Central Perk

miercuri, 30 iulie 2014

This is ours

Last night on the bike path I passed a well-dressed citizen, walking along with a bottle of water. I was stunned to see him finish his water and hurl the bottle into the woods.

I stopped and said, "Hey, please don't do that."

He looked at me with complete surprise and said, "what?" as if he didn't understand what 'that' was. His conception of the world seemed to be that there was two kinds of stuff... his and not-his. The park wasn't his, so it was just fine to throw trash, in fact, why not?

The challenge we have in the connection economy, in a world built on ever more shared resources and public digital spaces is that some people persist in acting like it belongs to someone else. When they spit in the pool or troll anonymously, when they spam or break things, it's as if they're doing it to someone else, or to the man.

Too often, we accept this vandalism as if it's a law of nature, like dealing with the termites that will inevitably chew exposed wood on a house's foundation. It doesn't have to be this way. Over and over, we see that tribes and communities and organizations are able to teach people that this is ours, that it's worth taking care of and most of all, that people like us care for things like this.

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marți, 29 iulie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Whopping 35% Have Debt in Collection! Delinquent Debt in America: By Region and Metro Area, Where Is It?

Posted: 29 Jul 2014 12:21 PM PDT

The Urban Institute has an interesting 14-page synopsis on Delinquent Debt in America.

By percentage, the number of people in collections is largely concentrated in the South, while amount owed shows no geographic pattern. The Urban Institute uses 2013 credit bureau data from TransUnion to measure how many Americans are reported as at least 30 days late, not including late payment of mortgages. The institute also examines how many Americans have debt in collections and the amount of this debt.

In order to have credit card debt, one first must have credit. However, some without traditional credit show up as delinquent on account of late utility, medical, or other bills.

The key general finding is: Of those with credit files, an astonishing 35% have debt in collections.

Study Synopsis

5.3% (Roughly 1 out of 20) of people with a credit file are at least 30 days late on a credit card or other non-mortgage account (e.g., automobile loan, student loan). In other words, they have debt that has been reported as past due to the credit bureau.
The share of people with debt past due ranges from 4.6% in the West, North Central, and Middle Atlantic divisions to 7.5% in the West South Central division.
Three states have less than 4% of the population with debt past due: Utah, Washington, and New Jersey.
Three states have more than 7% of the population with debt past due: Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi.
Nearly 40% of the high-concentration census tracts in the country are in Louisiana or Texas.
Areas with lower household incomes have more people with debt past due, but the correlation is only -0.3. So, while income matters, the concentration of delinquent debt is not simply an income story.
Of those with credit files, an alarming 35% have debt in collections.
Debt in collection ranges less than $25 to more than $125,000. The average amount owed in collections is $5,178.
Nevada, which was hard hit by the housing crisis, tops the list of past-due states: 47% of people with a credit file in Nevada have reported debt in collections. The District of Columbia and an additional 12 states (11 in the South) are over the 40 percent mark: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia.
At the low end are three Midwestern states - Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota, with 20% of the people with a credit history now reported debt in collections.
Among the largest 100 MSAs, only six have fewer than a quarter of people with debt in collections reported i n their credit file. None are in the South: Minneapolis - St. Paul, Minnesota (20.1%), Honolulu, Hawaii (21.0%), Boston, Massachusetts (22.4%), Madison, Wisconsin (22.6%), San Jose, California (23.0%), and Bridgeport, Connecticut (24.5%).
At the other extreme, five MSAs have at least 45 percent of people with collections debt reported in their credit files : McAllen, Texas (51.7%), Las Vegas, Nevada (49.2%), Lakeland, Florida (47.3%), Columbia, South Carolina (45.2%), and Jacksonville, Florida (45.0%).
An astonishing 70% of census tracts have at least 25% of people with reported debt in collections. In comparison, less than 1% of census tracts (40) have at least 25% of people with debt past.

Debt Past Due

Debt in Collections

Average Debt in Collections

click on any chart for sharper image

The report concludes ...

Financial distress is a daily challenge for millions of American consumers. Nearly 1 2 million adults — 5.3 percent of Americans with a credit file — have non-mortgage debt reported past due, and they need to pay $2,258 on average to become current on that debt.

Further, an alarming 77 million Americans — 35 percent of adults with credit files — have debt in collections reported in their credit files, with an average debt amount of nearly $5,178. Debt reported past due, and in particular reported debt in collections, is more concentrated in the South.

