miercuri, 23 decembrie 2015

Seth's Blog : Half measures



Half measures

If you're hungry, half a meal is better than no meal.

But if you need light, half a lightbulb is actually worse than none at all.

If you're hoping for an 8% return on your investment, 4% is a lot better than zero.

And half a home run is worse than nothing.

We make two common mistakes:

Refusing half when it's a whole lot better than nothing, and,

Accepting half when we'd be better off waiting for what we really need.

We are at our best when we set our standards before the offer comes, and when we don't waver in the moment.

       

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marți, 22 decembrie 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


Merkel-Enhanced Migration Problem: Million Refugees Hit Europe, 80% Through Greece by Boat; Turkish Mafia, Banks Pave the Way

Posted: 22 Dec 2015 06:25 PM PST

Over a million refugees have made their way to Europe this year. Every country is complaining now, even Germany. So why isn't anything concrete being done?

Why the Problem Is Not Fixed

If Turkey, Greece, or Germany really wanted to solve the migration problem, the problem would be solved.

However, there's too much ignorance in Germany and too much graft money in Turkey. Greece does not have the resources or the willpower to do the right thing: send them back.

Million Refugees Hit Europe, Primarily Through Greece by Boat

The Financial Times reports More than 1 Million Refugees Arrive in Europe.
The International Organisation for Migration reported on Tuesday that the number of migrants had hit 1,005,504. That is almost five times greater than the total last year, and was the highest migration flow since the second world war.

The vast majority of the migrants — 821,008 — arrived in Greece. Almost all of them came by boat, according to the IOM, a Geneva-based intergovernmental organization.

Italy received the second biggest total: 150,317. Bulgaria was third, with 29,959 arrivals.
Merkel-Made Migration Problem

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is too damn stupid or too damn arrogant to do anything about the problem.

Besides, there's simply too much money to be made by the Turkish mafia and Turkish banks for anyone in Turkey too give a hoot.

Turkish Mafia, Banks Pave the Way

As is typically the case, when there's money to be made, heads look the other way. Such is the case right now with Turkish profits fueling the "Merkel-made" problem.

In a scathing explanation (that Merkel will ignore and Western media won't report on), please consider How the Turkish mafia organizes the trafficking of refugees .
His name is Osman. Or, that's how he introduced himself. He is one of the top members of the Turkish mafia doing business upon migrants and refugees in Turkey. He is not hiding ... "If the Turkish government didn't want us to do the job we do, we couldn't pass to Greece not even a fly" says disarmingly.

Stratis Balaskas for the Athens News Agency

He has a store in İzmir selling food stuff. It is a big store in Basmane, the district of Greeks and Jews before 1922, which was saved from the fire. The Turks in the district call him "Damascus". As they say "there are more Syrians here than in Syria". However, the picture of the area is not as it was last summer. There are no Syrians in the streets. The municipality authorities re-planted the grass in parks, there is not even a single Syrian.

Yet ... there are!

Osman explains to us that now "they stay in houses which have been rented especially for this purpose. They cannot move freely, their transportation is done through private cars which take them from their houses and leave them on starting points. From there they are being transferred to the departure spots."

They are being transferred through many ways that show the size and the ruthlessness of the network.

So, migrants and refugees have been transported by Osman in areas at the Turkish side, located across Lesvos and Chios, through buses carried by trucks for roadside assistance. Through school buses during the hours that are not being used for the transportation of the kids. Through convoys of private vehicles, which means that even if a car would be stopped by the police, the others could continue to their destination. But there is also ... VIP transportation, like of rich Arabs with Russian escorts, even through ... hearses! The latest, as Osman says, are expensive services and being paid nearly as much as the trip to islands.

But let's go back to İzmir where we find the base of the network. Under the fear of the measures that allegedly will be taken by the Turkish authorities, after the European pressure, the network has the following plan schedule.

On the top stand the members of the mafia. Most of them do this job for more than 20 years. The old times were doing it for a nice daily wage. Now, and especially the latest year, there is too much money in the business and it is worth someone to risk.

On the other side of the network stand some locals. They possess some spaces from where the boats can start their journey safely. They are responsible to keep the passage safe and clean. They are also responsible for the training of someone among the passengers on how should handle the boat. Or, they should pay someone, say 100 euros each time, to transfer the boat with the passengers to the islands and return to the base.

In the middle of these groups, there are mainly two categories of people involved. The "dealers", which are those who find "customers" and pass them to the top members of the mafia. They are doing it through Facebook pages, or, phone numbers that are distributed among the "customers". They "fill" the boat with passengers every time that the top members have one ready for departure.

Close to them stand the "bankers" of the network who are responsible for receiving the payments. Anyone who wants to be transported pays them through any way he/she can. With money or services. Jewelry, valuable stones, or even archaeological pieces! From the moment of the payment, he/she has three days to pass to Europe. After the end of the journey, every migrant and refugee calls a phone number and gives a code number which has been provided when he/she paid. Then, the payments are "released" and the "banker" has to pay everyone involved. About 15-20% is being paid to all who are involved to the transportation and the rest goes to the top member of the network, in our case, Osman.

"Why do you take most of the money?", we ask him. He explains that he has too much expenses. He pays for the plastic boats which, depending on their size and the quality of the engine, cost between 800 and 20,000 euro! These are being bought legally. Therefore, the police can't do anything, even if they stop him while carrying the boats.

He also pays the "bankers". They take between 20 and 100 euro for every payment. They also keep all the money from those who do not call to confirm that they arrived at the destination, either because they have been drowned, or have been arrested by the coast guard and have been sent back to camps in South-East Turkey.

