Money and Investing Thoughts

This article spells out why further government spending through higher debt will not work. Here is a exerpt:

I do not agree at all with modern Keynesians who lacked the restraint of Keynes.  Deficits are supposed to be temporary not structural.  Loose monetary policy is supposed to be temporary, not lingering.

Many policies can “work” when governments have the capacity to take on more debt without harm.  We are past that point now.  Additional debt builds up a larger problem, that will result in a greater crisis later. Emphasis Added.

If you care about government policy and the economy read the whole article:

The Aleph Blog » Blog Archive » Stagflation-Plus.

I write as an independent contractor for the Demand Media Studios portion of Demand Media. Starting in April, Google made several significant algorithm changes aimed at reducing the search rankings of Internet content considered to be of lower quality. Many viewed this as an attack on the search results of the content companies like Demand Media.

Yesterday, Aug. 9, Demand Media (DMD: 6.92 +0.16 +2.37%) released their earnings report for the second quarter.  These notes primarily concern information from the press release and conference call in regards to the company’s online publishing business results.

Conference call notes:

• Search engine algorithm changes reduced Ehow revenues  8 percent from the previous quarter.
• Over 300,000 user generated articles were removed during the quarter.
• Demand has launched the beta of Ehow español.
• Two just announced acquisitions will facilitate a push into marketing through social networks.
• Content revenue was 63 percent of total revenue for the quarter.
• In the first quarter, 66 percent of Ehow traffic came from Google. In the 2nd quarter, the Google referrals dropped to 59 percent.

I dug out the earnings reports for Q1 and Q2 to compare page views pre and post Panda.  Here is what the reports reported:

• Owned and Operated websites: 1st quarter: 2.58 billion page views. 2nd quarter: 2.57 billion page views.
• Customer websites: 1st quarter: 3.77 billion page views. 2nd quarter: 3.69 billion page views.

So Demand Media saw an almost negligible decline in page views through the two Google algorithm changes. Anecdotally, my articles published on content provider Bright Hub posted a 70 percent decline in page views are are just now starting to recover.

For my fellow DMS writers, Demand Media is not going out of business and plans to continue content production at the same levels as in the past. However, the trend towards more and more focused content with ever greater emphasis on quality will continue. As an investment, Demand Media has grand goals and a focused plan to get there. Right now I expect a sharp share price increase as the relatively good financial news props up the share price and the legions of short sellers try to cover their positions.

p.s. I am using this post to restart and refocus this site/blog. Feel free to leave a comment, sign up for my RSS feed or let me know if you Google+.

Oil is over $100 a barrel and it is starting to feel like 2008 again, only without the jobs. Interesting video.

This guys comments make sense and give some interesting advice on investing for deflation.

This is too good of a quote to pass up. Read the whole article at the Aleph Blog

My view of unions is that they slowly kill whomever they serve. Industries with high unionization die eventually. Countries that support unions die slowly as well.

Unions introduce inflexibility into the economic process which has a huge cost, eventually. Greece is controlled by its unions. They are willing to seek their own prosperity even if it leads to the destruction of the nation. They don’t think the nation will be destroyed, but think that there are parties in power that hold back value from them, and they must be opposed, deluded fools that the unions are.

via The Aleph Blog » Blog Archive » The Lack of Cultural Agreement Roars, the Eurozone Mews.