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miercuri, 22 ianuarie 2014

In Six Days: State of the Union 2014

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In Six Days: State of the Union 2014

In six days, President Obama will head to the Capitol to lay out his plan for the upcoming year of action in his fifth State of the Union address.

Watch White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough discuss why the speech is so important -- and find out how you can participate.

31 Link Building Tactics Discovered From Competitive Analysis

Posted: 21 Jan 2014 02:39 PM PST

Posted by Cliquekaila

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

On the Moz blog there's always been a large discussion around competitive analysis. From how to conduct competitive analysis using Google docs to in depth articles about competitive link analysis using Excel, or even just the fact that Moz has Open Site Explorer, one of the ultimate analysis tools for competitive backlink analysis. The fact of the matter is competitive analysis can be a very worthwhile exercise to help you determine the best strategy for your online efforts. This is especially true with link building.

Over the years, I've seen hundreds of thousands of backlinks while analyzing for opportunities (as well as looking for bad links to disavow or prune). Most recently, my analyses have inspired me to write this post, because common opportunities continue to reveal themselves, and they're worth sharing. Have you discovered some great link building gems in addition to those listed below? Share them with us in the comments.

Contests

It's no secret that giveaways, contests, and sweepstakes are great ways to attract links. Some of the recent contests I've observed driving links for authoritative sites include the "Draw My Favorite Teacher" contest by StorageMart, a competitor of a storage chain client of mine. Natural links from news organizations and authoritative blogs are often a result of a contest that is unique like this.

A hacking contest by Rackspace, a competitor of our global hosting provider client, also drew in quite a few links we observed after they partnered with this NFC Ring kickstarter project. The NFC Ring partner then helped promote the contest too for some added link juice. These are both great examples of contest-driven link earning.

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EDU link building strategies

Some of the most authoritative links my team and I have ever built are on university and college websites. When conducting competitive analysis be on the lookout for your competitor's .edu TLD earned links. Expert tip: Do a find & replace for the characters ".edu" in Excel, and format it to fill any cell with a color that has ".edu". See the screenshot below for more information.

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Housing and residence life "helpful links"

Recently I conducted some competitive analysis on three separate industries: storage facilities, national cable providers, and automotive insurance. In all three of these industries, I discovered a plethora of link opportunities on housing and residence life FAQ pages for students. Students who move into campus housing often have to find extra storage, thus the storage links. Additionally students moving to a new state or country for school may need to find cable providers/utilities or new insurance providers, thus the cable TV and auto insurance links. Some example opportunities are provided below. Be on the lookout for these types of link building opportunities.

School of the Art Institute of Chicago Housing & Residence Life: FAQs
Yale School of Medicine "Living in Connecticut" helpful links
South Dakota School of Mines & Technology useful links section
University of the Incarnate Word helpful links
University of Florida College of Dentistry helpful links for students

Scholarship listings

The need to find help to fund education for students is in high demand. A reoccurring link building strategy I've seen used includes creating a scholarship for students and having the listing added to scholarship pages on .edu sites. Virginia.edu has an authoritative scholarship page along with KU.Edu and Davenport.edu. These schools don't just post their own scholarships, they post other institutions' scholarships as well as brands offering scholarships. Expert tip: Try the search command inurl:scholarship site:edu to find .edu domains with scholarship pages.

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Student resources and minority resources

When thinking about ways you can convince a University's webmaster to place a link to you or your client's site, specifically search for student resource pages. These pages are often similar to those found in campus life or residential sections of a University site. They are always treasure troves for link opportunities.

What are students looking forand in need of while in school? Awesome student resources exist on .edu sites like UKY.edu, as well as dedicated resources such as UniversityParent.com. See if a list exists that your site should be listed on.

Additionally, minority resources are prevalent, especially for Hispanic students. On MSState.edu this Hispanic business primer was developed and not only acquires a lot of links but also links out to great resources for students. Seek out these resources and ask to be added if you can develop a program, content piece or promotion relating to resources for minorities. Expert tip: Try using advanced search commands like this one to uncover these pages: inurl:helpful-links site:edu.

GOV link building strategies

Just like University domains, government pages are often extremely authoritative and very relevant. Helpful links pages, resource pages and more information is available on .gov TLDs you just have to find them. Common pages include those listed below. This is just scratching the surface of opportunities!

