marți, 30 septembrie 2014

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


You Have the Right to Remain Out of Prison [Infographic]

Posted: 30 Sep 2014 04:32 PM PDT

Knowing your rights can get you out of a sticky situation with the police. Check out the infographic below presented by Online-Paralegal-Programs.com to learn more. Know Your Rights


Couple Gets Unexpected Guest At Their Wedding

Posted: 30 Sep 2014 12:28 PM PDT

Rebecca and Brian Pepper, were just trying to get some beautiful wedding photos as the sun went down when something completely unexpected happen. You'll never guess who showed up to crash the wedding.

















Top 10 Movie Makeup Transformations of All Time

Posted: 30 Sep 2014 11:55 AM PDT

The people who work with makeup on film sets just don't get enough credit. They can take one of your favorite actors and make them completely unrecognizable. The transformations that these people have gone through are simply stunning and these are some of the best transformations ever captured on film.






















Incredible Facts About The Legendary Titanic

Posted: 30 Sep 2014 10:09 AM PDT

The Titanic is a ship that's now legendary. It was supposed to be unsinkable and it just so happened to sink during its maiden voyage. Over the years many people have become obsessed with this ship and have managed to learn a lot about it. Today we share their knowledge with you.


















Woman Sheds 189 Lbs And Completely Transforms Herself

Posted: 30 Sep 2014 09:19 AM PDT

31 year old Joanne Cooper started suffering from the effects of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) as a teenager. This caused her weight to skyrocket and doctors told her she would never be able to have kids. She used that as motivation to transform herself. She got gastric bypass surgery and lost 189 lbs (85 kg). You won't believe the woman in the last picture is the same person from the first picture.





















Seth's Blog : Two ad campaigns of the moment

 

Two ad campaigns of the moment

I don't usually write about these, because they're almost always over produced and riskless affairs promoting me-too and banal products.

But, consider this new book promo from O/R. They're also giving 20% off to Google employees, which is a clever touch.

And then amuse yourself with this pitch perfect ad from GE. Big-time ad execs could never run something this self-aware on TV, but of course, we don't need TV anymore. Not when people (instead of networks) spread around the stuff we choose to watch.

       

 

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The Myth of Google's 200 Ranking Factors

The Myth of Google's 200 Ranking Factors


The Myth of Google's 200 Ranking Factors

Posted: 29 Sep 2014 05:16 PM PDT

Posted by gfiorelli1

The woman in the gif below just said to Captain Picard that she can show him the definitive and complete list of the 200 Google ranking factors.

Picard, who is a wise man, can do nothing but walk away with a facepalm.

Who can blame Captain Picard for his reaction? We all know, in fact, that a complete and ultimate list of the 200 ranking factors does not exist.

If you agree, then why do we still see statistics like these below on  Buzzsumo?

Let me offer this disclaimer before I continue:

I am not writing this post to attack people like Brian Dean, who, in August, published an update to the "complete list" that Backlinko first presented in 2013. Brian, whom I esteem, created an effective piece of link bait (as the  318 linking root domains it earned testify).

I am writing this post because those lists are, quite simply, useless and dangerous, and because I hope to help people—especially the newer generations of SEO—understand that a definitive and complete "List" of Google's ranking factors does not exist. Moreover, some of the factors that appear in those lists:

  1. Are myths;
  2. Are correlation factors and not causal factors;
  3. Are presented just to reach the number of 200.

The origin of the myth

I admit that I did not know how the myth of "200 Google Ranking Factors" was created, but a good SEO pal of mine,  Giorgio Taverniti, revealed it to me.

The first time Google declared it was using 200 ranking factors was in its  Press Day on May 10th, 2006 (you may also want to read the live blog Matt Cutts did, as it illuminates many things that happened thereafter). 

Seeing that the correct phrasing was "over 200 ranking factors," we can say that "200" was an approximated number, perhaps offered to journalists in order to explain how complex Google's algorithm is. If the audience had been composed of information technologists, Alan Eustace would probably have used another wording.

