miercuri, 6 mai 2015

Actualizarea politicii Google AdWords - Modificarea politicii privind conținutul neacceptat

Stimate agent de publicitate AdWords,

Vă scriem pentru a vă informa în legătură cu o modificare a politicilor
publicitare Google care ar putea afecta contul dvs. AdWords.

La sfârșitul lunii aprilie, politica Google AdWords privind conținutul
neacceptat a fost modificată pentru a include cerințele suplimentare cu
privire la descărcările gratuite de software pentru desktop. Dacă nu
promovați software gratuit pentru desktop, această modificare nu vă va
afecta.

Nu vi se va permite să promovați software gratuit pentru desktop, cu
excepția cazului în care anunțul indică în mod explicit software-ul
promovat și conduce la sursa de distribuție primară desemnată pentru
software-ul respectiv.

Ce puteți face:
Dacă faceți reclamă la software gratuit pentru desktop, asigurați-vă că
anunțurile și paginile dvs. de destinație îndeplinesc următoarele standarde:
- anunțul include numele software-ului promovat;
- anunțul conduce la o pagină de destinație pe site-ul desemnat ca sursă de
distribuție primară a software-ului.

Google va oferi dezvoltatorilor de software posibilitatea de a-și desemna
sursa de distribuție primară care să fie utilizată cu aceste anunțuri.

Mai multe detalii puteți găsi la adresa
https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6023676#uc

Cu stimă,
Echipa Google AdWords

Ați primit acest anunț obligatoriu prin e-mail privind serviciile, pentru a
vă pune la curent cu modificările importante aduse contului AdWords.

© 2015 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043

How Much Has Link Building Changed in Recent Years? - Moz Blog


How Much Has Link Building Changed in Recent Years?

Posted on: Wednesday 06 May 2015 — 02:12

Posted by Paddy_Moogan

I get asked this question a lot. It's mainly asked by people who are considering buying my link building book and want to know whether it's still up to date. This is understandable given that the first edition was published in February 2013 and our industry has a deserved reputation for always changing.

I find myself giving the same answer, even though I've been asked it probably dozens of times in the last two years—"not that much". I don't think this is solely due to the book itself standing the test of time, although I'll happily take a bit of credit for that :) I think it's more a sign of our industry as a whole not changing as much as we'd like to think.

I started to question myself and if I was right and honestly, it's one of the reasons it has taken me over two years to release the second edition of the book.

So I posed this question to a group of friends not so long ago, some via email and some via a Facebook group. I was expecting to be called out by many of them because my position was that in reality, it hasn't actually changed that much. The thing is, many of them agreed and the conversations ended with a pretty long thread with lots of insights. In this post, I'd like to share some of them, share what my position is and talk about what actually has changed.

My personal view

Link building hasn't changed as much we think it has.

The core principles of link building haven't changed. The signals around link building have changed, but mainly around new machine learning developments that have indirectly affected what we do. One thing that has definitely changed is the mindset of SEOs (and now clients) towards link building.

I think the last big change to link building came in April 2012 when Penguin rolled out. This genuinely did change our industry and put to bed a few techniques that should never have worked so well in the first place.

Since then, we've seen some things change, but the core principles haven't changed if you want to build a business that will be around for years to come and not run the risk of being hit by a link related Google update. For me, these principles are quite simple:

  • You need to deserve links - either an asset you create or your product
  • You need to put this asset in front of a relevant audience who have the ability to share it
  • You need consistency - one new asset every year is unlikely to cut it
  • Anything that scales is at risk

For me, the move towards user data driving search results + machine learning has been the biggest change we've seen in recent years and it's still going.

Let's dive a bit deeper into all of this and I'll talk about how this relates to link building.

The typical mindset for building links has changed

I think that most SEOs are coming round to the idea that you can't get away with building low quality links any more, not if you want to build a sustainable, long-term business. Spammy link building still works in the short-term and I think it always will, but it's much harder than it used to be to sustain websites that are built on spam. The approach is more "churn and burn" and spammers are happy to churn through lots of domains and just make a small profit on each one before moving onto another.

For everyone else, it's all about the long-term and not putting client websites at risk.

This has led to many SEOs embracing different forms of link building and generally starting to use content as an asset when it comes to attracting links. A big part of me feels that it was actually Penguin in 2012 that drove the rise of content marketing amongst SEOs, but that's a post for another day…! For today though, this goes some way towards explain the trend we see below.

