The U.S. economic numbers continue to gain strength. Ahead of his departure to China for ongoing trade negotiations, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin discusses the current state of the economy with Maria Bartiromo.
National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow appears on Fox Business to discuss the latest strong economic numbers including GDP growth, rising wages, low inflation, and strong capital investment. Additionally, Kudlow discusses current status of U.S. trade negotiations with China and a looming battle against the Decpeticons for USMCA.
The professional financial punditry can’t explain it. Flummoxed academics run around bumping into walls amid economic numbers that continue to defy expectations. All caused by a simple return to common sense ‘America First’ MAGAnomics.
Low unemployment (3.8%); wages growing (+3.2%); inflation stable (1.6%). These measures all have a cumulative impact on paycheck-to-paycheck Americans. Prices for durable goods are stable and wage growth is exceeding inflation. That means more disposable income in the middle-class…DUH. Which, when combined with the increased pay from lower middle-class tax rates, is exactly the intended outcome of MAGAnomics.
Today the BEA is out with consumer spending results for the first quarter that defy expectations. Consumer spending on goods increases 1.7%. Overall spending +.09 in March, reaches highest gain in ten years. The deplorables are spending their higher wages. Go figure. Meanwhile core inflation drops to 1.6%. The pundits are shocked.
(Reuters Headline) “U.S. consumer spending roars back, but inflation tame” – WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. consumer spending increased by the most in more than 9-1/2 years in March as households stepped up purchases of motor vehicles, but price pressures remained muted, with a key inflation measure posting its smallest annual gain in 14 months.
President Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale joins CBS Margaret Brennan for an interview taped April 9, 2019, which was broadcast today.
President Donald Trump hosts Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a round of golf today, while First Lady Melania Trump hosts Madame Akie Abe in DC.
The relationship between the Trump’s and the Abe’s goes back quite a while and is rooted in a genuine friendship. The president and prime minister are strong competitors on trade and economic policy; however, the competition is founded on respect.
Prime Minister Abe’s economic policies are rooted in the growth process taught by Edwards Demming. If you follow their professional business ideology, it is easy to see how President Trump and Prime Minister Abe would face-off around a standard of excellence.
When combined the economies of the United States and Japan account for approximately 30 percent of all global gross domestic product.
This is really old-school business stuff. Each leader, is essentially an economic policy coach for his country; creating strategies and championing growth in a challenge to see who can succeed the most. They respect each-other, but this is old school. PM Abe isn’t about to concede to a deal where Japanese growth is ceded; however, he will not cheat to achieve success (unlike Xi). So friendly adversarial negotiations continue. Good stuff.
Meanwhile First-Lady Melania Trump and Madame Akie Abe toured some of the historic sites in the capital, including the Washington Monument and US National Arboretum.
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The 2016 anti-Trump effort and 2017 soft-coup was not just an assembly created by Obama officials; there was/are a significant number of mutually aligned republican politicians willfully blind to the effort.
As a consequence, we see the administrative state holding a vested interest in retaining the originating Russia premise.
With President Trump openly stating “coup” and “overthrow“, those who participated in the coup and overthrow need to protect their involvement by substantiating the background lie they used to carry out the cover-up operation. We note the media outlets used by the intelligence community never change. Cue the predictable:
New York Times – The F.B.I. director warned anew on Friday about Russia’s continued meddling in American elections, calling it a “significant counterintelligence threat.”
[…] “We recognize that our adversaries are going to keep adapting and upping their game,” Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, said Friday in a speech in Washington, citing the presence of Russian intelligence officers in the United States and the Kremlin’s record of malign influence operations.
Can’t make this stuff up folks…. as if on cue.
Vice President Mike Pence responds to Senator Grassley and Senator Johnson’s speculation that FBI agents wanted to use Pence’s chief of staff to infiltrate President-elect Trump’s transition team in 2016:
“I was deeply offended to learn that two disgraced FBI agents considered infiltrating our transition team by sending a counter intelligence agent to one of my very first intelligence briefings only 9 days after the election,” Pence said in a statement to Axios. “This is an outrage and only underscores why we need to get to the bottom of how this investigation started in the first place.”
“The American people have a right to what happened and if these two agents broke the law and ignored long-standing DOJ policies, they must be held accountable.” (more)
Next up: Deep State (IC) deploys Washington Post and New York Times remind everyone how intense the 2016 Russian election interference was…. In 3, 2, 1..
In 2015 CTH outlined candidate Trump’s economic positions and how they would impact the economy. We anticipated that MAGAnomics would be reversing three decades of federal reserve monetary policy. After about a year of analysis, in 2016 CTH presented a theory: “A new Dimension in Modern Economics“.
The theory was based on a likelihood of what would happen if MAGA economic Policy was shifted to favor Main St over Wall St. One aspect we presented was how Federal Reserve monetary policy would be oddly disconnected from its ability to influence inflation.
Today National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow appears on CNBC to discuss the latest first quarter GDP growth rate of 3.2% and the status of the U.S. economy. Kudlow notes the rate of inflation is disconnected from the GDP growth.
CTH 2016[…] Understanding the distance between the real Main Street economic engine and the false Wall Street economic engine will help all of us to understand the scope of an upcoming economic lag; which, rather remarkably I would add, is a very interesting dynamic.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Madam Akie Abe will be having dinner tonight with President Donald Trump and First Lady to celebrate Melania’s birthday. The prime minister and the president are close personal friends and will likely play golf tomorrow.
The Trump-Abe relationship existed for many years prior to becoming U.S. President. Their respect for each-other is genuine. Abe and Trump are competitors on trade and economics and their strategies within that competition are actually fun to watch. The long-standing friendship underpins a very genuine alliance of U.S-Japanese interests.
In advance of the dinner tonight PM Abe and President Trump meet in the Oval Office ahead of a bilateral delegation meeting to discuss trade and regional matters. They also take questions from the media [Video and Transcript Below]
Earlier today President Trump delivered exceptional remarks during the National Rifle Association 148th Convention, Indiana Convention Center. One very important aspect to point out in this speech is the remarks about the “coup” and “overthrow” were not off-the-cuff additions they were written into the teleprompter:
…”They tried for a coup; didn’t work out so well.” (Applause.) “And I didn’t need a gun for that one, did I? (Laughter.)” “All was taking place at the highest levels in Washington, D.C. You’ve been watching, you’ve been seeing. You’ve been looking at things that you wouldn’t have believed possible in our country. Corruption at the highest level — a disgrace. Spying, surveillance, trying for an overthrow. And we caught them. We caught them. (Applause.) Who would have thought in our country?”