Another proof of how silly it is to claim to have discovered "the 200 Google ranking factors" is that, in 2010, Matt Cutts himself declared that, yes, Google counts on over 200 rankings factors, but that  each factor may have up to 50 variations:

Meaning is important

Are you sure you really know what "ranking" and "indexing" mean?

I ask you this because I know many SEOs who use both words as synonyms, when they are two completely different concepts and stages of how a search engine works.

Indexing is one of the four interconnected and interdependent phases of how a search engine works:

  1. Crawling
  2. Parsing
  3. Indexing
  4. Search

Indexing is the process of locating and mapping resources around the web that are associated with a word or phrase, and it is something the search engines do, not SEOs, even if SEOs can help their work optimizing a site. 

The index, as was so effectively explained to me by  Enrico Altavilla, is used to determine what resources to suggest as an answer to a query and the words/phrases composing it, not in what order to suggest them. That is the function of the ranking phase.

Ranking is the final moment of the fourth phase: Search.

Context plays a major role in the Search phase, and almost every step takes into account the user's and device's characteristics.

As we can see from the image above, the Search phase is composed of four distinct stages:

  1. Understanding the input given by the user with a query. Hummingbird very likely operates in this moment, because Google, in order to understand better the input, modifies or extends the query and just after moves to the second stage;
  2. Retrieving documents from the Index, taking into account commands like "noindex."
  3. Filtering & clustering. Once Google has understood the input and retrieved the corresponding documents from the Index, it applies filters like Panda and others spam filters, but also less considered ones as the Safe-Search filter and the often forgotten Private Search layer (personalization).
  4. Ranking. Google applies in this moment the X number of ranking factors, not before. And the ranking factors should be considered and counted for every kind of index Google has:
    • Universal search
    • Image search
    • Local search
    • etc.

We should not forget, then, that content and layout composing the SERPs depend a lot on things like the device used.

The Unbearable Lightness of SEOs

SEOs are talented professionals with a natural tendency to develop a manic-depressive psyche

Ok, I have exaggerated a little bit, but—and I am an SEO, too—we live moments of pure joy when we see that our work is making the organic traffic of a site rise up and to the right, but also sudden dark periods of (unconscious?) anxiety when Google announces an update or we see a small traffic drop.

For that reason, we love ranking factor lists.

We need them not just as a potential source of information, but because they reassure us, too.

And we love them even if they are just a sequence of myths.

Let's take, for example, " Google's 200 Ranking Factors,", published by Backlinko, which I use for no other reason than it being the most recent successful list published.

I'll start with an easy one:

1 - Keyword Density [Ranking Factor 17]

My eyes bleed reading that although not as important as it once was, keyword density is still something Google uses to determine the topic of a webpage

Keyword Density never was a Google's ranking factor. Never.

If we really want to find keyword density as factor for ranking, we must go back to the 70s and 80s and look at  what Stephen E. Robertson, Karen Spärck Jones, and others described as the  Okapi BM25 formula.

If keyword density ever had some relevancy as a ranking factor, it was in the Pleistocene era of search engines.

We live in 2014 and Google just had its 16th birthday.

It is still obviously important having the keyword we want to rank for in the text of a web document.

However we also know that it is also possible to make our site ranking for that keyword without having it at all in the page, if Google finds enough consistent and relevant external signals, which associate that keyword to our site.

2 - LSI [Ranking Factors 18/19]

For this example I will cite what Bill Slawski wrote in this  Inbound.org thread:

Latent Semantic indexing was invented and patented in 1990, before there was a web. 

It was developed to help index small (less than 10,000 documents) databases of documents that didn't change much (like the Web does). 

There have been a number of companies that started selling LSI Keyword generation tools that promised that they could help identify synonyms and words with the same or similar meaning. 

Where those fail is that the LSI process requires access to the database (of documents) in question to calculate which words are synonyms - and the only people with access to Google's database to do that kind of analysis (which isn't possible anyway since Google's index is much to big and changes much to frequently) is Google.

