vineri, 11 septembrie 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Apocalypse Illinois: IOUs Projected to Hit $10.5 Billion, $163 Billion Total Accumulated Liabilities
China's Art of Propaganda: Future So Bright You Need Sunglasses Inside
CME Fedwatch and Bloomberg Rate Hike Odds Still Wrong; Deflationary Bust Coming

Apocalypse Illinois: IOUs Projected to Hit $10.5 Billion, $163 Billion Total Accumulated Liabilities

Posted: 11 Sep 2015 12:33 PM PDT

Flat Out Broke

Illinois is in serious fiscal trouble. Unpaid bills will hit about $10.5 billion later this year, counting unpaid lotto winners and state university bills.

Lotto is a small problem overall, yet symbolic of the mess the state is in.

Because Illinois has no current budget, the state does not pay lotto winners. Instead it sends the winners IOUs. Yesterday, two Illinois lottery winners filed a class action lawsuit over unpaid prizes.

Promises, Promises

Unpaid bills do not count additional promises that politicians seek. For example, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants a half billion dollars from the state to shore up the Chicago school budget.

Where is that supposed to come from?

The list of "wants" is endless; the reality is "Illinois is flat out broke".

When will multiple downgrades from Moody's, Fitch, and the S&P hit the overall state, not just the city of Chicago?

Drowning in Red Ink

In a big understatement of Illinois' problem, a Crain's Chicago headline reads Illinois IOUs Growing Fast, Could Pass $8.5 Billion by Yearend.

Slowly but surely, Illinois government is beginning to drown in red ink, State Comptroller Leslie Munger said today, as the cost of the continuing Springfield budget war steadily worsens the already bad condition of state finances.

Without legislative action to adopt a balanced budget, the state's backlog of unpaid bills will hit $8.5 billion in December—not counting an additional $4 billion in spending for state universities, lottery winners and other purposes that has been indefinitely deferred, Munger said.

If the bill backlog indeed hits $8.5 billion in December—and you include half of that $4 billion in other spending, since December is the midpoint of the state's fiscal year—that would put the cumulative backlog at what appears to be an all-time high of $10.5 billion.

As best as I can tell from consulting with state finance insiders, the highest the backlog ever reached in non-inflation-adjusted dollars was in 2010, early in the days of the Pat Quinn administration, when it hit $9.9 billion.

Humorous Solution

My favorite comment to Crain's article comes from "Earl" who sarcastically asks "Why not try not spending money the state does not have?"

Indeed. Let's try that. Well, actually Illinois has been doing that for years. And bad as $10.5 billion sounds, it's but a small drop in the cumulative bucket.

Apocalypse Illinois

Drum roll please: In January, Illinois' total cumulative liability was $159 billion.

Counting $4 billion in spending for state universities, lottery winners, etc., the total cumulative liability is on the order of $163 billion today, and growing more rapidly than ever.

A study released this past January called "Apocalypse Now" discusses the "Consequences of Pay-Later Budgeting in Illinois".

Deficit Spending

IOUs

The stack of IOUs. The term "legacy costs" is sometimes used to describe obligations to pay for services purchased by the state in previous years.

Figure 1 shows that the state of Illinois has run deficits in every fiscal year since 2001. A portion of these shortfalls were covered by asset sales and other one-time revenue sources, but most were covered by some form of borrowing. We look first at the total value of these legacy costs in Illinois, separated by type:

Pension obligation bonds. Illinois issued bonds in FY 2003, 2010 and 2011 to cover scheduled contributions to its pension funds. At the end of FY 2015, the remaining principal on these bonds will be $12.7 billion.
Unfunded liabilities for pensions. As of the end of FY 2014, the state of Illinois' five retirement systems had assets to cover only 42.9 percent of liabilities, leaving an unfunded liability of $104.6 billion.
Unfunded liabilities for retiree health costs. As of the end of FY 2013, the state had unfunded liabilities for retiree health costs of $34.5 billion.
Short-term inter-fund borrowing in FY 2015. Authorizing legislation for FY 2015 permits the General Funds to borrow $650 million from other funds to be paid back within 18 months.
Unpaid bills. As of December 2014, unpaid bills for services already provided to the state totaled $6.5 billion.

The total value of these obligations to pay for past deficits is $159 billion.

Budget Gap

Figure 2 shows a projected deficit of $9 billion for FY 2016 to 2022.

