GameStop has us in a glass case of emotion

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a subreddit of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - [Rage drives the GameStop]( saga, and it [could end badly](. - The [CFPB survived the past four years](. - [China shouldn’t stonewall the WHO](’s Covid investigators. - The [private jet business is thriving](. Have Fun Storming the Capitalism The first month of 2021 began with angry LARPers storming the Capitol and ends with angry redditors storming capitalism. The first was a terrifying event tempered by moments of hilarity. The second is a hilarious event tempered by moments of terror. Let’s hope neither ends up defining the rest of the year. As Matt Levine has written, inflating sad-sack stocks such as GameStop, AMC and [Blockbuster]( by gazillions of percentage points is all [fun and games]( to many Reddit traders. But there’s an element of anger here, too, John Authers writes, [a free-floating rage toward (waves hand) Wall Street]( after decades of rising inequality and bailouts for the rich. Ironically, short-selling hedge funds are often the good guys of capitalism, ferreting out fraud and poor governance. But they are hedge funds nonetheless, and they’re easy to hurt — it’s as simple as buying stock — so they bear the brunt. Elon Musk may have been goofing when he [tweeted]( “GameStonk!!” and drove GameStop up another gazillion percentage points, but he was also probably aware he was hurting shorts, a group he famously does not like. In the end, these [hedge funds]( will probably be fine, and Elon Musk will lose nothing when this rickety scaffolding collapses. The likeliest victims in that instance will be the redditors who thought it was fun to vote for the [Leopards]( Eating People’s Faces Party until the leopards started eating their own faces. Online brokers today started limiting the kinds of bets people could make on GameStop and the like, mainly because these trades were [breaking]( their platforms. But they may have inadvertently saved traders from themselves, and Arthur Levitt Jr. suggests [the SEC should get involved]( for similar reasons.  Another potential victim here is GameStop itself. That sounds weird to say about a company whose market cap has soared to $22 billion from $1 billion almost overnight. But as Matt Levine writes, this is still [a real company that has to do real-company things]( to justify its now-hyperinflated stock price.  And though some kind of LTCM-style meltdown arising from this seems unlikely, there is a non-zero chance all this [monkeying with the gears of markets contributes to financial instability](, warns Mohamed El-Erian. That may be why new Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s first day on the job [involved]( “monitoring the situation,” hilariously. GameStop may be soaring out of rage or boredom today, but its ludicrous gains could inspire an older market emotion, greed, encouraging wilder risk-taking, especially with the Federal Reserve content to keep [spraying cash]( all over the place. A GameStop here, a Blockbuster there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money. Further GameStonk Reading: [European hedge funds see the storm coming]( for them, too. — Mark Gilbert Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Now Free to Protect Consumers All this wild market action is a reminder that consumers need protection when they use financial products, whether those be Robinhood accounts or payday loans, or payday loans used to buy GameStop stock on Robinhood. President Joe Biden’s predecessor apparently didn’t see things this way and starved the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of resources and power. But [against all odds and Mick Mulvaney, the CFPB survived](, thanks to the dedicated public servants who stuck around, writes Joe Nocera. And now Biden will give it permission to thrive again. Further Regulatory Reading: The SEC’s [ESG disclosure requirements need updating](. Here’s how to do it without raising Republican objections. — Timothy Massad Cold Wars Lead to Bad Decisions The Covid pandemic is a year old, and not only are we still struggling to beat it, we’re not even sure how it started. A team of World Health Organization researchers is in China trying to answer that question, but the government has been reluctant to help. [Such caginess will only make the rest of the world more suspicious of it](, writes Bloomberg’s editorial board. It would be better for China’s reputation and its own public health to get to the bottom of what happened. This comes in the context of what appears to be a growing cold war between China and the U.S., which is prone to similarly self-defeating behavior. For example, [chasing Chinese scientists out of the country]( with legal harassment won’t win any cold wars, writes Virginia Postrel. It’s the opposite of how America gained scientific prowess in the 20th century. Further Cold War Reading: There are signs [China hasn’t fully shut down Hong Kong]( to the outside world just yet. — Matthew Brooker Telltale Charts [Private jet makers continue to hold up]( much better in the pandemic than Boeing, writes Brooke Sutherland. [AT&T’s identity crisis continues](, as it struggles to decide whether it’s a content studio or a wireless company, writes Tara Lachapelle. Both have left the company deep in debt. Further Reading Just [how clueless was Leon Black, really](, about what Jeffrey Epstein was up to? — Tim O’Brien Tight vaccine [supplies are leading to vaccine nationalism](, which will only drag the pandemic out longer. — Lionel Laurent Biden [shouldn’t have lost a Texas immigration suit](, a sign conservative judges could limit his actions. — Noah Feldman [Enacting a bunch of laws may not help Democrats]( in 2022, and it may even hurt them. — Jonathan Bernstein To succeed in foreign affairs, [Biden can’t simply turn back the clock to the Obama years](. — Hal Brands As the Arab Spring turns 10, it [still exposes the fragility of authoritarian regimes](. — Timothy Kaldas ICYMI The government warned of a [heightened risk of domestic terror attacks](. Pfizer and BioNTech will [boost vaccine production with Sanofi](. How I [helped my dad die with dignity](. Kickers Aliens could be [sucking energy from black holes](. (h/t Mike Smedley) Ikea bought [11,000 acres of U.S. forest]( to protect it. Social media is [bad for teens’ mental health](. Why [billionaires love Iain M. Banks’s “Culture](” series. Note: Please send energy and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Twitter]( and [Facebook](.  Like Bloomberg Opinion Today? [Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more](. You’ll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. 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