Central Perk

marți, 1 octombrie 2013

The Ultimate Moment of Truth: Moving Toward Shared Experiences

Posted: 30 Sep 2013 04:14 PM PDT

Search is a natural step in the discovery process. In a web-based world, search engines offer a lens into a qualified and structured view to help online consumers focus and make informed decisions. With Google dominating search, marketers concentrated on improving search ranking through tried and true techniques to ensure that what they were marketing earned a coveted position in the likely search results a customer might consider clicking.

Search is only part of the story now.

The experiences that people have, and in turn share, have created a powerful collective repository that is indexed and tapped every minute of every dayâ€"mostly outside of Google.

The importance of search engine marketing is fundamental to the discovery process. And, this is a world that still thrives today even though popular conversations among businesses and marketers center on social and mobile media as the "next big thing." There's notable truth in the hype surrounding social and mobile of course. With over one billion users, for example, many tout Facebook as its own Internet. And with Graph Search now available, a new era of interest and relationship-based content optimization will become a reality for the majority of its users.

This isn't a debate about the merits of SEO versus social media optimization (SMO), nor is this a discussion about social media. This is a discussion about behavior and the importance of discovery among an increasingly connected customer and the need to optimize and unite their journeys, whether it's on the traditional web, in social networks, or via mobile.

The zero moment of truth (ZMOT)

In 2011, Google released an ebook written by Jim Lecinski, Winning in the Zero Moment of Truth. The premise of the book introduces us to instances when shopping decisions break down into a series of moments of truth, each requiring a special understanding to help nudge customers along their journey. For example, when a customer is considering a purchase, whether driven by a stimulus or need, in the zero moment of truth customers are essentially going to "Google it." Anyone involved in the art and science of search wins in this moment by ensuring that web pages are optimized to outperform competitive pages as people search.

Without awareness, there can be no consideration.

What happens, though, when your customers naturally start their discovery process in communities other than Google or traditional search?

Trust

This is an important question, as the pervasiveness of social and mobile media is conditioning a new generation of connected consumers to rely on their networks of relevance, not just search engines, as an alternative and efficient means of guiding decision-making.

Think about it for a moment. Study after study shows that everyday consumers trust others like them. They don't trust executives. They don't trust ads. But, they do trust peers. Global marketing agency Edelman also revealed in its annual Trust Barometer, that customers trust employees of companies. Why is that a significant finding? When people are searching for information in a social ecosystem, they wish to find qualified information that informs and guides them quickly and efficiently. Landing pages are just the beginning. Employees-as-experts are also part of the content and discovery equation, allowing customers to find answers that help rather than sell.

This is just the beginning. The future of search is tied to the experiences shared by your employees and your customers across the web, social networks, communities, and mobile apps.

If you think about traditional search for a moment, what comes back as someone types in a keyword or question into the search bar? That's right, websites. And websites are often the last thing a connected customer is looking for in a moment when trusted impressions and experiences outweigh pages ranked by inbound links and keywords. After all, many of these connected customers are mobile, and as a result are looking for content that's organic to the context of their state of mind and the device they're using in each moment of truth.

In the zero moment of truth it is shared experiencesâ€"those that are passed on through social networks, communities, and appsâ€"that serve as the ultimate PageRank. In addition to promoting designated landing pages, how do you optimize experiences to be shared and also appear in each moment of truth?

What's beyond the zero moment of truth?

You've all heard the stat shared by search and social media experts that YouTube is the second largest search engine. Many skeptics will of course argue that YouTube is merely a network for funny cat videos, wannabe celebrities, movie trailers, and music videos. But you and I know that YouTube is indeed a notable alternative to Google for processing more search queries than any other search engine.

Connected customers don't just seek information, they're searching for input, validation, and direction in a way that they can appreciate and use. This isn't a surprise. As consumers, we too have searched on YouTube for content to help us accomplish tasks, learn, or conduct research. We're not alone in the hunt for product-related videos to see them in action and also gauge the impressions of others.

YouTube becomes a search engine not for web pages but for shared experiences.

It's a good thing Google also owns YouTube. According to a research study published by Ask Your Target Market in Q3 2012, 95% of consumers use both YouTube and Google when searching for relevant content. And it's not just YouTube either; connected customers are fragmenting search through every social network, community, forum, and app where shared experiences become a currency in decision-making.

Shared experiences become a critical part of marketing, as discussions around them contribute to a more conversational approach to branding and decision-making among digital consumers. Google's new Hummingbird search algorithm further demonstrates the significance of shared experiences by building them into search results. In a conversational web, people are asking questions rather than plugging in keywords. This changes everything from SEO to tracking search behavior and corresponding results, learning how to spark the creation and exchange of experiences in order to guide a connected and informed customer journey.

We now need to optimize search results for shared experiences in every network that's significant to our connected customers.

The ultimate moment of truth (UMOT)

Our work starts with uncovering what comes back about our brand when we use keywords or questions, as our customers do, to search each network.

The zero moment of truth is matched in significance by the ultimate moment of truth, a critical bookend to search introduced in my recent book, What's the Future of Business (WTF). The ultimate moment of truth represents the future of discoverability, branding, and influence, and it is directly tied to the zero moment of truth.

The UMOT signifies the instant when a customer creates content based on an experience with your product or service and publishes it in their community or network of preference for others to find. The intention of doing so is a combination of self expression and the desire to inform others. This experience then becomes discoverable for anyone who searches each network. And in many cases, these experiences also populate Google's search results. Said another way, the Ultimate Moment of Truth becomes the next person's zero moment of truth.

Every day, customers are sharing experiences in the form of videos, blog posts, reviews, Tweets, status updates, etc. This content doesn't self-destruct like SnapChat images. Shared experiences build upon one another, forming a collective repository in the cloud that's indexable, searchable, and influential. SEO, branding, and sales compete with this content and at some point, without address and optimization, shared experiences can eclipse traditional marketing no matter how creative or aggressive.

Without defining and promoting desired shared experiences, businesses will become victim to whatever people create and share.

Optimizing shared experiences

Social and mobile bring to light the importance of shared experiences and why organizations must first design them rather than just react. Certainly great experiences start with vision and purpose enlivened by the product or service design and its intentions. For marketers who may have little or no control over business affairs, the ability to shape and steer experiences is made possible by promoting every nuance tied to your value proposition and also the unique advantage customers discover on their own. I refer to this as the experience gap.

In the experience gap, there's the experience we want people to have, which is reinforced by our marketing messages and strategies. Then, there's the experience people have and share, which usually demonstrates that what "they" say about us is frequently different than what we say.

A key question for you to answer is, "are you facing an experience gap?"

Driving shared experiences is a form of customer journey optimization that literally closes the gap. This is where search works for us beyond traditional SEO. With a little keyword anthropology, we can better understand the questions, not just key words, that customers are asking and answering. This research also reveals the following key attributes to develop a UMOT optimization strategy:

Searching beyond keywords: The questions that people ask over and over again.
What comes back in the zero moment of truth: Patterns and context of questions, what customers find that helps them make decisions, and also why customers err to locate or value traditional content.
The communities and people of value: Where people are finding and sharing experiences outside of Google or other traditional search engines (this introduces new touch points in the customer journey).
Helpful content that actually answers customer questions: Discover valuable content, additional links, reactions, and a rabbit hole of ambient experiences that further guide customers to or away from you.
Real world impressions as told through expressions: What product opinions, tips and tricks, cautionary tales and how these shared experiences influence the impressions of others.
New marketing opportunities : Hidden gems and new product usage scenarios not originally considered.
A clear picture of your connected customer's journey: All touch points and related information that shows exactly how UMOT connects to ZMOT and where your customers click to continue their journey.

Once you've identified the state of shared experiences, it's time to develop a strategy to close the experience gap. Start by definingâ€¦

What is it that you want people to experience?
What is it that you want them to feel and share?
What are people sharing today, where (networks/apps) and how (content)?

The relationship between keyword anthropology and content creation will guide your strategy development so that you can understand how to influence the relationship between what's shared in the ultimate moment of truth as customers begin the discovery process in the zero moment of truth.

Truth can often be a painful surprise. And we all know that perception is reality. There's no need to be placed on the defensive in reacting to shared experiences. It's our job to optimize positive experiences and promote beneficial content and stories to enhance the zero moment of truth wherever customers go to learn and explore.

The future lies in the mixing of experience design, content marketing, UGC, and SEO.

Positive conditioning promotes a collaborative effort to solve the experience gap. By activating and rewarding customers and influencers, marketers can rally content that promotes desired experiences at every touch point that customers uncover in their journey or lifecycle. By coordinating these efforts, what appears in new channels in each zero moment of truth is no longer a surprise; it's strategically optimized to walk people through each moment of truth. It also loops together, to create a value cycle that keeps on giving to the next person who enters the journey.

User and employee-generated content must then become part of an integrated SEO program to optimize the right content in the right context for each moment of truth.

When balanced with a premier SEO program, optimized shared experiences will complement the customer journey wherever your customers search and share. What we soon realize is that moments of truth aren't just moments in time, they become an experience fueled continuum.

The future of shared experiences and your brand isn't just created, it's co-created.

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The Government Is Shut Down, but the Marketplace Is Open

Watch Live

Today, at 12:25 p.m. ET, President Obama will deliver a statement from the Rose Garden.

Watch the President's statement here.

Featured

The Government Is Shut Down, but the Marketplace Is Open

The federal government is currently shut down, but as of today, HealthCare.gov is open for business. Visit to compare plans and sign up for health insurance right now.

Learn more about the government shutdown here.

Get covered at HealthCare.gov.

Seth's Blog : Decoding "art"

Decoding "art"

Of course, it started with craft. The craft of making a bowl or a tool or anything that created function.

As humans became wealthier, we could seek out the artisan, the craftsperson who would add an element of panache and style to the tools we used.

It's not much of a leap from the beautiful functional object to one that has no function other than to be beautiful.

Art was born.

When art collided with royalty, religion and wealth, a match was made. Those in power could use art as a way to display their resources and to insist that they also were deserving of respect for their taste and their patronage of the artistic class.

And that would be the end of it, except the camera and commercial printing changed the very nature of art on canvas (and mass production changed sculpture). When anyone could have a print, or a vase, or a photo, art's position as a signifier and a cultural force was threatened.

Hence the beginning of our modern definition of art, one that so many people are resistant to. Art doesn't mean painting, art doesn't mean realistic and art doesn't mean beautiful.

Marcel Duchamp created a ruckus with 'Fountain', which appeared in an art exhibit in 1917. An upside-down urinal, Duchamp was saying quite a bit by displaying it. The second person to put a urinal into a museum, though, was merely a plumber.

About forty years later, Yves Klein created 'Leap Into the Void.' Long before Photoshop, he was playing with our expectations and our sense of reality.

Between Duchamp and Klein there were two generations of a redefinition of art. Art doesn't mean craft. And art isn't reserved for a few.

Art is the work of a human, an individual seeking to make a statement, to cause a reaction, to connect. Art is something new, every time, and art might not work, precisely because it's new, because it's human and because it seeks to connect.

Once art is freed from the canvas and the dealer and the gallery, it gains enormous power. Politicians and science fiction authors can do a sort of art. Anyone liberated from the assembly line and given a job where at least part of the time they decide, "what's next," has been given a charter to do art, to explore and discover and to create an impact.

When I write about making 'art', many people look at me quizzically. They don't understand how to make the conceptual leap from a job where we are told what to do to a life where we decide what to do--and seek to do something that connects, that makes an impact, and that yes, might not work.

Five hundred years ago, no painter would talk to you about ideas, or even impact. Painters merely painted. Today, you don't need a brush to be an artist, but you do need to want to make change.

• Email to a friend •

luni, 30 septembrie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Meaningless Partial Government Shutdown in Progress; What's Affected, What's Not
Strawberry Fields Forever; Is a Higher Minimum Wage Really the Answer? To What?
Record $217 Billion Corporate Bond Issuance in September; Verizon Leads the Way With Largest Bond Deal Ever at $49 Billion
Berlusconi Faces Party Revolt; Collapse of Italian Government Hangs in Balance; Rush For Votes is On
Spain's Retail Sales Fall 4.2%, 38 Consecutive Negative Months

Meaningless Partial Government Shutdown in Progress; What's Affected, What's Not

Posted: 30 Sep 2013 10:47 PM PDT

A partial government shutdown is now underway. I am unimpressed, and so are the futures. U.S. futures are up slightly, and so are global futures in general. Gold and the dollar are flat.

Given this is the 18th partial government shutdown, there is nothing at all to be excited about this evening.

History of 18 Government Shutdowns

Year	Start date	End date	Total days	Explanation
1976	September 30	October 11	10	Citing out of control spending, President Gerald Ford vetoed a funding bill for the United States Department of Labor and the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), leading to a partial government shutdown. On October 1, the Democratic-controlled Congress overrode Ford's veto but it took until October 11 for a continuing resolution ending funding gaps for other parts of government to become law.
1977	September 30	October 13	12	The Democratic-controlled House continued to uphold the ban on using Medicaid dollars to pay for abortions, except in cases where the life of the mother was at stake. Meanwhile, the Democratic-controlled Senate pressed to loosen the ban to allow abortion funding in the case of rape or incest. A funding gap was created when disagreement over the issue between the houses had become tied to funding for the Departments of Labor and HEW, leading to a partial government shutdown. A temporary agreement was made to restore funding through October 31, 1977, allowing more time for Congress to resolve its dispute.
1977	October 31	November 9	8	The earlier temporary funding agreement expired. President Jimmy Carter signed a second funding agreement to allow for more time for negotiation.
1977	November 30	December 9	8	The second temporary funding agreement expired. The House held firm against against the Senate in its effort to ban Medicaid paying for the abortions of victims of statutory rape. A deal was eventually struck which allowed Medicaid to pay for abortions in cases resulting from rape, incest, or in which the mother's health is at risk.
1978	September 30	October 18	18	Deeming them wasteful, President Carter vetoed a public works appropriations bill and a defense bill including funding for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Spending for the Department of HEW was also delayed over additional disputes concerning Medicaid funding for abortion.
1979	September 30	October 12	11	Against the opposition of the Senate, the House pushed for a 5.5 percent pay increase for congress members and senior civil servants. The House also sought to restrict federal spending on abortion only to cases where the mother's life is in danger, while the Senate wanted to maintain funding for abortions in cases of rape and incest.
1981	November 20	November 23	2	President Ronald Reagan pledged that he would veto any spending bill that failed to include at least half of the $8.4 billion in domestic budget cuts that he proposed. Although the Republican controlled Senate passed a bill that met his specifications, the Democratic House insisted on larger cuts to defense than Reagan wanted and for congressional and civil servant pay raises. A compromise bill fell $2 billion short of the cuts Reagan wanted, so Reagan vetoed the bill and shut down the federal government. A temporary bill restored spending through 15 December and gave Congress the time to work out a more lasting deal.
1982	September 30	October 2	1	Congress passed the required spending bills a day late.
1982	December 17	December 21	3	The Democratic controlled House and the Republican controlled Senate wished to fund jobs, but President Reagan vowed to veto any such legislation. The House also opposed plans to fund the MX missile. The shutdown ended after Congress abandoned their jobs plan, but Reagan was forced to yield on funding for both the MX and Pershing II missiles. He also accepted funding for the Legal Services Corporation, which he wanted abolished, in exchange for higher foreign aid to Israel.
1983	November 10	November 14	3	The Democratic controlled House increased education funding, but cut defense and foreign aid spending, which led to a dispute with President Reagan. Eventually, the House reduced their proposed education funding, and also accepted funding for the MX missile. However, the foreign aid and defense cuts remained, and oil and gas leasing was banned in federal wildlife refuges. Abortion was also prohibited for being paid for with government employee health insurance.
1984	September 30	October 3	2	The House wished to link the budget to both a crime-fighting package President Reagan supported and a water projects package he did not. The Senate additionally tied the budget to a civil rights measure designed to overturn Grove City v. Bell. Reagan proposed a compromise where he abandoned his crime package in exchange for Congress dropping theirs. A deal was not struck, and a three-day spending extension was passed instead.
1984	October 3	October 5	1	The three-day spending extension expired, forcing a shutdown. Congress dropped their proposed water and civil rights packages, while President Reagan kept his crime package. Funding for aid to the Nicaraguan Contras was also passed.
1986	October 16	October 18	1	A dispute over multiple issues between the Democratic controlled House and President Reagan and the Republican Senate forced a shutdown. The Democratic controlled House dropped many of their demands in exchange for a vote on their welfare package, and a concession of the sale of then-government-owned Conrail.
1987	December 18	December 20	1	Democrats, who now controlled both the House and the Senate, opposed funding for the Contras, and wanted the Federal Communications Commission to begin reenforcing the "Fairness Doctrine". They yielded on the "Fairness Doctrine" in exchange for non-lethal aid to the Contras.
1990	October 5	October 9	4	President George H.W. Bush vowed to veto any continuing resolution that was not paired with a deficit reduction package, and did so when one reached his desk. The House failed to override his veto before a shutdown occurred. Congress then passed a continuing resolution with a deficit reduction package that Bush signed to end the shutdown.
1995	November 13	November 19	5	In the shutdown of 1995 and 1996 President Bill Clinton vetoed a continuing resolution passed by the Republican-controlled Congress. A deal was reached allowing for 75 percent funding for four weeks, and Clinton agreed to a seven-year timetable for a balanced budget.
1995	December 16	January 6, 1996	21	Subsequently the Republicans demanded President Clinton propose a budget with the seven-year timetable using Congressional Budget Office numbers, rather than Clinton's Office of Management and Budget numbers. However, Clinton refused. Eventually, Congress and Clinton agreed to pass a compromise budget.
2013	October 1	Ongoing	Ongoing	Due to disagreement regarding inclusion of language delaying the Affordable Care Act,[10] the Government has not passed a funding bill. Negotiations have come to a stop and government shutdown is in progress. See also United States federal government shutdown of 2013.

