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miercuri, 23 octombrie 2013

If Every State Expands Medicaid Coverage:

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If Every State Expands Medicaid Coverage:

This Monday, Ohio announced they will join the majority of states and move forward with expanding the Ohio Medicaid program, as supported by the Affordable Care Act.

Thanks to Obamacare, nearly 6 in 10 uninsured Americans will have access to health coverage for $100/month or less next year -- and it could be even more if every state expanded Medicaid coverage like Ohio, ensuring all its residents can benefit from the security of quality health insurance.

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Take the 2013 Moz Industry Survey: Share Your Voice!

Posted: 22 Oct 2013 04:03 PM PDT

Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

We're very excited to announce the 2013 Moz Industry Survey is ready to take. This is the fourth edition of the survey, which started in 2008 as the SEO Industry Survey and only ran every two years. So much has changed since the last survey that we thought it was important to run it anew in order to gain fresh insights. Some of what we hope to learn and share:

Who works in inbound marketing and SEO today?
What tactics and tools are most popular?
Where are marketers spending their dollars?
What does the future of the industry hold?

This year's survey was redesigned to be easier and only take 5-10 minutes. When the results are in we'll share the data freely with you, our partners, and the rest of the world.

Prizes

It wouldn't be the Industry Survey without a few excellent prizes thrown in as an added incentive.

This year we've upped the game with prizes we feel are both exciting and perfect for the busy inbound marketer. To see the full sweepstakes terms and rules, go to our sweepstakes rules page. The winners will be announced by June 4th. Follow us on Twitter to stay up to date.

Grand Prize: Attend MozCon 2014 in Seattle

+ Flight
+ Hotel
+ Lunch with an industry expert

Come see us Mozzers in Seattle! The Grand Prize includes one ticket to MozCon 2014 plus airfare and accommodations. We'll also arrange a one-on-one lunch for you with an industry expert.

2 First Prizes: iPad 2

We're giving away two separate iPad 2s.

10 Second Prizes: $100 Amazon.com gift cards

Yep, 10 lucky people will win $100 Amazon.com gift cards. Why not buy yourself a nice book?

Why the survey is important

By comparing answers and predictions from one year to the next, we can spot trends and gain insight not easily reported through any other source. This is our best chance to understand exactly where the future of our industry is headed. Some of the things we hope to learn:

Demographics: Who is practicing inbound marketing and SEO today? Where do we work and live?
Agencies vs. in-house vs. other: How are agencies growing? What's the average size? Who is doing inbound marketing on their own?
Tactics and strategies: What's working for people today? How have strategies and tactics evolved?
Tools and technology: What are marketers using to discover opportunities, promote themselves, and measure the results?
Budget and spending: What tools and platforms are marketers investing in?

Every year the Industry Survey delivers new insights and surprises. For example, the chart below (from the 2012 survey) lists average reported salary by role. Will it change in 2013?

2012 SEO Industry Survey

Thanks to our partners

Huge thanks to our partners who are helping to spread the word and encouraging their audience to participate in the survey. We'd especially like to give special recognition to Search Engine Land, Buffer, aimClear, SEOverflow, CopyBlogger, Econsultancy, Content Marketing Institute, TopRank Marketing, MarketingProfs, HootSuite and Entreprenuer.com.

Sharing is caring

The number of people who take the survey is very important! The more people who take the survey, the better and more accurate the data will be, and the more insight we can share with the industry.

So please share with your co-workers. Share on social media. Share with your email lists. You can use the buttons below this post to get you started, but remember to take the survey first!

Enjoy legal talk as much as we do? Check out the official sweepstakes rules.

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!

Say Hello to Fresh Alerts: New Mentions and Link Notifications in Your Inbox

Posted: 22 Oct 2013 04:01 AM PDT

Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

Imagine a product similar to Google Alerts, only much better. It's built specifically for marketers and SEOs. This product not only finds mentions of your keywords and brand, but also reports new links to any website or URL you choose. It comes equipped with advanced search operators to discover new opportunities, and its exportable metrics are sortable by both date and Feed Authority.

To top it all off, it now alerts you via email whenever it finds something new.

Announcing Fresh Alerts from Fresh Web Explorer

For the past few months we've enjoyed using Fresh Web Explorer, which has quickly become my favorite new marketing tool. Since then, our engineers and developers have been working to add email alerts to the mix to vastly improve its value.

