19 ms·

Russian Ruble just lost ~30% of its value

283 points by eifec 5y ago

stefan_ 5y ago
Long lines at the ATMs: https://mobile.twitter.com/taxfreelt/status/1497811412265099265 https://mobile.twitter.com/taxfreelt/status/1497811412265099...
- adriand 5y ago
  Seeing this really makes me sad. We rightly stand in solidarity with Ukraine, but ordinary Russian people will also suffer enormously because of this. Imagine living somewhere where your future just got vaporized and if you speak up about it, you risk ending up in a gulag. It’s a nightmare.
  - b0sk 5y ago
    It is sad. Unfortunately the least damaging way to put pressure on Putin.
  - wahnfrieden 5y ago
    Solidarity with working class on both sides
  - tartoran 5y ago
    It is, especially considering the typical Russian is not for a war in Ukraine and is also not a Putin supporter. Putin is a president by force, Russians cannot unseat him without any bloodshed.
    - sg47 5y ago
      I haven't seen any calls for him to resign, just protests against the war. What's the breaking point for Russians against Putin?
      - XorNot 5y ago
        When internal security forces switch sides (or stand down). Tends to be how revolutions go.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        Or when someone close enough to Putin grows a pair.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        Maybe it'll be the guy in this clip. https://twitter.com/smod4real/status/1496913558138867731 https://twitter.com/smod4real/status/1496913558138867731 It's quite something, and makes it pretty clear Putin's getting the "no one wants to give bad news" treatment the Soviets were similarly famous for.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        Is he still breathing?
    - kangda123 5y ago
      Are you sure they are not for war? For example: https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-ukraine-crisis-poll-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-uk... They are surely less for war now but the effect would be opposite if they managed to capture Ukraine within a few days.
  - keymone 5y ago
    They should be standing on main squares of their cities or standing in territorial defense units inside Ukraine, not in front of ATMs. Zero empathy until the war is stopped, people are dying, we don’t give a single flying fuck that somebody is inconvenienced by atm queue.
    - propagandist 5y ago
      No sympathy with people who have no control and don't support this war? The last pill had support at 8%. You can't speak your mind in Russia. The population is not guilty.
      - sg47 5y ago
        That's the price for standing and watching Putin take more and more power.
      - keymone 5y ago
        people of russia have control. they can go and protest or they can go and fight their fascist army. if they choose to do neither - they are complicit, so fuck them.
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      Yeah no, I do actually sympathize. I'm not booking a ticket to Ukraine to go fight, and similarly people in Russia have not signed up to revolt. Everyone has their own lives and families to look after. I may be fine with hurting 'Russia' in the abstract, but it's not really fun that the only way to realistically do that is to hurt the ordinary people.
      - keymone 5y ago
        people of russia have control. they can go and protest or they can go and fight their fascist army. if they choose to do neither - they are complicit, so fuck them.
  - labster 5y ago
    Please, show me a war where the elite, political class suffered more than the commoners. I’ll wait. I’m as sad as anyone that OnlyFans “content creators” in Russia aren’t getting paid ( https://news.yahoo.com/russia-blameless-onlyfans-stars-ve-122647835.html https://news.yahoo.com/russia-blameless-onlyfans-stars-ve-12... ) but democracy is worth more in the long run.
    - DC-3 5y ago
      In WW1 the British upper classes, who made up the officer class, were killed at a substantially higher rate than the largely working class enlisted men.
      - gruez 5y ago
        1. what was the army participation rate of the upper class vs the lower class? A cursory search seems to suggest the differential was 17% ("officer class") vs 12% ("largely working class enlisted men"). That's close enough that differences in army participation can drown the two out. 2. also relative to the army participation rate, is the suffering of civilians. If working civilians had to suffer rationing, starvation, and disease, while the nobility just chilled in their country side estates tended to be servants, that could more than make up for 1% (or whatever) of nobility dying in battle.
