Central Perk

luni, 23 aprilie 2012

Modern Business and Content Guidance from Bell Labs

Posted: 22 Apr 2012 02:27 PM PDT

I've been reading The Idea Factory, the history of the innovation that came out of Bell Labs around WWII. Innovation, invention and ideas are things that we don't get to talk much about in SEO. It's all about keywords, links, and content, but I want you to take some time today to think about ideas, inventions and innovations. Why? Because we all want to be millionaires (oh hush, yes you do), and while that might not happen to all of us, idea generation is central to our jobs in search marketing.

Bell Labs was born out of a technology being invented (the telephone) and the problems AT&T faced building a communications infrastructure in the United States (and how to connect overseas). We are talking serious problems like wood decay, birds and wires, distance and signal strength. Things we take for granted today.

The men and women at Bell Labs strove to find the best materials, to make products and services better. We can learn from the team at Bell Labs. Use the ideals of hard work, research and development, invention, and innovation to drive us to make our websites, products, and services better.

That's how you win on the internet. Be better than everyone else.

Innovation is a Lengthy Process

The term "innovation" dated back to sixteenth-century England. Originally it described the introduction into society of a novelty or new idea, usually relating to philosophy or religion ... an innovation defined the lengthy and wholesale transformation of an idea into a technological product or process meant for widespread practical use.

This portion of the book really hit home with me. Innovation is a lengthy process of taking an idea to a product or process for widespread practical use. There are no overnight successes, just people that worked really hard behind the scenes pouring their blood, sweat and tears into an idea.

The same should be true with your business and website. Innovation in your space is not just putting up a website and knowing the right keywords to target. It's about waking up at 5:30 in the morning to be at a networking breakfast at 8am a few times a month for a few years. Success is about determination, dedication and hard work.

The time you take to discuss your idea, how you plan to be different with members of your target market, will pay back not only in the refining of that idea, but also in friends and allies when your business or website launch. Choosing the connected people is a strategic process; if they are there at 8am, they are dedicated too and have met others that are of the same breed. Now does that mean that everyone needs to go to 8am networking breakfasts? No. I hate them. But you get the idea.

Want your website to be a success? Then spend the time in the following areas:

Business Idea - don't copy someone else's idea unless you can be better than them and everyone else in the space doing the same
Website Copy - Develop the copy for your site, and if you have products what you'll let others use. Write into affiliate contracts that your product descriptions are not to be used elsewhere. Treat website content like a white paper, protect it, don't allow others to copy it.
Promotion - I am not talking online promotion, I'm talking the whole marketing umbrella. This is not something you buy/outsource and leave alone. It's your baby, own it!

Make Goals, Not Hard Timelines

Inventions are a valuable part, but invention is not to be scheduled or coerced. Harold Arnold, Bell Labs

Need $10k by next year? Don't build a website, add products, pay someone in another country to write copy and do SEO and think you can do that. Good ideas don't fit in timelines. You cannot rely on keyword research tools to tell you what product area has low competition and can make you millions.

What you can do is find an area, a business idea that you really love: something that you can get lost talking about for hours and not mind. Your first goal should be to find that idea. Once you have that (and most of you do as you have clients or work in-house for someone that has that idea already), then you need to set goals for what you want to accomplish.

The goals should be:

Lofty but attainable (one viral infographic a month is not an attainable goal, an increase in sales from organic search by 20% is attainable)
Developed around making the customer happy (the happier they are, the more you sell, simple)
Tied to your boss's goals (even if your boss is your wife)

Once you know what you want to do, the end result, that drives how to get there. Now you have a purpose, but you can't rush it. You will fail, content will flop sometimes, there will be a keyword that you just have a hard time ranking for. Things will go wrong but things will also go amazingly right if you focus on a good goal.