Foreign nationals

Helpful links for foreign nationals such as general information, banking and credit institutions, local news organizations, programs for foreign nationals and ESL scholarship opportunities. The National Renewal Energy Laboratory's helpful links for foreign nationals was a site that was discovered during competitive link analysis.

Employment opportunities

Employment and career opportunities are often shared with visitors of .gov sites. The Iowa Human Rights department provides such resources to its readers on authoritative pages.

Non-profit partnerships

Non-profit partnerships also provide for great link building opportunities. This economic development program showed up in a competitive link analysis report listing private sector partners.

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Offering a job

Job boards exist all over the internet. From news publishers to industry association job listing pages, if you're hiring there are opportunities to get your site listed. Attending a career fair is also a great way to get a link. UIowa.edu has a great career site which was discovered during a competitive backlink analysis for a new school offering engineering programs.

Job boards are also on non-profit sites such as Python.org in your industry. Think about the types of sites that industry professionals frequent; I'm sure you'll find a job board or career center with links to job listings. Just have to look.

Green eco-friendly causes

Anything eco-friendly, carbon footprint-lowering, green, or renewable presents an opportunity for generating links. Our team developed a resource page for green printing resources for a client InkTechnologies.com after looking through competitor resources and finding Go Green resource pages on an .edu and on non-profit sites. These pages existed and linked to third party sites so we figured we could ask to be listed as well after developing the content. We succeeded and got some great links; you can too!

Education programs that focus on renewable energy can uncover green links. While conducting research for a new engineering program one of our client's offers we uncovered this Energy.gov link. Engineering related programs often study technology to help reduce our dependence on non-renewable energy sources. Other green educational resources and initiatives exist that might attract links such as: green internships, clean energy jobs, green competitions and related private and non-profit programs.

Pull backlinks to "green" educational programs, conduct advanced searching to uncover these sites and think about the opportunities at your organization or client's company that have an environmentally friendly angle to acquire links.

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Sponsorships

Sponsorship has been a "bad" word in the world of link building. Using a sponsorship to try to increase your rankings with a dofollow link can be against Google's Terms of Service. However, there are exceptions which make sponsorships not so bad after all. After conducting some competitive analysis, the following six sponsorship opportunities were uncovered. Expert tip: Watch out for sponsorships that put your link sitewide on every page or allow anchor text specific links. These are links that often signal nefarious tactics, and should be avoided at all costs.

Sponsoring an event often garners publicity and brand visibility. For companies that decided to become an event sponsor of a recent Arts and Crafts Fair in Scottsdale, Arizona, their sponsorship also landed a link with their company's logo on ScottsdaleAZ.gov.
Sitewide sponsorships were a popular tactic just a short time ago. Be very selective about these types of opportunities. Did you know StatCounter.com accepts sponsorships? We discovered a competitor of a client uses the site for sponsorship.
A Podcast exists for just about every topic under the sun. Consider sponsoring a Podcast or a Webinar, as you might just earn a link or two out of it. Take for example this Podcast sponsored by Go Daddy, InlandBank.com and others.
Conference sponsorships have many benefits including getting you in front of a niche audience. Juicy links are a result as well such as those found on http://mashable.com/connect/ and http://debconf13.debconf.org/ which were uncovered after a recent competitive analysis of Rackspace for a hosting provider client of ours.
Non-profit sponsorships provide funding for a great cause while also achieving an authoritative link. A few noteworthy companies sponsor food banks such as this one http://www.safoodbank.org/, another opportunity uncovered while scouring competitor Rackspace's backlinks.
Exhibitors or vendors at a Tradeshow or an Expo often receive listings and information on exhibitor pages. The Green Building Expo held in Scottsdale has a nice PR 3 page listing for exhibitors such as Wells Fargo, a competitor of a bank client for which we were researching strategies.

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Content earns links

Developing content can help you earn links? No way, what an unheard-of concept! We've all heard about content marketing being used to attract links, but what kind of content should you develop? Here are a few ideas discovered after competitive link analysis with clients in the web hosting, banking, education and engineering industries applicable across different industries.

Tutorials like those that Hostgator provides
Comparison pricing information on picking the right web hosting provider, notice they used specific prices
Small Business Center like the one GoDaddy.com developed
Knowledge Center like Rackspace
MIT's "Ask an Engineer" content marketing strategy
Free resources offered to library visitors, students and others online
Resources for classrooms to get listed on sites like this Massachusetts Technology Education/Engineering Collaborative
Find authoritative pages and develop the content to obtain the links your competitor's content earns such as this small business resource center on SBA.gov.