3 - YouTube [Ranking Factor 76]

There's no doubt that YouTube videos are given preferential treatment in the SERP .

How can be this a ranking factor? Eventually it is a monopolistic use Google does of its own search engine, but a ranking factor?

This is a classic example of how t hese lists tend to be everything but scientific, hence unreliable if not even dangerous.

4 - Site Uptime [Ranking Factor 69]

What Brian says is correct: if Google, despite of several attempts, see that a site returns a 500 server response, then that site will start being pushed out of the SERPs.

Correct, but in this case we are talking about an Indexing issue caused by a Crawling problem, not a Ranking one. As I wrote before, meaning is important.

5 - Keyword as first word in domain name [Ranking Factor 3]

The ranking factor list includes this factor because in 2011 a panel of SEOs (myself included) considered that EMDs and PMDs were clearly having an advantage in terms of rankings, and so declared it in the Moz  Search Ranking Factors Survey.

In 2013 Moz published a  new edition of that survey, and the opinions the same SEOs had were quite different.

The most important thing, though, is understanding that these were just opinions from SEOs; they should be considered (with all the disclaimers) possible, but based more on personal experiences.

Any opinions, although authoritative, are just opinions and not science, let alone ranking factors.

6 - Country TLD Extension [Ranking Factor 10]

It is true that cTLDs offer a stronger geo-targeting indication to Google than geo-targeted subfolders and subdomains. 

However, as any international SEO can confirm, a web site with a cTLD domain termination does not necessarily rank better than a generic domain name.

What is not so true, then, is that an .es or .it web site cannot rank well outside of Google.es or Google.it. In this post I wrote last spring on  State of Digital, I presented many examples where sites with "Latin American" cTLDs were outranking .es ones in Google.es. In the comments to the posts, then, you can see that this is something common in every regional version of Google.

This "ranking factor" is a clear example of how these kind of lists may mix correct information with dangerous ignorance. (I am using "ignorance" in its real meaning as "lack of knowledge or information on a given subject," in this case international SEO, and not in its pejorative sense.)

7 - Use of Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools [Ranking Factor 78]

How can something described this way be a ranking factor?

"Some think that having these two programs installed on your site can improve your page's indexing. They may also directly influence rank by giving Google more data to work with..."

"Some think?" Who? The university student ranting in a forum? A information technologist? An insider in Mountain View? This is purely speculation.

8 - Guest Posts [Ranking Factor 91]

When we talk about how dangerous doing some kinds of guest posting can be, we are talking about web spam.

Therefore, if a link (or a series of links) from guest posts are considered as having a manipulative nature, we should talk about "Spam Filters" (3rd Stage of Search) and not actual ranking.

Again, meaning is important.

9 - Facebook Likes and Facebook Shares [Ranking Factor 157/158]

Google cannot see likes and Facebook shares. So they cannot be a ranking factor. Period.

Matt Cutts, in the same SMX panel the list cites as its source, said:

We like standards that are available on the open web. If we're not able to crawl something – like Facebook or like the time we temporarily ran into problems with Twitter – we don't want to depend on that data.

The biggest mistake here, though, is confusing causation with correlation, and the power of Social Signals is a correlation power.

As I wrote a week ago in a comment to the  Marcus Tober post here on Moz, social shares are not a direct cause of good rankings, but they may help in obtaining them:

Social shares > higher visibility > creation of 2nd tier backlinks (e.g. on Topsy) and improved opportunities of earning natural backlinks from people who discovered that shared content.

10 - Employees listed in LinkedIn [Factor 171]

Here, we are at the limits of the absurd.

Backlinko defines this as a branding signal. The problem is that a branding signal is not a ranking signal.

It cites an old post—a very good one— that Rand Fishkin wrote back in 2011. Unfortunately, that post was saying something completely different. Rand exposed his (correct) hypothesis that, in the future, Google would start looking at "branding" signals in order to create named entities able to reflect the offline relevancy of an online presence. 

In that post, Rand never cited the "Employees listed in LinkedIn" as a factor.