In addition to creating difficulties today, delinquent debt can lower credit scores and result in serious future consequences. Credit scores are used to determine eligibility for jobs, access to rental housing and mortgages, insurance premiums, and access to (and the price of) credit in general (Federal Trade Commission 2013; Traub 2013).

High levels of delinquent debt and its associated consequences, such as limited access to traditional credit, can harm both families and the communities in which they live. This brief contributes to our understanding of financial distress in America by exploring the spatial patterns of delinquent debt in the United States. Future work will explore the drivers of financial distress and those factors influencing its spatial patterns.

Interestingly, the concentration of delinquent debt to income has a negative 0.3 correlation. In a footnote the study reports "The correlation between average household income and average amount of debt past due (amount required to become current on that debt) is even lower at -0.1."

I called the Urban Institute and asked for an explanation as to how the percentage in collection can be so much bigger than the percentage past due. The answer has to do with a definition of terms and also with charge-offs.

Appendix Figure A.1 Explains

Note: Federal regulations require creditors to charge-off revolving credit accounts (e.g., credit card accounts) after 180 days of payment delinquency. Uniform Retail Credit Classification and Account Management Policy, 65 FR36903-01 (June 12, 2000).

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

Ukrainians Ordered to War, Women Burn the Military Writs

Posted: 29 Jul 2014 01:42 AM PDT

The war in Ukraine is going so well that soldiers are unpaid and men are ordered to serve whether they want to or not.

Hats off to a group of women who confront a Ukrainian soldier and burn military writs right in front of the soldier's face.

Writ Burning Video

Video link: Ukrainians Burn Writs

Transcript

Woman to Ukrainian soldier: Who are you?
Soldier: I am the head of the local recruiting center.
Woman: Why are you bringing military writs?
Soldier: It's an order from above. I can't explain all the details but you can read about it on the internet
Soldier: When did you get the writs?
Very disgruntled woman: Yesterday evening.
Another Woman: This one we got recently.
Soldier: Yes, we're sending those to put the potential recruits under control.
Yet another woman: We don't need it. We don't need any war.
Multiple women chime in with the same thing at once about not wanting war.
Very disgruntled woman: We've been told that the police will handle those who refuse to sign the writs for mobilization. What does that mean?
Soldier: It's an official order for total mobilization.
Another woman: We've been told those fairy tales many times. They told us those who refuse to go to war will go to jail for 5 years.
Soldier: I ask you, did we take anyone to war so far?
Woman: When you take someone it will be too late to worry.
Another woman: We've never been on Maidan. We didn't touch anyone. We don't need it.
Very angry man gesturing: Take your recruit list and make sure no one will be taken to war.
Soldier - finally admitting the truth: They will take your sons anyway.
Same angry Man: Who will take them?
Soldier: The state
Same angry man: We don't give a damn about your country and your war!
Large group gathers writs and sets them on fire.
Background conversation: mostly untranslated but also containing We are sickened of the authorities.
More background conversation: The authorities flee like rats from a sinking ship, but they come here and take our sons and send them to death. They all made the mess and now they need us to clean it up.
Fire takes hold
Another woman: Those who wanted all this, let them go to war! We never needed this nor Maidan.
Cars stop, many more people including more men watch on the periphery.
Writs go up in ashes. Many still confront the soldier

Congratulations!

Congratulations to all those who told the soldier to go to hell. No better way than burning draft papers and refusing to serve.

Musical Tribute

Video Link: Country Joe at Woodstock

Quotes

Voltaire: "It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."

Tom Robbins: "There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for."

Thought of the day: The Vietnam war would have ended years before it did if everyone would have refused to serve. A big F U was called for. Too few did it. My number never came up, but I am proud of the fact I resolved not to go. And I assure you I wouldn't have. History has proven that point of view was the correct one.

By the way, I disagree with the second quote. Killing in self defense or defense of your family makes perfect sense.

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

"The President Wants to Meet You"

Featured

"The President Wants to Meet You"

This summer, President Obama has been traveling around the country meeting with everyday Americans who have written him about what's going on in their lives.

Ahead of the President's trip to Kansas City today, Press Secretary and Kansas City native Josh Earnest called a few hardworking Americans and invited them to have dinner with the President.

