An accurate headline could also be: President Trump puts a beautiful potted plant into the unused meeting room of the National Economic Council, and Wall Street cheers.

According to media and White House confirmation President Trump has selected Larry Kudlow to chair the National Economic Council:

[…] “Larry Kudlow was offered, and accepted, the position of assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council,” Sanders said. “We will work to have an orderly transition and will keep everyone posted on the timing of him officially assuming the role.”  (link)

Kudlow is essentially adored by Wall Street (writ large), and as such all the nervous nellies will be back-slapping and high-fiving. As the stock market crowd cheers, what the insufferable dolts miss, thankfully miss and don’t appreciate, is the strategy of a master economic predator, Donald Trump. This Trumpian move is brilliant.

First, President Trump is immovable on his trade and economic agenda. Period; end of story. Ask Gary Cohn or any other member of the disassembled manufacturing council advisory board who quit last year because POTUS Trump just wouldn’t heed their duplicitous and high-minded advice. Do you remember candidate Trump mentioning the endless talking to nowhere that he has not time for? Yeah, that.

President Trump has a 30-year-developed plan and strategy for the U.S. to recapture economic power. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and key trade strategist Peter Navarro are carrying out that plan.

Cohn or Kudlow thinking they would somehow disrupt three decades of trade planning by POTUS Trump is too funny to give typeset space.

Secondly, Larry Kudlow has a well known history of drug addition and drug abuse. He will likely never pass the background security clearances. Even Maggie Haberman at the New York Times recognizes this issue.

So what gives? Why would Trump select him?

Again, don’t think about this appointment as an actual intent to ingest a trade policy perspective. That’s nonsense. Oh, he’ll listen; Trump’s a good listener.  But what POTUS is doing is giving the Wall Street crowd the appearance of influence; key word “appearance”. It’s a stock market appointment, nothing more. Nothing will change the intent of Trump to deliver on his already-in-the-works economic plan.

POTUS would cut off his own hand before he would change direction on his economic strategy.  Remember: “America First”.   Titan-minded Trump is the most committed economic influence agent in the history of American politics.

The National Economic Council (NEC) is an entity demanded by the traditions of the Office of the President. They assemble, meet, discuss, hold conferences, invite guests etc. However, for POTUS Trump it’s an exercise in formality run by professionals who benefit from the indulgences of membership.

The NEC has no more influence on Trump’s economic plan than any chosen Country Club has influence over his skills on the golf course.

But it looks good.

And that’s it.

Enjoy the stemware and cocktail party invites Larry.

Moving on…

The Senate voted 67-31 to end debate on a reform bill to modify the Dodd Frank banking bill.  While overall the approach is needed and will likely find White House support, the Senate Bill -as constructed- doesn’t do enough to modify the control held by massive multinational financial institutions, who hold lobbying power over congress.  Unfortunately, the corruptocrat leadership in the Senate will not allow the house to modify the bill as needed.

The current reform bill sets the tiered definition for lowered regulation at $250 billion in assets and there are some domestic banking beneficiaries.  However, it doesn’t break up the investment division from influence over the commercial banking.  The argument against breaking up the system is that if divisional separation is required – the banks best interests would naturally put the investment division ahead of commercial lending and the liquid capital within the overall economy would shrink.

The Trump/Mnuchin approach toward a secondary deregulated but financially sound banking system focused on commercial lending and was constructed around Community Banks and Credit Unions with far less regulatory and compliance hurdles.

WASHINGTON – All Republicans and more than a dozen Democrats voted to move the bill toward a vote on final passage, which is scheduled for Wednesday evening.

The bill, long expected to pass the Senate, faces an uncertain future in the House, where conservatives are demanding stronger curbs to Dodd-Frank before pledging their support.

[…]  Banks with less than $250 billion in global assets would no longer be subject to yearly Fed stress tests or higher capital requirements meant to ensure risky firms could weather a lending crisis. Those banks would also be exempt from submitting for Fed approval a “living will” that outlines how the company could be liquidated upon failure without causing a widespread meltdown.

The threshold for tighter Fed regulation is currently set at $50 billion, and the increase would free several major regional banks, including SunTrust, BB&T, Citizens, Fifth Third, M&T and BMO Financial Corp., from those standards. Those banks all have at least $100 billion in assets, and among the bill’s biggest beneficiaries.

The bill also exempts banks that extend 500 or fewer mortgages a year from reporting some home loan data to federal regulators and broadens the definition of qualified mortgages. (read more)

President Trump meets with leadership of small banks and credit unions.

Back in July 2010 when Dodd-Frank banking regulation was passed into law, there were approximately 12 to 17 banks who fell under the definition of “too big to fail”.

Meaning 12 to 17 financial institutions could individually negatively impact the economy, and were going to force another TARP-type bailout if they failed in the future.  Dodd-Frank regulations were supposed to ensure financial security, and the elimination of risk via taxpayer bailouts, by placing mandatory minimums on how much secure capital was required to be held in order to operate “a bank”.

One large downside to Dodd-Frank was that in order to hold the required capital, all banks decreased lending to shore-up their liquid holdings and meet the regulatory minimums.

Without the ability to borrow funds, small businesses have a hard time raising money to create business.  Growth in the larger economy is hampered by the absence of capital.

Another downstream effect of banks needing to increase their liquid holdings was exponentially worse.  Less liquid large banks needed to purchase and absorb the financial assets of more liquid large banks in order to meet the regulatory requirements.

The four to six big banks (JP Morgan-Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, US BanCorp and Mellon) now control $9+ trillion (that’s “TRILLION).  Their size is so enormous this small group now controls most of the U.S. financial market.

Because they control so much of the financial market, instituting a Glass-Steagal firewall between commercial and investment divisions (in addition to the Dodd-Frank liquid holding requirements), would mean the capability of small and mid-size businesses to get the loans needed to expand or even keep their operations running would stop.

2010’s “Too few, too big to fail” became 2016’s “EVEN FEWER, EVEN BIGGER to fail”.

That’s the underlying problem for a Glass-Steagall type of regulation now.  The Democrats created Dodd-Frank which: #1 generated constraints on the economy (less lending), #2 made fewer banking options available (banks merged), #3 made top banks even bigger.

This problem is why President Trump and Secretary Mnuchin were working on a proposal to create a parallel banking system of community and credit union banks that are entirely external to Dodd Frank regulations and could act as the primary commercial banks for small to mid-sized businesses.

The goal of “Glass Steagal”, ie. Commercial division -vs- Investment division, would be created by generating an entirely new system of banks under different regulation.  The currently remaining ten U.S. “big banks” operate as “investment division banks” per se’, and the lesser regulated community banks/credit unions operate as would be the “Commercial Side”.

Instead of fire-walling an individual bank internally within its organization, the Trump/Mnuchin plan was presented to fire-wall the banking ‘system’ within the U.S. internally.  Hope that makes sense.

The Senate Dodd Frank reform bill does little to change this structural issue.

Justin from Canada discusses his confidence at defeating U.S. President Donald Trump over concessions in NAFTA.  Essentially Sparkle Socks argument comes down to his view that women’s rights, climate change and globally progressive policies are more than enough to swat away the territorial annoyances of President Trump.

President Donald Trump is traveling to Missouri today to promote recent tax cuts and campaign for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Josh Hawley.  The president is scheduled to visit the Boeing plant in St. Louis where he will hold a round table with business leaders and workers, then plans to attend a fundraiser for the senate candidate.

The roundtable discussion with Boeing business leaders will be livestreamed at 4:00pm

WH Livestream Link – ABC News Livestream Link

President Donald Trump traveled to San Diego today for a tour of eight border wall prototypes today along with a speech to members of the military at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.

This is President Trumps first trip to California as president. The peoples’ president spent about an hour reviewing the 30-foot wall segments near the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump’s promise of building a border wall was the primary visible promise made during the 2016 presidential campaign trail. As president, he has been steadfast in his push for the completed project.

“If you don’t have a wall system, we’re not going to have a country,” Trump said at the site of the prototypes. “There’s a lot of problems in Mexico. They have a lot of problems over there. And they have the cartels. And we’re fighting the cartels, and we’re fighting them hard. … But the fact is, if you don’t have a wall system, it would be bedlam, I imagine.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson did an excellent job representing the professional and deliberate diplomatic approach of the U.S. and President Trump administration.  His personal view toward foreign service on behalf of the U.S. was exemplary, and deserves high praise.

Having said that, as President Trump stated earlier today, there was also more than a tinge of disunity between the advocated views of Tillerson and the views of the Commander in Chief toward economic national security.   At times the fractures between policy perspectives were visible.  Over time those differences became more obvious.

As Secretary of the DoS Rex Tillerson supported the Paris Climate Treaty; the President did not; Secretary Tillerson supported the Obama administration’s Iran deal; the President did not; Tillerson was more apologetic toward lax immigration policy; the President is not; and there were other visible departures visible surrounding the use of economic leverage to achieve national security advancements, specifically on the issue of China and North Korea policy.

The primary perspective, drawing the greatest contrast, surrounded President Trump’s view and expressed policy of emphasizing strength; particularly economic strength – to gain national security objectives.

After many years of projected weakness by the former administration one of the key tenets of the Trump presidency has been reestablishing national security by focusing on unapologetic U.S. economic power regardless of global opinion therein.

Unapologetic economic power is where the views of President Trump and Secretary Tillerson parted.  T-Rex projected more of a humble and altruistic approach; almost seeming embarrassed at times to participate in discussions of economic conflict and confrontation.  Indeed it often seemed awkward for Mr. Tillerson as he carries a less confrontational and more servant-minded constitution.

While he is not a pure ‘globalist’ per se’, Secretary Tillerson was less deliberate toward achieving territorial economic goals as a method to achieve geopolitical national security.  On matters surrounding these issues, T-Rex was more Wall Street than Main Street; more traditionally republican than change-agent populist.

Despite the media’s inability to see the severity of perspective, President Trump is not going to be swayed on matters of national economics.  POTUS Trump will listen to alternate opinions based on current events, but his forward advancement toward U.S. economic security will not be slowed by high-minded analysis leading to paralysis.   Within his outlook, always in the back of his mind, the clock is ticking… there’s an inherent sense of urgency.

Forcing economic change to enhance the territorial economic security of middle-America requires the ability of the change-agent to ignore the feelings and sensibilities of outside nations who will be confronted in the process.  Diplomacy must be set aside when entering the predatory world of massive trillion dollar economic deals.  There is no room for friends and comfort here, after thirty years of inept acquiescence, from President Trump’s perspective, winning is the only acceptable outcome.

Stopping the exfiltration of American wealth demands severity: “we either have a country or we don’t.”  Within that dynamic the value of diplomacy is necessarily lessened in favor of more deliberate and unapologetic policy advancement.  Inside that dynamic President Trump and Secretary Tillerson did not agree – and that is a major point of disunity.

As Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has stated several times: “economic security is national security.”   President Trump fundamentally believes that our national security requires independent U.S. economic security.  Everything is downstream from the economics of the issue, any issue, regardless of the issue – foreign or domestic.

Carrying a sense of urgency toward these national security issues, delicate sensibilities -and the opinion of the media who protect them- are necessarily dispatched like a feather in a hurricane.  Again, “we have no choice”, as often heard from President Trump.

Going into year #2 of the administration the current emphasis is a structural reset in the U.S. approach toward global trade.  “Killers” are of value now; thirty years of talking and losing is over.  As such inside this seismic trade-policy-shift, a parallel geopolitical strategy is being played out from the Middle-East through allies in Europe and into Asia around the rarely moved cornerstones of economics and trade.

National liberty, that is actual liberty – not the perception of liberty, is directly tied to economic victory.  During this reset there are only two groups: predators and prey.

Confronting China (Xi Jinping) economically was/is what brought North Korea (Kim Jong-Un) to the table of discussion to give up their nuclear ambitions; it was not diplomacy that created the breakthrough conditions for a national security win.  What brought China/DPRK to this position was the very real possibility of looming economic defeat.  President Trump’s approach won, Secretary Tillerson was surprised.

President Trump has aligned his economic opponents into his preferred geography. Everyone within sight is either an adversary or an ally.  However, allies are now reduced to being benefactors who will smartly get out of the way while the apex predators destroy their opposition.  Year two is about resolving to achieve economic victory regardless of international collateral damage. There is no longer any room for negotiating terms.  Diplomats retreat to the hilltops.  The era of economic Titans has come again.

Final point – When approaching specific goals and objectives President Trump works through a strategy based on phases.  President Trump doesn’t retain people past their expended usefulness.  Rex Tillerson did an outstanding job as Secretary of State introducing the Trump administration to nations’ of the world.

The diplomatic introductions and niceties are now complete; it’s time to get down to business.

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is scheduled to hold a press conference moments from now to discuss current events including his exit from the Dept. of State and his replacement by CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

UPDATE: Video Added

PBS News Livestream – NBC News Livestream – CBS News Livestream