Illinois is projected to have total sustainable revenue in FY 2016 of $65 billion, but a much smaller amount represents state-controlled revenue. If we eliminate federal grants, health provider fees (linked to Medicaid spending), and the portion of sales, income, and other taxes transferred back to local governments, the state's own share of total revenue in FY 2016 is only $36.3 billion.

The $9 billion deficit represents 25 percent of that revenue. Raising all of Illinois' taxes and fees by 25 percent would be extremely difficult politically.

Crowding Out

Pay-later budgeting has been perpetuated by a political willingness to ignore the fact that every dollar borrowed to pay the bills in one year must be paid back with interest, thus crowding out what the state can spend on other priorities in future years.

Illinois' fiscal problems are huge, structural, and escalating quickly. The state's deficits cannot be eliminated by quick, temporary fixes, or by waiting for the economy to grow.

Digging out of our accumulated fiscal problems also requires changes in awareness and expectations.

Being saddled with paying off IOUs for past years' bills means that Illinois' citizens must reduce their expectations for the services that they can expect from government and be prepared to pay more for government now and in the future. Decision makers need to understand — and act on — the fact that pay-later financing hurts the state's residents and businesses in future years.

Estimating Crowding Out Effects Not Included in the Fiscal Futures Model

Some of the legacy costs detailed above have pay-off schedules and are included in the deficit projections, but others do not. The lack of a pay-off schedule can conceal but does not change the fact that legacy liabilities will crowd out other spending. In order to illustrate the magnitude of those "hidden" effects of past deficits, we use the Fiscal Futures Model to simulate of effects of specified pay-off schedules for the "hidden" liabilities.

Figure A1 shows the result of adding these three payment schedules to the Fiscal Futures Model.

Accumulated Debts Per Capita

The US Census Bureau reports the Illinois population is on the order of 13 million and growing slowly if at all.

The accumulated bill amounts to $12,538 per every man, woman, and child. But children don't pay bills or taxes.

So let's do the calculation based on the census estimate of 4,772,723 households. That accumulated bill amounts to $34,152 per household.

Problem Understated

I propose the Apocalypse Now study hugely understates Illinois problems.

What About?

What about aging infrastructure?
Boomer demographics?
Chicago schools?
Business flight?
Taxpayer flight?
Bond downgrades and higher borrowing costs?
Untenable pension plan assumptions?
Possibility of a significant stock market decline?

Sobering View

I discussed point eight in detail on July 21 in SuperBull Club: RBC Ups Morgan Stanley, Says Bull Market to Continue 6 Years; Sobering Alternative View from GMO.

Sobering Alternative View from GMO

In contrast, to the SuperBulls, I present the 7-Year Real Return Forecast of GMO.

*The chart represents real return forecasts for several asset classes and not for any GMO fund or strategy. These forecasts are forward‐looking statements based upon the reasonable beliefs of GMO and are not a guarantee of future performance. Forward‐looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and GMO assumes no duty to and does not undertake to update forward‐looking statements. Forward‐looking statements are subject to numerous assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, which change over time. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in forward-looking statements. U.S. inflation is assumed to mean revert to long‐term inflation of 2.2% over 15 years.

Rain on the SuperBull Party

Note that GMO expects negative real returns in US stocks, on average, for a full seven years.

I hate to ruin a SuperBull party with forecasts that have been historically among the best in the world, but so be it.

Reforms, Not Tax Hikes

Tax hikes are not the answer. Tax hikes will just cause more Illinois taxpayers and businesses to flee. Business exodus is already a serious problem. For details, please see Get Me the Hell Out of Here.

Massive reforms are the only thing that can possibly save this state.

Meanwhile, Debt downgrades from Moody's, Fitch, and the S&P are just around the bend, and deservedly so.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

China's Art of Propaganda: Future So Bright You Need Sunglasses Inside

Posted: 11 Sep 2015 12:10 PM PDT

The future of China is so bright you need to wear sunglasses inside to see.

That's the essence of recent propaganda from China, where the state promotes good lies with discussion of the bad truth strictly forbidden.

Please consider Don't Fret About the Data, China's GDP Forecast to be Good News.

"The focus for the month of September will be strengthening economic propaganda and . . . promoting the discourse on China's bright economic future and the superiority of China's system," the party's propaganda department said in a directive to national media outlets.