    - imglorp 5y ago
      Sure, the elite everywhere will rest safely in private, but their very public, pet tyrants often don't always as well. Caligula, Hitler, Saddam, Gaddafi, et al did not retire peacefully.
    - beachy 5y ago
      In Cambodia, just days after the Khmer Rouge took power, they ordered 2 million people living in Phnom Penh and other urban areas to head to the countryside. The idea was based on an extreme version of Maoism and a belief in the superiority of the Khmer people, the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia. Citizens were to be turned into traditional rural peasants, referred to as the "old people" by the Khmer Rouge. Urban workers and intelligentsia elites were viewed as "new people" and easily expendable.
  - usr1106 5y ago
    > ordinary Russian people will also suffer enormously True. But who will remove Putin from power if not the Russian people? They won't do so without suffering a lot, they have been used to criminal leaders for more than a century. I am not saying it's the fault of individual people. But all there governments have been incredibly inhuman basically for centuries. It certainly affects the society.
    - TwoNineA 5y ago
      How many of those have voted for Putin?
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Nobody knows. Not even the Russian election committee.
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        In a free and fair election? Zero.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        It wouldn't be zero. Strangely enough there really are Russians that want to go back to 'the good old days' and they will vote for Putin in an actual free election.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        I'm not saying zero people would vote for Putin in a free and fair election. I'm saying there hasn't been such a thing, and that means we don't have any good idea what that number would really be.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        Ok.
        5y ago
  - xiphias2 5y ago
    Sadly Russians need to be forced to get rid of their dictator. The only way to do it is if Putin stops getting more money from outside, and it will be extremely painful at this point.
  - prostoalex 5y ago
    Russian economy (applies to Eastern European in general) is generally cash-heavier than Western world. Having been burned by inflation before, Russians are skeptical of ruble as a life-savings mechanism, and diversify into gold or hard foreign currency, which is the reason you see those currency-exchange kiosks with neon signs well beyond areas frequented by foreign tourists.
  - EugeneOZ 5y ago
    Point of no return has passed. Things like this will affect not just 0.001% of the population (as the idea of blocking Github), it will affect everyone in Russia. And this will finally make them fight against the regime.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      > And this will finally make them fight with the regime. Don't be too sure of that. But it does increase the chances.
    - throwhauser 5y ago
      "Fight with" can mean "fight for" or "fight against", which do you mean?
      - EugeneOZ 5y ago
        fixed, thanks.
  - throwaway6532 5y ago
    All it takes is 5 million of it them out on the street in protest and Putin's goons will be overwhelmed. They face arrest while Ukrainians face bombs. The whole world is rallying behind Ukraine and the Russian people themselves have the biggest power to stop him.
    - slaw 5y ago
      5 millions unarmed protesting people can do nothing to dictatorship. You need military to stand against Putin.
      - kangda123 5y ago
        Exactly, Belarus did not go well.
      - sg47 5y ago
        If 5 million people march against him, the army will follow
        slaw 5y ago
        That didn’t happen in Belarus and Hong Kong.
        throwaway6532 5y ago
        3% of the population rising up is enough to make social change. At some point there is a tipping point where even the army can't stop it.
        slaw 5y ago
        There is no point where unarmed population can win with military and police. 2 million Hong Kong protesters out of 8 million population didn’t win.
  - zelon88 5y ago
    From my US perspective the average Russians are enabling their government by allowing them to wage war. If average Russians leveraged consequences on your leaders that reflected your 8% approval rate; then the conflict would end. Also, from a US perspective and ignoring the news media... from a former webmaster... Russia is literally the Brotherhood of Nod from the CNC game series. Your leader is Kane. By all appearances; Russia has no organic traffic. Just spiders and saboteurs. I have never seen a large organization that did not unilaterally geoblock any and all requests specifically from Russia and Belarus. Do you know why? Because there are no legitimate users from those countries. Just the worst kind of spam; the worst kind of fraud; basically the bane of the internet. Probably about 3/4 of the crap in the honey pots is Russian sponsored. It would be great if Russian citizens would demand accountability from their government for harboring and promoting international cybercrime. I can't speak for the rest of the world but from where I'm sitting; Russia gets a lot more value from being part of the internet than the rest of the world gets from Russia being a part of the internet.
