Week of Dec 26, 2020 Weekly Recap & The Week Ahead
“Be Patient – There’s the Rarest Thing On Wall Street” – Jeff Saut
1. Congress Passes $900 Billion Aid Package That Includes Stimulus Checks — Congress approved $900 billion in economic relief for Americans and businesses hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. The relief package, attached to the $1.4 trillion spending bill that will fund the federal government through September, includes stimulus payments for Americans, federal unemployment benefits, relief for small businesses, among other things. Americans who earned $75,000 or less in 2019 will receive $600 checks. Starting Dec. 27, those receiving unemployment benefits will receive an additional $300 a week in federal benefits through March. An eviction moratorium is also extended through January 2021.
Additional relief includes about $325 billion for small businesses, $55 billion into funding for vaccines, testing and tracing, $82 billion for schools, and $45 billion for transportation. The bill also extends a tax credit for businesses that retain employees.
2. Walmart Accused in Lawsuit of Fueling Opioid Crisis — The U.S. Justice Department is suing Walmart, alleging the company helped fuel the opioid crisis.
The civil complaint claims Walmart violated rules for dispensing opioids and its duty to detect and report suspicious orders. Walmart was “woefully understaffed” to review such orders, and managers put “enormous pressure on pharmacists to fill prescriptions,” according to the suit.
Walmart’s violations of the Controlled Substances Act as both a pharmacy and a distributor “had disastrous results, harming individuals who filled prescriptions at Walmart and then abused the drugs,” the lawsuit claims. “Given the nationwide scale of those violations, Walmart’s failures to follow basic legal rules helped fuel a national crisis.”
3. More Than 1 Million People in the U.S. Have Gotten Covid Vaccine Doses — three states have now vaccinated more than 1% of their populations: North Dakota, West Virginia, and Alaska. California leads in total vaccinations at 128,000 shots. The numbers fall short of a U.S. goal to administer 20 million shots in 2020. Shots are rolling out from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc., focused at first on hundreds of thousands of health-care workers around the country who have been battling the virus on the front lines in hospitals. The vaccines require two shots weeks apart to deliver the highest level of protection. Urgency is rising as a wave of winter infections washes over the northern hemisphere. New variants of the disease have been detected in the U.K. and South Africa. The mutations appear to make the virus more contagious and may be increasing infections among healthy young people. In the U.S., more than 2,500 people are dying every day.
4. Trump Signs Relief Package, Calls on Congress to Increase Stimulus Checks to $2,000 Per Person — Sunday night, President Donald Trump signed a relief package that he previously objected to that includes $900 billion in pandemic relief and $1.4 trillion to fund the government through September. The legislation passed in Congress last week with bipartisan support. Trump rejected the package, saying the proposed $600 direct payments to Americans should be increased to $2,000 per person.