marți, 23 septembrie 2014

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


A Pizzeria On The Go

Posted: 23 Sep 2014 06:03 PM PDT

If you're ever in Orlando area you may see this food truck called 900 Degreez. It's 35-foot food truck that can cook an entire pizza in only 90 seconds. It gives a whole new meaning to the words fast food.























A Content Strategy Template You Can Build On

A Content Strategy Template You Can Build On


A Content Strategy Template You Can Build On

Posted: 22 Sep 2014 05:15 PM PDT

Posted by Isla_McKetta

Picture it. A room full of executives from a company you never thought you could land as a client. They're so engaged in what they are saying that they're leaning forward in their chairs. The CEO looks poised to ask a question but you can tell she doesn't want to interrupt your flow.

This is the moment content strategists dream of.

But if you're like me, it's easy to get caught up in how new the field is and wonder, "Am I even doing this right?" There are lots of posts to help you, such as  How to Build a Content Marketing Strategy and Content Strategy: You're Doing it Wrong. There are also comprehensive guides to creating content strategies. There's even an epic list of content strategy resources. And there are books (my favorite is Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach's Content Strategy for the Web).

Still, sometimes you just want to peek over someone else's shoulder at a concrete example to see if there's anything you can learn. This can be especially true if you're working in-house and don't have anyone to bounce ideas off of.

So, I built a template.

What a content strategy should look like

Content strategies take many forms, from a 50-page word document to an hour-long PowerPoint presentation. That means this template is not meant to be gospel. Instead, it introduces you to the many moving parts that make up a content strategy and gives you an example of how I, based on the years I spent consulting on content strategies for everything from stock photography to software as a service, would write it up.

Peek over my shoulder to get your next strategy started, or just to get a glimpse of how someone else approaches a strategy. Build on this template and make it your own. You'll find that the template is written from an agency perspective (with lots of references to "the client") but it works equally well if you are in-house and are writing for that one, all-important client—your boss.

What goes into a content strategy

The content strategy template walks you through researching and writing up the three key elements of a content strategy: what content looks like now, what it should look like, and the ecosystem in which content is created.

Content today

A strategy should provide an assessment of the client's current content, as well as insight into their competitors' content. That assessment may include any or all of the following:

  • Personas 
  • Stakeholder interviews 
  • Content inventory 
  • Content audit 
  • Gap analysis 
  • Competitive analysis

Content in the future

Then you want to show your client where the content should take them and how they can use various channels to get there. Some of many places content resides are:

Onsite content 

  • Homepage
  • Landing pages 
  • Category pages 
  • Product descriptions 
  • Blog 
  • Error pages 
  • Etc.

Offsite content 

  • Emails 
  • Social media 
  • Brochures 
  • Packaging 
  • Invoices 
  • Voicemail messages 
  • Etc.

Governance (aka the content ecosystem)

Finally, you want to think about the environment in which the content gets created—the governance of content. This includes:

  • Brand, voice, and style guidelines 
  • Workflow analysis 
  • Best practices for writing on the web 
  • SEO tips 
  • Editorial calendar

See the template for more in-depth descriptions of all of these elements as well as some of my favorite tools to get them done.

Again, take these pieces and use them to create your own template. Each strategy you do will require its own tweaks, but this will give you the leg up to put your own stamp on this emerging field.

The storytelling of content strategy

My brand of content strategy, and you'll see this reflected a little in the template, is that a content strategy is a story. For a deeper understanding of this, check out the Mozinar I gave a few weeks ago, The Storytelling of Content Strategy.

Basically, I advocate for taking the elements of fiction and using them to get a fresh perspective on a brand's journey toward a goal.

Here's how the five elements of a story are also the basis of a content strategy:

1. Brands and customers are heroes

A content strategy can either be about a brand's journey to land a customer (useful when a brand is new or has lost its way), or a content strategy can be about a customer's journey and how the brand can help. See the webinar for an example of each.

2. Your current landscape is your ground situation

You can't start a strategy until you know where your hero is coming from. Most of the initial research you do—from stakeholder interviews to content inventories and audits—is to understand the starting point of your strategy. This is where the journey begins. You will be measuring all future success against the understanding you build of this landscape.

