Last Friday President Trump had dinner with Tim Cook, aka “Tim Apple.”
The dinner came on the heels of USTR Lighthizer announcing a postponement of “next step” 10 percent tariffs against Chinese manufactured products… Interestingly, the one of the product groups within the delay is personal computers…. Interestingly, Tim Apple was going to launch production assembly of the Macintosh personal computer in China.
Now, consider this:
CHINA – When ground was broken in March 2017 for a new US$9 billion factory owned by a subsidiary of Foxconn Group, the event was witnessed by then Guangdong party secretary Hu Chunhua and Terry Gou Tai-ming, the Taiwanese billionaire who created Foxconn, the world’s largest assembler of Apple’s iPhones and tablets.
White House Trade and Manufacturing Advisor Peter Navarro appears on CBS ‘Face the Nation’ and ABC ‘This Week’ to outline the strength of the U.S. economy, and the current U.S-China trade reset, including tariffs.
There are trillions at stake. Food for thought – contemplate how Sunday media bookings take place. The ‘subject‘ for Sunday interview discussions, and who they need for their narrative engineering sessions (ie. interview schedules), are made by MSM *corporate media early in each week. [*U.S. Media are owned by Wall Street multinational conglomerates]
Obviously, as noted in the WH scheduling requests, the corporate MSM was planning to follow up and exploit their 48 hour engineered narrative (Tue/Wed) surrounding a false recession. Unfortunately the excellent Commerce Dept. economic data released Thursday crushed their objectives… Thus, the corporate media were tripped up mid-plan.
White House Trade and Manufacturing Policy Advisor Peter Navarro appears on CNN to debate economic policy with Jake Tapper. As customary Tapper attempts to use the Multinational Big AG talking points to identify farmers as victims.
♦The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note dropped to 1.623% Wednesday for less than one hour; momentarily below the 2-year bond rate of 1.634%. The cause was a rapid influx of foreign capital, mostly from the EU (due to negative interest rates), into the U.S. to secure a return. This is not comparable to the historic ‘bond rate inversion’.
♦The biggest fallacy pushed in this interview, YET AGAIN, surrounds price impacts on Chinese imports. Tapper takes the talking points of the Wall Street multinationals, and their paid think-tanks, to push an empirically false assertion of the U.S. consumer paying for tariffs on China. Here’s the easiest refutation of that nonsense:
The Steel (25%) and Aluminum (10%) tariffs have been in place for two years.
The 25% tariff on $250 billion Chinese goods have been in place over a full year.
If the tariffs on China were impacting consumers, inflation would be much higher. In fact the exact opposite is happening. Because the protectionist Chinese and EU currency manipulation hits *ALL* imports, including non-tariff products, we are actually importing deflation.
National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow appears on NBC with Chuck Todd to debate the issues surrounding current trade and economic policy. While Todd is obviously annoying, Kudlow makes two important points:
The Q3 CapEx (capital expenditure) spending reflects a domestic energy sector investment pause related to the dropped cost of oil. A fluctuation related to extraction costs and projected finished product price. [Energy companies pause on low price.]
The Sept. “Next Step” tariff delay relates to pre-contracted prices of holiday goods with the import price attached to lower dollar value at the time of contract. The delay allows the arrival of product without price impact. If products were determined with current valuations the current arrival price would have been lower (offsetting tariffs).
Delivering a statement directly from the files of ‘captain obvious‘ former AAG Matt Whitaker notes that everything about Bruce and Nellie Ohr was sketchy.
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Political opposition research was paid for by Hillary Clinton and created by Fusion-GPS (Glenn Simpson and Nellie Ohr). That oppo-research was then sent to Chrisopher Steele in the U.K. so he could launder the information and return it to the DOJ and FBI, through Bruce Ohr, as a semi-official “intelligence” product.
Within the released documents provided to Judicial Watch the last FBI interview of Bruce Ohr (May 15th, 2017) took place two days prior to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller; and one day before Rod Rosenstein took Mueller to the White House.
Throughout the interviews (full pdf below) Bruce Ohr was acting as the go-between delivering information from his wife Nellie Ohr at Fusion GPS and one of Fusion’s contract investigators, Christopher Steele. (more…)
For all intents and purposes Germany is the EU, because German economic policy dictates the outcomes of all EU economic policy. So as the EU promises to engage in more central bank monetary printing (quantitative easing) simultaneously Germany promises to keep negative interest rates floating as long as possible. [EU Parliament pictured below]
Yes, the EU is in serious structural economic trouble; and that is likely the real reason why quivering Chancellor Angela Merkel has decided to exit the political stage before the larger communal catches on.
Within the remarks by German Finance Minister Scholz it is the lamentation about the lack of investment into their grand collective economic scheme where you find the economic dissonance, and ultimately the hilarious punch lines:
BERLIN (Reuters) – German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said on Saturday that he expected interest rates to remain very low for “the next few years”, adding that companies should seize the opportunity of near-zero borrowing costs to boost private sector investment.
The European Central Bank has already signaled even more monetary stimulus for the euro zone economy, hoping to arrest a downward spiral that could lead to an economic recession.
An interesting article in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) highlights how China is shifting their procurement priority from minerals used in manufacturing (cobalt, copper) to the acquisition of food and agriculture products. The impact is being felt throughout Africa, where mining companies are shutting down operations because Chinese demand no longer exists.
Articles like this highlight the ancillary impacts of a weakened Chinese economy.
Despite the proclamations by Beijing about their ability to withstand the withdrawal of the U.S. as a primary customer for manufactured goods, reality shows they cannot.
There is a confluence of events all leading to radical changes just below the surface. China has been burning cash to subsidize industries impacted by U.S. tariffs. Simultaneously Beijing has lowered the value of their currency in an effort to eliminate the tariff impact in the cost of their finished goods. However, as the ideological economic conflict between the U.S. and China continues, Beijing cannot hold their position indefinitely. (more…)
When a woman marries her uncle: (1) her husband is her grandmothers son; (2) her daughter is her first cousin; and (3) her mother-in-law is also her “grandmother.”
Keep this in mind as you review: (more…)
President Trump is having dinner tonight with Tim Cook, aka “Tim Apple.” This dinner comes on the heels of USTR Lighthizer announcing a postponement of “next step” 10 percent tariffs against Chinese manufactured products… Interestingly, the one of the product groups within the delay is personal computers…. Interestingly, Tim Apple was going to launch production assembly of the Macintosh personal computer in China.
To say that Tim Cook has been attempting to define and quantify the strength of President Trump’s tariff position against China would be an understatement. Even before president-elect Trump took office, Tim Cook was engaged on this specific aspect.
As a responsible steward for the brand, the engagement by “Tim Apple” makes lots of sense. The engaged approach by CEO Cook is what all multinationals should do. Advocate for their interests; keep an open mind to aspects that are larger than self-interest; keep a respectful seat at the table; and be a responsible steward for his American shareholders.
Ultimately Tim Cook is recognizing President Trump will advance those policies that benefit Main Street and he will avoid policies that do not benefit Main Street. Trump’s Main Street economic patriotism is likely a paradigm shift for Cook; amid a career experience of politicians advancing Wall Street interests. Hence, the constant evaluation. (more…)
