Thanksgiving / Weekend Edition
It has been a while Rink Rats readers, almost two months, why
so long you ask? Two words: writers block. It happens.
So, we move on, I have had my two Covid shots, a flu shot, my
shingles shots, my Covid booster shot, so I am considered an Eternal.
The best time of the year is upon us, sports, eating,
drinking, no classes, no politics (sort of).
To our Canadian readers who celebrated their Thanksgiving on
October 11, please indulge me in acknowledging the American Thanksgiving
weekend.
More specifically, the Turkey Trot. The time-honored
celebration of running in freezing weather. The first Turkey Trot was in
Buffalo, New York in 1896. Six participants ran eight kilometers (almost five
miles). These days we run 5k or 10k or in my case a 0k.
It’s a classic Thanksgiving tradition: Go around the table and
say what you’re grateful for. That’s not exactly a common practice on corporate
earnings calls, we thought we’d highlight some of the things that business
leaders said they were grateful for this month during presentations to analysts.
Most often, executives say they are thankful for investors and
employees, the corporate equivalent of “friends and family” around the table.
But some are grateful for other things, and if you can’t come up with something
tomorrow when it’s your turn to express thanks, try one of these alternatives:
I, an executive officer of this company, am thankful …
“for the mortgage boom.” (Chris Cartwright of TransUnion)
“to the F.D.A.” (Stephen Hoge of Moderna)
“that our customers continue to wait for our products.”
(Brittany Bagley of Sonos)
“to operate in a large and growing market.” (Neil Blumenthal
of Warby Parker)
“for your interest in our company.” (Alexandre Bompard of
Carrefour)
Thanksgiving weekend recs: 1) This new book on the history of
HBO 2) 24 hours with Squid Game’s HoYeon Jung 3) King Richard
THANKSGIVING TRAVEL - U.S. travel has nearly rebounded from the pandemic, but a global return could take
years.
Pumpkin pie in the sky... The TSA is prepping for what it
expects to be the busiest travel day of the year (FYI: this Sunday). Just a
year ago, the vaccine rollout hadn't even begun in the US. Now, 80% of
Americans over age 12 have been vaccinated thanks to early vax access, and 18%
of adults have received a booster. Last Friday, the FDA and CDC cleared Pfizer
and Moderna boosters for all adults, making them widely available in time for
the holidays.
Bags packed; potatoes mashed... The vax rollout has benefited
travel companies, as Americans make up for lost vacays. US travelers are
splurging 46% more on trips this year compared to pre-pandemic.
By air... Domestic air travel has almost completely recovered
from its pandemic plunge, and Thanksgiving flyers are expected to hit
pre-corona levels. Delta and American have returned to profitability. But they
still expect revenue to be down by about 20% from pre-pandemic to end the year.
By road... T-giving trips are coming up for over 48M
Americans. Too bad car-rental prices are up 75% from 2019. Not bad for
companies like Hertz, whose sales soared 62% last quarter from the start of
this year. With US gas prices at seven-year highs, oil giants like Exxon and
Chevron could also benefit from holiday mileage.
By stay... Only about 22% of Americans plan to stay in hotels
this season. Room prices have jumped as demand recovers, but sales at Hilton
and Marriott are still down from pre-pandemic. Marriott’s international
bookings plunged a whopping 40% from 2019, as overseas travel continues to lag
US leisure. On the flip side, Airbnb just had its best quarter ever, as
travelers embraced longer-term stays in rural cabins and yurts.
PSYCHOLOGY 101 - Reset your alarm:
Waking up just an hour earlier than usual could reduce your risk of depression
by 23%, according to a new study.
And each hour earlier that you wake up, the better the
benefit, according to the study. Past research has shown that there’s a link
between chronotype, or a person’s physiologic preference for mornings or
nights, and mood. Night owls, for example, are two times as likely to develop
depression compared to morning people.