A photograph of the latest directive was posted online by California-based China Digital Times, which monitors Chinese media and internet censorship. "They want to control how the media frames and interprets [economic data], making sure that they all focus on positive things," said Xiao Qiang, CDT founder.

CDT also posted a notice from the chief editor's office at the Xinhua news agency, dated September 7, that reiterated the need to "stabilise expectations and inspire confidence". The Xinhua notice instructed staff to "please plan related reporting" and send their story ideas to the agency's Creative Planning Center.

This week, Chinese leaders went on a public relations offensive, having stayed largely silent during both a controversial stock market intervention launched in July and last month's "one-off" devaluation of the renminbi.

China's central bank remained silent for two days after devaluing the renminbi 1.9 per cent against the dollar on August 11 and adjusting its mechanism for setting the currency's daily dollar "reference rate".

David Bandurski, at the University of Hong Kong's China Media Project, said it was rare for the propaganda department to issue written rather than oral directives for fear they might leak. "Economic troubles have been a focus of concern in the party's news and propaganda work lately," he added. "The content of these purported propaganda instructions fits with what official state media have been pushing for the last few months."

An official whose name and phone number appeared on the Xinhua notice declined to comment. The party propaganda department could not be reached for comment.

Say the right things and you move up the party line. Say the wrong things and you are put in prison or shot.

China has no human rights, appalling property rights, illiquid bond markets of insufficient size, and a pegged currency it can no longer control smoothly. Capital controls round out the mess.

Yet, people think the Yuan will "soon" become the world's reserve currency, replacing the US dollar.

I have heard these yuan reserve currency "soon" stories for at least a decade. What a joke.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

CME Fedwatch and Bloomberg Rate Hike Odds Still Wrong; Deflationary Bust Coming

Posted: 11 Sep 2015 01:56 AM PDT

As of September 10, the CME has the odds of a September hike by the Fed at 24%. Bloomberg says the probability of a move is 28%.

Bloomberg Rate Hike Odds

CME Fedwatch Odds

Both Models Wrong

What's wrong with both models is they still presume a quarter point hike.

Neither Bloomberg nor the CME allows for the possibility of a Fed hike to precisely 0.25% or to a smaller tighter range.

Given the effective Fed Funds Rate is 0.14% (see upper right of Bloomberg chart), resetting the rate to a flat 0.25% from the current range of 0.00-0.25% (now at 0.14%), would be both a "move" and a "hike".

Tighter Range

The Fed could also use ranges as Bloomberg and CME imply, but target ranges in 1/8 of a point increments rather than 1/4 point increments.

For example the Fed could target a range of 0.25% to 0.375%.

I suspect the odds of a move to a flat 0.25 or a range (0.25% to 0.375%), are far greater than Bloomberg's "probability of a move" set at a mere 28%.

I went over this before, on August 19, in Plotting the Fed's Baby Step 1/8 Point Hikes; Yellen vs. Greenspan "Measured Pace".

I updated my charts today.

Flattening of Rate Hike Expectations

Using Fed fund futures from CME, I calculated implied interest rates through December 2017. The line in Blue shows what futures implied on August 19. The line in red is from September 10.

Note the flattening of the curve. This has been happening pretty much all year.

The market initially penned in hikes for January. The hikes then shifted to March, then June, then September, and now December by both the Bloomberg and CME models.

Range Watch

Curve Watchers Anonymous is closely watching the implied baby steps in the Fed fund futures. Incrementally, the hikes appear as follows.

Month	Fed Funds Future	Rise in Implied Rate
Aug-15	99.863
Sep-15	99.835	0.028
Oct-15	99.805	0.030
Nov-15	99.765	0.040
Dec-15	99.720	0.045
Jan-16	99.685	0.035
Feb-16	99.645	0.040
Mar-16	99.610	0.035
Apr-16	99.560	0.050
May-16	99.520	0.040
Jun-16	99.480	0.040
Jul-16	99.435	0.045
Aug-16	99.385	0.050
Sep-16	99.350	0.035
Oct-16	99.295	0.055
Nov-16	99.230	0.065
Dec-16	99.170	0.060
Jan-17	99.135	0.035
Feb-17	99.055	0.080
Mar-17	99.020	0.035
Apr-17	98.970	0.050
May-17	98.915	0.055
Jun-17	98.875	0.040
Jul-17	98.830	0.045
Aug-17	98.780	0.050
Sep-17	98.740	0.040
Oct-17	98.700	0.040
Nov-17	98.650	0.050
Dec-17	98.615	0.035

Baby Steps Plotted

Fed fund futures imply a very slow tightening of 3-6 basis points a month. The only exception is January to February of 2017 where the incremental rise is 8 basis points (0.080 percentage points).

