Central Perk

marți, 8 aprilie 2014

Here’s what the President is doing to close the pay gap:

Hi,

On average, full-time working women earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.

Worse still? Many women don't even know they're underpaid. And because 51% of women report they are discouraged or forbidden from discussing their wages, they can't take steps that would ensure they're earning fair pay at work.

That's why today, on Equal Pay Day, President Obama is taking action.

See what President Obama is doing to address the gap -- then share the news.

Thanks,

Cecilia

Cecilia Muñoz
Director, Domestic Policy Council
The White House
@Cecilia44

"It's Nice to Have a Day, But It's Even Better to Have Equal Pay"

Featured

"It's Nice to Have a Day, But It's Even Better to Have Equal Pay"

Women make up nearly half of the American workforce, but still earn an average of 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.

That's why today, on Equal Pay Day, President Obama signed an Executive Order and a Presidential Memorandum to help combat pay discrimination and strengthen the enforcement of equal pay laws.

Learn more about the President's new executive actions to close the pay gap.

Starting Over, Part 1: A Pre-Launch Checklist

Posted: 07 Apr 2014 04:10 PM PDT

Posted by Dr-Pete

Writing about marketing can be a full-time job, and there comes a point when you risk losing touch with the day-to-day challenges of actually being a marketer. A while back, I had an idea â€" what if I started over? What if I launched a new blog completely from scratch and told that story? No best practices, no wisdom from on high, but a blow-by-blow account of having to be a content marketer all over again.

Everyone agreed that this was a perfectly interesting idea, except for the part about building and maintaining an entire site just to write a few posts about the experience. So, I kept putting the idea on the back burner, until there was something that I wanted to write about enough to make the project worthwhile.

This is a story of beginning again. This will not be a polished, Photoshopped portrait of best practices â€" it's going to be an honest account of my choices and mistakes. I'm not going to tell you what you should do, but why I made the choices I did and what happened when I made those choices. Welcome to part 1: pre-launch.

(0) Concepts & Choices
(1) Domains & Branding
(2) Hosting & Platforms
(3) Social & Plug-ins
(4) Analytics & Tools

(0) Concept & Choices

TL;DR â€" It all starts with a choice, so choose something. You can spend a year making up your mind (I did), or you can start building and see what happens. If the risk is low, then get moving.

Before you actually build anything, you have to make the choice to build something. It's sound obvious, but that choice may be the hardest part of starting any new venture, whether it's a blog or a business. I can't tell you what to build or even how to make that choice, but I can tell you how I made this particular choice.

Honestly, this project sat on the shelf for too long, a victim of perfectionism. I wanted the perfect idea, that I was passionate about, that would make great content, that would tell an amazing story, and that would all somehow magically be easy to do. No pressure. Simply deciding to move forward probably took over a year.

The core problem is that the idea was just too vague â€" I wanted to start a new blog so that I could blog about that blog. Even that sentence bored me. I needed to connect to the project. I'm not going to throw out a bunch of clichÃ©s about passion, but the simple reality is that I couldn't just write a blog for the sake of blogging, or I'd hate this project in record time.

For a while, I've wanted to dig deeper into minimalist design, but design isn't something I have a lot of time for and I've worked with enough great designers to know that I'm not one. Finally it occurred to me â€" why not just embrace that and write a blog about being a lousy designer? I may not be a great designer, but I am good at making fun of myself.

I finally landed on the idea of a parody blog about branding. I would redesign big company logos in the minimalist style, even though they never asked me to, and I'd suck at with style. It was concrete, it had a repeatable theme, and it would be fun.

(1) Domains & Branding

TL;DR â€" Don't get hung up on a domain. Find something that clearly reflects your concept, make sure it's available (of course), and then do a little background research to not step into anything embarrassing. Once you've registered something, lock down how you'll represent your brand and URL.

1A. Register a domain

Most marketers could spend a lifetime picking the right domain, only to find that the domain was registered 75 years ago and the internet was now accessed by drinking a series of pulsating purple tubes. Throw in trying to optimizing your domain for SEO, and your great, great moon-children may be able to enjoy your perfect domain as a grape-flavored cocktail.

