vineri, 12 iunie 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

More Obamacare Sticker Shock: HMO Rates Up 20%, EPO Up 18%, 12% Overall; Death Spiral for Insurers?

Posted: 12 Jun 2015 02:19 PM PDT

If you did not have insurance before Obamacare, but do now, or if you are heavily subsidized, you may consider Obamacare a blessing.

If you are not in those select groups, then you are highly likely to be paying more for insurance now than before. And it's going to get worse. Some plan types really take a premium hit.

Premiums Jump 12% On Average

Health Pocket reports Obamacare Insurers Propose 12% Higher Premiums for 2016.

Rates Up 20% for Health Maintenance Organizations and 18% for Exclusive Provider Organizations.

[Mish Comment: You can save a lot of money on a bronze plan, but you better not get major sick or in a major accident. As anyone with any bit of common sense expected, more people need more services so rates are going up rapidly].

On average the proposed premiums for 2016 Obamacare plans were 12% higher than the 2015 premiums. Silver and gold plans had the greatest average rate increases of 14% and 16% respectively, while bronze rates increased 9% and platinum rates increased 6%.

Average Rates

Plan Types

Bronze pays 60% of covered costs
Silver pays 70% of covered costs
Gold pays 80% of covered costs
Platinum pays 90% of covered costs

Network Types

Health maintenance organizations (HMOs)
Exclusive Provider Organizations (EPOs)
Point of Service (POS) plans
Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs)

PPOs and POS plans cover out-of-network care, while HMOs and EPOs do not. EPO and PPO plans do not require referrals from primary care doctors to see specialists, but HMO and POS plans require referrals.

Sticker Shock Coming Up

67% have silver plans. The rates above are for a single 40-year old nonsmoker. Those 67% will see premium hikes ranging from 11% to 20% depending on the network type.

Bronze plans constitute another 22% of all plans. Those in Bronze network plans other than PPOs will see rates go up 15% to 20%.

Bronze PPO plans go up the least, only 4%, but PPO premiums started higher than the others.

There are many additional charts in the above link.

Plan B? States Have None

Later this month the Supreme Court will rule on King v. Burwell. The issue is whether tax credit subsidies purchased through federal government healthcare exchanges are legal.

The SCOTUS Blog assessed the odds in plain English on March 4, in Will concern for states' rights win out in subsidies battle? The key point involving a death spiral.

Death Spiral for Insurers?

What may eventually prove to be the key line of questioning may have been kicked off by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who expressed concern about the consequences of a ruling for the challengers. If a state's residents don't receive subsidies, she told Carvin, it will lead to a "death spiral": because a large group of people in those states will no longer be required to buy health insurance, but insurers will still be required to offer insurance to everyone, only sick people will buy health insurance. And that will cause everyone's insurance costs to rise, leading more people to drop out of the insurance market. States will then feel like they have no choice other than to establish their own exchanges to ward off the "death spiral" – a scenario that is so coercive that it violates the Constitution.

Perhaps critically for the government, Justice Anthony Kennedy – who is often regarded as a strong supporter of states' rights – also expressed concern about the possibly coercive effect of a ruling for Carvin's clients. There is, he told Carvin, "something very powerful to the point" that if the challengers prevail, the states have to choose between the death spiral and creating an exchange. "There's a serious constitutional problem," he concluded. (Carvin tried to downplay this concern by telling Kennedy that the government had not raised this issue, but Kennedy quickly retorted that "we sometimes think of things the government doesn't argue.")

One More Vote Needed

The blog points out there are four solid votes for the government: Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. There are two likely challenger votes: Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, so team Obama needs one more vote out of three (Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Anthony Kennedy, Justice Clarence Thomas).

The above death spiral scenario seems to make it likely, yet the blog concludes it is by no means a given.

Between the near-complete radio silence from the Chief Justice and the sometimes conflicting questions from Justice Kennedy, the case is a tough call. Overall, the government can probably be cautiously optimistic (but only cautiously), because on net Kennedy's concerns about the potentially coercive effect of the challengers' rule seemed to outweigh his qualms about the government's reading of the statute. And even if Kennedy does not swing his support to the government in the end, the Chief Justice might remain in play, as he was during the 2012 battle over the individual mandate. But we probably won't know until the Court issues its decision later this year; when it does, we'll be back to explain it all in Plain English.

No Plan B - 6 Million at Risk on Subsidies

The Washington Post reports States have 'No B plan' if Supreme Court Scraps Health-Care Subsidies.

Any day now, the Supreme Court will announce its decision in King v. Burwell, the latest high-stakes fight over the Affordable Care Act. If the government loses, more than 6 million residents of the 34 states that declined to establish their own health-care exchanges could lose subsidies that help them purchase insurance.

In principle, those 34 states could restore subsidies by creating their own insurance exchanges. Political leaders will certainly come under intense pressure to do so, although time is short to get an exchange up and running for 2016.

To investigate these questions, we undertook, with financial support from the Commonwealth Fund, a study of five states that could lose tax credits: Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Utah.

What we found was both striking and worrisome. Dozens of interviews conducted by our research team with political leaders, agency officials and advocacy organizations in those states indicate that the states are almost completely underprepared for the Supreme Court's decision in King. As North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) said in March, "There's no B plan."

Policymakers also expressed frustration with the Obama administration's silence about its plans. Most states expect the administration to make it easier for them to transition to state exchanges. But they are reluctant to make concrete plans when they don't know what the federal government expects of them.

In the states that have failed to lay the groundwork, it will probably be impossible to set up an exchange in time for 2016.

Compounding the timing challenge, only one legislature of the five states we studied (Michigan), and eight of the 34 affected nationally, will be in session after the court's ruling. Although a special session appears likely in Utah, creating an exchange may not be on the agenda. It's far from clear that special sessions will be called elsewhere.

But the bottom line is grim. The states aren't prepared for King, and any debates over whether to create state exchanges will be turbulent and difficult. In the meantime, millions of people stand to lose their health insurance.

I suspect Obamacare proponents will scrape up a vote, but if not, states will act to avoid the alleged "death spiral".

We find out soon.

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

Final Forced Exchange Rate: 175 Quadrillion Zimbabwean Dollars (175,000 Trillion) = $5.00

Posted: 12 Jun 2015 11:21 AM PDT

For bank account holders in Zimbabwe, the government will do a forced exchange of Zimbabwean dollars to US dollars at the rate 175 Quadrillion Zimbabwean Dollars Per $5.00.

The Zimbabwean dollar will be taken from circulation, formalizing a multi-currency system introduced in 2009 to help stem inflation and stabilize the economy.

The central bank will offer $5 for every 175 quadrillion, or 175,000 trillion, Zimbabwean dollars, Governor John Mangudya said in an e-mailed statement from the capital, Harare. While it marks the official dropping of the currency, transactions in the southern African nation have been made using mainly the U.S. dollar and rand of neighboring South Africa for six years.

The economy plunged into crisis after the government started a campaign in 2000 of violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms to distribute to black subsistence growers, slashing exports of tobacco and other crops. Inflation surged to 500 billion percent and the economy shrank during a near decade-long recession that ended in 2009. Under policies implemented by a coalition government, the economy began expanding and the recognition of foreign currencies as legal tender helped tame inflation. Consumer prices fell an annual 2.7 percent in April, according to the statistics agency.

Zimbabweans can convert their local dollars between June 15 and Sept. 30 at commercial banks, building societies and postal agencies, Mangudya said.

Savers with Zimbabwe dollars in their bank accounts will get a flat $5 for anything up to 175 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars. They can convert any cash they have "on a no questions asked basis" at a rate of $1 to 250 trillion Zimbabwe dollars for notes printed before 2009, Mangudya said.

100 Trillion Bill

At the rate of 175,000 trillion per $5.00, the 100 trillion Zimbabwean note (the highest denomination bill) is worth about 0.285 US cents, (slightly more than a 1/4 of a penny).

I suspect the ink and paper cost more than the note is worth.

That is hyperinflation.

Nut cases have been predicting similar results for the US for years.

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

Why We Can't Do Keyword Research Like It's 2010 - Whiteboard Friday - Moz Blog

Why We Can't Do Keyword Research Like It's 2010 - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by randfish

Keyword Research is a very different field than it was just five years ago, and if we don't keep up with the times we might end up doing more harm than good. From the research itself to the selection and targeting process, in today's Whiteboard Friday Rand explains what has changed and what we all need to do to conduct effective keyword research today.

For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard. Click on it to open a high resolution image in a new tab!

What do we need to change to keep up with the changing world of keyword research?

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to chat a little bit about keyword research, why it's changed from the last five, six years and what we need to do differently now that things have changed. So I want to talk about changing up not just the research but also the selection and targeting process.

There are three big areas that I'll cover here. There's lots more in-depth stuff, but I think we should start with these three.

1) The Adwords keyword tool hides data!

This is where almost all of us in the SEO world start and oftentimes end with our keyword research. We go to AdWords Keyword Tool, what used to be the external keyword tool and now is inside AdWords Ad Planner. We go inside that tool, and we look at the volume that's reported and we sort of record that as, well, it's not good, but it's the best we're going to do.

However, I think there are a few things to consider here. First off, that tool is hiding data. What I mean by that is not that they're not telling the truth, but they're not telling the whole truth. They're not telling nothing but the truth, because those rounded off numbers that you always see, you know that those are inaccurate. Anytime you've bought keywords, you've seen that the impression count never matches the count that you see in the AdWords tool. It's not usually massively off, but it's often off by a good degree, and the only thing it's great for is telling relative volume from one from another.

But because AdWords hides data essentially by saying like, "Hey, you're going to type in . . ." Let's say I'm going to type in "college tuition," and Google knows that a lot of people search for how to reduce college tuition, but that doesn't come up in the suggestions because it's not a commercial term, or they don't think that an advertiser who bids on that is going to do particularly well and so they don't show it in there. I'm giving an example. They might indeed show that one.

But because that data is hidden, we need to go deeper. We need to go beyond and look at things like Google Suggest and related searches, which are down at the bottom. We need to start conducting customer interviews and staff interviews, which hopefully has always been part of your brainstorming process but really needs to be now. Then you can apply that to AdWords. You can apply that to suggest and related.

The beautiful thing is once you get these tools from places like visiting forums or communities, discussion boards and seeing what terms and phrases people are using, you can collect all this stuff up, plug it back into AdWords, and now they will tell you how much volume they've got. So you take that how to lower college tuition term, you plug it into AdWords, they will show you a number, a non-zero number. They were just hiding it in the suggestions because they thought, "Hey, you probably don't want to bid on that. That won't bring you a good ROI." So you've got to be careful with that, especially when it comes to SEO kinds of keyword research.

2) Building separate pages for each term or phrase doesn't make sense

It used to be the case that we built separate pages for every single term and phrase that was in there, because we wanted to have the maximum keyword targeting that we could. So it didn't matter to us that college scholarship and university scholarships were essentially people looking for exactly the same thing, just using different terminology. We would make one page for one and one page for the other. That's not the case anymore.

Today, we need to group by the same searcher intent. If two searchers are searching for two different terms or phrases but both of them have exactly the same intent, they want the same information, they're looking for the same answers, their query is going to be resolved by the same content, we want one page to serve those, and that's changed up a little bit of how we've done keyword research and how we do selection and targeting as well.

