SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

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New SEOmoz Pricing Plans + More Keywords for Everyone! Posted: 02 Jun 2011 06:44 AM PDT Posted by adamf More than six months have passed since we last updated our plans and pricing with the launch of our web app last summer. In that time, we have gotten a ton of great feedback, brilliant suggestions, and more specifically, pleas for a better price point between $99 and $499 (with more campaigns). We gave this a lot of thought, crunched some numbers, and today we're launching improved plans and pricing for SEOmoz PRO! Improved Plans & Pricing What's New & Notable 1. PRO plan members now get 300 keywords! That's 50 more than before and they can be tracked across up to 3 search engines. 2. A New PRO Plus tier with more than double the keywords and campaigns! Many of you have asked for it, and now it is finally here. This new plan includes more than twice as many campaigns as PRO, and a bunch more keywords. 12 Campaigns 1,000 Keywords (across up to 3 search engines) 10,000 page crawl depth per campaign 1 private Q&A question per month Branded PDF reports 3. PRO Elite is now beefier! 30 campaigns (compared to just 10 before) 3,500 keywords across up to 3 search engines (compared to 2,000 before) Note: to support the increase in campaigns, we have limited to crawl depth to 20,000 pages. If you already have and like the old PRO Elite plan, nothing has changed, but you can switch over to the new version at any time. 3 private questions per month Branded PDF reports 4. SSL/HTTPS crawling now supported! Many of you have been patiently waiting, and I am now happy to announce that we now crawl https pages as part of campaign craws. If you have any SSL pages on your site, you should start to see them processed and analyzed with the your next crawl that begins later than today. 5. Branded PDF Reports new to PRO Plus & PRO Elite! You may have noticed this mentioned above. We have added a new feature to the PRO Plus and higher plans, which supports the addition of customer logos at the top of all PDF reports. Upgrading is Easy If any of these new plans strike your fancy, we have also improved interface for changing your plan, so it's easy to upgrade or downgrade at any time. or... Switch to Annual Billing and save 20% If you are changing your plan, you might also consider an annual membership. If you buy for a full year, we give you a 20% discount over what you would pay monthly for twelve months.  It's easy to switch to annual pricing on the PRO Billing & Subscription page. If I'm already an Elite or Premier member, will my plan change? Nope, nothing will change, but you can opt to choose a different plan at any time. Need more? We've got you covered! We do have a couple of larger plans: Agency - $2,000/month (Great if you are managing lots of sites!) 120 Campaigns 20,000 keywords per account 10,000 pages crawled per campaign 4 private Q&A questions per month Branded PDF Reports Enterprise - $4,000/month (Great if you are managing really large sites!) 20 Campaigns 30,000 keywords per account 1,000,000 pages crawled per campaign (on a 4-week cycle) 4 private Q&A questions per month Branded PDF Reports This plan is not available yet, but will be in the next few weeks These plans are not self service at the moment, but if they like something that you need, contact help@seomoz.org and we will be happy to set you up! Let us know what you think! We took a lot of great feedback into account when creating these new pricing plans, but we know we can make them better. Please share your feedback in the comments below, or click on Help at the very top right of the page, and then Feedback if you want to comment privately. I promise, we're listening.    Do you like this post? Yes No

