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luni, 17 noiembrie 2014

The Coming Integration of PR and SEO

Posted: 16 Nov 2014 02:57 PM PST

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

Earlier this year, I published a Moz post that aimed to introduce the basic principles of public relations that SEOs and digital marketers, I argued, need to know. (Specifically, the post was on media relations and story-pitching as a means of getting coverage and "earning" good links.)

Following the positive response to the post, Moz invited me to host a recent Mozinar on the integration of PR and SEO. ( You can listen to it and download the slides here for free!) As a former print journalist who later became a digital marketer, I love to discuss this niche because I am very passionate about the topic.

In summary, the Mozinar discussed:

Traditional marketing and communications theory
Why both inbound and outbound marketing are needed
An overview of the basic PR process
How to use PR software
Examples of messaging and positioning
Where to research demographic data for audience profiles
How to integrate SEO into each step of the workflow
How SEO and PR teams can help each other
Why the best links come as natural results of doing good PR and marketing
"Don't think about how to get links. Think about how to get coverage and publicity."

At the end of the Mozinar, the community had some intriguing and insightful questions (no surprise there!), and Moz invited me to write a follow-up post to provide more answers and discuss the relationship between SEO and PR further.

Follow-ups to the PR Mozinar

Before I address the questions and ideas at the end of the Mozinar, I just wanted to give some more credit where the credit is certainly due.

People like me, who write for major publications or speak at large conferences, get a lot of attention. But, truth is, we are always helped immensely by so many of our talented colleagues behind the scenes. Since the beginning of my digital marketing career, I have known about SEO, but I have learned more about public relations from observing (albeit from a distance) The Cline Group's front line PR team in Philadelphia over the years.

So, I just wanted to thank (in alphabetical order) Kim Cox, Gabrielle Dratch, Caitlin Driscoll, Max Marine, and Ariel Shore as well as our senior PR executives Bill Robinson and DeeDee Rudenstein and CEO Josh Cline. What I hope the Moz community learned from the Mozinar is what I have learned from them.

Now, onto the three Mozinar Q&A questions that had been left unanswered.

Why do you use Cision and not Vocus or Meltwater or others?

I do not want to focus on why The Cline Group specifically uses Cision. I would not want my agency (and indirectly Moz) to be seen as endorsing one type of PR software over another. What I can do is encourage people to read these writings from RMP Media Analysis, LinkedIn, Alaniz Marketing and Ombud, then do further research into which platform may work best for them and their specific companies and needs.

(Cision and Vocus recently agreed to merge, with the combined company continuing under the Cision brand.)

Do you have examples of good PR pitches?

I've anonymized and uploaded three successful client pitches to our website. You can download them here: a mobile-advertising network, a high-end vaporizer for the ingestion of medicinal herbs and a mobile app that helps to protect personal privacy. As you will see, these pitches incorporated the various tactics that I had detailed in the Mozinar.

Important caveat: Do not fall into the trap of relying too much on templates. Every reporter and every outlet you pitch will be different. The ideas in these examples of pitches may help, but please do not use them verbatim.

Are there other websites similar to HARO (Help a Reporter Out) that people can use to find reporters who are looking for stories? Are the other free, simpler tools?

Some commonly mentioned tools are My Blog U, ProfNet, BuzzStream and My Local Reporter. Raven Tools also has a good-sized list. But I can only vouch for My Blog U because it's the only one I have used personally. It's also important to note that using a PR tool is not a magic bullet. You have to know how to use it in the context of the overall public relations process. Creating a media list is just one part of the puzzle.

An infographic of integration

And now, the promised infographic!

I told the Mozinar audience we would provide a detailed infographic as a quick guide to the step-by-step process of PR and SEO integration. Well, here it is:

A second credit to my awesome colleague Thomas Kerr, who designs most of The Cline Group's presentations and graphics while also being our social media and overall digital wizard.

Just a few notes on the infographic:

First, I have segmented the two pillars by "PR and Traditional Marketing" and "SEO & Digital Marketing." I hate to sound stereotypical, but the use of this differentiation was the easiest way to explain the integration process. The "PR" side deals with people and content (e.g., messaging, media relations, and materials, etc.), while the "SEO" side focuses on things (e.g., online data, analytics, and research, etc.). See the end of this post for an important prediction.

Second, I have put social media on the online side because that is where the practice seems to sit in most companies and agencies. However, social media is really just a set of PR and communications channels, so it will likely increasingly move to the "traditional marketing" side of things. Again, see the end.