3. Goals articulate your central desire

You can't plot a strategy if you don't know what direction the brand wants to grow. Goals should come from the brand itself, but you might find that the brand needs a little coaching. It's helpful if you distinguish overall business goals from content goals. They are related, but there are some goals (e.g. reducing employee turnover) that content plays a much smaller role in achieving. Setting specific goals for your content strategy also lets you get more granular about some goals in which content is the star player (e.g. increasing email open rate).

4. Competitors are antagonists

Even if you're going to write the most TAGFEE content strategy ever, you still need to figure out where your competitors are and how you can learn from their example. And it's important to remember that because of the way search engines work, your business competitors might be different than your SERP competitors. Ideally a content strategy will address both.

5. Plot is strategy

At this point in the story, you know who the players are, what's working and what's not, and have some ideas about how to move forward to achieve those goals.

When I write up a strategy, I think about them as though I were plotting a novel. Each tactic or channel is a way to move the brand closer to those goals. What obstacles might they encounter? Who are they competing with in the space? How can they master this tactic or channel? And how can content help them achieve their goals and ride happily off into the sunset?

Making a content strategy your own

Now it's time to download that template and see what story your content strategy is trying to tell. Once you're confident in the strategy you're presenting, you'll have the complete attention of every executive in that conference room. And, with any luck, they'll refer you to their friends. 

I want to learn from you, too. Is there anything you'd include in the template that I haven't covered? Do you have any strategies for success in presenting content strategies or any lessons learned? Please share your ideas and stories in the comments.


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BrightonSEO 2014 Roundup

BrightonSEO 2014 Roundup

Link to White.net

BrightonSEO 2014 Roundup

Posted: 21 Sep 2014 01:20 PM PDT

BrightonSEO seemed to come back around particularly quickly this month, once again giving the SEOs at White.net a good excuse to get together and go down to Brighton in force.

I was lucky enough to attend the speakers'/sponsors' meal at Smokeys with a group of well known faces, from the likes of Moz's Matthew Brown, to International SEO guru Aleyda Solis, and not forgetting BrightonSEO's organiser Kelvin Newman, to name just a few.

brighton seo meal

Arriving at the dome the following morning to check on the White.net stand, we did a quick scour to seek out the top conference swag – this year I'll have to give credit to Calltracks for the remote controlled helicopters – Well done Alex for the lucky win, this has already provided hours of office flying time!

brighton seo stand

After previous experience, I decided to stick to the main concert hall this time to avoid fighting for a seat in the smaller conference rooms.

First up was Ian Miller, search director of Crafted Media, to talk to us about predicting the future of Google and why it's 'no longer a search company', but rather a data platform.

According to data published on comScore Google now has a 68% share of the search market. Many rely on Google as a gateway to the internet, but Google is no longer just a search engine, something that is very apparent when looking at how it has branched out into many other areas by acquiring new companies at a rate of knots (see the list here). Most recently it bought Polar, a start-up business that specialises in social polling, to bolt onto Google+.

My vision when we started Google fifteen years ago was that eventually you wouldn’t have to have a search query at all. You would just have information come to you as you needed it

It is clear that most of the acquisitions in recent years were with a single goal in mind; to gather people's data in order to further understand what humans want.

Ian predicts that we will see Google evolve a lot over the next few years, moving away from simply ranking web pages based on their content and other signals that can be easily influenced, and more towards context, while anticipating your next move to serve you results that are relevant to you and your routines.

This is nothing new – I'm sure you've noticed car insurance ads “conventiently” appearing just as you're beginning to think about renewing your policy, or bicycle related ads following you around via Google’s display network after doing a bit of searching around for a new bike. Well, expect to see more of this!

But Ian doesn't think Google is evil, rather a helpful side-kick that will provide you with useful tips just as you need them.

"Google will become your cybernetic friend, helping you with all aspects of your life"

All of this means that SEO is no longer just about keyword research and link building. Gone are the days when Google was only interested in finding and indexing pages – Google now wants to understand them. As a result, businesses are going to have to smarten up their online strategies if they want to keep up with this fast-moving search monster.

Matt Roberts – Why we all need to study Momentology

Matt Roberts - Linkdex

Next up was Linkdex's Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Matt Roberts, here to tell us why we all need to study 'momentology'. But "what is momentology?" I hear you ask… It seems that Matt wants us all to move away from thinking of our online marketing efforts as 'SEO', and start referring to it as 'momentology'. I bet he does – Linkdex own the domain momentology.com!