"I don't want blood money" [!], Osman says with audacity. But frequently claims that there are "rules of morality" in his job. Because, as he says, the top members "are moral"! They do not let people pass under stormy sea. They do not fill with more than 50 people every big boat, or 20, every small one. They transport people only in plastic boats. Other locals and Arabs are responsible for the wooden boats. Those Arabs "we had as mediators because of the language, but they opened their own businesses and sent people to be drowned. These are usually being caught by the Turkish coast guard, or they risk transporting people with big boats resulting in accidents like the one that happened in Lesvos in 28th October."

Osman is completely informed about the situation in Lesvos. He knows about the accidents, the dead people, the hot spots, and all the problems in the islands. He knows of course very well what happens also in Turkey. For example, he said that during a weekend last month, no one passed to Lesvos because of the presence of Erdogan in the area for the celebration of olive collection. "We should not provoke" says laughing.

He says goodbye "because he has work to do". We ask him if he worries for telling these things to us. He's not afraid. "I told you again" he says. "If the Turkish government didn't want us to do the job we do, we couldn't pass to Greece not even a fly"! Besides, he made a lot of money. "I don't have to work. Neither my children and my grandchildren. Today, if someone tells me to stop, I'll do it. But no one tells me ..." he says as we leave!
A tip of the hat to "The Failed Revolution" for the above translation from the original Greek article that Google translates as Greek Refugee Trafficker Confesses.

Amazingly, Merkel's solution was to get in bed with Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, offering Erdoğan three billion euros to stem the tide.

Her proposed "solution" is absurd enough, but Merkel also held out a carrot to speed the way in granting 75 million Turks passport-free access to the EU.

Even if Turkey does temporarily pen in the refugees, they will be released in a massive flood once Turkey is a member of the passport-free Schengen zone.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Afghanistan: Another Broken Obama Promise; Taliban Poised to Retake Sangin; Money Trail Shows Billions of Fraud; Mish 5-Point Solution

Posted: 22 Dec 2015 01:16 PM PST

A resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan highlights another miserable failure of the Obama administration as well as another broken promise.

Taliban Poised to Retake Sangin

The Financial Times reports Taliban Poised to Retake Sangin from Afghan Army.
Afghanistan's Taliban rebels appear poised to retake the strategically vital town of Sangin raising fears the Islamist militants could control the important poppy-growing areas of Helmand province.

Members of Afghanistan's poorly trained armed forces on Tuesday were reportedly struggling to hold on in the face of a determined rebel push that saw them seize the town's police headquarters.

Security analysts said Taliban forces were determined to regain control of Helmand, a region with which many Taliban leaders have close ties, and where they enjoy considerable popular support.

"Helmand is a base area for many of the Taliban leaders," said Ahmed Rashid, the author of several books on Afghanistan, Pakistan and central Asia. "It is dear and important to them."

He also said the Taliban was likely to try to declare an alternative governing council once they gained full control over Helmand, which would be a further blow to the Afghan government in Kabul.

The central government in Kabul is facing instability across the region, with a Taliban suicide bombing near Bagram in the east of the country killing six US soldiers on Monday in one of the deadliest attacks on foreign forces in Afghanistan this year.

Although Nato's combat role in Afghanistan ended in 2014, the battle for Sangin highlights how stretched the Afghan security forces have become in holding back the Taliban advance.

Defence analysts say they are badly stretched trying to hold back the Taliban advance on multiple fronts, with fears the militants will capture further swathes of territory.

At the height of the international military intervention in Afghanistan, tens of thousands of educated Afghans were employed in service jobs, supporting the international forces, but most of these jobs disappeared with the drawdown of foreign troops, with nothing to take their place.

Afghans fleeing their country's grim situation have been a significant component of the wave of migrants that have sought refuge in Europe this year.
Another Badly Broken Obama Promise

The Washington Post reports Hope fades on Obama's vow to bring troops home before presidency ends.
In meeting after meeting this spring and summer, President Obama insisted that the last American troops in Afghanistan would return home by the end of his presidency, definitively ending the longest war in American history.

Afghanistan has been the one constant that spans his two terms in office. As an inexperienced president, Obama decided to send more than 50,000 American troops into Afghanistan in an attempt to blunt the Taliban's momentum, bolster the Afghan army and improve the prospects for reconciliation in a country that had experienced three decades of civil war.

Nearly seven years later, the leaders of Afghanistan's new unity government were still feuding, Afghan security forces were losing ground to insurgents, and the prospects for reconciliation with the Taliban seemed bleak.

In early October, Obama summed up one of the biggest lessons he's taken from America's interventions in these fractured societies. "What we've learned over the last 10, 12, 13 years is that unless we can get the parties on the ground to agree to live together in some fashion, then no amount of U.S. military engagement will solve the problem," he said at a news conference.
Did Obama Learn Anything?

Why did it take 13 years to "learn" the intuitively obvious? Did Obama really learn anything or did he parrot a statement?

If indeed the president has learned something, then what the hell is he doing with that information? Has he changed tactics? Withdrawn the troops?

Well, not exactly.

Obama Flips On Afghanistan Withdrawal Plan

On October 15, the Huffington Post reported Obama Flips On Afghanistan Withdrawal Plan.
President Barack Obama will keep 5,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan when he leaves office in 2017, according to senior administration officials, casting aside his promise to end the war on his watch and instead ensuring he hands the conflict off to his successor.

Obama had originally planned to pull out all but a small, embassy-based U.S. military presence by the end of next year, a timeline coinciding with the final weeks of his presidency. But military leaders argued for months that the Afghans needed additional assistance and support from the U.S. to beat back a resurgent Taliban and hold onto gains made over the last 14 years of American bloodshed and billions of dollars in aid.
Money Trail: Where Did Billions in Aid Go?