Third, there is a CMO / VP of Marketing / Project Leader (based on the structure of a company and whether the context is an agency or an in-house department) column between SEO and PR. This position should be a person with enough experience in both disciplines to mediate between the two as well as make judgment calls and final decisions in the case of conflicts. "SEO," for example, may want to use certain keyword-based language in messaging in an attempt to rank highly for certain search terms. "PR" might want to use different terms that may resonate more with media outlets and the public. Someone will need to make a decision.

Fourth, it is important to understand that companies with numerous brands, products or services, and/or a diverse set of target audiences will need to take additional steps:

The marketing work for each brand, product, or service will need its own specific goal and KPI(s) in step one. Separate audience research and persona development will need to be performed for each distinct audience in step two. So, for a larger company, such as the one described above, parts of steps 3-8 below will often need to be done, say, six times, once for each audience of each product.

However, the complexity does not end there.

Online and offline is the same thing

Essentially, as more and more human activity occurs online, we are rapidly approaching a point where the offline and online worlds are merging into the same space. "Traditional" and "online" marketing are all collectively becoming simply "marketing."

Above is our modern version of traditional communications and marketing theory. A sender decides upon a message; the message is packaged into a piece of content; the content is transmitted via a desired channel; and the channel delivers the content to the receiver. Marketing is essentially sending a message that is packaged into a piece of content to a receiver via a channel. The rest is just details.

As Google becomes smarter and smarter, marketers will need to stop thinking only about SEO and think more like, well, marketers. Mad Men's Don Draper, the subject of the meme at the top of the page, would best the performance of any link builder today because he understood how to gain mass publicity and coverage, both of which have always been more important than just building links here and there. The best and greatest numbers of links come naturally as a result of good marketing and not as a result of any direct linkbuilding. In the 2014 Linkbuilding Survey published on Moz, most of the (good) tactics that were described in the post – such as "content plus outreach" – are PR by another name.

At SMX West 2014 (where I gave a talk on SEO and PR strategy), Rand Fishkin took to the main stage to discuss what the future holds for SEO. Starting at 6:30 in the video above, he argued that there will soon be a bias towards brands in organic search. (For an extensive discussion of this issue, I'll refer you to Bryson Meunier's essay at Search Engine Land.) I agree that it will soon become crucial to use PR, advertisingand publicity to build a brand, but that action is something the Don Drapers of the world had already known to do long before the Internet had ever existed.

But things are changing

The process that I have outlined above is a little vague on purpose. The lines between SEO and PR are increasingly blurring as online and offline marketing becomes more and more integrated. For example, take this very post: is it me doing SEO or PR for our agency (while first and foremost aiming to help the readers)? The answer: Yes.

In a Moz post by Jason Acidre on SEO and brand building, I commented with the following:

Say, 10 years ago, "SEOs" were focused on techie things: keyword research, sitemaps, site hierarchy, site speed, backlinks, and a lot more. Then, as Google became smarter and the industry become more and more mature, "SEOs" woke up one day and realized that online marketers need to think, you know, like marketers. Now, I get the sense that digital marketers are trying to learn all about traditional marketing as much as possible because, in the end, all marketing is about people -- not machines and algorithms. What the f&*# is a positioning statement? What is a pitch? I just wish "SEOs" had done this from the beginning.
Of course, the same thing has been occurring in the inverse in the traditional marketing world. Traditional marketers have usually focused on these types of things: messaging documents, media lists, promotional campaigns, the 4 Ps, and SWOT analyses. Then, as more human activity moved to the Internet, they also woke up one day and saw an anarchic set of communications channels that operate under different sets of rules. Now, on the other end, I get the sense that traditional marketers are trying to learn as much as possible about SEO and digital marketing. What the f&^% is a rel=canonical tag? What is Google+ authorship? I just wish traditional marketers had done this from the start.

In fact, such a separation between SEO and PR is quickly dying. Here is a simplified version of the marketing and communications process I outlined at the beginning:

Traditional marketers and communications professionals have used this process for decades, and almost everything that (the umbrella term of) SEO does can fit into one of these boxes. A message can appear in a newspaper article or in a blog post. Content can be a sales brochure or an e-book. A channel can be the television or Facebook. A lot of technical and on-page SEO is simply good web development. The most-effective type of off-page SEO is just PR and publicity. Public-relations executives, as I have written elsewhere, can also learn to use analytics as yet another way to gauge results.

It all goes back to this tweet from Rand, which I cite in nearly every offline conversation with the marketing community:

SEO as an entity (sorry for the pun) unto itself is quickly dying. The more SEO entails, the more the umbrella term becomes useless in any meaningful context. For this reason, it is crucial that digital marketers learn as much as possible about traditional marketing and PR.

So, in the end, how does one integrate public relations and SEO? By simply doing good marketing.

Want more? Don't forget to watch the Mozinar -- I'd love to get your feedback in the comments below!

