Putin can’t escape the West’s economic trap

Plus: Black Friday deflation. [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a betting line of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Russia needs to [suffer more economic pain](. - Let’s maybe stop and [think about sports gambling](. - [Black Friday discounts]( will be deep this year. - [Credit Suisse’s foundation]( is crumbling. Russia Needs to Feel More Pain Tomorrow will mark the nine-month anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine, which is about eight months and 28 days longer than Putin [thought]( conquering his neighbor would take. Russia’s abject failure has been brought to you by Ukrainian heroism, with help from Western weaponry and economic sanctions. While the former have been shockingly effective, the latter have taken longer to bear fruit. Even now, [Russia is pumping almost as much oil]( as it was before the war began, writes Javier Blas. It’s selling its crude at steep discounts in Asia, but that’s more than enough to keep Putin’s [war-crime machine]( running.  Still, its oil sales are at long last starting to be [capped]( and banned more broadly around the world. No hurry, world! And sanctions are squeezing [the life]( out of Russia’s economy. That has made ordinary Russians increasingly [unhappy]( with Putin’s folly. Now is the time to [close the trap even more tightly](, writes Bloomberg’s editorial board. One good strategy would be to lure more skilled Russians to the West, depriving Putin not only of advanced technology but the brainpower to use it. None of this is fast-acting, unfortunately. The war could well go on for at least another nine months. Putin may be losing, but he will keep shattering Ukrainian lives and infrastructure out of sheer spite. The dehumanizing effect of all this will lead [Ukrainians to commit their own war crimes]( against Russians, warns Leonid Bershidsky. Alas, that’s pretty much how wars go. The original sin from which all this human suffering has derived was when Putin made the mistake of launching this war in the first place. History needs him to suffer for it as much as possible. Gambling Is Everywhere Now. What Could Go Wrong? Despite my disgust with this World Cup ([6,500]( migrant-worker deaths, FIFA [corruption](, Premiere League disruption and Qatari [censorship](, to name just a few reasons), I confess I’ve been watching it. With stuff like [Japan-Germany]( happening, who could resist? But man, the ick factor on this one goes to 11. And a small part of the ick is going to the Fox Sports site to watch the games or check scores and seeing the betting odds right there with the starting times and the win-loss-draw records. As Lionel Laurent points out, this World Cup is a [coming-out party of sorts for widespread legalized gambling]( in the US. Everybody’s leaning into it, particularly local governments who could use the tax revenue: Look, I may or may not have placed a few low-stakes wagers on sporting events over the years when it may or may not have been entirely legal (PARODY). But we need to have a conversation soonest about the rising risk of gambling addiction in this brave new world, especially now that America’s cash-hungry [universities]( are teaming up with betting sites to get kids hooked on it as soon as they come of age. Bonus Gambling Reading: [Alameda was run by a good poker player](, suggesting it was a victim of FTX and not the problem. — Aaron Brown When Black Friday Comes There’s no better way to say “Happy holidays” and “I didn’t give this much thought” than the rich tradition of re-gifting. And this year you’ve got an especially rare opportunity to go several re-gifting layers deep, thanks to the [mountains of inventories sitting in big-box stores](, note Andrea Felsted and Leticia Miranda. Won’t little Billy be thrilled to get an “[Encanto” karaoke machine]( that was stuck in supply-chain hell for weeks, then parked in a Target for months until finally being gifted to you, basically, after heavy online discounts, just to get it off the shelves? There will be a lot of that sort of thing going on this year, Andrea and Leticia write. OK, so it’s not technically free, but it is nicely deflation-y, which feels like a gift in the context of the past year. Also [nicely deflation-y these days are oil prices](, notes Conor Sen. That’s a gift not only for shoppers but for the whole US economy. Telltale Charts It will be tough for Credit Suisse to turn itself around when [rich people keep taking their money away]( from it, writes Paul Davies. [Manchester United fans may want the Glazers to sell](, but Chris Hughes warns any new owners could well follow the old ones’ game plan of milking the club for its commercial potential, at the expense of buying better players. Further Reading The [grownup version of meme investing]( is small shareholders pooling votes to influence companies for good. — Matthew Brooker It’s too dangerous to try to fly [passenger jets with just one pilot](. — Tim Culpan Facing a huge budget deficit, [China will turn to the wealthy for help](, possibly by clawing back wealth. — Shuli Ren The future of consumer products is [influencers like MrBeast making and selling]( their own stuff. — Trung Phan American [children are suffering an anxiety epidemic](, without enough professionals to help them. — Lisa Jarvis Science doesn’t really know why [so many viruses are flourishing at once](. — Faye Flam ICYMI Donald [Trump’s month from hell]( keeps getting worse. A lockdown at an [Apple plant in China led to violence](. Elon Musk is very [pleased with himself](. Kickers Tax-filing sites have been [sending user data to Facebook](. [Voice assistants]( are a dud. [Writing by hand]( is the best way to retain information. [Life as a door-to-door salesman]( is no joke. Clarification: Yesterday’s email included the sentence “There’s a whole generation of people working in markets today that has never known a world cushioned by the Fed’s bloated balance sheet.” That should read “not cushioned.” Not cushioned. I need to eat some turkey, stat. Notes:  We will be eating turkey and not writing a newsletter tomorrow. Regular service resumes on Friday. Please send handwritten notes and complaints 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](. 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