours of its user. Using the device feels effortless compared with the computing via a keyboard and mouse, requiring considerably less mental investment or formal effort.
When we are on a desktop/laptop computer, we are normally entirely using a computer; unable to be simultaneously cooking, brushing our teeth, watching the television or walking to work. The same is not true of a tablet device, where the “pick up and play” nature of the hardware and operating systems allows for genuine multi-tasking and partial engagement with technology.
As such, the tablet perfectly fits the frame for what the PC always felt a bit forced into, casual web usage and content consumption. Most of the time we use the web in a personal frame, it is for an immediate task - be that finding the answer to a question, reading the news, communicating with our friends or making a necessary basic purchase.
Last week Amazon announced the Kindle Fire, a tablet with a similar 7inch 16:9 form-factor to the Blackberry Playbook and the original Samsung Galaxy Tab.
The fire looks to be an incredible product and an un-missible bargain at $199 (£130), but while the eBooks, music, movies and gaming functionality on the Fire may be superb, I do not think it will prove to be a viable or productive device for mobile computing and therefore search.
I played with the original Galaxy Tab for a while when it was released and found it the screen far too small and restrictive, with too low a resolution to be used effectively as a tablet computer. It was not large enough to be more functional than a large smart-phone, yet too cumbersome to be used instead of one. I expect the same to be broadly true of the Playbook and the Fire.
For my money, the 9-10 Inch 4:3 screen will push forwards and the main tablet form factor for years to come, with screen-size slightly expanding to 11-12 inches, - increasing when technology allows for smaller, lighter batteries and even thinner devices. Until the Android UX improves and the App store expands dramatically and a hardware manufacturer is able to produce a device with design quality on par with the iPad for significantly less cost, I can’t see Apple’s sales figures or market share slowing down anytime soon. Even if the iPad doesn’t gain users, it probably won't lose many due to the core Apple ecosystem i.e. those with iPhones, Macs etc will probably not switch to Android. According to technology research firm Gartner 69.7 million tablets were sold his year, of which a vast 68.7% were iPads. While Microsoft may eventually produce an exciting iOS competitor with Windows 8, this release is still a way off and with the luke-warm consumer reception to Windows Phone 7, one does have to wonder whether Ballmer and co will enthusiastically turn up just a bit too late for the party, arriving to discover the revellers have long-ago passed out drunk on Steve Jobs’ sleek, minimalistic, unibody aluminium sofas.
Therefore, I think it’s worth putting time and development resource into optimising for the iPad form factor, treating it as the only current tablet device worthy of consideration for site-optimisation.
The iPad, what is it good for? absolutely nothing
The iPad crosses the boundaries between mobile and desktop, being of particular value in the following locations and situations:
In front of the TV
The iPad is great for finding out the names of actors, undertaking research alongside informational programming or casually engaging with twitter while keeping up to the date with the latest sit-com.
As a TV
This morning, I could not be bothered to move into my living room to watch the Rugby World Cup matches at 8am GMT, so kept up to date with all the action without leaving my bed. This felt awesome, even if it was just laziness on an unprecedented scale.
As a complementary device for meetings & conferences.
In an age of earth shatteringly boring powerpoint presentations, the iPad is a welcome visitor to help liven up even the dullest of boardroom presentation. You can easily pass round presentations, videos and images with the rest of the room.
Travel
Trains and planes are not designed with laptops in mind. The iPad’s shape, size, weight and battery life take away the cumbersome hassle of trying to do work on the move.
Reading
Not only books, but also reports, PDFs, articles and newspapers are a breeze to look through while on the move or multi-tasking.
In and around the home
Particularly for casual browsing and quick enquiries, where the effort of loading up a PC seems unwarranted - the Tablet is the go-to device.
Collaboration
Happiness is best when shared and the iPad works really well for watching Youtube videos with friends, reading articles together or sharing holiday snaps.
Which sites are likely to get the most traffic?
My hypothesis is that sites in certain niches are likely to see more growth from tablet devices than others.
Everyone who has currently bought an iPad will have tethered it to a personal desktop or notebook pc. While this will change going forward, with the introduction of iOS 5, most tablet owners will still have access to a desktop or laptop and probably a smart phone too, meaning they have an option for devices to search from.
