Week in Review

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Week in Review

01/02/2021

For the week 12/28-1/1

[Posted 9:00 PM ET, Friday]

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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***Special thanks to B.K. for his ongoing support.

Edition 1,133

Wednesday p.m. tweet from President Donald Trump:

“JANUARY SIXTH, SEE YOU IN DC!”

Friday p.m. tweet from the Il Duce wannabe:

“The BIG Protest Rally in Washington, D.C., will take place at 11:00 A.M. on January 6th. Locational details to follow StopTheSteal!”

I have to admit my blood is boiling over the actions of our president, but we’ll see what happens next week.  Trump will be at his incendiary best on Monday at a rally in Georgia.  Tuesday we have the senate runoffs in the state.  And Wednesday, well, that’s a day we hope doesn’t live in infamy.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri announced Wednesday he will object to the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory next week.  140 House Republicans may follow suit.

In a statement, Hawley alleged that some states, including Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own election laws, and that Facebook and Twitter interfered on behalf of Biden.

So Hawley becomes the first senator to say he’ll object to the certification on Jan. 6.  No doubt, other senators with presidential ambitions, or who are actually afraid of Donald Trump and his base, will go along, like Marco Rubio.

“At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of voter fraud and adopt measures to secure the integrity of our elections. But Congress has so far failed to act,” said Hawley.

“For these reasons, I will follow the same practice Democrat members of Congress have in years past and object during the certification process on Jan. 6 to raise these critical issues.”

Fellow Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, though, wrote on Facebook Wednesday night that he has been urging his Republican colleagues to “reject” objecting to the certification process and Joe Biden’s victory, adding that such a move is a “dangerous ploy.”

“Having been in private conversation with two dozen of my colleagues over the past few weeks, it seems useful to explain in public why I will not be participating in a project to overturn the election – and why I have been urging my colleagues also to reject this dangerous ploy,” Sasse wrote.

He added: “The president and his allies are playing with fire. They have been asking – first the courts, then state legislatures, now the Congress – to overturn the results of a presidential election.  They have unsuccessfully called on judges and are now calling on federal officeholders to invalidate millions and millions of votes.  If you make big claims, you had better have the evidence.  But the president doesn’t and neither do the institutional arsonist members of Congress who will object to the Electoral College vote.”

Sasse alleged in his post that his Republican colleagues have entertained claims that the election was fraudulent out of fear of the political backlash from the President’s base.

“When we talk in private, I haven’t heard a single Congressional Republican allege that the election results were fraudulent – not one,” Sasse wrote.  “Instead, I hear them talk about their worries about how they will ‘look’ to President Trump’s most ardent supporters.”

Sasse attacked Trump’s conspiracies – drawing on failed lawsuits by the Trump campaign in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia – and wrote that the President’s attempted lawsuits were a “fundraising strategy.”

Sasse added that former Attorney General William Barr said there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the election.

Sasse concluded:

“Let’s be clear what is happening here: We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think there’s a quick way to tap into the president’s populist base without doing any real, long-term damage. But they’re wrong – and this issue is bigger than anyone’s personal ambitions.”

As for the fundraising, Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said during an interview on CNN: “Where I feel really bad is just the people that are, you know, struggling during the pandemic yet are giving President Trump’s campaign money for this recount because they believe him.  And it’s just a scam, it’s a big grift.  Hard-working taxpayers are giving their money to this because they are convinced the president’s telling them that they can win.”

It is beyond pathetic.  President Trump refuses to give up on his assault on our very democracy, his direct attempt to overturn a democratic election.

This comes as the Census Bureau reports 1 in 8 Americans reported food insecurity, four million small businesses closed this year (per Oxford Information Technology), and many of our hospitals are overwhelmed, with increasing shortages of staff, due in no small part to a total failure to invest in our public health infrastructure, which is a prime reason for the ineffective vaccine distribution thus far.

I have to remind you again of the fact that Donald Trump was talking of our “rigged elections,” “rigged system,” going back to the 2016 campaign.  He won, then complained the system was rigged because there was no way Hillary Clinton beat him in the popular vote by 2.9 million.

Then he pounded the table all 2020 during the campaign on how the only way he could lose is if the Democrats stole the election.  Funny, but the Republican Party had a great election.  Everyone except Donald Trump, because millions of us, such as yours truly, voted Republican down ballot but refused to vote for this charlatan.

Well, the gig is up, but not before the Republican Party blows itself up this coming week, while inflicting long-lasting damage to our democracy.  I’m sick to my stomach…you should be too.

Editorial / New York Post

“Mr. President, it’s time to end this dark charade.

“We’re one week away from an enormously important moment for the next four years of our country.

“On Jan. 5, two runoff races in Georgia will determine which party will control the Senate – whether Joe Biden will have a rubber stamp or a much-needed check on his agenda.

“Unfortunately, you’re obsessed with the next day, Jan. 6, when Congress will, in a pro forma action, certify the Electoral College vote.  You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have ‘courage,’ they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office.

“In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.

“You had every right to investigate the election.  But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing.  To take just two examples: Your campaign paid $3 million for a recount in two Wisconsin counties, and you lost by 87 more votes.  Georgia did two recounts of the state, each time affirming Biden’s win.  These ballots were counted by hand, which alone debunks the claims of a Venezuelan vote-manipulating Kraken conspiracy.

“Sidney Powell is a crazy person.  Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason.  It is shameful.

“We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost. But to continue down this road is ruinous.  We offer this as a newspaper that endorsed you, that supported you: If you want to cement your influence, even set a stage for a future return, you must channel your fury into something more productive.

“Stop thinking about Jan. 6. Start thinking about Jan. 5.

“If Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler win, they will prevent Biden from rolling back what you have accomplished.  A Republican Senate can pressure Biden against returning to the old, failed Iran deal, can stop him from throwing open our southern border, will prevent him from packing the court.

“Now imagine a government controlled by your nemesis – Nancy Pelosi in the House, Chuck Schumer in the Senate, Joe Biden in the White House.  How high will taxes go?  How many of your initiatives will be strangled?  And, on a personal note, do you think they won’t spend the next four years torturing you with baseless hearings and investigations?

“Consider this.  You came out of nowhere to win the presidency.  Not an elected official, not a lawyer, not beholden to any particular faction of the swamp.  You took on the elites and the media who had long lost touch with average working people.  You changed politics, which is something few in American history can say.

“If Georgia falls, all that is threatened.  You will leave your party out of power, less likely to listen to what you have to say or to capitalize on your successes, such as expanding the Hispanic voting bloc for the GOP.

“Democrats will try to write you off as a one-term aberration and, frankly, you’re helping them do it.  The King Lear of Mar-a-Lago, ranting about the corruption of the world.

“Securing the Senate means securing your legacy.  You should use your considerable charm and influence to support the Georgia candidates, mobilizing your voters for them.  Focus on their success, not your own grievances, as we head into the final week.

“If you insist on spending your final days in office threatening to burn it all down, that will be how you are remembered.  Not as a revolutionary, but as the anarchist holding the match.”

Editorial / New York Daily News

“One thousand, four hundred and forty days ago, Donald Trump swore an oath to ‘preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.’  Trump now violates that oath on multiple fronts as he continues to insist he won an election he decisively lost, toys with disrupting the Jan. 6 count by Congress of the Electoral College tally – and lets his administration withhold vital cooperation from President-elect Biden’s team in the pivotal closing weeks.

“Don’t be surprised by the dangerous and juvenile behavior. Do be outraged.

“Biden leveled the grave charge Monday: that political leaders at the Office of Management and Budget and Defense Department have put up ‘roadblocks’ rather than responsibly turning over everything needed to ensure a seamless transition.

“ ‘Right now, we just aren’t getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas,’ said Biden.  ‘My team needs a clear picture of our force posture around the world and our operations to deter our enemies.  We need full visibility into the budget planning underway at the Defense Department and other agencies in order to avoid any window of confusion or catch-up that our adversaries may try to exploit.’  Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller disputes the accusation, saying officials are briefing their successors exhaustively.

“If Biden cannot go public with the precise contours of what Team Trump is purportedly withholding due to its classified nature, he should bring those details to Congress’ bipartisan Gang of Eight, who should then ramp up pressure on the executive to cooperate in full.

“Those who serve the United States in uniform around the world, and all who need protecting here at home, need a government that doesn’t blink when power changes hands.  If, in his extended tantrum, Trump endangers the nation, there must be hell to pay.”

Editorial / Washington Post

“January 6, the day Congress meets in a joint session to accept the results of the presidential election, should be a testament to America’s enduring democracy. Yet it may become a demonstration of its poor health.  President Trump, along with craven enablers such as Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), is seeking to upend what should be solemn but largely perfunctory proceedings to ratify the victory of President-elect Joe Biden.  The result could be a shameless show of support by numerous congressional Republicans for erasing the votes of millions of Americans – and, perhaps, mayhem incited by the president in the streets of D.C.

“ ‘Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!’ Mr. Trump tweeted earlier this month in an appeal to his supporters to come to the capital to buttress his campaign to overturn the election results.  He followed up Sunday, ‘See you in Washington, DC, on January 6th.  Don’t miss it. Information to follow!’ And again on Wednesday, ‘JANUARY SIXTH, SEE YOU IN DC!’

