Apple’s supply chain may be a sinking proposition

Plus: Hospital bills, bike lanes and more. [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a carbon-neutral HQ of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Must-Reads - [Asylum-seekers]( are an economic gain. - Apple’s [not-so-green]( supply chain. - Hospital bills can be a [major pain](. - Most Americans skip the [bike lane](. - Childcare [costs]( are inhumane. An Apple a Day Won’t Keep Mother Nature Away Ahhh, there's really nothing like the feeling of existential dread that you get when reading an article about how the rather small island that you live on is literally [sinking]( into the ground: Source: Washington Post I can picture it now: The first thing to go might be the runway at LaGuardia Airport. Then the floods will fill Arthur Ashe Stadium to the brim. After that, we’ll be whitewater rafting through Interstate 78 — home to the Holland Tunnel — and Highway 440, which connects New Jersey and Staten Island. Eventually, all the landmarks of New York City — Katz’s Deli, Anna Delvey’s East Village apartment, the police barricades in Times Square, even the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue — will be lost to Mother Nature: Source: Canva AI Image Generator Apple, for what it’s worth, wants the odds of that harrowing scenario to be as low humanly possible. It’s no small secret that the iPhone maker hopes to be known as a climate change savior, having pledged to fully [decarbonize]( by 2030. But there’s just one little hitch in Tim Cook’s grand plan: “Drawing from global databases of power-generation, extreme weather, flood zones, economic impact and carbon emissions,” Tim Culpan, David Fickling and Elaine He [found]( that “the very regions most vulnerable to climate change are those with the highest concentration of manufacturers.” In 2011, floods across Thailand caused [billions in losses]( and slowed deliveries of Apple’s Mac computers as component suppliers were forced to suspend work. After that, Apple soldiered on, working to fortify its inventory stockpiles to guard against future climate catastrophes. Trouble is, it didn’t really move its factories. It just spent more money trying to cover up the problem. The result is a supply chain that is still very much prone to floods: Call it capitalism or bad luck or whatever you want, but “the belt of the planet where natural disasters will intensify most rapidly due to global warming — from floods and heatwaves to increasingly powerful cyclones — is precisely the one where Apple has built its manufacturing footprint,” they write. That’s like choosing to spend hours building a magnificent sandcastle that you know is too close to the shore. It looks pretty! But as soon as high tide arrives, it gonna get demolished. Last year, Apple [called on its suppliers]( to join its zero-carbon power pact. But the 400 facilities that help make the iPhone in your pocket are mostly located in countries that rely on an unhealthy diet of coal and natural gas to power their grids: It’s no coincidence that Apple’s suppliers are located in these carbon-intensive places. In many of the countries, production can carry on because there’s really no rules top stop them. Emissions standards are far more lax, and regulatory overlords are not peeking over anyone’s shoulder. This kind of climate loophole is often referred to as “[carbon leakage](.” So while Apple may love to boast about its carbon-neutral HQ, stores and data centers, the behind-the-scenes production of its devices is still very much a dirty business. Plus, its emissions goals also depend heavily on carbon [offsets](, which Mark Gongloff [notes]( have been under “intense [scrutiny](” because they often promise more than they can deliver. Cook still needs to do a lot more planning to truly guard against the planet sinking into itself. [Mother Nature]( might be in Apple’s conference rooms, but she’s at their factories too — and the weather forecast for the supply chain isn’t nearly as sunny as the iPhone maker would have you to believe. Read the [whole thing](, free from the paywall. Bonus Climate Reading: “If the fight to avoid catastrophic global warming were a football game, then Team Let’s Maybe Not Have an Apocalypse would be [stuck]( on its own 2-yard line, trailing by a touchdown with less than a minute to go.” — Mark Gongloff We Need a Hospital Price Gun Source: Warner Bros. Pictures There’s [an iconic scene]( in the The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants where Tibby (one of the sisters in the sisterhood) puts a price sticker on her forehead. I know she’s supposed to be an angsty teen living out her lame, miserable existence working in a drug store, but I’ve always been jealous of her price gun. The grip of the handle! The snap of the trigger! The glide of the sticker! It’s the little things in life, right? Anywho, Tibby was who I thought about when reading Tyler Cowen’s latest column about why hospitals need [price transparency](. The people who put price tags on things can wield immense power, and that goes for [Costco employees]( and medical providers alike. “It is hard to get a [straight answer about prices]( for medical procedures in the US, unlike in much of the rest of the world,” he writes. That’s because hospitals are literally engineered to profit from price discrimination. Meanwhile, customers are often paying their medical bills through middlemen, who can further extract a piece of the pie. This is unfair, obviously. And the government is [trying]( to fix it. But Tyler thinks a broader cultural revolution might be necessary. He envisions “regular news coverage” of hospital prices, “explicit and accessible quality ratings” and nonprofits “devoted solely to making price and quality more transparent.” In turn, this added scrutiny would allow employers to evaluate health insurance companies based on their