| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a two-pronged approach to Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. On Sundays, we look at the major themes of the week past and how they will define the week ahead. Sign up for the daily newsletter here. Have you ever gotten a Lamborghini for Christmas? A Lotus? His ‘n’ hers pickups? I’ve never even gotten a puppy for the holiday, nonetheless one in a sporty red Mercedes. In truth, I don’t know anybody who has ever gifted or received a car for Xmas, but then I live in a part of America where nobody has a car, and I grew up in a town where you’d be lucky to get even a Defender up the driveway in late December. [1] That’s not to say my life hasn’t been greatly enhanced by year-end car sales — considering how one transforms my NFL team’s quarterback: [2]  Santa, of course, drives a low-emissions vehicle — unless maybe reindeer have that whole cow-burp problem? — so perhaps you have a climate-conscious Christmas in mind. You’d better get that EV this time around, because next year it’s gonna be all about coal in the stocking. According to a scoop from Bloomberg News this week, Trump’s “advisers” — code for a certain richest man in the world — plan a “two-pronged approach” on electric vehicles: They want to end the federal tax credit for buyers of plug-ins, but don’t want to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act subsidies for manufacturing EV components such as batteries. “Determined to prevent Democrats from picking winners in the auto market, President-elect Donald Trump looks set to counter by fostering losers,” writes Liam Denning. “While ‘two-pronged’ lends an air of tactical genius, this is about as ridiculous a plan as possible.” Basically, the IRA created demand for batteries by subsidizing vehicle purchases. Because Trump’s approach won’t create any demand, Liam says, “it’s like building factories to nowhere.” Speaking of auto industry failures, remember the whole Nissan-Renault synergy thing followed by the great Carlos Ghosn global fugitive thing? That was fun. Now it seems like a vastly more obvious solution to Nissan’s seemingly permanent woes is finally in the offing: a merger with Honda, “a Christmas gift that’s not a moment too soon,” writes Gearoid Reidy. “There are lots of problems with the proposed combination, but it’s the deal that’s available. The alternatives look a lot less pretty,” Gearoid explains. “Nissan and Honda also have relatively little synergy for parts in their competing platforms. But what choice do they have? It gives both firms the chance to find benefits in what would be the world’s third-biggest automaker by sales, in an era where bit-players are going to get left behind.” Among those bit players, give credit to the Porsche and Piech families for trying to keep pace. They warned that their holding vehicle may have to book up to $23 billion of impairments because of the plummeting value of its large stakes in VW and Porsche. “While Porsche SE’s survival isn’t imperiled like it was in 2008 when it tried and failed to acquire the much larger VW, the families are once again in a tight spot partly of their own making. But they’re not backing down,” writes Chris Bryant. “It’s encouraging to see the Porsche and Piech families backing VW’s management, which is taking long overdue action to tackle bloated costs — painful though this is for workers. Hopefully, those hard decisions will pay off for all of VW stakeholders in the long term. But even if the consequences are much less serious in 2008, using leverage to acquire shares in cyclical automotive companies is clearly not without drama or risk.” [3] While the Porsche-Piechs roll the dice, Stellantis boss Carlos Tavares has already lost his shirt. “His aggressive turnaround style, drastic cost cutting and price hikes created huge internal pushback and made his position untenable after profits slumped,” writes Lionel Laurent. “While his exit highlights the auto sector’s huge issues in the face of technological upheaval and Chinese competition ... it also offers wider warnings for the hype around ‘cost-killer’ chief executives going into 2025.” Lionel explains that today’s dynamics don’t favor job-slashing buccaneers like Tavares. “Global corporate alliances are more fragile, supply chains are more diversified as a result of geopolitics and the talent pool is less deep as a result of demographics,” he writes. “Layoffs are beginning to rise again … Let’s hope they come with more focus on improving growth in a world that needs it — and less worshipping of cost-killer CEOs in a world that doesn’t.” While we’re at it, we might want to tone down the worshipping of cost-killer centibillionaires as well. Bonus Gift Reading: My holiday gift is to spare you my usual pithy summation, and synopsize a trio of pieces that defy easy description:
David Fickling says the following green gifts aren’t sustainable propositions: Bamboo straws, beeswax food wraps (??), Castile soap, hemp stationery, organic nuts. “The lesson of this shouldn’t be to turn the season into a festival of eco-guilt. Quite the opposite,” David explains. “The biggest differences that you and I can make to the environment mostly come not from the products we choose to buy, but the way we use energy.” Stephen L. Carter reports that there is a cease-fire in the war on Christmas, but the litigation continues: Mariah Carey is likely to win her copyright-infringement suit; the Knights of Columbus might lay down their swords; an Alabama holiday parade is getting a little more progressive; and in Idaho, the jury is out on holiday lights — but world-record cotton-candy snowmen are in, and terrifying.  Frosty the serial killer? Source: Facebook Finally, Justin Fox presents the denouement of the greatest of all Christmas mysteries: What were the original names of Santa’s reindeer? Justin has spent “a ludicrous amount of time” to find out all there is to know about the poem variously known as The Night Before Christmas and A Visit From St. Nicholas. He has thrown shade on theories denying Clement Clark Moore authorship, debunked internet nonsense that Moore was pro-slavery, and now has made heroic efforts to find the birth names of the pair of Rangifer tarandus at the back of the line. (Or front of the line? We’ll have to ask Justin about Santa’s order of battle.) [4] “A poem appeared anonymously 201 years ago this month in a newspaper in Troy, New York, telling of a jolly St. Nicholas with twinkling eyes, dimpled cheeks and a jelly-like belly, who transported gifts in a sleigh drawn by reindeer named Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder and Blixem,” Justin writes. “All of that probably sounds familiar, except those last two names. Aren’t they supposed to be Donner and Blitzen?” As you can see from the chart above, contemporary usage of Moore’s poem showed remarkable name fluidity. And since the Dunder vs. Donder vs. Blixen vs. Blixem controversy has re-ignited the debate over whether Moore stole the poem, I urge you dive deep into Justin’s “Christmas-season attempt to dismantle it.” Notes: Please send Poronkäristys and feedback to Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net. | 
