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joi, 19 iunie 2014

President Obama Makes a Statement on Iraq

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President Obama Makes a Statement on Iraq

After meeting with his national security team, President Obama entered the White House Press Briefing Room this afternoon to give an update on the situation in Iraq.

The President outlined a number of steps that his Administration has made in response to ongoing developments -- and closed by announcing that Secretary of State John Kerry will depart this weekend for meetings in the Middle East and Europe, leading a diplomatic effort to support stability in the region.

Watch the President give an update on the situation in Iraq.

21st-century policies for 21st-century families

Hi, everyone --

I still remember the moment the value of a flexible work environment became crystal-clear for me.

I was working for Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago, and sitting in a particularly long cabinet meeting along with the Mayor's corporation counsel, Susan Sher. Susan and I were both single moms, and dear friends -- and frankly, we both had somewhere else to be.

As the meeting stretched on, and the two of us kept looking at our watches (and each other), the Mayor interrupted and asked where we needed to be that was more important.

Not quite sure what would happen, I blurted out the truth: "Susan and I both have second graders, and their Halloween Parade starts in 20 minutes -- and it's 25 minutes away."

Without a second's hesitation, the Mayor replied, "Well, then what are you doing here? You better get moving."

We were fortunate that day to have an understanding boss willing to give us the flexibility we needed as parents -- but in 2014, most working Americans still don't have that.

It's time for our workplace policies to match the realities of our families. That's why, on June 23, we're joining together with employers, business leaders, workers, academics, labor leaders, elected officials, and a diverse group of stakeholders and advocates to explore ways to take to scale the best practices designed to build 21st-century workplaces that meet the needs of 21st-century workers.

We're calling it the White House Summit on Working Families, and you can add your voice to the conversation right now in two ways:

Share how your family would benefit from 21st-century workplace policies.
Join me today at 4:30 p.m. Eastern for a virtual question-and-answer session devoted to working families' issues. Tweet your questions and stories at @VJ44 using #FamiliesSucceed.

Our families and our workforce have undergone fundamental transformations over the past several decades. In 63 percent of families with children, all parents work. Thirty-two percent of families with children are single-parent households. And yet, employers report just 11 percent of workers have access to paid family leave that includes time off for caregiving.

It's time our workplaces did something about that, and it's going to take all of us to make it happen.

So, if you can relate at all to the story I described above -- the need to choose between the very real responsibilities of being a worker and a parent -- then working families' issues are your issues.

If you're a young woman wondering if you're earning the same as your male counterpart, this is your battle, too.

If you're a single, working dad struggling to balance the responsibilities of raising a family with the demands of a job, you're in this fight.

It's time for 21st-century workplaces that allow every American family to succeed -- both at home, and at work.

Each story shared will expand this national conversation, and bring these issues to the forefront.

Add your voice -- and pass it on.

Thank you,

Valerie

Valerie Jarrett
Senior Advisor
The White House

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What Content Marketers and Journalists Need to Learn from Each Other

Posted: 18 Jun 2014 05:15 PM PDT

Posted by dan-levy

I've got baggage. I call it J-School baggage, and I'm not the only one schlepping it around. Thousands of people have graduated from journalism school in the years since the financial crisis and the collapse of the "old media" model. Many of us have found our way to the content marketing world, and some of us have struggled with trading the noble ideals of informing the public and holding power to account for "key performance indicators" like building brand awareness and driving new trial starts. But while I still consider myself a (lapsed) member of the ink-stained tribe, plying my trade in the content marketing space has been both fulfilling and humbling. That's because journalists aren't just bringing tons of value to the businesses now cutting our checks – we have a lot to learn from them as well.

Plenty of so-called journalistic principles and methods have already infiltrated marketing departments and agencies in recent years (whether this is always a good thing is up for debate). Smart content marketers are maintaining editorial calendars, adhering to style guides (Moz's is a great example) and building out their teams into bonafide brand newsrooms. The problem is that while this enables brands to pump out content more efficiently, it doesn't necessarily help them do it more effectively.

This post isn't ultimately for you. It's for your audience. Every piece of content you create as a marketer exists to serve a business goal, but it's guaranteed to fail if it doesn't ultimately serve your audience in the process.

1. Don't just link, attribute

I know you know how to link. Command-K is one of my favorite Mac shortcuts, and linking is a huge part of what makes online publishing more efficient than the days where every backwater town had multiple papers chasing the same scoop. As media critic Jeff Jarvis says, "Do what you do best and link to the rest."

