Good morning. We've arrived at the final day of the Golden Mug Awards and wanted to say a big thanks to everyone who voted. It's been a lot of fun and, besides not selecting "When we all ignored Tiger King 2" as the year's most inspiring moment, your picks have been spot on. - Quick logistical note that we'll be off tomorrow (New Year's Day), back on Sunday for Sunday Edition, then return to regularly scheduled news programming on Monday.
Sorry if that gave you the Sunday Scaries on New Year's Eve. Enjoy the last few hours of 2021 and see you in 2022! —Neal Freyman, Matty Merritt | | Dianna "Mick" McDougall; Getty Images Inflation was the biggest lock for this award since Forrest Gump won an Oscar for Best Picture. No other business story had any chance. Why? Inflation, which is the rate of price increases over time, affects all of us on a personal level. We pay electric bills, go grocery shopping, decorate our houses, buy cars—and this year all of those things got more expensive. Like, way more expensive. Thanks to a nefarious mix of soaring demand for goods and snarled supply chains, US consumer prices jumped the most in 39 years in November, and the 6.8% inflation rate marked the sixth straight month inflation grew by 5% or more. Producer prices, which can eventually trickle down to individuals, also increased at their fastest pace on record last month. Of course, some inflation is good for the economy when wages keep up with rising prices (the Fed aims for a 2% inflation rate over time). But, so far in the pandemic, that hasn't happened. While many Americans have gotten a raise in 2021, wage gains haven't been sufficient to offset inflation, resulting in the erosion of purchasing power—especially for folks on a more or less fixed income. Where do we go from here? After months of claiming inflation was "transitory," the Fed has dropped that term and adopted a more hawkish monetary policy to tamp down surging prices. The central bank is winding down its bond-buying stimulus program faster than originally planned, and also plans to hike interest rates three times in 2022. In its inflation-fighting efforts, the Fed isn't alone on the front lines. The Bank of England became the first major central bank to raise interest rates during the pandemic in order to combat the biggest annual jump in consumer prices in 10 years. Russia has raised rates seven times this year. Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, Pakistan, and Hungary are among other countries which are tightening monetary policy to combat higher prices. Looking ahead…as if economic policymakers needed another inflation curveball, Omicron has taken the mound. Central banks generally don't expect the new variant to significantly dent economic growth, but they do think it may prolong inflation by exacerbating the supply–demand imbalance that fueled higher prices in the first place. ----- Runner up: The Covid vaccines. Both the pandemic and the vaccine rollout dominated headlines this year. But while the coronavirus continued to unleash severe illness and all kinds of suffering, there was also immense progress. Consider: On January 1, 7.4 million people globally had received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine. Fast forward to earlier this month, and more than 4.4 billion people had received at least one dose—that's more than half of the world's population. Here's hoping that Covid won't be a top news story in 2022. Runner up: Meme stocks. The wild rides of GameStop, AMC, and other heavily shorted stocks favored by retail traders highlighted how social media has become a potent force in the stock market. But after a deep investigation into all the chaos from last winter, the SEC found that markets pretty much functioned like they're supposed to during the episode, and it doesn't seem like any significant policy changes are in store. | | | There's a lot to learn about active funds. Once you hear about the advantages, you'll see why you should consider putting one in your portfolio. Lucky you, we have all the info you need in our guide to active fixed income. All you have to do is actively hit this link here. | | Dianna "Mick" McDougall; Getty Images From his head-scratching tweets to his ex-gf Grimes trying to become a meme post-breakup, Elon Musk's 2021 had its share of secondhand embarrassment. But the Musk muck-up that's most seared in our minds from this year is likely when he hosted SNL in May. Musk was the first non-entertainer/athlete to host the show since Donald Trump in 2015, and his hosting gig couldn't have come at a more bizarre time. Leading up to the show, dogecoin, a cryptocurrency based on the meme of a shiba inu dog, had soared to become the fourth-biggest digital coin by market capitalization. Musk had a big hand in all this—his tweets about the coin, such as "Dogecoin is the people's crypto," helped fuel its popularity. - Dogecoin had become such a frenzy that it accounted for 34% of Robinhood's entire crypto trading revenue in the first quarter. The trading platform warned that a decline in the price of dogecoin could affect its business.
Well, those fears came true. The price of dogecoin dropped 36% during Musk's SNL episode, in which he called the token a "hustle" in a sketch—and it hasn't recovered. Now, dogecoin is the twelfth-largest crypto by market cap. But it wasn't all cringy. Technically, the episode won an Emmy, but it wasn't for Musk's Wario impression: SNL won the award for Outstanding Contemporary Makeup for a Variety, Nonfiction, or Reality Program for the episode Musk hosted. ----- Runner up: Mark Zuckerberg's July Fourth tweet. The Meta CEO released a lot of questionable video content this year, but his Fourth of July post, which showed him holding an American flag while riding a hydrofoil surfboard as John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads" played, probably takes the cake as the cringiest. Runner up: The "family photo" from the G-7. This year's socially distanced group photo from the G-7 summit in Cornwall, England, in June would have made Tyra Banks lose her mind. Top world leaders posed awkwardly before a 3-day meeting in which they discussed pressing topics like the Covid economic recovery and fighting climate change. It was also Biden's first summit abroad as president. Here's the photo, in all its cringy glory:  Leon Neal - WPA Pool/Getty Images—MM | | This year we welcomed a new writer to the Brew, Max Knoblauch, and it turns out he's a mean illustrator, too. Every weekend we publish one of Max's cartoons as the "Saturday Sketch." This cartoon from October about a procrastinating werewolf was our favorite of the year.  Max Knoblauch | | Every Friday we quiz you about the news of the previous week. But today we're going much bigger and testing your knowledge of events throughout 2021 in a special 10-question news quiz. Play it here. | | It's  electric. The Braun Series 9 Pro is the world's most efficient electric shaver. Its ProLift trimmer gently lifts and cuts even your toughest hairs, and the AutoSense tech adjusts to your beard's density. Braun shaves 10% off the price when you use code MBREW here.* Required reading for job seekers. The Daily Job Hunt is a super short email that can help you 10x your interview rate. They'll help you pitch yourself directly to companies and stand out. 100,000 readers use DJH to grow their careers, so sign up now.* Book tracking: If you're like us, you've penciled in a goal of reading at least 20 books next year. Here's a list of apps that will help you track your 2022 reads. Or you could just go with the tried-and-true spreadsheet. NYE playlist: The expert curators at Sidekick put together a seriously groovy playlist for your NYE bash. Ditch the algorithms and check it out. *This is sponsored advertising content | | What same three letters fit into the following five combinations to form 5 words? S _ _ _ V E
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R O _ _ _ Y | | TAR Starve, tardy, altar, nectar, rotary | | | Written by Neal Freyman and Matty Merritt Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. WANT MORE BREW? Industry news, with a sense of humor → - Emerging Tech Brew: AI, crypto, space, autonomous vehicles, and more
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