National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow appears on Fox Business to discuss the administration plans to re-open the U.S. economy. Something is going to need to happen prior to May 1st, or the long-term economic challenge is going to be much more difficult.
Kudlow again notes a ‘bring back manufacturing’ proposal with 100% tax deduction (expensing) for U.S. manufacturers to relocate their manufacturing supply chains out of China and back to the U.S. The Beijing lobbyists would go bananas.
•Phase One was retail. •Phase two was distribution. •Phase three was the space between processing/manufacturing and distribution. •Phase four was raw material supply to manufacturing. •Phase five is consumer packaging capacity, and bulk storage inventories.
Most Americans were not aware food consumption in the U.S. was a 60/40 proposition. Approximately 60% of all food was consumed “outside the home” (or food away from home), and 40% of all food consumed was food “inside the home” (grocery shoppers).
Food ‘outside the home’ included: restaurants, fast-food locales, schools, corporate cafeterias, university lunchrooms, manufacturing cafeterias, hotels, food trucks, park and amusement food sellers and many more. Many of those venues are not thought about when people evaluate the overall U.S. food delivery system; however, this network was approximately 60 percent of all food consumption on a daily basis.
The ‘food away from home‘ sector has its own supply chain. Very few restaurants and venues (cited above) purchase food products from retail grocery outlets. As a result of the coronavirus mitigation effort the ‘food away from home’ sector has been reduced by 75% of daily food delivery operations. However, people still need to eat. That means retail food outlets, grocers, are seeing sales increases of 25 to 50 percent, depending on the area.
♦ Phase Five – The retail consumer supply chain for manufactured and processed food products includes bulk storage to compensate for seasonality. As Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue recently noted “there are over 800 commercial and public warehouses in the continental 48 states that store frozen products.”
Here is a snapshot of the food we had in storage at the end of February: over 302 million pounds of frozen butter; 1.36 billion pounds of frozen cheese; 925 million pounds of frozen chicken; over 1 billion pounds of frozen fruit; nearly 2.04 billion pounds of frozen vegetables; 491 million pounds of frozen beef; and nearly 662 million pounds of frozen pork.
This story is so far beyond predictable that the light from where predictable exists wouldn’t catch up for a year…. The LA Sheriff released the inmates fearing the Wuhan virus, now he worries he may have put the public at risk….. you just can’t make this up. Save the criminals, destroy the community.
“We were faced with a choice, if we left the jail system overpopulated, the pandemic would have swept through easily.”
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It seemed clear several weeks ago this was going to happen. East coast blue state governors and West coast blue state governors are uniting to begin the economic civil war planning to block any White House effort to re-open the U.S. economy. The founders planned for this in Article I, Sec 10 (paragraph 3):
“No state shall, without the consent of Congress, … enter into any agreement or compact with another state”..
The three step plan seems predictable: (1) Get out ahead of President Trump. (2) Defy the ‘all clear’ and shape economic benefit to their political allies. (3) Then use Fauci’s upcoming dossier to hit the administration for heartlessly opening the economy too early.
♦ On the East Coast the governors of New York (Cuomo), New Jersey (Murphy), Connecticut (Lamont), Pennsylvania (Wolfe), Delaware (Carney) and Rhode Island (Raimondo) have started assembling their economic war council with the intent to keep the northeast region shut down. Controlling critical ports and infrastructure is a key part of their strategy.
EAST COAST — Six Northeast governors will form a working group to come up with a plan to
restart[control] the regional economy, they announced on Monday. (link)
The resistance appears to be coming together. In a stunning and historic change of protocol the United States Supreme Court will hold teleconference hearings and will actually live-stream broadcast the oral arguments and questions. Two elements are remarkable.
First, that the Supreme Court would permit a livestream broadcast of any hearing is historic. The purposeful controls of the Court, never allowing video, cameras or live audio broadcasting for their hearings, was always justified around the court never wanting to allow politics and media to shape the serious legal issues being debated.
Secondly, and perhaps not coincidentally, during this live-stream session, the Supreme Court is going to be hearing legal arguments after they consolidated a series of cases targeting the financial and business records of President Donald Trump. The various lawsuits against President Trump are not only going to be heard, they are going to be broadcast. It doesn’t get much more political than that.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it will hold arguments by teleconference in May in key cases, including President Donald Trump’s bid to shield his tax and other financial records.