Thing is, linking isn't enough. As an editor I love to receive drafts filled with pithy quotes, punchy stats and thoughtful insights. I'd like to assume that unless I'm told otherwise these quotes, stats and insights originated with the author herself. But journalism school taught me me to take a step back before hitting "publish." Because every idea or fact that has been gleaned from another source has to be properly attributed. Ever notice how every other sentence in a newspaper article includes the phrase "according to so and so" or "so and so said"? That's attribution. And it's non-negotiable.

Yet I can't tell you how often content marketers fail to do this or simply embed a link somewhere in the paragraph without giving any context. Don't force readers to click away from the page to get a critical piece of information. If you're citing a study, say who conducted it. If you're linking to a New York Times article, include that somewhere in the sentence. I appreciate you trying to stick to the word limit but this is the internet. Real estate isn't that precious. I'd rather you be generous with your words than stingy with the facts.

Speaking of the facts, please try to get them right. I know it's hard. Journalists get it wrong all the time. But that doesn't mean content marketers shouldn't try to do better. Fact-checking can be especially challenging when you're covering complex stuff like conversion rate optimization, A/B testing and PPC marketing, which is the space I currently work in. Most of us didn't become content marketers – or journalists for that matter – because we kicked ass in math class.

I once had a blog post queued up and ready to go live first thing the next morning until our eagle-eyed social strategist recognized one of the case studies cited in the post and noticed that the author had completely misinterpreted the results. This is one of the reasons attributions is so important. In a small industry, examples and starts often get recycled from one blog to the next. The result is a case of broken telephone where the facts get muddled in transit. Proper attribution makes it easier to track where the breakdown occurred and to set the record straight. You can quote me on that.

2. Reporting is not just an analytics thing

Content marketers go by many names, including brand journalists, content crafters and content strategists (guilty). But I've never heard anyone refer to content marketers as reporting. That's probably because far too few of us do any actual reporting. Not reporting on KPIs, but good old-fashioned shoe leather reporting.

Because you know what's even better than pulling a pithy quote from another blog and attributing it to the proper expert? Talking to them yourself. Social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn and online resources like HARO and ProfNet and have made thought leaders and subject matter experts more accessible and approachable than ever. But for some reason many content marketers are allergic to doing any original reporting. This leads to an ouroborian scenario where the same bits of knowledge are circulated over and over under different urls and bylines without any added value. No wonder audiences are experiencing content fatigue. I need a nap just thinking about it.

Quick sidebar: Lately I've been seeing a lot of "expert roundup" posts, whereby bloggers collect quotes from industry experts and string them into a post. Often this is more about getting these experts to share the post (you may know this as "ego baiting") than providing your audience with useful content. If you're going to do an expert roundup post, a) actually interview the experts (don't just send them the link to share after the fact), and b) Challenge them with thoughtful questions that will spark genuine insights. Here are a couple examples from the Unbounce blog where we reached out to thought leaders in the pay-per-click and Google+ marketing communities and started some great conversations in the process.

3. Pitching (beyond baseball)

Excuse the rant, but this is a huge pet peeve of mine. Way too many of the guest bloggers I've worked with expect to be spoon-fed ideas for what to write about. Journalists would never, ever make this mistake. They know that editors are extremely busy and that it's their job to make our lives easier (#allaboutme). Seriously though, great journalists aren't just excellent writers and reporters, they're masters of the pitch. They know that they have to earn an editor's trust and attention by consistently delivering amazing content on deadline. Only then might they find plum assignments falling into their laps.

Like my former colleagues in the magazine industry, my team has regular editorial meetings where we brainstorm ideas for the blog and assign them to our stable of writers (though if they're really good, we keep them for ourselves). However, this only accounts for a fraction of the content we produce. We also rely on both new and established writers to come to us with amazing ideas tailored to our platform and our audience. Unfortunately, many marketers who do pitch us bring ideas to the table that make sense for their business and their audience.

Great journalists know how to calibrate their pitch to suit the editorial voice and mission of the publication they're pitching. You wouldn't pitch the same article for BuzzFeed ("13 Most Epic Ways to Up Your Grilled Cheese Game) as you would for The New Yorker ("Annals of Gastronomy: Grilled Cheese, Goethe and the Making of Modern Europe"). A great pitch demonstrates that you understand what our blog is about and what our audience is looking for. Here's a real example of a pitch that went into the instant reject pile:

Hi Dan, how are you doing?
I am sending a new Article viz title "Implementing the Right Mix of Customary and Unconventional Content Marketing Ways." Please review it and let me know when you will publish it.

