The business and financial wires are melting down today as ADP Payrolls, the nation’s largest private sector payroll providing service, releases data from January showing a drop of 301,000 jobs.  [ADP Raw Data Here]

The financial, economic and business pundits are completely caught off guard and using the words “shocked”, “unexpected” and “surprised,” within their analysis.  These employment numbers just don’t align with an economy growing at 6.9%, as measured by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).  However, for CTH readers who have carefully scrutinized the economic claims and looked at the bigger picture through the prism of kitchen table checkbook economics, these results are not a surprise.

Every sector of the employment picture on Main Street USA is hit.  The pundits, following the narrative first seeded by the White House on Monday, are pointing to Omicron as the justification inside their review.  That’s nonsense.  For the better part of seven months these same pundits first claimed Delta, then shifted to Omicron as a way to explain the structurally weak economy.  All of that is nonsense.

What we are witnessing are the outcomes of massive inflation now hitting the labor market.  A drop in demand, and a subsequent drop in the employment of goods and services, is an unavoidable outcome of inflationary pressure on wages.

Let me say it again, on a macro level, natural consumer DEMAND has dropped – we are only now starting to see it surfacing in the statistical measures.

This is why White House spokesperson Jen Psaki made that weird statement on Monday.

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Jeff Zucker abruptly resigned from CNN releasing a statement: “As part of the investigation into Chris Cuomo’s tenure at CNN, I was asked about a consensual relationship with my closest colleague, someone I have worked with for more than 20 years,” Mr. Zucker wrote. “I acknowledged the relationship evolved in recent years. I was required to disclose it when it began but I didn’t. I was wrong.”

Apparently, Jeff Zucker has been involved in a long-term relationship with a woman named Allison Gollust as she worked her way through the ranks at CNN throughout her career.

Ms. Gollust is currently CNN’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, positioning her as one of the highest-ranking leaders within the network, closely involved in major business and communications decisions.

Ms. Gollust said in another statement Wednesday she was remaining in her role at CNN: “Jeff and I have been close friends and professional partners for over 20 years,” she wrote. “Recently, our relationship changed during Covid. I regret that we didn’t disclose it at the right time. I’m incredibly proud of my time at CNN and look forward to continuing the great work we do every day.”

Essentially, what appears to have taken place is then married Jeff Zucker and then married Allison Gollust beginning a relationship many years ago, and Zucker advancing Gollust throughout her career, even to the point of her physical location living above him.   Both of them eventually divorced from their respective spouses, and yet the network, or at least the board of directors, was “unaware” of their relationship.

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At this point in our nation’s history, certain acceptances are needed in order to accurately identify the current status of our situation.

• • The Legislative Branch (SSCI) created the Intelligence State, the Fourth Branch of superseding government.
  • The Executive Branch (FBI, DOJ, NSA) control the Fourth Branch of superseding government.
  • The Judicial Branch (FISA Court) is the facilitating approval apparatus for the Fourth Branch.

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With that empirical and well documented reality in place, all three branches of U.S. government work in unison.  Who or what can intervene to stop the Fourth Branch of government from operating unilaterally?

This is the serious question that no one ever discusses.

The FISA Court is the private, secret, unchecked judicial system authorizing the power for the Intelligence State.

As a result, we continue to see NSA reports showing the unconstitutional surveillance of the American people continuing without consequence [NSA Release Here].

This is the 5th straight year where the National Security Agency (NSA) produces a document admitting their metadata capturing system, the system that captures all electronic communication of every single American and puts it into a stored database, is continually used as a research library for unnamed federal agents to scour (without search warrants) for the private documents of American citizens.

At this point, the NSA admission without consequence is simply just another Tuesday, it literally doesn’t even make the headlines anymore.

The executive summary does, however, include the NSA introducing the latest admissions about violating the 4th amendment right of Americans, while bragging about how their diversity hiring efforts have paid off.

So, there’s that.

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The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are the federal police for Canada.  As many local law enforcement communities have refused to move against their own citizens, the Canadian government is now deploying the RCMP against the Alberta trucker blockade.

The border crossing between Coutts, Alberta (CA) and Sweet Grass, Montana (USA) continues to be blocked as truckers allied against COVID-19 restrictions and vaccine passports are united.  The Alberta protests are in support of the larger trucker protest taking place in Ottawa.

Tensions are increasing as the truckers are refusing to move, but the RCMP has vowed to get rid of the blockade.  Supporters for the truckers are working through freezing temperatures to keep them supplied with food and fuel to keep the blockade in place. Even farm tractors have joined the effort.

The standoff continues as the RCMP have been reluctant to forcibly arrest the rather hardened and burly truckers.  There is also a legal defense fund established to assist the truckers against any criminal charges. [SEE HERE]

Canadian state media, aka the CBC, are trying to frame the protesting truckers as villains and violent fringe extremists.  However, after calling the essential working truckers heroes previously, the majority of the Canadian people, specifically the people in/around the Alberta province, are not buying the nonsense from the CBC as supported by the leftist government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

(Via CBC) – RCMP have approached a blockade of vehicles that has jammed traffic for days at a Canada-U.S. border crossing in Alberta after warning that those participating in the protest may be subject to arrest Tuesday afternoon.

[…] RCMP Cpl. Curtis Peters confirmed to CBC News that enforcement has begun, although it is unclear what that will entail. (more)

Rebel News has journalists embedded with the trucker blockade in Alberta and has been tweeting about the standoff.

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An interesting study from Johns Hopkins University [DATA HERE] shows the 2021 government lockdown did virtually nothing to stem death from the pandemic, but likely created more adverse “social ills” and long-term negative health outcomes.

