behaves like monopoly, amazon essentially controls the market place. it's not really a market as a private arena, a world where a single company controls the distribution of all our daily products. and the infrastructure of our economy is loose the world according to amazon. ah, st. the the this is going business, so you can't afford to miss. i'm rachel, 11 bridge or in washington years. and we have coming up. the united states has been its highest annual growth rate in nearly 40 years in the nation's economy,

roared back in 2021. we're going to discuss that performance. and as major central banks are moving to raise their interest rate, the international monetary fund is warning of instability. then, days after the bank of russia proposed to complete ban on crypto mining, we're now hearing a different tone from the nation's leader. we'll discuss all the latest we have a lot to cover, so let's get started. and we leave the program with the state of the economic recovery and the world number one, economy gross domestic product in the united states grew by 5.7 percent in 2021 as significant increase from the contraction of 3.4 percent in 2020, when the country faced widespread lockdown is due to the cobra 19 pandemic which caused the economy to screech to a halt. annual growth was pushed up by an expansion of 6.9 percent in the 4th quarter. far out pacing the 2.3 percent growth in the previous court. now the rebound came as the summer influx of delta variant cases waned,

but the economy was still feeling the pressure of strain 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 slowing to start the year as the latest barrier 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 us not just in school bus, co host, christy, christy. what the take away from this data. what does it say about the state of recovery here in the united states? while the main takeaways here are the stimulus injections into the economy worked a war to temporarily boost growth and output, despite all of the business closures and issues of that supply chain that we faced last year. so we had government assistant payments in the form of forgivable loans to businesses grants, to state and local government, 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 in inventory investments and consumer spending. so personal consumption road over 2 percent in the 4th quarter, which is unsurprising. giving that it is the holiday season, i want consumer spending is that the highest? so the main boost, though came from inventory restocking q 4 saw the 2nd highest inventory restocking on record. although one would know it by looking at all these fair 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 want 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 and it was driven almost entirely by the surgeon inventories. so if and when this restocking wave reverses will have a sharp deflationary effect as liquidation start to 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. omar call and put a dent on 1st quarter economic world 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 reasons. 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. the one can argue on the other hand,

had it not been for coven 1900. we wouldn't have these expands it's stimulus program, 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. 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 kinda 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 where the us and china are pretty much neck and neck in terms of recovery. they've already both surpassed their pre panoramic 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 post pandemic recovery still remains a challenge. so 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 g. d. p was projected to be nearly 3 percent smaller in 2021 than 20 . 19 the journey tommy was 2 percent more and the u. k was 3.4 percent smaller. so major supply chain disruption. they hampered the german and the japanese recoveries a lot which delayed shipments of all 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 caused 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 china make up about 35 percent of global g d p with manufacturing construction in mining, being china's main industries. and the u. s. performing and relying on finance insurance and real estate sectors. absolutely, it'd be interesting to see what the next quarter and, and the quarter after that even show us. boom. but chris, the, i thank you so much for your time. and allison did it again and from global grow to global margaret, the international monetary fund is now warding that the sell off. we've seen so far this week could be a picture of what's to come in 2020 to the i m. s. financial counselor is predicting that it's 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, meaning to earning season in full swing, to g, a 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 sort of go further in depth on this. let's bring in neither 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 fed 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 bus people were expecting things to happen because of the current. and now i add to that the fed talking hawkish, lee, 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 and looks like that's what we're heading. even though some commodities have 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 decide 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. course 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 board earnings were more than expected. but their stock actually went down based on the outlook for this year. what, what does that tell us? well exactly, that is that there's one thing about needing an expectation or exceeding an expectation, but then there's 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 went up. 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 semiconductors 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 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, with berkshire hathaway, when public or in 1970, 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 fly, great companies, why bargain prices, and then sit on your bud and ignore all of the short term noise because that's all it is an earnest report. so just a picture of a company over 13 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 that 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 way, oh, certainly weeks 30 weeks. but we'll, we'll, we'll mark this many, many retail expectations over the past 50 years. did that prevent you from making millions of dollars in $1000.00 investment? same thing with amazon. same thing with berkshire 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 would 1st you trade that way. you don't

