Cryptocurrency & Financial Markets news Focussing on Inflation & the FED's potential to change interest rates. 12th Jan 2022 Today I talk about the following 1. Fed Chairman's Jerome Powell's- President Biden nominating Jerome Powell for a 2nd term 2. Chairman Powells renomination by the Senate Committee’- stable , acted swiftly in financial markets, calm ..now great demand for workers and improvement in business profits. Balance sheet to be reduced … hyper inflation….inflation enemy – now covid and Omicron. The FED needs to stay out of politics and be unbiased 3. https://youtu.be/yPR8wizx4BU Fed Chairman's Powell testimony is very interesting 4. The U.S. consumer price index soared 7% YoY in December, marking the largest increase since 1982. 5. The consumer-price-index (CPI) measures how much Americans pay for goods and services. In November, the CPI was up 6.8% YoY, so the December report represents a 0.2% month-over-month increase in inflation. Similarly, the core price index (basically the CPI, just excluding food and energy categories) saw a 5.5% YoY increase in December. Economists are in agreement that the inflation hike is probably the consequence of labor and supply shortages, the high price of energy products, increased cash flow from Congress/the Fed, and Omicron 6. In 1980, inflation reached a peak of 14.8% under Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Like today, the Fed Chair in the early 80s, Paul Volcker, made it his mission to squash inflation. Volcker raised interest rates to 19% in 1981, prompting a recession — however, in 1982, both interest rates and inflation began to fall dramatically. Volcker is still remembered as somewhat of a legend who killed double-digit inflatioThe prices of cars/trucks surged 37.3% in December, furniture prices hiked 17.3%, and 49% of small businesses surveyed in December will increase prices of goods/services in 2022. 7. The United States’ 7-day average for new Covid-19 cases is now over 750,000. In spite of that, the economy couldn’t be stronger. 8. https://au.investing.com/news/economy/china-finds-omicron-in-another-port-city-further-threatening-supply-chains-2509644?utm_source=responsys&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily_Digest&utm_term=Editorial_DailyDigest_V3_AU_666728&utm_content=cta_button Bloomberg) -- China detected omicron in a second major port city, deepening concern of a wider outbreak at Beijing’s doorstep and raising the prospect that more foreign businesses might follow Toyota Motor (NYSE:TM) Corp. in halting operations along the northeastern coast. Chinese officials said Thursday that at least one person has the more transmissible omicron variant in Dalian, a city of seven million. The patient showed no symptoms, but tested positive after returning from their college in the nearby city of Tianjin, where at least 137 other cases were traced as of Wednesday. A second person in Dalian has also tested positive with the virus, but the variant is unknown. Dalian joins Tianjin as the second crucial port city with confirmed omicron cases. Their ports are among the twenty largest in the world -- processing a combined total of 25 million TEU in 2020 -- and serve as major production hubs for foreign companies such as Airbus and Volkswagen (DE:VOWG_p). Amid Covid-induced delays near Beijing and elsewhere, ships are heading for Shanghai, causing growing congestion there and delaying schedules for container ships by about a week, according to freight...