And The Winning City for #MozCation Is... Posted: 01 Jun 2011 02:42 PM PDT Posted by jennita Come on now, you didn't think I'd spill beans just like that did you? Before I give you the goods, let me refresh your memory in case this is the first time you're hearing about MozCation. A few weeks ago, we asked people to create some sort of unique content and tell us why we should have an SEOmoz Meetup (aka MozCation) in their city. Overwhelming Response The nominations started in rather slowly and at first we thought that perhaps MozCation would be a complete failure! Soon a number of nominations started trickling in, however people weren't creating new content. They were simply linking to city government websites and wikipedia pages... which wasn't what we were looking for. There was an email thread going around internally about how we needed to write another post explaining better what we were looking for. But then, the first "real" nomination came in from Peru. We were delighted and quite surprised, we were unaware we had a following in Peru (little did we know), and the retweets started rolling in. Soon after, Portsmouth, NH was nominated and then Calgary. By this time, we were excited that we were getting some unique submissions and figured we'd have a handful of cities to pick from. What we didn't realize was that the next nomination would be for Spain, and it would change the whole game. Gianluca had bought the domain mozcation.com and built an entire site! Holy game changer. Soon after, people started creating Twitter and Facebook accounts, building websites and rallying their local communities. Check out all the submissions below. :) Picking A City Whew. Now, how on earth do we pick one city out of all the great nominations we received? Well, we decided we didn't have to. We're the keeper of the rules, and in true TAGFEE fashion, we decided to pick four cities instead. :) I don't want to ruin all the fun, so I'll just let Rand spill the beans: (Be sure to watch the entire video!) The Nominees Take a look at all 15 nominated cities in no particular order. Everyone worked really hard on these sites, pages, videos, etc. I know they'd love for you to take a peek at all their hard work. Cleveland, OH Title: The Decision 2011 Nominated by: @FathomSEO   Dallas, TX Title: Why SEOmoz Should Come to Dallas for a MozCation Nominated by: @mark_barrera   Denver, CO Title: Why SEOmoz Should Come To Denver For Mozcation: A Love Story Nominated by: @Location3   San Luis Obispo, CA Title: Roger, Come to the Happiest Place in America Nominated by: @NugeKnows   Sao Paulo, Brazil Title: Why SEOmoz Should Come To Brazil Nominated by: @fabioricotta Orlando, FL Title: MozCation Orlando Nominated by: @MozcationMCO a group at Full Sail University   Houston, TX Title: The MozCation should definitely add Houston, TX to its list of stops Nominated by: @CarterCole Other Nominations: MozCation:Houston from @juliaalaniz and Mozcation in Houston from @googleismybf   Salt Lake City, UT Title: MozCation - Salt Lake City Nominated by: @Sams_Antics Other Nominations: 1,276 Reasons #Mozcation is Coming to SLC from @shuey03 and Come To Salt Lake City, Mozcation! from @davidscoville and This Is The Place...For a MozCation from @iamadrianlazo   Lima, Peru Title: MozCation In Lima Nominated by: @MozcationLima   Spain (various cities) Title: Why SEOmoz Must Take Roger To Spain Nominated by: @gfiorelli1   Calgary, AB Canada Title: SEOmoz Come To Calgary… Or Else! Nominated by: @calindaniel   Manila, Philippines Title: Hey Roger! Visit Your Filipino Fans, SEOmoz Buddies in Manila Nominated by: @seoteky   Copenhagen, Denmark Title: Where's Roger Mozbot Nominated by: @ahogenhaven   Porstmouth, NH Title: It's Time for MozCon Portsmouth, NH Nominated by: @DaveCurrierSEO   Indianapolis, IN Title: Roger... STOP... Save Indianapolis....STOP! Nominated by: @flea_spano   Now What? Yes we chose four cities, but we will still be holding at least one more round of nominations for another MozCation later in the year. So if you missed out this time, or if your city wasn't chosen, keep a watch on the blog! We'll be announcing open nominations again in a couple months. So stay tuned! We'll also keep you up-to-date on dates/times for all the MozCation events coming up. Thank You Never did we imagine that we'd get so many nominations. The sheer number of tweets that came in for #MozCation was enough to humble us. Thank you to everyone who worked hard to nominate their city. You've made is so proud to be a part of this amazing community. We look forward to seeing you all!   Do you like this post? Yes No

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How to Use the Hootsuite Bulk Scheduling Tool Graywolf's SEO Blog