Inquiring minds just may be wondering: "Where the hell did billions of dollars of aid money go?"

That's a damn good question, too. For the answer, please consider "Money Trail".

This week, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) released a report that outlined how the Pentagon spent nearly $43 million on building a gas station in the Afghan provincial town of Sheberghan. Though comparable stations in Pakistan cost only $500,000, the report cited Pentagon claims that it could provide no explanation for the enormous cost of the project.

John Sopko is a lawyer and a veteran investigator for Congress and government, appointed to the job in 2012. He heads a team of 200 investigators and support staff, more than a quarter of them in Afghanistan. When he visits the country, he moves with a large security detail, since he is considered a high-value target—though not necessarily by the Taliban.

Where did the one hundred and something billion dollars go?


One hundred and ten billion I think is where our best guesstimate is. It may even be higher now. The [cost of] the total conflict there is over a trillion dollars. The actual fighting of the war over the last thirteen to fourteen years cost a lot more than reconstruction. War fighting is more expensive. Reconstruction is relatively cheap if it's done right. A lot of it was lost, fraud, waste, and abuse. I don't know what percentage. We just don't have the time or the ability to calculate the loss, but a significant amount of that number is lost.

When you go there, do you see 110 billion dollars worth of reconstruction? Could you put a price on what you do see?

No, I can't. We keep finding horror stories all the time. A lot of it was just stolen.

When you get into a war it's like you're on steroids, everything is just crazy, people are shooting at you. When you're on steroids, when you're in Afghanistan, you're spending more on AID [the Agency for International Development] than the next four countries combined. But the head of AID only visited Afghanistan twice. He rarely focused on it. He was more interested in something else, other issues were more important to him. It wasn't a priority.

The way we reward people in the government is not based on saving money. If you're a procurement officer your reward is on how much money you procure, how much money you put on contract. If you have a reward system in place, if you have a human resources system that rotates people out every six months, what do you expect is going to happen? Welcome to my world. It was a disaster ready to happen, and it happened.

See this airplane here? [Gesturing toward a plastic model of a twin-engine transport plane sitting on his office windowsill] That's a model of the G222. It was an airplane we purchased out of an Italian boneyard for . . . They were almost scrap. We purchased it for 400–500 million dollars. We sent twenty of them over to Afghanistan. They were the wrong plane for the country, the altitude, the weather. They were basically referred to as death traps. They couldn't fly over there. The Afghans couldn't be trained on them. When I first saw them, they were sitting outside the airport in Kabul just rusting with trees growing through them. They were eventually turned into—when we started the investigation—scrap. We got three cents on the dollar. That's a 400–500-million-dollar investment. We don't know the exact figure. No one has been fired for purchasing that airplane.

How much of the money never left here [the US]?

Quite a bit. I don't have the percentage, but quite a bit ended up in the coffers of consultants, firms here, and it never got to Afghanistan, and that is a true complaint about our assistance program, high overhead costs. Again, nobody is minding the store. We also get instances where we do financial audits and we can't find any records to support the costs to the U.S. government. We just had one for 130–135 million dollars.

What was that for?

It was for Afghan National Security Forces training in the eastern part of the country. [The contract was with Jorge Scientific, recipients of $1 billion in contracts.]

They just didn't have any records, so for 130-some million dollars they couldn't support where the money went.

We've had instances where we've questioned costs and they said, "Oh, a flood or a fire," or, you know, "Somebody lost the records." Our concern is, when you can't support the record, can't support a cost, that it could just be fraudulent.

We just issued a report on what we call the 64K. The sixty-four-thousand-square-foot building in Camp Leatherneck where three generals on the ground said, "We don't need it, we don't want it, we're not going to use it, don't build it." They were overruled by a general sitting back in a comfortable office, not in the fog of war, back in Kuwait or Qatar or wherever he was, and he said, "Well, since it was supplemental appropriations it would be unwise or imprudent to ignore the wishes of Congress." So we spent 36 million dollars on a building that was totally built, never used, and has been turned over to the Afghans. As far as we know, it's empty.

Another example I like to cite for just how we don't understand Afghanistan: somebody came up with a brilliant idea in the Department of Agriculture that Afghans really should eat more soy. So they spent 36 million dollars on creating a soy program. The Afghans don't grow soy, they don't eat soy, they don't like the taste of soy. But we spent 36 million dollars doing this. We were kind of putting our value system, you know, you should have a low carb diet, onto the Afghans. It was a total disaster from the beginning to the end.

Nobody has gotten fired in Afghanistan for all of the problems I've exposed.

No one?

Nope. Call up DOD, call up State, see if anybody has gotten fired. I bet you no one has lost a promotion. I bet you no one has lost a bonus.
Holding on to the Gains

Despite what Obama claims to have learned, what he really has learned is we need to keep troops in Afghanistan and we need to keep spending billions of dollars to hold onto "gains".

Might I ask, what gains are those, and how many more troops will it take to hold those gains? What will it cost to hold on to those gains?

What about those 13 years of knowledge gains? What happened to those?

Far be it for me to offer only criticism without an alternative plan. I happen to have the very face-saving plan the president needs.

Mish 5-Point Proposed Solution

  1. Label the Taliban as "Moderates".
  2. Declare the war won with the Taliban's help..
  3. Leave immediately.
  4. Brag about the reduction in spending.
  5. Brag about honoring promises to bring the troops home.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Existing Home Sales Plunge 10.5%, NAR Blames "Know Before You Owe"; What's the Excuse for Last Month?

Posted: 22 Dec 2015 11:24 AM PST

Existing homes sales plunged 10.5% this month which the NAR attributes to an initiative called "Know Before You Owe".

