Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

---

• Dimwit Energy Policies, Record Corn Prices, and UN Pleas for US to Change Ethanol Policy; Obama Consistently Wrong, Romney an Energy Pretzel
• Reader Question: Could Obama Balance the Budget by Getting the Wealthy to Pay Their "Fair Share"?
• Problem in Europe is Arithmetic, Not Confidence; Why the Eurozone Cannot Possibly Survive Intact

Dimwit Energy Policies, Record Corn Prices, and UN Pleas for US to Change Ethanol Policy; Obama Consistently Wrong, Romney an Energy Pretzel Posted: 10 Aug 2012 12:04 PM PDT The price of corn is at all all-time high because of extreme drought conditions in the US coupled with the hottest July temperatures since records began 117 years ago. Inane Policies US policy mandates production of ethanol for blending in gasoline. That ethanol comes mostly from corn. Diverting corn crops to inefficient ethanol production has members of the Group of 20 leading economies – including France, India and China – concerned about the US ethanol policy. In response, the UN urges US to cut ethanol production The US is poised to divert around 40 per cent of its corn into ethanol because of the Congress-enacted mandate despite "huge damage" to the crop because of the worst drought in at least half a century, José Graziano da Silva, director-general of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, warned. "An immediate, temporary suspension of that [ethanol] mandate would give some respite to the market and allow more of the crop to be channelled towards food and feed uses," he wrote in an opinion piece in the Financial Times. Tom Vilsack, US agriculture secretary, raised doubts about the impact of waiving the ethanol mandate, arguing that the US biofuel industry had reduced petrol prices and created jobs. Economic Dimwit or Shill? The question at hand is whether the US agriculture secretary is an economic dimwit, a shill for the Obama administration, a shill for corn producers, or some combination thereof. The US biofuel industry certainly has not reduced the price of gasoline. Tariffs on imported ethanol have kept the price of ethanol artificially high (but they did expire in December). Fundamentally, government policies do not create jobs, they cost jobs. The best way to create jobs is for government to get the hell out of the way and let the free market work. I do not know how much corn prices would drop if the US ended its inane biofuel policies. What I do know is  government interventions and government-sponsored solutions never do any good. Romney an Energy Pretzel Which is worse? Being consistently wrong, or blowing so much in the wind voters haven't a clue what you stand for? Before deciding, please consider Mitt Romney, the pretzel candidate by George Will (written October 28, 2011). Obama, a floundering naif who thinks ATMs aggravate unemployment, is bewildered by a national tragedy of shattered dreams, decaying workforce skills and forgone wealth creation. Romney cannot enunciate a defensible, or even decipherable, ethanol policy. Life poses difficult choices, but not about ethanol. Government subsidizes ethanol production, imposes tariffs to protect manufacturers of it and mandates the use of it — and it injures the nation's and the world's economic, environmental, and social (it raises food prices) well-being. In May, in corn-growing Iowa, Romney said, "I support" — present tense — "the subsidy of ethanol." And: "I believe ethanol is an important part of our energy solution for this country." But in October he told Iowans he is "a business guy," so as president he would review this bipartisan — the last Republican president was an ethanol enthusiast — folly. Romney said that he once favored (past tense) subsidies to get the ethanol industry "on its feet." But Romney added, "I've indicated I didn't think the subsidy had to go on forever." Ethanol subsidies expire in December, but "I might have looked at more of a decline over time" because of "the importance of ethanol as a domestic fuel." Besides, "ethanol is part of national security." However, "I don't want to say" I will propose new subsidies. Still, ethanol has "become an important source of amplifying our energy capacity." Anyway, ethanol should "continue to have prospects of growing its share of" transportation fuels. Got it? If anyone truly knows where Romney stands on ethanol, please tell me. Better yet, please tell Romney. 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.

