Bloomberg Opinion

Iran Could Be a ‘Forever War’ If the Kurds Join the Fight You can’t accuse the US of mission creep one week into a war, especially when the initial goals for Operation Epic Fury were so broadly defined as to be unknowable. But taking President Donald Trump’s four-to-five-week timeframe for hostilities as a guide, the launch of a Kurdish ground insurgency to help bring about regime change would qualify.

The Kurds are being considered as a ground force to force regime change in Iran. That has echoes of Libya in 2011, which is not encouraging

A Ship Attack Has Shaken Asia’s Faith in the US For the first time since 1945, a US submarine has sunk an enemy warship. When the Iranian navy ship IRIS Dena went down, it was 2,000 miles from home and seven nautical miles from Sri Lankan waters. Both those figures are of importance, for different reasons.

The US decision to torpedo an Iranian ship thousands of miles from conflict suggests America is no longer a responsible presence in Asia's waters

The Insurance Crisis Is So Desperate People Are Turning Socialist Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Americans seem increasingly desperate about the cost of home insurance.

US homeowners are like that meme of the guy with the stick, poking a dead fish and telling it to “C’mon, do something.” The longer we take to fix the insurance crisis, the less insurers will enjoy what gets done

Gift link to my @opinion.bloomberg.com column: www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

The Native-Born Jobs Boom Was a Mirage An estimated 130,985,000 native-born Americans had jobs in February, according to the employment report released Friday. That’s 128,000 more than in the month a year earlier — the best comparison because these numbers aren’t adjusted for seasonal employment patterns — a 0.1% increase. That is better than nothing but a far cry from the huge gains in native-born employment that the Bureau of Labor Statistics was reporting last year and that the White House was trumpeting as evidence of the success

Remember the native-born employment boom of 2025? It just got revised away

The Iran War Through the Eyes of India and China Beijing and New Delhi are trying to keep their distance from the attacks in the Persian Gulf, but that may prove impossible.

India and China aren't combatants in the Persian Gulf fight, but that doesn't mean they are on the sidelines

Noem’s Abuses at DHS Went Deeper Than Photo Shoots As secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem had a thing for the camera. On any given day, she could be seen sitting on a horse, donning a cowboy hat at the border, or wielding a rifle and wearing a bulletproof vest (incorrectly) in some city.

Departing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem got flak for saying Trump approved her expensive photo ops, but that's not the only reason she got fired

Commit What You Know of Iran to the Flames Skepticism is warranted on the war and market behavior. Call it the Hume Doctrine.

Be extremely skeptical of how the Iran war will impact market behavior. Call it the Hume Doctrine

Trump’s College Sports Roundtable Is a Farce Television deals worth billions, athlete pay packages in the eight figures, and a chaotic transfer portal have upended college sports’ top-down amateurism model.

Without current college athletes in attendance, Trump's "Saving College Sports Roundtable" is a gathering that sidesteps the people most affected

Jobs Day: Breaking Down The Latest Data We’re getting jobs and retail numbers today! A 2-for-1 special for economic data lovers. What will this tell us about the strength of the US economy?Bloomber...

LIVE NOW: We’re getting jobs and retail numbers today! A 2-for-1 special for economic data lovers. What will this tell us about the strength of the US economy?

🎥 @jonathanjlevin.bsky.social discusses LIVE with @econberger.bsky.social and Andrea Felsted

Global trade began moving away from the US long before Trump took office.

@scottlincicome.bsky.social explains why tariffs only made the shift worse 🎥

The Insurance Crisis Is So Desperate People Are Turning Socialist Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Americans seem increasingly desperate about the cost of home insurance.

Homeowners are increasingly backing unrealistic and (gasp) socialist solutions to surging insurance costs

Americans’ Relationship With Gas Prices Is Complicated Oil prices are up 15% since the US and Israel began attacking Iran last weekend, and gasoline prices have been following not too far behind. In a big-picture economic sense, this matters a lot less than it used to. The oil intensity of gross domestic product is down about 70% in the US and 60% worldwide since the 1973-1974 oil crisis. The share of US consumer spending going to gasoline and other motor fuel was just 1.8% in December, down from more than 5% in the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian rev

Are Americans just imagining that they’re spending a lot on their cars? A close look at the numbers

For Energy, ESG Now Means Economics, Security and Geopolitics With “energy dominance” comes great turbulence. President Donald Trump’s open-ended war against Iran reflects a US seemingly unconstrained by energy needs and ready to wield its own fossil fuels as instruments of power. In doing so, the US has switched from being an effective underwriter of global energy security to disrupter. The war also cements another shift, from the old ESG of environmental, social and governance factors shaping energy decisions, to new ones: economics, security and geopoli

The war in Iran is offering renewable power a new ESG pitch that focuses on ensuring security and reliability

AI Needs to Get Cheaper, Not Smarter Nearly 50 million Americans go to court each year without a lawyer. Low-income Americans are especially vulnerable, with most saying they “do not get any or enough legal help” for their major civil legal problems. The US ranks 107th out of 142 countries on the accessibility and affordability of civil justice, according to the World Justice Project, and 47th out of 47 high-income countries.

AI’s biggest economic impact won’t come from replacing lawyers or other professionals, but from doing the work that’s too low-end to be worth their time

Prediction Markets Shouldn’t Be So Easy to Play A great financial economist once tried to convince me that retail investors should not be allowed to buy individual stocks. I strenuously disagreed: Wasn’t this America, the country that encourages risk-taking? Why shut regular investors out of the chance to get rich?