Economists, apparently unaware of "Know Before You Owe", came up with a consensus estimate of 5.320 million sales, SAAR ( seasonally adjusted annualized rate), the same as last month.
New closing rules appear to have depressed sales of existing homes in November which fell 10.5 percent to a much lower-than-expected annualized rate of 4.760 million. The year-on-year rate, for the first time since September last year, is suddenly in the negative column, at minus 3.8 percent. The National Association of Realtors, which compiles the report, attributes the weakness to the "Know Before You Owe" initiative which is lengthening closing times and which likely makes November an outlier. The NAR suspects that the sales delays in November are likely to give a boost to December's totals.

Weakness in the month is centered in single-family sales, down 12.1 percent to a 4.150 million rate. Condos rose 1.7 percent to a 610,000 rate.

All regions show declines for total sales with the Northeast, at a modest plus 1.5 percent, the only one to show a year-on-year gain.

Low supply is a problem in the market, at 2.040 million vs 2.110 million in October. Relative to sales, supply is at 5.1 months which, because of November's sales weakness, is up slightly from prior months. For a balanced market, supply is generally pegged at 6.0 months.

Price data are positive, showing some traction with the median up 0.5 percent in the month to $220,300. Year-on-year, the median is up 6.3 percent which is right in line with the trends in this morning's FHFA report.

For volatility, this report is usually tame compared to the new home sales report. Judging strength right now is difficult but a fair judgment is that growth in the housing sector is probably moderate and a plus for the economy. New homes sales are out tomorrow and are expected to show a gain.
What's the Excuse for Last Month?

Interestingly, "Know Before You Owe" came into play in October 3.

Why did the NAR pass up a golden opportunity to use that excuse last month when existing home sales dipped?

Disturbing Last Month

From Bloomberg last month: The number of homes on the market, at 2.14 million, is actually below the 2.24 million this time last year, an unwanted surprise that the National Association of Realtors, which compiles the existing home sales report, calls "disturbing".

No Longer Disturbing This Month

Now that the plunge has deepened, it's no longer disturbing, it's because of "Know Before You Owe".

I have a simple question: If "Know Before You Owe" took place effective October 3, and that's really what's to blame, then, why wasn't there a huge plunge last month instead of a "disturbing" surprise?

New Rules

Since not even the NAR seems to understand the implications, let's take a step back with a peek at Know Before You Owe Mortgages as seen by PBS.
There are two big changes. One, the forms you get right after you make a mortgage application and the form you get right before closing is going to be simplified.

The terms are supposed to be easier to understand. You're supposed to understand if you have an adjustable rate, and the rate will go higher after a certain number of years.

You're not supposed to be surprised if, you know, 10 years from now you have some sort of balloon payment on a mortgage or anything like that. So, that's the first change.

The second change is before – before closing, you're supposed to get these documents at least three business days before closing.

And that's designed so you have time to understand what you're getting into before you sign on the dotted line.

Now, it seems to make sense, but if you make any changes within that three-day window – so if you decide you want to switch, say, a fixed-rate mortgage to an adjustable-rate mortgage, that resets the three days.

As for people who are trying to, you know, closely time home closings, resetting that three-day window can lead to some headaches.

So what's going to happen over the next few months is we'll see whether or not home closings are happening on time or whether, you know, some of these mortgage lenders or real estate agents weren't actually ready and we see a lot of closing delays.
Before vs. After

The forms are simpler and easier to understand. Those wishing to compare the before and after forms can do so at the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.

If there were first month glitches, why didn't they turn up a month ago?

What I Said Last Month

Let's turn to my report from a month ago for more details about recent trends.

Please consider Existing Home Sales Decline, NAR Calls Report "Disturbing"; First Time Buyers Decline Third Year; Housing Clearly Weakening.
If there was an "outlier", perhaps it was the September gain, not the August and October declines.

And even though September sales data bounced, prices didn't. The median price declined 2.9% in September.

Bloomberg concluded "This report, which wraps up a busy and mostly positive week for housing data, is a big plus for the housing outlook, suggesting that demand for existing homes may be catching up with demand for new homes."

I responded: "That last statement by Econoday is amusing. For starters, new home sales are not all that strong, and it is new home sales that contribute most to GDP and family formations."

As a followup, please note my November 18 article Housing Starts Plunge 11% to 7-Month Low: Single-Family Down 2.4%, Multi-Family Down 25%

October wiped away all of September's good news and then some. 1.060 million starts was far below Econoday Consensus Estimate of 1.162 million SAAR and also well below the lowest estimate of 1.125 million.

Bloomberg pointed out hidden strength including "important good news" on October permits.

Spotlight on Permits

  • September month permits were down 5%
  • October permits rose only 4.1%.
  • September starts were revised lower from 1.206 million to 1.191 million (a 15,000 -1.24% negative revision).

In aggregate, that hardly looks like "important good news".

First Time Buyers Decline Third Year

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) notes First-time Buyers Fall Again in NAR Annual Buyer and Seller Survey.

"The share of first–time buyers declined for the third consecutive year and remained at its lowest point in nearly three decades as the overall strengthening pace of home sales over the past year was driven more by repeat buyers with dual incomes."

Housing Clearly Weakening

On average, starts are weakening, permits are weakening, new home sales are weakening, price data is weakening, and existing home sales are weakening.

First time buyers, a strong indication of family formation, is at a three-decades low, and the NAR is "disturbed" about trends.

Simply put, housing is weakening, albeit in a volatile way, making it a bit harder to spot the change in underlying trends.
Synopsis

The disclosure forms are easier. They are also down in number, from four to two.  The rule change took place on October 3.

Somehow that rule change had a huge impact in November but only a small (and not even mentioned) impact in October. That's possible, but color me skeptical.

