Central Perk

luni, 6 mai 2013

My Reading List: A Review On Marketing Fundamentals

Posted: 05 May 2013 07:25 PM PDT

Hello, Moz fans, I’m excited to be writing my very first post on the Moz blog. My name is Stephanie, and I manage client development for Distilled in Seattle. I have had the opportunity to talk to lots of different people about their concerns over their website, their goals for the future, how they can get more links, and how they can rank higher.

As marketers, it can be easy to get caught up in the day-to-day grind, or focus on the latest buzz words, or the newest industry change. It’s nice to take a step back and revisit some marketing basics that are really the building blocks of what we do every day. Revisiting the basics of marketing is the best way to refresh your marketing skills to help your clients succeed.

I’ve asked for recommendations from my team here at Distilled about the best books that really get at the core of what marketing is about. I spent some weeks reading through these and have reviewed my favorites below for you. Let's dive in!

UnMarketing by Scott Stratten

In the introduction, Stratten says:

“Marketing is not a task.
Marketing is not a department.
Marketing is not a job.
Marketing happens every time you engage…”

Right out of the box, Stratten gets to the point and says, "Hey, if taking the time to be genuine and build relationships is too much work for you, don’t waste your time reading this book." It’s so true. A loyal customer base isn’t made by spamming people’s inboxes, cold calling, or responding negatively to customer feedback. How do you like it when companies do that to you? I’ll tell you. You hate it.

Stratten really covers the “basics” of good customer service, which people often forget by focusing purely on the numbers. You might think, “500 people is more valuable than 10, but I can’t talk to 500 people a day, so I must blanket email 500 people today!” Don’t think like that. Spend the time to have a couple of actual conversations that will turn into relationships.

Stratten takes the reader through a narrative of stories of successful companies that got it, and the unfortunate companies that didn’t. The stories help to give life to his message and provided context to his theories to make his ideas stick with you.

One example in particular was my favorite. Stratten got an email from a social marketing executive at Ogilvy named Duri promoting a new Kraft product. Kraft was launching an at home coffee brewing system (called Tassimo) and Duri was in charge of figuring out how to effectively promote the product. Duri could have taken the easy route and spent money on ads or a bit of time on sending mass emails. But he wanted bigger, measurable results.

Instead, Duri decided to spend his time compiling then contacting a list of influential social media users to give away a free coffee maker. The hope was these people would love the product and then talk about it. This would spread the word about the new product by actual consumers - much more effective than paying tons of money on a forgettable advertisement.

Duri personally took the time to write an email to each recipient, and Stratten was one of the lucky recipients. Stratten was reassured he wasn’t being scammed because Duri did a bit of research before writing his email. He mentioned to Stratten that they lived in the same town and should meet to discuss social media. Stratten appreciated the authenticity of the message and that he was able to actually connect with Duri, and on top of that, he ended up loving the product. Win for Tassimo!

The results were fantastic, and Tassimo was increasingly talked about online and sales increased. Two months into Duri’s campaign, Tassimo was “mentioned almost 5,000 times online versus around 50 times before the campaign.” It's true that this marketing effort took more time than just buying commercial space, but it worked and was measurable. I love this because we think about marketing in the same way at Distilled. Our outreach team spends their days discovering who to contact, then making these actual connections. It takes longer, but it is so much more effective than if they were to automate the process.

All in all, a great read and something I highly recommend as a refresher on how to build your company through real relationships.

(P.S. Make sure you read the notes, they are hilarious.)

Influence by Robert Cialdini

This piece isn’t a marketing book in the traditional sense, but it discusses what every good marketer should understand: what makes people do what they do. Cialdini covers how to recognize and understand these tendencies to persuade people to say "yes."

The book is broken down into six main themes that neatly break into chapters: reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. Cialdini examines each theme’s “ability to produce a distinct kind of automatic, mindless compliance from people.” Every trait (or chapter) described in the book is supported by several case studies, some Cialdini saw in the news, and some from research he (or other psychologists) completed. Let’s discuss a few chapters in more depth.