As the line between gambling and investing becomes ever more blurred, odds are (pun intended) that more investors will get themselves in trouble

Cap and Trade Works in Europe. Don’t Screw It Up Few policies have done more to combat climate change than the European Union’s emissions trading system. By putting a price on carbon dioxide — currently about €70 per metric ton — it has given companies throughout the bloc a powerful incentive to invest in going green.

Mike Bloomberg: The EU’s emissions trading system is an epic achievement. Stick with it, don’t scapegoat it

Spain's Defiance on the Iran War Is Only the Start for Europe Spain

Standing up to the Trump administration is proving to be good politics in Europe

The Dubai Dream Just Shattered for South Asians Every war produces images that stick in the mind. For many people around the world, but particularly in South Asia, the opening nights of this conflict will always be associated with footage from Dubai: a fire near a well-known hotel in Palm Jumeirah, debris from an aerial interception near the iconic Burj-al-Arab, videos of eerily empty highways.

Dubai has offered South Asians dreams of prosperity and acceptance their megacities never could

It's the Perfect Moment for the EU to Issue a Joint Bond In crisis there is opportunity. With two wars on Europe’s doorstep, the need for a unified response has rarely been more pressing, and the urgent need to stiffen the European Union’s military defenses will be expensive. What better way to pay for that than the bloc jointly tapping the bond markets, as it did when pulling together an €800 billion ($925 billion) rescue package for member states during the pandemic. There’s a raft of other stuff that can be fixed at the same time.

The yields on bonds of pretty much all EU member states are moving closer to Germany’s. This is the right time for common euro debt

This Isn’t an Energy Crisis — at Least Not Yet Warning: This writer may, very soon, eat humble pie. Still, I believe we need a bit of nuance around the term "energy crisis." Bottom line: We’re using it too loosely. The American attack on Iran is bad news for the global economy, but I don’t anticipate that it will spark a 2022-style inflation shock.

At the risk of eating humble pie, Javier Blas isn't ready to call the oil price spike caused by the Iran War an "energy crisis"

Now Even Apple Is Worried About Affordability Consumers don’t mind using hardware that’s a little behind the curve if it’s cheaper. Enter the MacBook Neo.

What happens when you rearrange a few ingredients and put them inside the same old clamshell casing? You get Apple's new MacBook Neo or McDonald's new Big Arch burger

It’s Time for China to Invest in People. For Real With a shrinking population and a collapsed property market, turning to a technology-led growth strategy was a logical step for China. The model has surpassed expectations, even with the fundamental flaw of being unable, for now, to create enough wealth to lift the fortunes of a broad slice of society.

It’s time for Beijing to live up to its new slogan of “investing in people” after decades of backing manufacturing sectors like EVs and batteries

How to Ride Out a Brush With Market Panic At the peak of the 2008 global financial crisis, Tim Geithner, then president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York had advice for a prominent Wall Street chief executive: Before you speak in public, banish the fear from your voice. If central bankers in Asia are to prevent market somersaults this week from morphing into more serious problems, they should keep this in mind.

In the early stages of market tumult, responses should be short and sweet. What's unsaid matters, too

Be Liquid When Others Are Illiquid An SREIT tender, dip buyers, the dispersion trade and nonfungible bolivianos.

The big asset managers bought liquidity cheap, but now liquidity is valuable.

Hormuz Is the Hidden Risk to the AI Economy A world where we can cook up AI videos in seconds from the apps on our phones might seem remote from the physical realities of warfare in the seaways of the Persian Gulf. In fact, they’re closely intertwined.

Taiwan and South Korea are uniquely vulnerable to supply shocks in LNG from the Iran war, and that means chips are, too, writes @davidfickling

We don’t know exactly how Anthropic’s Claude AI helped the US bomb Iran.

That’s a problem, @parmy.bsky.social says 🎥

Jobs Day: Breaking Down The Latest Data We’re getting jobs and retail numbers today! A 2-for-1 special for economic data lovers. What will this tell us about the strength of the US economy?

We’re getting jobs and retail numbers! A 2-for-1 special for economic data lovers. What will this tell us about the strength of the US economy?

🎥 @jonathanjlevin.bsky.social discusses LIVE with @econberger.bsky.social and Andrea Felsted: Friday, 8:25 am ET

Milei’s Insults Energize His Base. Investors, Not So Much If you thought Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech was incendiary, try Javier Milei’s version.

President Javier Milei's true victory will be measured not by the ferocity of his speeches but by the staying power of his reforms over the years

my latest for @opinion.bloomberg.com on Argentina's investor credibility problem www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Health Care Can’t Be the Only Job in Town. But It Is The two main drivers of US economic growth right now — artificial intelligence and an aging population — are combining to make health care the most appealing career option for job seekers. The sector bucked the hiring caution that infected so many other industries last year, becoming the biggest job creator. But what happens when health care openings start drying up, too?

Health care has emerged as the most appealing career option in the job market. But what happens when those openings start drying up?

Private Credit Is Learning All About Liquidity As private credit boomed, the gray beards of banking questioned how these young firms would cope with failing borrowers when a bust came. But a different problem is rearing its head first for one popular type of vehicle in this $1.8 trillion asset class. Often it’s not bad loan losses that get you, it’s liquidity draining away.

In private credit it's not only bad losses that will get you, it's often liquidity draining away