Ain’t No Party Like a Chart Party | Want to understand just exactly how Bloomberg-pilled I am? I get excited by charts. A horizontal bar table with a heatmap? Instant dopamine hit. A scatter plot with a pastel-colored key? That’s downright Pavlovian. Even a plain-old line chart gets my pulse up. So imagine my full-blown freak-out when I realized today’s Bloomberg Opinion lineup is stacked — and I mean staaaaaacked — with data. By my count, we have 15 columns with a total of 39 charts, which feels like some sort of record. And the wildest part? Justin Fox (our columnist who concocts charts about lobster, lettuce and labor in his sleep) didn’t even write today! The data gods must be smiling down on us. Which is why I’m ripping up the script for this newsletter and doing the unthinkable: feeding you nothing but charts. Violence Is Not the AnswerI’ll warn you, this first chart is incredibly depressing. Last week, a new survey showed that over a third of college students think it’s OK to use violence to stop a campus speech in some cases. “These findings would be disturbing at any time in American history, but they are especially chilling coming the same week that conservative activist Charlie Kirk was gunned down while speaking at a Utah university,” Mary Ellen Klas writes. “But it’s not too late. America can and must rekindle an appreciation for a good debate among young people.” So Are We Going Jumbo or Not?Inflation’s up. Unemployment’s up. And so is President Donald Trump’s patience with the Federal Reserve. On Wednesday, it’s pretty much guaranteed that Fed Chair Jerome Powell will announce the central bank’s very first rate cut of 2025. But how much will it be? Looking at the murky outlook, John Authers isn’t sure whether they’ll go for a modest 0.25 percentage point reduction or a so-called “jumbo” cut of 0.5 percentage points. “With inflation not tamed and tariffs still to filter through into employment and production decisions, the risk ahead is stagflation,” he warns. Cracking Down on Drug Ads And now, we interrupt this newsletter with a brief message from our sponsor, Clutterex™, a once-daily inbox decongestant that reduces email bloat by up to 87%, auto-filters “reply-all” chains within seconds and boosts your natural “unsubscribe” response. KIDDING! Such a drug doesn’t exist, but hundreds of others with even more outrageous promises do — and their direct-to-consumer ads are getting out of control. “The executive order signed by President Donald Trump last week is an attempt to force these companies to be more transparent about the side effects of their products — and hopefully draw necessary attention to the increasingly insidious ways the industry reaches consumers,” writes Lisa Jarvis. “But the order is meaningless without tough enforcement.” Wall Street Is Winning AgainNew vocabulary alert: Morgan Stanley’s Dan Simkowitz has coined the term “derivative-ization.” Before you write it off as a clunky buzzword, hear Paul J. Davies out: “[Simkowitz’s] idea helps explain why the entire industry’s markets revenue has recovered from the long malaise it had fallen into in the years before 2020.” Prior to the pandemic, Paul says trading was muted thanks to regulation, transparency, passive investing and central bank liquidity. Post-Covid, he says “higher interest rates, economic uncertainties and, most recently, the return of Donald Trump to the White House have made markets bumpier, creating a bonanza for the world’s biggest banks.” Make Fashion Werk AgainNew York City’s fashion week is already off to an energized start, with plenty of fresh faces gracing the catwalk. Spike Lee’s son made his runway debut, as did Elon Musk’s estranged daughter and ... Governor Andrew Cuomo, who could always go into modeling if his mayoral career doesn’t pan out. Backstage, Andrea Felsted says there’s just as many new faces working behind the scenes: “Over the past 18 months, more than a dozen top designers have switched roles – an unprecedented round of musical sewing machines. Many will show either debut or fledgling collections in the coming weeks,” she writes. “Big bling needs its new hires to unleash a wave of energy and creativity, to catapult fashion back to cultural relevance.” One Bridge Collapse Away From a Nightmare“Never mind the German birthright of driving as fast as one likes on the highway. This exporting nation needs to get a grip on its bridges,” writes Chris Bryant. Nobody wants to drive on an ancient, rickety old bridge, but in Germany there’s often no other route to take: “Around 70% of the Autobahn’s roughly 28,000 bridges are made of pre-stressed concrete whose steel elements can corrode if moisture or de-icing salts seep in via cracks; some 55% were erected prior to 1985 when construction standards were less rigorous.” It’ll be expensive, but Chris says the country must invest in longer-lasting materials to build new bridges. Public Parks Unite AmericaThe question, “is a map a chart?” kinda feels like the great “is a hot dog a sandwich” debate — there’s no wrong answer, per se, but people feel strongly about it. What if the map in question is color-coded with data? Absolutely, it’s a chart. And this chart shows that it would behoove President Trump to reject his administration’s proposal to defund America’s beloved national parks. “These aren’t just pretty places to go hiking, swimming or camping, or for kids to go on field trips,” argues Erika D. Smith. “They are also economic drivers for mom-and-pop businesses in Republican-led states or in solidly Republican congressional districts in states run by Democrats.” Tooooona TownOne of life’s great worries is that we will eventually be living on a tuna-less planet. “Like cod and monkfish, the most prized species once seemed to be on the verge of disappearance, thanks largely to our insatiable hunger for sushi,” writes David Fickling. But you can count your lucky tuna-loving stars, because policies aimed at preserving the tuna population have been “a remarkable success,” according to David. “Right now, tuna is probably one of the most sustainable wild fish you can eat. Some 99.3% now comes from sustainable stocks … With the exception of Mediterranean albacore (a favorite of Spanish canneries) and bigeye in the Indian Ocean, every population is now being fished within sustainable levels.” Thank goodness! I can now enjoy my local tuna carving night with a peace of mind. Bonus Chart-Your-Own-Adventure Reading: |