Reader Question: Could Obama Balance the Budget by Getting the Wealthy to Pay Their "Fair Share"? Posted: 10 Aug 2012 06:52 AM PDT Reader "Paul" a high school teacher, wonders whether we have a spending problem or a tax collection problem. "Paul" (name changed by Mish) writes ... Hello Mish I subscribe to your blog and refer to it a lot. I'm having an argument with a friend who says the problem with the deficit is that many people do not pay their fair share in taxes. For example, my friend notes that Mitt Romney pays taxes at a 13% rate despite his huge riches. My friend believes that if tax rates were adjusted higher for the rich and super rich we'd be out of debt. He is even a business owner who is part of the 1%! Can you challenge what my friend says? I have another question: You did a post that listed all the government funded programs you thought should be eliminated. Do you have a link to that article? Paul Hello Paul ... There is a big information gap at play, actually several of them. First, let me ask a question: Can you conceptualize $1 trillion? Other than "it's an enormous number", what does $1 trillion mean to you? Bear in mind the US National Debt Clock shows public debt, not counting unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security $16 trillion. Forget about that $16 trillion for a bit and simply focus on the current budget deficit. Notice that the US has had four consecutive budget deficits over $1 trillion. I expect 2013 will be the fifth. Conceptualizing $1 Trillion An excellent way to conceptualize a million, vs. a billion, vs. a trillion is in terms of time. Without doing any calculations, how long is a million seconds, a billion seconds, and a trillion seconds? Here are the answers. 1 Million seconds is 12 days. 1 Billion seconds is nearly 32 years. 1 Trillion seconds 31,688 years. Think about that while noting the deficit increased from $161 billion to well over $1 trillion for four years running. Fair Share Tax Hikes I have a set of questions for the "fair share" tax proponents. Would fair share tax hikes be enough to fund US government spending? What if we took 100% of the profits of Walmart and Exxon Mobile? What if the corporate tax rate was 100% for every corporation? What if we confiscated 100% of the wealth of the super-wealthy including Warren Buffet and Bill Gates? What if we did ALL of the above? Would that balance the budget? A recent Tony Robbins video making the rounds answers all of those questions. It is about 19 minutes long and well worth a play in entirety. To meet total spending requirements of $3.2 trillion, but not counting $117 trillion in unfunded liabilities, not only would we have to do everything in the five point list above, but we would have to take the combined salaries of all players in the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA, and the NHL, cut military spending by $254 billion, and tax everything people make above $250,000 at a 100% tax rate. That's what it would take to meet the 2012 budget of $3.8 trillion. It would do nothing to pay down the existing national debt of close to $16 trillion. It would not come remotely close to meeting $117 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Robbins gives credit in his video to the post Feed Your Family on $10 Billion a Day by IowaHawk. In turn, I give credit to Michael Snyder for his writeup Anyone With Half A Brain Should See That A Gigantic Economic Collapse Is Coming Snyder, referencing Ron Paul and Tony Robbins, writes ... For the past four decades, the United States has been enjoying a 15 trillion dollar party. All of this borrowed money has enabled us to live far, far beyond our means. If our politicians voted to severely cut spending or to raise taxes dramatically at this point, our economy would suddenly readjust to a more realistic standard of living. But that would be extremely painful and most Americans voters would be absolutely furious. They would demand that someone "fix" the economy immediately. But the truth is that what we have been enjoying all these years has not been real. It has been bought with trillions of dollars stolen from future generations. But most of our politicians just want to keep the party rolling as long as humanly possible so that they can keep getting voted back into office. Some hard choices will have to be made, and there will be a lot of pain. The false prosperity that we are enjoying now is going to disappear. Now is the time to prepare for the massive economic shift that is coming. In the coming economic environment, those that are currently living month to month and those that are 100% dependent on the system are going to be in a huge amount of trouble. Instead of wildly spending money as if the good times will never end like most Americans are, now is the time to get out of debt, to become more self-sufficient and to set aside the money, resources and supplies you will need to weather the storm that is rapidly approaching. Hard Choices I certainly agree with Snyder regarding hard choices. And over the course of the next decade, the projected budgets show the choices are going to get much harder. 2012 Budget vs. 2022 Budget Please consider projected budgets for the next decade, straight from the White House Office of Management and Budget. In particular, note Table S-5 on page 210. The projected cumulative budget for the next 10 years is an unbelievable $46.956 trillion dollars. Government spending is projected to escalate to a whopping $5.8 trillion a year in 10 years. Noting the difficulty Robbins had in coming up with $3.8 trillion, pray tell what kind of "fair tax" hikes would it take to meet expenses of $5.8 trillion? So, do we have a spending problem, or a problem of not taxing enough? The answer is pretty clear. Cutting Waste To answer the second question by "Paul", I have written a number of articles about waste in the state of California (easily applicable to all other states), and waste in the US government budget as well. Interactive Map: Paul Ryan vs. Obama Budget Details; Path of Destruction Radical Plan to Cut Military Spending and Help Balance the Budget California Budget Balancer Interactive Map from LA Times Misses the Mark Mish's California Budget Proposal 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.

