To understand the China ‘One-Belt / ‘One-World’ economic trade forum it becomes necessary to understand how structurally weak the Chinese economy was created.

.

People often talk about the ‘strength’ of China’s economic model; and indeed within a specific part of their economy -manufacturing- they do have economic strength.  However, the underlying critical architecture of the Chinese economic model is structurally flawed and President Trump with his current economic team understand the weakness better than all international adversaries.

Lets take a stroll and lightly discuss.

China is a central planning economy.  Meaning it never was an outcropping of natural economic conditions.  China was/is controlled as a communist style central-planning government; As such, it is important to reference the basic structural reality that China’s economy was created from the top down.

This construct of government creation is a key big picture distinction that sets the backdrop to understand how weak the economy really is.

(more…)

Two great interviews with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, aka “Wilburine”. Secretary Ross is easily the most comprehensively well-versed trade policy commerce secretary in modern history, perhaps ever.

Wilburine is discussing the recent U.S./China trade breakthrough. –BACKSTORY HERE– Additionally, at 08:30 of the interview Ross discusses NAFTA against the backdrop of the Senate not yet accepting his “letter of intent” to renegotiate the agreement.  Secretary Ross discusses how Robert Lighthizer’s confirmation should help speed up the senate process.

.

In substantive terms the bigger aspect to remember is how much more leverage there is in bilateral trade negotiations than multilateral agreements.

The Trans-Pacific-Partnership (TPP) would have held the U.S. hostage to agreements that in many cases were against our interests and to the benefit of the larger group of TPP nations. Former Secretary of State John Kerry stated openly: while China was not part of the original TPP framework, the participating nations held open a back door for China to enjoin.

Because President Trump pulled away from TPP, the U.S. is able to negotiate terms for trade with our market that may have specific and purposeful benefit exclusive to the United States. This is critical as we review current negotiated bilateral deal with China.

(more…)

On the heels of the historic meeting between China’s President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Trump in Mar-a-lago, Secretary Ross announced a jaw-dropping schedule for bilateral trade negotiations between the U.S. and China.

Part of that rapid schedule included a plan for a 100-day waypoint outline toward the larger trade issues surrounding the United States and China. Against the pace of historic trade agreements the 100-day schedule was almost unfathomable; yet today Secretary Ross announces the initial waypoints have been successful.

.

The Department of Commerce provides the outline of the first-stage, the initial agreement, which includes China opening their market up to U.S. agricultural products including U.S. beef export as well as liquid natural gas, and further agreements on financial services. These are multi-billion market deals.

Here’s the Commerce Dept press release. I’ll try to break it down into understandable lingo at the bottom using the included reference points from the press release:

(more…)

All positions have some bearing on the average American; however, some confirmation votes are more directly tied to the well-being of ordinary people than others.  This confirmation will directly and specifically make the lives of middle-class workers, and ordinary American people, improve.

Thank you to those who contacted their Senator and applied the pressure.  There was a great deal of feedback received by the senate in the past 24 hours.  There are those within the swamp lobbying community who are beginning to understand that WE KNOW far more than they ever thought we know.  Change is a direct consequence of that reality.

In a strong showing of bi-partisan support for Trump’s ‘America First’ trade platform the nominee for U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, was confirmed by the Senate with a vote of 82-14.  The U.S. Trade Representative is a critical position ahead of renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.

Three Republicans voted NO: ♦Cory Gardner (Colorado), ♦John McCain (Arizona), and ♦Ben Sasse (Nebraska).

For the past 30 years Lighthizer has been a trade lawyer representing American steel companies in their efforts to fight dumping of foreign-made steel below costs and unfair steel subsidies from foreign governments. He has pledged to strengthen enforcement of existing trade deals and to find new legal tools to combat unfair trade practices.

Lighthizer has criticized some Republicans for being too pro-free trade. He told a Senate panel this year that the U.S. should have an “America first trade policy.”  “We can do better in negotiating our trade agreements and stronger in enforcing our trade laws,” he said.

(more…)

The economic lobbyist community known as The Big Club is represented most visibly by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Tom Donohue.

Via the Wall Street community, CoC President Donohue pours tens of millions of multinational corporate contributions into DC lobbying efforts to retain control over politicians and legislation that relates to U.S. trade and economic matters.   [FYI Donohue’s Chamber of Commerce lobbying group were the primary architects of the now dispatched TPP trade deal; they actually wrote the U.S. part of the construct.]

Tom Donohue funds a large number of politicians in DC in an effort to control the outcomes of legislation and policies that could become adverse to his multinational interests.  Two of those primary beneficiaries are John McCain and Ben Sasse.

As a consequence it doesn’t come as a surprise to see McCain and Sasse announce their intention to block the confirmation of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer:

REUTERS – Republican U.S. Senators John McCain and Ben Sasse said on Wednesday they would vote against President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, because of his opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

“Unfortunately, your confirmation process has failed to reassure us that you understand the North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) positive economic benefits to our respective States and the nation as a whole,” McCain and Sasse said in a letter to Lighthizer. (read more)

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and President Trump strongly support Lighthizer for U.S. Trade Rep.   The institutional control agents within K-Street, aka the economic lobbying group, do not.