What's Affected, What's Not

In contrast to a ridiculously overhyped mainstream media summation of what might happen (Please see More Government Shutdown Hype), inquiring minds might wish to consider a more realistic assessment.

If so, please consider What's changing, what's not, in a shutdown.

Here's a brief recap:

Campers in national parks with entrance gates will have to leave, a zoo panda-cam will be turned off, the airline consumer complaint-line will be shut down (but not air traffic control), routine food inspections will be off (but not meat inspections or high-risk inspections), some SNAP services may be shut down (but not school lunch programs), there will be delays in handing disability claims, and Friday's jobs report may or may not be delayed. Servicemen will be paid, homeland security personnel will stay on duty, Fannie Mae will keep on issuing mortgages with a full staff, but the FHA which handles about 15% of mortgages will have a reduced staff.

The critical date when more serious cutbacks would happen is somewhere around October 17 or perhaps October 22 (I have seen both dates). I expect this mess to be resolved by then.

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

Strawberry Fields Forever; Is a Higher Minimum Wage Really the Answer? To What?

Posted: 30 Sep 2013 05:05 PM PDT

Japan Times reports the Latest Robot can Pick Strawberry Fields Forever

Fruits of ingenuity: Agricultural machinery maker Shibuya Seiki and the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization demonstrate a robot that can pick ripe strawberries at the annual Auto-ID and Communication Expo at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center Wednesday. | AFP-JIJI

The device, unveiled Wednesday, can pick a piece of fruit every eight seconds by using three cameras to determine which strawberries are ready to pick. A mechanized arm then darts out to snip each one free and place it into its basket.

The 2-meter robot moves on rails between rows of strawberries, which in Japan are usually grown in elevated greenhouse planters.

It "calculates the degree of ripeness from the color of the strawberry, which it observes with two digital cameras," said Mitsutaka Kurita, an official at Shibuya Seiki, the developer of the machine.

"It also uses the images from the two cameras to calculate the distance from the target, then approaches the strawberry it is aiming at," he said.

A third camera takes a detailed photo of the fruit, which it uses for the final calculation before moving in to snip it.

Strawberry farming is highly labor-intensive, requiring 70 times the work of rice farming and twice that of tomatoes and cucumbers, according to the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, which helped develop the robot.

The robot will go on sale early next year for about ¥5 million. Strawberries are available all year round in Japan and typically fetch ¥500 for a small basket.

Forever?

In his December 2012 Outlook, Pimco's Bill Gross also wrote Strawberry Fields – Forever? It's worth a recap now.

Whoever succeeds President Obama, the next four years will likely face structural economic headwinds that will frustrate the American public. "Happy days are here again" was the refrain of FDR in the Depression, but the theme song from 2012 and beyond may more closely resemble Strawberry Fields Forever, as Lennon laments "It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out." Why is it so hard to be someone these days, to pay for college, get a good-paying job and retire comfortably? That really was the economic question of the 2012 election towards which very few specifics were applied from either side.

