Actually, Americans Can Handle a Rainy Day
This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a fragile reef ecosystem built by Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions, by Jessica Karl .?Sign up here?.
Today’s Agenda
Infinite Wishes
There are two types of kids in this world:
To no one’s surprise, I was an “infinite wish” child. Growing up, the?When You Wish Upon a Star?song was simply a gateway drug that allowed me to dream up more wishes.
The need to have a buffer — whether it be wishes or money or?time between meetings?— is human nature. Which brings me to the?statistic?about how most Americans say they?don’t have enough cash?to pay for a $400 emergency expense. Maybe you’ve heard some variation of it before — Vice President Kamala Harris?referenced it?just last week. It’s one of those classic figures that gets “bandied about for political purposes,”? Allison Schrager ?explains. The thing is, it’s?completely misleading:
Allison says the figure is derived from a Federal Reserve?survey?that asks people if they would cover a $400 emergency expense using cash or the available equivalent. In 2022, 63% of households said “yes,” as shown in the above chart. But it’s not as though the remaining 37% of households are a mere hospital bill away from going bankrupt. The survey found that a fair amount of them actually?do?have the cash, but “they would take out debt in an emergency in order to?preserve a cash buffer?for other emergencies.” Sound familiar? These are “infinite wish” adults! They want to preserve their $400 in order to ensure their future economic stability; to have extra wishes for “what ifs.”
“The bottom line is that, if faced with a $400 expense, 87% of all US households could still pay their other bills,” Allison says. It’s a far cry from the scary statistic we so often hear about. That genie needs to go back into the bottle.
Bye Bye Biodiversity
This was my face after reading? Mark Gongloff ’s?latest column?about how our?hot tub?ocean temperatures and?toxic trash vortexes?are slowly destroying the fragile reef ecosystems built by corals:
Life on this planet would completely suck without corals, to put it bluntly. Without these reefs, over?a quarter?of the world’s sea life would suffer, and?1 billion?humans — who rely on corals and the creatures they support — would lose their food and livelihood as a result. In many ways, reefs are invisible heroes: They protect coastal homes from storms and floods. They provide ingredients used in cancer treatments. They help oceans produce oxygen. “Without coral,” the sea “would eventually be starved of fish, forcing farmers to produce more protein on land, a far costlier process. The water would be?slimier, choked with algae and jellyfish,” Mark writes.
Scientists estimate that?more than half?of the world’s reefs have died since 1950, in large part because humans (read:?tourists) have turned the ocean into a?cesspool of pollution. Our decision to overfish and dump grotesque amounts of waste into big bodies of water has cost us in more ways than one, Mark explains: “The ocean?soaks up atmospheric heat?and is slow to let it go,” which means that water temperatures are constantly reaching fresh records:
Most of the remaining corals can’t survive in water this hot. One study predicts that half of them could be?dead by 2035. Soon after that, “our warming path could push them to extinction,” Mark writes. But that’s the worst-case scenario. “There’s reason for hope, and more importantly there’s reason for?action,” Jonathan Cybulski , an ecologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) , told Mark. There’s a corny poster in my doctor’s office that says something along the lines of,?Take care of your body; It’s the only one you have!?Maybe we should start applying that message to bodies of water, too. Read?the whole thing.
It’s Alive
My sister and I once had this plant that we were pretty sure was dead. Looking at it, it was just a single stick, standing up in the dirt. Not a leaf in sight. But we were too lazy to de-pot it, so it sat on her windowsill for months. That is, until January, when she sent me this photo:
Against all odds, the plant — that stick — came back from the brink. And this, my friends, is what? Conor Sen ?is seeing right now in the housing market:?a sign of life. “To be clear, I’m not looking for a wave of fresh supply, but any growth right now would be helpful — something we should start to see early next year,” he writes. After what felt like an unending housing drought, we now have a glimmer of hope:
By this time next year, we should be seeing a lot more new homes hit the market, now that supply chains have mostly healed. But that won’t alleviate all of our housing horrors: “The resale market, which historically accounted for about 87% of all homes for sale and has seen an acute lack of inventory, is where a pickup in new listings would be most welcome,” Conor explains.
Luckily, there’s signs of green sprouts there, too: A new?survey?from Zillow found that a little less than a quarter of homeowners are already selling or considering selling over the next three years — the highest percentage since the start of 2021.
“It's going to take years to build enough to bring the housing market back into balance, but for the first time in a while there are reasons to think we're moving in the right direction,” Conor writes. For what it’s worth, my stick plant now has?two?leaves. Hey, progress is progress:
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Telltale Charts
Remember in January when all those?makeup influencers?took a trip to Dubai and?Beyoncé?performed? Or when all those?wealthy?Russians took their?fancy yachts?to the UAE to avoid sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine? Well, now Dubai is working to attract wealthy Western?hedge-fund types, ensuring that the money keeps on coming. “There’s a good chance the Gulf is going to become a test case in the race for rich talent in a world dominated by geopolitics and war,”? Lionel Laurent ?writes.
In case you haven’t noticed,?Bud Light’s strugglebus?seems to still have a lot of gas in the tank. It’s an unusual story, considering most consumer storms would have?lost steam?by now,? Andrea Felsted ?writes. But no, the beer brand’s controversy over its partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney has spiraled out of control, putting AB InBev and its financials in the spotlight. Bud Light is no longer the best-selling beer in the US, after ceding its crown to Modelo. And “with younger people increasingly switching to spirits, brewers need beer to appeal to a broader audience,” she writes. It increasingly looks as though tequila spritzers — not domestic beers — are the preferred elixirs these days:
Further Reading
An about-face on European?stock research?is ill-advised. —?The Editors
It won’t be easy for Trump to worm his way out of?this one. —? Tim O'Brien
Is that …?Bill Barr?… suddenly discovering the rule of law? —? Francis Wilkinson
Remote work risks making?low-wage jobs?way worse. —? Sarah Green Carmichael
The coup in Niger — a?uranium life-source?— is a major W for Putin. —? Javier Blas
India isn’t going to be happy playing?second fiddle?to China. —?Mihir Sharma
Credit Suisse’s?culture clash?with UBS is rather unpleasant. —? Shuli Ren
Bill Ackman’s math doesn’t exactly add up. —? Jonathan Levin
Bad news for the budget: GOP voters prefer?confrontation. —?Jonathan Bernstein
ICYMI
Trump pleads?not guilty.
Big Pharma’s murder mystery.
China’s massive?sinkhole.
Kickers
Stressed adults prefer the?kids’ meals.
Zuckerberg's?calorie count?goes crazy.
Nacho average?highway traffic jam.
Indiana’s new?gravy-themed?roller coaster.
Notes:?Please send nacho cheese and feedback to Jessica Karl at?[email protected].
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Product/UX Designer, Mobile/Web
1 年The statistic I saw looked at $1000 as a baseline for emergency expenses, which is closer to reality these days