Bloomberg Opinion’s 2018 in 85 links

[Bloomberg]( This Year’s Agenda Well, this was quite a year, wasn’t it? There was a lot to process, but Bloomberg Opinion writers rose to the daily challenge of helping us make sense of the avalanche of news and changes. What follows is just a small sampling of our best-read (by Terminal and web traffic) and most-provocative pieces on the biggest stories and trends of the year. Trump’s Chaos The very biggest story this year, by far, was the accelerating meltdown of the President of the United States, Donald Trump. Beset by legal woes and his own personal management style of [maximum chaos](, the year started at a high level of discombobulated and then unwound further. The departure of the [last “grownup”]( in the room, Defense Secretary [James Mattis](, helped the year end on a low note. These were some of our best-read pieces analyzing the breakdown: [Has Anyone Seen the President?]( – Michael Lewis (this was our best-read story of the year) [Trump’s Ineptitude Is No Joke]( – Jonathan Bernstein (No. 2 on the most-read list) [Trump Rings in the New Year in the Worst Possible Way]( - Michael R. Bloomberg [Trump Will Try to Fire Mueller – Again]( – Tim O’Brien [A Clear Link Between Russia and Trump Is Now in the Open]( – Noah Feldman [Trump Is Right: Someone Is Out to Get Him]( – Ramesh Ponnuru [I’ve Watched Trump Testify Under Oath; It Isn’t Pretty]( – Tim O’Brien [Democrats May Not Be Able to Avoid Impeaching Trump]( – Francis Wilkinson [Trump’s Russia Admission Is No Mere Scandal. It’s a Betrayal]( – Cass Sunstein [Trump’s Tweets About Cohen Show How He’ll Defend Indictment]( – Noah Feldman [Trump Runs the Government Like His Business; That’s the Problem]( – Tim O’Brien Trade Wars and Rumors of Trade Wars The disruption in the White House extended to the flow of free trade around the world, as Trump threatened tariffs and other protectionist measures against foes and allies alike. Eventually he cut tentative deals with most of the allies, but tensions with China remain, affecting the global economy and markets, along with the very U.S. companies he means to protect. [Trade Wars Are Bad and Impossible to Win]( – Bloomberg’s Editorial Board [Trump Paints Xi Into a Corner]( – Michael Schuman [What Trump’s Trade War Is Really All About]( – Christopher Balding [Ford to Trump: That's Not How It Works]( – Brooke Sutherland [GM Can’t Wait Around for Trump to Win a Trade War]( – Brooke Sutherland [Sedans Aren’t Dead. American Sedans Are]( – Joe Nocera [Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road]( – David Fickling [Trump’s Mexico Trade Deal Looks Like a Lemon]( – David Fickling [Doors Slam Shut for China Deals Around the World]( – Nisha Gopalan [Huawei Arrest Gives U.S. Leverage Over China]( – Tim Culpan [OK, So China Will Be the World's Biggest Economy. Then What?]( – Dan Moss [Trump’s Tariffs Are Scarier Than George Bush’s]( – Ramesh Ponnuru Markets Melt Down Markets got a giant corporate tax cut at the end of 2017 that helped bolster corporate profits and stock prices for a while – but then the bottom fell out. Anxiety about the trade war was a big issue. Another was that the Federal Reserve kept raising rates and taking away stimulus. But signs of an economic slowdown kept popping up, from housing to the “yield curve.” Bitcoin, oil and others suffered in sympathy. [How to Think About the Market Sell-Off]( – Mohamed El-Erian [The Yield Curve Just Inverted. That’s Huge]( – Brian Chappatta [Trump Is Now Bad for the Stock Market]( – Stephen Gandel [The Stock Market Is Even Worse Than You Think It Is]( – Stephen Gandel [Yes, Bitcoin Was a Bubble. And It Popped]( – Noah Smith [Dimon and Buffett Have the Last Laugh on Bitcoin]( – Lionel Laurent [Bin Salman, Trump and Putin Control the Oil Price Now]( – Julian Lee [Trump’s OPEC Tweets Expose a Lack of Energy Dominance]( – Liam Denning [Housing's Trouble Is More 1994 Than 2007]( – Conor Sen [China's $856 Billion Startup Juggernaut Is Getting Stuck]( – Shuli Ren Corporate Shenanigans It also did not help markets that this was a year of businesses in scandal. Under particular scrutiny were the FAANG companies that had driven stocks to record highs, until customers and politicians started questioning their power and reach. Another darling, Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk, melted down in real time, drawing a rebuke from the SEC, if not the market. An old-economy icon, General Electric Corp., became a shadow of its former self. And all sorts of companies got pulled into the political controversies of the day, from kneeling NFL players to the #MeToo movement. [Apple Plans Another Death Blow to the Phone Carriers]( – Alex Webb [No, Google, We Did Not Consent to This]( – Shira Ovide [How Facebook Went So Wrong, So Fast]( – Shira Ovide [Facebook’s Leaders Still Don’t Get It]( – Shira Ovide [Musk’s SEC Settlement: He Wins, But Tesla Loses]( – Liam Denning [Musk’s Joke Isn’t Funny Any More]( – Liam Denning [Look in the Mirror, America, to See Why Drug Prices Are So High]( – Max Nisen [Papa John’s Has Much Bigger Problems Than the NFL]( – Sarah Halzack [Nike’s Kaepernick Campaign Is Worth the Risk]( – Sarah Halzack [Think You Can Pick the Bottom for GE?]