general in thein u.s.nd globally is doing well, i think they will be best there will be some willingness look past the flatness of the curve. julie: joining me general in the u.s. and globally is doing is kn gaffne, and from pasadena, california is julien scholnick and ira jersey from bloomberg intelligence. thank you for joining us. there are a lot of issues we have way this year thus far -- far,ed this year thus probably the biggest being the flattening of the curve. what happens in 2018? kathleen: i don't have a crystal ball of the flattening of the curve indicates we are in late stages of the economic cycle. i think there is a lot of fear the next stage is recession. i'm not so concerned about that, although i worry about the technicals. we are seeing the curve start to normalize. rates have moved up on the short end. they are going back to normal. it is not really a tightening. the question is, what does that mean for fixed income returns and does it create selling pressure? julie: what you make of th

that thein recent days president may be looking at a top to bottom review of the u.s. social services programs of which snap will undoubtedly be included. are some of the efforts you have on flexibility playing into what this effort could be? what could you see as changes to under a program in usda presidential top to bottom review? >> it's speculative to think about. the president and his team are looking at welfare reforms generally. the snap program is included in the farm bill. we will proceed until something else comes about. the overall goal -- i think if you look back, the most informative thing is to look back and read the initial statutory language dealing with the food stamps or supplemental nutrition and its stated in there, this was a temporary supplemental type of thing hopefully guiding and leading people to self-sufficiency in several lines. that's what most american people -- the american people are generous, they are compassionate, they want to help people when they are down. i think most american people don't believe if you are able, that should be a

u.s. so you don't have to deal with them once they are here. you deal with them abroad. -23 is theinanada, c name of the bill that passed -- before, if you are a canadian citizen, you went to preclearance, and you decided i don't like the questioning so i am going to leave, you could leave, and there is nothing the u.s. customs officers could do. under this new legislation, they can question you. they can even detain you. they cannot arrest you, but they can detain you if they have detainng, and they can you until the canadian law enforcement officials get there. so, as you reference, there was outcry from people who were saying why are we letting u.s. law enforcement officers do this on canadian soil to canadian citizens? amy: can you talk about the number of ice agents who are abroad? 300 yes, there are about ice agents abroad in about 50 different countries, and these are primarily people from homeland security investigations, which is a part of ice, the investigative wing of ice. what they do is target transnational criminal organizations. they do visa security investigations for