How to combine 2 tools to recover lost link equity!

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• How to combine 2 tools to recover lost link equity!
• BrightonSEO Key Conference Takeaways – September 2015 Edition
• Market Report: Cooking and Baking

How to combine 2 tools to recover lost link equity! Posted: 01 Oct 2015 06:46 AM PDT "Take care of your backlinks, and your backlinks will take care of you" Me, last night As we're all aware, backlinks make up a vital part of any website's online visibility. Under the constant pressure of acquiring new links to a website, the links you already have can easily be forgotten. Your current backlinks are just as important as the new links that you're acquiring, even those you got a year and a half a go, because they're what make up your backlink profile. In this post, I'm going to be demonstrating how you can use and combine two great tools to help take care of your existing backlinks, as well as spot where you might potentially be losing some of that tasty, tasty link juice from pages returning a 404 status code. For this post I'm going to use Pets at Home as an example. "Bobby, why Pets at Home?" I hear you exclaim. Let me explain. Using Pets at Home wasn't premeditated, and actually stemmed from a conversation I had earlier this evening with my housemate, when she entered the house carrying a hamster, and what can only be described as a hamster palace. In what turns out to be a regular occurrence, she had gone to Pets at Home to pet the various soft animals after a particularly stressful day at work, when she spotted the hamster in question, now called Butterbean, and the rest is history. So as I sat at my desk wondering about a website to use as a (sorry to continue with this animal theme…) guinea pig, guess what sprang like a rabbit to my mind… I digress, but you get the idea. The two tools that I'm going to be using for this demonstration are Ahrefs and Screaming Frog. For those that don't know, Ahrefs is primarily a backlink analysis tool, although their new tools are multiplying like (sorry) rabbits, and Screaming Frog is a website crawling tool. Both have free and paid versions and I highly recommend both. Step 1. Gather your data. Navigate your way to the 'site explorer' tool on the Ahrefs site, and enter your website. As of a week or two ago, you can now choose between 'fresh' and 'live' links; I chose 'fresh'. Now in the sidebar you will see 'Top Pages', which will give you a list of the top pages on your website, which can be ordered by social shares, or backlinks. Make sure you select backlinks, it's quite small! You'll now see all of your top pages, which in the case of Pets at Home numbers over 30,997! Fortunately, we're not going to be dealing with anywhere near that number (unless you're doing this for Amazon maybe), but export the full list anyway to a CSV. Download and open it. Step 2. Locate all URLs on your website with at least one backlink pointing to them. First things first, delete any URL that has 0 referring domains or returns a 200 status code, ain't nobody got time for that. Second, we're going to use Screaming Frog to check our status codes, as I've seen Ahrefs not be completely correct in the past, as well as some URLs having the status code '0'. So copy your URLs and paste them in to Screaming Frog and crawl them in list mode. Once you're finished, paste the status codes back in to the spreadsheet (make sure it's in the correct order), or if you're good with excel, put it in a table (Ctrl/Cmnd + t) and just use a simple VLOOKUP to pull your status codes in. Whether you use a VLOOKUP or not, using a table will allow for easy filtering of status codes, but I'm sure you're clever and you knew that already didn't you? Also: Filter for any 301s/302s and put these to one side, I'll share a quick tip for these later in the post. By now you will have a list of all other status code errors, which in Pets at Home's case, is 272 pages returning a 404 status code. In other words, that's 272 pages that have earned link equity, but are not passing any of it on to the website. Bonus: Check other versions of your site, such as .co.uk/.com versions and old sites to ensure you don't have links pointing to old pages that don't redirect or return a 404. Step 3. Redirect, redirect, redirect. Now that you have a full list of non-equity passing passing links, it's time to get that lovely link juice to your website, through the classic 301 redirect. (Note: don't use a 302 redirect unless it actually is temporary, please). As we know, Google isn't a massive fan of you just redirecting all old pages en-masse to the homepage, so to get the most out of your relevant link equity, work out the best page to redirect your 404 URLs to. Implement those redirect and that's it, you're done. In the case of Pets at Home, they'd now have reclaimed link equity from 202 pages now pointing at their site, from just an hour or two of work. Simple. Bonus Step. Stop losing equity through redirect chains. A great report that Screaming Frog can generate for you is the redirect chains report. This report shows you where redirects from one URL to an intended URL occur more than once, thus losing equity along the way. For example, ideally a redirect should happen once: A > B. Sometimes though, possibly due to sitewide redirects or rules, you can end up with one, two, or more redirects before your original URL reaches its intended destination: A > B > C > D. The problem with this is that equity is lost over multiple redirects, so you only want your redirects to happen once. To get this report, simply paste your list in to Screaming Frog, go to Configuration, ensure in the 'Advanced' tab that 'Always Follow Redirects' is turned on, and crawl away. Once this has finished, click on the reports option, and select the 'Redirect Chains' report. Voila, you have a nice spreadsheet showing you all the pages that redirect, and you can see where any are going through more than one redirect. Once you have found these, you need to cut these surplus redirects out and BAM, you've recovered some of the link equity lost. So there we have it, 3 quick and easy steps to taking care of your backlinks. As I said late last night to a housemate who had no idea what I was talking about, "Take care of your backlinks, and your backlinks will take care of you". Did I miss any tricks? Got any other methods you like to use? Should I have got more sleep last night? Let me know in the comments below or join me on Twitter at @bobbyjmcgill or @whitedotnet. Also, my clever colleague Charlie Williams wrote a more in-depth, 2-step post on this back in 2013 about plugging your link leaks which you might like! The post How to combine 2 tools to recover lost link equity! appeared first on White.net.