First off, our blog is all about conversion marketing. What does this have anything to do with that? Second, our editorial guidelines make it clear that top-notch writing chops are a must. What is an article viz? What are Content Marketing Ways? I'll let you know when I'll publish it: Never.

On the other hand, here's a pitch that caught my attention (and led to a successful post) because it instantly communicated to me that the author understood what we're looking for and could deliver on it:

Hey Dan,
I have a topic that I think may stir some discussion/debate that I haven't seen anyone actually address, unless I'm just so off-my-rocker that I need to be put away.
Sound interesting?
Here we go.

Now that's the kind of opening that makes the journalist and the content marketer in me jump with joy. He hasn't even gotten to the actual pitch but he's already embraced the sort of cheeky, comedic writing style that's a hallmark of our blog.

Here's how he pitched the topic we settled on:

5 Embarrassing Habits That Keep Your Emails From Being Clicked
We celebrate open rates, because that's our first touch with a reader, but opens aren't everything. Previews in email program can make open rates artificially high. Plain-text emails aren't tracked. Several other issues that makes open rates a less-than-stellar metric. Just because your email is opened doesn't mean your message has been heard.
A much more solid metric to track is click rate.
So, if you're getting emails opened, but your click through rates are lower than your current savings account interest rate, your email may be guilty of one of these bad habits.

Check out the article that came out of that sweet, sweet pitch.

Okay, content marketers. I'm done lecturing. The truth is, although my J-school baggage still weighs heavy on my shoulders, I've spent the last five years working in the agency and startup worlds. And what I've discovered is that marketers have plenty to teach even the most experienced journalists about creating content that truly connects.

1. Transparency is the new something

Journalists are notoriously thin-skinned. We thrive on holding power to account but are often reluctant or unwilling to admit our own screw-ups. This is something my friend and fellow journalist cum content marketer Craig Silverman has written about. When the digital recorder is pointed at us, we often resort to the same tactics of obfuscation and deflection that drive us bonkers.

Journalists are also prone to leaning too heavily on anonymous sources (notwithstanding instances where protecting them is critical – and indeed, an obligation and right) and to withholding information to thwart competition, even when collaboration and disclosure would be in the public interest.

Content marketing, on the other hand, is transparent by its very nature. Our cards are all on the table. Putting aside shady forms of "native advertising" where an article's branded provenance is intentionally buried, our audience is fully aware that our content exists to drive brand exposure and, ultimately, revenue. Making our content relevant and delightful enough that they consume it anyway is our great challenge and opportunity. Journalists have to make sure to separate church and state. Content marketers are tasked with making theocracy awesome.

In the startup world, transparency has become a badge of honour. SaaS companies like Buffer, Groove, Moz and Unbounce have made a habit of sharing – and creating actionable content out of – their metrics, strategies and even their salaries with the world.

With so many newspapers, magazines and formerly independent blogs being acquired by corporations rife with potential conflicts of interest – and native advertising all the rage in traditional publishing circles – journalists can learn a thing or two about how to transform transparency and disclosure from a buren into an asset.

2. Getting up to code

Journalists have drunk the big data cool-aid, with web native "data journalism" sites like Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight (now part of ESPN) and The Upshot (from The New York Times) leading the way, but many journalists I know remain squeamish about getting their hands dirty with basic HTML or inputting content into a simple CMS like WordPress. I knew a "web editor" for a print magazine who would email the dev team whenever she wanted to change a sentence or fix a link in "the back end" (even her chosen euphemism shows how mysterious and icky it seemed to her). The lines are much greyer between editors, designers, writers and project managers in the marketing world. When you're a small team it's "all hands on deck" for every campaign; roles are more fluid and people are less precious about what's "their department."

A related problem is that many online editors have never logged in to their website or blog's Google Analytics account, delegating that responsibility to the folks on "the business side." That means they often have little idea of who their audience actually is. Sometimes this ignorance is willful and convenient since publications (lifestyle magazines in particular) often create content not for any real audience but an aspirational one that they can sell to the most lucrative advertisers. Which leads me to my final point…

3. Know your audience, or the people formerly known as that

I said up top that this piece is about your audience, not you. But even though journalism is ostensibly a public service, many journalists remain wary of their publics. For decades journalism was a broadcast medium, a one-way conversation. Many journos held out on social media for as long as they could and maintained love-hate relationships with comment threads, partly because they weren't used to having the people formerly known as the audience (as J-school prof Jay Rosen famously put it) talk back to them.

