Someone’s to blame for the Beirut blast

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us //link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/21117817.45677/aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS9ib3Bpbmlvbg/582c8673566a94262a8b49bdB53192732 This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a retirement plan of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Hezbollah can't escape [blame for the Beirut explosion](. - The government should [stay out of ESG](, but [get into IRAs](. - Everybody should [get flu shots this year](. - Trump’s [TikTok strategy has been all wrong](. A ship in flames at the port of Beirut. Photographer: AFP via Getty Images Beirut’s Tragedy Is Not Entirely an Accident Accidents will happen, but many catastrophes get helpful boosts from people. Covid-19 is the most obvious example. Yesterday’s devastating explosion in Beirut is another. Yes, at first blush it [appears]( some explosive stuff just caught fire and exploded, as it sometimes does. It was apparently not, as President Donald Trump too quickly [suggested](, a deliberate attack. But still, you have to ask why 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate — more than 1,100 times what was used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing — was just sitting around waiting for someone to set it off. It’s [abysmal risk management, which happens to be a specialty of Hezbollah](, notes Hussein Ibish. The Iran-backed group dominates Lebanese politics at a time when the government has bungled both the pandemic and the economy. The Lebanese people will most likely blame the group for this debacle too, and not altogether unfairly. Hezbollah’s toxic influence, and a societal crust of grasping elites, [will also give foreign aid donors pause](, warns Bobby Ghosh. The country needs a lot of cash to rebuild, and quickly. It’s too easy for the money to end up in bad places. Somebody will need to oversee it, lest more catastrophes happen. Bonus Middle East Reading: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin [Netanyahu, his popularity failing, is fighting]( a destructive battle to keep his job. — Zev Chafets Fight for Your Right to Retire When Americans bicker about personal freedoms, it’s usually hot-button political stuff such as abortion, guns and, lately, for some reason, wearing masks in a pandemic. But your retirement savings are increasingly part of the Freedom Wars too. And these lines can be much blurrier than “have gun/not have gun.” For example, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, conservative son of the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, recently proposed rules limiting how much 401(k) managers can consider environmental, social and governance, or ESG, factors when investing. This certainly feels like [a big old government intrusion into people’s financial lives](, writes John Authers, the kind of thing you would have expected Scalia père to frown upon. It seems driven more by a culture-war imperative to “own the libs” than by actual fiduciary considerations; ESG investments, after all, tend to outperform the market. But then there’s the issue of how woefully few Americans actually have 401(k)s or any sort of retirement plan. This puts an increasing strain on a Social Security system that simply wasn’t built for it, notes Jared Dillian. We could expand that net, but Jared suggests it might be better to do what many states have done and [auto-enroll people in government-run retirement plans]( instead. People could opt out, but maybe enough would stick with it to lessen the burden on their personal finances and on the system. How to School and Fly More Safely Who knows where we’ll all be when flu season really gets going this fall, but many Americans will probably be back at work and sending their kids to those steaming disease kitchens we call schools. Maybe they won’t catch and spread the novel coronavirus there, but experience tells us they will catch and spread the flu. And the seasonal flu is no joke! It kills tens of thousands of Americans a year and fills up hospitals all on its own. Christopher Worsham and Anupam Jena suggest [schools shouldn’t reopen until the kids and staff all get flu shots](. In fact, everybody really should get a flu shot, even if you’re planning to hunker down until next spring. We don’t want to further stress the health-care system in the months when Covid-19 could be having a seasonal revival. Even less appealing to many of us than sending kids to school right now is the idea of being locked in an airplane with strangers for hours on end. But [studies suggest it’s not as risky as it might seem](, thanks to vigorous air flow, writes Faye Flam, especially if you fly with a carrier that keeps the middle seat open. The riskiest part of flying, in fact, may be the long waits and lines in the terminal. Bonus Covid-Flying Reading: Despite warnings, European vacation [travel is not completely kaput]( this summer. — Andrea Felsted Trump’s TikTok Debacle We’re still waiting to see what comes of Microsoft’s talks to buy the U.S. operations of TikTok. But it’s a good moment to stop and consider just how [troubling and destructive the whole process has been](, writes Bloomberg’s editorial board. Trump may have legitimate concerns about the Chinese-owned social media app. But he has handled it all wrong. Banning foreign companies is the sort of thing we used to criticize China for doing. It’s bad for business generally. And then demanding a cut of the sales price, as Trump has done, is just bitter icing on this toxic cake. There are better ways. Further Tech Vs. Government Reading: Europe has the will to cause American tech giants trouble, but lacks the means; [America has the means but lacks the will](. — Alex Webb Telltale Charts The Fed probably wants the yield curve to be steeper, but doesn’t want to back away from buying long-dated bonds. So the [Treasury is just issuing more of them](, writes Brian Chappatta. Further Reading Democrats and Republicans mainly disagree about the [amount, not the type, of stimulus spending](. They should be able to get a deal done. — Jonathan Bernstein Even if the future isn’t all-WFH all the time, [housing demand will rise in low-density vacation spots](, taking some of the pricing pressure off cities. — Conor Sen Disney’s [straight-to-streaming “Mulan” release]( exemplifies its new identity. — Tara Lachapelle ICYMI Facebook [launched its TikTok copycat](. The alleged Twitter hacker’s [bail hearing was interrupted by porn](. The pandemic workday is [48 minutes longer and has more meetings](. Kickers We’re bored, so networks should [release their many unaired TV pilots](, including the failed one for “Game of Thrones.” The Internet got much faster in the past 23 years; [websites did not](. Once more, with feeling: Meet Magnasanti, the [largest and most terrifying Sim City](. (We had the wrong link yesterday) Bonus old-game reading: What happens when you play [the same game of Civ II for a decade](. Note: Please send caravans and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com](  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