Sometimes we just sits and thinks… and sometimes we just thinks and laughs… This truly is the greatest of times to be alive and engaged.  All, because, Trump stuff.

After reminding ourselves there’s no longer an actual media apparatus (per se’) in the historic sense of assembling facts, just facts, that explain situations; we once again see a brutal example of an answer to a simple economic question ignored by media.
Yesterday, within a MAGAnomics discussion thread, the question was asked:

♦ How long do you think the Chinese economy can sustain itself? When will it run out of steam? Could you maybe add some meat to the bone of what a trade war may look like with China, in terms of what we can expect to happen?

My own reply was rather simplistic:

♦ A trade confrontation with China will remove the cloak of capitalism and show the true colors of totalitarian control behind the Chinese economic mask.  Confronting China’s Oz, economically, is simply sending in Toto (Wilbur Ross) to pull back the curtain. Easy peasy.

As if on cue… here comes Xi Jinping to deliver the audio visual demonstration. (more…)

OMB Director Mick Mulvaney has an explanatory outline, promoted by the White House, explaining the administration’s economic principles: “MAGAnomics”.
Introducing MAGAnomics
By Mick Mulvaney – Wall Street Journal – July 13, 2017
If the Trump administration has one overarching goal, it’s to Make America Great Again. But what does this mean? It means we are promoting MAGAnomics—and that means sustained 3% economic growth.
For most of our nation’s modern history, a healthy American economy meant one that grew at roughly 3.5%. That was the average growth rate between the late 1940s and 2007. Since then, it has hardly topped 2%.
The difference between those two growth rates is staggering. If the American economy had grown at only 2% between the end of World War II and 2000, average household income would have been roughly $26,000 instead of $50,000.
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In 2016 CTH first predicted the intellectual economic disconnect that would arise out of the paradigm shift in economic principles. Initially I called it “the economic third dimension” – SEE HERE.
As time progressed through the second fiscal quarter of 2017 (Jan-March) again, we noted how the Federal Reserve was exactly failing to understand this “third dimension”; the space between Wall Street and Main Street fiscal policy – SEE HERE.

Finally today, for the first time, we see a federal reserve voting official begin to question the underlying economic assumptions of the Fed. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans is the first federal official to identify the disconnect between federal economic policy and actual economic outcomes:

WASHINGTON – […] Inflation has run below the Fed’s 2 percent target over the past eight years, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans noted.
“This is a serious policy outcome miss,” he said in remarks prepared for a conference in Idaho.
[…] Even as inflation has tumbled this year, Fed officials have brushed it off, indicating that they believe that one-off factors are keeping prices low. Those include cellphone service prices cratering because of carriers bidding to offer unlimited data plans. Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and others have suggested that inflation is likely to head back up after those temporary price drops slow overall prices.

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been keeping an exhaustive schedule for the past week and especially in the past few days.  In the ongoing diplomatic effort against mid-east terror networks, the GCC/Trump coalition have kept up pressure against Qatar.
Kuwait is acting as the primary mediator between Qatar and the rest of the Gulf States; T-Rex conducted three days of shuttle diplomacy in an effort to assist and reassert the position of the Trump administration.  Tillerson traveled to Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and back to Qatar with extensive meetings within each nation.
It would take a bazillion words to explain all the nuances, shifts, agreements and diplomatic ongoing efforts.  However, to keep it simple we boiled it down to the current, most consequential, outcome within this graphic:
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Wow. Sorry to drop so much substance into a single news day, but there’s so much going on around the geopolitical world it’s, well, stunning.
[And we still haven’t been able to even catch up with T-Rex’s multi-nation shuttle diplomacy over Qatar yet…. sheesh.  –> CLICK HERE FOR QUICKIE  LOL]
U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert delivers a press briefing to highlight a great deal of what is going on. Video and Transcript below:

The upcoming NAFTA trade discussions between the U.S., Mexico and Canada will be more interesting, and far more consequential, than any trilateral trade discussion in our lifetime.  We can anticipate dozens of congressional masks to drop each day as the tentacles of their financial interests and corporate donors will gain a level of sunlight never before seen.