I could continue, but it is not my intention to write a full rebuttal post.

No, my intention is to make clear—especially to you, young SEOs—that nothing good can come of your taking these lists at their word.

My intention is to exhort people not to create them. 

What could seem like a good link-bait idea (and the performance of Brian's post is proof that it can be) ends up being something that spreads a fallacious vision of SEO, which will reach the eyes and minds of a mainstream audience of non-SEOs: businesses' owners and marketing executives, who will see the list republished in sites like Hubspot or Entrepreneur.

Are all Google ranking factor lists bad?

No.

We can find serious studies, which aim to understand why certain sites ranks better than others. The Moz Search Ranking Factor Survey cited before, and the Searchmetrics Ranking Factors study are the most shining examples of that.

Nevertheless, there exists a huge difference between those studies and a simple infographic/post listing the supposed 200 ranking factors: they are correlation studies executed following a solid scientific method.

Be aware that they are correlation studies; hence, they are just telling us what common characteristics the sites that are ranking high in the SERPs have. 

Use them as inspiration for best practices to follow if they really are applicable to your site, nothing else.

You can even try to create a ranking list without doing a correlation analysis, but that work should meet three criteria:

  1. It should be at least as good as the Periodic Table of SEO Success that Search Engine Land presents in its site;
  2. It should be based on deep knowledge of how search engines' work; and
  3. It should always present a disclaimer about its subjective nature.

Finally, instead of searching for lists, the best idea I can offer you is to experiment yourself. Create a site, test theories, try to break the rules for understanding how Google is possibly working.

And if you feel you cannot do that alone, then consider  joining the IMEC Lab that Rand created a few months ago.

Happy testing!


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Seth's Blog : The sophistication of truth

 

The sophistication of truth

A common form of complexity is the sophistication of fear.

Long words when short ones will do. Fancy clothes to keep the riffraff out and to give us a costume to hide behind. Most of all, the sneer of, "you don't understand" or, "you don't know the people I know..."

"It's complicated," we say, even when it isn't.

We invent these facades because they provide safety. Safety from the unknown, from being questioned, from being called out as a fraud. These facades lead to bad writing, lousy communication and a refuge from the things we fear.

I'm more interested in the sophistication required to deliver the truth.

Simplicity.

Awareness.

Beauty.

These take fearlessness. This is, "here it is, I made this, I know you can understand it, does it work for you?"

Our work doesn't have to be obtuse to be important or brave.

       

 

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luni, 29 septembrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


Schoolgirls Aged 14-16 Leave France, UK, Germany for Syria to Join ISIS Jihad

Posted: 29 Sep 2014 07:12 PM PDT

As many as 63 seriously misguided teenaged girls from France, 40 from Germany, and 50 in the UK have left their countries to join ISIS in Syria.

The Guardian has a fascinating report on Schoolgirl jihadis: the female Islamists leaving home to join Isis fighters.
Hundreds of young women and girls are leaving their homes in western countries to join Islamic fighters in the Middle East, causing increasing concern among counter-terrorism investigators.

Girls as young as 14 or 15 are travelling mainly to Syria to marry jihadis, bear their children and join communities of fighters, with a small number taking up arms. Many are recruited via social media.

Women and girls appear to make up about 10% of those leaving Europe, North America and Australia to link up with jihadi groups, including Islamic State (Isis). France has the highest number of female jihadi recruits, with 63 in the region – about 25% of the total – and at least another 60 believed to be considering the move.

In most cases, women and girls appear to have left home to marry jihadis, drawn to the idea of supporting their "brother fighters" and having "jihadist children to continue the spread of Islam", said Louis Caprioli, former head of the French security agency Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire. "If their husband dies, they will be given adulation as the wife of a martyr."

Five people, including a sister and brother, were arrested in France earlier this month suspected of belonging to a ring in central France that specialised in recruiting young French women, according to Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister.

At least 40 women have left Germany to join Isis in Syria and Iraq in what appears to be a growing trend of teenagers becoming radicalised and travelling to the Middle East without their parents' permission.