    - gruez 5y ago
      >By all appearances; Russia has no organic traffic. Just spiders and saboteurs. [...] Because there are no legitimate users from those countries. Just the worst kind of spam; the worst kind of fraud; basically the bane of the internet. That sound suspiciously close to "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
    - maybelsyrup 5y ago
      > From my own US perspective the average Russians are enabling their government by allowing them to wage war. If average Russians leveraged consequences on your leaders that reflected your 8% approval rate; then the conflict would end. From my US perspective, average Americans are enabling their government by allowing them to wage a 3-decade long war against Russia. If average Americans leveraged consequences on your leaders that reflected your president's god awful, approval rate, then the conflict would end. You don't have to stan for Putin to see that US and NATO (i.e. the US) have a huge amount of responsibility for what's happening right now. The crazy thing is that it's the only thing we as Americans have even a hair of a say about. We can't influence the Russian government. Maybe we can influence our own. > Russia is literally the Brotherhood of Nod from the CNC game series You love to see guys just tell on themselves like this. > zelon88 Completely unrelated I promise but what do those numbers mean
  - markvdb 5y ago
    Sad indeed. Do you see any creative options? I wonder if the Ukrainians could try to make it super easy and somewhat attractive for Russian soldiers to defect. Maybe the EU could fund desertion bonuses for Russian soldiers and make a deal with remote countries like Paraguay to temporarily resettle them? Could be a very cost efficient and humane way to tilt the military power balance. It would also put economic pressure on the Russian military apparatus to increase soliers' wages, and Ukraine would get hold of some much needed gear.
    - ilammy 5y ago
      > I wonder if the Ukrainians could try to make it super easy and somewhat attractive for Russian soldiers to defect. That's what they constantly calling for: surrender if you're in the action. It's very attractive when the alternative is getting shot. Of course, there's matter of what to do with POWs after this is over, whether to kick them out back to Russia from them to taken to the wall or to the gulags. But that would be later. The problem is acting on that when you're a soldier. All soldiers of all countries are brainwashed into following orders, not making they personal educated decisions about every operation they participate in. It's also a bit hard to just go and surrender when you're not cued in into what's happening and was not following news for the past week from the comfort of your home. It's a bit hard to surrender immediately when your first contact with the other side starts with a strike on your column and gunfire in your direction.
      - FpUser 5y ago
        >" whether to kick them out back to Russia from them to taken to the wall or to the gulags." I think if that's the offer they'll pass
    - FpUser 5y ago
      This is very good idea. Not sure about Paraguay as it will just guarantee nothing but miserable life but if offered resettlement into West I think they would leave in droves. Putin might wake up without the soldiers.
    - ketzo 5y ago
  - kangda123 5y ago
    Aren't ordinary Russian people fairly supportive of the Russian imperialism? Didn't Putin have a very strong improvement in ratings in 2014, when first meddling with Ukraine's affairs? Around half of Russians were positive about the current invasion days before it started (and went well south from there). Keep in mind, we talk about one of their most brotherly nations out there. It's sad in some universal way but I'm far from feeling empathetic. It's been too much abuse.
    - dpierce9 5y ago
      Do you trust opinion polls of people subject to autocratic regimes? Do you trust the people doing the polling? If you lived in Russia and you got a call from a stranger asking if you support Navalny would you say yes? Seems obvious these issues basically mean all such polls are garbage.