Problem in Europe is Arithmetic, Not Confidence; Why the Eurozone Cannot Possibly Survive Intact Posted: 10 Aug 2012 12:57 AM PDT Via email, Michael Pettis at China Financial Markets makes a compelling case why Spain is destined to leave the euro. For ease in reading, I added the subtitles in bold. In my forthcoming book (Princeton University Press, February 2012) I argue that there is little chance that the euro survives the next few years, or that we avoid major sovereign restructurings and/or defaults.　 I am not just talking about Greece, by the way.　 I think a Spanish devaluation (accompanied inevitably by a sovereign debt restructuring) is pretty much a sure thing too, along with devaluations among many of the other obvious suspects.　 After I turned in the completed manuscript of my upcoming book, my editors were a little worried about my extreme pessimism over the euro, and suggested that I hedge a little so as not to look foolish if these things didn't happen, but honestly I am less worried about that possibility than I am worried that by the time my book comes out Spain will have already abandoned the euro.　 I really don't see any progress at all in resolving the euro crisis, and the longer it takes to resolve, the more financial distress peripheral Europe will suffer, making a resolution of the crisis all the more difficult and urgent. Last week the Financial Times had an editorial, "Politics is adding to Spanish woes", which they ended with the following: While they wait, Madrid should stick with the policies it is pursuing but intensify its work on the banking sector. If high yields persist, Spain can bear it for a while – no one should buy the kabbalism according to which a certain level of yields marks the entrance to a black hole. The eurozone needs to convince investors it will be able to act if panic persists, which it can best do by giving the new rescue fund a banking license. But the best remedy against panic is reassurance. A greater sense of political competence in Madrid and of decisiveness in Brussels would do wonders. I see it very differently. Policy is certainly adding to the problems in Spain, but I don't think it is because, as the editorial claims, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has mismanaged the political process, and I am not sure that greater political competence in Madrid, or decisiveness in Brussels (!), will do anything at all, let alone wonders. Too Late to Save Spain The problem, I think, is much more serious than Rajoy's flunking hard choices, and I don't think there was anything he could do to increase the country's credibility in a significant way.　 We have long passed that stage.　 Why?　 Because, as I have been suggesting for the last six to twelve months, Spain has already started on its downward spiral and there is almost nothing Rajoy or anyone else can do to prevent all parts of the economy – workers, small businesses, large businesses, creditors, depositors, and yes, policymakers – from acting each in their own way to increase the debt burden, increase economic uncertainty, make the balance sheet more fragile, and reduce growth.　 These different economic agents by now are simply behaving rationally in response to declining credibility, and unless we expect from them a huge burst of irrational cheer, there is no reason to expect them to change their behavior.　 All of their actions, of course, reduce credibility further, and as credibility drops it simply reinforces the adverse behavior of all the rationally misbehaving economic agents.　 This is the dreaded self-reinforcing loop typical of countries in the nightmare stage of a debt crisis. We have seen this process many times before in the history of sovereign debt crises, and it is mind-numbingly mechanical.　 No matter how well Rajoy implements fiscal austerity (assuming that this is indeed the right thing to do), no matter how many times policymakers plead with markets to give them time to implement reforms, no matter how often the government begs workers and businesses to have more confidence, at this point it is going to be incredibly difficult for Spain to escape from this cycle.　 Problem is Arithmetic The problem is arithmetic, not confidence.　 Basic balance of payments math tells us that in order to repay its external debt Spain must run a large trade surplus.　 If it ends up however with a trade surplus caused simply by a collapse in domestic demand and soaring unemployment, which is the current path, domestic politics will become unmanageable and Spain will eventually be forced to leave the euro in order to regain competitiveness in a less painful way.　 One of the good things about a well-functioning democracy is that it simply won't permit a debt crisis to be resolved by forcing an unacceptable burden onto the working population. Trade Surplus Math The requirement for a trade surplus is the key point.　 Even if there were no capital flight, and assuming we are unlikely to see large investment-driven private inflows into Spain for many years – a pretty safe bet, I would think – Spain must run a large trade surplus in order to repay foreign debt holders (technically Spain must actually run a current account surplus, but in practice this means a trade surplus).　 Of course capital flight, which is already large and rising, as I will discuss later, means that Spain must run an even larger trade surplus than otherwise if it is going to repay external debt. Under what conditions can Spain run a large enough trade surplus?　 There are really just four ways this can happen.　 One way is through a collapse in domestic consumption caused by many years of unemployment above 20%.　 In this case eventually relative wage growth will be sufficiently negative for Spain to regain competitivity, although declining prices and wages also mean that the debt burden will get worse during this period.　 Of course the political cost of many years of unemployment above 20% will be tremendous and almost certainly unsustainable, and we are already seeing this in the growing popular rage in Spain against the political establishment.　 There is no reason to think that popular anger won't get worse. The second way is for Germany to reflate domestic demand enough to cause its large trade surplus to become an equally large trade deficit.　 This will allow eurozone countries like Spain to reverse their own deficits, which under the conditions of the monetary union were simply the flip side of Germany's surplus.　 If Germany does this, however, its own real growth will slow significantly and may even become negative for many years.　 