BrightonSEO Key Conference Takeaways – September 2015 Edition Posted: 18 Sep 2015 06:32 AM PDT The team from White.net have touched down in Brighton! We have joined together to attend the UK's popular digital marketing conference BrightonSEO. We are covering the most exciting sessions/talks, taking notes so you don't have to. For those unable to attend the conference, our live blogging will keep you updated around the world of SEO so you don't need to feel you are missing out. Key takeaways are also always helpful to refer back to once you're back in the office, allowing you to refresh your memory. If you have any questions about any of the topics covered at the conference, leave us a comment, we are always more than happy to share our insight and thoughts. Here is the important bit! What topics are you interested in? Follow the internal links below to navigate easily to areas of interest to you… Onsite Social Content Digital PR Data Content Links Onsite sessions Jon Earnshaw: Is your content working better for someone else? Key points: 37% of global marketing budget is spent on content Creation of content wont work effectively without curation – you need to make sure you keep an eye on your content Have you noticed a drop in visibility? – check the SERPS A glass ceiling is created by the theft of web content Stealing content can cause peaks and drops in traffic volumes which is a continual process – but the person who steals the contents ends up in the better position What should have been done? Be alert to the initial flux Explore the historical data from SERPS Identify the offending URL/Website Carry out a scraper report Don't turn your back on content Make it unique Rule out cannibalisation Delve into the SERPS Has someone taken your place? Monitor resellers and channels Chris Green: Cannibal Content – Stopping Your Website From Eating Itself Cannibalised content are web pages that compete with each other in search or web properties that you own, resulting in content that eats itself. Is your content competing with itself? Be aware of cannibalisation Look into the right tools to fight cannibalisation Do something about it Is the content that overlaps duplicate content? The answer is yes and no. Cannibalisation can be pages talking about the same thing in a different way. Have the right tools in place to track your content and its performance. For example: Rank tracking – use this to track URLs for specific key words over time Google analytics Check ranking shifts against organic traffic Search analytics reports Time to identify the cause: Screaming frog – carry out a full crawl Majestic – carry out a backlink audit What’s ranking and why? Canonical tags Internal linking Off-page signals Put it all together! Rank tracking – two pages ranking Site audit – what are your pages targeting? Are there overlaps? External signals – what is the cause? Reflections – what are you dealing with? How do you fix it? Change your site structure Change or add internal links Give your preferred page Give more love (marketing wise!) Have keyword targeting. After all, Prevention is better than a cure Linking signals are hard to change Sister sites and brands don't go away over night Restructuring sites can be a nightmare Do it right the first time! How to do it right? Through keyword research Identify primary and secondary terms Assign to sitemap Be logical in how you do keyword mapping Take a step back and look for potential overlaps e.g sub categories with little difference such as B2B and B2C areas on your site talking about the same terms and services. Pete Campbell: From SERPs to Markup: How to Increase Your Earned Traffic. Google works to finds the answers to what you’re looking for before you ask the question. By 2019 162 billion queries will be on mobile devices and 62 million on desktop Apps are becoming increasingly influential over a browser experience e.g snapchat discover Google saw a fall in searches last year – mobile had a role to play in this Increase earned traffic by: Micro data – form of html markup to inform google about the context of your web page. 66% of 100k top websites don't have micro data which can be used to increase click through rate and lower bounce rate for example, open graph (social media) and schema (websites). Organisation schema On site breadcrumb Site links search markup Article schema Product/aggregate rating schema Open Graph Tags Can control the description, image, title etc, can use CTA button e,g, shop now. Meta tags – twitter firstly needs to approve twitter card markup and then you can also use twitter card analytics to track performance Google now cards: Structured data in email campaigns Social Content Sessions Charlie Williams – Understanding Your Audience; Agile Thinking & Our Content Content that connects with our audience is the only way to stand out for increasingly similar products/services By putting the audience first, we can connect with our audience to also build better content experiences Tell stories about your products; this can be about the users experience of your product and service Think in topics (bucket lists) rather than optimizing for individual keywords Agile thinking + SEO, keyword research, UX & content strategy = a content development environment Agile thinking gives a framework, an attitude, to why we want to take bits of SEO, keyword research, UX, social media & content strategy, to develop great content What can we learn from agile? Fixing one content issue at a time, and having user goals as our primary focus Questions, questions, questions – every search is a question, those who answer them best get the most credit, so find the questions your audience is asking Where to find the questions our audience is asking? Google Suggest, Google Trends, competitor FAQs, Quora, user-centric keyword research, surveys (ask your audience to tell you their questions!) and user testing (especially of competitor websites) Google tells us that ‘a question can take you anywhere’ and this is exciting because if we can answer, it can take the searcher straight to us. All in all agile thinking helps SEO in two ways: Focus on one issue at a time Help us understand the audience, so we know what to target Stacey MacNaught – Your Content Is Awesome – Now What? When you are working on a piece of content a good idea is great, but you can't ignore promotion. Without promotion, your piece will get nowhere. Outreach alone does not count as promotion. To be successful you need to learn a variety of things about your industry and your audience which you can do by following these steps: You simply need to ask yourself, what does success look like? Conduct research into how your audience behave and what their interests are. Once you know this you can start to test your messaging across the different social platforms, to see how your audience respond before you roll out the full campaign Find out who your influencers