3) Build your keyword consideration and prioritization spreadsheet with the right metrics

Everybody's got an Excel version of this, because I think there's just no awesome tool out there that everyone loves yet that kind of solves this problem for us, and Excel is very, very flexible. So we go into Excel, we put in our keyword, the volume, and then a lot of times we almost stop there. We did keyword volume and then like value to the business and then we prioritize.

What are all these new columns you're showing me, Rand? Well, here I think is how sophisticated, modern SEOs that I'm seeing in the more advanced agencies, the more advanced in-house practitioners, this is what I'm seeing them add to the keyword process.

Difficulty

A lot of folks have done this, but difficulty helps us say, "Hey, this has a lot of volume, but it's going to be tremendously hard to rank."

The difficulty score that Moz uses and attempts to calculate is a weighted average of the top 10 domain authorities. It also uses page authority, so it's kind of a weighted stack out of the two. If you're seeing very, very challenging pages, very challenging domains to get in there, it's going to be super hard to rank against them. The difficulty is high. For all of these ones it's going to be high because college and university terms are just incredibly lucrative.

That difficulty can help bias you against chasing after terms and phrases for which you are very unlikely to rank for at least early on. If you feel like, "Hey, I already have a powerful domain. I can rank for everything I want. I am the thousand pound gorilla in my space," great. Go after the difficulty of your choice, but this helps prioritize.

Opportunity

This is actually very rarely used, but I think sophisticated marketers are using it extremely intelligently. Essentially what they're saying is, "Hey, if you look at a set of search results, sometimes there are two or three ads at the top instead of just the ones on the sidebar, and that's biasing some of the click-through rate curve." Sometimes there's an instant answer or a Knowledge Graph or a news box or images or video, or all these kinds of things that search results can be marked up with, that are not just the classic 10 web results. Unfortunately, if you're building a spreadsheet like this and treating every single search result like it's just 10 blue links, well you're going to lose out. You're missing the potential opportunity and the opportunity cost that comes with ads at the top or all of these kinds of features that will bias the click-through rate curve.

So what I've seen some really smart marketers do is essentially build some kind of a framework to say, "Hey, you know what? When we see that there's a top ad and an instant answer, we're saying the opportunity if I was ranking number 1 is not 10 out of 10. I don't expect to get whatever the average traffic for the number 1 position is. I expect to get something considerably less than that. Maybe something around 60% of that, because of this instant answer and these top ads." So I'm going to mark this opportunity as a 6 out of 10.

There are 2 top ads here, so I'm giving this a 7 out of 10. This has two top ads and then it has a news block below the first position. So again, I'm going to reduce that click-through rate. I think that's going down to a 6 out of 10.

You can get more and less scientific and specific with this. Click-through rate curves are imperfect by nature because we truly can't measure exactly how those things change. However, I think smart marketers can make some good assumptions from general click-through rate data, which there are several resources out there on that to build a model like this and then include it in their keyword research.

This does mean that you have to run a query for every keyword you're thinking about, but you should be doing that anyway. You want to get a good look at who's ranking in those search results and what kind of content they're building . If you're running a keyword difficulty tool, you are already getting something like that.

Business value

This is a classic one. Business value is essentially saying, "What's it worth to us if visitors come through with this search term?" You can get that from bidding through AdWords. That's the most sort of scientific, mathematically sound way to get it. Then, of course, you can also get it through your own intuition. It's better to start with your intuition than nothing if you don't already have AdWords data or you haven't started bidding, and then you can refine your sort of estimate over time as you see search visitors visit the pages that are ranking, as you potentially buy those ads, and those kinds of things.

You can get more sophisticated around this. I think a 10 point scale is just fine. You could also use a one, two, or three there, that's also fine.

Requirements or Options

Then I don't exactly know what to call this column. I can't remember the person who've showed me theirs that had it in there. I think they called it Optional Data or Additional SERPs Data, but I'm going to call it Requirements or Options. Requirements because this is essentially saying, "Hey, if I want to rank in these search results, am I seeing that the top two or three are all video? Oh, they're all video. They're all coming from YouTube. If I want to be in there, I've got to be video."

Or something like, "Hey, I'm seeing that most of the top results have been produced or updated in the last six months. Google appears to be biasing to very fresh information here." So, for example, if I were searching for "university scholarships Cambridge 2015," well, guess what? Google probably wants to bias to show results that have been either from the official page on Cambridge's website or articles from this year about getting into that university and the scholarships that are available or offered. I saw those in two of these search results, both the college and university scholarships had a significant number of the SERPs where a fresh bump appeared to be required. You can see that a lot because the date will be shown ahead of the description, and the date will be very fresh, sometime in the last six months or a year.

Prioritization

Then finally I can build my prioritization. So based on all the data I had here, I essentially said, "Hey, you know what? These are not 1 and 2. This is actually 1A and 1B, because these are the same concepts. I'm going to build a single page to target both of those keyword phrases." I think that makes good sense. Someone who is looking for college scholarships, university scholarships, same intent.

I am giving it a slight prioritization, 1A versus 1B, and the reason I do this is because I always have one keyword phrase that I'm leaning on a little more heavily. Because Google isn't perfect around this, the search results will be a little different. I want to bias to one versus the other. In this case, my title tag, since I more targeting university over college, I might say something like college and university scholarships so that university and scholarships are nicely together, near the front of the title, that kind of thing. Then 1B, 2, 3.

This is kind of the way that modern SEOs are building a more sophisticated process with better data, more inclusive data that helps them select the right kinds of keywords and prioritize to the right ones. I'm sure you guys have built some awesome stuff. The Moz community is filled with very advanced marketers, probably plenty of you who've done even more than this.

