wider lens about other energy related matters that seem at least to us to question why some of those who have openly fought for free markets are now seemingly siding with the interest of their supporters political supporters this is particularly the case in the energy area here discussed as a director of public citizen's energy program tyson slocum i said thank you for being with us again always a pleasure so then tell me if we are overstating it here but when you were here earlier and. we talked about this coal program that they were proposing and it was that they were going to mandate regardless of price they are going to mandate that you buy call a nuclear on the grid and forget about the free market forget about what's most efficient for your shareholders or your customers you're going to buy this stuff whether or not it's good for the environment or bad and now we see there's also california's talking about expanding into more of a regional grid a regional power plant basis and there's a story where you're quoted in the san francisco chronicle that raised some critics

questions about sort of the influence in the weather in others in order to influence in this area that's a lot to get to grow i hope our viewers will bear with us let's take it one one at a time first what's the coal plant and where is it right now yes so secretary perry he's the secretary of energy came up with this proposal back in september of two thousand and seventeen to force consumers in taxpayers to spend billions of dollars a year to provide direct subsidies to owners of coal and nuclear power plants that the secretary of energy claimed were being rendered prematurely an economic because of pressures of cheap renewable energy and what the secretary of energy was saying was that coal and nuclear bring fuel security and fuel diversity to the nation's electric grid and that provides national security value and so from a national security standpoint. secretary perry was saying we need to bail out

these coal and nuclear and mandate the purchase of some of the electricity they generate that's right so the bail out would occur under potentially two different statutes section two to see of the federal power act that would require rate payers to subsidize these another possible avenue is using the one nine hundred fifty defense production act which would approach which would require appropriations or tax dollars to bail out these facilities either way households would pay ok it's such an odd circumstance because i mean i'm a free market guy but i want sideboards i want to make sure we don't have any problems out there but by and large you know conservatives been free markets free markets don't touch this stuff and here they are mandating the purchase even if it's an economic let's move to california you were quoted in the san francisco chronicle today bravo and very informative and lightning to see you in there tyson but tell us about this circumstance with the power plant that is an economical and

has been purchased by a large contributor from texas actually the trump campaign who is now seeking to have the federal energy regulatory commission change the rules of the game so it doesn't go under that's absolutely correct so in december a guy name and. who is a billionaire based in dallas he own something called beall bank. and he emerged from bankruptcy as the loan owner in december of a very large natural gas power plant in california called la paloma and then in june his company filed what's known as an emergency two zero six application at the federal energy regulatory commission saying the exact same thing perry did saying all of these renewables in the california electricity market are making my new power plant to be an economic and so we need to rewrite market rules to deliver bigger guaranteed payments to my natural gas power plant which of course would.

come at the detriment of consumers and renewables so i filed a protest about on friday pointing out how to approach us with exactly pointing out how absurd this whole proposal is and also i was the first to make the links between the owner of the power plant andy below and his financial connections to donald trump so he's given you know much you contributed to over three million dollars three million yet right so over what happened to mccain feingold and campaign limits because a lot of it is through what's known as super pacs which because of the two thousand and ten million dollars that's right so most of that is to trump super pac so and during the campaign trump named andy below one of his top economic policy advisers so this is someone that doesn't just give money to trump but also has trump's ear so what i said in my filing is it looks like there's a connection here between the aggressive bailout effort that the department of

energy is trying to push through and what andy below is doing in california that the key thing for me i mean the politics you know i love politics but you know we focus on business here but this is these are really important policy provisions for not just rate payers in california but with regard to the coal plant for all consumers all across the united states we are so glad you are on the case making these filings doing your work i'll tell our viewers i was trying to look up your filing earlier and i and i told you i found for your request freedom of information act requests from the ninety's that you were filing you've been a good consumer advocate for a long time and your friend of the show thank you tyson slocum director of public citizens energy program thank you. and now we move back to housing and a lack of housing inventory has some questioning if home prices will continue to be driven up here to weigh in as debby blurted the c.e.o. of deal b. financial services joins us from texas debbie welcome back it's so nice i know it

takes you a while to get your we so much appreciate it what do you think about this lack of them good tory will it keep moving prices up. it is going to yes a little bit and the inventory is going to catch up at some point builders are getting a little bit more money consumers are going to drive this race though but i mean consumers they drive if they can i mean if prices continue to go up you know there's going to be a lot of want to be home buyers who can't afford it and i guess you know from one perspective you say well you can't afford it you can't afford it or lower your expert expectation but we've already seen home sales slowing down in some parts of the country so i guess my question to you is if home prices are so high and people can't keep buying them won't we have a glut on the market and what will that do to housing you're going to have a glut of houses on the market that prices are going to be stable just because of demand but that investors are going to take those that not home buyers so investors