are and organise them into tiers so you know the difference between your major and minor influencers Develop a "cracking" headline that will get you noticed Why people share content There are many reasons why people share content online, but do you know why? Understanding these reasons will help you to develop the right types of content and enable you to promote them effectively. Stacey recommends taking a look at a study by New York Times which looks at the reasons why people share online. Promotional tactics Outreach is only one promotion tactic but this alone does not count as promotion. There are a number of tactics you can employ to promote your content: Paid press release distribution Paid social and content discovery PPC for content promotion – most advertisers do not target "research" terms – it means you can get incredibly targeted and cheap traffic On-page SEO for content Hannah Thorpe – Ideation to Impact: How to Create and Sell a Digital Marketing Asset There needs to be a process behind your ideas: Take notice of your commander’s intent – what does the business need to achieve? Carry out effective research Carry out industry content analysis Use your creativity Sell! Industry analysis: Work out who your influencers are, and organise them into tiers, running from the *top* influencers, who need the most personal attention, through to small bloggers, who have a smaller, niche influence Work our where the gaps in the market lie Does your audience actually care about the gaps? How to sell your idea: Reinforce your commander’s intent – it is crucial to tie the idea back to the business first and foremost Show why you chose your idea – don’t just explain the data behind the idea you chose, show the data which made you pass-up the chance to follow up other ideas to explain your process Make it look good – don’t go designing the entire campaign (that won’t work!), instead, create something compelling that looks great! Encourage discussion and debate around your idea Christoph Cemper – How To Measure Real Success Of Content Marketing Christoph takes a look at the metrics that really matter when running a digital marketing campaign: "Social signals measure only distribution" "I can like 50 posts per minute, but does that mean I'm engaged?" – probably not. Links = user engagement Comments = user engagement Downloads = user engagement Clicks and views = user engagement User engagement = an impact metric Measurement splits into two areas: Take 'buzz' and 'impact' (distribution and long term impact) You only understand the value of a piece of content by looking at buzz and impact together Christoph put forth the argument that in order to measure success, you need to understand the relationship between 'buzz' and 'impact'. Digital PR Sessions Tanya Korobka: How to Master Digital PR? Digital PR is ultimately about connecting people and building relationships. Superstar PR 84% of people trust recommendations from friends Relationships are like spider webs – they continue to grow. Every one of your personal contacts can introduce you and connect you with more people We connect with people through their vulnerable/weird selves How do you keep personal connections? Be helpful, give not take Promoters Social media = niche interests e.g. reddit rather than traditional media Writers Get attention, replies and conversation Got a good story? Make sure you have good email subject lines, use words such as opportunity, people love this word Takeaways Everyone you meet has the potential to change your life Don't be an annoying business person be the real weird you Be generous and helpful (you'll get back in return what you give without having to ask – give not take) Mobilise people through movements they are passionate about Care about customer stories not your brands stories Lucy Freeborn: What we can all learn from the content strategies of premium brands Define the reason for engaging in specific channels so consumers know what they are going to get from brands Coherent content strategies across website and channels, making sure messaging is connected List of guidelines you follow when on social media. For example: 3 filters you stick to on Instagram Make sure the people you’re working with have the same language and feel e.g. bloggers Use different content across social channels. Make each unique and give a reason for people to follow you across all platforms Ask yourself this: Do you know what type of content your customer wants? Have you worked out what you want your content to do? Are you ensuring consistency across your brand? Are your PR and digital content teams talking to each other? Are you maximising e-commerce functions within the social media? Data capture, rich pins etc. Razvan Gavrilas: Dominating Organic Search using Cutting-Edge SEO Analysis Increase your SEO visibility by carrying out analysis: Keyword research Large scale localised top 10 SERP extraction SEO visibility analysis Links: Link prospecting Create campaigns to attract high quality homepage links Can easily overtake competitors due to link diversification Content sharing audit: Social shares extraction Social visibility calculation Google ranks vs sharing correlation Social mention is a helpful brand monitoring tool. Matt Roberts: Inspire investment in PR PR is about reputation!  What do SEO's want PR’s for? Angles Outreach Journalist influence Links What do PR’s want SEO’s for? Visibility of PR content ROI justification Content strategy Technical SEO SEO’s need to know when their own entity should rank, understand the value of content and what it should say. PR’s need to plan, to help manage those moments that impact reputation and what searchers do next. Reputation and consumer behaviour is front and centre Set goals and become strategically aligned with one another both, SEO’s and PR Tell a cohesive and data driven story Data Sessions Anna Lewis (Wiggle) – Making sure your analytics makes money 5 key areas in analytics: Analysis Tracking Reporting Insights Testing Work out which one will help you move forward: Accuracy and understanding Goals and KPIs Choosing effective strategies Balancing dev insights and service provision Testing and optimisation But first, avoid making a decision based on flawed data! Top tips for avoiding mistakes: Test installation – make sure the data coming in is correct Use debugging tools Check reports for issues Get multiple eyes on it Review regularly Common GA errors: Filters Multiple tags Sampling Cross domain tracking Campaign tracking Property level settings Top debugging tools: GA debugger Tag assistant Event tracking tracker Google tag manager preview Check you're making money: It's not all about sessions Understand business objectives Line your metrics up with bottom line Segment to ensure you don't miss details Implement a method for choosing analytics priorities Choosing priorities: Potential Importance Ease of implementation Test, but know