“That the president is actively seeking to incite street protests is a matter of more than a little concern to D.C. officials who – based on the behavior of some of Mr. Trump’s supporters at two previous rallies – fear there could be violence. While daytime demonstrations were largely peaceful on Nov. 14 and Dec. 12, destruction and bloodshed broke out when night came.  During the Dec. 12 event, four people were stabbed, and members of the Proud Boys – a far-right group linked to white supremacy and categorized by the FBI as an extremist organization – were seen roaming the streets and assaulting bystanders.  Black Lives Matter banners belonging to Black churches were torn down, and the leaders of the Proud Boys proudly claimed responsibility for burning one of the banners.

“Nonetheless, Mr. Trump – who told the Proud Boys during the first presidential debate in September to ‘stand back and stand by’ – issued his uncamouflaged summons to ‘Be there, will be wild!’ So much for the law-and-order president.  Just as hypocritical are the Republican members of Congress – the latest being Mr. Hawley – who plan to raise objections to the certification of electoral votes for Mr. Biden.  They cite completely baseless allegations, uniformly rejected by the courts, of voter fraud.  Their aim is not, as they profess, to ensure election integrity, but rather to cater to the whims of a would-be autocratic president and burnish their credentials as Trump loyalists for future elections.

“Republican congressional leaders have acknowledged that Mr. Trump’s desperate efforts to stop Mr. Biden from being sworn into office are bound to fail.  Not, though, before more harm is done to the United States’ political system and its standing in the world.  We can only hope the damage from the chaos Mr. Trump is inciting doesn’t extend to human lives.”

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“President Trump’s last and worst shot at overturning the 2020 election will come on Jan. 6, as the new Congress meets in joint session to tally the votes from the Electoral College.  Mr. Trump wants Republican lawmakers to lodge formal objections to Joe Biden’s electors, and this kamikaze mission already has a few volunteers.

“Here’s what would happen next, at least according to the Electoral Count Act: If a state’s electors are challenged by both a Senator and a Representative, then each chamber is supposed to retire to consider it. If they rejected the electors of enough states to deny Mr. Biden 270 electoral votes, then the House would choose the President.

***

“But how could lawmakers justify throwing out electors for Mr. Biden?  Although Mr. Trump keeps tweeting claims of massive voter fraud, his lawsuits have been rejected in court, sometimes by his own conservative appointees.

“Any challenge to Mr. Biden’s electors appears doomed, since upholding the objection takes a majority in both chambers. The Democratic House would use the opportunity to excoriate Mr. Trump a final time on his way out the door, and grown-ups in the Republican Senate are unlikely to play along.  Hence the Trump crowd’s latest argument: that the power to invalidate electors rests with the joint session’s presiding officer – Vice President Mike Pence.

“A nub of truth here is that the Electoral Count Act might be unconstitutional.  Originally passed after the contested-election mess of 1876, it purports to let a simple majority of Congress decide which presidential electors are valid, a power that’s hard to justify under the Constitution or separation-of-power principles.

“Reverting to the Constitution’s text, however, would be small help to Mr. Trump. The workings of the Electoral College were refined by the 12th Amendment, which says that the Vice President shall ‘open all the certificates and the votes shall then by counted.’  Where does that language give Mr. Pence unilateral authority to set aside electors? This can’t be what the Founders wanted.

“In 1876, at least, there were competing electors that each claimed official imprimatur. In Oregon the Governor and the Secretary of State certified different slates.  Florida’s outgoing Governor signed off on a group of electors, only to be reversed by the incoming Governor.

“None of that ambiguity exists now.  Self-styled Republican shadow electors held their own gatherings this month in some states that Mr. Biden won. But it was a purely extracurricular exercise.  In Georgia the GOP chairman said it was intended to preserve Mr. Trump’s legal options, even as the state’s Republican leaders officially certified electors for Mr. Biden.

“If Democrats tried a similar Electoral College stunt, Republicans would hoot it down. The closest recent analogue was after the 2004 race, when Democrats challenged Ohio’s electors, claiming they wanted to force a debate on voting reforms. Sen. Barbara Boxer joined them, delaying the ratification for hours as the House and Senate considered the objections….

“What was the GOP’s rejoinder? … Then-Rep. Roy Blunt pointed to the substantial Ohio margin.  ‘If we were taking this important time today to talk about a difference of 118 votes,’ he said, ‘that might be justifiable,’ but Mr. Bush won by 118,000. Then-Rep. Rob Portman dismissed ‘irresponsible conspiracy theories about what happened in Ohio,’ adding: ‘I was there.  It didn’t happen.’

“Counts, recounts, and recounts of recounts – that’s a description of Georgia this year. The difference is that in 2004 Democratic candidate John Kerry conceded.  ‘I will not be taking part in a formal protest of the Ohio electors,’ he said.  Despite reports of irregularities, ‘our legal teams on the ground have found no evidence that would change the outcome.’  Does Mr. Trump want to depart by making people pine for the statesmanship of John Kerry?

***

“Republicans should be embarrassed by Mr. Trump’s Electoral College hustle.  Mr. Trump is putting his loyal VP in a terrible spot, and what do Republicans think would happen if Mr. Pence pulled the trigger, Mr. Biden was denied 270 electoral votes, and the House chose Mr. Trump as President? Riots in the streets would be the least of it.

“Mr. Pence is too much of a patriot to go along, but the scramble to overturn the will of the voters tarnishes Mr. Trump’s legacy and undermines any designs he has on running in 2024.  Republicans who humor him will be giving Democrats license to do the same in the future, and then it might matter.”

Michael Gerson / Washington Post

[On Josh Hawley’s likely move, Wednesday.]

“(Hawley) is enabling…a form of politics that abolishes politics.  A contest of policy visions can result in compromise.  The attempt to delegitimize your opponent requires their political annihilation.  And a fight to the political death is always conducted in the shadow of possible violence.

“Trump has brought these trends into a dangerous new phase. As president, he is attempting to deconstruct American institutions from the top down. He intuitively grasps – like many authoritarians before him – that the biggest lies motivate the most abject servility.  His message is carried like lightning on social media and is amplified by right-wing media personalities and grifters (but I repeat myself) who find profit and influence in the humiliation of their country.  It is truly the technological golden age for casual sedition.

“What can be done?  We can refuse to inhabit the lie. We can praise and support Republican politicians such as Sens. Mitt Romney and Ben Sasse, and Govs. Larry Hogan and Brian Kemp who are standing in the gap. And we must ensure that the aspirations of people such as Hawley – who has made the madness more mainstream – come to nothing. This begins with a simple and sad recognition: The ambitions of this knowledgeable, talented young man are now a threat to the republic.”

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Today, in a rare New Year’s Day session, the Senate dealt President Trump a crushing defeat, overriding his veto for the first time in his four years in office, pushing through the defense spending bill (NDAA) against his strong objections.

The Senate voted 81-13, far more than the needed two-thirds, after the House had overridden it earlier 322-87.

The bill provides a 3% pay raise for U.S. troops and guides defense policy, cementing decisions about troop levels, new weapons systems and military readiness.

Before the vote, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that Congress had passed the National Defense Authorization Act every year for 59 years in a row, “and one way or another, we are going to complete the 60th annual NDAA and pass it into law before this Congress concludes on Sunday.”

Nothing in the bill was changed, despite the president wanting his totally unrelated “Section 230” repeal provision to strip tech companies of certain legal protections added to the legislation, as well as his objections to a provision stripping the names of Confederate generals from military bases.

As for the effort to raise the individual pandemic assistance payment from $600 to $2,000, which passed in the House, Sen. McConnell refused to bring it to a vote, dismissing the checks as “socialism for rich people,” and arguing that the defense bill is the greater priority.  Yes, another big defeat for the president, who had been totally uninvolved and disinterested in the coronavirus relief package negotiations, until it passed, after which he started whining about hiking the payments to $2,000.

Tonight, Trump tweeted:

“Our Republican Senate just missed the opportunity to get rid of Section 230, which gives unlimited power to Big Tech companies.  Pathetic!!!  Now they want to give people ravaged by the China Virus $600, rather than the $2000 which they so desperately need.  Not fair, or smart!”

Sunday, Trump had signed into law the $900 billion relief package (part of the $2.3 trillion government funding bill), delaying it for days in a totally unnecessary move that cost those Americans whose unemployment benefits ran out the day before.

Editorial / Washington Post

“Given how 2020 has gone, we probably should have known it would end with Congress and the president wasting their final days on one last bad idea: $2,000-per-person direct payments, supposedly to offset the hard economic times brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

“As we have previously pointed out, there was a case for including modest ‘checks’ to the hardest-hit, low-income segment of the population.  In the $908 billion stimulus it did pass, however, Congress went well beyond that, providing $600 payments that will send up to $3,000 to those couples earning as much as $150,000 – and at least a few dollars to those earning up to $210,000, before phasing out entirely. The bill does this while extending unemployment benefits a mere 11 weeks.  In short, the measure short-shrifted the neediest and showered billions on people who suffered little or no lasting hardship from the pandemic.  This, at a time when the economy has healed significantly and coronavirus vaccinations are underway – unlike the chaotic days of April, when Congress sent checks (of only $1,200) to help people cope with economic free fall.