Starting today, when you use Fresh Web Explorer, you can now set up alerts for up to 10 queries of your choice. The emails are sent daily whenever anything new is discovered. Because Fresh Web Explorer refreshes its index every 8 hours, this means you can be notified of new links and mentions literally within hours after they appear on the web.

When you run a query in Fresh Web Explorer, you have the opportunity to create an alert based on that search.

One key feature is the ability to set your timezone. This helps tailor the reporting specific to your area of the world, so the alerts are more relevant to you.

Fresh Alerts for SEO and inbound marketing

I've had the opportunity to beta-test Fresh Alerts for two months, and I can say without hesitation that it's literally changed the way I do SEO and inbound marketing. We also tested the product with 1,000 Moz beta users, and the feedback has showcased the variety of ways folks are using Fresh Alerts.

1. Link building

While we built Fresh Alerts as a mentions tool, it does a remarkably good job at helping to build links through the process of link reclamation. By using the built-in search operators, you can set your alerts to find non-linking mentions of your brand or keywords on the web.

For example, if I want to search for folks who mention MozRank (a Moz branded term) but don't include a link to Moz, I'd set up my Fresh Alert like this:

mozrank â€"rd:moz.com (mentions of Mozrank that don't link to the root domain moz.com)

With this alert set, every day I would get a new Fresh Alert in my inbox with a list of mentions. Looking at the number of non-linking mentions above, I'd better get link building!

2. Reputation management

Using Fresh Alerts, you can easily be notified whenever anyone mentions you name or brand on the web. Hopefully the information is positive which gives you the opportunity to open a relationship or simply stay on top of the information. If negative, you can reach out and try to mitigate the damage.

Here's a Fresh Alert email set up for mentions of Rand Fishkin. (In this case, only included mentions that don't link to moz.com are included.)

You could also use reputation-based alerts to send daily emails to your clients and monitor the conversation about your brand across the web.

3. Competitive intelligence

You can easily set up Fresh Alerts to notify you when your competition is in the news. Better yet, use the search operators to notify you when specific media outlets mention your competition.

In the example below, FEW shows us whenever "Amazon" is mentioned specifically on TechCrunch.

You can also monitor when and where your competitors earn new links. For example, if you wanted to set up a link alert for yourcompetition.com, simply use the Root Domain search operator, like so:

rd:yourcompetition.com (alerts for all new links to the root domain)

By understanding how your competitors earn links and mentions, you may discover new opportunities that are easy to replicate.

4. Reporting and content performance

This is a tip I don't hear people talk about, so I thought I'd share it. Whenever we publish a big piece of content here at Moz, I set up a Fresh Alert to notify me whenever someone mentions it.

For example, we recently published the 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors. Because this was an important piece of content for us, I set up 2 different Fresh Alerts:

One Fresh Alert notified me whenever people mentioned "Search Engine Ranking Factors" but didn't link to Moz
Another alert to tell me when people linked to the report itself

In the first example, I can reach out to those people who mentioned us without linking to see if I can start a relationship and possibly earn a link.

In the second example, as seen in the graph below, I can monitor our link-building efforts.

5. Discover publishing and guest-post opportunities

Fresh Alerts has to be one of the easiest ways to find distribution, publishing and guest-post opportunities for your content. Yes, high-quality guest posting, when combined with quality content and smart placement, remains a powerful tactic when integrated with other marketing opportunities.

For example, let's say your subject is "dragons" and you want to find blogs that have posted guest posts in the past few days. You can simply create an alert for "dragons" AND "guest post".

This alert will notify you whenever a new post is published mentioning both "guest post" and "dragons".

This technique isn't limited to guest posting, either. Getting creative, you could find other publishing opportunities for your specific niche.

The details

Starting now, we've made Fresh Alerts available to subscribers of Moz Analytics. If you're not a PRO member, you can sign up for a 30-day trial to give them a spin if you'd like, which also includes access to our new Moz Analytics and full suite of inbound marketing tools.

Here's what you need to know about Fresh Alerts:

Activate up to 10 Alerts per Moz Analytics account
When Fresh Web Explorer finds new mentions or links, you receive an email within 24 hours
Alerts are sorted by Feed Authority, our new metric created specifically for FWE
All advanced operators used by Fresh Web Explorer are available with Fresh Alerts

Have you tried Fresh Web Explorer already? If so, let us know your best ideas for Fresh Alerts in the comments below.