what you want to achieve: The more you test, the more you learn Testing proves your theories Helps you choose future directions Key points: Make sure everyone's on the same page Share your definitions of metrics and dimensions All reports need keys and descriptions Reports should always have commentary from the relevant team Make sure you know the direction you need to go Kristina Baus – Data Driven Digital Marketing Strategy: How to do it? Why do we need to analyse data? Data driven marketing strategy is extremely important 64% of people feel they need to be connected to the internet at all times 4% – the average no. of touch points before a conversion Almost everything will be connected with the development of the internet of things Measurable data is actionable data Too much valuable data is being ignored Data companies analyse only 12% of their total data Data driven marketing spend is constantly increasing How should we approach big data analysis? Determine how data-driven you are as an organisation at present Determine what drives your decision making Establish what data you need to collect to support your decision making process Collect the data Analyse the data and think of the data in the view of the customer experience Roll out your customer focused information Measure ROI Repeat and improve Analysis Examples The amount of data collected is increasing and we need to understand to how to analyse and create the right strategies for our clients. Content Sessions Shelli Walsh: How To Have Ideas for Creative Content Content marketing has been around for over 100 years, it isn’t a new thing Content is not king, concept is king Don't limit your ways of thinking to create ideas Be a lateral thinker – remove limits, it doesn't matter if you are wrong Brainstorming: The six thinking hats – Helps you generate ideas thinking from 6 different perspectives The why technique – Keep asking why, never stop thinking like a child Combine ideas – For example, the mobile phone and camera were two separate devices. Apps such as, snapchat and Instagram would not be around if these concepts had not been combined Anyone can learn thinking skills! Cathal Berragan: Lessons Learned on the Way to Half of a Million Twitter Followers Starting with a Twitter page that isn’t getting many followers? Cathal came up with an idea to create a twitter page about exam problems, gained a lot of followers which led t0 companies such as Spotify and Tippy Tap approaching him. He has featured in the press including Daily Mail and Buzzfeed. Hi advice? Your profile shouldn't look like a book Humans crave visual content Make sure you are always online in order to communicate with your audience Don't give your social media profile to an intern Don’t develop 'cool dad' syndrome. Your content should be natural and reactive i.e. the people who run your channel should run their own channels well Pippa Moyle: Merging Your Business Into The 24 Hour News Cycle You have 3-5 seconds to engage your audience Think like a journalist – create content that would be in the news cycle 4 Vital qualities of a journalist: Know your reader Produce good quality content Follow the news Keep thinking about your reader What’s the secret? Know your audience and get the thinking right! Link Sessions Paul Madden: A Systematic Approach to Managing Relationship & Links All about the people and the relationships with the right people Outreach – reaching out to the right people after creating your content The aim is to build a network of influencers in niches, that can benefit all future projects How to find the right contacts: Use tools such as, Buzzumo and Ninja outreach to connect you with the right people. Outreach by email is common but it makes it hard to gain that personal interaction Social media allows you to relationship build (although it is a long game) Think like a salesperson – every conversation gets you closer to your goal A lot of us use email but in order to be noticed you need to do what is over and above what everyone else is doing, such as having a conversation over the phone Set a goal for each communication Decide what broad niches you want influencers in and connect with those people Key steps: 1) Build inventory of relationships before project 2) Foster relationships over time so they come to you 3) Unless you go the extra mile you will lose out on that race Paddy Moogan– Reverse Engineering Successful Content Keep in mind; 1) The story 2) The data 3) The production Brainstorming: Brainstorming and idea generation is difficult for most of us Brainstorming ideas needs structure and guidelines Not all ideas are good ideas Brainstorming consistently is the hardest part! Some ideas fly but you don't know why You only learn by doing stuff Look for trends Brainstorming and the idea generation stage: Create a brief for everyone involved in the brainstorm, this should be the goal Should contain themes, data, visuals, guidelines and constraints Find your content competitors i.e. for travel, targeted keywords such as cheap flights, cheap holidays Look wider than your direct competitors. Sometimes these are the people that do things really well Look at those with a bigger audience as well as direct ones Find visuals, don't over think this. Look at ones that have been created. Think about if you can  do it better Tools: Buzzumo has a feature for content analysis to look deeper into websites. You can gain useful analysis from this You can also get an average number of shares per post, but you need to have realistic expectations You can find out what posts work well and create a word cloud by using a tool called word up. Ask yourself can you do any of these aspects better? Huballin, Google’s keyword planner and Brandtale are tools useful for keyword research Statista.com can be used for data sourcing. If you can’t find data online get your own e.g. google consumer surveys Kelvin Newman: How to have less rubbish ideas The majority of what I am going to tell you is not new but this should help you to start thinking differently about things that you should do, that you might not currently do. You will have better ideas when you understand your context and when you create reliable methods and the right environment The web is a network – too often we talk about link building. It is important to understand the quality of the link and who is linking to you as well as the context Everything happens in context – what might be a good campaign for others might not be right for you Use fusion tables as a way to visualise link relations giving you an interactive/visual snapshot of your site “An idea is nothing more or less than a new combination of old elements” – James Young Webb A new idea can be generated through remixing ideas You will have better ideas when you understand context and have reliable methods. The post BrightonSEO Key Conference Takeaways – September 2015 Edition appeared first on White.net.

