Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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Dutch Government on Verge of Collapse After Anti-EU Lawmaker Torpedoed Seven Weeks of Austerity Talks; Caretaker Government and New Elections Coming Up Posted: 21 Apr 2012 11:57 AM PDT The Netherlands has been one of the staunchest proponents of forced austerity on Greece. However, now that Brussels has demanded the Netherlands hit its fiscal targets, Dutch politicians can't get the task done and the government is poised to collapse. New elections are coming up. The Washington Post reports Dutch prime minister says government austerity talks collapse The ruling Dutch minority government was on the brink of collapse Saturday after anti-EU lawmaker Geert Wilders torpedoed seven weeks of austerity talks, saying he would not cave in to budget demands from "dictators in Brussels." New national elections that will be a referendum on the Netherlands' relationship with Europe and its ailing single currency are now all-but-certain. But before Prime Minister can tender his resignation — possibly as early as Monday — he must consult with allies and opposition parties on how to run a caretaker government that will have to make important economic decisions in the coming weeks and months. Austerity talks began in early March after the Dutch economy sank into recession and forecasts showed the 2012 budget deficit will reach 4.6 percent — well above the 3 percent limit mandated by European rules. Dutch politicians have strongly demanded that Greece and other countries meet that target. Rutte leads the free-market Liberal Party in a minority coalition with the center-right Christian Democrats with outside support from Wilders' Freedom Party. The outspoken Wilders is widely known for his anti-Islam and anti-EU opinions, including calls for Greece to return to the drachma and the Netherlands to leave the euro. Christian Democrat leader Maxime Verhagen accused Wilders of "political cowardice" for refusing to sign off on the cuts — details of which have not yet been released. Wilders was happy to take the blame, saying he "would not accept that the elderly in the Netherlands have to pay for nonsensical demands from Brussels." He underlined that an accord would have been possible had the coalition been less concerned with following European rules to the letter. "We don't want to bow to Brussels," he said. "We don't want our pensioners to suffer for the sake of the dictators in Brussels." Wilders has long been a staunch critic of the European Union, opposing an EU constitution and last month suggesting the Netherlands should return to its pre-euro currency, the guilder. Most mainstream Dutch parties are generally pro-EU. The Netherlands is one of only four nations using the euro that has the top rating, though it already is under review by rating agencies. Central Bank President Klaas Knot said last week borrowing rates would rise by 1 percent if the Netherlands' ratings are cut. Once considered one of Europe's strongest economies, the Netherlands is suffering from high levels of personal debt, mostly mortgage related. Kiss Netherlands' AAA Rating Goodbye The Netherlands can kiss its AAA rating goodbye within a week or so. More importantly, this vote coupled with demands for border controls and protectionist legislation in France shows just how tenuous the Merkozy accord is. For more details, please see New "Temporary" Border Controls a A Vote of No Confidence in Europe; In France, Old Protectionist Idea Reawakened; Disastrous Global Trade Wars Coming Up. The Merkozy agreement held together with rubber-bands, paper clips, and broken promises is about to  splinter to smithereens. Pencil in May 6 for the date.  That's when Greece holds new elections and also when French president Nicolas Sarkozy is ousted in the second round of French elections. The ouster of Sarkozy will end any chance that France signs off on the agreement "as is". Since the Netherlands won't abide by the agreement either, just how much of an agreement is there? Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

New "Temporary" Border Controls a Vote of No Confidence in Europe; In France, Old Protectionist Idea Reawakened; Disastrous Global Trade Wars Coming Up Posted: 21 Apr 2012 10:24 AM PDT New border controls are another sign of increasing protectionism in European states. It was not supposed to be this way, yet these controls represent a Vote of No Confidence in Europe Germany and France are serious this time. During next week's meeting of European Union interior ministers, the two countries plan to start a discussion about reintroducing national border controls within the Schengen zone. According to the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich and his French counterpart, Claude Guéant, have formulated a letter to their colleagues in which they call for governments to once again be allowed to control their borders as "an ultima ratio" -- that is, measure of last resort -- "and for a limited period of time." They reportedly go on to recommend 30-days for the period. Of course, using catchphrases like "ultima ratio" and "limited period of time" is supposed to make such policies sound reasonable and proportionate. After all, the reasoning goes, it's just a few occasional border controls for up to 30 days. What's the big deal, right? But the proposal is far from harmless and would throw Europe back decades. Since 1995, the citizens of Schengen-zone countries have gotten used to freely traveling within Continental Europe. Next to the euro common currency, free movement is probably the strongest symbol of European unity. Indeed, for many people, it's what makes this abstract idea tangible in the first place. To throw this achievement into doubt now is a vote of no confidence in Europe. The fact that this proposal is coming in the middle of the French election campaign makes it even more suspicious. With his back to the wall, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is pretending to take a tough-guy stance toward immigrants. And the fact that Germany's interior minister is allowing himself to get caught up in this charade is regrettable. Still, if you take a look at his party affiliations -- as a member of the center-right Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) -- it's hardly surprising.  But this symbolic act could have drastic consequences. It is a relapse into the type of nationalist thinking that many viewed as part of the past. And it brings to mind a country that continental Europeans like to make fun of for its obsession with its own borders: Great Britain. Border controls are not the only form of protectionism rearing its ugly head. The New York Times reports In France, Old Protectionist Idea Reawakened An old French idea is blossoming again in the Paris springtime. The Socialist Party has embraced a form of European trade protectionism in its manifesto, a shift from its previous endorsement of globalization as a win-win proposition for French workers. The shift matters both because the Socialists and their Green allies have a good chance of unseating the center-right president, Nicolas Sarkozy, in the election next year, and because France has a way of setting the political agenda in Europe. "Europe is the only continent that imposes free trade on itself in a world that is constantly making exceptions," according to the Socialists' program, adopted April 9. Declaring that Europe should be neither a fortress nor a sieve, the Socialists want international labor, environmental and health and safety standards built into world trade rules. Failing that, "we will propose putting in place tariff locks at Europe's borders" until exporting countries adopt norms applied in Europe to issues like trade union rights, child labor and carbon emissions. Furthermore, the Socialists want the European Union to insert tougher "fair trade" safeguard clauses in agreements with third countries, enabling the Union to reimpose tariffs to halt any import surge threatening European industry. And they demand that the European Commission publish a study assessing the effects of each new trade agreement on European industry and employment before it is signed. Free trade has little political constituency in France. While the seafaring British and Dutch have long been free traders, the French have a protectionist tradition reaching back at least to the 17th-century mercantilist Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's finance minister. More recently, Maurice Allais, the Nobel economics laureate, published diatribes against free trade with emerging economies until his death last year, warning that it would cause mass unemployment and depression in Europe. Another contrarian intellectual, the demographer Emmanuel Todd, is campaigning for European protectionism and an exit from the euro, saying the loss of jobs would otherwise tear French society apart. Disastrous Global Trade Wars Coming Up The New York Times article stated "the drift toward protectionism has no support in Germany, France's vital partner in E.U. leadership." It appears the author needs to read Der Speigel article on border controls at the top of this post. More importantly, once Sarkozy is booted, there is not going to much left of the German-French alliance. The Times also states "The Socialists' U-turn on trade is largely driven by domestic politics, and while it resembles positions taken by the Democratic Party in the United States, it has little support so far in other European countries, except perhaps Italy." "Except perhaps Italy" is quite the exclusion. France and Italy just happen to be the second and third largest eurozone economies. The last thing Europe can afford is a disastrous round of increased protectionism on top of insane tax hikes, yet insane tax hikes are the norm and signs suggest more protectionism is on the way. Moreover, Mitt Romney has stated on numerous occasions that if elected he would declare China a currency manipulator. Such an act coupled with increased protectionism in Europe would likely start a disastrous, unwinnable, global trade war. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

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Damn Cool Pics

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Jumbo Jet Hostel in Stockholm, Sweden Posted: 20 Apr 2012 09:59 PM PDT This 1976 Boeing 747-200 plane (formerly of Singapore Airlines) in Stockholm, Sweden got a lucky break when a budding hostel entrepreneur bought it and converted it into the worlds first Jumbo Jet hostel. Jumbo hostel offers 27 comfortable rooms with either two bed, three bed or also 4 bed dormitory style. All together, the hostel offers 76 beds; the most luxurious is to be found on the plane´s upper deck which boasts an exclusive cockpit suite with private ensuite bathroom and toilet. The rooms are approxiamately six square meters in size and measure nearly four meters from floor to ceiling. Room prices are decent, a dorm bed costing $65 per night, a double room around $200 and the most expensive room is the Cockpit Suite, at $530 per night.

