In the US China trade war, what’s behind the Chinese communist party’s (CCP’s) strategy, with Liu He walking away from the trade talks at the last minute? What’s the real relationship between Chinese telecom giant Huawei, and the CCP’s quest for global 5G dominance? And how is this all a much, much bigger issue than just trade? This is American Thought Leaders and I’m Jan Jekielek. Today we sit down with General Robert Spalding, who was a Brigadier General in the US Air Force, chief China strategist for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, and a Senior Strategic Planner for the White House, at the National Security Council. Now, he’s a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) attacked corporate politics, influence, and greed. She echoed Warren Buffett who recently told shareholders that if a bank needs a government bail-out, the responsible CEO and his or her spouse should lose their net worth. Interesting comment on Buffett’s part when he lent $5 billion to Goldman Sachs to prevent their bankruptcy during the 2008-2009 crash. It seems Buffett does not practice what he preaches
The environmentalists have really gutted Alberta which was an economy based upon commodities. With that industry under assault, the economy has been decline. According to the quarterly report released April 1st 2019, Calgary’s downtown vacancy rate is currently at 26.5%, the highest in Canada. Although it decreased slightly from its peak at 27.8% in the second quarter of 2018, it still exceeds the vacancy rate from the economic crisis in the 1980’s which stood at 22%. And although this has been in the 20% range for a few years now, it shows no sign of stopping soon.
With a loss in tax revenues from the downtown core, rising property taxes have shifted onto the shoulders of small businesses. Property taxes for small businesses have increased considerably from 2017 to 2018 and small business owners were told the bill for 2019 will be even higher. Some businesses have had their property taxes increase by over 400% when they received their assessment, with the first substantial increase due July 1st 2019.
Alberta’s businesses have weathered numerous fiscal storms recently; the recession due to the fall in the price of oil and decreasing property values, the introduction of carbon tax on Jan 1, 2017 with a further increase on Jan 1, 2018 and the spike in minimum wage from $10.20 to $15.00 on Oct 1 2018, but the new property tax increase takes the cake and the already thin margins of struggling businesses will be wiped out completely. Many have reached out through social media and are connecting through a Facebook page called “Sorry, Calgary is closing.”
An emergency council meeting will be taking place Monday June 10th to try to patch things up but the council of Calgary won’t be the only ones there; a massive rally will be taking place before City Hall at 7:30am in protest. Petitions are also circulating as many are calling for the province to step in immediately and remove Calgary’s council members, including Mayor Nenshi himself.
What they don’t seem to realize, is if you raise taxes enough, there won’t be any incentive to work. People will instead be driven away and go where the prospects are more opportunistic for them. Like in Vancouver where the price of gas was at an all-record high last month ($1.789 per litre or $6.772 per gallon CAD) and many drove across the border to Washington State to fill up not only their vehicle, but multiple jerrycans as well. People will
always migrate away from where the prices and taxes are outrageous and Calgary is no different
When you say the ‘rich get rich by investments, not wages’ you fail to identify the following wealthy class.
CEO’s of corporations, ‘Hollywood’ movie stars, Sports athletes, Recording artists, etc.
Regards and continued success,
An avid follower
LB
ANSWER: There are always exceptions, but those who receive big bonuses or high wages such as sports and movie stars are a tiny fraction of what they call the “rich.” The “rich” are defined as households with income in excess of $250,000. The “rich” who have built wealth from creating businesses and investment are really 99% of that class. The movie stars and sports figures are paid salaries based upon their draw. Many others in Hollywood get base salaries and a percentage of the box office take. The CEOs get bonuses based upon performance.
The government takes Social Security and places restrictions whereby it can only invest in government bonds. This deprives the average person from making appreciable capital gains.
Do not overlook the importance of President Donald Trump publicly calling out the largest DC lobbyist group, and epicenter of Big Club corruption earlier today. During a widely discussed CNBC interview today President Trump landed two torpedoes directly below the waterline on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The U.S. CoC is the largest influence purchaser in Washington DC, and the benefactor of dozens of the highest politicians in both the House and Senate. The Wall Street funded CoC, and their President Tom Donohue, was already frustrated at their inability to influence President Trump and White House economic/trade policy. President Trump is now confronting their self-serving politics directly.
