supply chain increasing prices and the onset of the i'm a crime variant during the holiday season. all of these factors remain concerning. as analysts see the economy flowing to start the year. as the latest very, it has caused the nation to see a record number of new cobit cases in recent weeks. so what does all of this tell us about the ongoing recovery? well, joining is not just full bus co host christy. christy. what the take away from this data, what does it say about the state of the recovery here in the united states? well, the main takeaway is, here are the stimulus injections into the economy worked a work to temporarily booth growth and output despite all of the business closures and issues that pi chain that we faced last year. so we had government assistance payments in the form of forgivable loans to businesses grants, to state and local governments, and also social benefits to household. so according to the b, a, the acceleration in the 4th quarter was led by an upturn and exports, as well as an acceleration and inventory investment and consumer spending. so

personal consumption road over 2 percent in the 4th quarter, which is unsurprising. giving that it is a holiday season one consumer spending is at the highest. so the main boost, though, came from inventory restocking q 4 saw the 2nd highest inventory restocking on record. although one wouldn't know it by looking at all these spare shelves in the stores. so the assumption is that a record amount of inventory was ordered in anticipation of higher prices in the future due to inflation. so businesses wanted to hoard up items now. so the bottom line is that this was a very strong number, but it was also a very low quality print. it was driven almost entirely by the surgeon inventories . so if and when this restocking waiver versus it will have a sharp deflationary effect as liquidation start again. yeah, there's certainly nothing that makes you bye, bye bye like hearing that there's going to be some sort of supply chain shortage for the goods that you're looking for. now, i know we talk about all these factors that could take a toll on growth,

like inflation supply chain was in the, on the kron barian. so was the economy able to expand in spite of these issues, or did those issues actually prevent further growth? i would say for the most part the economy was able to expand in spite of these issues and had it not been for a cron and the supply chain setbacks, the print would have been a lot higher. omicron put a dent on 1st quarter economic growth and sectors like hospitality, leisure and restaurants. they're still feeling the squeeze right now. and job openings in those areas remain very high as workers hang back for health and child care reason. and then at the same time, you have the bottlenecks and supply chain constraints that are limiting, how quickly production can respond to higher near term demand, which then puts another drug on the economy. so these problems have been larger and longer lasting than previously anticipated. though one can argue on the other hand, had not been for coven 1900. we wouldn't have these expansive stimulus programs

flashing interest rates down to 0 unemployment checks and all that. so it's really hard to say what u. s. growth would have looked like if coven never happened, because it's not like the u. s. was delivering spectacular growth before the pandemic rolled back, then was pretty much already on the decline. right. and we talked about that a lot in 2019 with you on the show about the fact that it looked like we were heading into a recession. to that, obviously the pandemic kind of threw a wrench in the works and kind of changed up the whole narrative about what happened with the economy. now kristi, when it does come to this recovery, how is the u. s. actually comparing to other major economy throughout the world. well, the us and china are pretty much neck and neck in terms of recovery. they've already both surpassed their pre pandemic cause. so the chinese economy is projected to have growth of 10.6 percent larger for the whole of 2021 compared with 2019. however, even for the world's most wealthy nation, the pose pandemic recovery still remains a challenge. so you,

how japan and germany and the u. k. the other, the 3 other top 5 global economies, they have yet to fully rebound for their life. throughout this entire pandemic, japan's total gdp was projected to be nearly 3 percent smaller in 2021 than 20. 19 the jeremy tommy was 2 percent more and the u. k was 3.4 percent smaller. so major supply chain disruption they hamper the german and the japanese recovery is a lot which delayed shipments of raw materials and other goods around the world. and the automotive sector has been hit particularly hard for lack of materials and a shortage of some each of the u. k. also took a blow from these shipping delays, which then compounded the effects of the countries departure from the so all 3 countries, economies will surpass their pre pandemic cars by the end of 2022, according to current estimates from the cd. but right now, behind them is india who is also expected to grow about 8.2 percent in 2022. but as

a now the us in china, they take the cake as a global recovery. there was pretty much very heavily reliant on these 2 top economies because between them the u. s. and trying to make up about 35 percent of global g, d p with manufacturing construction and mining being china's main industries. and the u. s. performing and relying on finance insurance and real estate sectors. absolutely, it would be interesting to see what the next quarter and then the quarters after that even show as boom. but chris, the i thank you so much for your time. and allison did it again and from global grow to global markets, the international monetary fund is now war that the sell off we've seen so far this . we could be a picture of what's the come in 2020 to the i m s. financial counselor is predicting that has central banks around the world move to pull back on easy monetary policy and increase interest rate. markets will be directly affected. but if you paid attention to markets this week, you know that the turbulence is already here. there are a number of factors that play from

a crucial federal reserve policy meeting to earning season in full swing gigi of political tension, leading to the threats of sanctions and export controls. there is truly a lot going on in the world and markets are feeling the heat. so to go further in depth on this, let's bring in tonight and partner and director of training, research and education as a market gauge group. and charles, ms. rocky founder, alpha investor and host the charles is rocky show. it's great to have you both on the show today. now, michelle, let's start with you. what do you see as having the biggest impact in markets here in the u. s. this week? i mean, do all roads lead back to the fat and their plans for the year? it is a road, but i don't know if it's the only road because there was find that the market was going to possibly be in trouble. even starting in november of 2021 as we were into the whole black friday, big retail thing. we saw that people were buying in advance and then not necessarily several people were expecting things to happen because of the con. i

know i add to that the fed talking to ashley, but saying really nothing. i think it's more the anticipation and then we have a really strong dollar. and of course, as you mentioned earlier, we have the russian situation also happening. the whole thing really is setting the stage for a stagflation environment. that's where we've been talking about heading for 2022. it looks like that's what we're heading. even though some commodities come off. the fed is definitely made an impact. but at this point now, i think it would be who them to be too aggressive considering, even beside the g d p being strong, it still doesn't really reflect what's going on, which is a shrinking economy. i certainly think a lot of people would agree with you and they would like to see a more aggressive fed at this point. now, charles, what do you make of that claim from the i m f that the turbulence we've seen over the last week or 2 has, is likely to be that new normal for 20. 22. are the record highs we saw over the last several years? are they officially over?

all right, so 2 good questions. one is i don't look to the, i have to make predictions of forecast how and where markets are going because they have no greater insight than you are right? forecasting and predicting market and economies as we've seen in 2020 is really worthless. is the market going to make to hire these less ties? i really couldn't tell you, my crystal ball is broke, but all i could say this is if you're investing in the stock market or you're buying a piece of business to stock, really is. and these short term generations over to political events as well as interest rates should not have a major bearing on what you do next week or next month. if you're looking for the long term to buy great businesses at great prices now is a great time. and that's something we've obviously heard a lot from people who say, hey, this is when you make the money. when markets go lower, that's when you're going to start to actually make the money. but it is a concern because you're absolutely right. although there are times where we see maybe the market doesn't necessarily line up with exactly what that business is. i

mean, we've seen about 74 percent at least of earlier as of earlier this week of as a p 500 companies had actually reported positive earnings beating expectation. but still we've seen what we've seen happening in the market this week. now. michelle, when it comes, those earning reports and typically beating estimates is a positive, but we've seen companies like intel and g where their 4th quarter earnings were more than expected. but their stock actually went down based on the outlook for this year. what, what does that tell us? exactly. that is that there is one thing about needing an expectation or exceeding an expectation, but then that is the forward guidance. and everybody can see the macro picture or just the comment of this is the time to buy. you really have to have some technical information there and some overview of what's going on in the general macro. and that's what you've been talking about. they were talking about the fact that they have inflation concerns. they're still here, they're still prices where all trucking, cars, transportation costs,

everything has been affecting their when business. and the same thing with an intel, they also are dealing with supply chain issues and labor issues. the demand for semi conductors is unprecedented, but yet there is no supply to meet demand. she's got to perfect try factor that's affecting most of these companies. and that is inflation supply chain and labor. and that's going to take a while for it to sort out. yeah, certainly, and those issues are ones that we've seen across the board. now charles, we know that it has also been a week of rising geopolitical tensions with talks involving the u. s. russia and ukraine. but are those tensions having an impact on markets at all? this week and why do you think that is i really can't speak to shifts short term events. what's gonna happen in a week or a month or what happened yesterday? because over time, if you'd like great companies at bargain prices, she'll do well. did anyone remember what the geopolitical events for the interest

rates? warren 1965 weren't berkshire hathaway when public or 970 were in the midst of the vietnam war, with wal mart, or 1997 with amazon. find great companies. this isn't a difficult game, it's pretty simple good for companies. well, i'm a bargain prices and then sit on your bud anecdotal role of the short term noise because that's all it is an earnest report, just a picture of a company over 30 week period. so why would anyone make a long term decisions based on what happened over the past 30 weeks? well, i mean, i think what, what, i guess the, i think a lot of people say is that you see how they, whether that storm for when it comes to supply chains, what it may be is in the early weeks, good weeks. but we'll, we'll, we'll mark this many, many retail expectations over the past 50 years. did i prevent you from making millions of dollars and what tell investment? same thing with amazon st through virtue companies just don't go straight up. if we look at this game on a moment by moment basis, you go crazy because that's up to what you, what version you trade that way. you don't reverse that way. yeah. there's only

a lot to read entered into there, and we will keep an eye on it. moving forward. michelle snyder and charles, missouri. he thank you both for joining us today. and amazon is putting an end to a controversial program in which employees were paid to post on twitter, about how much they loved to working at amazon. that's according to report from the financial times. or it says, the company is winding down the program, where average employees added the title, amazon se ambassador to their names on the platform, and then went on to talk about how great it was to work at amazon. you may remember this scheme was 1st noticed back in 2018 and it coincided with reports of amazon employees who said they were being monitored to the point where they couldn't even take restroom breaks. now the accounts were also used to publicly criticize efforts to unionize. at the warehouse in bessemer, alabama, where reports revealed various ways in which amazon worked overtime to intimidate employees. but the efforts could always be resurrected as workers at warehouse in

staten island, new york have now gathered enough support to hold their own union vote. no. can you imagine being a company like amazon with the profits they make and thinking it would be a good idea in your p r to apartment, to make sure that we had people tweeting about how great this company was. a and you know, responding to the new sayers on social is so interesting because that's what they said. the reason they actually backed away from this plan according to the report that, of course, that they said, well, they didn't really work out really, you know, big. so, i mean, do you think that as a normal, everyday citizen, whether you're a union supporter or not, that you go to twitter and you see a guy who says fc amazon, f, the ambassador, and you look into that and you go, oh, this guy's happy, there must be no problems at amazon whatsoever. yeah, it really makes you wonder, i mean, especially in the situations where we had reports from people saying that, you know, they were being monitored and all of these different ways. and especially with the union, both the issues that they had, you would think that amazon would be wanting to adjust that, but instead maybe, maybe now they will see this time around with the union. but what they did,

you know, bernard, twitter account, they're always the way to go, and maybe not putting amazon investment on it now for a quick break. but when we come back just a week after russia central bank called for a blanket ban on crypto currency, the nation's president is now giving crypto enthusiasts. a glimmer of hope will tell you why next. and as we go to break, here are the numbers at the close. the what happened? i make no, certainly no borders line to nationalities. and you various as a merge, we don't have authority. we don't to look back seen the whole world,

leads to take action and be ready. people are judgment, common crisis with we can do better, we should be 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. the response has been massive. so many good people are helping us. it makes us feel very proud that we are in it together with there may, may, we should all be mayor. may, we should all be angry because i was going all right. you can't understand united states history and the role that slavery play is already very formal institution. on a time, united states became

a nation. it actually find the nation. the rise of capitalism is clearly on the backs of flight and the slave down. if you hit the skis, lynching said a great extent, you can't believe in the country. and the country still stands in brick. i'm from the south. everybody know, know what their failure. to some extent, i would argue that we're still fighting the civil war. in the south is winning ah

exaggerated rhetoric, massive arm shipments and endless threats. this is how nato presents istation of pan european security. meanwhile, moscow weights to the u. s. and its allies to respond to its demands and vision for the say. the status quo is untenable. with the ed, welcome back. over the past few months, there has been very little good news for crypto markets, but when it comes to calls for the crypto, the banning of crypto mining russian president vladimir putin may have just given

crypto enthusiast a little glimmer of hope. at a wednesday video conference with members of the russian government, who stated that he would like to quote, start with an issue that is currently in the spotlight, the regulation of crypto currencies and told members of the government that quote of course, we also have certain competitive advantages here, especially in the so called mining, i mean the surplus of electricity and the well trained personnel available in the country. he also called on the country central bank to meet with his government in the near future so that they might come to a consensus on the use of crypto. so does all of this mean that a ban on crypto is less likely in russia? we're joining us now to discuss it. and crypto analysts been swan now been, it sounds like booting is looking at crypto very differently than russia, the central bank. so why is that? well, i think it makes a lot of sense that they would look at crypto currency differently. the bank is looking at it from the viewpoint of a central bank anywhere in the world, right?

which is simply this, that any time there is competition for the activities as of, of a central bank, it is a bad thing. central banks want to control the currency of any country, right? that's their primary function. crypto currency breaks the control of central banks over at finance. so they're looking at it from the viewpoint of a central bank, but what putin is looking at it from the viewpoint of is a politician and a leader who says, there are too many weapons that can be used against russia in terms of the international community. we all know what's going on right now. we see what's happening with the nato and the, the talking up of possible war with russia even though even ukraine is saying and leaders and you greater saying that's not really not what's happening here. the u. s. keeps pushing this idea forward, right, and talking to other nato countries that are pushing this idea. what's the number one form of warfare in the world right now? it's not with bombs. it's with finance, it's sanctions and it's cutting off access to international banking systems. and that's why putin is now talking more about crypto currency. absolutely been into

your point right there. there's a lot of talk about in this build up of a possible war over ukraine, about cutting russia off of the swift network. but essentially, how much of this does that plays into that, in your opinion, at least that we don't really know what anybody's motives are here, but do you think that's why he might be looking at this? yeah, we don't know what the motives are, but here's the point about the swift banking system. when i talked about this issue a lot on the show, right, which is that in terms of bitcoin or any other crypto currency, the primary function it has right now. if you said what one thing other than decentralization and peer to period transaction, what one thing does it have over all other currencies in the central bank system? it's international transactions. that's the thing that big coin is beating everybody else out right now. and nobody even comes close in the swift banking system, which is the process for viewers who don't know what that system is. it is the process by which international transactions are settled. if you use that system to

bludgeon other countries, which by the way, the united states does all the time, right. how do we harm other countries? countries with sanctions, we cut them off from that swift banking system, which means you can't make international transactions. that is a weapon, the u. s. is used for a long time. big coin overcomes that system and it allows other crypto currencies do as well by the way. and that is where the power of crypto currency is right now . the ability to not have to function within that monetary system, right? and certainly for any country that is looking at the kinds of threats that russia is looking at right now, especially when it comes to this for thinking system, they're likely going to be thinking what other options are out there. what else should we be considering? now switching countries, but also still think is still talking about different threats. here they've been made to el salvador. we've heard from i enough directors saying that they are stressing that there are large risk associated with the use of that coin on financial stability, financial integrity, and consumer protection, as well as the associated fiscal contingent liabilities. all right. the ins has

been saying this for months now. so why are they so anxious to end it? bitcoin experiment? you know, it's really interesting to me because i, i am a clearly hate says, right. they hate that all salvador is doing this. but here's the thing of you did not believe that big coins was actually a reasonable move for el salvador. if you're the i m f, why wouldn't you just sit back, cross your arms, as jim saki says, have a margarita, and wait until they fail, right? because it obviously, if you're the i am, if you believe they're going to fail and you can say, well, look, see, it didn't work. and now you are l. salvador, a cautionary tale for the rest of the world. i believe i, my personal belief is the recently i'm f won't do that is a don't believe that's what will happen. in fact, right now, the president of el salvador is bragging about the fact that he just bought more bitcoin, he calls it really cheap bitcoin because the prices are down. and so the i m f doesn't like it because what if he's right? if he's right, it is a domino effect of other countries around the world saying we don't need the i m f,

maybe maybe there's a better way and they can't stand that idea, right? but, and that was what i was going to ask because doesn't it seem like the i m f is saying, hey, we can't give you our really bad predatory loans if you have your own financial system and stability, correct? that's exactly right. i love it. we can give you a really bad predatory loan because that's what the i am does around the world, right? not only does the i m f say, now you are beholden to us like the mafia. but they also put all these countries in the world. it is incredibly indebted position by the way, the same position that though criticize china does the same thing for doing to countries across the world, including across the continent of africa, right. which is we're gonna buy you lots of stuff. we're going to teach a real nice date, you're real good. and then when you're gonna owe us at the end, we're going to come and collect and that's what the i m of wants to do. and bitcoin helps to break that system is certainly ales with israel. and lee, and the reason i say not as i do and don't you dare use bickley and kind of do

a sin boom vest pencil on. thank you so much visit these guys and facebook stable coin, ones known as libra will likely never become the digital currency of the internet as the company, as it talks to sell assets to pay back. investors. according to a bloomberg report sighting, people familiar with the matter, the plan for the project now known as d. m was 1st announced in june of 2019, involving many big names like e bay visa pay pal and stripe. now, after it was unveiled, the idea of face heavy regulatory scrutiny globally, and many backers stepped away after facebook found remarks after berg and libra had david marcus testified about the plan in front of congress. now at the time, at this time, that is to say it's unclear who might actually be interested in scooping up the assets as the landscape is now saturated with government, back to the b, d. c and a whole host of other block chain related project. now this is one of those cases

where they tried to promise too much and then realize that they couldn't really follow through on it. well, i think this is what we've seen with facebook. one of the world's largest companies tend to be very short sighted in their way of doing things. they don't look up a lot of information. apparently they didn't really check on the regulatory landscape of c, b, c globally. i mean, the fact that it wasn't really going to make it too far as it was. so it's just a bizarre thing. it's like the meta situated, where i remember the story immediately after metal with a now that there is another company that has a trademark for the name meta. yeah, that seems like simple thing with all of the money that they have. i mean, you would think that they would just pay someone looked into the other, i guess in this case they wanted to get into crypto. they thought, hey, we'll do that. that should be easy. all the kids are doing and now they're learning a lesson and it's going to be interesting to see if one big tech company can really make that space in crypto, where obviously facebook failed apple and if they do, we'll let you know that for the time you get boom, but the on demand on the portable tv app available on smartphones and tablets,

google play, and the apple app store by searching portable tv, portable tv can be downloaded on samsung, smart tv using roku devices or simply check it out at portable dot tv. well, see you next time. mm. ah. well the mic no, no borders line number please. and you as a merge, we don't have a terribly we don't of, of i've seen whole world needs to take action and be ready. people are judgment, common crisis with we can do better, we should be 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. and so now for the past couple of decades, the solution was all is print more money. but now that the money printing is causing a real inflation and exacerbating all the problems, that solution is only going to make the problem worse. but of course, that's what they'll do. that's what the elite will do. that's what they plan to do . any inconvenience that falls them, they will answer what we need to print more money, print more money and the food will get in a shorter supply and workers will disappear and the situation get worse and worse because it does never money. printing never worked

with james. all down through here, calling this larry over here. so you're camps are always a little nicer than this. this is evidence of absolute poverty, just to mayor, people in our city and other cities all across america are living like this. where at the original need and village that opened up in 2018 right now. there's 31 homes on the property. it's a little over 4 acres with 31 homes and the community center. unfortunately, a lot of people don't make it out of edition more homelessness and i'm just really happy. it made it. oh, dad you with join me every thursday on the alex simon show. and i will be speaking to guess on

the world politics sport. business. i'm show business, i'll see you then there may or may, we should all be mayor. may, we should all be angry or what's going on, right. can't understand united states history and the role that slavery play is already a very formal institution. by the time united states became a nation, it actually find the nation, the rise of capitalism clearly on the backs of flight and the slave down. if you had investigated lynchings to any great extent, you believe that really having your country and my country still dancing brick. i'm from the south. everybody know know what this figure. to some extent, i would argue that we're still fighting the civil war. and the south is winning

with ah, rush has foreign minister says the u. s. has failed to address moscow's concerns about nato expansion, but added that the 2 sides can start a serious conversation about secondary issue. pavek over the ukraine crisis takes a bizarre turn among western media with one outlet suggesting so named russian aggression is preventing you f o. hundreds from contacting alien 3 to anger robson perth with barricades classes and multiple rest as thousands of people including students and the public sector workers rally over soaring coff.