“Yet a just-passed House bill would compound all of those errors by increasing the $600 payments to $2,000, at a total cost of $464 billion.  It would phase out completely only for families of five earning above $350,000.  Much of this is going to be saved, not spent, since restaurants are closed and air travel limited. The resources would be far better spent, in terms of both economic equity and economic growth, on longer extension of unemployment benefits, aid to state and local governments, and vaccines.

“But if the $2,000 payout is a bad idea, it is a bad idea whose time has come because of politics, not economics.  President Trump deserves primary blame, by criticizing the initial $600 per-person version as too small and threatening to veto the stimulus bill. That created an opening for Democrats in Congress, who seek to exploit the proposal’s simplistic appeal to help their party’s two candidates in Georgia’s Jan. 5 Senate runoff.

“Especially wrongheaded in this regard is the progressive left, spearheaded by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who depicts the $2,000 as aid to ‘desperate’ Americans despite the huge amounts destined for perfectly comfortable families.  Then again, Republican would-be populists such as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) made common cause with Mr. Sanders; and now, at least one other GOP politician with presidential ambitions, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), has jumped on the bandwagon, as have the two Republican Senate candidates in Georgia.

“Only the Senate can stop this wasteful policy.  Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked an immediate vote on the House bill Tuesday, while hinting that he might hold a vote on the $2,000, but linked to Trump-backed provisions that Democrats could not accept… Mr. Sanders, meanwhile, threatens to delay a defense-bill veto override, which would keep senators in Washington for New Year’s Eve. Blowing the holiday for senators would be a small price to pay for keeping them from blowing nearly half a trillion taxpayer dollars.”

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“President Trump has always put his best personal interests above nearly everything else, and Republicans are paying the political price.  Mr. Trump lost his re-election bid to Joe Biden, and now he may cost Republicans the Senate too.

“Mr. Trump lost his re-election bid even as Republicans did better down-ballot because more voters liked his policies than liked him.  The President hewed to a largely conservative agenda as long as he needed to maintain GOP support.  But now that he’ll soon leave Washington, he’s throwing that over to punish Republicans and anyone else who refuses to indulge his fantasies about overturning the election.

“That’s the only explanation for his decision to join Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer in pushing for $2,000 Covid relief checks after his own negotiators had settled for $600 and the bill had passed Congress.  Mr. Trump is trying to punish Mitch McConnell, the Majority Leader, and John Thune, a member of the Senate leadership, because they have recognized that Mr. Biden won the election.

“ ‘Can you imagine if the Republicans stole a Presidential Election from the Democrats – All hell would break out,’ Mr. Trump tweeted on Tuesday from Florida. ‘Republican leadership only wants the path of least resistance.  Our leaders (not me, of course!) are pathetic. They only know how to lose! P.S. I got MANY Senators.’

“Actually, GOP Sen. David Perdue won more votes and a bigger vote share than Mr. Trump did in Georgia, and Mr. Trump was the first Republican to lose the state since 1992.  Susan Collins also did better in Maine.  Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s personal and political unpopularity helped to drag down incumbent Cory Gardner in Colorado.

“With two Georgia Senate runoffs looming on Jan. 5, Mr. Trump seems intent on hurting GOP chances while blaming Senate leaders in advance if the Republican incumbents lose.  Never mind that he has put Republicans on the spot by siding with Democrats on the $2,000 checks….

“We’ll see how this plays out… but the fault here isn’t Mitch McConnell’s.  The political damage to the GOP comes from Donald Trump, who is lashing out at all and sundry in defeat – no matter if it also helps to elect a Democratic Senate.”

The Pandemic

Health experts have been concerned about the impact holiday travel will have on the coronavirus and a further spread in infections.  So how do the TSA checkpoint numbers look?

12/31…37 percent of 2019 level
12/30…54
12/29…51
12/28…44
12/27…50
12/26…46
12/25…24
12/24…33
12/23…61
12/22…50
12/21…38

We’ll see what the numbers are over the weekend, and then where we settle out in the weeks after.

The vaccination campaign in the U.S. is off to rocky start, with not even 3 million doses of vaccines into the arms of Americans vs. talk of 20 million by year end from officials with Operation Warp Speed.  Gen. Gustave Perna said at a briefing Wednesday that two holidays and three major snowstorms hampered efforts to ramp up.

“Here’s what I have confidence in: Every day, everybody gets better, and I believe that uptake will increase significantly as we go forward,” Perna said.

Training people to prepare and administer two vaccines that require special storage and handling has been one of the bumps in the plans.  In addition, state and local health systems have been waiting for federal money to support what will be the largest mass vaccination program in the nation’s history.

Covid-19 death tolls, as of tonight….

***As I noted last time, the numbers over the holidays have been all over the place…some states and countries catching up at different times.  This coming week we’ll get back to normal, where Sun. and Mon. are down before catch-up Tues.

World…1,834,519
USA…356,445
Brazil…195,441
India…149,205
Mexico…125,807
Italy…74,621
UK…74,125
France…64,765
Russia…57,555
Iran…55,337
Spain…50,837
Colombia…43,495
Argentina…43,319
Peru…37,724
Germany…34,388
Poland…28,956
South Africa…28,887
Indonesia…22,329
Turkey…21,093

Source: worldometers.info

U.S. daily death tolls…Sun. 1,215; Mon. 1,966; Tues. 3,398; Wed. 3,880; Thurs. 3,539; Fri. 2,129 (only half the states reported today).

Editorial / Washington Post

“When a group of experts examined 195 countries last year on how well prepared they were for an outbreak of infectious disease, the United States ranked best in the world.  Today, after engulfed by the coronavirus pandemic, the United States is among the hardest-hit nations in the world, with more than 327,000 deaths, 18 million infected, the fourth-highest per capita mortality among nations and more suffering to come.

“What went wrong?

“The answer is, almost everything.  President Trump is not responsible for how the outbreak began but bears a large burden for the catastrophic pandemic response.  From the start, he squandered valuable time, silenced public health experts and scientists, politicized the regulatory agencies, abandoned a concerted federal response, botched diagnostic testing, lifted restrictions too early, and engaged in deception, illusion and confusion that left the American people fatigued and divided….

“(Once) the virus began spreading, Mr. Trump failed to adequately warn people, to take the threat seriously or to mount a pandemic response equivalent to the danger.  Instead, he retreated to the realm of his own interests: his reelection campaign, his personal grievances, his misguided instincts and magical thinking.

“The result was a presidency of delusion and deception.  Mr. Trump deliberately lied to the public about the grave dangers they faced.  In an interview with The Post’s Bob Woodward on Feb. 7, the president said he knew the virus could be more lethal than the flu and that it spread through the air.  ‘This is deadly stuff,’ he said.  But he told the nation Feb. 25, ‘I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away.’  On Feb. 27: ‘It’s going to disappear.  One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.’ On March 9, he said the ‘common flu’ was worse than Covid.  On March 19, he told Mr. Woodward he did not want to be honest with the American people about the severity.  ‘I wanted to always play it down,’ he said.  ‘I still like playing it down.’  On June 20, he said, ‘Many call it a virus, which it is.  Many call it a flu, what difference?’

“This mind-set led to cascading failures…

“Fighting a pandemic is treacherous and challenging. This particular virus harbored some unexpected tricks that took time to detect, such as the large share of asymptomatic cases.  It was always going to be hard.  But the worst did not have to happen.  It happened because Mr. Trump failed to respect science, meet the virus head-on and be honest with the American people.

“The death and misery of 2020 should be taught to future generations as a lesson. What went wrong, making this the deadliest year in U.S. history, must not happen again.”

Covid Bytes

--Congressman-elect Luke Letlow, 41, of Louisiana died of Covid-19 on Tuesday night.  He had no known preconditions.

--The first known U.S. case of a highly infectious coronavirus variant was detected in Colorado on Tuesday, and then other states over the course of the week, as President-elect Biden warned it could take years for most Americans to be vaccinated for the virus at current distribution rates. 

Biden’s goal of ensuring that 100 million vaccinations are administered by the end of his 100th day in office would mean “ramping up five to six times the current pace to 1 million shots a day,” Biden said, noting that it would require Congress to approve additional funding.

--British doctors have said a government decision to delay giving a coronavirus vaccine booster shot to vulnerable patients who have already had a first dose will be distressing and disruptive, their trade union said on Thursday.  The government said on Wednesday it wanted to give a first dose to as many people as possible before starting to administer boosters at 12 weeks, in an effort to provide more people with a degree of protection more quickly.

But the chair of the British Medical Association’s committee for family doctors said it was “grossly and patently unfair to tens of thousands of our most at-rick patients to now try to reschedule their appointments.’

For the newly approved vaccine developed by Oxford University and made by AstraZeneca being rolled out in Britain next week, the plan is consistent with a finding that waiting 12 weeks maximizes protection against the virus.

