Central Perk

marți, 12 octombrie 2010

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

Serious Robots.txt Misuse & High Impact Solutions

Posted: 11 Oct 2010 02:18 PM PDT

Some of the Internet's most important pages from many of the most linked-to domains, are blocked by a robots.txt file. Does your website misuse the robots.txt file, too? Find out how search engines really treat robots.txt blocked files, entertain yourself with a few seriously flawed implementation examples and learn how to avoid the same mistakes yourself.

The robots.txt protocol was established in 1994 as a way for webmasters to indicate which pages and directories should not be accessed by bots. To this day, respectable bots adhere to the entries in the file... but only to a point.

Your Pages Could Still Show Up in the SERPs

Bots that follow the instructions of the robots.txt file, including Google and the other big guys, won’t index the content of the page but they may still put the page in their index. We’ve all seen these limited listings in the Google SERPs. Below are two examples of pages that have been excluded using the robots.txt file yet still show up in Google.

Cisco Login Page

The below highlighted Cisco login page is blocked in the robots.txt file, but shows up with a limited listing on the second page of a Google search for ‘login’. Note that the Title Tag and URL are included in the listing. The only thing missing is the Meta Description or a snippet of text from the page.

Cisco Login Page SERP

WordPress’s Next Blog Page

One of WordPress.com’s 100 most popular pages (in terms of linking root domains) is www.wordpress.com/next. It is blocked by the robots.txt file, yet it still appears in position four in Google for the query ‘next blog’.

WordPress Next Blog SERP

As you can see, adding an entry to the robots.txt file is not an effective way of keeping a page out of Google’s search results pages.

Robots.txt Usage Can Block Inbound Link Effectiveness

The thing about using the robots.txt file to block search engine indexing is not only that it is quite ineffective, but that it also cuts off your inbound link flow. When you block a page using the robots.txt file, the search engines don’t index the contents (OR LINKS!) on the page. This means that if you have inbound links to the page, this link juice cannot flow to other pages. You create a dead end.

(If this depiction of Googlebot looks familiar, that's because you've seen it before! Thanks Rand.)

Even though the inbound links to the blocked page likely have some benefit to the domain overall, this inbound link value is not being utilized to its fullest potential. You are missing an opportunity to pass some internal link value from the blocked page to more important internal pages.

3 Big Sites with Blocked Opportunity in the Robots.txt File

I've scoured the net looking for the best bloopers possible. Starting with the SEOmoz Top 500 list, I hammered OpenSiteExplorer in search of heart-stopping Top Pages lists like this:

Digg's Top Five Pages

Ouch, Digg. That's a lot of lost link love!

This leads us to our first seriously flawed example of robots.txt use.

#1 - Digg.com

Digg.com used the robots.txt to create as much disadvantage as possible by blocking a page with an astounding 425,000 unique linking root domains, the "Submit to Digg" page.

Submit to Digg

The good news for Digg is that from the time I started researching for this post to now, they've removed the most harmful entries from their robots.txt file. Since you can't see this example live, I've included Google's latest cache of Digg's robots.txt file and a look at Google's listing for the submit page(s).

Digg Robots.txt Cache

As you can see, Google hasn't begun indexing the content that Digg.com had previously removed in the robots.txt.

Digg Submit SERP

I would expect Digg to see a nice jump in search traffic following the removal of it's most linked to pages from the robots.txt file. They should probably keep these pages out of the index with the robots meta tag, 'noindex', so as not to flood the engines with redundant content. This move would ensure that they benefit from the link juice without flooding the search engine indexes.

If you aren't up to speed on the use of noindex, all you have to do is place the following meta tag into the <head> section of your page:

 <meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">

Additionally, by adding 'follow' to the tag you are telling the bots to not index that particular page, but allowing them to follow the links on the page. This is usually the best scenario as it means that the link juice will flow to the followed links on the page. Take for example a paginated search results page. You probably don't want that specific page to show up in the search results as the contents of page 5 of that particular search is going to change day to day. But by using the robots noindex, follow the links to products (or jobs in this example from Simply Hired) will be followed and hopefully indexed.

Alternitavely you can use "noindex, nofollow" but that's a mostly pointless endeavor as you're blocking link juice as with the robots.txt.

#2 - Blogger.com & Blogspot.com

Blogger and Blogspot, both owned by Google, show us that everyone has room for improvement. The way these two domains are interconnected does not utilize best practices and much link love is lost along the way.

Blogger Home Page Screenshot

Blogger.com is the brand behind Google's blogging platform, with subdomains hosted at 'yourblog.blogspot.com'. The link juice blockage and robots.txt issue that arises here is that www.blogspot.com is entirely blocked with the robots.txt. As if that wasn't enough, when you try to pull up the home page of Blogspot, you are 302 redirected to Blogger.com.