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!

Seth's Blog : Is a photo of a Magritte painting better than the original?

Is a photo of a Magritte painting better than the original?

A major Magritte show ran at the Art Institute of Chicago. It was fascinating to see all of his greatest hits in one place, nicely curated and hung.

Unlike the Louvre, photography was forbidden, which got me thinking about ideas, photos and originals.

In front of the Mona Lisa are hundreds of people, all taking a picture, sometimes with their cameras held overhead to get a better view. Why? What's the point of taking a picture of the most famous, most photographed painting in the world? You're certainly not going to take a better picture than you can find online with a few clicks.

It feels obvious that people aren't capturing the painting, they're capturing the moment, their proximity with a celebrity. "I was there, here look." Can you imagine going to the Louvre and walking right by the Mona Lisa? (I did this once, and I confess it wasn't easy). I mean, she's famous.

Magritte was an artist who worked in ideas, not in craft. A photo of his painting is totally sufficient to get the point he was trying to make. The paintings themselves almost feel like ghosts, like non-digital represenations of the purity of his original idea, the one we saw a thousand times before we ever walked into the museum.

By forbidding photography, the museum does nothing at all to protect copyrights, but instead creates a different sort of intimacy. Is this a famous painting? Can I prove I was here?

The most useful impacts of a show in real life, I think, are the juxtapositions created by intelligent curation and display. Missing for me was any connection at all to the other people in the room, the buzz of celebrity, the tribal aspect of, "oh, hey, you're here too?"

For those of us who work in ideas (which is most of us, now) the real question the Magritte show asks is, "if your ideas spread far and wide, do we need to see the original?"

When the idea is famous enough, what is the original, anyway?

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duminică, 16 noiembrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Swiss Gold Referendum in Perspective

Posted: 16 Nov 2014 05:54 PM PST

A number of readers have asked me to comment on the Swiss Gold Referendum and what it may mean for the price of gold.

Let's start with a recap of the three primary points that citizens in Switzerland will vote on.

Switzerland Gold Initiative

Halt all Swiss National Bank (SNB) gold sales
Repatriate Swiss gold held in foreign vaults (UK and Canada)
Establishes minimum 20% level of SNB Assets in gold

Of course, central bankers everywhere are horrified by the idea they should have to do anything, especially hold sound assets.

And in a flurry of fearmongering by the central bank and inflationists in every corner, it appears the initiative is headed towards defeat.

What If?

Polls aside, let's play a bit of "What If?"

Specifically, what would happen to the price of gold if the referendum passes?

Spanner in the Works

Variant Perception says Swiss Gold Referendum: A Spanner in the Works.

As polls continue to swing around ahead of the Swiss gold referendum on 30th November, we expect increased volatility in the FX and gold market.

After the implementation of the EURCHF floor, gold's share of the SNB balance sheet has fallen to 7.5% from around 30% in 2007 (top chart) [SNB Balance Sheet]. The SNB has already pointed out the untenable nature of the peg should the referendum pass, but the impact on the gold market would also be significant.

Taking the current balance sheet of 522bn CHF and spot gold prices, the requirement to hold at least 20% of assets in gold would necessitate buying 1,800 tonnes of gold over 5 years. Total global production in 2013 was 2,982 tonnes, thus the SNB would need to buy at least 10% of the annual production every year for the next 5 years.

The bottom chart [SNB Reserves] shows the latest composition of the SNB's FX reserves. The requirement to buy gold will necessitate selling reserves, mainly EUR (which makes up 45% of all reserves). Should these euro selling flows come to pass, it will weigh heavily on the currency.

SNB Balance Sheet

SNB Reserves

Missing the Boat

I am a fan of research by Variant Perception, but I believe they may have missed the boat here.

Specifically, I question if gold production is much of a factor at all. That may sound strange since the referendum would require Switzerland to purchase a big percentage of all future gold mining over the course of 5 years.

However, mining is not the only supply. Nearly all of the gold ever mined is available for a price. It's reasonable to exclude gold in museums, historic items, rare coins and the like, but in aggregate there may be over 170,000 tons or so of gold supply.

A few charts courtesy of Nico at Sharelynx Gold will explain.

Annual Gold Production

Cumulative Gold Production Since 1835

Central Bank Holdings vs Cumulative Production

Of the 2013 total (a bit higher now), central banks hold about 31,877 tons.

SNB Purchases Irrelevant

One must exclude central bank holdings from the amount of gold available for central banks to buy. And as stated earlier, one can subtract various other items like rare coins, but the overall numbers show that it's safe to conclude "buying 1,800 tonnes of gold over 5 years" is essentially irrelevant from a "gold available" for purchase standpoint.

