Britain and Japan are islands of anxiety

Plus: What polar bears and people have in common and more [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a decoupled chrestomathy of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Must-Reads - #Mobwife [murders]( #CoastalGranny. - Can the EU play [soldier](? - The [travails]( of startups in Paris. - How to [reset]( Ukraine’s war strategy. Archipelagos of Anxiety It’s been a momentous week for archipelagos. Japan and the UK have slipped into recession. Meanwhile, Indonesia is enjoying a healthy economy, which could very well be run by a controversial ex-general, who appears to have garnered enough votes to become president of the 18,000-plus-island nation. The Japanese yen is weakening by the day as the US dollar continues to gain strength and the Fed keeps rates up to try to rein in inflation. Japan has the opposite problem. As John Authers [writes](, the Bank of Japan “still needs proof that it has finally reintroduced inflation” to boost growth. Gearoid Reidy [notes]( a possible way out: Tourism spending. Japan’s excellent ski resorts are raising their prices as Australians, Europeans and Americans flock to their slopes. Even with increased fees and restaurant bills (Gearoid points to a $25 bowl of ramen), things are “still cheaper than what they would pay at home.” Wages in the ski regions have gone up even as real wages across Japan fell. Is this a way out? Perhaps. But to keep the tourists coming, the exchange rate must be in their favor — and that means keeping the yen weak. The BOJ has its work cut out. The British, meanwhile, are singing the recessionary blues (see Walk of the Town below). Though not Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, who’s described the downturn as mild and sees signs of growth picking up. Marcus Ashworth [says](that Bailey is shortsighted and “remains oblivious to the need to nurture those green shoots of recovery.” Says Marcus: “What's important now for an economy dead in the water is that the central bank signals it will be easing monetary conditions in the not-too-distant future.” Indonesia is enjoying 5% annual growth rates in gross domestic product — a trajectory that presumptive president Prabowo Subianto won’t want to disrupt. Mihir Sharma [says]( Jakarta should leverage that economic buoyancy to claim leadership of the developing world. As global trade and business trends shift from China to India to points beyond, Indonesia could become “a hinge in a decoupled world economy.” Not so fast, warns Karishma Vaswani, who grew up in Indonesia. She [says](the ex-general — who was defense minister of outgoing president Joko Widodo — has a reputation as a special forces commander with a bad temper. He was also the son-in-law of Indonesia’s ex-dictator Suharto, until he divorced his daughter in 1998, after the strongman resigned in the face of widespread demonstrations against him. Some of his old temperament, says Karishma, “was evident on the campaign trail” even as he tried to remake himself as a “cute and cuddly grandpa.” He’s also echoed Donald Trump, saying it was time to “make Indonesia great again.” As for becoming the hinge of the world’s economy? Says Karishma: “The archipelago has always maintained an independent foreign policy, Prabowo will need to tread carefully — and that’s not something he’s good at.” People Shouldn’t Be Like Polar Bears With the Arctic warming up faster than the rest of the planet, polar bears are having to learn to get around without their ice-white habitat and natural camouflage. Their time without sea ice is getting more and more extended, [says]( Lara Williams, and that’s leading to bad survival choices. Usually feasting on large sea mammals and fish, they can’t quite live on berries and birds like other bears. They face starvation. Lara says that a recent study of polar bears in such straits — and the questionable decisions they make — is a lesson for human beings. She writes: “There’s a tendency to believe animals have an unimpeachable survival instinct — that a species will behave, as a group, in the same, optimal way. But just as humans aren’t always the rational actors some economists model us to be, neither are animals. This doesn’t make them stupid, but speaks instead to their intelligence: Each bear is trying to creatively solve the puzzle of how to stay alive in a challenging scenario.” Telltale Charts “The sense of impending doom in commercial property is almost inescapable in the US and Europe, but evidence of actual disaster is scant. … The truth is that the losses to come over the next few years will likely be as varied and specific as the experiences of different banks so far seem to be. ... Occupancy rates in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe have recovered much more than in the US broadly. Price declines in recently overbid markets, such as San Francisco, far outstrip those in other major US cities and European centers like Amsterdam or Paris.” — Paul J. Davies in “[Banks’ Real Estate Losses Will Be Hyperlocal](.” “The Mob Wife has taken a hit out on Coastal Grandma. So it goes with super-fast TikTok trends. Since the bohemian and beachy[ Coastal Grandma]( aesthetic surged two years ago, the internet has worshipped the glamorous [Night Luxe](, bright-pink [Barbiecore](, sizzling [Tomato Girl](, glowing [Clean GirlÂ](and sultry [Office Siren](. … The latest trend is [Mob Wife](, inspired by glamorous women associated with organized crime. It’s characterized by big hair, gold jewelry, leather trousers and the item with which it has become most synonymous — a huge fur coat.” — Andrea Felsted in “[How Mob Wife Killed Coastal Grandma](.” Further Reading [Netflix]( may save Indian education. — Andy Mukherjee No more memory for [ChatGPT]( please. — Parmy Olson [Cathie Wood]( is sooo interesting. — Shuli Ren Soho House wants its [privacy](. — Chris Bryant The trouble with Mexico’s [super peso](. — Juan Pablo Spinetto Don’t kill the [referee](. — Bobby Ghosh [Temu]( is ‘shopping like a billionaire’ itself —  Leticia Miranda Walk of the Town: The Shadow of Defeat Over the weekend, I walked friends around London who’d brought their son to look at UK colleges. The young man was fascinated by the depth of history — recent and distant — in evidence everywhere in the capital. Niall Ferguson’s [piece on future conflicts]( came to mind. It starts out with how Americans — despite recent military misadventures — find it hard to imagine being on the losing side. Here in England, the physical evidence of how close the country came to being engulfed by Axis forces is still visible: the scarred walls of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital; the ruins of St. Dunstan-in-the-East; the fact that St. Paul is still standing when it was the target of so many Nazi air attacks. Niall looks at how fiction has envisioned Allied defeat — mainly through Len Deighton’s novel SS-GB. Niall says, “Deighton had come close enough to disaster in the Battle of Britain and the Blitz to make his depiction of Nazi-occupied London entirely plausible. Moreover, he was writing at a time when life in Britain had more than a whiff of defeat about it. Dogged by stagflation, the UK economy in the 1970s was the sick man of Europe.” The country had a resurgence in the 1980s, but many Britons today have a sense that the country is slipping backward. Adrian Wooldridge [sees](poor choices in the election the UK must hold by January 2025. “Tragedy or farce?” he asks. “Both the ruling Conservatives and the opposition Labour party are doing their best to prove that they’re not worthy of forming the next government.” Meanwhile, the local papers are raising the possibilities of a broader war — albeit speculatively in an indeterminate future — as Ukraine slips into despond, with an increasingly confident Vladimir Putin in Moscow and a feud in Kyiv that’s led to a reshuffle at the top of the nation’s defense establishment. Andreas Kluth has [reversed](himself on whether the Kremlin’s $300 billion held in foreign banks should be handed over to Ukraine. Yes, it’s time to give it to Kyiv. Amid World War II, London was a city on the edge, not knowing if or when the war would ever turn in its favor. You can see the trauma on walls today — like concrete DNA. But is fate etched permanently into cement? In his “finest hour” speech before the House of Commons in June 1940, Winston Churchill warned: “If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.” Germany’s forces were gathering for their aerial assault on the island and he did yet know how all would end. In Deighton’s alternative history, Churchill is executed by the victorious Nazis. We know what really happened. Around the corner from St. Paul’s and not far from the ruins of a bomb-blasted church is the post-war facade of Bracken House, built in the 1950s and headquarters of our friends over at the Financial Times. Churchill is certainly not a hero to everyone, but the face on the sun shining on that wall is his. Sol Invictus, for now. A familiar face. Photograph by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg Drawdown Thanks for hanging with me. Stay out of trouble. ”A bone to pick with me? But I’m vegan.” Illustration by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg Notes: Please send peace feelers and calming 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](. 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](