By November, one would have thought lenders would be bright enough to go over the rules with borrowers in advance to avoid closing delays.

Next month could be telling, one way or another.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Seth's Blog : Training and the infinite return on investment



Training and the infinite return on investment

Training pays.

Sometimes, it's easy to underestimate just how much it pays.

Consider an employee who is going to work 2000 hours for you this year. It's not unusual for an organization to spend only 10 or 20 hours training this person--which means about 1% of their annual workload. 

How much training would it take for this person to be 10% better at her job? If you invest 100 hours (!) it'll pay for itself in just six months. There aren't many investments an organization can make that double in value in a year.

But let's take it one step further:

Imagine a customer service rep. Fully costed out, it might cost $5 for this person to service a single customer by phone. An untrained rep doesn't understand the product, or how to engage, or hasn't been brought up to speed on your systems. As a result, the value delivered in the call is precisely zero (in fact it's negative, because you've disappointed your customer). 

On the other hand, the trained rep easily delivers $30 of brand value to the customer, at a cost, as stated, of $5. So, instead of zero value, there's a profit to the brand of $25. A comparative ROI of infinity.

And of course, the untrained person doesn't fall into this trap once. Instead, it happens over and over, many times a day.

The short-sighted organization decides it's 'saving money' by cutting back training. After all, the short-term thinking goes, what's the point of training people if they're only going to leave. (I'd point out the converse of this--what's the danger of not training the people who stay?)

It's tempting to nod in agreement at these obvious cases (or the similar case of getting, or not getting, a great new job based on how skilled you've trained yourself to be--again, a huge cliff and difference in return). What's not so easy is to take responsibility for our own training.

We've long passed the point where society and our organization are taking responsibility for what we know and how we approach problems. We need to own it for ourselves.

{Can we drip? Next week, starting on the 28th of December, we'll be sending a series of emails to people interested in the next session of the altMBA—how it works, why it works, who's involved. The most recent session is completely oversubscribed, and we'll be doing the next one in March, on a space available basis.

Please sign up for these quick emails before the holidays if you're interested in learning more.}

       

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luni, 21 decembrie 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


Reshoring Myth Explodes: Ofshoring Opaces Onshoring Every Year Since 2004 Except 2011

Posted: 21 Dec 2015 11:00 PM PST

Reshoring Over Before It Ever Got Going

Recall the hype over reshoring? Manufacturing jobs supposedly were returning to the US in droves from Asia.

My view was that although some manufacturing processes returned, not many jobs came back thanks to robots and software automation. That view was far too optimistic.

Reshoring Myth and Reality

The second annual A.T. Kearney U.S. Reshoring Index shows that for the fourth consecutive year, reshoring of manufacturing operations to the United States has once again failed to keep up with offshoring.

Supply Chain reports 2015 U.S. Reshoring Index Indicates Manufacturing Reshoring Trend Has Subsided.
In 2015 the A.T. Kearney U.S. Reshoring Index dropped to -115, down from -30 in 2014, and represents the largest year-over-year decrease in the last 10 years.

Even if the effect of raw material price declines is discounted by, conservatively, holding manufacturing input values constant relative to 2014 while ignoring that same effect on the value of offshore manufactured goods, the U.S. Reshoring Index would drop to -26, still supportive of the view that the widely predicted reshoring trend seems to be over before it started.

Patrick Van den Bossche, A.T. Kearney partner and co-author of the study, stated, "The U.S. Reshoring phenomenon, once viewed by many as the leading edge of a decisive shift in global manufacturing, may actually have been just a one-off aberration. The 2015 data confirms that offshoring seems only to be gathering steam, while the U.S. reshoring train that so many predicted has yet to leave the station."



Industries vulnerable to rising labor costs in China have been successfully relocating to other Asian countries, rather than returning to the United States. They have done so without incurring significantly higher supply chain costs, despite the weaker infrastructure and supporting ecosystems of these new low-labor-cost destinations. Vietnam has absorbed the lion's share of China's manufacturing outflow, especially in apparel. U.S. imports of manufactured goods from Vietnam in 2015 will be nearly triple the level of imports in 2010.

Study Findings

The A.T. Kearney U.S. Reshoring Index and the U.S. Reshoring Database provide a number of insights on the factors driving imports of offshore manufactured goods and manufacturing reshoring. Many of the report insights run counter to the points of view and "hype" regarding reshoring of manufacturing to the United States.

  • Surprisingly, some of the top sectors for reshoring from 2011 to 2015 are also sectors that have led the pack in further offshoring over that same period.
  • The recent increase of nearshoring to Mexico also seems to indicate that, even if U.S. companies consider leaving Asia, they may choose to stop south of the border.
  • The forecast strengthening of the dollar, the oil price slide, the tightening U.S. labor market in manufacturing and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), if ratified by the U.S. Congress, will likely further weaken the case for reshoring in 2016.
  • Although reshoring of manufacturing by U.S. companies is on the decline, non-U.S. companies, including Chinese companies, increasingly invest in establishing or expanding their manufacturing footprint in the United States. The insatiable U.S. consumer market, the stable political and economic environment, and the benefit of tapping into America engineering skills and manufacturing know-how are main draws.
America's Manufacturing Renaissance Myth

Also consider The Myth of America's Manufacturing Renaissance
For the casual observer, it is easy to get the impression that American manufacturing has entered a new and exciting period of revival.

Many in the media, along with consulting firms, think tanks, and economists, now proclaim the emergence of a U.S. "manufacturing renaissance," marked by the "reshoring" of production and the growing competitiveness challenges of many foreign nations vis-à-vis the United States. If only this were true.