Liking: Raise your hand if you have been to a Tupperware party. You poor souls; Tupperware parties are the worst. I’ve been coerced into attending a few times, and I always leave with something I never wanted in the first place. “They made me buy it, I couldn’t say no!” I say to myself. But how? No one actually tied me down, took my money, and forced an overpriced plastic container into my hands. True, but it was a friend who hosted the party. She will make commission off of the total amount purchased, plus she graciously invited me to her house and served me dinner and drinks. I like my friend, and therefore I feel obligated to buy. I never thought about it this way until it was described in this book, and I bet a lot of other people haven’t either.

Social Proof: I found this chapter chalk-full of intriguing examples as to why people are so easily swayed to follow the crowd.

First thing discussed: laugh tracks. I cringe when I notice them, yet I know it has caused me to occasionally laugh as if on command when something wasn’t particularly funny. Hearing the sound prompts the response to reciprocate the laughter as we are “so accustomed to taking the reactions of others as evidence of what deserves laughter.” The reaction is automatic. It is slightly unsettling to think we so easily fall victim to auto pilot that we react without thinking.

Cialdini goes on to discuss how social proof is useful as it allows us to see what type of behavior is appropriate in a situation in which we are unfamiliar or uncomfortable. I compared this example to the first time I ever had sushi. I had no idea what to order or how to eat it, so I watched my friends and mimicked their every move. It worked; I made it through the meal without a major faux pas (except when trying to keep up with my friends, I tried a large amount of wasabi and about cried).

The evidence presented by Cialdini describing human nature proves useful to review as both a consumer and a sales person. As a consumer, you want to be free to make independent decisions without influences from others. As a marketer, you want to persuade people to want your product. Seeing case studies from both perspectives gives us a solid understanding of when it’s appropriate to apply these principles to get our way, and when to guard against them.

These situations and warnings are peppered throughout the book. Remember the Tupperware example? I was weak, and they profited. But in the future, I will understand where my guilty feeling is coming from and make a more informed decision.

I highly recommend this book and, although it doesn’t directly talk about how to market your business, it does talk about how people react to things and how they engage. And what did we learn from Stratten? People and their engagement make or break your business.

Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath

The pages of Made to Stick are spent exploring why some ideas stay with us and others don’t. Early on in the book, the Heath brothers follow their own model and break their book down into something easily remembered. They summarize it as, “There are two steps in making your ideas stick. Step one is to find the core, and step two is to translate the core using the SUCCESs checklist. That’s it.”

So, what is SUCCESs?

Simplicity: Get to the heart of an idea. Once you understand this, everything else will fall into place around it. Here's a quick example: Southwest Airlines is the Low-fare airline. Every decision is based on whether or not it will help them to uphold that motto.

Unexpectedness: How to get and keep people’s attention. Engage their curiosity, and show them something unexpected. I bonded well with the Nordstrom example used in the book. The Nordstrom brand is known for quality customer service. They established that reputation by teaching every employee that customer service comes before everything else. As a former employee, I saw my coworkers go above and beyond in their relationship with our customers. I saw seasoned employees hug their customers. I watched our lead sales person take care of her customer’s children while the woman ran and got a coffee. As a new employee, I was taken aback, thinking, “Shouldn’t she be selling?”

How did that employee know watching those children was the right choice? Because customer service is the most important thing. She could have made a sale during that time, or spent a few minutes checking in on other clients. True, but the customer was happily surprised with the level of service and she will be back to shop at Nordstrom. Was investing ten minutes into building a relationship worth it? Absolutely.

Concreteness: Speak in plain language everyone will understand. Have you ever been in a meeting or read an article and were just dying for an example? You just needed some way to tie down these abstract statements to something you were familiar with. In our industry, it’s easy to use our buzzwords, but that doesn’t facilitate communication. “Updating the architecture will improve the UX across the site with the aim of increasing conversions”… no. A CEO who isn’t familiar with SEO will not understand how this will help his business. Instead, try something like, “We want to make your website easier for your customers to use to help increase sales.” This the CEO will get.