Note: All subdomains, aside from 'www', are accessible to robots.

A better implementation here would be a straight 301 redirect from the home page of Blogspot.com to the main landing page on Blogger.com. The robots.txt entry should be removed altogether. This small change would unlock the hidden power of more than 4,600 unique linking domains. That is a good chunk of links.

#3 - IBM

IBM has a page with 1001 unique linking domains that is blocked by the robots.txt file. Not only is the page blocked in the robots.txt but it also does a triple-hop 302 to another location, show below.

IBM

When a popular page is expired or moved, the best solution is usually a 301 redirect to the most suitable final replacement.

Superior Solutions to the Robots.txt

In the big site examples highlighted above, we’ve covered some misuses of the robots.txt file. Some scenarios weren't covered. Below is a list of effective solutions to keep content out of the search engine index without link juice leak.

Noindex

In most cases, the best replacement for robots.txt exclusion is the robots meta tag. By adding 'noindex' and making sure that you DON'T add 'nofollow', your pages will stay out of the search engine results but will pass link value. This is a win/win!

301 Redirect

The robots.txt file is no place to list old worn out pages. If the page has expired (deleted, moved, etc.) don't just block it. Redirect that page using a 301 to the most relevant replacement. Get more information about redirection from the Knowledge Center.

Canonical Tag

Don't block your duplicate page versions in the robots.txt. Use the canonical tag to keep the extra versions out of the index and to consolidate the link value. Whenever possible. Get more information from the Knowledge Center about canonicalization and the use of the rel=canonical tag.

Password Protection

The robots.txt file is not an effective way of keeping confidential information out of the hands of others. If you are making confidential information accessible on the web, password protect it. If you have a login screen, go ahead and add the 'noindex' meta tag to the page. If you expect a lot of inbound links to this page from users, be sure to link to some key internal pages from the login page. This way, you will pass the link juice through.

Effective Robots.txt Usage

The best way to use a robots.txt file is to not use it at all. Well... almost. Use it to indicate that robots have full access to all files on your website and to direct robots to your sitemap.xml file. That’s it.

Your robots.txt file should look like this:

-----------------

User-agent: *
Disallow:

Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

-----------------

The Bad Bots

Earlier in the post I mentioned that "Bots that follow the instructions of the robots.txt file," which means that there are bots that don't adhere to the robots.txt at all. So while you're doing a good job of keeping out the good bots, you're doing a horrible job of keeping out the "bad" bots. Additionally, filtering to only allow bot access to Google/Bing isn't recommend for three reasons:

The engines change/update bot names frequently (e.g. the Bing bot name change recently)
Engines employ multiple types of bots for different types of content (e.g. images, video, mobile, etc.)
New engines/content discovery technologies getting off the ground stand even less of a chance with institutionalized preferences for existing user agents only (e.g. Blekko, Yandex, etc.) and search competition is good for the industry.

Competitors

If your competitors are SEO savvy in any way shape or form, they're looking at your robots.txt file to see what they can uncover. Let's say you're working on a new redesign, or a whole new product line and you have a line in your robots.txt file that disallows bots from "indexing" it. If a competitor comes along, checks out the file and sees this directory called "/newproducttest" then they've just hit the jackpot! Better to keep that on a staging server, or behind a login. Don't give all your secrets away in this one tiny file.

Handling Non-HTML & System Content

It isn't necessary to block .js and .css files in your robots.txt. The search engines won't index them, but sometimes they like the ability to analyze them so it is good to keep access open.
To restrict robot access to non-HTML documents like PDF files, you can use the x-robots tag in the HTTP Header. (Thanks to Bill Nordwall for pointing this out in the comments.)
Images! Every website has background images or images used for styling that you don't want to have indexed. Make sure these images are displayed through the CSS and not using the <img> tag as much as possible. This will keep them from being indexed, rather than having to disallow the "/style/images" folder from the robots.txt.
A good way to determine whether the search engines are even trying to access your non-HTML files is to check your log files for bot activity.

Action Items

Pull up your website’s robots.txt file(s). If anything is disallowed, keep reading.
Check out the Top Pages report in OSE to see how serious your missed opportunity is. This will help you decide how much priority to give this issue compared to your other projects.
Add the noindex meta tag to pages that you want excluded from the search engine index.
301 redirect the pages on your domain that don’t need to exist anymore and were previously excluded using the robots.txt file.
Add the canonical tag to duplicate pages previously robots.txt’d.
Get more search traffic.

Happy Optimizing!

