Week in Review

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Week in Review

01/01/2022

For the week 12/27-12/31

[Posted 9:00 PM ET, Friday]

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Special thanks to Vince V. for his ongoing support.

Edition 1,185

[To end the year on a Friday, and during college football’s bowl season, including the playoffs today, is not easy. So, I will continue with my themes on some of what follows next time.]

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We bid adieu to 2021, a second straight godawful year for just about everything but stocks, as discussed below.

Instead it was a year featuring an insurrection, an effort to overturn a presidential election; a catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan; two debilitating Covid variants with sweeping impacts on the global economy and supply chain, which led to soaring inflation; a massive condo collapse in Surfside, Fla., that killed scores; a Tokyo Olympics held a year later than scheduled; a leading public official having to resign in disgrace; historic natural disasters around the world, from devastating hurricanes and typhoons to deadly floods in Europe; and freedom of speech disappearing in the likes of Hong Kong and Russia.  Democracy overall was under attack everywhere it seemed. Disinformation was also the order of the day.

This coming year will see much better news on the coronavirus front after a chaotic January, but Russia will have us on pins and needles early on, while lord knows how China is going to handle the Winter Olympics, after which they will ceaselessly harass Taiwan.

Assuming Vladimir Putin wants to make some noise, and that he doesn’t want to do anything until the Beijing Games are over, he’ll have a short window while the ground is still frozen in eastern Ukraine.

Meanwhile, we do have this Omicron matter to deal with, as cases explode everywhere.  The early studies offer some hope as the variant may be less severe, but hospitals in many states and nations are being overwhelmed as healthcare workers fall victim to it just like the rest of us.  It’s also pretty tough to have in-person learning when teachers and cafeteria and custodial staff are out.

It’s also a simple fact that it’s the unvaccinated who are getting seriously ill and dying, not those of us with booster shots.

But last week I may have stumbled on the best description for this current period when I said it’s the “final spasm.”  Others have come to the same conclusion this week.  It’s like a big storm that is blowing through, one part of the world after another.  But the evidence is pointing to an end to this major surge in just a matter of weeks, though we’ll have to deal with lots of frayed nerves, disruptions, and family tragedies, in the interim.

I’ve been to Appomattox a couple times in my life and up the road from McLean House is a little cemetery with the bodies of some of the last Confederate soldiers (and one Union soldier) to die in the Civil War in the final skirmishes in the area.  You’ve heard it before these past two years, but it bears repeating.  Don’t be stupid.  Do the right thing.  You know what that is.  Do the right thing for yourself, your family, and your community, especially the elderly you may come in contact with.

Winter just started, but spring is around the corner.  That said, read a bit I have down below on the potential aftereffects of Covid.  You just don’t want to get it.  This is no flu if you still need convincing.

Biden Agenda

Congress returns and it’s all about Build Back Better, and whether President Biden can reach some sort of compromise with Sen. Joe Manchin.  There will be intra-party fireworks, with the progressives going nuts and making fools of themselves.

--I didn’t have a chance last time to note a column from Jonah Goldberg that appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Dec. 20.

“You know that old tale about the guy stranded on a rooftop during a flood who beseeches God to rescue him?  A neighbor in a rowboat comes and offers to rescue him.  ‘No, I’ve asked God to save me,’ the man says.  Then a police boat makes the same offer, and he gives the same reply. Finally, a helicopter arrives, same response.

“The flood claims the man and when he gets to Heaven he berates the almighty: ‘I had faith in you, but you didn’t save me.  You let me drown. Why?’

“God says, ‘What are you talking about? I sent two boats and a helicopter for you.  What more do you want?’

“Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia may not be on a rescue mission from God, but the Democrats would be wise to see him that way.

“On Sunday (Dec. 19), Manchin told Fox News’ Bret Baier that he was a no vote on President Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ plan.  The response from the White House and Democrats was one of poorly contained fury and unbridled panic. It was a blow to the future of ‘democracy’ and the death of Biden’s domestic agenda and perhaps his presidency.

“A lot of this outrage is premised on the same misreading of political reality that led the Democrats to push the plan in the first place.

“When Biden was elected, the Democrats gained only one Senate seat and the GOP was expected to retain control of the Senate.  But Donald Trump’s meddling in two Georgia run-offs handed two seats and nominal control of a tied Senate to the Democrats.  And yet, pressure from progressives and bizarre advice from some historians convinced Biden that the electorate craved a New Deal-style ‘transformative’ agenda.

“ ‘This agenda,’ Biden said last month, ‘the agenda that’s in these bills, is what 81 million people voted for.’

“A far more plausible take: Many people simply voted against Trump, or for a more competent approach to the pandemic or less drama from Washington or just because they’re Democrats who would have voted for any Democrat.  But Biden decided to govern as if the political winds were a gale at his back.

“If it were true that Americans were hungry for a new New Deal, Biden would have had coattails because the New Deal wasn’t just popular according to some carefully worded polls.  FDR’s party gained 97 seats in the House and 11 in the Senate in 1932.  In 2020, no Republican incumbent lost in the House (the Democrats lost 13 seats) and, pre-Georgia, the GOP lost only one Senate seat.  That’s no groundswell.

“It’s funny, the same folks furious at Manchin keep saying that one senator from West Virginia shouldn’t have the power to block Biden’s transformative agenda also implicitly think that winning two Georgia seats validates that agenda.  More importantly, Manchin wasn’t one senator standing athwart Build Back Better, he was the 51st senator.  Throw in Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, and it’s 52 senators against, 48 for.  So much for majoritarianism.

“Biden is a victim of surely one of the worst messaging screw-ups in recent political history.  He got $1.9 trillion in spending at the beginning of his presidency for Covid relief.  He successfully managed to do what Trump couldn’t – pass a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, with bipartisan support.  Over $3 trillion in spending – nearly twice the Obama stimulus and Obamacare price tags, combined – is plenty for your first year in office.  Biden could have – and should have – declared victory and swiftly pivoted to centrist initiatives and rhetoric that would help Democrats hold on to moderates and independents in the 2022 midterms.  Instead, he opted to pander to the slice of the Democratic base that opposed him in the primaries….

“Even now, the Democrats are still misreading political reality.  The defeat of Build Back Better needn’t be the disaster they are making it out to be… The 2022 midterms are shaping up to be a Republican tsunami, but Biden has plenty of opportunities to avoid drowning in it.  After all, that’s why God sent him Joe Manchin.”

--Marc A. Thiessen / Washington Post

Thiessen annually lists the 10 best, and 10 worst things that a president does each year.

 For Joe Biden’s first year in office, the No. 1 worst thing:

“1. His withdrawal from Afghanistan was the most shameful foreign policy calamity in my lifetime.  Biden left hundreds of U.S. citizens and as many as 62,000 of our Afghan allies behind enemy lines, and forced NATO allies to abandon their citizens and allies as well.  He put the safety of U.S. service members at the Kabul airport in the hands of the Taliban and Haqqani network, a decision that led to the deaths of 13 Americans in a suicide attack.  His ‘over the horizon’ drone strike killed no terrorists but took the lives of 10 innocent people.  And he repeatedly lied about the unfolding disaster – declaring that al-Qaeda was ‘gone’ from Afghanistan; that no Americans were having trouble getting to the airport; that no allies were questioning the United States’ credibility; that none of his military advisers had recommended leaving a residual force; and that his Afghan debacle was an ‘extraordinary success.’….

