Neil Oliver returns from a few weeks of holiday to hit this monologue out of the park.  It’s almost as if Neil and I had sat down and shared a cup of tea.

Comrades, in this wake-up monologue Oliver hits on the key dynamic we have discussed, we are in an abusive relationship with government.  We are being oppressed and held captive by our inability to come to terms with the nature of this relationship.  We are suffering through battered citizen syndrome, thinking that if we just bear through the next round of beatings the abuser will change.

Neil Oliver hits another key point, something you also might find familiar.  The gaslighting around us that feeds and maintains the nature of the abusive relationship is based on the entire community around us “pretending” we are not being abused.  Oliver then folds in the bigger picture and agenda behind, Build Back Better. WATCH:

It’s desperately necessary for our survival that we become disillusioned–and quickly.

Think about that word: Dis-illusioned. Having illusions exposed and removing them from the decision-making process.

Getting disillusioned quicky is important, because when illusions are defended, protected and argued for, instead of being exposed, they will always take us to default decisions that are inherently based on non-reality. This is where the pretending comes from.

Isaac Newton said that passivity in objects was predictable. Perhaps passivity in troubled humans is predictable as well.

Newton said it this way with regard to objects: “An object that is at rest will stay at rest unless an unbalanced force act upon it.”  So, it appears we need an unbalanced force to act upon these passively willing objects that are content to remain at rest.  That unbalanced force is Donald J Trump.

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Oh, this is funny.  Rupert Murdoch’s little foot soldiers, Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino, hosted three Florida Republicans on their broadcast to explain why they support Donald Trump and not Ron DeSantis.  Fox News has big sad.

Congressional Republicans Greg Steube, Cory Mills and Byron Donalds all explain why President Donald Trump is the better choice in 2024.  Bill Hemmer pleads with them to evaluate how brilliant Ron DeSantis is, but Donalds, Mills and Steube brought the MAGA hammer.   Epic Video. WATCH:

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This type of conversational interview with President Trump is the reason he connects to Zoomers (Gen-Z) so naturally. There is an authenticity that comes from within a sense of conversational comfort and honesty in the content.  Gen-Z MAGA is crushing the support level on social media platforms, especially TikTok, and the connected level of support shows up in polling data.  MAGA is a very diverse and inclusive coalition.

This interview flows through a multitude of interesting topics and current events, while also pointing out some of the ordinary perspectives that people have in the day-to-day discussion of them. Take the time to watch this interview; it is a great reminder about how and why President Trump connects to the average person. WATCH:

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As higher interest rates continue to put pressure on borrowers, the ability of the average person to afford a mortgage diminishes.  Higher mortgage rates lead to downward pressure on residential home values as fewer borrowers can afford higher payments.  Simultaneously, commercial real estate is dropping in value as vacancies continue increasing.

Put both of these issues together and already tenuous banks holding mortgage bonds as assets can become more unstable.

This dynamic creates the continual tremors in the background of an economy already suffering from high inflation and low consumer purchasing of durable goods.

A perfect storm starts to realize.

(Wall Street Journal) U.S. existing-home sales decreased 2.4% in March from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.44 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. March sales fell 22% from a year earlier.

March marked the 13th time in the previous 14 months that sales have slowed. The housing market had a surprisingly strong February, when sales rose a revised 13.75% from the previous month. But after mortgage rates ticked higher, March sales resumed the extended period of declines.

The housing market’s slowdown is now starting to weigh on prices, which have fallen on an annual basis for two consecutive months for the first time in 11 years. The national median existing-home price decline of 0.9% in March from a year earlier to $375,700 was the biggest year-over-year price drop since January 2012, NAR said.

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The second half of Tucker Carlson’s interview with Elon Musk is below. The second part is most esoteric discussion about the current state of U.S. and geopolitical affairs with further discussion of AI, the banking industry and the future of human life as quantified by the viability of civilization. {Direct Rumble link} WATCH:

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Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, appears on Face the Nation to describe the current status of EU success in shrinking the economy to achieve parity with the shrinking of energy development. Ms. Lagarde is very happy with their ‘management of the transition’ so far, and sees slow economic growth combined with a citizenry happily accepting the lower standard of living, the new normal.

As Lagarde outlines, the lowered economic activity is helping the central banks support the objectives of the government officials and corporations who are giving the instructions. Overall, she is optimistic the common man and woman will continue accepting less ability to achieve personal economic and financial success, as the bankers and politicians continue managing the western transition. Things are going swimmingly. WATCH:

MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re joined now by Christine Lagarde, former head of the IMF, now the president of the European Central Bank. Good morning.

PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK CHRISTINE LAGARDE: Good morning, Margaret. Lovely to be back.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Good to have you here, and your recovery is going all right?

MADAME LAGARDE: Yes, in a couple of days, I think I’ll be fine.

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Always keep in mind that retails sales from the Dept of Commerce [DATA HERE pdf] are always calculated in dollars.  Inflation can artificially skewer retail sales if prices increase, and yet consumer purchases decline at a rate lower than the increase in price.  Fewer units sold at higher prices can give the false impression of increased sales.

During an inflationary environment, when prices increase yet retail sales drop, there are substantially fewer units being purchased.  Overall purchases at stores, restaurants and online declined a seasonally adjusted 1% in March from the prior month.

