Central Perk

joi, 27 octombrie 2011

A Framework for Site Reviews (with Examples)

Posted: 27 Oct 2011 04:27 AM PDT

Over the past decade, I've been part of many reviews of websites, both in-person, as a consultant (prior to 2009) and at many events. I've found that much of the time, the reviews themselves lack structure (particularly those that happen "on the fly" during a conference panel or informal sit-down). Thankfully, during my recent face-off with Distilled's Will Critchlow in London, I had an excuse to noodle on that and work up some ideas.

The Searchlove conference had a unique concept for our classic presentation battle. We were each given three websites to review around 12:30pm and had to give 30 minute presentations using slide decks 4 hours later. My will to win and avenge my depressing loss at Mozcon Seattle was stronger than my jetlag, and I gave the following presentation:

A Methodology for Site Reviews

View more presentations from Rand Fishkin

The point isn't that I won (or that Will now owes me a very fancy dinner next time I'm in London) :-) It's that I think this framework can function reasonably well for many marketers in need of an expedient methodology to evaluate a site's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and risks. The deck above uses:

Broad Questions about the Website

Why does this website exist? (i.e. what is it hoping to accomplish? what does success mean?)
Who cares? (i.e. who are the people using and getting value from the products/services/information?)
What motivates, inspires and interests this audience (this is critical, because great content and great inbound marketing stems from interesting the audience, not just giving them the task that will make your business succeed)
What's the client worried about? (the client might be your boss, the CEO, the business itself or an actual client)

User Experience Issues

Design
Usability
Stickiness
Conversion

Content Issues

Usefulness
Interest Alignment
Quality
Shareability

SEO Issues

Accessibility
Keyword (Research) and Targeting
Content Optimization (more than just keywords, see this post for more)
Link Authority

Social Issues

Social Value
Channels (which sites/mediums to pursue)
Incentives (why will your audience participate)
Social Optimization (getting placement, timing, engagement, etc. right)

This framework is, obviously, just one way to think about how to review a site, but I think it may be valuable to others in the field and thus, wanted to share. I'd also love to hear feedback and suggestions for how to improve. After all, I need to take on Will again in New York this coming week.

p.s. Distilled tells me there's still some tickets available for that show, so if you're around NYC, you should come see if I can win two in a row :-)

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2011 #MozCon Videos are Here!

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 04:14 PM PDT

Posted by randfish

This year's MozCon was, undoubtedly, the best event we've ever put on. The 500 attendees had some incredibly kind things to say about the event, perhaps the most remarkable of which is captured below in some of the charts I've extracted from a survey we ran to attendees.

As many who attend professional events in the SEO/online marketing world know, finding expert-level content is a huge challenge. We work tremendously hard to make sure MozCon provides a uniquely high level of material from every speaker and you can see that reflected below:

Was MozCon Advanced Enough For You?

Given the high level of folks who come to MozCon, the feedback above was incredibly flattering. Of course, we'll be working even harder next year to make sure that little blue slice shrivels away entirely :-)

The next chart from SurveyMonkey shows whether those who attended would be likely to recommend the show to others:

How Likely Would You Be to Recommend MozCon

And again, I'm pretty excited by the results. 62% of those who responded said they'd give it a 10/10 when talking to others. Not too shabby!

Thus, I'm very excited to announce the 2011 MozCon Video Bundle. This year, rather than old-school, 1990's technology, we're trying something new and giving you the ability to stream the videos online and download them to your mobile devices. Pretty sweet, right?

The Powerpoint slide decks are also included with the video bundle, so you can follow along and grab the URLs that speakers reference in their presentations. We’re also doing something a little nuts: if you buy the bundle before November 30th you'll get all of the videos from MozCon 2010* and Distilled's SearchLove 2010* (that’s an extra 42 videos) for free!

What's in the 2011 MozCon Video Bundle?

Included in the price ($299 for PRO members or $399 for non-PRO members) you’ll get:

26 videos (over 14 hours) from MozCon in high definition
Stream or download the videos to your computer, iPhone, or Android device
Downloadable PowerPoint slide-decks for the presentations
Plus the limited time offer: Until November 30th you'll get an additional 42 videos (over 26 hours of content) free of charge from our Seattle 2010 and Distilled's London 2010 seminars.

26 videos of our best presentations yet

MozCon 2011 was our 6th annual event, and I can honestly say, it was our best event yet. We had three days chock full of astounding presentations plus an awesome lineup of speakers. When you purchase the bundle, you’ll get videos and the PowerPoint slide-decks for all 26 of the presentations. Essentially, it will be as if you were there... except without the ice cream breaks.

Watch the videos online in high definition

This year, we've tossed out the DVDs (well, OK, not actually tossed them; more like, just didn't make them) and put the videos online. Once you purchase the bundle, you’ll have immediate access to watch all of the videos in high definition.

And download the videos for offline viewing...

You can also download any of the videos and watch them on an iPhone, iPad, or Android device giving you the ability to watch your videos wherever you want. This is perfect for a long plane ride or when you’re commuting to work (or relaxing in the living room furniture of your choice).

For a limited time... get an extra 42 videos from our 2010 events for free

We’re so excited about this year’s video bundle that we’re doing something special. For anyone who purchases the bundle before November 30th, we’ll include online videos from MozCon* 2010 in Seattle and Distilled's SearchLove* 2010 London. In all, that’s an extra 42 videos (26 hours of content) included absolutely free!

What people said about MozCon 2011

MozCon is the best online marketing conference I have ever attended. The content is well-rounded and advanced.

Bekka Palmer
Senior SEO Strategist
Thunder SEO

Great presentations by expert speakers delivering up-to-date, actionable content in not just SEO, but also conversion rate optimization, Facebook and paid marketing, viral content design, and a host of other topics. I came away inspired to 'make the web better' by delivering even more SEO awesomeness to my clients.

Steve Ovens
Director of SEO
Digital Media Strategy Pty Ltd

I've been passionately involved in SEO/SEM for nearly a decade, and I can honestly say that MozCon was the most educational 3 days that I've ever experienced in that amount of time. There was a wealth of tangible information and insight that I'm going to be able to utilize in all aspects of SEO. MozCon was simply inspiring.

Greg Bebezas
SEM Specialist
OpenText Corporation

MozCon was all that I could have hoped for. I learned what we really needed to know to be successful at SEO, including the nitty-gritty techniques that you just don't get at other conferences. MozCon is where it's at.

Nils Rasmusson
Web/Graphic Designer
Beijer Electronics, Inc.

* p.s. Prior to 2011, we called these events "PRO SEO Training" but have since learned a little about branding :-) SEOmoz's annual conference is now "MozCon" and Distilled's is "SearchLove," which BTW, you can still buy tickets for next week in NYC if you'd like to join us in person.

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We the People Takes the Next Step

Your Daily Snapshot for
Thursday, October 27, 2011

We the People Takes the Next Step

Yesterday one of President Obama's top education advisors, Roberto Rodriguez, issued the first response to a petition created through We the People.

We the People was launched to bring the voices of Americans around the country into our government and we're thrilled to see so many Americans engaging members of the Obama Administration in a constructive dialogue on such an enormous scale. Stay updated on the latest petition responses and other news by following @WeThePeople on Twitter.

Learn more about We the People:

SEOptimise

SEO Tactics to Tame the Panda

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 06:47 AM PDT

Last Tuesday I gave a presentation on SEO Tactics to Tame the Panda at A4U London, alongside Kevin Gibbons. The presentation was aimed at affiliates who had been hit by the Panda update although the majority of techniques that I provided could be used on any website that was hit.

Timeline

Panda first hit in the US back in February 2011, affecting up to 12% of all Google search results. Since then, there have been five iterations of the update, excluding the update that took it globally with the exception of Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages.

Since I started creating my deck a few months ago, there were three updates with one only days before I was about to present. In my honest opinion I don't believe that this is over just yet, and that Google will continue to edit the algorithm and roll it out.

What Google Recommends

Google actually provide us with some advice on what to do to avoid being hit by the Panda update, as seen below.

"you should evaluate all the content on your site and do your best to improve the overall quality of the pages on your domain. Removing low quality pages or moving them to a different domain could help your rankings for the higher quality content."
Google

From the paragraph above I have bolded 3 key points, that I feel you need to focus on.

On-site Changes

Evaluate Content:

Use your analytics software to identify content that is under-performing by viewing user metrics such as page views, bounce rate & exit rates. Although not the only metrics that you should look at, they allow you to identify pages that potentially could contain poor or out of date content that may need to be looked at.

Quality of Content:

The main function of the Panda update is to help improve the quality of content available for internet users. Basics such as grammar, spelling and stylistic errors across your entire content portfolio could be damaging. Matt Cutts talks about how there is direct correlation between good quality content and high page rank & domain authority.

