At least Americans don’t have so much debt this time

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us //link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/21265948.37674/aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS9ib3Bpbmlvbg/582c8673566a94262a8b49bdB808c8060 This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a household balance sheet of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Your balance sheet is [the economy’s secret weapon](. - The risk of [military conflict over Taiwan]( is rising. - Boris [Johnson is running out of time]( for trade deals. - Obama [wasn’t alarmist enough about Trump](. You’re Worth More Than You Know Longtime readers of this newsletter — and our sincerest apologies to all seven of you — know it mostly focuses on what’s wrong with the world. To be fair, there is a lot of material: plague, recession, locusts, [cyborg locusts](. But today let’s talk about one way things aren’t nearly as awful as they could be. Yes, the recession we’re experiencing right now has been the deepest since at least the Great Depression, fiscal stimulus is drying up quickly, and the pandemic that caused the recession is still raging. All awful. But there is a silver lining, notes Conor Sen: The weirdly soaring stock market and resilient [home prices]( have kept [household balance sheets mostly afloat](; they will probably bounce back to new records after a dip earlier this year: The recovery from the Great Recession was hurt by a lot of things, but one of the biggest was the need for households to work down huge debt loads built up before the housing crash. We don’t have to go through that this time, Conor notes. That will make the recovery stronger and give us more energy to fight off the cyborg locusts. Cold Wars Can Turn Hot Anyway, back to the bad news. Along with the horrors listed above, America is also in a new Cold War with China. It’s easy to hope this “war” will stay limited to feuds over dance-video apps and pork imports and won’t involve any actual, you know, pew-pew, bang-bang warring. But Hal Brands has bad news on that front: China seems to be [getting ready to seize Taiwan by threat of force](, posing a nightmarish dilemma for the U.S.: Do you let Taiwan fall, knocking out a thriving democracy and a keystone of America’s defenses in the western Pacific, leaving Japan and the Philippines vulnerable and trashing American credibility? Or do you fight a ghastly, potentially unwinnable war to protect it? Both options are pretty terrible. Further Geopolitical Dilemma Reading: - Here’s [how the West can help Belarus]( without triggering a Russian invasion. — Kori Schake - Why [Arab states aren’t helping President Donald Trump]( in his UN fight against Iran. — Bobby Ghosh Brexit Is Still Happening In some parallel universe where that coronavirus-infected bat never made it to the wet market, the U.K.’s biggest problem right now is probably Brexit. You remember that, right, from the Olden Times? Britain is leaving the European Union so it can become a free-trading free agent, no longer toiling under the EU’s rules. In our terrible, coronavirus-and-cyborg-locus-having universe, Britain is still leaving the EU, but it’s also dealing with the pandemic, and not particularly well. As Bloomberg’s editorial board writes, Boris Johnson’s government has been trying to hammer out some of those shiny new trade deals the newly divorced U.K. was supposed to enjoy. But now the [deadline for leaving the EU is approaching]( with no deals in sight, and suddenly the best it can hope for is just avoiding disaster at year’s end. Obama’s One-Alarm Warning At the weird, virtual Democratic National Convention last night, former President Barack Obama unloaded on his successor, calling Trump not only a failure as a president but also a threat to American democracy. Many noted the fire in his words, but Francis Wilkinson writes the speech wouldn’t even crack six figures on the [Scoville hot sauce scale](. Obama had to go light, Frank writes, to avoid demoralizing the youths Democrats need to vote en masse in November. The ugly truth is that [Trump has been hammering away at democracy since before his 2016 election]( and has already done so much damage it may not be reparable by one vote. The best hope for Trump’s opponent, Joe Biden, who wraps up the DNC with a speech tonight, may be that Trump just keeps stepping on rakes and hurting his own re-election chances. Today’s example was the almost comical [arrest]( of Trump’s former campaign CEO Steve Bannon, on a [megayacht](, by the [Postal Service]( (!!!) on fraud charges tied to a scheme to build Trump’s border wall. Yesterday’s example was Trump’s bizarre [attack]( on Goodyear, an Ohio-based company with foreign competitors. This is not only self-defeating, writes Jonathan Bernstein, it also exemplifies how [people can’t take anything Trump says seriously](, undermining his power as a president and candidate. Telltale Charts Clothing stores have [suffered more than even restaurants]( in this pandemic. Sarah Halzack explores how some of them are trying to cope. Most of the stock market’s biggest [pandemic winners have the cloud]( in common, writes Matthew Winkler. Further Reading Nudging Americans to wear masks obviously isn’t working. It’s [time for stronger action: mandates](. — Cass Sunstein One little line in otherwise dull [Fed minutes spooked markets](, exposing their dependence on central bankers. — John Authers Highly leveraged [college textbook makers are really not enjoying]( what the pandemic is doing to colleges. — Brian Chappatta We [need an SEC of health care](, to publicize prices and make treatment more fair. — Regina Herzlinger ICYMI Kim Jong Un [hinted at a crisis in North Korea](. Russia’s [opposition leader was poisoned](. Angela Merkel warned against [new coronavirus lockdowns]( in Europe. Kickers St. Elmo’s fire could [protect planes from lightning](. (h/t Scott Kominers) We’ve mostly [forgotten about the Kush civilization](, which flourished in Sudan 5,000 years ago. The West’s [decline began in the ’90s](. An AI [co-authored a sci-fi story](. Note: Please send sci-fi stories and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Twitter]( and [Facebook](.  Stay on your game | Get unparalleled access to two world-class news desks, covering developments across finance, economics, technology and sports. [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com today]( and get complimentary access to The Athletic. 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