Due to usability factors such as screen-size, technical incompatibilities, typing efficiency and to the poor integration of tabbing within the native Safari Browser; the iPad is not suitable for heavy or sustained internet usage, the kind of which you are likely to do at work or when undertaking serious research.
Where the iPad comes into its own is with quick, frivolous tasks and I think this nature is beginning to manifest itself in the sites generating the most tablet traffic. The graph below shows the percentage growth of access from iPads for Distilled clients in a variety of different niches.
TV & Media
A Distilled Client in the TV & Entertainment Niche has had considerable growth of traffic from iPads over recent months, while maintaining a steady level of traffic across the board. Year on year for the month of august, traffic from iPads has grown from 0.47% of total traffic, to 2.52% of total traffic. While this may sound like only a small fraction of overall traffic, this growth represents a 400% increase. Meanwhile traffic from Windows devices reduced considerably over that time frame, by about 9.5% from 82.49 to 72.95%.
The further development of excellent TV & media apps such as TVguide, Sky remote record, Netflix & IMBD should be increasing the amount of traffic driven to entertainment and media sites via the iPad, as people choose not to switch devices in order to find out the name of that actor, or when the next episode of a certain program is on.
Travel & Tourism
If you’re going abroad, a tablet is great way to keep up with your communication and computing on the move, without worrying yourself over luggage allowance or battery life. Ticketing sites, restaurants, hotels and activity planning businesses should start to see sustained growth in visits from tablets.
Leisure E-commerce
If you’re making a major purchase, such as a car, business insurance or an engagement ring you’re going to want to meticulously check through different options, from multiple providers and make copious notes on all the actions as you go. This sort of purchase is unlikely to be undertaken from the armchair with iPad in-hand, however smaller, more frequent purchases often are. The touch screen interface can be a fantastic way to browse through the kind of items that don’t require as much research and planning. For example, when searching for a gift for a friend, people will often browse a store on a sofa while perhaps taking into account other's opinions.
News & Information Resources
We have all been in the situation where in the midst of a heated argument one side reaches for the last resort: Wikipedia. Alongside the smart phone a tablet is the ideal device for quick information retrieval on a particular topic of reference. Tablets also provide a great way to consume journalistic content as demonstrated in this recent article from Net Magazine. If you run a content aggregation site, a popular blog or a news resource – prepare for a shift in the devices comprising your overall traffic.
Social
For some reason everybody, when amongst friends and family, usually groans when somebody reaches for their mobile phone or laptop to access a social network. This stigma has so far managed to find itself inapplicable to tablets, their users and their peers. The pedantry associated with social network browsing on a phone isn’t applicable and the giant expedition that requires setting up a laptop with charger doesn’t make it seem like too much of an aside from maintaining the current real-life social setup. A tablet is a complement to a group trying to include, perhaps talk about or explore others who aren’t in their immediate vicinity.
Technical Optimisation
Flash
The iPad doesn’t support flash and from the vehemently stubborn quality of the comments made by Apple on this matter, I think it’s pretty safe to assume the iPad won’t be supporting flash anytime in the future either.
The SEO world have been pretty negative on flash for some-time, given Google’s inability to crawl it, but if you need another reason to take it down or convert your content to HTML5, here it is. Creating flash-style HTML5 content sounds extremely daunting to those of us without a front-end development background, but it really needn’t be. Check out Tom Anthony’s post on how to fix common issues with HTML5 and these sites for good tutorials:
Hype, a program for Mac OS X program allows even layman’s to create smart looking interactive HTML5 content and costs only $29.99 on the Mac App store.
Site Speed
Most of the time, tablets will run off reasonably speedy Wi-fi connections in homes, offices and coffee shops. But on trains, buses, cars, in airports and in meetings at other offices, iPads with the capability will often rely on their 3G connectivity to provide internet services.
The BBC recently conducted a comprehensive survey of 3G availability around the UK, which showed patchy connections in many areas outside of the major cities.
Despite an often advertised speed of 7.2Mbps for 3g connections, the BBC found most UK users get speeds of about 1.5Mbps, if stationary. In moving vehicles, connections can slow to a sloth like 284kbit/s – not enough to consistently stream video from YouTube. For iPad users opting to tether their device to their phone’s 3G connection for mobile browsing, the same sort of connection speeds apply.
