Your spouse might be keeping you broke

This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a Russell Stover sampler of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here.Today’s Agenda Your spouse affects y [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a Russell Stover sampler of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Your [spouse affects your earning potential](, for richer or poorer. - Bankers [aren’t always earning their bonuses](. - Biden should give [Afghanistan its $7 billion back](, and other advice. - Oops, [we’re out of oil](. But only if you’ve got a job and a car. Love and Commerce: An Institute You Can’t Disparage As a Bloomberg Opinion Today public service to those of you who have forgotten, today is Valentine’s Day, the day we celebrate love and definitely not commerce. You should still have time to pop by the drugstore for some Russell Stover chocolates, a Hallmark card and a bottle of Oyster Bay Drug & Sundry’s finest [champagne]( (content warning for urn desecration and cursing). The naive idea that romance and materialism occupy separate lanes usually dies for most of us by our early teens at the latest, when we realize sleeker cars, shinier bling and hipper jorts attract better romantic partners. Adults get even more gimlet-eyed about it. Dating an irresponsible lout might be fun for a while, but most of us instinctively know marrying that person is the road to not just unhappiness but also serfdom. Now science backs this up, Sarah Green Carmichael writes, in the form of a new study suggesting people with conscientious, supportive and agreeable spouses tend to [not only be happier but to also make more money](. A cruel twist on this theory is that women who make too much money might find their previously supportive, agreeable spouses turning into Al Bundy. Kara Alaimo writes women who are successful professionally and financially [have a harder time finding romance](, or maybe they hamstring their careers to avoid hurting their husbands’ delicate fee-fees. This is because our cultural norms have so poisoned men’s brains that they don’t know a good thing when they’ve got it. Remember, fellas, a spouse who out-earns you just means you’ve got more money for cars, bling and jorts. What’s not to love? Wall Street’s Real Bonus Problem When those of us who know nothing about Wall Street get angry about bankers’ bonuses, we’re outraged mainly by the sheer size of them. But people who actually understand Wall Street realize there’s a whole other reason to be angry about them: As Jared Dillian writes, they usually reflect not a banker’s ability to make money for the bank, like you’d think, but [the ability of a banker to attract attention]( and/or suck up to the right people. As you can imagine, this creates many bad incentives, including dangerous attention-seeking and groupthink. It’s also demoralizing for the other bankers, who keep fleeing to Silicon Valley, where, as Adrian Wooldridge writes, they are perhaps even more [likely to encounter a bad boss](. Bonus Finance Reading: Private-equity firms should [stop whining about proposed SEC rules]( to make them disclose more. — Paul Davies Some Advice for Joe Biden Presidentin’ is hard, and seldom harder than right now, with multiple crises brewing. Bloomberg Opinion’s writers are here to help. In Afghanistan, President Joe Biden’s decision to bail out of a disastrous war last year is helping fuel a disastrous humanitarian crisis this year. His [decision to railroad $7 billion of Afghanistan’s money](, ostensibly to hurt the Taliban, will only make the situation worse, writes Ruth Pollard.  At home, Biden’s policies [aren’t solving America’s immigration problems](, writes Bloomberg’s editorial board. Emphasizing skilled immigration and better border security can rationalize our approach and win bipartisan support, the board suggests. Biden should also [start separating the CDC’s recommendations on masking]( from federal policy, the way government already ignores many other CDC recommendations on stuff like meat and alcohol, argues Matt Yglesias. At this point in the pandemic, Biden has to balance science against the political damage ongoing mask mandates could do. Telltale Charts Uh, ha ha, you’ll never believe this, but the IEA just found a giant bag of receipts in a back room, and it turns out we’ve been [using a lot more oil over the past 15 years]( than we realized, writes Julian Lee. Aaand now we’ve got far less of the stuff than we realized. Oops. Also [increasingly scarce and in ever-higher demand is aluminum](, writes Javier Blas. We need the formerly boring material now more than ever, to build lighter cars and fight climate change and whatnot. But it's just going to keep getting more expensive. Further Reading A highly watched Super Bowl [can’t paper over the NFL’s many problems](, including domestic violence. — Stephen Carter The Beijing Olympics demonstrate [how powerful China’s Communist Party has become](. — Matthew Brooker and Tim Culpan Big drugmakers should [lend their vaccine-making expertise]( to developing countries. — Lisa Jarvis The Tories have [bigger problems than just Boris Johnson](. — Therese Raphael Massive 60-nation war games in the Indian Ocean are [a warning to Iran](. — James Stavridis Investors aren’t paying enough attention to [3M’s huge earplug problem](. — Brooke Sutherland [California’s beaches probably won’t survive]( sea-level rise, and the transition won’t be easy or cheap. — Francis Wilkinson ICYMI Hey, at least we’re [not at war over Ukraine]( yet. Harold Hamm [made his children fabulously wealthy](, tax-free. Donald [Trump’s accounting firm broke up with him](. Maybe we need [a no-fly list for jerks](. Kickers Legos are still washing ashore [25 years after the Great Lego Spill](. (h/t Mike Smedley) The [Let’s Go Brandon crypto]( is flaming out. A baby [saved “Toy Story 2” from annihilation](. The pop culture [winners and losers of Super Bowl LVI](. Notes:  Please send Legos and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@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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