Content marketers – at least the smart ones – know that it's all about their audience, that every blog post, ebook, webinar and tweet needs to be aimed a particular segment, persona or phase of the customer lifecycle. Even SEO-driven practices like keyword density – when not abused – stem from an audience-first mentality. Headline writers often make the mistake of sacrificing clarity for cleverness; I used to joke with my fellow magazine editors that we essentially made up puns for a living. In marketing, clear and concise always trumps cute. We've actually proven this at Unbounce! For an email blast promoting a webinar with our cheeky Scottish co-founder Oli Gardner we A/B tested the following two subject lines:

Variation A: [Webinar] Some Call Him the Scottish Chuck Norris of LPO…

Variation B: [Webinar] The 3 Landing Page Mistakes 98% of Marketers Are Making

Guess which won? Variation B, the clear and descriptive headline, kicked ass with a 3% higher open rate and a 34% higher click-through rate.

Sorry, but your audience probably doesn't find you as cute as your mother does.

Caveats, conclusions and a personal anecdote

Don't get me wrong. I still believe the line between editorial and advertorial is sacrosanct. Journalism is journalism, and content marketing is, in the end, just a form of marketing. But I also believe that part of the reason the media industry (like the music, entertainment and book publishing industries before and after it) failed to see the digital disruption coming and adapt accordingly is that they lost sight of whether their content was providing actual value – and not just powering their bottom line. As data-driven marketers, we're all too aware of our content's performance. But we do a grave disservice to our audiences when we discard tried-and-true journalistic principles like fairness, accuracy and attribution.

I continue to carry my J-school baggage with pride. But lately my shoulders have been less weighted with guilt about "going to the dark side." Before leaving my last job, I told my boss about the new opportunity that was beckoning me and admitted that I was conflicted. Was delving deeper into the marketing world and further away from traditional journalism the "right move for my career"? His response, even though it was in his interest to persuade me to stay, was "Screw your career, do what's best for your craft." It's the best advice I've ever received, because working in content marketing has made me a better editor, strategist, storyteller and – yes – journalist.

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Google Ad Grants – A helping hand for Charities

Posted: 19 Jun 2014 01:00 AM PDT

For me, search engine marketing is the Holy Grail of advertising. More traditional means of promotion, leaflets, free magazines etc., are often perceived as a nuisance by the very audience it attempts to captivate (I personally cannot stand leaflets through my door every day!). However, search engine marketing targets only ‘engaged’ users. Users who are actively looking for that particular product or service – at the very time they are looking for that product or service. It ultimately enhances their online search experience.

Google is by far the most prominent, and dominant, search engine provider on the internet, covering over 88.8%* of the UK market and it is also the largest search engine provider in most areas of the world. If you are thinking of advertising, advertising online via the Google Search Network is a must!

*Source – Experian Hitsise

Google Ad Grants is good news for charity organisations

For charity organisations, Google is offering a free helping hand. Not only is the Google Ad Grant the lowest of hanging fruit, but for most organisations it is also the juiciest; quite simply the potential ROI benefits are huge.

“Google Ad Grantees receive free AdWords advertising on Google search results pages. Ad Grantees build and manage their own AdWords accounts similar to paying advertisers, but participate with [certain] restrictions” – Google

Google are offering ongoing grants of $10,000 USD (roughly £5,890) per month for PPC (pay-per-click) advertising on their search engine. The grant is available to any charity that fits Google's Grant criteria, regardless of size and for most people looking to promote a charity, it represents the quickest and easiest (and potentially most cost effective) means to do so. These grants are offered in USD only, so the exchange rate into your local currency may affect the month-on-month value of the grant received.

Organisations must go through an on-line application process to qualify for the grant. Requirements differ slightly by country, a full list of eligible countries and their Google grants application process can be found here.

For the purpose of this blog post I am going to advise on the eligibility criteria for UK organisations.

To be eligible for the Google Ad Grants programme, organisations must:

Hold current and valid charity status, as determined by your country; please see your country's charity status definition below.
Acknowledge and agree to the application’s required certifications regarding nondiscrimination and donation receipt and use.
Have a functioning website with substantial content

Please note that the following organisations are not eligible for Google Ad Grants:

Governmental entities and organisations
Hospitals and medical groups
Schools, childcare centres, academic institutions and universities (philanthropic arms of educational organisations are eligible). To learn more about Google’s programmes for educational institutions, visit Google in Education.