This data simply reinforces the value of a fast loading, well constructed site, most easily achieved through:
Ensuring your images aren’t bigger than they need to be
Combining External Javascript
Minimizing DNS lookups
For tutorials on how to achieve these and more hot site-speed tips, check out Craig Bradford’s guide
Make an iPad friendly site, but not a duplicate
Mobile websites create unnecessary duplicate content, which can have bad consequences for your crawl bandwidth and keyword targeting, yet most desktop sites are not ideal for use on either smart phones or tablets.
The best solution is to serve different versions of the same site, perfectly optimised for each device, through changing CSS. Check out CSS zen garden to see how the same content can be delivered in totally different visual styles.
If you have built a mobile version of your website which you automatically serve to mobile devices, ensure this does not happen for users on an iPad. Although I can’t find any research to back this up (I’d be interested to hear if anybody else can), I expect that the vast majority of web browsing on tablets is done in landscape mode, where most full-sized sites can be navigated without any difficulty. The only reason I can see for supplying a mobile site to an iPad is if the full-sized site contains heavy elements of flash, which you are reluctant to lose.
Conversion Rate Optimisation
Simplify the check-out/conversion process
Using the keyboard on a tablet is a little bit arduous. In small doses, it’s not a problem, but typing stuff in does often require the user to put down the device and engage two-hands on the keypad. If you’re looking for a simple conversion to purchase, try to minimise the amount of content a user has to manually input.
This can be achieved by:
Only forcing the user to input the minimum amount of data you require
Using cookies to store data from previous visits
Automatically matching addresses from postcode/zipcode inputs
Allowing payment through paypal
Create an App
My iPad has a folder on it labelled “Shopping”. If I have something i wish to buy, then my first port of call will be the two clicks required to open up one of the apps in this folder, rather than the lengthy process of searching Google then trawling the results. Ebay, Asos, Amazon and Ocado have all done really good iPad apps which are worth taking a look at for anyone with an E-commerce focus.
Apps allow you to permanently store your payment details and ensure you can produce a graphically rich online store without the concern of page loading times. While an app will likely provide conversions in its own right, they are also valuable tools for generating brand-trust and can act as fantastic bits of linkbait for improving overall domain authority.
Pagination
Scrolling through lengthy pages is a breeze on a tablet, requiring only a casual flick of the finger to move the page down. Clicking through to another page, however, can be time consuming – especially if the clickable icons are difficult to locate and the page contains heavy graphical content.
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t paginate content when serving tablet devices, providing your “next” and “previous” icons are suitably tablet friendly, but simply that the visual impact of long pages is not such an issue.
Tabbing
While there are decent third party browsers available for the iPad; particularly Opera Mobile, Diigo Browser and Dolphin HD, the vast majority of users (around 96%) use only the native Safari browser, which currently offers an inelegant solution to tabbing.
If you’ve set all your external links to open up in a new tab or window in order to keep users on your site, beware that this may have an adverse effect for iPad users. Clicking back on the iPad is not nearly as dull or time consuming as going back to a page in another window.
Scrollers & multitouch
Smart use of HTML5 and CSS3 allows you to integrate scrollers and multitouch into your site delivery, as seen in Google tablet search and the upcoming BBC site redesign, currently in beta testing.
The best of use tablet UI and architecture is where traditional vertical scrolling is combined with horizontal navigation, to allow a great deal of content to be delivered on a single page. This lessens the need for tabbing and 3+ click journeys to deep pages; which feel irksome on the iPad, while allowing users to locate content without spending a long time finger-flicking through giant pages.
Check out the way my previous company, LocateTV, integrated horizontal navigation, and the way the extremely pretty Sky News App displays big pages of rich content.
Button Size
Fingers are bigger than cursors and therefore require more space to be clicked. Having to zoom-in in order to make a selection gets extremely tiring, so nip this issue in the bud by making small adjustments to your CSS.
Downloads for Quality Content
One of the most useful and natural functions for the iPad is as a portable eReader. The iBooks application contains an extensive bookstore, offering a wide variety of both paid and free content. The iBooks App also works as the primary PDF reader on the iPad, allowing you to bookmark places, zoom in and out and store the content in an extremely visually appealing library.
One way we can utilise this functionality as website optimisers is to ensure quality content is PDF downloadable, giving users to option to store our content on their tablet device for viewing in environments absence of an internet connection. With many iPads only offering Wi-fi connectivity and frequent usage in internet free areas such as the London Underground, having offline readable content can improve long-term user engagement.