The CoC is the lead U.S. member of the multinational ‘Big Club’, and has driven policies directly against Main Street USA for three decades. Until now no modern U.S. President has ever been willing, or fearless enough, to take them on…. ‘until now’. A few days ago the U.S. CoC threatened to sue President Trump over countervailing tariffs.
Today, President Trump hit back hard; this is an excellent development.
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Our current middle-class (Main Street) economic growth and the shifting supply chain results, bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., completely refutes U.S. CoC Tom Donohue’s doomsayer-promised economic proclamations. If tariffs are so destructive, why was/is everyone ‘except the U.S’ using them to protect their industry segments and economies?
The truth is, the financial class and professional multinational lobbyists don’t want people to realize the modern trade system was designed to reduce American wealth. It’s a feature not a flaw.
The collapse of U.S. manufacturing did not happen accidentally. The rust-belt was not created accidentally. NAFTA was not designed accidentally. The back-door to the U.S. market was not created accidentally. Middle-class jobs were not lost accidentally. Wages did not stagnate accidentally…. All of these results were brought about by specific design.
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Who or what was in charge of the plan?
At the heart of trade agreements over the past 30 years you will find the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Yes, a Wall Street multinational corporate lobbying group actually wrote three decades of trade agreement language.
A team of business “experts” from within the U.S. CoC wrote the terms and conditions of actual trade agreements for Reagan/Reagan, Bush, Clinton/Clinton, Bush/Bush and Obama/Obama. Add it up, that’s 30 years….. now look back to when the rust started, not coincidentally that’s 30 years ago.
All that stopped with Donald Trump.
Trillions of dollars of exfiltration stopped by Donald Trump.
Those Big Club players are absolutely apoplectic. Beyond losing trillions in wealth to Main Street, you know what really drives their anger?
The Big Club cannot openly confront President Trump on the specifics, because his results at reversing their scheme is clear evidence they were the engineers behind the intentional loss of American wealth and standard-of-living in the first-place.
So they are left shouting at trees… “tariffs bad”, “tariffs are taxes on American consumers”, etc. etc. etc. blah, blah, blah… And each day that goes by; as empirical evidence that is completely counter to their predictions continues; their shouts and protestations look sillier, and stupider, and, yes, even more silly.
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The overwhelming majority of economic punditry and opinion come from salespeople on the purchased payroll, direct and indirect, of the chamber. It is one of the most, check that, it is the mostcorrupt and abusive enterprise in the history of our nation. Consider this articlefrom July 2018:
(Reuters) – The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Monday denounced President Donald Trump’s handling of a global trade dispute, issuing a report that argued the tariffs imposed by Washington and retaliation by its partners would boomerang badly on the American economy.
The Chamber, the nation’s largest business lobby group and a traditional ally of Trump’s Republican Party, argued the White House is risking a global trade war with the push to protect U.S. industry and workers with tariffs.
The group’s analysis of the potential hit each U.S. state may take from retaliation by U.S. trading partners painted a gloomy picture that could increase pressure on the White House from Republicans ahead of congressional elections in November.
[…] The Chamber is expected to spend millions of dollars ahead of the November elections to help candidates who back free trade, immigration and lower taxes. It has already backed candidates who share those goals in Republican primaries. (read more)
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a massive multinational DC lobbying group that four consecutive administrations’ have allowed to write the actual language in U.S. trade deals and trade negotiations. Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama all gave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce the keys to the U.S. economy, and walked away. The U.S. middle-class was nearly destroyed in the process.
CTH has stood alone, for years, against the insufferable horde of CoC political mouthpieces and their media conscripts. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is at the corrupt center of almost every scheme that fund the Deep Swamp to the detriment of our nation. They are the most vile and insidious UniParty group of lobbyists in Washington DC.
Until Donald Trump came along, the CoC held virtually unlimited power over the U.S. economy. The Chamber is a cancer; and any politician who advocates for multinational financial benefits over Main St. U.S.A. should be removed with extreme prejudice.
Earlier today President Trump welcomed Indy-500 winning team Penske to the White House, along with winning driver Simon Pagenaud. [Video and Transcript]
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[Transcript] THE PRESIDENT: Hi, everybody. (Applause.) Congratulations. (Applause.)