The Fed does not set policy every month. Instead it does so about eight times a year. FOMC dates are not yet set for 2017, but futures imply something like the following.

Fed Rate Hike Expectations Through 2017

Yellen vs. Greenspan

The above market expectations are clearly similar to Greenspan's famous statement: Hikes will be at a "pace that's likely to be measured".
The Yellen expected "pace" is half as often.
The Yellen expected "measure" is half as much.

Just Get On With It!

Via email, Albert Edwards at Society General writes:

The clamour for the Fed not to enact the long-awaited ¼% rate hike next week is growing by the day. Misgivings come not just from reputable mainstream commentators, but now also the World Bank has repeated the IMF's recent words of caution in advising delay. What a load of nonsense! My esteemed colleague Kit Juckes characterises the current consensus thinking as "If the Fed hikes, pestilence, plague and never-ending deflation will follow." Well even those like me who see a deflationary bust awaiting think the Fed should hike next week – because the longer you leave it, the bigger the financial market excesses become, and the bigger the risk of financial dislocation and global recession ensuing. Have we learned nothing from the 2008 Great Recession? Just get on with it!

Exactly!

A deflationary bust is coming and there is nothing the Fed or any central bankers can do about it.

And when the bubble busts, Paul Krugman, Larry Summers, the World Bank, and Christine Lagarde at the IMF will all be singing the "I told you so" tune.

The irony is Krugman, Summers, the World Bank and the IMF are all wrong. The seeds of the upcoming deflationary bust were planted, watered, and over-fertilized by central bankers everywhere, all in the asinine name of "price stability" and deflation fighting.

For further discussion on the sheer ridiculousness of price stability policy, see Cross-Border Deflation: US Export Prices Collapse Most Since July 2009; How Damaging is Price Deflation?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Damn Cool Pics

The World's 17 Most Dangerous Foods [Infographic]

Posted: 11 Sep 2015 05:40 PM PDT

Mr Gamez compiled an infographic of the world's 17 deadliest foods, along with some interesting notes about each deathtrap and why consumers should beware.

Click on Image to Enlarge.

The Craziest Things That Have Ever Happened in the Apple Store

Posted: 11 Sep 2015 02:15 PM PDT

The Impact of Queries, Long and Short Clicks, and Click Through Rate on Google's Rankings - Whiteboard Friday - Moz Blog

The Impact of Queries, Long and Short Clicks, and Click Through Rate on Google's Rankings - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by randfish

Through experimentation and analysis of patents that Google has submitted, we've come to know some interesting things about what the engine values. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand covers some of what Google likely learns from certain user behavior, specifically queries, CTR, and long vs. short clicks.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to chat about click-through rate, queries and clicks, long versus short clicks, and queries themselves in terms of how they impact the ranking.

So recently we've had, in the last year, a ton of very interesting experiments, or at least a small handful of very interesting experiments, looking at the impact that could be had by getting together kind of a sample set of searchers and having them perform queries, click on things, click on things and click the back button. These experiments have actually shown results. At least some of them have. Others haven't. There are interesting dichotomies between the two that I'll talk about at the end of this.

But because of that and because of some recent patent applications and some research papers that have come to light from the search engines themselves, we started to rethink the way user and usage data are making their way into search engines, and we're starting to rethink the importance of them. You can see that in the ranking factor survey this year, folks giving user and usage data a higher than ever sentiment around the importance of that information in search rankings.

3 elements that (probably) impact your rankings

So let me talk about three different elements that we are experiencing and that we have been talking about in the SEO world and how they can impact your rankings potentially.

1) Queries

This has to do primarily with a paper that Google wrote or a patent application that they wrote around site quality and the quality of search results. Queries themselves could be used in the search results to say, "Hey, wait a minute, we, Google, see a lot of searches that are combining a brand name with a generic term or phrase, and because we're seeing that, we might start to associate the generic term with the brand term."