This was a personal blog, so I decided to keep it simple and riff off of the initial concept. The basic idea was that I would do unsolicited, minimalist redesigns of big brands, exploring (and mocking) corporate branding along the way. Ultimately, I tossed around dozens of domain names, but I'm going to narrow it down to five that represent the journey pretty well. I started with the overly literal...

(1) MininimalLogos.com
(2) MinimalistLogos.com

If possible, I was shooting for a .com. I came up with option #2 because I was concerned about two l's in a row in #1 â€" I still remember having to spell unruly domains over the phone, and so I try to limit confusion. Ultimately, both options felt too literal, a bit restrictive, and like they wouldn't be much fun. So, I came up with...

(3) HeresYourNewLogo.com

The idea was simple. Each post would be titled something like "Here's Your New Logo, Yahoo!", and it would be a sort of running joke. While the overall concept might have worked for a while, the domain itself seemed too generic and hard to brand. Plus, I'd be tied into that one, very narrow concept forever. Up next was...

(4) MinimalEffort.com

It had a shout-out to minimalism, it wasn't too restrictive, and it was in the self-mocking style that comes naturally to me. Only one problem â€" yep, it was already taken. I should say that I like to brainstorm first, before I look up availability. It just feels more natural. I liked this direction, though, so I kept working at it until I found one:

(5) MinimalTalent.com

It had minimalism, it made fun of my abilities (and set expectations low about my design skills, which I considered to be critically important), and it was unique enough to brand. Don't spend weeks sending your domain to friends and getting all of your third cousin's opinions, especially for small projects â€" it'll drive you crazy and just delays getting your project off the ground.

1B. Double-check your name

My choice was more about branding than keyword research, buy I don't want to give the impression that I think keyword research is unimportant.. If you want to see an in-depth keyword research process in action, I highly recommend Laura Lippay's 8-part series â€" yes, all 8 parts. I'd also recommend Todd Malicoat's comprehensive post on choosing an exact-match domain.

Bare minimum, you need to make sure that your new name doesn't have unexpected connotations or an embarrassing history. A quick Google search revealed that most references to "minimal talent" were about a musician named Matt Minimal, and his track called "Talent":

Just as a sanity check, I also fed the brand through Moz's Keyword Difficulty Tool, and got back the following (note: this is a paid tool, and I'm only showing partial data):

So, the search volume was hardly exciting, but the difficulty level (39%) was promising. The bottom graph shows that, after a few average pages on high-authority domains (like YouTube), the competition fell off pretty quickly. I should be able to rank for my brand phrase.

I probably should've thought a bit more about trying to displace an artist with an actual album, but, hey, mistakes and all, right? The important thing is that I made a choice and the closet seemed skeleton-free. My domain was new, so I didn't have to worry about domain history. If you're buying a domain, I highly recommend checking the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine and digging into the domain's link profile.

1C. Pin down your brand

As I was finishing graduate school, my advisor gave me a good piece of advice â€" decide how you want your name to read and use it consistently. Part of that was just practical, a result of early academic search engines and their poor matching abilities. Ultimately, though, this piece of advice made me choose to use Dr. Peter J. Meyers consistently for years, and that serendipitously led to being called "Dr. Pete", one of my better accidental branding decisions.

There are many way to represent a brand online â€" spaces, no spaces, all caps, all lower case, etc. I decided to go old school and just use "Minimal Talent". Make this decision early, because it's going to impact your design templates, your copy, your social profiles, your anchor text, and on and on. If you start changing it around 6 months later, you'll make a mess.

1D. Pick a canonical URL

This is also a good time to decide on a canonical version of your URL. I opted to drop the "www" and just go with "minimaltalent.com". I don't have strong opinions about whether or not to use "www", but consistency is absolutely essential. Make a conscious decision, set up canonicalization and redirects early ("www" to non-www or vise-versa), and use one format every time you link, display, tweet, email, print, or in any way share your URL.

(2) Hosting & Platforms

TL;DR â€" If you ask 12 people what the best hosting and CMS are, you'll get 13 opinions. Try to narrow down to a few choices quickly and then go with what fits your project requirements and budget. The same goes for themes. If it's a personal project, make the final choice yourself.