To maintain eligibility in the Google Ad Grants programme:

A daily budget set to $329 USD, or the equivalent of $10,000 (per month)
A maximum CPC limit of $2.00 USD
Your ads must ONLY link to the ONE non-profit website URL that was approved in the application.
You are required to actively manage the AdWords account by logging in monthly. Should you not log in to your account for 30 days, your account will be subject to pausing without notification.
Your ads must reflect the mission of the approved non-profit organisation and your keywords must be relevant to the non-profit's programmes and services.
Strictly commercial advertising is not allowed through this programme. If you intend to promote products or services, 100% of the sales and/or proceeds must support your programme.
Your Google ads cannot link to pages that are primarily links to other websites.
Ads offering financial products (such as mortgages or credit cards) or those requesting car, boat or property donations and related keywords are not allowed.
Your website cannot display Google AdSense ads or affiliate advertising links while participating in Google Ad Grants.

Why you need an account manager in place

Although you can run your Google Ad Grants account internally, I would certainly recommend employing the specialist skills of a PPC advertising agency. Raising the profile of your organisation via Ad Grants requires strategy, planning and expertise – and that’s where a PPC ad agency comes into play. The ad agency would ultimately be responsible for the continued optimisation of the account to increase ROI, but also to ensure the Ad Grant restrictions are adhered to ensuring that your Ad Grant is not rescinded.

‘But ad agencies are expensive’ I hear you say. It depends on what you class as ‘expensive’. If the agency provides you with a positive ROI, say 5/1, are they still classed as expensive? Remember, the Ad Grant provides you with $10,000 of FREE advertising per month. Yes, the grants are calculated by Google in $USD but in £GBP this equates to roughly £5,890* – still quite a considerable FREE grant I think you’ll agree.

*Source – Exchange rate via XE.com 16/06/2014

An example of a Google Ad Grant scenario

Say you receive $10,000 (£5,890) ad spend each month from Ad Grants for free, the ad agency then turns this free investment into £29,450 in donations for your organisation and charge you £4,417.50 (15% of your return) in the form of a management fee leaving you with £25,032.50. Does this still look an expensive option?

The Ad Agency also has the expertise to provide feedback on how donators navigate your site and ultimately reach the point of donation. This feedback allows you to optimise the site accordingly to potentially increase the conversion rate and ROI even further.

The positive ROI gives you the opportunity to re-invest ‘x’ amount of the income back into advertising. The ability to run an Ad Grants account alongside a Paid AdWords account is possible. However, there are further restrictions in running both accounts side-by-side, the ad agency will have the best-practice knowledge here.

Employing an ad agency also has another huge potential benefit. For charities and organisations that have successfully developed their grant, there is the opportunity to recieve $40,000 grants per month. This is an additional $30,000 per month added to the existing Google Ad Grants account of $10,000 per month, equalling a total of $40,000 per month in free advertising. To qualify, the account needs to have hit its monthly budget cap (at least $9,900) for at least two different months over the last six months (they don’t need to be consecutive months). Although this does take some skill there is no reason why it shouldn’t be reached via an ad agency.

That’s potentially $40,000 worth of free online advertising each month!

Are you utilising Ad Grants at the moment? Or perhaps thinking “why on earth aren’t we!?” I’d love to hear your feedback either way.

Image credit to 5PhotosaDay.

The post Google Ad Grants – A helping hand for Charities appeared first on White.net.

Seth's Blog : There are Kracos

There are Kracos

Thirty years ago, I used to work the booth at CES. The software company where I was a brand manager launched its products at the Consumer Electronics Show, which was, at the time, the biggest trade show in the world.

You can imagine that a huge stream of people were constantly walking by, and making our pitch to each and every one of them was exhausting. We were there to get mass merchants to sell our stuff--getting into Target or Lechmere was a victory we needed.

A few hours into the first show, I noticed that some of the people walking by had little creatures on their shoulders. Kraco, the low-cost stereo company, had a huge booth, and they were giving visitors these little stick-on humanoids, made of some sort of wool, to ride along on their shoulder. They were about two-inches high and they looked precisely as ridiculous as you are imagining.

I loved this. These people, these lookers, not buyers, were identifying themselves to us from a distance. The little Kraco man on the shoulder meant, "I am here to waste your time, I am not a professional, what will you give me that's free?" We quickly began identifying anyone with one of these on their shoulder as a Kraco, someone not worth an investment of focus and energy or free stuff.

Alas, the Kracos in your world today don't wear a little man on their shoulder, but that doesn't mean they're not out there. All your prospects are not the same, and if you insist on treating them that way, you will waste your time and your enthusiasm on people who aren't bringing any to your interaction.