Google provides you with a list of 23 quality questions as a guideline to what type of things they might be looking at when crawling the content. I would recommend that you use these questions as a guideline, put them in a survey to send out to your clients, customers or a survey group that will provide you an unbiased opinion on your content. The results from your survey can provide you with the basis of improving your content.

Thin Content

Thin content provides users with limited information about the topic you are describing. If you are not providing enough information to your users then why would you expect there to be enough information for a search engine? Ideally you need to improve any content that is below 200 words in length and try to expand that to at least 350 words. If you believe that the content can't be expanded, then you can either remove the page and redirect it to a relevant page or you can use the noindex tag to remove it from the Google Index.

Duplicate Content

This problem has been around since long before the Panda update, but it seems to have been given a significant amount of weight in the latest update. Removing duplicate content alone has seen results for many websites, and is something that needs to be addressed quickly. Use tools such as Google Webmaster Tools or ScreamingFrog to identify the duplicate content to be removed.

Syndicated Content & Product Feeds

Many websites, affiliates included, use syndicated content on their site, adding to the issue of duplication. The inclusion of syndicated content also means that you are providing the same content as many other sites, reducing the chances of you achieving a high ranking position. Product feeds follow a similar theme to syndicated content where they are used across tens, hundreds or even thousands of different sites all displaying the same content. Getting this content re-written will help to provide your users with unique and valuable content.

Choose 100 of your top selling products and have these re-written first, and then move on to the next 100 taking things step-by-step. You can outsource this work to places such as Copify, Textbroker or even hire an intern or a college student who is interested in making some money, to help with the process.

Design & Page Layout

Although there is no clear evidence that design and page layouts will drastically turn your fortunes around, it is recommended that your website should be at least current in design. I am not suggesting that you go out and get your entire site re-built from the ground up using HTML5, because Google see no preference in that. But if your site hasn't been re-designed for 10 years then I feel that you really should look to get it updated.

Page layout should be your main focus for any design change, providing more content above the fold, whilst trying to reduce the number of adverts that are prominent within your text. Reduce the number of adverts from 3–4 to 1-2 and move them into either the sidebar, header or footer so that they are not within the text.

Link Building & Social Shares

Link building is a massive part of any SEO strategy and even more so for affiliates, who might not get natural links like larger brands. When it comes to link building to an affiliate site, you need to concentrate more on deep page link building, rather than link building just to the homepage. Offer social media buttons on pages that you believe offer good content such as product pages, blog posts, and knowledge centres, etc. This will make it easier for people to share your content with their social community and potentially improve your link profile.

Content suggestions

Many of the suggestions and tactics that I made within the presentation were to remove low quality or thin content, replacing it with good content that your users want to see. The following ideas are suggestions on how to create content that your users want to read.

Addict-o-matic – brings in various sources of information including Twitter, YouTube, Google News, etc, based on the keyword that you have entered. This will allow you to get a good overview of what type of content has been created and is being shared by your target audience.
Keyword Tools – using tools such as Google Adwords, UberSuggest and Google Suggest you can get ideas of what people are search for and use them to enhance your search for content suggestions. If your topic is based on an annual release, then these tools can also provide you with key phrases that are based on trends that could be used.
Q&A Sites – can provide you with a large amount of information on what type of content people want to see. Search sites such as Quora and YahooAnswers, using multiple search queries to get a full understanding of what people are asking for, and then try to supply that information by writing quality content.
Social Media – use different social media platforms to see what your target audience are talking about and sharing with their community. Get involved in the conversation by asking and answering questions, providing good quality content that is both from your own website and others.
Attend Industry Events – such as A4U, where you will get new information before it goes into the public domain, providing you opportunities to write new unique content and live blog. Another great reason for attending industry events is to meet influential figures within the industry who could potentially provide you with information, natural links or areas to place good content.

Case-study

The presentation finished by looking at a case-study on HubPages who had been hit massively in the first Panda update.

According to the SearchMetrics data, Hubpages lost 85% visibility across their keyword portfolio, dropping from 182k key phrases to just 26k overnight. For any business this is a significant loss in keywords, and although rankings are not the best measurement for SEO, it is still significant.

Since that update HubPages have worked hard using a lot of the techniques described in the presentation, to improve the quality and reduce thin content throughout their website. HubPages also went further, moving all the authors on to separate sub-domains isolating any author that wrote poor content. Since making those changes, and after the Panda 2.5 update HubPages saw their keyword visibility rise to over 761k. What I see as most significant for HubPages is the fact that they now have more visibility than before the 1^st Panda update.