2A. Decide on a platform

It was time to actually start building something. I'm not going to dive deep into my choice of platforms â€" I decided early on to go with WordPress. Put simply, I was overdue to dive into WordPress and I knew many of our customers still use it, so that choice just fit the project.

2B. Pick a hosting company

I went to Twitter for advice on hosting companies, which is always an adventure, but managed to narrow the choice down to a few candidates. I'm not endorsing these companies or making a list of best choices â€" again, I'm just walking you through my own decision process:

(1) Web Faction (https://www.webfaction.com/)

Web faction is focused on hosting for developers, and their pricing seemed pretty good for what you get. I wanted this story to be accessible, though, and so the technical focus was actually a downside for me this time around. Web Faction was a good fit for me on a normal day, but just not a match for this project.

(2) Web Synthesis (http://websynthesis.com/)

Web Synthesis is about as close as I've seen to an enterprise WordPress hosting company. They seem to have serious firepower, but they also have the price-tag to match. Their suggested ("Professional") plan was $97/month (to be fair, they have a "Starter" plan for $27/month), and that just didn't fit the scope of Minimal Talent.

(3) DreamPress (http://www.dreamhost.com/dreampress/)

DreamHost is a large, discount host, and I've used them for a couple of projects with relatively decent results. Like any big host, they have good and bad reviews. They were a known quantity, though, and I was intrigued by their DreamPress offering.

So, ultimately, I went with the company I knew and tried DreamPress. I opted to spend $19.95/month and go with a packaged WordPress solution, even though basic hosting can be had for cheaper rates. I tend to believe that you get what you pay for, and if a project is worth doing, it's worth some investment. You have to do what's right for you.

2C. Choose a theme

Next up was theme-shopping. One of the things I like about using a themed platform (like WordPress) is that you can narrow down what you like and use that to inform your design decisions. Personally, I find that a lot less intimidating than staring at an empty page waiting for inspiration. I'm not a designer by trade, so I need a starting-off point. Put simply, I don't always know what I like until I see it.

I hit Twitter and Google, looking for minimalist themes. Theme shopping is a bit like choosing a toothpaste, and it's easy to get overloaded. Do you want cavity preventing, tartar control, extra whitening, or cavity reducing, tartar fighting, extreme whitening? Sometimes, you lose track of the difference.

The best I can say is cast a wide net, find a few themes you like, bookmark them, and come back later with a clear head. After a couple of days, I narrowed down my choices to three:

1. Hipster (hat-tip to @brandondud)

I was looking for something clean, but ultimately decided that Hipster was probably a bit too minimalist for my tastes. Here's a screenshot, just to give you an idea of what I was looking for:

2. Centita (hat-tip to @Charles_SEO)

The Centita theme gave me a bit more options, but I ultimately felt that it was more geared toward a company site. I was really aiming for something more blogging-focused.

3. Sixteen Nine (hat-top to @meinck)

I was familiar with StudioPress and had actually wandered across the Minimum theme first, but then dug around a bit more until I discovered Sixteen Nine. This had just the right amount of flexibility for me, while still being clearly focused on blogging:

This led to another decision, though. The Sixteen Nine theme was part of the Genesis framework. The price tag ($99.95) wasn't a big stumbling block for me, but it would mean committing to that framework.

Luckily, I was familiar with some of the folks at StudioPress (the makers of Genesis) and had heard a lot of good things from the SEO community. Since this was my first WordPress effort, I felt that a framework would help me overcome some of the early pains of customizing WordPress. Of course, it would also mean learning the ins and outs of the platform.

2D. Tweak your design

Once again, perfectionism reared its ugly head. While I've had good experiences with Genesis so far, there's a learning curve even to WordPress. I wanted to tweak things that first-timers probably shouldn't tweak, and sometimes even just finding the right page of code or style sheet took hours. The first couple of weeks were a frustrating experience.

