Week in Review

---

Week in Review

01/29/2022

For the week 1/24-1/28

[Posted 9:30 PM ET, Friday]

Note: StocksandNews has significant ongoing costs, and your support is greatly appreciated.  Please click on the gofundme link or send a check to PO Box 990, New Providence, NJ 07974.

Edition 1,189

The next 2-4 weeks are going to be chaotic and unsettling.  China will be opening the Beijing Winter Olympics, with no fans due to Covid, and a government that is not going to tolerate any hint of protest by the athletes.

“Any behavior or speech that is against the Olympic spirit, especially against the Chinese laws and regulations, are also subject to certain punishment.”

It is a disgrace China got a second Olympics when they just had one in 2008.

And since the government essentially is in charge of testing, I will not be in the least bit surprised if they stick it to an American athlete… “You tested positive…you can’t compete.  Now quarantine.”

I know Mikaela Shiffrin tested positive just about a month ago, but I fear for her and other high-profile Americans such as figure skater Nathan Chen.

But once the Olympics are over, China will harass Taiwan non-stop, and it could escalate quickly.

Meanwhile, we wait to see if Vladimir Putin shows up in Beijing on Friday (Thurs. p.m. New York time) for the opening ceremonies.  No one knows what his thinking is on Ukraine and the timing, and whether he waits to move until after the Games are over.

Today, in a rare news conference, Army General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said if Russia unleashes the forces it has amassed near Ukraine’s border to invade its neighbor, the outcome would be “horrific” and result in significant casualties, comparing this moment to the Cold War.

Milley said that given the types of forces Russia has arrayed, “all of it packaged together, if that was unleashed on Ukraine, it would be significant, very significant, and it would result in a significant amount of casualties.”

Milley added: “And you can imagine what that might look like in dense urban areas, along roads and so on and so forth.  It would be horrible, it would be terrible.”

Speaking alongside Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that while the United States does not believe Putin has made a decision whether to invade, he now has the military capability to do so.

“[There] are multiple options available to [Putin] including the seizure of cities and significant territories, but also coercive acts and provocative political acts like the recognition of breakaway territories,” Austin said.  He said the United States remains focused on countering Russian disinformation, including anything that could be used as a pretext for attacks on Ukraine.  He added that the United States was committed to helping Ukraine defend itself and noted U.S. provisions of additional anti-armor weaponry.

For his part, Putin said today the United States and NATO had not addressed Moscow’s main security demands but that Moscow was ready to keep talking.  Putin issued his first public reaction in a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron after weeks of public silence on the crisis.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia did not want war.

Three U.S. officials told Reuters today that Russia’s military buildup had expanded to include supplies of blood along with other medical materials to treat casualties, in a further sign of Russia’s readiness.

Much more below.

---

I watched the entire funeral service for slain NYPD Officer Jason Rivera today from St. Patrick’s Cathedral and it was incredibly moving.

I was surprised at the end, though, that Rivera’s widow, Dominique Luzuriaga, had the strength to address the thousands inside, and the thousands of police officers from all over the country lining Fifth Avenue, a dramatic “sea of blue.”  It took amazing courage.

But while she shared touching memories of her hero husband, she also took aim at the controversial Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, recently elected and in the audience.

“The system continues to fail us, we are not safe anymore, not even the members of the service,” Luzuriaga told those in attendance.

“I know you were tired of these laws, especially the ones from the new DA (District Attorney),” she continued.  “I hope he’s watching you speak through me right now.”

The Cathedral echoed with applause as she wiped tears from her eyes.

Bragg has been facing intense heat after issuing a “Day 1” policy memo outlining prosecutorial policies, such as charging robbery in a commercial setting as petty larceny in certain circumstances and not seeking pretrial detention except for the most violent cases.

I have more on this below, but there are already calls for his removal from office and, just as in Los Angeles with their pathetic top prosecutor, George Gascon, this is becoming a national issue, the two symbolic of disastrous ‘woke’ policies.

But I can’t help but note some of Dominique’s other words that were so haunting, so raw, and so sad, as she talked about their last day together when Officer Rivera went off for his fateful shift.

“This Friday was different.  We had an argument [Ed. at this, I thought, omigod, don’t go there, Dominique…], you know it’s hard being a cop’s wife sometimes.  It’s hard being patient when plans were canceled or we would go days without seeing each other or when you’d have to write  a report that would take forever because you’d have to voucher so many things, so you did OT….

“This Friday, we were arguing because I didn’t want you to use your job phone while we were together.  You were so mad that you took your LeBron jersey down, gave me your chain and put the lotions I gave you for your ashy hands in the bag and said, ‘Here, take them.’  We left your apartment and because I didn’t want to continue to argue, I ordered an Uber.  You asked me if ‘you are sure that you don’t want me to take you home. It might be the last ride I give you.’  I said, ‘no’ and that was probably the biggest mistake I ever made.”

It was heartbreaking to hear her say this and the amazing pain that moment will be for Dominique the rest of her life.

“Later that day, I received the call I wish none of you that are sitting here with me will ever receive.  I had gotten a notification from the Citizen app, which was my central. And I saw that two police officers were shot in Harlem.  My heart dropped. I immediately texted you and asked, ‘Are you okay?  Please tell me you’re okay.  I know that you’re mad right now but just text me you’re okay, at least tell me you’re busy.’  I get no response.”

And then Dominique got a call, telling her to get to Harlem Hospital. 

---

Biden Agenda…and other related stuff…

--Liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring, thus giving President Biden an opportunity to fill the seat with a liberal, rather than risk losing the Senate in 2022 and having zero shot at doing so should the 83-year-old Breyer have opted to hang on and then he drops dead in like 2023.  [Sorry, we’re talking the Supreme Court…little sentimentality here.]

Breyer has been a justice since 1994, appointed by President Clinton.

So now it will be SC nomination news, 24/7.  Just give me the name and move on to the confirmation hearings.

That said, U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is my guess, though U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs, whom Biden has nominated to be an appeals court justice, is a favorite of Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), and Biden owes Clyburn everything, as you all know.

Biden promised on the campaign trail to nominate, if given the opportunity, a black woman, and so it will be.  As Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says, “elections have consequences” and this is what it’s all about.  The ability to nominate Supreme Court justices, Sen. Graham having already voted ‘yes’ on the confirmation of Judge Jackson, which is why I think she’s the one.  As in it would be nice to get a few Republicans voting ‘yes’ to whomever Biden selects.

--It was rather ironic that President Biden’s scheduled trip to Pittsburgh on Friday to tout his infrastructure plan included a tour of a major bridge collapse in the city this morning that thankfully resulted in only minor injuries…shocking when you see the pictures.

The administration is hoping to tout the $1 trillion piece of legislation as a selling point in the midterm elections.

--After several high-profile test failures that have slowed hypersonic weapon development, Defense Secretary Austin has summoned the CEOs of America’s largest defense companies to the Pentagon for a face-to-face meeting next week, according to Defense One.

The purpose of the Feb. 3 meeting is to stress the urgency in fielding the fast-flying weapons as the U.S. plays catch up to recent Chinese and Russian advances, and perhaps North Korea, according to people with knowledge of the meeting.

This is embarrassing…and deeply troubling.  It is highly likely China and Russia have fielded operational hypersonic glide vehicles – potentially armed with nuclear weapons,” and we don’t have that capability…at least reliably so.

Both the Trump and Biden administrations fast-tracked hypersonic weapon development, but it’s been like one test success, two failures…one success, two failures…

--The Republican Party is split on the Russia-Ukraine issue. My congressman here, Dem. Tom Malinowski, said his New Jersey office began fielding calls from constituents who argued that Russia is only seeking peace by massing forces on the Ukrainian border and that America should stay out of the conflict.  Several callers have mentioned Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has suggested that the United States should be supporting Moscow instead of Kyiv.

The calls demonstrate a split in how Republicans are responding to Russia’s military buildup.  While many Republicans on Capitol Hill are criticizing Biden for being too weak on Russian leader Vladimir Putin, far-right members of the party are painting Russia as the victim and lambasting Biden for provoking Moscow.  This is similar to the days of Donald Trump, who publicly sided with Putin over the U.S. government and said that he and the Russian leader get along.

Lawmakers from both parties, despite the differences among both sides in this conflict, have been able to work together and a bipartisan congressional delegation traveled to Ukraine earlier this month.

But outside Congress, the likes of Carlson are telling large audiences that the United States should not risk starting a war with Russia by supporting Ukraine.

“Why is it disloyal to side with Russia but loyal to side with Ukraine?” Carlson said on his show Monday night.  “They’re both foreign countries that don’t care anything about the United States.  Kind of strange.”

This echoes the isolationist views of Trump, who said during the campaign in 2015 that Putin is “highly respected” and that it was a “great honor” to be complimented by the Russian leader.

“There are a lot of killers.  We have a lot of killers,” Trump told Fox’s Bill O’Reilly in 2017, when pressed on Putin’s record of extrajudicial killings.  “Well, you think our country is so innocent?”

Further comment below.

Wall Street and the Economy

As expected, the Federal Reserve signaled on Wednesday that they were on track to raise interest rates in March and reaffirmed plans to end its bond purchases that month as well before launching what was characterized as a significant reduction in its asset holdings (balance sheet).

