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marți, 22 ianuarie 2013

The Ultimate Guide to Advanced Guest Blogging

Posted: 21 Jan 2013 12:58 PM PST

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.

With “content marketing” being the indisputable SEO buzzword of 2012, we can expect 2013 to see an onslaught of marketers trying to build links with guest posts. The growth in this market will cause some sites to lower their guest posting standards, others to raise them, and still more to stop accepting them altogether. Google will target low quality guest posts with increasing zeal, and it will get harder to see results if the effort and strategy aren't there. We're going to help you combat this by sharing how we got posts up on ProBlogger and Search Engine Journal, and by introducing you to our strategy for success with our clients.

1. Finding Guest Post Opportunities

Finding Guest Post Opportunities

Let's kick this off by talking about where to seek out guest post opportunities. This is, by far, the most important part of your strategy, since it determines the value and longevity of your link.

20 Things You Should Do and Pay Attention to

Look for platforms where it will make sense to readers for you to post. The niche doesn't have to be identical, but there should be an overlap in audience, and you should be able to offer something valuable to them that also makes sense from a branding perspective.
Check the SEOmoz Domain Authority and PageRank to make sure the blog has the right ranking factors in place. Dig a bit deeper than this, though. For starters, check up on a few of their previous guest posts to see how strong the Page Authority is. Look for other signs that the site is visited frequently, such as frequent comments and sharing activity. Make sure this is true for most pages, not just the homepage.
On that note, check for activity on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. If the site has a decent amount of community activity happening on at least one of those networks, you're in pretty good shape.
Look for a large subscriber count.
Read through a few of the comments to get an idea of what the site's community looks like, and to make sure spam isn't making its way into the comments frequently. Keep in mind that Google pays attention to user generated content, even if it doesn't count it the same way as main body content.
Pay attention to who has contributed to the blog in the past. Do their guest posts or their sites seem “spammy?”
Who is in charge of the blog? What does their background look like? Do they appear reputable?
The guidelines for guest posts should have fairly strict standards. It should be clear that content is only accepted if it will please the blog's audience. If it looks “easy” to get a post up on their blog, don't bother.
How frequently is the blog updated?
Does the site publish any of its own material, or just guest posts? Most legitimate sites will publish their own material, though there are exceptions.
Is it possible for you to become a regular contributor? A site that is looking for consistently good content will often want regular contributors. A site that doesn't care about quality standards is less likely to want them.
Will your target audience visit this blog? Will influencers who are followed by your target audience visit this blog? You should be able to answer yes to at least one of these, unless the audience size is very large.
Consider starting by asking this question: “Where is the go-to place for my target audience? Is it possible for me to get a post there?” instead of asking the more typical question posed earlier: “Would my target audience visit this blog?” This is harder to accomplish, but the results are much more dramatic if you do.
Check out the site's link profile. Does it look natural?
Seek out guest posts from blogs that do not publicly state an interest in guest posts. These are very lucrative, because very few of your competitors will have links like this.
Try to write a post about the keyword that the site ranks best for. This increases the odds of your guest post showing up in the search results, reaching a wider audience, and sending over more referral traffic. Keep in mind that, in order to accomplish this, you will need to have something new and interesting to say about the topic that the site hasn't published before.
Pay attention to the user interface and the overall user experience visitors have when they come to the site. These can increasingly be considered ranking factors, and they are an indication of the faith and resources invested in the site.
Bonus points if the blog has received any kind of award from a reputable organization.
Try starting with resource lists along the lines of: “Top 10 Blogs about [Niche]” These will point you toward reputable blogs in the industry.
If the top ten blogs are unattainable, look for blogs that have been featured on those top ten sites.

20 Things You Should Avoid

Your choices for guest posting opportunities are ridiculously numerous, and you will waste resources if you pursue guest posts from sub-par blogs. Future updates will inevitably rob these links of their value. That's why we don't recommend:

Blogs that accept all content sent their way with the obvious goal of publishing as much content as quickly as possible.
Blogs that have no clear target audience or subject matter. Even all-subject sites like The New York Times have an understanding of what their audience looks like and write accordingly. Any blog that has no idea what its audience wants should be avoided.
Sites with excessive ads. This hurts user experience and is generally a sign of a low quality site.
If your target audience has a geographic component, don't seek out guest posts with a different geographic target, unless it is of exceptional value.
Avoid sites that don't post any of their own content, or rarely do. There are rare exceptions, such as Cracked, where most of the content is produced by guests, and the quality is exceptionally high. These are few and far between.
Sites with poor design, confusing structure, a bad interface, or that offer a poor experience to their visitors.
Sites with no contact information.
In general, avoid sites with no social media presence. Exceptions can be made if the site clearly has a large following. There are some bloggers, for example, who are opposed to social networks or who don't want to waste time on them, but have nevertheless developed a large audience.
Sites with a low PageRank and SEOmoz Domain Authority should typically be avoided. (A domain authority below 30 can generally be considered avoidable). Clearly, you should make exceptions for sites that have a large following regardless of these metrics, because they will almost inevitably gain positive signals in the future.
Blogs that have fake followers on social networks. Check through a few profiles and you can usually identify whether they are human rather quickly.
Blogs with guest post guidelines that are easy to meet with minimal effort.
Blogs whose posts are uninteresting, not actionable, uninformed, or out of date.
Any blog that has posted duplicate content, unless of course it was somebody else who copied them.
Sites that have already been penalized. Always check to make sure that the blog ranks for its own brand name and other things it should clearly rank for, in order to ensure that it hasn't been penalized.
Blogs that do not get updated regularly.
Blogs that exist to earn ad revenue off of guest posts alone.
Sites with exact match domains. There are nuances to this, of course. In general, though, you should stick to domains built around brands, not keywords.
A blog that doesn't appear to receive any comments, tweets, likes, or any of the above should typically be avoided.
Sites that allow visitors to post an article directly without approval from humans. These should always be avoided.
Blogs that take months before posting your submission. In general, if a site is taking months to publish posts it means they don't care about fresh content. There are some exceptions for very popular sites. However, a popular with high standards will generally tighten its standards even more or increase its posting schedule, rather than setting posts months in the future. In general, it shouldn't take more than a month or so for your post to go live.

Where to Find Places to Guest Post

For starters, you can use the following services to find places that accept guest posts:

At the bottom of this post, we will also share a list of keywords to search for in order to find guest post opportunities. It's very long, so we won't distract you with it here.