The Death of DVDs: More Movies will be Watched Online in 2012 [infographic] Posted: 20 Apr 2012 09:35 PM PDT Netflix lost 2.76 million DVD subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2011, as more and more of the service's customers shifted to streaming-only packages. But even if the iconic red envelopes are disappearing from a mailbox near you, Netflix still has a solid foothold in the movie marketplace. In 2012, movies viewed online are expected to outnumber movies viewed on DVD and other physical formats for the first time. Will 2012 mark the death of the DVD? Click image to see a larger version. Via: Onlinedegrees

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#SocialSuccess - An Inbound Marketing Case Study for B2B

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#SocialSuccess - An Inbound Marketing Case Study for B2B Posted: 20 Apr 2012 03:14 AM PDT Posted by searchbrat This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. There has been a lot of great discussion about the term “inbound marketing” of late and exactly what is covered by that phrase. For the purposes of this case study we are using the hubspot definition of inbound and outbound marketing. The following is a case study of how we (Salesforce.com) used inbound marketing along with social advertising and great retargeting to grow both our traffic and leads in the UK. Whether you are in B2B or B2C marketing, this case study should be relevant to you and your markets. The new B2B Purchase Journey The online landscape for marketers is changing at a rapid pace. People don’t buy the way they used to. There is a new purchase journey with three key elements: Search-initiated - Most people begin their research of a new product via search engines, 78% of Internet users conduct product research online (Source Pew Internet & American Life Project, May 2010)   Social-powered – The growth of social networks has meant we can now tap into our own external networks for recommendations. Twitter’s active user base alone generates 90 million tweets per day, with 24% of adults have posted comments or reviews online about the things they buy. We now have a lot of user-generated content to review before making a purchase decision.   Buyer controlled - People can now choose where and when to engage with your brand, plus what content they would like to consume. You have to produce marketing strategies they choose to engage with. For B2B companies this means their sales people are being engaged a lot later on in the purchase cycle and presents marketing with an great opportunity to become an integral part of the overall sales process. "Get Found" Considering the above, we decided to run a pilot project in the UK around the concept of “Get Found” (coined by Brian Halligan of Hubspot). Our aim was to get found by the people who are actively looking for help with the kinds of issues we address. We would do this by harvesting our own expertise in content that helps our prospects do their jobs better. Since the core mediums involved in this project were search, social and content, we needed to consider how these different tactics are starting to converge and try to hit our sweet spot. To do this we needed to answer three key questions: What do our prospects care about? How can we harvest our expertise to help? How can we get this content to market now? Our Answer – “Content Rich Microsite” When discussing microsites, a lot of people probably conjure up images of those used in new product launches (they have a very short life span) or those used to build elaborate link schemes. Our solution was to build content-rich microsite filled with the kind of content our target market would value. One critical aspect of the project was the location of the site. If you look at the salesforce.com structure, you will notice we already have a lot of great blogs sitting on http://blogs.salesforce.com/company/. Since I am interested in EMEA and in particular the UK for this project, I wanted the site to sit within our UK folder, so it would benefit from all the inbound links and social shares generated. To build our micro-site strategy, we had to address six key points: 1. Personas: Who would this site be for? For me persona development is the foundation of any good inbound marketing strategy. I am a massive fan of persona development, from the usability and design of your site, to content development; they ensure you strategy stays on target. In fact one of the best link building posts I read last year involved a type of persona development. We ran an intensive persona workshop (with the help of iqcontent.com) that included people from marketing, sales and customer feedback. We came up with 5-6 profiles of users we were trying to reach. We mapped these against different stages of the purchase cycle and segmented by company size. All of this would help us when it came to content strategy and promotion. 