| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a holiday gift catalog of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. Today's Agenda We know the feeling. Photographer: George Marks/Hulton Archive How to Gift GoodFor those of us who are terrible at giving gifts, the holidays are a difficult time, both for us and the people who get our terrible gifts. It's even worse in a pandemic, when the old go-to strategy of wandering through stores until you get inspired or just so exhausted you buy something, anything, is a public-health hazard. Fortunately, Bloomberg Opinion has a roster full of people who are experts not only at giving takes, but also at giving gifts. Tara Lachapelle has compiled some of our best gift ideas especially well-suited for this pandemic winter, including: DIY ergonomics: Home offices can leave us feeling like we've been riding cross-country in a car trunk. Get your loved ones some lumbar pillows, footrests and other props for their bent-up bodies. Plant subscription: Are your giftees lonely but too lazy for pets? Surround them with companions that only need water and sunlight. They can manage that, right? SAD lamp: Do your friends and family feel sad? Worse yet, do they look sad on Zoom? Get them a lamp. Soon they'll be saying: I love you, [YOUR NAME HERE], and also:  Trump's Failing Coup Now Even Fail-ierIn the old days, you knew an election was over when the loser conceded. Ha ha, imagine. In the year 2020, an election is only really, truly over when YouTube finally starts pulling down misinformation about the election. YouTube did this today, more than one month after Election Day, because yesterday was the "safe harbor" deadline for states to certify their election results. They did this in great enough numbers to confirm, for the 87th time, that Joe Biden did in fact win the election. According to America's complex election rules — which were originally carved into whalebone by an elf on peyote — this deadline truly ends any legitimate chance President Donald Trump has of overturning the election, writes Cass Sunstein. Illegitimate options still abound, of course, but there probably aren't enough willing participants. Not that Republicans are exactly shoving Trump out the door. Some are still backing his cockamamie autogolpe attempt, while most are courageously finding new ways to ignore it. Republicans and Democrats alike worry they'll never be shed of Trump's influence, that he'll be pulling strings from Mar-a-Lago until at least 2024. Jonathan Bernstein points out Trump actually has had very little influence over his party for the past four years, aside from its efforts to coddle his supporters. Those can continue without him. Further There-Will-Be-a-New-President Reading: Biden defense secretary pick Lloyd Austin will have to defuse civilian-military tensions. — Hal Brands All's Fair in Love and ANWRTrump occasionally lets on he's aware he must vacate 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by Jan. 20. Sometimes he just straight-up goofs and says he lost. But mostly he shows it by trying to set as many fires as he can to make Biden's presidency a disaster. One of these is a rush to sell rights to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But ANWR and Biden have one big thing on their side, writes Liam Denning: time. Big oil projects take a lot of time, which oil majors lack these days, with demand peaking as we speak. Biden can throw up legal roadblocks and create enough uncertainty to make such a money pit even less appealing, particularly as it comes with so much of the political opprobrium oil majors have tried to avoid lately. A Hedge Fund SPACtacularHedge funds get much of the upside and almost none of the risk in the convoluted SPAC funding process, Chris Bryant writes. Retail investors are left holding the bag. This enlightening flow chart breaks it down.  Telltale ChartsPeople started going back to the office in the summer. So much for that, writes Justin Fox.  It's a good idea to put a price on water to discourage waste, but it can never be a major commodity market because it's too plentiful and expensive to ship, writes David Fickling.  Further ReadingThe EU and the U.K. are too close, and the stakes are too high, to let a deal collapse over minor issues with easy compromises. — Bloomberg's editorial board Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez bought turkeys for her constituents, just like an old ward boss. This is how Dems can reconnect with voters. — Francis Wilkinson Clearly Saudi Arabia is in no rush to normalize relations with Israel. — Bobby Ghosh Big investors are way more pessimistic about 2021 than markets. — John Authers Hybrid cars will be far more prevalent than fully electric cars for a long time. — Anjani Trivedi Google's firing of a data scientist shows Big Tech can't be trusted to police its own algorithms. — Cathy O'Neil Marijuana prohibition is untenable, but so would be letting the free market run wild with it. — Ramesh Ponnuru ICYMI, Facebook EditionFacebook wants to turn WhatsApp into a revenue source. But it may not be able to keep WhatsApp for much longer. Because the FTC and 48 states sued Facebook today, accusing it of anticompetitive practices and calling for it to divest Instagram and WhatsApp. A couple of years ago, Joe Nocera wrote that approving Facebook's WhatsApp merger was a mistake. In October he suggested a Democratic sweep of the government could bring the antitrust hammer down. Turns out that wasn't necessary. Further Big Tech Antitrust Reading: Oh, also, America faces a cookie shortage. KickersMount Everest is a little bit taller now. (h/t Ellen Kominers) Happy eight-year anniversary to the "stylish but illegal" IKEA Monkey. (h/t Scott Kominers) Human-made stuff now outweighs all life on Earth. How to manage that employee who thinks they're doing great but aren't. Note: Please send monkey coats and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. | 
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