The Myth of America's Manufacturing Renaissance: The Real State of U.S. Manufacturing, a new report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), assesses the true status of the American manufacturing economy and argues pundits have overestimated the impact of isolated incidents of reshored production and misread or ignored the data.

If there were a true renaissance, we'd expect to see growth in inflation-adjusted manufacturing value added. But in fact 2013 manufacturing value added is 3.2 percent below 2007 levels, with non-durable goods value-added (which includes chemicals and oil and gas) down almost 12 percent. U.S. manufacturers employ over a million fewer workers and there are 15,000 fewer manufacturing establishments since the beginning of the Great Recession. Moreover, America ran a $458 billion trade deficit in manufacturing goods in 2013. Hardly evidence of a renaissance.

And most of the recovery that has occurred has been cyclical in nature. In fact, 122 percent of manufacturing output growth between 2010 and 2013 was in the auto sector, whose growth is due almost solely to a rebound in U.S. consumer demand, rather than reshoring of automobile production.

"Most of the claims for a structural rebirth of U.S. manufacturing are unfortunately based on myths and anecdotes," states Robert Atkinson, President of ITIF and co-author of the report. "Instead, any assessment of U.S. manufacturing should be based on rigorous analysis and review of the official data."
Prevailing Wisdom 

The first article, released December 21, 2015 is far more damning than the second, released January 14.

Check out the prevailing wisdom in January:

"One thing is clear - optimism about the future of U.S. manufacturing is relatively buoyant, as 68% of the executives surveyed agreed that U.S. manufacturing will experience accelerated growth in the next five years."

A manufacturing recession has been upon us for six months. 

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Reshoring Myth Explodes: Ofshoring Opaces Onshoring Every Year Since 2004 Except 2011

Posted: 21 Dec 2015 11:00 PM PST

Reshoring Over Before It Ever Got Going

Recall the hype over reshoring? Manufacturing jobs supposedly were returning to the US in droves from Asia.

My view was that although some manufacturing processes returned, not many jobs came back thanks to robots and software automation. That view was far too optimistic.

Reshoring Myth and Reality

The second annual A.T. Kearney U.S. Reshoring Index shows that for the fourth consecutive year, reshoring of manufacturing operations to the United States has once again failed to keep up with offshoring.

Supply Chain reports 2015 U.S. Reshoring Index Indicates Manufacturing Reshoring Trend Has Subsided.
In 2015 the A.T. Kearney U.S. Reshoring Index dropped to -115, down from -30 in 2014, and represents the largest year-over-year decrease in the last 10 years.

Even if the effect of raw material price declines is discounted by, conservatively, holding manufacturing input values constant relative to 2014 while ignoring that same effect on the value of offshore manufactured goods, the U.S. Reshoring Index would drop to -26, still supportive of the view that the widely predicted reshoring trend seems to be over before it started.

Patrick Van den Bossche, A.T. Kearney partner and co-author of the study, stated, "The U.S. Reshoring phenomenon, once viewed by many as the leading edge of a decisive shift in global manufacturing, may actually have been just a one-off aberration. The 2015 data confirms that offshoring seems only to be gathering steam, while the U.S. reshoring train that so many predicted has yet to leave the station."



Industries vulnerable to rising labor costs in China have been successfully relocating to other Asian countries, rather than returning to the United States. They have done so without incurring significantly higher supply chain costs, despite the weaker infrastructure and supporting ecosystems of these new low-labor-cost destinations. Vietnam has absorbed the lion's share of China's manufacturing outflow, especially in apparel. U.S. imports of manufactured goods from Vietnam in 2015 will be nearly triple the level of imports in 2010.

Study Findings

The A.T. Kearney U.S. Reshoring Index and the U.S. Reshoring Database provide a number of insights on the factors driving imports of offshore manufactured goods and manufacturing reshoring. Many of the report insights run counter to the points of view and "hype" regarding reshoring of manufacturing to the United States.

  • Surprisingly, some of the top sectors for reshoring from 2011 to 2015 are also sectors that have led the pack in further offshoring over that same period.
  • The recent increase of nearshoring to Mexico also seems to indicate that, even if U.S. companies consider leaving Asia, they may choose to stop south of the border.
  • The forecast strengthening of the dollar, the oil price slide, the tightening U.S. labor market in manufacturing and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), if ratified by the U.S. Congress, will likely further weaken the case for reshoring in 2016.
  • Although reshoring of manufacturing by U.S. companies is on the decline, non-U.S. companies, including Chinese companies, increasingly invest in establishing or expanding their manufacturing footprint in the United States. The insatiable U.S. consumer market, the stable political and economic environment, and the benefit of tapping into America engineering skills and manufacturing know-how are main draws.
America's Manufacturing Renaissance Myth

Also consider The Myth of America's Manufacturing Renaissance
For the casual observer, it is easy to get the impression that American manufacturing has entered a new and exciting period of revival.

Many in the media, along with consulting firms, think tanks, and economists, now proclaim the emergence of a U.S. "manufacturing renaissance," marked by the "reshoring" of production and the growing competitiveness challenges of many foreign nations vis-à-vis the United States. If only this were true.

The Myth of America's Manufacturing Renaissance: The Real State of U.S. Manufacturing, a new report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), assesses the true status of the American manufacturing economy and argues pundits have overestimated the impact of isolated incidents of reshored production and misread or ignored the data.

If there were a true renaissance, we'd expect to see growth in inflation-adjusted manufacturing value added. But in fact 2013 manufacturing value added is 3.2 percent below 2007 levels, with non-durable goods value-added (which includes chemicals and oil and gas) down almost 12 percent. U.S. manufacturers employ over a million fewer workers and there are 15,000 fewer manufacturing establishments since the beginning of the Great Recession. Moreover, America ran a $458 billion trade deficit in manufacturing goods in 2013. Hardly evidence of a renaissance.