I look forward to hearing from you in the comments. I would love to chat more about this topic, and we'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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Your Daily SEO Fix: Week 4

Posted by Trevor-Klein

This week, we've got the fourth (and second-to-last) installment of our short (< 2-minute) video tutorials that help you all get the most out of Moz's tools. They're each designed to solve a use case that we regularly hear about from Moz community members.

Here's a quick recap of the previous round-ups in case you missed them:

Week 1: Reclaim links using Open Site Explorer, build links using Fresh Web Explorer, and find the best time to tweet using Followerwonk.
Week 2: Analyze SERPs using new MozBar features, boost your rankings through on-page optimization, check your anchor text using Open Site Explorer, do keyword research with OSE and the keyword difficulty tool, and discover keyword opportunities in Moz Analytics.
Week 3: Compare link metrics in Open Site Explorer, find tweet topics with Followerwonk, create custom reports in Moz Analytics, use Spam Score to identify high-risk links, and get link building opportunities delivered to your inbox.

In this installment, we've got five brand new tutorials:

How to Use Fresh Web Explorer to Build Links
How to Analyze Rank Progress for a Given Keyword
How to Use the MozBar to Analyze Your Competitors' Site Markup
How to Use the Top Pages Report to Find Content Ideas
How to Find On-Site Errors with Crawl Test

Hope you enjoy them!

Fix 1: How to Use Fresh Web Explorer to Build Links

If you have unique data or a particularly excellent resource on your site, that content can be a great link magnet. In this Daily SEO Fix, Felicia shows you how to set up alerts in Fresh Web Explorer to track mentions of relevant keyword phrases, find link opportunities, and build links to your content.

Fix 2: How to Analyze Rank Progress for a Given Keyword

Moz's Rank Tracker tool retrieves search engine rankings for pages and keywords, storing them for easy comparison later. In this fix, James shows you how to use this helpful tool to track keywords, save time, and improve your rankings.

Fix 3: How to Use the MozBar to Analyze Your Competitors' Site Markup

Schema markup helps search engines better identify what your (and your competitors') website pages are all about and as a result can lead to a boost to rankings. In this Daily SEO Fix, Jordan shows you how to use the MozBar to analyze the schema markup of the competition and optimize your own site and pages for rich snippets.

Fix 4: How to Use the Top Pages Report to Find Content Ideas

With Moz's Top Pages report in Open Site Explorer, you can see the pages on your site (and the competitions' sites!) that are top performers. In this fix, Nick shows you how to use the report to analyze your competitors' content marketing efforts and to inform your own.

Fix 5: How to Find On-Site Errors with Crawl Test

Identifying and understanding any potential errors on your site is crucial to the life of any SEO. In this Daily SEO Fix Sean shows you how to use the Crawl Test tool in Moz Analytics to pull reports and identify any errors on your site.

Looking for more?

We've got more videos in the previous three weeks' round-ups!

Your Daily SEO Fix: Week 1

Your Daily SEO Fix: Week 2

Your Daily SEO Fix: Week 3

Don't have a Pro subscription? No problem. Everything we cover in these Daily SEO Fix videos is available with a free 30-day trial.

Sounds good. Sign me up!

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Seth's Blog : Overcoming the extraction mindset

Overcoming the extraction mindset

For generations, places with significant oil production have developed a different culture than other places. This extraction mindset occurs in environments where profits are taken from a captive resource. It doesn't matter if it's coal, tickets or tuition, the mindset is the same.

It's not about oil, it's about the expectation.

They're not making any more oil, of course, and the race is on to get it all. Get it now, or someone else will take it. Take it all, because there's no reason to leave it there. Make sure others don't take it, because what they take isn't something you can take. And when the reserve is exhausted, move on. To the next field, to the next market.

Not everyone in any given community has an extraction mindset, but the worldview is: Anything that slows down, impedes or interferes with more extraction is nothing but a challenge to be overcome.

Debt amplifies this urgency. And so some industrial farmers race to dig deeper wells to take the last remaining water because if they don't, the mortgage due on their farm might wipe them out. And so public companies race to maximize their short-term profits (and CEO bonuses), even if it comes at the cost of the long term.

Thirty years ago, I asked the fabled rock promoter Bill Graham a question that I thought was brilliant, but he pwned me in his response. "Bill, given how fast a Bruce Springsteen concert sells out, why don't you charge $100 a seat and keep all the upside?" (In those days, $100 was considered a ridiculous sum for a concert ticket).

"Well, I could do that, but the thing is, I'm here all year round, and my kids only have a limited budget to spend on concerts. If I charged that much for one concert, they wouldn't be able to come to the other shows I book..."

Bill wasn't just spreading the money out over time. He was investing in a community that could develop a habit of music going, a community that would define itself around what he was building.

Joel Salatin is a farmer, but he doesn't seek to extract first, instead, he's building a network, creating a long-term, sustainable culture that feeds itself as it benefits him.

In the words of Kevin Kelly: Feed the network first.

The network, of course, doesn't always want to do what you want it to do, as fast as you want it to happen.

This chasm between the mindset of extracting and the alternative of feeding becomes more urgent as networks (online ones, environmental ones, tribal ones) become ever more powerful.

The chasm is so deep, people on each side of it have trouble imagining what the other side is thinking. Some people show up in your email box or social network intent on taking what they can get (can I have a guest post? wanna fund my project? made you look...) while others are patiently weaving together a cohort of meaning.

It's expensive and time-consuming to choose a path that doesn't deliver maximum value today. Unless you do the math on what happens tomorrow. Tomorrow, the network is either more productive or less. Tomorrow, the network is either trusting or suspicious. Tomorrow, the network is either healthier or sick.

The promise of our connected economy was that it would reward the good guys, the long-term players, the people who cared enough to contribute. The paradox is that this very same economy has become filled with people who are easily distracted, addicted to shiny objects and too often swayed by the short-term sensation or by short-term profit.