Thank you very much. It’s a great honor to introduce the winner of the Indianapolis 500, Simon Pagenaud. And he is an incredible racer. I happened to be watching that one because my friend is somewhat involved with racing. As you know, Roger Penske is — there’s never been anybody like him, I can really say.
We meet a lot of great athletes. And if they win a major three or four times, that’s a big deal. He won 18 Indianapolis 500s. And he was here a few months ago for the Daytona. You won the whole thing with NASCAR, right? And I love NASCAR because they endorsed me. (Laughter.) I think it’s the first time (inaudible) ever endorsed a candidate. The whole league endorsed me. So they — we like NASCAR, too.
But this is an incredible machine. And the job that Simon did, if you saw that, that was talent and it was a lot of courage, because I wouldn’t do it, I will tell you. I’m not going to do it. Even for that trophy. (Laughter.) Maybe for that trophy, I would do it. That’s a great trophy.
But, Simon, I just want to congratulate you.
MR. PAGENAUD: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: That was an incredible job. (Applause.)
Roger, come on over. The great Roger Penske. Nobody like him. (Applause.)
(A helmet is presented.)
THE PRESIDENT: I could use it. I could use it for them. (Laughter.) Makes my life easier.
MR. PAGENAUD: (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: Would you like to say something?
MR. PAGENAUD: I would just like to say that it is — as a Frenchman, it’s such an honor to represent my country here today in the biggest race in the world. And especially being invited to come to the White House with President Trump is a phenomenal achievement. But it’s also an honor for my whole team, Team Penske, the entire organization. We’re very proud to be here today. So, a big thank you. We want to offer you this helmet —
THE PRESIDENT: That’s beautiful, thank you.
MR. PAGENAUD: — to thank you very much for your gesture to have us here.
THE PRESIDENT: And we’re going to find a great spot. (Applause.) And I want to thank all of you guys. And I know when you took those tires off and refueled, and all of the other things you had to do, with — without that, it’s not going to work, right?
MR. PAGENAUD: Exactly.
THE PRESIDENT: And you were setting records. And I think it’s beautiful. I think it’s really brilliant. They actually had you a couple of times in slow motion doing the tires and the fueling and everything else. It was a brilliant thing to watch. So I just want to congratulate everybody. And — special. Really special job.
And Roger has been my friend for many years; we know each other well. And just every year, it’s another one, another one. And I know how hard it is to win the Indianapolis 500. When I see — when I see countries — Japan and Germany and so many countries — spending tremendous amounts of money trying to win that race, and you won it 18 times. That’s incredible. That’s incredible. So I just want to congratulate you, Roger.
MR. PENSKE: Thank you, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you like to say something?
MR. PENSKE: Yes. I think, Mr. President, it’s obviously an honor to have our people in the capital today. And, to me, it’s all about team. It certainly couldn’t be done without the people behind us. And I want to thank you for your team and what you’re doing for our country, and the people who are in our military, and certainly first responders. Thank you very much.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, our country is doing really well, Roger. And I think probably, in many ways, never better. It’s never been better. Our military is being rebuilt. We have equipment that even you’d like, I’ll tell you. We have some great equipment. We make the best in the world, and we’re stocking up.
And unfortunately — hopefully, we’ll never have to use it, but it’s a good thing to have. In fact, the more of it you have, and the better we are. Our military is at now a new level — very soon to be a new level like we’ve never been before. And we make the best equipment in the world, and now we’ll be getting it in and getting it into the military. And they appreciate it. And economically, we’re doing fantastically well. So it’s been great.
I spoke with Governor Cuomo about the helicopter accident in New York. We have a lot of our great folks over there, working very closely with New York City, New York State. And it’s a big tragedy. There will be a report in a little while as to what happened and why it happened. But a very, very sad event. The pilot was killed, as you know. But we’ll have a full report on that soon. But the federal people are working with the city and state people, and they’ll have a full report very soon. Thank you very much.
Q Any reaction to John Dean’s testimony, Mr. President? Mr. President, is there any reaction to John Dean’s testimony today?
Q Have you been watching it?
THE PRESIDENT: Look, John Dean has been a loser for many years. So I’ve been watching him on one of the networks that is not exactly Trump-oriented, and I guess they paid him a lot of money over the years. No, John has been a loser for a long time. We know that. I think he was disbarred and he went to prison. Other than that, he’s doing a great job.