“Little wonder that Biden suffered the fastest collapse in public approval of any president in modern history.  When he took office, he had almost 56 percent approval and was 20 points above water. Today, he’s more than 10 points underwater.  That’s a 30-point swing in less than a year.  No recent president has fallen from grace so far, so fast, so early in his presidency.

“This was the worst first year of any president in my lifetime.”

--Vice President Kamala Harris has been an unmitigated disaster, and it is highly unlikely she will recover in the eyes of the American people.  Her recent interviews, designed to ‘reboot’ her image, have made things worse.

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“The White House is rolling out Kamala Harris for year-end interviews to improve her public standing.  A generous judgment is that this isn’t helping the Vice President or the country.

“The latest example is her interview with CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ on Sunday. After some boilerplate on Covid, the economy and voting rights, host Margaret Brennan turned to foreign policy: ‘What do you see is the biggest national security challenge confronting the U.S.?  What is the thing that worries you and keeps you up at night?’

“Ms. Harris answered this way: ‘Frankly, one of them is our democracy. And that I can talk about because that’s not classified….there is I think no question in the minds of people who are foreign policy experts that the year 2021 is not the year 2000.  You know, I think there’s so much about foreign and domestic policy that, for example, was guided and prioritized based on Sept. 11, 2001.

“ ‘And we are embarking on a new era where the threats to our nation take many forms, including the threat of autocracies taking over and having outsized influence around the world.  And so I go back to our point about the need to fight for the integrity of our democracy.  In addition, it is obviously about what we need to do in the climate crisis.’

“In a world of growing risks from China, Russia, Iran cyber attacks and hypersonic weapons, the Vice President names U.S. democracy and climate change as America’s most important security challenges.  Yikes.  Perhaps she didn’t want to make news on a security question, so she fell back on her political safe spaces.

“By ‘our democracy’ she means the new state laws that address ballot integrity. Whatever else those laws are, they aren’t a threat to U.S. security. As for climate, we’d agree with her if she meant the threat of Biden Administration policies to reduce U.S. energy supplies and weaken the electrical grid.  But she’s referring to rising temperatures and the urgent need to pass policies that have no chance – none – of stopping climate change.

“This isn’t the real world of threats we are living in, and it’s dangerous that a year into the job she still can’t talk realistically about national security.  The Vice President needs an intervention from people outside her political bubble.”

Wall Street and the Economy

Another huge year for equities, stocks on a great 3-year roll, best since 1999.  The S&P 500 hit 70 records, the most since 1995, and broadly speaking, it was about still low interest rates and the vaccine rollouts that gave investors, and consumers, confidence to move on.  And this despite surging inflation, which is at levels not seen in about 40 years.

Actually, the consumer price index was at 1.4% at the beginning of the year and in November came in at 6.8%.  And yet stocks still soared because bonds behaved.  Low mortgage rates a big help as well when it came to housing.

2021

Dow Jones +18.7%
S&P 500 +26.9%
Nasdaq +21.4%

Nikkei +4.9%
Stoxx Europe 600 +22.3%

2020

Dow Jones +7.3%
S&P 500 +16.3%
Nasdaq +43.6%...reminder, the big ‘work/stay at home’ play

Nikkei +16.0%
Stoxx Europe 600 -4.0%

2019

Dow Jones +22.3%
S&P 500 +28.9%
Nasdaq +35.2%

Nikkei +18.2%
Stoxx Europe 600 +23.2%

The economic data is going to be coming in fast and furious next week, around the world, but very little the last few days.  Actually, the next six weeks will see a crush of data, including fourth-quarter earnings reports, which we will once again be dissecting for clues on the supply-chain crisis and whether it is ameliorating amid the Omicron surge.

This week, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price for October showed the 20-city index had risen 18.4% year-over-year.  Phoenix, 32.3% Y/Y, Tampa 28.1%, and Miami 25.7% led the way.  25%+ is pretty, pretty good…if you’re a seller.

An early look at manufacturing in America, the Chicago ISM reading for December, came in at a better than expected 63.1 (50 the dividing line between growth and contraction).

Weekly jobless claims came in at 198,000, continuing a trend that has the lowest readings since the 1960s.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow barometer for the fourth quarter was unchanged this week at 7.6%.

What we did learn this week in addition to the above is that holiday sales, defined as Nov. 1-Dec. 24, came in at a hefty 8.5%, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, so that’s good.  [Up 10.7% vs. 2019.]

Sales surged 47% for apparel, 32% for jewelry and 16% for electronics compared with 2020, with all three categories up at least 20% from their pre-pandemic levels in 2019 as well.  Department stores saw a 21% jump from last year and gained 11% from two years ago.

Online shopping surged 11%, according to the report, which tracks retail sales across all payment types.  E-commerce now accounts for roughly 21% of all holiday sales.

One thing we didn’t hear this year, come to think of it, was a lot of complaints about deliveries from the likes of UPS, FedEx and the USPS.  Performance actually improved closer to Christmas in terms of on-time delivery.  But this has a lot to do with consumers spreading out their purchases more, going back to October.

All of the major carriers also expanded their delivery capacity after last year’s nightmares, with UPS saying it was able to sort 130,000 more pieces an hour this peak season compared with last year.

Europe and Asia

The European Union took the last two weeks off in terms of data releases, and nothing of note on the Brexit front.

In Asia…China reported its official government PMIs for December, with manufacturing barely registering growth at 50.3 vs. 50.1 in November, while the service sector reading was 52.7 vs. 52.3.  Zero tolerance of Covid isn’t helping China’s economy get out of its rut.

Europe, the U.S. and Asia will be reporting in for December next week. 

I have a slew of company specific items on China below.

Japan reported November industrial production rose 7.2% over October, a solid 5.4% year-over-year.  The November unemployment rate was 2.8%.

Street Bytes

--For the week the Dow Jones gained 1.1% to 36338, the S&P 500 0.9%, but Nasdaq fell a few points, -0.05%.

In 2022, the early estimate for S&P 500 earnings is up 9%, according to FactSet, down from a projected 45% profit growth in 2021, once we finish with the upcoming reporting season.

The S&P 500 has averaged an annual gain of 8.4% since the index was introduced in 1957, but you see the outsized returns from the last three years.

For 2021 and my equity forecast, I said “the Dow Jones is unchanged, the S&P 500 +5%, and Nasdaq +18%.”

Well, I wasn’t that far off re Nasdaq.

For 2022, I’ll go with Dow and S&P unchanged, Nasdaq -5%.  [Though with wild swings in between, the markets convulsed by both geopolitics and the Federal Reserve at various times.]

--U.S. Treasury Yields

12/31/21

6-mo. 0.18%  2-yr. 0.73%  10-yr. 1.51%  30-yr. 1.90%

12/31/20

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

12/31/19

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

But what about this coming year, with a projected three Fed rate hikes (or more, or less)?

I’ll say the 10-year ends up at 2.45% next December, which is above the consensus of 2.00%-2.10%.

--Oil had another solid week, finishing the year at $75.45, the highest year-end close since 12/2013 ($98.42), after which oil struggled in a multi-year slump, prices largely stagnating in the $45-$60 range.

Inventories of commercial crude fell for the fifth consecutive week, according to the Energy Information Administration.  Supplies were about 7% lower than the five-year average for this time of year.

On the natural gas front, I wrote last week that I expected a bump in the price amid more normal winter weather (temperature wise) in the forecast, after further record highs, and indeed nat gas rose 9% on Monday, before falling back to finish the week unchanged at $3.73.  If you were a trader you would have taken your 9%.