But it seems that Matt has also identified the need for contextual thinking in order to influence consumers at the right time, so maybe he's onto something.

Matt discussed why we should start optimising the entire search funnel, from discovery, to making a purchase, and not forgetting the after-sale feedback, while putting consumers in the centre of our strategy.

He also highlighted that we need to look at the bigger picture and think about all of the pages that our visitors are viewing at each stage in the buying cycle.

Content curation is a great way to create content quickly and effectively – sharing, organising and grouping.

The 5 types of content curation are:

  • Aggregation – pulling information from various sources into a single place. For example, Aleyda's own aggregation of SEO tools – http://www.allseosoftware.com/
  • Distillation – curating content into a simple format. For example, top takeaways that allow readers to easily digest the most important points.
  • Elevation – curation with the aim of identifying a trend or insight from smaller posts, such as tweets.
  • Mashup – curation that combines existing content into a single piece.
  • Chronology – content curation that pulls historic information and orders it by time. For example "the evolution of search". This allows us to see shifts in trends over time.

"Curation provides more content sources, better content ideas and identifies friendlier content format"

Aleyda talked about using RSS feeds and alerts to identify the most shared content that is relevant to your industry.

Laura's talk was based around a simple yet effective idea – encouraging internal teams to work together in harmony and share resources – particularly PR and marketing teams.

Laura highlighted that there’s generally a lot of cross-over between the work carried out in each team, and often a lot of missed opportunities. Integrating your teams will allow members to understand how they can work together and help each other, building good relationships along the way.

But first your SEO team will need to gain the trust of the other teams. It's possible that the reputation of your SEO team has been tarnished by bad experiences from a previous agency, so you will need to get them on-board by talking them through how your work can complement theirs, and vis-versa. Better still, put a case study together and show them.

The next step is to make them feel included. Next time you're planning a campaign, ask them what their goals and KPIs are and look at ways you can help them to achieve these. Invite them to your meetings and value their input, while helping them to see the value that you can add.

If you're still having trouble getting them on board then think about putting a campaign together that you know will get their attention by hitting their KPIs and "dazzle them with success". Share the results and they will soon be ready to jump on the SEO band wagon!

"Build it and they will come…Built it. Shit, they've not come"

Building links using spammy tactics is still working for some, but this is by no means a future-proofed strategy. Earning links through content may also come with a risk, but not the traditional penalty-inducing risk that would be more familiar to an old school link builder. Rather, it comes with the risk that your efforts could lead to nothing. However, the key to avoiding this is understanding your audience.

Using Demographic and Interest Reports in Google Analytics will help you to find out what demographics are actually important (i.e. which ones convert). It's important to speak the same language as your audience as this will help you to engage better with them.

There are also some useful (free) tools that can provide you with demographic information. Google's display planner is a good place to start, but other tools such as Similarweb allow you to pull out all sorts of useful data that can help you learn about your audience and their interests.

SocialMention can also be useful when looking at which social channels you're being mentioned in, although it can be hard to sort through the irrelevant results to find what you're looking for.

A great tool for segmenting your Facebook data is Givememydata.com. This allows you to export the data from your account and reuse it to spot trends and tell a story.

Gisele Navarro – 72% of Internet users do not speak English: International outreach

gisele-navarro

Gisele spoke about another simple but effective concept that shows how many businesses are missing a trick by failing to reach out their existing content to their international audiences.

"If you don't outreach your most successful content, somebody else will, and they won't pass any of the credit on to you!"

Gisele spoke about how important it is to provide more than just a translation, but ensure the content is interpreted properly and localised to the correct audience. As with ealier talks, understanding your audience was a key takeaway.

If you don't have the resources to have your content translated, try outreaching your English content to foreign media.

Be confident – there's not likely to be much competition so you should be ahead of the game.

Moz's Matthew Brown flew in from Portland to share his thoughts on rich snippets and what's to come.

You've probably started to see some rich snippets disappearing from Google's search results but, as with most updates of this fashion, observing results on Google.com will show the rest of us what we can expect to see in the near future. In this case we are likely to see fewer rich snippets and more semantic mark-up. One of the most utilised rich snippets – review starts, also appears to have been dropped.

However, Google is now able to build its own snippets without requiring schema.