But in the case of the Pfizer/BioNTech shot that is already being given, the manufacturer said the shot had not been evaluated on dosing schedules different from the recommended 21 days. After the government’s announcement on Wednesday, Pfizer said it had no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose was sustained after 21 days.

Back to the AstraZeneca vaccine, it has far easier storage requirements than the Pfizer one.  Results from studies in almost 24,000 people in Britain, Brazil and South Africa suggest the shots are safe and about 70% effective for preventing illness, not as good as Pfizer or Moderna’s versions.

--BioNTech warned today that there would be gaps in supply until other vaccines were rolled out.  The German biotech’s shot has been slow to arrive in the European Union because of relatively late approval from the bloc’s health regulator and the small size of the order placed by Brussels.

The delays are causing major issues in Germany, where some regions had to halt vaccinations within days of starting an inoculation drive.

--At least 20 Nigerian doctors have died from Covid-19 in a week amid a second wave of infections, according to the Premium Times, citing the Nigeria Medical Association.

The outbreak has been caused by intense community transmission in nearly two dozen states.  Nigerian health workers had complained of exposure to coronavirus infections due to a lack of adequate personal protective equipment, which has led to more than 1,000 infections among health workers.

--Sen. Mitt Romney on Friday urged the government to immediately enlist veterinarians, combat medics and others in a sweeping proposal to administer vaccinations and slow the rising death toll.

“That comprehensive vaccination plans have not been developed at the federal level and sent to the states as models is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable,” Romney said in a statement.

Romney called for setting up sites such as school buildings that are largely empty because of the pandemic.  He also recommended establishing a clear order for Americans to receive their shots using priority groups and birthdays, while welcoming other ideas from medical professionals.

Romney said the country needed to acknowledge the current plan “isn’t working” and was “woefully behind,” and that leaders must urgently find ways to quickly bolster capacity.

“It was unrealistic to assume that the healthcare workers already overburdened with Covid care could take on a massive vaccination program,” Romney said.

--Editorial / Washington Post

“What is China trying to conceal? That question arises from Beijing’s decision to prosecute Zhang Zhan, a 37-year-old citizen journalist who roamed Wuhan at the time of the coronavirus outbreak, posting brief but revealing videos about the spreading disease in the first stage of what became a global pandemic. She was detained, as were several other citizen journalists who attempted to report on the Wuhan outbreak.  On Monday, Ms. Zhang was sentenced in Shanghai to four years in prison for ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble,’ the usual Chinese charge used to silence dissent.

“Ms. Zhang, a former lawyer, spent three months in Wuhan and posted 122 YouTube videos, the first of which she titled ‘My claim for the right of free speech.’  She arrived in the city Feb. 1, and her first impression was shock: ‘There was not a single soul.  It felt as if I stumbled on a movie set right after the shooting was over and everybody has left the set.  The world didn’t feel real.’ She had traveled there after hearing that people in Wuhan felt abandoned.  Her recordings confirmed chaos inside a hospital. When a security official confronted here and demanded she stop filming, she decided to do more – traveling around the stricken city in February and March, posting her videos online for all to see.

“Her reporting so alarmed the authorities that she was arrested.  In jail, she later went on a hunger strike in protest and was force-fed.

“On Sept. 23, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin declared, ‘China’s epidemic response has been open and transparent every step of the way.  The timeline is clear, and the facts and data speak for themselves.’  If so, why have at least three other citizen journalists been detained?

“China’s spin in recent months has been that President Xi Jinping led a heroic campaign to stop the virus.  In fact, officials in Wuhan attempted to clamp down on information about the new disease in December 2019, and when eight doctors expressed concern about the sickness, they were reprimanded for spreading rumors.  A second coverup took place in early January, as the local and the national government remained silent while the virus spread. China’s top officials, including Mr. Xi, knew of human transmission early in the month but said nothing in public until Jan. 20. China’s announced death toll appears to be a huge underestimate.  More recently, Chinese officials have been suggesting the virus had origins outside its borders.

“So, again: What is China trying to hide?  As we have noted previously, an independent and credible investigation of the origins of the virus is absolutely essential to properly prepare for and prevent a future pandemic. The prosecution of Ms. Zhang raises grave doubts about whether China can be trusted to produce an open and honest investigation. Instead of putting her in jail, China should release her and thank her for the courage to do what the cowards in the party-state would not.”

Trump World

--Marc A. Thiessen / Washington Post

[His annual list of the 10 best and 10 worst things President Trump did this year, starting with the latter.]

“10. He pardoned war criminals. Trump showed a flagrant disregard of the rule of law by pardoning Blackwater contractors who massacred unarmed Iraqi civilians, including innocent women and children.

“9. He vetoed the bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act. …put Republicans who voted for it in the difficult position of having to choose whether to flip-flop or override his veto.

“8. He ordered the drawdown of nearly all U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Trump was apparently talked out of a complete withdrawal, but reducing to 2,500 troops in each country makes no strategic sense. Despite an ongoing terrorist threat, we will have fewer troops in Afghanistan or Iraq than we do in Spain.

“7. He put millions in limbo by threatening to veto coronavirus relief. …

“6. He failed to ban travel from Europe in January.  Trump announced a travel ban on Jan. 31 on non-U.S. residents who had recently been in mainland China, saving countless lives. But he did not shut down travel from Europe until March 11 – almost six weeks later – because of objections from his economic advisers. The outbreak in New York was seeded by travelers from Italy, and New York then seeded the rest of the country, becoming the primary source of new infections across the United States.

“5. His jarring fights with reporters during coronavirus briefings alienated rather than united us. …

“4. His reluctance to embrace masks cost lives.  His refusal to require masks at his Tulsa rally, the maskless superspreader event at the White House to announce Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination, and the scene of him dramatically removing his mask on the White House balcony after returning from Walter Reed all became symbols of his Covid response failures.

“3. He is failing to distribute more than half the available doses of vaccine. …

“2. He lost a winnable election and then refused to accept the results – or his own responsibility for losing. Trump lost because he alienated millions who approved of his policies but were tired of chaos.  His mocking of Joe Biden’s cognitive struggles offended seniors, and their support for Trump declined by five points in Arizona and 11 points in Georgia compared with 2016. And after winning suburban voters by two points in 2016, he lost them by 10 this year.  If he had performed with these groups the way he did four years ago, no amount of real or imagined fraud could have deprived him of a second term.

“1. He discussed imposing martial law at an Oval Office meeting.  The suggestion by Michael Flynn that Trump declare martial law and use the military to re-run the election in swing states is insane. That Trump took it seriously enough to discuss it in the Oval Office is shameful, as are his calls for elected Republicans to overturn the results.

“Finally, one of the worst things Trump did is not on the list because the results are not yet in: He has barely lifted a finger in Georgia to save Republican control of the Senate. He is so focused on overturning the presidential election that he could very well hand Democrats control of the Senate on Jan. 5 – and with it, unchecked power to reverse his achievements and enact a radical agenda.  If that happens, Trump will leave the White House in infamy.”

Next time, the 10 best things Trump did in 2020.

--Kushner Companies, the family business of Trump adviser Jared Kushner, filed papers in December with the Israel Securities Authority to sell at least $100 million in bonds on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.  The deal would be the company’s first bond issue in Israel, though it has received loans from two Israeli banks in the past.  The company also works closely with Israel’s Steinmetz family, which made its fortune as one of the world’s leading diamond traders.

Kushner Companies was founded by Jared’s father, Charles, who was just pardoned by President Trump.

It is not yet clear what role Jared will take in the company when Trump’s term ends.

--Trump tweets:

This afternoon: “I hope to see the great Governor of South Dakota @KristiNoem, run against RINO @SenJohnThune, in the upcoming 2022 Primary.  She would do a fantastic job in the U.S. Senate, but if not Kristi, others are already lining up.  South Dakota wants strong leadership, NOW!”

[Ed. I like John Thune.  He’s my kind of Republican.  But Thune had the temerity to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the election, a la Mitch McConnell, and so for this the president lashes out.  Donald Trump is such a small, small man.  I hope Thune called him up and said, “You can kiss my ass, Mr. President.”]

Tonight: “Before even discussing the massive corruption which took place in the 2020 Election, which gives us far more votes than is necessary to win all of the Swing States (only need three), it must be noted that the State Legislatures were not in any way responsible for the massive….

“….changes to the voting process, rules and regulations, many made hastily before the election, and therefore the whole State Election is not legal or Constitutional.  Additionally, the Georgia Consent Decree is Unconstitutional & the State 2020 Presidential Election…

“….is therefore both illegal and invalid, and that would include the two current Senatorial Elections.  In Wisconsin, Voters not asking for applications invalidates the Election.  All of this without even discussing the millions of fraudulent votes that were cast or altered!”

“Twitter is shadow banning like never before.  A disgrace that our weak and ineffective political leadership refuses to do anything about Big Tech. They’re either afraid or stupid, nobody really knows!”

“Hearings from Atlanta on the Georgia Election overturn now being broadcast.  Check it out. @OANN @newsmax and many more. @BrianKempGA should resign from office. He is an obstructionist who refuses to admit that we won Georgia, BIG!  Also won the other Swing States.”

