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This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a totally free subscription offering of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here. There are too many subs [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a totally free subscription offering of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - There are [too many]( subscriptions. - “Pax Volckeriana” [is over](. - The US [innovation ecosystem]( is too fragile. - [New York]( has bungled pot legalization. American Consumers Are Oversubscribed It started with Netflix and Amazon Prime. Now you not only have 13 different digital subscriptions but [pay $19.95]( a month to AMC to see three free in-person movies a week, [$11.99 a month]( to Panera Bread for free drinks with your Napa Almond Chicken Salad sandwich, and [$49 a year]( to Sephora for free same-day delivery of [Youth to the People Superfood Antioxidant Cleanser](. Don’t deny it. You do! Leticia Miranda thinks retailers, and consumers, may have [overdone it](. Retailers like the subscriptions because they allow them to track customer behavior in ways that mobile operating systems, browsers and regulators have made it harder and harder to do — and get paid while they’re at it. For consumers, though, they’re often a waste of money, and likely to come under increasing scrutiny in a year of economic uncertainty and possible belt-tightening. Writes Leticia: “It’s finally time for the subscription economy to go into reverse.” Meanwhile, on Twitter, James Gibney (a baby boomer, so he’s allowed to say things like this) [suggests]( that the Netflixes and HBO Maxes of the world will at least have one thing on their side: “Aging Boomers + dementia + digital subscriptions = commercial gold mine.” The Money-Go-Round Continues Yes, we also have lots about banks and financial stress. John Authers and Isabelle Lee wrote Bloomberg’s Big Take for Friday: a [day-by-day recounting]( of the past week-plus of crises followed by rescues followed by crises. The underlying cause, they explain, is the end of the “Pax Volckeriana,” the decades of declining interest rates that followed former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker’s brutal inflation-slaying campaign of the early 1980s. The global financial crisis and central banks’ efforts to stop it extended the peace “for a decade longer than it should have lasted,” but now it is truly over. Interest rates go up as well as down, and the financial system and its regulators are having to relearn how to deal with that. It really [shouldn’t have been so hard]( for them figure out, muses Clive Crook. While I could describe his arguments in more detail, this glorious sentence does the job pretty well all by itself: “Only people with years of training and experience, professionals who understand modern finance in minute detail, could fail to grasp what seems obvious to the naïve onlooker — that when the value of an asset goes down, its owner is less wealthy.” Hal Brands [has another concern](: Silicon Valley Bank was at the heart of what has become the chief US system for financing innovation, and its failure was a sign of just how vulnerable American technological progress has become to bad decisions and potential foreign interference. Matt Levine has [much more to say]( about SVB and First Republic, so much that I’m not going to try to summarize it. (Plus, it’s by Matt Levine! You already have a general sense of the edification and amusement that awaits.) After already enlightening us on [Monday](, [Tuesday](, [Wednesday]( and [Thursday](, our banking expert Paul J. Davies for once does not have a column today. But he did [post this succinct analysis](: “There’s loads of money; it’s just that depositors aren’t leaving it all where it’s needed. So Big Banks and the Fed are simply feeding it back in a money-go-round.” He also included this artistic rendering: Paul J. Davies/Bloomberg Bonus Bank Viewing: - This week’s [Bloomberg Opinion videos]( include discussions of SVB, Credit Suisse and some other things. New York Has Done Pot Legalization Wrong When New York state lawmakers legalized marijuana, [they were hoping]( for a “free lunch,” writes Michael R. Bloomberg: “more tax revenue with no enforcement responsibilities, health risks or youth dangers.” Instead, New York City now has 1,500 illegal pot shops that are making it hard for legitimate operations to turn a profit, carrying tainted products and selling them to kids. The city has already begun [something of a crackdown](, but Bloomberg, its former mayor as well as the founder and principal owner of Bloomberg LP, publisher of the email newsletter you are reading at this very moment, says the state’s governor and legislature need to do much more to clean up the mess they’ve made. Telltale Charts Prime-age (25 through 54) labor-force participation is now higher in the US than before the pandemic-induced recession, something that never happened after the previous two recessions. That it still falls short for 65-plussers should be no surprise, writes Justin Fox (me, that is), but [what’s up]( with people in their 20s? It’s St. Patrick’s Day! Here in New York City that means a big parade up Fifth Avenue and then lots of people drinking lots of Guinness and similar beverages on the Upper East Side and elsewhere. Christine Vanden Byllaardt has compiled a highly relevant chart, from a [survey]( (they say they checked in with “over 250 pubs and bars” nationwide) conducted by FinanceBuzz. Color palette stolen from our colleagues at Bloomberg Green Further Reading Abortion politics has put Walgreens in a [no-win situation](. — Beth Kowitt The UK is becoming a [sick society](. Literally. — Adrian Wooldridge UK pension reforms [are great]( for the well-heeled. — Merryn Somerset Webb France’s pension reforms are [making nobody happy](. — Lionel Laurent Oil has been a [collateral victim]( of the banking crisis. — Javier Blas [Artificial intelligence]( may be better than peer review for vetting research. — Faye Flam German self-interest [could improve]( European policy on car engines. — Andreas Kluth Taiwan worries that US “friendshoring” won’t include [one friend in particular](. — Tim Culpan ICYMI First Republic rescue [fails to soothe]( investor fear. Finland is [getting closer]( to NATO membership. Stripe’s founding brothers have been [shedding billions](. The London Metal Exchange finds [bags of stones]( where it expected nickel. Kickers “Professional bear huggers” [sought]( in New Mexico (h/t Mark Gilbert). Sylvia Poggioli [is retiring]( after 41 years. Negativity [makes you click](. Notes:  Please send Netflix passwords and feedback to Justin Fox at justinfox@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. 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