5 things to start your day

[View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Musk tweets a poll, energy woes continue, and China’s big meeting. Selling? Tesla Inc. shares dropped as much as 7.2% in pre-market trading after, and I can’t believe I am writing this, the [results of the Twitter poll]( conducted by Elon Musk. He promised to abide by the results of the posting on the social network in which he asked people [whether he should sell 10% of his stake in Tesla](, amounting to about $21 billion based on Friday’s closing price. In 2018 Musk, as part of a settlement with regulators, agreed to [get approval from a Tesla attorney]( before communicating material information to investors. Perhaps unrelatedly, Bitcoin surged more than 5% to [top $66,000]( this morning. Energy supply Oil is [ticking higher again this morning](, with a barrel of West Texas Intermediate for December delivery trading above $82 a barrel at 5:50 a.m. Eastern Time. The Biden administration is considering whether to take action on high gasoline prices, including the possibility of releasing supply from the U.S. [Strategic Petroleum Reserve](. United Arab Emirates Energy Minister Suhail Al-Mazrouei defended the OPEC+ position saying crude could be “double or triple”[today’s prices]( without the group’s actions. Meanwhile in Europe, the [price of natural gas surged again]( on signs the promised boost in supplies from Russia will not materialize. China China’s ruling Communist Party is began a four-day meeting today, at which President Xi Jinping is expected to make his pitch to [extend his rule indefinitely](. The meeting, a major event ahead of next year’s [Party Congress](, is being closely watched as Xi’s plans for the country’s [economy]( and [geopolitical power]( become more ambitious. Of more immediate concern for markets is the continuing fallout from China Evergrande Group debt woes [spreads](, with even a slump in bonds of [state-owned firms](. Markets quiet Tesla-action aside, it has been a subdued start to the week for global equity investors. Overnight the MSCI Asia Pacific Index was unchanged while Japan’s Topix index closed 0.3% lower. In Europe the Stoxx 600 Index was down less than 0.1% at 5:50 a.m. with energy companies the best performers. S&P 500 futures pointed to [little change at the open](, the 10-year Treasury yield was at 1.481% and gold ticked lower. Coming up… Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will make the opening remarks at a diversity conference, with his comments likely to be watched for any reference to minority employment. Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida, Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker, Fed Governor Michelle Bowman and Chicago Fed President Charles Evans also speak today at various events. The U.S. is selling $56 billion of 3-year notes at 1:00 p.m. From today the U.S. is [open to vaccinated travelers](. PayPal Holdings Inc., Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc., US Foods Holding Corp. and retail investor favorite AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. are among the companies reporting earnings. What we've been reading Here's what caught our eye over the weekend. - Odd Lots: Stinson Dean on the [lumber crash]( that followed the boom. - We just learned another lesson about [what QE actually does](. - The chairman who [went to war with his family]( to get the company back. - Hedge funds went [all-in]( on short bonds at just the wrong time. - China uses [fake U.S. carrier]( for missile target practice. - One of the world’s poorest countries [found a better way]( to do stimulus. - A fungus that uses chemicals to trick male flies into [mating with infected dead females](. And finally, here’s what Joe’s interested in this morning Whenever an economic downturn hits, people call for a big dose of infrastructure spending. The intuitions behind this make a lot of sense. Recessions damage private sector balance sheets. And recessions typically result in lots of unemployed workers, idle factories, and plentiful unused commodities. So the theory is that the infrastructure spending kills two birds with one stone. The actual spending helps ply businesses and households with badly needed income. Meanwhile, the idle resources get put to work. On Friday, [The House]( passed a historic $550 billion infrastructure bill that will soon be signed into law. But interestingly, neither of the above conditions seem to be in place right now. Household balance sheets (at least in the aggregate) are in a strong position, deleveraged and flush with cash. And there doesn't exactly seem to be a glut of idle labor or factory capacity or commodities waiting to be put to work. So does this mean it's a bad time to do a big infrastructure bill? No. And part of the reason is that the standard infrastructure stimulus bill logic really isn't as great as it sounds. One thing we learned in this cycle is that when it comes to repairing the private sector, probably the best thing we can do is just give people cash. It's quick and it works. Infrastructure gets out the door slowly. Hence all the obsession with "shovel ready" projects. Most of what's worth building can't just be turned on like a light switch. Compare the efficacy of this recovery with Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus after the financial crisis, and you get the idea. Ok, but sometimes you do actually need to do a big investment into infrastructure, right? Of course. But the answer is you should invest in infrastructure when the infrastructure itself needs investment. And you can make a great argument that that's right now. We're seeing it in the real economy -- strains on all parts of our infrastructure (particularly the ports) that are slowing down the recovery, leading to shortages, delays, and higher prices on many goods. Hopefully this is what we solve. Maybe not for this cycle, but for future ones. This gets to a final, key point, which is that for this bill to be effective the money needs to be well spent. There's a certain type of critic who sees every program through the lens of avoiding waste, fraud, and abuse. They look at a program like the PPP (which aimed to keep small businesses alive last year) and their big concern is that maybe a chain steakhouse got the money and didn't actually need it. Yet the overriding imperative a year ago was to get the cash out the door and fast. The PPP did this and it wasn't a big deal if there was a little fraud, theft, or abuse. It was the right tradeoff. That logic doesn't apply with [this bill](. The goal isn't just to get the money out the door. The goal is to leave a legacy of improved, modernized infrastructure that facilitates faster growth and higher productivity. So it actually matters that the money is well spent and leads to physical, tangible things. We don't want all the money going to legal battles and studies and impact reports and bureaucratic morass. [The U.S. doesn't have a great track record]( of spending efficiently compared with other countries. But with a fixed amount of new dollars having been allocated by Congress, improving on this will be the big test of those who are now in charge of spending the money. Follow Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal on Twitter [@TheStalwart]( Like Bloomberg's Five Things? [Subscribe for unlimited access]( to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. 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