“$2,000 ASAP!”

“The Federal Government has distributed the vaccines to the states.  Now it is up to the states to administer.  Get moving!”

“ ‘Barack Obama was toppled from the top spot and President Trump claimed the title of the year’s Most Admired Man. Trump number one, Obama number two, and Joe Biden a very distant number three. That’s also rather odd given the fact that on November 3rd, Biden allegedly racked up…

“…millions more votes than Trump, but can’t get anywhere close to him in this poll.  No incoming president has ever done as badly in this annual survey.’ @MarkSteynOnline @TuckerCarlson That’s because he got millions of Fake Votes in the 2020 Election, which was RIGGED!”

“The Wall Street Journal’s very boring & incoherent Editorial fails to mention my big & easy wins in Texas, Florida, Ohio, Iowa & many other states that the @WSJ & other joke polls said I would lose.  Also, they fail to mention the fact that I got many Republican Senators elected…

“…that, quite frankly, didn’t have much of a chance, like 7, 8 or 9.  The Presidential Election was Rigged with hundreds of thousands of ballots mysteriously flowing into Swing States very late at night as everyone thought the election was easily won by me.  There were many…

“…other acts of fraud and irregularities as well.  STAY TUNED!”

“I love the Great State of Georgia, but the people who run it, from the Governor, @BrianKempGA, to the Secretary of State, are a complete disaster and don’t have a clue, or worse.  Nobody can be this stupid.  Just allow us to find the crime, and turn the state Republican…

“…The consent decree signed by the ‘Secretary’, with the consent of Kemp, is perhaps more poorly negotiated than the deal that John Kerry made with Iran.  Now it turns out that Brad R’s brother works for China, and they definitely don’t want ‘Trump’.  So disgusting! #MAGA”

“ ‘A group of Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania say 200,000 more votes were counted in the 2020 Election than voters (100% went to Biden).  State Representative Frank Ryan said they found troubling discrepancies after an analysis of Election Day data.’ @FoxNews This is far…

“…more votes than is needed by me to win Pennsylvania, not to mention hundreds of thousands of votes in other categories which increase my already big lead into a landslide. All other Swing States show likewise.  WE NEED NEW & ENERGETIC REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP.  This can not stand…

“…Can you imagine if the Republicans stole a Presidential Election from the Democrats – All hell would break out.  Republican leadership only wants the path of least resistance. Our leaders (not me, of course!) are pathetic. They only know how to lose!  P.S. I got MANY Senators…

“…and Congressmen/Congresswomen Elected.  I do believe they forgot!”

“$2000 for our great people, not $600! They have suffered enough from the China Virus!!!”

“Weak and tired Republican ‘leadership’ will allow the bad Defense Bill to pass. Say goodbye to VITAL Section 230 termination, your National Monuments, Forts (names!) and Treasures (inserted by Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren), 5G, and our great soldiers…

“…being removed and brought home from foreign lands who do NOTHING for us. A disgraceful act of cowardice and total submission by weak people to Big Tech. Negotiate a better Bill, or get better leaders, NOW! Senate should not approve NDAA until fixed!!!”

“When are we going to be allowed to do signature verification in Fulton County, Georgia? The process is going VERY slowly.  @BrianKempGA Pennsylvania just found 205,000 votes more than they had voters. Therefore, we WIN Pennsylvania!!!”

“It is up to the States to distribute the vaccines once brought to the designated areas by the Federal Government. We have not only developed the vaccines, including putting up money to move the process along quickly, but gotten them to the states.  Biden failed with Swine Flu!”

[Ed. President Trump has said a lot of really, really stupid things.  But for him to keep bringing up Swine Flu, which as I told you countless times killed just 12,500 and didn’t interrupt our lives in any respect, as I was traveling that year all over the world, shows a total lack of intelligence…and hardly that of a self-described “stable genius.”]

“Unless Republicans have a death wish, and it is also the right thing to do, they must approve the $2000 payments ASAP.  $600 IS NOT ENOUGH! Also, get rid of Section 230 – Don’t let Big Tech steal our Country, and don’t let the Democrats steal the Presidential Election. Get tough!”

“Finished off the year with the highest Stock Market in history. Setting records with your 401k’s, just like I said you would. Congratulations to all!”

[Ed. Ah, Mr. President?  Just like you claimed all the market returns from the date you were elected in Nov. 2016, the recent rally off Election Day 2020, Nov. 3, belongs to Joe Biden, using your metric.  And that means the S&P has rallied 11.5% since then.  The S&P closed at 3369 on Nov. 3.]

“The United States had more votes than it had people voting, by a lot. This travesty cannot be allowed to stand.  It was a Rigged Election, one not even fit for third world countries!”

“Watching @FoxNews is almost as bad as watching Fake News @CNN.  New alternatives are developing!”

“We now have far more votes than needed to flip Georgia in the Presidential race.  Massive VOTER FRAUD took place.  Thank you to the Georgia Legislature for today’s revealing meeting!”

“@BrianKempGA, his puppet Lt. Governor @GeoffDuncanGA, and Secretary of State, are disasters for Georgia.  Won’t let professionals get anywhere near Fulton County for signature verifications, or anything else. They are virtually controlled by @staceyabrams & the Democrats.  Fools!”

The above is all representative of a president who is not only unhinged, but on the verge of a total nervous breakdown.  I fear the Resolute Desk will be smashed to pieces.

Wall Street and the Economy

It was a helluva year for the U.S. stock market….

Dow Jones +7.2%
S&P 500 +16.3%
Nasdaq +43.6%
Russell 2000 +18.4%

Overseas (local currency)

Tokyo +16.0%
Shanghai +13.9%
London -14.4%
Frankfurt +3.6%
Paris -7.1%

After a sickening plunge between Feb. 19 and March 23 of 34% in the S&P 500 amid fears over the spreading coronavirus and lockdowns, the market soared virtually unimpeded, the S&P then rallying a stupendous 68% by year end.

Despite all the pain and sorrow throughout the land, and in large sectors of the economy, the move was fueled by the largest stimulus ever, both from the Federal Reserve and Congress, while Nasdaq in particular benefited from the performance of “stay-at-home” stocks, such as Amazon.com and Netflix.

Yours truly missed the mark badly.  I said for 2020 the S&P and Dow Jones would fall 3%, and Nasdaq gain 4%.  But I also didn’t panic as the market was crashing in March.   It was stay the course.  I did suggest around mid-year to take some money off the table after the market had rallied back so much, but as Tony Soprano would have said, “Whaddya gonna do?”

Stocks are way overvalued, but as a market historian I know such moves can continue for quite a while.  Nasdaq, for example, had this famous run.

1995  +39.9%
1996  +22.7%
1997  +21.6%
1998  +39.6%
1999  +85.6%

Of course the next three years were dreadful….

2000  -39.3%
2001  -21.1%
2002  -31.5%

As for 2021, I’m begging off until next week because I want to see what happens in Washington on Jan. 6, as well as the Georgia senate races.

Meanwhile, next week we’ll begin to be flooded with economic data, both here and abroad, and then by Jan. 10, earnings season commences in earnest.

For now, this week we had a December reading on the Chicago PMI, a strong 59.5 (50 the dividing line between growth and contraction), better than expected, while the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index for October grew 1.6% month-on-month, 7.9% year-over-year.

The weekly jobless claims figure, however, remained at a sickly level, 787,000 vs. 806,000 the prior week.  Again, since March, this number has been above the 665,000 figure that marked the worst of the Great Recession.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow barometer for the fourth quarter remained at 10.4%, with a slew of important December data to come.

As for the holiday shopping season, the first comprehensive look came from Mastercard SpendingPulse, up a disappointing 2.4% for the period Nov. 1 thru Dec. 24.  Online shopping was up, as expected, 47.2%.

But the 2.4% is below the original National Retail Federation forecast of 3.6% to 5.2%.  Clearly, the foot traffic just wasn’t there and we await the major retailers’ earnings reports in the coming weeks.

E-commerce, by the way, is now 20% of overall sales vs. 13% in 2019.

Europe and Asia

Zero economic releases from Eurostat, with the PMI data for December set to hit us early next week.  

As for Brexit: The United Kingdom left the European Union’s orbit at midnight on Thursday (Brussels time), turning its back on a 48-year liaison with the European project for an uncertain post-Brexit future in the UK’s most significant geopolitical shift since the loss of empire.

For five years, the Brexit crisis dominated European affairs, and your editor covered it all.  Yes, I kept repeating myself, but that’s how the story evolved, fits and starts, ending up in the same place in the end, until just the last few weeks.

So the transition phase is over and now it’s about implementation of the new trade agreement.  It is fortunate that the change is taking place over the holiday weekend, so there is no real chaos as yet at the borders, but invariably there will be at some point fairly soon.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in his New Year’s Eve message, said, “This is an amazing moment for this country.  We have our freedom in our hands and it is up to us to make the most of it.”

As EU leaders and citizens bade farewell, Johnson said there would be no bonfire of regulations to build a “bargain basement Dickensian Britain” and that the country would remain the “quintessential European civilization.”