(more…)

Everyone is so caught up with their discussion of President Trump around the firing of FBI Director James Comey that they are completely overlooking the most explosive scandal in the history of congress.

This scandal, if exposed, should remove, or at least censure: Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, Richard Burr, Devin Nunes, Adam Schiff and Mark Warner.

The absence of their accountability shows the depth of corruption within Washington DC.

First, understand their job – Each of the aforementioned was/is part of the congressional intelligence oversight called the “Gang of Eight“. The Go8 are exclusively responsible for overseeing all intelligence community activity as it relates to intelligence gathering and corresponding investigations.

In short these eight elected representatives are in charge of all oversight of all U.S. intelligence operations and investigations.  As elected representatives, they represent one of the most important checks within the system of government overseeing non-elected officials. (more…)

It was eight months ago when we first began discussing the “White Hats” -vs- “Black Hats” within the intelligence apparatus.  It was obvious there was a battle going on within the  ‘intelligence’ and ‘justice’ systems per se’ between two distinct groups, mostly centered around political leaks within the IC:

• A Black Hat: is a self-serving entity, person or organization, that is corrupt, deceitful, manipulative, exploitative, and working for their own power and interests.  A bad entity.
• A White Hat: is an altruistic entity, person or organization, that is foundationally grounded on truth, honesty, and clear definitions of right and moral wrong.  A good entity.

The four primary agencies who drove the media narrative were: CIA, DNI, FBI and NSA.

We identified Admiral Mike Rogers (NSA) as the only ‘white hat’ within the intelligence group at the center of the media intel controversies.   Most, heck, all, of the media controversy was created by leaks of intelligence “reports”.  NSA Director Mike Rogers was the only intel head without any participation in leaking.  Rogers also controlled most of the raw intel from which the reports being leaked were constructed.

Initially, last year, FBI Director James Comey was challenging to gauge.  However, it didn’t take long to discover his political corruption, and see his political agenda was all about himself – not the application of law.

(more…)

Last month President Trump took a great deal of criticism for calling Turkish President Erdogan and congratulating him on the narrow referendum victory. Many critics of Trump said he was congratulating a dictator, without also recognizing Turkey is a NATO member.

As long as Turkey is allowed to remain in NATO the entire member nation alliance will always be compromised by the self-serving Islamic interests of Erdogan.  The EU and the political left, demand President Trump recognize the value of NATO – and hypocritically denounce Trump for speaking to a NATO nation’s leader.  This is the mindset of the idiots in the EU and their defenders amid the political left.

Today, the Trump administration announces they are arming the Kurdish fighting forces in Northern Syria. President Erdogan hates the Kurds and considers them as adversaries and political opposition to his control over Turkey.

Within the dynamic you can see a multidimensional problem. The Kurds are fighting short-term against ISIS and Bashir Assad in Syria; however, in the larger Kurdish goal they are also attempting to establish their own independent state, Kurdistan.

Erdogan opposes Assad, but Erdogan more strongly opposes the Kurds and any Kurdistan formation efforts because it would destroy his goal of establishing the new Ottoman empire he dreams of leading. (more…)

Comrade Citizen, there comes a day when progressive ideology has to go all-in.  For California that day is today….

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – Being a communist would no longer be a fireable offense for California government employees under a bill passed by the state Assembly. Lawmakers narrowly approved the bill Monday. It would repeal part of a law enacted during the Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s when fear that communists were trying to infiltrate and overthrow the U.S. government was rampant. The bill now goes to the Senate.

It would eliminate part of the law that allows public employees to be fired for being part of the Communist Party. Employees could still be fired for being members of organizations they know advocate for overthrowing the government. Some Assembly Republicans say communism is still a threat and that the Cold War-era law should not be changed. (link)

Holy Cats. This post is somewhat rushed because everyone needs to watch Sally Yates testify before congress, and there’s a very distinct possibility President Trump has just laid a trap to catch her.  The Muh Russia Judiciary Hearing.

Initially I was open-minded, albeit skeptical, about the potential for President Trump to have laid out a rather well constructed trap to catch intelligence leakers together with Michael Flynn.  Skeptical because the construct of the trap is intensely Machiavellian.

However, today two very obvious indicators point to that being more reality than supposition.

Yates is scheduled to testify for the first time in public, alongside James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, who pushed Flynn in 2014 from his job as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The two are due to appear before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee at 2:30 p.m.  (link)

Not accidentally, today the media is playing out a leaked story about President Obama warning President Trump [On November 10th] about Michael Flynn. Against the backdrop of the February media narrative: why would the Obama white house source wait until just prior to Yates testimony? Why today?  Obviously the political angle is transparent.

(more…)