Watch the Press Secretary call some letter writers -- and hear their reactions:

Unraveling Panda Patterns

Posted: 28 Jul 2014 05:16 PM PDT

Posted by billslawski

This is my first official blog post at Moz.com, and I'm going to be requesting your help and expertise and imagination.

I'm going to be asking you to take over as Panda for a little while to see if you can identify the kinds of things that Google's Navneet Panda addressed when faced with what looked like an incomplete patent created to identify sites as parked domain pages, content farm pages, and link farm pages. You're probably better at this now then he was then.

You're a subject matter expert.

To put things in perspective, I'm going to include some information about what appears to be the very first Panda patent, and some of Google's effort behind what they were calling the "high-quality site algorithm."

I'm going to then include some of the patterns they describe in the patent to identify lower-quality pages, and then describe some of the features I personally would suggest to score and rank a higher-quality site of one type.

Google's Amit Singhal identified a number of questions about higher quality sites that he might use, and told us in the blog post where he listed those that it was an incomplete list because they didn't want to make it easy for people to abuse their algorithm.

In my opinion though, any discussion about improving the quality of webpages is one worth having, because it can help improve the quality of the Web for everyone, which Google should be happy to see anyway.

Warning searchers about low-quality content

In "Processing web pages based on content quality," the original patent filing for Panda, there's a somewhat mysterious statement that makes it sound as if Google might warn searchers before sending them to a low quality search result, and give them a choice whether or not they might actually click through to such a page.

As it notes, the types of low quality pages the patent was supposed to address included parked domain pages, content farm pages, and link farm pages (yes, link farm pages):

"The processor 260 is configured to receive from a client device (e.g., 110), a request for a web page (e.g., 206). The processor 260 is configured to determine the content quality of the requested web page based on whether the requested web page is a parked web page, a content farm web page, or a link farm web page.
Based on the content quality of the requested web page, the processor is configured to provide for display, a graphical component (e.g., a warning prompt). That is, the processor 260 is configured to provide for display a graphical component (e.g., a warning prompt) if the content quality of the requested web page is at or below a certain threshold.
The graphical component provided for display by the processor 260 includes options to proceed to the requested web page or to proceed to one or more alternate web pages relevant to the request for the web page (e.g., 206). The graphical component may also provide an option to stop proceeding to the requested web page.
The processor 260 is further configured to receive an indication of a selection of an option from the graphical component to proceed to the requested web page, or to proceed to an alternate web page. The processor 260 is further configured to provide for display, based on the received indication, the requested web page or the alternate web page."

This did not sound like a good idea.

Recently, Google announced in a post on the Google Webmaster Central blog post, Promoting modern websites for modern devices in Google search results, that they would start providing warning notices on mobile versions of sites if there were issues on those pages that visitors might go to.

I imagine that as a site owner, you might be disappointed seeing such warning notice shown to searchers on your site about technology used on your site possibly not working correctly on a specific device. That recent blog post mentions Flash as an example of a technology that might not work correctly on some devices. For example, we know that Apple's mobile devices and Flash don't work well together.

That's not a bad warning in that it provides enough information to act upon and fix to the benefit of a lot of potential visitors. :)

But imagine if you tried to visit your website in 2011, and instead of getting to the site, you received a Google warning that the page you were trying to visit was a content farm page or a link farm page, and it provided alternative pages to visit as well.

That " your website sucks" warning still doesn't sound like a good idea. One of the inventors listed on the patent is described in LinkedIn as presently working on the Google Play store. The warning for mobile devices might have been something he brought to Google from his work on this Panda patent.

We know that when the Panda Update was released that it was targeting specific types of pages that people at places such as The New York Times were complaining about, such as parked domains and content farm sites. A follow-up from the Timesafter the algorithm update was released puts it into perspective for us.

It wasn't easy to know that your pages might have been targeted by that particular Google update either, or if your site was a false positive—and many site owners ended up posting in the Google Help forums after a Google search engineer invited them to post there if they believed that they were targeted by the update when they shouldn't have been.

The wording of that invitation is interesting in light of the original name of the Panda algorithm. (Note that the thread was broken into multiple threads when Google did a migration of posts to new software, and many appear to have disappeared at some point.)