I'll give you an example. I've done a search here for sushi rice. You can see there's Alton Brown ranking number one, and then norecipes.com, makemysushi.com, and then Morimoto. Morimoto's recipe is in Food & Wine. If lots and lots of folks are starting to say like, "Wow, Morimoto sushi rice is just incredible," and it kind of starts up this movement around, "How do we recreate Morimoto sushi rice," so many, many people are performing searches specifically for Morimoto sushi rice, not just generic sushi rice, Google might start to see that and say, "You know what? Because I see that hundreds of people a day are searching for this particular brand, the Morimoto sushi rice recipe, maybe I should take the result from Morimoto on foodandwine.com and move that higher up in the rankings than I normally would have them."

Those queries themselves are impacting the search results for the non-branded version, just the sushi rice version of that query. Google's written about this. We're doing some interesting testing around this right now with the IMEC Labs, and maybe I'll be able to report more soon in the future on the impact of that. Some folks in the SEO space have already reported that they see this impact as their brand grows, and as these brand associations grow, their rankings for the non-branded term rise as well, even if they're not earning a bunch of links or getting a lot of other ranking signals that you'd normally expect.

2) Clicks and click through rate

So Google might be thinking if there's a result that's significantly over-performing its rankings ordinary position performance, so if for example we say, let's look at the third result. Here's "How to make perfect sushi rice."

This is from makemysushi.com. Let's imagine that the normal in this set of search results that, on average, the position three result gets about 11%, but Google is seeing that these guys makemysushi.com is getting a 25% click-through rate, much higher than their normal 11%. Well, Google might kind of scratch their head and go, "You know what? It seems like whatever the snippet is here or the title, the domain, the meta description, whatever is showing here, is really interesting folks. So perhaps we should rank them higher than they rank today."

Maybe that the click-through rate is a signal to Google of, "Gosh, people are deeply interested in this. It's more interesting than the average result of that position. Let's move them up." This is something I've tested, that IMEC Labs have tested and seen results. At least when it's done with real searchers and enough of them to have an impact, you can kind of observe this. There was a post on my blog last year, and we did a series of several experiments, several of which have showed results time and time again. That's a pretty interesting one that click-through rate can be done like that.

3) Long versus short clicks

So this is essentially if searchers are clicking on a particular result, but they're immediately clicking the back button and going back to the search results and choosing a different result, that could tell the search engine, could tell Google that, "You know, maybe that result is not that great. Maybe searchers are deeply unhappy with that result for whatever reason."

For example, let's say Google looked at number two, the norecipes.com, and they looked at number four from Food & Wine, and they said, "Gosh, the number two result has an average time on site of 11 seconds and a bounce back to the SERPs rate of 76%. So 76% of searchers who click on No Recipes from this particular search come back and choose a different result. That's clearly they're very disappointed.

But number four, the Food & Wine result, from Morimoto, time on site average is like 2 minutes and 50 seconds. That's where we see them, and of course they can get this data from places like Chrome. They can get it from Android. They are not necessarily looking at the same numbers that you're looking at in your Analytics. They're not taking it from Google Analytics. I believe them when they say that they're not. But certainly if you look at the terms of use in terms of service for Chrome and Android, they are allowed to collect that data and use it any way they want.

The return to SERPs rate is only 9%. So 91% of the people who are hitting Food & Wine, they're staying on there. They're satisfied. They don't have to search for sushi rice recipes anymore. They're happy. Well, this tells Google, "Maybe that number two result is not making my searchers happy, and potentially I should rank number four instead."

There are some important items to consider around all this...

Because if your gears turn the way my gears turned, you're always thinking like, "Wait a minute. Can't black hat folks manipulate this stuff? Isn't this really open to all sorts of noise and problems?" The answer is yeah, it could be. But remember a few things.

First off, gaming this almost never works.

In fact, there is a great study published on Search Engine Land. It was called, I think, something like "Click-through rate is not an organic ranking signal. It doesn't work." It talked about a guy who fired up a ton of proxy servers, had them click a bunch of stuff, faking traffic essentially by using bots, and didn't see any movement at all.

But you compare that to another report that was published on Search Engine Land, again just recently, which replicated the experiment that I and the IMEC Labs folks did using real human beings, and they did see results. The rankings rose rather quickly and kind of stayed there. So real human beings searching, very different story from bots searching.

Look, we remember back in the days when AdWords first came out, when Omniture was there, that Google did spend a ton of time and a lot of work to identify fraudulent types of clicks, fraudulent types of search activity, and they do a great job of limiting that in the AdWords account. I'm sure that they're doing that on the organic SEO side as well.

