The recently passed Tax Bill continues to enhance the MAGAnomic policy of the Trump administration, leading to more great economic and jobs news amid the headlines.
Do the math. The three single-day announcements below will add more than 6,500 new jobs, average around $50,000 per job, and contribute tens-of-billions to a revitalized new America-First economy. This is MAGAnomics in action. This is a direct result of economic policies initiated by President Trump. This is part of the reason why the U.S. GDP will easily exceed 4% growth in the next three years of Trump’s first term.
Economic Nationalism – America’s largest private employer, Walmart, has announced their plan to increase their minimum wage to $11/hr and give out bonuses between $200 to $1,000 to each of their more than one million employees:
CNBC – […] “We are early in the stages of assessing the opportunities tax reform creates for us to invest in our customers and associates and to further strengthen our business, all of which should benefit our shareholders,” he added. “However, some guiding themes are clear and consistent with how we’ve been investing — lower prices for customers, better wages and training for associates and investments in the future of our company, including in technology.”
Walmart said the changes will benefit the retailer’s more than 1 million hourly employees across the country and will go into effect as soon as February. (read more)
Additionally, as a direct result of the new tax landscape in combination with the one-time write-offs for investment, Chrysler has announced they are moving the majority of their Heavy Truck manufacturing from Mexico to Michigan:
DETROIT — Fiat Chrysler is moving production of heavy-duty trucks from Mexico to Michigan and paying bonuses to U.S. workers in response to the passage of U.S. tax reform late last year.
The automaker will invest $1 billion in its Warren Truck Assembly Plant to make the Ram Heavy Duty Truck starting in 2020. That truck is currently made in Saltillo, Mexico, where workers will continue to make commercial vehicles.
FCA says the Warren plant will add 2,500 new jobs.
The company also plans to pay $2,000 bonuses this spring to about 60,000 hourly and salaried U.S. employees. Senior executives won’t get the bonus.
FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne says the company should adjust its manufacturing footprint to reflect “improvement in the U.S. business environment.” He says employees should also share in the tax savings. (read more)
Capping off the trifecta of good news, Toyota/Mazda has announced a massive $1.6 BILLION investment in new manufacturing in Alabama that will employ 4,000 U.S. workers:
Toyota Motor Corp (TM) and Mazda Motor Corp announced on Wednesday they will build a $1.6 billion joint assembly plant in Alabama that will employ up to 4,000 workers, a boost for President Donald Trump, who wants automakers to expand U.S. production.
Toyota President Akio Toyoda and Mazda President and Chief Executive Officer Masamichi Kogai joined Alabama Governor Kay Ivey in Montgomery at an event to announce the decision.
“Welcome to sweet home Alabama,” Ivey said to the two executives, after saying that the anticipated 4,000 workers at the plant to be built in Huntsville would earn an average of $50,000 a year.
The plant will produce 300,000 vehicles a year and should open on a 2,500-acre former cotton field in 2021, about 14 miles from Toyota’s engine plant in Huntsville. (link)
TIME is more than just money; it’s absolutely everything and then some! Personal opinion just utterly fails because we are all human. Markets routinely do what the majority never expects. That is their function. They mutate like a virus always changing its genetic code to defeat medicine, or in this case, traders. Back on November 30th, 2017, I explained on the private blog: “We must respect that exceeding the November high now in December on a sustained basis, points to a January high. If we pull back, then January will be a low and then watch out for a sharp rally into March.”
TIME is the very fabric of the universe and probably the most misunderstood element of all. In physics, the relativity of simultaneity is the concept that baffles many. The question becomes, do two distant events actually take place simultaneously? Therefore, the question whether two spatially separated events occur at the same TIME is recognized to be far from absolute. It is “relative” depending on the observer’s reference frame. This becomes incredibly important in terms of forecasting the world markets.
To grasp what our model is really doing one must look at TIME and EVENTS more in the perspective of turning points – not specific events. Once you understand we are forecasting turning points on the TIME horizon, not specific events, you will begin to make a leap forward into a new world of understanding TIME.
Specific events on the horizon become easy for forecast based upon the trend in motion relative to TIME. When trends reach that events horizon in time, then a specific high or low is easily ascertained. Right now, we are in the throes of a major breakout and a characteristic of Vertical Markets has been what we call the Cycle Inversion process. Normally, turning points unfold in opposite pairs. So a November high would traditionally be followed by a January low. Merely exceeding the November high on a closing basis during December identified the continued rally into the next target being January 2018 warning we were (1) dealing with a Cycle Inversion, and (2) a Vertical Market that is going to be very difficult to trade for most people.
