Hey, doomers, you can relax about San Francisco

Plus: Muscle car madness, wealth worries and more. [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a Doom Loop Walking Tour of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions, which you can sign up for [here](. Today’s Agenda - Francisco is [not dying](. - If you call the Mach-E a muscle car, [you’d be lying](. - The worries of [wealthy Americans]( are intensifying. - The [ruble]( shows what Putin’s been denying. San Francisco Is the [Worst](, [Really](? If you were to Google “things to do in the Bay Area next week,” you probably wouldn’t be surprised to see a [Vegan Street Fair]( or an [AI Knowledge Mapping Hackathon](. But what might catch you off guard is the $30 [Doom Loop Walking Tour]( that lets visitors “get close and personal to the Doom and Squalor of downtown San Francisco.” The description for the event paints quite the picture: How can a city with a $14.6 billion annual budget be a model of urban decay? How can it spend $776.8 million per year on police and have no rule of law to show for it? How can it spend $690 million on homeless services and receive an official United Nations condemnation for its treatment of the homeless ("cruel and inhuman"; "violation of multiple human rights")? The tour will start at City Hall, and continue through Mid-Market, the Tenderloin, and Union Square. We will view the open-air drug markets, the abandoned tech offices, the outposts of the non-profit industrial complex, and the deserted department stores. While the Golden City is certainly not without [its]( [troubles]( (see: all those people having [sex in self-driving cars](), it’s not [nearly as dead]( as the [doomers]( would have you believe. San Francisco “punches well above its weight when it comes to corporate America,” Matthew A. Winkler [writes](. The city’s 10 largest companies — Airbnb, Block, Cloudfare, Doordash, PG&E, Pinterest, Salesforce, Uber, Visa and Wells Fargo — have a combined market value of $1.2 trillion. That’s “equivalent to Mexico's gross domestic product in 2021 and greater than the GDP of Saudi Arabia last year,” Matthew notes. For all the headlines about the growth spurts of hotshot cities like [Houston]( and [Phoenix](, the Bay Area still has them beat by a long shot when it comes to sales and employee growth. “San Francisco is exponentially superior to No. 9 Dallas even though it has more than one-and-a-half times the California city’s population,” Matthew adds. And whatever Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had to say about SF's “[riffraff](” during a recent campaign visit, the city of Miami is technically more of a “corporate also-ran.” When looking at the data, a lot of the dangerous “riffraff” is just noise, Matthew argues, noting that San Francisco actually has lower-than-average rates of violent crime among major cities. Although theft and burglaries remain a pressing concern, the rise of breaking and entering has not prompted San Francisco's biggest business hubs to abandon their roots. Even the city’s “[retail exodus](” is largely misunderstood. As Leticia Miranda has previously noted, departures from [San Francisco’s]( [malls]( have [nothing to do with crime]( and everything to do with the fact that our urban shopping habits are changing. The irony about the Doom Loop Walking Tour is that it’s [sold out]( already. To me, that’s all the evidence you need to know that the city is still teeming with life — and [money](, no matter what the tour guide says. [Speed Drive]( If there was a Hall of Fame for Existential Questions, I imagine the main exhibit would feature: - “Where do we go when we die?” - “Do parallel universes exist?” - “Is a [hot dog]( a sandwich or is it a taco?” - “Do straws have two holes or only one?” - “Who actually [wrote]( The Night Before Christmas?” These inquiries have puzzled humans for generations — at childhood sleepovers, in retirement homes and everywhere in between. But Bobby Ghosh has [a new contender]( to add to our [long list]( of existential questions, and dare I say that it might belong in the Hall of Fame, too: “Can an electric vehicle really be a muscle car?” The stereotypical image of a granola mom going 30 in a 40 in her Nissan Leaf is undoubtedly the antithesis of sexy Steve McQueen throttling the gas of his internal combustion engine. Could the two ever be the same? Muscle cars like the [Mustang Fastback GT390]( and the [Dodge Charger 440 Magnum R/T]( — notable for being in Hollywood’s greatest [high-speed car chase]( of all time — have an “ineffable quality of wildness” that won’t be easily recreated with an EV, Bobby argues. But automakers are going to try: By 2025, production of the gas-powered, [mass-manufactured]( muscle cars of yore — the [Charger](, [Camaro]( and [the Mustang]( — will cease operations. “The reasons are not hard to guess,” Bobby explains, pointing out that “consumers are embracing electric vehicles, encouraged by falling prices and the growing ([if questionable]() consensus that they are the solution to climate change.” David Fickling [agrees](, writing that​​ “sales of electric and plug-in hybrid autos grew nearly fivefold between 2019 and 2022, and will triple again by 2027.” So far, Big Auto’s ideas for replicating muscle-car mania have fallen flat. Take the [Mach-E](, Mustang’s electric rival to Tesla. “Calling this a true sports car would be stretching it,” LMC Automotive’s Jeff Schuster [told]( Bloomberg News when the SUV was first unveiled. Plus, the true muscle-car experience is an [auditory]( one: “Mustang’s solution is to pipe in artificial sound through the Mach-E’s speakers, which doesn’t do much for authenticity. Other EV makers, including Ferrari and Jaguar, [face the same problem](,” Bobby says. Until EV companies can deliver the real deal, the muscle-car question will remain an existential one for years to come. Telltale Charts Savings these days just aren’t what they used to be, and it’s causing [high-earners]( to feel financially stressed out. I know, I know: Nobody is about to throw a pity party for the rich people who look at their Venmo transactions and feel poor. But the [financial anxiety]( of the affluent is actually a headache for all of us because it makes the overall economy more precarious, Allison Schrager [argues](. As the size of the [upper middle class]( has blossomed, so too has their [discretionary]( spending. Now, the “regular rich” play an outsized role in the health of the economy — rendering it more fragile than ever. In the event of a recession, their purchases could vanish, leading to even more pain. A decade ago, one ruble was worth about 70 US cents. Today, it’s worth [less than a penny](. Although the 13,000 sanctions that the West has placed on Russia have not driven Vladimir Putin out of Ukraine, they have managed to reduce the flow of funds into his financial system. “Even if the Russian economy looks confident right now, in the medium-term, the decline in export revenues will lead to an even greater weakening of the ruble and, as a consequence, inflation,” Alexandra Prokopenko [writes](. The weakened exchange rate is a “testament to just how imbalanced the Kremlin has allowed the economy to become,” she says. Further Reading Japan and South Korea can’t settle for [a photo op](. — Bloomberg’s editorial board Trump and SBF are testing the [limits of free speech]( as criminal defendants. — Noah Feldman Canada should turn the nuclear [AUKUS program]( into CANAUKUS. — James Stavridis Singapore is grappling with a full-blown [creativity crisis](. — Daniel Moss Being [a police officer]( in Northern Ireland is risky business. — Martin Ivens The UK appears to be moving on from its [mortgage meltdown](. — Marcus Ashworth Good news for UPS, bad news for the Fed: [Warehouse workers]( are winning the wage war. — Conor Sen ICYMI [Hurricane Hilary]( could hit California and Arizona. The Air Force is looking to build [a new jet](. Britney Spears is getting [a divorce](. Georgia grand jurors got [exposed]( online. Kickers The [nose]( that has everyone talking. The [British Museum]( sacked its curator. The [real estate war]( over 22 AC units. The [strawberry girl]( makeup trend. The [crypto hell]( that started with a spam text. The [NFL hopeful]( who learned football on YouTube. Notes: Please send existential questions and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Threads](, [TikTok](, [Twitter](, [Instagram]( and [Facebook](. Follow Us You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Opinion Today newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](