Seth's Blog : Our crystal palace

Our crystal palace

Thanks to technology, (relative) peace and historic levels of prosperity, we've turned our culture into a crystal palace, a gleaming edifice that needs to be perfected and polished more than it is appreciated.

We waste our days whining over slight imperfections (the nuts in first class aren't warm, the subway isn't cool enough, the vaccine leaves a bump on our arm for two hours) instead of seeing the modern miracles all around us. That last thing that went horribly wrong, that ruined everything, that led to a spat or tears or reciminations--if you put it on a t-shirt and wore it in public, how would it feel? "My iPhone died in the middle of the 8th inning because my wife didn't charge it and I couldn't take a picture of the home run from our box seats!"

Worse, we're losing our ability to engage with situations that might not have outcomes shiny enough or risk-free enough to belong in the palace. By insulating ourselves from perceived risk, from people and places that might not like us, appreciate us or guarantee us a smooth ride, we spend our day in a prison we've built for ourself.

Shiny, but hardly nurturing.

So, we ban things from airplanes not because they are dangerous, but because they frighten us. We avoid writing, or sales calls, or inventing or performing or engaging not because we can't do it, but because it might not work. We don't interact with strange ideas, new cuisines or people who share different values because those interactions might make us uncomfortable...

Funny looking tomatoes, people who don't look like us, interactions where we might not get a yes...

Growth is messy and dangerous. Life is messy and dangerous. When we insist on a guarantee, an ever-increasing standard in everything we measure and a Hollywood ending, we get none of those.

• Email to a friend •

marți, 22 octombrie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

New Rules for Italy Banks "I'll Guarantee Your Derivatives If You Guarantee Mine"
Montebourg Announces Deal Between Goodyear and Titan to Save Union Jobs (One Problem - Goodyear Did Not Even Receive the Offer)
Treasury Secretary Pleads for Higher Taxes, More Government Spending, Big Farm Bill, No Cuts in Food Stamps
Establishment Survey: +148K Jobs, Household Survey: +133K Jobs, Unemployment Rate 7.2%
Japan's Sexless Youth

New Rules for Italy Banks "I'll Guarantee Your Derivatives If You Guarantee Mine"

Posted: 22 Oct 2013 10:46 PM PDT

New Basel III rules require extra capital for derivative positions. Banks in Italy have already figured out a way around that rule.

Eurointelligence reports ...

We have been on the watch-out for stories that government and central banks encourage banks to continue to act as buyers of last resort of government debt. Here is one from Reuters, according to which Italy is planning to circumvent the Basel III requirement that banks must hold more capital against derivative contracts through which they hedge their exposures on government bonds.

Reuters has the story that the 2014 budget includes a two-way guarantee whereby banks and the state guarantee each others' derivative positions.

Mutual Guarantees

Reuters reports Italy plans to offer guarantees on government bond derivatives

A new system of guarantees Italy is planning to introduce will make it cheaper for banks to negotiate derivative contracts with the Treasury over government bonds, potentially increasing their ability to buy Italian debt.

The move is linked to new Basel III international banking rules that require lenders to hold more capital against their exposure to derivatives contracts.

Under the new system, outlined in a draft decree linked to the budget law that parliament must pass by year-end, the Treasury and the banks will exchange cash sums on a short-term basis to guarantee their respective derivatives positions, based on their mark-to-market value.

The sums held as collateral will bear interest at money-market rates.

Eurointelligence comments ...

There is nothing technically or legally appalling about the two-way guarantee of derivative positions, but it nevertheless cements the absurd inter-dependence of the Italian state and the Italian banking system. The eurozone crisis resolution policies critically depend on banks behaving as national players. Everything we see is geared towards the maintenance of this extremely unhealthy situation.

The leverage of European banks to their own sovereign debt is enormous. This mutual guarantee agreement encourages banks to continue the leverage party.

Another opportunity to rein in moral hazards just flew out the window. Every bank in Europe will do the same.

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

Montebourg Announces Deal Between Goodyear and Titan to Save Union Jobs (One Problem - Goodyear Did Not Even Receive the Offer)

Posted: 22 Oct 2013 05:17 PM PDT

The politics in France get curiouser and curiouser (to put things mildly).

On Monday, the Minister of Productive Recovery, Arnaud Montebourg, announced a deal between Titan and Goodyear that would save union jobs in tire manufacturing plants.

The problem, and a significant one, is that Goodyear did not agree to the deal. Heck, the CEO of Titan denies even making an offer.

