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.

While the tighter labor market failed to translate to a breakout in wages in April, analysts are penciling in bigger paychecks in the months to come.

“Labor-market slack is getting absorbed pretty quickly,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities LLC. “As long as the labor market is tightening as it has been recently, it’s a very safe bet that we’re going to see wages accelerate.”  (link)

Overall, the economy is doing what we anticipated it would do.  But it is also important to remember we are in the space between two economies which are impacted by a change in policy.  Prior fiscal policy was driven to the benefit of ‘Wall Street’s’ economic engine. Trump policy is driven to the benefit of ‘Main Street’s’ economic engine.  We are in the space created during the shift in fiscal emphasis.

Politically speaking the fed is positioning on behalf of ‘the big club’.  Remember, behind all of the expressed data, policies, impacts and outcomes, are people – connected people.  They run in the same circles, attend the same meetings, host the same cocktail class circuit etc.  There are influential people, mostly globalists, behind federal economic policy.  This is the economic influencing group we call ‘the big club’.

You can see the agenda in its formative stage being constructing within media excerpts, usually buried.  If you know how to spot the catch phrases, and you know the general disposition of the club, you can see the narrative form.  That economic narrative will eventually translate into legislative action.

Watch closely, emphasis mine:

(Via AP) […] The labor force participation rate, or the share of working-age Americans who are employed or at least looking for a job, fell to 62.9 percent from an 11-month high of 63 percent in March. It has rebounded from a multi-decade low of 62.4 percent in September 2015, and economists see limited room for further improvement as the pool of discouraged workers shrinks.

[…] there are signs wage growth is accelerating as labor market slack diminishes. A government report last week showed private-sector wages recorded their biggest gain in 10 years in the first quarter.

With the labor market expected to hit a level consistent with full employment this year, payroll gains could slow amid growing anecdotal evidence that firms are struggling to find qualified workers. That could also boost wages. (read more)

We shared two years ago, right after candidate Trump announced, that his economic policy objectives -if instituted- would necessarily drive middle-class wages higher, Bigly.

The Trumponomic formula is a long-term strategic policy, with quick results; because he immediately flips the beneficial emphasis on the two economic engines.

Wall Street becomes “less than”, and Main Street becomes “more than”.   Drive main-street policy and you necessarily drive middle-class wage rates.

[…]  As the wage rate increases, and as the economy expands, the governmental dependency model is reshaped and simultaneously receipts to the U.S. treasury improve.   More money into the U.S Treasury and less dependence on welfare programs have a combined exponential impact.  You gain a dollar, and have no need to spend a dollar.  That is how the SSI and safety net programs are saved under President Trump. (more)

The Big Club are not inherently favorable to growth in wage-rates, it’s against their interests.  Free market profit margins are squeezed when productivity is strong and wage-rates (payrolls) increase.

For three decades U.S. productivity measures have skyrocketed, jaw-droppingly so.   The production value (output) of a single U.S. worker, in comparison to the cost of that worker (wages) is at historic highs.

Now we see the big club positioning to try and keep wage rates from growing.  This is the basis for their ‘open-border’ ‘global-worker’ outlook.  The tell-tale indicators are surfacing where they will begin demanding high levels of low to moderate skill immigration, ergo comprehensive immigration reform.  [This Make Sense Now]

The “full employment” measure, is false.  There are millions of workers within the U.S. who can/will upgrade their own employment if the market price for their employment increases (wages). However, this process is antithetical to the best interests of the big club.

Their arguments are easy to deconstruct.  If “full employment” was accurate, then why are there historic numbers of people on welfare programs?

The “full employment” measure/narrative  is how the big club positions their legislative sales pitch.  It’s a political game; the politicians are the paid performance artists who create the legislative policy of the people who pay for it.

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The House of Representative have passed the ObamaCare Repeal/Replacement bill by a final vote of 217-213.

Over the next few weeks/months the bill will work through the Senate and then return to the House to reconcile any differences.  The House bill takes the increasing, costly IRS tax/penalties on ObamaCare down to $0 – effectively crippling the individual mandate and the employer mandate.

President Trump will hold a 3:30pm EDT celebratory news conference at the White House, and GOP lawmakers are expected to take buses from Capitol Hill to attend. Mitch McConnell and 52 republican senators now have the challenge of passage.

WH Live Stream Link – Alternate Live Stream

The various media pundits and news stories are calling H.R. 1180 a “new overtime bill”.  However, in reality the ‘take pay or take time off’ concept is more than 50 years old; we used to call it “compensatory time” or “comp time”.

WASHINGTON – […] Voting along party lines, the House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday that would allow private-sector employers to compensate their overtime-working employees with paid time off instead of paying them time-and-a-half as currently required.