Do Something

When you don't know what to do, do something!" Jim Fisk, Bell Labs

This is my new favorite motto. Do something. As Will Critchlow says all the time, fail faster. Come up with as many ideas as you can to meet your goal, no matter how far out of the park they are. Execute. Try things, be risky, and fail (sometimes). I can almost guarantee you that even if you fail; you'll learn something you can apply to your next attempt.

studying sharks

Studying Sharks

Jim Fisk proposed a $50,000 study of sharks to help naval warfare. It made it to the top and the lead of Bell Labs finally killed it. How cool a story would that have made? I would have linked to it, what about you?

Dare You

Don't know what to do? Here are some ideas for every SEO out there. I dare you to try one.

Data Mining. Take a half-day, look into the data you have in your company about clients, about the industry. If you were to clean it all up, could you show trends about your industry? Get creative and find a way to share that information in a resource, a white paper, blog post or infographic. And then do a marketing campaign around it. If it works well, make it an annual update about the industry.
Content Revisit. Find your top 10 products or services pages. Revisit the content, when was it last written? Update it! Add resources; make it the page to go to for that product or service. Think from the perspective of a potential customer, what would make that page better than all of your competitor's pages? Consider new images, a video, new resources, reviews.
Page 2 Revamp. Take 5 pages that rank on page 2. Revisit the title tag and meta description of those pages. Is the title tag over optimized? Does the meta description really pull you to the page? Rewrite them to be real, accurate and descriptive!
$5000 Challenge. Ask for a budget that is normal for a project in your company or for a client and do something that is way out in left field. You in finance? Pay off someone's car loan. Don't give away a iPad, donate 100 to a school that teaches computer science to under-privileged kids.

So would you do with $5000 to help your site? What is your shark bait?

Shark Stock Photo from Shutterstock

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Honoring the Pledge of 'Never Again'

Your Daily Snapshot for
Monday, April 23, 2012

Honoring the Pledge of 'Never Again'

This morning President Obama will speak at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate the Holocaust and discuss how the United States is honoring the pledge of "never again" by developing a comprehensive strategy to prevent and respond to mass atrocities.

Watch the President's remarks live at 9:45 a.m. EDT

Join the conversation and engage with senior Administration officials at 1 p.m. EDT

Photo of the Day

A Wounded Warrior walks out of the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House to participate in the sixth annual Soldier Ride, a cycling event to help them restore their physical and emotional well-being, April 20, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Seth's Blog : When smart people work for big companies

When smart people work for big companies

A good employee says, "I know that this is a serious problem, it's hurting our customers and we can do better, but I can't do a thing about it because it's run by a different department."

A version of this might conclude with, "And I don't even know the name of the person who's responsible."

This is a sure sign of systemic failure as well as a CEO who is not doing the job she should be. When smart people who care get frustrated, something is wrong.

This lack of responsibility/communication is not a feature or a benefit that helps customers or shareholders. This is a flaw in the system of the big company, a cost of having a larger organization. The very same system that allowed the organization to become big and powerful is showing serious cracks.

It doesn't have to be this way. But it will unless senior management hires, trains and organizes to avoid it. Is there a more important issue to be worked on?

• Email to a friend •

duminică, 22 aprilie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Hollande Wins Round One But Euroskeptic Le Pen Steals the Show; Strange Bedfellows; Can Sarkozy Win Round Two?
European Splintering Escalates: Dutch Government Falls; Slovakia Government Collapsed in March; Czech Government Collapse Coming Right Up
Point of No Return: "Australia is Screwed"
EIB Inserts Drachma Clauses in Loans to Greek Firms; Troika-Backed Coalition has One-Seat Majority in Poll for May 6 Election

Hollande Wins Round One But Euroskeptic Le Pen Steals the Show; Strange Bedfellows; Can Sarkozy Win Round Two?

Posted: 22 Apr 2012 07:25 PM PDT

As expected Francois Hollande and incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy will square off on May 6 in round two of the French presidential elections.

However, there was a huge surprise in spot number 3 as extreme right wing candidate Marine Le Pen pulled in 18% of the vote running on a dump-the-euro platform.