(post edited 10/12/10 @ 5:20AM to reflect x-robots protocol for non-html pages)

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Tuesday Talk with Elizabeth Warren at 1 PM EDT

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Today, we’re kicking off Tuesday Talks, a weekly live video chat on WhiteHouse.gov every Tuesdays at 1 PM EDT. Joining us today is Elizabeth Warren, who is leading efforts to get the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- one of the central features of Wall Street Reform as explained in our animated video -- off the ground. “Basically, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be a watchdog for the American consumer, charged with enforcing the toughest financial protections in history,” said President Obama in remarks announcing Warren’s role.

Join us for a talk with Elizabeth Warren today at 1:00 p.m. EDT.

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Daily Snapshot: Tuesday Talk with Elizabeth Warren at 1 PM EDT

Your Daily Snapshot for
Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Photo of the Day

President Barack Obama, with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, former Transportation Secretaries Norman Mineta and Samuel Skinner, makes a statement in the Rose Garden of the White House Oct. 11, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Daylight Time

8:00 AM: The Vice President meets with Special Envoy for Middle East Peace Senator George Mitchell

10:00 AM: The President receives the Presidential Daily Briefing

10:30 AM: The President receives the Economic Daily Briefing

11:00 AM: The President meets with senior advisors

1:00 PM: The Vice President attends an event for Representative Leonard Boswell

1:00 PM: Tuesday Talk with Elizabeth Warren

2:30 PM: Briefing by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs

2:45 PM: The President meets with student finalists of the NFTE National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge

6:45 PM: The Vice President delivers remarks at a rally for Governor Pat Quinn

7:00 PM: The President hosts a “Moving America Forward” town hall meeting

Indicates Events that will be livestreamed on WhiteHouse.gov/live.

Seth's Blog : Getting smart about the hierarchy of smart

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

Getting smart about the hierarchy of smart

Don't talk to all your employees, all your users or all your prospects the same way, because they're not the same.

The Dreyfus model of skill acquisition posits that there are five stages people go through:

1. Novice
--wants to be given a manual, told what to do, with no decisions possible

2. Advanced beginner
--needs a bit of freedom, but is unable to quickly describe a hierarchy of which parts are more important than others

3. Competent
--wants the ability to make plans, create routines and choose among activities

4. Proficient
--the more freedom you offer, the more you expect, the more you'll get

5. Expert
--writes the manual, doesn't follow it.

If you treat an expert like a novice, you'll fail.

• Email to a friend •

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luni, 11 octombrie 2010

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Krugman and the Inevitable "I Told You So" - Tim Duy "Bad Things Happen When You Fight the Fed"; Final End of Bretton Woods 2?

Posted: 11 Oct 2010 10:24 PM PDT

As predicted on numerous occasions, Paul Krugman is once again pleading for still more Keynesian stimulus. Please consider Hey, Small Spender

Here's the narrative you hear everywhere: President Obama has presided over a huge expansion of government, but unemployment has remained high. And this proves that government spending can't create jobs.

Here's what you need to know: The whole story is a myth. There never was a big expansion of government spending. In fact, that has been the key problem with economic policy in the Obama years: we never had the kind of fiscal expansion that might have created the millions of jobs we need.

And a side consequence of this awkward positioning is that officials can't easily offer the obvious rebuttal to claims that big spending failed to fix the economy — namely, that thanks to the inadequate scale of the Recovery Act, big spending never happened in the first place.

But if they won't say it, I will: if job-creating government spending has failed to bring down unemployment in the Obama era, it's not because it doesn't work; it's because it wasn't tried.

Never Enough

No matter how much money Government spends it will never be enough because government cannot create lasting jobs. As soon as the stimulus spending stops so do the jobs. No matter how many times Austrians insist Krugman look down the road to what happens to his Fantasyland model when the stimulus stops he refuses to discuss this simple point.

It is impossible to debate Keynesian clowns because no matter how much money they blow building bridges to nowhere like Japan did, the answer will always be "It wasn't enough".

I Told You So

The easiest prediction in the world to make was that Krugan would whine "I Told You So".
I discussed the prediction in Are we "Trending Towards Deflation" or in It?

Actually, we have seen a never ending parade of "I Told You So's" from Krugman but this one tops them all.

Indeed, he has taken his whining to a new level by claiming "If job-creating government spending has failed to bring down unemployment in the Obama era, it's not because it doesn't work; it's because it wasn't tried."

No Paul, it's because it doesn't work, no matter how hard you try.

Cheering the Loss of Government Jobs

Krugman whines about the loss of government jobs.

"Consider, in particular, one fact that might surprise you: The total number of government workers in America has been falling, not rising, under Mr. Obama. A small increase in federal employment was swamped by sharp declines at the state and local level — most notably, by layoffs of schoolteachers. Total government payrolls have fallen by more than 350,000 since January 2009. "

I openly cheer the loss of government jobs, and did so recently in Economic Nonsense from Ezra Klein at the Washington Post

The only genuinely good news in Friday's jobs report was the much needed shedding of 159,000 government workers of which only 77,000 were temporary census workers.

