Political leaders are taking wildly differing tacks on the latest Covid-19 wave. Public figures in Japan are calling for a return to normal life. Hong Kong carried out a mass culling of hamsters, rabbits and chinchillas on the risk that they could spread the virus to humans. At the other end of the spectrum, Thailand will restart a quarantine-free tourism program next month. Meanwhile, China’s disclosure of contact-tracing data—which includes the movements of Covid-19 patients—sparked a debate about the nation’s wealth gap.

Financial industry talent is getting more expensive. Junior bankers at JPMorgan, as at other banks, will receive salary hikes for the second time in seven months. Goldman Sachs reported record-high annual expenses as the pandemic unleashed a trading boom. Another thing is clear: Wall Street is expecting a year of frenzied dealmaking.

Speaking of trade, ocean shipping rates are expected to stay elevated well into 2022, setting up another year of booming profits for global cargo carriers. Economists have warned that persistently high transportation prices are stoking inflation.

A China Ocean Shipping Group Co. (Cosco) container ship at the Kwai Chung Container Terminal in Hong Kong last May.

Photographer: Paul Yeung/Bloomberg

Over in the U.K., Britons are just two months away from a brutal cost-of-living crisis. Soaring energy prices and rising inflation are already causing policy headaches as Boris Johnson’s teetering government looks to raise taxes, kicking off an economic experiment in one of the countries worst-hit by the pandemic. The U.S. is facing its own potential problems as inflation hits the highest level in decades, though some economists see it falling as the year progresses.

President Joe Biden reaffirmed grave financial consequences for Russia (which is demanding NATO retreat from several of its member nations) should it attack Ukraine again. He said Vladimir Putin will probably “move in” on the country, which has been surrounded with troops and equipment. The Kremlin violently annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has been supporting an ongoing war in Ukraine’s eastern region that’s killed at least 14,000 people.

The Northern Crimean Canal and a makeshift dam which blocks water from reaching Crimea, a region of Ukraine that Russia violently annexed in 2014.

Photographer: Christopher Occhicone/Bloomberg

Now that you’re dreaming of vacations again, how do you know if travel insurance is actually worth buying? You might have skipped on it in the past, but perhaps the pandemic has changed your mind. Here’s how to get your money’s worth.

Why the Fed Must Get Into Americans’ Heads

Fed Chair Jerome Powell recently told the Senate Banking Committee that tighter monetary policy “really should not have negative effects on the employment market.” That assertion puts Fed policymakers at the center of a debate among economists that stretches back decades about the link between interest rates, employment, and inflation—in other words, how the central bank’s toolkit actually works and, for that matter, what determines the course of inflation itself. The theory that expectations are a key driver of price increases will be tested in 2022.

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