First Round Totals

Hollande: 28.6%
Sarkozy: 27.1%
Le Pen: 18%

Please consider Le Pen voters to arbitrate Hollande-Sarkozy duel

The centre-left Hollande narrowly beat the conservative Sarkozy in Sunday's 10-candidate first round by 28.6 percent to 27.1 percent, the Interior Ministry said with 99 percent of votes counted, but Le Pen stole the show by surging to 18.0 percent, the biggest result for a far-right candidate.

Her breakthrough mirrored advances by anti-establishment Euroskeptical populists from Amsterdam and Vienna to Helsinki and Athens as anger over austerity, unemployment and bailout fatigue deepen due to the euro zone's grinding debt crisis.

"The battle of France has only just begun," Le Pen, 43, daughter of former paratrooper and National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, told cheering supporters. Declaring that her wave of support was "shaking the system" of mainstream consensus politics, she said: "We are now the only real opposition."

The gravel-voiced blonde, who wants France to abandon the euro currency, said she would give her view on the runoff at a May Day rally in Paris next week. But she saved most venom for Sarkozy, aiming to pick up the pieces in any recomposition of the right and hoping the Front can enter parliament in June.

More than one third of French voters cast their ballots for protest candidates outside the political mainstream.

The deeply unpopular Sarkozy, the first sitting president to be forced into second place in the first round of a re-election bid, will have to do the splits to attract both far-right and centrist voters he needs to win the May 6 runoff.

SARKOZY DEFIANT

Sarkozy struck a defiant tone after his setback, steering to the right to try to attract Le Pen voters by vowing to tighten border controls, stop factories leaving France, make work pay and uphold law and order, rather than reaching out to centrists.

He challenged Hollande to three live television debates over the next two weeks instead of the customary one. But Socialist aides said Hollande, who has no ministerial experience and is a less accomplished television performer than Sarkozy, had made clear he will accept only one prime-time debate, on May 2.

Polls taken on Sunday by three institutes suggested that between 48 and 60 percent of Le Pen voters planned to switch to the president, while Bayrou's backers split almost evenly between the two finalists, with one third undecided.

Melenchon, whose fiery calls for a "citizens' revolution" drew tens of thousands to open air rallies, urged his followers to turn out massively on May 6 to defeat Sarkozy, but he could not bring himself to mention Hollande by name.

Greens candidate Eva Joly endorsed Hollande, who can also count on the modest votes of two Trotskyist also-rans.

"Sarkozy is going to be torn between campaigning in the middle ground and campaigning on the right. He'll have to reach out to the right between the rounds, so he'll lose the centre," said political scientist Stephane Rozes of the CAP think-tank.

If Hollande wins, joining a small minority of left-wing governments in Europe, he has promised to renegotiate a European budget discipline treaty signed by Sarkozy. That could presage tension with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who made the pact a condition for further assistance to troubled euro zone states.

Can Sarkozy Win Round Two?

Unlikely, unless Hollande makes a major gaffe in the debate. He avoided the first major mistake already by only agreeing to one debate, just 4 days before the election, perhaps as most minds are already made up.

Given that Le Pen took the opportunity to blast Sarkozy it appears likely that her votes will splinter, probably far more than the far-left candidates.

Strange Bedfellows

On an issue-by-issue basis it would seem to make more sense for Le Pen to back Sarkozy than Hollande. Certainly Sarkozy is courting Le Pen voters. So what is her game?

I think it's easy to spot. The eurozone is likely to splinter apart faster and easier with Hollande as president than with Sarkozy back at the helm.

Thus, backing Hollande, and perhaps even winning some real concessions (as opposed to lies from Sarkozy), makes more long-term strategic sense as well as short-term tactical sense.

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

European Splintering Escalates: Dutch Government Falls; Slovakia Government Collapsed in March; Czech Government Collapse Coming Right Up

Posted: 22 Apr 2012 11:57 AM PDT

The Netherlands government has officially collapsed in a dispute over austerity measures. Elections likely in September. Meanwhile, the Czech government is also on the verge of collapse, for the same reason: austerity measures.