In addition Germany's debt burden will rise rapidly, because in order to reflate it will need to cut consumption and income taxes sharply, to boost fiscal spending, and to absorb rapidly rising non-performing loans in its banking system.　 As of now there seems little chance that Germany will do this, especially as it will also need to guarantee Spanish debt directly or indirectly to stop the downward spiral in the debt markets. The third way is simply a variation on the second.　 The euro would need to fall sufficiently to allow the whole eurozone to run large – huge – trade surpluses.　 This is Martin Feldstein's argument in last week's Financial Times, A rapid fall in the euro can save Spain, where he suggested that "financial markets may already be in the process of forcing a solution upon Brussels policy makers". The problem with this, however, is obvious.　 It can only work if Europe were small enough and the rest of the world were in good enough economic shape that the global economy could absorb a sharply rising European trade surplus.　 But with deficit countries doing all they can to reduce their deficits, and surplus countries doing all they can to maintain or increase their surpluses, it is hard to imagine how Europe, which is already a surplus entity, can possibly increase its overall surplus enough to bail out peripheral Europe. That leaves the fourth way.　 Spain can freeze banking deposits, abandon the euro, and devalue.　 This would be very painful, but it would allow the country to regain international competitiveness in much less time and run a trade surplus (mainly at Germany's expense, by the way) with much lower levels of unemployment and economic self-destruction.　 Of course it would also mean a soaring debt burden as the new currency devalues relative to the country's euro-denominated debt, and so would almost certainly come with a debt restructuring (again mainly at Germany's expense) that would reduce the debt servicing costs. These are the four conditions under which Spain can run a sufficiently large trade surplus to service its external debt, and since three of them are impractical or highly unlikely, we are left with the fourth.　 This is why I think the probability of Spain's abandoning the euro is much higher than its staying in the euro. Downward Spiral Meanwhile, and in case there is any doubt, we have had more chilling news that indicates just how firmly Spain is caught up in the downward spiral.　 First, Madrid last week downgraded its growth forecasts, saying that the recession would continue into 2013. This apparently shocked the market but I cannot see why.　 I have argued many times over the past three years that quarter after quarter policymakers are going to adjust their forecasts downwards, not because they have been dishonest in their previous forecasts but simply because they never take into consideration the impact that rising debt and declining credibility have on forcing adverse changes in the behavior of economic agents. Expect Downward Revisions The economy will always perform more poorly than expected because rational economic agents will always behave in ways that automatically make matters worse.　 Expect many more years of downward growth revisions, not just for Spain but for all of Europe. Capital Flight Second, money is fleeing the country.　 An article in Germany's Spiegel describes just how bad it is: Capital outflows from Spain more than quadrupled in May to €41.3 billion (compared with May 2011, according to figures released on Tuesday by the Spanish central bank.　 In the first five months of 2012, a total of €163 billion left the country, the figures indicate. During the same period a year earlier, Spain recorded a net inflow of €14.6 billion. Capital flight is one of the most powerful parts of the downward spiral, and of course it is extremely self-reinforcing. 　Capital flight is driven largely by disinvestment and bank deposit withdrawals, and the former reduces growth while the latter both reduces growth and increases balance sheet fragility. We may have already reached the point where it will be impossible to stop the outflows, and I can't imagine that already-reluctant Germans are going to be happy to reconcile their increasing investment in Spanish government bonds with increasing disinvestment by Spanish businesses and depositors. Silliness From Feldstein I had bookmarked Martin Feldstein's column with an intent of challenging the notion that a falling euro could save Spain, but I failed to get around to it. The irony is just a couple years back, nearly everyone thought the solution to the global financial crisis was a cheaper dollar. Indeed, a quick search shows that on August 24, 2011, less than a year ago, Feldstein argued in a Bloomberg Interview (Dollar Decline Benefits U.S. Economy) that "A lower dollar means more exports, and it also means a shift from consuming imported products to consuming goods and services that we produce in the United States". Apparently a lower dollar and a lower euro are both needed. Given the euro is 57% of the US dollar index just how likely is that? Moreover, a falling euro, even if it did help the eurozone as a whole, would hardly help Spain more than Germany given Germany's productivity advantages over Spain. What Spain Needs Spain does not need a lower euro, it actually needs a higher one (with Spain back on the pesata). Alternatively (and in fact preferably) Spain can indeed benefit from a lower euro (provided of course Germany is back on the Deutsche Mark. The key point is that it is complete silliness to think anything else but a breakup of the eurozone (coupled with genuine work rule reform) can help Spain. What About Italy? Pettis did not mention Italy in his email, but I think Italy exits the eurozone before Spain. Anti-euro and anti-German sentiment is high and rising in Italy, and technocrat prime minister Mario Monti will be gone by April. It will not take much to push Italy over the edge given the rise of the Five Star Movement. For details, please see Mish on Capital Account: Discussion of Social Media Panic in Italy, Soaring Yields in Spain, and the Upcoming 20th Euro Summit, Bound to be Another Failure Time-Lapse Interactive Graph Shows Stunning Rise in Anti-Euro Sentiment in Italy Italy "Gasping Like Beached Whale"; Berlusconi Reiterates Euro Exit "Not Blasphemy"; Beppe Grillo Discusses "Taboo of the Euro" Six Reasons Why Italy May Exit the Euro Before Spain; Ultimate Occupy Movement. 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.