of us that way. yeah, there's certainly 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 working at amazon. that's according to report from the financial times, which 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

a warehouse in staten island, new york have now gathered enough support to hold their own union vote. now, can you imagine being a company like amazon with the profits they make and thinking it would be a good idea in your p arch apartment to make sure that we had people tweeting about how great this company was. and you know, responding to the ne sayers on so she was so interested 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 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 investor, and you look into that and you go, oh, this guy 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 will see this time around with the union. but what they know, bernard, twitter accounts are always the way to go, and maybe not putting him on a fee 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, the numbers are the clothes with a a, a,

a, a, a, [000:00:00;00] a . now we know you in this is he is a sphere. he will foster you will fall off the end. and the other side of it came from and you're back home. so i would like to envision that new does it personally live and it's just like that you're on the action who are to and from the other

side, there is a chance all down through here all in this, the larry over here. so you're camps are always a little nicer than this evidence of absolute poverty, despair, and 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 a 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 me. in. oh, oh oh i,

there's financial survival guide, stacy bless, learn about me aloud. let's say i'm it so i can any are great prom grief on banks of the fight. wall street, broad, thank you for helping with enjoy that right. fill out her desk slavery 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 in 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 wouldn't 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 anytime there is competition for the activities as a 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 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 talking up of possible war with russia even though even ukraine is saying, and leaders and ukraine are saying, that's really 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 prudent is now talking more about crypto currency. absolutely abandoned to 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 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 appear 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 thinking 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. but it allows for international transactions to be made outside of that system. 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 kind 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 m f directors saying that they are stressing that there are large risk associated with the use of bit clean 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? def bitcoin experiment? you know, it's really interesting to me because i, i am a clearly hate says,

right. they hate that l 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 el salvador, a cautionary tale for the rest of the world. i believe i, my personal belief is the reason the i'm f won't do that is they 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 image 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 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

a really bad predatory loans if you have your own financial system and stability, correct? that's exactly right. i love it. we can't 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 they'll criticize china that does the same thing for doing the countries across the world, including across the continent of africa, right. which is we're going to buy you lots of stuff. we're going to treat you real nice in nature, real good. and then when you're gonna, over at the end, we're going to come and collect and that's what the i am of wants to do. and bitcoin helps to break that system. as certainly as these are real good and lee and 0, i say not as i do and don't you dare use bickley and kind of the dealer and 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 a talk to sell assets to pay back investors. according to 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 a 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 projects. now that's just 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 the 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 medicine, jewish, where remember the story immediately after metal was announced, that there is another company that has a trademark for the ne 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 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 c. v will see you next

time with oh, now it shows the wrong one. 0. just don't move. any world. yes to see proud disdain becomes the answer to an engagement equals the trail. when so many find themselves worlds apart, we choose to look for common ground. exaggerated rhetoric, massive arm shipments and endless threats. this is how nato presents is vision of

pan european security. meanwhile, moscow wait for the us and its allies to respond to its demands and vision for the say. the status quo is untenable. your challenge with the nutrition which on the nucleus you and and the sub boshoway, she can hi sharon, my name is rob lee with right. yeah. that it's like why the smaller group move? she them whole shower learning. kelly recruiting, caught an irony massage or nike issue with long didn't get to our lawyer for she gave beth managed to i must be happy. adam of fact, not enough that you can think of having

a pretty i think you me act here to try to put him on with him off at the moment that i can love 3. ah, tonight after month to the west insisting that russia is set to invade your cray, nato secretary general makes a stunning. you turn admitting the military block actually has no confidence whatsoever. but any such aggression will happen at all useful positions. if it depends on the russian federation, then there will be no war. we don't want any wars, but we will also not allow our interest to be rudely trampled on and ignored. i made a growing stand off for the west oven ukraine. russia's top diplomat stresses moscow does not want conflict but insisted security must be in short of this