That said, one must also factor in gold psychology. It is entirely possible that SNB purchases could significantly alter perceptions on the desirability of holding gold.

From that aspect, Variant Perception may indeed be correct on their assertion of the importance of the referendum should it indeed pass.

Most Gold Analysis Wrong

Many gold analysts point out gold production vs. jewelry demand. It's essentially the same miss-analysis. Jewelry demand is of little meaning in and of itself as a factor in price.

Someone has to hold every ounce of gold ever produced. It's that demand for gold, all 170,000 tons of it, that determines the current price, not production.

I discussed this previously in Truly Inane Bloomberg Analysis On Gold

By the way, 170,000 tons of gold would fit into a cube about 67 feet wide, high, and deep. It does not take a lot of space to hold a fortune in gold.

What the Future Holds

I do not know the future price of gold, nor does anyone else.

But I do know the fundamental drivers as well as the reasons to hold gold. And neither of those has changed.

For further discussion, please see Plague of Gold Bears Now Say "Gold Unsafe at Any Price"; What's the Real Long-Term Driver for Gold?

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

Kiev Effectively Cedes East Ukraine to Separatists; Poroshenko Withdraws Hospital and School Funding, Bank Card Operations

Posted: 16 Nov 2014 11:46 AM PST

Scorched Earth Policy

Last week, the government in Ukraine cut off pensions benefits to residents of rebel-held areas until such time as these areas return to Ukrainian control.

Yesterday, in yet another scorched-earth policy move, president Petro Poroshenko announced Ukraine Rebel Areas to Lose State Services.

Ukraine's president has ordered the withdrawal of all state services, including funding for hospitals and schools, from rebel-held areas.

Mr Poroshenko's ruling says all state companies and institutions should end their work in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions within a week.

It also says Ukraine's central bank is to close down all banking services - including card operations - in some areas within a month.

Initial Thoughts

Poroshenko just ceded major portions of Ukraine to rebels
Expect a run on ATMs
Russia will have to intervene for humanitarian reasons
Western Ukraine will have a difficult time getting needed coal from the East

Point number two is happening already.

I picked this up from ZeroHedge Ukrainians Line Up to Withdraw Money from a Bank in Donetsk.

That's a small line now. I suspect it soon won't be.

Human Rights Violations

Here's some additional details on Poroshenko's Bank Servicing Decree.

"National bank of Ukraine [shall] adopt measures within one month to stop serving bank accounts, including card accounts, that belong to economic entities… and residents in the territories of anti-terror operation in Donetsk and Luhansk regions," the decree said.

Poroshenko asked the government Saturday to keep the Council of Europe informed on Kiev being forced to take steps violating the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights in Donbas.

"To the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine… together with the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine… to ensure that within a week in accordance with the article 15 of the [European] Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms… a statement on behalf of Ukraine about Kiev taking measures derogating from its obligations under the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights on the several territories of the area of special operation in Donetsk and Luhansk Regions, is sent to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe," the decree said.

Expect Major Rebel Advance

Reader Jacob Dreizin, a US citizen who speaks Russian and reads Ukrainian, offers these thoughts via email.

Hello Mish,

I am tentatively calling for the start of the rebel offensive for on or about Friday, November 21st.

I may be wrong on the "when", but I will be right on the "how".

I expect the rebel offensive will be similar to the one in late August to early September and it will proceed in a direction or directions unexpected by Kiev and its CIA handlers.

The outcome will be that Kiev will lose almost all of its remaining heavy weaponry.(Over half was already lost by early September, according to both the rebels and Poroshenko himself.)

Most of the major population centers of Ukraine's Donetsk and Lugansk provinces that have not yet come under rebel control, will come under their control. This will demoralize the remaining Ukrainian troops.

Once that happens, Kiev has no strategic reserve and nothing to stop the remaining areas of historic Novorossia from being overrun or simply breaking off on their own accord. So this will not be a "long retreat." Once the tension snaps, things will be decided very quickly.

Then there will be a slowdown for winter. The winter will be so brutal for Ukraine that by the time spring comes, the rebels believe they will simply waltz into neighboring regions without much effort and be welcomed as liberators. On that point, we shall see.

Major Mistake?

To combat alleged terrorism, Kiev announced it can suspend article 15 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Lovely.

If Ukraine was looking to give Russia a humanitarian reason to invade, it just did.

Is this a brilliant play by Poroshenko to trap Putin into invading, or was it just plain stupid?

Only the final outcome will tell. But one thing's for certain now: Poroshenko stirred up major resentment against Kiev, not the rebels, with his decree.

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

Seth's Blog : "I need you"

"I need you"

Three magic words. They light up our brain, they grab our attention, they initiate action.

