A desperate, losing Putin flirts with Armageddon

Plus: Trump's legal peril grows. [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a partial mobilization of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Putin is desperate enough to [threaten Armageddon](. - Trump is finally facing [legal consequences](. - The Fed will have to [cause a recession](. Or [will it](? - Oh, hey, China’s [yuan is collapsing](. Putin’s Nuclear Option Now, I am no political genius, but it seems to me that if you’re in charge of Russia and the top-trending search term on Google is “How to escape from Russia,” then you might be having a bad time. This describes Vladimir Putin, who [announced]( this morning he planned to mobilize 300,000 more troops to die in his war crime in Ukraine. His able-bodied citizens responded by [protesting]( and patriotically scrambling for the nearest border crossing. This is just one of many reasons it’s highly unlikely he’ll be able to actually get 300,000 troops suited and booted in time to affect the war. And no, making it illegal for fighting-age men to buy [plane tickets]( won’t help. Putin is already desperate enough to double down on his failure, even after being warned against it just this week by his last two real friends on Earth, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi. When this gambit fails, he could be just panicked enough to start lobbing nukes, as he warned this morning. Putin may be a loser and a criminal, but he holds the fate of the world in his hands. One of the main fail-safes against Armageddon right now is President Joe Biden. This may not exactly give you the warm fuzzies, especially so soon after the “60 Minutes” [demonstration of his gift of gaffe]( in foreign and other affairs, as Jonathan Bernstein notes. Still, his defense advisers seem to have learned [lessons]( from Afghanistan and have handled Ukraine expertly so far. And Putin’s flagrant dissing of Xi and Modi gives [Biden an opening to recruit those leaders]( to put more pressure on their boy, Bobby Ghosh writes.  The trick will be [deterring Putin from using a nuke in the first place]( without directly involving the US and NATO in the war, writes Andreas Kluth. He suggests somebody quietly pull Putin for a chat and let him know they can make his worst fears — literal and/or figurative defenestration — come true if he pushes things too far. Because once a nuke is used, we’re in a whole new, even more dangerous era. Putin might have had temporarily better luck on the battlefield [if he were simply a more effective fascist](, like his spiritual forefathers Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, writes Leonid Bershidsky. But Putin’s ideology boils down to anti-wokeness and promises of cash. These aren’t enough to get people to enthusiastically die for him in a lost cause. But many more people will die because of him before this nightmare ends. Further Ukraine War Reading: Italy and other European countries can’t be shy about [seizing Russian refineries](. — Julian Lee The Jam Thickens Ol’ Donny Trump has been [wriggling]( his way out of legal, financial and other jams easily for decades now. But you get the sense his luck is stretched to its breaking point. Everybody from Georgia’s [Fulton County DA]( to the US Congress is investigating him. And today New York Attorney General Letitia James [slapped]( Trump and his family business with civil fraud charges, accusing him of lying to investors about his assets. This isn’t exactly a new claim against Trump; Bloomberg Opinion’s own Tim O’Brien wrote a whole [book]( making this point years ago. Trump sued him for libel, then lost the suit. That cost him a lot of money and embarrassment. But this is the first time Trump’s alleged exaggerations have [posed a life-or-death threat to his business](, Tim writes. One softer option available to him could be paying a quarter of a billion dollars and closing up shop in New York. Trump is fast running out of wriggle room.   Rates Vs. Freights There was a Fed [meeting]( today, as you may have heard. Jay Powell came out of his burrow and saw his shadow, which means we’ll have another year of economic winter. The Fed raised rates by 75 basis points and threatened far more, and Powell warned economic pain would result. It’s [the sort of tough talk]( Bloomberg’s editorial board argues is necessary to kill inflation dead. More optimistically, though, some of this inflation problem might just solve itself. For example, soaring freight costs helped drive prices higher last year, Thomas Black writes. [They’re plunging now](. Part of this is down to the Fed shaking the interest-rate stick at the global economy. Some of it is just the laws of physics. But all of it will help. Further Inflation Reading: - The [Quantity Theory of Money]( explains today’s inflation. — Tyler Cowen - Rising rates and shaky stocks mean [the era of TINA is finally over](. — Jonathan Levin Telltale Charts There’s a lot going on, but John Authers wonders if anybody has noticed [China’s currency is as weak as it was]( in 2019, back when we called it an act of “trade war.” Maybe electric vehicles are so expensive because their makers keep [blowing all their dough on R&D](, writes Anjani Trivedi. Further Reading Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac [investors will get their day in court]( against the US government. — Marc Rubinstein Jamie Dimon has a point about banks [sitting on too much capital](. — Robert Burgess Iran’s new plan to wreak havoc is [claiming it owns Bahrain](. — Hussein Ibish Liz Truss’s plan to boost the UK economy has [four little problems](. — Mohamed El-Erian ICYMI Tom Brady would like [a shorter workweek](. “[Central Park Karen](” lost her lawsuit. Child predators are [tracking kids on Twitch](. Kickers The Big Bang should have made the universe [lousy with cosmic strings](. So where are they? Getty Images [banned AI-generated images](. [Vietnamese whale temples]( are real, spectacular and helpful to science. The mystery of the [maybe-fake Lucian Freud painting](. Happy Birthday, [Bill Murray](. Notes:  Please send cosmic strings and feedback to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. 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 Opinion Today newsletter. 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