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Bill Owens: Confounding And Confusing Events 12/16/19

POTUS announced his next major focus for the environment.  He is ordering a study of whether Americans flush too often.  He referenced people flushing 10 to 15 times.  Is this for a single use, is it for sport.  Most importantly, where did he get the information and what is his concern?  Your guess is as good as mine.

On the scientific front, there has been a discovery of ancient earth organisms in space rocks.  These organisms are known as extremophiles, which are found in early life on earth.  The intriguing part of this discovery is that they were found in asteroids.  It could well be that aliens landed here and brought these back into space, or it could be that in the course of volcanic explosions or other unknown activities, these materials were launched into space from earth, or a third possibility, of course, being that these exist on other planets and were thrown into space from somewhere other than earth.  This will be an interesting process as scientists unravel a rather unique discovery.

The Senate and the House announced on Monday, the 8th, legislation that requires transparency in medical bills, funds community health centers for 5 years, increases the purchasing age of tobacco to 21, lowers prescription drug and other medical costs by requiring more transparency and competition.  This is potentially an important breakthrough, but will it actually reduce cost with the biggest potential being drug costs. 

In other healthcare news, Fox News is reporting that America’s rural hospital crisis is becoming a campaign issue; I have heard nothing at the Presidential, Senatorial nor Congressional level about these issues.  The legislators’ most commonly impacted by these issues are state legislators, in New York that is, of course, the Assembly and Senate, approximately a hundred rural hospitals have closed and hundreds more are on the brink, this is a significant issue which should be discussed (100 have closed since 2010 and 430 are at risk).  These hospitals care for the twenty percent (20%) of our population living in rural America.  We are also seeing a rise in mortality rates of close to 6% after a hospital closes in a community and 46% of rural hospitals currently are operating at a loss, compared with 40% in 2017.  Hospital closures affect not only healthcare, but the attractiveness of a community to employers and those who might consider moving there.

In Israel, the ability to form a government continues to evade Mr. Gantz and Mr. Netanyahu with a third election now having been called.  The latest shakeup is a rift between Secretary Pompeo and Mr. Netanyahu over whether or not they discussed Israelis’ annexation of the west bank’s Jordan valley during a meeting Wednesday in Lisbon.  Mr. Pompeo is saying “no” and Mr. Netanyahu is saying “yes”. The narrative of denial is certainly not new for the Trump Administration when the truth is inconvenient, which it frequently is, particularly in difficult diplomatic situations.  Is Mr. Trump now dissatisfied with Mr. Netanyahu, and would like to see him go, and thus, he is creating an environment that will make that easier to happen.  We will have to wait and see.  It is fairly obvious that loyalty is not one of Mr. Trump’s strong points.  

The stock market has entered new territory in the sense that individuals have been pulling out of the market on a consistent basis for well over a year and going into safer investments, such as bonds, money market funds, treasury bills, etc.  Obviously, this means that the stock market is being driven by institutional investors which can create a much greater likelihood of manipulation.

In other trade related news, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is essentially about to go out of business as a result of the actions of the Trump Administration.  The Appellate body for the WTO consisting of three judges will cease functioning as the terms of the remaining two judges expired this past Tuesday, thus, disputes appealed will fall into limbo.  This is all part of the Trump Administration’s anti-trade policies and although this organization has functioned for almost 70 years and helped to maintain a balance in trade relations, the loss of the WTO as a functioning body will adversely affect American businesses.  In a few years, America’s businesses will begin to reap the benefits of what Mr. Trump has sowed, and likely will be calling for the revitalization of the WTO.  This is simply another short-sighted irresponsible act by POTUS. 

Reaching a deal on the USMCA is important in order to create a seamless transition from NAFTA to the USMCA and stability for our region. Our Canadian neighbors have felt insecure since January of 2016 which has created a hesitancy to invest with us.  The political back story is that democratic moderates won the day with Speaker Pelosi and moved the agreement forward when it otherwise may have languished until next year decreasing its likelihood of passage. The next step will be passage by the Canadian Parliament and reconsideration by the Mexican Parliament who have compromised to reach this new version which contains provisions required by Democrats for passage and fought by the Trump Administration.  The irony is that the Trump Administration’s own analysis is that the USMCA will have minimal substantive impact on the US economy.  We look forward to increasing trade with Canada and producing more jobs for our region.

Senator Graham reacts to the report of the FBI Inspector General by saying “What scares me the most is that the power to open up a counterintelligence investigation is almost unlimited.  The power to abuse it is exactly what your report tells us about.”  This is a bit ironic since he voted “yes” on the FISA renewal in 2018.  I voted “no” on this issue when in Congress because we know unchecked power gets abused- think J. Edgar and Nixon.

Bill Owens is a former member of Congress representing the New York 21st, a partner in Stafford Owens in Plattsburgh, NY and a Senior Advisor to Dentons to Washington, DC.

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

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