If there is anyone who didn’t quite understand the quote: “there are trillions of dollars at stake”, in the context of the 2016 election, well, a letter today from the biggest EU economic nations will provide greater context.
Additionally, as you absorb the position behind their claims, never forget how much foreign governments spend in lobbying the U.S. congress for legislation adverse to the interests of U.S. workers.
Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are claiming the U.S. congress has no right to reform the U.S. tax code because the reforms undercut their ability to hold an advantage over the U.S. in multinational trade deals.
This quote is particularly enlightening:

[…]  The letter argues that proposed changes to the U.S. tax code could give American companies an advantage over foreign rivals.

The Globalist Position: ‘All your tax code are belong to us.’  Yes Alice, the election of President Trump, and the specific economic and trade policies within his platform, are an existential threat to decades long multinational schemes.

CNN MONEY – Germany, France, Britain, Spain and Italy have written to Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin, arguing that tax bills passed by the House and Senate run afoul of treaties and could distort international trade.

“It is important that the U.S. government’s rights over domestic tax policy be exercised in a way that adheres with international obligations to which it has signed-up,” the letter states. It was signed by the countries’ finance ministers.

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USTR Robert Lighthizer is attending the World Trade Organization (WTO) summit in Argentina.

[…] Ahead of the meeting, the United States blocked efforts to draft a joint statement emphasizing the “centrality” of the global trade system and the need to aid development. Its opposition has raised concerns that the WTO will not be able to accomplish even modest goals, such as addressing fishing and agricultural subsidies, at the conference. (Reuters)

The Ambassador’s opening remarks to the conference are below and include Lighthizer rightly informing the WTO that the Trump administration believes they have strayed far away from trade issues and are now, essentially, uni-focused on litigation.  He’s right.

[Transcript] “I would like to start by thanking the government of Argentina for hosting MC11, and Minister Malcorra, Director General Azevedo, and their staffs for their excellent work. We appreciate all the effort over many months that go into creating a conference of this magnitude.
In the brief time I have, I would like to make a few basic points.
First, the WTO is obviously an important institution. It does an enormous amount of good, and provides a helpful negotiating forum for Contracting Parties.  But, in our opinion, serious challenges exist.
Second, many are concerned that the WTO is losing its essential focus on negotiation and becoming a litigation-centered organization. Too often members seem to believe they can gain concessions through lawsuits that they could never get at the negotiating table. We have to ask ourselves whether this is good for the institution and whether the current litigation structure makes sense.
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There’s a lot of people who don’t have a comprehensive understanding of what it takes to battle the multinationals in economic warfare.  Those same people don’t like Gary Cohn.
CTH recognizes the inherent value in Mr. Cohn as director of President Trump’s national economic council.  The guy knows the economic schemes better than almost all of the globalist adversaries.  Like Wilbur Ross, the former executive of U.S. Steel, Gary Cohn is one of the well dressed “killers”; an apex financial predator who’s eyes will contract while he shakes your hand just before he rips your throat out during negotiations.  Departing he’ll wink at your carcass, and still make your team pay for the clean up.
In this interview segment Director Gary Cohn discusses the Republicans’ tax reform plan, infrastructure initiatives and laughs out loud at President Barack Obama taking credit for the economy.  Director Cohn is a bad, bad man; perhaps the best of the bad men.

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Despite the negative banter from the gnats the U.S. economy is continuing to outpace economic expectations.  More importantly the gains are within targeted sectors long-ago written off.  Yes, Trump’s MAGAnomic policies are proving it was always possible.
Job gains exceeded 280,000 as the Main Street economy continues gaining momentum. The manufacturing sector added 31,000, a slight deviation from ADP payroll actuaries a week ago, which remains a complete reversal of prior historic job growth.   For the past three decades manufacturing jobs had been shrinking, now the sector is growing.  This is the important part of the overall picture.

