Commerce and Civilization

Starting around the middle of 2022, I noticed an uptick in articles considering whether the Christmas 2022 retail season would bounce back to pre-COVID levels or above. Second, to COVID concerns was the absolute explosion in adoption of online purchasing and deep global concerns about inflation. Chain Store Age, a professional magazine (print and online) whose audience is corporate decision-makers in the retail space, started off the conversation back in March, 2022, with an analysis of how shopping trends have changed. A survey of 20,000 consumers hosted by the shopping rewards app Shopkick in February 2022 revealed major shifts for in-store and online shopping behavior. 81% of consumers surveyed will wait to purchase until there is a sale or a coupon. 79% will purchase a second brand choice if their favorite brand is sold out.

Back on November 23rd, the recently deceased Tiran Ferro was bodysnatched from a hospital in the West Bank city of Jenin after a car accident left him on life support. Ferro, 18, was an Israeli-Druze citizen on a trip to the West Bank with a group of Arabic speakers who had previously served in Israel's security forces. Apparently confused for a member of the Israeli security forces himself, a number of Palestinian gunmen took his body from the hospital in an attempt to use his remains to barter for the release of bodies of Palestinians held by the Israeli state. This sparked a fierce set of negotiations, as well as threats from the Druze community and Israel’s government that they would enter Jenin and take Tiran Ferro back by force.

Over the course of December, Kosovo became a hotspot of conflict in Europe, as local Serbs put up barricades in majority Serb towns, in a protest against several policies of the Kosovo government. The local Kosovan government is viewed by Serbians as illegitimate, and Serbia has maintained de-facto control of North Kosovo and is trying to protect the Serbs living there. To achieve this aim the Serbian government has put pressure on the Kosovo government and European Union (EU) in order to resolve the tensions and was even prepared to go to war in order to protect the Serbs in Kosovo. This brings up the questions: how did this crisis erupt and why did it almost lead to conflict?

Drama unfolded in the House of Representatives when they convened to nominate and elect a Speaker. For the first time in one hundred years, the House failed to elect a Speaker on the first ballot. Through the numerous casting of ballots, the Republican opposition to Kevin McCarthy revealed itself to consist of 21 members. This coalition finally unraveled over a period of 4 days from January 3rd to 7th with enough defectors and persons voting present to allow Kevin McCarthy to become the next Speaker of the House on the 15th ballot . (The historic high mark for number of ballots to elect a Speaker is 133 ballots in 1855.) This peeling off of the Republican opposition, which came from members of the House Freedom Caucus, happened due to a deal between McCarthy and his detractors. The staunch opposition from within the GOP towards Kevin McCarthy candidacy for Speaker prompts the question of what caused such a vigorous display against him.