Now, even though we've provided you with a lot of resources to work with here, we would actually suggest not relying too heavily on them. As guest posting increases in popularity, we can expect many of these tools to get abused. It's more important than ever to stand out, and if all of your links are coming from places like this, you won't be standing out.

We can't stress this enough. You need a unique link profile, and the key to that is going to be outreach. Make sure to spend a fair amount of time reaching out to blogs that don't go out of their way to get guest contributors, or ideally, who have never had a guest author before. These links are very lucrative and give your link profile the diversity it needs to survive future Google updates.

Here are some more unique places to get guest post ideas:

Do a search for broad industry keywords and find the most popular blogs
From the Google menu, click “More” and select “Blogs,” then do a search for broad industry keywords

From the Google menu, click “Discussions” and search for your keyword, and see what sites are getting talked about the most in the forum community

Search for your keywords on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Google+, and the like to find the most popular accounts that are associated with blogs
Search for “top ten [keyword] blogs” and use similar queries to find popular blogs

Don't include keywords like “submit guest post” when you use these methods, at least not every time. The goal is to find popular blogs that don't typically accept guest posts. Be resourceful and do some relationship building. It's worth the effort.

2. Developing an Outside-the-Box Guest Post Idea

Depending on where you guest post, sometimes the idea will come before the outreach, and sometimes it will come after. Either way, it takes truly original ideas in order to get guest posts up on sites with high standards. This is crucial not just for getting your posts on authoritative sites, but for getting them shared, getting conversions, getting additional links, and getting traffic.

Generally, prerequisites for original ideas include:

Reading the top blogs in the industry
Setting up Google alerts for your main keywords
The involvement of your client for insight into the industry
Using Google Analytics, keyword tools, Google Insights and Trends, etc, to see what topics are popular in the industry
Use tools to find out what is trending

However, these are not the keys to producing truly original content. They merely set the bar. In order to produce something fresh and new, you will need to:

Use your client's proprietary data
Take a stance that goes against the grain a bit
Bring in insights from other disciplines and industries
StumbleUpon insider information
Spot relationships between subject matter that others haven't
Be funny, emotional, and opinionated
Use anecdotes, examples, or case studies
Point to related scientific studies
And...(God forbid)...hire writers or journalists who have already proven their skills

For an in depth discussion of how to make content production work, you can take a look at our content marketing guide for agencies. (Pinned by Moz team as well :-) )

Now, as much as we stress avoiding an over-reliance on tools, there are some great resources out there that can help you come up with original ideas:

Content Strategy Generator Tool – This tool from SEOgadget shares content ideas from Bing News, Reddit, YouTube, Topsy, Yahoo! Answers, Digg, and so on. It also suggests bloggers to get in touch with.
Google Analytics – Have you heard of this tool before? Nevertheless, you may never have considered it as a tool for content ideas. Keywords that people are landing on your site for are a good place to start.
Site Search – What are people searching for once they have landed on your site? There are content ideas buried in there as well.
Google Alerts – Try digging through your alerts emails and seeing if you can spot patterns or trends in the news that others may not have picked up on. Some of the best posts look for a common thread in the news and give a bird's eye view of what's been happening, looking for lessons, rather than just reporting on individual stories.

We were also impressed with what SkyRocketSEO had to say about getting content ideas. EvergreenSearch and SearchEngineWatch have also written wonderful and comprehensive content idea guides, and CopyBlogger has an excellent infographic on the subject.

Here's the most important part.

Before you pour everything into your guest post, check Google to make sure the idea is truly original. You want your post to say something new about the topic, so if the top posts in Google are looking a bit familiar, you need to head back to the drawing board before you waste your time.

3. Developing the Content

Develop the Great Content

Once you have an idea and a blog to target with your guest post, it's time to start building your content. And it's our opinion that you should almost always go big, even though the risks can seem higher, as Dr. Pete recently pointed out. When the content is big, you won't be willing to waste it on a sub-par blog, which, paradoxically, means you're taking less risk in the long run.

While you're developing the content, you'll want to:

Write with the blog's audience in mind. Read comments and pay attention to which posts get shared the most to aid you in this process
Don't hold anything back “for later.” Pour everything you have about a subject into the blog post
Use graphics
Cite authoritative sources
Use research data
Organize your posts with subheadings and lists, and keep the paragraphs short.
Get your points across quickly without padding the word count.
Use plain English.
Use anecdotes.
Use humor.
Figure out the most shocking, surprising, interesting, or humorous aspect of your post and mention it in the title and the first paragraph (ideally the first sentence). But don't give so much away that the reader has no reason to continue.
Use “cliffhangers,” “foreshadowing” and other elements used by fiction writers to keep readers engaged in suspense.

Now, some of these bullet points contradict each other or aren't appropriate for every single post, but they should give you an idea of what we mean by “big content.” Always keep the primary purpose of the post in mind. Does it exist to entertain, to inform, to shock? Every sentence should have purpose.

Our Experience with Search Engine Journal

As an example of the kind of content we're talking about, you can take a look at what we had to say about Link Earning Strategies for the Post-Panda/Penguin Era over at Search Engine Journal. As SEOmoz has pointed out, SEJ is one of the top blogs in the SEO industry, so sub-par content wasn't going to cut it.

In order to develop the post, we:

Hired talented copy editors to ensure the content was well written
Based the content off of a Quora discussion we had been involved in that already gained some traction
Made sure most of the visitors would be learning something new from the list
Organized the content with an easy to digest format
Knew the problem of building links in the wake of Google updates was a common one
Avoided stiff and formal language

Some might suggest that all of this is too much work, but, if anything, we think we probably could have done more. To understand why this kind of effort pays off, consider the fact that:

The post received hundreds of social shares
It was mentioned again in Search Engine Land's SearchCap: The Day in Search under their link building section
We received not just a high quality link, but high quality leads from the post

These are not the results you see from throwaway posts at GuestPostOnMyBlog.biz.

Author Bios

Sometimes we SEOs don't care much for author bios, or even hate them. A non-contextual link from an easily identified separate block of content...who cares? Well, we do. This is your sales pitch. Take advantage.

Make your author bio fun to read so that readers see you as a person, not an automaton.
Mention your brand name and don't focus on keywords. Branding matters!
Include links where they make the most sense and where they will drive maximum conversions, not where they send the (already outdated) signals to the search engines.
Encourage readers to contact you directly via Twitter or email so that they know you're available and ready to start a conversation with them.