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Old tactics done right

The majority of manually built links you likely uncover during a backlink analysis often utilize tactics from yester-year. Things like forum link building, comment spam, directories, and spun articles are evident. After reviewing a few recently, however, I discovered that even the bad tactics can be done right, and here are a few examples:

Forum links: When placed on authoritative relevant sites they can be valuable. Check out this Adobe Forum that packs a bit of punch from an authoritative standpoint for a competitor of a tech client we were reviewing.
Directories: When placed on relevant sites that don't accept any site under the sun, have strict submission guidelines and are authoritative sites directories can still provide valuable. Sites such as BestoftheWeb.com and DMOZ.org are very authoritative, but niche directories exist catering to a specific topic.
Foreign link building: Although caution is required, there are still opportunities on foreign language sites that can represent link building opportunities. They must be relevant and authoritative, such as this one on Chinaz.com about web hosting providers.
Customer case studies: Although used in the past to be biased reports about your company, many customer case studies have provided worthwhile for competitors we've reviewed. Check out this case study we saw drew in a lot of links for Hostgator.
Guest blogging: Sure it's overused today but if you have an opportunity to guest blog on a partner's site or even a competitor do it! This guest post on Rackspace is a good example for a competitor we uncovered.
Links pages: Discovering links pages with a lot of on page authority and getting added is one link building tactic still valuable today. Consider this SAE.org links list with huge on page authority, a great opportunity discovered when looking through engineering school competitor's backlinks. Just because there are a bunch of outbound links doesn't automatically disqualify these link types as authoritative.
Local associations: Some brands went crazy with building a ton of links on local sites. One tactic that still works today is finding local associations to join. This NFPA.com link was discovered after reviewing competitors of a University client of ours for a juicy link.
Bookmarking: Wanted to receive hundreds of links for low cost in 2008? Bookmark links were a big hit, however today aren't the best when done unnaturally. But did you know some sites exist today that allow individuals to create their own bookmarking pages? When you discover bookmarking pages on .gov or .edu sites they can be opportunities. Take for example this bookmarks page on the lbl.gov site we discovered during competitive analysis. This page is a bit irrelevant for the client we were looking for, but is a good example of bookmarking pages that exist today with some on page authority.

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These are a few of the great opportunities we've discovered through competitive link analysis. Hopefully you've found the opportunities worthwhile for your industry. Tell readers your own observations from competitive analysis in the comments below.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Seth's Blog : The answer to, "is that the best you can do..."

The answer to, "is that the best you can do..."

is always no.

A better question is, "what resource would enable you to do even better?"

When the cost of the resource (time, people, money, freedom, boundary easing) is worth the benefit, then sure, go for it. If you can't make it better, hire someone who can.

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marți, 21 ianuarie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Baby Boomers Reluctant to Retire; What About the Fed's Retirement Thesis?
Keynes Is Dead, Abenomics Fizzles, US Fails to Reach Escape Velocity, Stimulus Fatigue
China Abandons Disastrous Cotton Stockpiling Program; Lessons Not Learned; What About Stockpiling Money?

Baby Boomers Reluctant to Retire; What About the Fed's Retirement Thesis?

Posted: 21 Jan 2014 08:37 PM PST

A new Gallup survey shows Many Baby Boomers Reluctant to Retire.

True to their "live to work" reputation, some baby boomers are digging in their heels at the workplace as they approach the traditional retirement age of 65. While the average age at which U.S. retirees say they retired has risen steadily from 57 to 61 in the past two decades, boomers -- the youngest of whom will turn 50 this year -- will likely extend it even further. Nearly half (49%) of boomers still working say they don't expect to retire until they are 66 or older, including one in 10 who predict they will never retire.

Gallup finds that baby boomers who strongly agree that they currently "have enough money to do everything [they] want to do" expect to retire at age 66. Boomers who strongly disagree with this statement predict they will retire significantly later, at age 73.

Baby Boomers Still a Substantial Part of the Workforce

As the largest generation born in U.S. history, baby boomers' sheer numbers coupled with their reluctance to retire will likely ensure that their influence endures in the workplace in the coming years. Although the first wave of boomers became eligible for early retirement under Social Security about six years ago, the generation still constitutes about one-third (31%) of the workforce, similar to percentages for millennials (33%) and Generation X (32%).

