A solstice view of 2024: There be dragons

Our columnists reflect on some of 2023's big moments and what's coming in the new year [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a concatenation of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Must-Reads - Women hold up China’s “[Luxuryverse](.” - Emerging Markets vs. the [Magnificent Seven](. - India’s [democracy]( vs. India’s prime minister. - End of days for [Canary Wharf](? - Better investing through [books](. The Day the Sun Stands Still There are two solstices each year and if you’re reading this on Dec. 22, you are within the scope of one of them. The word comes to us from Latin: When the sun, sol, stops, or sistere — as if trying to figure out the direction it will head next. In most civilizations, it’s a moment for people to reflect on where they’ve come from and where they would like to go. My colleagues have been doing the same for several pressing questions of our era. John Authers has looked at [the market and financial dogs that did not bark]( in 2023 and pondered what that suspicious silence may portend. Parmy Olson (in real-life human and artificial incarnations), Dave Lee, Karishma Vaswani, Lisa Jarvis and Mark Gongloff have collaborated on [this video look back]( at AI, the future of X/Twitter, wobbly China, Ozempic and the bumpy quest to deal with climate change  — as well as the issues they raise about the future, not just 2024. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza are at the stage of quagmire, with little to be gleaned by analysis unless breakthroughs take place in negotiations or on the front. Beyond war and peace, however, Bloomberg columnists have spotted developments that could define the direction of business in the new year. A corollary to the Israel-Hamas conflict is the Houthi threat to sea traffic through the Red Sea (and by extension, the Suez Canal). As inconvenient as the rerouting of cargo flow may be, Tim Culpan says [advances](in shipping technology and the changing pattern of global trade will soften the blow of this disrupted sea route, which has only been viable since the canal opened in 1869. “Moving a single container from Shanghai to Rotterdam [around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa) may take longer as a result of the detour away from Suez. But the development of larger ships, along with ports that can efficiently load and unload vessels, expands the capacity to get more cargo across the world quicker, on aggregate, than was possible 50 years ago.” The change in trade patterns is due to the continued emergence of emerging markets, especially in Southeast Asia. The sector — as an investment category — has had trouble in the last few years, but Shuli Ren says it would be [foolish to ignore]( EMs now because they are likely to pay huge dividends in the future. “A new trade corridor that doesn’t involve developed nations or the US dollar is emerging,” she writes. “Increasingly, emerging markets are trading amongst themselves. The share of exports within this bloc has risen from less than 25% in 2000 to over 40%.” That recalibration of the center of gravity is tied to Southeast Asia’s burgeoning commercial ties with China, which in spite of its political uncertainties and shaky economics, continues to be a regional powerhouse of consumerism and investment. Andrea Felsted looks at the “LuxuryVerse” of high-spending Chinese women who may decide the profits of the European luxury market. While the outlook is good for travel within China, it’s not quite there for the next expensive bag from Hermes or a sparkling watch from Cartier. Andrea’s conclusion: “Chinese tastes are evolving quickly … with high-spending young women moving rapidly away from flashiness and logo-heavy designs to versatility and [quiet luxury](. Miscalculate, and valuable sales will be lost.” The actual process of purchasing consumer goods may be at risk, too. Andy Mukherjee [points out]( that, to a huge extent, we’ve been able to buy things securely with our credit cards because of mathematics, specifically prime numbers. These integers can only be divided into themselves and 1; and encryption can function effectively because off the strict nature of this arithmetic. Their massiveness and rarity help keep hackers at bay. Now, however, quantum computing — which is even more flexible than supercomputing — may be able to speed up the ability of bad actors to calculate their way not just to your credit line but the way entire banks and economies work. Says Andy: “A wholesale quantum heist would be catastrophic. The security of worldwide interbank payments may be compromised if the digital signatures authorizing release of funds lose their sanctity.” Shudder. It’s scary to peer into the future. The good thing about solstices is that — barring some galactic catastrophe — the sun always goes in both directions. The winter solstice now marked by those of us in the Northern Hemisphere initiates a period when the daylight hours grow longer. Simultaneously, it is the summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere — and the days will grow shorter. Future casting has its limitation (see Andreas Kluth’s classic column on Vladimir Putin, Herodotus, [Croesus](and the interpretation of prophecy). Oh, did I tell you that 2024 will also be the year of the dragon in East Asia? As wise fortune tellers have learned to say, it could be mighty good — or mighty bad. Double shudder. Telltale Charts “The only way to win money out of a casino is to own one (unless you’re Donald Trump). Thomas Jefferson is supposed to have said the first part. If you own the casino and you're still not winning, maybe it's time to consider whether you're using the right strategy. Entain Plc’s reluctance to cash in its chips when the going was good looks less like the cool-headed calculation of a corporate profit-maximizer.” — Matthew Brooker in “[Casino Owners Shouldn't Need to Be Gamblers](.” “It sounded quixotic, and so it proved. Activist investor Jeff Ubben is winding down his social and environmental impact funds [including the environmentalist Inclusive Capital Partners], a project that sought to harness capitalism for the simultaneous benefit of society and shareholders... The market is cold-blooded, short-termist and faddist. Where companies generate value for society, there needs to be a clear link to earnings for this to become a financial benefit for shareholders. Tax or regulation may be required for a corporation to profit from environmental technologies.” — Chris Hughes in “[Quixotic Activist Was Naive About Modern Capitalism.](” Further Reading Mark Zuckerberg! What are you doing in my [closet](? — Parmy Olson A high-flying $100 million [bonus](. — Chris Bryant Japan’s quiet but scary [scandal](. — Gearoid Reidy The French economy’s secret [weapon](. — Tyler Cowen It’s time to be [fed up]( with the Fed. — Mohamed A. El-Erian Banking on AI just risks old [mistakes](. — Paul J. Davies Three Personal Delights in 2023 It’s been a tumultuous year. Still, there were moments of joy and inspiration. Here’s a short, personal list of delights. Avantgardey. I can’t quite remember when I first saw this 20-woman troupe of synchronized dancers from Japan. By then, they’d already risen to the top ranks of competitors in Japan’s Got Talent and were headed to America’s Got Talent, the franchise’s biggest arena. Performed to perniciously catchy J-Pop disco, Avantgardey’s [precision goofiness]( was charming — if slightly sinister. Imagine Wednesday Addams (as played by Jenna Ortega) multiplied by 20, hurtling with frenetic insouciance across the stage without a single misstep. I rooted for them all the way — and was as chagrined as the rest of their 1.5 million TikTok followers that, as winning as they were, they didn’t win. It was a magical ride — and I’ll be a follower as long as they post Instagram stories and YouTube videos. The downside? I’ll never get “Cinderella Honeymoon” out of my head. [YouTube: Cinderella Honeymoon by Hiromi Iwasak...]( A Culinary Detente. For more than two decades, as the 20th century turned into the 21st, the world of haute cuisine saw a ferocious battle for supremacy. It culminated in the displacement of tradition-bound French cooking by an innovative vanguard centered on the restaurant El Bulli in Catalonia, led by Ferran Adria and his brother Albert. The Gallic old guard — epitomized by Alain Ducasse and others — glowered in the sidelines. Invectives were exchanged; pride ruffled; feelings hurt. Last week, however, a kind of detente settled in. The Adria brothers showed up for graduation week at Ecole Ducasse, the French chef’s cooking school in Meudon. The ostensible mediator: the school’s senior faculty member Jacques Maximin, whom Ferran credits with the words that propelled his own pursuit of food history. “Creativity means not copying,” said Maximin in the mid-1980s. It sparked the flood of culinary originality that issued from Spain. Albert Adria and Ducasse had made peace and entered into a kind of business collaboration last year. But Ferran remained aloof — until now. Albert Adria, Alain Ducasse and Ferran Adria earlier this month. Photo: Alain Ducasse/Instagram The Aya Sofia. Yes, I know the building materialized long before 2023, in fact, about 1,500 years ago, when Istanbul was still Constantinople and the edifice was known by its Greek name, the Hagia Sophia (short for the Church of the Holy Wisdom). But I only got inside this year. I had practiced what I would say when I got there, though. I whispered to myself what the emperor Justinian declared when he entered it in December 536: “Solomon, I have surpassed thee.” The Byzantine ruler was alluding to the Jewish monarch who built the Temple of Jerusalem, erected about 1,500 years before. Justinian’s church is now a mosque. The Turks — since they conquered the city in 1453 — have conserved the historic Christian mosaics that adorn its walls, if only by camouflaging them. There is tension, nonetheless. In 1935, the country’s secular regime made the Aya Sofia a museum. Amid a Covid-era election campaign, however, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared it a mosque (which it had been under the Ottomans). During the five daily periods of Muslim prayer, Christian imagery is curtained off from the view of the faithful. Public access to the mosaics on upper levels is restricted. Such is the draw of the Aya Sofia that a good portion of the worshippers are Muslim tourists from beyond Turkey, awed by the fact that they can find god in this palimpsest of so much world history. Outside, sultans past and present have built mosques to try to surpass it. By turning the Aya Sofia back into a mosque, Erdogan has assured that none ever will. The ceiling of the Aya Sofia, with a mosaic of the Virgin Mary curtained off to prepare for prayers in the mosque. Photographer: Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg Drawdown Thanks for bearing with me these past few months. Don’t be a stranger in 2024! ”Dear Harold, I love walks on the beach, a nice glass of wine, fresh flowers and social distancing...” Illustration by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg Notes:  Please send a cheery word and feedback to Howard Chua-Eoan at hchuaeoan@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( 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](. 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