For the first time in our lifetime the corporatist’s within the U.S. CoC lobby will be neutered, and Republicans owned by Wall Street will have no choice but to openly rail against America while embracing their friends in the MSM.

White House – President Donald J. Trump met today with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico during the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany. President Trump emphasized the strong bilateral relationship that the United States enjoys with Mexico and noted the importance of renegotiating NAFTA to help workers in both countries.

President Trump thanked President Peña Nieto for Mexico’s partnership on the Central America Conference last month. The leaders also discussed regional challenges, including drug trafficking, illegal migration, and the crisis in Venezuela. (link)

Video Below

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin outline the past 48 hours of diplomatic discussions within the framework of the G20.

**Remember** as you read this transcript, e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g eventually boils down to economics and the seismic geopolitical shifts currently underway.  (See Bottom for Important Detail)

[Transcript] 7:18 P.M. CET – SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Hi, everybody. I just want to highlight very briefly, and then Secretary Tillerson will go on, and then afterwards we’ll both answer a few questions.

But President Trump has had a very, very significant few days. I think, as you know, we went to Poland on Wednesday. In Poland, he met with 12 different leaders. We had bilats with Croatia and with Poland, as well as 10 other leaders at the Three Seas Conference where we talked about energy — the importance of the energy markets, the importance of supplying independent energy, infrastructure and opportunities there. I think, as you know, the speech which was just incredibly well-received, is part of our “America First But America Not Alone.”

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A “SME” (pronounced ‘smee‘) is a Subject Matter Expert.   President Trump’s entire cabinet is an assembly of specific SME’s for a specific economic purpose.

The entire landscape of modern geopolitics is an assembly of various nations specifically focused on their economic interests.  Fundamentally, the economics of a nation is the cornerstone for their ability to hold, advance, influence and present their ideology.

Without the underlying economic capability to provide sustainability and stability, the nation, any nation, cannot maintain itself regardless of the underlying political outlook.  In short, as the old verse presents: “money makes the world go ’round“.  Everything boiled down to it’s essential core – is about economics.

The shock to the system of modern multinational financial interests was created by an earthquake known as Trump; which created a seismic shift via the 2016 U.S. presidential election outcome.

The tectonic political and economic shift was so unsettling to the global elites -who created a decades-long system of global financial interests- they have been thrashing around desperate to regain footing ever since.

All modern political alliances are based on this economic reality, and every single action taken by every member within each grouping is based on their affiliated and interconnected self-interest in the underlying economic equation.

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Sharing only because CTH readers have a more thorough understanding than most; and we are entering a phase of extreme consequence.

Donald Trump doesn’t bluff.

Bluffing is for those who accept they may or may not win.  The outcome is based on an unpredictable response from the opponent.

In business or in life, go review the decades of available information and you will see that Donald Trump, now President Trump, doesn’t bluff.  It’s one of the reasons he so openly owns the downsides.  It’s also the reason he has never engaged in the stock market.

President Trump controls outcomes.

Donald Trump the person, doesn’t wait for an entity, ally or opponent to enter his orbit. He greets them at the perimeter.   Trump doesn’t sit with his back to the door, he positions to see all upon entrance.   Donald Trump doesn’t try to hide his interest, he’s quite open about any engagement he is focused upon.

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For those who cannot see the multi-dimensional strategy here, an approach assembled for years in the aggregate and fine-tuned in the last several weeks, President Trump is reinforcing our prior analysis of his strategy:

A day before he meets face-to-face with Xi Jinping, President Trump is highlighting the enabler to North Korea.  President Trump is smartly setting up a spotlight for the entire world to see who is creating the problem, China.

President Trump will never start a military war because it’s antithetical to his entire constitution.  However, within the field of economic combat – watch out.  Not only will Trump engage in economic warfare, he’s built an armory for decades, he’s positioned to win against any opponent.  As such, the long-term adversary in this equation is not North Korea, it’s China.

To understand the longer and larger strategy, we must first remember the underpinning of all leverage, economics.  Every single aspect of national wealth and national security boils down to economics.  The true economic adversary to the United States is China.

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