The Financial Times reports Dutch government falls over budget talks

The Dutch governing coalition collapsed on Saturday when far-right politician Geert Wilders pulled out of budget cut talks, saying it was not in the Netherlands' interest to meet the deficit limit of three per cent imposed by the new European fiscal pact.

EU-imposed austerity measures have cost leaders in southern European countries, including Greece, Italy and Spain, their jobs. With the fall of the conservative Dutch government, and the possibility that Nicolas Sarkozy may lose the French presidential election that begins on Sunday, the damage seems to have spread to Europe's prosperous north.

Highlighting widespread voter anger over EU-imposed budget cuts, Mr Wilders said he could not allow Dutch citizens to "pay out of their pockets for the senseless demands of Brussels".

"We don't want to follow Brussels' orders. We don't want to make our retirees bleed for Brussels' diktats," Mr Wilders said.

The loss of Mr Wilders' support left the conservative government of Mark Rutte, prime minister, with just over a third of the seats in parliament.

Mr Rutte and other party leaders said that made new elections inevitable. He is expected to offer his cabinet's resignation to the Dutch Queen on Monday, but leave the cabinet in place as a caretaker government until elections are held, probably in September.

Exiting the government at this stage will allow Mr Wilders to disclaim any responsibility for unpopular budget cuts. But the biggest winner in elections could be the far-left eurosceptic Socialist party, which has seen its support rise to as much as 20 per cent of the electorate over the past year.

Meanwhile, Dutch analysts said the inability of even the prosperous, deficit-averse Netherlands to generate voter support for Europe-directed budget cuts called the sustainability of the EU fiscal pact into question.

Czech Government Collapse On the Way

Please consider Czech protesters stage anti-government rally

The Czech government faces a test of its ability to continue governing after an ambitious fiscal tightening programme splintered the ruling coalition and brought tens of thousands of protesters on to the streets of Prague at the weekend.

Petr Necas, premier, has set a Monday deadline for a breakaway group from Public Affairs – the smallest of the three parties that made up his centre-right coalition – to demonstrate that it has the support of at least 10 MPs, which would give him a working majority in the 200-member parliament.

Mr Necas has sacrificed much of his popularity after introducing a series of tax increases and benefit cuts in order to keep the budget deficit below 3 per cent next year. The additional measures were brought in after the Czech Republic posted worse than expected growth numbers – largely a consequence of the slowdown in the eurozone, the country's largest export market.

"We cannot behave in a populist way and we must continue our policy of budget responsibility and debt reduction," Mr Necas told reporters after one of the largest demonstrations in the Czech Republic's post-communist history filled the streets of the capital on Saturday to protest at his policies and to show disgust with political corruption.

Organisers estimated that about 120,000 people attended, many of them jangling keys as a signal for the government to go – an echo of the protests that ousted the communists in 1989.

Slovakia Government Collapse

In case you missed it, the right-wing Slovakia government collapsed in March.

The Guardian reports Central Europe's centre-right teeters under corruption claims

Austria, Slovakia, Croatia and Czech Republic gripped by sleaze allegations involving senior politicians and governing parties.

Ruling parties, political elites and former ministers in a string of EU countries are embroiled in cash-for-influence scandals that are exposing widespread allegations of corruption, triggering public revulsion and a voters' backlash.

Hunting parties, expensive gifts, drunken car crashes, secret police wiretaps, paper bags stuffed with money and public budgets being treated as private accounts all feature in the lurid revelations and allegations being leaked daily on to the front pages of central Europe.

Austria, Slovakia, Croatia and the Czech Republic are in the throes of sleaze allegations involving senior politicians and governing parties said to be funded by dirty money.

Tales of criminality, thuggery, and vast amounts of cash flowing to politicians from companies, lobbyists, and middlemen are dominating the newspapers and blogosphere across central Europe. In contrast, successful prosecutions are extremely rare for a political class that often seems to operate with impunity. Austria, Slovakia, Croatia, and the Czech Republic are in the throes of major sleaze allegations involving senior politicians and governing parties said to be funded by dirty money.

