Your next car rental could be from a meme stock

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a vacuum cleaner full of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - The memes are coming for your [rental car](. - Elon Musk and Bill Gates agree on [something](. - [Inflation]( overlords are worried. - A [fourth wave]( is coming for Russia. Me Me Me(me) Avis Budget Group is a rental-car company and meme stock that announced some pretty good earnings yesterday after the close. The stock went up by 218%. Sure, fine; that's what meme stocks do. But [no rocket-ship emojis or shiba inus]( were involved, notes Matt Levine. Just good old-fashioned decent earnings, which is uncharacteristically — gasp! — normal. Of course, one other thing Avis did was hint it might be in the market for electric cars at some point in the future. Although this was responsibly vague, it was just enough of a nod to the meme-stock crowd to [unlock the market magic enjoyed]( by electric-car maker Tesla and its new customer ([for real]() Hertz, writes Liam Denning. If Avis doesn’t have the cash for EVs on hand, now it can just sell some of its high-priced meme stock to raise it.   That kind of magic has made Elon Musk, who is in many ways [not normal](, worth three times as much as Warren Buffett, writes John Authers. That tracks. But what about their companies? This chart shows the market values of Tesla and Berkshire Hathaway over the past year: A year ago, Buffett had the bigger company. Since then, [Tesla’s market cap has added roughly a Berkshire and a half](. “What took Buffett an entire career to create, the market has bestowed on Elon Musk’s Tesla in just 12 months,” John writes. The weirdest part is that Berkshire still has the highest EBITDA of any U.S. company. It’s 20 times that of Tesla! But Tesla is still somehow worth two Berkshires. Make sense? Absolutely not, but that’s the magic of memeland for you. Bonus Meme Reading: Just weeks ago, analysts were wishing Bed Bath & Beyond execs "[good luck](." Now it's up 80% in after-hours trading. [Here’s why](. A Sky Full of Vacuums “A vacuum cleaner for the skies” sounds like a defective gadget a C-list celebrity might try to sell you on QVC. But it’s real, and it [might help us get us out of our climate quagmire](. Chris Bryant writes that everyone from Bill Gates to [Coldplay]( is into DAC, or “direct air capture.” Its main promise is that it can suck carbon dioxide out of the air. Right now this process is pricey and painstakingly tedious. But with Musk and other investors throwing cash at it, we could soon be hitting “rewind” on our emissions. Read the [whole thing](. If Dora the Explorer were on a mission to save the planet, a magical CO2 vacuum wouldn’t be the only thing in her backpack. She’d also have: - Batteries, for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. - Hydrogen, for when we need to decarbonize a bunch of industries.  Peter R. Orszag and George Bilicic write these innovations are causing [remarkable shifts in the energy industry](, slashing renewable costs and making emissions goals easier to achieve. Bonus Climate Reading: India seems serious about relinquishing its title as the world’s [third-biggest polluter](. — David Fickling. Inflation Spiced Latte Here’s a well-known fact: If you read, write or say the word “yawn” a bunch of times, [it makes you yawn](. What if this phenomenon tracks with other words? Let’s test it out: inflation, inflation, inflation. In the past year, Bloomberg Opinion has published 959 columns that include the word “inflation,” not including this one. What happens when you read “inflation” 959 times? Do you inflate? Are you in pain? Have you stopped buying Pumpkin Spiced lattes? Are you chopping down your [Christmas tree]( as you read this? Should you start [hoarding]( a bunch of oil? Whatever you’re doing, Wall Street is dying to know. In recent months, midnight trips to the McDonald’s drive-thru have gotten slightly more expensive. Americans still want to secure those nuggets, but Tara Lachapelle writes [they may not accept price hikes for much longer](. Ramesh Ponnuru worries [supply-driven inflation is out of the Federal Reserve’s control](. John Authers, meanwhile, says bond-market spasms over inflation raise the risks of a [good ol’ financial meltdown](. In summary, [inflation is in the building](. We’re nowhere near done saying the word. Bonus Inflation Reading: Central banks are far from united in their [response to inflation](. — Mohamed El-Erian Telltale Charts Russia was the first country to approve a Covid shot, yet it’s far behind on vaccinations, writes Clara Ferreira Marques. Only about a third of Russians have gotten the jab, a statistic that led to the [deadliest September]( since the rule of Joseph Stalin. Here's a hot tip from Brian Chappatta: [Short-term Treasury rates]( are now better than many “high-yield” savings accounts like the one offered by Goldman Sachs’ Marcus. Further Reading In a world of recreational risk-taking, [Wall Street is the new Vegas](. — Jared Dillian [New York City’s vaccine mandates]( are working exceptionally well. — Timothy L. O'Brien Florida is having a weird one, yet again. This time with [college professors](. — Noah Feldman Progressives in the House are [shaking up their strategy](. — Jonathan Bernstein ICYMI Microsoft unveiled a PowerPoint about its own PowerPoint [metaverse](. In China, not every child is [Harvard material](. (Our own Shuli Ren in Businessweek) Quentin Tarantino is getting into [NFTs](. Kickers Facebook is [shutting down facial recognition](. Extreme cat lover and New York mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa had a [chaotic Election Day](. Is the Alvin and the Chipmunk franchise actually worth [$300 million](? The [metaverse is already here](: It's Minecraft. Notes:  Please send 17 cats and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [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. 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