Shed another million government workers and you have a small start as to what needs to happen. Some don't see it that way, including Erza Klein at the Washington Post. ...

No Better Time than the Present to Kill Government Jobs and Benefits

Giving states free money just to keep public workers employed delays a much needed realignment of government wages and benefits with that of the private sector. Some might argue this is not the time for it. However, such thinking is foolish.

States are in this mess because of unsustainable spending, and pension promises. Pensions alone are a $3 trillion problem. Please see Interactive Map of Public Pension Plans; How Badly Underfunded are the Plans in Your State? for details.

It is axiomatic that the cure and the disease cannot possibly be the same, so throwing money at the problem cannot possibly be the solution.

There is no better time than the present to get rid of government workers and lower pension benefits. Kicking the can down the road solves nothing.

Greece and Spain put off tackling the issue of public sector wages and benefits, and look what happened to them. Ultimately the bond market imposed its own (badly needed) solution. We can either take care of this mess now, or suffer a similar fate later.

Deficit Spending Unsustainable

Deficit spending is unsustainable. Unfortunately it is rising because Keynesian clowns who have learned nothing about the lessons of Japan or Greece, insist it is not a problem. Yes, Japan has not blown up yet, but it will. We just do not know when.

Japan has squandered all of its surplus building bridges to nowhere and other nonsensical things. It now has a debt to GDP of 200%, highest in the G-20.

All it takes for this to be a major, major problem is for interest rates in Japan to rise a few percent. When that happens, (and it will), it will take all of Japan's tax revenue, just to pay interest on the national debt.

I believe 7th graders can easily understand the problem of deficit spending even if Nobel Prize willing economists and other clowns can't.

Scrap Davis-Bacon, It's a Real Porker

Without a doubt states need to get a grip on finances. The correct solution is to reduce pay and benefit levels of government workers, privatize anything and everything that can be privatized, and scrap the Davis-Bacon Act along with all prevailing wage laws.

Davis-Bacon ensures that taxpayers pay the most for the least amount of work. The goal should be to get projects completed at the least cost to taxpayers.

For more on prevailing wage laws and the enormous inefficiencies they create, please see Thoughts on the Davis Bacon Act

Tunnel of Idiocy

Krugman calls the possible cancellation of a second tunnel connecting New Jersey and New York by governor Chris Christie a Tunnel of Idiocy.

The merits of the project can be debated all day, but what is not debatable is large cost overruns on every such project on top of huge initial cost estimates in the first place.

The reason for these high cost estimates and the inevitable overruns has everything to do with union salaries and prevailing wages.

Want that tunnel? It's simple. Scrap Davis-Bacon. There would be a line 20 miles long for those construction jobs if you did, and the job would come in on-time and under-budget.

Seen and Unseen

The problem with Keynesian clowns is they simply cannot look at the seen and the unseen consequences of their economic models.

To be sure, government can create jobs by paying everyone to spit at the moon. But the spending comes at a cost. That cost is a cheaper dollar, and rising interest on the national debt that at some point will consume all federal revenues.

What then?

Well Keynesian clowns never discuss "what then?" because in their fairy tale world everyone lives happily ever after if only government spends enough money.

Frankly, 7th graders can see the asininity of such free lunch proposals, even if Nobel Prize winning economists cannot.

Firing Public Union Workers Creates Jobs

This might sound strange until you think it through, but Firing Public Union Workers Creates Jobs.

Public unions in New Haven, Connecticut have not yet gotten the message that business-as-usual no longer flies. I am quite happy with that because the city responded by dumping public workers and privatizing services, and that is exactly what needs to happen.

Rebuttal to Union Complaints

Public union custodians argue that privatization would lead to lower wages, lost jobs, and wasted taxpayer money on costly management contracts.

Lower Wages: Let's hope so. The union workers are overpaid even if they cleaned the schools like they are supposed to do.

Wasted Taxpayer Money: No, that is a blatant self-serving union lie given the district saves at least two-thirds of the cost of using union-only labor, "and the work gets done."

Lost Jobs: Not a chance. There will actually be more jobs as a result of getting rid of the unions.

How so? For starters, there will be an equivalent number of private jobs to replace the union jobs. Moreover, given the district saves 67% on cleaning costs, some of the saved money will be used on other school district needs, creating more jobs. Finally, some of the savings can be used to cut back on tax increases putting more money in the pockets of taxpayers who will spend it. That too creates jobs.

Every fired public union worker creates more jobs elsewhere, faster than most can imagine possible, quite possibly immediately.