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How to Use the Hootsuite Bulk Scheduling Tool Posted: 01 Jun 2011 10:19 AM PDT The following is part of a series on using the Hootsuite social media tool. In this post we are going to be looking at using the bulk scheduling feature. First, we are going to take a step back and look at the two basics ways to schedule tweets so you get an idea of how things work before we get into bulk scheduling. Using the Hootsuite dashboard, you can enter a tweet the way you normally would but, instead of hitting “tweet,” you click the schedule button. When a calendar pops up, you click on the date, set the time, click schedule, select the accounts, and you are good to go (see screen shot below). The next way is to use the Hootlet bookmarklet. If you aren’t familiar with bookmarklets, they are JavaScript bookmarks that you drag onto your browser toolbar that execute code. As you are browsing around and come across something you would like to tweet, you hit the bookmarklet and a dialog box will pop up. Again, choose the account, hit schedule and a calendar pops up that allows you to set the date and time (see screen shot below) One of the nice things is that, if you copy this bookmarklet into Safari, you can get it to sync with your iPad and schedule tweets. One of the bad things is that it doesn’t work on the iPhone. If you try to use it on the iPhone, you get stuck in a loop suggesting that you download the iPhone app. I have mentioned this to Hootsuite multiple times, but they don’t seem to care … Now that we have a basic idea of how scheduling in Hootsuite works, we’re going to want to kick it up a notch with bulk tweet scheduling. I haven’t hit an upper limit as to how many tweets you can schedule, but they do have to be different (you can’t retweet the exact same tweet more than once). You will need a spreadsheet with the following columns: Date (dd/mm/yyyy format) Time (hh:mm format) Tweet Depending on your spreadsheet program, it may not offer the ability to use the (dd/mm/yyyy) format ( Google docs doesn’t). If that’s the case just force the formatting to be a text format. I like to fill in the tweets first, before the day and time. Throughout the week I will forward myself emails of things I would like to tweet. Google reader, ziteapp, and most newspaper or other apps have an email this story function. Set up a rule to catch these emails. Every few days or at the end of the week, I will go through the folder and put the text and URL into the spreadsheet. Once I have them all there, I will go through and put in the the dates. I like to make sure I have at least one per day. Then I will set up the time: I like 12-5 EST because it gives me the opportunity to reach East and West coast followers. If there are multiple tweets, I will set them to go at different times in that (12-5) time window. Once all the tweets are ready, you can export to a CSV file. Once you have a CSV file you choose Schedule a Tweet > Bulk Upload, then choose the account and file, and you are good to go. If you haven’t made any mistakes, it will let you know how many tweets were accepted. If you made a mistake, it will spit you out a fairly descriptive, easy-to-understand message. CSV of Scheduled tweets IMHO, scheduling tweets is a huge time saving step to take. Many social media experts shy away from it because they think it makes you less authentic; personally, I have better things to do than sit in front of twitter all day (tk). You can schedule out tweets for your campaign, archive tweets to affiliate centric posts, or do anything that you want. Once you have all your tweets imported, you can check to make sure you don’t have any tweets that step on each other or are scheduled for the middle of the night. You will just need to set up a tab for pending tweets. What Scheduled Tweets Look Like   IMHO working in batch mode does save you a bit of time as opposed to doing each tweet as you see it, but it does make it one big job instead of 50 little ones. I’d love if Hootsuite added a functionality that would auto schedule the way Bufferapp does  (see Bufferapp review) but, for now, it doesn’t. Is this process perfect and hassle free? No. However, IMHO taking an hour a week to schedule tweets across multiple accounts, filling an entire week’s worth of tweets, is much more productive than sitting on twitter all day. As a bonus, you can also schedule updates to Facebook accounts or pages using this method as well. To be clear, I am a current paying customer of Hootsuite. If you sign up from my link I will get a commission. This is a product I have been using for a few months. I have been happy with it and am comfortable recommending Hootsuite as a social media management tool. photo credit: Photospin Related posts: HootSuite Review Late last year, the solution I was using to post... How to Use Twitter as a Marketing Tool with Tweet Pro So my friend Cesar Serna launched his new site this... Helping Google Build a Better Bookmarking Tool A lot of the time I’m pretty critical of Google,... Privacy and Security Aren’t Opposites and Google as Tool You know I speak against the Google machine a lot,... Adsense Tool for Firefox For any of you who are chronic adsense checkers, this... Advertisers: Text Link Ads - New customers can get $100 in free text links. BOTW.org - Get a premier listing in the internet's oldest directory. Ezilon.com Regional Directory - Check to see if your website is listed! Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services Link Building- Backlink Build offers 45 PR5+ Backlinks for $295 Directory Journal - Get permanent deep links in a search engine friendly directory LinkWheel SEO - Get Web 2.0 Backlinks Links From PR9 Sites - - Get In Top 3 Google ASAP TigerTech - Great Web Hosting service at a great price. This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review. How to Use the Hootsuite Bulk Scheduling Tool

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Chart of the Day: The Resurgence of the American Automotive Industry