Key Takeaways

Remove low quality & thin content
Improve the quality of content throughout your website
Improve link building to lower level pages

Although not something that could be recommended for every website I would analyse and test, whether moving areas of the website onto sub-domains will help reduce the penalty that has been enforced on your website by the Panda update.

If you were at the session I would love to hear your feedback and comments below. If you were unable to get to A4U, I hope this provides you with some insight into what I talked about and of course I also welcome your comments.

Seth's Blog : Your agenda

Your agenda

Most of the time, if you ask someone about their agenda, it turns out that it involves doing what's on someone else's agenda.

I need to do this for my boss, this for my husband, that for the PTSA and this other thing for the kids. As soon as you turn over your agenda to others, you're giving up one of the biggest opportunities you have to contribute. Setting an agenda is often as important as checking the boxes.

Obviously, you can't be part of any system without engaging with other people and their agendas.

But perhaps we've absorbed that habit so completely that we've ceded all responsibility and in fact don't even have an agenda any longer...

• Email to a friend •

miercuri, 26 octombrie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

License to Lie: The "Most Transparent Administration Ever" Seeks Law to Respond to Freedom of Information Requests with "Information Does Not Exist"
No Agreement on "Any" Element of a Deal
Grateful for Idiocy, a Pack of Lies, Financial Engineering, Legerdemain, and Trickery; Opposition Leader Rebukes Merkel's Lies and Arrogance of Power
Talks Suspended in Deadlock; German Parliament Approves "Blank Check" on EFSF Leverage; Belgian PM Seeks Firepower Exceeding One Trillion Euros

License to Lie: The "Most Transparent Administration Ever" Seeks Law to Respond to Freedom of Information Requests with "Information Does Not Exist"

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 06:17 PM PDT

The Justice Department of the Obama Administration, the self-proclaimed "most transparent administration ever Proposes Letting Government to Respond to Freedom of Information Requests Denying Existence of the Documents.

A longtime internal policy that allowed Justice Department officials to deny the existence of sensitive information could become the law of the land -- in effect a license to lie -- if a newly proposed rule becomes federal regulation in the coming weeks.

The proposed rule directs federal law enforcement agencies, after personnel have determined that documents are too delicate to be released, to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests "as if the excluded records did not exist."

Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, says the move appears to be in direct conflict with the administration's promise to be more open.

"Despite all the talk of transparency, I can't think of what's less transparent than saying a document does not exist, when in fact, it does," Sekulow told Fox News.

Earlier this year, in a case involving the Islamic Council of Southern California brought against the FBI after the plaintiffs learned about the existence of documents denied by the FBI, a federal judge in California expressed great concern about the agency using the internal policy not only in response to the FOIA but to mislead the court.

"The government, cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the court. … The court simply cannot perform its constitutional function if the government does not tell the truth," the judge wrote in a stinging rebuke.

A final version of the proposal could be issued by the end of 2011. If approved, the new rule would officially become a federal regulation with the force of law.

Pure Insanity

This proposed law is pure insanity. Wrong accused persons might go to prison or guilty persons purposely protected based on this law.

All that is required is for some government official (possibly protecting himself or his department) to think information is "too sensitive".

The U.S. should be ashamed to even consider such a law.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

No Agreement on "Any" Element of a Deal

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 05:41 PM PDT

Bloomberg reports Impasse on Greek Debt Threatens EU Deal

European Union talks with banks on bondholder losses as part of a second Greek bailout ran aground, dimming the chances for a comprehensive strategy at a summit to stamp out the debt crisis.

A statement issued close to midnight in Brussels by the Institute of International Finance, the bank lobby, said there was no agreement "on any element of a deal."

The outlines of a deal to safeguard banks emerged, centering on a June 30, 2012 deadline for lenders to reach core capital reserves of 9 percent after writing down their sovereign debt holdings, according to a statement after all 27 EU leaders met.

A group of 70 European banks will need to raise 106 billion euros in the next eight months to meet the goal, the European Banking Authority, the banking regulator, said. Greek banks need 30 billion euros; those in Spain need 26.2 billion euros. In France, the need totals 8.8 billion euros and in Italy, it's 14.8 billion euros.

While policy makers and bondholders were converging on a 50 percent writedown of Greek debt, clashes over collateral to underpin the transaction will limit the summit to issuing a mandate for further talks, an EU official said in Brussels on condition of anonymity.

While markets clamor for a signal that the euro area will devote 1 trillion euros or more to combating the crisis, the EU won't be able to produce a number until late November, the EU official said.

