text: TODAY’S BRIEFING:Food shortages rock Chinese city of Xi’anExploited Solarwinds vulnerability discoveredU.S. to stockpile rare-earth elementsCongressional visit to Ukraine unites partisansSenate fails to pass voting rights billIn Focus: Inflation, markets, recession, and the dollar demiseEconomic Warning INTSUM:Larry Summers’ case for worsening inflationHoliday spending falls in DecemberExxon: Oil prices to come downSITUATIONAL AWARENESSRESIDENTS OF CHINESE CITY XI’AN RUNNING OUT OF FOOD: Reports coming out of China and published in the Hong Kong Post are telling a story of Xi’an residents out of food and still unable to leave their residential compounds to scavenge basic supplies. Online food providers are reporting low or zero inventories of basic foodstuffs, and residents are reportedly rationing food, with many surviving on a bowl of porridge per day. In addition to the food shortages, one of Xi’an’s largest grocery store chains and online food retailer Hema was closed by authorities who accused it of violating COVID restrictions. (Analyst Comment: This is another example of the consequences of draconian COVID lockdowns and restrictions. Chinese officials in Xi’an and Beijing show little concern for the impact on citizens and will likely continue the lockdowns in an effort to reach their zero-COVID goal. Foreigners traveling to China for the 2022 Olympics should be prepared to face similar, though probably not as severe, difficulties. – M.M.)SOLARWINDS 2.0: Microsoft released new details on cyber vulnerabilities in SolarWinds Software. The vulnerability used existing Log4j vulnerabilities to conduct attacks. Currently, Microsoft does not know the extent to which exploitation attempts were successful, and exploits could be used for pending ransomware or other undisclosed attacks. (AC: Exploitation of cyber vulnerabilities continues to be an access point of malicious actors in industry and government servers. Effects from the Log4j vulnerability will continue to be an issue into 2022 as the government and industry partners attempt to keep up with new attack vectors. – D.F.)U.S. STOCKPILING RARE-EARTH ELEMENTS: The bipartisan bill, Restoring Essential Energy and Security Holdings Onshore for Rare Earths (REEShore) Act, was introduced in the Senate. The bill requires the Department of Defense (DOD) and Interior to create a strategic reserve of rare-earth elements and products by 2025 that would be able to meet the needs of the military, defense industrial, and technology sectors for one year. The stockpile is intended to buffer the effects from supply chain disruptions and a future conflict with China. Estimates put China in control of 55% of the world’s rare-earth mining and 85% of the refining process. The United States produces up to 15%. (AC: The focus to decouple reliance on China is one of the few issues with bipartisan support. Rare-earth element is a key persistent vulnerability identified by the White House. – D.F.)