I decided not to go too crazy (70% of the way toward going crazy) â€" I left the layout and dark color scheme alone, and made fairly small changes to font choices. I wanted to replace the author photo with my logo, which meant some resizing â€" this turned out to be much more of a challenge than I expected and actually took a few days of part-time messing around. It took me about a day just to figure out how to flush the built-in Varnish cache, but I'll leave out the gory details.

My launch design ended up looking like this ( yes, the site is live) â€" not earth shattering, but it got the job done:

I'm not going to dig deep into logo design. Branding is a personal and sometimes perilous journey, and there are many options. I'll just say this â€" don't let logo design keep you from launching forever. Yes, a professional brand image is important, but a logo isn't imbued with magical powers. Ultimately, you have to build a brand, and the sooner you start the sooner you'll get established.

I decided that having someone else design a logo for a blog about designing logos seemed like cheating, so I tackled that project myself. The theme gave me guidance, and I stuck with a mostly gray scheme. I ended up with this:

It's designed for a dark background, but it fares reasonably well on white (make sure your logo works on a variety of backgrounds and at a variety of sizes). The left of the lower-case "m" forms a pencil. The only stroke of color is the red eraser, which I meant as a subtle way of saying that my design efforts require frequent editing and occasional creative destruction.

(3) Social & Plug-ins

TL;DR â€" Register and protect your social accounts ASAP and set up authorship via Google+. Pin down your social links and SEO plug-ins prior to launch.

3A. Register social accounts

One of the dangers of platforms like WordPress, in my opinion, is that you can get plug-in fever, launching with every possible function imaginable. This includes social networks â€" it only takes minutes to enable sharing on hundreds of networks.

The reality is that you'll quickly dilute your efforts and you'll never be able to spend time building those networks. So, I decided to focus on just three: Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest. Choosing the right networks is well beyond the scope of this post, but I'm already active on Twitter, I feel that Google+ has some SEO advantages (even if they're indirect), and the design focus of Minimal Talent made Pinterest a natural choice. I'd also been meaning to dig into Pinterest for a long time.

I chose to use my personal accounts, but I also decided to claim the Twitter account @MinimalTalent. I don't think you have to register everything under the sun, but protecting assets you might use later is often a good idea. While I chose to do this manually, I recommend KnowEm for checking and claiming a large number of social accounts.

I also connected my Google+ and Pinterest accounts to the site. Connecting your Google+ account to establish authorship varies with the platform, but here's a good guide to setting up authorship with WordPress.

3B. Set up an RSS feed

Next, I connected my RSS feed (for WordPress, it conveniently exists at http://example.com/feed) to Feedburner. I know RSS is probably dying, and Feedburner is a hot mess, but the reality is that nothing viable has really replaced either one. So, for now, I decided to include an RSS feed.

3C. Pick your plug-ins

Finally, I set up social and RSS icons on the site itself. I used Simple Social Icons for the logos on the left column and used JetPack's built-in tools to display social icons on my individual posts. There are a mountain of social plug-ins, and I barely scaled the foothills.

Since I was using the Genesis framework, a lot of my core SEO needs were already integrated. If you're going with straight WordPress, though, I'd recommend Joost de Valk's WordPress plug-in. Many CMS systems have a bad tendency to create duplicate content and spin out ugly URLs and META data (or generic data, including titles). Solve this problem before you launch, or it could bite you later.

(4) Analytics & Tools

TL;DR â€" Set up your analytics and monitoring tools before you launch. You can't recreate lost historical data. Use Google Webmaster Tools to help get crawled and indexed quickly.

4A. Set up Google Analytics

Since my needs were basic and my budget was tight, I went ahead and stuck to Google Analytics. Whatever complaints I have about Google, it's hard to beat GA's feature set for absolutely free. Don't put this off â€" if you luck out and your blog takes off, you can't back-fill the data. I'm not going to dive deep into GA, but I'd recommend opting for the new, universal analytics. It's going to give you more options going forward.

4B. Set up Google Webmaster Tools

I'd also set up Google Webmaster Tools right away, since one thing it does very well is help with discovery and getting your initial site indexed. I'll get into that topic a bit more in the next post (which will be focused on the launch itself).