Slowly but surely, I'm seeing clients come to my company already knowing that low quality link building isn't what they want. It's taken a few years after Penguin for it to filter down to client / business owner level, but it's definitely happening. This is a good thing but unfortunately, the main reason for this is that most of them have been burnt in the past by SEO companies who have built low quality links without giving thought to building good quality ones too.

I have no doubt that it's this change in mindset which has led to trends like this:

The thing is, I don't think this was by choice.

Let's be honest. A lot of us used the kind of link building tactics that Google no longer like because they worked. I don't think many SEOs were under the illusion that it was genuinely high quality stuff, but it worked and it was far less risky to do than it is today. Unless you were super-spammy, the low-quality links just worked.

Fast forward to a post-Penguin world, things are far more risky. For me, it's because of this that we see the trends like the above. As an industry, we had the easiest link building methods taken away from us and we're left with fewer options. One of the main options is content marketing which, if you do it right, can lead to good quality links and importantly, the types of links you won't be removing in the future. Get it wrong and you'll lose budget and lose the trust if your boss or client in the power of content when it comes to link building.

There are still plenty of other methods to build links and sometimes we can forget this. Just look at this epic list from Jon Cooper. Even with this many tactics still available to us, it's hard work. Way harder than it used to be.

My summary here is that as an industry, our mindset has shifted but it certainly wasn't a voluntary shift. If the tactics that Penguin targeted still worked today, we'd still be using them.

A few other opinions...

"I definitely think too many people want the next easy win. As someone surfing the edge of what Google is bringing our way, here's my general take—SEO, in broad strokes, is changing a lot, *but* any given change is more and more niche and impacts fewer people. What we're seeing isn't radical, sweeping changes that impact everyone, but a sort of modularization of SEO, where we each have to be aware of what impacts our given industries, verticals, etc."

- Dr. Pete

 

"I don't feel that techniques for acquiring links have changed that much. You can either earn them through content and outreach or you can just buy them. What has changed is the awareness of "link building" outside of the SEO community. This makes link building / content marketing much harder when pitching to journalists and even more difficult when pitching to bloggers.

"Link building has to be more integrated with other channels and struggles to work in its own environment unless supported by brand, PR and social. Having other channels supporting your link development efforts also creates greater search signals and more opportunity to reach a bigger audience which will drive a greater ROI."

- Carl Hendy

 

"SEO has grown up in terms of more mature staff and SEOs becoming more ingrained into businesses so there is a smarter (less pressure) approach. At the same time, SEO has become more integrated into marketing and has made marketing teams and decision makers more intelligent in strategies and not pushing for the quick win. I'm also seeing that companies who used to rely on SEO and building links have gone through IPOs and the need to build 1000s of links per quarter has rightly reduced."

- Danny Denhard

Signals that surround link building have changed

There is no question about this one in my mind. I actually wrote about this last year in my previous blog post where I talked about signals such as anchor text and deep links changing over time.

Many of the people I asked felt the same, here are some quotes from them, split out by the types of signal.

Domain level link metrics

"I think domain level links have become increasingly important compared with page level factors, i.e. you can get a whole site ranking well off the back of one insanely strong page, even with sub-optimal PageRank flow from that page to the rest of the site."

- Phil Nottingham

I'd agree with Phil here and this is what I was getting at in my previous post on how I feel "deep links" will matter less over time. It's not just about domain level links here, it's just as much about the additional signals available for Google to use (more on that later).

Anchor text

I've never liked anchor text as a link signal. I mean, who actually uses exact match commercial keywords as anchor text on the web?

SEOs. :)

Sure there will be natural links like this, but honestly, I struggle with the idea that it took Google so long to start turning down the dial on commercial anchor text as a ranking signal. They are starting to turn it down though, slowly but surely. Don't get me wrong, it still matters and it still works. But like pure link spam, the barrier is a lot more lower now in terms what of constitutes too much.

Rand feels that they matter more than we'd expect and I'd mostly agree with this statement:

"Exact match anchor text links still have more power than you'd expect—I think Google still hasn't perfectly sorted what is "brand" or "branded query" from generics (i.e. they want to start ranking a new startup like meldhome.com for "Meld" if the site/brand gets popular, but they can't quite tell the difference between that and https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection getting a few manipulative links that say "redirect")"

- Rand Fishkin

What I do struggle with though, is that Google still haven't figured this out and that short-term, commercial anchor text spam is still so effective. Even for a short burst of time.