Market Report: Cooking and Baking Posted: 18 Sep 2015 01:25 AM PDT This September we are launching our latest Market Report, this time focusing on Cookware and Bakeware, with a few food processor insights to added to the mix. We looked at the biggest brands, retailers and manufacturers in the market in order to see who’s coming out on top. Here are some of the highlights: Our trend insights show the growing product types and key times of year for bakeware and cookware retailers Our spotlight features on supporting content and product pages provide insight into creating that comprehensive customer journey Social Media Specialist Kasia Piekut looks at this market’s approach to Social Media. We look at why the BBC is winning on Twitter when it comes to baking Social Media campaigns that caught our eye Take a look at some of the well known brands that feature in our report:   Why this sector? The past couple of years has seen a surge in popularity for home baking. The desire to save money, coupled with a trend towards nostalgia, has seen many Britons turn back towards mum’s tried and trusted recipes. Vivianne Ihekweazu, Mintel   To enjoy the Cookware and Bakeware report, you can view further details of what’s inside and download it here. Enjoy the gallery of White.net’s baking attempts below! The post Market Report: Cooking and Baking appeared first on White.net.

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Seth's Blog : Promotion, demotion and opportunity

Promotion, demotion and opportunity

You can learn a new skill, today, for free.

You can take on a new task at work, right now, without asking anyone.

You can make a connection, find a flaw, contribute an insight, now.

Or not.

In a fluid system, when people are moving forward, others are falling behind.

The question, then, isn't, "when am I going to get promoted?"

No, I think the question is, "will I grab these openings to become someone who's already doing work at a higher level?"

Act 'as if'. If the people around you don't figure out what an asset you've become, someone else will.

       