In Austria a special parliamentary committee investigating political corruption is questioning serving and former ministers this week about a convoluted web of alleged bribery and profiteering from government tenders and skewed legislation.

In an election this month next door in Slovakia, the new prime minister, Robert Fico, won a landslide after support for his rivals on the right collapsed when secret police files about the buying and selling of MPs were unearthed by a Canadian journalist and posted on the internet.

The secret police files, codenamed Gorilla, featured wiretaps of leading financiers meeting discreetly with centre-right governing politicians to trade government tenders for cash.

the latest scandal to rock the region centres on a Czech businessman and a former Prague mayor who are accused of in effect controlling the city's €2bn budget between them.

The businessman, Roman Janoušek, had long been labelled the "shadow mayor" owing to his close links with city hall, but it was not until transcripts of what are believed to be wiretaps of conversations between him and his long-time ally, former Prague city mayor Pavel Bém, were published in the daily Mladá Fronta Dnes that the scale of their alleged rigging of the city finances started to come to light.

The conversations appear to include discussions about influencing sales of city and public property, arranging expensive gifts for city officials and fixing high-ranking official posts.

On May 6 the Greek government is likely to collapse, and Nicolas Sarkozy will be ousted as president of France.

Meanwhile New "Temporary" Border Controls are tantamount to a Vote of No Confidence in Europe

Other than four ousted governments, Troika imposed governments in Greece and Italy, huge budget misses in Spain, increased protectionist measures in France, border controls, bickering between the ECB and the German Central Bank, the Bundesbank proclamation "Not ECB's Job to Tackle Spain's Problems", Europe is holding together quite nicely.

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

Point of No Return: "Australia is Screwed"

Posted: 22 Apr 2012 09:19 AM PDT

Point of No Return

My friend "Brisbane Bear" from down under says ...

Hey Mish,

I think we are well past the point of no return.

Woolworth's, one of our biggest retailer/supermarket companies, just had their worst quarter in 13 years. Woolworth's is about as bullet proof a company as you can get in Australia. It is the bluest of blue chip companies.

The banks aren't lending and will pay one hell of a price when the economy implodes.

Regards
Brisbane Bear

"No One Is Borrowing"

Brisbane Bear passed along this article on The Age by Ian Vettender: Banks playing risky game with rates

Put yourself into the shoes of thousands of Australians who own small businesses across the country right now.

You're faced with a serious drop in demand for your product, and you need to get turnover moving quick smart, to start shifting that product off the shelves.

What do you do? You don't need to be versed in the subtleties of economic theory to work it out. The answer is simple. You cut your price, or at the very least offer a better, more competitive service.

That is exactly what is happening across Australia and throughout the developed world.

Our retail malls, once proudly displaying two discounted sales a year, now are permanently emblazoned with discount banners, promising 30 per cent, 50 per cent or even more off the "regular" price.

Our banks are faced with the very same dilemma. Month after month, the Australian Bureau of Statistics unveils figures detailing a drop in lending for new housing and for business, falls to levels not seen in decades, sometimes of a magnitude never before recorded. No-one is borrowing.

But the response from our lending institutions has run counter to the most fundamental laws of economics and logic and, in so doing, they may well be laying the foundations for serious financial problems for themselves and the nation.

Rather than cut their margins, and lower their interest rates in an effort to spur demand for new lending, they have spent the past few years raising the cost of money to existing customers to compensate for the lack of growth in their lending.

Misunderstanding Fundamental Laws of Economics

Vettender bemoans "lending has run counter to the most fundamental laws of economics".

Mish says, what a bunch of nonsense. Australian banks will not admit so, but they are capital impaired or soon will be (and they likely know it). I suggest banks have loans on the books that will not be paid back and they do not have adequate loan loss provisions.

Vettender notes: "a drop in lending for new housing and for business, falls to levels not seen in decades, sometimes of a magnitude never before recorded. No-one is borrowing."

Mish Theory of Unsound Businesses and Unsound Minds

Yes indeed "No-one is borrowing". Vettender cannot figure out why.