      - kangda123 5y ago
        Well, we know that in many dictatorships support of the leader is marginal (e.g. just across the border - Belarus). This does not seem to be the case with Putin. And yes, you can say you don't like the war in a poll. It's not North Korea.
        dpierce9 5y ago
        Maybe you can see changes but you can’t see the actual number. The people being polled and the pollsters themselves are incentivized to lie. They poisoned Navalny and then killed the doctor who treated him. If I am Russian living in Russia and I am asked by a stranger if I support Navalny, I don’t see any problem lying.
        x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
        I doubt the average Russian is worried of receiving the same treatment that Navalny was given. The same way the average American isn't worried about being treated like Snowden or any other person labeled "enemy of the state".
  - OrvalWintermute 5y ago
    Responding as someone that has spent a good amount of time there, having trained a long time to fight Russians. > We rightly stand in solidarity with Ukraine Which Ukraine? There are actually two of them! The eastern half is culturally, economically, philisophically, politically, Russian and in Russia's sphere of influence. The western half is like continental Europe. This is why I have joked w friends there, calling the East "Little Russia", or, "Western Russia". This was before all the recent wars too. > Imagine living somewhere where your future just got vaporized and if you speak up about it, you risk ending up in a gulag. It’s a nightmare. The Russians on the Wastern Front really defeated the Nazi War machine of Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe & SS, not us Yanks & Brits on the West. They did this at a huge cost and lost ~8-10M men, ~20M in total, in the process. This is actually seared into the Russian memory. They will never permit a hostile enemy this close to their borders again. Particularly not an enemy that promised a number of times never to move NATO Eastward [1] [2] , and has recently fomented color revolutions [3] in a number of their allies, and, is regularly enlisting NGOs to attack them. Nope, we gave them casus belli a long time ago, and the US mainstream media regularly stokes the fires of Russophobia [4] Remember, it is the same Pro-Nazi Azov Battalion [5] that found a prominent place in the Western Ukrainians military, and then promoted them to SF, and gave them western advisers and western arms. > "Although Moscow had little choice but to acquiesce to the admission of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic into NATO, Russian concerns grew as enlargement continued. It didn’t help that enlargement was at odds with U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s verbal assurance to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in February 1990 that if Germany were allowed to reunify within NATO then the alliance would not move “one inch eastward”—a pledge Gorbachev foolishly failed to codify in writing. (Baker and others dispute this characterization, and Baker has denied that he made any formal pledges.) Russia’s doubts increased when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003—a decision that showed a certain willful disregard for international law—and even more after the Obama administration exceeded the authority of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 and helped oust Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi in 2011. Russia had abstained on the resolution—which authorized protecting civilians but not regime change—and former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates later commented that “the Russians felt they had been played for suckers.” These and other incidents help explain why Moscow is now insisting on written guarantees." [6] Yet, here we are, literally getting in bed with Nazis for the sake of NATO adventurism. This is why I am against getting involved. [1] https://mltoday.com/new-document-us-promised-not-to-expand-nato-eastward/ https://mltoday.com/new-document-us-promised-not-to-expand-n... [2] https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-news-01-27-22/h_190327bbaa80435566e3164ef6dc4ed1 https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-news-01-... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution [4] https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/25/235254/ https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/25/235254/ [5] https://www.vice.com/en/article/3ab7dw/azov-battalion-ukraine-far-right https://www.vice.com/en/article/3ab7dw/azov-battalion-ukrain... [6] https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/19/ukraine-russia-nato-crisis-liberal-illusions/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/19/ukraine-russia-nato-cri...
- baron816 5y ago
  Looks like a run.
  - meepmorp 5y ago
    According too this article: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russians-withdraw-2413-billion-from-their-bank-accounts-during-ukraine-invasion/ar-AAUiV65 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russians-withdraw-2413-... Russians withdrew 111 billion rouble ($1.3 billion) on Wednesday and Thursday. That's a marathon.
- learc83 5y ago
  Not sure how much cash those people think that ATM can hold.
