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Time to pry police from their safe spaces

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Today's Agenda

Fog of war.

Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty Images North America

Fix the Police

It has taken too many black deaths, too many decades and thousands of marches, but white Americans may finally be waking up to the reality of the racism all around them. The question now is how to take advantage of this fleeting attention while it's still focused.

For one thing, policing is long overdue for reform; George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many more should not have had to die at the hands of cops. Noah Smith has written about how police unions have amassed too much power, along with the cash to splurge on space-age weaponry and armor. Noah Feldman has written about how cops should lose the qualified immunity from civil-rights lawsuits that places them above the law.

Cops also skirt accountability when they do the wrong thing because it's so hard to actually get good data on their misconduct, writes Cathy O'Neil. Filming police in action has raised awareness, but we must be able to track behavior in real time to spot the bad apples before they become too rotten.

We should also be more skeptical whenever cops play the "I was scared" card when they get too violent. Conservatives complain all the time about students carving out "safe spaces" on campus, notes Virginia Postrel, but juries and the public let cops be snowflakes whenever they have to beat a murder rap.

It may not feel as momentous, but it's also kind of a big deal that broadcasters are pulling cop shows off the air. ("Paw Patrol" has no reason to be nervous, however.) Cop dramas (and comedies and musicals) are huge business for the entertainment industry. But that industry also suffers from a severe lack of racial diversity, on camera and behind it, writes Tara Lachapelle.

Entertainment that looks more like real America is better entertainment. #MeToo has already upgraded Hollywood by bringing more women into the process. #BlackLivesMatter can have a similar effect.

Ironically, both movements have been turbo-boosted by President Donald Trump. As Francis Wilkinson writes, it took a living, golfing embodiment of sexism and racism to wake many Americans up to these problems. Let's not go to sleep again.

Further Protest Reading: We can fight racism while also tolerating opposing views. — Stephen Carter

Stop Redlining's Unwelcome Comeback

One place systemic racism manifests itself is in banking. Lenders have too often been reluctant to do business with black borrowers, stifling wealth creation and entrepreneurship. Congress long ago passed the Community Reinvestment Act to address this problem. But Trump's former comptroller of the currency, foreclosure enthusiast Joseph Otting, pushed rule changes to weaken the CRA just a day before he up and quit, notes Bloomberg's editorial board. Other banking regulators rejected his changes, but Otting's former agency will apply them. Trump should reverse this, or some future president should fix it ASAP.

Fill Your Boots

The stock market switched from irrational exuberance to wild-eyed panic today, after momentarily remembering a pandemic is still happening. But don't worry; it was probably a buying opportunity. Because the Federal Reserve yesterday made it entirely clear it's willing to inflate another asset bubble, if that's the price for keeping markets liquid, writes John Authers. Never, never, never fight the Fed, unless it tries to take away your precious liquidity.

Small investors know the deal, writes Jim Bianco. They've been filling their boots with everything not nailed down. Today was a grim day, yes, but the Fed is trapped in this game, meaning it can never let prices fall too far for too long.

Sure, part of the rationale for the Fed keeping interest rates at zero until at least 2022 (!) is that the economy is in a dismal state, as another mountain of new jobless claims reminded us today. Forget a V-shaped recovery, writes Mohamed El-Erian. As we've said repeatedly here, we'll need much more help from fiscal policy. The Fed could help too, writes Narayana Kocherlakota, by cutting interest rates below zero. That could hurt banks, but protecting them will only widen the gap between misery on Main Street and joy (if temporarily paused) on Wall Street.

Telltale Charts

Bond investors should drool over new European Commission bonds that will be top-rated and offer more yield than Germany, writes Mark Gilbert.

Further Reading

Unified Democratic government plus a still-weak economy could kill the Senate filibuster. — Jonathan Bernstein

Every time the military thinks it's out of politics, Trump pulls it back in. — Kori Schake

Investing in the STEM workforce in Africa will help us fight the next pandemic. — Lydiah Kemunto Bosire

The EU's antitrust regulator is coming for Amazon.com's use of third-party seller data. — Alex Webb

Will online classes help colleges survive the pandemic, or will they need a federal rescue? — Noah Smith and Tyler Cowen debate

Beyond Meat's CEO has thoughts about this boom time and the future. — Amanda Little

Fine dining will never disappear, as long as there are foodies. — Bobby Ghosh

ICYMI

November's election will be a nightmare.

Steve Mnuchin says we can't close the economy again, even in a second virus wave.

Tucker Carlson is losing advertisers.

Kickers

Archaeologists find London's oldest theater.

Quantum matter orbits Earth.

Plastic rain is the new acid rain.

We may have to wean ourselves off horseshoe crab blood.

Note: Please send advertisers and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net.

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