Credibility: Establish a trusted source. Numbers are impersonal and easy to question. People trust people, and numbers enhance. Here's a quick example: seeing a commercial against smoking hosted by a women dying of lung cancer is much more powerful than seeing stats from the health department on how many people die from lung cancer each year. Although the commercial host isn’t a doctor, it’s clear she knows from experience the consequences of smoking and we believe her message.

Emotions: Associate your idea with something people care about. Do you remember those dog adoption commercials with Sarah McLachlan singing in the background? You’d probably already heard the song and felt sad from it. Combining that sound with the images of sad dogs (which are already emotional triggers for a lot of people) makes it difficult not to call the shelter and rescue a dog.

The most basic way to make people care is to form an association between something they don’t yet care about and something they do care about. Let’s take the example I used in the “concrete” section above about talking to a CEO. They aren’t going to care about updating the architecture of the site unless you can connect it to something they do care about, like increasing sales.

Stories: Get people to act. Stories help to inspire us into action. A good example is Jared and his Subway diet. Jared, an overweight college student, ate Subway sandwiches daily and lost considerable weight. Remember his commercials? It’s a simple message I can relate to and remember. “He lost how much?” As a customer, I think to myself, "If he can do it, so can I."

We use this idea of storytelling in everyday business. It’s the principal reason behind using case studies; they paint a clear picture about what happened and why in a way that is easy to digest and remember. Using this checklist to help frame the story is especially effective as it will ensure people don’t just hear the message, but act on it.

This checklist helps us communicate in a more effective way. We can be the smartest person in the room with the best ideas, but if we can’t communicate them well, we won’t be effective. I found this extremely helpful in refining my communication skills to maintain a successful work life and my own sanity. This book is a must-read for everyone.

UnMarketing, Influence, and Made to Stick aren’t about internet marketing in particular – or even specifically about marketing, for that matter – but they all teach us how to be more effective communicators. Preparing for this post, I created a book list and read several of the following books, but I have more to go. I've listed them below and I encourage you to check them out, as well.

I would love to hear other recommendations of books to add to this list in the comments below. Happy reading!

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Seth's Blog : Urgency and accountability are two sides of the innovation coin

Urgency and accountability are two sides of the innovation coin

As organizations and individuals succeed, it gets more difficult to innovate. There are issues of coordination, sure, but mostly it's about fear. The fear of failing is greater, because it seems as though you've got more to lose.

So urgency disappears first. Why ship it today if you can ship it next week instead? There are a myriad of excuses, but ultimately it comes down to this: if every innovation is likely to fail, or at the very least, be criticized, why be in such a hurry? Go to some more meetings, socialize it, polish it and then, one day, you can ship it.

Part of the loss of urgency comes from a desire to avoid accountability. Many meetings are events in which an organization sits in a room until someone finally says, "okay, I'll take responsibility for this." If you're willing to own it, do you actually need a meeting, or can you just email a question or two to the people you need information from?

Thus, we see the two symptoms of the organization unable to move forward with alacrity, the two warning signs of the person in the grip of the resistance. "I can take my time, and if I'm lucky, I can get you to wonder who to blame."

You don't need more time, you just need to decide.

Read the history of the original Mac and you'll be amazed at just how fast it got done. Willie Nelson wrote three hit songs in one day. To save the first brand I was responsible for, I redesigned five products in less than a day. It takes a team of six at Lays potato chips a year to do one.

The urgent dynamic is to ask for signoffs and to push forward, relentlessly. The accountable mantra is, "I've got this." You can feel this happening when you're around it. It's a special sort of teamwork, a confident desperation... not the desperation of hopelessness, but the desperate effort that comes from being hopeful.

What's happening at your shop?

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duminică, 5 mai 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

If the Shoe Fits, Don't Wear it; Instead Buy Two, Return One
China Services PMI Slows to Marginal Rate of Growth
Interactive Map of Food Stamp Usage; What Can Be Done to Curtail Usage?

If the Shoe Fits, Don't Wear it; Instead Buy Two, Return One

Posted: 05 May 2013 10:18 PM PDT

Shoe stores are increasingly fed up with customers trying on pair after pair of shoes and not buying any of them.

