| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, the new cheese scam of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. Let's say you want to open a macaroni and cheese store (as one does) but you're undecided where you should set up shop: - In Town A, the mayor is pro-mac & cheese (the good stuff, not Kraft). Her bumper sticker says "grate expectations" and her administration's official goal is to have 50% of all pasta dishes in the town be cheesy by 2030. She's even issued a Cheesy Chow Down Challenge to increase mac & cheese penetration in public and private spaces.
- In Town B, the mayor's nickname is "Marinara Man." He's all about saving the red-sauce joints from complete obliteration. When asked about Town A's mac mandate, he told the local newspaper: "You can't have 100% of your macaroni be cheese. We can't cheese-ify our cities. The cheese is very, very expensive. And mac & cheese is much heavier." He went on to say they're "spending trillions of dollars of wasteful spending on the new cheese scam." Oh, and did I mention that this mayor is a convicted felon?
As the owner of a macaroni and cheese store, you're obviously gonna go with Town A, right? Doing business in Town B would be far more difficult and needlessly tedious, not to mention completely nonsensical! Well, someone should tell Elon Musk about this tasty but possibly insane metaphor. Why has the Tesla CEO chosen to endorse Donald Trump, a man who would love nothing more than to drive a smog-spewing monster truck through the EV subsidy programs that help Tesla's bottom line?? "Musk may swing right, but Tesla's profit leans left," says Liam Denning. In the second quarter, money from greenhouse gas credits accounted for almost a fifth of Tesla's gross profit — the highest proportion in more than three years. "The reliance on revenue from the sort of subsidy programs that former President Donald Trump rails against serves to highlight the main problem facing Tesla's core automotive business," he explains. Yesterday, Tesla earnings came in below expectations, and Musk's off-the-cuff comments about Optimus robots and robotaxi regulation weren't enough to smooth things over with shareholders. "The Musk schtick is beginning to wear thin," John Authers argues, and it's little wonder: "Shareholders are being asked to pay Musk a huge executive package, and he plans to donate it to a politician whose agenda would directly damage their company." The math is not mathing. Bonus EV Reading: What if we subsidized solar and wind power instead of EVs? — Tyler Cowen Woah, wait a second: Bloomberg put "San Francisco" and "good value" in the same headline??? I never thought I'd live to see the day! But here we are: Conor Sen says "San Francisco has been the subject of a lot of negative press over the past several years," but post-pandemic, it's actually a pretty solid buy. Let him explain: "In arguing that housing in one of the nation's most expensive markets is good value, one must first acknowledge that San Francisco deserves a premium to the US housing market as a whole." By one metric, the ratio between SF home values across the US has fallen to its lowest level since mid-2013. Why? The Big Tech covid exodus, for one. And the deluge of articles about rampant crime and homeless encampments. The doom loop tour certainly didn't help, either. But San Fran's darkest days appear to be behind it. Property crime is down by a third this year. Artificial intelligence is all the rage. "The people who left for cities such as Austin won't come back, but there will always be a new crop of young people looking to chase their fortunes in tech," Conor writes. "The comparison to Austin is useful because of how much home price growth has diverged between the two cities … Austin prices have soared by about 60% since the end of 2018 compared with just 12% for San Francisco." Sure, we're not talking about bargain-basement prices, but California isn't big on those anyway. A deal is a deal! LVMH is practically hosting the Olympics this year, but it's not getting a gold medal for sales. Neither is the competition. Excluding the pandemic, the owner of Louis Vuitton and Dior reported its lowest sales growth since 2009. And Gucci parent Kering is warning of a profit plunge. "It underlines what is becoming the biggest bling bust for a decade," Andrea Felsted writes.  "It was Deutsche Bank that proved the biggest loser" is an evergreen sentence at this point. You could have read that in 2023, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2008 … really, take your pick. But no, it was written in the year 2024 by Paul J. Davies. Although the bank reported better-than-expected Q2 results this week, the German lender said it wasn't going to do any more stock buybacks this year because of a €1.3 billion ($1.4 billion) provision for shareholder lawsuits that Paul says are "linked to Deutsche Bank's takeover of Germany's Postbank, which it completed 14 years and four CEOs ago." Still, lawsuits are lawsuits! And Deutsche shareholders have been burned by them before. How the US and allies can convince more citizens to serve. — Bloomberg's editorial board Even former presidents of the New York Fed can change their mind. — Bill Dudley Harris understands the power of brat. Trump should be afraid. — Nia-Malika Henderson Xi Jinping has reasons to worry about executive pay and the role of finance. — Shuli Ren The problem with "Chat XiPT" is way bigger than China. — Catherine Thorbecke Prison sentences send a bad message about the UK's tolerance for protests. — Matthew Brooker Europe should resist the temptation to invest too much hope in a Democratic victory. — Adrian Wooldridge Democrats now face the challenge of sustaining their unified front until November. — Patricia Lopez Meta is going after sextortion scammers. Cher plans to release a two-part memoir. The Trump gunman researched JFK's assassination. The heartthrob behind the New York Metro Weather account. A whale capsized a fishing boat off the coast of New Hampshire. Zoos are managing the screen time of gorillas. (h/t Andrea Felsted) Ballerina Farm is a hammer blow for feminism. Let her cook. With Ina Garten, preferably. Notes: Please send dutch oven brat mac & cheese and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Threads, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. | 
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