4. Outreach

This is a huge part of the foundation behind a successful guest posting strategy. Yes, there are some high quality blogs where it's possible to get guest posts with minimal outreach as long as your content is exceptional and you have the right ideas.

That said, if outreach isn't an important part of your strategy, you will only be getting links from sites that regularly accept guest posts, and this doesn't offer the diversity your link profile needs in order to be genuinely robust, even if those links are high quality.

Keep the following in mind during outreach:

Have the right idea at the right time. Come in too late and your idea will be redundant. Focus on topics that are either relevant right now, or that you feel will be relevant in the very near future.
If the blog has guest posting guidelines, make sure you have met (and exceeded) them.
Mention examples of your previously successful content (either on your own site or others).
Demonstrate your authority with credentials, social profiles, awards, etc, but not to the point that it feels like you're gloating.
Approach the contact directly and speak to them like a human. Don't shy away from a bit of humor and don't be too formal. Avoid sounding in any way like an advertisement.
Don't take up too much time with the email expounding upon all the benefits of working with you.
Contact them directly through Twitter or Facebook if they are active on their profiles to have a real-time conversation.
Consider bringing up the possibility in a comment on a new blog post, as long as you also add value with your comment that relates to their blog post and contributes to the discussion.
Flattery can help if it's honest and it doesn't make you look pathetic. It's best to do this after they know what you want, rather than before, otherwise it looks manipulative. (Okay, what you want from me already...)
If the blogger has asked a question anywhere recently that doesn't seem to be answered, offer them an answer.
The entire conversation is about how you can help them, not about how they can help you.

Outreach Tools

Okay fine, we admit it, we love tools. Just don't confuse “tool” with “strategy.”

GroupHigh – Identify influential bloggers, track their reach, and send personalized messages through email or Twitter. Set up workflows and reminders to manage your contacts, and take advantage of geo-targetting for local clients.
BlogDash – Find and reach out to bloggers who already want to be contacted.
Rapportive – Get social feedback on your contacts directly from Gmail.
Buzz Stream – Manage your contacts easily so you can focus on link building and relationship building.

Our Outreach Experience With ProBlogger

ProBlogger is pretty much the site for professional bloggers, so like SEJ, it's not exactly easy to get a post on the site. Unfortunately, when some people hear this they think their emails need to be perfectly polished and sleek. Well, here's our initial outreach email with ProBlogger:

I have to admit it's a bit embarrassing to share my bare writing with no copy editing (I'm Indian if you can't tell), but that's kind of the point. This may not be sleek and professional, but it's human and it's clear that this isn't from a template.

We received a response within 24 hours, which we felt was a great sign, even though this was what they had to say:

What can I say, we should have known better. Original content is the key to success. If we had to guess, we would say that this is probably where most guest bloggers would give up. But that is not how you succeed. The candid response was, to us, a sign that they saw us as humans and would be interested in what we had to offer if the content was right.

This should serve as an example of how outreach, idea generation, and content production can all come together as part of the same process. We worked together with our copy editor and thought a bit about what ProBlogger's audience is looking for, and how we could offer a solution in a unique way.

Well, this will get a bit meta, because we realized that what bloggers need most are new ideas, and a method for getting them. We didn't want to regurgitate what had already been said by others on the site, so we turned to an original resource: psychological research. This turned out to be a great unique selling proposition for us.

You can see the post on ProBlogger under the title: Get Creative About Your Content...Consistently. It should serve as a good example of unique content, as well as a decent guide to come up with content ideas that goes beyond what we've talked about so far in this guide.

Now this post wasn't easy to put together. The insights came from dense peer-reviewed science papers, and it wasn't easy to translate that information into something useful as a guide for bloggers, but hopefully you can see why it was worth the effort.

Persistence is important. We're not ashamed to say that we were rejected twice by SearchEnginePeople. Instead, we're proud to say that on our third attempt, our post about finding original data for content marketing was approved. The key is to keep trying.

5. Promotion

If you have chosen the right platform, and the content is original, helpful, and engaging, then your content has a good chance of going viral and, on some level, promoting itself. But, of course, you can dramatically improve your chances of success and expand your reach further if you take things to the next level and promote your guest post. Here are a few tactics to help that along:

Let your friends and business contacts know about the post, especially the ones who care about the topic and who have their own audience. This is one of many reasons you should be regularly exchanging emails and social messages with influencers, so that these kinds of requests don't seem unsolicited and rude.
Involve your client, and potentially any other clients who might be interested (but not competitors). Encourage them to share the material. You'll get bonus points here if your client has a lot of employees who would be willing to pass it along.
Include the guest post in your email signature.
Frequent Q&A sites, forums, and social networks that discuss your topic, and look for questions that your guest post helps answer. Offer them a few tips and suggest they read the full blog post for an in depth discussion.
Highlight the guest post on your own site. Don't be concerned, this isn't “reciprocal linking.”
Submit a press release about the guest post.
Respond to comments, especially questions, and thank people for adding to the conversation. Don't overreact to negative comments. If you can respond without getting angry, go ahead. If you get upset, you will probably do more harm than good.
Browse through your previous blog posts and link to the guest post where it makes sense. See if you can get your previous guest posts updated with a link to the new guest post as well. (This will be easier if you mention the old guest post in your new post first).

Conclusion: Make Your Guest Posts Count

Doing things differently is what sets you apart. There is no reason that this should change the second you start posting material on somebody else's property. Every piece of content you design should be produced with the goal of going viral, attracting links, and driving traffic.

Thinking of a piece of content as a way to build a single link simply doesn't have any appeal to us anymore. We hope to “re-brand” guest posting as part of a “big content” strategy, where the advantage of using somebody else's platform isn't just its domain authority, it's the potential to expand your reach and build relationships for further growth.

Guest Posting Query List: (As mentioned in the “Where to Find Places to Guest Post” section above)

We are tremendously excited about this new direction in guest posting, and we hope you share our enthusiasm. Please let us know what you think of our guide, and if you have some clever insights we would love to hear what you have to say in the comments. We would also love it if you could pass this along. Let's keep guest posting alive, and help people see it as real marketing!