You are subscribed to email updates from Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Damn Cool Pics

---

The Human Jukebox Posted: 09 Aug 2012 06:43 PM PDT The Human Jukebox is part of a musical video experiment performed by Charles Yang, Michael thurber, and Eddie Barbash. Donations determine what music the performers would play. And all the money was sent to Wingspan Arts, a non-profit that aims to expose diverse and young groups of people to the arts. Beautiful! Oh, and totally wasn't expecting Jurassic Park. Via CDZA

You are subscribed to email updates from Damn Cool Pictures To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Agile Marketing - Whiteboard Friday

---

Agile Marketing - Whiteboard Friday Posted: 09 Aug 2012 08:03 PM PDT Posted by Jonathon Colman Howdy, SEOmoz fans! In today's video, we'll explore the nifty, nefarious world on Agile Marketing, which I talked about at MozCon a few weeks ago. We'll take a look at four key principles of Agile Marketing and talk about how you can use them to hack your organization to deliver more value to your customers more often by breaking down barriers and removing impediments to your progress. The strengths of Agile are that it focuses on bringing customers into our marketing and development efforts; it focuses on interaction with your colleagues by building cross-functional teams; it pushes us to always stay in motion by prioritizing delivery to our users and customers above all other concerns; and it follows a strong, iterative "Build-Measure-Learn" cycle, just like Eric Ries talks about in The Lean Startup. You know how fast things change in the world of SEO and inbound marketing - Google published 52 changes to their algorithm last April and another 39 changes in May. Agile methodologies can help you respond and react to those changes so that you can stay on top of new opportunities. Enjoy, and I'd love to see your comments below! I'll be jumping in to answer your questions as they come up. Video Transcription Howdy, SEOmoz fans. I'm Jonathon Colman from REI, and today we're going to be talking about agile marketing. This is a discipline that we are picking up from software developers, who have been practicing agile for decades, and we're applying it to our discipline of marketing and we're doing that for a couple of really good reasons. First of all, agile helps us focus on our users and create more value for them more often, in ways that make sense, and it also helps us, as an organization, adapt to change. And you know better than anyone, how much change there is. Google's releasing algorithm updates, 52 of them last May, 29 right after that. There's Panda, there's Penguin, all of the news and tips and tricks we see on Inbound.org. We are constantly taking in new information to our organizations. But, oftentimes, our organizations aren't able to respond to them. And why is that? Because they're structured like this, because they're structured in a big hierarchy that's not centered around the user. So even when they take in new information, they can't apply it directly to the people who matter most, their customers. Secondly, we tend to work in models like this, which is a waterfall development model, where we take in requirements at the beginning, and then we do a chunk of work, and we do a chunk of work, and we do a chunk of work, and so on. But if change is coming down the road, if something happens here, like a Penguin, we can't respond to that because that's six months later. And, as you know, SEO, inbound marketing, social media, that's changing hourly, not in six-month or one-year cycles. So we have to become better at changing, and that's what agile helps us do. So let's talk about four principles of agile and a couple hacks that we can use to change our organizations. First of all come customers. They're the most important people. They're our reason for existing as a business. So we like to say, "Users are number one." "We're number one!" So what we do is we structure our work and ourselves all around the user. And one great way of doing that, here's a hack you can use, is to develop user stories. So as you're doing research with your users, as you're collaborating with them and sort of bringing them into the business to find out what they need to succeed in their goals, you'll start building these out. And they have a really simple formula. As a user or buyer or shopper or, in our case, maybe something like backpacker, I want whatever is that they have as a goal. Perhaps I want to be able to find the lightest weight backpacking products so that they can succeed. So this would be so that I can have a great time in an outdoor adventure, hiking the Adirondacks. And what this helps us do, what user stories are so good at is keeping us focused on that increment of work that we need to do so that our customers can succeed. So this is a great way of doing light and quick documentation to help us fulfill user goals. The next principle we're going to talk about is cross-functional teams, and that's where we really blow away this hierarchy from the old-school business days. What we do is we take all those institutional silos and we just reduce them to rubble, and we form this sort of cross-functional team, where content design, code, inbound marketing, data or analytics, project management, we all sit together, all in the same place, work together on the same thing at the same time. No one is ever gone. You don't have to walk to another building or send a long e-mail to explain something. We cut down on documentation, on all those pesky e-mails and IM's, and we actually have person-to-person interactions. It's a real strength of agile. So I have a couple tools to help you with that. First is the stand-up meeting. This is one of the few meetings you have in agile marketing, and if it takes longer than 10 minutes, something has gone wrong. Imagine just having one meeting of just 10 minutes, 10 minutes, once a day, and then being able to focus on real work that creates value for users. It's awesome. So here's how the stand-up meeting works. Everyone gathers around, you stand up, and that helps keep it short, and you talk about first what you did, then what you're doing, and then anything that might be blocking your progress. We'll talk about how to deal with problems like that in just a second. Some tools that can help you out with that, if you visit Trello.com. They're an online collaboration tool. Distilled used them as part of their creation of DistilledU, which is an awesome tool. And then the Meeting Cost Calculator, which you can get at bit.ly/meetcost, and you can also click in these links below us here. So next, we have the principle of having a bias toward action, and really this is very simple. Doing is always going to be greater than not doing. So when we deal with problems like analysis paralysis, when we have problems like a politician who has the power to say yes or no, and here's my favorite, when someone comes up to you and says, "It sounds like a good idea, but we just don't do it that way," agile helps us break that down, because we always go back to our user story and we say, "Well, this is something the customer needs." So what we do is we negotiate to "Yes." What we do is, we find that ground that allows us to proceed with our work. There's actually a role in agile that does nothing besides remove impediments to your work. So doing is always greater than not doing. And another hack that you can use is to just say no, because once you have your set of user stories developed, if someone comes around and tries to give you extra work or tries to say, "Well, you need to do this, and this, and this," which happens quite a lot, the old, "Yeah, I'm going to need you to have to come in on Saturday and, yeah, maybe on Sunday too," that doesn't create value for the customer right now. What we have to do is get this prioritize user story out the door as quickly as possible. So we want to maximize the amount of work that we do not do by just saying no. And our last principle is to "Don't Hate, Iterate." I'm stealing this from a colleague at REI. It's just a great phrase. When we don't release on a six-month or a one-year cycle, when we're releasing every two weeks or every four weeks, we fall into Eric Ries' "Build, Measure, Learn" model here, where we develop our products or we do our marketing campaign, we get it out the door, we launch it, and then we see how it works for customers. We have this measurement phase. We see how it performs, and you know what, if it's not up to snuff, that's okay. It's all right. We learn. And then, two weeks later, we release a fix. When we do an iteration, we do something better that customers are going to respond to. And if that doesn't work either, that's okay. We go through the cycle again until we get closer and closer to what the customer needs to succeed in their goals. And that leads to our final principle, which is "You're Not Perfect." I'm not perfect. Rand Fishkin is not perfect. He's pretty good, but he's not perfect. And that's okay. We don't want to be perfect, because perfect, chasing perfection holds us up in our work to get something out the door to customers. We don't want that. We want to always be delivering, always be shipping to customers as fast and as quickly as we can. So you shouldn't chasing the A+. You should be chasing what's going to be valuable for your users. Go back to your user story. That's what you need to succeed at. And if you don't get there, it's okay because two weeks later, you'll have another chance. So, I talked about this at MozCon, and you can download my presentation at bit.ly/agilewins. There's also a link below. Please comment on the story. I'll come in and try to answer your questions and direct you to more resources. So that's it. Thank you everyone, and see you next Friday. Video transcription by Speechpad.com Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