Thus, a good way to deal with rising unemployment is to fire public union workers.

Getting Rid of Government Workers is a Winning Proposal

Getting work done for lower prices puts more money in the pockets of taxpayers who will make far better use of it than politicians who use taxpayer money to buy union votes. It also makes projects more affordable so more of them can be done for the same amount of money.

If pay scales are cut to match the private sector, the jobs can actually stay (or be privatized), AND taxes lowered at the same time.

Thus getting rid of government jobs is a win-win for everyone but the overpaid, ungrateful public union workers who always want tax increases to support their undeserved pay and benefit scales.

Who's Responsible for the Loss of Government Jobs?

The ultimate irony in Paul Krugman's and Erza Klein's posts is that public unions are responsible for all the government job losses they are whining about.

In every state worker cutback instance that I have read about (dozens if not hundreds), public unions have resisted modest cuts in pay and benefits and instead have voted to cut jobs.

Thus, public unions themselves are responsible for that modest loss in jobs.

Policies That Support Growth

The correct way to spur growth is by fostering an economy that supports economic growth.

For details, please see Bleak Outlook for Small Businesses and Job Creation; Where Obama Went Wrong, and What to do About It.

Correct Solution Takes Time

Will there be pain to make the necessary adjustments? Of course there will. Look at Greece and Spain. But the longer we delay tackling the structural problem of too much government spending, the greater the overall pain.

Keynesian clowns pretend there is some sort of free lunch, that we can spend our way to prosperity.

Well it cannot be done. Numerous countries have tried and all have failed.

Final End of Bretton Woods 2?

Tim Duy is discussing the Final End of Bretton Woods 2?

In essence, a nasty surprise awaited US policymakers - after two years of scrambling to find the right mix of policies, including an all out effort to prevent a devastating collapse of financial markets and a what Administration officials believed to be a substantial fiscal stimulus, the US economy remains mired at a suboptimal level as stimulus flows out beyond US borders. The opportunity for a smooth transition out of Bretton Woods 2 was lost.

Consider the enormity of the situation at hand. The Federal Reserve is poised to crank up the printing press for the sake of satisfying their domestic mandate. One mechanism, perhaps the only mechanism, by which we can expect meaningful, sustained reversal from the current set of imbalances is via a significant depreciation of the dollar. The rest of the world appears prepared to fight the Fed because they know no other path.

Dual Mandate Idiocy

Consider the idiocy of a dual mandate. Monetary policies cannot create jobs. The reason should be easy to spot. The Fed can create liquidity, but it cannot determine where it goes, or indeed if it goes anywhere at all.

Fed Has Two Options

1: The Fed can defend an interest rate target but will then have no control over money supply

2: The Fed can defend a money supply target but it will then have no control over interest rates

Notice that nowhere in the picture is there an option for the Fed to create jobs. It cannot be done.

Tim Duy: Bad things happen when you fight the Fed. You find yourself on the wrong side of a whole bunch of trades. In this case, I suspect it means that Bretton Woods 2 finally collapses in a disorderly mess. There may really be no other way for it to end, because its end yields clear winners and losers. And the losers, in this case largely emerging markets, [are] not prepared to accept their fate.

Arrogant Claptrap

The "Bad things happen when you fight the Fed" comment from Duy is quite arrogant.

After all, the Fed's policies under Greenspan and Bernanke fueled the biggest housing and credit bubbles the world has ever seen.

Bernanke, failed to see the recession coming, failed to see the housing bubble, failed to see the unemployment rate rising above 8.5%, and just plain failed at damn near everything.

For Christ's sake we would not be in this big of a mess were it not for the Fed and its idiotic manipulation of interest rates, trying to meet some asinine (as well as physically impossible) dual mandate.

No Tim! Bad things happen when the Fed does not know what is doing, which by the way is always.

Indeed that is corollary number 1 of 4 of the Fed Uncertainty Principle.

Fed Uncertainty Principle:

The fed, by its very existence, has completely distorted the market via self reinforcing observer/participant feedback loops. Thus, it is fatally flawed logic to suggest the Fed is simply following the market, therefore the market is to blame for the Fed's actions. There would not be a Fed in a free market, and by implication there would not be observer/participant feedback loops either.

Corollary Number One:

The Fed has no idea where interest rates should be. Only a free market does. The Fed will be disingenuous about what it knows (nothing of use) and doesn't know (much more than it wants to admit), particularly in times of economic stress.

Tim Duy: Well, thank the Heavens above, the IMF stands ready to produce a report. Now I can sleep easy.