The combined moves will complete the Fed’s pivot away from the loose monetary policy that has defined the coronavirus pandemic era and toward a more urgent fight against inflation.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell, speaking at a news conference after the end of a two-day policy meeting, said the Fed will be open-minded as it adjusts monetary policy to keep persistently high inflation from becoming entrenched. 

“At this time, we haven’t made any decisions about the path of policy,” Powell said.  “I stress again that we’ll be humble and nimble.”

But he also said: “I would say that the committee is of a mind to raise the federal funds rate at the March meeting, assuming that the conditions are appropriate for doing so.”

The Fed chief said policymakers have “quite a bit of room to raise interest rates without threatening the labor market” as they remove the extraordinary support provided during the pandemic.

“The economy is quite different this time,” Powell said.  “With inflation well above 2 percent and a strong labor market, the Committee expects it will soon be appropriate to raise the target range for the (benchmark) federal funds rate,” the Fed’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee said in a unanimous statement.

The Fed had previously telegraphed three rate hikes in 2022, but barring a catastrophic new Covid variant, or something widespread on the geopolitical front, the die seems cast for more than three hikes of a ¼-point each.

Or…it could hike rates a ½-point in March, a belief that is gaining some support.

As always, though, it’s going to be data dependent.

Some analysts, such as at Goldman Sachs, believe the Fed will be forced to raise rates six times, not 3 or 4.  Matthew Luzzetti, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank, said if inflation is uncomfortably high later this year, “they may need to move at every meeting,” which would be seven rate hikes.  [There are eight FOMC meetings each year.]

A bigger issue, to be decided over the next few policy meetings (the next one March 15-16, then May 3-4), is how to pare down the Fed’s nearly $9 trillion balance sheet.

Globally, the supply chain continues to be a mess, whether it’s the port of Los Angeles and a still-huge backlog of ships, or ports in Shanghai and Rotterdam. Commodities costs, after taking a break last fall, are rising again, best exhibited by the price of oil.  And this hits everyone, not just consumers in the United States.

So major companies are hiking prices.  Procter & Gamble, for example, told investors last week that higher commodity costs represented a $2.3 billion annual head wind while freight costs were up $300 million.  Ergo, it raised prices in all product categories.

As for the economic data released this week, it was important.  We had our first look at fourth-quarter GDP, a robust 6.9%. For all of 2021, the U.S. economy expanded 5.7%, the strongest calendar-year growth since a 7.2% surge in 1984 after a previous recession.

But as strong as the number is, Thursday’s report contained warning signs as most of the growth owed to companies’ restocking rather than people and firms buying stuff.  And we see that in some of the numbers that were released today. 

Americans reined in their shopping toward the end of the quarter as Omicron triggered a new wave of infections and higher prices cut into paychecks.

Forecasters surveyed by the Wall Street Journal this month slashed their expectations for growth in the first quarter by more than a percentage point, to a 3% annual rate from their forecast of 4.2% in the October survey.

And now the Fed is taking away the punchbowl.

GDP (seasonally adjusted annualized rates)

Q4 2021…6.9 percent
Q3 2021…2.3
Q2 2021…6.7
Q1 2021…6.3
Q4 2020…4.5
Q3 2020…33.8
Q2 2020… -31.2
Q1 2020… -5.1
Q4 2019…1.9
Q3 2019…2.8

2021…5.7
2020… -3.4
2019…2.3

I just wanted to give you a sense of the rollercoaster the economy has been on since Covid hit the country early 2020.  The numbers will no doubt look more normal over the coming years.

By the way, the Atlanta Fed’s last GDPNow figure for the fourth quarter was 6.5% on Wednesday, prior to release of the actual report, so a pretty good job by them.

Among the other data on the week:

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price 20-city index grew 18.3%, year-over-year, down from 18.5% in October.

Some markets are posting stunning gains.  Phoenix, Tampa, and Miami saw the highest year-over-year gains among the 20 cities in November, with increases of 32.2%, 29.0% and 26.6%, respectively.

But we’re likely to see a little downward price pressure beginning with the December Case-Shiller report.  A recent survey from Realtor.com found that 14 of the top 50 largest U.S. cities experienced listing price declines over the prior year in December.

December new home sales came in at 811,000 annualized, better than expected and up 12% month-over-month, but down 14% year-over-year.

December durable goods were weak, -0.9%.

And then we had December personal income, up a disappointing 0.3%, while consumption (consumer spending) fell 0.6%.

A key in this report, however, was the Fed’s preferred inflation benchmark, the personal consumption expenditure index, which on core, ex-food and energy, was in line with expectations.  Up 0.5%, 4.9% year-over-year.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department on Tuesday said the U.S. manufacturers and other companies that use semiconductors are down to less than five days of inventory for key chips, according to a new survey.

In 2019, companies typically maintained 40 days of inventory for key chips, according to the Commerce Department.  Secretary Gina Raimondo (who is a definite potential Democratic presidential candidate for 2024), said the results show the urgency for Congress, specifically the House, to approve the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, which includes $52 billion to boost domestic chip production.

“We aren’t even close to being out of the woods as it relates to the supply problems with semiconductors,” Raimondo told reporters Tuesday.  “The semiconductor supply chain is very fragile, and it is going to remain that way until we can increase chip production.”

The Commerce Department report said that with such thin inventories, a closure of an overseas factory for more than a few days can exhaust a company’s inventories.

“This means a disruption overseas, which might shut down a semiconductor plant for 2-3 weeks, has the potential to disable a manufacturing facility and furlough workers in the United States if that facility only has 3-5 days of inventory.”

The House has come up with a different version of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act and there are differences in the two versions, which will set up some conflict with Republicans in the Senate who had voted on a bipartisan version for the legislation months ago.

Europe and Asia

We had the flash PMI readings for January in the eurozone, courtesy of IHS Markit, and the composite PMI was 52.4, an 11-month low, with manufacturing at 55.8, services 51.2 (50 the dividing line between growth and contraction).

Germany: Mfg. 58.4, services 52.2
France: Mfg. 50.8, services 53.1

UK: Mfg. 53.8, services 53.3

Germany’s numbers improved as some supply bottlenecks eased.

Chris Williamson / IHS Markit

“The Omicron wave has led to yet another steep drop in spending on many consumer-facing services at the start of the year, with tourism, travel and recreation especially hard hit.  However, so far the overall impact on the wider economy appears relatively muted, and most encouraging is the further easing of manufacturing supply chain delays despite the renewed virus wave.  Not only has the alleviating supply crunch helped factories boost production, but cost pressures in manufacturing have also moderated.

“Importantly, while the Omicron wave has dented prospects in the service sector, the impact so far looks less severe than prior waves.  Meanwhile, perceived prospects have improved among manufacturers, linked to fewer supply shortages, adding to the brightening outlook.

“In the meantime, however, prices for goods and services are rising at a joint-record rate as increasing wages and energy costs offset the easing in producers’ raw material prices, dashing hopes of any imminent cooling of inflationary pressures.”

Brexit / Boris Johnson: The British prime minister was under the gun yet again after new revelations emerged of him partying during the Covid shutdown of the spring of 2020, including a birthday party for him.

Wednesday, Johnson said he would not resign, but agreed ministers who knowingly mislead parliament should step down. Answering questions in parliament, Johnson was accused by opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer of changing his story over the gatherings and was asked whether he would step down.  “No,” Johnson replied.

On the Brexit front, UK foreign secretary Liz Truss and European Commission vice-president Maros Sefociv have agreed to hold further talks on the Northern Ireland protocol next week after they failed to make a breakthrough at a meeting in Brussels on Monday.

Both sides stressed the importance of improving the British-EU relationship in the light of shared global challenges, an apparent reference to the dispute with Russia over Ukraine.

Sefcovic said that he was “not in the business of setting artificial deadlines” but promised to act with a sense of urgency to reach agreement.  He said the EU remained steadfast in its efforts to facilitate the implementation of the protocol on the ground while safeguarding the integrity of the EU’s single market.

“Ultimately it is about ensuring stability, predictability and prosperity in Northern Ireland, bearing in mind that the protocol represents the one and only solution found jointly in light of Brexit to protect the gains of the peace process and avoid a hard Border on the island of Ireland,” he said.

Britain has called for a thorough revision of the protocol to remove checks and procedures for all goods from Britain that are destined to remain in Northern Ireland.

“If political goodwill is maintained, our discussions could lead to a timely agreement on durable solutions that would immediately and significantly help operators on the ground.  At the same time, I have remained clear that we need safeguards to protect the EU single market,” he said.

Italy: Lawmakers here have failed numerous times to elect a new head of state, with party leaders struggling to find a consensus candidate.  Although Prime Minister Mario Draghi remains a frontrunner, worries that his promotion to president might cause his coalition government to disintegrate and trigger early national elections have clouded his prospects.

Much is at stake.  The Italian presidency comes with a seven-year mandate and has considerable power – including appointing prime ministers and dissolving parliament – to resolve political crises that regularly batter the country.

Today, Italy suddenly moved closer to electing its first ever female president after five days of stalemate.

A likely candidate was Elisabetta Belloni, a career diplomat who heads the secret services, with Justice Minister Marta Cartabia also in the reckoning.

“I am working so that we have a smart, woman president,” rightist League leader Matteo Salvini told reporters after meeting the heads of the two main center-left parties, the Democratic Party (PD) and 5-Star Movement.  It looks like we’ll have a selection Saturday.