So manipulation is going to be very, very tough if not impossible. If you don't get real searchers and a real pattern that looks like a bunch of people who are logged in, logged out, geographically distributed, distributed by demographic profile, distributed by previous searcher behavior, look like they're real normal people searching, if you don't have that kind of a pattern, this stuff is not going to work. Plenty of our experiments didn't work as well.

What if I make my site better for no gain in rankings?

Even if none of this is a ranking factor. Even if you say to yourself, "You know what? Rand, none of the experiments that you ran or IMEC Labs ran or the Search Engine Land study published, none of them, I don't believe them. I think they're all wrong. I find holes in all of them." Guess what? So what? It doesn't matter.

Is there any reason that you wouldn't optimize for a higher click-through rate? Is there any reason you wouldn't optimize for longer clicks versus shorter clicks? Is there any reason that you wouldn't optimize to try and get more branded search traffic, people associating your brand with the generic term? No way. You're going to do this any way. It's one of those wonderful benefits of doing holistic, broad thinking SEO and broad organic marketing in general that helps you whether you believe these are ranking signals or not, and that's a great thing.

The experiments have been somewhat inconsistent.

But there are some patterns in them. As we've been running these, what we've seen is if you get more people searching, you tend to have a much better chance of getting a good result. The test that I ran on Twitter and on social media, that had several thousand people participating, up, up, up, up, rose right up to the top real fast. The ones that only had a few hundred people didn't seem to move the needle.

Same story with long tail queries versus more head of the demand curve stuff. It's harder to move more entrenched rankings just like it would be with links. The results tended to last only between a few hours and a few days. I think that makes total sense as well, because after you've inflated the click signals or query signals or long click signals or whatever it is with these experimental results, over time those are going to fall away and the norm that existed previously is going to return. So naturally you would expect to see those results return back to what they were prior to the experiments.

So with all that said, I'm looking forward to some great discussion in the Q&A. I know that plenty of you out there have been trying and experimenting on your own with this stuff, and some of you have seen great results from improving your click-through rates, improving your snippets, making your pages better for searchers and keeping them on it longer. I'm sure we're going to have some interesting discussion about all these types of experiments.

So we'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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Seth's Blog : A fly on the wall

A fly on the wall

It's easier than ever to listen in, to hear what your customers say about you, to read what your friends are posting, to eavesdrop. Keep surveying your employees, tap their phone lines, hang out in a stall in the break room...

If you try hard enough, you can hear what people are saying about you behind your back.

The thing about the fly on the wall, though, is at the end of the day, he spends a lot of time eating dung.

What people say isn't always what they mean. It's more productive to watch what they do.

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joi, 10 septembrie 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

UPS Pilots Seek Strike: Union says Salary of $238,000 Not Enough
Cross-Border Deflation: US Export Prices Collapse Most Since July 2009; How Damaging is Price Deflation?
China PPI Declines 42nd Consecutive Month; Banks Struggle to Contain Devaluation Fallout; More Capital Controls

UPS Pilots Seek Strike: Union says Salary of $238,000 Not Enough

Posted: 10 Sep 2015 04:18 PM PDT

With the holiday shopping season just about upon us, the Independent Pilots Association (IPA), a trade union representing pilots at UPS, said its leadership has called on its 2,528 members to authorize a pilot strike against UPS.

Please consider Further Airline Problems are Brewing at UPS.

The possibility of a major disruption to UPS domestic and international air cargo services has moved closer after the union representing pilots at the parcel giant asked its members to back a strike.

The Teamsters have also ended talks with the airline and called a strike.

The Independent Pilots Association representing all UPS pilots says that negotiations which began four years ago have gone on too long.

UPS said it wants to reach an agreement as soon a possible, but such contracts often take years to agree because of their complexity.

The company has claimed that the threat of a strike is costing it about $5 million a day in business lost to competitors such as the US Postal Service and Federal Express Corp.

IPA Claim

Captain Robert Travis, Independent Pilots Association: "UPS has stalled and delayed, unnecessarily prolonging our negotiations"

UPS Claim

"During the 27-year history of UPS Airlines, we have successfully negotiated four contracts with our pilots, who are the top earners in commercial aviation. We hope to reach a new agreement as quickly as possible. However, airline industry contracts often take multiple years to complete. This is due to the complexity of the pacts and the protections of the Railway Labor Act (RLA) [the U.S. law that governs airline contract talks]. Under the RLA, airline contracts do not expire, they become amendable. Their terms remain in force while the new contract is negotiated. This is true even when the union employs tactics such as a strike authorization vote, a routine show of solidarity in airline negotiations that is legally irrelevant to the actual proceedings."