The bill, H.R. 1180, would tweak the Fair Labor Standards Act, which mandates employers that require hourly-paid employees to work more than 40 hours a week to pay time-and-a-half, or 1.5 times their usual hourly rate. The bill also prohibits employers from coercing or intimidating employees to choose time off instead of overtime pay.

House Republicans passed the bill, sponsored by Rep. Martha Roby (R-Ala.), with no Democrats voting in favor. The bill will now go to the Senate, where it will require 60 votes to avoid a filibuster by Democrats. (read more)

The professionally Democrat hate the concept, but most Democrat politicians have zero experience in understanding how incredibly beneficial compensatory time can be.

Many of us came from an era when “compensatory time” was a fantastic way for people to utilize it to make their lives much easier.

The basic principle can be awesome for employees for a variety of reasons.  However, few young workers today have an understanding of how it works.

Say you work 60 hours in a week.  If ‘compensatory time’ options are available you can take your standard 40 hour paycheck and defer the 20 overtime hours to future time off at the OT rate of time-and-a-half (20 x 1.5), gaining you 30 hours of comp time.

Historically this was an excellent way for middle-class young people to attend college and still get a consistent paycheck.   You work five weeks at 70 hours per week and the 150 overtime hours convert to 225 paid comp time hours.  That’s six weeks off and you are still getting a paycheck.

I know dozens of people who worked long hours in the summer, and Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday breaks, building up enough comp-time so they received a paycheck throughout their entire college terms when they were not working.

Even more people used comp-time as a bank to save up time off for childbirth or other family plans where they could take big chunks of time off work and still get paid consistently.

Additionally, even more people used partial ‘comp-time’ as way to work periods of only part-time (2 days a week etc.) but still be paid for the entire week filling in the other 3 days with comp-time.  This was the preferred practice for working students during college semesters; there was never a downside.

Nothing was ever forced it was simply an option.  Take the overtime pay, or bank the overtime as paid time off.  It was a great system and provided numerous benefits while simultaneously allowing the business to control payroll and labor cost efficiencies.

Season businesses really liked comp-time because it meant they could ramp up hours worked during peak business periods, and not have to lay-off workers in the slower periods because the workers converted the previous work hours into time-off with pay.  It really was a win/win.

Against the backdrop of an anticipated exploding Trump economy hopefully this bill will pass the Senate and a new generation of young people and middle-class workers will be able to see the benefits such a system of pay options can provide.

Senator Elizabeth Warren is absolutely clueless on this issue.  I’ll bet she doesn’t even know a single person in her life who ever used “compensatory time” because she’s surrounded by limo-liberals who are detached from common sense workers.

The UniParty is sly, I would say professionally and expertly so, and before readers feel the need to point out the obvious – when it comes to legislation, yes, I am professionally cynical.

The reason is simple, having trained ourselves to see when the pea is never under the shell, the legislative conversations that really matter are always behind a Potemkin Village called K-Street.

You have to know the unwritten legislative rules of the UniParty as they have been evidenced for almost 15 years to understand the ruse.

♦ First, the reason a vote, any vote, is “announced”, and just doesn’t take place, is because it provides the controlled opposition time to frame their anti-(fill_in_the-blank) talking points.  This is by design.  When a legislative vote is “announced” it is a dog-whistle call out to the institutional lobbyists that the legislation will be rail-roaded and ultimately fail.

♦ Second, notice how “announced” legislation (remember ObamaCare is a tax) has not been “scored” by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).   A vote without a score is a vote that again is intentionally set up to fail.  Meaning – the vote itself is an exercise for political consumption only.  Potemkin Village legislation, designed to give the illusion of doing something the electorate demand, while intentionally actually doing ‘the thing’ that K-street demands.

♦ Third, the legislation is sold by a system of Machiavellian-minded “leadership”, as a good thing optically for Allies.  Meaning – legislative leadership tell liaisons for vested interests, in this case both the White House and lobbyists are “interests”, to consider the vote a “win”.

Put another way, the vote itself is the “political ends”.  The vote is not the means to a legislative outcome that would customarily be considered the actual end goal.

This ObamaCare repeal and replace vote is a nothing-burger. It is 100% phoney legislation which will go no-where from here.

The UniParty is really good at this vote in-name-only which helps them retain optics with the viewing/voting electorate.  ‘Hey we voted’, yea us.

It’s all a legislative ruse.  Hundreds of millions have been poured into congress to purchase the original ObamaCare bill and all of the subsequent down-stream consequences therein.  The people who paid that money will not allow removal.  It’s really that simple.

Why does K-Street want ObamaCare to remain?  Because it was designed to fail and lead to an eventual bi-partisan (UniParty created) single-payer system.   What the Health Industry lobbyists -who sold the construct- do not want is private market healthcare.  [Substantive Aid for Comprehension Here]  Remember, lobbyists write the legislation, not congress:

Quarter One DC Lobbying: “The pharmaceutical and health products industry spent the most at $78 million, about $10 million more than it did during the same period in 2016 for a 14 percent increase.

(Graphic and Analysis Link)

Put it another way: If congress did not want ObamaCare to fail what would they be doing differently?

Everything is a well choreographed shell game designed to keep your eye on the fast moving legislative hands (shells), but there’s no pea underneath.  This is a vote for public consumption designed for political benefit.  ONLY.

The Trump White House doesn’t have a really strong legislative team, and their communications group is too weak to call out this issue to the larger electorate.  The scheme is too complex, by design, to be explained to voters.

Go to DC, or follow the participants very closely, and look behind the constructed Potemkin village and you’ll see there’s nothing there.   Think about the old con-artists who would seed gold flakes into mineral deposits in order to gain investors.  Same basic ruse.

Tomorrow the Democrat Party gets their turn at playing controlled opposition.  Today, tonight and tomorrow morning the previously written talking-points are distributed and the pantomime begins.   The goal of the legislative play, as in all the goals of all recent legislative plays, is to give you the impression there are two political parties.

If the bill advances, and only Trump’s bully pulpit will be the determining factor (upon McConnell) if it goes through the Senate, the bill will run through congress (from house through senate) and return to the origin looking identical to the original ObamaCare legislation it was intended to replace. Sometime mid-June.

Remember, the UniParty (paid by K-Street) in congress wants ObamaCare to remain, because the longer-term goal, by design, is for ObamaCare to strategically fail.

Unfortunately, there is no external guiding force behind the current legislation to create a different path or outcome.

BLOOMBERG – House Republicans plan to vote Thursday on their long-stalled Obamacare repeal measure, setting up a high-stakes test given the continuing doubts about whether they have enough votes to guarantee passage.

“We’re going to pass it,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters Wednesday evening, adding that “we have enough votes.”

The decision comes after several weeks of agonizing over how Republicans would deliver on seven years of promises to repeal Obamacare, as well as intense pressure from the White House to hold the vote. Even so, a number of GOP moderates remain opposed or undecided, adding significant suspense to the Thursday vote.

A key momentum shift came Wednesday morning, when Representative Fred Upton reversed his earlier opposition and embraced the bill after a meeting with President Donald Trump. He told reporters that he would vote for the measure once a new amendment he helped devise is added that would boost funding for people with pre-existing conditions. (link)

Several people have requested thoughts and analysis on the decision by South Carolina (former) Police Officer Michael Slager to plead guilty to civil rights violations.

From the outset this case was unique, stunningly so.  Our research into this case was necessarily fact-driven because any emotional review of the shooting is fraught with over simplistic reaction.  This is one of those cases where logic battles with emotion and the outcome, as it stands today, is even more evidence toward that end.

Michael Slager pleading guilty to federal charges against the State’s inability to gain any criminal charges shows how the dynamic of law can run parallel to justice but not necessarily merge.  This is the framework for my perspective on this case.

It’s important to note what Slager’s plea isn’t.  There is no admission of violation of statutory state law.  Slager is not pleading guilty to any form of manslaughter, and most certainly isn’t guilty of level of statutory murder.  The unusual nature of this dynamic is why the State of South Carolina has withdrawn any/all criminal charges now that Slager has plead guilty to a federal violation of Scott’s civil rights.

Important Back Story

There is a lot about this case where the dynamics of justice have failed on both sides.  The fact that the case was highly-charged politically created part of the issue.  From the media’s perspective the trial jury was “hung” and a mistrial was declared; but that’s not the real story.

The trial jury were hung on the ‘voluntary manslaughter’ (lesser charge), not the murder charge. Oddly the failure of the defense team to demand a polling of the jury on the manslaughter charge to drive home that aspect, and the political decision by Judge Clifton Newman not to draw that distinction on his own, must have ultimately contributed to the decision today.

The State overcharged Slager to appease a political mob.  There was no way, with the facts sure to come out in court, that a murder conviction was ever possible.  Every intellectually honest person knew that; and that’s what the jury also confirmed.

Yes, Slager shot and killed Walter Scott.  However, there was less than 1.5 seconds between the end of Walter Scott’s two minute physical fight with Slager and the first shot from Slager’s pistol.  Ultimately the question becomes was the shooting legal?

The answer to that question is yes, and no.  Yes, under the SC legal statutes the action Slager took was legal in all aspects.  However, it is also true that Slager’s less than 1.5 second decision to shoot a felon fleeing custody, in the back, after an almost 2 minute physical struggle, multiple times, was not a good decision.

If the jury had stated in court they were hung on the ‘voluntary manslaughter’ aspect, the federal civil rights violation charges would have frozen, perhaps disappeared.  The State and Feds were lucky Judge Newman didn’t poll the jury.  If Solicitor General Scarlett Wilson re-tried the case for just ‘voluntary manslaughter’, the result could go either way.  If not guilty, well, how can an officer act lawfully, and still be in violation of law.

The family of Walter Scott already received a payout over $6 million.  Michael Slager is not admitting to violation of any state law.  The state is dropping all charges.  Slager has entered a deal to plea guilty to federal civil rights charges.

Weird, but not necessarily unexpected.

The Trump Justice Department did not, as was once rumored, actually dismiss the federal case. But it does seem to have engineered a deal that includes the dropping of state charges. Federal judge David C. Norton, a George W. Bush appointee, could sentence Slager to 20 years in prison, but he could also sentence him to no prison time at all—and should: Slager has already spent a savage eight months in solitary confinement, not allowed to hold or even see his first son, born during his incarceration.

It’s very hard to tell from reading the Main Stream Media, but lead defense attorney Andy Savage actually used the argument developed by The Conservative Treehouse/ Last Refuge website that Scott had shot Office Slager with his own taser before fleeing—totally discrediting the Unprovoked-Atrocity-By-Brutal-Cop Narrative that took in even American Renaissance’s famously finicky Jared Taylor.[Officer Michael Slager, White Man, April 9, 2015]  (read more)

Michael Slager has already spent more than a year-and-a-half in jail before trial.  Eight months of the time in jail was in solitary confinement.  Sentencing on the civil rights plea should be interesting.

All Slager/Scott Research available HERE

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)

As an outcome of the systemic corruption and administrative malfeasance uncovered by whistleblowers in the Veterans Affairs healthcare system, on April 27th President Trump and Vice-President Pence participate in an Executive Order signing to enhance the accountability and whistleblower protections within federal government.

President Trump created the VA Accountability Office.  This was a major campaign promise to veterans fulfilled.  You could tell by the intensity of delivery this was a very important reform objective to President Trump personally.  Now today…

(Via Fox News) The director of the beleaguered Shreveport VA hospital in Louisiana has been fired following a three-year tenure filled with scandal — including accusations of covering up a secret wait-list, creating severe staffing shortages and refusing to buy essentials like vital signs machines, linens or mattresses.

Toby Mathew, who became director of Overton Brooks VA Medical Center in June 2014, was fired on April 13 due to “charges related to general misconduct, and failure to follow policy and provide effective oversight of the Center’s credentialing and privileging program,” said an internal VA memo obtained by Fox News.

This is the highest-profile employee removal since Secretary Eric Shinseki left in May 2014 following news of the massive wait-list scandal at the Phoenix VA hospital. Last week, President Trump signed an executive order creating an office within the VA to make it easier to fire bad employees – an issue that Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., had championed for several years. Trump also fired two employees in the Caribbean on his second day in office.

Mathew could not be reached for comment.

The VA confirmed his removal in a brief statement: “Toby Mathew was removed from employment as director of the Overton Brooks VA Medical Center in Shreveport, La., effective April 13, and he is no longer at VA.”  (read more)

Creating the Office of Accountability

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice has reversed her position and is now refusing to testify to a Senate Judiciary Sub-Committee investigating Russia’s interference with the 2016 election.   The key risk to Susan Rice is public discussion and discovery of her requests to unmask names within NSA intelligence and surveillance reports on political opponents.

Against revelations that pointed to Susan Rice as the epicenter of the political surveillance programs, her testimony was a risk to herself, the Obama administration and the entire democrat apparatus.  Her appearance at a Senate Committee where questions would sure to be raised was a significant risk.

The cover for Rice’s retreat from sunlight is brutally obvious.  Kathryn Ruemmler, Rice’s attorney delivers a letter to CNN so the media outlet can push a narrative that Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse -ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee- has told Rice her attendance would not be needed.

“Senator Whitehouse has informed us by letter that he did not agree to Chairman Graham’s invitation to Ambassador Rice, a significant departure from the bipartisan invitations extended to other witnesses,” Ruemmler wrote. “Under these circumstances, Ambassador Rice respectfully declines Senator Graham’s invitation to testify.”

CNN is the preferred outlet for Obama defense narratives stemming from the Obama White House and State Department.  The Washington Post is the preferred media outlet for Obama defense from the White House and intelligence community.  The transparent motive of Rice’s attorney sending a letter to CNN is obvious.

The political games continue, and, as usual, the republican wing of the UniParty will now play-out their pearl clutching controlled opposition role.