Canada has a new plan for US trade talks; blame it on Mexico. The Canadian government seems to think that the new Trump administration could be problematic when it comes to trade issues and I think there is some basis for that concern and they have a plan, which is to make Mexico the bad guy in this process. Of course, with the border issues, that is probably fairly easy to do with the Trump administration.
The Irish government is unbelievably rich as the result of the actions of the US and the EU in forcing many countries to increase their corporate tax rates while finding that the Irish tax rate was within the bounds of reasonable, if you will. The result; lots of companies are doing business in Ireland and creating an overwhelming level of tax proceeds for the Irish government. It is funding hospitals, jobs, roads, and two sovereign wealth funds. Not bad for a few million people.
Next we come to an award for Senator Mullin for withholding a promotion for a General who was involved in the Afghan withdrawal. It appears Mr. Mullin does not understand how the military works, and that is even Generals follow orders. Punishing him is much like the Golden Fleece Awards that were given years ago for the excess spending of useless dollars. This is the useless use of power. Hopefully Senator Mullin wakes up.
Apparently, the federal inquiry into Mr. Gaetz found records of his payments to women for sex. The question, of course, this raised was one of great significance and ultimately lead to his withdrawal, which I think was an excellent outcome. Ms. Bondi appears to be a reasonable and qualified candidate.
New polls show that several of Mr. Trump’s policy proposals have bipartisan support which given the results of voting on election day is not surprising. However, the percentages are because it is clear that although Mr. Trump did get Democratic leaning voters, he did not necessarily get a large percentage of them simply based on the results. The policies that got the most support were deporting people living in the country illegally, and ending the Ukraine/Russian war, however, even these contained strong partisan divides. As you can imagine, Republicans and Independents were very much supportive while Democrats were a little more tepid.
Banks are reporting that check fraud continues to grow and prosper, as consumers continue to rely on checks for their transactions. The more that electronic transfers are utilized, the less fraud that consumers experience. Unfortunately, what you hear in the news media quite often is horror stories about people being hacked, being scammed, etc. The reality is that the use of checks opens up the average consumer to a greater level of fraud than the internet does. It is always good to get the facts about our assumptions.
It appears that the federal anti-trust regulators are moving to cripple Google in terms of its use of some of its browsers and search engines. This could have a dramatic impact, not only on Google, but on the industry in its entirety, as well as consumers, since many of us are quite happy with the services that Google provides, and see little evidence of the anti-trust violations that the federal government is alleging. Nonetheless, this is something we should all be watching.
The number of Americans filing for jobless claims fell to the lowest level in six months. This news comes as the Fed continues to ponder its next move. Nonetheless, it is good for workers and indicates stability in the job market. At the same time, job openings tumbled to the lowest level since January of 2023, nonetheless, posted vacancies remain well above pandemic levels. Job openings dropped to 7.4 million from 7.9 in August, which although a significant drop from where they were several months ago, it is nonetheless a strong indicator of available jobs and good news in general for the economy.
More economic good news as retail sales in October grew solidly, and demonstrated a willingness on the part of consumers to spend. This, of course, is in contrast with how people voted, saying the economy was horrible and inflation was too high. Obviously, if the public thought about this just a bit, they would discover that if they withheld purchasing and that caused supply to increase as demand was lowered, prices would actually come down. A basic rule of economics, but it is completely missed. Not once during the campaign did I hear any politician indicate to people that if they wanted to control inflation, they needed to stop buying. I recognize that this has other negative impacts, but in the short term it could very well be what people need to do during inflationary periods.
As we look at Mr. Trump’s cabinet picks, they tend to make many of us laugh, some of us get very concerned, and others are in full throated support. I hope that the senators do their job and investigate each of these nominees, giving deference to Mr. Trump as they should to any president for his desired appointees and cabinet members.
A Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Bill Owens is a former member of Congress representing the New York 21st, a partner in Stafford, Owens, Piller, Murnane, Kelleher and Trombley in Plattsburgh, NY and a Strategic Advisor at Dentons to Washington, DC.
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