"I don't think link building as a concept has changed loads—but I think links as a signal have, mainly because of filters and penalties but I don't see anywhere near the same level of impact from coverage anymore, even against 18 months ago."

- Paul Rogers

New signals have been introduced

It isn't just about established signals changing though, there are new signals too and I personally feel that this is where we've seen the most change in Google algorithms in recent years—going all the way back to Panda in 2011.

With Panda, we saw a new level of machine learning where it almost felt like Google had found a way of incorporating human reaction / feelings into their algorithms. They could then run this against a website and answer questions like the ones included in this post. Things such as:

  • "Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?"
  • "Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?"
  • "Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?"

It is a touch scary that Google was able to run machine learning against answers to questions like this and write an algorithm to predict the answers for any given page on the web. They have though and this was four years ago now.

Since then, they've made various moves to utilize machine learning and AI to build out new products and improve their search results. For me, this was one of the biggest and went pretty unnoticed by our industry. Well, until Hummingbird came along I feel pretty sure that we have Ray Kurzweil to thank for at least some of that.

"There seems to be more weight on theme/topic related to sites, though it's hard to tell if this is mostly link based or more user/usage data based. Google is doing a good job of ranking sites and pages that don't earn the most links but do provide the most relevant/best answer. I have a feeling they use some combination of signals to say "people who perform searches like this seem to eventually wind up on this website—let's rank it." One of my favorite examples is the Audubon Society ranking for all sorts of birding-related searches with very poor keyword targeting, not great links, etc. I think user behavior patterns are stronger in the algo than they've ever been."

- Rand Fishkin

Leading on from what Rand has said, it's becoming more and more common to see search results that just don't make sense if you look at the link metrics—but are a good result.

For me, the move towards user data driving search results + machine learning advanced has been the biggest change we've seen in recent years and it's still going.

Edit: since drafting this post, Tom Anthony released this excellent blog post on his views on the future of search and the shift to data-driven results. I'd recommend reading that as it approaches this whole area from a different perspective and I feel that an off-shoot of what Tom is talking about is the impact on link building.

You may be asking at this point, what does machine learning have to do with link building?

Everything. Because as strong as links are as a ranking signal, Google want more signals and user signals are far, far harder to manipulate than established link signals. Yes it can be done—I've seen it happen. There have even been a few public tests done. But it's very hard to scale and I'd venture a guess that only the top 1% of spammers are capable of doing it, let alone maintaining it for a long period of time. When I think about the process for manipulation here, I actually think we go a step beyond spammers towards hackers and more cut and dry illegal activity.

For link building, this means that traditional methods of manipulating signals are going to become less and less effective as these user signals become stronger. For us as link builders, it means we can't keep searching for that silver bullet or the next method of scaling link building just for an easy win. The fact is that scalable link building is always going to be at risk from penalization from Google—I don't really want to live a life where I'm always worried about my clients being hit by the next update. Even if Google doesn't catch up with a certain method, machine learning and user data mean that these methods may naturally become less effective and cost efficient over time.

There are of course other things such as social signals that have come into play. I certainly don't feel like these are a strong ranking factor yet, but with deals like this one between Google and Twitter being signed, I wouldn't be surprised if that ever-growing dataset is used at some point in organic results. The one advantage that Twitter has over Google is it's breaking news freshness. Twitter is still way quicker at breaking news than Google is—140 characters in a tweet is far quicker than Google News! Google know this which is why I feel they've pulled this partnership back into existence after a couple of years apart.

There is another important point to remember here and it's nicely summarised by Dr. Pete:

"At the same time, as new signals are introduced, these are layers not replacements. People hear social signals or user signals or authorship and want it to be the link-killer, because they already fucked up link-building, but these are just layers on top of on-page and links and all of the other layers. As each layer is added, it can verify the layers that came before it and what you need isn't the magic signal but a combination of signals that generally matches what Google expects to see from real, strong entities. So, links still matter, but they matter in concert with other things, which basically means it's getting more complicated and, frankly, a bit harder. Of course, on one wants to hear that."