WASHINGTON – […] The lockdowns during the early phase of the pandemic in 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by about 0.2%, said the broad review of multiple scientific studies.

“We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality,” the researchers wrote. But the research paper said lockdowns did have “devastating effects” on the economy and contributed to numerous social ills.

“They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy,” the report said.

“Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument,” the paper concluded. (read more)

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The latest BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLT) report [DATA HERE] reflects a headline of 4.3 million U.S. workers quitting in December.  However, that number is 161,000 fewer quits than November. The job openings are starting to fill up.

While there is evidence the mandatory vaccine requirements are still working through the job market, we are still about another month away before the fog clears from the private sector employment data.

This Friday we will see the unemployment data from December, but in the interim this JOLT’s report is tracking with CTH expectations.

The primary driver of the quits rate has been inflation.  Workers seeking higher wages in an effort to deal with inflation can get faster paycheck results by switching jobs rather than asking current employers for more money.

We have been watching this trend for several months.  However, the rate of job-jumping is slowing down as the available jobs to jump into are fewer, and the vaccine mandate impact is settling down.

Despite the number of job openings, blue collar workers are starting to see job vacancies decreasing.  The service industries around accommodation, food services and basic dirty fingernail positions still have many vacancies; this is the epicenter of where the job jumping takes place. Employment in durable goods manufacturing is at that phase where things are about to get sketchy for tradespeople and union workers.

The white collar jobs are static and/or slightly downsizing.  The total number of hires was 6.3 million for December, a drop of 333,000 from prior month.  The number of people hired in professional and business services dropped by 159,000.

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Many people were wondering who it was that preempted Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer making the announcement of his stepping down from the court.  That answer comes today.

White House Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, was the one who leaked the Breyer retirement, likely in an effort to change the narrative of negative stories that continue to overwhelm the Biden team.

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden’s chief of staff leaked Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s plan to retire to “a limited group” on Wednesday, a top Democrat told reporters.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Durbin told reporters he received a “surprise” call on Wednesday morning from White House chief of staff Ron Klain, who “said that President Biden wanted [Durbin] to know that Stephen Breyer was about to announce his retirement from the court.”

Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said Klain told him to keep the news a secret and that Breyer planned to make an official announcement on Thursday. (read more)

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One of the lesser discussed BIG PICTURE stories being missed within the people’s revolt against totalitarian government under the guise of this pandemic, is the abject void of pragmatic conservative leadership in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.

As the working class Canadians rally behind their blue collar truck drivers, the invisibility of strong, opposing voices to the leftist government they are challenging is brutally obvious.

It is almost painful to watch this play out.

Where are the men of courage?  And, that question has nothing to do with gender.

I generally try to stay out of the issue of questioning representative government in other nations; however, when you see the people of Canada crying for freedom, trying desperately to take back their individual liberty, there comes a time when all the free people of the world have no more tongue to bite.

The voice of Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre is what many people point toward when identifying a “conservative‘ within the parliamentary system of Canada.  Forgive my criticisms, but if this is the strongest representative voice of middle Canada, this too is pathetic.  WATCH:

What the hell kind of high school nonsense is this?  A debate about tone, sensibilities, portrayals?  If the goal was to miss the entire moment, skip the point, talk in circles as if the media was the audience, and put on a performance focused on the totally irrelevant; then, mission accomplished.

As a patient and frustrated pragmatist would say, (deep breath) … “When you’re done with all that, can you please address the central need of the voices assembled a few meters away shouting at you?”  Good grief, and this guy is presumably ‘strong‘ compared to Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole.

There comes a time when you need to channel the raw frustration of your constituents – put them into articulate voice and focus – not pontificate about their delicate humanism in your arguments.

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The border crossing between Coutts, Alberta (CA) and Sweet Grass, Montana (USA) continues to be blocked as truckers allied against COVID-19 restrictions and vaccine passports are united.  The Alberta protests are in support of the larger trucker protest taking place in Ottawa.

Canadian authorities in the province of Alberta have tried and failed to get the Canadian truckers to back down from their border blockade.  The U.S. truckers are supportive of their Canadian allies, and both groups are united in the effort. The blockade is a protest against US and Canadian governments mandating that truckers must be “fully vaccinated” against Covid-19, which came into effect on January 15.

According to Coutts Mayor Jim Willett, about 100 trucks were blocking Highway 4 on the Canadian side, causing a miles-long backup on Interstate 15 in Montana. About 50-100 trucks have reportedly been stuck on the US side since Saturday.

In an effort to remove the blockade, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have cut off the supporters who were bringing food and supplies to the truckers.   The familiar and typical ‘cut off the supply line‘ maneuver.

Rebel News via Convoy Reports has more.

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For those who have been following closely, the economic data releases over the past several months have been almost impossible to reconcile from a Main Street perspective.  Additionally, the scale of inflation is skewing everything that stems from dollar valuation.

CTH is certain the fourth quarter GDP statistic (+6.9%) is useless and was an outcome of several flawed metrics: (1) the import data was misrepresented and not accurately deducted (supply chain issue); (2) the value of building inventories was over calculated as an outcome of inflation; and (3) the value of all economic activity was subsequently skewed because the economic outputs (goods and services) were recorded at higher prices.

It has been our estimation that Main Street economic activity was substantially less than the data discussed by financial pundits.

Our review also sees the employment situation on Main Street as considerably less optimistic than claimed.  Bolstering that point, in a very weird and structured preview from the White House, spokesperson Jen Psaki made an odd statement today.  WATCH (14:35 prompted):

Psaki is prepositioning a narrative that employment data in January will be lower than expectations, perhaps considerably lower, as a result of “workers calling out sick” from COVID, ie. the omicron variant, during the time when employment polling was conducted.  That is a very unusual proactive narrative.

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