COVID SURGE? - The seasonal pulse of
this pandemic has public health officials bracing for a spike in cases and
hospitalizations. Colder weather and holiday gatherings are poised to bring
more people together inside, mingling households and broadening people’s
exposure to unvaccinated (or at least un-boosted) loved ones. We’ve been here
before. Elected officials and health officers are working to avoid a repeat.
The number of U.S. Covid-19 deaths recorded in 2021 has
surpassed the toll in 2020, according to federal data and Johns Hopkins
University, demonstrating the virus’s persistent menace.
The total number of reported deaths linked to the disease
topped 770,800 on November 20, Johns Hopkins data show. This puts the
pandemic-long total at more than twice the 385,343 Covid-19 deaths recorded
last year, according to the most recent death-certificate data from the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention.
The spread of the highly contagious Delta variant and low
vaccination rates in some communities were important factors, infectious-disease
experts said. The milestone comes as Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations move
higher again in places such as New England and the upper Midwest, with the
seven-day average for new cases recently closer to 90,000 a day after it neared
70,000 last month.
Covid-19 has proven to be an enduring threat even in some of
the most vaccinated places, many of which are confronting outbreaks again now,
as the world prepares to live with and manage the disease for the long term. In
Europe, parts of Austria, Germany and the Netherlands have imposed new
restrictions in recent days after Covid-19 cases rose and hospitals came under
strain.
POTUS - President Joe Biden will be
spending his 45th Thanksgiving on Nantucket this year — a tradition broken only
by the pandemic and the death of his son Beau Biden.
The family has been spending Thanksgiving there since 1975,
when Biden was a first-term senator and a single dad to two boys. It was there,
Biden wrote in the first chapter of his 2017 memoir “Promise Me, Dad,” that he
and Jill Jacobs, soon to be Jill Biden, “started to talk seriously about a
future together.”
It’s very clear that Biden loves the tradition, which he
described as “splendid and enforced isolation” (probably a lot less true now
that a Secret Service detail, comms staffers, and nosy reporters have joined
them on the island). It’s also where Biden said Beau in November 2014 urged him
to run for president.
With its quaint New England charm, pristine beaches, and
Hallmark-like settings, the small island off of Cape Cod has a reputation as a
ritzy getaway.
MARKET WEEK - The number of Americans
seeking unemployment benefits fell to a historic low this week. Jobless claims
dropped by 71,000 to 199,000, the lowest since mid-November 1969. But seasonal
adjustments around the Thanksgiving holiday contributed significantly to the
bigger-than-expected drop. Unadjusted, claims actually ticked up by more than
18,000 to nearly 259,000. The four-week average of claims, which smooths out
weekly ups and downs, also dropped — by 21,000 to just over 252,000, the lowest
since mid-March 2020, when the pandemic slammed the economy.
Even while these numbers are good, don’t expect them to
immediately change Americans’ negative perceptions of the economy. There’s
still a major disconnect between these sorts of positive statistics and how
everyday voters feel about their own finances. At the moment, it all comes back
to fears about inflation — and growing concerns that Democrats aren’t doing
enough to address it.
For 35 years, the discount chain Dollar Tree committed to
selling almost everything for $1. Time has come to pass the buck: Prices for
most items will increase to $1.25.
TARGET BREAKS FOR TURKEY - Target
employees can finally spend their Thanksgiving like the rest of us: having a
meltdown over forgetting to brine the turkey. The “come on, you need more
travel mugs” retailer said yesterday that it will permanently shift to closing
its doors on Thanksgiving, a change it made temporarily last year to limit
crowds during the pandemic.
Some background: In the last 20 years, large retail chains
started merging Black Friday into Thanksgiving to compete with online retailers
like Amazon. But last year, Covid forced stores to rethink inviting hordes of
people to climb over each other for a PS5.
Other large retailers like Macy’s, Kohl’s, and Walmart will
also close for Thanksgiving this year, but haven’t decided if they’ll go full
“spirit of the holiday season” and make it permanent, like Target has.
Big picture: Just because stores are closed on Thanksgiving
doesn't mean people won't shop. For the past two years the holiday was the
third-largest online shopping day on the calendar, behind Cyber Monday and
Black Friday.