The court will make live audio of the arguments available for the first time. It had previously postponed courtroom arguments for March and April because of the coronavirus.
Comrade Adams is not happy with non-compliant citizens refusing to adjust their wrongful thinking to benefit the needs of our new state. During these stressful times thought, without regard for collective need, is an indication a citizen may be a subversive. Please report subversives to the Ministry of COVID Compliance, so they may be blocked from the benefits of the new union; and encouraged with enhanced support.
If wrong-thoughts continue to be expressed, it may become necessary for the Ministry to deduct 200 credits from your social compliance score. Please do not put the Ministry in the position of having to make such decisions. Compliance is in your best interest.
State influence agent, Comrade Adams, helps to correct wrong-thinking. The state will never force you to share your health records. Only if you wish to remove yourself from voluntary home confinement, access rights, and unlock your social privileges, will you be encouraged to join a health registry via your voluntary cell phone/transponder provider.
The Ministry would never force your compliance comrade. You may choose to remain external to the Federated United State System (FUSS). You may also choose not to participate in the employment network, state services, access to civil transit, large entertainment gatherings, parks and restaurants. Nothing is mandated. Relax comrades, the Ministry is sensitive to your previous rights as we initiate our new, safer, society.
The COVID Compliance Ministry appreciates good citizens who voluntarily participate in the registry. We reward good citizenship status with enhanced credits allowing access to a safe COVID Compliant Society. A safer society; where the odds will always be in your favor.
Though the U.S. and Canada are not part of the “OPEC Plus” group, President Trump has been leading negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Russia to broker a deal and stop their price war. Today President Trump announces an agreement between the major petroleum exporting countries to curb oil production by approximately 10 million barrels per day:
Additionally, there was a loggerhead within the negotiations as Mexico did not want to cut their production by the requested amount of 400,000 barrels daily. Mexico relies on oil as a large part of their economy. AMLO stated his economy could not withstand such a significant drop in state revenue. Economic security is, after all, national security.
President Trump broke the OPEC+ stalemate by agreeing to decrease U.S. production by 300k/barrels allowing Mexico to drop a more manageable 100k/barrels. Trump and AMLO reached an undisclosed agreement where Mexico will reimburse the U.S. later on.
I suspect the “reimbursement” will be more, well, strategically geopolitical than financial. [*nudge-nudge*, *wink-wink*, *say-no-more/say-no-more*] President Trump has an uncanny knack of collecting leverage for later, more strategic, purposes. Just sayin’.
With an increased awareness of how some U.S. politicians appear to be reacting to the COVID-19 challenges; and with a new American perspective toward the way media outlets, some businesses and many politicians appear to be influenced by China; it’s worth revisiting a recent speech by Secretary of State Pompeo that might have been overlooked.
Pompeo’s remarks were made to the National Governors Association (NGA) Feb 8, 2020; and there’s an interesting segment where Pompeo reveals his awareness of a list of U.S. governors compiled by China’s communist party; and their alignment with China’s interests. A transcript of the key excerpt from his speech is provided. WATCH:
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[Transcript at 01:45] […] “Last year, I received an invitation to an event that promised to be, quote, “an occasion for exclusive deal-making.” It said, quote, “the opportunities for mutually beneficial economic development between China and our individual states [are] tremendous,” end of quote.”
President Trump calls-in for a short interview with Jeanine Pirro to provide his perspectives on faith, the Easter holiday and the challenges to combat the Wuhan virus.
Our president outlines the complex dynamic of ongoing COVID-19 mitigation efforts, the movement of resources regionally to continue the fight; and the simultaneous need to restart the American economic engine while balancing the health interests of Americans.
White House trade and manufacturing advisor, and current lead policy expert on deployment of the Defense Production Act, Peter Navarro, appears on Fox News to discuss the ongoing mitigation efforts to protect Americans from the Wuhan Virus.
Wolverine Navarro discusses the importance of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment and preventative measure against the virus. While most studies are ongoing, there is increasing anecdotal evidence showing considerable benefit. Factually, many doctors on the front-line of treatment are personally using hydroxychloroquine as a preventative med.
Mr. Navarro discusses the common sense importance of bringing back critical manufacturing to the U.S. so we can have control over our own medical supply-chain; and the considerations within the White House for reopening our economy. WATCH: