Central Perk

vineri, 28 martie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Reader Question on Banking System Insolvency, QE, and "Necessity"
McCain Wants More Weapons Delivered to Al Qaeda Rebels; How Do Warmongers Get Elected?
Outrageous but Highly Believable Rumor Involving Syria, Turkey, Kerry
Are You Minding the Curves? Sweet Spot is Likely Not Where You Think

Reader Question on Banking System Insolvency, QE, and "Necessity"

Posted: 28 Mar 2014 08:26 PM PDT

In response to Will Prices Rise Significantly When Velocity of Money Picks Up? reader Dave, a friend, noted that as the Fed jacked up its balance sheet, velocity has mirrored the curve to the downside.

Dave asks "Can't an argument be made that since much of the banking system is really insolvent, that the Fed increasing its balance sheet is necessary?"

"Necessity"

This depends on what you mean by "necessary" and more importantly, who gets to decide.

I am one of those who staunchly believes that banks should fail. More precisely: Banks did fail, but taxpayers bailed them out.

Was the last bailout "necessary"?

No - not to me. The world will not end if banks fail. Bondholders would have and should have paid the price. Who are the bondholders? In general, the wealthy own most of the assets, including bonds.

However, if "necessary" means in the eyes of central bankers, then yes – it was deemed "necessary".

It's all part of the moral hazard tactics of central banks that tells the "too big to fail banks" that no matter what they do, they will be bailed out, again and again and again.

Privatize the Gains, Socialize the Losses

Last time, Tim Geithner preached to Congress that financial Armageddon was right around the corner if Congress failed to pass a resuce package. Congress did pass a packages on the second attempt. Then Geithner promptly changed the terms of it to do what he wanted with the money.

Speaking before Congress, Bernanke said the collapse of Lehman was his biggest mistake. I suggest it was his only success. Over-leveraged financial institutions should pay the price for their folly, not overburdened taxpayers in general.

The poor bailed out the wealthy. The poor continue to pay the price in two ways.

Excessively low interest rates on deposits
Fed actions to drive up inflation when real wages do not keep up

Not only is that unnecessary, it's middle-class destructive. It's also conveniently disguised theft.

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

McCain Wants More Weapons Delivered to Al Qaeda Rebels; How Do Warmongers Get Elected?

Posted: 28 Mar 2014 10:53 AM PDT

Lawmakers Bash Obama's Delusional Syria Policy

In a recent post I noted Turkey Plans Military Intervention in Syria, Bans YouTube for Leaked Reporting. As a followup, please see Outrageous but Highly Believable Rumor Involving Syria, Turkey, Kerry.

Meanwhile, back in the US Lawmakers Bash Obama's "Delusional" Syria Policy.

U.S. lawmakers lashed out at the Obama administration's handling of Syria's civil war on Wednesday, demanding a stronger American response to the conflict and better communication from the White House about its plans.

Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressed deep frustration after Anne Patterson, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, declined to answer a question about strategy in a public setting.

"I have a problem with a generic answer to a generic question that I can't believe is classified," Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, said during a committee hearing.

Members of the Foreign Relations panel in particular are frustrated by the administration's failure to do more in Syria, where 140,000 people have been killed, millions have become refugees and thousands of foreign militant fighters have been trained as rebels have fought to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

Arizona Republican John McCain, a frequent critic of Obama's foreign policy, called U.S. Syria policy "a colossal failure."

Secret Deals and the Failure to "Do More"

Once again McCain proves he is little more than a war-mongering puppet for the military "offense" industry. "Defense" has nothing to do with involvement in Syria.

Late January, Reuters reported Congress secretly approves U.S. weapons flow to 'moderate' Syrian rebels.

It seems that was about as secret as Turkey's secret discussion on intervention in Syria.

Rebel Infighting

And what are the rebels doing with the weapons the US sent?

Here is the answer: Syrian Rebels Fighting Each Other: Al Qaeda Clash with Rival Islamists.

The Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front have sent an ultimatum to the rival Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to cease killing fellow rebels or face "expulsion" from Syria.

ISIS have waged a bloody campaign against fellow rebels, whom they regard as being insufficiently devout, and are widely suspected to be responsible for the killing of Suri. They have become known for the brutal enforcement of their extreme interpretation of Islamic law in the territory they control.

While Julani admitted that some Syrian rebel groups were guilty of "takfir" (unbelief), he accused ISIS of indiscriminately killing rebels and labelling them all as takfir.

Infighting between the Syrian rebel groups has intensified in recent months, with ISIS and Al Nusra severing links and fighting one another for territory. While Al Nusra have tried to build links with other rebel groups, including more secular ones, ISIS have focused on religious purity and stamping out more moderate voices.

US Backing Al Qaeda "Moderates"

That's right. McCain wants more US weapons for Syria, perhaps even a US invasion (when dealing with war-mongers it is usually correct to assume war is the real goal).

Yet, those weapons either go straight into the hands of Al Qaeda or eventually end up in Al Qaeda hands anyway.

This is precisely the idiocy of the policy "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". Supporting the overthrow of one corrupt regime for another corrupt regime typically makes matters worse.

Clear Policy Statement

The US needs a clear, consistent, easily explained policy on Syria.

And I can sum it up in two words "stay out".

If we supply arms and the Syrian government falls, the next government is likely to be run by Al Qaeda or militant extremists, and McCain and his ilk will be back at it, hoping to overthrow the next government, or worse yet, invade Syria to impose our will.

Clearly, the only winning option is to not get involved.

How Do Warmongers Get Elected?

Given that it's crystal clear that involvement is a losing option, some might wonder: "How Do Warmongers Get Elected?"

Here's the easy to understand explanation: The "offense" industry supports any and every candidate that supports war. If you are a candidate against war, the "offense" industry will label you "weak on defense", then toss massive amounts of campaign money at your opponent.

Democrat-sponsored pro-union advocates get elected the same way. In fact, it is difficult to get elected if you do not take campaign bribes.

This explains why those on the outside want campaign finance reform. But, once elected, bribes come in from every corner. The newly-elected want to stay in power so they too take bribes. Campaign finance reform dies in the process every time.

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

Outrageous but Highly Believable Rumor Involving Syria, Turkey, Kerry

Posted: 28 Mar 2014 10:03 AM PDT

Normally I stay far away from the rumor mill. Typically, most rumors turn out to be false.

However, actions in Turkey suggest at least some substance to this rumor. Moreover, it's entirely believable. First let's tune in to what Bloomberg reports (which I also commented on yesterday).

Please consider Turkey Blocks YouTube After Syria Incursion Plans Leaked

Turkey defended its decision to block YouTube after a leaked recording of a meeting where top officials discussed a possible military incursion into Syria appeared on the site.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu today equated the leak to an "attack on Turkey's borders" in an interview with NTV television. Davutoglu said he had chaired the meeting with the head of national intelligence and other military and diplomatic officials to discuss how to respond to threats by Islamist militants against an enclave of Turkish territory inside Syria. Some sections of the tape were "doctored," the foreign ministry said in a statement yesterday.

The leaked tape is the latest in a series of recordings posted anonymously on the Internet since December, some of them allegedly from a police investigation, which have embroiled Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a corruption scandal and led to the departure of four cabinet ministers. It comes before weekend local elections, where Erdogan is seeking a victory that he says will lay to rest the allegations of graft.

Under fire since the corruption investigation burst into the open in December, he has purged dozens of prosecutors and thousands of police, as well as imposing media curbs. Yesterday's YouTube shutdown follows similar measures against Twitter last week. The government says some of the recordings were assembled by montage.

What We Know

The above is what is claimed by Erdogan and discussed by Bloomberg. We do know that Erdogan tried to shut down Twitter (but failed), and he did shut down YouTube.

He also called the leak an act of treason and refused to let media even discuss the allegation. What follows is the rumor.

Turkey Transcript

Here is the alleged Turkey Transcript involving a plot to invade Syria.

Select Quotes

Hakan FİDAN: But hear me out, we know how to put two and to together. Now, we know that what happens there has no real strategic value for us, besides the political outward appearance and whatever. Now, if we are going to enter a war, let us plan this beforehand and do it. Now, I..

Yaşar GÜLER: That's what we've been saying since the beginning.

THE FIFTH SCREEN

Hakan FİDAN: Now, what I can't accept is this: we are accepting the risk of using weapons for the sake of the Tomb of Suleiman Shah. It's 10 acres of our country's land and we are accepting to risk a war for it, for the *thing* of our 22-28 soldiers over there, for God's sake, how many kilometers of this country's land lie on the Syrian border? And we don't risk a war for for thousands of kilometers of land and the lives of millions of people? That's not logical! If we are going to use weapons, let's do it from the beginning. If these guys pose a threat..

THE SIXTH SCREEN

Ahmet DAVUTOĞLU: Keep this between us, but the Prime Minister told me on the phone that in this conjuncture, we count this (the proposed false flag attack on the Tomb of Suleiman Shah) amongst our options.

Hakan FİDAN: Commander, if we really need a reason, I'll send 4 guys to the other side, I'll get them to launch 8 rockets at empty places. That's no problem! If we need a reason, we can produce it. The thing is to show a mutual will for that. We are exerting a will for war here, and nevertheless we are making the same mistake as we always do, the mistake of not being able to think properly.

Feridun SİNİRLİOĞLU: I'll tell you this, it's 10 acres of land. 10 acres of land is a very strong casus belli in the international jurisprudence, also for justification if we do this operation against the ISIL, we'll have the entire world behind us. Have no worries about that.

THE SEVENTH SCREEN

Feridun SİNİRLİOĞLU: We need justification, justification.

Hakan FİDAN: I told you, I can produce justification if need be. Justification is no problem.

THE EIGHTH SCREEN

Ahmet DAVUTOĞLU: Many a times I've had amicable conversations with Kerry, he asked me precisely about whether we've agreed on a final decision on this strike..
....
This is translated by Doğukan Piyale. I am probably putting my life at risk, but the State never runs out of assassins, so if I'm going to die, I'm going to die anyway. I just wanted to serve the international community and my people by letting everyone know about these warmongering bastards.

Entirely Believable

I do not know whether that is an accurate translation of a real tape or not. But the fact is, it is entirely believable.

Moreover, shutting down YouTube, and then banning media discussion of the tape, while calling its release an act of treason, lends further credence to the rumor.

True or not, that something of this nature could be so easily believable says a ton about the corrupt state of global politics.

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

Are You Minding the Curves? Sweet Spot is Likely Not Where You Think

Posted: 28 Mar 2014 12:16 AM PDT

Curve Watcher's Anonymous has its eye on the yield curve again.

Over the course of the last year, and except for the close front-end, US treasury yields have risen across the board, and in some cases dramatically. This is what one would expect from a tapering Fed that is also discussing rate hikes.

However, the action in the last three months is not what one would expect.

click on any chart for sharper image

In the past year, 5-year treasuries have been hit the hardest (sharpest yield increase). That is not what one might expect from a strong recovery. And certainly a drop in the 30-year long bond is not what one would typically expect either.

Typically, when the Fed starts hiking or announces intention to hike, the long end of the curve changes the most. It did, until the beginning of the year. The following charts will help put things in perspective.

Yield Curve as of 2014-03-28 Monthly

The above chart shows monthly "closes" where the yield was at the end of the month. The current month shows the present value.

Yield Curve as of 2014-03-28 Weekly

The above chart shows weekly "closes" where the yield was at the end of each week. The current week shows the present value.

Symbols

$TYX: 30-Year Green
$TNX: 10-Year Orange
$FVX: 05-Year Blue
$IEX: 03-Month Brown

Since the beginning of the year, the middle and long portion of the yield curve has flattened dramatically.

The "sweet spot" for investors has been the long end of the curve. Those hiding in 5-year treasuries have been hit the hardest.

Given the Fed is holding the low end of the curve near zero, the typical inversion one sees in the yield curve preceding a recession is not going to happen. We could see the 5-10 spread invert but that would take some doing.

Regardless, this flattening of the curve is certainly not a sign of a strong recovery. Given blatant Fed yield curve manipulation, this may be as close to a recession warning that we get.

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

Damn Cool Pics

Very Scary Places

Posted: 28 Mar 2014 09:55 AM PDT

These places will keep you awake at night.

Source: 1, 2

The President Meets the Pope

Featured

The President Meets the Pope

Yesterday, President Obama headed to Italy, continuing his five-country trip across Europe and Saudi Arabia.

The President started off the day at the Vatican, where he had an audience with His Holiness Pope Francis. This was President Obama's first time meeting Pope Francis, and the two "had a wide-ranging discussion," the President said.

Watch highlights from the President's day in Italy and his meeting with Pope Francis.

President Barack Obama meets with Pope Francis for a private audience in Vatican City, Italy, March 27, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

3 Days: I'm a Republican, and you should get covered

Good afternoon,

I am a staunch Republican, a self-proclaimed Fox News addict, and I didn't vote for the President. And I'm here to tell you that Obamacare works. I'm living proof.

I'm a chemotherapy patient, and was previously paying $428 a month for my health coverage. I was not thrilled when it was cancelled.

Then I submitted an application at HealthCare.gov. I looked at my options. And I signed up for a plan for $62 a month.

It's the best health care I have ever had.

So right now, here's what I want to tell anyone who still needs health insurance, or knows someone who does:

Sign up. Follow the instructions on the website. Apply, and look at your options. You still have time, and take it from me: This is something you want to do.

I wrote a letter to President Obama this past February to tell him about my experience with the Health Insurance Marketplace. I hoped he'd read it, and he did.

I may not be a supporter of the President. But now, I get mad when I see Obamacare dragged through the mud on television.

And even though I regularly tune in to conservative pundits, I'd like to tell them they're getting it wrong. Obamacare works.

So one more time: If you still need health insurance, you have just three days to get it. Do what I did. Go to HealthCare.gov, submit an application, and pick a plan that works for you.

It just might change your life.

Mark D. Bearden, Ph.D.
Monroe, North Carolina

Surviving the SEO "Slog" - Whiteboard Friday

Posted: 27 Mar 2014 04:16 PM PDT

Posted by randfish

Working to ingrain SEO best practices in a company can take several months, and can involve a lengthy period of diminishing returns that we sometimes call the "SEO slog." To make things worse, our clients and colleagues often expect a consistent improvement. The difference between those expectations and the reality is what Rand tackles in today's Whiteboard Friday, offering you four ways to minimize what he calls the "delta of dissatisfaction." Credit to Scott Clark at BuzzMaven for the concept (see his original post here).

For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard!

I also made a graphic version of the SEO Slog below (feel free to re-use):

Video transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about the SEO slog. This is that really tough experience that many, many SEOs go through where, essentially, you're putting a lot of effort into improving your rankings, improving your content, improving your keyword targeting, earning those links and mentions and social signals, user and usage data things, all the things that are going to help you perform on search engines, but you're not seeing results. Virtually everyone who's in the field has experienced this over the course of their career.

It happens because, a lot of the time, Google has got many, many triggers in their ranking systems to kind of check whether effort is worthy enough, or signals are organic and ongoing enough, to earn the site continued rankings, or whether there should be some sort of consideration and then evaluation and delay between when the effort is put in and things are improved and when results actually happen.

This is insidiously frustrating for lots of folks in the field. By the way, Google isn't the only one responsible. Many times what happens is that SEOs make recommendations for organizations or inside their own organizations. They work with their marketing and their engineering teams to try and get things done, and it just takes a long time. It takes a long time to see the results of those.

So I actually really appreciated Scott Clark from BuzzMaven in Lexington. You can follow him on Twitter on @scottclark. Scott described this very eloquently. I like the graphic that he put together about the SEO slog. His blog post, by the way, was called "Thriving In the SEO Slog," and he talked to a number of industry leaders, particularly those from consulting firms, about this process. He had a chart very similar to the one that I'm going to show you here.

Essentially, we have on the side here, effort. So a little bit of effort down on the bottom. Lots of effort and then a ton of effort right up on the top. Then, sort of month one through six, as you're starting those SEO efforts and campaigns. This can happen on an entire website level, but this can also happen on a particular subsection of a website, or a new group of keywords, or a new set of content that you're targeting.

What frequently happens is you see what's needed to see return on investment, to see those improvements over time, versus what the expectations are, which I've got in purple versus orange, kind of diverge. So at the start, what's needed, a lot of the time at the very start of an SEO campaign, especially if previous best practices haven't been employed, it's actually really minimal to start seeing a positive return on investment. But, over time, that effort ramps up a ton. You've got to do an incredible amount just to see a continued return on investment over those first few months, and there's a delay between the effort that you put in here and when you're seeing results towards the latter few months of a campaign.

Unfortunately, expectations are the opposite. A lot of clients, managers, teams, the people in your startup with you, the other folks that are in your consulting group, your client, all of these folks are expecting to see that effort is a little bit higher at the start, and then you kind of get the ball rolling and it goes down. That actually is true. The problem is it takes a long time to get that ball rolling. So what I usually see, what most of us in the industry see is that that effort ramps up tremendously in those first few months, and then over time it does go down a little bit. Maintaining those ongoing best practices is a little bit easier.

But this, right here, the difference between expectations and reality, that's what I call the delta of dissatisfaction. People just get really frustrated around this.

There are a few good mitigation strategies, and some of these were mentioned, actually, by the experts that Scott Clark talked to in his post. The first one, the one that nearly every consultant mentioned, and I think is very smart, is to create the right expectations.

If you go into a client meeting, or you sit down with your marketing team, or you're talking to your CEO about what you can and can't accomplish, if you create the expectation that SEO is going to be this not necessarily silver bullet, but that you will make these investments and because things are done so badly today and the company you used to work for or the other websites that you've worked on had such success when you implemented these best practices, that you feel confident you can increase their rankings and their traffic and the acquisition of customers dramatically.

The problem gets created right then and there, because in the SEO world, for the last decade, for some reason people have held these two beliefs about SEO. Number one, that it's a one-time activity, which is just dead wrong as all of you who are watching know. Number two is that once you optimize for the search engines, you are now optimal, and that means you don't require additional ongoing effort, and the search engines will reward your efforts once they see them. Since Google's crawling us so fast, well, we must get that benefit immediately.

Neither of these are the case. So creating the right expectations up front can work wonders. In fact, if you want to go ahead and make this chart and put it right in your presentations, as you're showing the team, here's what needs to be fixed. Here's what we need to do. Here's what I think we can accomplish. But, by the way, you're going to think this can happen a lot faster than it can happen. If you tell them that up front, you're creating those right expectations.

Number two, when things are going well, that's a dangerous time, a very dangerous time. I urge folks not to just sort of celebrate and then create new projections, like, "Hey, well, we accomplished X. Y is certainly going to happen, and Y is going to be 2X, and 3X and 4X in six months and seven months and eight months." Always create both a contingency plan, in case that traffic increase is temporary, and a conservative budget.

So I actually really like making budgets around traffic, around performance here at Moz, and in general that contain a best-case scenario and also a "and here's what we'll spend before we know whether this is the truth." If you don't, you can end up very, very sad.

Number three, make sure SEO isn't your only inbound traffic channel, and it's not the only inbound marketing effort that you're working on. If you're doing social media marketing and content marketing, you're building an email list, and you're doing branding and PR and outreach and connecting with your industry, you're speaking at events, you're doing paid forms of advertising as well, great. Now you've got some mitigation. Now you aren't solely relying on SEO to provide all of the returns, and, thus, you can handle being off budget. If Google is 70% of your traffic and you miss by 10%, that's huge. If Google is 20% of your traffic and you miss by 10%, oh, it's not so bad. It's only 2% off budget.

Number four, the last thing I'll recommend here is that you measure and report leading indicators. By leading indicators, I mean not just the pages that are receiving traffic, but also things like link signals, rankings for long-tail stuff, looking at social shares, these leading indicators, these things that tend to, over time, correlate as rankings catch up to how your performance is going. By reporting on that kind of stuff, higher engagement on pages, those leading indicators will give you a sense of how things might be going two, three, four, five, six months from now with your search traffic and your rankings. That can be extremely helpful.

All right, everyone. Hope you've enjoyed this edition of Whiteboard Friday,and we'll see you again next week. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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