‘Xi Jinping Thought’ has only bad ideas for China’s economy

Plus: Big Oil's big huff. [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a command economy of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Hong Kong bankers are in [despair about China](, for good reason. - We trained Big Oil [not to pump more oil](. - Now even political [polls suffer political attacks](. - The [Fed’s economic beatings]( will continue. China’s Great Unraveling During its great economic flowering of recent decades, China was always a command economy, but with a wink: “Sure, we’re Communist, but we’re not, like, Communist.” The currency might have been manipulated, domestic companies might have been favored, and a little light corporate espionage may have been committed here and there, but you could still invest money in it. Xi Jinping is trashing all that. Now domestic companies can be felled and entire cities thrown into lockdown at the wave of his hand, and the once-vital financial hub of Hong Kong is a shell of its former self. Shuli Ren writes [bankers on the island see no future](. Once their lives were spent parsing corporate valuations and economic trends. Now they’re watching markets soar and crash with every social media post hinting at Xi’s interior life. Is he very mad at tech today? Extra-paranoid about Covid? Did somebody mention [Winnie the Pooh]( around him? Just yesterday, Chinese stocks briefly skyrocketed on hopes [Xi might end his destructive Covid Zero policy](, John Authers notes. But of course he won’t, not anytime soon, especially with a population poorly vaccinated because Xi is too proud to use Western vaccines. The trouble is, investors just [can’t seem to shake their belief in the old China](, the one that would always choose the economically rational thing, Clara Ferreira Marques writes. That China seems to be long gone, meaning investors should make disappointment the baseline forecast for a while. Despite all this, hilariously/sadly, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is going, Tyrolean hat in hand, to visit Xi this week to tighten economic ties between the two countries. Andreas Kluth points out [Germany is already dangerously dependent on China]( for exports and raw materials, a situation that worked out just great with Russian gas. Now Germany risks its economy being at the mercy of not one but two erratic dictators. We can always hope the China of, say, the 2000s suddenly reasserts itself. But we would be unwise to bet money, or our safety, on it. Big Oil’s Big Huff We were all taught in economics class that high prices lead to increased supply, which leads to lower prices, et cetera. But we live in a real world, in the worst possible timeline, a world where oil producers look at soaring oil prices and do nothing but yawn. Well, first they count and distribute their head-exploding [profits](, and then they yawn.  Javier Blas explains oil companies are [traumatized after years of]( investors and environmentalists very hurtfully telling them not to invest their mountains of cash back into producing more fossil fuels because a) fossil fuels are bad and b) producing them is expensive. So, nyah, no more oil for us, not even when we need it. The frustration this engenders in the oil-using population leads to widespread calls for governments to pry some of that ludicrous profit out of Big Oil’s hands. They’re not using it, after all, and some people need help filling up their Ford F-150s. Bloomberg’s editorial board [disagrees with such windfall taxes](, saying they’re morally bad and give oil companies yet another reason not to invest in producing more oil. Election 2024: All Anger, All the Time We’re less than a week away from midterm elections and the official start of the 2024 election season, and I am so very tired. Republicans might or might not take over Congress; as Frank Wilkinson writes, the polls are weird these days because the electorate is weird. Complicating things further, [Republicans routinely attack polls]( as part of their effort to undermine democracy. So, so tired. In fact, attacking stuff is just about all the GOP seems to stand for anymore, Jonathan Bernstein writes. [Without more of a policy agenda]( beyond impeaching President Joe Biden, relitigating the 2020 election and [making jokes]( about Paul Pelosi being nearly murdered with a hammer, putting this party in charge of Congress will be a recipe for chaos. More. More chaos. Further Election Reading: National Dems are making a big mistake [not helping Tim Ryan]( in Ohio. — Julianna Goldman Telltale Charts The Fed today delivered 75 more whacks to the global economy’s backside, but hinted the next beating will be somewhat less severe. But then Jerome Powell suggested the cumulative [abuse]( would be much worse than markets expected, so Wall Street is miserable again. One problem for the Fed, Conor Sen writes, is that too much mercy will only encourage the [most beaten-down parts of the economy]( to spring back to life, pushing inflation up again. The [UK’s zombie companies]( finally face a reckoning, and that’s a good thing, writes Matthew Brooker. Zombies eat productivity, and also brains. Further Reading Thanks to the courts, Democrats [won’t get ahold of Donald Trump’s taxes](. — Noah Feldman [Charging for Twitter verification]( will do the opposite of what Elon Musk thinks it will. — Tim Culpan Airbnb is finally trying to help [customers avoid sticker shock](. — Chris Bryant Gary [Gensler says he likes competition](, but only the kind he approves of. — Aaron Brown ICYMI Russia is shipping [Ukraine grain again](. [Kanye West and Adidas]( were heading for a breakup anyway. New York’s [pay-transparency experiment]( isn’t going great. Kickers Every song in the Top 10 is now [a Taylor Swift song](. (h/t Ellen Kominers) This season’s hottest holiday gift: [artisanal poop from Goop](. Kids these days wear [crop tops to the office](. (h/t Taylor Swift stan Jessica Karl for the past two kickers) Why [phone calls are so annoying]( now. Notes:  Please send Ukraine grain and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. 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