"The youngest was 13-years-old," Hans-Georg Maassen, president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, told the Rheinische Post. "Four underage women left with a romantic idea of jihad marriage and married young male fighters who they had got to know via the internet."

Karim Pakzad, of the French Institute of International and Strategic Relations, said some young women had "an almost romantic idea of war and warriors.

"There's a certain fascination even with the head and throat-cutting. It's an adventure."

Some British women and girls have posted pictures of themselves carrying AK-47s, grenades and in one case a severed head, as they pledge allegiance to Isis. But they are also tweeting pictures of food, restaurants and sunsets to present a positive picture of the life awaiting young women in an attempt to lure more from the UK.

Women already living amid Isis fighters used social media adeptly to portray Syria as a utopia and to attract foreign women to join their "sisterhood in the caliphate", she said. "The idea of living in the caliphate is a very positive and powerful one that these women hold dear to their heart."

But the reality was very different, she said. Both Bloom and Rolf Tophoven, director of Germany's Institute for Terrorism Research and Security Policy, said reports indicated that women had been raped, abused, sold into slavery or forced to marry. "[Isis] is a strictly Islamist, brutal movement ... the power, the leadership structure, are clearly a male domain," said Tophoven.
Meet Jihadist Samra Kesinovic



Samra Kesinovic is 16. Her school said she had been speaking out for 'holy war', writing 'I love al-Qaida' around the building. Photograph: Interpol

This is an amazing story by the Guardian, complete with eight pictures and numerous stories of what family members try to do to get their kids back.

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

US Bombed Wrong Refineries in Syria; Iran Seeks to Stop Oil Price Slide; Sanctions Won't Impede Arctic Drilling

Posted: 29 Sep 2014 12:55 PM PDT

US Bombed Wrong Refineries in Syria

Oil is in the news in many countries in many ways. Let's take a look starting with a couple of paragraphs buried in the Financial Times report Barack Obama Admits US Underestimated Isis.
Allied aircraft on Sunday struck three makeshift oil refineries in an area controlled by Isis in an expansion of attacks intended to damage the militant Islamist group's financial infrastructure.

Oil has proved crucial to financing Isis's operations, netting several million dollars a day. But the observatory said the refineries struck early on Sunday, in and around Raqqa, were owned by civilians and not Isis. A separate air strike on a plastics factory on the outskirts of Raqqa resulted in the death of a civilian, the group said.
So, we blow up refineries owned and operated by civilians and it is buried in the news, with no hint of an apology or restitution offered to the refinery owners or to Syria.

Russia Discovers Vast Pool of Oil 

Two days ago, Russia announced Arctic Well Drilled With Exxon Strikes Oil.
Russia's state-run OAO Rosneft said a well drilled in the Kara Sea region of the Arctic Ocean with Exxon Mobil Corp. struck oil, showing the region has the potential to become one of the world's most important crude-producing areas.

The announcement was made by Igor Sechin, Rosneft's chief executive officer, who spent two days sailing on a Russian research ship to the drilling rig where the find was unveiled today. The well found about 1 billion barrels of oil and similar geology nearby means the surrounding area may hold more than the U.S. part of the Gulf or Mexico, he said. 

The discovery sharpens the dispute between Russia and the U.S. over President Vladimir Putin's actions in Ukraine. The well was drilled before the Oct. 10 deadline Exxon was granted by the U.S. government under sanctions barring American companies from working in Russia's Arctic offshore. Rosneft and Exxon won't be able to do more drilling, putting the exploration and development of the area on hold despite the find announced today.

Output from the Kara Sea field could begin within five to seven years, Sechin said, adding the field discovered today would be named "Victory."
Exxon was given until October 10 when other companies had to comply with sanctions immediately. Regardless of why that happened, sanctions are ridiculous.

Instead of complaining that Exxon got favoritism, we should simply kill all the sanctions.