You are subscribed to email updates from SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

West Wing Week: "We Have A Moral, Sacred Duty"

Your Daily Snapshot for Friday, August 10, 2012   West Wing Week: "We Have A Moral, Sacred Duty" This week, the President continued to push for middle class tax cuts, spoke with both the AAPD summer interns with disabilities and with the White House summer interns of 2012, signed the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act, and convened his Rural Council to discuss ways to ease the burden of the drought affecting crops in much of the country. Watch the video and find out what the President's been up to this week: Photo of the Day President Barack Obama talks with paralympic athletes at the U.S. Olympic Training Facility in Colorado Springs, Colo., Aug. 9, 2012. The TV in the background broadcast the gold medal ceremony for the U.S. Olympic women's soccer team. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) In Case You Missed It Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog: President Obama's Tax Cuts for the Middle Class President Obama is calling on Congress to make sure that taxes don’t go up on 98 percent of American families next year, as they are scheduled to do January 1, 2013. Learn more about his plan in this new infographic. Making Forms Simpler To fulfill its functions, the federal government asks people to fill out a lot of forms. To get permits and licenses, to pay taxes, and to qualify for benefits and grants, forms are often required. Too often, however, those forms are too confusing and complicated, especially for individuals and small businesses. Now, we are doing something about that problem. President Obama's Call with the Prime Minister of India President Obama discusses the shooting in Oak Creek, Wisconsin with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Today's Schedule All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). 11:00 AM: The President receives The Presidential Daily Briefing 12:15 PM: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney 8:35 PM: The President hosts an Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan  Indicates that the event will be live-streamed at WhiteHouse.gov/Live Get Updates Sign up for the Daily Snapshot Stay Connected     Facebook Twitter YouTube Flickr Google+     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 | 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 : The best way to be missed when you're gone

The best way to be missed when you're gone

Is to stand for something when you're here. Works for people, works for brands.

