You may not be freaked out enough by the SolarWinds hack

Follow Us Get the newsletter This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a backdoor hack of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. Today's Agenda Biden must respond aggressively to the SolarWinds hack. The CDC must start reporting Covid data again. Some rates may soon be too low for the Fed. China is slacking off on its carbon-emissions goals. So Your Entire Government Has Been Hacked It says a lot about 2020 that "Russia probably hacked the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile" isn't the biggest news of the year, but here we are. Still, today's fourth-biggest story — after the coronavirus, the election and government officials straight-up admitting UFOs are real — could loom much larger in the tomorrows to come. Hackers likely in Russia's employ accessed the networks of the National Nuclear Safety Administration and thousands of other government agencies and companies back in March, using a backdoor built into SolarWinds cybersecurity software. They've been lurking there ever since, gathering data and learning vulnerabilities. The havoc this could wreak is almost unimaginable. As Tim O'Brien wrote earlier this week, the episode exposes how nobody is safe from state-sponsored hacking.  President Donald Trump, in keeping with his usual reluctance to speak too harshly about Russia, so far seems unconcerned. His successor, President-elect Joe Biden, may be left cleaning up the mess five weeks from now. This should involve an aggressive, multinational cybersecurity effort and a willingness to punish the bad actors involved, writes Hal Brands. It may also need to include some cyber-retaliation. Rickrolling the Kremlin may not be a proportional response, but it could send a message.  Release the Kraken (of Covid Data) Still, just a bit higher on Biden's to-do list is the aforementioned coronavirus pandemic. Mike Pence getting a vaccine on live TV won't hurt, but certainly won't end it. Among other things, Biden will have to oversee the national rollout of vaccines and keep everybody behaving responsibly long enough for the vaccines to do any good. One thing his Centers for Disease Control must do right away is resume the job of reporting Covid hospitalization data, writes Bloomberg's editorial board. Trump yanked this away from the CDC and gave it to the Department of Health and Human Services for mysterious (i.e. political) reasons. That has made tracking and fighting the disease much harder. Further Biden To-Do List Reading: The new administration can foster a constructive new Arab Spring. — Bloomberg's editorial board  Putting a Republican in charge of the Commerce Department won't accomplish much. — Jonathan Bernstein The Fed's Next Move Might Be … Raising Rates? Tomorrow will mark the second anniversary of the last time the Federal Reserve raised interest rates. The central bank's main worry back then was constantly getting yelled at by Trump for finishing out a three-year tightening campaign that started with Janet Yellen. Now the Fed's target policy rate is at zero, and the only question is how many years it will stay that way. And yet short-term Treasury yields may soon force the central bank to push at least those rates higher, writes Brian Chappatta. They keep drifting closer to negative territory, and the Fed has vowed not to follow Europe into the Upside Down, which would create all kinds of problems for money-market funds. People would really yell at the Fed over that one. Bonus Business-as-Not-Quite-Usual Reading: The factory sector's recovery should carry over into 2021. — Brooke Sutherland A huge surge in e-commerce will create a new headache for retailers: too many returns. — Sarah Halzack Telltale Charts In the scramble to support its economy, China is getting less ambitious about cutting emissions, which is disastrous news for the planet, writes David Fickling. Therese Raphael has everything you need to know about the fishing fight that could upend a Brexit deal.  Further Reading You may think Trump's impeachment made no difference. But it will forever taint him, historical shorthand for his corruption. — Noah Feldman  The Cyberpunk 2077 debacle could make life harder for gamers by discouraging studios from selling stand-alone games. — Alex Webb  Trump's attempt to blacklist Chinese tech firms will only make local suppliers stronger in the long run. — Dan Wang  Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's new podcast deal with Spotify is a bigger risk for them than for Spotify. — Alex Webb  The Negro leagues really were as good as the major leagues, but convincing fans won't be easy. — Stephen Carter  Here are all the reasons you really should take all the time off you're allowed. — Sarah Green Carmichael  ICYMI The Pentagon halted briefings for Biden's transition team. CFOs have bad news for the world's landlords. Manhattan's landlords already got the message. Kickers A new kind of atomic clock could help us detect dark matter. (h/t Ellen Kominers)  Scientists discover a tiny dinosaur with a weird feature. (h/t Uffe Galsgaard)  Scientists achieve sustained quantum teleportation. Chess is a way to strengthen concentration. How plague trauma affected Shakespeare's plots. Note: Please send cataracts and hurricanoes and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.   Like Bloomberg Opinion Today? Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. 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. Unsubscribe | Bloomberg.com | Contact Us Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022