| I’m Jonathan Levin, and this is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a compendium of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions — and crazy Florida Man links. Sign up here. Florida Man Opposes Vaccine Mandate | Floridians, including yours truly, are kinda famous for making bad choices. We wrangle alligators barefoot. We bring machetes to Walmart. Even our Chuck E. Cheese mascots get arrested for credit card theft. That’s why “Florida Man” has become a running joke on social media. And yeah ... we (mostly) deserve it. But not all our poor choices are amusing. That’s certainly the case with the state’s new stance on vaccines. As Lisa Jarvis writes, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced on Wednesday that the state would be the first to eliminate vaccine mandates. In a state that draws about 143 million tourists a year, that’s a bad Florida decision that could affect every American. The decision comes as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has undermined confidence in and curbed access to vaccines, while some states concerned about the backward lurch in public health policy have been forming pro-vaccine alliances. In the near term, there are a lot of open questions about the Florida announcement — for one, Ladapo and Governor Ron DeSantis have to win the support of state lawmakers. But as Lisa points out, their rhetoric alone is already having a demonstrable effect, as more families are seeking religious exemptions to existing vaccine requirements. And Florida’s policy could have national implications, because viruses know no borders and anti-vaccine sentiment is proving similarly infectious. “States are smart to work together on maintaining clear, evidence-based guidelines for vaccines — and, in a time of significant uncertainty about what federal policy changes might come next, they should ideally also consider how to ensure reliable access to essential shots,” Lisa writes. “At the same time, the lack of a unified message on public health is sure to make the public uncertain about whom to trust.” Unfortunately, trust has been found wanting lately in the economic arena as well. President Donald Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, following the release last month of a disappointing July US employment report. Trump and his apologists said it was because they couldn’t trust the numbers. Trump’s critics, meanwhile, said the real trust problems would emerge if the president tried to put his thumb on the scale. In any case, there is only one “germ” of a coherent argument — as Justin Fox puts it — behind Trump’s decision to shake up BLS leadership, and it revolves around revisions for employment data. As Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Stephen Miran notes, initial publications of the data have been subject to large revisions, and he said the commissioner should have taken steps to improve the data. The BLS is due to release its next round of employment data tomorrow, so Justin pored over the recent revisions to scrutinize that argument. It’s complicated, he says: The size of the revisions depends in part on the broader economic environment, and it’s possible to conclude that they’re within the normal historical range. Insofar as they appear to be large compared to relatively recent history, that may reflect falling survey response rates. Another consideration is that revisions tend to be large around inflection points in the economy, such as recessions. “By this metric, the revisions of the past 12 months aren’t anything special yet, historically speaking,” Justin writes. “If they continue to grow, President Trump may have much bigger problems than some statistics he doesn’t like.” One final thought on the theme of trust in institutions comes via Noah Feldman. The US Supreme Court “has been trying to avoid directly confronting Donald Trump’s blatant challenges to established legal norms,” Noah writes. But two key cases — one on tariffs and one on the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members — will soon bring the court to a fork in the road, he says. On tariffs, Trump has used an extraordinarily creative interpretation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs — a tax — without approval from Congress. As Noah says, some of the conservative justices worry about the separation of powers. “This concern, too, should in principle push the court to find that Trump’s tariffs are illegal,” Noah writes. But he also notes that the court hasn’t rejected a president’s signature policy initiative since early in the New Deal era. On the Alien Enemies Act, questions loom about the Trump administration’s claim that the Tren de Aragua street gang and Venezuela had launched an incursion on US soil. “There is no invasion or incursion, and to allow the administration to claim otherwise would require a court to bury its head in the sand and pretend it has no idea what’s happening in the real world,” Noah writes. Ultimately, he writes, the two cases will force the court’s conservative majority “to show its true colors,” with major implications for the rule of law. Circling back to Justin’s column about the BLS data, a picture is worth a thousand words. Aside from the months of the pandemic itself, employment revisions aren’t particularly outside of historical norms. “The preliminary estimates in the monthly jobs reports rely on assumptions about employment change following familiar patterns, so when something unprecedented happens, reliability diminishes,” Justin writes. “Beyond that, it’s hard to see much of a long-run trend other than that the revisions are generally much smaller now than in the 1980s.” As Justin notes, the current revisions appear to be larger than they were in the five or so years prior to Covid-19, but they’re not that unusual overall. A US sovereign wealth fund? Yes, please. — Nir Kaissar Low-cost airlines should return to their roots. —Thomas Black Epstein’s victims are no hoax. — Nia-Malika Henderson The Cowboys-Eagles game showcases different ownership styles. — Adam Minter Chicago is postponing its Mexico Independence Day over ICE threat. Northwestern’s president is resigning amid White House clash. The S&P 500 is back at an all-time high. A guy inexplicably climbed a tall mountain in an ice cream cone costume. Notes: Please send revisions to monthly employment figures (and feedback) to Jonathan Levin at jlevin20@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and find us on Bluesky, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn and Threads. | 