- Dr. Pete

The core principles have not changed

This is the crux of everything for me. With all the changes listed above, the key is that the core principles around link building haven't changed. I could even argue that Penguin didn't change the core principles because the techniques that Penguin targeted should never have worked in the first place. I won't argue this too much though because even Google advised website owners to build directory links at one time.

You need an asset

You need to give someone a reason to link to you. Many won't do it out of the goodness of their heart! One of the most effective ways to do this is to develop a content asset and use this as your reason to make people care. Once you've made someone care, they're more likely to share the content or link to it from somewhere.

You need to promote that asset to the right audience

I really dislike the stance that some marketers take when it comes to content promotion—build great content and links will come.

No. Sorry but for the vast majority of us, that's simply not true. The exceptions are people that sky dive from space or have huge existing audiences to leverage.

You simply have to spend time promoting your content or your asset for it to get shares and links. It is hard work and sometimes you can spend a long time on it and get little return, but it's important to keep working at until you're at a point where you have two things:

  • A big enough audience where you can almost guarantee at least some traffic to your new content along with some shares
  • Enough strong relationships with relevant websites who you can speak to when new content is published and stand a good chance of them linking to it

Getting to this point is hard—but that's kind of the point. There are various hacks you can use along the way but it will take time to get right.

You need consistency

Leading on from the previous point. It takes time and hard work to get links to your content—the types of links that stand the test of time and you're not going to be removing in 12 months time anyway! This means that you need to keep pushing content out and getting better each and every time. This isn't to say you should just churn content out for the sake of it, far from it. I am saying that with each piece of content you create, you will learn to do at least one thing better the next time. Try to give yourself the leverage to do this.

Anything scalable is at risk

Scalable link building is exactly what Google has been trying to crack down on for the last few years. Penguin was the biggest move and hit some of the most scalable tactics we had at our disposal. When you scale something, you often lose some level of quality, which is exactly what Google doesn't want when it comes to links. If you're still relying on tactics that could fall into the scalable category, I think you need to be very careful and just look at the trend in the types of links Google has been penalizing to understand why.

The part Google plays in this

To finish up, I want to briefly talk about the part that Google plays in all of this and shaping the future they want for the web.

I've always tried to steer clear of arguments involving the idea that Google is actively pushing FUD into the community. I've preferred to concentrate more on things I can actually influence and change with my clients rather than what Google is telling us all to do.

However, for the purposes of this post, I want to talk about it.

"General paranoia has increased. My bet is there are some companies out there carrying out zero specific linkbuilding activity through worry."

- Dan Barker

Dan's point is a very fair one and just a day or two after reading this in an email, I came across a page related to a client's target audience that said:

"We are not publishing guest posts on SITE NAME any more. All previous guest posts are now deleted. For more information, see www.mattcutts.com/blog/guest-blogging/".

I've reworded this as to not reveal the name of the site, but you get the point.

This is silly. Honestly, so silly. They are a good site, publish good content, and had good editorial standards. Yet they have ignored all of their own policies, hard work, and objectives to follow a blog post from Matt. I'm 100% confident that it wasn't sites like this one that Matt was talking about in this blog post.

This is, of course, from the publishers' angle rather than the link builders' angle, but it does go to show the effect that statements from Google can have. Google know this so it does make sense for them to push out messages that make their jobs easier and suit their own objectives—why wouldn't they? In a similar way, what did they do when they were struggling to classify at scale which links are bad vs. good and they didn't have a big enough web spam team? They got us to do it for them :)

I'm mostly joking here, but you see the point.

The most recent infamous mobilegeddon update, discussed here by Dr. Pete is another example of Google pushing out messages that ultimately scared a lot of people into action. Although to be fair, I think that despite the apparent small impact so far, the broad message from Google is a very serious one.

Because of this, I think we need to remember that Google does have their own agenda and many shareholders to keep happy. I'm not in the camp of believing everything that Google puts out is FUD, but I'm much more sensitive and questioning of the messages now than I've ever been.

What do you think? I'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts in the comments.


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Seth's Blog : Pretty websites

Pretty websites

...are rarely websites that convert as well as unpretty ones.

If the goal of your site is to position you, tell a story, establish your good taste and make it clear what sort of organization you are, then pretty might be the way to go. And you can measure the effectiveness of the site by how it impresses those you seek to impress, by its long-term impact.