There are numerous structural headwinds that may reduce real growth even below the New Normal 2% rate that Bernanke has just confirmed, not only in the U.S. but in developed economies everywhere.

They are:

1) Debt/Delevering
Developed global economies have too much debt – pure and simple – and as we attempt to resolve the dilemma, the resultant austerity should lower real growth for years to come. There are those that believe in the "Brylcreem" approach to budget balancing – "a little dab'll do ya." Just knock a few percentage points off the deficit/GDP ratio, they claim, and the private sector will miraculously reappear to fill the gap. No such luck after 2–3 years of austerity in Euroland, however. Most of those countries are mired in recession and/or depression.

2) Globalization
Globalization has been an historical growth stimulant, but if it slows, then the caffeine may wear off.

3) Technology
Technology has been a boon to productivity and therefore real economic growth, but it has its shady side. In the past decade, machines and robotics have rather silently replaced humans, as the U.S. and other advanced economies have sought to counter the influence of cheap Asian labor.

Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee at MIT have affirmed that workers are losing the race against the machine. Accountants, machinists, medical technicians, even software writers that write the software for "machines" are being displaced without upscaled replacement jobs. Retrain, rehire into higher paying and value-added jobs? That may be the political myth of the modern era. There aren't enough of those jobs. A structurally higher unemployment rate of 7% or more is the feared "whisper" number in Fed circles. Technology may be leading to slower, not faster economic growth despite its productive benefits.

4) Demographics
Demography is destiny, and like cancer, demographic population changes are becoming a silent growth killer. Numerous studies and common sense logic point to the inevitable conclusion that when an economic society exceeds a certain average "age" then demand slows. Typically the dynamic cohort of an economy is its 20 to 55-year-old age group. They are the ones who form households, have families and gain increasing experience and knowhow in their jobs. Now, however, almost all developed economies, including the U.S., are gradually aging and witnessing a larger and larger percentage of their adult population move past the critical 55-year-old mark.

Yen vs. U.S. Dollar

At What Cost Does It Pay to Hire Robots to Pick Berries?

A strawberry fields robot sells for 5 million yen. The cost in US dollars is 5,000,000/98.35 or $50,838.

The minimum wage in the US is $7.25/hour. A picker at minimum wage (counting corporation Social Security contribution of 6.2%) would cost $15,080 + $935, or about $16,015 per year (plus Obamacare, plus benefits, if any).

At minimum wage, the robot would pay for itself in three years (assuming a robot replaced one person working full time for a year).

At a $15.00/hour wage that unions are clamoring for, the robot would pay for itself in half that time.

Is a Higher Minimum Wage Really the Answer? To What?

The higher the minimum wage, the higher the benefit level, and the lower the interest rate (thank Bernanke for that one), the more it pays to hire robots.

The math is simple enough, and it is happening now.

Of course, a single robot may replace more than one human worker, and without griping about minimum wages.

With that, I offer a musical tribute.

Beatles Musical Tribute

Link if video does not play: The Beatles Strawberry Fields Forever

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

Record $217 Billion Corporate Bond Issuance in September; Verizon Leads the Way With Largest Bond Deal Ever at $49 Billion

Posted: 30 Sep 2013 12:53 PM PDT

Corporations are scrambling to raise cash to complete buyouts or simply because they can. Barron's reports September Sees Record $217 Bln Corporate Bond Issuance

September isn't completely finished just yet and it's already produced a record $217 billion in U.S. corporate bond issuance, an 18% bump from the previous single-month record, according to Janney Montgomery Scott. The secondary market fed off the activity of the primary market, translating to $394 billion in total trading, about 70% of which was in investment grade credits.

Five days ago Bloomberg reported Verizon and Sprint Lead Record Month for U.S. Bond Issuance.

Sales of corporate bonds in the U.S. reached an all-time high this month, with phone companies Verizon Communications Inc. and Sprint Corp. leading offerings of about $193.7 billion.

Verizon issued $49 billion on Sept. 11 in the biggest corporate bond deal ever while Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint raised $6.5 billion on Sept. 4 in the largest high-yield sale since 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Offerings broke the previous monthly record of $177.3 billion set in September 2012.