Your Daily Snapshot for Thursday, June 2, 2011   Chart of the Day: The Resurgence of the American Automotive Industry Yesterday, the White House released a report that highlights the resurgence of the American auto industry. The report discusses the jobs created in the sector, the turnaround of the companies that are now turning a profit, and how entire communities have been revitalized by a strengthened auto industry. In the year before GM and Chrysler filed for bankruptcy, the auto industry shed over 400,000 jobs. Had President Obama failed to intervene, conservative estimates suggest that it would have cost at least an additional one million jobs and devastated vast parts of our nation’s industrial heartland. Since GM and Chrysler Group emerged from bankruptcy in June 2009, the auto industry has added 115,000 jobs – the fastest pace of job growth in the auto industry since 1998.  Read more   In Case You Missed It Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog. Winning the Future for LGBT Americans Kicking off Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month, the Office of Public Engagement has launched a new webpage, Winning the Future: President Obama and LGBT Americans. Equal Access to Transportation: A Right for All Americans Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood describes the administration's efforts to make transportation more accessible for everyone. Along with making transportation more accessible, the DOT has stepped up enforcement to ensure every American's right to access transportation. June 1: Official Start of the Hurricane Season It’s June 1, which means it is the official start of Hurricane season. You can do your part by making sure you and your loved ones are prepared by having an emergency plan and kit. Talk with your friends and neighbors and encourage them to do the same. And you can also take steps to get prepared for a hurricane at your workplace, so talk with your human resources manager about steps you can take. Today's Schedule  All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). 10:10 AM: The President receives the Presidential Daily Briefing 12:00 PM: The President meets with senior advisors 12:30 PM: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney 2:30 PM: The President meets with the House Democratic Caucus 7:20 PM: The President delivers remarks at the Pritzker Architecture Prize Event; the First Lady also attends.    Indicates events that will be live streamed on WhiteHouse.gov/Live Get Updates  Sign Up for the Daily Snapshot  Stay Connected          Facebook Twitter YouTube Flickr iTunes       This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Manage Subscriptions for e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Sign Up for Updates from the White House Unsubscribe e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com | Privacy Policy Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111

Seth's Blog : Selling nuts to squirrels

Selling nuts to squirrels

In All Marketers Tell Stories, I argue that most organizations shouldn't try to change the worldview of the audience they're marketing to.

Worldview is a term popularized by George Lakoff. It's the set of expectations and biases that color the way each of us see the world (before the marketer ever arrives on the scene). The worldview of a 45 year old wine-loving investment banker is very different from that of a fraternity brother. One might see a $100 bottle of burgundy as both a bargain and a must-have, while the other might see the very same bottle of wine as an insane waste of money.

Worldview changes three things: attention, bias and vernacular. Attention, because we choose to pay attention to those things that we've decided matter. Bias, because our worldview alters the way we filter and interpret what we hear. And vernacular, because words and images resonate with people differently based on their worldview.

It's extremely expensive, time consuming and difficult to change someone's worldview. The guys at Opus One shouldn't spend a lot of time marketing expensive wine to fraternities because it's not efficient. Sell nuts to squirrels, don't try to persuade dolphins that nuts are delicious.

There's an exception to this rule, and that's the necessity of changing worldviews if you want to become a giant brand, a world changer, a marketer for the ages. Starbucks changed the way a significant part of the world thought about spending $4 for a cup of coffee.

Or consider Facebook. It started by selling nuts to squirrels. At first, Facebook was social crack for lonely (all college students are lonely) college students. Over time, the social pressure it created snuck up on and surrounded those with a different inclination, those that would never have signed up on their own. These folks had a worldview that privacy was valuable and that time was better spent elsewhere. But once a sufficient number of their friends and colleagues were online, they felt they had little choice. Converting those people (often against their short term wishes) is where Facebook's most recent 300 million users came from.

 

The interesting truth in both the Starbucks and Facebook example is that a different worldview was at work. The latecomers to each company were sold a very different story--the story of, "you need to be here because all your friends are." That worked because it matched the latecomers' worldview, the one that includes an imperative, "don't be left out." Different nut, same squirrel.

