Distinction Matter - Subscribed Feeds

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

“The job here is to enforce the federal civil rights laws, not woke ideology.” 

- Harmeet Dhillon, US Assistant AG for the Civil Rights Division

When a claque of deep state shills such as Norm Eisen, Chuck Schumer, Bill Kristol, David Brooks, and Larry Summers holler about Mr. Trump’s attempt to reform a depraved political culture as “an assault on norms,” are you not prompted to wonder what, exactly, those norms might be?

Looks like they are describing a colossal matrix of racketeering operations in concert with an epic program of crypto-Marxist mind-fuckery, mountains of money purloined under color-of-law, swindles galore of practically every public enterprise, the capital city of a so-called republic fogged in gaslight to conceal a Satyricon of pedophilia, sodomy, and sado-masochism in every closet, cabinet, and pigeon-hole of the political class.

So, along comes Mr. Trump for the second round, with a supernaturally able clean-up crew this time, and the monsters feeding off that depraved normality commence to shriek in mortal panic as the scaffold of their crimes gets methodically disassembled and secrets are revealed.

Many of you have been pouting over the lack of criminal prosecutions these first hundred days. Why is AG Ms. Bondi preening on Fox News when she should be banging-out subpoenas and arrest warrants, you ask? And what broom-closet is Dan Bongino hiding in over at the Hoover Building? How is Hillary Clinton still at-large in the land? Does Alejandro Mayorkas still make his Saturday excursions to the boutiques along M Street? Looks like the months of May and June are setting up to be the season of shocks and consequence.

Item: James O’Keefe, founder of Project Veritas (he was cancelled from it) and now running O’Keefe Media Group, put out a mighty strange eighteen-second video this week. 

Looks like it was filmed in a basement somewhere. “I’m going dark, he says ruefully. “I’m not suicidal. Pray for me. This one scares me, guys.”

T-minus seven days. pic.twitter.com/wcU4tJvHLF

A week earlier, O’Keefe announced that he had bombshell recordings of public figures breaking the law, involving billions of dollars, which he expected would lead to indictments.

What spooked him in the week since then?

I guess we’ll have to stand by to find out, or see if JO’K was bluffing.

Meanwhile Virginia Guiffre, a former Jeffrey Epstein teen sex slave, likewise said just over a week ago: “I am making it publicly known that in no way, shape, or form am I suicidal. If something happens to me, for the sake of my family do not let this go away and help me to protect them. Too many evil people want to see me quieted.” 

This was a month after she was injured in a traffic accident with a school bus in Western Australia. 

On April 24, she reportedly committed suicide at home, after release from the hospital. 

What do you suppose changed her mind?

An ominous silence surrounds the promised release of the Epstein case material, whatever it consists of: depositions, flight logs, photographs, video recordings of prominent people in compromising situations. Remember, not long after inauguration day, the FBI’s New York field office was found to be sitting on a huge trove of previously hidden Epstein case evidence. 

The DOJ swiftly “retired” the chief agent of the office, James Dennehy, who additionally had failed to cooperate with requests to disclose the names of agents involved in the Jan-6 investigations. 

Supposedly, since the discovery of the Epstein trove, a thousand agents were assigned to “process” it, redact the names of the innocent victims, so they say. 

Are they close to finishing?

Speaking of the J-6, 2021 matter, pressure is building for the Republican majority Congress to hold hearings on exactly what went on that fateful day. FBI Director Patel has yet to disclose how many government agents (not just FBI), and how many “confidential human sources” (i.e., provocateurs), were in the crowd around and inside the US Capitol. It’s getting to be past time to ask Mr. Patel for a straight answer on that in an official proceeding, and continue from there to related business, such as Nancy Pelosi’s failure to reinforce the Capitol Police with National Guard troops that day, and the strange doings around the DNC pipe bomb ploy few blocks away. Personally, I doubt that Mr. Patel is inclined to lie or dissemble about all that. But the natives are getting a little restless.

