You will eat bugs — and like it

How else are we gonna feed 10 billion people? [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, the Bangerz era of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - [Insects]( are good for you. - Parents don’t have [a clue](. - Ex-Twitter execs are [feeling blue](. - [Spirit]( should worry about its crew. A Bug’s Life Picture this: It’s the year 2093. Your great, great grandaughter is hosting a dinner party for her friends tonight in honor of the [total solar eclipse](. She starts on the bug board, taking care to assemble the tinned locusts. The hot honey hornets are next. After that, it’s the [scorpion kimchi]( and the [ant guacamole](. Then she takes the baked [casu martzu]( — a Sardinian cheese that contains live insect larvae — out of the oven and tops it with [faux]( caviar. Wanting to keep dessert simple, she drone-ordered some [Micolino’s]( ice cream. Guests can top it with cricket sprinkles if they want. If this [future]( sounds far-fetched to you, fine. But it’s 2024, and we’ve already bulldozed our way through [cheese plates](, [butter boards]( and [hummus spreads](. In 70 years, who’s to say we won’t have cockroach charcuterie? Italy’s deputy prime minister hopes he doesn’t live to see the day. “STOP insect flour-based foods in school canteens,” Matteo Salvini [tweeted]( last month. But David Fickling says insect farming ought not to scare us so much. “Insects are highly efficient at converting waste matter into high-quality protein, making their consumption a potentially more sustainable way to feed a planet approaching 10 billion people,” he writes. You’re not alone if that skeeves you out. “Whether it’s [the grubs farmed by Dave Bautista]( in Blade Runner: 2049 or Charlton Heston in Soylent Green yelling that [food is being made from ‘people,’]( there are few things that provoke as visceral a reaction as the prospect that ecological disaster might force you to eat something gross,” he writes. Just last year there was a dystopian [conspiracy theory]( about governments forcing enslaved people to eat bugs. But these scary narratives couldn’t be further from the truth: “They're fine for snacking, but insect protein has its greatest potential as nutrient rich, climate-friendly livestock feed,” as Amanda Little has [previously explained](. By making [animal food]( out of fly larvae and mealworms, poultry and livestock meat should become much more affordable for human consumption. Read [the whole thing](. Bonus Ecological Disaster Reading: A hotter and more [chaotic atmosphere]( is making it harder to build nuclear weapons and store waste safely. — Mark Gongloff [I Know My Age and I Act Like It]( Some parents have recently awakened to the fact that Olivia Rodrigo is, in fact, a 21-year-old adult woman. And they are not happy about it! In a new (free) [column]( for Bloomberg, I write that “the parental [backlash]( against Rodrigo and her [hip-thrusting](, [chest-grabbing](, [bra-flashing](choreography serves as a reminder that most concerts are not intended for young children — even if the evolution of concert culture makes them seem more like a family-friendly event.” When I first heard about the outrage over Rodrigo’s lewd gestures and explicit language, I was reminded of the Disney child star trap that ensnared Miley Cyrus during her Bangerz era, when she nakedly [straddled]( a massive concrete ball for all to see. But I think Rodrigo’s troubles run deeper. Kids are increasingly attending concerts at a younger age, partly because the “[pandemic skip](” warped our sense of time. And Taylor Swift isn’t helping things, either. Many millennial parents grew up listening to [Miss Americana]( themselves, so they had no problem allowing their kids to attend The Eras Tour, where friendship bracelets, amicable chants and adorable [hat giveaways]( are a way of life. But Olivia Rodrigo [isn’t]( Taylor Swift, and it doesn’t take much to realize that. Her [departure]( from Disney has been obvious since she released Sour — an album with [six explicit songs](. And her opening act is 26-year-old Chappell Roan. If a parent took one second to listen to Roan’s song [Casual](, they’d know it was never intended to be heard by 9-year-old ears. Although Rodrigo is referring to an ex when she [sings](, “seeing you tonight, it’s a bad idea, right?,” parents planning to take their pre-teens to the Guts World Tour ought to ask themselves the same question. Unpaid Bills If someone owed me $128 million, I wouldn’t play it cool and wait two years for them to hit me up on Venmo. I’d be pressing that request button every day until I secured my bag. But that’s just me! Anyway, Matt Levine’s [assessment]( of former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is pretty spot-on: Few CEOs have ever deserved their severance package more than Parag Agrawal. This is not a commentary on his performance running Twitter: That performance was, you know, bad enough that Elon Musk bought the company. But a severance package is not a reward for good performance as CEO! A severance package is a reward for getting out of the way and letting someone else take over. And few CEOs have worked harder, or had a more unpleasant time, getting out of the way. He earned his millions. But then Musk didn’t pay him, [so he’s suing](. Duh, he’s suing!!! He says his former employer stiffed him — and three other ex-Twitter execs — on more than $128 million in severance payments. Trouble is, Parag and his pals were breaking their backs to get the best-possible deal for the old shareholder regime. “To do that, they had to work against its new owner, Musk, so they got him a bad deal,” Matt writes. The shareholders, of course, were fine with the severance package. They were on their way out! And now Musk has to foot the bill — [something]( he hasn’t been so good at in the past. Telltale Charts The weird thing about the Spirit-JetBlue deal [falling through]( is that Spirit might, like, die now. And that’s only a slight exaggeration. Unless its cost-conscious cousin Frontier swoops in to help the budget airline deal with $1.3 billion of debt that matures in 2025, things are not looking pretty! “Spirit’s shares traded at $21.73 the last trading day before Frontier made its offer in February 2022 and rose to $27.53 three days later. On Monday, they closed at $5.76,” Thomas Black [writes](. When the stock tumble is steeper than the incline of Spirit’s seats, you know it’s bad: Wanna hear something wild? Ozempic single-handedly propped up Denmark’s economy last year. Without Novo Nordisk, Tyler Cowen [says]( the Nordic country would have [fallen into a recession](. “While it is better for a country to have one big, successful company than not, such a company — such as Nokia in Finland — does put the domestic economy in a somewhat precarious position,” he warns. I, for one, just find it funny that a country known for its sweet treats ([ebelskivers](, [sportskage]( and [risalamande](, to name a few) is booming because of [a weight-loss drug](. Further Reading [Public pensions]( shouldn’t be full of risky, illiquid investments. — Bloomberg’s editorial board It’s not just the [Cookie Monster](. Inflation [worrywarts]( are crashing the party. — Jonathan Levin Bitcoin is near a record, but Brazil shows the [true future]( of money. — Lionel Laurent Big business is struggling against a [big idea drought](. — Adrian Wooldridge There are cracks in the [great wall of silence]( on China. — Karishma Vaswani A bid to [rule Senegal]( from the grave was doomed from the start. — Justice Malala What’s [another $25 billion]( on top of $100 billion of debt? — Chris Hughes The math behind China’s [2024 economic targets]( is rather fuzzy. — Shuli Ren ICYMI Facebook and Instagram had an [outage](. Kyrsten Sinema [isn’t running]( for re-election. [Immigration rage]( is taking over. [Tumblemageddon]( has arrived. [Coolcations]( are trending. Kickers Kylie Jenner launched a [vodka soda]( brand. The [Black cowboy]( is fashion’s favorite muse. Queer Eye is not for the [faint-hearted](. This dog [ran a mile]( for help after a car crash. Patriotic programming note: Wondering why US politics was conspicuously absent in a newsletter that published on [Super Tuesday](? That’s because I’ll be burning ye olde midnight oil tonight like Paul Revere to give you freaks a SPECIAL ELECTION EDITION of Bloomberg Opinion Today tomorrow (ha!). It will arrive in your inbox far [earlier than normal]( so please, for the love of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, be on the lookout. In the meantime, send ant guacamole 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? 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