Crypto News: Maybe it’s time to break up Russia

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Maybe Russia is too big.
Good news: The job market is weaker.
Saudi Arabia has the whole world in its hands.
Stablecoins should be more stable.

A fun thing about playing the video game "Civilization" was that your early cities would suit whatever country you were playing — for example, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novgorod (and yes, gulp, "Kiev" and "Odessa") if you were playing as Russia. But then as you absorbed other countries, you'd get all their cities too. So if you played the game right but were also too lazy to rename your conquests, then, like, Washington, Beijing, Paris and Delhi would be "Russian" cities too.

This is sort of how real-life civilization works, only with fewer triremes. The country currently known as the Russian Federation is a patchwork of communities conquered over the centuries, notes Leonid Bershidsky, many of which still retain their old place names, not to mention cultures, languages and preference not to be Russian. This makes the whole messy quilt somewhat difficult to manage, giving rise to strongman leaders like like Stalin and Vladimir Putin.

The latter dictator's attempt to absorb Ukraine back into the fold has been a military and economic disaster, not unlike the debacle in Afghanistan that helped bring down the Soviet Union. That episode saw Russia lose control of Ukraine and several other territories. Could this one lead to a further breakup? Leonid suggests it's possible, and maybe even desirable. Just as in the video game, the further conquered lands are from the country's core, the more they're likely to be exploited and the less they're likely to enjoy the arrangement.

The Ukraine war has also refreshed memories, at home and abroad, of how important it is to have an assertive America in the world, writes Hal Brands. Putin's gambit might have been more successful without US intervention. It's best for civilization to keep people like Putin playing on the hardest setting.

One key to becoming a god-level economics and markets understander like me is to put aside such childish notions as "jobs are good" or "I like having money." When too many people have jobs or money, the stock market gets upset for many reasons, including the possibility the Federal Reserve will take away the free money and crush the economy to prevent an inflationary wage-price spiral. That's why, when Robert Burgess points out there are signs the red-hot job market is cooling off, you should say, "Hooray!" instead of "Oh, no, that sounds bad."

Jamie Dimon, channeling his inner, Neil Young, warned today the economy was like a "hurricane." But maybe weaker jobs today will make the hurricane less destructive tomorrow? It could help clear up Bill Dudley's confusion about why Fed inflation forecasts are so low. Still, inflation may have peaked, and jobs may be a little scarcer now, but Mohamed El-Erian warns that the Fed shouldn't stop jacking up interest rates any time soon. That would make the stock market happy, which, just to be clear, is as undesirable as people having too many jobs. In summary, good is bad. Up is down.

We live in an age when too many people believe vaccines give you alien DNA and other conspiracy theories. So I hate to add to the general sense of the world being run by mysterious forces beyond our control. But today I must, as Javier Blas writes that a new book by a former top Saudi official exposes just how much the world's O.G. petrostate manipulates oil markets, along with the jaw-dropping amount of inside information it gives to officials, traders and others. Maybe I'll need that tinfoil hat after all.

Without more regulation, the next stablecoin collapse could trigger a financial crisis. — Bloomberg's editorial board

The UK's plan to give special visas to people from elite universities is misguided and won't attract real innovators. — Therese Raphael

A remote Brazilian state has figured out how to help kids close the Covid-era schooling gap. — Clara Ferreira Marques

Here's why Taiwan's flag is back on Tom Cruise's jacket in "Top Gun: Maverick." — Matthew Brooker

The FDA's Peter Marks says our Covid vaccine goal should be to just get a shot every year like for the flu. — Lisa Jarvis

Sheryl Sandberg stepped down as ~~Facebook~~ Meta COO.

The jury mostly sided with Johnny Depp.

Elon Musk told Tesla employees to go back to the office or find new jobs.

RIP Howard Johnson's. (h/t Robert Burgess)

Now we're low on popcorn. (h/t Scott Kominers)

NFT insider-trading is a thing, apparently.

That time the US military shot 500 million needles into space.

Notes: Please send popcorn and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net.

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