are going to buy the houses renovate them a little bit have put them back up for rent and then those people that don't have a big enough down payment have bad credit they're going to be able to rent those houses we've got have an onslaught of people that right now can't afford their first time home because first time homes in different markets could be starting at three hundred thousand dollars they're going to be renters and how about housing starts i mean we just you know we talked about earlier about the great second quarter the economy is moving forward best q two since two thousand and twelve but at the same time it seems that we're seeing start sort of drop off a little bit what should we expect going into fall and how will that impact sort of regional the nation's national housing market. well i think in several areas the housing starts are moving to the suburbs because the cities are full so you're to see housing starts in the suburbs but that's going to be slower you know people don't want to drive an hour to get to work so they're going to take an option maybe

to rent and rent in the cities where it's closer it's going to be location it's also going to be where are the banks lending the money so community banks to do a lot of lending for smaller homebuilders have to lend within a certain territory or they don't get to lend at all so where those banks are located those builders are going to go to those banks and they're going to build where they are zip code is where those codes are to allow the suburbs area to grow so you're to see more building in the suburbs is just going to be slow banks can't lend out all the money that's available with all the rules and regulations from dodd frank so it's going to be slow going for a while people are going to have to start buying homes that have already been lived in and the new host housing starts will slow down unless there's a custom home and they're going to be getting their own financing before we go let me ask you this question we know that the federal reserve is poised to raise interest rates you know but the bets are like ninety percent they're going to raise in september is now the time homebuyer i should you know go ahead and strike while

the iron is not too hot. right everybody says the shyest wait until next year maybe inventory will be better yeah but it's going to cost you more so my expectation what i've figured out in the market is that every time the fed talks just say that there's going to be a quarter of a percent hit to the interest rates so that house is now going to cost you maybe six percent next year in interest where right now it's hovering around the four point seven five five percent so you would get a newer house maybe it's going to cost you more and it's going to cost you more to borrow the money my favorite time to buy is right now plus all those people that wanted to sell their homes like before the school year begin and still are holding on to them they may be dropping the prices too so there might be some other deals out there at least effort some my real estate broker tell me debbie boyd the c.e.o. of deal b. financial services thank you so much debbie sorry got to go now appreciate your time bank. it is time now for a quick break but stick around because when we return we question the big four

accounting firms are too cozy for comfort with their clients report which the c.e.o. of strong mark joins us and there is a merger madness in the hospital sector is more evident activity seems to be less health care for many americans steve malzberg weighs in on that important to finally talk a topic as we go to break here are the numbers at the closing bell already errol's on star will be right there. most people think to stand out in this business you need to be the first one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest raid in truth to

stand out in the news business you just need to ask the right questions and demand the right answer. questions.

welcome back british breakfast secretary dominic robb has acknowledged the process of negotiating united kingdom's departure from the european union is unlikely to finish an agreement before a summit in october in response to questions from parliamentarians and committee mr rob gingerly alluded to the quote possibility that the october deadline would be missed which most observers see as a near certainty mr rubb subtle concession to the consensus view on the status of

brecht's it came as he prepares to meet with e.u. negotiators next week and u.k. negotiators struggle to find a solution on the post brecht's that irish border that would be acceptable to their hard line coalition partners from northern ireland in the democratic unionist party or do you pete northern are. ireland is under defacto u.k. sovereignty meaning an exit from the e.u. would make their border with ireland a border with the u. e.u. ireland insist on effective possibly electronic border controls in that scenario where the do you pick which has enough votes to bring down the narrow conservative coalition has rejected e.u. proposals on the issue. and turning from the admiral isles to the english channel a battle is brewing between british and french fishermen over scallops scallops you heard right with some calling for an intervention of the royal navy on tuesday competing groups of french and british fishing boats confronted each other in an area of the channel twelve miles off the coast one british witness compared it to

a scene out of vietnam as boats were rammed and smoke bombs and flares were fired french fishermen accuse british colleagues of overfishing the prized regionals gallops the french fishermen have limited scalloping season and area while the british apparently were only restrained by an expectation that they would not take advantage of the french off season where they say about the best laid plans a spokesman from the european commission recalled a similar past dispute and urged that the latest episode be resolved in an amicable fashion. the big four accounting firms k p m g ernst and young pricewaterhouse coopers and doughboy to shove all had their share of troubled times in the wake of the enron debacle legislators and regulators around the world scrambled to address issues relating to board governance the independence of accounting firms internal and external audit reporting and transparency and on and on and on and on regulators in the us the securities and exchange commission at the public company accounting oversight board and with the independent an auditor