“add guest post”
“become a contributor”
“become a guest blogger”
“become a guest writer”
“become an author”
“bloggers wanted”
“blogs accepting guest posts”
“blogs that accept guest bloggers”
“blogs that accept guest posts”
“contribute to our site”
“contribute”
“group writing project”
“guest bloggers wanted”
“guest blogging spot”
“guest contributor”
“guest post by”
“guest post guidelines”
“guest post”
“guest posts roundup”
“my guest posts”
“now accepting guest posts”
“places i guest posted”
“submission guidelines”
“submit a guest article”
“submit a guest post”
“submit guest post”
“suggest a guest post”
“the following guest post”
“this guest post is from”
“this guest post was written”
“this is a guest article”
“this is a guest post by”
“want to write for”
“write for us”
inurl:guest-post-guidelines
inurl:guest-posts
inurl:write-for-us
keyword “accepting guest posts”
keyword “guest blogging”
keyword “guest post by”
keyword “guest post guidelines”
keyword “guest post”
keyword “guest posting”
keyword “submit a guest post”
keyword “submit an article”
keyword “submit post”
keyword “write for us”
keyword + contribute
keyword + guest blogging
keyword + submit an article
keyword + submit guest post
keyword + submit post
keyword + submit your post
keyword + write for us

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Results of Our 1st Annual Moz Chili Cook-off

Posted: 21 Jan 2013 04:05 AM PST

Posted by Justin_Vanning

A little over a week ago, we were flying high here at the Mozplex. Our beloved Seahawks were in the 2nd round of the playoffs, and we were basking in the aromas and tastes of over 20 different chili's during our 1st annual Moz Chili Cook-off.

Fast forward a week. Our eyes are still red from the tears we shed during that heartbreaking Seahawks loss, but our bellies are still warm from all the chili we ate.

Because all of the chili entries were so tantalizingly-delicious, it just didn't feel right to keep them all to ourselves. We figured some of you might want to try out our winning recipes for your tailgate or Super Bowl parties, or share your own favorite chili recipes in the comments. An outline of the competition and the top chili recpies are listed in detail below. Happy chili-ing!

The Cook-off

For the 1st annual Moz Chili Cook-off, 20 Mozzers brought in their best batches of chili to be judged by their peers.

Each participating Mozzer got a bowl, a spoon, some cornbread to clear their palate in between taste tests, and a score sheet to judge the chili on the following criteria:

Best overall chili
Best meat chili
Best vegetarian chili
Best spicy chili
Best named chili
Best use of creative ingredients

The competition was fierce, with the title of "Moz Chili Master" and a custom-made Roger chili trophy on the line.

The games began, and after all the chilis had been tasted, it was time for the scores to be tallied. The winners in each category were:

Best overall chili
- David Joslin
- Justin Vanning (yours truly)
- Chris Auty
Best meat chili
Best vegetarian chili
- Elizabeth Crouch (Note: Although quite delicious, this entry won by default as there was only one in its category.)
Best named chili:
- "Two Faced Diablo" by Courtney Davis
- "Uncle Slap-Jim's Big Backwards Hoedown Surprise Chili Shack Party #1" by Joel Day
- "Chili Con Carnage" by Justin Vanning
Best spicy chili:
Best creative use of ingredients:
- Tofu and Chinese chili ingredients - Fay Hou
- Coconut milk and Thai-inspired ingredients - Miranda Rensch
- Whisky, beer, and cinnamon - Justin Vanning

Although listing every winning recipe was tempting, we decided to just list the top three overall picks, along with our winning veggie concoction. Enjoy!

1st Place Overall - David J's Smoldering Chili

David Joslin basking in the title of "Moz Chili Master," along with his snazzy Roger trophy.

Ingredients

2 lbs smoked beef briskeet with s&p rub
2 lbs smoked pork butt with s&p rub
2 lbs 80/20 ground beef
2 onions
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
1 chipotle chile in adobo, finely chopped
2 dates
1 roasted, pealed, and seeded pablano pepper
1 roasted, pealed, and seeded california pepper
1 roasted, pealed, and seeded jalapeño pepper
4 cans fire roasted tomatoes
2 cans tomato paste
1 large beer
2 cups beef broth
2 Tbs worcestershire
2 Tbs tamari
2 shots espresso
1 tsp chipotle tabasco
1 Tbs Better Than Bouillon or beef base
4 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
2 Tbs cumin
6 Tbs chili powder
4 Tbs gebhards chili powder
1 Tbs pasilla chili powder
1 Tbs ancho chili powder
2 dried chili pablano ground
2 dried chili New Mexico ground
3 dried chili arbol ground
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 Tbs sweet paprika
1 Tbs oregano
1 tsp basil
1 Tbs turbinado sugar
1 tsp fenugreek
2 Tbs roasted tomato flakes
3 Tbs masa
1 cup chicken broth
2 cans black beans
2 cans red kidney beans
4 cups chicken broth
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp chipotle chile

Directions

The night before (at least), smoke the brisket and the butt for 12 hours at 225 degrees, after rubbing with pepper and salt. Foil the brisket after six hours. If you don't want to go the gonzo-smoked meat route, you could just use two lbs of beef chuck and two lbs of pork shoulder in a 3/8" dice, and add 2-3 Tbs liquid smoke.
Dice all the veggies and sauté in oil for 10 minutes. Add the ground beef and cook until browned. Drain the fat. I used a turkey baster.
Blacken the fresh pepper on the BBQ or over a burner flame. Bag for 5 minutes, peal, seed, and chop.
Add the canned tomatoes and the tomato paste. Stir well and cook for five minutes. Chop all the meat in to a rough 3/8 dice. Exclude as much fat as you can. Add to the pot as you go.
Add the wet ingredients, down to the garlic powder. Stir to combine and bring to a simmer.
Add the dry ingredients down to the masa. Ground celery seed can be substituted for the fenugreek and the roasted tomato flakes can be substituted with chopped dried tomatoes.
Cook 1.5-2 hours. Stir now and then and add chicken stock if it gets too thick or starts to burn.
Now start tasting. Here is where I added additional chili powders and pepper until the heat was balanced across the entire palette. Once you are happy with the flavor, add the drained and rinsed beans and cook for 30 minutes. Taste again. Salt will most certainly be needed. If any adjustments besides salt are required, make the changes and cook for 20 mins longer.
Consume!

