| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a sporty spin around the track with Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here. Is Your Ferrari Worth Its Weight in Gold? | It’s hard to calculate the answer to that question — with the metal seemingly on its skyrocketing path (with lots of expectations for dramatic declines). What’s certain is that Ferrari is Europe’s premier carmaker — better than Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, whose falling fortunes are a headache for the German economy. The Italian luxury auto producer, on the other hand, provides Master-of-the-Universe status if you can survive the sticker shock. As Chris Bryant says, “Order books extend into 2027 and, compared with struggling luxury rivals like Porsche AG and Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings Plc, Ferrari’s profit margins are a class apart.” Elsewhere in Europe, as Lionel Laurent writes, car owners are mad as hell and becoming a political force. That’s the case in the Czech Republic, where the Motorists Party embodies the dissatisfaction of younger male voters. Their longing for affordable roadsters and the freedom of the road — old-fashioned symbols of masculinity — is shifting them and their votes into the populist lane. Could Ferrari owners ever be as disenfranchised as Motorist Party members? Chris says that one reason for buying the Italian supercars is the belief that the vehicles will hold their value. But he notes that Ferrari resales haven’t kept up with the original outlays. In any case, Ferrari aficionados are a tiny constituency. The company that Enzo built sells fewer than 14,000 vehicles a year. That’s a terrifyingly small unit sales figure for the most profitable automaker in Europe. Oh, I did the calculations. If a Ferrari more or less weighs 3,252 pounds and gold is currently around $4,000 an ounce, then a Ferrari’s weight in gold would bring you more than $208 million. Ferrari’s latest hypercar, the F80, has a price tag of $4.18 million. Maybe another reason investors are going for the gold. Guess Who’s Growing Stronger? | The fact that Vietnam’s economy is burgeoning isn’t news anymore. Sustaining it, however, is an ongoing concern. The goal is a super-high 8.5%, but Daniel Moss notes that the country “did better than almost anyone expected last quarter and the outlook is still solid. Even coming close would be a win, given the tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump.”
The surprise growth in Asia comes from farther north, in fact, from North Korea.  Karishma Vaswani notes that Pyongyang has gotten a big boost from its military sales to Vladimir Putin’s Russia (and its ongoing invasion of Ukraine). Kim Jong Un put much of his product line on parade this week — a point of pride as well as advertising for anyone else who might be interested in spending on his wares. Karishma says the dictator “is now operating from a place of unprecedented strength.” And that’s not good for everyone else. “A nuclear-armed, technologically advancing North Korea is not just a Korean Peninsula problem. It’s a direct challenge to global stability.” “Amid the Trump-induced crisis for clean energy this year, one beacon of hope has stood out: China. While other countries have been winding back their net-zero commitments, the People’s Republic has turned itself into the factory floor of the energy transition. … There’s a problem, however: China’s shift toward renewables has been showing worrying signs of flagging in recent months. Solar installations in August fell to their lowest level in nearly three years, as a building frenzy in the first half of the year gave way to a pronounced hangover.” — David Fickling in “Trouble Is Brewing in Solar Power’s Heartlands.”  “The conventional wisdom says liquified natural gas is the future of energy — bridging the gap between the world abandoning fossil fuels and renewable supplies coming online. But that rosy outlook faces a reckoning. LNG is threatened by a pincer movement involving, ironically, the two old and new sources it’s supposed to bridge: coal and solar. The cracks in the bridge could not have appeared at a worst time. The LNG market is about to witness its third big wave of increased supply in 20 years. If demand growth is weaker than expected, the only way the market would rebalance is via much lower prices.” — Javier Blas in “Liquified Natural Gas Risks Becoming a Bridge to Nowhere.” Trump deserves credit for the Gaza ceasefire, but the Nobel? — Marc Champion Tariffs are a dish best eaten cold. — Andrea Felsted What’s luxurious about mooncakes and plastic? — David Fickling Greenhushing! Don’t say it out loud. — Lara Williams A radical path to stock market glory. — Chris Hughes The unnumbered victims of AI. — Catherine Thorbecke The rational exuberance of risky bank . — Marcus Ashworth Don’t count the dollar out yet. — Daniel Moss Will you be paying your plumber in Tether? — Paul J. Davies Walk of the Town: The Church on Maiden Lane | A very old restaurant presides over Maiden Lane here in London. Rules — named for its founder Thomas Rule — has been in existence since 1798 and has been a cultural touchstone in the city, even appearing in Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair. A church also figures in the novel — where a character goes through an intense spiritual struggle over an illicit love affair. That would be Corpus Christi Catholic Church, just a few doors down and about a century younger than the restaurant. It now hosts a shrine to St. Carlo Acutis, a 15-year-old website creator who was canonized by Pope Leo XIV just a month ago.  The shrine to St. Carlo Acutis is to the left in the Lady Chapel of Corpus Christi. Photograph by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg The sculpted image of the newly-minted saint — holding a laptop and a chalice, with a relic of his hair in a little container beneath — hangs to the side of the church’s lady chapel. This week, I wrote about what a phenomenon he’s become among young Catholics, including techies in Silicon Valley. His vibrant image is a moving contrast to Maiden Lane’s memories of Greene, a Catholic convert whose other great novel, The Power and the Glory, elicited questions from the Vatican about its doctrinal soundness. That book’s central character is a nameless “whisky priest” who wrestles with faith and belief, yet in the end emerges as a kind of saint. It’s a different kind of sanctity than the young saint now celebrated at Corpus Christi. Light exercise after a meal may be good for digestion.  “Yes, you can gorge and swim. I just ate every person at the pool and am still afloat.” Illustration by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg Notes: Please send staycation vibes and feedback to Howard Chua-Eoan at hchuaeoan@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and find us on Bluesky, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn and Threads. | 
