| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a business roundtable of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. Today's AgendaDefenders of Democracy Inc.A trope of dystopian and science fiction is corporations replacing governments to fight wars, provide essential services and seek out deadly alien life forms. It never seems like a great idea. Fortunately, we're not quite there yet, though corporate leaders these days do keep taking on roles once reserved for politicians. The latest of these, apparently, is preserving democracy. President-elect Joe Biden convincingly won election nearly three weeks ago, but President Donald Trump keeps threatening to overturn the results, and only a handful of top Republicans are crossing him. It's an assault on the foundations of the republic, further splitting an already bitterly divided country and putting national security and pandemic response at risk, warns Bloomberg LP founder Michael Bloomberg. All this dangerous nonsense could be shut down immediately if top Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, finally admitted the obvious and pushed Trump and his followers to do the same. "If McConnell and McCarthy and other elected Republicans don't face up to it, they will do lasting damage to the fabric of our democracy — and go down in history as enabling a demagogue who would do anything to hold onto power, the Constitution be damned." Read the whole thing. While we wait for GOP leaders to locate their spines, CEOs, including vocal Trump supporters such as Stephen Schwarzman, are congratulating Biden and calling on Trump to take the L so the country can move on already, writes Joe Nocera. They're doing this not just to cozy up to Biden, but also to make sure the federal government doesn't forget to fight the pandemic crushing the economy. They probably also want to preserve the democratic framework within which they've thrived for generations. History suggests civil wars tend to be bad for business. Whether they'll change Trump's mind is anybody's guess. The current president of the United States is very much like the bratty kid in that "Twilight Zone" episode who can alter things with his mind, causing everyone around him to cower in terror, writes Tim O'Brien. But Trump's reality-distortion powers are overstated. Though some local Republicans have eagerly abetted his doomed autogolpe, many others have braved Trump's rabid supporters to defend the legitimacy of the vote. And that's more powerful than any fiction. Further Trump-Damage Reading: Congress should ensure Trump's purge of Pentagon leadership doesn't weaken national security. — Bloomberg's editorial board Astra's Fuzzy Vaccine MathAt least good news keeps rolling in from the Covid vaccine front, with AstraZeneca and Oxford today releasing data suggesting their candidate is effective enough to win FDA approval. But the numbers are weird. One combo of shots was 90% effective at preventing disease, while another was 62% effective, for an overall average of 70%. That's better than the 50% the FDA wants, but less than the 90%+ claimed by Moderna and Pfizer candidates. Max Nisen and Sam Fazeli have questions about these numbers. They agree even a less effective vaccine can help fight the pandemic, but they worry that skepticism about its efficacy will make people less likely to take it, which would kind of defeat the purpose. Further Pandemic Reading: Biden Keeps Building His Normcore PresidencyMeanwhile, Biden keeps ignoring Trump's antics and preparing to run the government starting Jan. 20. He announced several more picks for top administration jobs, and he reportedly plans to make Janet Yellen his Treasury secretary. Presumably he's also kicking around ideas for boosting the economy; his advisers are reportedly pushing Democrats in Congress to strike a lame-duck stimulus compromise with Republicans. One idea out there is for him to cancel a bunch of federal student debt via executive fiat. Bloomberg's editorial board calls this a bad idea, saying it would be politically costly without helping the economy. A better suggestion, and one that might even pass a divided Congress, would be to end "surprise" medical bills, writes Arielle Kane. This would not only save people from finance-wrecking debts in a pandemic/recession but would also lower overall health costs. Telltale ChartsThe UAE flirting with leaving OPEC shows just how high tensions have grown as the group meets to discuss extending output cuts, writes Julian Lee. They really need to keep a lid on production, but good luck herding this group of cats.  It will be tricky for Beyond Meat to sell fake pork in China, a country that already has a long tradition of eating soy products, writes David Fickling.  Further ReadingThere are signs inflation may be about to accelerate in a big way. — Richard Cookson The GOP's Electoral College edge is a product of chance, not design, and may fade in 2024. — Jonathan Bernstein Did Trumponomics really beat Obamanomics? — Ramesh Ponnuru and Karl Smith debate We should be glad the global food supply chain didn't break down. In fact, it's becoming more durable. — Peter Orszag and Brook Cunningham Remote working is making life harder for asset managers. — Mark Gilbert The Fed buying ETFs has forever changed market expectations about what it will do in the next crisis. — Brian Chappatta Here's what "The Crown" gets right about the royals. — Max Hastings ICYMIMichigan certified Biden's win. Iceland wants to restart tourism for the wealthy. Steve Cohen is suddenly a Twitter star. KickersOxford's 2020 Word of the Year is [gestures at everything]. (h/t Ellen Kominers) New York has a new celebrity bird: the Central Park owl. (h/t Alistair Lowe) What it's like inside the secret "crew rest" area on an airplane. Ian Fleming explains how to write a thriller. Note: Please send inexpensive Picassos and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. |
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