Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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• Replaced by a Mannequin
• Deal to Continue the Bickering Through Feb 7; Boehner Compromised; Next election, Rand Paul + Chris Christie?
• Is Gathering Real Time "Inflation" Data With Smart Phones a "Game Changer"?

Replaced by a Mannequin Posted: 16 Oct 2013 10:00 PM PDT Why pay a human if a mannequin can do the job better? I have talked about mannequins before, but the idea of mannequins replacing humans is back in the news again. Meet Sandy "Sandy," a sign-waving mannequin, helps bring in customers to a Los Angeles smoke shop. Image by Alex Schmidt/NPR. NPR reports There's A New Kind Of Sign Spinner In Town. Meet the sign-spinning mannequin. She's freakishly tall, and her head is turned way back, Exorcist style. It's more than one job. There are several sign-spinning mannequin companies now, in LA, Oregon, Florida and beyond. Some business owners are going the Geppetto route and making them from scratch. Christopher Hunanyan enlisted the help of relatives to create the 6-foot-tall bombshell he named Sandy in front of his LA smoke shop. "It is a good investment," Hunanyan says. He says the mannequin is bringing in customers, sales and profits. The way advertising works is we get used to stuff, then we stop noticing it. So marketers are in a constant arms race to get our attention. They have to get weirder and weirder — like with the mannequins — and more sophisticated. Carnegie Mellon robotics professor Illah Nourbakhsh says one day the mannequins may become actual robots — able to see us, guess our age and gender and customize their marketing messages with frightening accuracy. Sign Waving Mannequin Video Link if image does not play: Replaced by a Mennequin Here is my favorite image clip from the video. That mannequin rates to bring in far more business than even a good looking sign waver (which most are not). Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com 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.

Deal to Continue the Bickering Through Feb 7; Boehner Compromised; Next election, Rand Paul + Chris Christie? Posted: 16 Oct 2013 11:26 AM PDT Even though Republicans hold a majority in the House, Speaker John Boehner failed to muster enough votes for two proposals he floated. Is that a sign of ineptitude, weakness, or that the House was hijacked by no-compromise Tea-partiers in a complete fool's mission? Regardless, Senate Leaders Reached Agreement on budget deal to end the shutdown. "This is a time for reconciliation," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of the agreement he had forged with the GOP leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. One prominent tea party lawmaker, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, said he would oppose the plan, but not seek to delay its passage. Officials said the proposal called for the Treasury to have authority to continue borrowing through Feb. 7, and the government would reopen through Jan. 15. Democratic Leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, has signaled she will support the plan and her rank and file is expected to vote for it in overwhelming numbers. Despite initial Republican demands for the defunding of the health care law known as Obamacare, the pending agreement makes only one modest change in the program. It requires individuals and families seeking subsidies to purchase coverage to verify their incomes before qualifying. Boehner's inability to produce a bill that could pass his own chamber likely means he will have to let the House vote on a Senate compromise, even if that means it would pass with strong Democratic and weak GOP support. House Republican leaders have tried to avoid that scenario for fear that it would threaten their leadership, and some Republicans worried openly about that. "Of all the damage to be done politically here, one of the greatest concerns I have is that somehow John Boehner gets compromised," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a former House member and a Boehner supporter. "It's time to reopen the government and ensure we don't default on our debt," Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., said in a written statement. "I will not vote for poison pills that have no chance of passing the Senate or being signed into law." Deal to Continue the Bickering Between now and January 15, expect relative calm. Then, if no agreements are made to reduce spending, we can look forward to another ridiculous round of bickering over cutbacks. Speaker Boehner Compromised Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a former House member and a Boehner supporter, is worried that "somehow John Boehner gets compromised." Somehow? It's clear that Boehner is already compromised. The question now is whether or not Boehner loses house speakership due to his inability to lead. Ultimately, it was clear from the beginning that Boehner would have to send a clean bill to the House, and that is exactly what is going to happen. Boehner's "End Obamacare" proposals did not have a chance in the Senate and thus were a big waste of time and energy, with Republicans taking the blame for the shutdown. Since no good (for Republicans) could possibly come from this bickering, the Senate finally voted to cut the losses, and perhaps Boehner's neck at the same time. Even if Boehner survives, he is damaged goods. Who is to Blame? One seriously misguided soul emailed me yesterday, stating that libertarians, especially me, are to blame for this mess, and also for Mitt Romney losing the election. In regards to soaring debt, both parties are to blame: Republicans for their ridiculous war-mongering and Democrats for entitlements. In addition, President George Bush is responsible for an irresponsible Medicare bill that added greatly to the deficit. As for Mitt Romney losing the election, neither I nor libertarians are responsible. Toss every libertarian vote to Romney and he still loses in an electoral landslide. Republicans themselves are to blame for nominating a hopelessly weak candidate. Independents the Key Many independents (of which libertarians are only a tiny component) could not support Romney's war posturing with Iran, his trade-war posturing with China, or his position on abortion. To top it off, Obamacare and Romneycare are one and the same. The election debacle should have been a wakeup call for Republicans, but judging from the mess Boehner made for himself and Republicans, it wasn't. Looking Ahead to the Next Election Hopefully Republicans will get their act together and nominate someone that independents can vote for. How about a ticket of Senator Rand Paul and Governor Chris Christie? Independents could vote for such a ticket, and indeed I think they would, especially if Rand Paul keeps his rhetoric under control. Christie is well liked by Democrats in New Jersey and he could make it close in similar states. If instead, tea-partiers hijack the nomination with an extreme right-wing, pro-war, pro-gun, anti-abortion candidate, that person would likely get trounced by Hillary Clinton (assuming she wins the nomination). But don't blame me, I am just the messenger. Addendum: Reader "CJ" writes ... "Christie is well liked by Democrats in New Jersey". And why wouldn't they like Christie? He is pretty much a Democrat, who goes along with Obama but has a little bit of sense about budgetary matters. I'm really not even sure why he calls himself a Republican. Sometimes a politician just can't get the party of choice to support him. My response ... Christie is extremely anti-public-union and is despised by them. He cut spending and lowered taxes. Yet, many Democrats now like him. Why? Because his policies improved things. I do not know his position on war-mongering but it cannot possibly be worse than Romney's. Christie is hardly perfect (but no one else is either). Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com 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.