 

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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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• Mood Swings: Economists Rush to Lower Payroll Estimates; What to Expect on Thursday and Friday
• Debt Ceiling Discussion on Daily Ticker with Mish, Aaron Task, Henry Blodget: Will the Bond Market Eventually Force Congressional Hands?
• Mish on Yahoo Finance Daily Ticker on Slowing Global Economy; U.S. Manufacturing ISM Plunge; Order Backlog and New Orders Barely Above Contraction

Mood Swings: Economists Rush to Lower Payroll Estimates; What to Expect on Thursday and Friday Posted: 01 Jun 2011 09:20 PM PDT It's a never ending source of amusement that economists can never think in advance. Instead they revise estimates after the fact to be in line with the data. Weekly Claims Numbers On Thursday the weekly claims numbers come out. I am writing this Wednesday evening. The number 4-week moving average of weekly unemployment claims is relatively easy to call. The number to beat is 438,500. Over or Under? Expect a drop (an improvement) in that number. In light of recent data a drop may see counter-intuitive but it is highly likely. The reason is simple. The last four weeks' claims numbers are, in order: 424K, 414K, 438K, and 478K. 478,000 drops off the list. It will be replaced by the numbers for the week ending May 28. Unless that number is greater than 478,000 the moving average will drop. I will take the under on 478,000 and thus the under (expecting a drop) in the moving average. My guess is the 4-week average will be between 420,000 to 430,000. For an actual guess, I select 427,000. If the number is lower expect the bulls to trump it up. Instead it will simply reflect an abnormally high number dropping off the average. Monthly Payroll Report Gaming the 4-week moving average of unemployment claims is the easy part. The tough part is gaming Friday's monthly payroll report. Two days ago I would have taken the "way-under" in regards to economic estimate consensus. I meant to mention that in Market Ticker in regards to the Slowing Global Economy, but I forgot. Apologies offered. However, in light of recent "unforeseen" by economists news, economists' estimates are now far lower. Economists rush to mark down payrolls estimates Please consider Economists rush to mark down payrolls estimates Reflecting one of the largest one-day mood swings in recent memory, the downward revisions now place last month's job growth at 125,000, the weakest since the 68,000 positions created in January and down from the average of 233,000 over the past three months. As the sun rose on a steamy Wednesday in Washington, economists polled by MarketWatch had been looking for growth of 175,000 in nonfarm payrolls for May, a consensus figure representing a decline from a healthy 244,000 in April but still passing for strength. The nation's unemployment rate was expected to reverse April's slight uptick and fall to 8.9%. First-time claims for unemployment benefits rocketed to 474,000 in late April — the highest level in nine months — from under 390,000 earlier in the month. Claims have since fallen back, coming in at 424,000 for the latest week. Analysts tended to dismiss the claims data as an aberration. They saw continued strength in hiring, and some were hopeful that more than 50,000 jobs created by McDonald's Corp. might offset any weakness in other sectors. But this confidence cracked soon after data based on payrolls handled by Automatic Data Processing Inc. showed that only 38,000 private-sector jobs were created in May — extraordinarily weak given that economists were expecting a gain in the neighborhood of 175,000 jobs. Adding fuel to the fire, later in the morning, the Institute for Supply Management's May survey of factory supply managers was disappointing. The ISM factory index sank by nearly seven points to a 53.5% reading, the largest drop in nine years. Who cut forecasts and by how much "We have no choice but to revise down our payroll estimate" in light of the weak ISM and ADP reports, said the economic team at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, in a note announcing they had sliced their forecast to 125,000 nonfarm payrolls for May from the prior estimate of 165,000. "We continue to expect a loss of 25,000 public-sector jobs but have reduced our forecast for private payrolls to 100,000 from 200,000," said Julia Coronado, chief economist at BNP Paribas. Economists at Goldman Sachs cut their forecast for Friday's government employment report to show 100,000 nonfarm jobs added in May, down from 150,000 previously. LaVorgna trimmed his forecast for nonfarm payrolls to 160,000 in May, down from a prior estimate of 225,000 Stone & McCarthy cut its forecast in half, to 100,000 jobs. Jim O'Sullivan,chief economist at MF Global, cut his forecast for May jobs growth to 90,000 from 150,000. IHS Global Insight now expects a gain of 135,000 nonfarm jobs in May, down from a forecast of 175,000 before the day's data were released Did the Lemmings Overshoot? It is very difficult to know if the lemmings overshot or not. On one hand McDonald's allegedly added 50-70 thousand jobs