4C. Create an XML sitemap

Create and link up your XML sitemap. I used a plug-in called Google XML Sitemaps, and it seems to be working well enough. In Google Webmaster Tools, go to "Crawl > Sitemaps", and you can submit your sitemap URL. If you're working on a large site, I'm a big fan of tiered sitemaps. For this project, I really only needed the basics.

4D. Set up Moz Analytics

Part of the point of this project is to get back in the trenches with our customers and do a better job understanding our product as a marketer. So, I set up a new campaign in Moz Analytics, and I connected my Google Analytics account right away (which is an option during campaign creation):

You'll also want to set up at least a few initial keywords, especially branded keywords, so that you can quickly see if and when you're getting established. I decided to set up a small list that covered a range, from essential to aspirational:

site:minimaltalent.com
minimal talent
misadventures in minimalism
minimalism 101
minimalist logos
yahoo logo
minimalism

I decided to set up a "site:" operator as a keyword, just to tracking that the site site is being indexed. After that, I went with the brand name and my tagline. My tagline is pretty specific, so if I'm not ranking for that fairly soon, something may be wrong. After that, I cast a wider net, just to have something to shoot for over time.

Next Time: Launch

I'm going to be telling this story over a series of posts, as the blog itself unfolds. Up next, I'll be talking about the mechanics of actually launching, promoting your launch, and initially getting indexed and (hopefully) ranking. If there's anything in particular you'd like to hear about this process along the way, please let me know in the comments.

Special thanks to Abe Schmidt for putting together the pre-launch graphic, and thanks to everyone who's supported the Minimal Talent blog so far. It's been a lot of fun.

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 : In search of an argument

In search of an argument

Has it ever been easier to experience an emotion at the click of a mouse? It's a choice.

You can instantly become enraged, merely by reading the comments of some blogs. You can amplify your self-doubt by checking out what the trolls on Twitter have just said about you. And if you're really interested in bringing yourself down, go read some reviews of your work online.

Sure, if you want an argument, it's easy to find a never-ending one oline.

The question is, why would you want to?

• Email to a friend •

luni, 7 aprilie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

US Treasury Warns China Over Yuan Depreciation; Treasury Hypocrites; What If?
Mortgage Loan Originations Lowest on Record
Battle Cry of the Day: Save the Bondholders; Failed Bank Resolution on Verge of Unraveling Days Before Ratification

US Treasury Warns China Over Yuan Depreciation; Treasury Hypocrites; What If?

Posted: 07 Apr 2014 07:12 PM PDT

In yet another case of blatant US hypocrisy, Bloomberg reports U.S. Treasury Warns Against China Reviving Yuan Controls.

A backtracking by China in its commitment to move toward a market-determined exchange rate for the yuan would provoke serious concern in the Obama administration, a U.S. Treasury official said.

China allowed the yuan to depreciate before widening the exchange-rate band on March 17. The changes occurred as China continued to build current-account surpluses, accumulate excessive foreign reserves and attract significant net foreign-direct investment, the official said today on condition of anonymity.

Since the start of this year, the People's Bank of China has guided a 2.5 percent loss on the yuan to help curb speculative bets on appreciation of the currency, according to Nomura Holdings Inc.

Similarly, Reuters reports U.S. Warns China Over Currency Depreciation

The United States warned Beijing on Monday that the recent depreciation of the Chinese currency could raise "serious concerns" if it signaled a policy shift away from allowing market-determined exchange rates.

Washington has been pressing China for years to allow its currency to trade at stronger values. A weak yuan makes Chinese exports cheaper for U.S. consumers at the expense of U.S. producers. A weaker yuan also makes Chinese consumers less able to buy foreign goods.

Last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew welcomed a decision by China to allow its currency to vary more against the dollar in daily trading.

Monday's comments by a senior official from the Treasury Department suggested the United States was not completely sold on China's intention to reduce authorities' interventions in exchange markets.

"If the recent currency weakness signals a change in China's policy away from allowing adjustment and moving toward a market-determined exchange rate, that would raise serious concerns," the official, who asked not to be named, told journalists in a phone call.

In comments that outlined U.S. positions before meetings later this week of the International Monetary Fund and between Group of 20 nations, the official noted the widening of China's currency trading band came just after a drop in the yuan's value that coincided with reports of "considerable intervention" in exchange markets by Chinese authorities. That is exactly the sort of behavior Washington wants Beijing to ditch.

What If?

What if China floated the yuan? Is it really clear given the massive Chinese malinvestments in housing, in SOEs, in infrastructure, and numerous other things, that anyone knows for certain which way the yuan would trade if it freely floated?

Actually, no one can be certain of anything. That statement holds true even if there were no Chinese malinvestments in housing, in SOEs, in infrastructure, etc.

Rigged Casino

The US wants China to widen its trading band on one and only one condition: the yuan rises vs the US dollar.

Treasury Hypocrites

US hypocrites say nothing about Japan's all-out attack on the Yen. Moreover, and more importantly, I have a simple question:

Why is massive QE in the US acceptable when the sole intent is to drive the dollar lower and US asset prices higher?

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

Mortgage Loan Originations Lowest on Record

Posted: 07 Apr 2014 12:37 PM PDT

Black Knight's February Mortgage Data shows Monthly Loan Originations Lowest on Record.

Key Points

Origination volume is the lowest on record with prepay speeds signaling more drops in refi originations
Monthly sales were essentially flat year over year, but traditional sales were up almost 15%
The government share of originations has decreased, led by a sharp drop in HARP originations
Credit standards have shown few signs of loosening, with very little origination activity in the lowest credit score buckets
Modification re-default rates for underwater borrowers about 30 percent higher than those with equity

February's data showed the continued trend of declining origination activity we've been observing since mid-2013, with monthly originations falling to their lowest recorded point since at least 2000. In spite of this decline, residential real estate sales have remained strong due at least in part to investor activity and the fact that cash sales account for almost half of all transactions. In addition, while total transaction levels were flat on a year-over-year basis, traditional (or "non-distressed") sales were up almost 15 percent from last year as the share of distressed transactions continues to decrease. Credit standards have shown little sign of easing -- only about 30 percent of 2013 loans went to borrowers with credit scores below 720 -- which indicates that significant opportunity to expand mortgage origination activity is available, if risk appetites allow.

Risk Appetites

Is it lenders who are risk adverse or borrowers? Either way, that is a healthy thing, not something to fear or complain about. Home prices have recovered significantly, and the recovery is getting rather aged by historical standards.

Now is not the time for extended risk appetites, even as risk appetite for nearly everything else has soared to the moon.

For further discussion of sentiment and risk, please see Framework for Understanding Market Tops and Bottoms.

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

Battle Cry of the Day: Save the Bondholders; Failed Bank Resolution on Verge of Unraveling Days Before Ratification

Posted: 07 Apr 2014 11:17 AM PDT

In lengthy negotiations last month the EU reached a deal on how to handle failed banks. The European parliament was set to ratify the deal in a matter of days.

Today, the UK decided it doesn't like the deal. France, Italy, Sweden, and Portugal also decided they don't like the deal.

The Czech Republic and Denmark don't want changes. Nor does the European Parliament.

Please consider EU Deal on Bank Failures Risks Unravelling

A landmark EU agreement on a common rulebook for handling bank failures is in danger of unravelling over the fine print restricting when a state can intervene to rescue a struggling bank.

The political stand-off over the bank recovery and resolution directive – a centrepiece of post-crisis financial reforms – is extremely unusual because it comes days before the European parliament is supposed to adopt the agreed text of the legislation.

While London insists it is belatedly rectifying a technical discrepancy, other diplomats suspect it is revisiting a fundamental element of the reforms, which aim to spare taxpayers from the costs of bank failure. "This is a complete mess, a nightmare and we have to decide what to do fast," said one person involved.

At issue is what form of support a state can provide to a lender in difficulty without triggering a so-called bail-in, where losses are imposed on private investors who lent money to a bank.

The British want to clarify that central banks can extend liquidity even when relying on a specific government guarantee, without triggering haircuts on bondholders.