The extraction mindset leads to intelligent short-term decisions. If it costs too much to exploit a resource, move on. The network mindset values the long-term impacts of co-creation.

The network (that would be us) then needs to decide if it will continue to reward short-term thinking in order to enhance extraction, or if we care enough about the long-term that we'll act up in favor of sustainability, raising the costs of short-term (selfish) action so it becomes ever more profitable to focus on the long-term instead.

• Email to a friend •

joi, 11 iunie 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

"Air of Unreality"; "Do You Feel Lucky, Punk?"; Who Has the Gun?
IMF Walks Out of Greece Talks; "No More Space for Gambling"; Can Greece Default and Stay in Eurozone? Russia is the Key!
Retail Sales Bounce as Expected; How Much Longer Can Subprime Auto Sales Lead?
Mish Interview on Forbes Mexico: Global Day of Reckoning Awaits

"Air of Unreality"; "Do You Feel Lucky, Punk?"; Who Has the Gun?

Posted: 11 Jun 2015 03:20 PM PDT

In the wake of the IMF walking out of negotiations with Greece, the Financial Times says the Pullout is Amid an "Air of Unreality".

What's Unreal?

Sure, everyone expected Greece to buckle. But what if Greece did buckle for the nth time? Greece was eventually going to default anyway.

There is not now, nor was there ever, anything "unreal" about the inevitable default.

Earlier today German officials said "European taxpayers have been generous" to Greece. What a hoot. Now, that's "unreal".

What's also "unreal" is forcing €330 billion worth of debt on a tiny country, pretending that it can be paid back.

This alleged "generous" bailout did nothing but bail out banks while forcing a hellacious depression on Greece. Taxpayers have not footed the bill yet, but they will, thanks to bondholder and bank bailouts.

Some blame Greece. And to be sure Greece made mistakes. But the real culprits are the ECB's one size fits Germany interest rate policy, the stupidity of the eurozone agreement itself, the lack of a fiscal union, etc.

Everyone knew Greece lied to get into the eurozone. They let Greece in anyway. Isn't that "unreal"?

"Do You Feel Lucky, Punk?"

The Guradian reports the IMF walkout this way: IMF to Alexis Tsipras: 'Do you feel lucky, punk?'

"You've got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?" The lines spoken by Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry sprang to mind when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that it had called its Greek negotiating team home from talks in Brussels.

The IMF's message was short and brutal. There were still major differences between Greece and its creditors. There was no progress in narrowing those differences. The two sides were well away from an agreement.

The IMF, clearly, has had enough. This, then, is the IMF holding the gun to Alexis Tsipras's head. It feels like a pivotal moment, the point where the creditors are saying "take it or leave it" and the Greeks have to decide whether the IMF really means it.

They are fed up with Tsipras acting like he is the one holding the .44 Magnum and they are threatening to pull the trigger.

This movie climaxes next week.

Who Has the Gun?

The IMF? OK. Pull the trigger.

Tsipras wants someone to blame. If he can point the finger at the despised IMF, the IMF will effectively have shot itself.

Greece has nothing to lose. The Troika does have something to lose.

Let's look at things from the point of the best case scenario.

Best Case Scenario

Greece defaults.
Greece sheds €330 billion worth of debt.
Greece opens up trade with Russia, killing EU sanctions once and for all (and exposing the stupidity of the unanimous nature of EU rules in the process).
Greece threatens to yank US access to the US military base in Crete.
Russia builds pipeline through Greece. In turn, Greece collects shipment and storage fees.
Russia provides interim funding for Greece until Greece runs a primary account surplus.
The interim agreement from Russia requires Greece to initiate some market reforms that will pay big dividends down the road.
Greece reforms and does very well in a relatively short time frame.
Italy, Spain, Portugal, get some clever thoughts of their own.

US Naval Base in Greece

The military Base is in Souday Bay, Greece.

Note the strategic location.

In August of 2013, the US Asked Greece for Military Base Access in Kalamata and Souda for a possible strike on Syria over the alleged use of toxic gas in Ghouta on the eastern outskirts of Damascus.

In 2013, Greece said yes. What will they demand to say "yes" the next time?

Nothing to Lose

From my perspective, Greece has nothing to lose.

To be sure, Greece would be far better off defaulting and reforming rather than simply defaulting. But default is the best option for sure.

Even staunch euro supporter Wolfgang Münchau agrees. See his April 19 column: Greek Default Necessary but Grexit is Not.

For my take on Grexit, please see Can Greece Default and Stay in Eurozone? Russia is the Key!

When default is inevitable (and it is), it's best to do it sooner rather than later.

When You Ain't Got Nothing

I offer a musical tribute to Greece. Click here to play "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan.

It's an excellent video, but not directly embeddable. Click on link to play.

Key Lines

Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal
...
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And say do you want to make a deal?
...
When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose

Speece Revisited

Some will insists this is all Greece's fault. Most others will insist it's primarily Greece's fault.

Actually, it's neither of those.

I make the case in From ZIRP to NIRP: Virtues of Germany vs. the Vices of Greece; What About "Speece" and Gold?

The big fear out of the eurozone should not be that Greece fails miserably, but rather that Greece succeeds!

Success as I have pointed out above is quite possible. If Greece were to immediately initiate the necessary reforms, I would even go so far as to say "success is likely".

Unfortunately, I don't believe Greece will reform.

Regardless, Greece is better off without a €330 billion albatross around its neck for the next 40 years.

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

IMF Walks Out of Greece Talks; "No More Space for Gambling"; Can Greece Default and Stay in Eurozone? Russia is the Key!