And most of the recovery that has occurred has been cyclical in nature. In fact, 122 percent of manufacturing output growth between 2010 and 2013 was in the auto sector, whose growth is due almost solely to a rebound in U.S. consumer demand, rather than reshoring of automobile production.

"Most of the claims for a structural rebirth of U.S. manufacturing are unfortunately based on myths and anecdotes," states Robert Atkinson, President of ITIF and co-author of the report. "Instead, any assessment of U.S. manufacturing should be based on rigorous analysis and review of the official data."
Prevailing Wisdom 

The first article, released December 21, 2015 is far more damning than the second, released January 14.

Check out the prevailing wisdom in January:

"One thing is clear - optimism about the future of U.S. manufacturing is relatively buoyant, as 68% of the executives surveyed agreed that U.S. manufacturing will experience accelerated growth in the next five years."

A manufacturing recession has been upon us for six months. 

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Happy Winter Solstice!

Posted: 21 Dec 2015 06:30 PM PST

Reader Mark just pinged me with the message "Happy Winter Solstice! It only gets brighter from here."




I am passing that message on, along with an image of a garden bench, the setting sun and shadows I captured from my front yard (with apologies to readers from down under whose days are getting shorter).

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

US Economy Snapshot in Eyes of New York Fed vs. Eyes of Mish

Posted: 21 Dec 2015 02:33 PM PST

Inquiring minds are investigating a 17 page PDF of the U.S. Economy in a Snapshot by the New York Fed.

The document is formatted poorly. Nearly every line is an image, requiring retyping or images snips of what appears to be (and should be) text.

Here are some image snips along with my comments.

Overview



Mish Comment: Manufacturing is in a recession, inventories are too high, consumer spending is weak, autos are unsustainable and employment is a severely lagging indicator. The "fundamentals" are poor and sentiment is essentially useless.



Mish Comment: Inflation expectations are another totally useless idea, at least within normal bounds. At the point of hyperinflation, when people will buy anything to get rid of money, expectations have some meaning. There are signs of wage growth, but that will hurt profit margins and employment as spending stalls.

Output, Natural Unemployment Rate



Mish Comment: The natural rate of unemployment is that which would exist in a free market without interference from the Fed, from governments, from tariffs, etc. It's downright idiotic to pretend to know what the natural rate is, in any environment, let alone the highly manipulated state of affairs of today. Similarly, it is equally ridiculous to propose potential GDP levels.

PCE Deflator



Mish Comment: Price inflation (not monetary inflation) is subdued due to lack of demand, overcapacity, debt, beggar-thy-neighbor devaluation tactics, demographics, etc.

Falling oil prices are a symptom, not a cause of price deflation.

Manufacturing and ISM



Mish Comment: The manufacturing recession is far more problematic than the Fed realizes.

Disposable Income, Consumption



Mish Comment: A rising savings rate is a healthy thing, but the Fed will not see it that way.

Motor Vehicle Sales



Mish Comment: The missing key words are in quotes at the end of this sentence: Motor vehicle sales are stable at high levels "for now". There is no pent up demand for autos, and autos were one of the few consistent bright spots during the recovery. But inventories are high and rising while sales are weakening. In reality, this spinning top is starting to look rather wobbly.

Auto Loan Originations by Credit Score



Mish Comment: Sales are up in every loan category, but growth in subprime is problematic. Also problematic is the trend towards longer and longer auto loans, even on used cars. This sector has either peaked or soon will.

Housing



Mish Comment: The New York Fed blames "tight mortgage standards".

That's a totally superficial analysis. Here are the real reasons.

  1. Thanks to totally misguided Fed reflationary policies, home prices have recovered in most areas. In some areas prices are at new highs. For those most in need of new housing (the millennial generation), home prices are not affordable.
  2. Many empty-nester and aging boomers want to downsize. That leaves a big supply of upper-end homes for sale, at prices few can afford.
  3. Many millennials have moved back home to take care of their aging parents.
  4. Very high student debt levels have caused a delay in marriage and household formation.
  5. Attitudes have changed. Many kids have seen their parents or their friend's parents endure financial stress or even lose their marriage or homes in the great financial crisis. Millennials are understandably more cautious about taking on high levels of debt.
  6. Also in the attitudes category is the need to stay mobile. Holding down one or two jobs in the same area for 40 years until retirement is no longer the norm or even the expected. That desire to stay mobile also impedes new home ownership.

Mish Synopsis of New York Fed Presentation

Despite weak manufacturing and little price inflation, the New York Fed sees solid fundamentals thanks to solid payroll and wage growth coupled with stable autos and improving housing.

The New York Fed did not provide an overall synopsis so I formulated the above for them, from their overview and comments.

This is their key sentence from their overview: "The general trend for consumer spending remains fairly solidly based on fundamentals  such as healthy income growth, improving labor market conditions, and fairly upbeat sentiment."

The New York Fed put emphasis on that statement in bold, I placed it in italics to set it apart from other bold titles.

Mish 10-Point Synopsis

  1. Jobs are a lagging indicator. I expect way larger than normal layoffs in January even if seasonal sales come in strong. 
  2. Corporate profits are weakening while wages are ticking higher. That does not bode well for hiring plans.
  3. Many big box retailers are struggling. That too does not bode particularly well for hiring plans.
  4. Demographics are poor and outright deflationary. 
  5. Single family housing is slow for the structural reasons outlined above, not cautious lending.
  6. Auto sales, one of the few economic bright spots in the recovery are as stable as a spinning top that's losing momentum. 
  7. Manufacturing is in an outright recession.
  8. Inventory levels are high and rising despite weakening sales.
  9. Junk bonds are a huge warning sign. 
  10. The flattening of the yield curve this early in a rate tightening cycle is a huge warning sign.

