Maybe Ukraine can avoid war by becoming Finland

This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a Karelian stew of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here.Today’s Agenda Ukraine could do worse than be [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a Karelian stew of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Ukraine could [do worse than being Finland](. - Maybe [inflation is a state of mind](. - Trump’s [accountant bailing is not a good sign](. - Saudi Arabia is, [sigh, back in charge](. Why Not Finland? Finland seems nice. Its people are among the [happiest]( in the world, with one of the highest [standards]( of living. It’s as far north as Siberia but gets warmed by the Gulf Stream. Its cuisine goes a little heavy on the antlered game and preserved fish, but nobody’s perfect. In fact, Finland would be up there with New Zealand on the list of places to bug out to if things go truly south in the U.S. (i.e. 20 years ago), except for one big thing: While New Zealand is isolated on the other side of the globe and thus somewhat sheltered from nuclear fallout, Finland sits smack-dab against Russia — often an uncomfortable place to be, as Ukraine keeps discovering. It seems Ukraine may not be at war this week, with Russia [pulling]( some of its troops back and saying nice things about diplomacy. But living next to a much larger, nuclear-armed country with designs on your territory never stops being awkward. Sadly, Ukraine can’t just pick up and move to the South Pacific, so it needs to find a way to make this work for the long haul. That’s where Finland comes in. The country spent the Cold War in a light Soviet bear hug, not part of the USSR but not completely part of the West, either. Many Finns hate that period, but Clive Crook suggests [it worked out pretty well for Finland](. While Ukraine sweats invasion, Finland’s biggest controversy lately has been its 36-year-old prime minister going [clubbing]( without her phone. What a country! A similar arrangement for Ukraine — joining neither NATO nor Putin’s reformed Russian Empire — could be the best outcome for everybody, with a little less preserved fish. Bonus Peace-Talks Reading: Israel and Palestinians are making [incremental steps toward peace](. Keep it up. — Bloomberg’s editorial board Inflation’s Law of Attraction There’s a pseudoscientific belief, called the Law of Attraction, that people can make good things happen merely by wishing for them hard enough. As a Tottenham Hotspur fan I’m convinced it’s garbage, but I’m also too superstitious to test the inverse by wishing for bad things. A theory of inflation akin to this, but with slightly more scientific basis, is the economist Fischer Black’s theory that inflation is determined by inflation expectations. If we think prices will rise too much, then they will, and vice versa. Tyler Cowen writes he’s long considered this a kind of economic pseudoscience, but [recent events have him re-examining his skepticism](. There is a reason, after all, that the Fed keeps a much closer eye on market inflation expectations than, say, Jay Powell’s horoscope. (He’s an Aquarius; his cosmic [advice]( for today is “Convey your truth to the others involved. This will help them manage their expectations and meet you where you are.” Not bad, actually.) BREAKING: Donald Trump’s Financial Reporting May Be Unreliable It’s never good when you’re taking on water in an ocean of legal problems and your accountant runs off with your life raft. Mazars USA ended its long tenure as the Trump family bean-counter yesterday, a development Tim O’Brien notes [could bring the Trump Organization to a grinding halt](, unless it can find another accountant and/or a gullible Unfrozen Caveman Financier to lend it money without vetted financials. It also raises the question, Tim notes, of why Mazar waited until the Year of Our Lord 2022 to walk away from what must be its most problematic client. Trump’s finances have been as clear as mud for decades, as Tim (who wrote a book about them) knows from personal experience. But now that the SS Trump has run aground on the shoals of law enforcement, there has never been a better time to ditch it. Telltale Charts [Saudi Arabia has gone from pariah to savior]( now that oil is approaching $100 a barrel, because it’s got the most easily tapped spare capacity, writes Javier Blas. While we’re getting angry about things, let’s observe that big shipping companies have raked in enormous profits over the past two years but are [paying a pittance in taxes](, writes Chris Bryant. Further Reading A [$3 billion fine for BNP’s treatment of a female banker]( should warn other banks about the culture they foster. — Chris Hughes One way to [get new crypto rules is to break them](. — Matt Levine [Momentum investing gets too much of a bad rap](; it hasn’t done well lately but works in the long term. — Aaron Brown [Salary transparency is good](: a Twitter Spaces conversation between Sarah Green Carmichael and Bobby Ghosh. ICYMI Here are America’s [10 most competitive housing markets](. The U.S. [accused Zero Hedge]( of being a Russian propagandist. [Prince Andrew agreed to settle]( Virginia Giuffre’s sex-assault claim. Kickers An umbilical-cord transplant [seems to have cured a woman’s HIV](. How [TikTok publicized Russia’s]( troop buildup. The New York Times has [changed Wordle’s solutions](. (h/t to Jessica Karl for the past two kickers) [Notes apps are where ideas go to die](, and good riddance. Notes:  Please send Wordle solutions and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Like Bloomberg Opinion Today? [Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more](. You’ll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. 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](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Opinion Today newsletter. 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