But it's a mistake to also expect your pretty website to generate cash, to have the maximum percentage of clicks, to have the most efficient possible funnel of attention to action.

There's always been a conflict between the long-term benefits of beauty in commerce (in architecture, in advertising, in transactions) and the short-term brutality of measurement and direct response.

It's worth noting that conflict in advance, as opposed to vainly wishing you could have both optimized. You can't. The smart marketer will measure how much direct response it's costing to be beautiful, or how much storytelling is being sacrificed to be clicked on. Not both.

       

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marți, 5 mai 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


European 10-Year Bond Yields Spike Higher; Contagion Already? Something Worse?

Posted: 05 May 2015 08:05 PM PDT

Those who claim there will be no Greece contagion need consider yields in other European bonds.

In spite of the fact the ECB is buying 60 billion euros of debt a month for 19 months, yields on many longer-dated bonds are rising.

Spain 10-Year Yield



Italy 10-Year Yield



Germany 10-Year Yield



Contagion Already?

Saxo Bank chief economist Steen Jakobsen sees contagion risk in bond yield breakouts.

Via email ...
A quick note as there has been a number of "break-outs" and risk warnings activated.

First, and most important.

I have long argued that Italian 2 yr vs. 10 yr is excellent predictor of contagion on Greece, and sure enough  we have had massive spike!

2-10 if reflecting much higher short-end risk (higher yield) Italy because with France only countries who has done nothing to reign in fiscal deficit plus CLUB MED members.

Contagion or Something Else?

10-year bond yields are up. So are 2-10 spreads. And it isn't just Italy.

But is the reason contagion risk or erroneous belief that a eurozone recovery is underway? What about the chance the ECB has lost control?


  1. ECB has lost control
  2. Contagion
  3. Recovery

Which is it?

Presuming this trend lasts, this will not be good for equities no matter the reason. But really look out if the reason is #1 or #2.

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

Chicago Board of Education to Default on Bonds? Rick Santelli and Mish Discuss on CNBC

Posted: 05 May 2015 12:29 PM PDT

I had a lot of fun this morning on CNBC.

Rick Santelli invited me on his show to discuss Beware, the Tax Man Has Eyes on You: Potential Hike for Illinoisans is Staggering and a few other recent posts of mine on the plight of Chicago.

If you have not read that post, please do so. Nuveen figures property taxes need to rise by 50% to bail out Chicago pensions in deep trouble. In the video below I explain why 50% will not be enough!



Link if video does not play: Chicago BOE to default?

Three minutes flies by fast. It's very difficult to get everything you intend to say in such a small time window. Actually, Rick went over by 20 seconds, telling the producer in advance he intended to do that.

In the video, Rick asked "How underfunded are Illinois pensions?"

My answer of $130 billion included Chicago and the main Illinois pensions. But it also assumed 7% returns that I am quite certain will not happen. Unfortunately, there was no time to get this all into the interview.

Mark Glennon at WirePoints says the number using new Government Accounting Standard Board (GASB) rules is closer to $220 billion. That number includes all Illinois pensions but also includes unfunded healthcare liabilities of about $57 billion.

I was invited back once a month to discuss the economy. Looking forward to that. This was a lot of fun.

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

JS-Kit / Echo Comments Defunct

Posted: 05 May 2015 12:21 PM PDT

The JS-Kit/Echo comment system I had on this blog is now defunct. The company recently dropped support across the board for everyone.

I am looking for a replacement comment system. In the meantime, thanks for your patience.

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

First Quarter GDP Likely Negative as Trade Deficit Soars

Posted: 05 May 2015 09:45 AM PDT

On April 29 in Real Q1 GDP 0.2% vs. Consensus 1.0%; Disaster in the Details I commented "The second estimate of Q1 GDP comes out on May 29. Any number of changes could send Q1 negative."

Here we are already. Imports subtract from GDP and March trade numbers were much worse than expected.

The Bloomberg Consensus trade estimate was -42.0 billion. The actual trade deficit was -51.4 billion. The deficit was outside the entire range of estimates of -45.0 billion to -37.8 billion.
First-quarter GDP, barely above zero at plus 0.2 percent, may move into the negative column on revision following a much higher-than-expected March trade deficit of $51.4 billion, the largest since October 2008. The unwinding of the port strike on the West Coast, which was resolved mid-month March, played a major role in the data especially evident in imports which surged $17.1 billion in the month as backlogs at the ports were cleared. Imports of consumer goods, especially cell phones, were especially heavy. Exports, led by aircraft, also rose but only $1.6 billion. The total goods gap in the month was $70.6 billion which is the highest since August 2008.

