| If the news had a common theme in 2022, it was various people experiencing the "find out" half of the "fool around/find out" dyad. Vladimir Putin discovered taking over Ukraine wasn't as easy as it looked. Elon Musk discovered taking over Twitter wasn't as easy as it looked. Donald Trump learned conspiracy theories would only get him so far. Xi Jinping failed to single-handedly wrestle Covid to the ground. Sam Bankman-Fried just … failed. Bloomberg Opinion chronicled it all, meticulously crafting the raw ore of schadenfreude into sophisticated gems of analysis. This is just a sampling of the thousands of columns we published this year, but hopefully it's a representative one.  Still here! Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images North America After weeks of saying he would not invade Ukraine, Putin invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, casting Europe, the world and the year into turmoil. More turmoil, that is. Most observers thought he would have a puppet installed in Kyiv within a fortnight. But thanks to Ukrainian bravery and help from the West, Russia has spent the past 10 months losing ground, allies, and buyers for its oil and gas. Given his nuclear weapons and fear of defenestration, Putin's massive failure might only make him more dangerous. Putin's Invasion Is a Sin All Russians Will Bear — Leonid Bershidsky Putin and Xi Exposed the Great Illusion of Capitalism — John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge Putin's Response to the Crimea Bridge Attack Showed How Much It Hurt — Clara Ferreira Marques What Ukraine Can Learn From Finland's Stand 80 Years Ago — James Stavridis Russia's War in Ukraine Is How the Soviet Union Finally Ends — Hal Brands Reducing Dependence on Russian Energy Is More Realistic Than You Think — Liam Denning An Unarmed Putin Wants a Culture War With the West — Bobby Ghosh Could India Fall Under the Same Spell as Russia? — Pankaj Mishra  The end of a crypto era. Photographer: Mario Duncanson/AFP/Getty Images Bitcoin began the year expensive but getting cheaper, and the cheapening accelerated as the air finally blasted out of one of the most obvious bubbles in market history. Many were caught out, including one of the supposed rocks of the whole ridiculous ecosystem, Bankman-Fried's FTX. Matt Levine basically wrote a book about crypto for Bloomberg Businessweek. Expect many, many more books to follow. Crypto in Retirement Accounts? Are You Kidding? — Bloomberg's editorial board Imagine There's No Crypto. It's Easy if You Try — Leonid Bershidsky FTX's Balance Sheet Was Bad — Matt Levine SBF and Crypto's Collapse Are Part of the Pandemic Hangover — Robert Burgess Crypto Meltdown Claims Rolex and Patek Philippe as Victims — Andrea Felsted SBF's Apology Is as Hollow as His Empire — Lionel Laurent  He's sinking, all right. Source: Twitter account of Elon Musk/AFP via Getty Images On a lark, the world's (formerly) richest man agreed to buy the struggling-but-important website Twitter. Then he tried to get out of it. Then Twitter forced him into it. Then he discovered that tweeting dank memes, reinstating Nazis and taking internet polls does not a business or content-moderation strategy make. And now he's much less wealthy, as is the primary source of his wealth, Tesla. Musk Is the Wrong Leader for Twitter's Vital Mission — Tim O'Brien Musk's Twitter Won't Die. Look at Telegram — Parmy Olson Twitter Is Wrecking the Musk Aura That Fueled Tesla — Liam Denning Elon Musk and the Confessions of an Ayn Rand Reader — Andreas Kluth Elon Musk Is Ruining Trump's Presidential Campaign — Joshua Green  Not a good look. Photographer: Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images Europe This should have been Xi Jinping's year. Beijing hosted the Olympics, and the Communist Party made him leader for life. But everything else was a disaster for him. Palling around with Putin backfired spectacularly, as did bringing Hong Kong to heel and trying to defeat Covid with endless lockdowns. And the West used the togetherness muscles strengthened in Ukraine to box out China's economy and brace for an invasion of Taiwan. An Unhinged Putin Is a Warning for Xi — Clara Ferreira Marques Xi's Wrong Lesson From the 'Century of Humiliation' — David Fickling The US Military Isn't Ready for War With China — Hal Brands Hong Kong Bankers Fear Their Careers Are Coming to an End — Shuli Ren China Has Painted Itself Into a Semiconductor Corner — Tim Culpan The Hard Way Home to the UK From Hong Kong — Matthew Brooker China's Demographics Spell Decline, Not Domination — Niall Ferguson China's Covid Victory Turns Out to Be Pyrrhic — Niall Ferguson Trump Is Plotting to Blow Up the Constitution — Jonathan Bernstein Trump's Final Scene Didn't Go According to Script — Tim O'Brien Cheney and Kinzinger Put Country First — Robert George The Court's Abortion Ruling Is Institutional Suicide — Noah Feldman Abortion Rights Falter as Democracy Slides — Clara Ferreira Marques Reversing Roe Will Make American Democracy Harder to Fix — Clive Crook Progressives Should Admit Joe Manchin Was Right — Matthew Yglesias Republicans Still Have Plenty to Celebrate — Ramesh Ponnuru Don't Panic-Buy a House — Alexis Leondis Stagflation is Already Here in the Housing Market — Conor Sen The Fed's Damage to Housing May Last Years — Allison Schrager Housing in Boise Starts to Crack — Jonathan Levin Jay Powell to the Rest of the World: Drop Dead — Marcus Ashworth Bank of England Gives a Lesson in Honest Central Banking — Mohamed El-Erian You Won't Like What Comes After Inflation — Eduardo Porter The Doctor Won't See You Now: The UK's Cost-of-Surviving Crisis — Therese Raphael A Vaccine to Prevent All Covid Is in Reach — Lisa Jarvis Why Some Vaccinated People Resist Covid and Others Don't — Faye Flam Climate Change Launches a Generation of Doomsday Preppers — Amanda Little Sanibel Island's Last Stand Against Rising Seas — Frank Wilkinson California Loves EVs But Will Be Stuck in Hybrid for Years — Liam Denning Why Your First Electric Car Might Be Chinese — Chris Bryant and Anjani Trivedi The Supply Chain to Beat Climate Change Is Already Being Built — David Fickling Throwing Shade Is Solar Energy's New Superpower — Adam Minter Women Shouldn't Do Any More Housework This Year — Sarah Green Carmichael It's Awkward Being a Woman in the Metaverse — Parmy Olson How to Save Your Job From ChatGPT — Trung Phan The Decline and Fall of the Tory Empire — Adrian Wooldridge Banning ESG Is Anti-Capitalist — Matt Winkler No, Credit Suisse Isn't on the Brink — Paul Davies Give Amazon and Facebook a Seat at the UN — Ben Schott Being Single Is Getting Expensive — Erin Lowry A Mysteriously Large Chunk of Gen Z Isn't Working — Justin Fox Let's Kill the Bar Exam — Stephen Carter What Are the Chances We've Been Visited by Aliens? — Tyler Cowen Don't Worry About Being Happy — Andreas Kluth Notes: Bloomberg Opinion Today is taking New Year's Day off and will return on Monday. This is the Theme of the Year edition of Bloomberg Opinion Today, a digest of our top commentary. | 
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