Via translation from Les Echo, please consider Goodyear Amiens: new imbroglio between Montebourg and Titan

It's a pretty mess that would be almost amusing if it was not hundreds of jobs at stake Monday, the Minister of Productive Recovery Arnaud Montebourg, told AFP that the U.S. tire manufacturer Titan had made a new offer of a partial recovery for the site of Goodyear Amiens Nord, which employs 1,200 workers, the closure was announced in January by the company management.

The proposal concerns the activity of agricultural tires and covers "333 jobs in the Amiens plant whose maintenance is guaranteed for four years," the minister said. Titan International would even be willing to invest "one hundred million minimum on the site".

Alas, Maurice Taylor, the CEO of Titan, contacted by AFP, declined to confirm this announcement. "I am not aware of anything related to your country of great wines and beautiful women," he responded ... Besides, "the management of Goodyear has not received any new offer" from Titan.

Amusing Background

This tire story has an amusing background.

I wrote about it on February 19, in Incredible Letter from CEO of Titan to France Minister of Industrial Renewal, Blasting French Unions and USA: "How Stupid Do You Think We Are?"

"Les Echos" received a copy of the letter which the President of the American Titan told the Minister of Industrial Renewal why he threw in the towel on purchasing the Goodyear plant Amiens Nord, in a very direct style.

"How Stupid Do You Think We Are?"

Here are some excerpts I transcribed from an image of the letter posted on Les Echos.

Dear Mr. Montebourg:

Goodyear tried for over four years to save part of the Amiens jobs that are some of the highest paid, but the French unions and French government did nothing but talk.

I have visited the factory a couple of times. The French workforce gets paid high wages but works only three hours. They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three, and work for three. I told this to the French union workers to their faces. They told me that's the French way!

The Chinese are shipping tires into France - really all over Europe - and yet you do nothing. In five years, Michelin won't be able to produce tire in France. France will lose its industrial business because government is more government.

Sir, your letter states you want Titan to start a discussion. How stupid do you think we are? Titan is the one with money and talent to produce tires. What does the crazy union have? It has the French government. The French farmer wants cheap tire. He does not care if the tires are from China or India and governments are subsidizing them. Your government doesn't care either. "We're French!"

The US government is not much better than the French. Titan had to pay millions to Washington lawyers to sue the Chinese tire companies because of their subsidizing. Titan won. The government collects the duties. We don't get the duties, the government does.

Titan is going to buy a Chinese tire company or an Indian one, pay less than one Euro per hour and ship all the tires France needs. You can keep the so-called workers. Titan has no interest in the Amien North factory.

Best regards,
Maurice M. Taylor, Jr.
Chairman and CEO

Perhaps there was some exploratory talk, perhaps not. Regardless, facts show the deal Montebourg announced is totally fictional.

Whether or not some deal eventually transpires, Montebourg looks like (and is) a complete fool.

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

Treasury Secretary Pleads for Higher Taxes, More Government Spending, Big Farm Bill, No Cuts in Food Stamps

Posted: 22 Oct 2013 10:58 AM PDT

In a New York Times Op-Ed, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew made a plea for more government and higher taxes.

Of course, his title was not "more government and more taxes". Rather, Lew disguised his message by labeling it Lessons From a Crisis.

Let's take a look at some details.

Lew: Without question, the government shutdown and the debt ceiling impasse have led to economic hardship in every corner of the country. While we do not yet know the exact magnitude of the damage, these events have generated unnecessary headwinds for the economy. We should never again take this country to the point of near-default in order to exact political gain. We can start by hammering out a budget agreement that builds on the progress we have already made to lower our budget deficits.

Mish translation: Without question, we can start by raising taxes.

Lew: This is an opportunity to improve our nation's long-term fiscal health, and it should be achieved through a comprehensive package that shrinks our deficits, protects Medicare and Social Security for those who rely on it, and expands our economy well into the future.

Mish translation: This is a welcome opportunity to raise taxes and throw more money at Medicare and Social Security.

Lew: That means closing wasteful tax loopholes and making targeted investments to improve our education system, increase domestic energy production, and expand our manufacturing base.

Mish translation: Let's raise taxes and target more money for education.

Lew: We must come together to fix the blunt spending cuts known as sequestration, once and for all. These indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts, which went into effect earlier this year, were intended to be so mutually disagreeable that they would force Congress to find agreement on a balanced package of deficit reduction measures.