I offer this explanation to Vettender: Any Australian businesses in good shape (and in sound mind) would be out of their freaking mind to expand now. And they aren't.

However, desperate businesses deep in the hole as well as businesses struggling to stay afloat, just might want loans. The sad reality is many of those businesses will not survive, and some would not survive even on interest rates of zero percent.

Raising rates is the smart thing to do because only unsound businesses or unsound minds want loans!

Unfortunately this surge in rational behavior by banks is too little, too late, exactly the opposite of what Vettender proposes.

Australia is Screwed

In short, Australian banks are screwed, retailers are screwed, home owners are screwed, home builders are screwed, those long Australian stocks will be screwed, and those expecting strong commodity prices to bail out Australia will also be screwed.

For more on the latter, please see 12 Predictions by Michael Pettis on China; Non-Food Commodity Prices Will Collapse Over Next Three to Four Years; Nails in the Hard Landing Coffin?

Note that things would be worse, not better, if banks listened to Vettender, because at this point the greater the lending, the greater the losses.

So, if you get the general idea that "Australia is Screwed" then you have come to the correct conclusion.

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

EIB Inserts Drachma Clauses in Loans to Greek Firms; Troika-Backed Coalition has One-Seat Majority in Poll for May 6 Election

Posted: 21 Apr 2012 11:02 PM PDT

I keep pleading for someone, anyone to put Greece out of its misery. Greek voters have a chance on May 6th to do just that.

Please consider Greek ruling parties to get wafer-thin majority

The two main parties in Greece's ruling coalition would together get just a one-seat majority in parliament if elections were held now, a poll showed on Thursday, less than three weeks before the May 6 vote.

The conservative New Democracy and the Socialist PASOK party, which both back the government of technocrat Lucas Papademos, have seen their ratings drop over recent months because of the unpopular austerity measures imposed in return for a new EU/IMF bailout.

They would jointly win 37 percent of the vote or 151 of the 300 parliamentary seats - a result which would just allow them to renew their coalition, according to a survey by pollster Pulse for Pontiki newspaper.

Lovely Isn't It?

Somehow 37% of the vote will translate into a tad over 50% of the parliament, just enough for the Troika imposed clowns to retain control.

Deadlocked Elections

However, Evangelos Venizelos, the former Greek Finance minister most responsible for selling Greece down the river, now admits Elections are Leading to Deadlock

PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos admitted on Saturday that next month's elections are leading to a deadlock and promised to ask for an extension from two to three years for the application of the measures to collect an extra 11.6 billion euros.

In an interview with Skai television Venizelos said that "the elections ahead of us have our very existence at stake and should leave Greece standing and stable. Opinion polls are showing that we are heading for a deadlock. We need to go to a national agreement. The first place is a necessity for PASOK," said the former Finance Minister.

He added that the crisis is far from over and the risk of exiting the eurozone and returning to the drachma still exists, as "Europe does not decide rationally."

He said he will push for the measures for the collection of 11.6 billion euros in 2013 and 2014 to be spread across three years instead and stressed there will be no extra tax burden and no horizontal cut to pensions.

On Saturday former minister Stefanos Manos, the head of small liberal party Drasi, accused PASOK and New Democracy of ruining the country saying "they should not even get 20 percent between them."

Manos has been elected on both New Democracy and PASOK tickets in the last 25 years.

EMU Fed Up With Greece (and Vice Versa)

Venizelos can push for the moon but that does not mean he is likely to get it. Brussels is plenty fed up with Greece. Moreover, any thinking Greek citizen should be fed up with Brussels.

Those of us waiting for the inevitable are fed up with the delays getting to the inevitable.

What if the Coalition Holds?

Inquiring minds note the IMF Sees Greece Deficit Over 7 Percent in 2012

The budget deficit this year will be greater than the Greek government has forecast, according to a report published on Tuesday by the International Monetary Fund, which also stresses the need for additional spending cuts of at least 15 billion euros (7.7 percent of gross domestic product) between now and 2017.