• Email to a friend •

More Recent Articles

• Impresarios
• A tacky mess: the masses vs. great design
• What's your average speed?
• Analogies, metaphors and your problem
• Long-term manipulation is extremely difficult

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

Don't want to get this email anymore? Click the link below to unsubscribe.

---

Click here to safely unsubscribe from "Seth's Blog." Click here to view mailing archives, here to change your preferences, or here to subscribe • Privacy

---

---

Your requested content delivery powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 9 Thoreau Way, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA. +1.978.776.9498

 

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

---

• Heartaches by the Number: Just 14% Think Today’s Children Will Be Better Off Than Their Parents; Just 24% of Adults Think the Job Market is Better Than a Year Ago
• Camden NJ, Population 77,344 Fires Entire Police Force, 270 Officers; Why Cities are Going Bankrupt
• News Anchors Fired in Spain For Asking Frank Questions of Political Leaders; Move Guaranteed to Backfire
• Complete Absurdity in Greece: ECB Prints Euros to Give to Greece to Make Interest Payments to ECB

Heartaches by the Number: Just 14% Think Today’s Children Will Be Better Off Than Their Parents; Just 24% of Adults Think the Job Market is Better Than a Year Ago Posted: 09 Aug 2012 05:20 PM PDT Here is a round of "Heartaches by the Number" polls, all courtesy of Rasmussen Reports. July 29, 2012: New Low: Just 14% Think Today's Children Will Be Better Off Than Their Parents Hope for the future generation has reached an all-time low. Just 14% of Americans expect today's children to be better off than their parents. July 25, 2012: Long-Term Optimism About U.S. Economy Falls to New Low Confidence that the U.S. economy will recover in the next five years has fallen to its lowest level since early 2009. Short-term confidence isn't much better. Just 31% believe the U.S. economy will be stronger in one year. Thirty-five percent (35%) predict a weaker economy by next year, and 18% more say it will be about the same. Seventeen percent (17%) are not sure. August 8, 2012: Right Direction or Wrong Track Twenty-seven percent (27%) of Likely U.S. Voters now say the country is heading in the right direction. That's down two points from 29% the week before and the lowest finding since late June. August 7, 2012: 44% Say Jobs Market Worse Than A Year Ago Confidence in the U.S. job market has fallen again, with the highest number of Americans in 10 months describing the employment situation as worse than it was a year ago. Just 24% of American Adults believe the job market is better than a year ago. Forty-four percent (44%) say that market is worse now, up 15 points from early June when only 29% felt that way. Thirty percent (30%) describe it as about the same. Heartaches by the Number Summary Just 14% expect today's children to be better off than their parents Just 31% believe the U.S. economy will be stronger in one year Just 27% think the country is heading in the right direction.  Just 24% of American Adults believe the job market is better than a year ago 44% think the job market is worse, up 15 points from June Demographics Suggest Majority is Right I happen to agree with the majority who think those now graduating from high school will not be better off than their parents. There are too few jobs, too much student debt, and too few workers supporting too many retirees on Social Security. For a graphical representation of that last point, please see Demographic Time Bomb in Pictures and Dollar Amounts; Ratio of Social Security Beneficiaries to Private Employment Now Exceeds 50% Musical Tribute I am not a big Country & Western fan (I like 50's and 60's rock and roll), but given the title of this post I feel somewhat obligated to do a musical tribute to Buck Owens. 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.

Camden NJ, Population 77,344 Fires Entire Police Force, 270 Officers; Why Cities are Going Bankrupt Posted: 09 Aug 2012 11:13 AM PDT In an effort to rein in costs, the city of Camden NJ will fire its entire 270 member police force and instead will use Camden County officers. Mayor Dana Redd and Police Chief Scott Thomson noted that for the same price, Camden can have 400 county officers on staff. That is nearly a 50% increase in the number of officers for the same price. Of course the unions are howling. In these cases, the county typically hires most or all of the officers at lower wage and benefit levels, but the article only notes a very vague "some current Camden officers will get jobs on the new force." Why Cities are Going Bankrupt Cities should strive to provide the most services at the least cost to taxpayers. However, public unions strive to provide the fewest benefits at the most cost. Is it any wonder cities are going bankrupt? Police and firefighter wages and benefits are crippling cities across the nation. Mayors are often in bed with unions rather than do what is best for the city. I am a firm believer that every city under onerous police and firefighter contracts, most likely nearly every major city (if indeed not all of them), should do the same thing Camden did. Camden Quick Facts A quick check of City-Data shows Camden is economically poor with an unusual spike in home prices in 2007. Population in 2010: 77,344. Population change since 2000: -3.2% Estimated median household income in 2009: $26,752 Estimated NJ median household income in 2009: $68,342 Racial Makeup of Camden Home Sales and Home Prices in Camden Median home price in Camden has been pretty steady at about $50,000 for 5 years. On above average volume, the median price rose to $400,000 in first quarter of 2008. What's that all about? This was just something unusual that turned up while looking up the population of Camden. 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.