Mish Translation: Let's roll back the miniscule cuts in the projected increase in government spending. To do that, we need a balanced package of tax hikes.

Lew: Congress should pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Mish Translation: Illegal immigrants are here to stay, and welcome. They vote Democratic, don't they?

Lew: Another piece of bipartisan legislation that has passed the Senate, but not the House of Representatives, is the farm bill. Getting this bill signed into law is not only important for America's farmers and protecting America's most vulnerable children, it is important for our economy.

Mish translation: Whoa! Don't cut food stamps.

Ready to Rumble Over the Farm Bill

Few realize this, but the biggest component of the farm bill is food stamps. Please consider Ready to Rumble Over the Farm Bill

The first meeting of the House and Senate conference committee on the farm bill promises to be the biggest spectacle in American agricultural and nutrition policy in decades.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., who will chair the conference, would have preferred to hold the meeting this week. But the Senate, exhausted from the negotiations to end the government shutdown, is taking the week off, so the meeting is expected to take place the week of Oct. 28.

The biggest difference between the Senate and House bills is that the Senate bill retains the 1938 and 1949 farm laws as the basis for agricultural programs while the House bill would make the 2013 commodity title permanent law. Lucas wrote the change out of fear that it will be even harder to pass a farm bill in five years, but with most farm groups and Democrats opposed to it he will have a hard time prevailing.

Beyond permanent law, there are five flash points in the bill. Here is a guide to those issues and to the role that conferees may play in them:

Nutrition: This is the big kahuna of the farm bill. The Senate bill cuts only $4 billion over 10 years from food stamps—officially the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—while the House bill would cut $39 billion through a series of provisions that Democrats say will lead to increased hunger. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, appointed Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla.—who has made food stamps his main issue and wrote the amendment to which the Democrats object the most—to the conference committee even though he doesn't serve on Agriculture.

Senate conferees are expected to oppose a big cut to food stamps, but two Republican senators who have been strong supporters of food stamps over the years—Cochran and Pat Roberts of Kansas—now face tea-party primary opposition and could feel forced to support bigger cuts. Roberts, who saved the structure of the food stamp program in the 1996 welfare-reform negotiations, has called for big food-stamp cuts this year while Cochran, whose state of Mississippi has one of the highest levels of food-stamp beneficiaries, has remained a steadfast advocate for it.

Lucas has said the size of the food-stamp cut will have to come from "on high," meaning Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and President Obama.

Crop insurance: Costing about $9 billion per year, this program has become the pillar of the farm safety net and the biggest target outside food stamps for budget savings. The Senate farm bill contains a provision that would reduce crop-insurance subsidies by 15 percentage points for farmers who make more than $750,000 a year. Written by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., it was adopted on the Senate floor over the objections of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

The House bill does not call for a premium subsidy reduction, but last week the House adopted a resolution sponsored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to agree to the Durbin-Coburn amendment. Few if any members of the conference committee are likely to support Durbin-Coburn or other cuts and payment limits on crop insurance but are under pressure to come up with budget savings.

Commodity title: With both bills eliminating the $5 billion in annual direct payments that crop farmers have been getting whether prices are high or low, there will be a battle over the structure of a new commodity program. The centerpiece of the Senate bill is a program to pay farmers for "shallow losses" that crop insurance doesn't cover, although this year the Senate bill makes concessions to rice and peanut farmers who wanted an increase in target prices. The House bill is target-price-based, but includes a shallow-loss program. Lucas and Peterson are big advocates of target prices and the issue is whether Senate conferees from the South urge adoption of the House commodity title and how hard Northerners fight for their program.

Dairy: The Senate farm bill contains a new Dairy Security Act favored by dairy farmers and developed into legislation by Peterson. The House Agriculture Committee passed the measure, but it was amended on the House floor to take out what dairy farmers call a market stabilization program and dairy processors call supply management.

The sponsors of the House amendment—former House Agriculture Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Rep. David Scott, R-Ga.—were kept off the conference committee but Boehner so dislikes supply management he has labeled it communist and Peterson has said he worries that Boehner's enlargement of the conference committee to 17 Republicans and 12 Democrats could mean it will be difficult for the House to concede to the Senate on the issue.

Farm Bill Predictions

A bipartisan effort by farm-state Senators and Legislators will prevent major rollbacks in crop subsidies.
Senate Democrats will prevent needed changes in the food stamp program.
Despite pressure to come up with budget savings in the farm bill, the best we can realistically hope for is that it does not increase the deficit by much.

