The biggest FTX red flag was flying over the Bahamas

Plus: Hitler's unwelcome comeback. [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a shady island chain of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Never trust anything [domiciled in the Bahamas](. - The new chatbot is [a threat to Google](. - Hitler is making an [unwelcome comeback](. - Long Covid is [an economic problem](. Bahama Mama Robert Burgess and Chris Hughes wrote earlier this week about the VCs that [cluelessly threw money]( into the hungry maw of FTX despite the many clues this crypto exchange was going to be trouble. - Clue No. 1: Crypto was involved. Long the favored currency of identity thieves, kidnappers and drug dealers, crypto has never shed the whiff of Axe body spray and desperation surrounding it, even as it went sort-of mainstream. Any new venture having to do with crypto, no matter how seemingly legit, should immediately have you checking under the rug for [adhesive](. - Clue No. 2: The charismatic god-leader. From Elizabeth Holmes to Adam Neumann to Elon Musk, we keep re-learning that iconoclastic wunderkinds are often the first sign of deeper problems at a company, even as they mesmerize Silicon Valley doofuses. Sam Bankman-Fried fit the mold, right down to his rumpled clothes, rumpled hair and rumpled inability to ever stop talking. - Clue No. 3: DeFi was involved. Speaking of never stopping talking: In an “Odd Lots” conversation eight months ago with Tracy Alloway, Joe Wiesenthal and Matt Levine, SBF essentially [admitted](, in so many (thousands) of words, that the profitable “yield farming” of decentralized finance was more or less a Ponzi scheme — which really, in a way, exposed the emptiness at the heart of the entire crypto ecosystem, of which FTX was a massive part. But even if you happened to miss all of that, Stephen Mihm today points out an even more glaring red flag that should have been obvious to everybody: [SBF’s decision to locate FTX in the Bahamas](. To be fair, the Bahamas are lovely, and I wish I were headquartered there. On the other hand, they are like if crypto took the form of a tropical island chain. They have been home to pirates, frauds, tax cheats and other ne’er-do-wells for centuries, Stephen points out. Any company doing business there must immediately get the stink-eye. If Grandma Mae’s Wholesome Farm Cookies™ is domiciled in the Bahamas, there’s a good chance Grandma Mae™ is laundering the money she makes on a meth lab in the basement of the Cookie Factory™. Follow the clues, people. And read the [whole thing](. Google Has a ChatBot Problem Back in July, Google was involved in an [AI kerfuffle]( when one of its engineers claimed the company had accidentally birthed a sentient chatbot. It turned out the engineer was simply rebooting “[Lars and the Real Girl](” for the AI age. But it was a harbinger of an even bigger AI problem facing Google now, one not of its own creation: That [ChatGPT]( thing the whole [internet]( loves — like [Milkshake Duck](, only slightly less [racist]( — is [better at producing search results]( than Google, writes Parmy Olson. Its work product isn’t perfect; ChatGPT does have a propensity to [bullsh*t](. But if somebody can fix that and maybe sell some ads in the process, then Google’s whole business model will be threatened. Bonus Tech Reading: The [chipmaking capacity TSMC is building]( in the US isn’t nearly enough to make the country independent. — Tim Culpan  We Need to Talk About Hitler One good way to cope with scary things is to make a joke out of them. The best example might be Adolf Hitler, a megalomaniacal mass murderer who nearly took over the world and caused millions of horrific deaths. He also inspired a lot of comedy, by everybody from [Charlie Chaplin]( to [Mel Brooks]( to the whole [internet](. The trouble is that all of this emotional distance, along with the passage of time, has left us with generations who don’t understand anymore exactly [why people were scared of Hitler]( in the first place, writes Andreas Kluth. Worse, there are still plenty of people who not only know exactly what Hitler stood for but approve of it. They’re happy to take advantage of general Hitler ignorance to revive his toxic ideas. The end result is not just people like [Kanye West]( saying “I like Hitler.” It’s also the recent attempt at [rebooting Hitler’s 1933 coup](, which Andreas Kluth points out was only foiled by the biggest German police action since Hitler’s death. The Nazis are back, and there’s nothing funny about them. Bonus Megalomaniacal Mass Murderer Reading: Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a failure, but the upside [could be that it ends his regime](. — Leonid Bershidsky Telltale Charts One mystery of the post-Covid economy is why labor-force participation is so low. [Covid could be a big part of the answer](. Kathryn Edwards writes long Covid could be keeping 4 million people out of the workforce. If at the end of 2021 you’d predicted that oil prices would go nowhere in 2022, you would have been right — except you would also have missed some of the wildest swings in history, John Authers writes. It’s another example of how Wall Street’s [ritual of year-ahead forecasts is so so dumb](. Further Reading From domestic terrorists to acts of nature, the US [electrical grid is under constant attack](. — Liam Denning  Europe’s [electricity prices are soaring]( again. — Javier Blas  The supply-chain unkinking is [making US factories sad now](, but they should be happy again soon. — Conor Sen [Cathie Wood is betting the inverted yield curve]( is right about recession risks. — Robert Burgess The GOP does not seem to have [learned its Herschel Walker lesson](. — Jonathan Bernstein If [MBS really wanted to lead](, he’d call out China’s abuse of the Uyghurs. — Bobby Ghosh Salesforce’s ex-co-CEO is the latest example of how hard it is to [work with or succeed an iconic CEO](. — Beth Kowitt  ICYMI Putin [waved his nukes around]( again. Musk wants [Twitter workers to sleep at the office](. San Francisco has other ideas. Peru’s president tried to [avoid impeachment by dissolving congress](. He [flopped spectacularly](. Kickers See the history of the [universe in a slice of pie](. (h/t Jessica Karl) Human [ancestors might have used fire](, too. [Ian Fleming explains]( how to write a thriller. Why is [everything so ugly](? Notes:  Please send pie 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 Opinion Today newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( | [Ad Choices]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022