and those jobs may affect the establishment survey. However, no one knows because the BLS in its infinite "wisdom" will not confirm who is in the survey. Moreover, burger-flipping jobs tend to increase in summer months so one has to seasonally adjust. Then again, 50-75K is likely to be in excess of seasonal adjustments. Finally, I do not know if McDonald's is in the ADP survey either. Regardless, picking a number is a crapshoot. It always is, but particularly true now. The Real Deal It really does not matter if McDonald's added 50,000 jobs or not. Flipping burgers will not fuel a recovery. Moreover, even if McDonald's did add that number of jobs, it is a one-time affair. I wonder how many desperate engineers or recent college graduates took those jobs out of desperation. The sad fact of the matter is that unemployment has been dropping for a year based on burger-flipping jobs, part-time jobs, or people dropping out of the labor force. Since April 2008 6,484,000 dropped out of the labor force. In the last year alone, 2,916,000 dropped out of the labor force. For a discussion of exactly what questions the BLS asks to determine the unemployment rate, please see Reader Question Regarding "Dropping Out of the Workforce"; Implications of the Falling Participation Rate Here's the real kicker. In the last year the number of people employed FELL by 292,000! Yet. miraculously the unemployment rate dropped nearly 1%. On that count, the unemployment rate should have risen at least 1%. What to Expect on Friday? Garbage. That's what. Officially I will take the under on jobs and the over on the expected unemployment rate of 8.9%. For a guess on the latter, 9.2% seems reasonable on the data (and that was my opinion before the ISM and ADP reports). However, Lord only knows how many people the BLS might say dropped out of the labor force. If burger flipping saves the day, it won't last. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Debt Ceiling Discussion on Daily Ticker with Mish, Aaron Task, Henry Blodget: Will the Bond Market Eventually Force Congressional Hands? Posted: 01 Jun 2011 12:45 PM PDT In the second of three videos on the Daily Ticker recorded yesterday, please consider Debt Ceiling Vote a "Political Sideshow", Mish Says: Real Issue Is "Govt. Spending Run Amok" By a whopping margin of 318-97, the House Tuesday evening overwhelming rejected a proposal to raise the debt ceiling without accompanying spending cuts. The so-called "clean" debt ceiling vote was expected to fail and leaves Congress two months to reach a compromise before U.S. government goes into technical default on its debt. (See: U.S. Hits the Debt Ceiling: What Does It All Mean?) In recent weeks, a growing number of market participants have said a technical default wouldn't be nearly as "catastrophic" as Tim Geithner and others have warned. As Clusterstock's Joe Weisenthal reports, this seemingly "out-there viewpoint" is becoming mainstream and is shared by a number of market notables, including hedge fund legend Stan Druckenmiller, bond fund maven Jeffrey Gundlach and IRA's Chris Whalen. (On Wednesday morning, House Speaker John Boehner released a letter signed by more than 150 economists, including Nobel laureate Robert Mundell of Columbia, supporting his call to only increase the debt ceiling if accompanied by significant spending cuts.) You can now add Michael "Mish" Shedlock of Sitka Pacific Capital to this growing list. "I would like to see the implications" of a technical default, Shedlock tells Henry and me in the accompanying video. "I think all of they hype surrounding this…is a political sideshow and nothing more." As with the others cited above, Shedlock believes "there is no political willingness by either party to address the real issues here, which is government spending run amok." While the Republicans are positioning themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility and austerity, Shedlock notes Rand Paul's balanced budget amendment only received 7 votes in the Senate last month. And while that was 7 votes more than President Obama's budget received, Shedlock was "quite frankly disgusted" by the lack of GOP support for Sen. Paul's proposal and fears the Republicans will "at some point in this game of chicken…give up and agree to hike the debt ceiling." Eventually, the bond market will force the politicians to cut spending and Ben Bernanke to tighten monetary policy, Shedlock says. "All it takes is rapidly rising interest rates," he says. "It's going to happen. I would prefer it happen sooner rather than later to force the hands of Bernanke and the politicians." By his own admission, Shedlock (among many others) has been warning about this scenario for a long time and Treasury yields have been falling of late, not rising. Still, he is steadfast in a view that cutting spending, while painful short-term, is absolutely critical for America's long-term economic viability. "People like Paul Kurgman think we should just continue on the path we're on until the economy recovers," he says. "The economy is not going to recover until you stop throwing money at it — wasting it on projects that don't need to be done." Small Correction I need to make a small correction to the text above. Until the official start of QE2 I was generally bullish on treasuries. I called for record all time low yields across the entire yield curve and we got it. Then new record lows in yield came on 2-year, 3-year, and 5-year treasuries just prior to start of QE2. 