Putin’s secret weapon is a bubble made of toadies, oil and nukes

This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, an information bubble of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here.Today’s Agenda Putin is the boy in the [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, an information bubble of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Putin is the [boy in the bubble](. - The housing boom [scoffs at your mortgage rates](. - We still have [plenty of cash](. - Glamour stocks [aren’t so glamorous now](. Piercing Putin’s Bubble Information bubbles are a big problem here in America. People sink themselves into warm, soothing cocoons of agreeable media and opinions until they lose touch with reality. It’s how we end up with stuff like Republicans [admiring]( Vladimir Putin more than President Joe Biden. Now imagine you took somebody who lived in such a bubble and gave them control of the world’s largest country by landmass and all of the vast natural resources that came with it, along with an enormous army. Oh, and also nuclear weapons. So many nuclear weapons. Do this, and you get the aforementioned Putin, whom Andreas Kluth describes as [someone who not only lives in a bubble](, but also has the power to reinforce it with quivering toadies attesting to the reality in Putin’s brain, that he is a stable [genius]( with history, public opinion and international law on his side, and also a snappy dresser and the best at [judo](.  How do you get through to Putin to stop him from doing stuff like invading Ukraine? For now, the West hopes he and his cronies will at least listen to the signals coming from their [wallets](. But Russian history professor Stephen Kotkin, in a conversation with Tim O’Brien, warns [sanctions can be ineffective or dangerous]( if applied sloppily. They must inflict real pain on the bubble-keepers without punishing normal people, while also minimizing the risk of blowback, like Putin cutting off those precious natural resources. Good luck with that. For now, Javier Blas notes, Putin is in touch with reality enough to [keep the resources flowing to the West](, which in turn provides him with the cash he needs to finance his various invasions. You can see the cognitive dissonance here, contributing in its own way to Putin’s reality distortion field. But the alternative for the West is even more shortages and inflation, and it’s an election year after all.  To his credit, Biden is [risking some higher prices and the political damage]( that comes with them by standing up to Putin, writes Jonathan Bernstein. It’s an example of the sort of moral clarity Tyler Cowen says [Ronald Reagan brought to his dealings]( with the Russians. Biden may not knock down Putin’s air castle, but reality checks from some of Russia’s frenemies might. Clara Ferreira Marques writes [China probably has little stomach for Putin]( playing havoc with international boundaries and stability. [India should have similar concerns]( and also recognize Putin has been kind of a lousy ally, writes Mihir Sharma. Then again, that’s the nature of information bubbles, isn’t it? Isolation ends up being a feature, not a bug. Good-Ish News on Housing Speaking of bubbles, we’ve written early and often in this newsletter about the risks to the housing market from ludicrous prices and rapidly rising mortgage rates. Stephen Mihm has good news on this front — or at least it’s good if you enjoy ludicrous prices and aren’t in the market to buy a house right now. Contrary to conventional wisdom and what feels like common sense, studies suggest [home prices don’t react quickly, or even at all, to mortgage rates](, Stephen writes. But you don’t need fancy-pants studies to tell you that. All you have to do is try to shop for a house in New Jersey, or pretty much any other U.S. state, where the [bidding wars]( are hotter than ever. In conclusion, there has never been a better time for you to buy my sprawling New Jersey estate. At Least We Have All This Cash As mentioned above, all this Ukraine agita is boosting commodity prices at a time when, as you may have heard until you want to puke, inflation is already at 40-year highs. At some point it’s only natural to wonder if this will hurt consumer spending, and by extension the recovery, before the Federal Reserve even gets a chance to raise interest rates. But between all the money governments handed out and central banks printed during the pandemic, the [world is still awash in enough liquidity]( to get us through any temporary upheavals, writes Robert Burgess. And while markets are anxious, they’re still not collapsing into a black hole that takes all the money with it. Just try not to blow all your scratch on [fertilizer](. Telltale Charts Expensive, profitless companies, aka “[glamour” stocks, are taking a beating for the ages](, but then they usually do worse than cheap, profitable stocks, writes Nir Kaissar. U.S. pension funds have [too much money tied up at home](, writes Mark Gilbert. They should get out, live a little.  Further Reading The Remington settlement and recent local moves to force responsibility on gun owners are [good steps toward better gun safety](. — Bloomberg’s editorial board One way to [force better ESG at a company](: Buy the company. — Matt Levine Jack Ma has done everything Beijing asked, but [he’s under scrutiny again](. — Shuli Ren [Hong Kong is sacrificing its future]( for failed Covid policies. — Anjani Trivedi ICYMI The Postal Service, which is still run by Louis DeJoy, [bought a bunch of gasoline-powered trucks](. A [75-square-foot London flat]( sold for $122,000. [A recording of a dying brain]( suggests we really do see our lives flash before our eyes. Kickers Archaeologists uncover a [massive Roman mosaic floor]( in London. Magpies help each other [remove tracking devices](. Meet the [ultra-introverts](. Turns out [happiness is a superpower](. Notes:  Please send happiness 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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