Worried shopkeepers are increasingly frustrated by people they dub "fit-lifters" who use stores to find the best-fitting shoes before buying them online at a lower price says the Financial Times in Shoe stores sock it to online buyers.

If the shoe fits . . . but you don't buy it, you could soon be tarred with the same brush as shoplifters by shoe store owners.

Bricks-and-mortar shops have higher salary and rental costs than internet rivals and store owners say some online buyers are freeriding on their resources. "You've come in and stolen that service basically," said Richard Napier of Idaho Mountain Trading, an outdoor sports store in Idaho Falls, who calls fit-lifting unethical.

"It's not that the salesperson didn't have somebody else to serve who would have bought something. So not only have you stolen the wages. I have a loss of revenue that he would have collected from another customer."

It is common for online shoppers to research products in stores in other retail sectors such as bookselling – a practice named "showrooming" – and smartphones make it possible to buy online even while still in a store. But the trend is particularly contentious in footwear because staff spend so much time fetching boxes and advising customers on comfort.

Gary Weiner, owner of Saxon Shoes in Virginia and a board member of the National Shoe Retailers Association, said shoe-sellers were "very concerned" about fit-lifting.

"We also hear 'My mother sent me in to get my size fitted so she can buy them online'. Those exact words," he said. "We're a polite people. So we give them the time of day."

Zappos, an online shoe-seller owned by Amazon, encourages shoppers to order two or more different sizes, which they can return for free, in an effort to overcome customer reluctance to buy without trying.

Making Sense of It All

What does it say when it is cheaper to buy two pairs of shoes and return one rather than to buy a pair of shoes at a shoe store?

Three-Part Answer

The price of labor and benefits is too high.
The price of rent is too high
For consumers, the convenience of having it now is not worth the extra cost

Given the above, raising minimum wages is not the answer. Nor is the Fed policy that attempts to raise asset prices of real estate.

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

China Services PMI Slows to Marginal Rate of Growth

Posted: 05 May 2013 09:06 PM PDT

Fresh on the heels of a report that shows China Manufacturing PMI barely Above Contraction comes news the Chinese service sector is following suit.

The Markit China Composite PMI shows Activity growth eases across both the manufacturing and service sectors in April.

Key Points

Composite data signals slower activity and new business growth in April

Total employment falls for first time since last October

Both input prices and output charges decline at the composite level

HSBC China Composite PMI™ data (which covers both manufacturing and services) signalled an expansion of output for the eighth consecutive month in April. However, the HSBC China Composite Output Index signalled only a marginal rate of growth, posting at 51.1. This was down from 53.5 in March, suggesting that the rate of expansion was the weakest since last October.

Behind the weaker expansion of total output was a slower rate of new order growth in April. Both the manufacturing and service sector posted modest rates of expansion that were weaker than in March. Overall, new order growth at the composite level was the slowest in seven months.

Backlogs of work decreased at service providers, but rose at manufacturers in April. That said, the rates of change were marginal in both sectors. At the composite level, backlogs of work declined for the third month in a row, though only slightly. Employment levels decreased across both the manufacturing and service sectors in April.

Although the rates of job shedding were only marginal in both cases, it was nonetheless the first time service providers had cut their staff numbers since January 2009 and was the first reduction in manufacturing payroll numbers since last November. Consequently, employment at the composite level fell slightly in April.

Signs that the global economy has stalled, if not in outright recession (I believe the latter) continue to mount.

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

Interactive Map of Food Stamp Usage; What Can Be Done to Curtail Usage?

Posted: 05 May 2013 10:23 AM PDT

Food stamp usage, now called SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) has dramatically risen under the Obama administration, so much so that Newt Gingrich dubbed Obama the "food stamp president". One in 15 now receives assistance. Yet usage varies widely from county to county.

A nice interactive map by Slate addresses the question How Many People Around You Receive Food Stamps?

In some parts of the country, as few as 1 in 20 people receive food stamps. In others, the figure is more than 1 in 3. Low-income households that meet SNAP eligibility requirements receive a payment card that can only be used to buy government-approved essential foods.