--Bitcoin closed last year, 12/31/20, at $29,000, soared to $69,000 by Nov. 9, and then fell hard the final two months to end today at $46,400 (6:00 PM ET…it never stops trading, you understand).

--Wednesday, more than 7,000 flights were either canceled or delayed across the U.S.  1,000+ cancellations and 6,000 delays within, into and out of the U.S., according to FligtAware.  Most of the delays have been due to the wicked weather in the West,* as well as staffing shortages.  On Tuesday, 1,300 flights were canceled and over 7,400 delayed.

*Headwinds forced some flights to divert to refuel…that kind of weather, let alone heavy rain and snow.

Throughout the week, going back to Christmas weekend, U.S. airlines have been cancelling 1,200 to 1,300 flights a day, including yesterday, Thursday, upending the travel plans of tens of thousands, or more (not knowing how many had to actually cancel outright vs. those facing a delay of a day or so in getting to their hoped-for destination).

To make matters worse, now the Federal Aviation Administration is warning of possible delays because of the agency’s own Covid-related staffing challenges.

--JetBlue Airways Corp. said it would trim its schedule through mid-January as more of its crews are sickened by the latest coronavirus variant.

The New York-based carrier said it would cancel about 1,280 flights through Jan. 13 to give passengers a head start on adjusting their plans, rather than face last-minute cancellations at airports.

“We have seen a surge in the number of sick calls from Omicron,” a JetBlue spokesman said.

--Meanwhile, the Association of Flight Attendants said Tuesday it is not happy with the shortened Covid-19 isolation and quarantine guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC said Monday that people infected with Covid-19, if asymptomatic, should be in isolation five days, down from the previously recommended 10-day isolation period.  They should then wear a mask for another five days when around other people.

The quarantine period recommendation for those exposed to Covid-19 was updated to five days followed by five days of mask use, the CDC said.

“The CDC gave a medical explanation about why the agency has decided to reduce the quarantine requirements from five to 10 days, but the fact that it aligns with the number of days pushed by corporate America is less than reassuring,” said the union’s president Sara Nelson in a statement.

The union represents almost 50,000 flight attendants at 17 airlines.

--TSA checkpoint travel numbers vs. 2019….

12/30…86 percent of 2019 levels
12/29…95
12/28…99
12/27…84
12/26…80
12/25…62
12/24…66
12/23…86

*Post-pandemic high of 2,451,300 travelers set on 11/28 (Sun. after Thanksgiving).

--A pair of dangerously close space encounters are adding to tensions between the U.S. and China, while underscoring the potential peril to astronauts as satellite constellations and debris proliferate in orbit.

Two SpaceX satellites had near misses with China’s space station earlier this year – one of them within 4 km (2.5 miles) – in the latest sign of dangerous overcrowding in low-Earth orbit.

In both instances, the orbiting lab made evasive maneuvers to avoid the Starlink satellites operated by Elon Musk’s space venture.

This was in October, but the close encounters prompted the Chinese government to criticize SpaceX this month in a memo to a United Nations committee that oversees operations in space.

Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told the South China Morning Post, “Originally, when I saw this Chinese UN document, I went, ‘That’s a bit rich of the Chinese, given the space debris they’ve generated.’  But I think it’s a good sign.”

By flagging the issue to the UN panel, China could spur the international community to update a treaty rooted in the Cold War, as well as an informal system that relies on operators to email warnings of potential collisions to one another, McDowell said.  He counts more than 4,800 commercial satellites in operation, about double the total from five years ago, along with a debris field of about 19,000 objects large enough to be tracked on radar.

Beijing, though, said Washington wants to maintain its dominance in space and warned that SpaceX may form part of that strategy.  China has called on the U.S. to be a “responsible player.”

But the reason I placed this whole topic in “Street Bytes” rather than “Foreign Affairs” is because Chinese citizens this week began lashing out against Elon Musk online after the government issued its formal complaint, so the potential impact on Tesla sales is real.

SpaceX has sent more than 1,900 satellites into space since 2019 and will have more than 42,000 in orbit when its program is complete.

A representative of the People’s Liberation Army said: “If Musk’s satellites occupy large portions of [the near-Earth and sun-synchronous] orbits, it leaves little opportunity for other nations to send their own satellites.

“The Starlink satellites have the potential to serve the U.S. military during wartime, and the power of having thousands of eyes in the sky can never be underestimated.”

Back to Tesla, over 475,000 cars have been recalled for safety issues.  Over 356,000 Model 3 cars manufactured between 2017 and 2020 were recalled over rear view camera issues, and 119,000 Model S vehicles over front truck issues.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has also opened a probe into Tesla on its decision to allow gaming functionality on about 580,000 cars sold since 2017.

--Walmart Inc. is another big Western company to face scrutiny over its handling of business involving Xinjiang, following the passage of a U.S. law that virtually bans all imports from the northwestern Chinese region over forced-labor and human-rights concerns.

The retailer attracted anger on Chinese social media after internet users shared comments that purported to show that Walmart had stopped stocking products from Xinjiang in its China-based Walmart and Sam’s Club stores. Some said they had canceled their Sam’s Club memberships, while social-media accounts run by Communist Party-backed entries weighed in to criticize the company.

The Biden administration has accused the Chinese government of engaging in genocide against religious minorities in the region.

Last week, President Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act into law, following its near-unanimous passage in Congress.  The law bans all imports to the U.S. from the region unless companies can certify that such products are free from forced labor.

China rejects allegations of genocide and forced labor.

--Shares of China Evergrande Group tumbled on Thursday after the embattled real estate developer did not pay offshore coupons due earlier this week.

Evergrande, whose $19 billion in international bonds are in cross-default after missing a deadline to pay coupons earlier this month, had new coupon payments worth $255 million due on Tuesday for its June 2023 and 2025 notes.

Evergrande’s nearly 10% drop in its shares on the Hong Kong exchange wiped out gains from earlier this week, when the market cheered the initial progress made by the firm in resuming construction work.

Company Chairman Hui Ka Yan vowed in a meeting on Sunday to deliver 39,000 units of properties in December, compared with fewer than 10,000 in each of the previous three months.

Evergrande has more than $300 billion in liabilities and is scrambling to raise cash by selling assets and shares to repay suppliers and creditors.

The People’s Bank of China separately said last weekend – as part of a wide-ranging statement on the economy – that it would protect the rights and interests of homeowners and promote the healthy development of the country’s real-estate market.

--Apple closed all twelve of its stores in New York City to indoor shopping on Monday amid the surge in Covid-19 cases.  [One-in-five New Yorkers who took Covid tests received positive results in recent days.]

Separately, Bloomberg reported Apple Inc. has issued unusual and significant stock bonuses to some engineers in an effort to retain talent, specifically, to prevent defections to tech rivals such as Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc.

The bonuses, announced last week and in the form of restricted stock units, vest over four years, and range from about $50,000 to as much as $180,000 in some cases.

Meta has hired about 100 engineers from Apple in the last few months, but Apple has been luring away key Meta employees in the latest talent war in Silicon Valley.

The two companies are going to be fierce rivals in augmented- and virtual-reality headsets and smartwatches, with both planning major hardware releases over the next two years.

--Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will require that employees and visitors to its U.S. offices receive booster shots of the Covid-19 vaccine starting next year.  Starting in February, anyone eligible to receive a booster shot must have obtained one in order to enter Goldman offices.  And beginning in January, the bank will require staff to get tested twice weekly for Covid.

