What we’re reading (3/1)
“Russian Ruble Is Now Worth Less Than 1 U.S. Cent After SWIFT Bank Sanctions” (Time). “The ruble plunged to a record low of less than 1 U.S. cent in value Monday after Russia was cut off from the global bank payments system in retaliation for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The Russian currency dropped nearly 26% to 105.27 per dollar, down from about 84 per dollar late Friday.”
“Russia Is A Potemkin Superpower” (Paul Krugman, New York Times). “I’ve been especially struck by reports that the early days of the invasion were hampered by severe logistical problems — that is, the invaders had a hard time providing their forces with the essentials of modern war, above all fuel. It’s true that supply problems are common in war; still, logistics is one thing advanced nations are supposed to be really good at. But Russia is looking less and less like an advanced nation.”
“How Vladimir Putin Miscalculated The Economic Cost of Invading Ukraine” (The New Yorker). “This time last week, it seemed like Putin had sound reasons for being skeptical about the prospect of truly damaging sanctions. Russia supplies the European Union with about forty per cent of its natural-gas imports and about a quarter of its crude oil imports…[l]ess than a week later, Russia is an economic pariah.”
“As The Tanks Rolled Into Ukraine, So Did Malware; Then Microsoft Entered The War” (The Indian Express). “Within three hours, Microsoft threw itself into the middle of a ground war in Europe — from 5,500 miles away. The threat center, north of Seattle, had been on high alert, and it quickly picked apart the malware, named it ‘FoxBlade’ and notified Ukraine’s top cyberdefense authority. Within three hours, Microsoft’s virus detection systems had been updated to block the code, which erases — ‘wipes’ — data on computers in a network.”
“Founder Of Crypto Trading Platform BitConnect Indicted For $2 Billion 'Global Ponzi Scheme’” (Nextgov). “A federal grand jury indicted the founder of a cryptocurrency investment and trading platform on charges related to fraud and creating a “global Ponzi scheme. 36-year-old Indian national Satish Kumbhani is the founder of BitConnect, an online trading platform for investors to exchange virtual currencies. Kumbhani allegedly misled investors about BitConnect’s lending operations, which were said to have used proprietary technology that gave crypto investors large returns on market transactions.”