Sanctions Won't Impede Arctic Drilling

Bloomberg reports Russia Oil Chief Says Sanctions No Bar to Arctic Drilling.
The most powerful man in Russia's oil industry says U.S. sanctions won't prevent the development of discoveries in the Arctic Ocean.

Igor Sechin, chief executive officer of state oil producer OAO Rosneft (ROSN) and a long-time ally of President Vladimir Putin, spent two days traveling by plane, ship and helicopter last week to announce a billion-barrel crude strike in the iceberg-prone Kara Sea region of Russia's Arctic Ocean.

"We will continue working no matter what," Sechin said in an interview on board a polar research vessel as he prepared to unveil the find he named Victory. "We will plan the work for next season. As I said, now we've drilled only the first structure -- at Universitetskaya. There are more than 30."

The development of Arctic oil reserves is one of President Putin's grandest ambitions. As Russia's existing fields in Siberia run dry, the country needs to find new reserves as it vies with the U.S. to be the world's largest oil and gas producer.

Sechin said the opportunity offered by today's oil discovery meant Rosneft would have no problem attracting investors and technology providers. Something he said was possible while respecting the company's existing agreement with Irving, Texas-based Exxon.

If Exxon is forced to leave the project, "of course we'll do it on our own and attract the necessary technologies and different partners who don't have limitations on cooperation," said Sechin, who featured in Bloomberg Markets 50 Most Influential list this year.

The well drilled in the Kara Sea found about 1 billion barrels of oil, Rosneft said. The crude is "super-light," the company said, meaning when it's refined it will produce a high proportion of gasoline and diesel. That's likely to make it more valuable than Russia's existing export grade, Urals.

The well was drilled before the Oct. 10 deadline Exxon was granted by the U.S. government under sanctions barring American companies from working in Russia's Arctic offshore.
US Poised to Become World's Leading Liquid Petroleum Producer

Back in the States, the Financial Times reports US Poised to Become World's Leading Liquid Petroleum Producer.
The US is overtaking Saudi Arabia to become the world's largest producer of liquid petroleum, in a sign of how its booming oil production has reshaped the energy sector.

US production of oil and related liquids such as ethane and propane was neck-and-neck with Saudi Arabia in June and again in August at about 11.5m barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency, the watchdog backed by rich countries.

With US production continuing to boom, its output is set to exceed Saudi Arabia's this month or next for the first time since 1991.

Riyadh has stressed that the rise of the US should not detract from its own critical role in oil markets. It says it has the ability to increase its output by 2.5m b/d if needed to balance supply and demand.

Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia's deputy oil minister, said earlier this month that the kingdom was the "only country with usable spare oil production capacity".

However, even Saudi officials do not deny that the rise of the US to become the world's largest petroleum producer – with an even greater lead if its biofuel output of about 1m b/d is included – has played a vital role in stabilising markets.

Brent crude hit its lowest level in more than two years last week at about $95.60 a barrel, down from a peak of over $125 a barrel early in 2012.

Over that period, the growth in US production of more than 3.5m b/d has almost equalled the entire increase in world oil supplies.

The US industry has been transformed by the shale revolution, with advances in the techniques of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling enabling the exploitation of oilfields, particularly in Texas and North Dakota, that were long considered uncommercial.
Iran Urges Opec to Halt Oil Price Slide

In spite of turmoil in the Mideast and sanctions on Russia, oil prices are the lowest in two years. Mideast oil producers are not pleased with that outcome and Iran Urges Opec to Halt Oil Price Slide.
Iran's oil minister called on Opec nations to work together to prevent a further slide in crude prices, highlighting the split among members of the cartel over how to react to the sharp drop in oil to two-year lows in recent weeks.

"Opec members should make efforts to offset their production to keep the prices from further instability," said Bijan Namdar Zanganeh on Friday, according to the Iranian oil ministry website, Shana.
   
Oversupply in the North Sea and Atlantic Basin has coincided with greater North American production.

Meanwhile, sustained output from Iraq and rising Libyan production – despite bloodshed in both countries – has weighed on the Brent price as has weaker demand from Europe and China.