The Pigeon update gives us another example of the difference between Google US and Google UK. Matthew mentioned how this recent algorithm update has had a huge impact on local results in Google.com, and hinted that the Pigeon would soon be paying a visit to the UK. His advice was for businesses that have multiple brick-and-mortar shops to think carefully about the potential upsets Pigeon could cause.

whats-on-the-table

Matthew also addressed Google's move towards providing us with answers to search queries without even leaving the SERPs. For example, you may have recently used Google to calculate a sum, or the distance between two cities:

google-calculatorgoogle-maps

These types of results are becoming more and more common, and with the arrival of the 'Google knowledge vault' – an algorithmic upgrade of the knowledge graph, Google is collecting an unfathomable amount of data, with the ability to sort it and understand it, without human editorial involvement.​

Jan-Willem Bobbink’s talk followed on nicely from Matthew, with further insight into Semantic search.

Jan-Willem kicked off with a personal demonstration of how Google uses freebase (acquired by the search engine in 2010) to understand entities, based on their relationships and attributes.

In his example, Jan-Willem showed us that how creating his own personal page in Freebase and populating various attributes, he was able to influence details that appear in the knowledge graph when searching for his name.

Jan-Willem Bobbink

The ‘Feedback’ button under the knowledge graph box allows users to highlight incorrect details by selecting any of the attributes and submitting details of the error. For example, this entry states that Jan-Willem is 108 years old, so is a good example of some data that needs correcting!

However, as Freebase relies on humans to enter the details and get them right, Google has taken things a step further, by creating an algorithm that is capable of ‘automated entity retrieval’. This means that Google can make the connections between entities itself.

There are a huge number of databases containing resources that can be used to enrich your own content, so whether your website would benefit from information on geographical locations using ‘Geonames’ – a database containing over 10 million geographical names and 9 million unique features; or your website specialises in types of fish and would like to automatically generate pages pulling in data from Fishbase – a database with information on thousands of species of fish, the content is there for the taking.

These databases are free to use (including Google’s FreeBase) and accessible via APIs, so with a bit of coding wizardry, you can soon be pulling in relevant content automatically. You can also add build links by adding your own data, so some good reasons to have a look!

Final thoughts

I haven’t managed to cover all points or indeed all of the talks from the concert hall, so please free add anything that really stood out for you using the comments below.

The post BrightonSEO 2014 Roundup appeared first on White.net.

Seth's Blog : Smaller and smaller

 

Smaller and smaller

For a long time, Australians thought of themselves as living on the edge of the Earth, a long haul from markets, from industries and from colleagues.

Today, of course, Australia is precisely in the middle.

Australia_upside_down_map_-_Google_Search

That's because the world keeps getting smaller and ideas and connection are the currencies that matter, not atoms or molecules.

Consider this new campaign for really comfortable handmade shoes from Lahore. Lahore as in Pakistan. Handmade leather shoes are a click away, regardless of where they were made, but you might choose these. 

There will always be two ends of the market. There's the race to the bottom, based on efficiency at all costs, that says, "we have what they have, but cheaper." The problem with the race to the bottom is that you might win.

The other end is for items that we want, regardless of how far away they come from, because the ideas they embody are worth seeking out.

If you're in the idea business, it doesn't matter where you're from. It matters if we care about the change you're making.

       

 

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luni, 22 septembrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


Video: The Bizarre Reason Your Health Insurance Plan Was Cancelled

Posted: 22 Sep 2014 10:01 PM PDT

There are lots of reasons why your health care plan may have been cancelled but this one is arguably the most bizarre.



Please play the video or the following discussion will not make much sense.

Link if video does not play: Why Your Plan Was Cancelled: Health Insurance and the Affordable Care Act.

I am automatically skeptical of such videos and articles. So I did some digging. It appears the video has it right.

"De Minimis Variation"

PDF page 36 of 40 of Federal Register, Vol. 78, No. 37 / Monday, February 25, 2013 / Rules and Regulations, spells things out nicely.
§ 156.140 Levels of coverage. (a) General requirement for levels of coverage. AV, calculated as described in § 156.135 of this subpart, and within a de minimis variation as defined in paragraph (c) of this section, determines whether a health plan offers a bronze, silver, gold, or platinum level of coverage. (b) The levels of coverage are: (1) A bronze health plan is a health plan that has an AV of 60 percent. (2) A silver health plan is a health plan that has an AV of 70 percent. (3) A gold health plan is a health plan that has an AV of 80 percent. (4) A platinum health plan is a health plan that has as an AV of 90 percent. (c) De minimis variation. The allowable variation in the AV of a health plan that does not result in a material difference in the true dollar value of the health plan is +- 2 percentage points.
Outside of the video, the above obscure government doc was the only place I found an accurate discussion of bronze, silver, gold, and platinum ranges.