It is paramount that we understand how Vertical Markets function.
Believe it or not, the town of Westminster in Massachusetts arrests people for failing to renew a dog license. The municipality issued an arrest warrant for Brian Vincent for not renewing his dog license. The town officials do not deny using the criminal procedure to collect fees. They claim that all proper procedures were followed when handling the issue of failing to renew a dog license. The police justify arresting citizens who fail to renew a pet license stating that “many years ago rabies was an issue and people in the state and the community wanted to make sure animals are registered” according to the Sentinel & Enterprise News. Once they pass something “many years ago” why give up that revenue even when the former justification vanishes.
The more governments become abusive all to get their hands on other people’s money, our most precious right, LIBERTY, is revoked for anything they can dream of. When government becomes abusive and takes the liberty of people for fines, no less non-violent offenses, it loses its ultimate authority to government historically. It simply becomes a waiting game to see how far they go which will spark the uprising as has always taken place throughout record history. The American Revolution was – No Taxation Without Representation. We no longer have a representative government or they would never act in such a manner.
QUESTION: In regard to counterparty risk when purchasing exchange traded funds or notes: With European banks being under capitalised due to the excessive risk undertaken due to the EU regulations regarding bailouts, how can we measure the threat of each counterparty which has backed each ETF. Would it be safer to consider only ETFs with US counterparties, or is just another risk we have to take on board. Do we avoid these types of instruments in favour of choice companies.
JB
ANSWER: If you wish to use ETF’s, as they are extremely cheap and liquid, the large US names such as Vanguard, State Street etc. are available. We often write to hold the physical share certificate as the same as holding tangible assets but realize it is very difficult to take delivery.
The flow of capital to the US will obviously support US names at the expense of European. However, because of the size of the issue and Europe being the second largest economy on the planet, no-region will be without risk. CDS for the USA traded from 6 cents to 52 cents during the financial crisis, not because of potential default, simply because it was re-priced against every other sovereign! Simply holding US Dollars or considering a basket of currencies is another way of limiting risk from your core currency.
Please be aware that Armstrong Economics cannot provide personal guidance and all investment decisions should be undertaken using of an independent financial advisor.
The British government is also going completely nuts with criminal charges for nonsense. British prosecutors charged a woman for calling a man a “pussy”. Then there is the case of a businessman who was charged with a hate crime for saying to a transgender man presenting himself as a woman – “all right geezer.” He alleged he simply said that to him/her when they passed in the street. Vernon Mussington was found guilty but appealed and finally had his conviction overturned.
When the governments collapse, we simply MUST take away the power to prosecute from government completely. Part of the cycle that signals the decline and fall is in motion, is none other than the abuse of the power to prosecute. Edward Gibbon wrote in the Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire:
“[A] distinction of every kind soon became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always insured the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate; and when Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse”
Earlier today President Trump held the first cabinet meeting of 2018. [The cabinet met four times in December.]
[Transcript] 12:00 P.M. EST – THE PRESIDENT: Welcome back to the studio. Nice to have you. (Laughter.) Good morning, and welcome to our first Cabinet meeting of the New Year. 2017 was a year of tremendous achievement — monumental achievement, actually. I don’t think any administration has ever done — has done what we’ve done and what we’ve accomplished in its first year, which isn’t quite finished yet. You never know what’s going to happen over the next few days. And the achievements for our country, our people, and for our standing in the world have been very monumental.
We confirmed an incredible new Supreme Court justice and more circuit court judges in our first year than any administration in the history of our country, and we have many more coming.
We’ve set a new record on reducing regulation and all forms of stopping growth and stopping jobs that were crippling America’s economy. Again, the records that we’ve set — 22 to 1 — nobody has ever come close. And the amount of regulations that we’ve cut is a record also in our country’s history, as reported by many newspapers, in particular The Wall Street Journal did a big story on it.
And before Christmas, we passed the largest tax cut and reform in American history, including ANWR and including the fact that the individual mandate was terminated, which was a tremendously important thing and a very popular thing, I must tell you. People are supposed to pay for the privilege of not having healthcare; that was not good. Unfortunately, the courts didn’t cut it, but we cut it.
So, in addition to the largest tax cut and reform in history, we have one of the great oil sites that’s now been approved. They’ve been trying to approve ANWR — I don’t know if people know this — for over 40 years. Ronald Reagan tried to get it approved for exploration and for drilling. And for 40 years, they’ve been trying to get it approved. That was in the bill — an individual mandate in the bill.
Since that tax cut was enacted, more than 1 million workers have already received a tax cut bonus — something that, frankly, nobody even thought about. We didn’t think about it. Nobody thought about it. We just knew a lot of good things were going to happen.
And I must say, AT&T was the first one and they did it — $1,000 per employee; they have hundreds of thousands of employees. And many companies followed immediately thereafter, and now they’re following — I guess, the employees are saying, “What about us?” And millions of employees in this country are getting a thousand dollars and more, in some cases, tax bonuses because of the tax cuts.
Hardworking American families will receive tremendous tax relief. We lowered our tax rates, nearly doubled the standard deduction, and doubled the child tax credit, which Ivanka Trump was pushing very, very hard, I will tell you that, and so was Marco Rubio.
And I will tell you that the Republican Senate — we had no Democrat support. Zero. They didn’t want tax cuts. They want tax increases. They want to raise your taxes; they don’t want to cut your taxes. But the child tax credit has become very important to the American family, and they’re very happy about it.
Our historic reductions to the business tax will raise annual household income by an average of $4,000. That’s a tremendous number. The amount of money that’s going to be brought in — we think it’s going to be close to $4 trillion because of our tax reform — will be a number that this country has never seen pour into our country. And that’s going to create more jobs and more investment.
The stock market is shattering one record after another. Unemployment is at a 17-year low. And I’m very proud of this: African American unemployment reached its lowest level in history. Think of that. And on the campaign trail, remember I said, and would constantly say, “What do you have to lose?” Meaning, what do you have to lose if you vote for Trump? And now, it was just reported, African American unemployment is at its lowest level in history. I’m very proud of that.
We’re also making America safe again. Yesterday, we had a bipartisan meeting with House members and senators on immigration reform — something they’ve been talking about for many, many years. But we brought them together in this room, and it was a tremendous meeting. Actually, it was reported as incredibly good. And my performance — you know, some of them called it a performance — I consider it work.
But it got great reviews by everybody other than two networks, who were phenomenal for about two hours. Then, after that, they were called by their bosses for saying, “Oh, wait a minute.” And, unfortunately, a lot of those anchors sent us letters saying that was one of the greatest meetings they’ve ever witnessed. And they were great. For about two hours, they were phenomenal. And then they went a little bit south on us, but not that bad. It was fine.
They probably wish they didn’t send us those letters of congratulations. But it was good. I’m sure their ratings were fantastic; they always are — which is why I think the media will ultimately support Trump in the end, because they’re going to say, if Trump doesn’t win in three years, they’re all out of business. (Laughter.) You guys will be out of business. But the boom holders are still going to be there, so that’s good. (Laughter.) Those are the people I like.
We agreed to pursue four major areas yesterday of reform: securing our border, including, of course, the wall — which has always been included, it never changed; ending chain migration; canceling the visa lottery; and addressing the status of the DACA population. We want to see something happen with DACA. It’s been spoken of for years. And children are now adults, in many cases. The numbers are very different, very varying. A lot of people say 800,000; some people said — yesterday, first time I heard 650 [thousand]. I also heard 3 million. The fact is, our country was such a mess, nobody even knows what the numbers are. But we’ll know what the numbers are.
But above all else, any bill we passed must improve jobs, wages, and security for American citizens. The people who elected us, all of us — the people that elected us, we have to take care of them. We have to have a strong military. We can’t play games with our military. Whether we’re Democrat or whether we’re Republican, we have to have a strong — that’s not a point of negotiation. We can’t say, oh, we’re going to give you money for your military but you have to give us money for something that, frankly, is much less important than security.
And we have to keep our country strong. And our military was badly depleted over the last long period of time, beyond President Obama, I will say — beyond President Obama. Our military was very, very badly depleted.
I just spoke to President Moon. He’s very thankful for what we’ve done. They’re having talks with North Korea. We’ll see how that happens. He felt that the original — that the initial talk was extremely good. Had a lot of good comment. Rex was on the phone, and Nikki has been totally briefed.
But we had a very, very good conversation, and we’ll see where it goes. He’s very thankful for what we’ve done. It was so reported today that we were the ones — without our attitude, that would have never happened. Who knows where it leads. Hopefully, it will lead to success for the world — not just for our country, but for the world. And we’ll be seeing over the next number of weeks and months what happens.
On a separate front, we are going to take a strong look at our country’s libel laws so that when somebody says something that is false and defamatory about someone, that person will have meaningful recourse in our courts. If somebody says something that’s totally false and knowingly false, that the person that has been abused, defamed, libeled will have meaningful recourse.
Our current libel laws are a sham and a disgrace, and do not represent American values or American fairness. So we’re going to take a strong look at that. We want fairness. You can’t say things that are false — knowingly false — and be able to smile as money pours into your bank account. We’re going to take a very, very strong look at that. And I think what the American people want to see is fairness.
Finally, as we begin the new year, I want to thank my Cabinet for working tirelessly on behalf of our country. Every single day, every hour, I’m on the phone with almost all of them all the time. And we have a lot of exciting things to go.
I’m just looking at Alex Acosta. What a job you’ve done with our healthcare. He’s Secretary of Labor, but he’s very much involved in healthcare, and I think those rules and regulations will be out around February 1st, Alex, as I understand it. And this is healthcare through association and associations. And I think that millions and millions and millions of people will be signing up. It will be highly competitive. He has been able to totally get rid of state lines so there will be tremendous competition. And that will be a phase of healthcare that people don’t talk about.
But I think, ultimately, you’ll have more people than you actually had even in Obamacare, and it’s just a segment of what we’re doing. So I just want to tell you, I read a lot of those papers last night, and it is really great work, brilliant work. I think it is something that people don’t talk about, but it’s something that’s going to be very exciting and very great. It will be great healthcare at a very competitive price. There will be tremendous competition, and it will cost the United States absolutely zero. So we’re very proud of that. Thank you, Alex.
And with that, I just — we’ll start our Cabinet meeting. And we appreciate your being here, and you’ve gotten very familiar with this room. I appreciate your nice comments yesterday. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you very much.
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; You may be called the legend because of your forecasts on so many levels, but it might also be because you have met with more governments than probably any economist or analyst. My question is simple. From your experience, do you believe you can prevent the economic carnage that is becoming so obvious to everyone except those in government?
SK
ANSWER: The idealistic belief in intelligence and goodness embedded within human beings is increasingly confronted with the harsh experiences of reality. We all indeed act in our own self-interest or we would take no action (Smith’s Invisible Hand). Even an ameba, which lacks consciousness as we define it being self-aware, still responds to its surrounding and engulfs its prey to survive. It responds due to its hardwired nature. Unfortunately, humans also possess at that inner level this same survival instinct that is hardwired. This makes it increasingly unlikely that willingness to change gains sufficient strength in time for the abyss to be reached. Hence, we must crash and burn.
Because the government will respond in the same manner as an ameba, there is no hope that they will spontaneously look in the mirror and reach an OMG moment of realizing that they are causing the demise of our society. Consequently, they will consume our liberty until they push it to the point that society will then act only in its self-interest to survive. Historically, all governments collapse once they have consumed rights, liberty, and privileges in their desire to maintain control and in the end, die by their own greed for power. They lack any consciousness of what they are doing precisely as an ameba. There is no reasoning for there is no one single mind to reason with.
Therefore, neither I nor anyone else, possess the power to prevent the cycle from unfolding. The very best I can hope for is perhaps to influence the reconstruction
Earlier today President Trump held a meeting today with Democrat and Republican Senators surrounding one of the most controversial issues in the current body politic. The DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and immigration reform, to include a border wall and an end of chain-migration policy, is a hot button issue on both sides of the political aisle.
President Trump surprised the entire MSM by allowing the media to stay in the meeting for an hour and hear the arguments/positions from all participants at the meeting. Extreme transparency.
(Via Breitbart) Stephen K. Bannon has stepped down from Breitbart News Network, where he served as Executive Chairman since 2012.
Bannon and Breitbart will work together on a smooth and orderly transition.
Bannon said, “I’m proud of what the Breitbart team has accomplished in so short a period of time in building out a world-class news platform.”
According to Breitbart CEO Larry Solov, “Steve is a valued part of our legacy, and we will always be grateful for his contributions, and what he has helped us to accomplish.” (link)
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; I find it interesting how you have pointed out that when it comes to public debt, the USA is actually far better than Europe or many in Asia. You also forecast that debt would begin to rise sharply from mid-2017 going into 2021. Do you have any figures to support that forecast?
NW
ANSWER: Yes of course!. The volume of global debt is rising significantly.According to theInstitute of International Finance, total liabilities in the third quarter of 2017 surpassed $230 trillion.This is an increase of 16 trillion compared to the end of 2016. As the interest rates continue to rise, the debt servicing costs are simply going to explode. As a whole, Europe is over 100% of debt to GDP on average compared to the USA at about 73%. Government debt has exceeded $60 trillion.
This entire system is coming undone. The debt servicing is exploding as rates begin to rise. The Sovereign Debt Crisis is very much alive and wel
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
Capping off the trifecta of good news, Toyota/Mazda has announced a massive $1.6 BILLION investment in new manufacturing in Alabama that will employ 4,000 U.S. workers:
Centinel2012 