• Email to a friend •

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Interactive Look: How Small-Business Friendly is Your City and State?
Eternal Trust Number 37
Iran Offers to Help (I Say Let Them); Isis Closes In On Iraq's Largest Refinery; Mobil, BP Evacuate Staff; Iraq PM Struggles to Remain in Power

Interactive Look: How Small-Business Friendly is Your City and State?

Posted: 19 Jun 2014 12:03 AM PDT

Thumbtack, in partnership with the Kauffman Foundation, conducted a Small Business Friendliness Survey.

Jon Lieber, Chief Economist at Thumbtack, provided the survey data in spreadsheet form. In turn, the folks at Tableau Software worked with me to create the following interactive map.

Notes

Lieber informs me there were insufficient replies to rate 12 states. Those states are greyed out.
Overall ranking range from 1 through 38, with 1 being the most small business friendly and 38 the least small business friendly.
It is difficult to see Rhose Island on the map. It is number 38. Illinois and California unsurprising round out the bottom of the barrel, rated 37 and 36 respectively.

Lieber writes "We've partnered for the third year in a row with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to conduct a survey of about 13,000 small businesses nationwide that use our site. The survey asks small business owners and operators what makes for a business friendly environment and uses the responses to rate which are the most and least friendly states and cities for small businesses. States and metro regions are rated across 11 different metrics."

Thumbtack put together a slightly different interactive map of small business friendliness that shows less fields than I do, but instead gives A-F grades and changes from last year.

California, Illinois, and Rhode Island received an overall grade of "F".
Idaho, Virginia, Utah, and Texas received an overall grade of "A+"

Please check out both interactive maps as well as the survey link at the top to the 45 page report.

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

Eternal Trust Number 37

Posted: 18 Jun 2014 05:29 PM PDT

The Financial Times investigates China's precarious shadow banking system. The first article in the series is Into the Shadows.

From the window of his office, Qiao Jingshan can look out across downtown Yuncheng and see signs of new construction everywhere. Half-built or empty apartment complexes are scattered across the cityscape bearing names like "Eastar Upward", "Golden Riverside" or "Stars and River Mansion".

As chief accountant for Yuncheng City Investment, a financing vehicle for the local government, Mr Qiao has played a crucial role in the development of this gritty steelmaking city in central China. His latest job is to sell his company's "trust product" – a high-interest, deposit-like investment – with the proceeds going to a big public heating project for Yuncheng.

Despite paying a tempting 9.7 per cent annual interest rate, his product, marketed as "Eternal Trust Number 37", is not catching on with investors.

The near-default of other Chinese financial products recently has set off alarms – inside China and in global markets – that the country is in the midst of a dangerous credit bubble.

Mr Qiao admits the Yuncheng heating project will not provide any returns for his company, an unsettling fact for any investor. But he is dismissive that this is the problem.

"All of our investments are public works that should actually be paid for by the local government so when the trust product matures the government should take this project off our hands and give us the money to repay investors," he says. "Don't worry, it is impossible for there to be any sort of financial crisis here in Yuncheng."

Too Good To Be True Promise

Supposedly it's impossible for an investment that yields 9.7% to lose any money. State Owned enterprises investing in economically nonviable projects will never lose money either. Yeah, right.

If it looks too good to be true, it is.

Credit Equals Gold

Worries about China's shadow banking system rattled global stock markets this winter, after a wealth management product called "Credit Equals Gold" was reported to be on the verge of default. It was quickly restructured, only to be followed by concerns about a similar product known as "Opulent Blessing".

Noting how large the sector has grown, many in China warn that the country could face its own "Lehman moment" if it were to see a serious run on shadow banks.

"The [traditional] banks have been very strategic about pushing their weakest assets into these channels," says Charlene Chu, the former Fitch analyst who was one of the first to raise serious questions about the rise of China's shadow banking sector and who now works for Autonomous, the research group. "The weakest institutions and creditors are the ones engaged in shadow banking, where bad decisions and bad risk management are the norm."

Credit Expansion Comparison

Misplaced Concern

The Financial Times states "The concern is that financing could disappear for the most leveraged and riskiest parts of the economy, from real estate developers to steel mills. China's investment-reliant growth could come to an abrupt end."

That's ridiculous. The concern ought to be that absurd lending to unprofitable, poorly-managed companies and State-Owned-Enterprises (SOEs), continues, not that it ends.

The longer malinvestment foolishness continues, the bigger the ultimate crash.

