duminică, 16 august 2015

You've got 14 new Pins waiting for you

Pinterest
 
 Get the app!
Android · iOS
 
 Mobile App
 
 
Hi Hari,
This just in: you've got 14 new Pins waiting in your home feed! Tip: to get even more Pins delivered to your feed, follow any people, boards and interests that look interesting.
See all your new Pins
 
 
 
New Pins for you
 
Arielle de Pinto Bun Cage - Brass
Pin it
 
Prosciutto, tomato, and olive spaghetti
Pin it
 
cornbread- total time: 5 min.1/2 cup all-purpose flour ...
Pin it
 
Chicken Frangelico Recipe - Food.com
Pin it
15 Car Cleaning Hacks that are Pure Genius
Pin it
 
Knotty Habit Gold Knot Bracelet at Lulus.com!
Pin it
 
Rhubarb Scrolls
Pin it
 
One Pot Kielbasa Pasta
Pin it
 
Happy Pinning!
 
Get the Pinterest App
Check recipes at the store, browse Pinterest on the bus and more.
Available on the
App Store
 
Available on
Google Play
 
 
This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com.
Don't want to receive this type of email? Unsubscribe.
Have a question? Visit our Help Center.
© Pinterest, Inc.
572 7th Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103
Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions
 
Publicat de 1 la 07:29 0 comentarii

Seth's Blog : Fired up

Fired up

A friend was in a meeting with a few colleagues when my latest book came up.

One person said, "After I finished it, I was all fired up, and I felt like quitting my job to go do something amazing."

The other one said, "That's funny. After I finished it, I was all fired up and I couldn't wait to come to work to do something amazing."

Fired up isn't something you can count on, but it's certainly possibly to create a job, an opportunity and a series of inputs and feedback that makes it more likely that people get that way.

And fired up sometimes drives people to do amazing work with you, especially if you've built a job description and an organization that can take that energy and turn it into work that matters.

Give people (give yourself) projects that can take all the magic and energy and enthusiasm they want to give.

       

More Recent Articles

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

Don't want to get this email anymore? Click the link below to unsubscribe.

Email subscriptions powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 365 Boston Post Rd, Suite 123, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA.
Publicat de 1 la 03:17 0 comentarii

sâmbătă, 15 august 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

BLS vs.Gallup Unemployment Rate - Massive Discrepancies

Posted: 15 Aug 2015 10:17 AM PDT

The Gallup Daily U.S. Employment , poll estimates unemployment at 6.3% and underemployment at 14.5%.



Gallup cautions: "Because results are not seasonally adjusted, they are not directly comparable to numbers reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which are based on workers 16 and older. Margin of error is ±1 percentage point."

Actually the numbers can be compared. All one has to do is use the BLS non-seasonally adjusted numbers.

Civilian Unemployment Rate, Not Seasonally Adjusted



Gallup estimates the unemployment rate at 6.3% but the BLS says 5.6%. If anything, the BLS number should be higher than Gallup.

Why?

Because Gallup surveys those 18 and older whereas the BLS surveys 16 and older. Given high youth-unemployment, any BLS bias should be higher, not lower.

Underemployment

And please check out the massive difference in underemployment. The BLS says 10.7% while Gallup says 14.5%!



Sampling

Gallup uses a 30-day rolling average, not seasonally adjusted, and samples 30,000 people for their rolling-average numbers.

The Gallup numbers are more believable than the BLS numbers.

Finally, for comparison purposes, the University of Michigan sentiment survey does a one-time sample a mere 500 people on which it allegedly measures spending habits and the economic health of the entire nation.

For my take on sentiment, please see Sentiment as a Measure of Health of the Economy; Sentiment Theory vs. Practice.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Weekend Humor: Safety First - Image of a German, a Greek, and the IMF Designing a Rescue

Posted: 15 Aug 2015 09:35 AM PDT

Here's an image I picked up from Guru Huky at Guru's Blog.



The translated title of Guru's post is "A German, a Greek, and the IMF Designing a Rescue".

This is humorous but not quite Darwin Award material.
Double Darwin Award!

(2 March 2014, Netherlands) Two intoxicated men dared each other to test their courage against an intercity train at a Rotterdam train station. At 1800 hours on a Sunday evening, the station was crowded with more than 300 fans returning from a soccer-match pitting Feyenoord against Ajax at De Kuip, the most beautiful soccer stadium in Holland.

The two men stepped off the platform and strode forth onto the tracks. One superdaredevil lay down between the tracks, intending to prove that the entire train would pass over him. What a story to tell! His friend was less confident and he merely knelt down next to the track and kept his head as close as possible to where he thought the train's profile would be. Turns out that the 130 km/h train that came down the track some seconds later was both lower and wider than they thought. They were killed instantly.

The 300+ onlookers on the platform were none too pleased by the spectacle, and train traffic was interrupted for several hours while authorities cleaned up the mess.
More Darwin Awards

Also consider "The Ring Thing" and "Natural Birth Control", the latter was another double-Darwin award.

A nice 2013 Darwin Award winner involves an Elevator Death in which a man forced open the doors of an elevator on the 7th floor, jumped out to the cables to slide down, and died in the ensuing crash. His estate filed a losing lawsuit against the elevator manufacturer after exhuming his body 18 months later.
The person in question had voluntarily swallowed a mix of decision-impairing substances bringing his BAC [blood alcohol concentration] to 0.17% with a Xanax chaser. Unfamiliar with Xanax, this writer thumbed through the Urban Dictionary and found Xanax described as one of the more addictive benzos with withdrawal effects including psychosis and epileptic-type seizures.