performance. There could even be “an index of progress, like those national debt clocks one sometimes sees,” Tyler writes. [Many people]( would benefit from such a revolution. Consider those with long Covid, who Lisa Jarvis says are still [looking for a cure]( (free read). “A massive number of people in the US are dealing with lingering symptoms,” she writes, and they’re seeking medical attention to try and remedy their brain fog and extreme fatigue. In the long run, they may need “a battery of tests to pinpoint what’s gone wrong.” Ideally, that’d mean treatments, which will cost them even more money. But before they head to the operating room, patients deserve to see a price quote upfront. It’s what Tibby would have wanted, at least. The Two Tired Life The only time in my life that I’ve ridden a bike on a regular basis was when I was studying abroad in Denmark. In Copenhagen alone, there are [more bikes]( than people, and five times as many bikes as cars. Cycling is a way of life — commuters in the city bike a total of 1.2 million kilometers per day. And Danes don’t just do it when the sun is shining. They’re battling the elements — rain, slush, snow — while riding their bikes to work, to school, to the bar (ill-advised in my opinion). Sometimes they even attach a little caddy to carry their child: But that’s because Danish society is built around bikes. The cycling lanes are wider than most roads. Bikers have their own traffic lights, which turn green before the cars can go, so you can get a head start. And there are storage racks everywhere. In the US, meanwhile, biking to work feels more like an I-could-die-at-any-moment kinda thing. When you actually have a bike lane, there’s often stray pedestrians or waiters meandering in them. And when you don’t, well, watch out for people getting out of their Ubers or drivers running red lights. It’s a dangerous endeavor; and one that not many Americans are willing to embark on, apparently: New York City has attempted to improve that culture, Justin Fox — a bike commuter himself — [writes](. Over the past two decades, the city has carved out its infrastructure to accommodate two-wheelers, and the results are impressive: 9% of US bike commuters in 2022 were New York City residents, who made up just more than 2% of US commuters overall. We’re a long way from having more bikes than people in the Big Apple, but it’s still a meaningful statistic because it confirms the obvious: When cities invest in safe bike lanes, reliance on bicycles will grow. Go figure! Telltale Charts How much is [that doggie]( in the window? For Republicans, at least, it seems to be too much: At a US Senate hearing last week, John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, said that affordable childcare as policy is as likeable as [a golden retriever](, but then lamented it would simply cost too much for the government to help. That “stunning declaration” got Kathryn Anne Edwards [thinking](: What if we just dedicated the revenue the government collects from the [estate taxÂ](into a trust fund that finances early childhood education? The estate tax generates the government as much as $40 billion a year — a near [dead-on match]( with the Biden administration’s annual [estimate]( of child care and universal preschool costs. She says “there’s a neatness to that symmetry,” almost like when you find the [perfect piece of cheese]( to fit on a cracker. “But there’s a symbolic motivation to marrying estate taxes to early childhood investments,” as well, she argues. The basic theory of housing costs goes something like this: If interest rates go up, people won’t be able to pay as much for a home because mortgage payments are eating up a bigger chunk of their income. As housing budgets shrink across the board, fewer people will be interested in buying houses, and prices will eventually fall. But that’s not happening, John Authers [explains](: The Case-Shiller 20 index, which samples home prices from 20 different cities, shows that year-over-year prices are virtually back to their all-time peak. “It’s yet another example of very strange consequences from the pandemic era that few had predicted,” he says, and one that may lead to a lost generation of homebuyers. Further Reading Free read: Biden’s right to grant [work authorizations]( to as many asylum-seekers as possible. — Michael R. Bloomberg Brits are increasingly opting for an afternoon [cup of coffee]( rather than PG Tips. — Howard Chua-Eoan House Speaker Kevin McCarthy [is stuck]( between a rock and a hard place. — Jonathan Bernstein China is a [major beneficiary]( of the India-Canada Sikh murder spectacle. — Karishma Vaswani Microsoft [buying Nintendo](?? Now that would have been a total disaster. — Gearoid Reidy The UK’s cost-of-living crisis could be bad for [Christmas cheer](. — Andrea Felsted The US still refuses to call the takeover in Niger a “coup.” How long will the [stalling]( go on? — Andreas Kluth Europe is gonna need [a makeover]( if it wants to outlast Putin’s war. — Marc Champion ICYMI The [writer’s strike]( is officially donezo! Citadel is ready [to battle]( the SEC. Is Nikki Haley the GOP’s [best hope]( against Trump? Even the CIA is developing [an AI chatbot](. Kickers It’s tough to [order bananas]( on Instacart. Katy Perry is having [real-estate trouble](. Why do cats like [boxes]( so much? (h/t Ellen Kominers) [Las Vegas]( has some [big, big]( ambitions. [Olive oil]( is the new whipped cream. The world’s quietest[supersonic jet]( is pretty weird. Notes: Please send sophisticated desserts and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Threads](, [TikTok](, [Twitter](, [Instagram]( and [Facebook](. Follow Us 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](. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. 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. 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