Bottom Line

Whether by choice or necessity, baby boomers will remain a sizable proportion of the workforce in the years ahead, with many expecting to work past the average U.S. retirement age of 61 and even the traditional retirement age of 65. As they continue to age and work, it is important that their organizations build workplaces with outstanding managers who leverage the experiences of older workers by positioning them to do what they do best -- listening to their insights and opinions, and continuing to develop their talents into strengths.

By investing in baby boomers' engagement, employers will reap the benefits that an engaged workforce brings to their bottom line. No matter what their age, engaged workers tend to have higher well-being, better health, and higher productivity than their not-engaged and actively disengaged counterparts. A targeted effort to engage baby boomers could have important ramifications for healthcare costs and productivity for individual workplaces and the overall U.S. economy.

ZeroHedge Cries "BS" On Retirement Thesis

In Spot The Labor Force Collapse Culprit, ZeroHedge produced a chart that allegedly debunks the thesis that the participation rate is declining because of retirement.

On the basis of that and similar charts ZeroHedge concludes

So enough with all this "they are retiring" bull**it, and call it for what it is: millions of Americans of all ages, but mostly of prime working age, bailing out of the labor force by the millions because of equal or better opportunities elsewhere, opportunities which almost without exception are increasingly reliant on the ever more unsustainable and insolvent US welfare state.

Off the Mark

I have no desire to start "blog wars" but ZeroHedge is way off the mark. His chart neither proves nor disproves the retirement thesis. It only shows more people than ever before are working longer.

To properly understand what is happening one must look at the raw numbers as well as the number of people moving from one demographic group to the next.

I did just that on December 17, 2013 in Fed Study Shows Drop in Participation Rate Explained by Retirement; Let's Explore that Idea, in Depth and in Pictures.

Yes people are working longer, but in relation to the number of people moving from one demographic group to the next, huge numbers of retirement-aged people have dropped out of the labor force en masse, as the following charts show.

Change in Labor Force and Population From Previous Year

In the above chart, the change in labor force and the change in population in hard numbers (not percentage terms) are side-by-side.

Consider the numbers for 2012 for age group 65+: The population rose by 2,349,000 but the labor force only rose by 621,000.

What happened to the rest? Retirement?

To make it even easier to see, please consider this final chart, with subtractions made.

Delta of Change in Labor Force to Change in Population

The decline in labor force relative to the growth in population is heavily concentrated in the 65 and older demographic.

As noted previously, the November Fed study on the Causes of Declines in the Labor Force Participation Rate by Shigeru Fujita at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia concludes "The decline in the participation rate in the last one-and-a-half years (when the unemployment rate declined faster than expected) is entirely due to retirement."

The above charts prove that the analysis by the Fed is indeed reasonable.

People are indeed working longer than ever, but the massive increase in the number of people moving into the 65 and older demographic allows for both a rising participation rate in that class as well as mass retirement.

To be fair, we do not know why some retired. I strongly suspect many did so because their unemployment benefits ran out, and to get some money coming in from Social Security, they retired. I call this "forced retirement".

Regardless, it's a huge mistake to fail to go through the proper math, as the above analysis shows.

Finally, none of the above is proof the employment situation is reasonable. It's not. Over the past few years, huge numbers of people have dropped out of the labor force via disability fraud, by staying in school longer then they really want, and by forced retirement. I do agree with ZeroHedge in that the unemployment rate is realistically way higher than reported.

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

Keynes Is Dead, Abenomics Fizzles, US Fails to Reach Escape Velocity, Stimulus Fatigue

Posted: 21 Jan 2014 12:46 PM PST

Economist Andy Xie has an interesting article in CaixinOnline that contains his views on 2014. I agree with nearly all his viewpoints but one.

Please consider Breaking Out Is Hard by Andie Xie.

The global economy is unlikely to accelerate in 2014. The hope that the U.S. economy is reaching escape velocity won't pan out. Abenomics is likely to fizzle out in 2014. Emerging economies will likely remain in low gear. The chances are that the global economy, weighted by nominal GDP at current exchange rates, will grow at 2 percent

Globalization, turbo-powered by information technology, has cut short the feedback loop between demand stimulus and supply response. Any growth response to demand stimulus is short-lived, as past five years has demonstrated.

Holding down costs of non-tradeables like housing, health care and education is the key to economic competitiveness and sustainable growth. Any economy that grows on inflating such non-tradeables through stimulus will pay back with low growth later.