Summary? A DARWIN AWARD is granted to Chad Wolfe, while a STELLA AWARD for legal stupidity is awarded to the Estate of Chad Wolfe.
As readers may have guessed, men are far more likely than women to win Darwin Awards.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.
Publicat de 1 la 23:03 0 comentarii

Seth's Blog : Pattern matching

Pattern matching

If it was a good idea to do X, then it's a good idea to do Y.

When this statement is true, it's almost irresistible. Not the obvious similarities on the surface, but the deep comparisons, the resonant influences, the patterns that a trained insider sees.

That's what makes a VC or an HR person appear to be a genius. They find useful patterns and they match them.

The problem is that marketers often force the comparison, because we're so eager to get people to do Y, our Y, the Y we have in hand. So we focus on the surface stuff, insisting that people follow the obvious pattern from their X to our Y.

Instead of running around with your product looking for customers, perhaps you could figure out who the customers are and build a product for them instead.

       

More Recent Articles

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

Don't want to get this email anymore? Click the link below to unsubscribe.

Email subscriptions powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 365 Boston Post Rd, Suite 123, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA.
Publicat de 1 la 03:18 0 comentarii

vineri, 14 august 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Sentiment as a Measure of Health of the Economy; Sentiment Theory vs. Practice

Posted: 14 Aug 2015 12:10 PM PDT

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers came out today. Sentiment is down again this month, albeit slightly. Yet, confidence remains at a lofty level.

Economists claim high sentiment numbers are good news for retail spending. Economists also claim  the high confidence numbers is a reflection on the overall health of the domestic economy.

Sentiment Theory vs. Practice

Let's take a look at that theory starting with the Bloomberg Consensus Estimate of the University of Michigan sentiment numbers.
Consumer sentiment is little changed so far this month, at 92.9 for the mid-month August reading vs 93.1 for final July. An early indication on August's consumer sector comes with the current conditions component which is nearly unchanged, at 107.1 vs July's 107.2. This hints at steady strength for consumer spending this month. The expectations component, which offers indications on the employment outlook, slipped 3 tenths to a still solid 83.8.

Inflation readings are also little changed and have yet to reflect the ongoing price collapse for oil, at 2.8 percent for 1-year expectations, which is unchanged, and 2.7 percent for 5-year expectations which is down 1 tenth.

Consumer confidence readings are down from their highs earlier in the year but are still very solid and a reminder that unemployment is low and that the domestic economy is healthy.

Definition

The University of Michigan's Consumer Survey Center questions 500 households each month on their financial conditions and attitudes about the economy. Consumer sentiment is directly related to the strength of consumer spending. Consumer confidence and consumer sentiment are two ways of talking about consumer attitudes. Among economic reports, consumer sentiment refers to the Michigan survey while consumer confidence refers to The Conference Board's survey. Preliminary estimates for a month are released at mid-month. Final estimates for a month are released near the end of the month.
Having taken a look at what economists claim, let's investigate the accuracy of those claims.

Consumer Sentiment vs. Retail Sales



Sentiment has a tendency to rise due to population growth. So instead, let's focus on year-over-year changes in sentiment vs. year-over-year sales growth.

Consumer Sentiment vs. Retail Sales (Percent Growth from Year Ago)



Consumer Sentiment as Measure of Sound Economy



Proven Bullsheet

  1. The idea that spending follows consumer sentiment is proven silliness.
  2. The idea that confidence readings are a sign of a healthy economy are as ridiculous, if not even more ridiculous.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Industrial Production Jumps on Surge in Auto Production; Revisions and Seasonal Adjustments in Play

Posted: 14 Aug 2015 10:41 AM PDT

Industrial Production Jumps

Industrial production numbers for July, released today, beat the Bloomberg Consensus Estimate of 0.4% by 0.2 percentage points.

However, June industrial production was revised lower by 0.2 percentage points from 0.3% to 0.1%. Moreover, June manufacturing was revised to -0.3% from an initial reading of 0.0%.
A 10.6 percent surge in motor vehicle production gave a very significant lift to industrial production which rose 0.6 percent in July. The manufacturing component, which has been flat all year, jumped 0.8 percent. Excluding vehicles, however, manufacturing rose only 0.1 percent. The lack of strength here is the result of business equipment which edged only 0.1 percent higher after declining 0.2 percent in June.

The rise in production drove capacity utilization up 3 tenths to 78.0 percent which is where it was back in April. Capacity utilization for manufacturing rose 5 tenths to 76.2 percent.

The two non-manufacturing components are mixed. Production at utilities, due to July's cool weather, fell 1.0 percent with capacity utilization down 8 tenths to 79.1 percent, while mining production rose 0.2 percent with capacity utilization down 1 tenth to 84.4 percent.

Weak foreign demand and weakness in the energy sector may be hurting much of the industrial sector but these factors are not at play in the domestic auto industry. The readings in today's report are mixed but the headline gain, driven by the convincing strength for autos, is an eye catcher and will certainly be ammunition for the hawks at next month's FOMC meeting.
Revisions and Seasonal Adjustments in Play

The revisions lower last month followed by the surge this month suggests some significant seasonal adjustments and/or one-time production shifts in play.



Auto Production Strength Cannot Last

Autos remain in the spotlight. But record, or near-record auto sales cannot last forever. Today's strength will be tomorrow's weakness.

When auto sales turn for good, the resultant numbers will likely be shockingly bad.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.
Publicat de 1 la 23:05 0 comentarii
Abonați-vă la: Postări (Atom)