Mish Alternative Food Stamp Proposal

Prohibit food stamp purchases of potato chips, snacks, soft drinks, candy, pizza, frozen foods of any kind except juice.
Limit food stamp users to generic (store brand vs. name brand) dried beans, rice, peanut butter, pasta, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, frozen (not bottled) juice, canned vegetables, canned soup, soda crackers, poultry, ground beef, bread, cheese, powdered milk, eggs, margarine, and general baking goods (flour, sugar, spices).
Calculate a healthy diet based on current prices, number in the family, ages of recipients, and base food stamps allotments on that diet.
In the interest of health and cleanliness, expand the food stamp program to include generic soap and laundry products.

My proposal will not only lower the cost of the food stamp program, the resultant healthier diets would lower Medicaid and Medicare costs as well.

Moreover, my proposal would give people a strong incentive to get off the food stamp program without intrusive, costly big-brother ideas like drug testing which cannot possibly work for the simple reason that anyone who fails will steal to get food rather than starve.

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

Establishment Survey: +148K Jobs, Household Survey: +133K Jobs, Unemployment Rate 7.2%

Posted: 22 Oct 2013 09:00 AM PDT

Initial Reaction

The establishment survey showed a gain of 148,000 jobs. July was revised lower, from +104,000 to +89,000. August was revised higher, from +169,000 to +193,000. The net effect was +9,000 more than previously reported.

This was the third straight month of revisions. The previous two revisions were significantly lower. Perhaps the BLS has numbers they are happy with now.

The unemployment rate dropped 0.1 to 7.2%. It's the household survey that determines the unemployment rate, not the establishment survey. So let's take a look at the factors.

Explaining the Unemployment Rate Drop

Employment rose by 133,000
Those in the labor force rose by 73,000
The civilian population rose by 209,000.
The Participation Rate (The labor force as a percent of the civilian noninstitutional population) was flat at 63.3%, a low dating back to 1979.

Employment rose more than the labor force, so the unemployment rate declined.

September BLS Jobs Statistics at a Glance

Payrolls +148,000 - Establishment Survey
US Employment +133,000 - Household Survey
US Unemployment -61,000 - Household Survey
Involuntary Part-Time Work +15,000 - Household Survey
Voluntary Part-Time Work -372,000 - Household Survey
Baseline Unemployment Rate -0.1 to 7.2% - Household Survey
U-6 unemployment -0.3 to 13.7% - Household Survey
Civilian Labor Force +73,000 - Household Survey
Not in Labor Force +136,000 - Household Survey
Participation Rate +0.0 at 63.2 - Household Survey

Quick Notes About the Unemployment Rate

The unemployment rate varies in accordance with the Household Survey, not the reported headline jobs number, and not in accordance with the weekly claims data.
In the last year, those "not" in the labor force rose by 1,893,000
Over the course of the last year, the number of people employed rose by 1,429,000 (an average of 110,000 a month)
In the last year the number of unemployed fell from 12,082,000 to 11,255,000 (a drop of 827,000)
Percentage of long-term unemployment (27 weeks or more) is 36.9%, a decrease of 1.0 from last month.
The mean duration of unemployment is 36.9 weeks, a decline of 0.1.
7,926,000 workers who are working part-time but want full-time work. A year ago there were 8,607,000. This is a volatile series.

September 2013 Jobs Report

Please consider the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) September 2013 Employment Report.

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 148,000 in September, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 7.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in construction, wholesale trade, and transportation and warehousing.

Click on Any Chart in this Report to See a Sharper Image

Unemployment Rate - Seasonally Adjusted

Employment History Since January 2009

click on chart for sharper image

Change from Previous Month by Job Type

Hours and Wages

Average weekly hours of all private employees remained at 34.5 hours. Average weekly hours of all private service-providing employees was flat at 33.3 hours. Average hourly earnings of all private workers rose $0.04 to $20.24. Average hourly earnings of private service-providing employees rose $0.05 to $20.02.

Real wages have been declining. Add in increases in state taxes and the average Joe has been hammered pretty badly. For 2013, one needs to factor in the increase in payroll taxes for Social Security.

For further discussion of income distribution, please see What's "Really" Behind Gross Inequalities In Income Distribution?

BLS Birth-Death Model Black Box

The BLS Birth/Death Model is an estimation by the BLS as to how many jobs the economy created that were not picked up in the payroll survey.