2nd Place Overall - Justin's Chili Con Carnage

Ingredients

2 lbs beef chuck roast, cubed
1 lb ground chuck or organic ground beef - can use ground turkey or buffalo
1 lb boneless pork chops, cubed
1 lb chorizo (I used veal chorizo from whole foods)
2 Tbs Worcestershire
2 sweet or purple onions finely chopped
2 green bell peppers, seeded and finely chopped
3 jalapeño peppers seeded and finely chopped
1 pablano pepper seeded and finely chopped
1 serano pepper seeded and finely chopped
1 can chopped green chilies
2 cans diced tomatoes
2 cans crushed tomatoes
1 large can tomato paste
1 cup chili sauce (Heinz or something else)
3 Tbs chili powder - add more to taste
1 Tbs cayenne pepper - add more if you like it spicy
3 Tbs minced garlic
1-2 Tbs ground cumin
2 tsp salt - more to taste
2 tsp ground black pepper
3 bottles of beer - I usually use Budweiser or Coors
2-3 shots of whisky
2 cans beef broth
1 tsp cinnamon
1 can white kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
2 cans sweet corn, drained
2-4 cups beef broth - add during cooking

Directions

In a large skillet, brown your meat and pork. Drain the fat.
Add onions, peppers, and garlic. Cook till veggies are tender.
Transfer to large stock pot and add all the other ingredients except the corn, beans and tomato paste. Cook for 6-8 hours at a medium simmer (just below a boil) to burn off liquid. If it gets too thick or starts to burn, add beef broth. In the last hour or so, add your corn, beans and tomato paste. You can cook/simmer this for longer than 8 hours if you want to make it even thicker.

3rd Place Overall - Chris Auty's Chili

Ingredients

2 Tbs olive oil
10 ounces ground buffalo
10 ounces ground turkey
1 small onion diced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
2 14-ounce cans stewed tomatoes
1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
Pinch of baking soda
1 16-ounce can of dark red kidney beans, drained
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tsp chili powder
1 small green bell pepper ribbed, seeded, and diced

Directions

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat and sauté the meat and onions until browned; season with salt and pepper.
Put the mixture in the slow cooker. Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, and a splash of water.
Stir in the baking soda; the mixture will foam. After 5 minutes, stir the kidney beans, brown sugar, chili powder, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder.
Cover with lid and cook on low for four hours.
Add the bell pepper during the last hour of cooking. Adjust the seasoning and/or add corn starch to thicken if needed before serving.

Best Vegetarian Chili - Elizabeth's "What do you mean, there's no meat in this?" Chili

Ingredients

3 Tbs EVOO
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeño, diced
1 large carrot, diced
10-oz frozen or canned corn
1 small can diced Hatch chilies
1 package Field Roast Veggie Sausage (I prefer the Mexican Chipotle or Italian Sausage), crumbled
2 10-oz cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1 10-oz can white beans, drained and rinsed
1 10-oz can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz can and 1 10-oz can chunky tomato sauce
1 Tbs cinnamon
2 tbsp cocoa
Sea salt to taste
Cayenne pepper to taste
Chili powder to taste (I use a ton)
Cumin to taste (I use a ton)
3 tbsp apple cider or coconut vinegar

Directions

Sauté garlic, onions, carrots, jalapeño, and peppers in olive oil on medium-high heat until the onions begin to turn translucent and "sweat."
Add crumbled veggie sausage, thoroughly mix with veggies. When the carrots are tender (but before the onions get too soggy), mix in the Hatch chilies, vinegar, salt, cinnamon, and cocoa. Stir.
Add the tomato sauce, then 15 oz of cold water to the pot. As the mixture returns to a cheerful boil, add the chili powder and cayenne.
Once a boil is achieved, add all the beans and corn, return to a boil.
Add cumin, then reduce to a simmer. The longer it simmers, the better. Seriously. Enjoy!

So there you have it, folks! Hopefully these chili recipes will fill your hearts and tummies with as much love as they did for the Mozzers. If you have any great chili recipes or tips, feel free to leave them in the comments!

Made For This Moment

Your Daily Snapshot for
Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Made For This Moment

Yesterday morning, at 11:55 AM Eastern Time, President Obama delivered his Second Inaugural Address.

"America’s possibilities are limitless," he said, "for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention. My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it -- so long as we seize it together."

Learn more about yesterday's ceremonies.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts administers the oath of office to President Barack Obama during the Inaugural swearing-in ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Jan. 21, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Sonya N. Hebert)

Seth's Blog : A legend in my own mind

A legend in my own mind

Everyone lives with self mythology.

The more important a memory is to the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, the more often we rehearse the memory. And the more often we relive those memories, the less likely it is that they are true.

Despite our shared conception that we are rational actors making intelligent decisions based on an accurate view of the world and ourselves, precisely the opposite is true. Your customers, your workers, you and I, we are all figments of our imaginations.

Understanding the mythology of your partner, your customer and your audience is far more important than watching the instant replay of what actually happened.

• Email to a friend •

luni, 21 ianuarie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Good News: 96 Percent of Spaniards Believe Political Corruption is "Very High"; Journalism Comments
Golf star Phil Mickelson may bolt California over taxes; Time to Send Taxifornia a Message
20,000 Layoffs in Spanish Banks, 40% Pay Cuts, Pension Contributions Halted; Spanish Bank Unions Announce Strike; Protests Snowball; When's the Breaking Point?
Pettis: Nine Things to Watch in 2013; Unwarranted Outbreak of Optimism in China and Europe; The Great Rebalancing

Good News: 96 Percent of Spaniards Believe Political Corruption is "Very High"; Journalism Comments

Posted: 21 Jan 2013 07:59 PM PST

I have good news tonight from Spain: 96 Percent of Spaniards Believe Political Corruption is "Very High".

To untrained ears and eyes that might not sound like good news. However look at it this way: How much worse can it get?

Simple math suggests only 4%.

However, accounting for politicians on the take unwilling to admit corruption ever, it appears corruption sentiment has not only peaked but has crossed the threshold beyond mathematical infinity.

While pondering that thought, please consider the Financial Times article Party accounts scandal rocks Spanish PM.

Mariano Rajoy, Spain's prime minister, has ordered an investigation into his own party's accounts as he scrambles to distance himself from allegations that its former treasurer presided over a system of paying cash kickbacks to top officials.

Spain's ruling Popular party has been rocked by the allegations of cash payments to party members, which follow prosecutors revealing that Luis Bárcenas, former treasurer of the party, amassed a fortune of as much as €22m in a Swiss bank account, prompting protests outside the PP's central Madrid headquarters.

The escalating scandal threatens to damage the credibility of the Rajoy government at a time when it is pushing through a series of swingeing public spending cuts as unemployment stands at 25 per cent, and anger mounts at successive corruption cases within Spain's political and business elite.

Ongoing high-profile corruption investigations include a case against Iñaki Urdangarin, son-in-law of King Juan Carlos, who was last year charged with embezzling millions of euros from charitable organisations. There are at least a further 200 open cases against politicians across Spain.