Before the Christmas holiday, Citigroup and Bank of America told staff in the New York City area to work remotely, and Wells Fargo & Co. delayed its planned Jan. 10 office return.

--The CDC has been investigating or monitoring 92 cruise ships with reported Covid-19 cases on board, according to a list posted on its website this week.

The CDC investigates a ship if there are one or more reported Covid cases among the crew or if cases reported account for at least 0.10% of total passengers in the past seven days.  For a ship with 6,500 passengers, that would mean seven cases would trigger an investigation.

So this hardly means there has been an outbreak, to cut the cruise ship industry a break, HOWEVER, you’ve seen the stories that many individual ships traversing the Caribbean have been denied port of entry due to the overall Omicron situation in the United States and Europe.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct.) on Tuesday said cruises should stop operating, calling them “petri dishes of Covid infection” in a tweet.  “Time for CDC & cruise lines to protect consumers & again pause – docking their ships,” he said.

The cruise lines argue that vaccinations, testing and masks for travelers have been effective.  All crew members are fully vaccinated.

I haven’t been on a cruise in like 18 years and have zero desire to go on one again, but if this is your gig and you think it’s fun to have to take the precautions you do on board…go for it.

Royal Caribbean said Thursday that cruise bookings are down and cancellations up for short-term sailings because of the rising threat from Omicron, but the disruption isn’t as sharp as the one experienced with the Delta variant earlier in the year.

Sailings for the second half of 2022 continue to be booked within historical ranges, at higher prices and with strong demand from the U.S. market, Royal Caribbean said.

Since RCL resumed cruise operations in June, it’s had 1.1 million passengers with 41 needing to be hospitalized after testing positive for Covid on the cruises.  As yet, none of the Omicron cases have been severe enough to require hospitalization.

But also on Thursday, the CDC suddenly warned people to avoid cruises regardless of their vaccination status amid the growing number of outbreaks they are seeing onboard.

After raising the warning level to 4, its highest such level, the CDC said, “Even fully vaccinated travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading Covid-19 variants.”

With several ships already on the seas, the CDC said the passengers should get tested three to five days after their trip ends, and self-monitor for Covid symptoms for 14 days.

--Food prices are estimated to rise 5% in the first half of 2022, according to research firm IRI, though the level of increases will vary by grocers and regions.

Mondelez International Inc. said recently that it was raising prices across cookies, candy and other products sold in the U.S. by 6% to 7% starting January.  General Mills and Campbell Soup Co. said their price increases also would take effect in January.  Kraft Heinz said the average price increase on its products will be 5%.  WARNING: Kraft said it was raising the price of Grey Poupon by 6% to 13%! 

The Labor Department’s food-at-home index, which includes purchases from grocery stores, rose 6.4% over the past 12 months, with meats, poultry, fish and eggs increasing 12.8%.

Higher wages, material and freight costs are prompting industries from manufacturing to retail to raise prices of goods.

--Jimmy Cayne, the former boss of Bear Stearns, died Tuesday, age 87. Cayne played a pivotal role in Bear’s fate, as he was absent far too often as a result of his passion for bridge.  He also talked up the firm’s resiliency, as Bear buckled under heavy debts and trading losses, blaming short sellers, a standard last resort of struggling CEOs.

Eventually, Cayne handed over the top job to Alan Schwartz, but it was too late to avoid an eventual fire-sale to JPMorgan.

Cayne did make more of Bear than others playing the same hand might have done, but his refusal to back a Wall Street bailout of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management in 1998 may have left some of his peers reluctant to help him out a decade later.

--The latest installment of the Spider-Man franchise has become the first pandemic-era movie to make more than $1 billion at the global box office.

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” also took the title of highest-grossing film of 2021, beating out Chinese-made Korean War epic “The Battle of Lake Changjin,” which has grossed more than $905 million worldwide.

Last weekend, the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe film reached $1.05 billion.  The co-production between Sony and Disney hit its milestone less than two weeks after its premiere even as the Omicron variant of Covid has spread rapidly around the world, raising fresh concerns about indoor events.

The film has yet to be released in China, which is the world’s biggest cinema market.

Before “No Way Home,” MGM’s James Bond movie “No Time to Die,” which made $774 million at the box office globally, was the highest-grossing Hollywood film of both 2021 and the pandemic.

Speaking of which….

The Pandemic

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday will authorize booster doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds, the New York Times first reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with FDA deliberations.  U.S. regulators also plan to cut the time gap for both adolescents and adults to get a booster shot of Pfizer’s vaccine to five months after a second dose, from the current six months, the Times reported.

Certainly a booster for 12- to 15-year-olds could be an important tool for millions of children in the face of rising cases fueled by Omicron.  The variant is able to evade some of the protection offered by two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, according to early lab data, but booster doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines appear to be protective against Omicron, also according to lab studies.

The rapidly spreading variant has led to thousands of new Covid-19 hospitalizations among children in recent weeks, raising new concerns about how the many unvaccinated Americans under age 18 will fare in this surge.

Meanwhile, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he is worried about Omicron combining with the Delta variant to produce a “tsunami” of cases, which would put “immense pressure on exhausted health workers and health systems on the brink of collapse.”

However, Tedros also said the acute stage of the pandemic could come to an end in 2022, but exiting the crisis will partly depend on whether the world can adhere to a global “New Year’s resolution” of vaccinating 70 percent of every country’s population by the start of July.

“Ending health inequity remains the key to ending the pandemic,” Tedros told reporters.  “This is the time to rise above short-term nationalism and protect populations and economies against future variants by ending global vaccine inequity,” he said.

Reflecting on the second anniversary of the coronavirus, Tedros said; “Populism, narrow nationalism and hoarding of health tools – including masks, therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines – by a small number of countries undermined equity, and created the ideal conditions for the emergence of new variants,” the WHO chief said.

“Misinformation, which has driven vaccine hesitancy, is now translating to the unvaccinated disproportionally dying.”

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

World…5,452,663
USA…846,902
Brazil…619,109
India…481,235
Russia…308,860
Mexico…299,285
Peru…202,653
UK…148,624
Indonesia…144,094
Italy…137,402
Iran…131,606
Colombia…129,942
France…123,741
Argentina…117,169
Germany…112,756
Poland…97,054
Ukraine…95,899
South Africa…91,145
Spain…89,405
Turkey…82,361
Romania…58,752
Philippines…51,504
Hungary…39,186
Chile…39,115
Czechia…36,129
Ecuador…33,681
Vietnam…32,394
Malaysia…31,487
Bulgaria…30,955
Canada…30,319
Pakistan…28,927
Belgium…28,308
Bangladesh…28,072
Tunisia…25,569
Iraq…24,158
Egypt…21,752
Thailand…21,698
Netherlands…20,924
Greece…20,790

[Source: worldometers.info]

U.S. daily death tolls…Mon. 869; Tues. 1,811; Wed. 1,791; Thurs. 1,584; Fri. 713.

Covid Bytes

--The CDC on Monday shortened the length of time people exposed to Covid-19 must quarantine or isolate from 10 days to five days if people are asymptomatic.

After that five-day period they should wear a mask for another five days to reduce the risk of infecting others, the CDC said.  Most transmission of the novel coronavirus, especially Omicron, occurs either in the day or two before symptoms appear, and two or three days after, the CDC said in a statement.

Previously, the CDC loosened rules for health care workers, saying they could go back to work after seven days rather than the prior ten if they test negative and don’t have symptoms. And the agency said isolation time could be cut to five days, or even fewer, if there are severe staffing shortages.

The change came just days after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said that frontline employees can return to work five days after testing positive for Covid-19 if they are fully vaccinated and asymptomatic.

Many found the CDC’s new guidelines confusing, especially during a time of exploding case numbers.

The CDC is also recommending that those who are vaccinated and received a booster shot can skip quarantining if they wear a face mask for at least 10 days.

--Two doses of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid vaccine slashed hospitalizations caused by the Omicron variant in South Africa by up to 85%, a critical finding since the shot is being increasingly relied upon across the continent, researchers said.

--Britain, Italy, France, Spain, Denmark, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and Malta were among the European nations all registering record case numbers this week.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said 90% of patients ending up in intensive care had not received booster vaccines.

“You’re seeing cases rising in hospitals, but it is obviously milder than the Delta variant,” Johnson said.

France reinstituted the mandatory wearing of masks outdoors.  Those of you watching Premier League football matches in Britain no doubt are thinking what I am…wow, huge crowds (yes, albeit outdoors), but no one wearing masks, just spitting all over each other.

France also is paying intensive care nurses an extra 100 euros per month from January as it seeks to improve working conditions for staff exhausted by the fight against Covid.

--German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said on Wednesday that the number of new Covid cases has been under-reported and the actual incidence rate of infections is about two to three times higher than the officially reported figure, which is no doubt the case around the world.

--Australia registered record case levels this week.  Prime Minster Scott Morrison is among a growing number of leaders who are increasingly worried by the huge numbers being forced into self-isolation because they had been in contact with a Covid sufferer.

“We just can’t have everybody just being taken out of circulation because they just happen to be at a particular place at a particular time,” Morrison told reporters.

Countries are going to have to loosen quarantine rules, and some already are even amid the surge.

--But China stuck to its policy of zero tolerance, as it kept 13 million people in Xian under rigid lockdown for a second week.  But last I saw, at least thru Wednesday, none of the cases detected there were Omicron.

China has been setting up buffer zones in border cities as part of its latest moves to snuff out sporadic outbreaks in different parts of the country.

But the Winter Olympics are just a little over four weeks away.  What will the government do?

--The number of nurses working as permanent employees at eight privately run New York City hospitals is now below what it was in February 2020, data from the New York State Nurses Association show.

So the situation is even worse as nurses and doctors get sick in this Omicron wave.  Pretty simple formula, for disaster, if hospitalizations keep ticking up.

--Hospitalizations in my state of New Jersey have risen from 644 on Nov. 7 to 3,604 as of Thursday.

In New York, statewide, the hospitalization count spiked by 63% in a single week.

--Texas ran out of monoclonal antibody treatment to fight Covid in a number of regional infusion centers and didn’t expect to receive another shipment from the federal government until January.

--Scientists at the National Institutes of Health said they found that the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, SARS-CoV-2, can spread within days from the airways to the heart, brain and almost every organ system in the body, where it may persist for months.

In what they describe as the most comprehensive analysis to date of the virus’s distribution and persistence in the body and brain, scientists at the NIH said they found the pathogen is capable of replicating in human cells well beyond the respiratory tract.

The results, released online last Saturday in a manuscript under review for publication in the journal Nature, point to a delayed viral clearance as a potential contributor to the persistent symptoms wracking so-called long Covid sufferers.  Understanding the mechanisms by which the virus persists, along with the body’s response to any viral reservoir, promises to help improve care for those afflicted, the authors said.

Foreign Affairs

Iran: The latest round of indirect talks between Iran and the United States resumed on Monday in Vienna, with Tehran focused on getting U.S. sanctions lifted again, as they were under the original 2015 Iran nuclear accord, despite zero progress on reining in its atomic activities.

Iran refuses to meet U.S. officials directly, meaning other parties to the deal besides the U.S. and Iran – Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany and the European Union – must shuttle between the two sides.

The seventh round of talks, the first under Iran’s new hardline President Ebrahim Raisi, ended 11 days earlier after some new Iranian demands were added to a working text.

The Russian envoy to the Iran nuclear talks said on Wednesday that he had met with his U.S. counterpart (Robert Malley).  Russia’s Mikhail Ulyanov wrote on Twitter: “Close consultations and coordination between the Russian and the U.S. delegations in the course of the Vienna talks constitute an important prerequisite for progress towards restoration of the JCPOA,” he wrote. [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.]

But Tuesday, the U.S. expressed caution over upbeat comments by Iran and Russia about the talks, saying it was too soon to say if Tehran had returned to the negotiations with a constructive approach.

Iran then launched a rocket with a satellite carrier bearing three devices into space, authorities announced Thursday, without saying whether any of the objects had entered Earth’s orbit.

It was not clear when the launch happened or what devices the carrier brought with it.  Iran aired footage of the blastoff against the backdrop of negotiations in Vienna.

The U.S. State Department said it was concerned by Iran’s space launches, which it asserts “pose a significant proliferation concern” in regards to Tehran’s ballistic missile program.

An Iranian Defense Ministry spokesman said, “The performance of the space center and the performance of the satellite carrier was done properly.”  But hours later, officials remained silent on the status of the objects, suggesting the rocket had fallen short of placing its payload into the correct orbit.

The U.S. says such satellite launches defy a UN Security Council resolution calling on Iran to steer clear of any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

Friday, Iran conceded the rocket failed after it was unable to reach the required speed, a defense ministry spokesman said.

Russia/Ukraine: Presidents Biden and Putin exchanged warnings over the crisis in Ukraine during a 50-minute phone call that did little to lower the political temperature, according to their governments.

Russia has alarmed the United States and its allies by massing an estimated 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine over the past two months.  This follows its seizure of Crimea in 2014 and its backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Putin requested Thursday’s talks, the leaders’ second conversation this month but, the White House said, it was little more than the two restating their positions – including President Biden’s warning of severe consequences if Putin decides to invade.

“President Biden urged Russia to de-escalate tensions with Ukraine,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki, in a statement.  “He made clear that the United States and its allies and partners will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine.”

A senior administration official, in a call with reporters, said Biden laid out “two paths”: one of diplomacy and de-escalation, the other of deterrence “including serious costs and consequences” such as economic sanctions, strengthening NATO’s force posture and military assistance to Ukraine.

The Kremlin, meanwhile, insisted Putin had used the call to issue a threat of his own, telling the U.S. president that new sanctions could totally rupture ties between Russia and the United States and represent a colossal mistake.

Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, was quoted by Reuters as saying” “Our president immediately responded that if the West decides in this or other circumstances to impose these unprecedented sanctions which have been mentioned then that could lead to a complete breakdown in ties between our countries and cause the most serious damage to relations between Russia and the West.”

Ushakov added: “Our president also mentioned that it would be a mistake that our descendants would see as a huge error.”

The call between the two leaders came ahead of a U.S.-Russia security meeting in Geneva on Jan. 9-10, followed by a Russia-NATO session on Jan. 12, and a broader conference including Moscow, Washington and other European countries on Jan. 13.

A White House official described the conversation as “serious and substantive,” but also acknowledged Putin offered little clarity as to whether he plans to invade or back down.  “We’re not going to draw conclusions and there were certainly no declarations as to intentions from this conversation.

“But regardless, our focus is really on actions and on indicators, not on words at this point, so we’re going to continue to monitor very closely the movement and build-up of Russian forces on the Ukraine border and prepare ourselves for whatever decision ultimately is made by the Russian president.”

Moscow continues to call for legally biding guarantees that NATO will not expand further eastwards and certain offensive weapons will not be deployed in Ukraine or other neighboring countries.  Washington regards most of the demands as non-starters.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke on Wednesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and “reiterated the United States’ unwavering support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s borders,” Blinken said.

Meanwhile, a Russia court on Wednesday ordered the shutdown of the Memorial Human Rights Center, the key unit of the broader Memorial rights group which Russia’s Supreme Court liquidated this week.

State prosecutors have accused both organizations of breaking a law requiring groups to register as foreign agents.  The organizations say the charges against them are politically motivated.

International rights groups and the U.S. State Department condemned Tuesday’s ruling, which capped a year of unprecedented crackdown on dissent in Russia.

Editorial / Washington Post

“At first, the idea was to build a monument to the victims of Joseph Stalin’s repressions.  As the Soviet Union in 1988 was undergoing earth-shattering changes of glasnost under Mikhail Gorbachev, the idea grew to include a museum, an archive and library.  A mass movement quickly took shape in support of the Memorial Society.  But Soviet authorities resisted, refusing the request by dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov to register the effort.  They said the new organization was not necessary, but Sakharov persisted and the group was officially launched in 1989.  It blossomed into a prestigious center for research and commemoration of Stalin’s crimes, and for the defense of human rights.

“On Tuesday, it was liquidated by the Russian Supreme Court and the regime of President Vladimir Putin.  The court ordered the closure of Memorial International, the group’s archival branch, on the specious grounds that it had not done enough to display the label of ‘foreign agent’ imposed on it five years ago in an earlier wave of harassment.  On Wednesday, a Moscow city court is expected to decide whether to close Memorial’s Human Rights Center, which has discomfited the Kremlin by defending victims of rights abuses.

“In an attack on Memorial, Mr. Putin aims to obliterate one of the most important and tangible accomplishments of the democratic flowering of the late 1980s and 1990s.  Memorial was a shining example of civil society, an independent association formed to give voice to – and accountability for – the millions who were deported, imprisoned or executed in Stalin’s forced labor camps.  It was an article of faith to Sakharov and others that a healthy democratic society could only be built with a penetrating examination and understanding of the past.  Memorial did not disappoint; its databases contain more than 3 million names (a fraction of the total repressed) and invaluable records about their merciless punishment.

“But this reminder of the past pains Mr. Putin, who wants to airbrush away such dark memories and replace them with gauzy recounting of Soviet triumphs as he goes about eradicating what’s left of Russian democracy and replacing it with dictatorship.  A prosecutor asked during Tuesday’s hearing, speaking of Memorial: ‘…why instead of taking pride for our country, victorious in the war and which liberated the whole world, do they suggest that we repent for our, as it turned out, pitch dark past?’

“The dark past is returning.  Mr. Putin’s security forces in 2020 attempted to assassinate the opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, who survived, and who is now approaching the first anniversary of his unjust imprisonment.  Journalists, lawyers, activists and all of civil society in Russia are being crushed. Most recently, government censors blocked the website of OVD-Info, an organization that keeps track of unlawful persecutions on political grounds, and provides lawyers for the victims.  Such are the Kremlin’s formidable powers of coercion.  But what Mr. Putin underestimates is the resilience of ideas.  He can try to knock down the walls of Memorial, but he cannot extinguish the memory of Soviet crimes, nor of today’s unfortunate return to despotism.”

China/Hong Kong: Two former senior editors of Stand News were charged with conspiring to publish seditious materials and denied bail by a court on Thursday, a day after a police raid on the pro-democracy media organization prompted its closure.

About 200 officers raided the online publication’s office, froze its assets and arrested seven current and former senior editors and board members on Wednesday.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused China and Hong Kong of silencing independent media and called on authorities to immediately release the arrested Stand News staff.

But the official Communist Party newspaper, the People’s Daily, said in an editorial on Friday that “freedom of the press” was being used as an excuse to sow “anti-China chaos” in Hong Kong.  It accused foreign politicians of “recklessly discrediting” Hong Kong police.

“Under the cloak of a media organization, Stand News is essentially a political organization through and through,” it said.  “Freedom has a bottom line, and violations of the law must be punished.”

The police raid on Stand News was “completely lawful and beyond reproach,” said a spokesperson with the Chinese embassy in Britain, hitting back at foreign criticism of the move.  Amanda Milling, British minister of state for Asia, said on Twitter that the actions “further erode freedom of speech in Hong Kong.”

“The rights and interests of Hong Kong residents, including freedom of speech and freedom of the press, are safeguarded in accordance with the law,” China’s Embassy then said late on Thursday.  “The Chinese side once again urges the UK to right its wrongs and stop interfering in any form in Hong Kong affairs, which are China’s internal affairs,” the spokesperson added.

Stand News, set up in 2014 as a non-profit, was the most prominent remaining pro-democracy publication in Hong Kong after a national security investigation this year led to the closure of jailed tycoon Jimmy Lai’s Apple Daily tabloid.

I’m biting my tongue.

Poland: President Andrzej Duda vetoed a media bill that critics said was aimed at silencing a Discovery-owned news channel that is critical of the government, citing worries about the strain the law would put on relations with Washington.

The move allows NATO-member Poland to sidestep a potentially explosive row with the United States at a time of heightened tension in eastern Europe amid increased Russian assertiveness.  However, the decision means that a project voted through parliament by the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) has been blocked by a president elected as their ally.

Duda said in a televised statement on Monday that if the law came into force it could violate a treaty signed with the United States on economic and trade relations. 

“One of the arguments considered during the analyses of this law was the issue of an international agreement that was concluded in 1990… this treaty speaks about the protection of investments,” he said.  “There is a clause which says that media-related investments may be excluded, but it concerns future investments.”

The United States had urged Duda to use his veto.

Unexpectedly rushed through parliament this month, the legislation would have tightened rules around foreign ownership of media, specifically affecting the ability of news channel TVN24, owned by U.S. media company Discovery (through a firm registered in the Netherlands) to operate, in order to get around a ban on non-European firms owning more than 49% of Polish media companies. 

The law, which drew nationwide protests, would have prevented this workaround.

Parliament could vote to overturn the president’s veto, but PiS doesn’t have the votes to do so.

PiS has long argued that foreign media groups have too much power in Poland, while critics say that moves against them seek to limit media freedom and are part of an increasingly authoritarian agenda that has put Warsaw at loggerheads with the European Union.

Afghanistan: It has gotten so bad here that parents are selling their children into marriage so they can feed the rest of the family.

After the Taliban seized power, the international community froze Afghanistan’s assets abroad and halted all funding, unwilling to work with a Taliban government given its reputation for brutality during its previous rule 20 years ago.

But that has been devastating to a country battered by four decades of war, drought and the coronavirus pandemic.  Scores of state employees, including doctors, haven’t been paid in months.  Aid groups say more than half the population faces acute food shortages. [See Marc Thiessen’s prior comments.]

Random Musings

--Presidential approval ratings….

Gallup: 43% approve of President Biden’s job performance, 51% disapprove; 40% of independents approve (Dec. 1-16).

Rasmussen: 42% approve, 57% disapprove (Dec. 31).

--Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader who was critical to President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda, died this week at the age of 82.  The cause was pancreatic cancer.

President Biden, who served with Reid in the Senate, said in a statement that “if Harry said he would do something, he did it.  If he gave you his word, you could bank on it.  That’s how he got things done for the good of the country for decades.”

Reid was first elected to serve his state of Nevada in the Senate in 1986, winning four more terms and then becoming majority leader in 2007, the year before Obama’s election.

After having no luck with a bipartisan approach to approving Obama’s top priority, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, he pushed through the law expanding health insurance coverage known as Obamacare with no Republican votes.

Reid needed 60 votes – the size of the entire Democratic caucus after the 2008 elections – to avoid a filibuster by the Republicans.  He wrangled the last votes in late 2009 after persuading Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska to back the bill in exchange for exempting his state from Medicaid expense increases and giving up a public insurance option to win the vote of Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

“This was supposed to be a bill that reformed health care in America,” said the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell.  “Instead, we’re left with party-line votes in the middle of the night, a couple of sweetheart deals to get it over the finish line and a truly outraged public.”

After Republican Scott Brown won a special election to fill the Massachusetts seat left vacant by the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, the effort appeared in jeopardy. But Reid, a former boxer, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi engineered a successful salvage operation.  The House approved the Senate version of the bill alongside a companion bill needing just a simple majority.  Obama then signed the law in March 2010.

Before Obamacare, Reid was able to get the Senate to pass the administration’s economic stimulus plan of more than $800 billion in 2009 to deal with the Great Recession, winning over three Republicans.  He also helped enact the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a statement Tuesday, said Reid was a “boxer who came from humble origins, but he never forgot where he came from and used those boxing instincts to fearlessly fight those who were hurting the poor and the middle class.”

In 2013, after Republicans had blocked dozens of Obama’s judicial nominations for months, Reid engineered a precedent-shattering change in Senate procedures that cut off debate, including filibusters, on most presidential nominees with a simple majority rather than the usual supermajority of 60.  The rule change did not apply to Supreme Court nominations or legislation itself.  Democrats controlled 55 of the chamber’s 100 seats at the time.

The change, made with a simple majority and also known as the “nuclear option,” led to the appointments of many appellate court judges.  Republicans accused Reid of changing the nature of the Senate.

“This is the most important and most dangerous restructuring of Senate rules since Thomas Jefferson wrote them at the beginning of our country,” Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said after the vote.

--And we lost a true giant of the world stage, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 90.  Tutu used his pulpit and spirited oratory to help bring down apartheid in South Africa and then became the leading advocate of peaceful reconciliation under Black majority rule.

South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, called the archbishop “a leader of principle and pragmatism who gave meaning to the biblical insight that faith without works is dead.”

As leader of the South African Council of Churches and later as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, Archbishop Tutu led the church to the forefront of Black South Africans’ decades-long struggle for freedom.  He became a leader of the anti-apartheid movement, earning him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

Tutu preached that the policy of apartheid was as dehumanizing to the oppressors as it was to the oppressed.  At home, he stood against looming violence and sought to bridge the chasm between Black and white; abroad, he urged economic sanctions against the South African government to force a change of policy.

Tutu would later express his disapproval of leading figures in the dominant African National Congress, accusing President Thabo Mbeki of pursuing policies that enriched a tiny elite while “many, too many, of our people live in grueling, demeaning, dehumanizing poverty.”

“We are sitting on a powder keg,” he said.

Tutu would continue to criticize the A.N.C. for years to come, and spoke out against the regime of President Jacob Zuma, who succeeded Mbeki.

I love this passage in his obituary in the New York Times:

“Apparently convinced of the virtues of modesty, he never seemed to accustom himself to the perquisites of fame and high office.  He was unfailingly on time [Ed. this puts him in my personal Hall of Fame], always expressed appreciation to the bellhops and maids sent to wait on him, and was uncomfortable with limousines and police escorts.”

[Tutu demanded he be placed in a simple coffin on his death, and if you saw it, that is exactly what it was.]

President Ramaphosa said Tutu was “an iconic spiritual leader, anti-apartheid activist and global human rights campaigner.”

He described him as “a patriot without equal; a leader of principle and pragmatism who gave meaning to the biblical insight that faith without works is dead.”

“A man of extraordinary intellect, integrity and invincibility against the forces of apartheid, he was also tender and vulnerable in his compassion for those who had suffered oppression, injustice and violence under apartheid, and oppressed and downtrodden people around the world.”

--Editorial / Washington Post

“Michael Fanone, who resigned Dec. 20 from the D.C. police, was a profile in courage twice this year.

“First, when he stood his ground against a violent mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6, in the process being pummeled unconscious, Tasered by the rioters and suffering a heart attack.  Second, when he spoke out about the events of that day, for which he was verbally abused and threatened by anonymous messages, disdained by some Republicans in Congress and judged harshly by a number of his own commanders in the department.

“Mr. Fanone deserves the nation’s gratitude for his courage.  Sadly, that’s not what he has always gotten.  ‘I feel like I went to hell and back to protect [Americans] and the people in this room,’ he told Congress at a hearing this past summer, ‘but too many are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist – or that hell actually wasn’t that bad.’

“A 20-year veteran of the police forces he stepped away from it five years shy of his pension.  He will be an on-air commentator on law enforcement issues for CNN….

“More than 150 officers were hurt battling the insurrectionist mob on Jan. 6; nearly five months later, 17 remained so badly injured that they were still out of work.  Others may have sustained undiagnosed long-term head injuries, according to a therapist who has counseled D.C. officers involved in the events.

“The reality-denying republicans who have said the rioters were harmless tourists, or antifa, add insult to those injuries.  In refusing to recognize the heroism of Mr. Fanone and other officers who defended the Capitol, and who protected the integrity of the election results and democracy itself, those politicians have disgraced their party and the nation.  Their indifference to the gravity of Jan. 6 is an affront to the Constitution, to patriotism and to law enforcement.

“Mr. Fanone and the others who tried to hold their ground that day have earned the right to speak out.  In the face of Mr. Trump’s own lies about Jan. 6 – he called the mob ‘a loving crowd’ – the truth must be heard.  As Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, another officer who defended Congress, bitterly told lawmakers in July, ‘I’m still recovering from those hugs and kisses.’”

--Speaking of Jan. 6, next Thursday on the one-year anniversary, Donald Trump has said he will hold a ‘press conference’ down at Mar-a-Lago to set the record straight, meaning he will lay out how the election was stolen and blast Republicans who haven’t bought into his fraud claims.  At least this is the story as I go to post.  What shape and form the event will take, if it’s really held, is not known at this time, such as who in the press will be there.

If he goes through with this, let’s just say I’m one of those Republicans who might have a thing or two to say about the guy next time.

For now, The Economist had the following thoughts on the plight of the Republican Party:

“It is true that the party is dominated by America-First Republicans who set out to deter immigration, limit foreign trade and end entanglements abroad. Their ascendancy helps explain why those Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump for betraying his oath of office are now being ejected from the party.

“However, even the Trump-addled incarnation of the Republican Party is made up of competing factions.  Country-club Republicans like Glenn Youngkin, who won the governorship of Virginia in November, want to pay less tax and not be bossed around by Democrats.  Just now they see Trumpism as the only available vehicle to further their interests.

“That calculation may well prove to be mistaken. Anyone who thinks they can steer Mr. Trump seems to end up discarded and disdained by him.  However, people who object to the attempt to undermine the election result, including Mitch McConnell and (Brad) Raffensperger, are still in office. Although they refrain from condemning Mr. Trump in public, only in the crucible of a crisis will you find out how they would choose between having their side in power and the survival of their democracy.

“Such people matter.  Republican renewal, if it comes, will not be in the form of some Reaganite renaissance. Voters picking candidates for 2022 will be as many years distant from the Reagan revolution as Reagan was from FDR.  And renewal is less likely from a conservative who stood up to Mr. Trump than from someone who has enabled him by cowering in his slipstream but who shares neither his reality-distorting powers nor his belief that the only legitimate result is the one where he wins.