Since I did not have the term "de minimis variation" in my search, it took me a while to find that doc.

As Typically Presented

Most sites offer woefully inadequate explanations. For example Medical Mutual accurately defines Actuarial Value (AV) as "the percentage of total spending on Essential Health Benefits (EHBs) that is paid by the health plan," yet, falls woefully short in describing the various metals as follows.

  • Bronze: 60 percent of Actuarial Value
  • Silver: 70 percent of Actuarial Value
  • Gold: 80 percent of Actuarial Value
  • Platinum: 90 percent of Actuarial Value

That is what we have come to believe, and similar explanations appear on numerous healthcare sites. Ten percent ranges seem reasonable, but they are against the law.

Health Insurance AVs

  1. 0-57 Invalid
  2. Bronze AV: 58-62
  3. 63-67 Invalid
  4. Silver AV: 68-72
  5. 73-77 Invalid
  6. Gold AV: 78-82
  7. 83-87 Invalid
  8. Platinum 88-92
  9. 93-100 Invalid

Range Analysis

  • Number of 1-Point Ranges: 100
  • Acceptable Ranges: 16
  • Invalid Ranges: 84

Competition Not

If for any reason, health care providers do not want to modify pre-existing plans that are just outside the acceptable ranges, their only option under the law is cancellation.

The legislation guarantees "If you like your plan you may not be able to keep it."

What reason might insurers have to cancel plans?

Thanks to ACA, the providers all have captive audiences. They all understand that no other provider can offer a plan in anything but the 16 of the 100 possible ranges.

If a plan outside one of the allowed ranges makes a smaller percentage profit than something inside one of the ranges, there is a huge incentive for providers to simply dump the plan.

And Obamacare was supposed to increase competition!

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

Bidding Wars Stop; Millennials Leave Their Parents' Basements, But Not For Homes; Pent Up Demand?

Posted: 22 Sep 2014 02:25 PM PDT

Bidding Wars Stop

With cash-paying investors on full retreat, existing home sales dropped 1.8% in August, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist says that's a good thing because "first-time buyers have a better chance of purchasing a home now that bidding wars are receding and supply constraints have significantly eased in many parts of the country."

While I agree it's a good thing that bidding wars stopped, the fact of the matter is home prices are once again in la-la land, especially for cash-strapped millennials loaded up with student debt, in low-paying jobs.

Pent Up Demand?

Yun states, "As long as solid job growth continues, wages should eventually pick up to steadily improve purchasing power and help fully release the pent-up demand for buying."

There is arguably a pent-up demand for homes by millennials if wages do catch up, but that assumes millennials have the same value-set and attitudes towards debt as their parents.

In reality, median wages have not gone up much but home prices have. More importantly, attitudes of millennials are not the same as that of their boomer parents.

Millennials Leave Their Parents' Basements, But Not For Homes

Fortune reports Millennials Finally Leave Their Parents' Basements.
Jed Kolko, chief economist at Trulia, put together this graph, which shows that Millennials are finally moving out of their parents' houses, after years of living at home:



But that's where the good news ends. Over the past two years, Millennials have been moving away from home, but they don't actually have enough money, or desire, to form their own households. The homeownership rate among Millennials continues to fall:



The falling homeownership rate and falling "headship rate"—which is the share of Millennials who are the head of a household regardless of whether they own real estate—suggest that this generation is still doubling up with friends or other relatives even if they aren't living with Mom and Dad.

The one bright spot in the Census data for the youngest workers: between 2012 and 2013, median income for those aged 15 to 24 shot up by 10% from $31,000 per year to roughly $34,000 per year. But this is the first time since 2006 that this age group has seen any increase in income at all, meanwhile the cost of shelter has risen 16% since that time. Income for the older half of the Millennial generation rose just 1.1% between 2012 and 2013.

