The federal April jobs report shows a gain of 211,000 new jobs amid a 2.5% year-over-year growth in wages, bringing the latest national unemployment rate to 4.4% or what the federal economists call the ‘cusp’ of full employment.  They are, well, ‘positioning’ an advanced narrative.

DATA – •Construction payrolls rose by 5,000; •manufacturing payrolls increased by 6,000; •leisure and hospitality payrolls jumped by 55,000; •professional and business services payrolls rose by 39,000; •healthcare and social assistance employment increased by 36,800; •retail payrolls gained 6,300.

That’s the official interpretation of what the jobs gains mean.  However, to reconcile the “slacking” the quantifying economists are now halving the customary growth figure used for inbound newly economically matriculated workers.

Historically it takes 150k new monthly jobs to retain employment rates as static; therefore any job growth beyond 150k must lower the unemployment rate. The fed is now using 70-100k as the new labor market number to retain stasis.

Bloomberg – […] Removed from the weather-related distortions of the previous three months, the April figures indicate solid trends in employment, while measures of those left behind in the recovery — favored by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and President Donald Trump alike — are at or near pre-recession levels.

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U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross sat down for a comprehensive discussion on trade, education and commerce policies with Bloomberg’s David Gura at the Bloomberg Breakaway Summit in New York.

In his direct and often humorous style Wilburine describes some of the current economic trade challenges and presents an outline of U.S. forward policy.  Secretary Ross spends quite a bit of time explaining how the NAFTA trade agreement is obsolescent in the modern era and how many of the products and industries in 2017 are not part of the agreement.

Wilburine also discusses how the business community is interacting with the Trump administration to deliver on specific aspects to the larger economic policy goals. A very good and substantive discussion segment:

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Additionally, COMMERCE – Earlier today, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin held a phone conversation with Vice Premier Wang Yang of China. Commerce Secretary Ross, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and Vice Premier Wang discussed bilateral issues related to the U.S.- China Comprehensive Dialogue and the overall economic and trade relationship between the two countries. (link)

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Reuters is reporting on a stunning financial prediction coming from the Federal Reserve in Atlanta.  Their 2nd Quarter prediction falls in line with many of the “new dimension” economic predictions we have been anticipating.

The Atlanta Fed is predicting 4.3% growth:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. economy is on track to grow at a 4.3 percent annualized pace in the second quarter, rebounding from a 0.7 percent increase in the first quarter which was the weakest in three years, the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDP Now forecast model showed on Monday.

This is much faster than the latest second-quarter gross domestic product estimate of 2.33 percent from the New York Federal Reserve.  (read more)

There is a disconnect in traditional economic quantification that we have been predicting for well over a year.  It’s the same disconnect currently reflected in the jobs numbers between payrolls and the Fed explained here.  We also outlined additional data two months ago which the federal economists admit they cannot reconcile – Expanded HERE.

For 30+ years U.S. economic political policy has been driven by Wall Street interests. STOP. Main Street, the middle-class and the American worker have suffered. STOP. The successful election of Donald Trump, and the execution of his “main street” economic policy agenda, has sledgehammered the prior economic machine into a full seizure an halt. FULL STOP.

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If you didn’t read the Part-V explainer of how we got to this point in congressional history stop and go read it.  This stuff is all connected and cannot be absorbed without a thorough understanding of motives behind the advancing agenda-writers.

Make Sure You Watch The Embed Video (below) from Wilbur Ross.

The interim Continuing Resolution (CR) is fraught with demands of the “Big Club”.  That is: Wall Street, their lobbyists, and those who have created the UniParty for over three decades.   The “Big Club” is fighting back against the insurgent presidency of Donald Trump and is using the Republican wing of the UniParty to do it.

It is Republicans, not just Democrats, in congress who are putting the most toxic spending priorities within the $1+ trillion spending bill and forcing a spending bill onto President Trump’s desk which factilitates the needs of the lobbying class and undermines parts of the structural agenda of President Trump.

The outrage should be rightly focused on the UniParty in congress, and more specifically the Republicans therein, not President Trump.

What would the ankle-biters and antagonists (gnats) have President Trump do?  Veto a bill constructed by bipartisan legislation in congress?   Shut down government?  That’s exactly the dynamic the “Big Club” has set up through their paid opposition represented by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.

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President Trump’s economic and foreign policy agenda is jaw-dropping in scale, scope and consequence.  There are multiple simultaneous aspects to each policy objective; they have been outlined for a long time even before the election victory in November ’16.

If you get too far into the weeds the larger picture can be lost.  CTH objective is to continue pointing focus toward the larger horizon, and then at specific inflection points to dive into the topic and explain how each moment is connected to the larger strategy.

Today is a big news day where action on multiple policy fronts becomes visible.  Here’s an interview with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin which notes some of the critical financial angles to economic policy.

An important reference here is the earlier understanding of how then ‘candidate Trump’ personally put a platform plank of a Modern 21st Century Glass-Stegall banking reform into his economic policy agenda, and why it is important.

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Here’s the dive:

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{{snickering}} Well, who didn’t see this coming?…

(New York Post) President Trump spoke by phone Saturday with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte — praising the strongman for “fighting very hard to rid his country of drugs” and inviting him to Washington.

The two leaders also discussed regional security, including concerns over South Korea, the White House said in a statement.

No details were given on when Duterte would visit the US, but Trump also said he looked forward to visiting the Philippines in November for a summit with other Asian nations. (link)

As we shared five days ago – this is all part of a much, much bigger strategy.  Full explainer about how President Duterte fits in AVAILABLE HERE.  The insufferable media can’t even see it…. their intellectual dishonesty is becoming very annoying.

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…“Literally 30-thousand jobs could be lost if Trump is sworn in. Washington as we know it, and how business is conducted, will change instantly.”… ~DC Lobbyist

Over the past few days we have been providing background explainers on why congressional legislation is frozen.   The lack of legislative action in the era of Trump is one of the least understood political realities.  Corporate media cannot discuss the issue because they are part of the system itself. The election of President Trump threw a wrench into the gears of the entire DC legislative and lobbying machine.

Part I HERE -and- Part II HERE -and- Part III HERE.

The entire political and legislative apparatus is frozen, and it is genuinely impossible to predict what happens next.  Where we stand is the outcome building a very targeted system over the course of three decades.  The entities and institutions which assembled the system became functionally obsolescent overnight on November 8th 2016.

To fully grasp the tectonic shift, and understand the current challenge, it helps to revisit the words by a key DC machine operator, lobbyist Jack Burkman, who was contemplating the unthinkable prior to the unthinkable becoming a reality:

DC Public Relations2016 […]  seismic panic has ensued on K Street as lobbying firms brace for a reality of a possible Donald Trump presidency and what that might mean for them and their futures.

Prominent D.C. lobbyist Jack Burkman said today that he started assembling a delegation of lobbyists and lobbying firms to meet with the New York billionaire and begin building a bridge to the Trump organization.

“Trump is a Washington outsider. We need the outreach now or Trump will bring in a whole new team made up exclusively of New Yorkers, effectively ending our grip on the White House and The Capitol which will bring about the end of life as we know it here,” says Burkman, who represents a diverse set of national and multi-national clients.

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There has been some confusion, mostly spurred by media falsehoods, about whether or not Secretary Ross had submitted the ‘notification of intent’ letter to congress to begin the clock to renegotiating NAFTA.

Early in this video, yet again, Secretary Ross clearly states he is waiting on congress to accept the letter; ie. it was sent mid-March.

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Republicans control the Senate. Republicans, not democrats in the Senate, do not want the Trump administration to renegotiate NAFTA. This is one of the clearest examples of the UniParty at work and the anti-American principles behind the U.S. Chamber of Commerce corporate lobbyists – lobbying directly against the Trump administration.  “The Big Club”.

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There are many new commentators at CTH, and even more new people taking notice of politics for perhaps the first time in their lives.   There is also some confusion noticed between two distinct groups who appear to be talking above and around each other.  Two groups trying to communicate from two entirely divergent sets of understanding.

Perhaps it is valuable to reset the larger frames of reference and provide clarity.

Many, heck, most people think when they vote for a federal politician -a representative- they are voting for a person who will go to Washington DC and write or enact legislation. This is the old-fashioned “schoolhouse rock” perspective based on decades past.

There is not a single congress person who writes legislation or laws.

In 2017 not a single member of the House of Representatives or Senator writes a law, or puts pen to paper to write out a legislative construct.  This simply doesn’t happen.

Over the past several decades a system of constructing legislation has taken over Washington DC that more resembles a business operation than a legislative body.  Here’s how it works.

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Earlier today President Trump and first lady Melania welcomed the President of Argentina Mauricio Macri and his wife Juliana Awada to the White House.

One of the key topics on the agenda for President Macri is trade with the U.S., specifically the Argentinian export of lemons into the U.S.  Understandably California, and to a lesser extent Florida, citrus growers are opposed to large scale imports of competing crops.

Additionally, during the customary Oval Office photo-op President Trump remarks about the ongoing NAFTA trade issues, and the phone calls yesterday between Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and Mexico’s President Peña Nieto:

“If I’m unable to make a fair deal for the United States–meaning a fair deal for our workers and our companies, I will terminate NAFTA.”

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The U.S. media are considerably invested in framing NAFTA trade issues around their ever-present need to oppose the White House (Trump Derangement Syndrome); and many of the recent media narratives around NAFTA are entirely false.

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