Following the Fed's surprise decision to leave the program untouched, yields on the Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. Corporate & High Yield Index dropped to a six-week low of 4.05 percent yesterday.

"Issuers are saying 'let's strike now because we have the wind at our back,'" Timothy Cox, executive director of debt capital markets at Mizuho Securities USA Inc. in New York, said in a telephone interview. "There's no reason to wait."

Yields from the most creditworthy to the riskiest U.S. borrowers declined from a 15-month high of 4.37 percent on Sept. 5, index data show. Yields touched an unprecedented low of 3.35 percent on May 2.

Largest Bond Deal Ever

Also consider Verizon Raises $49 Billion in Largest Corporate-Bond Sale.

Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) sold $49 billion of bonds in eight parts in the biggest company debt offering ever.

The second-biggest U.S. telephone carrier issued fixed-rate debt with maturities ranging from three to 30 years as well as two portions of floating-rate securities, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The deal, which is about the size of all outstanding obligations of the Slovak Republic, is helping to fund New York-based Verizon's buyout of partner Vodafone Group Plc. (VOD)'s 45 percent stake in the largest and most profitable U.S. wireless carrier, Verizon Wireless. The sale is more than double the previous issuance record of $17 billion from Apple Inc. sold in April.

The 30-year securities, the biggest corporate bond ever issued, traded as high as 107.6 cents on the dollar as of 1:12 p.m. in New York from an issue price of 99.883 cents, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

The bubble in corporate bonds is massive. And it's one of the things that has helped lift the stock market as well.

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

Berlusconi Faces Party Revolt; Collapse of Italian Government Hangs in Balance; Rush For Votes is On

Posted: 30 Sep 2013 10:48 AM PDT

Late last week, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi ordered five ministers to resign from Italy's government. They did, and as a result, current prime minister Enrico Letta's coalition government is on the verge of collapse.

Mr Berlusconi, leader of the centre-right Forza Italia party, said the resignations were a response to the government's decision on Friday to increase in sales tax from next month.

Mr Letta, prime minister, rejected Mr Berlusconi's explanation as an "enormous lie", and called the decision "mad and irresponsible and aimed exclusively at covering up his personal affairs" – a reference to Mr Berlusconi's criminal conviction for tax fraud which is likely to lead to a ban on holding public office.

Beppe Grillo, the comic-activist leader of the movement, who has ruled out supporting a government led by the Democrats, on Saturday night called for snap elections. But his autocratic style of leadership and a purge of several parliamentarians who refused to toe Mr Grillo's line have fuelled speculation that the Democrats might just be able to put the numbers together to form an alternative majority, including centrists led by former prime minister Mario Monti. Equally it is not clear whether all Mr Berlusconi's MPs will remain loyal to their billionaire leader of the past two decades who turns 77 this weekend and is facing a year of house arrest or performing community service.

Mr Napolitano, who holds the constitutional power to dissolve parliament, has repeatedly expressed his opposition to holding snap elections. But if Mr Letta's government were to fall and no alternative majority was in sight, then Italy could be faced with the unprecedented and extremely worrying prospect of staging elections before the end of the year at the risk of derailing the 2014 budget.

Rush For Votes is On

Today the rush for votes is on. Berlusconi, who has a long history of winning close votes may have overplayed his hand this time and Berlusconi faces party revolt over coalition collapse.

"Who is not with me is out," declared a headline in Monday's Il Giornale, a Milan daily owned by the Berlusconi family, as the former prime minister arrived in Rome to ensure party unity ahead of a crucial senate vote expected late on Wednesday.

The numbers game has begun in earnest as Enrico Letta, centre-left prime minister, prepares to address both houses of parliament in a last-ditch effort to keep his government in office after Mr Berlusconi pulled his five ministers out of their five-month-old coalition at the weekend.

Mr Letta's Democrats control the lower house but alone they are 54 votes short of an absolute majority in the senate following last February's deadlocked elections. With the likely support of leftist allies, four recently appointed life senators and 20 centrists led by former prime minister Mario Monti, that deficit is reduced to a dozen or so.

Mr Letta is openly banking on wooing disaffected members of Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia party after all five ministers perfunctorily ordered to resign by Mr Berlusconi publicly expressed their misgivings and then slammed Il Giornale for running a front-page editorial that came close to accusing them of betrayal.