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

Iran Offers to Help (I Say Let Them); Isis Closes In On Iraq's Largest Refinery; Mobil, BP Evacuate Staff; Iraq PM Struggles to Remain in Power

Posted: 18 Jun 2014 12:39 PM PDT

Cheney, Bremer Defend Invasion

The non-surprise of the day is that Bush Acolytes Defend Their Records.

Rather than seeing the new round of sectarian violence in Iraq as another hammer-blow to their 2003 decision to invade the country – as many of their critics do – several key figures in the Bush administration are using the conflict to defend their own records.

Leading the charge is Dick Cheney, the former vice-president who was the principal driving force within the administration behind the decision to go to war in Iraq.

Another former Bush-era official seeking to re-enter the Iraq debate is Paul Bremer, the former diplomat who was sent to run Iraq shortly after the 2003 invasion.

Mr Bremer believes the US should launch air strikes, push back the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (known as Isis), which have taken control of cities across northwest Iraq, and says that the administration will need to put special forces troops into the country to assist the air campaign. He said that the US "lost our political influence" with the 2011 withdrawal.

Apart from the initial choice to invade Iraq, Mr Bremer's move to disband the Iraqi army has been the most criticised single decision of the US occupation.

Confronted in a CNN interview with a 2003 speech when he predicted a "prosperous, democratic Iraq, at peace with itself", Mr Bremer responded that "every single bit of that came to pass" but that "this has all been reversed in the last two years".

Bremer Delusional

Bremer is clearly delusional when he claims a "prosperous, democratic Iraq, was at peace with itself" only to be reversed in the last two years.

The biggest threat to world peace was not Al Qaeda, but rather the extreme warmongers president Bush surrounded himself with. Every one of them should be tried for war crimes.

Isis Closes In On Iraq's Largest Refinery

Today, insurgents broke through the defense perimeter at the Baiji refinery, Iraq's largest. If the refinery goes, Iraq will have to import oil.

With the battle for Baiji raging, Iraq Requests US Air Strikes but president Obama is reluctant to help.

Iraq has asked the US to stage air attacks on Sunni insurgents as the Islamist fighters edged closer to full control of Iraq's largest oil refinery and continued to hold out against troops trying to retake the city of Tal Afar.

As the war to redefine the region's borders entered a second week, Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, appeared on al-Arabiya television to issue the urgent plea: "We request the United States to launch air strikes against militants."

Witnesses at the Baiji refinery – between the cities of Mosul and Tikrit, both seized by the insurgent group last week – said insurgents broke through the perimeter of the site early on Wednesday and were within sight of administration buildings.

Losing control of Baiji would be a critical blow to Iraqi forces still reeling from the capitulation of close to 50,000 troops last week, many of whom have since been replaced by militias raised from the country's majority Shia population.

Obama is said to still be weighing options militarily, and US officials for days have quietly signalled that a decision is not imminent. But it will be harder for Obama to rebuke a formal entreaty from a besieged US partner, albeit a frustrating one.

However, Dempsey also told senators that the fluid state of the Iraqi battlefield has left the US with incomplete intelligence – a factor that makes an air campaign more difficult. "It's not as easy as looking at an iPhone video of a convoy and then striking it," Dempsey said.

Full-Blown Sectarian War

Curiously, many articles talk of the "threat" of full-blown sectarian war. There is no "threat" of such a war. The war has been underway for weeks.

Mobil, BP Evacuate Staff From Battle Zones

Meanwhile, Oil Majors Begin Evacuating Staff as Battles Rage in Iraq

Oil majors including ExxonMobil and BP started evacuating staff from Iraq on Wednesday as Sunni militants battled for control of the north's main oil facility and clashes continued to rage across the country.

Exxon has been pulling expatriate staff out of its West Qurna 1 field in the south of Iraq, while BP has taken non-essential employees out of the giant Rumaila field it runs nearby.

Ed Morse, chief oil analyst at Citi, said the insurgents' recent military gains would have big repercussions for Iraq's future oil supply and the world's oil balance.

"The longer the insurgency lasts and the more divisive it becomes, the more difficult it will be for Iraq to even approach its potential to sustain production at 6m barrels a day or more," Mr Morse said. That would have "radical implications for oil markets" at a time of widespread supply disruptions in places like Libya, he added.

As Isis launched an attack on the Baiji refinery on Tuesday night, Nouri al-Maliki, prime minister, sacked four military commanders. He accused them of abandoning their posts last week and of failing to defend the city of Mosul and elsewhere from Isis fighters and allied groups.