A recent poll conducted for the El País newspaper found 96 per cent of Spaniards believed political corruption in the country was "very high".

Journalism Comments

The Financial Times is at least three days late in reporting this story. I have covered it via Google translates starting last Friday.

I did not have a poll to present then, but realistically speaking neither does the Financial Times now. Instead the Financial Times refers to El País.

Lovely. I link to my sources and the Financial Times does not. It is typical for all mainstream media to not properly credit sources (and the only way to do that is via links).

If you are going to cite a reference that is not generally understood, have the decency to post a link, especially if you include automatically inserted bullsheet like this whenever anyone goes to copy a snip from you:

"High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f52b4244-63de-11e2-b92c-00144feab49a.html#ixzz2Ifhcg2PR"

There was not a damn thing on the Financial Times that was not lifted and reworded from somewhere else. Want Proof?

Please consider Crisis in Madrid Update; Plan "A" is Sgt. Schultz Defense, No Plan "B" Yet.

Yes corruption in Spain is very high. That we knew a long time ago. We now have a poll now to prove it.

96 percent belief in corruption is a story. However, it's not a story the Financial Times originated.

One of my pet peeves is not properly citing (with links) people you lift ideas from. The Financial Times, Reuters, Bloomberg, and most bloggers are all guilty. Many bloggers are guilty as well.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Golf star Phil Mickelson may bolt California over taxes; Time to Send Taxifornia a Message

Posted: 21 Jan 2013 01:40 PM PST

Golf star Phil Mickelson has had enough of California taxes. He totaled up Federal and California state taxes and came up with 62%.

What about sales taxes? Regardless, he has finally had enough of Taxifornia.

Fox News reports Teed off: Golf star Phil Mickelson may bolt California over taxes

For golf legend Phil Mickelson, the low 60s makes for a great score on the links — and a lousy tax rate in his home state of California.

Mickelson said "drastic changes" are ahead for him due to federal and California state tax increases that have pushed his tax rate to what he figures adds up to "62, 63 percent." The left-hander will talk more about his plans — possibly moving out of California or even retiring altogether — before his hometown Farmers Insurance Open, the San Diego-area event that begins Thursday at Torrey Pines.

Mickelson, who lives in Rancho Santa Fe, is unsure exactly what he'll do, but changes will come, he said. If he bolts California, the San Diego native could be the Golden State's answer to actor Gerard Depardieu, who renounced his French citizenship and moved to Russia after the French government tried to jack up taxes on the rich.

"There are going to be some drastic changes for me because I happen to be in that zone that has been targeted both federally and by the state and, you know, it doesn't work for me right now," he said. "So I'm going to have to make some changes."

California voters in November approved Proposition 30, which, in addition to raising the state sales tax, carries a menu of new tax brackets that hit millionaires like Mickelson hard. For income exceeding $1 million, the state rate jumped to 13.3 percent from 10.3 percent. For Mickelson, who earned roughly $60 million in 2012, that would be a tax increase of more than $1.8 million.

"If you add up all the federal and you look at the disability and the unemployment and the Social Security and the state, my tax rate's 62, 63 percent," Mickelson said. "So I've got to make some decisions on what I'm going to do."

Mickelson, according to Sports Illustrated, was the second-highest earning athlete of 2012, second only to boxing's Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Mickelson, who was also second on the list in 2011, earned $3.7 million in winnings and $57 million in endorsements last year — for a staggering total of $60,763,488.

Details of Mickelson's several endorsement deals — including partnerships with Callaway, Barclays and Rolex to name a few — are unknown, and his real estate holdings and other business ventures are not included in the Sports Illustrated tally.

Curious Time to Leave

If indeed Mickelson is pondering retirement, it's a somewhat curious time to leave. His income will drop, and so will taxes. Proposition 13 ensures his California property will not be taxed at a high rate.

He should have been "teed off" long ago.

Of course he may have meant retire from the tour as opposed to "retire". It's possible he would be hired as a top commentator for a news network, or that he has other business ventures in mind.

Still, how likely is income from other ventures to approach $60 million?

Time to Send a Message

Perhaps Proposition 30 was simply the final straw.

However, regardless of what he earns, I do hope he leaves Taxifornia. The more millionaires that leave the better, because it's certainly time to send a message.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

20,000 Layoffs in Spanish Banks, 40% Pay Cuts, Pension Contributions Halted; Spanish Bank Unions Announce Strike; Protests Snowball; When's the Breaking Point?

Posted: 21 Jan 2013 09:52 AM PST

Spanish banks have already shed 30,000 jobs in its banking crisis. Another 20,000 cuts are due in 2013, along with pay cuts and reduced pension contribution. In response Spain's Banking Unions Announce Strikes.

Workers at three of Spain's bailed-out banks will stage strikes in coming weeks as they fight mass layoffs, unions said on Monday, spreading industrial unrest to a sector where walkouts have so far been rare.

While the banks, crippled by a property bubble that burst five years ago, have hogged headlines, employees have so far mostly kept a low profile even as protests become a way of life elsewhere in Spain.

But about 20,000 layoffs planned for 2013, almost 10 percent of the total, could reduce the workforce to levels last seen in 1975, data from the unions showed.

Alarmed at the scale of cuts, employees from across the industry will demonstrate on January 23, while workers from Bankia, Banco de Valencia and NovaGalicia Banco will strike on February 6 and hold partial strikes before then.

Protests are snowballing and becoming more visible, as bankers take to the street and join judges, doctors, bus drivers and garbage workers as strikes become almost a daily occurrence across recession-bound Spain.

As well as losing their jobs, workers at the likes of Bankia are being asked to take 40 to 50 percent pay cuts and many will see pension contributions halted for several years.

Many of Bankia's more than 20,000 employees also bought shares in its listing in June 2011 and face seeing their savings practically wiped out.

The deadline for negotiations between unions and Bankia is Feb 9.

Spain's banks have shed over 30,000 jobs since the start of the global financial crisis in 2007, data from the Comisiones Obreras union showed. With about 20,000 more set to be axed in 2013, the banking workforce could drop to 218,500 by year end.

When's the Breaking Point?

With 26% unemployment and rising, as well as corruption and fraud at the highest levels in government, I keep wondering when the breaking point will hit Spain.

All I can suggest is some time in 2013.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Pettis: Nine Things to Watch in 2013; Unwarranted Outbreak of Optimism in China and Europe; The Great Rebalancing

Posted: 21 Jan 2013 12:09 AM PST

Michael Pettis at China Financial Markets believes optimism regarding China and Europe is unwarranted.

