Former meme stock Hertz finds the lulz are scarce these days

This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a rental-car agency of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here.Today’s Agenda Hertz and GameStop find li [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a rental-car agency of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - [Hertz]( and [GameStop]( find life beyond Robinhood difficult. - Three-dollar gasoline [isn’t as expensive]( as it used to be. - These should be [salad days for hedge funds](. - China is [exporting inflation now](. Tough Times for Meme Stonks You might think being a meme stock is all Reddit threads and rocket emojis, but every now and then the tedious real world intrudes. Hertz is a car-rental company that, through the miracle of bankruptcy, the internet and mass early-pandemic boredom, became one of the first meme stocks, back in May 2020, or 1,000 years ago. That early experiment in [diamond-handsing]( for the lulz didn’t [work out]( so great. But the late-pandemic rebound in car-rental demand has given Hertz a new, cough, lease, cough, on life. Alas, Hertz’s meme-stock journey has apparently not made it any better at, ah, how do you say, renting cars. One woman’s [nightmare experience trying to get a ride]( from the company during Thanksgiving week went viral recently, Tim O’Brien writes. Highlights include the stranding of a blind, deaf rescue dog, exorbitant rate hikes and dirty cupholders. And Tim finds other Hertz horror stories that are even more horrible. After the Robinhood crowd licked its Hertz wounds, it found a richer target in GameStop, which sells video games in malls. Under new management, it’s updating its business model for the 21st century and has a fairly bright real-world future. What’s more, GameStop has never, to anyone’s knowledge, stranded a blind rescue dog. But sagging late-pandemic demand for video games and delays in several hot new titles will [make GameStop’s holiday season a little blue](, writes Tae Kim. Sounds like an opportunity to YOLO for some tendies! Just, for the love of heaven, don’t bet your [life savings]( on one (1) GameStop option. Then you’ll have real-world problems too. Mild Gas Pains One big reason the U.S. will struggle to meet ambitious carbon-emissions targets is that we riot in the streets any time gas prices rise a little bit. Cheap gasoline won’t convince anybody to take the bus, much less pay up for a still-pricey electric vehicle. This is one big reason Karl Smith urges President Joe Biden and the Democrats to [resist the urge to suspend the gasoline tax]( during our long national nightmare of gas costing more than $3 a gallon. Prices already seem to have peaked, and OPEC+, the least appealing supergroup since [Chickenfoot](, plans to keep [pumping]( oil.  Anyway, [$3 buys a heck of a lot more gasoline]( than it did, say, at the turn of the decade, writes Liam Denning. That’s not to say Biden should just ignore gas prices. Every adult driver is a potential voter, after all. And good luck telling any of them to stop worrying about $3 gas. Bonus Automobile Reading: Meet the SPAC that plans to be the [Berkshire Hathaway of building EV batteries](. — Anjani Trivedi Telltale Charts Market volatility is blowing up all over the place. That means [hedge funds should be having their best year]( ever, writes Mark Gilbert. After decades of spreading deflation throughout the world, [China’s hot new export is inflation](, writes John Authers. Further Reading The Fed’s new stance and a faster rate of tapering [will give it more options](. — Bloomberg’s editorial board The U.S. must swallow its pride and help [aid flow to Afghanistan or face a humanitarian crisis](. — Ruth Pollard Putin likely won’t attack Ukraine [without some kind of provocation](. — Leonid Bershidsky Boris Johnson’s immigration proposal will [make Europe’s migrant crisis worse](. — Therese Raphael Big banks spend a lot on tech [but don’t know what to do with it](. — Ben Ashby Goldman execs would prefer to [be paid in slices of deals](. — Matt Levine Nobody really knows how [ending Roe v. Wade will reshape politics](. — Jonathan Bernstein ICYMI New York state reported its [biggest daily Covid case]( count since January, and omicron [visited]( the Anime NYC convention. Suburban New York home sales are plunging [because there aren’t any houses](. Exxon is giving [workers below-inflation raises](. Kickers Today’s date is [a palindrome and an ambigram](; you can read it upside down. (h/t Scott Kominers) “Sho-time” is [Japan’s word of the year](. (h/t Ellen Kominers) Anti-vaxxers are selling each other “magic” dirt that comes from [next to a landfill](. It’s not just you: [Movie dialogue has gotten harder]( to understand. Notes:  Please send magic dirt 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. 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