But Johnson, the face of the Brexit campaign, has been short on detail about what he wants to build with Britain’s “independence” – or how to do it while borrowing record amounts to pay for the Covid-19 crisis.  Ironically, Johnson’s 80-year-old father, Stanley, who voted to remain in 2016, said he was in the process of applying for a French passport.

In the June 23, 2016 referendum, 52% of Brits backed Brexit, 48% backed staying.  Few have changed their minds since.  England and Wales voted out, but Scotland and Northern Ireland voted in.  The UK is divided on much more than the European Union and now eyes will turn to Scotland, which could be pressing for another independence vote in 2022, after the next parliament meets early this year, with elections in May.

In the near term, we’ll see how the food delivery process works out because there is going to be a huge increase in the number of food safety checks at the ports.  Plant and animal safety issues are big.

And on the issue of fishing rights, some Brits say Johnson sold out fish stocks to the EU.  The National Federation of Fishermen’s Organization said the fishing industry had been sacrificed. For example, it said, the UK’s share of Celtic Sea haddock will increase to 20% from 10%, leaving 80% in the hands of EU fleets for a further five years.  This is a big issue in Scotland.

But fishing is just 0.03% of British economic output.  Like in France, however, the fishing industry carries an outsized political influence.  [Actually, I saw a piece in the Financial Times that Britain’s fishing industry “adds less value to the UK economy than the Harrods department store.]

Lastly, Britain’s services sector, accounting for 80 percent of economic activity, was largely left out of the 1,246-page deal.  The UK is hoping that the EU issues an “equivalence” decision on financial services in the near future, but the guaranteed access that UK companies had to the EU’s single market is over.

Data protection rules for UK companies is another issue the EU needs to make a decision on; recognizing UK rules as equivalent in this realm as well when it comes to personal data and privacy.

Turning to Asia…as in Europe, economic reports were minimal, though China’s National Bureau of Statistics released its official PMI data for December, with manufacturing at 51.9 vs. November’s 52.1, still solid growth, while the service sector reading was 55.7 vs. 56.4 the prior period.  GDP is forecast to grow 2% for all of 2020, which will be the best performance in the world among major economies.

Street Bytes

The major indices finished on a high note in the holiday-shortened week, with the Dow Jones adding 1.3% to close at a record 30606, while the S&P 500 rose 1.4% to 3756, another record, and Nasdaq tacked on 0.7% to 12888, just shy of its record set Monday of 12899.

--U.S. Treasury Yields

12/31/2020

6-mo. 0.08%  2-yr. 0.12%  10-yr. 0.91%  30-yr. 1.64%

12/31/2019

6-mo. 1.58%  2-yr. 1.57%  10-yr. 1.92%  30-yr. 2.39%

Thank you, Federal Reserve and Chair Powell.

--Investors piled into initial public offerings at a record rate in 2020, companies raising $167.2 billion through 454 offerings on U.S. exchanges this year through Dec. 24, according to Dealogic; the previous full-year record of $107.9 billion at the height of the dot-com boom in 1999.

$67.3 billion was raised in the fourth quarter alone as a result of the likes of Airbnb Inc and Doordash Inc.

The year certainly didn’t start out well on the IPO front, and market experts were not looking for any significant pickup, but new-issue activity resumed in May and after the Federal Reserve signaled it was going to keep interest rates near zero for years to come to shore up the economy, stocks rebounded rapidly from their spring lows.  The pace is expected to continue in 2021.

--What a year for crude oil, which fell from near $70 a barrel at the beginning of 2020 to below $20 in April as lockdowns slashed fuel demand.  Prices briefly turned negative in the U.S.

But after the short price war, OPEC and Russia enacted record supply cuts to stabilize the market, though oil & gas companies were forced to rip up spending plans and there were waves of layoffs in the industry worldwide, with the energy majors ramping up plans for a greener future.

But the last six weeks or so of the year oil has settled into a $45-$48ish range and some are betting the cycle is turning, with virtually all agreeing that demand will rise by the most on record in 2021, owing to vaccines and a return to normalcy.

The International Energy Agency projects consumption will rise by almost 6m barrels a day in 2021 but will average just 96.9m b/d – still well below the pre-pandemic record of 100m b/d in 2019.

Trying to gauge supply is more complex.  U.S. crude output fell from a record 12.3m b/d in 2019 to 11.3m b/d this year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Shale has stabilized in the second half of the year but the boom times are a thing of the past.  The EIA sees U.S. supply falling to 11.1m b/d in 2021.

If prices rise above $50, however, things could change.

Oil finished at $48.42 for 2020, down from $61.06 a year ago (West Texas Intermediate).

One wildcard is Iran. If the Biden administration revives the nuclear deal, that could result in Iran adding close to 2m b/d back to the market if U.S. sanctions were eased.

--Related to all the above, oil-and-gas companies in North America and Europe wrote down roughly $145 billion combined in the first three quarters of 2020, the most for that nine-month period since at least 2010, according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal.   The total significantly exceeds the write-downs taken over the same periods in 2015 and 2016, during the last oil bust, and is equivalent to roughly 10% of the companies’ collective market value.

This year’s industry reappraisal comes as oil companies face longer-term uncertainty over future demand for their main products amid the rise of electric cars, among other facts.

--I got a kick out of headline in Crain’s New York Business, which probably wasn’t the work of Boeing’s, or the airlines’ PR departments.

“Deadly Boeing 737 Max jet returns to New York City airports”

This week saw the return to domestic skies of the 737 MAX aircraft, with American Airlines the first, and slated to run flights out of LaGuardia Airport including one round-trip journey between New York and Miami.

“We expect to gradually phase more 737 MAX aircraft into regular service, with up to 38 departures depending on the day of the week through mid-February,” American spokesman Andrew Trull said.  “From mid-February through early March, there will be up to 91 departures depending on the day of the week.”

American is running its MAX campaign out of Miami International Airport for now, while United Airlines will commence limited MAX flights starting Feb. 6, though the planes will be reserved for George Bush International Airport in Houston and Denver.  United has pledged that when it does reintroduce the MAX into the air that half of the flights on MAX routes will be flown by non-MAX aircraft.

A United spokeswoman said, “Nothing is more important to United than the safety of our customers and employees, so United’s MAX fleet won’t return to service until we have completed more than 1,000 hours of work on every aircraft, including FAA-mandated changes to the flight software, additional pilot training, multiple test flights and meticulous technical analysis to ensure the planes are ready to fly.”

The MAX has been grounded since March 2019 following the second deadly crash.

If customers are still concerned about flying on the MAX once the fleet returns to the air, both United and American are offering alternatives.  United said it would rebook customers at no additional charge and put them on another plane or refund the ticket price.  American said it now includes aircraft type on boarding announcements, and it will notify passengers by text or email if their aircraft has changed to a 737 MAX.

American said customers may rebook on the next available flight for free, cancel their trip and receive redeemable travel credits, or change their itinerary within a 300-mile radius if no alternative American flights are available.

--The Environmental Protection Agency said Monday it has set its first-ever climate standards for commercial airliners and large business jets, aligning U.S. rules with global standards and giving jet makers eight years to comply.

The core of the regulations adopt metrics established by the International Civil Aviation Organization, the United Nations’ commercial-aviation regulator.  The U.S. aviation industry made it clear to the EPA they wanted the adoption of the standards because it could otherwise hurt sales.

The EPA’s action thus helps prevent U.S. jets from getting shut out of the international market.  U.S. manufacturers export three of every four aircraft they make, and U.S. companies faced the potential of losing those sales if their planes didn’t meet international standards.

Boeing, for instance, has been supportive of the rules changes in order to avoid any potential risk to their business overseas.

The move follows years of international momentum to address the airline industry’s contributions to climate change, the sector accounting for about 2% of the global carbon emissions that are warming the planet, according to U.S. data.

--Ant Group Co. Ltd. is considering folding most of its online financial businesses, including consumer lending, into a holding company that would be regulated like traditional financial firms to placate Chinese regulators, according to various stories out there.

The Chinese central bank (People’s Bank of China) and other regulators want Ant to fold its wealth management and insurance distribution businesses as well as an online lender, minority-owned MYbank, into the holding company.

But what would happen to Ant’s payments business Alipay, launched in 2004 and the second-biggest revenue generator for the group after consumer lending?

China is seeking to potentially take a larger stake in billionaire Jack Ma’s businesses, the Wall Street Journal first reported, including Alibaba Group.

It was last month (November) that Chinese regulators suddenly halted Ant’s $37 billion IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong, which was set to be the world’s largest.  Since then, regulators have been reining in Ma’s financial and e-commerce empire after he publicly criticized China’s regulatory system in October for stifling innovation, a move he no doubt regrets today.

It’s not nice to mess with Father Xi.

The moves the central bank are requesting of Ant would slash the valuation of the revamped company, which was to be valued at $315 billion on its market debut mainly due to its structure as a technology vendor to financial institutions rather than as a financial firm itself.

As far as I know, Jack Ma hasn’t been seen in public in some time, having been told by the government, according to reports, to stay in the country.

Alibaba shares had rallied a bit from the lows of last week after the government announced it was looking into their operations, but then BABA stock fell again Thursday after regulators are reportedly reviewing the equity investments of Ant and other companies, which may force them to sell the companies.  Regulators are looking into whether the investments are breaching rules, such as creating unfair competition in the market.

--According to a think tank, the Centre for Economics and Business Research, China will overtake the United States to become the world’s biggest economy in 2028, five years earlier than previously estimated due to the contrasting recoveries of the two countries from the pandemic.

“For some time, an overarching theme of global economics has been the economic and soft power struggle between the United States and China,” the center said in its annual report published last Saturday.

“The Covid-19 pandemic and corresponding economic fallout have certainly tipped this rivalry in China’s favor.”

The CEBR said China’s “skillful management of the pandemic,” with its strict early lockdown, and hits to long-term growth in the West meant China’s relative economic performance had improved.  China looked set for average economic growth of 5.7% a year from 2021-25 before slowing to 4.5% a year from 2026-30.  The United States was likely to have a strong post-pandemic rebound in 2021, but its growth would then slow to 1.9% a year between 2022 and 2024, and then to 1.6% after that.

Japan would remain the world’s third-biggest economy, in dollar terms, until the early 2030s when it would be overtaken by India, pushing Germany down to fifth from fourth.

--Microsoft said in a blog on Thursday that its investigation into the SolarWinds breach showed “unusual” activity with a “small number of internal accounts,” and that hackers used one account in particular to access and view source code in a number of source code repositories.

Microsoft said there was no evidence of a breach of production services or customer data, nor of any indication that its systems were used to attack others.

--Tiffany & Co. shareholders on Wednesday approved a $15.8 billion deal with France’s LVMH, ending their acrimonious dispute between the two luxury retailers that had stretched for more than a year.  As agreed in October, LVMH is paying $131.50 per share, down from $135 in the original deal signed late last year.  LVMH made waves about breaking the agreement as the pandemic hit and in-person retail shut down.

--Back in January and February, I was walking three or four days a week at the local Mall at Short Hills for some winter exercise, this being one of the nicer malls in the country.  Aside from clearing the head a little, it was a great way to get the lay of the land in retail.

Then the lockdown hit.  It’s literally a 2-minute drive from me and I have not been inside since.  I wanted to, and I might next week.  It hasn’t been opening real early for us walkers, as far as I know (at least not at 7:00 a.m.), and I just didn’t want to chance being around a lot of people, though having said that, I’m around a ton of people daily where I do my grocery shopping.

Anyway, I’m super curious to see which stores survived and it’s always right after Christmas you sadly get some new closures.

Yes, since the pandemic hit, I have been to my rotation of three grocery stores, one drug store, lots of liquor stores (cough cough), Staples, Dollar Tree, one little Italian restaurant I’ve adopted for takeout to do my part to keep it alive, Walmart a few times, and that’s it.  I know I’m not alone in this regard.

So I bring this up because what is the future of shopping malls?  Obviously not good.  They were beginning to die well before Covid-19, especially depending on who the anchor tenants were.  The Mall at Short Hill has Neiman Marcus (operating under Chapter 11 protection), Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s as anchors, and they’re all still there, for now.

But Macy’s and J.C. Penney have shuttered a ton of stores, ditto Sears, with more on the way.

As the malls shuttered stores, other retail tenants missed rental payments because of dwindling foot traffic.

“Retail rental payments are ultimately funded by sales,” said Tom McGee, president and CEO of the International Council of Shopping Centers, told USA TODAY. “In a year where stores were forced to close and federal aid was insufficient, missed payments happened.”

USA TODAY also reports that Simon Property Group received roughly 51% of the rent it was owed by its U.S. properties for April and May, according to Coresight Research.

And then the holiday shopping season hit, and Americans shied away from shopping in malls.  According to Coresight, Black Friday was “the quietest in 20 years” as foot traffic plummeted.

More than 40 major retailers declared bankruptcy this year, according to a recent CoStar report, resulting in more than 11,000 stores announcing closure, with 1,444 already expected in 2021.

Inevitably, we are likely to see many weaker malls turn empty retail space into residences and offices.  I think it would be a pisser to live in a mall.  An ‘indoor track’ at your disposal, some decent restaurant/bars to hang out in and just walk back to your condo.  Parking garage.  Sign me up!

--U.S. corn futures closed their strongest year in a decade as Argentina curbed its exports and dry weather continued to threaten harvests in South America, sending prices to their highest in 6 ½ years.

Soybeans also scaled a 6 ½ year peak as South American weather worries and tightening global supplies fueled a rally punctuating the oilseed’s strongest yearly price gain since 2007.

Corn ended up 24.8% for the year, while soybean prices climbed 37.2% from a year ago.  Wheat added 14.6%.

--It’s so sad what has happened to the restaurant and bar industry.  This holiday week is traditionally the busiest by far for both, kids home from school, large family gatherings, the general feeling of goodwill that drives you to such establishments.

The bar industry generated sales of $19.9 billion in 2019, according to the trade group American Nightlife Association.

--But as bad as the restaurant industry has been, the performing arts sector has been totally decimated.

According to the National Endowment for the Arts, during the quarter ending in September, when the overall unemployment rate averaged 8.5 percent, 52 percent of actors, 55 percent of dancers and 27 percent of musicians were out of work.  By comparison, the jobless rate was 27 percent for waiters; 19 percent for cooks; and about 13 percent for retail salespeople over the same time period.

In many areas, art venues – theaters, clubs, performance spaces, concert halls, festivals – were the first to close and will be the last to reopen.

Adam Krauthamer, president of the Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians in New York, told the Wall Street Journal, “My fear is we’re not just losing jobs, we’re losing careers.”  He said 95 percent of the local’s 7,000 members are not working on a regular basis because of the mandated shutdown.  “It will create a cultural depression,” he said.

The new $15 billion worth of stimulus aid for performance venues and cultural institutions that Congress approved will not end the mass unemployment for performers anytime soon, and it only extends federal unemployment aid through mid-March.

The median annual salary for full-time musicians and singers was $42,800; it was $40,500 for actors; and $36,500 for dancers and choreographers, according to a National Endowment for the Arts analysis.  Many of these folks work second jobs, but these are often in the restaurant and retail industries.

--The ‘haves’ and the have nots’…that was 2020, as the world’s 500 richest people added $1.8 trillion to their combined net worth this year and are now worth $7.6 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, equivalent to a 31% increase.  The gains were disproportionately at the top, where five individuals now hold fortunes in excess of $100 billion and another 20 are worth at least $50 billion.

Foreign Affairs

Syria: Islamic State on Thursday claimed responsibility for a bus attack in Syria the previous day, saying it had killed 40 Syrian army soldiers and badly wounded six others.  Syrian state media said on Wednesday that 28 people had died in an attack on a bus along a main highway in Syria’s Deir Zor province that borders Iraq.

Yemen: At least 22 people were killed and dozens wounded in an attack on Aden airport on Wednesday, moments after a plane landed carrying a newly formed Saudi-backed cabinet for government-held parts of Yemen.

Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik said all members of the cabinet were “fine.”  But the attack underlined the difficulties facing a government intended by Saudi Arabia to unite two of its allies in the war against the Iran-aligned Houthi movement.

Hours after the attack a second explosion was heard around Aden’s presidential palace where the cabinet members including Maeen, as well as the Saudi ambassador to Yemen had been taken to safety.  There was no report of injuries.

In the airport attack, two members of the International Committee of the Red Cross were killed.

Saudi Arabia: A Saudi court on Monday sentenced prominent women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul to nearly six years in prison, her family said, after her conviction in a trial that has drawn international condemnation. 

The verdict and sentence pose a challenge to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s relationship with president-elect Joe Biden, who has criticized Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.

Hathloul, 31, has been held since 2018 following her arrest along with several other women’s rights activists.  She was charged with seeking to change the Saudi political system and harming national security, under broad counter-terrorism laws.

The court suspended two years and 10 months of her sentence of five years and eight months – most already served since her arrest on May 15, 2018 – so she could be released by March 2021, though with a return to prison possible if she commits any crime, various Saudi newspapers have reported.

United Nations human rights experts have called the charges “spurious.”

Hathloul campaigned for women’s right to drive and to end the kingdom’s male guardianship system.  Rights groups and her family say she was subjected to abuse, including electric shocks, waterboarding, flogging and sexual assault while in prison.

Lebanon: The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, in an end-of-year interview with a Beirut-based television station, said his group now has twice as many precision-guided missiles as it had a year ago, saying Israel’s efforts to prevent it from acquiring them has failed.  Nasrallah said his group has the capability to strike anywhere in Israel and occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel has in recent months expressed concern that Hezbollah is trying to establish production facilities to make precision-guided missiles.

Nasrallah also said that the last few weeks of the administration of President Trump are critical and must be treated with care.  He called Trump “angry” and “crazy.”

China: Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said in her New Year’s speech that Taiwan is ready to have “meaningful” talks with China as equals as long as they are willing to put aside confrontation, offering another olive branch to Beijing.