As we were told in the invite from the Google search engineer:

"According to our metrics, this update improves overall search quality. However, we are interested in hearing feedback from site owners and the community as we continue to refine our algorithms. If you know of a high-quality site that has been negatively affected by this change, please bring it to our attention in this thread.
Note that as this is an algorithmic change we are unable to make manual exceptions, but in cases of high quality content we can pass the examples along to the engineers who will look at them as they work on future iterations and improvements to the algorithm.
So even if you don't see us responding, know that we're doing a lot of listening."

The timing for such in-SERP warnings might have been troublesome. A site that mysteriously stops appearing in search results for queries that it used to rank well for might be said to have gone astray of Google's guidelines. Instead, such a warning might be a little like the purposefully embarrassing "Scarlet A" in Nathaniel Hawthorn's novel The Scarlet Letter.

A page that shows up in search results with a warning to searchers stating that it was a content farm, or a link farm, or a parked domain probably shouldn't be ranking well to begin with. Having Google continuing to display those results ranking highly, showing both a link and a warning to those pages, and then diverting searchers to alternative pages might have been more than those site owners could handle. Keep in mind that the fates of those businesses are usually tied to such detoured traffic.

My imagination is filled with the filing of lawsuits against Google based upon such tantalizing warnings, rather than site owners filling up a Google Webmaster Help Forum with information about the circumstances involving their sites being impacted by the upgrade.

In retrospect, it is probably a good idea that the warnings hinted at in the original Panda Patent were avoided.

Google seems to think that such warnings are appropriate now when it comes to multiple devices and technologies that may not work well together, like Flash and iPhones.

But there were still issues with how well or how poorly the algorithm described in the patent might work.

In the March, 2011 interview with Google's Head of Search Quality, Amit Sighal, and his team member and Head of Web Spam at Google, Matt Cutts, titled TED 2011: The "Panda" That Hates Farms: A Q&A With Google's Top Search Engineers, we learned of the code name that Google claimed to be using to refer to the algorithm update as "Panda," after an engineer with that name came along and provided suggestions on patterns that could be used by the patent to identify high- and low-quality pages.

His input seems to have been pretty impactful—enough for Google to have changed the name of the update, from the "High Quality Site Algorithm" to the "Panda" update.

How the High-Quality Site Algorithm became Panda

Danny Sullivan named the update the "Farmer update" since it supposedly targeted content farm web sites. Soon afterwards the joint interview with Singhal and Cutts identified the Panda codename, and that's what it's been called ever since.

Google didn't completely abandon the name found in the original patent, the "high quality sites algorithm," as can be seen in the titles of these Google Blog posts:

The most interesting of those is the "more guidance" post, in which Amit Singhal lists 23 questions about things Google might look for on a page to determine whether or not it was high-quality. I've spent a lot of time since then looking at those questions thinking of features on a page that might convey quality.

The original patent is at:

Processing web pages based on content quality
Inventors: Brandon Bilinski and Stephen Kirkham
Assigned to Google
US Patent 8,775,924
Granted July 8, 2014
Filed: March 9, 2012

Abstract

"Computer-implemented methods of processing web pages based on content quality are provided. In one aspect, a method includes receiving a request for a web page.
The method includes determining the content quality of the requested web page based on whether it is a parked web page, a content farm web page, or a link farm web page. The method includes providing for display, based on the content quality of the requested web page, a graphical component providing options to proceed to the requested web page or to an alternate web page relevant to the request for the web page.
The method includes receiving an indication of a selection of an option from the graphical component to proceed to the requested web page or to an alternate web page. The method further includes providing, based on the received indication, the requested web page or an alternate web page."

The patent expands on what are examples of low-quality web pages, including:

Parked web pages
Content farm web pages
Link farm web pages
Default pages
Pages that do not offer useful content, and/or pages that contain advertisements and little else

An invitation to crowdsource high-quality patterns

This is the section I mentioned above where I am asking for your help. You don't have to publish your thoughts on how quality might be identified, but I'm going to start with some examples.

Under the patent, a content quality value score is calculated for every page on a website based upon patterns found on known low-quality pages, "such as parked web pages, content farm web pages, and/or link farm web pages."

For each of the patterns identified on a page, the content quality value of the page might be reduced based upon the presence of that particular pattern—and each pattern might be weighted differently.

Some simple patterns that might be applied to a low-quality web page might be one or more references to:

A known advertising network,
A web page parking service, and/or
A content farm provider

One of these references may be in the form of an IP address that the destination hostname resolves to, a Domain Name Server ("DNS server") that the destination domain name is pointing to, an "a href" attribute on the destination page, and/or an "img src" attribute on the destination page.