10-year and 30-year treasures did not come close to new lows. That was it for me. At the end of October 2010, just before QE2 started I changed my tune and became bearish on all but very short-term treasuries. However, we might see yet another "flight-to-safety" trade in the long-end of the treasury curve. Indeed, we may already be in one. Yields have come down substantially. This time, I am on the sidelines of that treasury rally. Will the Bond Market Force Congress to Act? If Congress and Bernanke continue on the current path, yields are likely to rise unless there is another serious recession, and they may rise regardless. Spending is unsustainable and everyone but Keynesian clowns realize it. Even Congress realizes it, they just lack political will to do anything about it. Something will give eventually, or ultimately the bond market will force its will. That could be quite a ways off as Japan proves. Session Video A few sharp minds may have noticed this was recorded yesterday yet the discussion was on the failure of Congress to raise the debt ceiling, before the vote took place. However, It was widely understood by everyone involved that Congress would not hike the ceiling. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Mish on Yahoo Finance Daily Ticker on Slowing Global Economy; U.S. Manufacturing ISM Plunge; Order Backlog and New Orders Barely Above Contraction Posted: 01 Jun 2011 09:11 AM PDT I had the pleasure of doing several segments on Yahoo Finance Daily Ticker on the slowing global economy with Aaron Task and Henry Blodget. Please consider What Recovery? The Economy's Weak And Getting Weaker, Says Mish This month marks the two-year anniversary of the "recovery" that began in June 2009. But you can easily be forgiven if you haven't noticed. Why? Because this recovery doesn't feel like a recovery--in part because it isn't much of a recovery. Normally, after a recession of the depth and length of the one we had in 2008 and 2009, the economy comes roaring back with GDP growth of 5%-7% for a couple of years. In the latest recovery, we've only had one quarter that exceeded 5%, and the growth last quarter was a pathetic 1.8%. The jobs market, meanwhile, remains weak, with unemployment still at a staggering 9%. Corporate profits are hitting all-time highs, which is helping the stock market, but these profits haven't translated into new hiring. House prices continue to fall. Wage growth is stagnant. Inflation is picking up. Oil is now back over $100 per barrel. Our debt burden is still massive. And our government is still running shocking deficits of ~$1.5 trillion per year. And the rest of the world is experiencing pretty much the same thing. Put it all together, says Mike "Mish" Shedlock, an advisor at Sitka Pacific Capital and the author of Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis, and you can draw only one conclusion: The economy's weak and getting weaker. Mish, in fact, thinks we may be headed for another recession. Tell us what you think! The above video was recorded yesterday, well in advance of the just released Manufacturing ISM numbers. If the video does not play, please click on the preceding link. May 2011 Manufacturing ISM Report Please consider the May 2011 Manufacturing ISM Report On Business® "The PMI registered 53.5 percent and indicates expansion in the manufacturing sector for the 22nd consecutive month. This month's index, however, registered 6.9 percentage points below the April reading of 60.4 percent, and is the first reading below 60 percent for 2011, as well as the lowest PMI reported for the past 12 months. Slower growth in new orders and production are the primary contributors to this month's lower PMI reading. Manufacturing employment continues to show good momentum for the year, as the Employment Index registered 58.2 percent, which is 4.5 percentage points lower than the 62.7 percent reported in April. Manufacturers continue to experience significant cost pressures from commodities and other inputs." Price, Profit Squeeze Coming Prices plunged this month along with everything else. However, prices are well above contraction. Orders on the other hand are barely above contraction. Either commodity prices plunge, or manufacturers get hit in a price and profit squeeze with falling customer demand. Which will happen? I think both. For more on the slowing global economy please see China's Manufacturing Slowest in 9 Months, New Orders Suggest Manufacturing May Have Already Peaked; Australia Biggest GDP Drop in 20 Years Addendum: That was the first of three videos. The second video was a discussion on the debt ceiling. Please consider Debt Ceiling Discussion on Daily Ticker with Mish, Aaron Task, Henry Blodget: Will the Bond Market Eventually Force Congressional Hands? Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

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