News Anchors Fired in Spain For Asking Frank Questions of Political Leaders; Move Guaranteed to Backfire Posted: 09 Aug 2012 08:08 AM PDT One way to control news reporting in these trying times is to get rid of news anchors the state does not like, replaced by news anchors willing to be media puppets of the government. Spain has done precisely that, forcing out popular news anchors for asking pointed questions. The Financial Times reports Madrid accused of media interference. Spain's government is facing mounting criticism for political interference in the country's main state broadcaster after a string of high-profile departures of journalists considered critical of the ruling Popular party in recent months. Several of the broadcaster's most prominent news journalists have left on acrimonious terms, following a move by the government of Mariano Rajoy earlier this year reversing a law making key appointments at the state Radio y Televisión Española network subject to approval by a two-thirds majority in parliament. Ana Pastor, presenter and interviewer of the RTVE's main breakfast news show, left the broadcaster over the weekend, prompting other journalists and commentators to criticise what they claimed was an attempt to purge voices critical of the Rajoy government as it enacts unpopular austerity measures. RTVE said it had offered Ms Pastor – who had built a reputation for asking figures from across the political spectrum frank questions in difficult interviews – a different role before she left, but she denied this on her personal Twitter account. "I know they are getting rid of me for having done journalism. And they did not offer me anything concrete," she said. Several other news anchors have left RTVE in recent months. In June, the broadcaster's head of news, Fran Llorente, was replaced by a journalist from the PP-controlled Madrid region's own television channel. Mr Llorente was first appointed to his role in April 2004, shortly after Socialist leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero came to power. In 2002, under the PP government of Jose Maria Aznar, RTVE had been found guilty by Spain's high court of unfairly reporting a general strike that year.  Move Guaranteed to Backfire Attempts to control media reporting are guaranteed to backfire. Given enough political pressure and firings, Spain may be able to control what the state-run media reports, but there is no way of forcing anyone to actually listen to it or watch it. Moreover, biased reporting of the news by friendly state-sponsored news anchors is bound to make people suspicious of virtually everything the government says. 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.

Complete Absurdity in Greece: ECB Prints Euros to Give to Greece to Make Interest Payments to ECB Posted: 09 Aug 2012 12:01 AM PDT No entity is willing to stand up and say the obvious, that Greece is insolvent and cannot and will not pay back its debts. Moreover, in spite of an ECB mandate that  prohibits direct financing of governments, the ECB is doing just that. Simply put, the ECB is printing euros, to give to the Greece, so that Greece can make interest payments to the ECB on maturing bonds. Der Spiegel notes the absurdity of this setup in The European Central Bank's Discreet Help for Greece. "There is no time to lose," Jean-Claude Juncker warned just a few days ago. Leaders must use "all means at their disposal" to save the currency union, the head of the Euro Group said. But one thing is becoming clear: Politicians are increasingly pushing the dirty work on to the European Central Bank (ECB). Take Greece, for example, where liquidity is becoming scarce. The government in Athens needs to repay a maturing bond worth €3 billion ($3.7 billion) to the ECB by Aug. 20. The solution to that problem seems paradoxical: The ECB itself is pumping money into Greece, so that the country can in turn repay the ECB. It's a controversial plan, because the central bank is prohibited from financing governments directly. As a result, no one is talking openly about the absurd flows of money. The ECB has only hinted that it will extend a helping hand to Greece. Now, information has leaked regarding how the ECB plans to keep Greece on its feet until the next tranche of European Union-International Monetary Fund aid is paid out. The ECB has chosen a detour via the Greek central bank. It will allow it to issue additional emergency loans to the country's banks. These in turn are supposed to use the money to buy up Greek bonds with short maturities. This will scrape together €4 billion, according to the plan. The Greek central bank will accept the dodgy bonds as collateral, and will provide the country's equally troubled commercial banks with freshly printed euros -- which ultimately come from the ECB. What is particularly absurd is the fact that, for the past two weeks, the ECB has no longer been accepting Greek government bonds as collateral for its refinancing operations. But the Greek central bank -- which in reality is little more than the Athens branch of the ECB -- is still allowed to accept them. The fact that the euro bankers are willing to go through such contortions shows just how precarious the situation is. At the moment, a Greek default is being fought off from week to week -- and politicians are trying to duck responsibility. 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.

You are subscribed to email updates from Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610