Turning to Asia…zero economic news of interest in China this week as the Lunar New Year holiday commences Tuesday ( as well as the Olympics later).

In Japan, the flash PMIs for January revealed manufacturing at 53.5, services 46.6; the latter poor performance due to renewed Covid restrictions.

South Korea reported fourth-quarter GDP came in at 4.1% annualized, 1.1% over Q3, buoyed by strong exports and improving consumption.  For all of 2021, the economy grew 4.0%, the strongest clip since 2010, thanks to exports, which expanded at their fastest pace in 11 years.

Street Bytes

--Stocks finally finished up for the week, solely due to a late-day massive rally Friday, with the Dow Jones ending up 1.3% to 34725, while the S&P 500 gained 0.8%.  Nasdaq needed a 3.1% rally today to finish in the black for the week, by two points, 0.01%, and is still down 12% for January with one day left in the month.

Earnings have generally been solid, but some companies are reporting margin pressures due to soaring costs and now it’s largely about the Fed, as well as geopolitics.

Next week we have a key employment report for January and some high-profile tech earnings.

--U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 0.41%  2-yr. 1.16%  10-yr. 1.77%  30-yr. 2.07%

Yields on the short end of the curve continue to inch up, while the long end has been incredibly stable, the weekly close on the 10-year between 1.76% and 1.78% the last four weeks.

Euro bond markets have also stabilized the past month.

--Oil hit $90 on Brent crude, the global benchmark, for the first time in seven years, with West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark I note weekly below, at $88. It’s about tight supply and rising tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine.  Russia is not only the key gas supplier to Europe, but it’s one of the world’s largest oil exporters, so markets are worried physical supplies could be disrupted.

It hasn’t helped that there have been Iran-backed Houthi missile attacks on leading oil producer United Arab Emirates from the Houthis base in Yemen.

And OPEC+ is having trouble meeting monthly production targets as it restores supply to markets after drastic cuts in 2020, and the U.S. is more than a million barrels short of its record level of daily output.

Today, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said that triple-digit oil prices are possible in the next few months as geopolitical risks and “struggling” supply hit global crude markets.

Wirth said that in contrast to recent years, such as Russia’s military build-up near Ukraine, are also starting to spook markets.

“A few years ago these types of events didn’t seem to really impact commodity markets, and today they seem to be doing so,” he said. Oil priced at “$100 is certainly within the realm of what we could see in the next few months.”

--Speaking of Chevron, it reported today that fourth-quarter earnings surged year-on-year but missed analysts’ estimates as lower oil and natural gas production outweighed the gains made from higher prices for the commodities.

Revenue soared to $48.13 billion from $25.25 billion a year earlier, with adjusted earnings of $2.56 per share, up from $0.16 a year ago, but the EPS figure was lower than consensus.

The company’s worldwide net oil-equivalent production decreased 5% to 3.12 million barrels per day

--Apple Inc. on Thursday reported record sales in the holiday quarter, beating estimates as it benefited from high iPhone demand in China while withstanding supply chain constraints and Omicron variant disruptions.  Apple shares rose 7% in response.

CEO Tim Cook had warned in October that chip shortages were affecting manufacturing of most Apple products and could lead to over $6 billion in lost sales.  The company now says that the effect had been more than $6 billion but that constraints would decrease in the current quarter, ending in March.

With few rival phones debuting in the holiday shopping season, the iPhone 13, which started shipping days before the quarter began, led to worldwide phone sales revenue for Apple of $71.6 billion, a 9% increase from the 2020 holiday season that handily beat Wall Street targets.

Apple’s smartphone market share in China reached a record 23% in the holiday quarter, when it was the top-selling vendor there for the first time in six years.

The company’s overall fiscal first-quarter revenue was a record $123.9 billion, up 11% from last year and higher than analysts’ average estimate of $118.7 billion.  Profit was $34.6 billion, also above forecasts.

Apple’s services business, which covers paid apps such as Apple TV+, Apple Music and Apple Fitness, saw an increase in revenue to $19.5 billion, up 24%.  The company has 785 million paying subscribers across its offerings, an increase from 620 million a year ago.

Sales for iPads fell 14% to $7.25 billion, while sales for Macs rose 25% to $10.9 billion.

--Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday forecast revenue for the current quarter broadly ahead of Wall Street targets, driven in part by its Intelligent Cloud unit.  The outlook soothed concerns about growth from the results of the holiday quarter.

Investors were seeking assurances that the enterprise cloud business is still growing strongly and will be looking at upcoming reports from Microsoft rivals Amazon.com and Alphabet Inc.’s Google next week in terms of their cloud business.

Executives forecast Intelligent Cloud revenue of $18.75 billion-$19 billion, above the Street’s current estimates, driven by “strong growth” in its Azure platform.

Total Microsoft revenue for the fiscal second quarter beat expectations but the outperformance did not flow through to the Azure cloud service.  Azure revenue growth of 46% was a little below expectations, and a steady drop from fiscal 2020 when growth was in the 60% range.

Microsoft has bet heavily on corporate software and services, especially its cloud services and the movement to the Web of its Outlook email and calendar software, known as Office 365.

Net income rose to $18.77 billion, or $2.48 per share, from $15.46 billion, or $2.03 per share, a year earlier.  The company said revenue rose to $51.73 billion in the three months ended Dec. 31, from $43.08 billion a year earlier.

On Jan. 18, Microsoft announced a proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc., a huge expansion for its gaming division.  It also broadens the company’s efforts in the so-called metaverse, or the merging of online and offline worlds, which will have corporate and consumer applications.  Microsoft said the Activision Blizzard deal would help boost Xbox content and services revenue when it closes.

But the deal isn’t expected to close for 18 months, and it faces regulatory approval, and Activision Blizzard shares are at $79, below the $95 acquisition price, which is telling.

--Tesla Inc. on Wednesday posted record fourth-quarter and full-year earnings as deliveries of its electric vehicles soared despite a global shortage of computer chips that has slowed the entire auto industry.

The Austin, Texas, company made $5.5 billion last year compared with the previous record of $3.47 billion in net income posted in 2020.  It was the third straight profitable year for the maker of electric vehicles and solar panels.

In a letter to shareholders, Tesla said 2021 was a breakthrough year for the company.  “There should no longer be doubt about the viability and profitability of electric vehicles,” the letter said.

Tesla made $2.32 billion in the fourth quarter. Ex-special items, the company made $2.54 a share.  That beat Wall Street expectations of $2.36 a share.  Revenue for the quarter was $17.72 billion, also ahead of analysts’ estimates of $17.13 billion, according to FactSet, vs. $10.74 billion a year earlier.

Of the revenue number, $314 million came from selling regulatory credits to other automakers to meet government pollution standards, a figure that has been a smaller percentage of revenue for multiple quarters.

Tesla delivered a record 936,000 vehicles last year, nearly double the 2020 figure.  Fourth-quarter vehicle sales hit 308,600, also a record.  Tesla said it expects 50% annual growth in vehicle deliveries “over a multiyear horizon.”

Tesla said it started building Model Y SUVs late last year at its new factory near Austin.  The company said it’s testing equipment at its new factory in Germany and is still trying to get a manufacturing permit from local authorities. It still lists the Cybertruck electric pickup as “in development.”  It was supposed to go on the market last year.

It said that “Full Self-Driving” software is now being tested on public roads by owners in nearly 60,000 vehicles in the U.S.  The system was in about 2,000 in the third quarter, Tesla said.  The software, which costs $12,000 and cannot yet drive on its own, is a primary area of focus and should accelerate Tesla’s profitability, the company said.

But Tesla did say supply chain issues would persist throughout 2022 and limit EV production. 

“Our own factories have been running below capacity for several quarters as supply chain became the main limiting factor, which is likely to continue through 2022,” Tesla said in a statement.

Nonetheless CEO Elon Musk said he expected annual sales to comfortably grow by more than 50% year-over-year in 2022.

--Boeing’s fourth-quarter results missed Wall Street’s estimates as the aircraft manufacturer booked a $3.5 billion charge due to the 787 Dreamliner program’s production woes, while commercial airplane deliveries surged amid the ongoing market recovery.

The core loss totaled $7.69 per share in the three months to December, far worse than expected.  Revenue slipped 3% to $14.79 billion, well below forecasts.

The $3.5 billion pre-tax charge came as Boeing continued to engage with the Federal Aviation Administration over the required work for resuming deliveries of Dreamliners.  Boeing now expects further delays in 787 deliveries, taking the abnormal cost estimate to $2 billion from $1 billion.

“On the 787 program, we’re progressing through a comprehensive effort to ensure every airplane in our production system conforms to our exacting specifications,” CEO David Calhoun said.  “While this continues to impact our near-term results, it is the right approach to building stability and predictability as demand returns for the long term.”

It was thought 787 deliveries may remain suspended until around April. Wednesday, Boeing said that the program’s production rate was “very low” in the final quarter of 2021, with no 787 deliveries during the period.  The aircraft manufacturer plans to eventually increase the 787 production rate to five per month but did not specify a timeline.

This has been a disaster, coming after the 737 MAX rather catastrophic tragedies.  But at least 737 production is now at a rate of 26 per month and the company said it was on track to reach production targets of 31 per month in early 2022, though supply-chain risks loom.