The Birth-Death numbers are not seasonally adjusted, while the reported headline number is. In the black box the BLS combines the two, coming up with a total.

The Birth Death number influences the overall totals, but the math is not as simple as it appears. Moreover, the effect is nowhere near as big as it might logically appear at first glance.

Do not add or subtract the Birth-Death numbers from the reported headline totals. It does not work that way.

Birth/Death assumptions are supposedly made according to estimates of where the BLS thinks we are in the economic cycle. Theory is one thing. Practice is clearly another as noted by numerous recent revisions.

Birth Death Model Adjustments For 2012

Birth Death Model Adjustments For 2013

Birth-Death Notes

Once again: Do NOT subtract the Birth-Death number from the reported headline number. That approach is statistically invalid.

In general, analysts attribute much more to birth-death numbers than they should. Except at economic turns, BLS Birth/Death errors are reasonably small.

For a discussion of how little birth-death numbers affect actual monthly reporting, please see BLS Birth/Death Model Yet Again.

Table 15 BLS Alternate Measures of Unemployment

click on chart for sharper image

Table A-15 is where one can find a better approximation of what the unemployment rate really is.

Notice I said "better" approximation not to be confused with "good" approximation.

The official unemployment rate is 7.2%. However, if you start counting all the people who want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.

U-6 is much higher at 13.6%. Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.

Labor Force Factors

Discouraged workers stop looking for jobs
People retire because they cannot find jobs
People go back to school hoping it will improve their chances of getting a job
People stay in school longer because they cannot find a job
Disability and disability fraud

Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be over 9%. In addition, there are 7,926,000 people who are working part-time but want full-time work.

Grossly Distorted Statistics

Digging under the surface, much of the drop in the unemployment rate over the past two years is nothing but a statistical mirage coupled with a massive increase in part-time jobs starting in October 2012 as a result of Obamacare legislation.

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

Japan's Sexless Youth

Posted: 22 Oct 2013 01:08 AM PDT

Sexless Japan

Here are some interesting points regarding social attitudes and demographics from a Guardian article by Abigail Haworth: Why have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

A survey this year by the Japan Family Planning Association (JFPA) found that 45% of women aged 16-24 "were not interested in or despised sexual contact". More than a quarter of men felt the same way.
Population of 126 million has been shrinking for the past decade
Population projected to plunge additional one-third by 2060
Survey in 2011 found that 61% of unmarried men and 49% of women aged 18-34 were not in any kind of romantic relationship
Fewer babies were born in 2012 than any year on record.
Of the estimated 13 million unmarried people in Japan who currently live with their parents, around three million are over the age of 35.
Married working women are sometimes demonised as oniyome, or "devil wives".
Japan's Institute of Population and Social Security reports an astonishing 90% of young women believe that staying single is "preferable to what they imagine marriage to be like".

Lets dive into the article for some interesting comments and interviews.

Ai Aoyama is a sex and relationship counsellor who works out of her narrow three-story home on a Tokyo back street. Aoyama, 52, is trying to cure what Japan's media calls sekkusu shinai shokogun, or "celibacy syndrome". Japan's under-40s appear to be losing interest in conventional relationships. Millions aren't even dating, and increasing numbers can't be bothered with sex.

Japan's under-40s won't go forth and multiply out of duty, as postwar generations did. The country is undergoing major social transition after 20 years of economic stagnation. It is also battling against the effects on its already nuclear-destruction-scarred psyche of 2011's earthquake, tsunami and radioactive meltdown. There is no going back. "Both men and women say to me they don't see the point of love. They don't believe it can lead anywhere," says Aoyama. "Relationships have become too hard."

Japan's punishing corporate world makes it almost impossible for women to combine a career and family, while children are unaffordable unless both parents work. Cohabiting or unmarried parenthood is still unusual, dogged by bureaucratic disapproval.

Aoyama says the sexes, especially in Japan's giant cities, are "spiralling away from each other". Lacking long-term shared goals, many are turning to what she terms "Pot Noodle love" – easy or instant gratification, in the form of casual sex, short-term trysts and the usual technological suspects: online porn, virtual-reality "girlfriends", anime cartoons. Or else they're opting out altogether and replacing love and sex with other urban pastimes.