rotation mandates as part of the well known sarbanes oxley act from two thousand and two were put in place in the u.k. the government established a coordinating group of audit and accounting issues the c.g. a and impressive group of regulators and. recommendation became the primary framework for assuring the u.k.'s independence but even with all that there still seems to be problems regulatory fines against one of the big four have become routine business scandals despite efforts to empower boards to fill their produce your responsibilities the relationship between c.e.o.'s and chief financial officers boards and the managing account partners on multi-million dollar contracts and accounts on which the partners bonuses are based are just too comfy and too cozy for many here to discuss is someone actually work for one of the firms back in the day the c.e.o. of marc that was a lot to get to i want to get a lot of information out there's a baseline you know i have lived this stuff we've talked about it before what's

your take on all of it ok so it is a very important issue because ninety eight percent of course of all the companies on the put c one hundred and also the s. and p. are of course audited by the big four so this is a critical issue the main issue of course is objectivity because the big four are working actually on the part of investors where they're actually retained by the very they actually are supposed to scrutinize so that's where the objectivity comes in to of course account and you mentioned sawbones oxley that did change things dramatically restricting order from an able to provide the same consulting services to those same clients they used to be able to like you say consulting that is a kinder gentler word for lobbying also they used to actually be able to lobby right they used to have to lobby yes as well but consulting in advisory services that's what oxley has restricted in the us there is actually cool globally for sort of the dutch model the dutch model allows absolutely no consulting with any audit clients and of course the audit thing side of companies is only going about three

percent since two thousand and twelve whereas the consulting sides go to about forty four percent i think what's important are the steps that global companies these big four taking to rectify the situation they're taking it very seriously thought and they're making a lot of changes but one of the changes and then are they going to be good enough. deal with it i think they're going at least in the right direction i can get say that they definitely will take care of everything but here's a couple of examples for example i don't still young they've changed their entire bonus structure to make sure that the part of their bonuses that are the partners come in and actually audit over those accounts that are out there and make as you know my wife very happy who is a lot of good to hear that what about what about good citizen good some good things about him gee they took things they've taken things very seriously think about four of the steps they've taken is and to do with integrity order to governance and actually what's called a speak up program they've got so we instituted a program where they're encouraging their employees to speak up and actually report sort of whistle blow on the accounts and that's encouragement from within i think that's a very positive step you know those whistleblower things are great and they appear

great on the outside but i've worked a lot with the programs in government and it really depends what you know deify or somebody that comes to you what protections do you have do you get demoted all those things sort of also change their bonus structure they've also encouraging the partners in the same way that a young has and they've encouraged them to be more rigorous and i think that's taken very seriously because we don't want to have another situation like broke up after anderson and all the big four very cognizant of that. it was bad hopefully it's getting better it's just this year seems to be you know particularly have a long year i mean you know the south african banning gay p.m.g. don't have a trillion scandal in south africa the general did not ban k p m g from all south africa no actually it was stated that is only from public institutions and government order to their commercial clients and there's still a partial bit but not a total ban in south hillary ford which thank you as always for being here really appreciate your take on the early welcome.

apolo global management a private equity company has finalized the deal to buy the rural hospital system life point health based in brentwood tennessee for five point six billion dollars life point has seen revenue decreases and apollo even revised their offer downward based upon those negative numbers the sale affects at least sixty nine health systems of hospitals in over twenty two states across the u.s. life point health branded itself as quote committed to providing the best possible care to hometowns as has been the case over the past three decades similar acquisitions are resulting in profit taking have resulted in the closing of hundreds of sole provider hospitals and both were in under-served inner city communities that are talked about m. and a activities in the hospital room is conservative t.v. and radio commentator steve malzberg steve welcome back thank you for being with us

the american hospital association says hospitals have been closing at a rate of roughly thirty each year what are the short and long term impacts particularly for what appears to be from the list of hospitals to be literate in rural areas and those in the inner cities are what's your take. well first of all this is a subject close to my heart because i'm a devout hypochondriac and in all seriousness what people need to go to the hospital they need to have a hospital available and less and less of the time this is this is the case now you talk about the rural areas this is particularly the case in the southern states and we're talking about florida you mentioned tennessee virginia. and this is this is going on for for a number of reasons these hospitals can't sustain themselves financially they have poor margins they need an upgrade in technology they have a shortage of patients and also they have a shortage of doctors in many cases so they're closing down in rural areas and

inner city areas and once that happens it's not just the patients that need the hospital that suffer if you've got a hospital in a rural area guess what you have surrounding it you have a pharmacy you have a diner you have a bank you know maybe now the mom and pop shop or two and they go belly up as well because all of a sudden the hospitals not they're there they're not needed so it's a it's a bad situation all the way around yeah and the jobs that all those places you just mentioned in the past steve you know closures have often been in communities where the hospital bed occupancy was just low i mean the work there weren't enough hypochondriacs or other people there but a lot of those efficiency it will have already been seized by the the pioneer hospital companies tenet and columbia h.c.a. now increasing numbers of patients in these communities just can't pay for the sometimes really high exorbitant costs of health care and neither medicaid nor medicare are keeping up with the what's