--Southwest Airlines Co. on Thursday reported its first quarterly profit in two years on the back of a recovery in holiday travel before the Omicron outbreak and expects to be profitable in 2022. 

The Texas-based carrier anticipates a loss in the current quarter through March as Omicron depresses revenue again and drives up costs.  But the company expects to be profitable for the remaining three quarters of 2022 and for the full year.

Southwest expects a $330 million hit to its revenue in the first two months of this quarter due to the drop in demand for leisure and business travel.

Incoming CEO Bob Jordan said the carrier was “optimistic” about bookings and revenue trends for March, when it expects to return to profitability.  “With Covid-19 cases trending downward, the worst appears to be behind us,” said Jordan.

Total operating revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31 amounted to $5.05 billion, up from $2.01 billion a year ago.

Southwest said it anticipates a $50 million negative impact to January operating revenue due to canceling more than 5,600 flights in the month so far.

--TSA checkpoint travel numbers vs. 2019….

1/27…84 percent of 2019 levels
1/26…60
1/25…67
1/24…68
1/23…83
1/22…70
1/21…84
1/20…68

The gross numbers are not good.  We’ll see what happens around the Presidents’ Day weekend in three weeks and after.

--Ford Motor Co. is taking the unusual step of cutting off customer orders for the Maverick, a more-affordable pickup that it rolled out last fall, saying it has maxed out on what it can build.

The move is a sign Americans are hungry for more-affordable options as prices for new cars and trucks hit new records and availability remains constrained on dealership lots. The company will resume taking orders for the 2023 Maverick in the summer, it said in a memo to dealers.

I had no idea the Maverick – which starts at about $20,000 – was even available, which tells you something about the kinds of advertising we receive in this rather wealthy area of mine.

I mean literally, one hundred yards from where I live is a new Lotus dealership, one of the few in North America.  It’s kind of cool…something to look at as I’m stopped at the major intersection down the hill.

At the nearby Mall at Short Hills, the Tesla store has been replaced by a Polestar showroom.  This is the EV maker that was created by Volvo, which was then acquired by China’s Geely.  Opening soon at this mega-high-end mall is a new Lucid Motors showroom.

I went to the mall last Saturday after Peloton’s problems from last week to see if the store was still open and it was, with a fair amount of traffic.  I’ll be curious to see if it’s still open in a few more weeks.

Back to the Maverick, last year the average price consumers paid for a new vehicle jumped 13%, to a record $40,457, according to J.D. Power.  Most Mavericks sell in the mid- to high-$20,000 range.  Ford expects to sell at least 80,000 Mavericks in the U.S. this year.

--Caterpillar Inc. topped Wall Street estimates with a fourth-quarter revenue increase of more than 20%, but the shares fell 5% today despite the overall rally as the heavy-equipment maker warned operating margins in the current quarter could be hit by higher production and labor costs.

“Supply chain has been a wild card for all of us in 2021,” CEO Andrew Bonfield said in an interview.

CAT said it expects to raise prices again this year, after hiking rates twice last year, to help mitigate some of the soaring costs.  But public spending, like the new $1 trillion infrastructure legislation, are giving Caterpillar’s customers the confidence to buy new equipment, Bonfield told investors on a conference call. 

Total revenue rose 23% to $13.80 billion in the fourth quarter, with a profit of $2.12 billion, compared with $780 million a year earlier.

--IBM on Monday beat Wall Street estimates for revenue in the fourth quarter, as its focus on the cloud paid off in Big Blue’s first earnings after exiting the slow-growing managed infrastructure business.

The company reiterated its forecast for mid-single-digit revenue growth in 2022, compared with 3.9 percent last year.

The 110-year-old company has doubled down on the software and consulting businesses after shedding its former managed infrastructure unit in November following years of growth and margin pressures.

Revenue at IBM’s consulting business rose 13.1 percent, while cloud revenue jumped 16 percent to $6.2 billion in the quarter.

IBM shifted its focus to the co-called “hybrid-cloud,” where enterprises use a combination of their own data centers and leased computing resources to store and process data.

IBM’s revenue rose 6.5 percent to $16.7 billion, adjusted for the separation of the managed infrastructure services business, now Kyndryl, above expectations.

--Intel Corp.’s earnings fell last quarter as the company ramped up spending on new facilities and products, part of CEO Pat Gelsinger’s efforts to revive the semiconductor giant’s fortunes.

The company posted $20.5 billion in fourth-quarter sales, up 3% from the year-earlier period.  The company generated net income of $4.6 billion, down 21% year-over-year.  Wall Street expected sales of $19.2 billion and net income of $3.2 billion.

Intel said it expects sales of roughly $18.3 billion for the current quarter, vs. analysts’ estimates of $18.1 billion.

The U.S. semiconductor giant is in a period of transition after falling behind rivals in chip making, and competitors have taken market share from it in some categories.  Gelsinger, who took over as CEO in Feb. 2021, has been trying to reverse the decline and said in December that his turnaround plans could take five-plus years.

The CEO said Wednesday that the chip shortage is starting to let up in some areas but still has the potential to last into 2024.

“It’s still challenging,” he said.  “You’re just going to see incremental improvements quarter by quarter.”

Intel has expanded its chip-making capabilities, both domestically and abroad, such as with last week’s announcement of a $20 billion investment for new chip-making factories in Ohio.

--Robinhood Markets Inc.’s shares fell heavily after the brokerage reported a loss of $423 million for the fourth quarter.  The company had an increase in technology and administrative expenses that ate into its results.

The brokerage used by individual investors recorded revenue of $363 million for the quarter, an increase of 14%.  For the year, revenue jumped 89% to $1.82 billion. But the net loss for 2021 totaled $3.7 billion.

Robinhood debuted at a price of $38 a share and finished the week at $12.58.

--Johnson & Johnson said on Tuesday it expects to generate as much as $3.5 billion from the sale of its Covid-19 vaccine this year compared to $2.39 billion in 2021, in a sign of easing manufacturing problems and increasing demand.

Contributions from the vaccine are expected to be a small part of J&J’s overall sales as the company sells it at a not-for-profit price.  Rivals Pfizer and Moderna, however, have benefited from sales of their vaccines, predicting multi-billion dollars in revenue in 2021 and 2022.  Moderna expects $18.5 billion in 2022 from vaccine sales and Pfizer $29 billion.

Overall fourth-quarter sales missed market expectations due to a bleak performance by a few of the big revenue drivers such as cancer drug Imbruvica and Crohn’s disease treatment Stelara. 

J&J expects annual sales of $98.9 billion to $100.4 billion in 2022, above expectations.  The company has been looking to separate its consumer health unit and focus on medical devices and pharmaceutical businesses.  The devices unit has been under pressure as non-urgent procedures such as hip and knee replacement surgeries get delayed once again due to the Omicron variant.

Overall quarterly sales of $24.80 billion, up 10%, nonetheless missed expectations of $25.29 billion.  The company earned $4.73 billion, a bit above forecasts.

--McDonald’s Corp. missed revenue and profit expectations on Thursday, as higher costs and dismal sales in its over 4,500 restaurants in Australia and China due to pandemic-led curbs ate into gains from growth in the United States in the fourth quarter.  Operating costs rose 14% to $3.61 billion as supply chain bottlenecks led the world’s largest burger chain to spend more for ingredients such as chicken and beef, as well as packaging material, while it also raised wages in the United States.

Sales increases in Italy, Germany, France, the U.S. and the U.K. boosted total revenue by 13% to $6.01 billion in the three months ended Dec. 31., better than last year’s $5.31 billion, but still missed expectations.

Meanwhile, expenses for the burger chain that has more than 40,000 restaurants in over 100 countries have been rising.

On a per-share basis, McDonald’s missed estimates.

U.S. same-store sales increased 7.5%, better than expected, thanks to the launch of special menu items such as McRib (overrated), loyalty program-driven growth in digital sales and higher prices.  Global same-store sales jumped 12.3%.

--3M Co. reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue and profit on Tuesday, as demand for its home improvement and personal safety products helped offset lower sales in the transportation and electronics unit, which is suffering from supply chain snarls.

The company, the biggest maker of N95 face masks, said Omicron was driving an increase in near-term demand for its disposable respirators.

3M also benefited from people confining themselves to home and ordering more bandages and cleaning products.

However, the Saint Paul, Minnesota-based company’s two biggest units, transportation & electronics and safety & industrial, saw a 1.5% and 2.2% decline in sales.  Net income fell to $1.34 billion, down from $1.41 billion a year earlier.  Net sales came in at $8.61 billion, 0.3% higher than last year.

--General Electric Co. forecast higher profit and free cash flow for 2022 on Tuesday after revenue in the quarter through December suffered amid persistent global supply chain disruptions.

The supply chain issues have increased GE’s lead times and inventory, hurting its healthcare business.  They are also fueling inflationary pressures, adversely impacting its onshore wind business due to the rising cost of transportation and commodities like steel.

The Boston-based industrial conglomerate expects inflation to remain a challenge this year.  GE is not alone.  Companies of all sizes are grappling with inflationary pressures as the Covid-19 pandemic has caused bottlenecks in supply chains, driving up costs for everything from labor to raw materials.

GE shares fell hard, some analysts complaining the report wasn’t transparent.  GE, which announced it will split into three public companies, expects to return to revenue growth this year on the back of a more than 20% increase in aviation revenue.  The aviation business, which makes jet engines for Boeing and Airbus, is the company’s cash cow.

