We can’t let Trump’s post office mess with voting

Follow Us This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a mail-in ballot of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. Today's Agenda Congress must make sure people can vote by mail. There is no skilled-worker shortage in the U.S. No, the stock market doesn't mirror the economy. Italy and Sweden are your current pandemic champions. A perfectly legit way to vote. Photographer: George Frey/Getty Images North America Protect the Vote The 2020 election may be lost in the mail. With a pandemic still running wild through the U.S., voting the way many Americans traditionally vote — standing in interminable lines, as the Founding Fathers envisioned — will probably be deadly this November, warns Faye Flam. Social distancing and masks won't make much difference if you're in a poorly ventilated gym or VFW hut with germy people for hours on end. So it's imperative that people can vote either by quickly dropping off ballots in centralized locations (as Faye suggests) or by mailing them. But there are a few reasons to worry about how well mail-in voting will go this November, warns Tim O'Brien. For one thing, it requires a functioning U.S. Postal Service. Unfortunately, the current postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, has hobbled its already shaky operations in the name of "efficiency." DeJoy has also donated millions to Republicans, including President Donald Trump, who insists mail-in voting can't be trusted (unless it's in Florida?). You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce where this could go. Congress has written one (1) sternly worded letter to DeJoy so far about his handling of the post office. It will have to do much, much more than that, lest millions of ballots arrive too late to make a difference. Trump's casting doubt on the system could already be influencing people to risk their lives to vote, or to give up voting altogether. Some of them may even be Trump voters. Bonus Election Reading: Republicans would certainly try to jam a Supreme Court justice onto the bench even after losing the election. How successful they'd be is another question. — Jonathan Bernstein Big Tech's Big Myth For decades now, it feels like, people have been saying the American workforce has all the wrong skills for the modern economy, forcing tech companies to import STEM-savvy workers through the H-1B visa system. Rachel Rosenthal argues this skills gap is a myth, perpetrated by tech employers to ensure a steady stream of foreign workers willing to endure miserable treatment. Smart American kids realize that, if they're going to suffer anyway, they might as well make real money in the process, so they go into finance. Trump's temporary freeze on the H-1B visa system isn't nearly the reform it needs. Further Big Tech Reading: Antitrust laws haven't caught up to the new kind of competitive threat Big Tech poses. — Tara Lachapelle All Your Stock Market Suspicions Confirmed A weird feature of bull markets in recent decades has been how angry they make some people. And their complaints are often valid: Yes, the stock market is detached from economic reality, and yes, it's all the Fed's doing. The most important stock-market index, the S&P 500, doesn't come close to reflecting conditions on the ground in the economy, writes Barry Ritholtz. It's dominated by a handful of large stocks that have thrived during the pandemic. The industries suffering the most — retail, airlines and restaurants, to name a few — barely had any market weight to begin with. Meanwhile, studies confirm there has definitely been a Greenspan/Bernanke/Yellen/Powell Put in the stock market going back to the late 1990s, writes John Authers. Is it fair? No, but then neither is life. So in that sense you could say the market actually does reflect reality. Telltale Charts Both Italy and Sweden are managing the pandemic well right now, notes Lionel Laurent. Their approaches aren't as different as you might think. Further Reading These are dark days for America, but SpaceX has shown the country is still capable of amazing things. — Bloomberg's editorial board The China hawks were right that China is belligerent. They were wrong about how to handle it. — Tyler Cowen The pandemic is breaking down old work hierarchies, making it easier for non-elites to have influence. — Conor Sen Shuttered casinos are killing American Indian community finances. — Adam Minter Iraq's new prime minister will struggle to make anybody happy. — Bobby Ghosh ICYMI A huge explosion rocked Beirut. Stimulus talks crept forward. London traders scored $500 million when oil went negative. (Here's Matt Levine on same.) Kominers's Conundrums Hint Are you stuck on a few of our fourteen faces? If so, maybe just jump ahead and start thinking about what they could be secretly saying. (There are clues hidden in the surrounding statements.) And if you get stuck after decoding the message, remember: Even a proper noun can have many meanings. Kickers Massive prehistoric owl's primary diet was owl. (h/t Ellen Kominers) Frog eats beetle, beetle crawls through frog to escape. (h/t Alistair Lowe) Inside undersea rocks, life thrives without sunshine. (h/t Scott Kominers) Magnasanti: the largest and most terrifying Sim City. Note: Please send owls and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.   Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can't find anywhere else. Learn more.   You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Opinion Today newsletter. 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