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Carly Fiorina's No-Fly Zone Proposal Now Viewed as Impossible; Good News, Bad News Posted: 04 Oct 2015 07:43 PM PDT Carly Fiorina's No-Fly Zone Proposal Dead? The Financial Times reports Moscow Scuppers US Coalition Plans for No-Fly Zone in Syria Russia's bombing of anti-regime rebels in Syria has been described as a disaster for the US-led coalition's efforts to destroy Isis, the Islamist militant group, but the Kremlin's real challenge to Washington is in the skies above the war-torn country. Alongside a modest Latakia-based contingent of two dozen Su-24 Fencer and Su-25 Frogfoot jets — planes designed to strike land targets — Moscow has deployed assets which render the prospect of no-fly zones enforced by the US or its allies over Syria impossible to enact. "The ultimate reason all this is happening is because of the renewed focus on Syria and the need for some sort of political solution there — something which we thought we could achieve by enforcing no-fly zones, safe zones," said one senior European diplomat. But any hopes of military co-ordination with Russia to achieve this, even in the wake of its disruptive deployment, are swiftly being dashed. Deployment of S-300s — or other similarly sophisticated systems, also known as triple-digit Sams — has long been one of the Pentagon's biggest fears in the Middle East. The S-300 system, which has an operating range of 150km, is capable of striking down all but the most sophisticated stealth aircraft. It means most missions flown by Washington's coalition allies — Jordan, for example, uses F-16 jets — are now highly vulnerable. Even the UK's deployment of Tornados and Typhoons at the Royal Air Force's base at Akrotiri, Cyprus, is threatened by the missiles. "The Russian forces now in place make it very, very obvious that any kind of no-fly zone on the Libyan model imposed by the US and allies is now impossible, unless the coalition is actually willing to shoot down Russian aircraft," says Justin Bronk, research analyst at the Royal United Services Institute. "The Russians are not playing ball at deconfliction — they are just saying, 'keep out of our way'. The coalition's operations in Syria will be vastly more complex from a risk assessment point of view and from a mission-planning point of view." Idiotic Ideas The idea of a no-fly zone is not only illegal, it's idiotic. The no-fly zone was meant to protect Al Qaeda rebels and little more. The absurd irony of this setup is that Al Qaeda and ISIS both want to topple Syrian president Assad. The US would rather topple Assad than fight ISIS. If indeed the no-fly zone proposal is on the ash heap of failed ideas, we should all cheer because that is where it belongs. Nonetheless, Carly Fiorina says the US should enforce a no-fly zone in Syria, even if it means shooting down Russian aircraft. The notion we should shoot down Russian planes when they are fighting ISIS (albeit not how we like) is crazy. For more details, please see Trump vs. Fiorina vs. Obama on Isis; Fiorina and the "Law of Bad Ideas". Good News, Bad News The good news is Fiorina's idea of a no-fly zone appears to be on the ash heap of history where it belongs. The bad news is Corollary #5 and Corollary #6 to the Law of Bad Ideas both suggest someone will come up with an even sillier action plan. Corollary Five: No politically acceptable idea is so bad it cannot be made worse.  Corollary Six: Bad ideas lead to more bad ideas to fix problems caused by previous bad ideas.  Mike "Mish" Shedlock Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Fraudulent Medicare, Medicaid, EITC, Tax Refunds, etc. Total $1 Trillion Since 2003 Posted: 04 Oct 2015 12:49 PM PDT A huge chunk of your tax dollars every year goes straight into the pockets of crooks. Nearly one in three earned income credits (EIC) is fraudulent. And the numbers keep getting bigger every year according to the Government Accountability Office. Please consider GAO: Feds Made Nearly $1 Trillion in Overpayments Since Fiscal 2003. Government waste took a significant turn for the worse in fiscal 2014, rising dramatically to $124.7 billion from $105.8 billion in fiscal 2013. Since fiscal 2003, "cumulative improper payment estimates have totaled almost $1 trillion," the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report. U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro testified Thursday on the GAO's new findings (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-92T) before the Senate Finance Committee. The GAO said three programs were most at fault: Medicare, Medicaid and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The Earned Income Tax Credit program was the worst offender. The Internal Revenue Service estimated that the program erroneously handed out $17.7 billion worth of "improper" payments. That amounts to a whopping 27.2 percent of the total $65.2 billion in EITC refund checks that the IRS sent out in fiscal 2014.  Medicare was nearly as bad. The program, which covers about 54 million elderly and disabled beneficiaries, incorrectly doled out $59.9 billion in fiscal 2014, which is about a tenth of its $603 billion budget. So, one out of every $10 that Medicare spent last year was erroneous, the GAO found.  Medicaid made $17.5 billion in mistaken payments out of its $304 billion budget, for a nearly 6 percent error rate. Besides the EITC program, the federal programs with the highest reported error rates for fiscal 2014 included the School Breakfast program (25.6 percent) and the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act Programs (23.1 percent). GAO Report The GAO Report is called Addressing Improper Payments and the Tax Gap Would Improve the Government's Fiscal Position Inquiring minds may wish to take a look. Correct Term is Fraud Writer Elizabeth MacDonald labeled this as "Overpayments" or "Waste".  The GAO labels this as "improper payments". Let's be more accurate, it's theft of taxpayer money via fraud. Moreover the GAO numbers are dramatically understated. Disability fraud, not part of  the GAO report, is rampant. States' Incentive to Promote Disability Fraud: States Have an Incentive to Promote (Not Stop) Disability Fraud; So How Much Fraud Is There? 14 Million on Disability: Unwilling to Work; 25% in Hale County AL Collect Disability, 14 Million Nationwide; A Simple Solution Why Work?: Why Work for $7.25 When Welfare Pays $15.00 in 12 States and $8.00 in 33 States? Is a Low Minimum Wage the Problem? Puerto Rico Fraud: Puerto Ricans Get U.S. Disability Benefits for Inability to Speak English; Disability Deal Explained Police and Fire Fraud: 102 Police and Firefighters Caught in Disability Scam Claims Hit Record: Disability Fraud Holds Down Unemployment Rate; Jobless Disability Claims Hit Record $200B in January Clinton Ends Welfare "As We Know It" Want to understand the huge spread in disability fraud? Look no further than Bill Clinton as explained in detail in link #1. This all goes back to 1996 when president Clinton promised to "end welfare as we know it". Clinton did indeed do just that, and fraud is the result. Why? The federal government pays disability, but states pay part of welfare costs. This creates a huge incentive for states to actively promote disability fraud (simply to get people off state-sponsored welfare programs). And that they have done. A primary example pertains to Hale County (see link #2). 25% of the people in Hale County Alabama collect disability. They are all tied to Hale county's Dr. Timberlake. Dr. Timberlake asks a simple question to all his patients. "What grade did you finish?" If you claim "back pain" and do not have a degree, Timberlake believes you are disabled. The GAO says "Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance" claims are only 0.4% improper. Taking the above into consideration I would be shocked if the real percentage is under 33%. Indeed, 67% fraud is probably more like it. And if so, what's the real dollar total? Mike "Mish" Shedlock Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

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Seth's Blog : Sometimes, you have to believe it in order to see it

Sometimes, you have to believe it in order to see it

In a hyper-rational world, this sounds like voodoo. Persuading ourselves in advance is no way to see the world as it is.