2. Theme: What would be the overarching theme that would hold all of our content together? We used our own Radian 6 our social media monitoring tool, analytics and feedback from personas to come up with “The Social-Powered Business”. 3. Topics: How do we take that theme and break it down into specific topics we can generate content around? For us, this was pretty easy; we looked at the areas of business where social media had the greatest impact (sales, customer service, collaboration and marketing). It’s also important that your topics and themes are aligned to your products (we are trying to generate leads after all). 4. Process: Exactly where would this content come from and how would it be validated? Getting people excited about the project is key. You need to have people who will help with content development, feedback and amends. We used our own collaboration tool Chatter to build an internal social network around the project that consisted of 56 people. All content development was driven through that group. 5. Resources: Of course we needed to source budget and a team. 6. Metrics: How would we measure success? This is a really important part of establishing any successful strategy. Brand awareness is never a good enough metric, traffic; leads and pipeline are what count. We built a dashboard in omniture with all key business metrics to measure our project. The Launch – #socialsuccess In 12 weeks we managed to develop: Strategy Personas Website 32 pieces of content and our #socialsuccess site was launched on January 3rd, 2012. The following five items were important in terms of making the launch of the site a success. 1. Content Types For launch we chose four different categories from which we could generate content: Created: Original content that was created from scratch. These are obviously the most resource intensive. They included things like an eBook, infographics, articles and slideshares. Curated: These are round-up style posts. Choosing a topic like social selling and pointing to the best resources from the web on this topic. Collaborative: We choose some of the best thought leaders around our topics and reached out to see if they would contribute some content. Legacy: One of the easiest ways companies can quickly scale their content for inbound marketing is to repurpose content they already have into different assets. For example, our Dreamforce event that runs in San Francisco has a huge amount of expert presentations that are recorded over three days and put onto Youtube. We simply took the best videos and turned them into articles. 2. Product Messaging Remember this sort of content is not product centric. Best practice for this kind of content is to follow the 80/20 rule – 80% non product and 20% product, for launch we stuck to 90/10. Product references were used where they made sense, but only on a limited basis. 3. Promoting the site If you build it, they probably won’t come unless you have an awesome promotion plan. Some of the things we did to promote the site were: Facebook/Twitter: Of course, all our best content was shared via our own Facebook, Twitter and Google+ pages We took over the home page of our corporate site (www.salesforce.com/uk) to promote this new microsite Expert advocates: We collaborated with 15 experts for launch, who were kind enough to share our content with their networks. Email/Newsletter: We promoted the site launch to our UK email database and also created a newsletter called #socialsuccess Insider to keep connected with users who signed up via our eBook download. Guest Blogging: We did some guest blogging on relevant sites to promote #socialsuccess PR: We did some PR around some of the pieces we produced Employees: We galvanized our internal employees to share with their external networks 4. Outbound Marketing We supported all our inbound marketing with great outbound tactics: Twitter: We ran sponsored tweets for our premium content (eBooks). We saw some really great CTR numbers for these. I highly recommend them.   LinkedIn Banner Ads: We ran some advertising on LinkedIn targeted at our core personas developed above (linkedIn has some great targeting options like target by job title). Again, we saw a far higher CTR from these ads (those offering content) over those just advertising a product.   