On that score I happen to agree with Duy's sarcasm and said so in PBoC Researcher says China Should "Set Red Line for Yuan Appreciation at 3%"; IMF Participants Pledge to "Create Reports"

Tim Duy: Bottom Line: The time may finally be at hand when the imbalances created by Bretton Woods 2 now tear the system asunder. The collapse is coming via an unexpected channel; rather than originating from abroad, the shock that sets it in motion comes from the inside, a blast of stimulus from the US Federal Reserve. And at the moment, the collapse looks likely to turn disorderly quickly. If the Federal Reserve is committed to quantitative easing, there is no way for the rest of the world to stop to flow of dollars that is already emanating from the US. Yet much of the world does not want to accept the inevitable, and there appears to be no agreement on what comes next. Call me pessimistic, but right now I don't see how this situation gets anything but more ugly.

Monetarist Nonsense

Here are a few stats from my friend "BC"

Since Q1 '07:

Increase in total reported gov't spending: $926B or 6%/yr.
Total gov't receipts: -$300B
Increase in the Fed's balance sheet: $1.3 trillion or 28-29%/yr.
Increase in banks' Treasury, agency, MBS, and cash assets: $1.3 trillion or 14-15%/yr.
Increase in nominal GDP: $789 billion or 1.7%/yr., of which gov't spending was 117%
Increase in private nominal GDP: -$135 billion or -0.44%/yr.
Total stock market capitalization: -$4.7 trillion
Total US residential unreal estate equity: -$4.8 trillion

Will QE II, III, etc., work any better?

Bernanke Incapable of Learning Anything

Bernanke is completely inept, failing to learn anything from history. Yet, Ironically he is given great acclaim as being a student of the Great Depression.

Here are a few snips from Lessons Not Learned - No Failure Too Great to Admit It

No Failure Too Great to Admit It

Japan is in debt to the tune of 200% of GDP, which is all it has to show for all its Keynesian and Monetarist stimuli over the past decade. So what does Japan do but toss another $61 billion into the fire, fresh on the heels of an $11 billion stimulus plan.

$72 billion total may not sound like much these days, but it is a sizable chunk of money for Japan's economy. Supposedly these stimuli will "boost employment, help small and medium sized businesses, and support regional economies".

It will do no such thing. If these stimulus efforts worked, there would be results to show for it.

Yet the only conclusion of the Keynesian and Monetarist clowns is that Japan did not do enough!

This should be a lesson for the US, but it won't.

Sharing the Blame

When this mess collapses, the monetarist clowns at the Fed and the Keynesian clowns in Congress will share the blame.

In a final twist of fate, the Keynesian clowns will blame the Monetarist Clowns and vice versa.

I discussed this likelihood in Bernanke says Lawmakers Should Consider Rules on Fiscal Limits; Expect Hissy Fit from Krugman; Bernanke Pisses in the Wind

Proving that he far more of a Monetarist clown than a Keynesian clown, Bernanke Calls on Lawmakers to Consider Rules on Fiscal Limits

Expect Hissy Fit From Krugman

Paul Krugman, flag bearer for the Keynesian clowns, is without a doubt having a hissy fit at the thought of any step, no matter how small, regarding Bernanke's statement "It is crucially important that we put U.S. fiscal policy on a sustainable path."

Monetarist Nonsense

Bernanke claims Quantitative Easing will "ease financial conditions." Forgive me for asking the obvious, but what the hell needs easing?

Mortgage rates are at all time lows in spite of the fact that housing itself is in the gutter and risk of default is high, junk bonds are back to par, and the ability for corporations to get financing for total garbage is at or near historic highs.

If anything, Bernanke has ignited a bubble in junk bonds. The one thing Bernanke has not done is ignite bank lending.

Why Now?

In regards to Bernanke's new-found fiscal conservativeness, Calculated Risk asks "I wonder why? Well, he missed the housing bubble completely - but what about the structural deficit?"

The answer should be pretty easy to spot.

Bernanke, knows full well Congress is unlikely to act in any meaningful way. When they don't, and when a global currency crisis is well underway, Bernanke will point his finger and blame Congress.

Thus, Bernanke's statements are not about fiscal prudence, but rather all about absolving the Fed in general, and Bernanke in particular for the upcoming global financial collapse.

Bernanke Poised to Blame Keynesians

So there you have it. Bernanke is all poised to blame the Keynesians. Meanwhile the Keynesians are already pointing the finger at the monetarists and everyone else who does not want more government spending.

The real threat is not of deflation, but of absurd Keynesian and Monetarist attempts to prevent it. The Greenspan-Bernanke housing bubble (and subsequent crash), and decades of futility in Japan should be proof enough.

Tim Duy worries that "Bretton Woods 2 will finally collapse in a disorderly mess." Compared to the Keynesian and Monetarist alternatives, and because at this point a currency crisis is inevitable, I suggest the sooner the better. Indeed a strong case can be made that the worry ought to be that we don't quickly collapse in a disorderly mess.