According to people involved in the talks, the Czech Republic is objecting in principle to making such substantial changes after a political agreement was reached, while Denmark is raising more substantial concerns about the specific British proposal. Copenhagen has taken a hard line against loopholes which could permit disguised governmental bailouts.

At the other end of the spectrum, multiple countries responded by calling for broader exemptions in the text. France, Italy, Sweden and Portugal specifically want assurances that state guarantees can also be extended to help a struggling bank issue bonds without requiring bail-in. This, however, is opposed by the European parliament.

The debate is also refocusing attention on "precautionary recapitalisation" – one form of state intervention that was exempt from requiring immediate bail-in. The drafting remained unclear, however, and officials are still pressing for clarity on how it could be used and whether it would clash with EU competition rules curbing state aid.

Sharon Bowles, the chair of the parliament's economics and finance committee, said the revisions were essential to accommodate national central banks that "do not have big balance sheets" and need extra guarantees from the state when lending to struggling lenders. By contrast she wants state guarantees for bank bonds "outlawed" as it would open a loophole that protected private investors from risk.

Save the Bondholders

What's this all about? Saving the bondholders once again.

On December 12, the EU Reached Deal on Failed Banks

The deal was supposed to prevent further taxpayer bailouts. Taxpayers have put about €473bn into European banks since 2008.

"With these new rules in place, massive public bailouts of banks and their consequences for taxpayers will finally be a practice of the past," said Michel Barnier, the EU commissioner responsible for the reforms.

Really? No Not Really

Under the deal, the nationalisation of a bank would be possible in exceptional circumstances, and only after 8 per cent of liabilities of a bank have been bailed-in.

While a minimum bail-in amounting to 8 per cent of total liabilities is mandatory before resolution funds can be used, countries are given more leeway to shield certain creditors from losses with approval from Brussels.

After the minimum bail-in is implemented, countries are additionally given an option to dip into resolution funds or state resources to recapitalise the bank and shield other creditors. The intervention is capped at 5 per cent of the bank's total liabilities and is contingent on Brussels' approval.

Gunnar Hökmark, the lead negotiator for the parliamentary side, said: "We now have a strong bail-in system which sends a clear message that bank shareholders and creditors will be the ones to bear the losses on rainy days, not taxpayers.

Battle Cry of the Day

Seems like there was a fair amount of scope for "shielding certain creditors from losses". But now, at the last minute that is not enough for the UK, France, Italy, Sweden, and Portugal.

Germany has not yet weighed in on the changes. Chancellor Angela Merkel will not want to see the deal unravel, so I suspect she will likely to go along with the majority. Thus, it's highly likely additional bondholder-protecting loopholes work their way into the treaty.

Peculiarity

By the way, I find it peculiar there needs to be a deal at all. Where is it written that bondholders can never suffer losses? Where is it written that taxpayers, not bondholders have to bail out failed banks?

Seems to me that taxpayers never should have bailed out banks, and a simple structure of losses should apply.

Equity investors
Junior bondholders
Senior bondholders
Depositors

100% of each class should be hit before the next class is hit. Should that be insufficient, then and only then should taxpayers be at risk.

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

Damn Cool Pics

Game of Thrones: Behind the Scenes
Why Dehydration Makes You Fat and Sick [Infographic]
The Final Adventure of a Terminally ill Dog Named Romeo

Game of Thrones: Behind the Scenes

Posted: 07 Apr 2014 07:09 PM PDT

Why Dehydration Makes You Fat and Sick [Infographic]

Posted: 07 Apr 2014 06:28 PM PDT

This infographic is about the importance of water for human body The dehydration and the implications for the body of the people.

Click on Image to Enlarge.

Source: SDFJ.org

The Final Adventure of a Terminally ill Dog Named Romeo

Posted: 07 Apr 2014 05:58 PM PDT

When loving dog owner Riina Cooke discovered that a beloved family member had bone cancer, she was heartbroken. It was Romeo, her 9 year-old boxer. The dog meant the world to Riina, and she wanted to do something special for him in his final days. So she compiled a special doggie Bucket List for him and helped to make sure that his dreams came true. She documented the entire thing, right up until his final days.

Thankfully, she and Romeo were able to complete it!