Due to the high unemployment rate, the Obama administration has also waived a 1996 job requirement—a rule that made finding a job or enrolling in job training a prerequisite for receiving SNAP benefits—for 46 states. Republican leaders are trying to reinstate the requirement to counteract the program's escalating cost.

Click on the above link to see an interactive map by zipcode or county. I entered a few zipcodes to see the results

Vermilion County Illinois - My hometown of Danville, - 21%
Cook County Illinois - Chicago - 16%
Alexander County Illinois - East St. Louis - 34%
Wayne County Michigan - Detroit - 28%
Los Angeles County California - 9%
Tulare County California - 22%

What Can Be Done?

Some Republicans want to reinstate the rule that made finding a job or enrolling in job training a prerequisite for receiving SNAP benefits. That may unduly punsih kids on the program.

I suggest something more beneficial and more healthy as well. Sharply curtail what can be purchased under the program:

No soft drinks
No snacks
No crackers
No cakes or cookies
No cake or cookie mixes
No frozen foods other than frozen orange juice
No candy
Limited amount of meat
No brand names of anything where store brands are available

For the sake of cleanliness, I would expand the program to allow purchase of generic soaps and cleaners.

The idea is to give people a strong incentive to get off the system, not punish those who cannot, and not punish children whose parents refuse to take the initiative.

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

Seth's Blog : Remind you of anything? Simple typography for non-professionals

Remind you of anything? Simple typography for non-professionals

Setting type used to have just one function: is it readable? Then, to save money, a new question: Can we get a lot of words on a page?

The third question, though, is the most dominant for most people making a presentation, designing a website, scoping out a logo or otherwise using type to deliver a message: How does it look?

The answer is not absolute. In some situations, some cultures, some usages, one type looks fine and another looks garish or silly or just wrong. And the reason is that whether we realize it or not, type reminds us of something we've seen before.

Here's an obvious example:

Here's another example... which one looks like a college you'd aspire to attend:

If you use a typeface that reminds me of the script on the menu of a French restaurant, then no, I'm not going to instinctively believe that you're a good doctor. If you use a thin, elegant wedding invitation font in your Powerpoint presentation, you haven't been clever, you've merely confused me.

Here's the amateur's rule of thumb: don't call attention to your typeface choices unless you want the typeface to speak for you. Instead, start with the look and feel of the industry leaders and go from there. The shortcut that I learned from design pioneer (and the world's first desktop publisher) John McWade: Use Franklin Gothic Condensed for your headlines and Garamond for your body copy. Change it if you want, but only when you want to remind me of something.

[And this is where the hard part shows up: by 'industry leader' I don't mean the company that makes the most profit. I mean the voice that has the most authority, that raises the bar, that is well dressed. And that means learning how to see. Do you see how the New York subway system uses typography that feels more confident and clear than a typical amusement park's signage? Until you see the difference, keep your hands away from the keyboard...]

Typography in your work isn't for you. It doesn't matter if you like it. It doesn't matter if the committee likes it. After legibility, all that matters is what the recipient is reminded of. (And yes, it's fine if the typography reminds your viewer of nothing at all, at least if your goal is to create the awe of the totally new).

If you use the standard Microsoft font in your Powerpoint presentation, it might be common, but it won't be powerful. If you use Comic Sans, it won't be common, but it won't be powerful either.

It's a bit like wearing a dark blue suit to a meeting with a banker. You can wear something else, sure, but make sure you want it to be noticed, because it will be.

And here's a bonus advanced idea from XKCD.

Professionals and those with a budget to hire one, feel free to ignore some of this. If you ask for attention to be paid to your typography, though, you need to own the outcome of that attention.

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sâmbătă, 4 mai 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

California’s State/Local Governments Confront $1.0 Trillion in Debt; Two Classes of Workers and the Result is Debt

Posted: 04 May 2013 07:28 PM PDT

This is a guest post by Ed Ring editor of Union Watch, a project of the California Public Policy Center.

California's State/Local Governments Confront $1.0 Trillion in Debt

A study released earlier today by the California Public Policy Center entitled "Calculating California's Total State and Local Government Debt" has estimated that state and local government debt is somewhere between $848 billion and $1.12 trillion. This is the first attempt we've ever seen by anyone to provide an estimate.

