Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis |
- Introducing the Knightscope K5 Security Robot, Effective Cost $6.25 per Hour
- Rich Don't Pay Most of the Taxes (They Pay All of Them); Reflections on the "Almost Rich"
- High-Powered Idiocy from Academic Wonderland; Three Reasons Banks Not Lending; Blinder is Blind
- Milk Futures Set to Double if Farm Bill Does Not Pass
Introducing the Knightscope K5 Security Robot, Effective Cost $6.25 per Hour Posted: 11 Dec 2013 08:43 PM PST Knightscope Inc. has introduced a crime-fighting R2D2 look-alike robot with an effective cost of $6.25 per hour. Silicon Valley startup Knightscope Inc. is developing an "Autonomous Data Machine" with the potential to perform the oftentimes monotonous task of keeping watch over property more cost effectively and comprehensively than a human security guard. The company today revealed it has already started securing beta customers for its first two models, the Knightscope K5 and K10.K5 vs. R2D2 K5 Closeup Effective Cost $6.25 per Hour Bloomberg reports Crime-Fighting Robotic Guard... for $6.25 an Hour Above video: Knightscope CEO Bill Santana Li discusses the company's security robots with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television's "Bloomberg West." K5 ready for prime time yet? Perhaps not, but they do have a dozen beta customers lined up. Regardless, this introduction is an indication of where things are headed. The most impressive thing to me is the company just started in April. Look at what they have done in a short time. The Knightscope Team Bio is impressive. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
Rich Don't Pay Most of the Taxes (They Pay All of Them); Reflections on the "Almost Rich" Posted: 11 Dec 2013 03:32 PM PST Counting transfer payments such as foods stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, and other government welfare, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis shows the top 40% pay 106% of all taxes (more than all of them). In turn the bottom 60% get money back. Please consider The rich do not pay the most taxes, they pay ALL the taxes by CNBC reporter Jane Wells. Buried inside a Congressional Budget Office report this week was this nugget: when it comes to individual income taxes, the top 40 percent of wage earners in America pay 106 percent of the taxes. The bottom 40 percent...pay negative 9 percent. The key table is in Box 1 on PDF page 11 (report page 7) of Distribution of Household Income and Taxes. The report was released in December 2013 but data is for 2010. Highlighting is mine. Key Facts
That money had to come from somewhere, and it did.
Wells concludes ... Fair or not, I will let you be the judge. People who make more should pay more, generally speaking. In America, they are. Yes, the rich (and almost rich) are getting richer. When it comes to individual income taxes, they're also covering the entire bill. And leaving a tip. Reflections on the "Almost Rich" I would be hard-pressed to call the fourth quintile "almost rich". And I rather doubt they are getting much, if any richer, inflation-adjusted. The benefits to this recovery are concentrated in the top 10%, with most of that in the top 1%. Thank the Fed for that outcome. For further discussion, please see ...
Regardless of who you think is to blame for rising income inequality, the report sheds a great deal of light on where tax dollars are coming from, and where they go. Fair is in the eyes of the beholder. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
High-Powered Idiocy from Academic Wonderland; Three Reasons Banks Not Lending; Blinder is Blind Posted: 11 Dec 2013 12:59 PM PST Alan Blinder, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, is back at it. In an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, Blinder says "Don't only drop the interest rate paid on banks' excess reserves, charge them." Please consider The Fed Plan to Revive High-Powered Money. Unless you are part of the tiny portion of humanity that dotes on every utterance of the Federal Open Market Committee, you probably missed an important statement regarding the arcane world of "excess reserves" buried deep in the minutes of its Oct. 29-30 policy meeting. It reads: "[M]ost participants thought that a reduction by the Board of Governors in the interest rate paid on excess reserves could be worth considering at some stage."Initial Thoughts For starters, my first thought was not "Wait. If the Fed charged banks rather than paid them, wouldn't bankers shun excess reserves?" Banks are not holding excess reserves because the Fed pays them 0.25% interest annually. Banks are holding excess reserves in spite of the fact the Fed pays them 0.25% interest annually! The difference is huge. And the three-fold reason is simple. Three Reasons Banks Not Lending
Is number 3 that unbelievable? I think not. Banks still do not have to mark assets to market. What are they hiding? Even if one assumes banks are not capital impaired, reasons 1 and 2 are sufficient enough to explain why banks are not lending. Are Corporations Starved for Cash? National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) surveys businesses each month to see what their main issues are. Loans are never high on the list. Here is the NFIB November 2013 report. NFIB chief economist Bill Dunkelberg explains ... "The year is not ending on a high note in the small-business sector of the economy. The 'bifurcation' continues with the stock market hitting record high levels, but the small-business sector is showing little growth beyond that driven by population growth. There is also a hint that employers are getting an inkling of what Obamacare might mean for labor costs, concern about the cost and availability of insurance bumped up 3 percentage points after a long period of no real change. Small-business owners who provide health insurance may soon find that their plans 'unacceptable' to Obamacare and be obliged to either pay more for the coverage or abandon it and pay the benefit in cash. This will be a major source of angst and uncertainty in 2014." Most Important Issues Facing Small Businesses 22% of small businesses complain about government red tape (which I presume includes Obamacare), 21% complain about taxes, and 15% complain about poor sales. Only 2% of small businesses complain about financing. Large corporations are flush with cash (debt really). They don't want or need to borrow either (but they are happy to keep rolling over debts at lower-and-lower interest rates). Blinder is Blind Those in academic wonderland are too blind to see what should be perfectly obvious: Banks would not accept a paltry 0.25% if they thought they had creditworthy customers willing to borrow. And although creditworthy customers don't want to borrow, Blinder wants the Fed to force banks to lend anyway! To Whom? Banks can only do so by lending to non-creditworthy customers. How would that work out? Let's step back and ask a simple question: Why are there excess reserves? The simple answer: The Fed is printing money banks don't want or can't lend because banks are capital constrained or lack of creditworthy borrowers. I am 100% in favor of not paying interest on alleged excess reserves but not for reasons stated by Blinder. Rather, I am in favor of unwinding every bit of QE madness that created the excess reserves in the first place. Clear Signal That Blinder wants to pay negative interest rates on excess reserves ought to send a signal to Blinder and others the Fed's QE policy was a failure (assuming one believes the Fed's stated reason for QE was to spur borrowing and job growth). I believe the real reason for paying interest on reserves was a backdoor way of recapitalizing banks slowly over time. Regardless, the primary result of QE was the creation of bubbles in stocks and bonds. It's time to end the monetary madness, not double down on it with extremely ill-conceived and poorly-written notions of forcing banks to lend. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
Milk Futures Set to Double if Farm Bill Does Not Pass Posted: 11 Dec 2013 03:37 AM PST Unless a farm bill passes by the end of the year, the crop subsidy program will revert to 1949 policies and the government would be required to stockpile milk until it reached $37.20 per hundred pounds. The current price is about $19.00. Why our legislators would write ridiculous laws like this is totally beyond me, but they did. The House wants to pass an extension to resolve the issues, but the Senate says no. So here we sit wondering if the price of milk is going to double. Bloomberg reports Extension of Farm Subsidies Rebuffed by Senate Democrats An extension of U.S. agriculture subsidies to late January was rebuffed yesterday by Senate Democrats, who said they won't pass any House plan for temporary funding before Congress breaks for the holidays.I rather doubt it comes to this but stranger things have happened. Lots of questions:
I propose the elimination of all price supports, elimination of all tariffs, and to make some common sense reforms to the food stamp program, but I expect none of that to happen. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
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