“It can’t be done”, they said. “There’s no way Trump can achieve 4.0% economic growth” they said. The Congressional Budget Office said economic projections were “improbable”, they said…. “Impossible”, they said.

Yeah, well, Donald Trump said: “Impossible is just the starting point“. And now:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. economy is on track to expand at a 4.0 percent annualized pace in the third quarter with inventory investment contributing 1.12 percentage points to growth, the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDP Now forecast model showed on Thursday. (read more)

How is this possible? Well, if you’ve never had to wash your hands with Lava – it might seem impossible. For those who have washed with Lava, it’s simple common sense.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, is the growth in value of all goods and services produced within the economy over a specified period of time. A key part of that equation is the sum total of exported goods minus imported goods is part of the measure. Only the stuff created in the U.S. increases the growth dynamic. If you import more, the GDP shrinks. It’s simple arithmetic.

If you grow exports, and maintain a constant on imported products, the net lowering of the trade deficit adds to GDP growth. It’s not a hard equation. If our economy is making more stuff, our economy is growing.

Here’s the part a few of us have been talking about for a long time, and more recently when candidate Trump announced his economic plans we immediately saw the common sense behind the strategy.

Specifically within the Energy sector, Obama’s policies were shutting down energy development. Coal mines shut down; pipelines stopped; natural gas permits held up; etc. The sum impact was higher energy costs and more reliance on imports of foreign oil etc. Importing energy resources shrinks the domestic economy (we ain’t making it) and lowers the GDP (we’re importing it).

Enter Trump.

President Trump unleashes the energy sector. Coal mines reopened (energy coal and metallurgy coking coal), pipelines approved, and LNG (liquified natural gas) permits and pipelines fast-tracked, and permits for new refineries approved. In addition to ongoing oil exploitation, the entire energy sector was quickly unleashed.

But wait, it went further.

President Trump’s energy policy initiatives took energy dependence (importing), and within months began skyrocketing toward energy independence.

But wait, it went further.

Enter Commerce Secretary Wilbur “Wilburine” Ross.

Together with President Trump, Secretary Wilbur Ross immediately began reaching out to allied nations for energy export agreements. Within months coal (coking and energy coal) was being exported to Asia and Europe. Massive increases in exports.

Within a few more months LNG contracts were written and approved and natural gas began being exported to Asia and Europe. Ireland just signed a big contract (€338,000,000) for massive shipments of Texas LNG.

Early agreements with the Arab States (Gulf Cooperation Council) to negotiate oil production levels in exchange for assistance with their domestic security initiatives (weapons sales), in combination with agreements with Emmanuel Macron (France) to drive production in Libya and North Africa, kept global oil supplies flowing. In conjunction with our North American production increases, this energy approach has kept oil prices lower.

[It didn’t hurt to have the former CEO of Exxon-Mobil, Rex Tillerson, as our Secretary of state either. It wasn’t his first Arabian sword dance. Almost like a plan. Much to the angst of Russia, Iran and Venezuela – go figure.]

You might have missed it, but we went straight past Memorial Day 2017 and instead of gas prices increasing, we saw them continue to drop. First time in decades for lower gas prices at the pumps during peak summer gas use.

MagaSuperWonderWinning.

Back to the GDP growth. Remember the equation. Production exports minus imports are part of the bottom line GDP total. Trump’s energy sector policy specifically began increasing the export part of the energy sector. Yes, we are exporting massive amounts of coal (both kinds), and liquified natural gas (LNG).

Every metric tonne of those exports lowers the trade deficit; and as a consequence increases the GDP.

But wait, it gets better.

This is new ground. “Exporting Energy” is an entirely new sector of economic activity. All prior historic energy sector reference within our economy has been lowering GDP growth because we imported energy raw material (oil), and never utilized our own resources as offsets.

So yeah, the folks who wash calluses with Lava totally understand that 4% GDP growth is entirely reasonable with an entire new sector of the economy contributing toward it. Heck, we predicted exactly this – and more.

[…] Remember, when Donald Trump proposed his 2015 economic and tax platform? Every pundit with a microphone said Trump’s projected four percent growth was a pipe-dream. Now, amid many influential circles, there’s actually white paper discussion looking beyond that original Trump proposal and stating that six percent, seven percent and even higher economic expansion is entirely possible, if not – predictable. Get ready….. but don’t get so busy that you forget to look around while this is happening. We are living inside history, and the journey is infinitely more fun than the destination. America, we deserve this… (2016 – link)

Florida Power and Light won the prestigious International Edward Demming award for excellence in multi-platform engineering, efficiency superiority and overall quality. They didn’t blow every PhD intellectual out of the water with slide rules, CAD programs and engineering acumen. They did it with hard hats and dirty fingernails.

Because they lost the award, the Japanese spent 6 months studying FPL and later published a 1,000 page dissertation essentially saying FPL “wasn’t really good, they were just lucky”….. FPL field leadership laughed, took out markers and wrote on the back of their hard hats: “WE’RE NOT GOOD, WE’RE RUCKY”….

When every single Kuwaiti oil field was blown up by Saddam Hussein, they said it would take 5 years to cap them all off and restart their oil pumping industry. The Kuwaiti’s and Saudi’s called Texans, who had them all capped and back in working order in 10 months.

We are a nation that knows how to get shit done.

When the Northern Chile mine workers were trapped two miles underground, they said no-one could save them. Who did they call for help? A bunch of hick miners from USA coal country who went down there, worked on the fly, engineered the rescue equipment on site, and saved everyone of them….

That’s our America.

When a half-breed Islamic whack job, armed with an AK-47 and a goal to meet his seven virgins, began opening fire on a train in France, the Americans on board didn’t run to the nearest safe room and hide themselves amid baguettes and brie. They said “let’s go”, and beat the stuffing out of that little nut with a death wish.

Legion d’Honneur or not, that’s us. That’s just how we roll.

Lady Liberty can stroll along the Champs-Elysées with a swagger befitting Mae West because without her arrival they’d be speaking German in the Louvre. Yet for the better part of the past decade a group of intellectual something-or-others have been teaching an insufferable storyline that it’s better to be sitting around a campfire eating sustainable algae cakes and picking parasites off each other.

Enough.

When I hear Donald Trump say “Make America Great Again”, I also hear the familiar echo “cowboy up” people.

It’s high time we stop being embarrassed about our exceptional nature, and start being proud of it again. Because when it matters most, when it really counts, when it’s really needed, there’s a whole bunch of people all around this world of ours that are mighty happy when swagger walks in to solve their problems.

Yeah, “let’s Make America Great Again”. Swagger on !