We really do need to start over. Bretton Woods 2 has had it.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
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Unclear Titles Will Sideline Buyers of Foreclosed Properties for Many Months

Posted: 11 Oct 2010 09:58 AM PDT

Would you buy a foreclosed home now, knowing full well the title may be clouded by mortgage fraud? I wouldn't. Anyone who would without title insurance is asking for a huge legal mess.

Moreover, because of fraudulent procedures, bank of America and other companies have halted all foreclosures. See 40 State Attorneys General to Investigate Mortgage Fraud; Bank of America Halts Evictions Nationwide; Senator Reid Calls for More Suspensions, A nationwide halt in foreclosures for details.

Halting of foreclosures cut home sales of distressed as well as add to already enormous shadow inventory of homes. In an ironic twist, median home prices may temporarily rise because of decreased sales of distressed properties.

Potential Distressed Sale Buyers Will Stay On Sidelines

Bloomberg reports Foreclosure Freeze May Sideline U.S. Homebuyers on Legal Concern

Revelations of mistakes in foreclosure proceedings are causing buyers to have misgivings about property titles, the right of home possession, said Richard DeKaser, chief economist at Woodley Park Research in Washington. Confidence in the legality of repossessions will cut foreclosure sales more than a reduction of available properties because the market already is flooded with repossessed homes, he said.

"The legal problems we're seeing will hit sales as people worry about the legitimacy of the process," DeKaser said. "The implications are that there's been shoddy work."

Bank of America Corp., the largest U.S. lender, extended a freeze on foreclosures to all 50 states Oct. 8 as concern spread among federal and state officials that homes are being seized based on faulty data. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Ally Financial Inc.'s GMAC Mortgage unit stopped repossession cases in 23 states where courts supervise home seizures, amid allegations that employees submitted documents with unverified or false information to speed the process.

Foreclosure sales accounted for 24 percent of all home transactions during the second quarter, according to a Sept. 30 report by RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, California-based data seller. They made up a greater share in the states hardest-hit by the housing crisis, accounting for 56 percent of purchases in Nevada, 47 percent in Arizona and 43 percent in California.

In Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan and Rhode Island, the share was about a third.

"The broader concern is that if banks took shortcuts here, what else did they do?" [Rick Sharga, senior vice president of RealtyTrac] said. "Five years into this crisis, there's no excuse for not having a process in place."

Ownership questions may not arise until a home is under contract and the potential purchaser applies for title insurance, or even decades later as one deed researcher catches errors overlooked by another. A so-called defective title means the person who paid for and moved into a house may not be the legal owner.

In cases of lost or mishandled paperwork, attorneys in many cases are allowed to refile documents to correct omissions and establish a claim, said Kathleen Engel, a financial-services law professor at Suffolk University in Boston.

Most of the homes affected by the foreclosure freeze will eventually come on to the market because the dispute is about court documents, not about whether borrowers defaulted, said Lawler, the housing economist.

"Most of the delays will just be delays," Lawler said. "All this is doing is creating severe uncertainty for people who were thinking of buying a distressed property."

Delays Will Be Delays, and That's It?

In one sense, delays will just be delays. As I said in a previous post: "It is very important to remember that except in extremely rare and highly publicized cases, there is essentially no dispute that who were foreclosed on have not been paying their mortgages and are in default.

In other words, in nearly every case, these people are going to lose their homes and indeed should lose their homes. The question is not whether these people should or will lose their homes, but rather who has the legal right to foreclose."

At What Cost?

However, that only looks at one side of the equation. The other side of the equation can be summed up with the question "At What Cost?"

Clearly these delays will be very expensive to correct, assuming they can be corrected at all.

Except for a line at the end of her post blaming "free market ideology on steroids" Yves Smith has an excellent writeup covering many issues in 4ClosureFraud Posts Lender Processing Services Mortgage Document Fabrication Price Sheet

Failure of Regulation

Bear in mind, that none of this foreclosure mess or for that matter the housing mess in general has anything remotely to do with the Free Market. Yves continually and erroneously blames the Free Market when the cause for this mess is a Failure of Regulation rather than a failure to Regulate.

However, that one line comment should not distract you from reading an otherwise excellent post.

Would You Buy a Foreclosed Home?

If reading Yves post did not deter you from buying a foreclosed home, perhaps a read of the Ellen Brown's post FORECLOSUREGATE AND OBAMA'S 'POCKET VETO' will help.

If that does not deter you, perhaps a read of A Different Direction for the Foreclosure Mess? by Bruce Krasting will.

Repeating my opening question: Would you buy a foreclosed home now, knowing full well the title may be clouded by mortgage fraud?