But what if your goal is to see the world as it could be?

It's impossible to do important innovation in any field with your arms crossed and a scowl on your face.

Missouri might be the show-me state, but I'd rather be from the follow-me state.  {12}

       

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Trump vs. Fiorina vs. Obama on Isis; Fiorina and the "Law of Bad Ideas" Posted: 03 Oct 2015 06:23 PM PDT Carly Fiorina Seeks No-Fly Zone In the Fox interview show below, Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina says the US should enforce a no-fly zone in Syria, even if it means shooting down Russian aircraft. Quote of the day: "Russian jets have been basically conducting dangerous and unpredictable maneuvers around our waters and our borders and our territory". Can I have a definition of "our" territory please? The closest I can find is U.S. to file complaint over 'unsafe' intercept by Russian fighter jet. That was an incident over the Baltic Sea, near Poland. The other side of the story is Invading the Black Sea: Washington's belligerent military maneuvers in traditional Russian territory. And what about NATO Conducts Military Maneuvers 300 Yards From Russia's Border? So who's provoking whom? But let's return to the main story. What right does the US have to enforce a no-fly zone over Syria? Quite frankly this woman is a dangerous war-monger, at best. She is totally unfit to be president. Obama Goes After Putin The Financial Times reports Obama Attacks Putin Over Syrian Air Strikes. Russia is being pulled into a "quagmire" in Syria and its military intervention is likely to boost the Islamist militants of Isis, a defiant President Barack Obama said on Friday after a week when his own approach to the Syrian conflict has faced intense scrutiny. "An attempt by Russia and Iran to prop up Assad and try to pacify the population is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire, and it won't work," he said. "They will be there for a while if they don't take a different course." Quagmire Irony The irony of Obama's statement should stand out like a mile. The US is in a Mideast quagmire of its own making starting with Bush and continued by Obama. Besides, why should we give a damn if Russia gets stuck in a Syrian quagmire? Does Russia give a hoot that the US is stuck in quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan? Is Obama that much of a caring person that he is concerned about 'Putinesque" quagmires? Speaking at the White House, Obama also said that some of his domestic critics who were calling for a more direct American intervention in the Syrian civil war were peddling "half-baked solutions" and "mumbo-jumbo". It's difficult to say precisely who that paragraph is aimed at, but if if it's Fiorina, then we can take some consolation in the fact that Obama's policies are at least to some degree, not as idiotic as hers. Let Russia fight ISIS in Syria On September 29, Donald Trump said 'Let Russia fight ISIS' in Syria. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said the United States should let Russia fight it out against the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria, saying Syrian President Bashar Assad looks better to him than the alternative. 'Why are we knocking ISIS and yet at the same time we're against Assad?' Let them fight, take over the remnants. But more importantly, let Russia fight ISIS, if they want to fight 'em … in Syria," Mr. Trump said. "Let Syria and ISIS fight. Why do we care?" he said. "We have to get rid of ISIS, very importantly, but I look at Assad, and Assad to me looks better than the other side," he said. "And you know, this has happened before. We back a certain side, and that side turns out to be a total catastrophe. Russia likes Assad, seemingly, a lot — let them worry about ISIS. Let them fight it out." Bingo! I do not agree with all of Trump's statements on ISIS, but he hits the nail squarely on the head here. The real problem is US policy. We took out Saddam Husein, a secular ruler, and put in place a religious puppet who increased tensions between Shiites and Sunnis giving rise to religious warfare and the very creation of ISIS. Make no mistake, ISIS is a US creation. And Both ISIS and Al Qaeda rebels seek to overthrow Assad. Realistically, Russia wants to fight ISIS and we should either welcome that stance or be neutral to it. But Obama doesn't like the tact Russia has taken. The US supports Al Qaeda rebels because the US wants to get rid of Syrian president Assad. Russia's way to fight ISIS is to take on Al Qaeda. History Lesson Please recall that one of the justifications the US used to topple Hussein was the lie Iraq harbored Al Qaeda. In reality, Al Qaeda did not exist in any extent in Iraq before we topped Hussein, but does now. And the US is now aligned with Al Qaeda because we would rather get rid of Assad than fight ISIS, even though ISIS is a far bigger threat. That is how blatantly stupid US policy has become. Law of Bad Ideas Revisited The Law of Bad Ideas says that no matter how stupid an idea is, someone will propose something worse. Specifically, Corollary Number Five to the Law of Bad Ideas states "No idea is so bad it cannot be made worse." Sure enough, along comes Fiorina, willing to get into a military battle with Russia to support blatantly stupid US policies. Mike "Mish" Shedlock Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Robot Taxis Starting 2016 in Japan; Self-Driving Trucks on German Autobahn; Millions of Truck and Taxi Driver Jobs will Vanish in US by 2025 Posted: 03 Oct 2015 12:18 PM PDT I predicted robot taxis and trucks by 2020. Most doubted it, but I maintained I was as likely to be too late as opposed to too early. The future has arrived, at least in