Some of Aoyama's clients are among the small minority who have taken social withdrawal to a pathological extreme. They are recovering hikikomori ("shut-ins" or recluses) taking the first steps to rejoining the outside world, otaku (geeks), and long-term parasaito shingurus (parasite singles) who have reached their mid-30s without managing to move out of home. (Of the estimated 13 million unmarried people in Japan who currently live with their parents, around three million are over the age of 35.) "A few people can't relate to the opposite sex physically or in any other way. They flinch if I touch them," she says. "Most are men, but I'm starting to see more women."

Aoyama cites one man in his early 30s, a virgin, who can't get sexually aroused unless he watches female robots on a game similar to Power Rangers.

"Marriage is a woman's grave," goes an old Japanese saying that refers to wives being ignored in favour of mistresses. For Japanese women today, marriage is the grave of their hard-won careers.

I meet Eri Tomita, 32, over Saturday morning coffee in the smart Tokyo district of Ebisu. Tomita has a job she loves in the human resources department of a French-owned bank. A fluent French speaker with two university degrees, she avoids romantic attachments so she can focus on work. "A boyfriend proposed to me three years ago. I turned him down when I realised I cared more about my job. After that, I lost interest in dating. It became awkward when the question of the future came up."

Prime minister Shinzo Abe recently trumpeted long-overdue plans to increase female economic participation by improving conditions and daycare, but Tomita says things would have to improve "dramatically" to compel her to become a working wife and mother. "I have a great life. I go out with my girl friends – career women like me – to French and Italian restaurants. I buy stylish clothes and go on nice holidays. I love my independence."

Romantic commitment seems to represent burden and drudgery, from the exorbitant costs of buying property in Japan to the uncertain expectations of a spouse and in-laws. And the centuries-old belief that the purpose of marriage is to produce children endures. Japan's Institute of Population and Social Security reports an astonishing 90% of young women believe that staying single is "preferable to what they imagine marriage to be like".

The sense of crushing obligation affects men just as much. Satoru Kishino, 31, belongs to a large tribe of men under 40 who are engaging in a kind of passive rebellion against traditional Japanese masculinity.

"It's too troublesome," says Kishino, when I ask why he's not interested in having a girlfriend. "I don't earn a huge salary to go on dates and I don't want the responsibility of a woman hoping it might lead to marriage."

Japanese-American author Roland Kelts, who writes about Japan's youth, says it's inevitable that the future of Japanese relationships will be largely technology driven. "Japan has developed incredibly sophisticated virtual worlds and online communication systems. Its smart phone apps are the world's most imaginative." Kelts says the need to escape into private, virtual worlds in Japan stems from the fact that it's an overcrowded nation with limited physical space. But he also believes the rest of the world is not far behind.

That's a reasonably lengthy set of clips but there is much more in the article that merits a closer look.

Fighting Demographics

Those wondering why prime minister Abe is having such a hard time stimulating inflation can now stop wondering.

Until Japanese attitudes towards child-bearing, jobs, and relationships change, Abe will continue to struggle.

Abe seeks to stimulate inflation, but that is likely to encourage more saving, not more spending.
With the bulk of Japanese pensions tied up in bonds yielding next to nothing, higher taxes and higher cost of goods and services will decrease demand from aging retirees.

The US

In the US, student debt hinders family formation. Millions of young adults have moved back home because they do not have a job.

Germany

In Germany, free child-care is not enough to fix Germany's falling birth rate dilemma

Germany has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe and it continued to decline between 2001 and 2011 despite Angela Merkel's government spending a lot of money on subsidies promoting and helping families.

Attitudes in General

Here are some reasons behind the low birthrates: Lack of Jobs, Student Debt, Aging Parents, High-Priced Housing, Earthquakes, Nuclear Waste.

Some of the reasons for lower family formation are universal, others like nuclear waste are country specific.

Inflating money increases asset prices (until the bubbles pop) but that does not help those fresh out of college with no assets. Pumping up home prices helps banks stuck with housing inventory, but it hurts those seeking to buy a first-time home.

Easy money policy is to the benefit of those with first access to money: the banks and the already wealthy. Easy money is to the detriment of everyone else.

Attitude Spiral

As income inequality soars, attitudes sour. As robots displace workers, attitudes sour. As taxes go up to support inane union pensions, attitudes sour. As politicians fight, attitudes sour.

Everything boils down to attitudes. Unfortunately, central bankers and politicians are making matters worse. Few see that now, but wait until the bubbles pop.

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

miercuri, 23 octombrie 2013

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