please please, please, please to continue to fight. don't you just need to rush. i must not be allowed in germany. i don't want you to call me leave it to show us. so being out in office 5 of the yes actually ended out enough mrs. guns until sunday, a became kind of a test bed for medical, and then later recreational marijuana and it started with something so innocent. i was wanting to socialize, everybody does it? so i cannot and then it just keeps going and going and going. i'm just going to do it once. yeah. and then it's, oh, i'm just going to try this one and then never do it again because they one wife, 11 and i have you right on inside. okay. and you surround yourself with people who are encouraging you to do it and not to stop or it felt like my life was over,

jumped office at all balcony and died. he knew he just couldn't stop with this is them by so in business you can't afford to miss. i'm rachel blevins in washington coming up. thousands of life have been canceled around the world as the busy holiday weekend has impacted by staffing shortages. and while the airline industry is struggling to recover, holiday shopping has stored to its highest levels in your lead to decades. but how is inflation playing a role for this guy? plus the energy crisis can use across europe,

where prices are expected to remain high. we'll take a look at how the ne to pipeline could provide some much needed relief and why officials are saying it is so months away from being approved. then as 2021 comes to a close and we take a look at the progress crypto currencies have made and what regulations we can expect in the coming year. we have a lot to cover, so let's get started. we leave the program with a travel nightmare that is still ongoing for many thousands of flights were cancelled on monday, bringing the total for the holiday weekend to more than $10000.00 flight cancellations around the world. now more than a quarter of those flights involved the u. s. where airlines across the board cancelled hundreds of flights, leaving thousands of passengers stranded southwest airlines put the blame on a variety of whether an air traffic congestion challenges. while delta united and jet blue noted increase in stopping shortages due to stick calls as the latest

cobra 19 variance spreads across the country. and while americans have been traveling for the holidays, they have also been shopping and backed holiday sales road that they're fastest rate in 17 years in november and december, marking an 8.5 percent increase compared to 2020 and a 10.7 percent increase from the previous demik days and 2019 according to data from mastercard. now if you're wondering where that increase came from. well, the leading categories were closing jewelry and electronics department stores also side 21 percent increase in traffic compared to last year. as more americans returned to shopping in person, but while they were spending more, they were actually getting less in return as inflation years 40 year highs in supply chain shortages continue to impact businesses and consumers. so what does this mean for the u. s. economy going into the new year? well, joining us now to discuss is john walsh. jean of the miami herbert business school

games was just great to have you on the show today. now, what do you make of the latest data? i mean, it's expected that americans will spend more during the holidays, but how are we seeing inflation really play a role this season? thank you, rachel. of course 20. 21. consumers were determined to have a good holiday season, having been short changed in 2020. so there was some pen top demand evidence and gift buying behavior. in addition, cash was readily available things. so the government handouts and credit was readily available as well. i think another point that drove the sales were the fact that the supply chain shortages and fear of further price increases brought forward some buying that might have taken place later as opposed to earlier all of this meant, as you said, there was a very significant percentage increase in dollars retail sales this year over last

year based on the mazda cod forecast. ready and i think what we're seeing is therefore a, a consolidation of this pen top demand, evident in the last 3 months the christmas season. but let's not forget that a lot of that was not necessarily an increase in the quantity of goods purchased. it was a combination of price increases as well as quantity. absolutely, you may be getting the same things that you got last year, but now you're paying even more for them. and we also remember those reports from just a couple of months ago, warning that they were going to be supply shortages, encouraging more americans to buy. and it looks like they did just that. now another topic we have been talking a lot about over the last year has been the fact that companies have been offering more in an effort to secure employees. but now we've seen those increasing wages

sort of be cancelled out by the fact that prices are soaring all around. what say, you know, one well as we know around about 4 to 5000000 people who were working, pre coven, not yet back in the workforce. and may in fact, never come back to full time work. and as a result of that, there is definitely of what work shortage in many industries and many geographies. and that of course is driving demands for additional wages. and we're seeing a large number of strikes across the united states by workers who put out a lot of effort during coven, to keep manufacturing plants running and feel that now they should be rewarded for those those efforts. but the fact of the matter is that the, the wage inflation that we're seeing is not keeping pace with the price inflation that rail wages are actually declining

a little bad. even those nominal wages go up. and one of the issues here is whether or not employers are willing to bake in permanent adjustments, the base salaries in response to what the federal reserve has consistently advertised until recently as temporary price inflation. so many employers are trying to adjust through, offering more flexibility in terms of remote work opportunities, as opposed to baking in additional salary increases. or there certainly is a lot to juggle there. and you mentioned the ongoing inflation. we've seen it really across the board from the prices we're paying at the grocery store, to commodity prices and of course to the markets which have continued to hit record highs. now going into the next year is the expectation that those prices will actually drop down, or is it just expected that they will start going up?

inflation is something that many retailers, many manufacturers actually welcome. because it's an opportunity to increase prices. have a time when consumers see the inflation, they expect the prices to inquiries. and so in some cases it's possible to if i may say, so get away with a price increase. that is more than the cost increase that the vendor can justify from the increase in input prices that the vendor is having to pay to make the product. so in a sense, inflation feeds on itself because it encourages consumer expectations for an incremental prices. and it encourages the sellers to boost those prices and try to get away with it. you know, the yellow thing that's always important to remember, rachel, is that prices take the elevator on the way up and they take the staircase on the

way down. so one slows price increases are locked in, it's hard to unravel them even if the underlying forces driving inflation ameliorate. yeah, that's a great analogy and it really does seem like sort of this never ending cycle. now finally, we've got less than a minute here, but what is the long term impact of what the was calling me has under this year? i mean, when looking at how the federal reserve has worked really prop markets and they're now slowly pulling back on those policies. why should americans look out for in the new year? it's easy to say that the fed overshot and that the congressional stimulus packages were greater than they needed to be. but if you go back to 2008, you know that that was a time when there was considerable concerned. not enough action had been taken

swiftly enough to deal with the financial crisis. so early on the side of caution through a great, a monetary and fiscal stimulus could well have been justified. the fact of the matter is though, that the fed has lingered long on the temporary inflation argument of cause. the chairman took that off the table a few weeks ago and it is indeed the case that the asset pricing program, the asset purchase program that the fed has been running, that's going to be accelerated and it's withdrawals for march. now, as opposed to june, i would never last expect to see the necessity of at least one if not 2 federal ridge rate increases in 2022 because a lot of the inflation that we are seeing today is not related to supply chain difficulties. that's related to the underlying amount of money in

circulation. yeah, certainly a lot of lessons that can be learned from this year. and to be notable to see what all the federal reserve does going into the next year. dean john, quality of the miami, herbert business school. thank you for your time. thank you. and europe continues to suffer amid record high gas prices and the lack of energy flowing into the region. but at the center of that energy crisis is a political debate over the newly constructed nordstrom to pipeline which aims to deliver supplies from russia to germany. now russian president says the north stream too is expected to help lower europe's energy prices, while deputy prime minister, alexander novak says that certification of the pipeline will likely not happen until the middle of next year. so where will this energy crisis go from here and is this just the beginning of a very long winter in europe? joining me now to break this all down our boom bus co host an investigative

journalist, been swan, and hillary ford, which president of straw mark l l. c. then let's start with you here. now you recently told us that germany's regulator had previously stated the certification of nordstrom to would not happen in the 1st part of 2022. now, russia's deputy prime minister has agreed. so the biggest question here is why is it taking so long? well, apparently the process is, is a fairly lengthy process in order to make this happen though, russia's deputy prime minister also said that the process could be a lot faster than they're making it. it seems like politics is tied up in a lot of this. now, some of it has to do with russia having to set up a corporation inside of germany, and everything has to be run through that corporation. but that can happen rather quickly. the fact that it wasn't already set up is kind of surprising to me, but i think at what we're really looking at here is you're looking at a regulator that is somewhat taking their time because there's a lot of concern about kind of the political angle of the sanctions that the united states is talking about imposing in january. there's going to be a vote here in the house, in the senate,

essentially looking at possibly issuing sanctions against anyone associate with north street to including, by the way, a one who's involved in certifying the pipeline. not just those building it not ready. but if you certify it so, i think there's a lot of fear that's attached to this right now. one important point here, europe is in a horrible state right now in terms of the cost of energy right now. they badly need increased amounts of energy across that continent. and one thing that russia could possibly do, because it's happened before in germany, is they could begin to operate the operate this pipeline without certification, they would have to pay a fine of about a $1000000.00 euros. but they would make far more than that. so there is a possibility that that could happen though no, neither side to other, the german side of the russian side indicating that could happen at this point. and you're saying, and i know it's one of those things where politicians may argue back and forth. but when you start seeing those energy bills and they started skyrocketing then it becomes very, very serious and is definitely felt at home. now, hillary, speaking of those rising bills in the u. k alone energy bills can rise by as much

as 50 percent because of this ongoing energy crisis, which is even being referred to as a national crisis. so why is there such hesitation to allow nordstrom to, to go into operation? well, pleasure to be back with you, rachel, as to pass that question. one part of course, is there point about the crisis? i mean, is absolutely darcy in the u. k. audrey i gallagher, or i'll defer to him, he's a chief executive officer and the deputy actually there of the arm u. k. retail energy group, energy u k. and his as the energy crisis is industry crisis as worse than it's ever been. he said the industry has never been more vulnerable on energy bills in the u. k. at the moment for consumers are expected actually to leap armed to over their cap. um for from 2000 pounds, that's up from 120200000 pounds. so i mean, this is really a terrible situation with soaring prices, so it's absolutely ghastly on the wholesale market. now to the 2nd part of your

question, i mean in terms of the likelihood of them letting not stream to operate. well, list trust at her 1st on foreign ministers meeting on when she was in riga. but in, remember he written that article for the telegraph and then she was pictured our writing along in a tank are emulating margaret thatcher, who she models us of after i'm she to be very strong stance there in riga. and she said, she warned that she thought that moscow was using this to exploit the position of european nations and really said that if any of your nations become reliant on this, that energy i'm is going to become a real issue because russia would be banking a strategic mistake. if it invaded the ukraine and she's warning, nato would step in. so the u. k is taking a really hard line on this. i think one of the major issues too is, you know, we saw caught 26. we saw all these, you know, move, renewable energy, et cetera, except for the windmills. don't blow, don't, don't, don't move when wind is blowing. i'm at the renewable energy sources is aren't

dependable. and so what's happened is the, you european union in general and the u. k. of may a big push to move to renewable, renewable energy sources. meanwhile, they forgot that right in the g. so there's no stream pipeline. could you so hold up, but they're taking a hard line in terms of sticking to what pub 26 lay down. and this slide about nato, basically stepping in, if it goes into effect, all right, and we continue to hear those same warnings, but then what does it sound like when it comes from what russia is saying about the warnings? and does it seem as though there is sort of this big, massive danger from russia, from this pipeline as the united states seems to think that there is. well, i think the problem is, is when you look at what's being said about ukraine, right? the whole idea here is that if russia stopped paying transit fees to move natural gas through pipelines across ukraine, that ukraine loses out on billions of dollars every single year, and so it makes them vulnerable. and so the u. s. and european allies in nato have

to try to make sure that russia keeps paying this fee. but the problem is that russian does it need to pay the fee even though they accept. they would, by the way, if they are pumping this gas under the baltic and all the way to germany. but here's the other thing. you know, we hillary brought up cop 26. what's interesting about the cup 26 meeting from viewers. you don't know this, this huge climate change meeting. and one of the things that cops when the 6 was all about was how do we save the planet, right? because every government around the world is obsessed with this idea that we're on the verge of do when it comes to climate change. and yet, the number one dirtiest form of energy in the world, which is coal manufacturing for energy right, is skyrocketing because natural gas is so expensive right now. so here's where it drives me crazy, right? is that you have these, these political viewpoints that say, will russia so bad? we have to stop them at every cost. and yet we have to save the planet. let's not get more natural gas and let's use coal power, the dirtiest form of energy because we're so afraid of russia, a just it none of what they say ever lines up with anything in reality and it's,

they're constantly contradicting themselves. absolutely. and this politicians live again, james days page or 2, we're going to have to leave it right there. unfortunately out of time. but invest benson and hillary ford, which is still nice. thank you both so much for your insight. time now for a quick break, but when we come back we've seen crypto currency skyrocket and 2021. so what can we expect in the year to come and let include new government regulations? we'll discuss next. and as we go to break, here's an emerge at the clothes with our special yeah. today, the old in the legendary mich fire sign, author of planet ponzi mich. nice to see. happy holidays. mm hm.