The company generated $20.3 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter, down 3% from a year ago and below forecasts.  It’s changed the way it reports revenue and everyone is confused.

--Kohl’s Corp. shares soared 30% Monday after the department-store chain confirmed multiple suitors are circling it.

Kohl’s confirmed that it received letters expressing interest in acquiring the company and said its board would review them.  A bunch of private-equity firms have approached the retailer.  The real estate is the chief attraction.

--Matt Pearce, Wendy Lee / Los Angeles Times

“Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, many popular digital content platforms have adopted ‘misinformation’ policies to limit users from sharing inaccurate or misleading information like hyping unproven treatments or making wild accusations about federally approved vaccines.

“Some platforms’ policies specifically address the virus: Twitter users, for example, can’t ‘share false or misleading information about Covid-19 which may lead to harm.’  Other policies are more generic, but can be applied to Covid-19, such as Apple Podcasts’ restriction on content ‘that may lead to harmful or dangerous outcomes.’

“Then there’s Spotify. The Swedish music and podcast streaming giant has previously told news outlets that it bans ‘false or dangerous deceptive content about Covid-19, which may cause offline harm and/or pose a direct threat to public healthy.’

“But unlike its peers, no such policy is listed in the company’s user guidelines or its summaries of prohibited content – which is notable given the controversies surrounding the company’s top podcast show, ‘The Joe Rogan Experience.’”

Spotify over the past few weeks has faced mounting pressure to explain its position on misinformation when it comes to Rogan, who not only questions medical orthodoxy but features guests who have been banned from other platforms for violating health information guidelines.

So Wednesday the service pulled Neil Young’s music, at his request, over his concerns about misinformation on Rogan’s podcast.

Spotify then said in a statement: “We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users.  With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators. We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to Covid since the start of the pandemic….”

Spotify has yet to respond to a Jan. 10 open letter from a group of more than 200 medical professionals, academic and others demanding the service “immediately establish a clear and public policy to moderate misinformation on its platform,” likening Rogan’s most controversial episodes to “mass-misinformation events” of “devastating proportions” that provoke “distrust in science and medicine.”

--Millions of people were left without power after a huge blackout hit three Central Asian countries Tuesday following an unspecified accident, officials in the ex-Soviet region said.

The capitals of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan as well as Kazakhstan’s economic hub Almaty suffered power cuts at around lunchtime local time, with media and officials reporting that the blackouts had extended far into the provinces of the three countries.

Uzbekistan’s power grid is connected to Kazakhstan’s grid and there was a “sudden changes in voltage and frequency on 530 lines from Kazakhstan,” an Uzbek official said.

But one potential culprit is a boom in the region in cryptocurrency mining, especially in Kazakhstan.  The growth of such mining there was linked in part to a de facto ban on the practice in next-door China.

--Speaking of cryptocurrencies…bitcoin hit $33,000 Monday (down from its Nov. 9 high of $69,000), before rallying back to $37,800 as I go to post tonight.

--A flight from Newark International Airport to Tel Aviv returned to New Jersey on Thursday after two Israeli passengers helped themselves to upgraded seats on a half-full plane.

The passengers clashed with the United Airlines cabin crew after they refused to prove they were ticketed to sit in business class, according to The Times of Israel.

The conflict happened about 90 minutes after the flight took off and the disruptive fliers were arrested when the plane returned to the states.

The incident came a day after a Miami to London flight turned around and went back to Florida when a woman in first class refused to wear a mask.

If I was on either flight, I would have gone nuts over this behavior…and I’d be currently serving 10-20 years in Sing-Sing (federal prison in upstate New York), though with a lot of fans on social media!

The Pandemic

The Omicron variant caused less severe illness in hospitalized patients than previous versions of the virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday.  Researchers found that Omicron patients had shorter hospital stays than those infected with Delta and other variants, and less frequently needed intensive care.  But Omicron’s extreme transmissibility continues to devastate the nation on a broader scale.  The average daily death toll of over 2,000 is the highest seven-day death average since last February, before vaccines were widely available.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization is investigating a new version of Omicron that has recently cropped up in parts of Europe or Asia.  There’s no evidence that the new pathogen, known as BA.2, spreads faster, causes more severe illness or evades immunity better than the original.  But it has already become the dominant form of the virus in Denmark.  However, Denmark this week opened up and no longer requires mask wearing.  At least three cases have  been discovered in the U.S.  Stay tuned.

Worrisomely, in Central and South America, the likes of Mexico, Colombia and Argentina, all three hit hard before during the pandemic, are spiking anew.

Covid-19 death tolls, as of early tonight….

World…5,667,392
USA…905,635
Brazil…625,948
India…493,218
Russia…329,443*
Mexico…304,803
Peru…204,940
UK…155,317
Italy…145,537
Indonesia…144,268
Colombia…133,560
Iran…132,356
France…130,278
Argentina…120,657
Germany…118,244
Poland…104,907
Ukraine…99,882
South Africa…94,784
Spain…92,966
Turkey…86,871
Romania…59,857
Philippines…53,801
Hungary…41,229
Chile…39,620
Vietnam…37,432
Czechia…37,145
Ecuador…34,442
Canada…33,513
Bulgaria…33,088
Malaysia…31,952
Pakistan…29,192
Belgium…28,938
Bangladesh…28,308
Tunisia…26,132
Iraq…24,347
Greece…23,195
Egypt…22,522
Thailand…22,129
Netherlands…21,262
Bolivia…20,824

[Source: worldometers.info]

*I don’t know why worldometers has not adjusted Russia’s death tally, as it did in the case of Peru and others, when ‘official’ government data was released.  Weeks ago, Russia’s medical authorities significantly revised upwards the death toll, and now Reuters, using Russian state data, has calculated the toll is over 700,000, not the figure you see above.

Reuters also calculated that Russia recorded more than 895,000 excess deaths since the beginning of the outbreak in April 2020 to the end of December, when compared to average mortality in 2015-2019.  Many epidemiologists say that calculating excess deaths is the best way to assess the true impact of a pandemic, and by those measures, by the way, the U.S. figure above is highly accurate.

U.S. daily death tolls…Mon. 1,338; Tues. 2,611; Wed. 3,186; Thurs. 2,689; Fri. 2,706.

Covid Bytes

--The head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking at a  WHO executive board meeting, warned that it was dangerous to assume the Omicron variant would herald the end of Covid-19’s acutest phase, exhorting nations to stay focused to beat the pandemic.

“It’s dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant and that we are in the end game.  On the contrary, globally the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge.”

--Editorial / Washington Post

“If a loved one were sick with the Omicron variant and in a hospital, and someone offered a drug that the Food and Drug Administration had prohibited because it didn’t work against Omicron, and the manufacturer agreed the treatment wasn’t effective, and the American Medical Association also agreed, and scientific studies showed it wasn’t working, would you urge them to take it anyway?  What would you think of the person who offered it?

“These are not abstract questions in Florida.  Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is up for reelection this year and has been wooing conservatives with an eye toward a presidential campaign, has protested the FDA decision to revoke authorization for two monoclonal antibody cocktails because the data shows they are not effective against Omicron.  Mr. DeSantis denounced the decision as ‘indefensible’ and an example of President Biden’s ‘medical authoritarianism – Americans’ access to treatments is now subject to the whims of a failing president.’

“What’s indefensible is pushing a useless drug upon needy patients.  Mr. DeSantis shows contempt for Covid-19 sufferers.  His stance is also duplicitous.  Would Mr. DeSantis also sell a used car with failing brakes?

“The FDA announced Monday that it was limiting use of two monoclonal antibody treatments, one made by Eli Lilly & Co. and the other by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, to cases in which the patient is likely to have been infected with a susceptible variant such as Delta.  The Omicron variant now accounts for 99 percent of the cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The FDA noted that experts had recently found the monoclonal antibody treatments in question displayed ‘markedly reduced activity against the Omicron variant,’ and that other treatments, including another monoclonal and two antivirals, remain authorized for use against Omicron.

“Mr DeSantis is courting anti-vaccine conservatives who have regarded monoclonal antibodies as an alternative to shots.  Florida was a major consumer of the treatments.  The DeSantis administration this past week announced it was opening five new monoclonal antibody treatment sites but on Thursday, after the FDA decision, the U.S. government stopped shipping them.

“At issue is not whether the drugs work, but whether it is appropriate for a political leader to raise false hopes for a treatment that he knows does not work.  Mr. DeSantis has been here before.  Early in the pandemic, he was an energetic champion of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which proved ineffective against Covid.  He has also stood fast against mandates for vaccines and face masks, two of the most effective tools available for avoiding infection and stopping transmission.

“Mr. DeSantis’ press secretary, Christine Pushaw, was quoted in Politico recently as saying the governor ‘stands up for individual rights against federal tyranny.’  But it is pandering, not principled, for a political leader to advocate a medical treatment that doesn’t work when people are at risk of serious illness and death.  If it were his own loved ones, would Mr. DeSantis recommend a monoclonal antibody treatment that would do nothing to save them?”

--Israel on Wednesday broadened eligibility for a fourth dose of the Covid-19 vaccine to include adults under 60 with underlying medical conditions, their caretakers, and others over 18 at significant risk of exposure to the coronavirus.  Earlier this month, as Omicron swept the country, Israel began offering a fourth dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to people over 60.

--In a study out of the University of Texas, virus-fighting antibodies capable of blocking the Omicron variant persist four months after a third shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.  The study hasn’t been peer-reviewed and will need to be replicated and extended to a longer period.

But the study suggests a fourth shot may not be needed right away.

--South Korea’s daily count of new Covid cases topped 8,000 for the first time on Tuesday as Omicron spreads rapidly.  This comes despite the recent extension of strict social-distancing rules to slow infection.

--At an anti-vaccine rally in Washington on Sunday, Dr. Robert Malone, who earned his medical degree at Northwestern University, once a pioneer in the early research focused on one of the building blocks of the mRNA vaccines, but in recent years an exponent of untruths about vaccines, told the rally: “Regarding the genetic Covid vaccines, the science is settled. They are not working.” 

No one has said vaccines are perfect, but according to Eric Topol of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, the weekly Covid U.S. death rate for those unvaccinated is 9.74 per 100,000 people; for the fully vaccinated but lacking a booster, it is .71 per 100,000, and for those with a booster on top of the other shots, it is only 0.1 per 100,000. Says Dr. Topol: “I’m not aware of anything else in medicine that reduces death by 99%.”

Also Sunday, you had that amazing jerk and dangerous dirtball, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a champion of the anti-vaccine movement.  He said U.S. vaccine mandates were worse than Nazi persecution of the Jews.  “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland.  You could hide in an attic, like Anne Frank did.”  Kennedy apologized later.

Foreign Affairs

Russia/Ukraine: Thursday, the White House said President Biden warned Ukraine’s President Zelensky there is a “distinct possibility” Russia could take military action against Ukraine in February.

The Kremlin sounded a similar note, saying it saw “little ground for optimism” in resolving the crisis after the U.S. this week again rejected Russia’s main demands.

Russian officials said dialogue was still possible to end the crisis, but Biden again offered a stark warning as Russia continues to build up its forces on the border, including a large force in Belarus, which is closest to Kyiv.

And in a telltale sign that many have been looking for, Russia has been sending medical units to the front, moving to a level of readiness not seen in prior buildups, according to Western defense officials.  It doesn’t mean Putin is attacking, but it is a prerequisite for battle.

Zelensky didn’t exactly appreciate the warning from Biden as he is trying to project calm so as not to panic the people.

Putin said he will take his time in considering proposals delivered by the U.S. and NATO a day earlier.  Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “There is not much reason for optimism.  It cannot be said that our considerations were taken into account or that any willingness to take into account our concerns was demonstrated.”

German officials say they think a full-scale attack is less likely than a prolonged hybrid war to weaken the government in Kyiv.

A Ukrainian film director who was jailed by Russia after opposing Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea said on Wednesday President Putin will wreak chaos and destabilization further west if Ukraine falls.

Russia arrested Oleg Sentsov in Crimea, his native Black Sea peninsula, and sentenced him to 20 years in a maximum security prison over terrorist charges he says amounted to a political vendetta.  The West demanded his release and Sentsov returned to Ukraine after a 2019 prisoner swap, a rare exchange in this arena.

“Sowing chaos and destabilization is Putin’s main strategy. He wants to make Ukraine a fallen state,” Sentsov said in an interview with Reuters in Kyiv.  “If Ukraine falls, all this will simply move further to the west.”

Sentsov calls for unequivocal Western support of Ukraine.  “This is one and the same war: Crimea, Donbas, the new escalation, the hybrid war that Russia is waging.  Not only against Ukraine but more broadly against its neighbors – Poland, the Baltic states, Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan.”

Editorial / The Economist

“Seldom in the field of human conflict did so much hang on the whims of one man.  Is Vladimir Putin about to invade Ukraine, as the massing Russian troops on its borders suggest?  Or is he bluffing, to extort concessions from his neighbor and the West? No one can be sure of Mr. Putin’s intentions. Even his own foreign minister seems to be kept guessing. But, if fighting is about to break out, the world needs to understand the stakes.

“Perhaps Mr. Putin is planning a full-scale invasion, with Russian forces thrusting deep into Ukraine to seize the capital, Kyiv, and overthrow the government.  Or he may seek to annex more territory in eastern Ukraine, carving out a corridor linking Russia with Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Mr. Putin grabbed in 2014.  Then again, he may want a small war, in which Russia ‘saves’ Kremlin-backed separatists in Donbas, an eastern region of Ukraine, from supposed Ukrainian atrocities – and, at the same time, degrades Ukraine’s armed forces.

“Because Mr. Putin has the initiative, it is easy to conclude he has the advantage.  In fact he faces perilous choices.  A big war entails extraordinary risks.  But a smaller war that limits these risks may fail to halt Ukraine’s Westward shift.  And if a small war does not bring the capitulation of the government in Kyiv, Mr. Putin may ineluctably be drawn into a larger one….

“The coming weeks will determine how Mr. Putin chooses, and nobody should doubt the stakes.  Europe faces the prospect of Russia throttling the flow of piped gas. Even in the absence of a cut-off, it was expected to spend $1 trillion on energy in 2022, twice as much as in 2019. War would affect the prices of other commodities, too.  Oil is already spiking. Russia is the world’s largest exporter of wheat, with Ukraine close behind.  Russia is a big source of metals: in today’s tight markets even a small shock could send commodity prices upwards.

“A successful invasion of Ukraine would also set a destabilizing political precedent.  The global order has long been buttressed by the norm that countries do not redraw other countries’ borders by force of arms.  When Iraq seized Kuwait in 1990 an international coalition led by America kicked it out.  Mr. Putin, who has a nuclear arsenal at his command, has already got away with annexing Crimea; if he seizes a bigger slice of Ukraine, it is hard to see him suddenly concluding that the time has come to make peace with NATO.

“More likely, he would push on, helped by the newly established presence of Russian troops in Belarus to probe NATO’s collective-security pact, under which an attack on one member is an attack on all.  Not only would he relish the chance to hollow out America’s commitments to Europe, but he has also come to rely on demonizing an enemy abroad to justify his harsh rule at home.

“Other potential aggressors would take note, too. The likelihood of China invading Taiwan would surely rise.  The regimes in Iran and Syria would conclude they are freer to use violence with impunity.  If might is right, more of the world’s disputed borders would be fought over.

“With so much at risk, the West should respond in three ways: deter, keep talking and prepare.”

David Ignatius / Washington Post

“Russians sometimes speak of the bodies of dead soldiers arriving home from the battlefront as ‘Cargo 200,’ a European defense expert told me last week in Kyiv. The term originated during Russia’s war in Afghanistan, when corpses were shipped home to Moscow in zinc-lined coffins.

“The Ukraine war, if it comes, won’t be short – or cargo-free.  There will probably be an initial spasm of intense bombardment. Russian missiles and jets will likely strike targets deep inside Ukraine, and Kyiv will respond by trying to kill as many Russia soldiers near the border as it can, as quickly as possible, sending those grim ‘Cargo 200’ shipments back home to break Russia’s spirit.

“But that will just be the start.  Defense officials in Washington and Kyiv foresee a long, bitter battle – probably broken by pro-Russian coup attempts, intermittent cease-fires and desperate peace plans – that will leave a volcano of violence festering in the middle of Europe.  As during the Cold War, the path of eventual victory for the West will be unity, patience and a refusal to compromise on matters of principle….

“Thinking about the horrifying conflict that may lie ahead, it’s important for the United States to focus on winning the long war, whatever the reversals in the initial phase.  Above all, that means keeping the NATO alliance together and avoiding tempting early compromises to halt the conflict on Moscow’s terms.  Russian President Vladimir Putin is bidding to return the world, not to 1989 when the Cold War effectively ended, but to the postwar 1940s when Moscow imposed what British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called an ‘iron curtain’ to guard its sphere of influence….

“Given the potential costs of this conflict, why has Putin risked war to pull Ukraine back within Moscow’s control?  One answer may lie in his conviction, expressed in a long manifesto last summer, that Ukrainians and Russians are one indissoluble people.  If that’s true, then Ukraine’s increasingly European, democratic identity spells doom for the autocratic Russia Putin has created.  A free  Ukraine will pull Russia westward if it isn’t brought to heel.

“ ‘There is a threat of real war here in the middle of Europe,’ Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister Emine Dzheppar told me last week in Kyiv.  ‘We are the country to fight back.’  Ukraine may pay a terrible price initially for this resistance, but if the West stays united in opposing Putin, he’ll lose his bid for regional dominance, just as his Soviet predecessors lost the Cold War.”

Walter Russell Mead / Wall Street Journal

“Not since the 1940s has the West been this disunited. Germany refused to allow NATO allies to ship German-made weapons to Ukraine.  France chooses the Western alliance’s most critical hour since the 1961 Berlin Crisis to call for a fundamental rethinking of Western political structures and relations.  Britain goes all-in on arming Ukraine.  The European disarray reflects the West’s fundamental weakness: Washington hasn’t been able yet to forge a consensus that enables the West to pursue a common objective.

“By this disarray we can evaluate President Biden’s ‘Be Nice to Europe’ policy, which aimed to ‘park Russia’ and build the trans-Atlantic alliance back better. It has done neither. Russia is on the march, and Germany and France are undercutting American diplomacy and charting their courses almost as if the Biden administration did not exist.