But they're being corrupted by the ease of reach and the desire by some organizations to grow at all costs.

I doesn't always mean a human. More and more, "I" means us, the corporation, the shareholders, the faceless. I is actually, "we," and you're not a part of that we.

NEED more and more means "want." We want you to do this, to buy this, to forward this, to write about this. We want it because it will give us more.

YOU doesn't mean you in particular. It actually means, "anyone." Anyone who can see this site or read this email or drive by our billboard. If you've got money or clout or attention to spare, sure, we want you.

Political fundraisers have turned this from an art to a science to an endless whine. So have short-term direct marketers with access to a keyboard and the free stamps of internet connection.

We used to have our ears open to anyone we loved or trusted whispering, "I need you." It's been overwhelmed lately, though, by selfish marketers shouting, "WE WANT ANYONE."

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sâmbătă, 15 noiembrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

John Major Sees 50% Chance UK Leaves EU, Sides With Cameron on Need for Immigration Reform

Posted: 15 Nov 2014 02:30 PM PST

Former UK Prime Minister John Major warns of Split Between UK and European Union.

The split is blatantly obvious, but since we have a major new voice chiming in, let's take a look.

The case for leaving the European Union will be fuelled further if EU countries do not help the UK limit immigration, Sir John Major has said.

The former prime minister said there was a "very real risk of separation" that would damage Britain and Europe.

David Cameron wants to renegotiate the UK's membership of the EU and hold an in/out referendum by 2017.

In a speech in Germany, Sir John said the UK had a "compelling" case to change the free movement of people.

Addressing German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats in Berlin, Sir John - whose Conservative government was dogged by rows over Europe - put the chance of a British exit from the European Union at "just under 50%".

But he said the probability would rise if Mr Cameron, who has promised the referendum if he is prime minister after the general election, could not secure reforms beforehand.

British governments were always willing to work with Europe on "the big issues", Sir John said, but added: "Our people deeply resent interference in the day to day activities that have been part of the British way of life for generations."

The UK's concerns are "not a political ploy" he said, warning of a "breach that is in no-one's interest".

He said he hoped other European countries would understand Britain's "dilemma", saying: "It can only inflame resentment if we are told our concerns are non-negotiable and we must toe the line."

Assessing the Odds

Major thinks the odds are "just under 50%" now but "probability will rise" is Cameron cannot get reforms.

That's a curious position because the odds Cameron secures a significant rule change are slim to none.

"'Point of No Return"

Cameron already received a "Point of No Return" Warning From Merkel.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has said that she would not support any plans to change the freedom of movement rules that allow an unlimited number of EU migrants to live and work in the UK. br />
At a recent summit in Brussels, Mrs Merkel is reported to have told Mr Cameron that Germany would not accept any of his demands of freedom of movement and told him: "That's it."

Both Merkel and Cameron change their colors like Chameleons, but Merkel is far more adept. Regardless, it's Cameron who is on the hook (assuming he holds a vote).

As part of his anemic promise to hold a referendum, Cameron first has to win reelection. Then he has to live up to his promise, whether or not he gets concessions from Merkel.

Since those concessions are highly unlikely, does Major have the odds at 50-50 partly based on the chance there will not be a referendum?

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

Seth's Blog : Crowding the pan

Crowding the pan

One thing you'll discover when you start pan roasting brussel sprouts or tomatoes (or running a theater or an airline, or just about anything for that matter) is that more is not always better.

Sure, I know that you have three uncooked sprouts left, and it would be a shame to not serve them, but if you add those three to the pan with the others, the entire batch will suffer.

Adding one more is just fine, until adding one more ruins everything.

Greed costs.

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vineri, 14 noiembrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

France Fesses Up: "Deficit in 2014 Much Higher than Expected", Budget Needs Revisions Yet Again
Beppe Grillo Seeks Referendum to Abandon Euro, "At War with ECB Scum, Not ISIS or Russia!"
Businesses Moving Too Quickly to Robots? Will 1 in 3 Jobs Vanish by 2025?

France Fesses Up: "Deficit in 2014 Much Higher than Expected", Budget Needs Revisions Yet Again

Posted: 14 Nov 2014 06:28 PM PST

France has been in constant violation of eurozone deficit rules for years, but then again, so has nearly every other eurozone country.

Spain and France Deficit Violations

Both Spain and France have constantly pushed back goals to meet stated targets. Spain has pushed back deficit targets at least six times by my count (official count may vary).

I also have pages on France violations of deficit rules.

Broken Promises

Other sources report similar stories. For example, please consider this Reuters September 2014 headline: France Breaks 2015 Deficit-Cutting Promise.