This poor performance could mean that the housing industry is building too many homes, according to Kolka. This is quite the surprise given that single-family housing construction is still well below pre-crisis and even pre-bubble norms.
Census Data

I commend Fortune for linking to the actual data. Few mainstream media articles do.

For those who wish to take a closer look: Income and Poverty in the United States: 2013, Issued September 2014. Here are a couple of charts and stats that caught my eye.

Real Median Income



Full-Time Employment



Real Medium Income Notes

  • Real median household income for those 15-24 shot up by 10.5% but only from $31,049 to $34,311. That's not enough to support buying a nice house in most areas. Moreover, the 15-24 demographic has 6.3 million households and typically that age group does not buy houses anyway.
  • Real median household income for those 25-34 (about 20 million households) was only up 1.1% to $52,702. Home prices rose more, making homes less affordable.
  • Real median household income for those 35-44 (about 21 million households) was only op 0.7%, but to a better looking to $64,973. 
  • Those aged 45-54 and 55-64 actually saw incomes declines of 0.3% and 3.3% respectively on household populations over 23 million each.

Attitudes, Wages, Home Prices

That data is from 2013, but it's very safe to conclude nothing much changed in 2014. None of the income data is supportive of more household formation. Wages have not kept up with home prices in the key demographic groups. Things are far worse if you factor in attitudes.

Attitudes - Fed's Biggest, Most Futile Fight

I have been talking about attitudes for years. For example, please consider Please consider Teenagers Scared Over Plight of their Parents; Attitudes - Bernanke's Biggest, Most Futile Fight

That 2010 post contains an email from "Nancy Drew" about her daughters, aged 15 and 17 with their friends scared half-to-death about their parents' financial woes.

Such memories last a long time.

I wrote then and I repeat now ... "Those fretting over base money supply and foolishly screaming hyperinflation (or even inflation), simply do not understand the dynamics of debt deflation, nor do they understand how small the increase in base money is compared to debt that will be written off, nor do they understand the role of changing social attitudes towards spending."

Clash of Generations

On May 30, 2014 I wrote Clash of Generations - Boomers vs. Millennials: Attitude Change Will Disrupt Wall Street and Corporate America

If you haven't read that, please do. And if you have, I suggest it's well worth another look.

Pent Up Demand to Sell 

Yun thinks another housing boom is just around the corner. He talks of a pent-up demand to buy.

I suggest there's a pent-up demand to sell for three reasons:

  1. Aging boomers seeking to downsize
  2. All-cash equity buyers looking to take profits 
  3. Some of those who were underwater and hoping to get out will do so if and when they get a chance

Will millennials be able to plug all of that pent-up selling pressure? I think not.

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

Spain Mandates Public Companies "Stop the Bleeding" No More Layoffs

Posted: 22 Sep 2014 11:28 AM PDT

In a concern over votes, regional government spending is on the rise. In addition, Spain Mandates "Stop the Bleeding" No More Layoffs in Public Companies.

"Stop the Bleeding" via translation ...
Nine months after the local elections, the government has begun to show signs of needing a push to overcome the electoral polls. The unemployment remains, along with public debt, macroeconomic data that further tarnishes their results. For this reason, some sources claim that the Government has called on companies possessing some control to hire staff or fail to fire.

Although the discourse of government is to "rationalize public spending" and "reduce the number of officials," the fact is that regional governments are the largest employer in the country. Together, they have more than 2.5 million workers, and despite successive cut plans, thirteen regions have increased their spending on staff.

According to sources, some companies linked to State or investments through the State Society for Industrial Holdings (Sepi), have begun to put the brakes on the dismissal of staff working at the express request of the Government.
Government Tentacles

Here's the essence: Public companies where the Spanish government has tentacles have been ordered "don't fire".

By the way, companies that can't fire, won't hire. Of course that does not apply to the government itself. 

Austerity? Where is it?

With government spending going up in 13 of 17 autonomous regions in Spain and with a slowdown in Europe at large, it's quite easy to predict another budget deficit target miss by Spain.


IMF Forecasts 19% Unemployment in 2019, Asks Spain to Increase VAT

Here's one I missed from July: IMF Improves Forecast for Spain, but Expects Unemployment Rate of 19% in 2019.