That's a pretty simple pattern, but a web page resolving to an IP address known to exclusively serve parked web pages provided by a particular Internet domain registrar can be deemed a parked web page, so it can be pretty effective.

A web page with a DNS server known to be associated with web pages that contain little or no content other than advertisements may very well provide little or no content other than advertising. So that one can be effective, too.

Some of the patterns listed in the patent don't seem quite as useful or informative. For example, the one stating that a web page containing a common typographical error of a bona fide domain name may likely be a low-quality web page, or a non-existent web page. I've seen more than a couple of legitimate sites with common misspellings of good domains, so I'm not too sure how helpful a pattern that is.

Of course, some textual content is a dead giveaway the patent tells us, with terms on them such as "domain is for sale," "buy this domain," and/or "this page is parked."

Likewise, a web page with little or no content is probably (but not always) a low-quality web page.

This is a simple but effective pattern, even if not too imaginative:

... page providing 99% hyperlinks and 1% plain text is more likely to be a low-quality web page than a web page providing 50% hyperlinks and 50% plain text.

Another pattern is one that I often check upon and address in site audits, and it involves how functional and responsive pages on a site are.

"The determination of whether a web site is full functional may be based on an HTTP response code, information received from a DNS server (e.g., hostname records), and/or a lack of a response within a certain amount of time. As an example, an HTTP response that is anything other than 200 (e.g., "404 Not Found") would indicate that a web site is not fully functional.
As another example, a DNS server that does not return authoritative records for a hostname would indicate that the web site is not fully functional. Similarly, a lack of a response within a certain amount of time, from the IP address of the hostname for a web site would indicate that the web site is not fully functional."

As for user-data, sometimes it might play a role as well, as the patent tells us:

"A web page may be suggested for review and/or its content quality value may be adapted based on the amount of time spent on that page.
For example, if a user reaches a web page and then leaves immediately, the brief nature of the visit may cause the content quality value of that page to be reviewed and/or reduced. The amount of time spent on a particular web page may be determined through a variety of approaches. For example, web requests for web pages may be used to determine the amount of time spent on a particular web page."

My example of some patterns for an e-commerce website

There are a lot of things that you might want to include on an ecommerce site that help to indicate that it's high quality. If you look at the questions that Amit Singhal raised in the last Google Blog post I mentioned above, one of his questions was "Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?" Patterns that might fit with this question could include:

Is there a privacy policy linked to on pages of the site?
Is there a "terms of service" page linked to on pages of the site?
Is there a "customer service" page or section linked to on pages of the site?
Do ordering forms function fully on the site? Do they return 404 pages or 500 server errors?
If an order is made, does a thank-you or acknowledgement page show up?
Does the site use an https protocol when sending data or personally identifiable data (like a credit card number)?

As I mentioned above, the patent tells us that a high-quality content score for a page might be different from one pattern to another.

The questions from Amit Singhal imply a lot of other patterns, but as SEOs who work on and build and improve a lot of websites, this is an area where we probably have more expertise than Google's search engineers.

What other questions would you ask if you were tasked with looking at this original Panda Patent? What patterns would you suggest looking for when trying to identify high or low quality pages? Perhaps if we share with one another patterns or features on a site that Google might look for algorithmically, we could build pages that might not be interpreted by Google as being a low quality site. I provided a few patterns for an ecommerce site above. What patterns would you suggest?

(Illustrations: Devin Holmes @DevinGoFish)

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

Seth's Blog : The easy ride

The easy ride

We know what you want to accomplish. We know how you'd like everything to turn out.

The real question is, "what are you willing to push through the dip for?" What are you willing to stand up for, bleed for, commit to and generally be unreasonable about?

Because that's what's going to actually get done.

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luni, 28 iulie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Calling All Munitions and Fighter Plane Experts: Is German Pilot Claim "Air-to-Air Attack" Brought Down MH17 Credible?
IMF Warns Pound Overvalued; What About Other Currencies?
No BBC Video Removal Scandal After All; Evidence of Military Planes Shadowing MH17 Mounts

Calling All Munitions and Fighter Plane Experts: Is German Pilot Claim "Air-to-Air Attack" Brought Down MH17 Credible?

Posted: 28 Jul 2014 03:56 PM PDT

Peter Haisenko, a German aviation expert made a claim yesterday that air-to-air fire brought down MH17.

