Raphael Stevens

The Biden administration is worried about famine in parts of the world due to the Russia-Ukraine war, Council of Economic Advisers Chair Cecilia Rouse told CNBC on Friday.
“This is a big concern,” particularly for parts of the Middle East, Africa and Far East, Rouse said.

The Biden administration is worried Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will cause famine in parts of the world, White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Cecilia Rouse told CNBC on Friday.
In an interview on “Closing Bell,” Rouse noted that Russia and Ukraine serve as “the bread basket” for many parts of the world, as the two countries are major producers of wheat, soybeans and other agricultural commodities.

However, the war is complicating efforts to plant and export these key crops. Higher energy and fertilizer prices compound the problem.
“This is a big concern,” Rouse told CNBC. “We’re working with our international aid agencies to ensure there’s some humanitarian aid because we are concerned, particularly in the Middle East, parts of Africa and the Far East … about famines and shortages in those parts of the world.”
The war in Ukraine has further increased food prices after two years of disruptions related to the coronavirus pandemic. The global health crisis is believed to have caused an increase in the number of people globally who face hunger.
The situation in East Africa, in particular, is worrisome because Russia and Ukraine are responsible for about 90% of the wheat imported to the region, according to the United Nations’ World Food Programme.
But even before Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, the UN estimated that roughly 13 million people who live in the Horn of Africa were severely hungry each day. The area is facing a serious drought that has affected crops and killed livestock in countries such as Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, according to the UN.

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The risk of myocarditis is higher after Covid infection than Pfizer or Moderna vaccination across all gender and age groups studied, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle.
Though rare, the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have been associated with an elevated risk of myocarditis.
However, even among the highest risk group, teenage boys, the risk of cardiac conditions was higher after Covid infection than vaccination.

A healthcare worker administers a Covid-19 test in San Francisco, California, on Monday, Jan. 10, 2022.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

People infected with Covid-19 face a higher risk of myocarditis and other inflammatory heart conditions than those vaccinated against the disease, according a large study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday.
The CDC found the risk of myocarditis, pericarditis and multisystem inflammatory syndrome was higher after Covid infection than after Pfizer or Moderna vaccination in males and females ages 5 and older. However, these cardiac conditions are rare after infection and vaccination alike, according to the CDC.

Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle and pericarditis is an inflammation of the outer heart lining. Multisystem inflammatory is a condition associated with Covid infection that affects multiple organ systems.
Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines have been associated with an elevated risk of myocarditis and pericarditis after the second dose, particularly among boys ages 12- to 17-years-old. However, even in this group the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis was higher after Covid infection than after vaccination, according to the CDC.
Among teenage boys, the rate of myocarditis or pericarditis after infection was at least 50 cases per 100,000 people, compared to at least 22 cases per 100,000 after the second vaccine dose. The overall risk of heart conditions after Covid infection was up to 5.6 times higher compared to the second vaccine dose. The risk was up to 69 times higher after infection compared to the first shot.
The CDC examined the electronic health records of more than 15 million people ages 5 and older across 40 health-care systems from Jan. 2021 through Jan. 2022. Scientists studied the risk of developing a cardiac condition after a Covid infection compared to the first and second doses of Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines. The study excluded booster doses from the comparison.

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Overall, the risk of a heart issue after Covid infection was anywhere from 2 to 115 times higher compared to vaccination depending on age, gender and the dose administered.

In February, the CDC said males age 12- to 39-years-old should consider waiting eight weeks between the first and second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines to reduce the risk of myocarditis. Canadian public health authorities had found that the rate of myocarditis after Pfizer or Moderna vaccination was higher when the time between the first and second dose was fewer than 30 days.
Moderna’s second dose appears associated with a higher risk of myocarditis than Pfizer’s, according to data presented to the CDC’s committee of vaccine experts in February. Public health authorities in Ontario, Canada have found that the rate of myocarditis was 5 times higher for males ages 18-24 following a second dose of Moderna compared to Pfizer.
However, the overwhelming majority of people who developed myocarditis after vaccination recovered fully and most of them did not report any effect on their quality of life, according to a CDC survey of health-care providers presented at the February meeting.

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The wealth of the top 1% increased by $6.5 trillion last year, mainly driven by soaring stock prices and financial markets, according to the Federal Reserve.
The stock portfolios of the top 1% are now worth $23 trillion, and they own a record 53.9% of individually held shares, according to the central bank.
“Rising wealth inequality drives the stock market, which then drives more wealth inequality,” said Edward Wolff, professor of economics at New York University.

Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos
Lacy O’ Toole | CNBC; Getty Images

The wealth of America’s wealthiest people, such as Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos, increased by a total of $6.5 trillion last year, mainly driven by soaring stock prices and financial markets, according to the Federal Reserve.
The total wealth of the 1% reached a record $45.9 trillion at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, said the Federal Reserve’s latest report on household wealth. Their fortunes increased by more than $12 trillion, or more than a third, during the course of the pandemic.

“The numbers are astounding,” said Edward Wolff, professor of economics at New York University. “The pandemic wealth boom certainly ranks at or near the top of all the wealth booms over the last 40 years.”
The top 1% owned a record 32.3% of the nation’s wealth as of the end of 2021, data show. The share of wealth held by the bottom 90% of Americans, likewise, has declined slightly since before the pandemic, from 30.5% to 30.2%.
The wealth growth at the top has potentially stalled or declined slightly so far this year due to stock declines.
The main drivers for the richest Americans last year were stocks and private businesses. About $4.3 trillion of the overall gains for the 1% last year came from corporate equities and mutual fund shares, according to the Fed data. The stock portfolios of the top 1% are now worth $23 trillion, and they own a record 53.9% of individually held shares, according to the central bank.
Despite claims of a democratization of the stock market, with millions of new retail investors opening trading accounts on Robinhood and other platforms, stock ownership in America has actually become more concentrated than before the pandemic. The top 10% owned a record 89% of individually held corporate equities and mutual fund shares at the end of 2021.

A Gallup in 2021 found that 56% of Americans owned at least some stock — slightly above the average of 55% in 2019 and 2020, but still down from the 62% high before the 2008 financial crisis.

More wealth inequality

Soaring stock prices have created a “feedback cycle” for wealth and inequality, said Wolff, the NYU professor. Because stock ownership is tilted toward the top of the wealth ranks, rising stock prices shift more money to richer Americans. Since the wealthy can afford to save and invest a larger share of their added wealth, more of the nation’s wealth gains flow to the stock market. That raises stock prices even further.
“Rising wealth inequality drives the stock market, which then drives more wealth inequality,” Wolff said.
Private businesses have also been a powerful engine of wealth for those at the very top. The 1% own 57% of private companies, according to the Federal Reserve. The value of private businesses held by the wealthiest increased by 36%, or $2.2 trillion, last year.
“Small business is really key when you talk about the sources of their wealth,” Wolff said.
The 1% have also benefited modestly from rising real-estate values. Their real-estate holdings increased by just under $1 trillion during the pandemic, to reach a high of $5.27 trillion.
But their share of the nation’s real estate actually fell slightly during the pandemic, as home prices and home ownership also increased for rest of the country. Real estate is far more broadly owned than stocks, so the rising in home prices has helped the middle class slightly more than the wealthy. The top 1% owned 14% of the nation’s real estate at the end of 2021, down from 14.5% before the pandemic at the end of 2019.
The bottom 90% of Americans added $2.89 trillion to their wealth last year from real estate.
“The housing boom has benefited the middle class,” Wolff said. “If it hadn’t been for that, wealth inequality would have grown even more than it did.”

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will end a sweeping order the U.S. has used to expel more than 1.7 million migrants at the nation’s borders during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The CDC said the order, known as Title 42, will end on May 23 to give the Department of Homeland Security time to ramp up a vaccination program for migrants crossing U.S. borders.
Title 42 was fiercely criticized by human rights groups as a blanket deportation policy that violates U.S. and international asylum law.
Republicans and conservative Democrats called for Title 42 to remain in place as DHS prepares for an increase of border crossings.

Pedestrians wait to cross into the U.S. at the San Ysidro Port of Entry border crossing bridge in Tijuana, Mexico, on Sunday, March 20, 2022.
Cesar Rodriguez | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will lift a sweeping public health order that has allowed the U.S. to expel more than 1.7 million migrants, mostly at the southern border, since the Covid-19 pandemic began.
In a statement Friday, the CDC said it will lift the order on May 23 to give the Department of Homeland Security time to scale up a program to provide vaccinations to migrants crossing into the U.S. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky determined the order was no longer necessary after reviewing current public health conditions, agency spokesperson Kristen Nordlund said.

The Trump administration first instituted the order in March 2020 under a public health law known as Title 42 to stop the spread of Covid-19 across the nation’s land borders with Mexico and Canada.
However, human rights groups have denounced Title 42 as a blanket deportation policy that deprives people the right to apply for asylum under U.S. and international law. The overwhelming majority of the deportations have occurred during the Biden administration.
The CDC under Biden extended the order in August as the delta variant swept the world, but made an exception for unaccompanied children. In January, the CDC decided to keep order in place as the omicron variant caused an unprecedented wave of infection.
Last year, dozens of leading health experts from across the U.S. condemned Title 42 as “discriminatory and unjustifiable” with “no scientific basis as a public health measure.” They called on Walensky and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to rescind the policy. They argued that the U.S. can preserve public health and meet its humanitarian obligations by implementing masking and testing, and offering vaccination at the border.
A top lawyer at the State Department, Harold Koh, wrote a scathing internal memo criticizing the Biden policy as “inhumane” and “illegal” when he left the administration in October.

Leading Democrats including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have repeatedly called on Biden to rescind Title 42. Republicans and conservative Democrats want the policy to remain in place as the Department of Homeland Security prepares for significant increase of border crossings.
Sen Joe Manchin, D-W.V., asked Walensky in a letter this week to extend Title 42 as the more contagious omicron BA.2 variant spreads around the world. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, which shares a long border with Mexico, also supports keeping the order in place.
The CDC is easing public health measures as Covid infections and hospitalizations have plummeted more than 90% since the peak of the omicron surge in January. The public health agency ended its warning system for cruise ship this week.
The CDC on Friday said 97% of people in the U.S. live in couties where they no longer need to wear a mask.

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President Joe Biden’s top economic advisor told CNBC on Friday the administration is focused on policies that can deliver immediate relief to high oil prices.
NEC Director Brian Deese suggested the White House was not rethinking its plans to scuttle the Keystone XL pipeline.
“Any action on Keystone wouldn’t actually increase supply, and it would transmit oil years in the future,” said Deese.

President Joe Biden’s top economic advisor suggested Friday the White House is not rethinking its decision to cancel the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline in response to elevated crude and gasoline prices.
National Economic Council Director Brian Deese told CNBC the Biden administration is instead concentrating on policies and strategies that can deliver lower fuel prices as soon as possible. He pointed to Biden’s decision Thursday to begin releasing 1 million barrels of oil per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the next six months.

“Any action on Keystone wouldn’t actually increase supply, and it would transmit oil years in the future,” Deese said in a “Squawk on the Street” interview.
“What we’re focused on right now is what we can do right now, and … there are wells that are shut in and that can be brought back online over the course of the next couple months. What we need right now is to address the immediate supply disruption,” he added.
The Russia-Ukraine war delivered a supply shock to global oil markets, which had already been tight as demand recovered from Covid-pandemic related declines. As crude prices hit record highs recently so has prices at the gasoline pumps.
Russia, a major energy exporter, has been hit with a wave of sanctions after it invaded neighboring Ukraine. The U.S. banned Russian oil imports, in an attempt to punish Moscow, and the U.K. also is phasing them out.
Oil prices have retreated from their early March peaks, when they traded at their highest levels since 2008, However, they are still are up considerably for the year, adding to inflationary pressures in the economy. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. oil benchmark, traded around $100 per barrel Friday, up 35% so far in 2022. Brent crude, the international benchmark, hovered around $104 per barrel.

A supply depot servicing the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline lies idle in Oyen, Alberta, Canada February 1, 2021.
Todd Korol | Reuters

As oil prices jumped in recent weeks, some Republicans have called on Biden to reverse course and immediately grant the permits necessary to build Keystone XL, a proposed 1,200 mile project that would’ve delivered oil from Canada to American refineries.
Biden canceled the permit needed to construct the pipeline on his first day in office last year. In June 2021, the company that owned it, TC Energy, officially nixed the $9 billion oil pipeline. It had first been proposed in 2008, but faced numerous delays due to legal challenges from the likes of environmentalists and Native American tribes.
In addition to tapping the nation’s oil reserves, Deese said the Biden administration wants to generate more production from the approximately 9,000 drilling permits on federal land that already have been approved. Deese said that’s the motivation behind Biden’s decision to call on Congress to implement fees on companies that aren’t using wells from their leases located on public acreage.
“Those wells that can come back on, that’s what’s going to bring those million barrels of day in the short term, not long-term questions that we can have debates about,” Deese said. “But the long-term questions really cloud what is the short-term priority. We’re trying to keep our focus there.”

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