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sâmbătă, 30 martie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Time to Wave the White Flag on the "War on Poverty"

Posted: 30 Mar 2013 06:38 PM PDT

In response to Unwilling to Work; 25% in Hale County AL Collect Disability, 14 Million Nationwide; A Simple Solution I received some interesting emails from readers.

Regardless of Insurance, Taxpayers Pay

Reader Chris writes

Hey Mish,

I have been discussing disability for quite some time with others. I know a few people on disability who should not be qualified. I also have one good friend who is on disability for back problems. He had several surgeries and is genuinely disabled. The interesting part is my friend paid for his own insurance for 25+ years and the minute that he was declared unable to work, a lawyer saw to it that he would go on SS benefits. The insurance company collected premiums for 25+ years and now the government (taxpayers) pay.

Discussion on Radio Station KMJ

I was on radio station KMJ in Fresno, California for 45 minutes on Friday discussing my post on disability. Mike, a disabled worker was kind enough to share his thoughts. Mike writes ...

Hello Mish

I just heard you on KMJ and agree with what you have said. I am a disabled person working in the social services system, I will soon be retiring due to stress related problems. I would like to keep working at another position with less stress but many of my friends think I am stupid for wanting to work instead of taking social security.

Time to Wave the White Flag

Reader Claudette, writes ...

Hello Mish

Thanks for a good post on a complex issue. SSI/SSDI comes from social security funds, making that program even less sustainable over time.

I also see those who are truly disabled and unable to be competitively employed...they are being sustained in poverty by this program because of the sheer numbers in the program.

Multiple disincentives are built into the system to getting a job for fear of losing your stable disability check and Medicare coverage, so that it is very hard for the state Vocational Rehab system (where I work) to get disability recipients back to work.

There are few entry level jobs that pay enough or have benefits adequate for the recipients to take the risk of leaving the safe harbor of Disability.

Let's just raise a white flag and admit that the "war on poverty" has been lost and look critically at how our programs sustain people in poverty rather than lift them out of it.

Thanks all. Yes, it is time to raise the white flag. Many of these programs are structured to keep people on disability rather than get them off disability.

Reader mike shows the pressure on the few who really do not want to take advantage of the system.

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

Beppe Grillo "We are the French Revolution Without the Guillotine"

Posted: 30 Mar 2013 09:38 AM PDT

With Beppe Grillo unwilling to form a coalition government, and with Prime former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi making demands that Bersani will not go along with, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano Considers Options.

One of those options includes stepping down early so the next president can call elections. Under Italian law, an outgoing president is restricted. Napolitano's term ends mid-April.

Napolitano, who met with lawmakers yesterday, may make an announcement today, the president's spokesman said late yesterday. Napolitano will continue talks with leaders in parliament and may consider resigning, daily La Repubblica reported today, without citing anyone.

To reach a compromise, Napolitano would need help from lawmakers loyal to either former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi or Beppe Grillo's Five Star Movement. Berlusconi said yesterday he would back a government in partnership with the Democratic Party, while Grillo reiterated he will shun a deal with other parties.

"We were and still are open to giving life to a coalition," Berlusconi, 76, said yesterday after meeting Napolitano. "We think it's logical that if we form a government together, a coalition government, then together we must discuss about who will be the best president of the republic."

Vito Crimi, Five Star's head in the Senate, and Roberta Lombardi, the party's leader in the Chamber of Deputies, repeated their resistance to compromise after meeting Napolitano yesterday. That position was praised by Grillo later in an interview broadcast on his website.

"We're going to win with our ideas and our strength because we're a miracle," Grillo said. "We are the French Revolution without the guillotine."

Poison Pill

Silvio Berlusconi is willing to form a coalition but his price of admission is high.

Berlusconi wants to shield himself from further lawsuits, and he wants new rules favorable to his PdL party. He also wants the PdL to name the next president.

Grillo would never go along with such demand, and Bersani has thrice ruled out such a deal.

The sane thing to do would be for Napolitano to step down so there could be early elections. If he goes the route of attempting to find a technocrat suitable to everyone, the odds of success will be very low, and the odds the election delayed until September, high.

My main scenario remains No Working Government for 7 Months, Then Elections in September but an early resignation by Napolitano could alter the time line.

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

SEO Blog

3 Simple Ways To Optimize Your Internet Marketing Campaign

Posted: 30 Mar 2013 11:42 AM PDT

You will run out of time if you are moving into ineffective acts on a persistent basis. Most internet marketing failure roots itself in ineffective action. Move your attention to goal achieving actions to accomplish a whole lot more in a bunch less time. Think through your internet marketing campaign;...
Read more »

Reach out your targeted audience with concept of SEO and SMO

Posted: 29 Mar 2013 11:30 PM PDT

The day when the internet has evolved till today's date thousands of new website have come up and you might want that when a user types a query your website should show in top search results of Search Engine. The technique that helps to get more and more traffic in...
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Another March Mozscape Index is Live!

Posted: 29 Mar 2013 07:18 AM PDT

Posted by carinoverturf

We're happy to announce the second Mozscape index for the month of March is now live! Data has been refreshed across all SEOmoz applications - Open Site Explorer, the Mozbar, PRO campaigns, and the Mozscape API.

I know you're all thinking - but wait, you just launched an index last week?! This was one of our fastest indexes to finish processing - taking only 11 days! But processing overlapped slightly for this index and our previous March index. However, the good news is that it just means lots of fresh data for you!

As you can see from the crawl histogram, a large volume of the data in this index was crawled in the beginning of March and the oldest data dating back to about the first week of February.

Crawl histgram for March 28th Mozscape index

Here are the metrics for this latest index:

81,359,307,805 (81 billion) URLs
12,256,956,717 (12.2 billion) Subdomains
149,419,721 (149 million) Root Domains
774,927,201,776 (775 billion) Links
Followed vs. Nofollowed
- 2.18% of all links found were nofollowed
- 54.51% of nofollowed links are internal
- 45.49% are external
Rel Canonical - 15.80% of all pages now employ a rel=canonical tag
The average page has 75 links on it
- 64.04 internal links on average
- 11.03 external links on average

And the following correlations with Google's US search results:

Page Authority - 0.35
Domain Authority - 0.19
MozRank - 0.24
Linking Root Domains - 0.30
Total Links - 0.25
External Links - 0.29

We always love to hear your thoughts! And remember, if you're ever curious about when Mozscape next updates, you can check the calendar here. We also maintain a list of previous index updates with metrics here.

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!

Weekly Address: President Obama Offers Easter and Passover Greetings

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Weekly Address: President Obama Offers Easter and Passover Greetings

President Obama uses his Weekly Address to mark a sacred time for the millions of Americans celebrating Easter and Passover, and he calls on everyone to use this time to reflect on the common values we share as a nation. The President says that this is a chance to embrace loved ones, give thanks for our blessings, and help those less fortunate as we celebrate our individual traditions as well as the thread of humanity that connects us all.

Watch this week's Weekly Address.

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