TOP FIVE THANKSGIVING MOVIES –
• “Planes,
Trains and Automobiles” (1987)
• “A Charlie
Brown Thanksgiving” (1973)
• “The Big
Chill” (1983)
• “Home for the
Holidays” (1995)
• “What’s
Cooking” (2000)
BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK –
Birthday wishes and thoughts this week to Traci Attman, Jamie Lee Curtis (63),
Billie Jean King (78), Jack Meek …we hope enjoying retirement, Sarah Prosenko …
an unsung hero of the University of La Verne, Senator Chuck Schumer (71).
O CANNABIS - If you live in Canada, love
weed, and hate lines, then boy-oh-boy do we have the story for you. Uber is
partnering with a Canadian cannabis retailer to allow customers in Ontario to
order cannabis products through Uber Eats.
You can’t order special gummies as a side with your chicken
parm just yet, though: It’s pickup only for now, with orders ready to be
retrieved within the hour they’re placed in the Uber Eats app. Toronto-based
Tokyo Smoke, which operates more than 50 dispensaries in Ontario, is handling
the sales.
The move marks Uber’s first entry into the marijuana business.
In October, the company closed its acquisition of alcohol delivery app Drizly
for $1.1 billion, though Drizly’s cannabis delivery service, Lantern, wasn’t
part of the deal.
In the States when? Rest assured; Uber wants to eventually
send you a vape with that breakfast burrito. In April, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi
said “when the road is clear” the company will absolutely look into cannabis
delivery in the US. Blocking the road, of course, are rules prohibiting the
purchase of federally illegal products with a credit card and the fact that
only 18 states currently allow for recreational cannabis use.
ROLLING STONES SET LIST DETROIT CONCERT NOVEMBER
15
–
"Street Fighting Man"
"You Got Me Rocking"
"19th Nervous Breakdown"
"Tumbling Dice"
"Ain't Too Proud to Beg"
"Wild Horses"
"You Can't Always Get What You Want"
"Living in a Ghost Town"
"Start Me Up"
"Honky Tonk Women"
"Connection"
"Before They Make Me Run"
"Miss You"
"Midnight Rambler"
"Paint It Black"
"Sympathy for the Devil"
"Jumpin' Jack Flash"
Encore:
"Gimme Shelter"
"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"
THE SWAMI’S WEEKEND PICKS –
NFL Football Pick of the Week –
Thursday 11/25, 9:30 AM (PDT), Fox: Chicago Bears (3-7-0) vs. Detroit Lions
(0-9-1). Two words: “Who cares!” Lions! 24 - 20.
College Football Pick of the Week – Saturday 11/27, 12:00 PM (EDT)), #2 Ohio State Buckeyes (10-1) vs. #5 Michigan Wolverines (10-1). The Bo's and the Woody's get together Saturday for their annual Big Ten (14) grudge match and it will be the 24th time both are ranked in the top 10 of the AP poll at kickoff. That's seven more than the next closest rivalries (Notre dame-USC and Nebraska-Oklahoma). This could be a classic, but also a classic dud: Blue wins 38 – 35.
2021 Season to Date (48-35)
Next Blog: Jackass of the Month and College hockey
Until November 30, 2021 Adios.
Claremont, California
November 25, 2021
#XII-4-4401
2,016 words, six-minute
read
CARTOON OF THE WEEKEND –
Peanuts, Charles Schulz
RINK RATS POLL – Does a baked ham belong
as part of the Thanksgiving dinner?
___ Yes
___ No
QUOTE OF THE MONTH – “Too
much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.” – Mark
Twain
Rink Rats is a blog
of weekly observations, predictions and commentary. We welcome your comments
and questions. Also participate in our monthly poll. Rink Rats is now viewed in
Europe, Canada, South America and the United States.
Posted at Rink Rats The Blog: First Published – May 3, 2010
Our Eleventh Year.
www.rhasserinkrats.blogspot.com