During the time measured gasoline was less expensive, so that led the drop in fuel sales; however, drops in dept stores (-2.5%), General Merchandise (-3.0%), electronics (-2.1%), and building supplies (-2.1%), shows another broad-based pullback of Main Street consumer spending. (pdf here)

These outcomes are in general alignment with what many people have shared via regional ground reports.  Grocery store sales are flat despite major increases in grocery store prices (+10 to +20%).  People are buying fewer grocery store units and making their food budget stretch as far as possible.

Durable goods are not considered essential, and sales of cars, electronics and department store products are much lower.

I am actually a little (pleasantly) surprised to see restaurant sales holding (+0.1%), despite the massive increase in fresh food costs.   I thought people would eat out less, but the total decline in restaurant foot traffic seems to be in the single digits.  I guess people can afford it more than I anticipated.

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Tucker Carlson played the full interview excerpt where President Donald Trump answered the question about who blew up the Nordstream pipeline. {Direct Rumble Link}.  Within the answer, President Trump doesn’t want to undermine the Biden administration, yet we know who was responsible.

What you notice again from the totality of President Trump’s responses and worldview is the unique nature of the honesty.   In the most consequential of ways, President Trump was the single most consequential foreign policy president in a generation.   We forget that during Trump’s term in office, the headlines about North and South Korea were not about conflict, but rather about the possibility of unification on the Korean peninsula.

Two large elements played out when Trump was in office.  First, economic security is national security.  Second, “peace is the prize.”  Through both elements the Trump Doctrine was born and the effectiveness, while downplayed and ignored, was unmistakable.  WATCH:

♦President Trump’s foreign policy approach brought North and South Korea together away from the table of conflict.  ♦President Trump’s foreign policy approach brought Serbia and Kosovo together away from the table of conflict.  ♦President Trump’s foreign policy rallied the Gulf Cooperation Council to stop Qatar’s support for Islamic extremists via the Muslim Brotherhood. ♦President Trump’s foreign policy brought Turkey and the Kurdish forces together away from war and conflict.  ♦President Trump’s foreign policy created a ceasefire to stop the bloodshed in Syria.  President Trump mediated a cessation of hostilities between India & Pakistan in the Kashmir region. ♦President Trump’s foreign policy brought Israel and the UAE together… and then Bahrain… and then Sudan in the Abraham Accords.

President Trump executed a clear foreign policy, a unique doctrine of sorts, where national security is achieved by leveraging U.S. economic power. It was a fundamental shift in approaching both allies and adversaries; summarized within the oft repeated phrase: “economic security is national security.”

The Trump Doctrine of using economics to achieve national security objectives was a fundamental paradigm shift.  Modern U.S. history provided no easy reference for the effective outcome.

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In the latest round of statistics from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) the March inflation data has been released [DATA HERE]. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) climbed 0.1% in March after advancing 0.4% in February.  This puts the 12-month CPI outlook at 5% inflation. [See Modified Table A on Left]

A 4.6% decline in March gasoline prices was offset by higher rental and housing costs.  That was the primary driver of the lowered inflationary data as gasoline is weighted heavier in the impact.

However, that said, gasoline prices are already rising again after Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ oil producers early this month announced further oil output cuts.  This puts the April CPI data (starting to be assembled this week) on track to increase over March.

Overall, in the big picture the data shows the plateau of sorts as we described for this spring.  This plateau will be followed by another bump as a result of current input costs and prior energy costs traveling through the supply chain.

Energy services, electricity and natural gas, are stable but higher than last year.  The crop cycles carry those increased costs from field to fork.  Consumers cannot avoid those food prices increasing.  The more processing involved in the food sector, the higher the price increase.

Housing increases are another unavoidable cost and generally cycle with a lag within them.  As leases expire, the new lease rates increase accordingly.  The same is true for insurance rates.  Both unavoidable sectors have a rolling lag that hits the consumer upon renewal.

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A few days after the terror attack of 9-11-01, someone in media asked George W. Bush what Americans can do to help.  Dubya’s response drew instant criticism, because he asked people to go shopping… but in the big picture, President Bush knew what could happen if the economic freeze continued.

When it comes to politics and economic outlooks, trust your instincts.  The economics of the ‘thing’ is always the reason the ‘thing’ exists or does not exist.

When you are looking at economic news, always remind yourself… the people producing the news have a vested interest in maintaining a very specific outlook.  The motive behind what Dubya said in September of 2001, pertains every bit as much today.  Economic outcomes can topple entire governments.

Remember, this current ‘supply-side energy policy driven inflation‘, a purposeful effort to shrink the economy and yet tenuously maintain control, has never happened before.  The people behind the Build Back Better agenda are, in reality, experimenting with a theory. DATA…

(ISM) – The Institute for Supply Management’s PMI contracted for the fifth straight month in March registering 46.3, the lowest level since May 2020. Any reading below 50.0 indicates contraction.  The employment index declined by 2.2 percent to a level of 46.9.

Most of the impediments to manufacturing growth — such as shortages and lockdowns — have subsided, said Tim Fiore, chair of the ISM’s manufacturing survey committee, with the exception of pricing. ISM’s pricing index fell below 50 in March but at 49.2 remains higher than pre-pandemic levels.

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