Two ways to make effective use of this would be to ensure that any HQ content you produce has a PDF download option as per the SEOmoz Beginner's Guide or hitting mail subscribers with PDF versions of your new content so they can quickly upload it to iBooks in the morning before beginning the train journey into work.
When building the acrobat files, carefully consider the formatting of your document. The standard PDF looks like this:
An iPad in portrait mode has a width of 728px , considerably less than the average 15 inch laptop monitor screen, which clocks in at about 1440px. It’s best to test out your PDF document on an iPad so you avoid the need to excessively zoom in and out in order to make the text legible.
With the introduction of Apple’s reading list into the latest version of Safari on OS X Lion, expect iOS 5 on the iPad to provide an integrated system, which may open up more possibilities in off-line downloadable content.
Analytics
Google Analytics make it very simple for you to work out how much traffic your site is getting from iPads, by treating the device as an operating system entirely separate from iOS on the iPhone or iPod touch.
Just go to Visitors > Browser Capabilities > Operating Systems to see a basic report.
However, I think setting up an “Tablet” Advanced Segment is the best way to go with this, so you can include the appropriate Android versions and other tablet devices in overall analysis.
You may notice unusual referrers coming in through GA, ones which don’t drive any traffic from other devices. These will most likely be Apps and if you’re getting significant traffic off the back of these, it’s well worth delving a bit deeper to see if you can leverage further opportunities in this area.
The vast majority of traffic on the iPad will come through Safari, with small amounts through Opera mobile and other niche browsers. However, there are also a few other quasi-browsers that may pop up their heads. The Twitter app for the iPad contains an integrated webkit based browser, which should show up in GA as “Mozilla Compatible Agent”.
Don’t be immediately alarmed if you see higher than normal bounce rates coming through from tablet traffic, it may be that many of these visits are coming in via social references and through apps such as twitter, Facebook, iReddit and Flipboard. The things to be wary of are low times on site, low conversions and any pages which may contain iPad hostile flash or aspx server-side scripts.
The Future of Tablets
TV Companion Devices
One of the major futures for tablets will be as the “Second Screen” for home-based broadcast media. When watching sport, meta-data will be pushed live to the viewers phone and tablet, allowing them to browse through statistics, replays, commentary and static shots. Users are already beginning to make moves in this direction, with the plethora of Sky Apps released for the iPad. The current function of “The Red Button”, will be replaced by content wirelessly pushed to an App on a tablet.
For marketers, there will be opportunities within these integrated broadcasts systems; be it ads, creative content or affiliate recommendations. For example, imagine seeing the outfit a character is wearing in a TV show, then being provided with an image and a link to an E-commerce seller for that outfit on your tablet device.
The tablet will fulfill the main role as the TV companion device, as it’s informal, flexible nature makes it much easier and less cumbersome to use than a laptop while curled up on the sofa with most of your attention focused on your big screen.
Content Creation
The thing currently limiting tablets from becoming realistic content creation devices is not the hardware, but the creative software.
I can foresee voice-activated document creation coming back into the fray with tablets. While this technology has been around for a while, the speed and accuracy of dictation software has held back any wide ranging adoption. Tablets may become mainstream devices for illustration and design, video and music creation once innovations in UI take the next step and cloud syncing systems have been properly established to allow heavy processing tasks to be shared with more powerful computers. However, I do think it’s unlikely that heavy multitasking or database creation will find a mainstream form within the tablet functionality.
4G
Within the next few years, along with phones, tablets will take advantage of the 1Gbps 4G networks, improving the ability to watch HD videos on the fly and edit large documents stored in the cloud.
Operational Remotes – Media Libraries
Apps already exist to allow the iPad to be used as a remote mouse for Mac computers or Apple TV and if you have the money and the tenacity to set it up, it is possible to use a tablet device as a control for a large home-media library stored on a static disk. I expect this functionality will improve and expand going forward, with fully integrated media control across devices, service providers and screens.
Cloud Computing
The upcoming iCloud service will allow users to edit documents and content originally created on their larger personal computer, while also allowing access to their full iTunes library anywhere they have an internet connection. Full cloud integration will lessen the need for large hard discs and for users to pair any tablets with a desktop/laptop personal computer. We will start to see more individuals having a tablet as their only personal computing device and people in the same household having personal tablets, while sharing the use of a larger desktop/laptop machine.
I hope you enjoyed this introduction to the possibilities the tablet world is bringing to search marketing. If there are any areas I’ve raised that you would like to delve practically into, let me know in the comments and I’ll see if I can find some good resources.
Many thanks to John Warnes at http://www.transparency.org who helped me with this post and my girlfriend Kim for making me a brilliant cake while I was typing away.
Here's a Squidoo update, along with a chance to share your work and your passion and perhaps find a new gig.
Six years after our founding, we're now ranked #73 out of the millions of websites in the US measured by Quantcast. We now get more traffic than Digg, NBC or Hulu.
Millions of people have used Squidoo to build pages about content that they care about and want to share. What we've discovered is that in fact, self-expression is truly important to many people. That rush you get when you know an audience wants to hear what you have to say about something you care about--we've been supporting that for a while and it's clearly resonating with people.
What we've been committed to for the last six years is the idea that self-expression is at the heart of the best content, and that the web makes it easy to create personal media. Squidoo gives people a chance to build a personal interest graph online, page by page, interest by interest.
Announcing magazines: Squidoo is adding on to our core by launching a series of online magazines, highlighting great content, publishing original articles and connecting passionate people via Facebook. With Halloween right around the corner and more people eating vegetarian we thought we'd start there, but with a lot more to come. The team has done a fabulous job launching these, I hope you can take a look, or even better, join in.
If you'd like to contribute to our upcoming roster of new magazines (either to promote your own work or to be considered as an editor) please fill out this quick form and we'll send you regular updates.
"Our Military is Stronger and Our Nation is More Secure"
On Friday, President Obama welcomed Army General Martin Dempsey as the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He also honored the outgoing Chairman, Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, and thanked him for his four years of extraordinary service in that role and his four decades in uniform saying that “our military is stronger and our nation is more secure because of the service that you have rendered.”
President Barack Obama participates in the Armed Forces farewell tribute to Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, right, at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, in Arlington, Va., Sept. 30, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
President Obama at the Human Rights Campaign's 15th Annual National Dinner President Obama addressed the 15th Annual Human Rights Campaign National Dinner. In his speech, the President stressed his commitment to the cause of equality over the past two and a half years, and his continuing support moving forward.
Weekly Address: Fighting for the American Jobs Act President Obama discusses the letters he receives every day asking for action on jobs and calls on Congress to pass the American Jobs Act right away to cut taxes, create jobs and provide a win for the American people.
After years of trying, Congress is taking another stab at retaliating against what many see as Chinese manipulation of its currency to make its exports to the United States cheaper and U.S. goods more expensive in China.
The Senate is expected to take up legislation Monday that would impose higher U.S. duties on Chinese products to offset the perceived advantage that critics say China gets by undervaluing its currency.
The Senate bill has bipartisan support and is expected to clear a procedural hurdle Monday evening. But intense lobbying against it by American-based multinational corporations and their trade associations could spell trouble for the legislation.
Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., along with others, have tried for at least six years to pass legislation making it easier to impose higher tariffs on Chinese goods. That would help compensate for what they say is Beijing's effort to keep its currency, the yuan, undervalued against the dollar.
Among Republicans, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has said he would penalize China for keeping its currency artificially low.
The Senate bill, which does not specifically mention China, has two main components:
--Up to now, the Treasury Department has had to declare that a country was willfully manipulating its currency to trigger a response, which is something the Bush and Obama administrations have avoided doing. The legislation would require Treasury to determine only that another country's currency is misaligned, then give its government 90 days to make corrections before countervailing duties are imposed.
--The bill makes it easier for specific industries to petition the Commerce Department for redress under claims that the misaligned currency of China or another country amounts to an export subsidy. That more narrowly focused provision passed the House last September on a 348-79 vote. The last Congress, however, ended before the Senate could take it up.
Supporters point to studies by the Peterson Institute for International Economics that say a 20 percent appreciation of the yuan would reduce the U.S. trade deficit by up to $120 billion and create a half-million U.S. jobs. The more liberal Economic Policy Institute estimates that a 28.5 percent appreciation would create more than 2 million jobs.