Beijing has been ramping up military activity near the island. China says it is responding to “collusion” between Washington and Taipei, angered at growing U.S. support for the self-governed island.  Beijing views this as a precursor to Taiwan declaring formal independence, a red line for China.

Speaking at the presidential office, Tsai said that in the past year, Chinese military activity near Taiwan has threatened peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

“I want to reiterate, that when it comes to cross-strait relations we will not advance rashly and will stick to our principles,” Tsai said.  “As long as the Beijing authorities are determined to defuse antagonism and improve cross-strait relations, in line with the principles of reciprocity and dignity, we are willing to jointly promote meaningful dialogue,” she added.

China, which cut off a formal talks mechanism in 2016 after she first won office, has repeatedly rejected Tsai’s advances, saying she has to first accept Taiwan is part of China, something Tsai has refused to do.

President Xi Jinping did not mention Taiwan in his New Year’s speech on Thursday evening.

Two U.S. warships sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Thursday, drawing protests from Beijing, the second such mission in December and coming almost two weeks after a Chinese aircraft carrier group used the same waterway.

In Hong Kong, Jimmy Lai was back in custody, after the city’s top court granted permission for prosecutors to appeal against his HK$10 million bail amid national security law proceedings.

Hundreds of journalists from local and overseas media were in attendance.

Lai was the first defendant to win court bail after being charged with breaking the security law, with state media sharply criticizing the decision, warning that mainland Chinese authorities could take over the case.

Separately, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday called for the immediate release of 10 Hong Kong activists who were sentenced to between seven months and three years in jail by a Chinese court.

“The United States strongly condemns the Shenzhen court’s actions and calls for the ten members of the group who were sentenced to jail terms to be immediately and unconditionally released,” Pompeo said in a statement.

North Korea: Kim Jong Un thanked the public for their trust and support “in the difficult times” and wished them happiness and good health in his first New Year’s Day cards sent to his people.

Kim usually gives a televised speech on Jan. 1, but he skipped it this year since he will address the country’s first ruling party congress in five years sometime in early January.

“I will work hard to bring earlier the new era in which the ideals and desires of our people will come true,” Kim said in his letter, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

“I offer thanks to the people for having invariably trusted and supported our party even in the difficult times,” he said. “I sincerely wish all the families across the country greater happiness and beloved people, good health.”

Kim’s address before the Workers’ Party Congress will be watched for the first signals of his approach to the incoming Biden administration.  Kim has yet to congratulate the president-elect.

North Korea’s pandemic-related border closure with China, its biggest trading partner, is hurting the economy.  Bilateral trade volume in the first 11 months of 2020 plunged by about 79% from the same period in 2019, according to an analyst at Seoul’s IBK Economic Research Institute.

Random Musings

--President-elect Joe Biden said on Monday that many national security agencies had been damaged and “hollowed out,” reiterating that his transition team was not getting the information it needed, including from the Pentagon.

“The truth is, many of the agencies that are critical to our security have incurred enormous damage,” Biden said.  “Many have been hollowed out in personnel, capacity and in morale.  In the process, they have been atrophied and sidelined.”

“We encountered obstruction from the political leadership of that department (Pentagon).  And the truth is many of the agencies that are critical to our security have incurred enormous damage,” Biden said.

“We’re just not getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. It’s nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility,” he said from his transition team headquarters in Wilmington, DE.

--Sen. Marco Rubio (R, Fla.) went after infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci on Twitter on Sunday, saying he “lied about masks” and “has been distorting the level of vaccination needed for herd immunity.”

“It isn’t just him,” Rubio added.  “Many in elite bubbles believe the American public doesn’t know ‘what’s good for them’ so they need to be tricked into ‘doing the right thing.’”

Fauci initially said in March masks weren’t necessary but then quickly changed that advice at the beginning of April.  Fauci said the initial recommendation was made before the degree of asymptomatic spread was apparent and when he feared a rush to buy masks could lead to a shortage for medical workers.

As for Little Marco, who thinks, like Josh Hawley, he’s a legitimate candidate for president in 2024 and is shamelessly attempting to capture the Trump base, he got a vaccine before everyone else, despite his age and apparent good health.  He’s a fraud.  A punk.

It’s too bad, I used to kind of like the guy…now I can’t stand him.

--There is literally nothing to say about the bombing in Nashville, Tenn., on Christmas Day, other than that it was a needless tragedy, dealing many businesses in the area a devastating second blow as they were already struggling to stay afloat amidst the pandemic.  Sometimes life isn’t fair…and it sucks.  They deserve extraordinary government support.

As the bomber, we may never know a true motive, but it’s awful that police and federal officials, when tipped off in 2019 about his potential activities, didn’t feel they had the evidence to warrant further investigation.  It’s not the first time tragedy could have been averted in the last two decades.  We get the signs all the time, but there’s always a link missing.

--Gideon Rachman / Financial Times

“It has always been possible for people to get themselves into trouble, by writing or saying the wrong thing. But the boundaries of what is acceptable have shifted fast in recent years.  Remarks that would not have drawn comment a decade ago, are now more likely to be called out as sexist, homophobic or racist.

“Some efforts to suppress prejudice by seeking to have a controversial voice disinvited, denied a book contract, or even fired, have in turn sparked resistance.  Critics argue that ‘cancel culture’ has become another form of dangerous intolerance, restricting free speech.

“Debate reached a boiling point in July with the publication of an open letter in Harpers magazine signed by artists and intellectuals, including Salman Rushdie, Francis Fukuyama…JK Rowling… The authors complain of ‘an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism.’  They added that, in the current climate, ‘editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated…’

“Angry commentary mocked the letter as whining from celebrities unused to being held to account for their views….

“In general, the most heated debates occurred on college campuses, where professors sometimes found themselves trapped between self-righteous students and panicky administrators.  Yet some cancellations have drawn support even from most free speech liberals.  When Wiley, a UK rapper and recipient of an MBE*, published a series of anti-Semitic posts and videos on social media, his record label and agent swiftly dropped him, and he was suspended from Twitter. Cancelled – in a word.”

*Member of the Order of the British Empire

--New York City recorded 462 murders in 2020 (preliminary), up 45% from 2019’s 319, but while the surge, including a 97% jump in shootings, is not good, some perspective is in order.  462 is not as awful, historically, as it seems.  It’s what happens in 2021 that will give us a real indicator.  Thankfully, by end of this year there will also be a new administration in City Hall.

One thing all of us can agree on, Republicans and Democrats, and that is that Mayor Bill de Blasio has been godawful.  I got a kick out of watching CNN’s New Year’s coverage when, after the ball dropped, co-host Andy Cohen absolutely ripped de Blasio to shreds, hizzoner and the first lady being shown dancing.

--We have new dietary guidelines, courtesy of our federal government, that keep current allowances for sugar and alcohol consumption unchanged, rejecting recommendations by its scientific advisory committee to make significant cuts.

The scientific committee, which was composed of 20 academics and doctors, had recommended cutting the limit for added sugars in the diet to 6% of daily calories from 10% in the current guidelines, citing rising rates of obesity and the link between obesity and health problems like Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer.  The committee also recommended lowering the limit for alcoholic beverages for men to one drink per day from two, matching the guidance for women.  It pointed to research linking greater alcohol consumption to a higher risk of death.

The new guidelines do include the scientific committee’s recommendation that children under age 2 consume no added sugars at all.

It’s all about the industry groups and the lobbyists for same, boys and girls, who were for obvious reasons against the scientific committee’s new limits.

The American Beverage Association, representing the likes of Coke and Pepsi, urged the government to keep the 10% added-sugars limit during a public meeting in August.

And the alcohol industry lauded the government’s decision, with a spokesman (moi) for the Beer Institute praising “maintaining the long-standing definition of moderate alcohol consumption.”

Naturally, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020-2025 advises us to eat a lot of veggies, fruits, whole grains, lean meat and poultry and low-fat dairy, as well as seafood, nuts and vegetable oils.  Plus six Big Macs and large fries weekly, along with anything offered by Taco Bell.

--Peggy Noonan / Wall Street Journal

“Twenty twenty defies summation.  All of us tried; no words ever seemed to capture the whole. But three things are true:

“You’ll tell your grandchildren about this year, you’ll never forget this year, and your life changed this year, though it may be some time before you know in exactly what way and how much.”

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

We pray for our healthcare workers and first responders.

God bless America.

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Gold $1901…up from $1523, 12/31/19
Oil $48.42

Returns for the week 12/28-1/1

Dow Jones  +1.3%  [30606]
S&P 500  +1.4%  [3756]
S&P MidCap  -0.4%
Russell 2000  -1.5%
Nasdaq  +0.7%  [12888]

Returns for 2020

Dow Jones  +7.2%
S&P 500  +16.3%
S&P MidCap  +11.8%
Russell 2000  +18.4%
Nasdaq  +43.6%

Bulls 63.6
Bears 17.2…no new updates have been released over the holidays

Dr. Bortrum posted a new column…he’s alive!!!

Here’s to 2021!  Let’s stay safe until the vaccines can work their magic.

Wear a mask…wash your hands.  Don’t be a jerk.

Thank you, dear readers, for sticking with me. 

Brian Trumbore

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