Many will not be willing at all. Others may be willing if and only if they can get title insurance.

Can You Get Title Insurance?

Earlier this month a couple of title insurers stopped issuing title insurance for homes foreclosed on by J.P. Morgan Chase and Ally Financial's GMAC Mortgage.

Please consider the USA Today report Old Republic to stop writing policies for some foreclosures

Old Republic National Title Insurance, among the nation's largest title insurance companies, will no longer write new policies for homes foreclosed upon by J.P. Morgan Chase and Ally Financial's GMAC Mortgage unit –– a sign that concerns about faulty foreclosure paperwork could now endanger new sales of foreclosed homes.

Old Republic issued a bulletin to some agents stating that "the company will not insure title to any property which has been foreclosed by Ally Financial, Ally Bank or GMAC until further notice," according to a Sept. 29 copy of the memo. The concern is that other title companies will also refuse to issue policies for major lenders, which could have major ramifications for the housing industry.

And Maryln Weiner, a title agent and real estate lawyer in Boca Raton, Fla., said she received a bulletin saying that Old Republic would also not insure title policy to a purchaser who has bought a property from Chase when the bank has foreclosed on the home and are now selling it to third parties.

"They won't insure it after completion after the foreclosure," Weiner says. "This is going to set us back years. It's really going to be a mess. I think you're going to see actions to reopen foreclosures that already took place. This will have tremendous consequences and all title companies will do the same thing. We've never seen anything like this before."

Mark Stopa, a lawyer in Florida who represents homeowners, says the implications are huge. Buyers will not purchase homes that have been foreclosed upon if they don't have insurance that it's a clear title, he says.

"Would you buy the house? If there's questions about the title, you can't sell it, so who's going to buy it?" Stopa says.

And distressed homes, which include foreclosed properties and that now make up a significant number of housing sales, rose to 34% of sales in August from 32% in July; they were 31% in August 2009, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Much More Than Delays

All things considered, Lawler's comments "Most of the delays will just be delays. All this is doing is creating severe uncertainty for people who were thinking of buying a distressed property." while accurate on the surface, are enormously understated the deeper you dig.

However, this is what happens in two sentence soundbites. Lawler is aware of many other issues, including the very important question Who Will, and Who Should "Pay"?

Free Market Failure? Hardly! But Who Will Pay?

I discussed the question about who will pay for this mess as well a discussion of free market principles in SEC Failure to Regulate MBS Resulted in "Interconnected Ponzi Scheme with Various Types of Concurrent Fraud"

More Likely Than Not, Taxpayers Will Pay

Lawler says he does not have the answers to those questions, and right now I don't either. However, the attempt by the Senate to ramrod through that legislation shows the senate's intent to minimize the damage to the guilty parties.

Voters are extremely angry right now, and the next Congress is likely to be far more conservative than this one, but after the election the slate will be clear for another two years.

I hope I am wrong about this, but I smell another taxpayer sponsored bailout, possibly via some backdoor concocted scheme involving Fannie Mae. This trick will be to pass a bailout that does not look like one.

If that can be done, rest assured it will be done

Free Market Failure? Hardly!

Someone is sure to blame this mess on the "free market". Nothing could possibly be further from the truth. The Fed's loose monetary policies were the great enabler in this scheme. The mere existence of the Fed, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the FHA run counter to free market philosophies.

Note too, that the big three rating agencies (Moodys, Fitch, S&P) were sponsored by the SEC. Please see Time To Break Up The Credit Rating Cartel for details.

Regulators in Bed with Industries they are Supposed to Regulate

Finally, and as I have pointed out on many occasions, the one legitimate function of government is to protect civil rights and property rights, with everyone treated equally under the law. Regulation designed to prevent fraud, does just that.

However, and as is typically the case, regulators get into bed with those they are supposed to regulate.

How does this happen? Look no further than the appointment process itself. How many key players in the Bush and Obama administrations have ties to Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan? How many have other ties to Wall Street and other large banks?

Playing Field Purposely Dishonest

Cries for more regulators will not do a damn thing when people like Elizabeth Warren Tossed a Bone and Appointed Geithner's Lapdog

We do not have a level playing field for the simple reason Wall Street and the big banks do not want an honest playing field. Unfortunately, the corrupt way corporations buy politicians all but ensures the status quo, even as screams for more regulation reverberates from the mountain tops.

Along with taxpayers, we certainly need to add title insurers to the list to the list of those likely to suffer, not only for reduced income from all these delays, but also from the aspect they are very vulnerable for title policies they insured, whose titles are now very clouded, and may be clouded for months or even years.

Finally, anyone with a clouded title (a buyer of a previously foreclosed home), cannot sell. What a mess.

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