Q Mr. President, Mexico’s foreign minister says there was no secret agreement beyond what was announced on Friday. What do you mean in your tweets?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have an agreement on something that they will announce very soon. It’s all done. And they have to get approval, and they will get approval. If they don’t get approval, we’ll have to think in terms of tariffs or whatever. But it’s just another aspect of what we’ve done. It was all done because of the tariffs and because of the relationship that we have with Mexico. I spoke with the President yesterday. And, by the way, I was with the President of France the other day, too.
MR. PAGENAUD: I saw that. Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: And he’s a great guy. Emmanuel. He’s a great guy.
So we had a great conversation the other day. And I think you’re going to see some real action. It’s sad that, when you think of it, Mexico is doing is more for the United States, as of now, than Congress. And, specifically, the Democrats, they have to get their act together. They have to work and get something done because you got a tremendous problem at the border. You have people pouring in. And it means crime. It means drugs. It means so many other things.
We’re building the wall. We’re going to have close to 500 miles of wall built by the end of next year. That’s a lot. And we’re moving along very rapidly. We won the big court case, as you know, the other day. And that was a big victory for us.
So a lot of good things are happening. But I want to thank Mexico. And we do have one other thing that will be announced at the appropriate time. But they have to get approval from their legislative body.
Q What is it?
Q Why are the Mexicans denying it then?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t think they’ll be denying it very long. It’s all done.
Q Mr. President, you hinted earlier in that CNBC interview that you may not — you’d actually go ahead and impose tariffs if Xi doesn’t show up for the G20.
THE PRESIDENT: We’ll see what happens. I think President Xi —
Q Would you be personally insulted if Xi doesn’t show up? Would you be insulted?
THE PRESIDENT: No. I’m never insulted. I’ve learned not to be insulted. I think President Xi of China — great relationship with him — I think he’ll be there. We are scheduled to talk and to meet. I think interesting things will happen. Let’s see what happens.
Right now, we’re getting 25 percent on $250 billion worth of goods. That’s a lot of money that’s pouring into our Treasury. We’ve never gotten 10 cents from China. Now we’re getting a lot of money from China. And I think that’s one of the reasons that GDP was so high in the first quarter, because of the tariffs that we’ve taken in from China.
We always have the option to raise it another $300 billion at 25 percent. And the 25 percent could be much higher than 25 percent.
But Roger Penske said, “That’s enough.” Twenty-five percent is enough. (Laughs.) Bernard — Bernard said, “That’s enough,” too. Right? (Laughter.) It’s not bad. You like those numbers, right?
Q Mr. President, do you have a message —
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q Mr. President, some of your allies have said that if Democrats open up an impeachment inquiry, that it could actually help your reelection chances. Do you agree with that?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I hear that too. But you can’t impeach somebody when there’s never been anything done wrong. We have a no collusion. We have no anything. There’s no obstruction. There’s no collusion. There’s no anything.
When you look at past impeachments, whether it was President Clinton or — I guess, President Nixon never got there; he left. I don’t leave. There’s a big difference. I don’t leave.
We did nothing wrong except create the greatest economy in the history of our country. We did nothing wrong except rebuild our military like nobody has ever seen before. We’re doing a great job. Our country has never been stronger.
And I think that having Simon here and Roger here is a tremendous honor for me. And these are champions. These are the people I like. These are great, great champions. Thank you. (Applause.)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Judicary Chairman Jerry Nadler constructed a political hearing to kick-off their impeachment narrative and fuel their base. In an effort to create the appearance of hearing credibility the plan was to use testimony from former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean. The plan failed, miserably… Dean was showcased for what he is, a political prop for the left-wing base of MSNBC moonbats.
Committee members Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz spotlight the ridiculous positions of Mr. Dean by highlighting his ideological history and presenting questions which showcase the absurdity of it all. First up, Jim Jordan:
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Following Mr. Jordan, representative Matt Gaetz: “the ghost of Christmas past“….
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Worth noting, Chairman Jerry Nadler has not requested the appearance of the proclaimed author of the Mueller report, Mr. Robert Mueller himself. The reasoning is transparent; they can’t bring Mueller before the committee because the questioning would show the entire investigation was a fraud from day-one!
