Ditching a speeding economy is as hard as it sounds

Plus: The repercussions of Roe's end. [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a runaway truck of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Can the Fed [engineer a soft(ish) landing](? - Overturning Roe will [make poor states poorer](. - [Deadly heat waves]( keep getting more frequent. - Brexit is [already hurting Britain](. Don’t Let the Fed Crash the Truck Managing the $20 trillion U.S. economy is kind of like driving a truck filled with gasoline down a mountain road with no brakes. Sometimes, in order to avoid a truly horrific accident, you have to run off the road, where you risk cracking an axle or whatever (I’m not good at cars, or writing, or writing about cars). Then you have to repair the truck, get it back on the road and start the process all over again. The Federal Reserve is currently in the running-the-truck-off-the-road phase of the cycle, and today it contributed to that effort by [raising]( its key policy interest rate by half a percentage point, the biggest wheel-jerking in 22 years. It also promised to dump assets starting next month, and Chairman Jay Powell warned more 50-basis-point hikes were on the way. The only question now is how violent the resulting crash will be. Every so often, the truck rolls gently into a sunlit meadow filled with wildflowers and bluebirds. The Fed has a nice snack and gets back on the road. Such a soft landing, John Authers notes, is exceedingly rare, [happening only three times in the past 65 years](. All the other times, an economic axle-cracking of some sort followed: But none of those rate-hiking campaigns involved a pandemic and a war and a global supply-chain seizure and a [jorts]( revival. Such nightmares are causing economic growth scares around the world that might calm inflation enough that the Fed doesn’t have to run the truck straight into a tree this time, John writes. Still, it might not be a bad time to get better at fixing cars. It’s a recession-proof business after all. Life in Post-Roe America Cutting off access to abortion, as the Supreme Court will likely soon do to millions of American women, is a nightmare for public health. Thousands will be harmed or killed by unprofessional abortions or being forced to carry dangerous pregnancies to term. And it’s a moral disaster, setting women’s rights back [50 years](, as Jessica Karl wrote yesterday. But it’s also an economic catastrophe. Allison Schrager points out the women who need abortion access the most are the poorest women, who [tend to reside in the poorest states](. Many of these states have recently enjoyed an influx of new residents and tax revenue that were reversing their long-dismal fortunes. Overturning Roe v. Wade will cause them to regress. There will still be options for many of these women, including out-of-state assistance and drugs available on the Dark Web. But vigilantes and law enforcement in their states could [thwart their efforts without better digital privacy](, writes Parmy Olson. One sleazy data broker is already gathering and [selling]( info on women who visit Planned Parenthood. Millions of women will soon be living like dissidents in an autocratic regime, Parmy notes. Under such circumstances, data security is everything. Bonus Roe Reading: Roe was wrongly decided, but overturning it completely will [cause even more upheaval](. — Clive Crook It’s Too Hot This terrifying map was making the rounds on Twitter the other day: It showed land-surface temperatures hitting 143 degrees Fahrenheit in some parts of India and more than 104 degrees in much of the rest of the country and Pakistan. The air temperature was a little cooler, but still: This is dangerous heat. As of this writing, it’s 12:30 a.m. in Ahmedabad, but it’s still 89 degrees out. Oh, it’s also smoky. And it’s only springtime. And we’re in a La Nina cycle, meaning cooler summers. Global warming makes such extreme temperatures in this part of the world more common, write Ruth Pollard and David Fickling. That raises the chances such heat will [combine with enough humidity to kill vast numbers]( of people. India and Pakistan got (sort of) lucky this time. That luck will eventually run out. Telltale Charts It hasn’t been long since Britain formally Brexited, and already you can see [evidence of how it has hurt economic growth]( and trade and raised costs, writes Therese Raphael. It has also made the economy less dynamic, which will make Boris Johnson’s “leveling up” promises hard to deliver. Otherwise, no notes! A [massive diesel shortage on the U.S. East Coast]( is triggering record prices, writes Javier Blas. The country needs to tap its feedstock reserves, and soon. Further Reading The U.S. is doing a [terrible job of tracking how well paxlovid works]( in patients. — Lisa Jarvis Donald [Trump’s endorsement pushed J.D. Vance]( over the edge in Ohio. — Jonathan Bernstein Remember Pearl Harbor’s example of how [successful economic pressure can make totalitarians]( lash out. — Hal Brands Austria might be Europe’s [second-friendliest country to Russia]( after Hungary. But there’s still time to change its mind. — Andreas Kluth We’d better hope [LED bulb makers don’t catch on]( to the profit-boosting magic of planned obsolescence. — Stephen Mihm Why do we still have such [archaic ideas about surnames](? — Stephen Carter ICYMI Bill Hwang’s fall is just [the start of a broader trading crackdown](. India wants Russia to give it [even more of a discount on oil](. [Texans are unhappy]( about their population growth. Kickers Area man [loves his spoons](. (h/t Jessica Karl) [Tylenol reduces empathy](, a study has shown. What do [birds hear in birdsong](? Behold the many, many [benefits of enjoying nature](. Notes: Please send extraordinary spoons and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. 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]( [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( | [Ad Choices]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022