News agencies quoted officials at the refinery as saying that Isis fighters were shelling the facility with mortars and had taken over several of the important sites at the plant, 250km north of the capital Baghdad.

Baiji refinery produces about 170,000 barrels a day of gasoline and other oil products, and supplies northern Iraq and Baghdad.

Adnan al-Janabi, head of the oil and gas committee in Iraq's parliament, told reporters at a conference in London that, with Baiji closed, Iraq will have to import more than 300,000 b/d of oil products – about half of its needs.

Iraq's Prime Minister Struggles to Remain in Power

In the midst of all the fighting and the defection of tens-of-thousands of Iraqi troops, Prime Minister Maliki Fights for Survival.

Iraq's prime minister struggled to maintain his grip on power on Wednesday with a Sunni insurgency swirling around the capital and political rivals inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone seeking to topple him.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took to the airwaves in a defiant appearance on state television in which he blamed foreign powers for colluding with members of former leader Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party and Sunni militants allied with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (known as Isis) in taking control of the country's second-largest city and plunging the country into sectarian civil war.

"Isis and former Ba'athists have come together to enhance sectarianism and to deepen the crisis," he said in the broadcast. "This all is sadly conducted by local forces that have the support of foreign forces that target the stability of Iraq."

Accused by his opponents of sectarian chauvinism and authoritarianism, Mr Maliki was under tremendous pressure from Iraq's Sunnis and Kurds to step aside, and even from within his Shia coalition, before Isis militants and allied insurgent groups seized control of the cities of Mosul and Tikrit, and began their push towards the capital last week.

The Obama administration has made no secret of its opposition to the way Mr Maliki has governed, especially since US troops withdrew in late 2011, and President Barack Obama has said that any US military assistance will be dependent in part on efforts to include more Sunnis in government.

Iran Offers Help

NBC reports Iranian President: We Will Help Iraq if Washington Joins Fight.

Iran would be willing to overlook contentious relations with the United States and work together in providing assistance in Iraq — if Washington vows to fight "terrorist groups in Iraq and elsewhere," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani pledged Saturday.

Rouhani, appearing on state-run television, said that Iran is standing ready to help its next-door neighbor in the fight against the militant insurgency that broke out earlier this week. But so far, Iraq's Shiite-led government hasn't taken up Iran's offer.

"We all should practically and verbally confront terrorist groups," Rouhani said Saturday, referring to the Sunni insurgents known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), which continues to move south toward Baghdad.

"If we see America starts confronting the terrorist groups in Iraq or elsewhere," Iran will step in and work with Washington to help Iraqi Shiite troops protect their country, Rouhani said.

Iran Offers to Help

I confidently predict a military coup in Iraq, with a government friendly to Iran in its place.

Coup or not, Iran actually wants to help. Assuming Iraq requests their assistance, and assuming Iran would help stabilize Iraq, an Iraq-Iran association would be a great tradeoff. Regardless, it's their battle, not ours. We should stay out of it.

Addendum: I modified the above paragraph to reflect the idea I am not in favor of an invasion, rather if Iraq wants assistance and Iran is willing to provide it, no one else should object.

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

miercuri, 18 iunie 2014

You Will LOL When You See It

Posted: 18 Jun 2014 12:24 PM PDT

Each one of these pictures has something special about it. Can you figure out what that something special is?

Famous Movie Sets Then And Now

Posted: 18 Jun 2014 10:25 AM PDT

You will recognize more than a few of these famous movie sets.

Home Alone

Pulp Fiction

Blade Runner

Twin Peaks

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Reservoir Dogs

The Pianist

Kill Bill

The Naked Gun

The Big Lebowski

The Mask

Lethal Weapon

Casino

Drive

Fight Club

Back to the Future

The Housing Bounceback [Infographic]

Posted: 18 Jun 2014 09:35 AM PDT

The housing market as it currently stands has been quite the uphill battle for some spectators, especially people who are trying to upgrade to a more lavish setting. That said, it would seem that in recent studies within the sector all is not lost within housing and the latest numbers suggest that the market is finally taking a turn for the greater good. The guys at Buy Homes Direct have noticed the difference too, and with that have created a new and intriguing infographic titled "The Housing Bounceback" which shows everyone exactly how well things have actually been from pre-recession to the age of today. For example, were you aware that most if not all regions saw a minimum growth spurt of 1.2%? And that Wales saw a similar amount of growth as both the South West and the West Midlands despite a large range of varied house prices?

Click on Image to Enlarge.

Via buyhomesdirect.co.uk

joi, 19 iunie 2014

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