Small wonder. If Californians understood that their local city councils, school districts, redevelopment agencies, special districts, county supervisors, and state legislators had managed to put them on the hook for over $80,000 of debt per household, they might vote down the next new taxation or bond measure that appears on the ballot. Imagine how much debt this equates to per taxpaying household.

Quoting from the study's summary, here are the categories of government debt confronting Californians:

When, along with the $27.8 billion "Wall of Debt," long-term debt incurred by California's state, county, and city governments, along with school districts, redevelopment agencies and special districts are totaled, the outstanding balance is $383.0 billion. The officially recognized unfunded liability for California's public employee retirement benefits – pensions and retirement health care – adds another $265.1 billion. Applying a potentially more realistic 5.5% discount rate to calculate the unfunded pension liability adds an additional $200.3 billion. All of these outstanding debts combined total $848.4 billion. By extrapolating from available data that is either outdated or incomplete, and using a 4.5% discount rate to calculate the unfunded pension liability, the estimated total debt soars to over $1.1 trillion.

According to a Wall Street Journal editorial from April 29th, 2013 entitled "Debt and Growth," former White House economist Larry Summers is suggesting that "the U.S. should borrow even more money today because interest rates are low." Summers is not alone. But hasn't America heard this song already, and quite recently? What happened to all those homeowners who borrowed money because the payments were low, then suddenly realized they owed more money than they could ever hope to pay back?

There is cruel hypocrisy at work here. Low interest rates mean people saving for retirement cannot hope to amass a nest egg big enough to earn a risk-free return sufficient to live on. Yet the government worker pension funds engage in massive risk in a desperate attempt to earn 7.5% per year, so government workers can enjoy pensions that a private sector worker would have to save millions to match. If they fail to get that 7.5%, taxpayers make up the difference.
Hypocrisy abounds. Unions representing public educators train their members to teach their students that capitalism is the problem, that "corporate greed" is why their parents struggle to make ends meet. Yet without corporate profits, the pension funds – whose 7.5% per year annual earnings guarantee them an early retirement with an income that dwarfs what private workers get from social security – would implode.

As shown in the CPPC study, for every 1.0% the projected rates of return for the pension funds drop, the debt confronting Californians increases by $100 billion. The "official" estimate for this shortfall, acknowledged by the state controller, is $128 billion. If you drop that projected rate to 5.5%, add another $200 billion to the unfunded liability. Do you think that's still too high? If those pension funds only earn 4.5%, add another $126 billion to the unfunded liability for pensions.
And why shouldn't pension funds only earn 4.5% in today's debt saturated, aging society, where 30 year treasury bills are offering a paltry 2.8%, and a 30 year fixed rate mortgage is down to 3.25%? With all this nearly free money around – courtesy of our government who spends far to much to borrow at any decent rate of interest – where on earth will CalPERS and the other pension funds invest their money with the expectation of getting 7.5% per year?

It's important to emphasize that the CPPC study employed transparent logic, documenting all their assumptions. Just using the official numbers, California's state and local governments still owe $648 billion, and of that amount, $265 billion or 41%, represents the officially recognized unfunded liability for government retiree health care and pensions. Another $8.0 billion on top of that is for pension obligation bonds – and most of the data available is nearly two years old. By now, how many more of those have been issued by our financially crippled cities and counties? And how much more of the rest of this borrowing – that other $373 billion in bonds for myriad projects administered by countless government agencies – went to cover personnel costs, or pay "prevailing wages."

California State/Local Government Debt – The Low Estimate:

As noted in the CPPC study, there is a case to be made for "good debt." This is government investment in infrastructure such as roads, bridges, water treatment plants, aqueducts, ports, or to fund research into medicine, energy, agriculture, and other scientific endeavors. Government borrowing for infrastructure and scientific research provides a return to taxpayers in the form of new amenities – ideally amenities that will lower the cost of living and improve the quality of life.
But you don't have to be a raging libertarian purist to criticize the borrowing that has stuck California's taxpayers on the hook for a cool trillion dollars.