Also via translation ...
According to projections by the institution in the medium term, growth will remain at around 1.5 or 2% and unemployment will drop significantly but at 18.7%

The IMF however has improved its growth forecasts, but also stressed the need to raise VAT and cut contributions to Social Security.

The governing body of Christine Lagarde, the Spanish economy expected to grow 1.2% in 2014 and 1.6% in 2015 compared with 0.9% and 1% previously. Also forecast a steady pace of expansion will allow GDP growth of 1.7% in 2016 and 1.8% in 2017, while in 2018 would lead to 1.9% and 2% a year later.
Unemployment

Spain's unemployment rate is 24.5% according to Eurostat.



The scary thing is the IMF is typically overoptimistic on everything. If Spain actually raises the VAT as the IMF wants, it 99% certain Spain will not hit even the IMF's lowered growth targets.

Here's the question of the day: If the IMF is overoptimistic on its 2019 assessment of employment and growth, how long can Spain put up with this?

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

Strange Bedfellows: To Fight ISIS, US Now Supports Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Other Terror Groups

Posted: 22 Sep 2014 12:04 AM PDT

Strange Bedfellows

US Mideast relationships get stranger every day. The US has come to the defense or has given aid to three rather unlikely groups in the past few weeks.

  1. Iranian Revolutionary Guard
  2. Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which directly supports the YPG, on Washington's list of proscribed terror groups
  3. "Moderates" fighting to overthrow Syrian president Assad. Those moderates just signed a non-agression pact with ISIS

70,000 Kurds Seek Refuge in Turkey

The Guardian reports Kurds Flee into Turkey to Escape Isis Offensive
More than 70,000 Kurds fled from northern Syria into Turkey at the weekend and tens of thousands more are trying to cross the border as the terror group Islamic State (Isis) intensified its assault on a crucial Kurdish safe haven near the border.

Previous attacks have targeted Yazidis, Christians, Kurds and Shia Turkomans in Iraq, and Alawites, Shias and Christians in Syria, forcing most to flee. Those captured have been given the stark choice between converting to the jihadists' hardline view of Sunni Islam or being killed.

The refugee agency UNHCR said it was preparing for up to several hundred thousand more refugees to cross into Turkey in the coming days and called on Ankara to provide space for the Kurds to shelter. The global aid body said its staff were helping provide refugees with immediate needs.

The Kurdish YPG militia now defending Kobani crossed into Iraq in mid-August to help rescue up to 50,000 Yazidis who were besieged by Isis on Mount Sinjar. That escape was aided by US airstrikes, which scattered the jihadis from the northern base of the mountain.

YPG forces say they are being outgunned by Isis, which is using heavy weapons supplied by the US to the Iraqi military, who surrendered them when they abandoned northern Iraq in June.

The Isis rampage through Iraq has already led to some unlikely alliances being formed, with US jets flying air cover over the Shia Turkoman town of Amerli earlier this month in support of Shia militias led by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. An elite leader of the guards, General Qassem Suleimani, was on the ground in Amerli as the US jets attacked Isis positions.

Potentially complicating US support for the Syrian Kurds is the fact that the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which directly supports the YPG, is on Washington's list of proscribed terror groups.
Obama's "Moderate Rebels" Sign Deal With ISIS

Inquiring minds may also wish to consider Obama's "Moderate Rebels" Sign Deal With ISIS.
The supposed "moderate" rebels fighting Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad — self-styled jihadists whom the Obama administration and Congress plan to supply with even more support under the guise of battling the Islamic State (ISIS) — recently signed a non-aggression pact with ISIS (also known as ISIL), according to reports from human-rights groups and French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP). Lawmakers on Capitol Hill pointed to the news as yet another reason why supplying U.S. arms and support to Islamic forces to battle Islamic forces was a dangerous idea. The foreign-policy establishment, however, plans to proceed with arming and training jihadists anyway.

Following a vote earlier this week in the House to approve Obama's plan to arm jihadists in Syria, the Senate just gave the administration a green light for the half-baked plot as well. Despite bipartisan opposition to the plan, senators voted overwhelmingly (78-22) to approve a broader $1 trillion appropriations bill that included authority to back what the establishment refers to as "moderate" forces in Syria. Those same allegedly "moderate" jihadists, according to the AFP and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, inked a deal with ISIS outside Damascus last week. The agreement was reportedly brokered by the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria known as Jabhat al-Nusra.