Is Gathering Real Time "Inflation" Data With Smart Phones a "Game Changer"? Posted: 15 Oct 2013 11:55 PM PDT Premise Data Corp, a startup firm backed by Google, has deployed 700 smartphone-equipped workers across 25 cities to capture images of products as their prices change daily. The Wall Street Journal claims Real-Time Economic Data Could Be a Game Changer. Software automatically tags the location of the products down to the individual store and analyzes the images—items such as meat and produce—to gauge quality differences. A user viewing the information can zoom in on images of the products at each retail location, making it a store-shelf version of Google Street View. Premise's computers also scroll through websites to automatically grab prices from Internet stores, a process that still provides about 80% of the data the firm uses to create real-time inflation gauges. In contrast, the Labor Department collects price data by dispatching its staff to collect product prices once a month. The information is then compiled into a monthly inflation report. Outsiders have questioned Argentina's inflation data for years. That inspired Alberto Cavallo, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to create his own measures starting in 2007. The effort eventually became the academic initiative called the Billion Prices Project, collecting data from online retailers around the world to create daily inflation measures. In 2010 it led to PriceStats, which distributes inflation gauges through the financial-services firm State Street Corp. STT -0.36% to about 7,500 clients. Premise's goal is to provide even deeper information—down to the product level rather than just categories of products—and provide the technology platform for a wide range of other economic indicators beyond inflation. Hal Varian, Google Inc.'s chief economist and a Premise adviser, said the data could give government officials insight into developments that can stir up their populations. Prices for popular food items—bread in the Middle East, corn in Mexico or pork in China—could be tracked well ahead of popular unrest. "All these things are sensitive from a political point of view," Mr. Varian said. "Having up-to-date information is quite valuable." Fatal Flaws in Inflation Tracking Methodology Let's not pretend any of these companies will be tracking "inflation" because consumer prices are a symptom of inflation rather than inflation itself. Inflation, the expansion of money supply and credit, frequently manifests itself in the form of asset bubbles, rather than price hikes in consumer goods. For example, the dot-com bubble and the housing bubble (and the subsequent crashes), are the direct result of Fed inflationary practices. Currently, the stock market and bond market are both in bubble territory because of the Fed's inflationary practices. Unfortunately, there is no way to prove that thesis until the next crash. Nonetheless, there is a benefit to price tracking. The Benefit Instead of bringing back laid off BEA and BLS workers let's get rid of them. Gallup can easily track unemployment and this firm can better track consumer  prices. Any technology with a capability of eliminating government workers is fine by me, but unless that actually happens, "game changer" is a bit of a stretch. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com 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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