| I’m Justin Fox and this is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a stressful and confusing partnership of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here. What to Tell the Young People | This seems to be an especially stressful and confusing time to be young. Among the reasons: concerns about climate change and how it will affect the lives of those with many decades still ahead of them. The Trump administration has a theory as to what’s causing this — climate research! Upon shutting down a small climate modeling partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Princeton University earlier this month, the Commerce Department (NOAA’s parent agency) said it did so in part because “this cooperative agreement promotes exaggerated and implausible climate threats, contributing to a phenomenon known as ‘climate anxiety,’ which has increased significantly among America’s youth.” Mark Gongloff thinks they’ve got it backwards. Yes, there’s a fair amount of climate doomerism on social media warping young (and older) people’s minds. But global temperatures are in fact rising, and shutting down research efforts and classroom discussions on the consequences will likely only empower the doomers and increase the angst. Stephen Carter has a different story to share about young people and information. It starts with his 8th grade history teacher telling the class that people enslaved in the antebellum South had it pretty good, which troubled Stephen — the great-great grandson of an escaped Virginia slave — and infuriated his mother, who got the teacher to revise the lesson. He sees this as a useful lens for understanding what’s at stake in the Supreme Court case involving parents suing a Maryland school district to exempt their kids from classroom lessons involving same-sex marriage. Right or wrong, Stephen argues, parents should have a say in what their children learn. Bonus youth-angst reading: The UK driving-test backlog is denying young Brits a crucial rite of passage. — Chris Bryant How a Trade ‘User’s Guide’ Is Holding Up | - Economist Stephen Miran’s “User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System” has surely been “the most-viewed document by the financial world over the last six months,” writes John Authers. With the Trump administration for which Miran is now chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers nearing its 100-day mark, John reviews the major points of Miran’s paper and how they’ve held up. Here’s the short version:
On Course: - European rearmament
- There’s a risk that long yields could rise
Advice Ignored: - Proceed gradually
- Don’t upset the markets
Questionable: - Tariffs aren’t inflationary
- Demand for Treasuries is eternal
- Foreigners will pay for the privilege of lending to the US
- The US can beat China in a game of chicken
Tomatoes used to cost a lot more in the winter than in the summer in the US. That makes sense, given that they’re the quintessential warm weather crop. But the growth of the tomato trade with Mexico has changed the equation. To Jonathan Levin, this is powerful evidence of the benefits of free trade, and the 21% tariff that the Trump administration plans to impose on Mexican tomatoes starting July 14 a big mistake. The big jump in US consumer prices that started in 2021 outpaced wages at first, leaving Americans poorer. Since the middle of last year, though, cumulative wage gains since the beginning of 2021 have been higher than cumulative consumer price increases. What that means, explains Kathryn Anne Edwards, is that we can probably declare the inflationary spike and its negative consequences to be behind us. The only problem is that tariff increases might be about to bring a new inflation wave. AI chatbots want you hooked. — Parmy Olson Finance ministers are dazed and confused. — Bloomberg’s editorial board DOGE doesn’t understand public goods. — Gautam Mukunda Using accreditation to control universities. — Noah Feldman The UK’s magical thinking on China. — Matthew Brooker Why the right keeps winning gender wars. — Rosa Prince India and Pakistan are at a dangerous moment. — Mihir Sharma US recession odds are almost a coin flip. Apple will build most US iPhones in India. Top colleges are too costly even for those making $300,000. Whoops, we threw away a Warhol. My finch can sing more songs than yours. An electric pickup that’s cheap and small.
Notes: Please send delectable Mexican tomatoes and feedback to Justin Fox at justinfox@bloomberg.net.
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