Mr. Kennedy at HHS is already pretty frisky in his role supervising the enormous cluster of agencies that have done so much to wreck the nation’s health in recent years. Goodbye fluoride in the drinking water. Hello to placebo testing for new drugs and vaccines. Welcome to a vigorous six-month campaign to determine a likely cause of the autism epidemic. RFK is even asking what exactly is in those aviation contrails that folks have been observing and complaining about for so many years. And then there was the bomb he dropped during this week’s cabinet meeting: that under Joe Biden, HHS acted as a major vector for the trafficking of children. Say, what??? Lotta people wondered, did Bobby really say that? And does he know exactly who in HHS is responsible. . . like, names attached? I guess we’ll find out.

On a brighter note, not only did Klaus Schwab, the comic book villain who leads the World Economic Forum (WEF), resign last week, but he stands formally accused of misusing its funds. An inquiry ensues. Mr. Schwab’s daughter, Nicole, supposedly revealed to possibly sketchy alt-journalist Medeea Greere, that the WEF sought to reduce the global population by billions, and not in a nice way. Standing by on that one. . . . But, at least old Klaus is gone. His temporary replacement is Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, former CEO of the Nestle conglomerate, with a record of nefarious activity in the marketing of infant bottle formula in the third world and other turpitudes. Prediction: the WEF is toast. It was always a bit too bizarre to be taken seriously, but its demise signals real trouble for the foundering Globalist endeavor.

So, the month of May is shaping up to be merry as all get-out, and then June will be bustin’ out all over. That thing you felt. . .? That was the ground shaking and the earth moving. Strap in.

A series of disappointing earnings (with peak earnings season this week) from fast-food chains, beverage giants, and consumer companies underscores persistent financial strain on low- and middle-income consumers—pressured by lingering Biden-era inflation and increasing fears over tariffs and mounting economic uncertainty under the current administration. 

On Thursday, McDonald's reported same-store sales that tumbled 3.6% in the US, the largest year-over-year decline since the second quarter of 2020. The decline was mainly because of sagging visits at stores nationwide. 

McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski wrote in a statement that consumers "are grappling with uncertainty." He noted that McDonald's will be able to "navigate even the toughest of market conditions and gain market share." 

Citi analyst Jon Tower told clients that McDonald's soft sales should "come as little surprise" to investors, with the fast-food chain "speaking to a muted outlook/challenged global consumer back in mid-February and category high-frequency data/other company 1Q updates all suggesting lower-income guests were pulling back." 

On Friday morning, Wendy's slashed its sales outlook for the year, signaling consumers are dialing back their store visits and ticket spending. 

Wendy's CEO Kirk Tanner stated that the US market faced a "challenging consumer environment." The fast-food chain warned that the pullback in spending was more acute with customers making below $75,000. 

Last week, Chipotle missed first-quarter revenue estimates and reported that same-store sales had fallen for the first time since 2020. 

Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright warned investors that a "slowdown in consumer spending" materialized, forcing it to lower the top end of its full-year same-store sales growth outlook. 

At the beginning of the week, Starbucks reported disappointing global comparable sales and profit, with sliding US demand. 

Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol's turnaround strategy for the coffee chain appears to have stumbled after the company reported four straight quarters of declining sales.

"Our financial results don't yet reflect our progress, but we have real momentum with our 'Back to Starbucks' plan," Niccol told investors.

Yum Brands, the parent of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, also reported this week. Yum posted a mixed first quarter, with a sales slowdown that began to soften in January but improved through February and March. 

In the consumer goods space, Procter & Gamble reported mixed quarterly results as demand for its products fell. Executives of the company, which owns Tide and Charmin, slashed their full-year outlook for earnings per share and revenue based on consumer slowdown and tariff uncertainty.

The broader pessimism from QSRs and consumer-facing companies mirrors the sharp downturn in the Conference Board's confidence index, which just sank to a 14-year low.

Labor market conditions also weakened.

In markets, Goldman analyst Nelson Armbrust said consumer discretionary stocks were "net sold for a fourth straight month, driven by short sales outpacing long buys ~5 to 1." 

Goldman's take: "Sentiment remains very soft in Consumer, due to both sourcing and tariff concerns, while investors are also focused on the consumer slowdown theme." 

More broadly, with peak earnings season now behind us, Goldman Chief Equity Strategist David Kostin told clients Friday that results have held up relatively well:

1Q 2025 year/year earnings growth is tracking at 12%, 6 pp higher relative to the start of the reporting season. Better than expected margins have driven the positive surprise so far with the average earnings surprise tracking at 5% vs. an average sales surprise of 1%.

Kostin also noted: 

One lingering question heading into May is whether the slide in consumer spending and sentiment will worsen—or if it can be reversed by a series of positive trade headlines. 

By Julianne Geiger of OilPrice.com

The OPEC+ members currently participating in voluntary production cuts will meet this Saturday, May 3, instead of Monday, May 5, according to Kpler’s Amena Bakr on X. The call is set for noon Vienna time, with the agenda focused on “consensus building around maintaining the sped-up increment of 411K for June.”

Brent crude had slipped nearly 1% by late Friday morning, trading at $61.56. It’s a price level not seen since early 2021—and one that puts most OPEC+ budgets underwater. 

For producers already grappling with restricted output, prices below $65 are a growing fiscal headache.

The accelerated meeting follows mounting tensions within the group. 

Reports suggest Saudi Arabia is signaling it can live with lower prices—a not-so-subtle message to chronic overproducers like Iraq and Kazakhstan.

The 411,000 bpd production increase originally floated as a wake-up call may now be cemented into policy, signaling a strategic shift in Riyadh’s approach.

OPEC+ has pledged to offset 4.57 million bpd of overproduction by mid-2026. But enforcement remains patchy. 

Saturday’s call will test whether Riyadh and Moscow can still steer the ship—or whether quota politics are about to devolve into a full-blown battle for market share.

Meanwhile, a Bloomberg survey released Thursday showed that OPEC’s actual output fell by 200,000 bpd in April, down to 27.24 million - contradicting the group’s planned increase.

Goldman assigns a 70% subjective probability that the announced change in OPEC8+ supply for June will be 0.41mb/d, a 25% probability to a larger increase, and a 5% probability to a 0.14mb/d increase.

Market pessimism is already pricing in a production hike. 

But April’s figures are a reminder: announced increases don’t always materialize. Whether Saudi Arabia will keep absorbing the blow while others cheat—or start using price as a weapon to enforce discipline—won’t be decided in a Vienna video call. It’ll be decided at the wellhead.

A key Trump demand of the Zelensky government was quietly dropped as a condition of peace talks as well as the Ukraine minerals deal, which was finally signed this week.

Washington is no longer seeking to pressure or force President Volodymyr Zelensky to hold elections that could result in his being ousted office for the sake of peace, according to information in The Telegraph. 

"The demand has been quietly dropped from the latest set of American proposals for a ceasefire," The Telegraph writes. "The American decision to stop demanding elections is designed to placate the Ukrainian officials who have argued against swathes of a seven-point peace plan tabled by Mr Trump."

The minerals deal still has to be formally approved by Ukraine's parliament, according to the nation's constitution. Below is said to be the current seven-point plan offered by Trump, aspects of which were previously rejected by Ukrainian officials...

As for dropping the demand for Zelensky and parliament to hold elections, the Kremlin itself seems to have somewhat quieted down on this in recent weeks.

Without doubt, Moscow still wants to see Zelensky go, but appears willing to not press the issue if he were willing to give up territory for the sake of ceasefire (which so far isn't happening - not even regarding Crimea).

Zelensky's term in office expired in May 2024, and Ukrainian parliament has recently reaffirmed the 'constitutionality' of Zelensky's mandate as leader of the country during wartime. Trump soon after taking the Oval called him a 'dictator' who canceled elections, and even long before that called him the "world's greatest salesman" as he received hundreds of billions from the US and Western allies.

Meanwhile, fresh statements from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio express continued optimism on the potential for peace. He says "they're closer" to peace - in reference to Moscow and Kiev.

Source: ANSA

"For a hundred days he has done efforts to bring about peace… Look, we’ve gotten closer. We – for the first time – we haven’t known this for three years – we kind of can see what it would take for Ukraine to stop. We can see what it would take for the Russians to stop," Rubio said.

He then noted, "They’re closer, but they’re still far apart. And it’s going to take a real breakthrough here very soon to make this possible… or I think the president is going to have to make a decision about how much more time we’re going to dedicate to this," he added.

It's been widely reported that during Zelensky's impromptu 15-meeting with President Trump on the sidelines of the pope's funeral last weekend he was able to ease the pressure on Kiev coming from Trump.

"Zelensky's advisers were divided about whether he should even risk the tête-à-tête after the disaster in the Oval Office," Axios reported days after the meeting. "But after it, Zelensky felt he'd managed to shift Trump's thinking about Putin for the first time, the sources say."

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

In investing, success is often judged by numbers - returns on investment, percentage gains, and the ability to outperform benchmarks like the S&P 500. 

However, some investors frequently pursue a peculiar set of “awards” without realizing the pitfalls they embody. These unspoken goals, while tempting, rarely lead to sustainable investment success. If there were awards for some of these common but ill-advised behaviors, they would likely cause more harm than good. Here are some of the “investing awards” you’ll never receive, because chasing them isn’t worth the cost.

I Never Sold At A Loss Medal

Market volatility is an inherent aspect of investing. Striving to avoid all losses, or drawdowns, is unrealistic. Trying to sidestep volatility often leads to lower returns and missed growth opportunities. Overly conservative investments may not keep pace with inflation, steadily eroding purchasing power. Managing risk effectively instead of avoiding it is essential for long-term portfolio success.

Many investors pride themselves on never realizing a loss, believing that holding every position until it turns profitable is a badge of honor. However, this mindset often leads to holding onto poor performers indefinitely, tying up capital that could be better deployed elsewhere. This behavior is a classic example of behavioral mistakes investors make, specifically the “disposition effect,” where investors hold losing assets too long while selling winners too early. Focusing solely on avoiding losses often damages overall portfolio returns.

Like everything in life, there is a “season” and a “cycle.” When it comes to the markets, “seasons” are dictated by the “technical and economic constructs,” and the “cycles” are dictated by “valuations.” The seasons are shown in the chart below.

As such, successful investing requires disciplined pruning to maintain a healthy garden. Recognizing when an investment no longer aligns with your strategy and cutting losses early frees up capital for better opportunities. There is no award for stubbornly holding a stock that continues to drag down your portfolio.

I Took On As Much Risk As I Could Award

During bull markets, taking on excessive risk seems attractive. High-risk assets like speculative tech stocks or cryptocurrencies often deliver eye-catching gains. Some investors view risk-taking as bravery. But the reality is that high risk doesn’t guarantee higher returns; it is frequently quite the opposite. As Howard Marks previously discussed, risk and volatility aren’t the same thing. For years, many investors (and academics) have been taught that volatility, the ups and downs of stock prices, equals risk. However, volatility is just one part of the picture, but risk is the probability of losing money. Just because prices bounce around doesn’t mean you’re at risk of a loss.

However, “High risk equals high reward” is not always true. Just because an investment has a higher degree of risk does not guarantee it will deliver superior returns. Given that risk is the probability of losing money, taking on excess risk does increase the potential for poor returns over time. In other words, increasing risk increases the potential for significant losses. As such, investors must be careful about chasing returns without fully understanding the risks. The goal should be to weigh the possible outcomes and ensure the potential reward is worth the risk taken.

A good example was in 2022, when retail investors chasing meme stocks, SPACs, and IPOs suffered significantly heavier losses than the index. At that time, the ARK Innovation Fund, managed by Cathy Wood, was an example of peak speculation in the market. However, since then, those investments failed to recover. In other words, speculative risk-taking did not lead to outsized returns.

Sustainable investing requires aligning investments with financial goals and risk tolerance to avoid exposing one’s future to unnecessary volatility. Diversification, not reckless risk-taking, remains the best tool for improving risk-adjusted returns. While speculative investments lack the excitement and thrill, prudent investors build strategies focused on taking calculated, strategic risks that contribute to long-term wealth.

“You don’t get rewarded for taking risk; you get rewarded for buying cheap assets. And if the assets you bought got pushed up in price simply because they were risky, then you are not going to be rewarded for taking a risk; you are going to be punished for it.” – Jeremy Grantham

Successful investors avoid “risk” at all costs, even if it means underperforming in the short term. The reason is that while the media and Wall Street have you focused on chasing market returns in the short term, ultimately, the excess “risk” built into your portfolio will lead to inferior long-term returns. Wile E. Coyote never received an award for chasing the Roadrunner over the cliff.

I’m a Long-Term Investor (Only When I’m Losing Money) Certificate

A common rationalization is to claim to be a long-term investor only when losses mount. When an investment underperforms, investors often tell themselves they are simply “staying the course,” using time to justify inaction. Research by Barberis and Thaler (2003) on behavioral biases shows that loss aversion—the tendency to prefer avoiding losses over acquiring gains—strongly influences this behavior.

True long-term investing demands more than patience; it requires a disciplined, objective framework. This means purchasing quality assets with strong fundamentals, establishing clear investment theses, and periodically reassessing those theses. Successful investors, like Warren Buffett, have emphasized that staying invested in a poorly performing asset without reevaluating it is not long-term investing—it is emotional decision-making disguised as strategy.

A good example is Intel (INTC) versus Texas Instruments. Over the last five years, Intel has lost 62% of its value as it lost its chip-making dominance to companies like AMD, Nvidia, Broadcom, and others. For investors holding Intel, many are hoping that something will occur and they can recover that loss. However, at any point over the last 5 years, they could have sold Intel and bought virtually any other chip maker and increased their wealth. While there are many examples, this exemplifies the point of opportunity cost. Holding a losing asset for long periods eats away at the wealth-building process and consumes our most precious commodity: time.

Building a resilient portfolio is not about loyalty to individual positions. It is about effective asset allocation, risk management, and ongoing evaluation. Markets evolve, industries change, and even once-promising companies can lose their competitive edge. Recognizing when an investment no longer fits your portfolio’s long-term goals—and having the discipline to move on—is a hallmark of professional investing, not a weakness.

I Never Used Stop-Losses Or Managed Risk Ribbon

Some investors view risk management strategies like stop-losses, portfolio rebalancing, and diversification as unnecessary restraints on potential gains. Instead, they trust intuition, believing they can “ride out” volatility. Behavioral research (Shefrin, 2000) shows that overconfidence is one of individual investors’ most common mistakes, often leading to catastrophic losses when market conditions change suddenly.

Managing risk effectively isn’t about fear or pessimism. It is about protecting your capital from irreparable damage so that you can continue participating in future market growth. Stop-losses are designed not to predict downturns but to limit exposure to individual positions that deteriorate beyond acceptable thresholds. Similarly, rebalancing prevents portfolios from drifting into unintended risk concentrations over time.

An example of risk management can be very simplistic. For example, using a 40-week moving average as a “risk off” indicator can help avoid more protracted market drawdowns.

We can apply a “risk management” strategy to that moving average to reduce risk during corrective periods. For this example, when the S&P 500 breaks below the 40-week moving average, stock exposure is reduced by 50%, and it reverses to 100% when the index crosses above that moving average. The results are shown below.

While there are times when investors were triggered to reduce and then increase exposures quickly, the 2000 and 2008 financial crises underscored the consequences of unmanaged portfolios. Many investors holding full exposures to equities without risk controls suffered permanent losses (Brunnermeier, 2009). Risk management is the bridge between surviving market turbulence and thriving in long-term wealth creation. No one ever received an award for riding markets substantially lower. Such is not a testament to resilience—it is an avoidable failure.

I Beat the S&P 500 Medallion

Outperforming the S&P 500 is often portrayed as the ultimate measure of investing success. However, data from the SPIVA U.S. Scorecard shows that approximately 85% of actively managed U.S. equity funds underperform their benchmarks over ten years. While not every manager underperforms yearly, and periods of outperformance exist, the persistent challenge highlights the difficulty of consistently beating the S&P 500.

Pursuing benchmark-beating returns can lead investors into dangerous territory. Studies in behavioral finance (Statman, 2000) show that investors chasing outperformance often engage in high-turnover strategies, excessive trading, and speculative bets. These behaviors introduce additional risks and higher transaction costs that erode potential gains. The result is that investors, while trying to “beat the index, ” consistently underperform over time. As noted in the 2024 Dalbar Research report:

As noted above, even the most simplistic of risk management strategies can improve returns over time while maintaining a focus on investment goals. Instead of fixating on beating the benchmark, focus on building a portfolio that aligns with your financial goals and personal risk tolerance. Ultimately, true investing success isn’t measured against a broad index. No one will ever give you an award for beating an index from one year to the next. However, they will measure your success by what matters most: whether you achieved your objectives, like securing a comfortable retirement or funding important goals.

Conclusion: Building a Smarter Path to Investing Success

To avoid the costly mistakes outlined above, investors must adopt a disciplined, process-driven approach to managing their portfolios. Sustainable investment success comes from understanding, not reacting to, market behavior. Here are the critical steps you should take:

• First, embrace losses as part of the investment journey. Prune weak investments when they no longer fit your strategy, reallocating capital to stronger opportunities rather than waiting for recoveries that may never come.

• Second, respect risk. Avoid equating bravery with excessive risk-taking. Build portfolios aligned with your personal financial goals and loss tolerance, focusing on diversification and asset valuation rather than speculative bets.

• Third, redefine long-term investing. Remaining loyal to a poor investment out of hope wastes time and wealth. Maintain objectivity by reassessing whether each holding still meets your original investment thesis.

• Fourth, implement active risk management. Use stop-loss strategies, periodic rebalancing, and technical indicators like the 40-week moving average to protect against significant drawdowns. Managing risk is about ensuring survival, not limiting success.

• Finally, stop chasing the S&P 500. Focus instead on achieving your financial objectives with consistent, risk-adjusted returns. Outperformance is meaningless if you fail to meet real-world needs, like securing retirement income or building generational wealth.

Successful investing is not about winning arbitrary “awards.” It is about managing risk, preserving capital, and steadily compounding returns toward your goals. Ignore the noise, stay disciplined, and remember: no one hands out awards for reckless investing—only consequences.

Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClearPolitics,

Performance reviews are about to become much more difficult for the upper echelon of federal government employees.

The Trump administration will soon introduce rules to end what the Office of Personnel Management describes as an “everyone gets a trophy” culture permeating the federal workforce, RealClearPolitics is first to report.

The ranks of the Senior Executive Service, top bureaucrats serving throughout the government and across administrations, swelled to around 8,000 under President Biden. Most live in Washington, D.C. They typically earn an annual salary between $183,000 and $250,000. An overwhelming majority, 96%, according to an OPM memo, receive above-average performance ratings even as public trust in government continues to crater.

But standards will soon tighten. It is called “forced distribution.”

The new OPM rule limits the number of bureaucrats who can earn top ratings, a metric tied to promotions and end-of-the-year bonuses. It also eliminates Biden-era requirements that evaluated executives based on their promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The stated goal is instead an evaluation of job performance, not political ideology. Now only top performers, acting OPM director Chuck Ezell told RCP, will earn top performance rankings. 

“The American people deserve a federal government led by executives who are held to the highest standards,” Ezell said. “This proposed rule restores accountability, rewards true excellence, and ensures senior leaders deliver real results. OPM is proud to take this important step to strengthen performance among the highest levels of the federal workforce.”

The elite of career civil servants, these senior employees are normally little noticed and non-controversial. Permanent bureaucracy has come under attack during the Trump administration, however, and the White House sees the top ranks of federal employees as the face of the so-called “deep state.”

“There are no participation trophies,” a White House official said of the new standards, telling RCP that from now on, trophies, in this case top-tier performance rankings, “are for winners.”

The new standards come as Trump continues his long march through the administrative state. His administration has already implemented rules to gut civil service protections for government employees perceived as undermining the White House agenda. Thousands of federal workers have been fired. Entire government agencies, in some cases, shuttered.

Critics accuse the White House of trying to politicize the federal workforce and of trying to remake the executive agencies in Trump’s image. The Senior Executives Association, a trade group for federal employees with an office in downtown D.C., previously balked at proposed reforms. The head of that organization, Marcus Hill, insisted that top bureaucrats had earned their jobs through merit “based on demonstrated competence, character and capability in their fields of expertise.”

But the administration argues that change is needed because a sclerotic establishment is undermining self-government. This is the mission of Elon Musk and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency.

“If the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?” Musk asked earlier this year while fielding questions from reporters in the Oval Office.

“If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives,” he said while standing behind the Resolute Desk next to the seated president, “then we don’t live in a democracy.”

For much of the past 4 years we dutifully reported, month after month, how the US labor market under the Biden administration "grew" almost entirely on the back of "foreign-born" workers, who - as we also first revealed and eventually was widely accepted - were primarily illegal aliens:

• Great Replacement Job Shock: 1.3 Million Native-Born Americans Just Lost Their Jobs, Replaced By 635,000 Immigrants: Sept 2024

• Wall Street Admits The Biggest Economic Shocker: All Jobs In The Past Year Have Gone To Illegal Aliens: June, 2024

• Stunning statistic: there has been ZERO INCREASE  in jobs for native-born workers in over five years, since July 2018!: Jan 2024

More importantly, as we predicted at the start of 2024...

How is this not the biggest political talking point right now: since October 2019, native-born US workers have lost 1.4 million jobs; over the same period foreign-born workers have gained 3 million jobs. pic.twitter.com/Z5HVWmQ24C

... the composition of the labor market would become one of the biggest political talking points, one which was hammered constantly by Trump in his political rallies and during his debate with Biden.

We bring this up because deep inside today's jobs report we got the best news yet: after literally flatlining in late 2019, having plunged during covid and barely recovering to its pre-covid levels, the number of native born workers is now back to its all time high, 132.228 million.

That's because in April, the number of native-born workers surged by just over 1 million, from 131.186 million to 132.228 million. Meanwhile, the number of foreign-born workers - who as we explained previously were mostly undocumented, or illegal, aliens - dropped by 410K from a record 32.225 million.

Or, as so many people have already said, this is what a majority of Americans voted for.

Actually, they voted for something else too: after hitting a record high in December, the last month of Biden's admin, the number of Federal government employees has declined for 4 consecutive months to the lowest level in over a year. Thank you DOGE.

So while there has been pain, and there will be a lot more pain, America is finally returning to some semblance of a long-term viable trendline.

While Apple's Tim Cook was adamant on the call last night that he had seen no 'pull forward' of demand due to the tariffs, it seems every other firm in the US did as Durable Goods Orders soared in March (final print this morning at +9.2% MoM)...

Source: Bloomberg

However, Core Durable Goods (ex Transports) was unchanged MoM - suggesting considerable front-running of tariffs for planes and autos...

Source: Bloomberg

US Factory Orders rose 4.3% MoM (slightly less than the +4.5% expected) - a big jump

Source: Bloomberg

And like with Durable Goods, Core Factory orders (ex Transports) actually fell 0.2% MoM...

Source: Bloomberg

The surge in orders was largely driven by a 139% MoM spike in non-defense aircraft and parts...

Source: Bloomberg

Which pushed total orders to a new all-time record-high...

Source: Bloomberg

The question is - what happens in April - post Liberation Day?

The woke liberal elites, perched high in their Harvard University ivory towers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have been plotted at extreme levels on the "F*ck Around and Find Out" (FAFO) chart, which illustrates their relationship between taking risks ("f*ck around") and facing consequences ("find out") in response to President Trump's simple request to dismantle the toxic framework of diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus. 

The standoff between President Trump and woke elites deepened on Friday morning after the president wrote on Truth Social: "We are going to be taking away Harvard's Tax Exempt Status. It's what they deserve!" 

On Wednesday, President Trump suggested to U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon that the federal government may stop giving the far-left university grants: "And it looks like we are not going to be giving them any more grants, right Linda?"

The president has launched a formal review into the $9 billion in federal funding for the university. He demanded the university end DEI and crack down on anti-Semitic protests fueled by pro-Palestinian groups. 

F*ck Around:

• "Will Not Surrender" - Harvard Snubs Trump Admin's Demands Tied To $9 Billion Funding

Find Out:

• Trump Threatens Harvard's Tax-Exempt Status Amid Federal Funding Freeze

Last week, the president asked the Internal Revenue Service to revoke Harvard University's tax-exempt status. The Ivy League school's failure to wind down woke and toxic liberal agendas that undermine the nation has left it at the end phase of FAFO. 

On Thursday night, Trump told students in his commencement address at the University of Alabama: "The next chapter of the American story will not be written by the Harvard Crimson. It will be written by you, the Crimson Tide."