France announced on Wednesday it was breaking the latest in a long line of promises to European Union partners to cut its public deficit, conceding it now would take until 2017 to bring its finances in line with EU rules.

The statement by Finance Minister Michel Sapin follows weeks of hints by Paris that weakness in the euro zone's second-largest economy would prevent it bringing the deficit below the EU ceiling of 3 percent of output next year as promised.

The Agreement

France agreed to cut its budget deficit to 3% by 2015. I am sure we can find agreements for prior years.

Here's the humorous part (from September):

Sapin insisted France was not seeking to change or suspend the rules but wanted the deteriorating outlook for growth and inflation this year and next to be taken into account.

No Change in Rules?

On November 1, and in regards to France, The Economist says Budget, Fudge It.

France had set itself up for a collision in September, when President François Hollande's government unveiled its growth forecast. This showed that the country would fail to cut its budget deficit, as it had promised, to 3.8% of GDP this year and 3% next. Instead, the deficit would rise to 4.4% in 2014, before dropping back to 4.3% next year. France, announced Michel Sapin, the finance minister, would not reach the euro zone's 3% ceiling, originally promised by 2013, until 2017.

Amid rising frustration with France, Jyrki Katainen, the outgoing economics commissioner, asked Mr Sapin to explain why they were planning to miss their targets. Having initially insisted that they would not be bossed about by Brussels, the French then gave in. Two days before the commission's verdict was due, Mr Sapin told Mr Katainen he would find an extra €3.6 billion ($4.6 billion) in revenues in 2015, enabling him to cut the budget deficit next year to 4.1%.

4.1% Next Year? Really?

The compromise, as usual, was to give France more time if France went half-way.

After rounds of infighting, France said something to the effect "OK we will reduce our deficit from 4.4% to 4.1% in 2015".

Flashback April 10, 2014: Bloomberg reports France Must Meet 3% Budget Deficit Target for 2015, Sapin Says

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said his country needs to stick to a budget deficit target next year of 3 percent of gross domestic product to follow European Union rules.

The goal to reduce the shortfall from 4.3 percent in 2013 "is a target that we must maintain," Sapin said today to reporters in Washington, where he is attending the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. "This is in the feasible range."

In September we learned the shortfall rose!

Today we learn ....

Deficit Much Higher than Expected

Le Monde reports Government Deficit in 2014 Much Higher than Expected.

The government presented Wednesday, November 12, a draft amending budget for 2014, which represents slippage in the deficit. The deficit will reach 88.2 billion euros at the end of 2014, 4.3 billion more than what was expected this summer.

Weak business growth has indeed resulted in less revenue than expected in tax on company's VAT and taxation of financial products individuals.

Compared to the first's expectation Amending Finance Act passed in late July, 6.1 billion euro revenue is missing.

On the expenditure side, Bercy also found overruns of about 2.1 billion euros, mainly due to the cost of military operations abroad, personnel costs and mechanisms of solidarity as the income of active solidarity or the aid of State Medical.

Bercy also left unchanged its forecast deficit - which encompasses that of the State, social protection and local authorities - made in early September, which already included the deteriorating economic environment. Deficit will be 4.4% of gross domestic product this year, up from 4.1% in 2013, and then flow back slightly to 4.3% in 2015.

Weak consumer spending? A deteriorating economic environment? VAT shortfalls? Extra government spending? Deficit shrinkage to 4.3% instead of 4.1%?

Gee who coulda thunk?

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

Beppe Grillo Seeks Referendum to Abandon Euro, "At War with ECB Scum, Not ISIS or Russia!"

Posted: 14 Nov 2014 11:24 AM PST

Beppe Grillo, leader of M5S (Five Star Movement), Italy's second largest political party, seeks a referendum for Italy to leave the Euro.

One might think this would be news, but a search shows that only RT, the BBC, ZeroHedge (where I found the story), and Prison Planet picked up the story.

"Ditch Euro, Defend Sovereignty"

RT had the story first, way back on October 12, so let's start there. Please consider 'Ditch euro, defend Italy's sovereignty!' Eurosceptic leader calls for referendum.

The Italian government is not effective in restoring jobs and helping people, said Beppe Grillo, the leader of Italy's anti-establishment M5S, which burst onto the political scene last year winning 25 percent of the vote in its first parliamentary election in 2013.

"Leave the euro and defend the sovereignty of the Italian people from the European Central Bank," Grillo told his supporters at a M5S event in Rome.

"We have to leave the euro as soon as possible," he said. "We will collect one million signatures in six months and bring them to the Parliament to ask for a referendum to express our opinion."