Tariffs Will Cost Jobs
Anyone who thinks government officials can determine if and when currencies are "misaligned" has no economic sense, is engaging in populist rhetoric to buy votes, or both.
The clowns at the Economic Policy Institute think tariffs will create 2 million jobs and reduce the trade deficit by $120 billion.
I suggest tariffs will cost jobs. Manufacturing will not return to the US, nor will manufacturing of any sort, on account of tariffs. Wage differentials are too great and trade channels will simply shift (at great expense) to another country.
However, prices will rise, sales will slow, and the squeeze on consumers will accelerate. Here is a simple example: Let's assume a 35% tariff on underwear. How many jobs will return to the US ? 50? 100? Any?
Let' be generous and assume 500 (although the answer is most likely zero). In return for those 500 jobs, everyone in the United States has to pay 35% more for underwear? Is that a good trade-off?
Clearly the answer is no, but it is much worse than that. We also need to address the question "how many jobs would be lost because underwear is 35% higher?"
Whatever additional money is spent on underwear by 300 million Americans will come at the expense of those consumers spending less on something else, perhaps eating out, perhaps buying toys, or perhaps buying shirts.
To save 500 or whatever manufacturing jobs, everyone buying underwear will cut back on something else. Those cutbacks will have a real effect on shipment of goods (trucking), eating out, recreation, etc., just to benefit underwear manufacturers.
Magnify the underwear example by the vast numbers of idiotic lawsuits from manufacturers that will stem from a law that only requires some bureaucrat to figure out if a currency is misaligned. Then figure out how much bureaucratic expense and waste will that cause?
Lindsey Graham and Mitt Romney are definitely on the wrong side of this issue.
If Congress is foolish enough to pass such a law, and president Obama is foolish enough to sign it, expect to lose a half million jobs minimum because of it. Depending on retaliations and how things escalated, 2 million jobs lost would not be surprising in the least.
Government workers make up 20% of the Greek labor force. Worse yet, most of them cannot be fired for virtually any reason. That is about to change, and it's a much needed change for the better.
However, the idea that it will reduce the budget deficit to required levels by 2012 or even 2014 is ludicrous. When that does not happen larger haircuts will be unavoidable.
The Greek cabinet is expected to approve a contentious plan Sunday to lay off state workers, and sign off on a draft of next year's budget, in a race to slash spending, free up bailout loans and stave off bankruptcy.
Without the release of an 8 billion euro ($10.7 billion) tranche of an EU bailout, massively indebted Greece could run out of money to pay state wage bills within weeks.
To persuade the troika to release the loans, Greece has promised to raise taxes, cut state wages and accelerate plans to reduce the number of public sector workers by a fifth by 2015.
But all eyes will be on their forecasts for 2012-2014. If the inspectors conclude that Greece's recession will continue to be worse than predicted, EU officials have suggested that banks that agreed to write-off 21 percent of the value of Greek debt in July may be forced to take more pain.
Sunday's budget figures will indicate whether forecasts need to be revised. The government has been falling behind an ambitious deficit target of 7.6 percent of GDP for 2011, partly because of a deeper than expected contraction of the economy.
No part of the package is more contentious than the plan to lay off state workers -- who make up a fifth of the Greek workforce and are guaranteed jobs for life under a constitution that bans firing them under nearly all circumstances.
The government plans to begin layoffs by putting 30,000 workers in a "labor reserve" by the end of this year. They would be paid 60 percent of their salaries for a year, after which they would be dismissed.
But the government has yet to announce how the plan would work. If most workers placed in the reserve are near pension age and planning to retire soon anyway, the savings would be negligible and the inspectors are likely to be unimpressed.
The deputy leader of the Christian Social Union, one of three parties in Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right coalition, said Sunday Greece may be better off leaving the euro zone if it cannot restore its fiscal health.
Alexander Dobrindt told Deutschlandfunk radio that a Greek exit from the euro would be a last resort measure and Greece would find it easier to recover outside the currency bloc.
"I believe it is a solution, if one wants to bring Greece back into an economically stable competitive condition, that this would be done outside the euro zone," he said.
Unconstitutional Action?
From an eventual economic recovery standpoint, even more government workers should be fired than proposed. Moreover, the retirement age of workers needs to be increased, and pensions reduced.