The unemployment rate remains at 4.1%, because the underlying data has been strongly manipulated for the past several years.  If the data ran negative the statistical ruse would be evident; so the explanation remains that workers who left the economy have reentered, ie. “slack“.  :::eyeroll:::
Wage growth was estimated at 2.5%, which is in line with our previous analysis.  We do not anticipate massive wage rate gains until the full ‘slack‘ is taken up within the employment market.  Our prediction remains that Quarter #2 2018 (April, May, June) will be approximately the time-frame when wage rates increase at 5% and more.
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The November jobs reports are coming out and the results are Bigly remarkable.  Manufacturing job growth in November was 40,000 new jobs.  That’s the highest single month jobs growth in over 15 years.  These manufacturing jobs are higher wage jobs. This is the blue-collar-billionaire economic outcome President Trump has been working toward within every economic proposal, policy and initiative.
The first wave of companies (large and small manufacturers of American products) to jump on the Trump economic initiatives, have invested and begun building-out their capacity. Now we begin to see those companies hiring workers to create the products and services.

Overall the U.S. economy added 190,000 jobs in November which is almost twice the number needed to replace retiring workers.  The government’s headline unemployment number is currently at 4.1%.  For several years we have questioned the methodology behind the unemployment numbers.  What we are likely to see is reality forcing the skewered methodology to push that unemployment number below 4%.
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Don’t be so caught up watching the granules moving at your feet that you fail to step back and recognize the entire landscape is shifting.  It Has Begun… 
Important remarks today. After a year of careful navigation Captain Trump has now hoisted the Spinnaker and is using massive economic winds to advance ALL ‘America-First’ policy objectives.

[…] “to get it going the way I really want, where we have GDP getting up to 4, 5, and even 6 percent — because I think that’s possible. If you look back in your notes, you’ll say when I said 4 percent, people said that would be years. Well, it’s turned out that I’m right because without the hurricanes this last quarter, we would have hit 4 percent. At 3.3 percent, which was adjusted previously — this is far beyond what anybody thought it would be at. So we’re at 3.3 percent GDP. I see no reason why we don’t go to 4, 5, and even 6 percent. And I don’t want to go beyond that because then it will be criticized if we don’t hit it.
But every time we go up one point, just so you understand, one point means $2.5 trillion, means 10 million jobs. So one point in GDP is an incredible statement. $2.5 trillion for each point, 10 million jobs for each point. And I think we’re going to be going up a lot of points.”

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A rather interesting New York Times article describes life in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) now that interim Director Mick Mulvaney is leading the agency. Actually, one of the more interesting aspects is how congressional defenders of the CFPB have claimed the workforce is non-partisan, yet for some mysterious reason the mostly Millenials are described as using coded messaging.

Keep in mind, these are presumably college educated young professionals:

New York Times […] Some employees, including a few of the bureau’s top officials, have welcomed their new leader. Others, pointing to Mr. Mulvaney’s earlier hostility toward the agency and its mission, are quietly resisting. One small group calls itself “Dumbledore’s Army,” according to two of the people who were familiar with their discussions. The name is a reference to a secret resistance force in the “Harry Potter” books.
An atmosphere of intense anxiety has taken hold, several employees said. In some cases, conversations between staff that used to take place by phone or text now happen almost exclusively in person or through encrypted messaging apps.

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Earlier today President Trump hosted American families for a discussion about taxes, small business growth and challenges.

[Transcript] – 2:12 P.M. EST – THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. We have four great families — middle class. I guess at a certain point, you’re going to be making so much money you don’t really — not going to know what to do with it, perhaps — I hope — Brian.
But we have four terrific families. Some of them have had difficulty. Taxes are too high. Frankly, their healthcare is terrible. The healthcare plan is terrible — Obamacare. And that will be next. We’re a long way toward getting rid of that and getting something very good and very much more affordable — very big problem.
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Not too long ago, 2010 through 2015 to be precise, CTH and Senator Orrin Hatch were on oppositional sides of almost every ‘conservative‘ argument.  The issues -amid the most widely discussed conflicts- stemmed around the future of the Republican party; and were born of frustration with the elitist nature of the Corinthian clan, the DeceptiCons.
As a matter of advocacy and political network, Senator Orrin Hatch was aligned with the DeceptiCon caucus, the entrenched GOPe.
The ‘battered conservative’ scars remain visible and serve our CTH community as a continual reminder that the larger ideological battle within our republic is multidimensional.  We oppose a UniParty, an ideology that permeates within and connects together both Democrats and Republicans.
However, that said, it would appear that Senator Hatch is perhaps the first example of how President Trump has personally leveraged common sense MAGA policy, which is entirely conservative, to coax members of the Corinthian clan toward a new and empowered future. Breaking one representative at a time away from the comforts of the UniParty.

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