National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow appears on Fox News to discuss the incredible strength of the economy and how the media is refusing to cover the story.
Chairman Kudlow goes through a series of economic Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to stress how this specific set of MAGAnomic Main Street policies is delivering real, tangible, financial benefits to the middle-class and average Americans.
Remember that 2016 conversation about retail inflation, Q2 wage growth, durable goods spending and non-durable goods expenditures… Well, in a growing economy; a bigly expanding economy; with wages actually increasing as an authentic outcome of expanded hiring and jobs, jobs, jobs… in conjunction with lowered tax rates…. you get more money in your pocket.
This natural Main Street dynamic leads to increased consumer spending, specifically in the retail sectors influenced by who?… Oh, yeah, those middle-class economic beneficiaries of all the above.
The expert financial pundits are shocked, shocked I tell you… shocked; when, all of a sudden, the convergence of MAGAnomic Main Street policies delivers results. DUH!
The Commerce Department – Economic and Statistics Administration – released the figures from July 2018 retail sales today (full pdf available here), showing an incredibly strong .5% increase in spending in July, bringing a 6.4% increase year-over-year; and the results have dropped the jaws of the “experts”:
“Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales nudging up 0.1 percent in July.” (link)
“Retail spending in the United States increased a half-percent during the month of July — well beyond what experts predicted.” (link)
“U.S. retail sales rose more than expected in July as households boosted purchases of motor vehicles and clothing, suggesting the economy remained strong” (link)
President Trump’s MAGAnomic trade and foreign policy agenda is jaw-dropping in scale, scope and consequence. There are multiple simultaneous aspects to each policy objective; however, many have been visible for a long time – some even before the election victory in November ’16.
If we get too far in the weeds the larger picture is lost. CTH objective is to continue pointing focus toward the larger horizon, and then at specific inflection points to dive into the topic and explain how each moment is connected to the larger strategy.
Today we repost an earlier dive into how MAGAnomic policy interacts with multinational Wall Street, the stock market, the U.S. financial system and perhaps your personal financial value. Again, reference and source material is included at the end of the outline.
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It’s not a bluff; it’s never a bluff…. He doesn’t bluff. I’ve looked through the interviews, writing and granules of opponents describing hundreds of deals, and I cannot find a single person who ever said that Donald Trump was bluffing during any negotiations.
NYT cont. […] In recent days, officials from the Commerce Ministry, the police and other agencies have summoned exporters to ask about plans to lay off workers or shift supply chains to other countries.
With stocks slumping and the currency dropping 9 percent against the dollar since mid-April, censors have been deleting a torrent of criticism online, some of it directed at President Xi Jinping’s leadership. State news outlets, by contrast, have sought to promote the official line, with the authorities restricting the use of the phrase “trade war.”
The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) is an assembly and survey of small business owners throughout the U.S. In the latest survey (full pdf here) overall optimism is the second highest ever recorded at 107.9 (the highest reading was 108 in 1983).
The full press release is available here. The full pdf of the survey is available here. The executive summary outlines the overall content and highlights the sentiment amid Main Street U.S.A.:
[…] Although some panned any celebration of the 4.1 percent second quarter GDP growth, small business owners beg to disagree. At least in the small business sector of the economy, Main Street’s performance over the last 21 months is unprecedented based on reports for the past 45 years by hundreds of thousands of NFIB’s member firms. Owners have never been so optimistic for so long. This has translated to improved employment and investment spending that buoys GDP growth, even at the end of what will be the longest expansion in modern history.
Consumer sentiment is at record high levels. Consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of our economy, posted 4 percent growth in Q2. Historically revised data show that consumers have been saving much more than thought, and income gains in recent months have been solid, providing support for spending in the second half. The record levels of firms reporting higher compensation is a clear indication that wages will be rising further in the second half.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes is currently traveling in Europe and calls-in to Maria Bartiromo to discuss the natural gas pipeline that would reduce Russia’s energy influence in the region.
In the aggregate – the energy initiatives supported by President Trump and U.S. policy is an extension of the Trump Doctrine to use economic power, and specifically energy supplies therein, as an alliance tool to disrupt international states who weaponize energy to control energy-dependent states; thereby neutralizing malevolent interests/influence.
At 05:15 the topic switches to discussion of the ongoing oversight review of conduct from corrupt officials within the DOJ and FBI. WATCH:
Methinks Maria Bartiromo is the only media person who has caught on to “the secret“.
Within her wording and presentation today, inside this interview Fox News Maria Bartiromo hints toward her understanding of the Trump trade strategy as it pertains to Mexico, Canada and ::cough:: NAFTA ::cough::
Nudge/Nudge – Elbow/Elbow – Wink/Wink – Say no more/Say no more!
Earlier today U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer messaged a warm birthday greeting to Mexican Foreign Secretary Louis Videgaray during ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and Mexican trade teams (video below).
Canada is FUBAR. No-one quite knows how FUBAR Canada is, because no-one has followed the brilliant Wolverine crew closely enough to spot the strategy.
At the strategic direction of President Trump; and it is a really brilliant workaround strategy; the U.S. and Mexican teams are approaching the current NAFTA negotiations from a position of bilateral trade. Trade watchers, Wall Street experts, financial pundits and the entire media apparatus are missing what Team USA are doing right in front of their faces…. they’ve obviously never followed or studied Trump’s out of the box problem solving when it comes to complex deals.
I won’t rehash the NAFTA flaws; familiar CTH readers know them well. However, the bottom line is NAFTA is NOT, repeat N.O.T being renegotiated. I was going to remain silent, but I think it’s safe, Lighthizer is close enough to a deal to explain what’s happening.
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Today U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer announced the second tranche of tariffs on Chinese imports (full list pdf below).
The 25% tariff mostly includes chemical compounds and material parts used in the manufacture of finished goods.
Washington, DC – The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) today released a list of approximately $16 billion worth of imports from China that will be subject to a 25 percent additional tariff as part of the U.S. response to China’s unfair trade practices related to the forced transfer of American technology and intellectual property. This second tranche of additional tariffs under Section 301 follows the first tranche of tariffs on approximately $34 billion of imports from China, which went into effect on July 6.
The listcontains 279 of the original 284 tariff lines that were on a proposed list announced on June 15. Changes to the proposed list were made after USTR and the interagency Section 301 Committee sought and received written comments and testimony during a two-day public hearing last month.
As many have discussed, due to their volume requirements China cannot secure their supply chain for soybeans without purchasing U.S. soybean crops. China can purchase soybeans from Brazil and Argentina; however, that only leads to Argentina increasing it’s soybean purchases from the U.S. Amplifying this issue are current lower yields from South America in their soybean crops.
…“There is a risk that China will have to cut back its livestock production, implying higher prices on the domestic market.”…
(Reuters) – China may have to start buying U.S. soybeans again in coming weeks despite the trade war between the two countries as other regions cannot supply enough soybeans to meet China’s needs, Hamburg-based oilseeds analysts Oil World said on Tuesday.
In July, China imposed import tariffs on a list of U.S. goods, including soybeans, as part of the trade dispute with the United States. China is the world’s largest soybean importer and has been seeking alternative supplies, especially in South America, where supplies available for export are down.