This month, both the International Energy Agency – the wealthy nations' energy watchdog – and Opec lowered projections of crude demand next year.

This has fostered speculation of a cut in the oil cartel's output targets, in defence of the key $100 a barrel price level.

Estimates of fiscal breakeven oil prices for this year – the price at which the budget is balanced – vary across Gulf nations.

Iran's stands at about $130 a barrel while Saudi Arabia is at $89 and the UAE at $74, according to data compiled by Citigroup
That oil prices are generally trending lower in spite of global turmoil says more about declining demand especially in China and Europe than it does about any increased production in the US.

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

Spain Manufacturers Warn of Another Slowdown; Consumption Recovery Ends, Retail Sales Contract, Price Deflation Sets In

Posted: 29 Sep 2014 11:06 AM PDT

The alleged recovery in Spain is already over. Retail sales are down month-over-month and year-over-year in July. August and September are both projected to be weak.

Vial translation from El Economista, Manufacturers and Retailers Warn of Another Consumption Slowdown.
After a slight recovery in the first months of the year, stagnation set in since June, according to almost all employers and associations of producers and distributors. The retail index INE already pointed to stagnation in June and a drop of 0.5% in July from a year earlier.

Although the decline in July from the previous month is a somewhat lower 0.2%, the situation appears to be worsening. August data will be released this week and forecast for both August and September are not positive.

Aurelio del Pino, president of Aces, the association of supermarket chains such as Carrefour, Eroski, Lidl Supercor or says in this line that "the data already published and forecasts that we confirm our claim that any increase in VAT would been disastrous for consumption."

It's something you notice the trade, but also the major manufacturers. "The recovery we have had in the first few months has been very weak," says Ignacio Larracoetxea president Promarca, an association that encompasses most of the brands leading food, beverage, household and healthcare.

And the sector is not the only well that is alerting the break. Last week, the Bank of Spain and warned that the latest information regarding the third quarter shows a "somewhat less expansive behavior of private demand" and domestic consumption, as recorded in his newsletter this September. In the case of household consumption, says survey indicators of households and retailers were in the average July and August at a lower level than the second quarter.

Reducing prices

To try to curb this stagnant consumption, or falling in recent months, large retail chains have not hesitated to continue lowering prices, even if it had to reduce their margins and also lower their figures fracturing.
Price Deflation Sets In

On September 5, Dow Jones Business News reported Spanish Prices Firmly In Negative Territory, Deflation Beckons.
INE, as the statistics institute is known, said Spain's consumer price index fell by 0.5% on the year in August, the biggest percentage decline since the country experienced a dip in prices in October last year. In July, prices had dropped by 0.3% after a few months of small increases.

Spain's European Union-harmonized consumer-price index, which is a slightly different measure than Spain's own, was also down 0.5%. That compares with a 0.4% decrease in July.

Spain emerged from more than two years of recession last summer, and is currently growing at one of the fastest rates in the eurozone--0.6% between March and June, and 1.2% over a 12-month period.
Expect Slower Growth 

It's safe to say Spain's growth has slowed if retail sales slowed.

A September 25th report shows Illegal Activities Boost Spain's GDP by $11 Bln.
Spain's National Statistics Institute says money generated by drug trafficking, prostitution, smuggling and illegal gambling contributed some 9 billion euros ($11.4 billion) to the national economy last year.

The institute said Thursday that the country's gross domestic product is 26.2 billion euros larger — at 1.05 trillion euros — when estimates for illegal economic activities as well as money spent on investigation and research and military armament are included. Illegal activities represented 0.9 percent of total economic activity.
So Spain GDP is up 1.2% and 0.9% of that growth is due to an accounting change that allows counting drugs, prostitution, and illegal activities as part of GDP.

Debt and Deficits

Back in April, I noted Public Debt Threatens to Exceed 100% of GDP in 2014. And take a peek at headlines for Spain Misses budget Deficit Targets.

Spain Unemployment Rate



Youth Unemployment



On the whole, there has not been much of a recovery, and what recovery there was, now appears to be over.

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