Oh boy,  there’s a particular joy when all the lead-up economic data, that naysayer’s claim is simply outliers, leads to predictions that become reality.  Remember when we shared:

…”Hold on to your economic britches peeps – throw dem ju-ju bones out the windows – grab hold of the young-un’s, squeeze em tight and introduce them to their first opportunity to see capitalism unchained; we are in uncharted MAGA territory now. Q4 will be well beyond 3.2% 3.8%… Well Beyond.”…

Allow me the indulgence of setting the stage.  Last week the New York Fed increased the fourth quarter GDP growth estimates to 3.8%. This followed a prior week when they raised that same estimate to 3.2%.   Obviously, much to their chagrin, the underlying economic data was far surpassing the earlier forecasts of the doom club.  {{{CTH snickered}}}
Now, wait for it,… as we review the preliminary results it is important to remember that Consumer Spending represents two-thirds of U.S. GDP.
OK, you ready?….  You sure?….  Well:
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This image from Sweden speaks so loudly:

Concrete K-Rail Barriers, positioned to stop terrorist attacks by vehicles, dressed up like Christmas decorations around the local holiday markets.  What a ridiculously sad and pathetic visual of everything wrong in Europe.
Amid the anxiety of anticipating the next Jihadist attack, which everyone knows is not if – but rather ‘when’, it would appear joy is somewhat lowered on the scale of relativity.

EUROPE – The Islamic State has issued chilling threat to attack Christmas markets in the Britain, France and Germany in pictures circulated among supporters.

The jihadis have circulated images on messaging apps including one in which a black-clad hooded figure is seen standing over a kneeling Santa Claus with an image of Regent Street in the background.

A message in English, French, and German says ‘Soon on your holidays’ with the clear implication that London can expect a terrorist attack over the holiday season.  (read more)

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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was the brainchild of Senator Elizabeth Warren as an outcome of the Dodd-Frank legislation. With the CFPB Pocahontas tried to set up the head of the agency, the Director, in a manner that that he/she would operate without oversight. Unfortunately, her dictatorial-fiat-design collapsed when challenged in court.  Backstory #1 – Backstory #2
A federal court found the CFPB Director position held too much power and deemed it unconstitutional. The court decision noted that giving the President power to fire the Director would fix the constitutional problem.
However, with the prior court ruling as a backdrop, a second issue for Warren surfaces as an outcome of the current CFPB Director, Richard Cordray, resigning and President Trump appointing an ‘interim’ head for the agency.
Senator Warren, apoplectic at the thought of CFPB critic Mick Mulvaney acting as head of the agency, wants the Deputy Director,  Leandra English, to become Acting Director and points to Warren’s legislative outline as evidence to support her demand. Except it doesn’t…. not even a little bit.

(WARREN LINK)

The language Pocahontas points to in the CFPB construct, points to the Deputy Director filling in during the “absence” or “unavailability” of the Director. The statute clearly does not provide a mechanism when the Director position is “Vacant”.
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The White House releases the official announcement that OMB Director Mick Mulvaney will head up the Consumer Financial Protection Board until a replacement is confirmed.  As previously discussed – notice the verbiage:

WHITE HOUSE – Today, the President announced that he is designating Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Mick Mulvaney as Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The President looks forward to seeing Director Mulvaney take a common sense approach to leading the CFPB’s dedicated staff, an approach that will empower consumers to make their own financial decisions and facilitate investment in our communities. Director Mulvaney will serve as Acting Director until a permanent director is nominated and confirmed.  (link)

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Go through the archives and you’ll note a strategy unfolding that few, including us, could fully conceptualize when it first appeared.  Way back when candidate Trump first began to put his economic plans into platform outlines the subtle signature was there, but few were paying attention.
In order to reverse three decades of middle-class economic erosion, there were indicators that Trump’s strategy was a radical change in approach.  In essence the strategy was to split the economic policy into two areas and sequence the policy: highly-consumable goods (first) and durable goods (second).
Both product sectors have historically been viewed and approached by economic policy makers using a single financial strategy.  That singular approach gave rise to Wall Street benefiting and Main Street suffering.  Investment-class gained; middle-class suffered.
Trump outlined an approach –albeit vaguely– that was multidimensional.
His policy would first target multinational corporations, using the U.S. Treasury (Mnuchin) to weaken their grip and influence; simultaneously, he would use energy policy to drive down domestic prices in highly-consumable products (fuel, food, energy sector).  These sectors are not measured in fed inflation indexes; however, if lowered, these facets of consumer spending can also increase the amount of disposable income available for workers.
In essence, expand the economy by lowering the aggregate cost of living for the middle-class who live paycheck-to-paycheck.  Use monetary policy, fiscal policy and trade policy), to entice domestic investment and create jobs; and ultimately put upward pressure on wages.
That’s where we are now.
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Almost too much winning… almost, but I think we can take it.  The New York federal reserve has raised their anticipated fourth quarter GDP growth forecast to 3.8%.  That’s only a week after previously raising it to 3.2%.
The Stock Market closes again at yet another all time high today:

Yup, as widely anticipated, the impact from Trump’s MAGAnomic policies are creating a massive upward dynamic on the Main Street economy.  The increase in consumer confidence; the recent increases in wages; the increase in disposable income as an outcome of lowered energy costs and downward prices on high consumables (fuel, food, etc.); the increases in housing starts; the reductions in imported durables; the expansion of exports in energy products and agriculture, and the expanding domestic investment, are all factors in expanding the GDP.
The NY Fed have revised their projection upward to 3.8%, and THAT’S BEFORE they get a first analysis on holiday spending (due out the end of the month); and well before they can quantify the November and December retail sales results which account for two-thirds of GDP math.   So don’t be surprised, as we shared on their last revision, if you see that GDP growth number go much higher.
Oh, the winning…. squeeze the kids.  REMEMBER:
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$64 billion of the current annual trade deficit with Mexico stems from the auto sector alone.
For over a decade auto manufacturers have moved to Mexico in order to import parts from Asia, assemble and install them, and then ship the completed cars into the U.S. through NAFTA without duties (tariffs).
The U.S. auto ancillary business groups (parts suppliers) have been pushed out of competition in the auto sector by this corporate profit strategy.  Thousands of U.S. jobs have been lost in both the plant assembly and the ‘auto-parts’ manufacturing sector.
CTH has called attention to this bastardized supply chain for years.  Foreign auto-parts, made by foreign workers, assembled into U.S. owned manufacturing, and sold as U.S. automobiles. The weird supply chain and assembly process is essentially a multinational corporate scheme (in the auto sector) which exploits one of the loopholes in the 25-year-old NAFTA agreement.
If the assembly plant was on U.S. soil the foreign (mostly Asian) parts would be taxed as imported parts.  However, so long as the assembly is in Mexico (or Canada), the origin of the parts is currently irrelevant, and the finished automobile crosses the border into the U.S. avoiding the taxes using NAFTA.
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While the U.S. media loves to talk about President Trump’s approval rating when it’s bad news, what they fail to discuss is how President Trump has consistently higher approval ratings than: •President Macron, France; •Prime Minister May, Great Britain; or •Chancellor Merkel of Germany.
According to Zogby Analytics:

♦ President Trump approval 42 percent
♦ Chancellor Merkel approval 40 percent
♦ President Macron approval 28 percent
♦ Prime Minister May approval 28 percent

That means President Trump has the highest approval rating compared to the leaders of largest economic countries in Europe.  However, this shouldn’t come as a surprise because it was evident in Germany’s recent election that Merkel -in victory- had less support in Germany than President Trump holds in the U.S.  Go figure…
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Everyone is aware how apoplectic the Democrat loonery became when their best laid schemes to put Hillary in the White House ran into the reality of electoral Cold Anger carried by the deplorables.  Lots has been written about the gobsmacked reaction to the election, yet few have outlined the underlying policy reasons for the scope of the panic.
The desperate need for post-election control showcased the lefts’ reaction to fear.  However, it is only by looking at the policy groundwork they lost where a political observer can evaluate the scale of defeat.  Democrats created a continuum pathway that is now entirely controlled by the very nemesis of their controlling belief system.

In a largely under-reported story last week, President Trump installed OMB Director Mick Mulvaney as interim head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the CFPB.
The CFPB was created to establish power and control over almost every financial transaction in the United States.  But it is only when you review how Elizabeth Warren and the control agents structured the czar head of the CFPB that you recognize the scale of the intent carried within the construct.
When Senator Elizabeth Warren and crew set up the Director of the CFPB, in the aftermath of the Dodd-Frank Act, they made it so that the appointed director can only be fired for cause by the President.
This design was so the Director could operate outside the control of congress and outside the control of the White House.  In essence the CFPB director position was created to work above the reach of any oversight; almost like a tenured position no-one could ever remove.
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Eric Trump appears on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to review the first year of President Trump’s administration and discuss current events: