This is a modified and updated repost from an early January ’16 outline which collected data from all of the various Donald Trump interviews, position papers, and historical outlines. Candidate Trump has been speaking about broad U.S. economic issues for decades. Trump approaches the challenges by focusing on “Main Street”, not Wall Street.
For the sake of brevity, I’m going to accept that most readers here are familiar with who is funding and directing Jeb Bush, and in larger, more consequential measures, the DC apparatchik in charge of U.S. Policy, ie. Wall street.
During the January 2016 South Carolina debate, and in response to Trump pointing out a necessary shift in trade position (a shift to put American interests first – a shift to stop the dependency on cheap import goods – a shift to use China’s dependency on access to our market to OUR advantage), Jeb Bush came back with an example of Boeing manufacturing.
Donald Trump, responding to Jeb’s Boeing example, and pointed out China is forcing Boeing to open a manufacturing plant in China.  As would be typical from a candidate who is unfamiliar and unbriefed on the issue, Jeb looked back incredulously and said:

“C’mon man”…

There you have it. (more…)

In 2009 the popular conservative opinion was to declare the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision a win for “our side”.   Of course, the decision ultimately opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate spending in elections via the new Super-PAC approach.
In 2016 90% of all American’s polled believe there is too much special interest money in politics, and both political parties no longer need the financial support of the electorate.  Corporate lobbyists were always problematic, but now in a post CU world they control almost every aspect of electoral politics – including who wins elections.  Citizens United wasn’t a win, its consequence was a major fail.

Within that reality you find one of the synergies between candidate Donald Trump and candidate Bernie Sanders.  The popular insurgencies supporting each candidate rail against the corrupting corporate financial influence. Party leadership? Meh, not-so-much.
Of course it would only take RNC and DNC rules changes, ie. self-regulation, to stop the problem of unlimited corporate funding; but when the political party leadership has that much access to money, well, they have no interest in regulating it away.  Ergo, legislation becomes the only option and the legislators would be writing law against their own financial interests…. Yeah, FUBAR.
To wit, one of the shifts amid the “common sense” electorate is the general perception that Citizens United is no longer viewed as a win.  However, with all the discussions on bad Trade Deals there’s also another shift coming into focus, the Import/Export bank.
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As a general principle no conversations have involved more varied opinions than discussions about the supposed “conservative” media and their seeming cognitive dissonance when it comes to issues surrounding Senator Ted Cruz.
Some people think these voices were just hoodwinked by Cruz and now their ego won’t permit them to admit the falsehood.  Others think the pundits are too close to the candidate to see the inherent issues and contradictions; some propose their punditry is connected to financial motives.  Perhaps it’s a combination therein, but many people just can’t figure it out.

Whatever the reason, and personally I don’t care one way or the other, one of the realities is their collective influence is marginalized – common sense people, former viewers and listeners, just laugh at them now.
However, historically pundits don’t care so much about influence as they do about affluence.  When the money lessens or dries up, that’s when the opinion shifts…. just watch – it’s a guaranteed truism. (more…)

Several years ago we first began pointing to the presidential election of 2016 as a grandly constructed enterprise of financial global entities.  Toward that end point we began to outline the strategic global players who were spending tens of millions lobbying congress for Wall Street’s global financial interests.
The conversation is vastly to expansive in scope for any reasonable encapsulation. Indeed our archives from the past four years are filled with reports and warnings about how all of the Wall Street financial interests -as they relate to the 2016 election- would ultimately boil down to global trade and commerce pacts like the Trans-Pacific Trade deal (TPP), and the Trans-Atlantic Trade deal (TTIP).

Globally, the economic wealth of massive corporate financial banks and financial institutions is dependent on the continual nudging toward the ratification of these trade pacts.  There are trillions at stake as the derivative markets are also tied to hedged bets on the outcomes.
Global trade is approximately $75 trillion annually.  However, the Wall Street derivatives market, which are essentially bets placed within this entire financial construct, now account for more than $500 trillion. (more…)

It really is quite stunning to see the voices who support Ted Cruz try and reconcile his prior support for the Trans-Pacific Trade issue.  Their obtuse position is fraught with intellectual dishonesty, and, quite frankly, a necessary head-in-the-sand approach.
We’ve previously outlined the issue HERE.   Senator Cruz supported the legislative trade-passage vehicle of TPA (Trade Promotion Authority) because ultimately the trade bill itself (TPP) benefits Wall Street’s interests.
However, the best way to understand the issue of his support is to actually listen to Ted Cruz explain in 2015 why he supported, then stopped supporting TPA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE6HLbaAL0A
You can clearly see, in his own words, Senator Cruz stating he stopped supporting TPA because Senator Mitch McConnell lied to him about buying votes for a later re-authorization of the Import-Export bank, which Ted Cruz does not support.
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Sometimes when you find yourself in a disconcerting and unfamiliar place, it can be beneficial to stop, look back and understand just how we ended up in this terrain.  The professional DC consultant class are benefiting from the current climate of chaos, and they certainly don’t want anyone to review the consequential and intentional steps it took to get here.
When the Tea Party rose up in opposition to President Obama’s indulgent spending programs in 2009 many were under the mistaken assumption the opposing party, the republicans, were against the progressive agenda based on principle.