However, such actions are against the Greek constitution and I see no reference the Greek constitution was actually changed. I can only find a call for a change by prime minister George Papandreou, on June 19, 2011: Greek PM calls for constitutional change amidst enduring crisis
Greek Economy in Depression, will Further Collapse
Since government spending adds to GDP by definition, Greek GDP will collapse.
Worse yet, tax hikes are precisely the wrong thing to do in the midst of an economic depression, and will not aid the recovery in any time frame.
There is no chance Greek can make its budget deficit estimates unless they are radically changed, and probably even if they are radically changed (on my assumption the budget estimate changes will not be radical enough).
It will be interesting to see what kind of unrealistic haircuts the Troika comes up with next. Anything under 50% is ridiculous (with some estimates running as high as 90%). Yet I will take a wild stab at 30%, (up from 21%).
Looking ahead to the Exit of Papandreou
Looking ahead, prime minister George Papandreou will not survive the next election. He is hanging by a thread now, with a mere 4-seat majority in Parliament.
Will the next government go along with all these proposals? I highly doubt it.
What if Greece Says "* You" to the Troika?
All these actions by the Troika are based on the silly belief the Troika is in control of a Greek default and can set the parameters thereof.
The Real Deal
Greeks are so pissed at banks, at bailouts, at austerity, at Greek Prime Minister Papandreou, and at the Greek parliament the majority simply does not care if a revolt is worse than further austerity measures.
Greek citizens they have been lied to so often they probably cannot tell the difference between relatively good scenarios and disastrous ones if they tried. The one thing they do correctly understand is bailouts were not setup for the benefit of Greece, but rather the benefits of lenders.
So what would you do if you were Greek?
If you were wealthy and mobile you would pull your money out of Greek banks and leave. Otherwise, you would be at the point of telling the EU, ECB, and IMF "* You".
Portugal and Spain are in the same boat, just not as advanced.
Forty-one states allow lenders to sue for mortgage debt if a home fetches less than the mortgage in a foreclosure sale. It always will. Such lawsuits are one of the reasons I have consistently advised people to consult an attorney before walking away.
For a nice write-up on deficiency judgments please consider the Wall Street Journal article House Is Gone but Debt Lives On.
Joseph Reilly lost his vacation home here last year when he was out of work and stopped paying his mortgage. The bank took the house and sold it. Mr. Reilly thought that was the end of it.
In June, he learned otherwise. A phone call informed him of a court judgment against him for $192,576.71. It turned out that at a foreclosure sale, his former house fetched less than a quarter of what Mr. Reilly owed on it. His bank sued him for the rest.
The result was a foreclosure hangover that homeowners rarely anticipate but increasingly face: a "deficiency judgment."
Until recently, "there was a false sense of calm" among borrowers who went through foreclosure, Mr. Englett says. "That's changing," he adds, as borrowers learn they may be financially on the hook even after the house is gone.
Some close observers of the housing scene are convinced this is just the beginning of a surge in deficiency judgments. Sharon Bock, clerk and comptroller of Palm Beach County, Fla., expects "a massive wave of these cases as banks start selling the judgments to debt collectors."
Because most targets have scant savings, the judgments sell for only about two cents on the dollar, versus seven cents for credit-card debt, according to debt-industry brokers.
Silverleaf Advisors LLC, a Miami private-equity firm, is one investor in battered mortgage debt. Instead of buying ready-made deficiency judgments, it buys banks' soured mortgages and goes to court itself to get judgments for debt that remains after foreclosure sales.
Silverleaf says its collection efforts are limited. "We are waiting for the economy to somewhat heal so that it's a better time to go after people," says Douglas Hannah, managing director of Silverleaf.
Investors know that most states allow up to 20 years to try to collect the debts, ample time for the borrowers to get back on their feet. Meanwhile, the debts grow at about an 8% interest rate, depending on the state.
Laws vary from state to state and things may depend on whether or not the loan is a recourse loan or not. Once again, before walking away, and before considering a short-sale or bankruptcy, please consult an attorney who knows real estate laws for your state.
This is the most important decision in your career (or even your day).
It didn't used to be. What next used to be a question answered by your boss or your clients.
With so many opportunities and so many constraints, successfully picking what to do next is your moment of highest leverage. It deserves more time and attention than most people give it.
If you're not willing to face the abyss of choice, you will almost certainly not spend enough time dancing with opportunity.
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