The above link is to a translated page.

As a lay person, it's easy to be persuaded by such arguments. Moreover, even if Haisenko is an aviation expert, one has to wonder about his munitions expertise.

I have some questions later, but first let's take a look at some images and a translation of Haisenko's thesis.

Haisenko provides this High-Res Image of MH17 Cockpit.

Click on chart for sharper image, or click on the preceding link for an even bigger image.

Haisenko Notes

Cockpit shows traces of shelling, clean round hole, about 30 mm caliper.
Some holes are bent inward, some outward
Rivets bent outward
Moreover, small cuts can be seen, all bent outward, which hint at the fact that fragments have penetrated the outer hull from the inside of the cockpit.

Bullet Holes in Shell

Now the Controversy

The rest of what Haisenko has to say is quite controversial. Here is my modified translation (corrections welcome).

So what can be happening? Russia has published radar recordings, that show at least one Ukrainian SU-25 in close proximity of MH17. This corresponds with the statement of the lost Spanish controller who claims to have seen two Ukrainian fighter aircraft in the immediate vicinity of MH17.

Consider the armament of the SU-25: It is equipped with a double-barreled 30-mm gun, type GSh-302 / AO-17A, capable of firing 250 rounds anti-tank fire or splinter-explosive projectiles, in a defined order. The cockpit of the MH17 has been fired from two sides: the entry and exit holes on the same page. [Mish Note: Reader John points out that a SU-27 has a service ceiling of 62,523 feet and that the Ukrainian army has that aircraft.]

Now just imagine what happens when a series of armored fire and splinter-explosive projectiles, designed so that they can destroy a tank, hit the cockpit. The shells partially escape across the cockpit from the other side, slightly deformed again.

The splinter-explosive projectiles will explode inside the cockpit, as designed.

Because the interior of a commercial aircraft is a hermetically sealed chamber, the pressure inside the aircraft in a split second will rise to extreme levels by these explosions. But the aircraft is not equipped. It will burst like a balloon.

Coherent Picture

The largely intact fragments of the rear sections are broken at the points that are based on the construction breakup most likely under extreme pressure. The image of the widely scattered debris field and the brutally damaged cockpit segment fit to do so. Furthermore, a wing segment shows traces of a grazing shot, which directly leads to extension to the cockpit.

Interestingly, I found that both the high-resolution photo of the cockpit as the segment are also now been removed from the grazing shot on the wing from Google Images. One can find virtually no other pictures of the wreckage, except smoking ruins.

Accident?

Even if Haisenko is correct, the image presented does not rule out an accident.

For example, it is conceivable Ukrainian military aircraft thought they were firing on a Russian plane. Notice I did not say likely, I said conceivable.

Regardless, if plane damage rules out a Buk, then the air-to-air thesis that remains, however unlikely initially, must lead to the truth.

By the way, one of my contacts (Not Dreizin) assures me that an SU-25 can get high enough, not for prolonged periods of time, but long enough to make such an attack. I do not know if that claim is credible, but a SU-27 certainly can hit that altitude.

Six Questions

Is the MH17 damage consistent with either a buk or an air-to-air attack?
Does the damage assessment favor one type of attack vs. the other?
Could a Buk reasonably have only hit the cockpit?
Could multiple Buks be in play to cause both input and exit holes as show?
If so, could multiple Buks have only hit the cockpit?
Could the flechettes (dart-like or ball bearing-like projectiles) launched when the buk exploded simply have traveled completely through the cockpit leaving both entry and exit holes?

Three Scenarios

If the damage is only (or primarily) consistent with an air-to-air attack, we have a new ballgame.
If the damage is consistent with either a Buk or an air-to-air attack, with roughly equal probability, we have not learned much.
If the answer to number 6 is yes, and the rest of the damage is also consistent with a Buk, and the damage is inconsistent with an air-to-air attack , then it is safe to rule out the latter.

For now, I would like some military fighter-plane and munitions experts to assess the damaged parts and make a yes-no-maybe type of assessment on Haisenko's analysis, not on who did it or why, but rather on an assessment of the images shown (and what type of weapon did the damage).

Meet Elena from Sloviansk

Finally, even if it was a Buk, please consider this Video of Militia Soldier - Elena, from Sloviansk with English subtitles.