Mandate for Further Talks

The only agreement on anything is a mandate for further talks. This is the second summit in four days, and 14th summit in 21 months.

We can hope they talk themselves to death, but at this point that hope seems futile.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Grateful for Idiocy, a Pack of Lies, Financial Engineering, Legerdemain, and Trickery; Opposition Leader Rebukes Merkel's Lies and Arrogance of Power

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 11:42 AM PDT

A few weeks ago everyone knew German Chancellor Angela Merkel lied about leverage to the German Parliament. Nonetheless, and disgustingly, this morning the Bundestag was all too willing to Approve a "Blank Check" for Unlimited EFSF Leverage.

For this, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says Thank you Germany

Alone among EU leaders, Chancellor Angela Merkel goes to tonight's summit in Brussels with an iron-clad mandate. It is a remarkable moment. Never before – to my knowledge – has a national parliament demanded and held a prior vote on an EU summit accord.

Had this principle been established a long time ago, we might have avoided much of the relentless Treaty creep and EU aggrandizement advanced by secret deals at the Bâtiment Justus Lipsius. Thank you Germany.

Thank you too, judges of the Verfassungsgericht, for giving the Bundestag a veto on EU encroachments on fiscal sovereignty. The court is seemingly the only tribunal willing and able to defend the liberties of European citizens against EU over-reach, and is therefore my supreme court too even as a British citizen.

Opposition Leader Rebukes Merkel's Lies and Arrogance of Power

Pritchard continues ....

Dr Merkel has won her vote. She secured an "own majority" for proposals to leverage the €440bn bail-out fund (EFSF) into the stratosphere, with the support of some very sheepish looking law-makers from posturing Free Democrats and Bavaria's Social Christians.

But what a price she paid. The credibility of her team is shattered. Europe has all but destroyed her, even if she manages to limp on to the next crisis.

As she glowered darkly, speaker after speaker from the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and Die Linke, asked how she could possibly reconcile her plan to leverage the EFSF to €1 trillion or €1.5 trillion (we still don't know how much) with solemn pledges to the Bundestag just three weeks ago that there would be no such leverage.

"Shameless abuse of the truth," was the verdict of SPD leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The government had acted "tactically" at every turn, "misled the people", "held back information", "crossed every red line", brought Europe "to its knees" with botched policies, and lied blatantly about EFSF leverage.

"You came here to say there would be no leverage, not three years ago, not three months ago, but three weeks ago. You denied everything."

Die Linke (Left) leader Gregor Gysi was electrifying. "It is the arrogance of power," he began, and never let go.

"Every week you come up with a different story about this crisis."

"We were told there would be no leverage and you have reversed everything in a matter of weeks. Now we learn that the 20pc loss will fall entirely on taxpayers. They alone will pay. That is the decision you are taking."
"Why don't you tell German taxpayers the truth? They are being asked to pay the losses for French banks."

Green leader Jürgen Trittin rebuked Dr Merkel for hiding the true implications of EFSF leverage, particularly the plan to insure the first 20pc of losses on Club Med bonds.

"Why are you shying away from telling the people the truth? You must tell people what this leverage means. You must explain to them what the risk is, and why it is necessary. But you wriggled out of it."

"You came here three weeks ago and said there would be no leverage. This is the sort of thing that unnerves people."

And so it went on, raw red-blooded democracy.

The unpleasant truth is that the EFSF leverage proposals are idiotic, the worst sort of financial engineering, legerdemain, and trickery.

Grateful for Idiocy, a Pack of Lies, Financial Engineering, Legerdemain, and Trickery

Other than the ruling by the German Supreme Court there is nothing to be grateful for. The "unpleasant truth" is Merkel lied to parliament about leverage, which is why the EFSF was approved in the first place. Having secured passage of the EFSF via bald-faced lies, the Bundestag ignored the lies and approved a blank check on the amount of leverage and the method of leverage.

Pritchard notes the EFSF leverage proposals are idiotic, the worst sort of financial engineering, legerdemain, and trickery" and for that he says "Thank you Germany".

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Talks Suspended in Deadlock; German Parliament Approves "Blank Check" on EFSF Leverage; Belgian PM Seeks Firepower Exceeding One Trillion Euros

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 10:07 AM PDT

Today the German Parliament approved the use of leverage without specifying an amount, thereby giving Chancellor Merkel an effective "blank check" on the amount.

In a nonbinding (on the ECB) resolution, the parliament seeks to halt ECB sovereign bond purchases. Unfortunately, the issue will be up to the ECB to decide, not Germany.

