Bloomberg Opinion

Happy Nintendo Switch 2 day! More than eight years since the original, the new console hit the shelves today -- though good luck getting hold of one. It's a curious thing, I think, that even with the best part of a decade to think it over, none of the would-be competitors to the Switch 2 have made their move. A bona fide PlayStation or Xbox handheld is still likely a couple of years away. The Steam Deck from Valve is unlikely to capture the mass market. It means Nintendo once again has the field to itself. Unless Apple can enter the fray as a wildcard: It's expected to make some gaming announcements at WWDC next week. My Bloomberg Opinion column today (FREE TO READ): https://lnkd.in/es_KCRNt #nintendo #switch2 #gaming #apple

People keep having catastrophist conversations about the dollar, but there *is* and alternative: a slow evolution towards a multi-currency world where the euro is far more important. We’ll only really see it in hindsight. The euro already has a strong role in global trade (30% of international invoicing) and cross-border lending, uses that really matter and which reserve holdings at central banks derive from. What the EU does need is deeper capital markets to invest more euros offshore and create more safe assets. Read more at Bloomberg Opinion https://lnkd.in/e36GwxUq

If any Canadian import should be tariffed out of existence, it’s one that Trump couldn’t tax even if he wanted to: wildfire smoke. Unfortunately, it’s a product in increasing and borderless abundance across North America and the world, endangering lives and inflicting billions of dollars in economic damage every year. In fact, a new study suggests wildfire smoke is a bigger threat to American health and prosperity than many other climate-change effects combined. Gift link to my column for Bloomberg Opinion #wildfiresmoke #wildfires #climate #smoke https://lnkd.in/eVRX4aTM

The apparent Musk v Trump spat dominates the narrative around Tesla. The bigger story is Tesla v China. And Tesla is losing. Tesla has seen declining wholesale volumes out of its Shanghai factory - its single biggest EV plant in the world - for eight months straight. Its market share there - the latgest, most dynamic EV market in the world - has halved over the past several years. Tesla is often thought of as a catalyst for China’s EV revolution. But catalysts don’t get used up. Tesla is more like a reactant, getting burned up as the domestic EV makers it inspired take over. Read about it here at Bloomberg Opinion https://lnkd.in/eFmyb3FC

Texas has a approved $1.5 billion over 10 years to go toward increasing film and television production in the state. But it comes with a giant catch about "faith and family values." Read why that's a poison pill for the industry, according to Jason Bailey for Bloomberg Opinion: https://lnkd.in/eSV9GY72

A new development in the culture wars is about to create a fresh set of headaches for corporate America. Issues that left-wing advocacy groups have been heckling companies about for decades are increasingly being taken up by the right — a shift that’s adding complexity and risk for CEOs already struggling to navigate this moment’s deep ideological rifts. 🔗 Read my Bloomberg Opinion column on how the right and left are finding common ground to pressure CEOs, and why companies will need a new playbook to respond. https://lnkd.in/ea6cYufX 📽 Or watch the tl;dr video version:

THE NEW ESG: Economics, security and geopolitics. President Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda pushes US fossil fuels and denigrates clean energy technologies. But it unintentionally lays the foundation for the latter - outside of the US anyway. Bretton Woods, Pax Americana - whatever you call it, the postwar order of increasing globalization backed by US naval muscle is when oil became the world’s number one energy source. It was part of a broader embrace of traded fuels in a world where most of humanity is short of those fuels but could mostly trust on safe, dependable supply chains. Today, the leader of the free world lauds Russia and threatens Canada. Just as after the 1970s oil crises, many countries have reasons to diversify their energy supply to minimize economic costs, bolster security and enhance their geopolitical position. That means a bigger role for electrification, the backbone of energy transition. It is an imperfect pathway, offering a boost to coal and raising frictional costs for technology. But grids, unlike thermal energy, can change over time and clean tech is already taking market share. Read about it here at Bloomberg Opinion https://lnkd.in/eCS-xUM2

Wells Fargo has been freed from its prison and can now turn to growth - mainly in corporate deposits and trading most likely. Its asset cap was seen as uniquely harsh, but it has proved a more effective rehabilitation than ordinary fines - and Wells has emerged fitter. Read more at Bloomberg Opinion Wells Fargo’s Asset Cap Has Been a Good Punishment https://lnkd.in/eJ5NwDSc

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? That Biblical chestnut should hang over Secretary of State Marco Rubio's bathroom mirror. Andreas Kluth has some thoughts on Rubio's climb up the greasy poll: "The main secret to his success so far is his willingness to abandon all pride and principle in toadying up to Trump. In Saturday Night Live’s exegesis, the president expects Rubio to be his 'good little Marco' and rewards him by anointing him GOAT — 'the scapegoat, but it’s still a type of goat.' And so the man who as senator railed against Moscow and stood with Kyiv nowadays sinks dutifully into an Oval Office sofa while Trump excoriates the Ukrainian president on live television. The formerly pro-migrant son of Cuban exiles is now a MAGA warrior defending the southern border against the invading hordes. The scholar of international relations who used to appreciate soft power these days gleefully vows 'to aggressively revoke' the visas of Chinese students at US universities."

At this early point in Donald Trump’s second term as president, Marco Rubio is riding higher than many predicted. Yet he appears simultaneously to be getting weaker and hollower by the day. That raises two questions. First, what is Rubio thinking? Second, who, if anybody, actually runs the engine rooms of American diplomacy and statecraft on behalf of the president? When Trump picked the then-senator, a former rival for the Republican nomination in 2016, for secretary of state, Washington’s foreign-policy wonks assumed that Rubio would be among the first to be pushed out of the administration. Too stark were the differences in the two men’s worldviews — Trump’s transactional autocrats-come-hither, allies-be-damned nihilism versus the hawkish and often moralistic notions about American exceptionalism and leadership that Rubio used to hold. It did not necessarily help that Rubio, unlike Trump’s other nominees, was almost overqualified in his subject matter; Trump doesn’t like smart alecks in the room. Instead, the first senior member of the administration to be demoted (via a transfer to the relative exile of the United Nations in New York) was National Security Advisor Michael Waltz. The one most at risk of being next is Pete Hegseth, the ever-feckless and chaos-prone defense secretary. Rubio, by contrast, has not only held on to the State Department but added, at least temporarily, Waltz’s portfolio overseeing the National Security Council. The only other person to have both jobs synchronously was Henry Kissinger. Rubio also runs the skeletal remains of the US Agency for International Development (after overseeing its demolition, an act of geostrategic vandalism which the old Rubio would have vituperated). For good measure, he also heads the National Archives and Records Administration (although I doubt he’s doing much archiving). The main secret to his success so far is his willingness to abandon all pride and principle in toadying up to Trump. In Saturday Night Live’s exegesis, the president expects Rubio to be his “good little Marco” and rewards him by anointing him GOAT — “the scapegoat, but it’s still a type of goat.” (Read the whole column - no paywall with this gift link) Bloomberg Opinion https://bloom.bg/45LBnPY