"This time, we have 150 parliamentarians and senators, and we have time to submit [the signatures] to the Parliament and adopt a law on the referendum," Grillo said referring to 109 seats out of 630 in the Chamber of Deputies and 54 seats out of 315 in the Senate that his party holds.

European Parliament Elections

In the May European Parliament elections, Beppe Grillo's M5S party garnered 21% of the vote, second only to PD's 41% of the vote.

Yet, even though Grillo repeated his "abandon the euro message" recently, the only major news outlet to pick up the story was the BBC.

New York Times, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Washington Post, where are you hiding?

"We're at War with ECB, Not ISIS or Russia!"

The BBC reports Italy's Beppe Grillo Calls for Referendum on Leaving Euro.

Full Transcript

A referendum on the Euro. Next week we start collecting signatures. We will bring to parliament 3 or 4 million signatures, and this time we will have 150 of our own MPs [Members of Parliament] in parliament. And then we will ask for a referendum, something that wasn't done in 1989. We've got all the parties in favor of leaving the euro with us. We have two thirds of the parliament.

So we leave the euro and we bring down this system of bankers, of scum. We are dying and need a plan B. And we are implementing it. We are plan B. This year has become a nightmare. It was never meant to be like this.

We are not at war with ISIS or with Russia, we are at war with the European Central Bank [ECB]. A number of bankers tricked us out of our monetary and economic sovereignty.

"Eventually Will Come a Time"

Somehow this is not news. Not even the BBC provided that transcript, but I do thank the BBC for the embedded translation that I transcribed.

I keep repeating ....

"Eventually will come a time when a politician will hold up a copy of the EMU treaty, declare it null and void, and the debt null and void right along with it. That politician will be elected."

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

Businesses Moving Too Quickly to Robots? Will 1 in 3 Jobs Vanish by 2025?

Posted: 14 Nov 2014 10:26 AM PST

Businesses Moving Too Quickly?

Are businesses are moving too quickly to robots? Is any job safe?

Patrick Thibodeau at Computer World discusses the idea things are moving "too fast" with a review of Nicholas Carr's new book, The Glass Cage, Automation and Us.

Please consider Automation Could Take Your Skills -- and Your Job by Patrick Thibodeau.

The Glass Cage examines the possibility that businesses are moving too quickly to automate white collar jobs, sophisticated tasks and mental work, and are increasingly reliant on automated decision-making and predictive analytics. It warns of the potential de-skilling of the workforce, including software developers, as larger shares of work processes are turned over to machines.

This book is not a defense of Luddites. It's a well-anchored examination of the consequences and impact about deploying systems designed to replace us.

Interview with Carr

Thibodeau posted a lengthy set of interview questions in regards to the book, along with answers from Carr.

Here are a few snips (emphasis added).

CW: What is the worry here? If I can get into my self-driving car in the morning, I can sit back and work on other things.

Carr: There are two worries. One is practical and the other is philosophical. We have to figure out how to best balance the responsibilities between the human expert or professional and computer. I think we're going down the wrong path right now. We're too quick to hand over too much responsibility to the computer and what that ends up doing is leaving the expert or professional in a kind of a passive role: looking at monitors, following templates, entering data. The problem, and we see it with pilots and doctors, is when the computer fails, when either the technology breaks down, or the computer comes up against some situation that it hasn't been programmed to handle, then the human being has to jump back in take control, and too often we have allowed the human expert skills to get rusty and their situational awareness to fade away and so they make mistakes. At the practical level, we can be smarter and wiser about how we go about automating and make sure that we keep the human engaged.

Then we have the philosophical side, what are human beings for? What gives meaning to our lives and fulfills us? And it turns out that it is usually doing hard work in the real world, grappling with hard challenges, overcoming them, expanding our talents, engaging with difficult situations. Unfortunately, that is the kind of effort that software programmers, for good reasons of their own, seek to alleviate today.

CW: Gartner recently came out with a prediction that in approximately 10 years about one third of all the jobs that exist today will be replaced by some form of automation. That could be an over-the-top prediction or not. But when you think about the job market going forward, what kind of impact do you see automation having?

Carr: I think that prediction is probably over aggressive. It's very easy to come up with these scenarios that show massive job losses. I think what we're facing is probably a more modest, but still ongoing destruction or loss of white collar professional jobs as computers become more capable of undertaking analyses and making judgments. A very good example is in the legal field, where you have seen, and very, very quickly, language processing software take over the work of evidence discovery. You used to have lots of bright people reading through various documents to find evidence and to figure out relationships among people, and now computers can basically do all that work, so lots of paralegals, lots of junior lawyers, lose their jobs because computers can do them. I think we will continue to see that kind of replacement of professional labor with analytical software. The job market is very complex, so it's easy to become alarmist, but I do think the big challenge is probably less the total number of jobs in the economy then the distribution of those jobs. Because as soon as you are able to automate what used to be very skilled task, then you also de-skill them and, hence, you don't have to pay the people who do them as much. We will probably see a continued pressure for the polarization of the workforce and the erosion of good quality, good paying middle class jobs.