Pity the Pilots

Captains have a guaranteed salary of $255,128, with a typical captain earning another $35,000.
FedEx captains earn a guaranteed $230,379.
The average pay of all UPS pilots, including captains and first officers, is $238,000, dwarfing the median wage for a U.S. commercial airline pilot at $98,410 based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
UPS crew members enjoy two company-funded retirement plans in addition to a traditional 401(k)
UPS offers comprehensive health insurance with an annual contribution that costs a third less than what a typical U.S. family pays.

Reader Anecdotes

Reader Tim Wallace writes ...

Hello Mish

I flew home recently with a UPS pilot who told me he loves his job. Now I know why. He does the international loop, in which he is away 8 days at a time, then home for 10. Not a bad gig.

Tim

Railway Labor Act

Wikipedia reports the Railway Labor Act is a "United States federal law that governs labor relations in the railroad and airline industries. The Act, passed in 1926 and amended in 1934 and 1936, seeks to substitute bargaining, arbitration and mediation for strikes as a means of resolving labor disputes. Its provisions were originally enforced under the Board of Mediation, but were later enforced under a National Mediation Board."

Strike Threats

These strike threats drag out for years because of mandated negotiations, and specific rules over "major" and "minor" disputes.

Unions can strike over major disputes only after they have exhausted the RLA's "almost interminable" negotiation and mediation procedures. They cannot, on the other hand, strike over minor disputes, either during the arbitration procedures or after an award is issued.

Government Meddling

Once again, note the problems where government meddles. Businesses and private taxpayers alike, all pay higher shipping costs because of nonsensical mandated arbitration, collective bargaining, and forced unionization.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Cross-Border Deflation: US Export Prices Collapse Most Since July 2009; How Damaging is Price Deflation?

Posted: 10 Sep 2015 10:33 AM PDT

Export Prices Collapse Most Since July 2009

Today's Import/Export report will have alarm bells ringing in the heads of various Fed members.

Month over month, export prices fell 1.4% with the Bloomberg Consensus opinion at -0.4%. The decline was outside the range of any estimate.

Economists' estimates ranged from -1% to +0.1%.

Significant declines sweep nearly all categories of the import & export price report pointing squarely to a deepening of cross-border deflationary pressures. Import prices fell 1.8 percent in August, slightly more than expected, while export prices fell 1.4 percent which is substantially more than expected. The monthly drops for both are the steepest since the oil-price rout of January.

Petroleum pulled down the import side but even when excluding petroleum, prices fell 0.4 percent. Export prices were hit by lower prices for industrial supplies, foods-feeds-beverages, and also agricultural products. And finished goods, whether on the import or export side, show a run of minus signs for both the monthly readings and the year-on-year readings.

Year-on-year rates are severe, at minus 11.4 percent for total imports, which is the lowest since September 2009, and minus 7.0 percent for exports which is the lowest since July 2009.

Let's dive into the BLS report on U.S. Import and Export Prices for more details and charts.

Import Prices

click on any chart for sharper image

Export Prices

Year-Over-Year Import and Export Price History Since 1990

Cross-Border Price Deflation

In case you missed it, please see China PPI Declines 42nd Consecutive Month; Banks Struggle to Contain Devaluation Fallout; More Capital Controls.

How Damaging is Price Deflation?

The Fed focus on prices is ridiculous as noted on numerous occasions.

For discussion of the nonsensical perils of CPI deflation, please see Historical Perspective on CPI Deflations: How Damaging are They?

The Fed's very attempt at producing "price stability" does exactly the opposite over the long haul. It is only over the short haul in which Fed policy actually "appears" to work.

Middle-class damaging boom bust cycles of ever-increasing amplitude over time are proof enough.

I would love to debate Bernanke, Yellen, or Krugman on this any time, any place.

Steve Keen on the Exponential Credit Petri Dish

Price stability is defined by the Fed as 2% CPI inflation annualized, perpetually. That's an exponential function.