Responding to a request from Chairman Jerry Nadler, Attorney General William Barr has sent a letter (full pdf below)explaining the scope of the DOJ review of intelligence activities in the 2016 presidential campaign. According to the letter AG Barr says the review is “broad in scope and multifaceted,” and includes examining actions by US and foreign intelligence agencies, “as well as non-governmental organizations and individuals.”
.…“It is now well established that, in 2016, the U.S. government and others undertook certain intelligence-gathering and investigative steps directed at persons associated with the Trump Campaign. … There remain open questions relating to the origins of this counter-intelligence investigation and the U.S. and foreign intelligence activities that took place prior to and during that investigation.”
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, aka “JOLTS report“, lags behind monthly employment reports by a month as the ‘hires‘ and ‘quits‘ are contrast against available job openings.
In the latest JOLTS report we find evidence why the May employment numbers were less than expected. The data shows the economy is expanding; businesses are hiring; and the reason for lower new hires has nothing to do with an economic slow-down. In essence, the labor market is tight, very tight, and Main Street businesses are having a hard time finding qualified workers.
According to the BLS stats overall job hiring in April was 5.9 million. That’s the largest number of people hired in the history of the JOLTS record-keeping (started in 2000). There are 7.45 million current job openings and only 5.82 million workers identified as unemployed. That means there are 1.63 million more jobs than available workers.
This is a clear indication expanding economic conditions and a near ‘full-employment‘ position for the overall labor market. Additionally the quits rate is 2.3 percent, reflecting that workers are: (a) being recruited away from current employment to jump to other businesses; and (b) worker are confident about getting a job, and jumping into new jobs for higher wages/benefits. As a result, the strong ‘quits’ rate has historically been a precursor KPI for future wage growth stats.
(via CNBC) The total number of workers hired rose to a new high in April, according to Labor Department data released Monday. But despite this, the amount of available jobs still vastly outnumbers unemployed workers.
Hirings increased to 5.9 million for the month, a gain of 240,000 from March, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey indicated. The hiring rate rose to 3.9%, an increase of one-tenth of a percentage point. The total hirings was the most recorded in the data series’ history going back to December 2000.
On the openings front, the gap between vacancies and available workers continued to be huge.
Openings for the month actually decreased slightly, falling 25,000 to 7.45 million. However, workers that the Bureau of Labor Statistics classifies as unemployed declined by 387,000 to 5.82 million, leaving the gap at about 1.63 million. (more)
There has never been a better time for middle-class U.S. workers to explore a new job.
Many companies are adding incentives for new workers with a strong work ethic, including: higher wages, sign-on bonuses, higher benefits, work-time flexibility and training programs for qualified candidates.
The wage gains for blue-collar non-supervisory workers are far exceeding the wage growth for supervisory positions. This Main Street economic growth is specifically benefiting workers without college degrees; and in many cases the financial opportunity for skilled blue-collar jobs is far exceeding the benefits of college debt.
Despite the professional doomsayer predictions from the professional financial class of Wall Street investment punditry, Main Street is upbeat and consumer confidence is strong.
Never is the disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street more visible than in the predictions -vs- reality for the growing/strengthening American middle-class.
The professional financial punditry can’t explain it. Flummoxed academics run around bumping into walls amid economic numbers that continue to defy expectations. All caused by a simple return to common sense ‘America First’ MAGAnomics.
Low unemployment (3.6%); wages growing (+3.2%); inflation stable (1.6%). These measures all have a cumulative impact on paycheck-to-paycheck Americans. Prices for durable goods are stable and wage growth is exceeding inflation. That means more disposable income in the middle-class…DUH. When combined with the increased take home pay from lower tax rates, is exactly the intended outcome of MAGAnomics.
Today the House Judiciary Committee led by Chairman Jerry Nadler officially begins the House Impeachment Hearings. Yes, these are impeachment hearings; they are just being presented under other names in an effort by Democrats to avoid the political fallout from holding impeachment hearings. They’ll get away with it because: (1) U.S. media are on their team; and (2) Leadership Republicans are idiots (and many also on the ‘D’ team).
The hearings will be broadcast live and -by design- carried on most media outlets. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Chairman Jerry Nadler, having planned the approach for several months, name their impeachment kick-off event:
“Lessons from the Mueller Report: Presidential Obstruction and Other Crimes”
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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