| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a Gini coefficient of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. Today's Agenda  Even as this was happening, inequality was shrinking, if only a bit. Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images North America Telltale Charts: The Rich Get Poorer Edition Americans spent much energy in the years after the financial crisis being understandably angry about inequality. Fury over globalization's winners and losers fueled both Occupy Wall Street and Donald Trump's presidential campaign. And all along, the problem may have been fixing itself. One piece of evidence helping stoke our rage was this chart, which at first glance looks like a cute baby elephant, but actually depicts Western middle classes and the very poor being gutted by two decades of globalization, while the elite and emerging-market middle classes thrived.  But you'll notice the chart data end at 2008. Unfortunately, global income statistics are kind of like coronavirus studies — they move much, much more slowly than our emotions. Only now do we have updated data through 2013. Lo and behold, it turns out that, in the five years after the financial crisis, the elephant lost its trunk, writes Ferdinando Giugliano:  Of course, this doesn't mean there's no inequality problem. Far from it! For one thing, it says nothing about wealth inequality. And maybe the elephant's trunk started growing again in the past seven years. But income inequality, at the very least, may not have followed the steady path higher we've imagined. Up a Pandemic Without a Plan One thing that is still marching relentlessly higher, unfortunately, is the spread of Covid-19 in the U.S.  Photographer: Mark Gongloff Photographer: Mark Gongloff This is partly the result of ending lockdowns too quickly without taking other precautions to slow the pandemic, all in the name of restarting the economy. But now the virus is out of control, which, it turns out, is bad for the economy. Despite these twin escalating crises, President Donald Trump has no concrete plan to deal with them, writes Jonathan Bernstein. In fact, aside from complaining to visitors and Twitter followers about how they're hurting him personally, he shows little sign of detailed plans to fix either problem. All Trump has offered lately are blunt demands for things to hurry up and keep opening. His most recent target is schools, with threats to cut off federal funding if they don't comply. He may think this will appeal to voters, because we all want our kids out of the house already. Distance learning is pretty much terrible. And yet! Without detailed strategies for keeping everybody safe, Francis Wilkinson writes, most parents and teachers are still anxious about sending kids back to schools that are germ incubators in the best of times. The Trump administration is pressuring colleges to reopen too, including by threatening foreign students with deportation if they attend only online classes. This is not just cruel to the students, writes Bloomberg's editorial board, but also hurts already shaky college finances and American education generally. Further Virus-Management Reading: Benjamin Netanyahu prematurely declared victory over coronavirus, and now Israel's paying the price. — Zev Chafets Bonus We-Forgot-the-Link-Yesterday Reading: Good old American optimism is a liability in the face of a runaway pandemic. — Cathy O'Neil Biden Borrows Trump's Populism Trump called it plagiarism. Steve Bannon called it "very smart." However you characterize it, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's new economic plan shows populism has no challengers in American politics these days, writes Noah Smith. (See "inequality," above.) But Biden's ideas seem at least to be pragmatic industrial policies that may be more effective than Trump's blunt trade-warring, Noah writes. In fact, the more-problematic parts of the plan are those that most resemble Trump's blunderbuss approach. Telltale Charts A lot of people want to get back to the gym, for some reason, but not enough of them to rescue all of what had become a bloated sector, write Andrea Felsted and Sarah Halzack.  Further Reading America made a long-ago promise to the Creek Nation, and the Supreme Court finally upheld it. — Noah Feldman America has always been skeptical of speed and red-light cameras, but evidence suggests they make driving safer. And they could make policing more color-blind. — Justin Fox Here are six ways the U.S. isn't ready for the wars of the future. — James Stavridis Pension funds have bigger balance sheets than the Fed and increasingly less reason to buy Treasuries. — Brian Chappatta China's bull market has real earnings potential and investor demand behind it. — Shuli Ren Kyle Bass is the latest to bet against the Hong Kong dollar peg. It appears to not be going well for him either. — Mark Gilbert ICYMI Facebook considers banning political ads. India's richest man is now wealthier than Warren Buffett. How valuable does that MBA feel now? Kickers Imagine a city without cars. (h/t Scott Kominers) Area parrot beats 21 Harvard students in a memory game. (h/t Mike Smedley) Scientists precisely edit mitochondrial DNA. Every Tom Hanks movie, ranked. Note: Please send parrots and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. | 
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