“If the West is divided and incoherent in retreat, its adversaries are advancing together. China is having even more fun than Russia.  At zero cost to Beijing, the ‘pivot to Asia’ has been postponed again. Washington is talking about NATO, not the Quad; Kyiv, not Taipei; missiles in Europe, not trade deals with Asia.  China applauds Russia’s moves in Kazakhstan as it surges naval forces into the Pacific well past Taiwan.  North Korea steps up its weapons-testing program. Iran continues to toy with the Biden team in the slow-moving nuclear negotiations as its hard-line president visits Mr. Putin and hails a new and deeper economic relationship with China….

“ ‘It would be irony of fate,’ said Woodrow Wilson on the even of his inauguration, ‘if my administration had to deal chiefly with foreign affairs.’  In a 1943 press conference, Franklin Roosevelt ruefully acknowledged that ‘old Doctor New Deal’ had to make way for ‘Doctor Win-the-War.’  Harry Truman didn’t want to lead a divided America into the Cold War, but Stalin gave him no choice.

“Mr. Biden has no more choice than his predecessors did.  History is again knocking on the White House door.  The world will be watching to see how the president handles his unwelcome guest.”

George F. Will / Washington Post

“An irony of 2022 is that Ukraine yearns to affirm and buttress its nationality primarily by associating not with NATO but with the E.U., which many nationalists throughout Europe disparage as inimical to national sovereignty and a solvent of national cultures.  Ukraine is wiser than the E.U.’s despisers for reasons that illuminate Americans’ stake in today’s clash of civilizations: Universal human rights protected by sovereign nations’ commitments to the rule of law is a trans-Atlantic deal.

“In ‘The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in America Foreign Policy,’ Michael Kimmage, who served on the State Department’s policy planning staff from 2014 to 2016, reminds us that for our Founders, ‘the United States was more vividly European before it was ever palpably American.’ There has been a ‘Euro-American path to liberty.’

“ ‘The United States,’ Kimmage insists, ‘is a country carved from the stone of Enlightenment thought,’ which migrated west from England, Scotland, France and Germany, ‘from Konigsberg’ – Immanuel Kant’s home – ‘in Europe’s East to Philadelphia in the American colonies.’  Ukraine is looking to the West, away from Putin’s ethnoreligious, blood-and-soil notion of nationhood, toward the community of nations of shared Enlightenment values.  For the West to look away from Ukraine would be an apostasy foreshadowing a dark future.”

Lastly, jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and a handful of his allies were added on Tuesday to an official list of “terrorists and extremists,” the latest in a series of moves by Russian authorities to stamp out their opposition to President Vladimir Putin.

Navalny’s chief of staff Leonid Volkov wrote on Facebook: “I’m proud to work in our fine team of ‘extremists and terrorists.’  By devaluing the meaning of words and turning their meaning inside out, the Kremlin is digging a deeper hole for itself.  It’s doing all it can to make those who still believe Putin stop believing him.”

China: Beijing dismissed a report suggesting President Xi Jinping may have asked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin not to invade Ukraine during the Olympic Games.

During a phone call last month, Putin told Xi he would attend the Games’ opening ceremony on Feb. 4 in a show of solidarity after the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia announced a diplomatic boycott over human rights in China.

Xi expressed support for his “old friend” Putin during the call in the face of sanctions the West threatens to impose if Russia invades Ukraine.  China’s president called for “more joint actions to effectively safeguard security interests” while Putin hailed the bilateral ties as being “at an all-time high, reflecting a high level of strategic mutual trust.”

Meanwhile, Taiwan is boosting its defenses in the face of growing pressure from Beijing, as China has stepped up military intimidation of Taiwan, sending a record number of People’s Liberation Army fighter jets and bombers into the island’s air defense zone last year – and doing so on an almost daily basis.

Sunday, Taiwan reported the largest incursion since October by China’s air force, 39 aircraft, including 34 fighters, four electronic warfare aircraft and a single bomber, the Taiwan defense ministry said.

Today, China’s ambassador to the U.S., Qin Gang, told National Public Radio that China and the United States could end up in a military conflict if the United States encourages Taiwan’s independence.

“Let me emphasize this. The Taiwan issue is the biggest tinderbox between China and the United States.  If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the United States, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely (will) involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in a military conflict,” he said.

A Pentagon spokesperson commented: “We will continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability while also maintaining our own capacity to resist any use of force that would jeopardize the security of the people of Taiwan.”

North Korea: Pyongyang conducted tests of an upgraded long-range cruise missile and a warhead of a tactical guided missile this week, as Kim Jong Un visited a munitions factory producing a “major weapons system,” state media KCNA said on Friday

An update to a long-range cruise missile system was tested on Tuesday, and another test was held to confirm the power of a conventional warhead for a surface-to-surface tactical guided missile on Thursday, KCNA said.

In a separate dispatch, Kim lauded the factory for achieving progress in “producing major weapons” and holding a “very important position and duty” in modernizing the country’s armed forces and realizing its national defense development strategy.

I still expect Kim to fire off a long-range ballistic missile, but with the Olympics coming up, not until after the Games.

Iran: There is nothing new on the nuclear negotiations, and that’s not a good thing as Iran just continues developing its program, making a mockery of past U.N. and Iran nuclear accord restrictions.

Syria: After a weeklong battle, U.S.-backed Syrian forces said they retook full control of a prison from Islamic State fighters who attacked the facility in their biggest assault in the country in nearly three years.

As many as 200 U.S. soldiers joined the fight alongside Kurdish-led forces at the prison in the city of Hasakah, U.S. defense officials said, in the most serious test in years for the country’s small American military contingent.  More than 100 people were killed in the fighting, most of them ISIS members, according to the Syrian Democratic Forces, which oversees northeastern Syria with U.S. backing.

The SDF said that 1,000 Islamic State fighters had surrendered during the fighting.  ISIS claimed to have freed 800 people from the prison but the SDF denied that assertion.

Lebanon: Lebanese Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri said on Monday he was stepping back from political life and would not run in the parliamentary election, turning Lebanon’s sectarian politics on its head as the country grapples with a devastating financial crisis.

Hariri, three times prime minister, also called on his party not to run any candidates in May’s vote, indicating several factors were behind his decision, including Iranian influence – a reference to the Shiite group Hezbollah.

Hariri’s Future Movement has long been the biggest representative of the Sunni community, controlling one of the largest blocs in parliament that also included members of other sects – seats which others can now win.

In an emotional televised address and speaking in front of a portrait of his late father, Rafik al-Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005, Hariri said: “I am convinced that there is no room for any positive opportunity for Lebanon in light of Iranian influence, international disarray, national division, sectarianism, and the collapse of the state.”

Saad Hariri has been losing the Saudi support that was key to his father’s rise and his position politically has been weakening.  But he was the only figure who could bring the various parties together.

Random Musings

--Presidential approval ratings….

Gallup: 40% approve of President Biden’s job performance, 56% disapprove; 33% of independents approve (Jan. 3-16).

Rasmussen: 41% approve, 57% disapprove (Jan. 28).

--Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“At his first big political rally of 2022, President Trump was again focused on 2020.  ‘We had a rigged election, and the proof is all over the place,’ he said.  Mr. Trump was apparently too busy over Christmas to read a 136-page report by a conservative group in Wisconsin, whose review shows ‘no evidence of widespread voter fraud.’

“If curious Republicans want to know what really happened in 2020, this is the best summation to date.  Released Dec. 7, it was written by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), a policy shop with conservative bona fides that supported many of Mr. Trump’s policies.  A Wisconsin judge this month said ballot dropboxes are illegal under state law, in a challenge brought by WILL.

“Its report on 2020 wallops state officials for bending election rules amid the pandemic. That mistake put ballots into legal doubt, due to no fault of the voter, while fueling skepticism.  Yet the stolen-election theory doesn’t hold up.  President Biden won Wisconsin by 20,682, and mass fraud ‘would likely have resulted in some discernible anomaly,’ WILL says.  ‘In all likelihood, more eligible voters cast ballots for Joe Biden than Donald Trump.’  Here are some highlights.

“ *Only 14.7% of Wisconsin jurisdictions used Dominion voting machines.  Mr. Trump won 57.2% of their ballots, up from 55.7% in 2016.

“ *In Milwaukee, the number of absentee votes tallied on election night is ‘consistent with what was reported to be outstanding.’ Mr. Biden’s share, 85.7%, is plausible.  The raw vote total in Milwaukee County was up only 4.4% from 2016, lower than the average rise of 10.2%.  ‘Put simply, there was no unexplained ‘ballot dump.’

“ *WILL’s hand recount of 20,000 votes from 20 wards, including in Milwaukee, found ‘no evidence of fraudulent ballots.’  It did show ‘a significant number of voters who voted for Biden and a Republican for Congress.’  In wards of suburban Mequon, to pick one, 10.5% of Biden ballots went for GOP Rep. Glenn Grothman.

“ *In 2020 only 0.2% of Wisconsin’s absentee ballots were rejected, a steep drop from 1.35% in 2016.  This, however, was a nationwide trend, aided in part by dropboxes.  Also, WILL says, ‘rejection rates were actually slightly higher in areas of the state that voted for Biden.’