“Crucially, this person will be in charge of a party that still contains a large number of decent, patriotic voters who have been manipulated by a cynical group of leaders and propagandists into believing that, in saying the election was stolen, they are defending democracy.  To presume that these people can be permanently treated as dupes would be a mistake.

“Renewal is impossible for as long as Mr. Trump remains the Republican Party’s leader.  However, that is another way of saying that the direction of the party is tied up with the fate of one man.  And that means it can change.”

Personally, I’m beginning to think of a combination of Asa Hutchinson and Liz Cheney as a ticket in 2024.  But we have a full, action-packed year ahead of us before this becomes the focus.

--No, I did not find Oregonian Jared Schmeck’s ending of his call with President Biden, as part of NORAD’s Santa tracking center, “Let’s Go Brandon,” in the least bit funny.

Of course, in this country, Mr. Schmuck can say what he wants, while at the same time, he needs to understand it is fair game for others to criticize him.  He seems to have a rather thin skin, after his act of incivility.

--British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty Wednesday on five of six criminal counts in her sex-trafficking case, capping federal prosecutors’ push to bring the longtime confidante of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to justice.

On the most serious count, sex trafficking of minors, the jury found Maxwell guilty.  That count carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison.  A sentencing date hasn’t been scheduled yet.

But it’s likely that Maxwell, 60, will spend just about the rest of her life behind bars.  Her lawyers argued she was a scapegoat who wasn’t indicted until nearly a year after Epstein died in a federal jail, which the New York City medical examiner ruled was a suicide.

So where does this leave the likes of Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz.  Both were accused of having sex with Virginia Roberts Giuffre when she was as young as 16.

However, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump were not.

The BBC is under extreme pressure for having put Dershowitz on during the trial to analyze it, and he took the time to slam Giuffre, his accuser.

Maxwell could conceivably reduce her sentence by cooperating with prosecutors in cases against the Prince and the dirtball lawyer.

--The West is getting the snow it desperately needed.  Lake Tahoe, Nev., broke the record for December snowfall set 50 years ago on Monday, with snow totals at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab reaching 193.7 inches, blowing a 1970 record of 179 inches out of the water.   The lab then broke the 200-inch mark a day later (210, specifically, last I saw).

So the Lake Tahoe Basin is sitting around 200 percent of average for snow water equivalent that will be released from the snowpack when it melts – for this time of year.

And the Basin is sitting at 60 percent of its peak average snow water equivalent, which occurs late March/early April.

At the same time, Los Angeles received record rainfall on Thursday, with downtown L.A. seeing 2.34 inches, breaking the record for the day set in 1936.  LAX received three inches.

--Meanwhile, Alaska recorded its hottest-ever December, even as the Pacific Northwest was experiencing one of its coldest on record.

Temperatures on Sunday hit 67F on Kodiak Island, almost seven degrees warmer than the state’s previous high.

But elsewhere in Alaska temps have been plunging to record lows (-0.4F in Ketchikan on Christmas Day).

So, with the weather extremes, forecasters have been warning of an “Icemageddon,” as torrents of rain and snow have left ice as hard as cement coating the roads.

Warm air pouring in from Hawaii has made Alaska’s air – usually cold and dry during December – more moist.  Heavy rain and snow storms have been the result.  And then it all froze.

--Our thoughts go out to the people of Boulder County, Colo., north of Denver, who saw their homes destroyed in the state’s most destructive wildfire in history, with winds of up to 105 mph sweeping across the region following a historic drought, taking out up to 1,000 homes, though at last report, miraculously no loss of life.  Some of the videos of people fleeing are terrifying.

At least some of the fires were sparked when power lines were toppled by the hurricane force winds.

--Last Saturday morning, I watched the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope on NASA.gov (I was shocked a network wasn’t carrying it), and just very cool as the $9 billion infrared telescope was carried aloft inside the cargo bay of an Ariane 5 rocket that blasted off from its launch base in French Guiana.

After 27 minutes, the 14,000-pound instrument was released from the upper stage of the French-built rocket about 865 miles above Earth and will gradually unfurl to nearly the size of a tennis court over the next seven days or so as it sails onward on its own.

The Webb telescope will reach its destination in solar orbit 1 million miles from Earth – about four times farther away than the moon.

By comparison, Webb’s 30-year-old predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, orbits the Earth from 340 miles away.

The new telescope’s primary mirror will enable it to observe objects at greater distances, thus farther back into time, than Hubble or any other telescope.  That, astronomers say, will bring into view a glimpse of the cosmos never previously seen – dating to just 100 million years after the Big Bang, the theoretical flashpoint that set in motion the expansion of the observable universe an estimated 13.8 billion years ago.

Webb’s instruments also make it ideal to search for evidence of potentially life-supporting atmospheres around scores of newly documented exoplanets – celestial bodies orbiting distant stars – and to observe worlds much closer to home, such as Mars and Saturn’s icy moon Titan (a potential future Winter Olympics site, if NBC has its way).

--As part of the 2021 defense authorization bill signed this week by President Biden, the Medal of Honor may be given to five soldiers, three who fought in the Korean War, and two who fought in the Vietnam War.

Pfc. Charles R. Johnson (Korea), Pfc. Wataru Nakamura (Korea), Pvt. Bruno R. Orig (Korea), Staff Sgt. Edward N. Kaneshiro (Vietnam) and Spc. 5 Dennis M. Fujii (Vietnam).

The bill formally waived time limits on presenting the awards.

In addition to the Medals of Honor, Congress also waived time requirements for four soldiers involved in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu (the Black Hawk Down incident) to receive the Distinguished Service Cross:

Master Sgt. John G. Macejunas, Retired Col. Robert Mabry, Retired Command Sgt. Maj. William F. Thetford, and Sgt. 1st Class Earl R. Fillmore.

All awards authorized by Congress will require final approval from the appropriate authorities.

--Finally, we bid adieu to some of the following in 2021:

Bob Dole, Stephen Sondheim, Cicely Tyson, Larry King, Rush Limbaugh, Colin Powell, F.W. de Klerk, Prince Philip, Walter Mondale, George Shultz, Donald Rumsfeld, Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Mort Sahl, Jackie Mason, Betty White, Hal Holbrook, Roger Mudd, Dr. Bortrum and Willard Scott.

And Ron Popeil… “Set It and Forget It!” 

[I’ll note those from the worlds of sports and music in my “Bar Chat” column this weekend, including John Madden, who passed away this week.]

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

God bless America.

Official government Kentucky relief fund: TeamWKYReliefFund.ky.gov

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Gold $1830…..$1901, 12/31/20
Oil $75.45…..$48.42, 12/31/20

Returns for the week 12/27-12/31

Dow Jones  +1.1%  [36338]
S&P 500  +0.9%  [4766]
S&P MidCap  +1.7%
Russell 2000  +0.2%
Nasdaq  -0.05%  [15644]

Returns for 2021

Dow Jones  +18.7%
S&P 500  +26.9%
S&P MidCap  +23.2%
Russell 2000  +13.7%
Nasdaq  +21.4%

Bulls 43.9
Bears 24.4…hasn’t been updated during the holidays.  We’ll catch up next time.

Happy New Year!  Travel safe.

And thank you for your support throughout another tumultuous year.  More of the same on tap for 2022.

Brian Trumbore

 

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