Posted: 11 Jun 2015 10:38 AM PDT

In what appears to be a "take it or leave it message to Greece", IMF says Time for Compromise is Over, and walks out of talks.

Greece's creditors on Thursday issued their starkest warnings to Athens since the start of a five-month stand-off over the country's soon-to-expire €172bn bailout, with the International Monetary Fund withdrawing its negotiating team and European leaders saying the time for compromise had ended.

The pointed language in public reflected growing private fears that Alexis Tsipras, Greek prime minister, had overestimated the amount of time he has left to cut a deal to release the bailout's final €7.2bn aid tranche.

"We need decisions not negotiations now. It's my opinion that the Greek government has to be, I think, a little more realistic," said Donald Tusk, the European Council president, who met Mr Tsipras privately on Wednesday.

"There's no more space for gambling, there's no more time for gambling. The day is coming, I'm afraid, where someone says the game is over."

The IMF was equally direct, announcing its lead negotiators had returned to Washington, citing a lack of progress in negotiations. "There are major differences between us in most key areas," said Gerry Rice, IMF spokesman. "There has been no progress in narrowing these differences recently."

Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission chief, met Mr Tsipras on Thursday in what one EU official characterised as a last-ditch effort to get the Greek leader to accept a deal. "If the process was working properly, the president would not have had to have a meeting with Tsipras today," the official said.

Signs suggest Athens has begun to shift strategy in response to the stark warnings. Nikos Voutsis, the interior minister and veteran ally of Mr Tsipras, ordered all mayors and regional governors to transfer their cash reserves immediately to the central bank — a sign the government is now bracing itself for the prospect of not winning any rescue cash before its bailout expires at the end of the month.

The German government has privately been sending signals in recent days intimating that it was time to cut off talks and adopt a more hard-line, "take it or leave it" approach to the talks.

Can Greece Default and Stay in Eurozone?

In April, The Telegraph commented on April 25, that "Greece's Grand Plan" was to Default and Stay in the Euro. The article failed to explain how that would happen.

The Financial Times article How Greece Can Default and Stay in the Euro involves the use of scrip as the mechanism. I don't buy that story either, at least as the primary solution, but at least the FT presented a means.

Open Europe discusses the question Could Greece default and stay inside the Eurozone? but never answers it.

On January 27 the Irish Times reported Greece's Finance Minister Wants to Default and Stay in Euro. The article never discussed how that would happen.

On April 19, Wolfgang Münchau wrote Greek Default Necessary but Grexit is Not.

Default is not synonymous with exit. There is no EU ruling that says you have to leave the eurozone when you default on your debt. The link between default and exit is indirect; if a country defaults, its defaulting securities are no longer eligible as IOUs for the country's banks to tender at ECB money auctions. The same applies to any other debt guaranteed by Athens. The Greek banks hold quite a bit of the latter category, and might find it hard to obtain liquidity if their government falters.

So to default "inside the eurozone" one only needs to devise another way to keep the banking system afloat. If someone could concoct a brilliant answer, there would be no need for Grexit.

The economic case for a debt default is overwhelming. It is hard to see how Greece can ever service its debts as agreed. Even in the creditor countries few people are under illusions about Athens' long-term debt-servicing capacity. Full servicing would require huge primary surpluses — that is, surpluses before payment of interest on debt. It would leave Greece trapped in a debt depression for a long time. The scheduled primary surplus for 2016 is 4.5 per cent, which is bordering on the insane. Athens absolutely needs to default.

Possible, but Unlikely, Without Russia

Of the articles, the only one that comes close is the "brilliant answer" dilemma by Münchau.

I believe the correct answer is "Possible, but Unlikely, Without Russia".

Not one of the above articles discussed Greece's primary account surplus. Simply put, Greece needs a positive current balance, ignoring debt repayments and interest on debt. Greece had a primary account surplus in 2014, but not now.

If Greece can manage to quickly regain a primary account surplus, no one can force them out of the eurozone. Is a primary account surplus "possible"?

Sure, why not? All Greece needs to do is cut pensions and step up tax collections. Of course, that is precisely what the Troika demands.

However, the Troika wanted Greece to take on all that misery just to pay back creditors. Greece would get nothing in return. This is why default is absolutely necessary.

If Greece defaults, then quickly establishes a primary account surplus, the euro it is. Technically, it's possible.

Greece may attempt a game with scrip for a while, but if it needs external funding (and it will by definition unless it runs a primary account surplus), then

1. It will have to get that funding from somewhere (and it will not be the Troika) ... OR
2. Return to the drachma (or go to some new named currency) and let the currency float.

The currency would of course sink like a rock.

There is one other possibility: Greece gets the external funding it needs from Russia for an interim period long enough for Greece to build a primary account surplus. Wouldn't that be a hoot?

Combination

If there is a default coupled with an initial attempt to stay on the euro, a combination of solutions would be likely:

Selective use of scrip
Limited external funding from Russia for a specified short period
Open trade with Russia killing EU sanctions
Russian pipeline through Greece perhaps paid in rubles

EU rules are such that every country has to agree. One key card in this mess that is not often discussed is Greece can by itself kill sanctions on Russia. EU rules require unanimous consent on treaty changes, rules, and sanctions.

Killing the sanctions would be a great thing for all involved. I encourage Greece to default.

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

Retail Sales Bounce as Expected; How Much Longer Can Subprime Auto Sales Lead?

Posted: 11 Jun 2015 09:07 AM PDT

Economists got one right for a change. Retail sales bounced 1.2% led by autos vs. the Bloomberg Consensus Estimate of 1.3%.

Auto sales were known to be strong ahead of the report, likely steering economists in the right direction.