Via email, he states the case while giving nine key things to watch in 2013.
The subtitles below are mine, the rest from Pettis.

Too Early to be Enthusiastic About China

I wanted to send out this newsletter last week, but the air in Beijing has been so foul that it has been hard to generate the necessary enthusiasm to write it. Over the weekend I was finally able to finish it, perhaps because I have finally gotten used to breathing solid chunks of grit.

Away from the horrible air pollution the year seems to have begun with an optimism that I think is going to prove hard to justify.

Many countries before China have managed one or more decades of miraculous growth, and in every case, perhaps not surprisingly, they developed significant domestic imbalances that were only subsequently resolved during difficult adjustment periods.

Very few, however, have managed the subsequent adjustment process in such a way that their early economic promises were fulfilled. Beijing must now manage China's own adjustment, and this adjustment must come soon if we are not to run into a serious debt problem. How Beijing does so is key to China's longer-term economic success, and it is much too early in the process to get overly enthusiastic. Certainly last year gives a taste of what we might expect.

The next year or two are also going to be very important in determining the success of the great European experiment and, even more, the viability of the euro as it currently exists. At this point, unless the peripheral countries unite in their demands and force changes in growth policies, the future of the euro lies largely in German hands. If Germany decides to save the euro by expanding its economy sufficiently to allow the peripheral European countries to grow while cutting their debt levels, the euro can be saved. If not, I don't really see how peripheral Europe can manage many more years of grinding away at debt through high unemployment (which anyway doesn't seem to improve debt ratios).

Burst of Optimism for Europe

We ended 2012 in a burst of optimism for Europe, with everyone cheering Mario Draghi for having "saved" the euro, but I am deeply skeptical. As far as I can tell nothing substantial has changed, and if countries like Spain are a little more able today to roll over their debts than they had been during the summer, so what?

If Europe were merely suffering from a liquidity problem (or a problem of "confidence", as politicians and bankers always like to say before the big debt crisis), then the ECB's willingness to fund all this debt would be a step in the right direction. But if the problem is too much debt, too high unemployment, and misaligned currencies, then rolling over the debt means that the ultimate resolution will be more painful simply because there will ultimately be more debt to write down.

It is interesting that policymakers are so pleased by an end (temporarily, I assume) to the financing crisis. One of the regular features of sovereign debt crises, and one amply revealed in Beth Simmons book on the 1930s crisis in Europe, Who Adjusts?, is that one of the complicating factors in a crisis is the tendency of policymakers (along with workers, creditors, small businesses, and middle class savers) to change their behavior in response to a crisis by taking steps that protect them from the consequences of the crisis but that also make the crisis worse. Policymakers do this by shortening their time horizons and managing from crisis to crisis, rather than by sorting out the underlying problems. The fact that Spanish policymakers are so relieved by their ability to access near-term financing may be a case in point. It is easy to see why the worry so much about getting through the next bond auction, but at the end of the day this is not Spain's real problem.

Spain's real problem is unemployment and negative growth.

Under the circumstances there is very little popular appetite left in Spain, I think, for much more pain. When locksmiths in Pamplona got together a few weeks ago and decided that they were not going to help banks bust open locks and repossess homes, even though this must have become a major source of income for them, it suggests that ordinary Spaniards aren't eager to absorb much more damage and that solidarity is spreading. It also suggests that any political party that decides to take drastic action to grow the economy, even (and perhaps especially) at the expense of monetary union and its European partners (i.e. Germany), is likely to get at least some significant fraction of the votes.

One way or the other, the world will rebalance. But there are worse ways and better ways it can do so. Large trade surpluses can decline, for example, because exports fall, or they can decline because imports rise. Large trade deficits can contract under conditions of high unemployment, but they can also contract under conditions of low unemployment. Low savings rates can rise with declining household income or with rising household income. Repressed consumption rates can reverse through collapsing growth or through surging consumption. Excessive debt can be resolved by default or by growth.

Any policy that does not clearly result in a reversal of the deep debt, trade and capital imbalances of the past decade is a policy that cannot be sustained. The goal of policymakers must be to work out what rebalancing requires and then to design and implement the least painful way of getting there. International cooperation, of course, will reduce the pain.

Nine Things to Watch in 2013

My guess is that we have ended the first stage of the global crisis, and most of the deepest problems have been identified. In 2013 we will begin to see how policymakers respond and what the future outlook is likely to be. Here is what I will be watching this year in order to figure out where we are likely to end up (and I have a related article, for those who might care, in last week's Financial Times - Hello 2013: Chinese banking and economic reform).

1. Watch how quickly growth adjusts. The speed with which China's GDP growth slows in 2013 will tell us a lot about how determined Beijing is to rebalance the economy in such a way that growth is driven more by higher household income and consumption and less by investment funded by rising government and government-related debt. It will also tell us how successful Beijing's new leadership will be in consolidating power and forcing the kinds of economic and financial reforms on which most economists now agree, but which are likely to be politically difficult.

I expect GDP growth in the first half to be fairly high, probably close to 8%, continuing the investment boom that was recently unleashed. I am not fully confident of this number because there seem to be significant strains in the banking system, and without easy credit growth there cannot be much investment growth. Of course part of any credit tightness will be "resolved" by the tried-and-true method of vendor financing, which is already becoming a problem for SOE balance sheets.

As an aside, one of my former students, now an investment banker working on the domestic IPO market, came to visit me today and warned me that there is a huge backlog of companies trying to get approval to sell shares. One of the requirements is that they must have two consecutive years of rising net earnings. Many of these firms expected to come to market in 2012 and were able to manage the needed two years of rising net earnings to 2011, but now that they have been pushed back, at least to 2013, they are struggling to show that net earnings in 2012 also went up. For that reason his firm is especially wary of sneaky attempts to boost reported earnings. There are hundreds of companies waiting for approval.

At any rate it is second half GDP growth that interests me more. If Beijing has really gotten its arms around the rebalancing problem and is serious about adjusting quickly, I expect reported growth to drop sharply, perhaps to close to 6%. If not, I expect reported growth to remain well above 7% in the second half of 2013. This would worry me.