Google Display Network: We are currently rolling out the same type of ads (those offering our premium content) on GDN. 5. Experts Reaching out to thought leaders in your market is a great way to produce some highly valuable content. We were lucky enough to have some great experts involved in the initial content, who shared their expert advice with our audience and were kind enough to share our content with their own. The Results The project was launched officially on January 3rd, 2012 and we have seen some great results already. The feedback we have been getting back on our social channels around the content is great. But we have also seen great results in terms of our business metrics (keep in mind we are in B2B): Traffic for January was up 80% YoY Traffic from social sites was up 2500 % We have over 6500 people signed up to our newsletter Our eBook has been downloaded over 10,000 times (generating 10,000 leads) Our inbound marketing experiment has really shown us how impactful this stuff can be. We are currently working on similar sites in France, Germany and also new topics sites for EMEA. So it’s Onwards and Upwards!! Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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Weekly Address: Calling on Congress to Prevent Student Interest Rates from Doubling

Your Daily Snapshot for Saturday, April 21, 2012   Weekly Address: Calling on Congress to Prevent Student Interest Rates from Doubling President Obama believes that we should be doing everything we can to put higher education within reach for every American – because at a time when the unemployment rate for Americans with at least a college degree is about half the national average, it’s never been more important. He is calling on Congress to act before student loan interest rates double for more than 7.4 million students, adding an average of $1,000 to their debt. Congress has a chance to take action on what should be an area of bipartisan agreement to prevent this unnecessary and damaging increase in interest rates and give our young people a chance to succeed in the jobs of today and tomorrow Watch the President's weekly address: President Barack Obama tapes the Weekly Address in the State Dining Room of the White House, April 20, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy) Weekly Wrap Up Your quick look at this week on WhiteHouse.gov: Summit of the Americas: Over the weekend, the President was in Cartagena, Colombia for the sixth annual Summit of the Americas -- a gathering of more than 30 leaders from North, South, and Central America. While there, he participated in a panel discussion with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos and announced that the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement will enter into force on May 15, 2012. "[This] agreement is a win for both our countries," the President said while speaking to Colombian President Santos. Increasing Oversight to Eliminate Manipulation: Speaking from the Rose Garden on Tuesday, President Obama announced a new series of steps to strengthen oversight of the energy markets while asking lawmakers to pass legislation aimed at curbing illegal behavior and holding the people who manipulate markets accountable. Visit from NASCAR Champ: President Obama congratulated Tony Stewart on winning his third Sprint Cup Championship as he welcomed the NASCAR champ and his fellow drivers to the White House at an event on the South Lawn. He recognized NASCAR's dedication to supporting our troops through their partnership with Joining Forces. Roll Tide: On Thursday, President Obama welcomed the University of Alabama's football team -- the Crimson Tide -- to the White House to honor their fourteenth national championship and their exceptional 2011-2012 season. After a F4 tornado devastated Tuscaloosa a year ago, killing 248 people including six students from the University, the team's victory was especially meaningful. The President praised the players, explaining that, "[T]he Tide showed us what it takes to win as a team, but they also showed what it means to be a part of a larger community: to look out for one another, to help." Talking Jobs Training in Ohio: On Wednesday, the President traveled to Lorain Community College in Elyria, Ohio, where he discussed the Administration's jobs training initiatives and efforts to connect unemployed Americans with the skills training needed to find jobs in high-demand, high-growth industries, and participated in a roundtable with unemployed workers who are students in a job training program there. West Wing Week: Your video guide to everything that's happening this week at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Watch here. Stay Connected Sign up for the Daily Snapshot     Facebook Twitter YouTube Flickr Google+     This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Manage Subscriptions for e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Sign Up for Updates from the White House Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111