The consumer showed a lot of life in May, driving up retail sales 1.2 percent with gains sweeping nearly all components. A leading component in the month was motor vehicle sales which jumped 2.0 percent, excluding which retail sales still rose a very strong 1.0 percent. Another component showing special strength was gasoline sales which got a boost from higher prices. Still, excluding both of these components, retail sales ex-auto ex-gas gained a very solid 0.7 percent. These results offset weakness in April, when total sales rose only 0.2 percent (upward revised from no change).

In contrast to weakness through most of the April report, there's only one component showing contraction in May and that's the usually solid health & personal care stores at minus 0.3 percent. Standouts on the plus side, apart from vehicles and gasoline, are building materials & garden equipment stores, up 2.1 percent, clothing & accessories stores, up 1.5 percent, and nonstore retailers, up 1.4 percent. Department stores, which sank a steep 2.9 percent in April, rebounded with a 0.8 percent gain.

The long awaited rebound from the soft first quarter is finally here. Today's results will have forecasters upping their estimates for second-quarter GDP. These results will also be a key point of discussion, especially in arguments by the hawks, at next week's FOMC meeting.

Snapback

A sales snapback was coming at some point. May was the month following months of disappoints.

This will add to GDP. We will see how much in the Atlanta Fed GDPNow forecsast later today.

Year-Over-Year Picture Not Strong

In spite of the snapback, year-over-year sales except for autos are hardly robust. A picture from the Commerce Department Advance Retail Sales Report for May 2015 tells the story.

click on chart for sharper image

Year-Over-Year Numbers

General merchandise is down 0.4%
Ex-auto sales are up 1.0%
Auto sales up 8.8%

Next Subprime Crisis, Auto Loans, Won't End Well

Stories about subprime auto sales have been circulating for months.

Forbes had a nice report at the end of January: The Next Subprime Crisis, Auto Loans, Won't End Well.

Less than 10 years removed from the worst credit crisis in history, you would think ads like this would be hard to come across:

They're not. In fact, sales of US subprime auto ABS totaled more than $17.4 billion in 2014, after a record $22 billion were sold in 2013. Auto lenders have even started offering ABS with a "prefunding" feature that effectively packages securitized bundles of auto loans before they've even been made. While that might sound crazy and reminiscent of 2008, easier lending standards have been a big driver of vehicle sales that continue to beat expectations. The head of Honda's US sales recently warned that competitors are doing "stupid things" to gain an advantage.

Research from Experian , a credit firm, shows that the average duration of new car loans is at an all-time high of 5.5 years – with 25% of loans extending for 6-7 years, and some lasting 8 years or longer. The number of auto loans outstanding with subprime borrowers was 23% of the total in 3Q 2014. Increasingly those subprime borrowers are falling behind on their payments. More than 2.6% of borrowers who took out loans in the first quarter of 2014 had missed at least one monthly payment by November – the highest level of early trouble since 2008, when delinquencies rose above 3.0%. For borrowers with weak credit scores the delinquency rate was 8.4%.

Subprime auto sales still led the way in consumer spending. How much longer is anyone's guess.

This is yet another bubble fostered by the Fed's loose monetary policies. It's hard to say when, but auto sales will collapse out of the blue at some point, taking retail sales down with them.

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

Mish Interview on Forbes Mexico: Global Day of Reckoning Awaits

Posted: 10 Jun 2015 11:18 PM PDT

Last week I received an interview request from Guillermo Barba, a Mexican economist and financial blogger writing for Forbes Mexico.

Barba is a follower of the Austrian school of economics. He has also interviewed Jim Rogers, Hugo Salinas Price, Simon Black, Steve Forbes, Jim Rickards, and others.

The interview is below. It is also on Forbes Mexico , in Spanish at Un día del juicio global nos espera: Mish Shedlock.

GB: Mish, you are one of the top financial bloggers in the World, you offer always a different point of view from the mainstream media. Please, tell us about the US economy. Is it good shape or on the verge of a new recession?

Mish: US GDP contracted at a 0.7% annualized in the first quarter. For discussion, please see First Quarter GDP -0.7%; GDPNow Second Quarter Forecast +0.8%; Economists Get Zero Accolades; Smoothed Recession Odds. I was one of very few who outlined that possibility early, back in January in fact. See Diving Into the GDP Report - Some Ominous Trends.

The Atlanta Fed GDPNow Model now suggests 1.1% annualized growth. Should consumer spending falter, and I believe spending will falter, the GDPNow forecast will be on the high side. Even if the GDPNow model is accurate, we are talking first half GDP of 0.3% or so, well below the stall speed.

On June 4th we learned Nonfarm Productivity Collapsed Greater Than Expected 3.1%, Unit Labor Costs Rose 6.7%. That is not good for hiring prospects.

On June 2, the US Census Report showed Factory Orders Down 8th Time in 9 Months; Durable Goods Inventories Highest Since 1992.

Economists say this is transitory, but they have been saying that for nine months!

GB: China, the Euro Zone, Japan and now the US seem to be in financial and economic trouble. What can we expect for the global economy? What will be the consequences for emerging markets like Mexico?

Mish: The global economy is clearly slowing led by Asia and the US. Europe has seen some improvement recently, but it's based on the beggar-thy-neighbor tactics of QE. For a while, nearly a third of European government bonds traded with negative yields. This is outright lunacy in any market, and even more so if one buys into the recovery thesis.

No structural problems have been fixed in Europe or elsewhere. A global day of reckoning awaits; I just cannot say when.

Emerging markets in general have been hammered. Brazil is in a huge recession now, no one believes GDP stats from China, and commodity producers like Australia and Russia are in the dumps. Of those, I expect Russia to do best, because sanctions have forced Putin to make many necessary reforms.

One positive aspect for Mexico is the in-sourcing and near-sourcing trend in US manufacturing, from China. However, even if manufacturing returns to the North American continent, the jobs will not come with it thanks to robotics.