Although few doubt Mr Berlusconi's powers of persuasion and his tenacity, the prospect of their 77-year-old leader being banned from holding public office and serving one year under house arrest, or performing community service, has reinforced the sense that the centre-right is entering a post-Berlusconi era.

The nannycrats in Brussels do not want snap elections because it opens up all kinds of budget battles.

The vote is going to be close. And the closer it is, the more pressure president Napolitano will apply on a few holdouts to sway the election.

Italy 10-Year Bond Yield

Yield on the 10-year Italian bond spiked 24 basis points today to 4.66% but closed at 4.43%, up only 2 basis points (0.02 percentage points)

Perhaps this is a sign Letta has the votes. We will find out on Wednesday.

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

Spain's Retail Sales Fall 4.2%, 38 Consecutive Negative Months

Posted: 30 Sep 2013 02:57 AM PDT

Somewhere along the line the economic situation in Spain will bottom, but there are no real signs yet that a recovery is underway.

Courtesy of El Confidencial, via translation, please consider Retail sales fell by 4.2% and totaling 38 months in negative

Retail trade sales fell by 4.2% in August compared with the same month in 2012, expanding by 2.5 points year July's decline of 1.7%. The National Statistics Institute (INE) reports 38 months of consecutive annual decreases.

Employment in the retail sector fell by 1.9% in the eighth month of the year, two percentage points less than in July, with declines in all modes of distribution. The largest decreases were scored small chains and department stores, where employment contracted by 4.7% and 3.7%, respectively.

Retail sales fell in August in 15 autonomous communities. The largest annual declines occurred in Castilla y León (-9.2%), Basque Country (-8%) and Aragon (-7.7%), while only Balearics managed to increase its sales, with increases of 3 , 2% and 2.7%, respectively.

Employment in retail trade decreased by 13 communities during the eighth month of 2013, mainly in Madrid (-5.7%), Castilla y Leon (-3.6%) and Murcia (-3.1%). The only the recorded progress Balearic Islands and Valencia, with increases of 1%, 0.9% and 0.7%, respectively, while La Rioja remained unchanged in their occupancy.

The Spanish government has been talking recovery for several months, so where is it?

Eventually there will be a positive month or more, but after this decline, it will hardly constitute "recovery"

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

Damn Cool Pics

Ghost Towns Around the World
Paris Then and Now: 1900-2013 in Photos
Popular Comic Books Get Mashed Up With Lamps
Awesome Airplane Paint Jobs

Ghost Towns Around the World

Posted: 30 Sep 2013 12:36 PM PDT

Photos of ghost towns around the world. You can google the town's name to read its story.

Dallol, Ethiopia

Nova Cidade de Kilamba Kilamba, Angola

Kolmanskop, Namibia

Taverga, Libya

Pomona, Namibia

Svalbard, Norway

Charly-Oradour, France

Kayaks, Turkey

Great Blasket Island

Village Pegrema, Karelia, Russia

Pripyat, Ukraine

San Zhi , Taiwan

Paris In China: Tianducheng

Ghost City of Chenggong near Kunming, China

Ghost City of Chenggong near Kunming, China
Read more at http://acidcow.com/pics/51103-ghost-towns-around-the-world-85-pics.html#XiOu4kytsW5M4wK5.99

Centralia, PA

Plymouth, Montserrat

Bodie, California

Fordlandia, Brazil

Chaiten, Chile

Grytviken, South Georgia

Paris Then and Now: 1900-2013 in Photos

Posted: 30 Sep 2013 10:54 AM PDT

Paris in the early 1900s vs Paris today.

Paris in the early 1900s vs Paris today.
Read more at http://acidcow.com/pics/51107-paris-then-and-now-26-pics.html#mUXWvuBrJJPtGKkC.99

Paris in the early 1900s vs Paris today.
Read more at http://acidcow.com/pics/51107-paris-then-and-now-26-pics.html#mUXWvuBrJJPtGK

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Posted: 30 Sep 2013 10:11 AM PDT

At EliteFixtures.com, they think lamps are pretty super. Charged with the power of electricity, they can brighten a room with a single bulb and dispel shadows from the darkest corners. There is nowhere to hide from the Power of the Light! Which got us thinking… what would happen to our favorite comic heroes in a face-to-lamp showdown? Here's how we imagined it: