| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a retirement account of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. Today's AgendaBetter Post-Pandemic LivingBill and Melinda Gates don't think the world will be back to normal until the end of 2022. Andreas Kluth thinks it never will. Phil down the street from me (not his real name; also not a real person, but an amalgam of the people around here who keep crowding into Home Depots and gyms and restaurants) got back to normal some time last June. Let's go with the richest person on this list and assume we're still a ways from normal, but that it's achievable. And who knows? Maybe with vaccines and good luck, Imaginary Phil will end up being closest to right and we'll see normal again this year. Covid cases are rising again. But President Joe Biden now aims to hit 200 million vaccine shots delivered by the end of his first 100 days. Maybe it's not too soon to start thinking about what this new normal will entail and how much of our old pandemic behavior might be worth preserving. First, you might be tempted to immediately blow all the money you saved by not traveling or dating or line-dancing. Nir Kaissar urges you to resist this temptation. Like, have you seen your retirement funds? Americans are on a fast track to join Amazon's CamperForce instead of retiring. The pandemic could be a chance not only to keep your nest egg topped up but to form new saving habits. You could keep splurging every now and then on fancy meal kits, which Bobby Ghosh suggests should stick around even when we can safely go back to fancy restaurants. One post-pandemic change you should make, though, is get off the dang couch and get out of the house more often. You might think this will disappoint your new best friends Netflix and Disney+, but don't worry, Tara Lachapelle writes: They are more than happy to finally get some alone time without you. You keep watching all their shows and movies, and then they have to make more, and that costs a lot of money. So go have a beer with Phil, if you're not still mad at him for wearing his mask wrong. On a broader level, the pandemic has forced capitalism to dial back on its merciless quest for efficiency and profits, writes Andy Mukherjee. We have rediscovered the value of resilience and essential workers. This is one change that should stick around, no matter how long the pandemic lasts. Bonus Pandemic Reading: AstraZeneca's vaccine is effective and safe, but its messaging has been abysmal. — Chris Hughes The New Cold War: Space Race EditionOne of the few friendly moments at last week's Fracas in Alaska between the U.S. and China was when a Chinese diplomat suggested the countries could work together in space. It may not sound like much, but it's an invitation President Joe Biden should accept, writes Adam Minter. Extra-planetary cooperation could keep tensions from getting too hot, as it did when Americans and Soviets teamed up during the first Cold War. It could also help the U.S. avoid watching from the outside as China builds its own global coalition to reach the moon and beyond. Any trip to space takes a lot of rare earths, a commodity China currently dominates. This could be a problem not only for America's space program but for electric cars, advanced weaponry, computers and more, writes Bloomberg's editorial board. Biden must start finding friendlier sources of the stuff around the world and boost recycling technology at home. Eventually China's demand will outstrip its supply, and the U.S. should be ready to help its frenemy out. Bonus Raw-Materials Reading: Steel production generates more carbon pollution than air travel. Sustainable approaches are expensive but worth the government investment. — Peter Orszag Solving One of Big Tech's Big ProblemsIt's never a great sign for an industry when its leaders keep getting dragged to Congress for public dressings-down. It didn't work out so well for Big Tobacco or Big Oil. Now it's Big Tech's time in the barrel. Jack Dorsey, Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg were once again called today to explain why their companies are such a menace to polite society and public health. Tim O'Brien suggests the real solution here is to finally acknowledge that the social-media behemoths these men represent — Twitter, Google and Facebook, respectively — can no longer be treated as neutral platforms not responsible for the garbage they relentlessly serve. That means repealing or at least reforming Section 230, which gives them this protected status. Chris Anderson and James Currier argue that would go too far. At the same time, the self-regulation the tech moguls keep trying to practice is useless. They suggest instead that Big Tech take a page from Old Media and agree to oversight by an independent ombudsman. Telltale Charts Corporate America once paid a lot more in taxes, writes Justin Fox. Turning the clock back to the 1950s is unrealistic, but current rates are unsustainable.  The Suez blockage hasn't affected oil prices yet because not much oil was passing through there anyway, and there's plenty to go around. — Julian Lee  Further ReadingBiden must let law enforcement, not ill-equipped colleges, handle campus sexual assaults. — Michael R. Bloomberg Even at today's relatively low oil prices, American shale drillers have no trouble getting credit and pumping oil. — David Fickling Adding Bitcoin to any portfolio will make it more volatile, as Tesla investors are about to discover. — Mark Gilbert Ex-Gap CEO Art Peck's foray into the world of SPACs seems as ill-timed as his fashion decisions. — Sarah Halzack Congress must stop abdicating its authority over war and repeal outdated authorizations for military force. — Ramesh Ponnuru Republicans don't really care about deficits at all, whether they're in charge or not. — Jonathan Bernstein ICYMIBiden plans to run in 2024. An elite salvage team could need weeks to unblock the Suez. A container ship crisis could cause another toilet paper shortage. KickersNow robots are making NFTs. (h/t Ellen Kominers) Ja Rule sold a Fyre Festival painting as an NFT for $122,000. Some rabbits walk on their front feet. RIP to Jessica Walter, one of history's funniest people. Notes: Please send one banana and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. | 
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