The gap in petroleum trade, at $7.7 billion vs February's $8.2 billion, wasn't a major factor in the March data as the drop in prices was offset by a rise in volumes. By country, the gap with China widened to $31.2 vs $22.5 billion in February and to $7.1 billion vs $4.2 billion for Japan. The OPEC gap widened slightly to $1.2 billion vs $0.7 billion.

Today's report offers stark evidence of how much the port strike really did impact the economy and was likely one of the major "transitory" factors, as the Fed puts it, that slowed down first-quarter growth. These effects are likely to unwind in the second quarter and become a footnote for first-quarter data.
Transitory Nonsense

Economists still cling to the notion this is transitory.

For my take, please see Fed Cites Weather, "Transitory" Factors in FOMC Statement; No Hat Tricks; What About Consumer Sentiment?

GDP Now

In light of the today's trade report the Atlanta Fed lowered its GDPNow Estimate for second quarter GDP to 0.8%.



Note how economists still cling to optimism no matter how bad the economic numbers.

If the Atlanta Fed still modeled 1st quarter, I would now expect it to be negative.

On April 17, I commented Déjà Vu Weather? No, It's a Recession!

There's no need to change that forecast no matter what fantasies the blue-chip economists have for 3.5% growth.

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

Greece Talks on Hold; IMF Admits Haircuts Needed as Surplus Turns to Deficits

Posted: 05 May 2015 09:07 AM PDT

Greece Talks on Hold

Pierre Moscovici, the European commissioner for economic affairs, warns Debt Talks on Hold Until Greece Agrees Reforms.
Greece's eurozone creditors will not discuss how to get the country's sovereign debt back on a sustainable path until Athens agrees to a new economic reform programme that would release €7.2bn in desperately needed bailout funds, the EU's economic chief said on Tuesday.

Pierre Moscovici, the European commissioner for economic affairs, said debt issues "can only be discussed after we have agreed a reform programme". His statement reflects resistance in eurozone capitals to any form of "haircut" on Greek sovereign debt, which is now mostly held by EU governments and institutions.

Without a return to sustainable debt levels — or a larger bailout from the eurozone to ensure Athens can continue to pay its bills — the IMF may be forced under its rules to withhold its share of the current bailout tranche, which amounts to about half of the €7.2bn being negotiated.

Under a November 2012 agreement between Athens and its international creditors, Greece is scheduled to cut its debt levels to 120 per cent of gross domestic product by 2020 and "substantially lower" than 110 per cent by 2022. Debt relief was agreed as a possible way to reach the targets if Greece was able to run a primary budget surplus.

In February, Brussels forecast Greek debt would fall from 176.2 per cent of GDP in 2014 to 170.2 per cent this year; the new forecasts predict it will rise to 180.2 per cent this year.
Greece Debt Forecast



Surplus Turns to Deficits

Please consider IMF Takes Hard Line on Aid as Greek Surplus Turns to Deficit
Greece is so far off course on its €172bn bailout programme that it faces losing vital International Monetary Fund support unless European lenders write off significant amounts of its sovereign debt, the fund has warned Athens' eurozone creditors.

The warning, delivered to eurozone finance ministers by Poul Thomsen, head of the IMF's European department, raises the prospect that it may hold back its portion of a €7.2bn tranche of bailout aid that Greece is desperately attempting to secure to avoid bankruptcy.

Half of the €7.2bn, which is the subject of intense negotiations between Athens and its creditors in Brussels-based talks that resumed on Monday, is due to come from the IMF. Without the funds, Greece is expected to run out of cash this month.

Eurozone creditors, who hold the vast bulk of Greek debt, are adamantly opposed to debt relief. But IMF support is crucial both for its funds and to sustain political backing for the Greece bailout, particularly in Germany.

According to two officials present at a contentious meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Riga last month, Mr Thomsen said initial data the IMF had received from Greek authorities showed Athens was on track to run a primary budget deficit of as much as 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product this year.