Keynes Is Dead

I have argued for many years that this round of globalization has fundamentally changed how an economy works, even for a large one like the United States. While demand is and always has been local, the supply side has become genuinely global. Both manufacturing blue-collar jobs and most white-collar jobs have become global. Today's information technology allows a multinational company to position research, marketing, finance and managerial jobs to anywhere. Hence, when a country stimulates demand, it's met by supply from anywhere.

Abenomics Fizzles

Japan had two quarters of high growth, so many became convinced that Abenomics was the real deal. The data tailed off toward the usual Japan level of 1 percent in the third quarter and likely in the fourth quarter, too. Financial markets have become wobbly lately as growth momentum cools off. But the Nikkei is still at a lofty level. Too many have a vested interest in believing in Abenomics to jump ship now. When bad numbers continue for another two quarters, they will.

The Abe government has been asking Japanese companies to raise salaries to sustain the economic momentum. Even if the salary increase comes through, as people know it was forced and not likely sustainable, why would they spend it?

Shaky Ground

High commodity prices led to a frenzy in the sector's investment. The 2008 crisis prompted a pause. It continued in the following three years. Huge amounts of capital were poured into high-risk projects. The risk to commodity economies is the bursting of this investment bubble, not reduced income due to lower commodity prices per se.

I have been talking about the Australian economy heading down due to the bursting of its mining investment bubble. This story remains intact. The worst will pass only when the financial system is cleared of related non-performing assets.

Is global trade the driver or consequence of growth? Now it is probably the latter. In the decade before the 2008 financial crisis, trade was driving growth. Multinational companies were fanning out to diversify their production bases and markets. Their activities led to trade growing much higher than GDP. The golden decade of trade growth was probably a one-off event.

Every Man for Himself

When structural impediments are the main issue for growth, stimulus, even when effective, can provide only temporary relief. After the 2008 crisis, all big economies, mainly China and the United States, pursued serious stimulus. The global nature of the stimulus produced good growth for two years. It should have been the opportunity for serious structural reforms. Unfortunately, when the going is good, no one wants to take bitter medicine.

Stimulus fatigue is setting in around the world. China and the United States are likely to scale back stimulus some. The euro zone will not do anything significant. The European Central Bank may cut interest rate from 25 basis points to zero. It will not have any meaningful effect. Japan's new stimulus is unlikely to offset the impact of the consumption tax increase. Brazil, India, Indonesia and other major emerging economies may continue to increase interest rates against receding hot money.

Another major deal on global trade could rejuvenate the global economy. Unfortunately, the latest World Trade Organization agreement is very weak. It shows that the WTO system is stuck. It is no longer the platform for moving trade forward. The U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership is also stuck. Washington's free trade negotiations with the European Union are stuck, too. It seems that no significant deal on trade is coming to rescue growth this year or beyond.

Any country that wants to prosper must do so within a poor global economy. One way is to devalue. Of course, competitive devaluation will eventually make everyone worse off. For emerging economies, devaluation is usually followed quickly by inflation. It doesn't bring benefits.

The only sustainable way out is to increase competitiveness through structural reforms. It increases growth potential through higher efficiency. Most major economies could identify a few key issues impeding economic growth: health care costs in the United States, labor market rigidity in Europe, zombie industries in Japan, insufficient infrastructure in India and overinvestment in China. Imagine that these big issues are all tackled. What could the global economy grow at? Four percent growth could return.

Of course, coordinated structural reforms are a pipe dream. Structural reforms are painful. Everyone is waiting for others to act first. When others are growing fast, one gets a free ride. Hence, the incentive is not to reform. Waiting for others to move first produces the stagnation equilibrium that we are in now.

While we always hope for the best, reality can be cruel. As long as muddling through is possible, real reform is hard to come by. After the 2008 crisis broke out, I predicted widespread government stimulus, its eventual failure and the world heading to stagflation. Unfortunately, this path is still the likeliest.

Lone Disagreement

So what is it above that I disagree with? Nothing much. His global growth forecast is arguably too high, but that's about it.

My major disagreement is with something in his article I did not quote above.

Xie believes the "Nikkei is at a lofty level" and he is "surprised by how many investors are taken in by Abenomics."

From my perspective, Xie has this backwards. Belief in Abenomics is not the issue. It surely isn't going to work.