Posted on June 18, 2014

Partial Transcript

Good day. My name is Elena. I am in the city of Sloviansk. I am native to this town. I have joined the military ranks. I cannot bear this anymore. We are being bombed every day by Ukrainian army, on orders from Junta, Artillery, Air Force. And they drop bombs not on check-points. They drop bombs on people's houses. People live in cellars with their children. How long are we to bear this? How is it that government sends mercenaries on their own people? The people are fighting from here, in defense of their own city. They want to live, not merely exist. Terrible things are happening. For example: An incident that happened recently. A passenger plane was flying by, and Ukrainian attack aircraft hid behind it. Then he lowered his altitude a bit and dropped bombs on the residential sector of Seminovka. They wanted to provoke the militia to shoot at the passenger plane. There would have been a global catastrophe. Civilians would have died. Then they would say the terrorists did it. There are no terrorists here. There are regular people here, that came out in defense of their own city. ... Don't you have any humanity left?

Believable?

Easily. Please note that video came out one month prior to the MH17 crash. It was not a made up story afterwards to fit what happened. And it fits numerous other reports none of which appears staged.

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

IMF Warns Pound Overvalued; What About Other Currencies?

Posted: 28 Jul 2014 12:26 PM PDT

Is the British pound overvalued? What about the Euro? The US Dollar? The Yen?

Curiously, economists make that case for all of those currencies.

And today, the IMF is pounding the drums with this proclamation "Overvalued" Pound Prevents Rebalancing.

The International Monetary Fund warned on Monday that the pound was "overvalued" and preventing the rebalancing of the economy away from a reliance on spending and imports.

In its annual assessment of the UK economy, the fund said sterling was between 5 and 10 per cent overvalued because of a "lack of competitiveness and limited export diversification".

"Staff estimates that the current account balance is 2.6 per cent weaker than its equilibrium level, and that the real exchange rate is overvalued by about 5–10 per cent," the IMF said.

Equilibrium Level Madness

Apparently the IMF is the arbiter of the "equilibrium level" of any and every currency. A few examples will prove the point.

New Zealand Dollar Overvalued by 20%

On April 10, 2014 the IMF warned New Zealand Dollar May Be Overvalued.

Canadian Dollar Overvalued by 10%

On March 2, 2014 the IMF Warned Canadian Dollar Overvalued by 10%" despite recent depreciation, thus the Bank of Canada should wait before hiking rates..

Australian Dollar Overvalued by 10%

On November 21, 2013 the IMF Stated Australian Dollar Overvalued by 10%.

US Dollar Overvalued

This dates back a while but on October 28, 2010 the IMF said US Dollar 'Overvalued' On Currency Markets.

Swiss Franc Overvalued

Returning to this year, on March 24, 2014, IMF Suggests SNB Use Negative Rates if Franc Pressured because the "franc remains moderately overvalued."

Euro Overvalued

As shocking as this may seem, I cannot find a recent IMF opinion on the Euro, but on May 8, 2014, Mario Draghi, president of the ECB discussed the Pernicious Effects of an Overvalued Euro.

I am pretty sure the IMF would agree.

Yen and US Dollar Overvalued

On October 12, 2012, the Wall Street Journal proclaimed If Yen Overvalued in IMF View, So May Be Dollar.

Japan's finance minister may have breathed a sigh of relief Thursday when the International Monetary Fund chief reaffirmed the yen is "moderately overvalued," a phrase traders believe is supportive of potential market intervention to weaken the currency against the dollar.

Not so well-known in the market, however, is that the 188-member international lender also sees the dollar as "moderately overvalued," a view that makes it harder to conclude the IMF would endorse future intervention by Tokyo in the dollar-yen market.

Yuan "Moderately" Undervalued

On May 29, 2013, and contrary to sentiment in Washington DC that says the Yuan is massively undervalued, The IMF Seeks Flexible Chinese Yuan, Says "Moderately Undervalued".

US Dollar Index

click on chart for sharper image

Summary

Note that the US dollar is about where it has been since the beginning of 2012, but higher than it was in October of 2012 when it was judged to be "overvalued".

Is it more overvalued today?

Apparently the British pound, New Zealand dollar, Australian Dollar, the US dollar, the euro, and the yen are all overvalued.

The yuan is the one major currency that is allegedly undervalued, but only "modestly".

Mathematics

IMF overvalued-undervalued judgments are generally on a basket of currencies basis.