Japan. Autonomous taxis will operate in test mode next year with a goal of full production by 2020. Reader Alain writes ... "Hey Mish, I saw this article and it reminded me of your self-driving cars posts some time ago. When I read your posts I thought your time frame on their arrival seemed a bit optimistic. But here we are." Robot Taxis Starting 2016 in Japan The Wall Street Journal reports RoboCab: Driverless Taxi Experiment to Start in Japan From the country where hotels are operated by robots and androids serve as clerks at department stores comes the latest unmanned project: the robot cab. Japan's cabinet office, Kanagawa prefecture and Robot Taxi Inc. on Thursday said they will start experimenting with unmanned taxi service beginning in 2016. The service will be offered for approximately 50 people in Kanagawa prefecture, just south of Tokyo, with the auto-driving car carrying them from their homes to local grocery stores. According to the project organizers, the cabs will drive a distance of about three kilometers (two miles), and part of the course will be on major avenues in the city. Crew members will be aboard the car during the experiment in case there is a need to avoid accidents. Robot Taxi Inc., a joint venture between mobile Internet company DeNA Co. and vehicle technology developer ZMP Inc., is aiming to commercialize its driverless transportation service by 2020. The company says it will seek to offer unmanned cabs to users including travelers from overseas and locals in areas where buses and trains are not available. The project is a part of the government's effort to promote innovation and startup businesses. Among companies trying to turn driverless cars into business is Google Inc., which started testing its system in Texas in July. Robot Taxis Image Image: Miho Inada/The Wall Street Journal Note the car still has a steering wheel. That steering wheel will be gone by 2020. Self-Driving Trucks on German Autobahn Self-driving trucks in real conditions are on highways in Germany. It's just a test, but it won't take five years for live operation. Truck Yeah! reports Daimler's Autonomous Truck Successfully Completed Its Maiden Voyage On A Public Highway. Following up on their American Adventures, Mercedes successfully tested its semi-autonomous Highway Pilot system on the German Autobahn. This technology can be fitted into regular production trucks and is a huge step towards fully autonomous transportation. The Federal State of Baden-Württemberg set Daimler Trucks loose on its highways, showing the world that the technology is pretty much production ready despite the missing legal context surrounding autonomous vehicles. At this stage, the driver remains in control despite the truck accelerating, braking and steering on its own, but Daimler says humans can never drive as efficiently as the robot does, and since the aim is to minimize fuel consumption while improving traffic flow, driverless transportation is what we're looking at in the long run. Also consider Daimler Tests Self-Driving Truck on German Highway German automaker Daimler said it trialled a self-driving truck under real traffic conditions for the first time Friday, on a motorway in southern Germany. The standard Mercedes-Benz Actros, fitted with the intelligent "Highway Pilot" system, travelled 14 kilometres (about nine miles) on the A8 motorway, with a driver in the cabin but his hands off the wheel. The truck in Friday's trial, the world's first series-production autonomous truck, drove between Stuttgart and the town of Denkendorf in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, where Daimler is headquartered. State premier Winfried Kretschmann of the Greens party, who was also along for the ride, said "partially autonomous and autonomous driving indicates that a new age of mobility is dawning". "Autonomously driving and networked vehicles improve the flow of traffic and can play a decisive role in helping to avoid traffic jams and relieving the strain on drivers," he said in a statement. "They also boost traffic safety." Daimler says autonomous trucks improve efficiency and cut carbon emissions. Thanks to optimised gear shifting, acceleration and braking, they generate at least five percent fewer CO2 emissions, said the company. Daimler, whose vehicles include the high-end Mercedes-Benz range and compact Smart cars, is also the world's biggest maker of trucks with brands including Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner, Fuso and BharatBenz. Snowball Action This is likely to snowball much faster than I expected two years ago. And as I have stated numerous times, millions of truck driving and taxi driving jobs will vanish by 2025 at the latest. Mike "Mish" Shedlock Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

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Seth's Blog : Bikes and cars

Bikes and cars

Bikes should give way to cars:

• Cars are bigger
• Cars are faster
• Cars are powerful
• A car can hurt a biker
• Cities are built for commerce, and powered vehicles are the engine of commerce
• It's inefficient for a car to slow down
• I'm in a car, get out of my way
• I'm on a bike, I'm afraid

Cars should give way to bikes:

• Bikers need a break
• Bikers are more fragile
• Bikes aren't nearly as powerful
• A car can hurt a biker
• Cities are built by people, and while commerce is a side effect, the presumption that cars are the reason for a city is a bit... presumptuous
• It's a lot of work for a bike to stop and start again
• I'm on a bike, get out of my way
• I'm in a car, I see you

This dichotomy is, of course, a metaphor, a Rorschach that tells each of us a lot about how we see the world. 

       

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