GB: There is speculation that the Fed will raise interest rates sometime this year. What will happen if that occurs? What if not?

Mish: The Fed seems hell bent on raising rates. The Fed actually should because the Fed (central banks in general) has created enormous bubbles in equities and corporate bonds, especially junk bonds.

Things are now so distorted, it may not matter what the Fed does. Bubbles are 100% guaranteed to pop, by definition. And it is 100% obvious there are bubbles. The Fed cannot see them though, just as it failed to see the housing bubble in 2006 and the dotcom bubble in 2000.

The moral of the story is central banks create huge bubbles in a foolish attempt to defeat ordinary consumer price deflation that is not even damaging. The result is asset bubbles that are damaging when they pop. Even the Bank of International Settlement (BIS) recognizes routine deflation is not harmful, yet central banks fight it, creating massive asset bubble problems for their efforts.

For discussion of the nonsensical perils of CPI deflation, please see Historical Perspective on CPI Deflations: How Damaging are They?

GB: Tell us your thoughts on Keynesians and monetarists. Are their ideas and theories responsible for the current economic mess? Why?

Mish: Keynesians believe governments need to step in with fiscal policy if growth is insufficient. Monetarists believe increasing the money supply if growth is insufficient. Neither group has any clue as to what "insufficient growth" means.

Both groups tend to believe routine deflation need to be fought. I addressed the foolishness of that belief above.

Perhaps a simple example will help: If the Fed were to announce tomorrow that it would set the price of orange juice, everyone would be shocked. People would liken it to Soviet-style central planning stupidity, and they would be correct.

Yet, the Fed tries to do something much harder: set the supply of money and interest rates in a vain belief they can steer the economy.

The results speak for themselves. After decades of deflation-fighting via both Keynesian and Monetarist policies, all Japan has to show for it is a debt-to-GDP ratio of about 250%, the highest in the industrial world.

All the rest of the world has seen from Keynesian and Monetarist foolishness is asset bubble after asset bubble with increasing amplitude over time coupled with central bank sponsored income inequality.

The economy is not something that one can drive like a tractor. It does not need steering. Left alone, the economy would do quite fine. Central banks are the problem, not the solution.

GB: Central banks try to fight deflation by "printing" money and lowering interest rates. Some economists have warned that eventually this will create hyperinflation. Nevertheless, you have stated that you expect another round of credit and asset deflation. Why is that? What's your definition of deflation?

Mish: I define deflation as a decrease in money supply and credit, with credit marked to market. Others define it in terms of consumer prices, and still others believe it's simply an increase in money supply.

Those focusing on consumer prices, like the Fed, miss asset inflation. And as I stated earlier, it is asset deflation that wrecks the economy and banks, not routine CPI deflation. Asset deflation hurts because banks inevitably make loans based on inflated assets, and when the bubbles pop, banks are capital impaired and cannot lend, while borrowers immediately become overleveraged.

This is why those who ignore credit miss the picture as well. Since it's clear that bubbles pop, and since it's equally clear there are numerous asset bubbles, it follows there is yet another round of credit and asset deflation.

GB: What can investors do to protect themselves from asset deflation?

Mish:

Avoid speculating in credit bubbles
Avoid Leverage
Pay down debts
Have a cash cushion
Be as liquid as possible
Have at least a year's worth of living expenses in cash in case you lose your job
Put 20% or so of your assets in gold as a financial hedge

GB: Do you think that free markets with the minimum number of regulations and laws to preserve property rights are the way to follow?

Mish: Yes, as stated in many ways above.

GB: How do you respond to those who blame "free markets" for our problems? Do we have free markets in the world?

Mish: It's rather curious that people blame the free markets when we don't have them.

Every major problem blamed on the free market is caused precisely because we do not have them.

Take the housing bubble: The Fed helped create the dotcom bubble with loose money supply in a foolish scare over Y2K (year 2000 date issues). When the dotcom bubble burst, the Fed kept interest rates too low, too long, sponsoring the housing bubble.

US Congress passed legislation after legislation to make housing "more affordable". President Bush added to the madness with the Ownership Society thesis. Fannie Mae, created out of foolish legislation added to the problem, and of course credit rating agencies rated pure garbage as AAA.

Mainstream media used every one of those policy errors to clamor for more regulation.

In actuality, there should not have been Fannie Mae, there should not have been an ownership society, there should not have been a Fed able to hold interest rates too low for too long, there should not be an FHA, there should not be a myriad of affordable housing programs, and the SEC never should have sponsored the rating agencies that in turn rated junk as AAA.

That latter point is particularly important. To understand how the SEC helped sponsor the housing bubble, please see my May 18, article, Rate Shopping Whores and Chicago's Bond Rating, something I first wrote about in 2007, before the crisis even hit.

We do not have a problem because of a failure to regulate; we have "failure by regulation".

GB: In your opinion, should the monetary system come back to the gold standard?

Mish: Yes, the world needs a gold standard enforcement mechanism. Debt has spiraled out of control ever since Nixon closed the gold window. Once that happened, central banks and legislative bodies were free to inflate at will. Once again, the results speak for themselves.

I discussed why, in detail, in my 2011 article Hugo Salinas Price and Michael Pettis on the Trade Imbalance Dilemma; Gold's Honest Discipline Revisited.

Mexico's Hugo Salinas Price is well out in front on this issue. He wants to bring "honest money" back to Mexico. In December of 2014, Hugo penned A Silver Coin that is Money To Calm the National Tantrum in Mexico. It's an idea well worth considering.

GB: Anything else you wish to add.

Mish: Money, interest rates, and the pitfalls of regulation are not easy subjects to discuss. I try to do so in a manner that most can follow.

I hope I succeeded. Many thanks for the opportunity to try.

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