Because well more than half of the money owed has nothing to do with infrastructure, or research, or anything else that might pay dividends to society at large. Most of the money owed by California's state and local government agencies is to pay unionized government workers rates of compensation that most private sector workers can only dream about.

If you accept the CPPC study's higher estimate, $1.12 trillion, $663 trillion is explicitly for public employee benefits, and countless additional billions in bond proceeds undoubtedly went to pay personnel costs.

As noted in last week's editorial, "What If Every Worker Made What City of Irvine Workers Make?" if every worker and retiree in California enjoyed the total compensation packages enjoyed by a typical worker employed by the City of Irvine, it would be necessary to double California's gross domestic product in order for enough money to exist to pay them. In other words, it's impossible. But if you can't afford something, borrow.

California State/Local Government Debt – The High Estimate:

The primary reason California's state and local governments are inundated with debt is because there are two classes of workers in California – government workers and workers representing government contractors and public utilities, and the rest of us.

These unionized government workers can support an oppressive regulatory scheme, stifling development of land and energy, because they can afford to pay the artificially elevated prices, and higher taxes, that result from these policies.

There is a way out. As explored in our editorials "Bi-Partisan Solutions for California," and "The Prosperity Agenda," there is abundant land in California, and abundant energy resources. California should have the most affordable housing and the cheapest electricity in the U.S., instead of the most expensive. Public policies designed to encourage land development and energy development would decisively lower the cost to live in California, which would make public employee compensation reform a palatable option, even to those affected by it.

UnionWatch is edited by Ed Ring, who can be reached at editor@unionwatch.org

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

Shinzo Abe Seeks Constitutional Changes for a More Militaristic, Authoritarian Japanese Society

Posted: 04 May 2013 11:23 AM PDT

Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe has already taken steps to ruin the Yen, now he seeks constitution changes to suppress freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and to remake Japan into a more militaristic, authoritarian, society.

Please consider Japan PM's 'stealth' constitution plan raises civil rights fears

Shinzo Abe makes no secret of wanting to revise Japan's constitution, which was drafted by the United States after World War Two, to formalize the country's right to have a military - but critics say his plans go deeper and could return Japan to its socially conservative, authoritarian past.

Now he is seeking to lower the hurdle for revising the constitution as a prelude to an historic change to its pacifist Article 9 - which, if strictly read, bans any military. That would be a symbolic shift, loosening restrictions on the military's overseas activities, but would have limited impact on defense as the clause has already been stretched to allow Tokyo to build up armed forces that are now bigger than Britain's.

Sweeping changes proposed by Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in a draft constitution would strike at the heart of the charter with an assault on basic civil rights that could muzzle the media, undermine gender equality and generally open the door to an authoritarian state, activists and scholars say.

"What I find strange is that although the prime minister is not that old, he is trying to revive the mores of his grandfather's era," said Ryo Motoo, the octogenarian head of the Women's Article 9 Association, a group devoted to protecting the constitution.

"I fear this might lead to a society full of restrictions, one that does not recognize diversity of opinions and puts restraints on the freedom of speech as in the past."

The LDP draft, approved by the party last year, would negate the basic concept of universal human rights, which Japanese conservatives argue is a Western notion ill-suited to Japan's traditional culture and values, constitutional scholars say.

With Abe's popularity high and the main opposition splintered, the LDP and smaller pro-revision parties appear to have a shot at winning a two-thirds majority in an upper house election in July. They already hold two-thirds of the lower house.

Sure to Rile China, Korea

These moves are sure to rile China and Korea. It also seems strange how quickly proponents of these changes forgot the lessons of World War II.

Tensions are already high over a disputed island chain in the East China Sea. Japan calls the chain Senkaku Islands, China refers to them as the Diaoyu islands.

The islands are nothing but uninhabited rocks in the middle of the sea, but energy resources surround the islands. With both China and Japan short on energy resources, the dispute is not insignificant.

Might war erupt if Japan makes the proposed constitutional changes and adds more to its military? I offer no timeframe, but it seems like destiny to me.

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

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