| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a commuter car of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. If you're anything like me, you work from home to avoid close human contact on public transportation and also sometimes Covid. But did you know your aversion to wearing dress pants is a national service, for the economy? Jonathan Levin writes about a new study that suggests the proliferation of hybrid work has put downward pressure on wages, which makes the Federal Reserve's inflation-fighting job easier by countering a dreaded wage-price spiral. The idea is that people will trade down in salary if it means they can work at least part of the time at a blissful remove from people and pants. If this is true, then take a gander at this chart and imagine how much worse inflation would be if even half of us were going back to the office: Hybrid work could become obsolete overnight if the economy keels over, triggering massive job losses, as some fear. In that case, employers will have leverage to insist you appear in the office, in pants. Funny thing, though: Despite all the chatter and market anxiety about a recession, the labor market is tighter than ever, Conor Sen writes. Americans have never worked as many hours as they are now, in data going back to 1997: Similarly, though oil prices have tumbled, with some wags warning of a repeat of the crashes in 2008 and 2020, Javier Blas points out oil-market conditions are still more bullish, and the economy much stronger, than they were two or 14 years ago. Yay? Yesterday we learned job openings and service-sector activity and prices are booming, John Authers notes, overturning the recession bandwagon into which everybody in the market had recently crowded. Maybe, just maybe, what's really going on here is that the global economy experienced successive freakish, once-in-a-century events that blew up supply chains, labor markets and commodity prices, and the fallout is like nothing we've ever experienced — but the net result could be kind of … fine? You may not want to bet money on that, if only because it feels like basically a coin flip. Today Boris Johnson finally took up his party's invitation to no longer live at 10 Downing Street. He Borexited with all the quiet dignity for which he has become famous, declaring "Them's the breaks," a quote from Winston Churchill, or possibly Benny Hill. This will not be the end of the UK's political problems, notes Bloomberg's editorial board. Johnson's successor confronts an uncertain economic outlook, labor unrest and many angry Europeans, to name a few. And Brexit's upheaval stocked the Tories with a fresh crop of only partially qualified potential leaders, making the process of replacing the prime minister even more chaotic than usual, notes Adrian Wooldridge. This raises the chances Britain ends up with another Johnsonesque leader and has to do this all over again soon. Bonus UK Reading: Rumors of a global wheat shortage have been greatly exaggerated, writes Leonid Bershidsky. Russia and other countries have replaced Ukraine's lost production, and Vladimir Putin may consider it a matter of national pride to maintain that. When you get angry about the cost of driving a car, spare some rage for the Fed, whose rate hikes have made buying cars more expensive, writes Liam Denning. Big Pharma can help women and protect its profits by fighting states trying to restrict abortion drugs. — Lisa Jarvis Progressive complaints about overturning Roe won't stick because the court took itself out of the process. — Ramesh Ponnuru If you're a big enough nickel trader, you can just tell the market how much you're willing to lose on a bad trade. — Matt Levine In the middle of yet another Covid surge, Congress is withholding money to understand and fight it. — Faye Flam Samsung's results are a warning the tech hardware sector faces tough times. — Tim Culpan Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani was found guilty. Mortgage rates just tumbled. Johnny Depp has found work again. Elon Musk has a lot of children. New weird thing I would probably eat: pickle pizza. (h/t Scott Kominers) Archaeologists will open a tomb supposedly tied to King Arthur, possibly looking for a Boris replacement. Finland is powering up a massive sand-based battery. Tomorrow 99% of Earth's population will be in sunlight at the same time. Notes: Please send pickle pizza and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook. | 
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