The IMF expects the deficit to end the year at 7.2 percent of GDP, up from a forecast for 6.7 percent as seen in the supplementary budget passed by the government in February. The Washington-based Fund's report that accompanied the new memorandum Athens signed with its creditors in March had forecast a deficit of 7.3 percent.

The new government to emerge from the May 6 elections will have to decide on measures amounting to 11.6 billion euros for 2013 and 2014. However, yesterday's report seems to suggest that the fiscal adjustment will continue well beyond 2014 and will have to rely almost exclusively on spending containment: From 48.9 percent of GDP, spending will have to go down to 41.2 percent of GDP by end-2017.

First Task of New Government is More Spending Cuts

Assuming the Troika sponsored coalition holds (or even if it doesn't), the first task of the new government will be more spending cuts, more firings, more pension cuts, and higher taxes.

Is that going to fly?

EIB Inserts Drachma Clauses in Loans to Greek Firms

While the election drama plays out, EIB Inserts Drachma Clauses in Loans to Greek Firms in preparation for a hard default and Greek return to the drachma.

The European Investment Bank is hedging itself against a Greek exit from the eurozone by inserting drachma clauses in the loan deals it signs with Greek enterprises.

The first such deal was two weeks ago when the management of Public Power Corporation (PPC), the country's electricity giant began negotiating with the EIB about a 70-million-euro loan to fund its new natural-gas-powered plant at Megalopoli in the Peloponnese.

The EIB proposed for the first time two new terms, one of them being the possible renegotiation of the agreement should Greece leave the eurozone or should the common currency area break up. The second was placing the agreement under British law, in case of any irregularities in the payback process.

Sources suggest that the bank has made it clear to the political leadership of the Finance Ministry that the whole of the new contracts for loans to Greek companies will have the so-called "drachma clauses" and will be under British law.

The EIB has committed itself to issuing loans of 600 million euros up to January 2013 to the Greek market, to climb to 1.4 billion euros by the end of 2015.

Laughable Clauses

Pray tell what good are clauses if there is a total default? The proper course of action is to prepare for the inevitable and stop making loans to Greece at all.

Moreover, the proper course of action is for every Greek citizen to pull all of their money out of Greek banks immediately.

Greece is going down, and going down soon. It makes no sense to pretend otherwise.

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

Seth's Blog : If you think that's what we want, why don't you give it to us?

If you think that's what we want, why don't you give it to us?

The sign in front of the breakfast bar at the hotel says, "from garden to table."

Really? Virtually every item I see has been processed four times, steamed, stored and steamed again.

Marketing pitches are finely tuned to resonate with the audience in mind. Too often, though, the marketer is only in charge of the pitch, and someone else in the organization has to make the thing.

So the marketer brags about how tasty the food on the airplane is, or how reliable the cell phone service is or how magically transporting the aromatherapy of the soap is--and then someone else, someone under different pressures and constraints--has to deliver. And they rarely do.

They rarely do because the paying customer isn't their customer. Their customer is the quality control department, the accounting department and the "don't-rock-the-boat" department.

Marketers need to spend less time making promises and more time keeping them.

• Email to a friend •

luni, 23 aprilie 2012

Modern Business and Content Guidance from Bell Labs

Modern Business and Content Guidance from Bell Labs

Innovation is a Lengthy Process

Make Goals, Not Hard Timelines

Do Something

Studying Sharks

Dare You

Honoring the Pledge of 'Never Again'

Seth's Blog : When smart people work for big companies

When smart people work for big companies

More Recent Articles

duminică, 22 aprilie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Seth's Blog : If you think that's what we want, why don't you give it to us?

If you think that's what we want, why don't you give it to us?

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Arhivă blog

luni, 23 aprilie 2012

Innovation is a Lengthy Process

Make Goals, Not Hard Timelines

Do Something

Studying Sharks

Dare You

More Recent Articles

duminică, 22 aprilie 2012

More Recent Articles

Pagini

Persoane interesate

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