( – Brooke Sutherland [Roseanne Gets the Boot. If Only It Were That Easy]( – Tara Lachapelle [The Moonves Firing’s Lesson: TV Should Hire More Women]( – Tara Lachapelle [Ford Gets Left at the Lights by GM]( - Chris Bryant [The Blood Unicorn Theranos Was Just a Fairy Tale]( – Matt Levine Politics 2018: Judges, Beer and Stolen Votes With all the drama at the top of the body politic, it makes sense the year was wild in all other areas of politics too, from the GOP’s continued efforts to kill the Affordable Care Act to the drama over Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination (a reminder of Trump’s successful effort to reshape the courts) to the “[blue wave](” that swept Democrats into power in the House in the midterms – making certain the president’s life would be more complicated in 2019. [Why Aren’t Liberals Outraged About Alfie Evans?]( – Ramesh Ponnuru [Democrats Botch Supreme Court Politics]( – Al Hunt [The Supreme Court’s Travel-Ban Decision Will Live in Infamy]( – Noah Feldman [A Court Setback Won’t Kill Obamacare]( – Max Nisen [The Right Finds the Perfect Weapon Against the Left]( – Tyler Cowen [Colleges Have Way Too Many Liberal Professors]( – Cass Sunstein [The Election Fraud Is Coming From Inside the GOP]( – Francis Wilkinson [The Ugly Coded Critique of Chick-Fil-A’s Christianity]( – Stephen L. Carter Russian Dressing: The Year in Foreign Policy If Vladimir Putin [meddled in the 2016 election]( to help sow chaos around the world, then he started getting his money’s worth this year, as U.S. alliances and the post-war world order got shakier. One of the best foreign-policy developments was a [mostly meaningless]( summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un. Otherwise we had the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a [precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Syria]( and more. [Trump Has Abdicated as Leader of the Free World]( – Hal Brands [Russia Attacked U.S. Troops in Syria]( – Eli Lake [If You Knew Khashoggi, You’d Be Outraged Too]( – Noah Feldman [America's Spies Won't Let Trump Shield MBS]( – Bobby Ghosh [Germany Is Getting Fed Up With Trump and Russia]( – Leonid Bershidsky [Attacking North Korea Is Unthinkable - Or Is It?]( – Tobin Harshaw [Putin Is Playing With Fire and We May All Get Burned]( – Hal Brands [Shun Russia to Save the World]( – Eli Lake [Tillerson Refused to Do Another Deal With Russia]( – Leonid Bershidsky [U.S. Was Right to Give China's Navy the Boot]( - James Stavridis [The Decline and Fall of the American Empire]( – Tyler Cowen Brexit Brouhaha Adding to the global economic jitters was the spectacle of the U.K. clumsily trying to make good on its poorly planned decision to leave the EU. All year Theresa May struggled to get a decent Brexit deal out of the EU. Not only did she [fail to do that](, but she also failed to get a deal parliament would accept, raising the odds of a disastrous no-deal Brexit. Increasingly, a [Brexit do-over]( looks like the best hope to end the madness. [Europe Should Help the U.K. Cancel Brexit]( – Bloomberg’s Editorial Board [The Colossal Price of Theresa May’s Immigration Obsession]( – Lionel Laurent [WTO Rules Will Be No Panacea for Brexit’s Pain]( – Therese Raphael [Brexit’s Economic Damage Is Getting Real]( – Therese Raphael Kickers [Plastic Straws Aren’t the Problem]( – Adam Minter (our third-most-read story of the year) [No One Wants Your Used Clothes Any More]( – Adam Minter [The Recycling Game Is Rigged Against You]( – Faye Flam [If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?]( – Faye Flam [How to Avoid Going Broke After Making $650 Million]( – Barry Ritholtz [Hiding My Depression Almost Destroyed My Job]( – Joe Nocera [Too Many Jobs Feel Meaningless Because They Are]( – Mark Buchanan [Maybe Sex Robots Will Make Men, Not Women, Obsolete]( – Cathy O’Neil [The $6 Trillion Barrier Holding Electric Cars Back]( - Anjani Trivedi [Decline in World Fertility Rates Lowers Risk of Mass Starvation]( – Noah Smith [Ethiopia Is the China of Africa]( – Tyler Cowen [Fish-Oil Heart Medicine Is the Rarest of Drug Breakthroughs]( – Max Nisen [Are We Prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse? Actually, Yes]( – Stephen L. Carter [California Must Be Doing Something Right]( – Matthew Winkler [If You Ignore the News, America Actually Seems Pretty Nice]( – Justin Fox  [FOLLOW US [Facebook Share]]( [Twitter Share]( SEND TO A FRIEND [Share with a friend] You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Opinion Today newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022