The non-aggression pact between ISIS and elements of Obama's "moderate" opposition states that "the two parties will respect a truce until a final solution is found and they promise not to attack each other because they consider the principal enemy to be the Nussayri regime," AFP and other media outlets quoted it as saying. The term "Nussayri" is a slur used to describe the Islamic Shia denomination Alawite to which Assad and many Syrians belong. A spokesman for the Obama-backed Sunni "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) rebels had previously vowed on television to exterminate all Shia Muslims, not just Alawites.

In an almost surreal interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity this week, leading congressional warmonger Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) demanded even more support for what he calls "moderate" rebels. Sounding confused, McCain lashed out at Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), angrily noting that the senator from Kentucky did not personally know the jihadists fighting in Syria. "Has Rand Paul ever been to Syria? Has he ever met with ISIS? Has he ever met with any of these people? No, no, no," McCain fumed on national television, presumably meaning the FSA rather than ISIS.

Ironically, McCain himself faced an embarrassing scandal after it was revealed that Syrian "rebels" he met and posed with for photographs were actually involved in kidnapping pilgrims. The Arizona senator's spokesman later claimed McCain did not really know whom he was meeting. Calling the incident "regrettable," the spokesman was forced to explain that his boss does not "in any way condone the kidnapping of Lebanese Shia pilgrims." He does, however, condone providing even more weapons to his "moderate" rebels, as he made clear again in the recent Fox interview. 
Hannity Interviews McCain

Listen to this confused, embarrassingly tortured response by McCain to Hannity's questions.  The best word to describe McCain's performance is "pathetic".



McCain Meets Rebels Accused of Kidnapping

Flashback May 31, 2013: Oops! Sen. McCain Met Syrian Rebels Accused of Kidnapping.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz., shown) and his goal of openly intervening in the Syrian conflict on behalf of the foreign-backed rebels — many of whom openly fight under the banner of al-Qaeda — suffered a major setback this week after a public relations stunt backfired in spectacular fashion. Media reports that surfaced Thursday claimed some of the opposition fighters he met and posed for pictures with during a recent trip to Syria were actually extremists. In fact, the radicals are accused of kidnapping Lebanese pilgrims from a village in Aleppo province.

The news, first reported by Al Jadeed and The Daily Star newspaper in Lebanon, sparked widespread ridicule and criticism of the senator as his office scrambled to deal with the embarrassing negative publicity. It also further confirmed long-held suspicions among lawmakers and analysts that, contrary to claims made by Sen. McCain and others pushing for another open U.S. war in the Middle East, rebel forces might be just as bad as the Assad regime — maybe worse.
Rand Paul vs. McCain
 
McCain fumes Rand Paul did not go to Syria. McCain did, and had his picture taken with extremist kidnappers.

Which makes more sense?

Strangest of All Bedfellows 

Arguably the strangest set of bedfellows in this mess is Hillary Clinton and Senator McCain. Both argue we should have armed the "moderates".

Questions of the Day

  1. Do the al-Qaeda "moderates" wear signs that say "I am a moderate"?
  2. If McCain cannot tell the difference without such a sign, how can Obama or Hillary?

"You Have to Begin Somewhere"

Nonetheless, Former Pentagon chief Leon Panetta says Obama should have armed moderate Syrian rebels earlier.
"I think the President's concern, and I understand it, was that he had a fear that if we started providing weapons, we wouldn't know where those weapons would wind up," said Panetta, defence secretary when the US pulled out of Iraq in 2011.

"My view was: you have to begin somewhere," added Panetta, also a former CIA director.

Warmonger Logic

  • We cannot tell the moderates from the extremists but "you have to begin somewhere".
  • And by overthrowing Assad, with extreme al-Qaeda rebels aligned with "moderate" Al-Qaeda rebels, things would be better now, not just in Syria but also Iraq!

My Take

  1. We "began somewhere" quite a bit ago, having removed Hussein and spending trillions of dollars to do it. 
  2. ISIS formed in the vacuum. 
  3. Getting moderates to overthrow Assad in Syria would not have done a damn thing to stabilize Iraq. 

Judging from recent US geopolitical stupidity in the Mideast, in Ukraine, and historically everywhere else, there's a high probability things would be even worse now had we done what McCain and Hillary wanted.

Just remember ... To make matters worse, you have to begin somewhere.

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