For further rebuttal and charts of the Fed's nonsensical definition of "stability", please see my posted email from Steve Keen regarding the Exponential Credit Petri Dish.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

China PPI Declines 42nd Consecutive Month; Banks Struggle to Contain Devaluation Fallout; More Capital Controls

Posted: 09 Sep 2015 11:29 PM PDT

China Deflation Fears Grow

Bad news stories continue in China today with reports of more capital controls, devaluation fallout, and another drop in the Producer Price Index (PPI).

Reuters reports China Deflation Fears Grow as Producer Prices Sink Most in Six Years.

China's manufacturers slashed prices at the fastest rate in six years in August as commodity prices fell and demand cooled, signaling stubborn deflation risks in the economy and adding to expectations for further stimulus measures.

The producer price index (PPI) fell 5.9 percent in August from the same period last year, its 42nd consecutive month of decline and the biggest drop since the depths of the global financial crisis in late 2009, data showed on Thursday.

Official and private factory surveys last week also showed manufacturers laid off workers at a faster rate last month as their order books shrank.

More Capital Controls

The Financial Times reports Beijing Clamps Down on Forex Deals to Stem Capital Flight

China has tightened its capital controls, in a sharp reversal of its market liberalising rhetoric, as it struggles to contain the fallout from last month's devaluation of the renminbi.

The August 11 devaluation unleashed turmoil on global stock markets and policy confusion at home, forcing the central bank to spend up to $200bn to support the currency. The prospect of an interest rate rise in the US has further encouraged capital flight.

The Safe [State Administration of Foreign Exchange] has ordered banks and financial institutions to pay particular attention to the practice of over-invoicing exports, used to disguise large capital outflows. The administration confirmed the existence of the memo, but declined to comment further.

For the first time since it began internationalising its currency a few years ago, the central bank has also been intervening heavily in the offshore renminbi market to narrow the gap between the onshore (CNY) and offshore (CNH) exchange rates.

Analysts and people familiar with the matter say Beijing has spent up to $200bn defending the currency, but the net impact on the reserves is disguised by fluctuating valuations of reserve assets and other inflows into the reserves.

"They have gone from a credible peg that cost them almost nothing to a weak peg that nobody believes and that is costing them more than $10bn a day to defend. They're paying huge sums for something they had for free just a few weeks ago," said one person with close ties to China's central bank.

In another move to lighten its burden of defending the currency, the central bank informed banks last week that it would soon impose a new 20 per cent reserve requirement on all currency forward positions, in a move aimed at reducing heavy speculation on continued renminbi devaluation.

All market participants will be required to deposit the equivalent of 20 per cent of their forwards book with the central bank for one year at zero interest.

This will considerably increase the cost of currency hedging for Chinese companies, which had a total of $1.2tn in outstanding foreign currency debt by the end of March and are widely expecting further devaluation in the renminbi.

Quite the Reversal

It was not that long ago that hedge funds had massive bets the value of the Yaun would rise. China even took steps to stop "hot money" from flowing into the country.

Hot money, and then some is now going the other way.

By the way, please recall all the inflationists telling China to stockpile copper, lead, and other commodities instead of holding US treasuries, frequently labeled "worthless certificates of confiscation".

In retrospect, pro-cyclical stockpiling of commodities now looks foolish to nearly everyone. I took the other side of the argument at the time, as did Michael Pettis.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

vineri, 11 septembrie 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics

The Impact of Queries, Long and Short Clicks, and Click Through Rate on Google's Rankings - Whiteboard Friday - Moz Blog

The Impact of Queries, Long and Short Clicks, and Click Through Rate on Google's Rankings - Whiteboard Friday

Video Transcription

3 elements that (probably) impact your rankings

1) Queries

2) Clicks and click through rate

3) Long versus short clicks

There are some important items to consider around all this...

First off, gaming this almost never works.

What if I make my site better for no gain in rankings?

The experiments have been somewhat inconsistent.

Seth's Blog : A fly on the wall

A fly on the wall

More Recent Articles

Google ranking changes of your website

joi, 10 septembrie 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

vineri, 11 septembrie 2015

Video Transcription

3 elements that (probably) impact your rankings

1) Queries

2) Clicks and click through rate

3) Long versus short clicks

There are some important items to consider around all this...

First off, gaming this almost never works.

What if I make my site better for no gain in rankings?

The experiments have been somewhat inconsistent.

joi, 10 septembrie 2015

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

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