a twelve to fifteen percent annual inflation and when we consider the recent hospital m. and a activity i mean who are likely to be the big losers but also steve the big winners. well for the big winners there are the companies that are able to purchase and or and do a merger acquire these smaller hospitals and the loser is always going to be the patient now it's a double edged sword part as you well know while as we mentioned before while the medical care the quality of care the quality of doctor the quality of technology that the capability of doing more tests tends to increase guess what as you should as you said the ability for the patient to pay is going to be less and less so on one hand they could get better care they get a higher quality of care but the insurance doesn't keep up with it and in many cases they just simply can't afford the treatment at all so it's a terrible double edged sword and it's the free market i'm afraid to say in many

cases failing the consumer in this case the consumer needs them for the you know for the the betterment of their health and their lives absolutely we know we're talking about the free market earlier with regard to energy and i love free markets but when they don't work you've got to figure them out some way and hopefully you do it in a fashion that's not too intrusive you know we have been talking for years i mean i used to work on this when i was at the agriculture department about tell of medicine you know getting to rural areas and you know that's pretty cool and everything and it was gee whiz back in the day but i mean my gosh i mean if i'm going to get surgery i want the guy there in the room with me and even these great things like a tele doc online or are going to a c.v.s. minute clinic i mean they're fine but it's not a real doctor it's not what you really need i mean is is there some sort of solution to this that seems easy or is it really as complicated as we all know

health care as an issue. well it's getting more and more complicated even if i make an appointment with my local doctor. asked me if i if i could come on this search day sooner than the appointment to see a nurse or to see a physician's assistant i mean that's the trend it's scary to me that you could be diagnosed or they would want you to be diagnosed over the phone or surgery could be conducted as you said remotely when the doctor is not in the room if that's where we're headed that that's our horrible situation and you know some hospitals are stepping up again at the short changing of the patient but nonetheless to prevent closure outright or even merger or acquisition what they do is they'll become micro hospitals and they'll go down to maybe ten bed maximum all become an emergency clinic only and just specialize in emergency medicine emergency care so again there's all different all different solutions but most most see themselves

financially unstable on a ball and they opt for the health through a buyout a closure or you know to be merged you know that's particularly the case with these mission based hospitals the religious hospitals etc who they just want to make a little bit of a profit but if they don't have the margin they don't have the profit then they can't make the mission and spare are available and have a conservative t.v. and radio host steve mauls burke thanks so much great discussion appreciate your time steve thank you bart. and that's it for this time thanks for watching you can catch boom bust on directv channel three twenty one dish network channel two eighty or streaming twenty four seven on pluto t.v. the free t.v. channel one thirty two or as always hit us up at youtube dot com slash boom bust r.t. later. it's

not that i'm going to let happen other than our good luck though that not a lot of the money out of the money there's been a nightmare actually. this was a good time to. try to move there i find. no luck there i want to get my money enough why not general grant our son why it generated the hall people we believe is a little bit here. a lot of my kids i don't want them up with so johnny boy are at the moment i thought a mother had a lot of concerns are there a lot of them and i'm a little work in my building or throughout the pimp i don't want to put out a love to my work party without all the mother brother to.

the. world that i'm not enough they would sit through it. it was of i was from somewhere you know. i came back to the community. and people we are based on the you know the road look at me or look out is over iraq going towards him. to lie. you. see. she's going to. receive money telling me because of. what it should be but still. no. well this. was

just last topping the my life. i seem on have to die. because you know provision on my back when i wanted it was understood i like. oh. you're so you'll know i lost his boss because you know that then you just gotta go with us as you know just like any of those in person but that's honest i don't know if it is for any of them. so i says you know you're not. you're not just i mean most what i'm already but i respect the part of me just a lot of the media and even the law we're going to. give it up as well i must admit that really feels i just don't get off on getting noticed but those lazio's.

just. my family fussy about my just but that's already yes it will be and he thought of getting up there calling us implementing my thought aloud. pranking gave americans a lot of new job opportunities i needed to come up here to make some money like me twenty five thousand dollars as a teacher or i could make fifty thousand dollars a year truck so i chose to drive trucks people who rushed to a small town in north dakota was an unemployment rate of zero percent like gold rush is very very similar to a gold rush but this beautiful story ended with pollution and devastation a lot of people have left here i don't know too many people here and just slow down so much they lost jobs got laid off the american dream is changing that's not what

it used to be. that's a tough reality to deal with. ten days ahead of sweden's general election at a rally where a parliamentary candidate claims he was attacked by a migrant. the nobel committee says that myanmar's prime minister should keep the peace prize despite a un report on the mass killing of the country's range of minority. information on the murder of russian journalists in the central african republic and serious security lapses in the preparation of the trip. the people in white declaring war on the yellow ribbons in the spanish city. will tell you why.