However, there were a few voices on our side saying be wary of the UniParty nature of DC, the republican party is not our friend.  Money always fuels their motives; so long as there are millions available to the ‘loyal opposition’, the republican political intentions should not be regarded as altruistic.
At the time those concerns were dispatched by a louder voices demanding strategic unity and instructions to work within the DC-based GOPe system.  However, ultimately what benefit lies within unity if the end result is just a destructive?   The awakened electorate was just as much a risk to the republican side of the UniParty as it was the Democrat side.
It was from this basic framework of acceptance the Conservative Tree House was born. A “last refuge” where common sense approaches still mattered.
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Wayne Michigan will be devastated by this move.  Yet another nail in the manufacturing industry coffin in the U.S.

(Via LA Times) Ford Motor Co. plans to build a $1.6-billion auto assembly plant in Mexico, creating about 2,800 jobs there and shifting small-car production away from the United States at a time when moving jobs south of the border has become a major issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.
The company announced that it would open the plant in San Luis Potosi state Tuesday without saying specifically what cars it would build there.
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We have actually been puzzled about why candidate Donald Trump was reluctant to present a very easy, factual and reasonable outline of how it is entirely possible for U.S. policy to incentivize Mexico to pay for the Southern Border Security Wall.
One of the reasons we’ve been puzzled, is simply because the process itself is very easy to initiate.  Personally I think Trump is sandbagging on many of these solutions, preferring to hold back the substance of the policy proposals for the General Election.
However, today Donald Trump presented the simple outline (pdf below) and the liberal media is apoplectic.

In addition, when President Obama received a question about it, Obama showed just how insufferably naïve he is regarding the economics of the proposal.
Here’s the basics.  Mexico takes in approximately $25 billion in money transfers to their economy, mostly from the U.S., per year.  These transfers of cash are called “remittances”.  Trump is proposing a Money Services Compliance action, via the U.S. Treasury (Banking Services and Secrecy Act), that would force a Western Union affidavit (or other institution) to be completed prior to the transfer.
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Speaking on behalf of Donald Trump, Sarah Palin gave a speech last night to a Wisconsin Republican audience.   Standing firmly on a platform of truth, Palin warned the mostly party (establishment) audience their decision to stand with deception in order to win an election also means placing themselves in a very precarious position.
The response from the audience to Sarah’s brutal honesty was what’s customarily known as “the collective nervousness of deceivers“.

Whenever anyone dares to tell the collective: ‘the emperor stands naked’; there’s a particular kind of autonomic group nervousness immediately evident.  A group discomfort.
Such was the discomfort when Sarah Palin mentioned Senator Ted Cruz’s weak and opportunistic immigration position, and then contrast a real-life example of Cruz going to McAllen Texas (Saturday, July 19th 2014) to hand out “gift baskets” and welcome illegal alien families.
You could hear a pin-drop as an entire audience sat jaw-agape in disbelief.
When a fearless truth-teller stares down a room – the collective immediately need each other to retain their guise.  Here’s an example of their initial response: (more…)

According to an article today in candidate Cruz’s official Super-PAC funded (Via Robert Mercer) media outlet, Breitbart.Com, Senator Ted Cruz now says he doesn’t support the current U.S. Trade Policy and has fully adopted the position of candidate Donald Trump in calling for “Fair Trade’.
Except he’s lying.
Again.
Senator Cruz previously said the reason he gave up support for Trans-Pacific Trade deal TPP, and voted against his own legislative vehicle (TPA),  was because Mitch McConnell lied to him.
However, no-one seems to know enough about the legislative construct to actually challenge Cruz on his absurd claim.
Senate Leader Mitch McConnell promised several democrats in the senate he would include re-authorization of the Import/Export bank (December 2015 Omnibus) in exchange for support on the Trans-Pacific Trade Deal (TPA)  (June ’15).
This is the McConnell LIE Senator Cruz speaks of when he justifies changing his TPA vote at the last minute from Yea, to Nay.
Candidate Cruz is never challenged on that ridiculous reasoning. The Import/Export Bank re-authorization had absolutely nothing to do with TPP or TPA. It was purely a cover excuse. (more…)