McDonald’s gives the WeWorks of the world a few pointers

This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a bouillabaisse of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here.  We're looking for your feedback to help improve this newsletter. Please follow this link to our survey, which will take only a few minutes. You have two more days to tell us what you think. Today's Agenda McDonald's gives a clinic on handling a CEO problem. Trump's latest attack on California is another cheap shot. Elizabeth Warren's health plan is savvy, but beware hidden costs. Gobbling up risky corporate debt: What could go wrong? McDonald's vs. WeWork It's hard to imagine a company less hip than McDonald's Corp., an old-school corporate paragon slinging soulless factory food beneath gaudy plastic arches when the cool kids want everything local, artisanal, small-batch. But today it taught the upstarts a lesson in good management. That wasn't exactly demonstrated by now-ex-CEO Steve Easterbrook, who had a consensual relationship with an employee. Rather, McDonald's board jumped on its Easterbrook problem and solved it with maximal efficiency, writes Sarah Halzack. They even managed not to interrupt the successful business plan Easterbrook had in place. As a result, the company shouldn't suffer a bit from the controversy or leadership change. Of course, this isn't its first gender-blowup rodeo. McDonald's has been accused by worker and civil-rights groups of not doing enough to fight harassment and other misconduct at stores. Those problems led the company to change its harassment policies and may have spurred it to move quickly on Easterbrook, then as an encore defenestrate its HR chief. However imperfectly (it also gave Easterbrook a $37 million parting gift), McDonald's is at least hinting it can evolve and learn. Compare and contrast that with, say, the shambles that is WeWork, which under founder Adam Neumann had less learning than a "Seinfeld" episode. Until a few months ago, when it became a business-world punchline, WeWork would have been considered far hipper than McDonald's. But its management — where to begin? One place might be its own handling of gender issues. As Sarah Green Carmichael notes, WeWork has been accused by three different women of discrimination of varying degrees of awfulness. It denies these claims, but the startup's disdain for such mundane normalcies as good management and governance hint at why its valuation has plummeted from $47 billion to maybe zero billion in such a hurry. Not cool. Further WeWork Reading: Mutual funds keep rushing into private markets to buy unicorns, exposing themselves to train wrecks such as WeWork. — Shuli Ren  Further Equality Reading:  The anti-discriminatory value of blind auditions holds up under scrutiny. — Faye Flam  California vs. Trump As if California didn't have enough problems with endless wildfires, hellish traffic and inadequate housing, it's also at war with the president of the United States. President Donald Trump's latest attack is a lawsuit claiming the state violated the Constitution in setting up a cap-and-trade agreement with Quebec back in 2013. Trump's lawsuit is legally dubious and bad policy, argues Bloomberg's editorial board. California has a right and a duty to protect its environment, and these state deals are the country's best hope for addressing climate change while Trump refuses. Another front in Trump's War on California is his effort to force it to stop setting its own auto-emissions standards. Ford Motor Co., Honda Motor Co., and other automakers are siding with California. General Motors Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and others are siding with Trump. The latter group must either assume he'll lose this fight or reelection, writes Carl Pope. Because otherwise they are dooming themselves to obsolescence as automakers around the world hone cleaner technology. Further Green Politics Reading: Europe's Greens have a chance to lead, but must make room for capitalism. — Bloomberg's editorial board The U.K. should make its temporary fracking ban permanent. — Leonid Bershidsky  Warren vs. Health Plan Costs Elizabeth Warren has taken flak from Bloomberg's editors, her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination and more for being vague about how she plans to pay for her Medicare for All plan. Last week she finally put some hard numbers on that plan, and in so doing deftly masked the direct costs to the middle class, writes Noah Smith. It's probably the politically savviest of these plans we've seen yet. But any analysis of it must also account for the opportunity costs it creates, writes Tyler Cowen, who argues much of that will fall on the middle class. Further Dem Reading: The cheer of Democrats in Iowa contrasts starkly with the ugly nature of the political fight they face. — Francis Wilkinson  Telltale Charts BBB-rated corporate bonds just keep getting riskier, but people are suddenly gobbling them up. Something's got to give, warns Brian Chappatta. Under Armour Inc. has problems beyond a federal probe of its accounting practices and leadership questions, writes Sarah Halzack. Further Reading Millennials complain it's harder to buy houses these days, but renting is a better deal financially. — Gary Shilling  Bitcoin rallied after China's Communist Party praised blockchain tech, but fans should beware: Governments around the world are trying to replace existing crypto, not embrace it. — Lionel Laurent  Bad Fed policy helped put Trump in the White House and could lift his opponent in 2020. — Ramesh Ponnuru  Don't rule out another government shutdown; there's no sign Trump and Republicans learned from the last one. — Jonathan Bernstein  The Aramco IPO offers an enticing financial profile, but a whole bunch of unusual risks. — Chris Hughes  Here's what we learned from South Africa's upset Rugby World Cup victory. — Mohamed El-Erian  Tracking one devastated Chicago corner over 30 years, in photos. — Camilo Jose Vergara  ICYMI One Bitcoin whale probably fueled its 2017 surge. Stanford tops Bloomberg Businessweek's latest B-school rankings. Swedish researchers may have found a revolutionary way to store solar energy. Kickers Area violinist reunited with lost $325,000 violin. (h/t Scott Kominers) Maybe we've got the shape of the universe all wrong. Plants are smarter than you think. Iceland's last McDonald's meal is still undecayed after a decade.  Note: Please send violins and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. FOLLOW US SEND TO A FRIEND You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Opinion Today newsletter. Unsubscribe | Bloomberg.com | Contact Us Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022