My prediction: A recession will arrive in 2016, assuming it has not already started.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

In the Wake of Podemos’ Unexpected "Victory"; Unsavory Demands; Expect New Elections

Posted: 21 Dec 2015 11:47 AM PST

Spanish  mainstream political parties are reeling from the unexpected rise of Podemos.

The radical left anti-austerity, eurosceptic party was sinking rapidly in the polls with a mere 16% of the projected vote a week ahead of the election. Instead, Podemos received 21% of the actual vote.

That was enough for third place, and nearly second. The nationalistic party Ciudadanos fell to a distant fourth from a projected second-place finish.

Unexpected "Victory"

With that unprecedented final week swing Podemos Declares Victory and an end to Spain's two-party domination.
Pablo Iglesias, leader of the anti-austerity Podemos party, emerged as the only true winner of Spain's general election and was quick to claim victory, albeit from third place.

"The era of two parties is done. It no longer exists," Mr Iglesias said on Monday.

Mr Iglesias, who launched the insurgent leftwing party two years ago, set out to break the dominance of the establishment centre-right Popular party and the centre-left Socialists. In the end, his party did better than even the most optimistic polls had predicted but the pony-tailed former politics lecturer will now have to prove himself, not just as a campaigner but as the leader of a large and potentially unruly bloc in parliament.

Podemos won 69 seats in the 350-seat parliament, behind prime minister Mariano Rajoy's Partido Popular (PP) on 123 and the Socialists (PSOE) on 90.

It came within a whisker of the Socialists in terms of share of the vote (21 per cent versus 22) and would have won even more seats were it not for an electoral system that favours parties with well-established operations in rural Spain.
Splintered politics.

The Podemos "victory" leaves politics in Spain splintered heavily, possibly beyond repair.

To highlight the differences, simply take a look at five key Podemos demands that leader Pablo Iglesias laid out today.

Five Primary Demands

  1. More proportional electoral system
  2. Addition of housing, health and education as constitutional rights
  3. Recognition of the right of self-determination for regions such as Catalonia
  4. Depoliticised judiciary
  5. Rules against politicians serving on corporate boards

Points one and four seem reasonable enough. Point two on "constitutional rights" may not look scary at first glance, but details outlined in Incredible Populist Positions in Podemos' "Economic Manifesto"; Populism Explained) show many downright scary, radical socialistic ideas.

Coalition Review

Point three is totally unacceptable to the other political parties.

Ciudadanos seeks to return more power to the central government, not less. Thus, a three-way coalition with the socialist PSOE party, Podemos, and Ciudadanos simply cannot work even though Podemos' other four demand would likely be appeal to the group as a whole.

PSOE and Rajoy's PP party not only have huge differences, they lack insufficient votes even if they would agree to work together.

No coalition with enough votes to form a majority makes any sense given the huge differences between political goals.

Prime minister Rajoy may not even try to form a minority government. That possibility would immediately lead to new elections.

But leaders seldom step aside voluntarily, so the most likely outcome appears to be formation of a very unstable minority government that will fail soon enough. Either way, new Spanish elections are on the event horizon.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Record Oil Output From Russia Despite Low Prices

Posted: 21 Dec 2015 01:05 AM PST

Here's one for the "this was not supposed to happen, and nobody saw it coming" book. Bloomberg reports on the Siberian Surprise: Russian Oil Patch Just Keeps Pumping.
In the fight for market share among the world's oil producers this year, Russia wasn't supposed to be a contender.

But the world's No. 3 producer has been pumping at the fastest pace since the collapse of the Soviet Union, adding to the flood on an already-swamped market and helping push prices to the lowest levels since 2009.

Russia's unexpected oil bounty this year is the result not of a new Kremlin campaign but of dozens of modest productivity improvements across the sprawling sector.

With a rise of 0.5 percent in the first nine months of 2015, Russia hasn't boosted production as much as its larger rivals, the U.S. (up 1.3 percent) and Saudi Arabia (up 5.8 percent), according to Citigroup Inc. But having ignored OPEC's calls earlier this year to join efforts to support prices by pumping less, Russia is keeping up with the cartel.

"I know of no one who had predicted that Russian production would rise in 2015, let alone to new record levels," said Edward Morse, Citigroup's global head of commodities research. As recently as April, not even the Russian government thought 2015 would break the record.

One side effect of falling oil prices -- the 52 percent plunge in the ruble over the last two years -- has helped Russian oil producers, chopping their costs in dollar terms since between 80 and 90 percent of their spending comes in rubles.

"I don't know what the oil price would have to fall to for things to change dramatically," Stavskiy said. "We've been through $9 a barrel and production continued, so if something like that happens, we know what to do."

Relatively high taxes on oil have actually sheltered the industry from much of the impact of the drop in prices. The government takes nearly on crude exports everything above $30-$40 a barrel, so companies don't feel much impact until prices fall below that.
For the conspiracy-minded, if it takes $30 for Russia to feel pain over oil, we will soon see it.

Meanwhile, back in the US, oil production is strong despite total rig counts dropping from 1875 to 709 in the last year. That's a decline of 1166 rigs. In percentage terms it's a 62% drop.

Of the 709 total rigs, 541 are oil rigs. Gas rigs count 168. For the week, oil rigs rose by 17 while gas rigs fell by 7.

A year ago there were 1536 oil rigs. Thus, oil rig count is down by 995 rigs, a decline of 65%.

US rig count numbers compare December 18, 2015 to December 19, 2014 (the last day of the work week).

Mike "Mish" Shedlock