Given Italy has the ECB deck stacked, I would expect the purchases to continue in clear violation of the Maastricht Treaty.

Otherwise, the main news is talks are deadlocked with open issues regarding the size of the haircuts, whether or not the haircuts are voluntary, the amount of EFSF leverage, the size and timing of bank recapitalization efforts, and how much of the new Greek bonds will be insured.

That's a lot of open issues.

Talks Suspended Following Deadlock

Bloomberg reports EU Talks With Banks on Greece Said Deadlocked

European Union talks with banks on bondholder losses as part of a second Greek rescue package are deadlocked and have been suspended, an EU official said.

The EU is seeking voluntary participation by banks, though a forced solution can't be ruled out, the official said in Brussels today on condition of anonymity because the talks are private.

While policy makers and bankers are converging on a 50 percent writedown for Greece's lenders, the disagreement centered on the specifics of the transaction. The dispute focused on how much of the risk of newly issued Greek bonds should be insured, the official said.

The Institute of International Finance, which lobbies on behalf of 450 financial firms, yesterday proposed investors make a larger writedown than the 40 percent the group offered last week, said two people with knowledge of the talks. The European Union is calling on investors to forfeit as much as 60 percent, a person familiar with the talks said last week.

To safeguard banks' finances, EU leaders will set a deadline of June 30, 2012, for banks to have core capital reserves of 9 percent after writing down their holdings of sovereign debt, according to a draft statement prepared for the summit.

The reserves must be of the "highest quality," according to the document obtained by Bloomberg News. Lenders are expected first to tap private sources to make up any capital shortfall and "should be subject to constraints regarding the distribution of dividends and bonus payments until the target has been attained." The document doesn't give an estimate of total capital EU banks must raise to comply with the rule.

Germany's Parliament Approves EFSF Leverage

ForexLive reports Germany's Lower House Of Parl Approves EFSF Leverage Models

Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, on Wednesday approved with a large majority the broad outlines agreed to at the EMU leaders' summit last weekend to enlarge the capacity of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) without extending the guarantees underpinning the E440 billion fund.

Of the 596 parliamentarians present, 503 voted for the motion, 89 against it and four abstained.

In the motion, the Bundestag states that after the EFSF's capacity has been enlarged "there is no necessity for the ECB to continue the secondary market program (SMP)" of bond purchases.

On Tuesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germany does not agree with a paragraph in the draft communique for today's European summit that says the ECB is to continue its non-standard measures.

"Germany does not accept this sentence," Merkel told reporters. "We are negotiating at the moment to get a statement from the European Central Bank on what it plans to do and then we will take a position on that."

The Chancellor stressed that Germany "wants to see in the wording [of the communique] much more clearly what the European Central Bank wants to do…in order to prevent the misunderstanding that politics are expecting something of the ECB."

Leverage Approved, Amount Open

Note the open issues in just those few paragraphs. There is no agreement on the amount of leverage, the method of leverage (the SIV model vs. the Insurance Model), or what the role of the ECB will be going forward.

It was the "blank check" provision that had the market giddy at the open, even though the greater the leverage, the quicker this mess is going to blow sky high.

Belgian PM Seeks Firepower Exceeding 1 Trillion Euros

Yahoo! Finance reports Belgian premier: bailout fund needs more than euro1bn

The prime minister of Belgium says the eurozone's bailout fund should have a firepower of more than euro1 trillion ($1.4 trillion) to prevent the currency union's debt crisis from spreading.

Yves Leterme said Tuesday "I think that effectively, it has to be able to intervene a good deal beyond euro1 trillion."

He was heading into a crucial emergency summit of European leaders in Brussels.

At the summit, the leaders will seek to set up a complicated scheme to give the euro440 billion bailout fund more leverage, reduce Greece's massive debt and strengthen banks across the continent.

Throwing Money with Leverage Never Solves Problems

Throwing money around with leverage has never in history permanently solved any problems but that does not stop Monetarist and Keynesian clown fools from trying.

Regardless, talks are so contentious now over resolution of all these issues they have been suspended. Bear in mind, these are easy issues compared to treaty changes that would allow ECB printing, eurobonds, fiscal unity, etc.

Whatever agreement is worked out (or forced upon Germany) is sure to cause serious resentment starting immediately. Moreover, the next set of meetings down the road on treaty changes (or still more leverage after this is quickly used up), will make this suspended meeting look like a birthday party in comparison.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

joi, 27 octombrie 2011

A Framework for Site Reviews (with Examples)