Brands go nuts on Valentine’s Day. Blame corporate bloat.

Nobody wants to neuter their ex. [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a woke toxic masculinity-type palaver of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Corporations need [a spring cleaning](. - “Second class” gets a whole [new meaning](. - The [results are in]( from Indonesia’s convening. - The [crime wave]( peaked while we were quarantining. Feeling Bloated Sometimes, it’s obvious when an organization has too much time on its hands. Have you seen some of these Valentine’s Day PR stunts? Pizza Hut is [peddling]( “Goodbye Pies.” Denny’s is trying to make “[friends with bennys](” happen. And the Feline Rescue Association is running a “[neuter your ex](” campaign, which I honestly have no words for: No feral cats were harmed in the making of this newsletter. Source: The Feline Rescue Association via Facebook Although I’m all for supporting pet shelters, I can’t help but imagine how many precious hours were wasted on these brainstorming sessions. So why, exactly, are so many [unnecessary]( Valentine’s Day promotions plaguing our timelines? Adrian Wooldridge [posits](, “few people have built great careers by asking themselves what can I subtract rather than what can I add?” “Clutter is as natural to organizational life as it is to domestic life,” Adrian notes. “Managerial hierarchies lengthen. Chief officers multiply and their support staff with them — chief diversity officers, chief compliance officers, chief sustainability officers, chief digital officers and many more, all with their egos and entourages. Meetings multiply. Memos bloviate. Forms thicken.” Perhaps it’s time to prune those long-winded reports, time-sucking meetings, and, yes, head-scratching ad campaigns. Interestingly, the very thing that ails the private sector may be a cure for America’s military: “Last fiscal year, all of the US armed forces other than the Marine Corps and the tiny Space Force failed to hit their recruiting [goals](,” James Stavridis [writes](. Obviously, this is not good. References to World War III in news stories are at [a 16-month high](! We need Uncle Sam to be armed and ready. And yet deployments on Navy aircraft carriers have gone from six months to eight or more as operational pressures mount. “It’s understandable that few people want to live on a crowded steel ship with 5,000 people and sail away from loved ones for close to a year,” he says. And with the economy booming, James writes that a lot of young people simply say, “I can do equally well in a civilian job without all the danger and hassle of military life.” Which, yeah: Sitting in a conference room to brainstorm a Valentine’s Day campaign sure sounds easier than boot camp. But the skillsets required to succeed in office and military life are closer than many think. In today’s military, for instance, most jobs require tech skills — a fact that’s largely under-marketed to perspective members. One former mariner told James his son and his friends weren’t really considering the military because “the commercials suck.” Gen Zers ought to be reminded that “military life is not just service, but a fulfilling and rewarding career.” We need to send some SEO gurus and social media mavens over to the Pentagon. They’d create a buzzworthy campaign that would generate new recruits in no time — as long as it didn’t involve neutering their ex. Bonus Pentagon Reading: The man who sits on the world’s largest pile of wealth, part of which comes from Pentagon defense contracts, is now [actively working to thwart]( US foreign policy. — Marc Champion No Girls Allowed One of Australia’s prestigious [all-boys schools]( is planning to become fully co-ed by 2033. Naturally, the parents of the boys are not happy about it: “BOYS WILL BECOME 2nd class citizens in their own school. CO-ED = LESS diversity,” read one [sign]( outside Newington College, which has educated a long list of [politicians and judges]( among others. One alumnus, whose son was also an [Old Newingtonian](, as its old boys are known, held back tears as he said he’d hoped to one day see a future grandson attend the 160-year-old institution in the city’s inner-west. “But I won’t bring him to a coed school,” he [told]( 9News. Another blamed the decision to go coeducational on “woke toxic masculinity-type palaver.” Andreea Papuc [says]( the sexist backlash against allowing girls into the school is precisely the reason why they must be admitted. “It is these young men who will go on to hold positions of power in business, finance, politics, law and the media, cementing [old boys’ networks](,” she writes. In their current form, these elite boys schools are glorified cocoons that nurture toxic masculinity and sexist behavior — similar to the [misogynistic communities]( that young men [often find]( online. It’s interesting to see the language of the complaints — “woke toxic masculinity-type palaver,” for instance — mirror the [harmful ideas]( spread by the [Andrew Tates]( of the world. Ever since the rise of the internet age, people have sought the opinions of like-minded individuals to reinforce their own beliefs, however harsh they may be. Social media enhanced the trend with the introduction of hyper-specialized algorithms that served to further divide, rather than unify. And AI may be more of the same, if this Parmy Olson [column]( is any indication. OpenAI [is rolling out]( a “memory feature” for ChatGPT, which means the chatbot will now store key details about its users to provide them with more personalized answers. “As with so many tech innovations, what sounds cutting-edge and useful also has a dark flipside,” Parmy warns: “It could blast another hole into our digital privacy and — just maybe — push us further into the echo chambers that social media forged.” If you were to, say, tell ChatGPT that you believe co-education means less diversity, your future queries might get answers that neglect to address the opposite sex — leaving you with a distorted view of the world. “OpenAI could tackle this by making sure ChatGPT offers diverse perspectives on political or social issues, even if they challenge a user’s prejudices,” Parmy says. If that’s the case, let’s hope the all-boys school at least allows students to use chatbots. Telltale Charts Karishma Vaswani grew up in the former dictator [Suharto’s]( Indonesia. “He was a ruthless [autocrat](, who presided over these 17,000 islands with an iron fist, using the full force of the army to enforce his rule,” she [writes]( (free read). “Just under 26 years later, Indonesians look set to elect a president from that era, the former fiery general Prabowo Subianto.” Surprisingly, young people are unfazed by Prabowo’s [alleged]( human rights violations — they believe he’s a changed man. But “this is generation of Indonesians cannot let the sacrifices of those who have gone before them go to waste,” Karishma warns. The next time you hear Donald Trump give a sweeping campaign speech about the VIOLENT CRIME WAVE sweeping the nation, take it with a grain of salt. Justin Fox [ran the numbers]( and found that the sharp increase in crime happened almost entirely under Trump’s watch and started to decline not long after Joe Biden took over the White House. “I don’t think presidents really determine homicide rates, but if you feel compelled to blame one of them, there’s clearly more evidence of a Trump crime wave than a Biden one,” he writes. I’m all for killing two birds with one stone, especially if those birds are obesity and depression. “An analysis of some 4 million patient health records [showed that]( people prescribed a GLP-1 medicine for either diabetes or weight loss were less likely to experience anxiety and depression. For the 3 million diabetic patients included in the study, the effect held up for nearly every GLP-1 drug on the market,” Lisa Jarvis [writes]( (free read). Maybe it really is a miracle drug. Further Reading Free read: If you want to trade in the after-hours market the second the [Lyft press release]( hits the tape, the risk of typos is on you. — Matt Levine The EU is betting that a financial derivative can help its green-energy transition. There’s just [one problem](. — Bloomberg’s editorial board Sure, SCOTUS could let lower court rulings stand on Trump. But that would be [a missed opportunity](. — Noah Feldman Mexico will need a much stronger economy if it wants to continue [the peso’s bull run](. — Juan Pablo Spinetto Want to sell an electric vehicle? Try putting [a $420,000 price tag]( on it. — Tim Culpan Sotheby’s [new fee structure]( may be marketed as a price cut, but it’ll cushion the house’s coffers. — Aaron Brown Democrats and Republicans disagree on most everything, except [the need to curb borrowing](. — Clive Crook ICYMI There was [a shooting]( at the Super Bowl parade. Lyft, Uber and Deliveroo drivers [went on strike](. A lot of people [believe]( the Taylor Swift conspiracies. Trump sent Melania a very public [love letter](… ...and so did [the White House](. Kickers New York City rats have [a home](. (h/t Mike Nizza) [Reality TV]( has little to do with love. Area man steals [statues]( for girlfriend. A [single stingray]( is pregnant with pups. The ECB is [too cringe](. (h/t Mark Gilbert for the last two kickers) Notes: Please send rat boots 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](. 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