| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, an overpriced house of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. Today's AgendaHow I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Twilight ZoneTwilight is generally not considered a great place to be. Nobody wants to be in the twilight of their years. Or stuck in the Twilight Zone. Then again, sometimes it's better than the alternatives. In the Charlie Jane Anders novel "The City in the Middle of the Night," humans live in the twilight zone of a tidally locked planet because they'll freeze on one side or roast on the other. That brings us to the U.S. economy. Markets assume it will very soon be in the light of a blazing sun, writes John Authers, citing prices for everything from commodities to Japanese bonds. But even in Asian nations that have handled the Covid pandemic pretty well, economies aren't snapping back to full health automatically, writes Dan Moss. He warned last year about countries being stuck in a half-open/half-closed netherworld — a twilight zone, if you will. Nobody can return to normal until everybody has been liberated from this limbo. You can see this caution even in the behavior of miners, who aren't taking soaring metals prices as a cue to frantically dig for more of the stuff, writes Clara Ferreira Marques. Still, even in their own twilit, half-restricted state, Americans have no trouble spending stimulus checks, Sarah Halzack writes, citing today's blockbuster January retail sales report. And much more stimulus money is on the way. Also, new Fed data show Americans milked their overpriced houses for $182 billion in free money last year, writes Brian Chappatta, part of a massive housing boom driven by record-low mortgage rates. The bad news is that much of that cash went to people who needed it the least. But still, it was another booster for the economy. President Joe Biden scared some folks last night when he suggested it might take until Christmas to get life back to normal. But considering how much relief is on the way, enough to make some people worry the economy will overheat, a little more time in the twilight zone might not be so bad. Further Stimulus Reading: State and local governments need federal money to hire people. — Michael R. Strain Are We There Yet?The big problem with predicting when we'll return to normal is that the coronavirus keeps surprising us in unpleasant ways. We're ramping up vaccinations, a process that could be even ramp-ier if we got pharmacies more involved, write Scott Duke Kominers and Alex Tabarrok. Meanwhile, though, tricky new variants are spreading fast, raising the potential for yet another spike in the months ahead. It all comes down to how much people stick to masking and distancing, writes Justin Fox. Hopefully enough of us will share Justin's attitude that it would be awfully tragic to catch Covid just when a vaccine is so close at hand.  Further Pandemic Reading: Biden should set clearer, more ambitious goals for opening schools. — Bloomberg's editorial board Texas' Self-Inflicted Crisis IntensifiesAs of this writing, millions of people were still without electricity in Texas and other states in the grip of a polar vortex and an overwhelmed power system. Texas Republicans, including the governor, blame the whole debacle on frozen wind turbines, even though the state runs mostly on natural gas, the distribution of which also froze up. Swallowing the windmill theory also requires one to ignore the fact that wind turbines spin with no trouble in places such as Norway and Sweden, where temperatures have been known to dip below freezing, Julian Lee observes. Those nations cope by winterizing their wind power, a step Texas didn't bother to take, Tim O'Brien notes. Nor did Texas winterize its natural-gas infrastructure or anything else, pretending instead that climate change isn't making freak weather events like this happen more regularly. Nor did it connect its grid to the rest of the country, to avoid burdensome federal oversight. Minimal oversight and rugged individualism are fine Texas traditions, but we keep learning that sometimes you need competent, forward-thinking government to keep people from dying. Telltale ChartsWe were promised flying cars, and now we're getting them, thanks to SPACs, writes Chris Bryant. Whether we'll actually want them is the next question.  Warren Buffett continues to find little worth spending Berkshire Hathaway's massive cash hoard on, writes Tara Lachapelle.  Further ReadingAn interview with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio about Covid, his legacy and the race to replace him. — Howard Wolfson Local journalism will lose if Alden Global buys Tribune Publishing. — Brooke Sutherland Bitcoin FOMO is understandable, but banks should be careful about rushing in. — Lionel Laurent Here are the four questions lawmakers need answered at their GameStop hearing tomorrow. — Mohamed El-Erian Electing judges is a terrible idea. We need independent judges to apply the rule of law diligently. — Noah Feldman Here's a color-coded guide to understanding German politics. — Andreas Kluth ICYMIGameStop saga star "Roaring Kitty" was accused of securities fraud. The Trump Plaza casino in Atlantic City was demolished. 93-year-old Beverly Schottenstein sued JPMorgan and her grandsons, who were also her financial advisers. KickersScientists find life under a half-mile of ice. Researchers levitate a tray using only light. IKEA will discontinue its catalog after 70 years. Meet Machhapuchhare, the Himalayan peak off-limits to climbers. Note: Please send catalogs and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. | 
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