And when it doesn't work, what is prime minister Abe likely to do?

I believe the answer is what all Keynesian fools do: embark on still more printing and competitive currency debasement, coupled with still more fiscal stimulus, in a further foolish attempt to make such policies work.

If Abe manages to force up wages, stops QE, and lets the Yen rise, then I would be worried about the Nikkei.

Instead, all indications are that Abe would double down, which in turn would further trash the Yen. That is why holding a yen-hedge on the Nikkei may be a smart thing to do.

Like Xie, I think Abenomics is a failure. Unlike Xie, I think the Nikkei has risen because of the failure of Abenomics, not because of unfounded belief in the policy.

Moreover, Japanese stocks are a relative value compared to most things, and arguably an outright value play as well, taking into consideration metrics like book value, debt levels, and PE ratios.

Other than the debate on the Nikkei, I think Xie pretty much nailed the state of the global economy.

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

China Abandons Disastrous Cotton Stockpiling Program; Lessons Not Learned; What About Stockpiling Money?

Posted: 21 Jan 2014 09:21 AM PST

Inevitably, bad things happen when governments interfere in free markets. Here's an interesting example regarding cotton stockpiling.

In 2011, China put a floor on the price of cotton and started a stockpiling program.

In general terms, if a floor (on anything) is too high, the result is overproduction and forced stockpiling.

If a ceiling is too low (hoping to stop price inflation), as is the case in Venezuela right now, merchandise disappears from the stores and a black market thrives. (See Venezuela's Hyperinflation Anatomy; Army Storms Caracas Electronics Stores; Total Economic Collapse Underway; Could This Happen in US?)

With cotton, China set the support price too high, resulting in massive overproduction and huge stockpiles. As an interesting twist, there appeared to be shortages in spite of the huge stockpiles.

How? Because the floor price was set too high, Chinese textile mills could get a better price by importing cotton. Ironically, all Chinese production went into stockpiles instead of textile mills, and the Chinese clothes mills had to import, driving up prices worldwide.

As a result of non-free market intervention China is stuck with half the world's cotton supply and falling prices as well.

The Financial Times discussed this situation in China abandons failed cotton stockpiling programme.

However, the Times failed to mention the free market principles as to why the program was such a disaster.

Lessons Not Learned

Curiously, China still has a soybean reserve program in place. The Financial Times notes "A representative for the Heilongjiang Soybean Industry Association said his group hoped that some sort of improved stockpiling policy would remain in place."

Of course producers want stockpiling programs. Stockpiling causes artificially high prices.

What About Stockpiling Money?

Central banks around the world have distorted the supply of a commodity far more important than cotton: money. And what applies to cotton and soybeans also applies to money and interest rates on money.

The Fed created massive bubbles in the stock market in 2000 and 2007 via interference in the free market. The results were as every Austrian economist expected. The dotcom and housing bubbles blew sky high.

In both instances, the Fed's response was more of the same policies that caused the bubbles. Supposedly the cure is the same policy that created the disease: more loose money!

And like the previous two bubbles, the Fed cannot see this one either.

Global Lessons Not Learned

It's not just the Fed that's clueless. China soaks up every dollar it can, hoping to keep its export-driven economy churning along at artificially high growth rates. Chinese banks and State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), are in far worse financial shape than US banks.

In Europe, adoption of the Euro is bound to fail. Actually the euro has already failed (it's just not widely recognized yet).

As I look around, I see central bankers giving themselves a pat on the back for fixing the "great financial crisis". Yet nothing is fixed. Decades of blowing bubbles of increasing amplitude over time have taught them nothing.

Timing is uncertain, but monetary and interest rate manipulations by central banks will end the same way China's cotton stockpiling ended: in disaster. A currency crisis awaits.

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

Damn Cool Pics

Bird Steals Camera And Films Penguin Colony [Video]
Flash-Frozen Fish in Norway
Strange Laws From Around the World

Bird Steals Camera And Films Penguin Colony [Video]

Posted: 21 Jan 2014 06:14 PM PST

A Striated Caracara decides to fly off with a camera but in the process captures the first ever aerial footage of a rockhopper penguin colony shot by a flying bird.

Flash-Frozen Fish in Norway

Posted: 21 Jan 2014 06:00 PM PST

A shoal of herring was swimming close to the surface in a Norwegian bay when the water suddenly froze after a harsh wind caused temperatures to suddenly dip.