“ *The state told clerks to correct incomplete witness addresses.  Not every jurisdiction did so, and some didn’t track such fixes.  WILL reviewed 29,000 ballot certificates in 29 wards.  The ‘vast majority’ of problem ballots ‘were simply missing a portion of the second address line, such as a city, state or ZIP code.’  State law doesn’t define how much ‘address’ is required, so these ballots probably were valid regardless.

“ *The number of ‘indefinitely confined’ voters, who are exempt from photo-ID rules, rose 199,000.  Yet the election proceeded, WILL says, with ‘no clear statement’ on whether fear of Covid could qualify as home bound.  County data suggest no link between confinement rates and partisan lean.  WILL polled 700 random confined voters, turning up little.  Fraud here would be ‘risky,’ it says, since real ballots by impersonated voters would then be flagged.  Wisconsin has identified only four double votes.

“ *The state used dropboxes, which are legally disputed, and WILL says many clerks didn’t sufficiently log chain of custody.  Its statistical analysis estimates that dropboxes maybe raised Mr. Biden’s turnout by 20,736. But WILL ‘does not claim’ that such people ‘were ineligible voters or should have had their votes rejected.’

“ *A nonprofit tied to Mark Zuckerberg gave $10 million to help Wisconsin elections, mostly in five cities, a skewed distribution that WILL finds ‘troubling.’  A statistical analysis suggests it maybe lifted Mr. Biden’s turnout by 8,000.

“ ‘We do not believe the election was ‘stolen,’’ WILL says.  ‘But it was not adequately secure.’  Some of its suggestions for restoring election confidence are basic: Process ballots earlier to stop midnight results in Milwaukee.  Redesign mail ballots with ‘specific spots’ for witnesses to jot their cities, states and ZIP codes.  Define ‘confined voter.’

“The overall lesson is to run elections by the book.  WILL says the number of ballots that ‘did not comply with existing legal requirements’ almost surely ‘exceeded Joe Biden’s margin.’  The ambiguity is deadly to public trust.

“But Mr. Trump didn’t raise hell until he lost. Then his campaign asked to throw out more than 200,000 random ballots from two blue counties, even though questioned practices had taken place statewide. If an honest Wisconsinite followed some official procedure that wasn’t challenged, good luck getting judges after the fact to toss that vote – to say nothing of 28.4% of all the votes in Milwaukee County. Such selective treatment, as WILL says, is what the Supreme Court quashed in Bush v. Gore.

“Perhaps more information is forthcoming. A former Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Michael Gableman, is also doing a review of the state’s 2020 election.  To inform the next legislative session, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said recently, ‘I really need his report by the end of February.’

“Until then, WILL’s document stands as the best summary to date of the 2020 election: not secure, but not stolen, with suburban Republicans splitting tickets to defeat Mr. Trump.”

That’s what I did.

--A second New York City police officer died from his wounds, days after being shot by a gunman in a Harlem apartment a week ago.

Officer Wilbert Mora, said Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, “is three times a hero.  For choosing a life of service. For sacrificing his lift to protect others. For giving life even in death through organ donation.  Our heads are bowed & our hearts are heavy.”

Fellow Officer Jason Rivera was shot and killed last Friday night, after I had gone to post.  I then watched a highly emotional news conference (without questions) featuring Commissioner Sewell, Mayor Eric Adams, and Patrick Lynch, head of the PBA.

The City is angry.  And Mayor Adams is acting.  I noted before that as a former officer, and captain, he’s the right man for the right time, but only if progressives get out of the way.

Former commissioner Bill Bratton, a highly successful commissioner in New York and elsewhere, said in interviews this week that Adams deserves everyone’s support in what needs to be a major crackdown against the dirtballs, and he also points out that all three officers in this case, including rookie Officer Sumit Sulan*, who shot the killer, are immigrants, who lived in New York City.

The complaint among progressives has been that the police force doesn’t look like the City itself and that the officers live in the suburbs, and as Bratton essentially pounded the table on, paraphrasing, ‘These three are the face of New York!  Cut the crap, people.’

*Sulan was assigned just to observe Rivera and Mora. What an amazing hero.  McNeil not only could have killed Sulan but many others if he had gotten out of that building.

Editorial / New York Daily News

“Right and right on time was Mayor Adams Monday to urge the city to turn its ‘pain into purpose’ with a fresh assault on gun violence. A city with a healthy future is not one with ever-rising levels of mayhem on its streets.

“Right he was to create new NYPD units called Neighborhood Safety Teams – neither plainclothes, like the now-disbanded Anti-Crime Unit was, nor fully in uniform, but identifiable and bodycam-equipped cops in unmarked cars – to hunt down illegal firearms throughout the five boroughs.  He’ll need every district attorney to cooperate by delivering swift, sure justice to those who buy, sell and wield illegal weapons.

“Right he was to promise to put more cops on patrol ‘in key neighborhoods’ by getting more NYPD personnel off desk duty, and to pledge productive partnerships with state and federal officials to combat illicit gun trafficking.

“Right he was to recommit to using violence interrupters, who can help resolve some conflicts before they result in injury or death, while expanding the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program and otherwise giving young people productive things to do with their time.  As the mayor well understands, intervention and long-term prevention go hand in hand.  Right he was to call for reforming state law to give New York more power to deliver court-ordered psychiatric treatment to unstable individuals with a history of violence.

“And right he was to forcefully demand what this page has been demanding since Albany sloppily overhauled bail laws in 2019 and again in 2020: that legislators in Albany at long last give judges the discretion to order held in pretrial detention those determined to be public safety risks, as is already law in 49 other states and the federal system.  Adams would wisely pair that legal push with ‘full data on how often a judge detains defendants and the race, gender and age of those detail’ to provide a check on those who ‘fail to take a targeted approach toward detention.’

“Let our new mayor, the NYPD and all of government implement these and other plans with the urgency and intelligence they demand.  Let future historians say Jan. 24 was the day pernicious trendlines began bending back toward safety.”

--A Mexican reporter who told the president three years ago that she feared for her life was shot dead on Sunday, the second journalist killed in the same area in a week and underscoring the country’s status as one of the deadliest for journalists outside a war zone.

Lourdes Maldonado, a local journalist with decades of experience, was shot dead in her car in the Santa Fe neighborhood of the bustling border city of Tijuana, just south of San Diego.

From 2000 to 2021, human rights group Article 19 has registered 145 killings of journalists in Mexico, with seven deaths last year.

Days earlier, a Mexican photojournalist, Alfonso Margarito Martinez, died after being shot in the head outside his home in Tijuana.

--I’ve been pissed during Joe Biden’s little press availabilities (and his only two formal press conferences) in how he treats Fox News’ Peter Doocy.  Of course Doocy asks questions designed to get under Biden’s skin, but as a former sales manager who’s main job was trouble-shooting, I can’t believe how the president doesn’t know how to handle Doocy. For starters, I’d call on him first, or early on (there’s a certain pecking order with the White House Correspondents’ Association) and just answer everything without being an asshole, as Biden is. 

And so it was that on Monday, Biden, in front of the microphone he had been using for a presentation with reporters in the room, responded to a throwaway question by Doocy on inflation that the reporter clearly wasn’t expecting the president to really respond to as the room was being cleared out, “what a stupid son of a bitch.”

Biden at least called Doocy later that night to “clear the air” and apologize.

Doocy then told Sean Hannity, who I was watching at the time (part of my job) that the president called him on his cell phone and told him, “It’s nothing personal, pal.”

Asked if Biden issued an apology, Doocy said he doesn’t need one and that the president simply “cleared the air.”

“I appreciated it.  We had a nice call,” Doocy said.

“I don’t need anybody to apologize to me,” Doocy told Hannity.  “He can call me whatever he wants as long as it gets him talking.”

So score one for Peter Doocy.  Hannity was hoping Doocy wouldn’t show the class that he did.  You could see the disappointment on Hannity’s face.

--One of the true assholes and dirtballs in the New York area, former New York state Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, 77, one of the most corrupt politicians in recent decades, died at a federal prison in Massachusetts. 

--NASA’s revolutionary James Webb Space Telescope on Monday fired its thrusters for five minutes and reached its final destination, a special orbit around the sun where it will spend the rest of its life scrutinizing the universe and capturing light emitted soon after the big bang.

The telescope is now positioned to be roughly 1 million miles from Earth on the opposite side of our planet from the sun.

Many challenges lie ahead for this $10 billion project, like how to focus the telescope, because right now any image would be out of focus, but the biggest tasks have been largely accomplished.

“Everything went according to script,” John Durning, NASA’s deputy project manager for the Webb, said in an interview Monday morning.  “It was shocking.  We expected challenges, as every mission does. What could possibly go wrong?  Nothing went wrong.”

---

Pray for the men and women of our armed forces…and all the fallen.

Prayers to the families of the three police officers shot and killed in the United States since my last posting, as well as the three firefighters killed in a blaze in Baltimore.

God bless America.

---

Gold $1792
Oil $87.29

Returns for the week 1/24-1/28

Dow Jones  +1.3%  [34725]
S&P 500  +0.8%  [4431]
S&P MidCap  -0.6%
Russell 2000  -1.0%
Nasdaq  +0.01%  [13770]

Returns for the period 1/1/22-1/28/22

Dow Jones  -4.4%
S&P 500  -7.0%
S&P MidCap  -9.3%
Russell 2000  -12.3%
Nasdaq  -12.0%

Bulls 34.9
Bears 26.7…prior split…39.8/25.0

Hang in there.

Brian Trumbore

 

---