However, it is not mathematically possible for all those currencies to be 5-20% overvalued against all the other currencies in the same basket.

Even if it was possible, based on precise timings and currency fluctuations, the idea that the IMF can fine tune currency valuations to the nth degree as it has done is absurd.

All Currencies Overvalued

Nonetheless, the IMF appears to be on target with all those "overvalued" assessments, not against other currencies in the basket or against each other individually, but against gold, and by far greater percentages.

If you agree with my assessment, and perhaps even if you don't, please consider How Much Gold Should Someone Own? Where and How To Own It?

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

No BBC Video Removal Scandal After All; Evidence of Military Planes Shadowing MH17 Mounts

Posted: 28 Jul 2014 12:24 AM PDT

On July 23 the BBC deleted a video report from correspondent Olga Ivishina regarding the crash of MH17. This has caused quite a stir in the blogosphere because the deleted video contained eyewitness reports of military aircraft flying on the same day, shadowing MH17.

Here is the deleted video from cache: Катастрофа рейса MH17 Би би си в поисках Бука 23 07 2014, LQ

Global Research Canada has some interesting translation clips in Deleted BBC Report. "Ukrainian Fighter Jet Shot Down MHI7″, Donetsk Eyewitnesses.

BBC's Initial Response

I found dozens of references to the removal, but to find BBC's reason for removing the video, I had to search the BBC website. It's in Russian.

Jan Leder, managing editor of Russian BBC Service explains Why Bi-bi-si Material Removed From Site.

Video Reposted

My initial reaction was that Leder's response was disingenuous.

However, the BBC has since re-posted the video.

Reader Jacob Dreizin, a US citizen who speaks Russian and reads Ukrainian, went over the original and now re-posted videos and it appears the BBC was telling the truth all along.

From Dreizin

Although it's not entirely clear, the managing editor says that the intent from the get-go was to fix the material and put it back up as soon as possible.

I have reviewed the original version side-by-side with the new one. And I can see what she's talking about. The new video still has all the eyewitness ladies that everyone has focused on.

The new video removed a somewhat irrelevant lecture from the VItalii Naida, the Ukrainian counterintelligence chief. Instead, it has a Ukrainian official claiming that no combat flights take place over rebel areas, followed by a local resident making a mockery of that claim.

It also has a segment where a BBC aviation expert is quoted as giving his rebuttal to a rebel's claim that Ukrainian warplanes have used civilian flights as cover.

The expert says that while he can't rule it out, it seems very unlikely to him, for various technical reasons. However, I don't think he quite understands precisely what the interviewees are saying.

All in all, there's no BBC scandal here. But if you just want to focus strictly on what the eyewitness ladies said I've improved it a bit. Here goes...

Eyewitness #1: There were two explosions in the air. This is how it [the plane] tore apart. And it [the remains of the plane] flew off to the sides [gesturing with hands in two opposite directions].
Eyewitness #2: And nearby there was one other airplane, a military one, everyone saw.
Eyewitness #1: Yes, yes. It was going lower, because it could be seen. It was going below the passenger plane.
Eyewitness #3: There were sounds of an explosion. But they were in the sky. Then this plane turned around sharply like this [gesturing with her finger], changed trajectory, and flew in that direction [showing the direction with her hand].

Mounting Evidence

Credible eyewitnesses saw multiple planes.
Russia claims radar picked up multiple planes
Russia claims Ukrainian Buks in Eastern Ukraine
Plane moved from original flight path in mysterious circumstances

Russia gave a detailed report on numbers 2 and 3 (See Russia Claims Photos of Ukraine Deploying BUK Missiles in East, Radar Proof of Warplanes in MH17 Vicinity)

Ukraine denies all of the above, and of course the rebels deny having Buks. It's quite possible, and in fact likely, that both sides are lying about multiple things.

That said, Russia has at least come out with some of its evidence. The US and Ukraine have little to offer but hype and reports that appear fake, coupled with over-reliance social media.

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

What's an inversion, and what's it costing you?

Monday, July 28, 2014

What's an inversion, and what's it costing you?

Last week, President Obama called attention to one kind of corporate tax loophole in particular -- called an "inversion" -- a word you might be seeing in a lot of news headlines lately.

It's not the most intuitive name for a corporate tax loophole, so we're breaking it down for you.

Click here to find out what it is, how it's costing you, and how to fix it.