Under existing bailout targets, Athens was supposed to run a primary surplus — government receipts net of spending, excluding interest payments on sovereign debt — of 3 per cent of GDP in 2015.

A stand-off between the IMF and eurozone creditors over Greece is not unprecedented. Three years ago, the IMF refused to disburse its portion of the aid tranche because of similar fears Greek debt was not falling fast enough.

The IMF only signed off after eurozone ministers agreed to consider, but never implemented, writing down their bailout loans to reduce Greece's debt to "substantially lower" than 110 per cent of GDP by 2022. It currently stands at 176 per cent.

The forecast of a rising Greek deficit after achieving a 1.7 per cent surplus last year — and overly optimistic projections of similar surpluses into the future — would also increase the size of a third Greek bailout, which most officials believe is necessary once the €7.2bn left in the current programme is paid out. Senior officials have initially projected a new programme at €30bn-€50bn, but rising deficits could change that calculation.
IMF Takes Hard Line

That was a curious title. Before I read the article, I expected the headline to mean IMF takes hard line towards Greece. Having now read the article, the phrase seems more applicable to the creditors.

So here we are. The creditors insist no more haircuts, but the IMF will not approve its half of the next bailout tranche without them.

Looking ahead, the fact that Greece's primary account surplus vanished means a third bailout program will be larger than previously discussed. And Greece refuses to take another bailout.

For further discussion please see Third Greek Bailout? Another €53.8 Billion Needed? Primary Account Surplus Revisited.

However big the third bailout was expected to be, it's now larger.

I fail to see how this can all be resolved.

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

"Freedom philosophy vs. Empire of Lies": Authorized Documentary About Ron Paul's Career

Posted: 05 May 2015 06:46 AM PDT

Many producers have approached Ron Paul about doing a documentary regarding Paul's philosophical views.

Until now, Ron Paul has turned down all such overtures.

Empire of Lies

I am pleased to report that Ron Paul just now authorized a long-time friend, Charles Goyette, to make that documentary. Goyette asked me to break the news.

The Ron Paul Documentary project is underway today with the launch of a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign.

"I feel flattered to be an important part of this," said Paul. "I think some big things are happening.  Libertarianism and freedom – as bad as things look on the surface -  I believe the rumblings are just wonderful there and in my relationship with young people."

"I felt it was absolutely essential to fund this film at the grassroots level," said Goyette. "The integrity of the project demands that it be independent."
  
Goyette helped raise contributions in the 2008 and 2012 Ron Paul Presidential Money Bomb fundraisers that set new records for political fundraising.

Goyette is the New York Times bestselling author of The Dollar Meltdown. See my review The Dollar Meltdown: Book Review.

His latest book is Red and Blue and Broke All Over - Restoring America's Free Economy.

Goyette is an award-winning radio personality. He has often been called upon to share his views with national televisions audiences on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, CNBC and Fox Business Channel.

In 2013 – 2014 Goyette arranged the national syndication of twice-daily radio commentaries by Ron Paul, which he also produced and co-hosted. Ron Paul's America was broadcast on 125 radio stations across the nation.

Goyette also joined with Ron Paul for the sponsored program Ron Paul and Charles Goyette – The Weekly Podcast, long-form conversations about news and political philosophy. The Weekly Podcast is available on iTunes.

The Ron Paul Documentary will be released in the first half of 2016.

Empire of Lies Video Clip



Link if video does not play: Empire of Lies

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

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


Sometimes The Best Thing About YouTube Is The Comments

Posted: 05 May 2015 12:36 PM PDT

This is what it looks like when clever people leave YouTube comments.






















This Bodybuilder Has Turned Himself Into A Beast

Posted: 05 May 2015 09:39 AM PDT

Romario Dos Santos Alves wanted a body like The Incredible Hulk so he injected oil and alcohol into his arms. He almost had to have both of his arms amputated after the injection and says the mixture drove him insane causing him to almost kill himself. He says children in his hometown of Caldas Novas, Brazil are terrified of him and think he's some kind of monster.

















Megan Fox Goes Blonde For New Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie

Posted: 05 May 2015 09:17 AM PDT

Megan Fox has been busy filming "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2" and some new photos from the set recently hit the Internet. They show Megan Fox dressed up as a blonde while wearing a schoolgirl outfit. Has she ever looked hotter?