with a chill to begin with. each one is a way to adjust my wm. a. can i see what was left the key? is that with water with the department, with this you machine that i did with? no, i need to put that amount with power to start with

with oh, welcome back. throughout 2021. you heard us talk about the state of crypto currency regularly here on boom bust. as we watched the leading players hit record highs again and again. but with that success has also come increasing scrutiny from governments around the world. in fact, this year we saw china and india and out sweeping crackdowns on the use of crypto currencies. well, countries like the u. s. and australia looked for ways to introduce new regulations . this all comes as governments around the world, they're looking to roll out digital currencies of their own. now we were joined earlier by boom, bust co host and crypto analyst, benz von and christy i to discuss. and i started out by asking how this fight for

control is likely to play out in the next year when the site is definitely going to continue on. and it's just going to continuously be this cat and mouse game. when government started clamping down on, i seos our initial coin offerings, for example, saying that everything was a security. then a few things happened. one companies just didn't offer these. i seos to us citizens any more and said move their headquarters to places like zurich, or malta or i seos were actually embraced or 2 companies just got. * a lot more clever and we're like okay, we're not gonna do a nice yeah. we're gonna do an i e o, an initial exchange offering. and then when the us started clamping down on the centralized exchanges that we're doing these i. e o, they were like, okay, let's move on. let's do an idea and initial dex offering and start moving, trading all centralized over to decentralized trading platforms such as uni sushi pancake, poke it out, penguin, etc. and then when those started getting pushed back, they were like, okay, you know what, we're gonna start, stop doing these ideas,

ideas. we're going to do air drops, now send and contributions, and you'll get air drop tokens. so really it's going to be a very interesting battle because you have some of the smartest and clever people in the world now facing some of the most antiquated regulators who don't know anything about tech trying to make sense of it. of course, always going to be a couple steps behind, not to say that this won't get annoying and tiring for the industry. it's annoying to keep on trying to find loopholes around these things when they should just be embraced because it's going to happen anyways. so next year we're definitely going to see more regulations attempting to control the spread of crypto. possibly some more backlash about these claims of environmental concerns. all in all, i see it really benefiting the entire d fi ecosystem because it just forces the space to innovate faster. you know, thing that regulators are just a couple of steps behind. might even be generous. it feels like sometimes they're miles behind what is actually happening now been how big of a role is, is push for c, b c's playing in the response we're seeing from governments around the world right now. and can we expect that to continue over the next year?

well yes for them before we do that, christy was missing an analogy. she needed a good analogy to make that point. here's how i went with it. created analogy, i would say it's like a bunch of cave men trying to figure out how to stop astronauts right as not to go into space. indicate the field on fire, but they think they're going to regulate the astronauts. that's essentially what it is, and by the way, that fits into your question, how cbd sees. because look, bottom line is governments around the world. they love digital money looks like they love the portability of it. they love the fact that the world has moved on from feel currencies. they just want to control it. and so whenever there is an advancement astronauts come along and advancement in terms of science or technology or finance, the antiquated regulators get left behind. and part of the reason they get left behind is because they don't want to move on the regulators and the banks, like the system as it is, they don't want to change government, see that they're way behind. what they think is we'll just adopt the same technology and we'll create

a centralized currency with it and will force everyone to use it. the problem is, is that you can't just force this, this round peg into a square hole, right? it doesn't work that way. crypto currency is portable and it's easily maneuverable and it's easily usable by people around the world. it banks, the unblank cbc, don't bank the on bank. they are the bank, they are the central bank. and so what you find is that c, v, c's in theory, digital currency, which all these governments want. china one, some russia wants venezuela has them right now in the united states, ultimately does. one is own cbd. so even though it keeps pretending that it doesn't, even though they wanted, they also want to rid it of all the things they don't like about it, right? the freedom that's associated with the ability of people to trade, peer to peer, and not be tracked in every transaction they make. they hate that part of it. so you can't really have one without the other. and i think that's what, what central things around the world are learning. and that's why we're seeing them with one hand trying to mimic crypto currencies. and with the other hand, with a club, they're trying to smash it. and now chris,

issue all of these points. we've, we really talked about those very real privacy concerns related to digital currencies and the power they give governments, do you see crypto currency increasing popularity? that is a traditional crypto currency, even more as those cbd c is become a reality. absolutely, i love that analogy about how they're trying to like, embrace it at the same time, trying to smash it. that is so true and it's so hypocritical of them. but exactly. they're trying to make c b c's as crypt current these but to been point c, b c's are not crypt currencies and they're literally the antithesis of it. they're no different than a digital representation of the current dollar. so it's gonna come with the exact same problems as the current us dollar has, which right now, namely is inflation. so i hope that when it comes to that, people are going to be smart enough to recognize about the disease and not just fall for the convenience of a digital dollar. because that's why people use pay pal coin based crackin robin

hood because they are super convenient and they're amazing smooth you why and user experience people actually enjoy using them. robin hood is addicting, but they all have the same problem as in their centralized and you're sacrificing your privacy and your control for the convenience. so i hope that people don't become super complacent and just accept a cbc rather than the real thing and cvd. so those will actually start driving people towards the adoption of crypto currency. i hope that's the case. yeah, there's certainly a lot of things there now been, i will give you the final word here. we know that even if the government is acting like a bunch of men still has an impact on the american people, how do you see it rolling out in the next year? it was definitely hasn't been back on the american people. and it also affects the industry, right, because the bottom line is it doesn't matter how much of a case, man, you are the big enough club and you can smash anything. and i think that's what the us government is able to lean back onto as well as other governments around the world. they know that if they're big enough and strong enough and they are. and if you have a military behind you and a law enforcement arm behind you and they do,

you can weaponized anything. and so i think that what we're seeing and we've seen to the latter part of 2021 really has been a reaction to unclear regulation and where everything goes from here. and you know, christy laid out in the beginning a great example of all different ways with i seos and i e l s t o and all these different tools that have been used to try to get around regulation. well, the latest one is enough t, and it's going to be very interesting to me to see how enough tease play into all this. i'm partial or find a way to bring it up to evac and 0 ok. falling this end of the new year. boom, buzz, benson and christie. i thank you both for your time and, and that's all for now. we'll see you next time. ah, join me every thursday on the alex, simon, she'll. and i'll be speaking to guess in the world of politics. spoke business. i'm

show business, i'll see you then. mm. ah . pandemic, no, no borders line to tease and you parish as emerge. we don't have with the we don't of vaccine the whole world leads to take action and to be ready. people are judgment. 2 common crisis with we can do better, we should be doing better. everyone is contributing each in their own way, but we also know that this crisis will not go on forever. the challenge is great to response has been massive. so many good people are helping us. it makes us feel very proud that we are in it, together with

a, a lot of became kind of the test bed for medical and then later recreational marijuana and it started with some things. so in a saying, i was wanting to socialize, everybody, does it? so i cannot and then it just keeps going and going and going. i'm just going to do it was yeah. and then it's, oh, i'm just going to try this one and then you never do it again because they want life 11, and i have you right on inside. okay. and you surround yourself with people who are encouraging you to do it and not to stop or it felt like my life was over, jumped office about the balcony and died. you just couldn't stop

a check. a 4 year old is caught up in the pep as bright as police break up until you vaccine march in germany. meantime, countries all across europe are facing huge on rec, ahead of new year over brian new restriction. some parents in the u. k. are accusing hospitals, help discriminating against children with down syndrome in a bid to free up beds during cove. if we hear from a mother who was off to sign a do not receive an order for her son playing. she did, i, well just in case that's my son's life that you're asking with fish or not. i mean, he has down syndrome, but that's got nothing to do with whatever shipping stuff sites on both of the

program. the latest poll showing that most us democrats don't want.