| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a headless rattlesnake of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. There's a famous episode of "The Twilight Zone" — so good they remade it as a movie in 1983 — about a kid who could change reality with just his mind. That included inflicting hellish punishments on anybody who questioned his terrible decisions. Most viewers see this as horror. Xi Jinping seems to consider it in a completely different way. But here in reality, unlike the Twilight Zone, the tighter you cling to omnipotence the more it slips away. China's leader-for-life has been imposing "Xi Thought" on his society for years to diminishing returns, leaving his country diplomatically isolated and economically imperiled. Like little Anthony in the movie version of that "Twilight Zone," Xi may realize he needs a different approach. Just two weeks ago he started loosening "Covid Zero" restrictions and edging a little closer to the West. Un-banning Winnie the Pooh was surely right around the corner. But as Matthew Brooker points out, giving oppressed people even an inch of wiggle room can let built-up pressure explode. And that's just what has happened, with intense protests erupting across China about Covid Zero policies not loosening quickly enough: This is the most publicly agitated China's people have been since 1989, and we all know how that ended. Given Xi's love of authoritarianism, another bloody crackdown may be the likeliest outcome. Still, Clara Ferreira Marques writes, Xi should hope the unrest loses steam on its own. Because more suppression could cause an even bigger backlash. Given Xi's track record, the safe bet is that his choice will be the wrong one. As Clara points out in an earlier column, Xi's long refusal to countenance Western-made Covid vaccines forced him into harsh lockdowns that made everybody mad at him and still can't stop a devastating omicron wave. We all know it's a bad idea to let little kids have their way all the time, even those without terrifying superpowers. The same applies to grownup authoritarians. Bonus China Reading: High on the list of Xi's errors was embracing Vladimir Putin just before Russia launched a clumsy war-crimes extravaganza in Ukraine. China is still one of the few countries buying Russia's crude oil without apology. On the plus side, it and other Asian countries are at least taking advantage of Putin's market weakness by extracting painful discounts on said crude, writes Julian Lee. That could do a lot more damage to Putin's war chest than any oil and gas price caps the West manages to cobble together, writes Javier Blas. Fortunately for Russia, OPEC+ seems ready to come to its rescue again with yet another price-supporting production cut, writes Julian Lee. More ominously, the war may be getting to a point where Ukraine is out of easy victories but has enough momentum to refuse negotiations for many more months, Hal Brands writes. The risk is that President Joe Biden and the West run out of patience, if not money and ammunition, long before Ukraine does. One of the most scarring experiences of my young life was cutting up a rattlesnake at camp after a counselor ran it over with a Jeep. (What can I say? It was the '80s.) Hours after that snake had been rendered headless and therefore presumably dead, its body continued to wriggle away from our knives and into our nightmares. Its muscles still had stored energy to burn, explained the counselor, who we'll call Leatherface. US housing is a lot like that snake. Soaring mortgage rates should have killed the market dead by now, but prices haven't gotten the message yet, Jonathan Levin notes. The problem is pent-up energy in the form of a dearth of supply: But that should change in the New Year, Jonathan writes. At that point the only thing that might keep the market squirming is a fresh dose of low mortgage rates. Bonus Economic Reading: A gray Black Friday is not a good sign for consumer joie de vivre. — Leticia Miranda Struggling SPACs are eyeing reverse splits to goose their prices and look more appetizing to investors, writes Chris Bryant. It's a bit like trying to gussy up week-old leftover turkey. Nobody wants to bite. While governments around the world scramble to build new industrial supply, private capital is weirdly sitting on the sidelines, writes Anjani Trivedi. Biden's endless student-loan moratorium is unfair and makes a bad system worse. — Bloomberg's editorial board FTX's magic beans weren't enough to save BlockFi. — Matt Levine The Fed should stick to its inflation target. — Bill Dudley Billionaires shouldn't take life lessons from Ayn Rand. — Andreas Kluth Creative AI is great at creating legal headaches. — Parmy Olson Democrats are pushing to put abortion on the ballot in 2024. — Julianna Goldman A new drug that delays diabetes is a huge breakthrough. Now it just needs patients. — Lisa Jarvis Used-car and new-car prices are on very different roads. Balenciaga is suing the agency that made a super-awful ad for it. Republican rivals are weirdly silent about Donald Trump's white-supremacist dinner. Oxford scientists, after solving all other possible mysteries, discover why near-empty ketchup bottles spray everywhere. (h/t Scott Kominers) Mauna Loa is erupting like a near-empty ketchup bottle. How hospice became a hustle. A journey to the quietest place on Earth. Notes: Please send ketchup and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook. | 
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