CW: What do you want people to take away from this work?

Carr: I think we're naturally very enthusiastic about technological advances, and particularly enthusiastic about the ways that engineers and programmers and other inventors can program inanimate machines and computers to do hard things that human beings used to do. That's amazing, and I think we're right to be amazed and enthusiastic about that. But I think often our enthusiasm leads us to make assumptions that aren't in our best interest, assumptions that we should seek convenience and speed and efficiency without regard to the fact that our sense of satisfaction in life often comes from mastering hard challenges, mastering hard skills. My goal is simply to warn people.

I think we have a choice about whether we do this wisely and humanistically, or we take the road that I think we're on right now, which is to take a misanthropic view of technological progress and just say 'give computers everything they can possibly do and give human beings whatever is left over.' I think that's a recipe for diminishing the quality of life and ultimately short-circuiting progress.

Is Carr a Luddite?

Thibodeau claims "Carr's book is not a defense of Luddites".

Let's look up the term Luddite.

According to Merriam-Webster a Luddite is "one of a group of early 19th century English workmen destroying laborsaving machinery as a protest; broadly: one who is opposed to especially technological change"

Carr is not an extreme Luddite to the extent he wants to destroy machinery in protest. However, in the broader sense, it's easy enough to make a case that he is indeed a Luddite.

Loss of Skills

Computers ended the need for a slide rule. The skill simply vanished. Should anyone care? As a side note, I can still use a slide rule. Many today have never heard of one. I have a totally useless skill.
Robots replaced human welders. Who does a better job? The robot or the human welder? I suggest the robot. Yet, welding did not and will not go away. No skills vanished. For quick repairs and specialized jobs, human welders will not cease to exist. If I am wrong and human welders do vanish completely, and as with slide rules, human welding skills will no longer be useful.
Cars replaced horses. Horse riding is still a skill, but it has far fewer practical uses. Should anyone be concerned?

Computers, Robots, and the Quality of Life

The most curious position of Carr is his conclusion: Computer technology is "a recipe for diminishing the quality of life".

Ring the eject buzzer on that one. With the possible exception of warfare and nuclear accidents, there has never been any technological advance in history that was a "recipe for diminished quality of life".

Yes, disruption is unwelcome to many. But Carr's worries are no different than those who worried about cars replacing horses, the cotton gin replacing seed separators, or the telephone replacing the telegraph.

Does anyone pity the widespread loss of Morse Code skills?

Curiously, although the slide rule vanished, Morse Code did not go away completely as the link above shows. It still has some limited use applications, and yes, I could do an SOS in Morse Code (but no one would pay me a dime for that skill).

Will 1 in 3 Jobs Vanish by 2025?

Is Gartner right that One in three jobs will be taken by software or robots by 2025?

If so, should there be a concern?

Real Concern

The real concern should not be the loss of jobs, but rather the Fed's response and governmental responses to price-deflation aspects.

Technology is inherently price deflationary. It's also wage deflationary except for those at the top-end of needed skills.

Central bank efforts to achieve 2% inflation in a hugely deflationary technological boom with a simultaneous and equally deflationary demographic shift is a huge problem.

In addition, liberal efforts to raise the minimum wage exacerbates the trend to move to robots.

If there is a "premature" move to robots, blame the Fed and governments, not the technology, and not businesses making the shift.

Question on Wealth Distribution

Reader Michael asks ...

"As more and more wealth is produced using less and less labor, society will be faced with the question of how to distribute this wealth. Does only a tiny fraction of the world's population get to enjoy the wealth or, do we realize that technology is enabling humans to enjoy more leisure and still have a share of the wealth?"

To answer Michael's question ...

We should embrace technology and the increased standard of living that comes with it. Yes, those at the top-end have amazing lifestyles that most can only imagine. But, it's also true that the average US citizen today lives like a king (and much longer) than someone 200 or even 100 years ago.

Every technological advance to date has been shared: computers, cell phones, television, sewing machines, radio, everything. It is inconceivable (actually impossible short of mass human extinction) for that trend to stop.

Everyone shares sooner or later. Competition ensures that outcome. Yet, it's also inevitable that the need for certain skills dies along the way.

In the short run, disruption is scary, especially to those immediately impacted. In the long run, the only fear should be of the central planner's (governments and central banks) response to such shifts.

Those who fear technology have precisely the wrong concern.

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

luni, 17 noiembrie 2014

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