2. Watch how quickly new debt emerges. Debt problems are going to continue to emerge in 2013, but as long as each new manifestation of excessively rising debt is treated as a specific and localized problem that can be resolved with specific polices, overall balance sheets will continue to get worse. We need to watch what Beijing does to rein in the growth in debt, and of course this is closely related to overall GDP growth. As long as GDP is growing at levels above 6% or 7%, it is almost a certainty that debt is rising too fast. If GDP growth levels come in much below 6 or 7%, there is a chance that debt growth is not excessive.

How do we keep track of debt levels? Obviously this is no easy task in China, where both the banks and the informal banking system have done a great job in recent years of hiding loan growth and keeping formal debt levels from looking to risky.

But follow the cash. Large increases in infrastructure investment and in real estate development are almost always funded, directly or indirectly, by increases in debt.

3. Watch for financial scandals. We should also be keeping track of stories about defaults and bank runs. Remember that the Chinese financial system does not really "do" defaults. When borrowers are unable to repay debt out of operating cashflow, the problem is usually "managed" away by forcing losses onto some other entity.

The late stages of a debt bubble are almost always characterized by the sudden emergence of financial fraud, and the huge extent of the frauds lead many to assume that fraud was the source of the credit problems, when in fact widespread financial fraud is more typically a symptom of a financial system that has already gone to excess. This is why I am going to be following financial scandals closely, no matter how arcane or small. The occurrence and pattern of financial scandal will tell us a lot about the likely problem areas in the financial system.

3. Watch bank activities. More generally I am going to watch the relationship between total credit growth and the growth in RMB loans. Much of the off-balance sheet financing in China is designed specifically to skirt regulations, and the relative size of these transactions will tell us about transparency (or lack thereof).

4. Watch inflation. Inflation is actually a positive indicator for China's rebalancing, and also worth watching because I expect (hope) it to rise in 2013, although not by too much. This may sound like a strange thing to say – everyone else thinks of rising inflation as a bad thing – but remember that the more you repress household income growth, the more you divert resources, especially through cheap financing, from consumption into production, and so this tends to be disinflationary.

If China is truly rebalancing, at least part of this is going to show up in upward inflationary pressure, although it is likely to be the "right" kind of inflation – i.e. it will hurt the rich more than the poor because it will be based on non-food rather than food items. Perhaps this inflation is already starting to happen, although not in the way I would like it to happen. There has been an uptick in inflation but it seems to have been caused by the impact of cold weather on food prices, rather than because consumption of manufactured goods is rising faster than production.

5. Watch the prices of hard commodities. Of course I will be watching copper prices and prices of other hard commodities. I expect that hard commodity prices will fall sharply over the next two to three years, but to the extent that prices rise in the short term, as they have in the past three months, it is likely to reflect additional investment growth in China.

As a quick measure this means that declining copper prices can be seen as a measure of the extent of Chinese rebalancing. The longer it takes for copper prices to drop, the slower is the Chinese adjustment likely to be.

6. Watch the trade numbers. China's trade surplus for November came in much higher than expected, although there are so many discrepancies in the numbers that not all of us are confident about how to interpret the numbers. It seems like growth in both imports and exports may have been exaggerated, as local authorities may be round-tripping both exports and imports in order to make their numbers look good.

In addition, as I have argued many times, China's exports are likely to be misleadingly low and its imports misleadingly high (and so its real trade surplus higher than the official trade surplus) to the extent that there is significant commodity stockpiling and hidden capital flight. Of course destocking and capital inflows will have the opposite effect.

7. Watch the Spanish bond market. Obviously I, like everyone else, will be watching the Spanish bond markets.

I do not think anything important has changed as far as the European crisis is concerned. The fact that there is a additional liquidity for bond purchases does not mean, as I see it, that Spanish competitiveness has been resolved and it does not mean that the economy can grow out of its debt burden. It simply means that there is temporarily a little less pressure to resolve the underlying problems. I would guess that by the second quarter of 2013, and likely earlier, markets will once again have gotten much worse.

8. Watch Target 2. On a related topic, I will continue to watch Target 2 closely as an indicator of strains within the European banking system. This too ended 2013 on a positive note.

For the same reason that I am not optimistic about the Spanish bond market I am also not optimistic that Target 2 will continue to reverse. If it does, of course, that will be a great sigh, but if it doesn't, and if in fact the imbalances continue to grow, that will put additional stress on Germany's ability to maintain the euro system.

9. Watch Japan. Remember that Japanese attempts to get their arms around their huge debt burden will almost certainly affect China and the rest of the global economy. If Japan tries to increase domestic savings to fund the debt, for example by limiting wage increases, or by taxing consumption, both of which they have proposed, these measures may well cause domestic investment to fall. Whether or not they do, if domestic savings rise faster than domestic investment, which is the only way to increase the domestic savings pool available to fund Japanese debt, then by definition the current account surplus must rise.

I am not smart enough to tell you what Japan will do, but I do know that almost anything it does must affect the relationship between its savings and its investment, and hence Japan's current account surplus, which I suspect everyone hopes will rise. Of course everyone else wants the same thing too – rising exports relative to imports – which is clearly impossible, but Japan needs it more urgently than most of the rest of us. This is going to increase strains on the global trading system.

Financial Scandals

Pettis used point number three twice, I am not sure if on purpose. Both threes are financial. In general, and as is typically the case, I side with Pettis' point of view.

One of the more interesting things on his watch list was "3. Watch For Financial Scandals".

I have been following scandals in Spain that may bring down the Spanish government. Media attention in English has been scant. Here are a pair of significant articles:

January 19: Massive Fraud in Spain Threatens Entire Government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy

January 20: Crisis in Madrid Update; Plan "A" is Sgt. Schultz Defense, No Plan "B" Yet

In Greece, Law-and-Order Problem Escalates; Bomb Explodes at Athens Mall; AK-47 Shots Hit Ruling Party Headquarters prompting me to say "Worst Not Over"

Complacency reins in European bond markets, even though Spanish and Greek unemployment is over 26% and youth unemployment is over 56% in both countries and both countries have recent fraud investigations at the highest levels.

How much longer this can go on before the powder keg blows remains a mystery.

The Great Rebalancing

Michael Pettis has just released his book "The Great Rebalancing: Trade, Conflict, and the Perilous Road Ahead"

I will get a copy soon. Note that Pettis is one of the speakers at my economic conference in April. Please click on the image below for details.

"Wine Country" Economic Conference Hosted By Mish
Click on Image to Learn More

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

marți, 22 ianuarie 2013

The Ultimate Guide to Advanced Guest Blogging

The Ultimate Guide to Advanced Guest Blogging

1. Finding Guest Post Opportunities