RyanShook 5y ago
Putin has gotten much more than he bargained for. Inspired by the people of Ukraine.
- senectus1 5y ago
  I'm not certain that Ukraine is winning all that much. sure there are a lot of encouraging and heartwarming videos out there, but Ukraine keeps losing key locations and infrastructure. I'm keen to see some more pointy support for Ukraine. this invasion was completely unprovoked and unwarranted.
  - NoOn3 5y ago
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jaimex2 5y ago
    They're not. Propaganda machines are in overdrive. For context, Germany with the help of the USSR took Poland in about 31 days, which was considered fast. It's day 3, Russia is knocking on the capital and Ukraine is on its own. This is pretty one sided.
    - LegitShady 5y ago
      Kiev is located less than 100km from belarus, where russia is staging and sending troops from. You could literally drive from kiev to belarus in an hour and not break the speed limit, if there wasn't a war on. Maybe your analysis is too simple for the comparison you're making?
      - vlunkr 5y ago
        Also, over 80 years of technological advances complicates the comparison quite a bit.
    - 5y ago
ABeeSea 5y ago
Not nearly enough.
- sgjohnson 5y ago
  It’s the ordinary Russians who are hurt by this, not the elites. I doubt the elites care what the Ruble is worth, because they operate in foreign currencies (namely USD and EUR). Most of their oil is sold in EUR, and other commodities in USD.
  - totony 5y ago
    This perception that ordinary people should be immune to the actions of their governments is weird. Civilian opposition to their government is what prevents unnecessary wars. It's not other's duty to fix your country. Civil unrest is the only way to prevent war and a lot of bloodshed.
    - kadoban 5y ago
      That doesn't really work that well in a strong dictatorship.
      - throwaway6532 5y ago
        Does if enough people do it. Strong dictatorship be damned. Heck Ukrainians stood up to a brutal crackdown in the Maidan revolution to oust a pro-Russian puppet leader. It's about numbers and resolve.
        kadoban 5y ago
        At best that's a messy plan. Are you willing to intentionally make millions of people as miserable as possible on the slim chance that they'll overthrow the people with all the guns and power? Note that the Maidan revolution was driven from within, as far as I know, not forced on the people from without.
fallingknife 5y ago
I don't think Putin realized how quickly public pressure would build against him and force reluctant governments like Germany to reverse course.
- jimbob45 5y ago
  In what way are you saying Germany is reluctant?
  - MiroF 5y ago
    Much of the US media spent the 2 weeks up to the invasion excoriating the German government for being reluctant to commit to certain sanctions if Russia invades as well as offering scant military aid to Ukraine.
  - csee 5y ago
    They were blocking the SWIFT move and refused to allow weapons to pass through their country.
  - usr1106 5y ago
    Germany has not exported weapons to countries in war since WWII. They still insisted to not to do so last week, only changed yesterday. Germany is one of the biggest buyers of Russian energy. You could also say one of the biggest payers for Putin's war. Not their intention, but still a fact.
    - throwaway9798 5y ago
      It's Germany and by extension EU's own fault for not developing alternative sources of energy. Note, I said alternative sources of energy not alternative fuels. How did Germany come to being so reliant on Russian energy? What were the Germans thinking when they were happily decommissioning their Nuclear and Coal power plants in favor of what was largely Russian Oil & Gas? Its not surprising that the west finds itself again in this situation.
    - usr1106 5y ago
rafale 5y ago
Great for exports. Oh wait...
- gruez 5y ago
  Even europe isn't going to stop buying their main export: fossil fuels.
eifec 5y ago
And funny how crypto markets have not realized this at all yet e.g. https://www.binance.com/en/trade/BTC_RUB https://www.binance.com/en/trade/BTC_RUB - i would have thought with 24/7 trading (unlike futures which take a break for the weekend), they'd be leading indicators
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  Could it be offset by increased demand?
  - gruez 5y ago
    Increased demand for crypto? If anything that would make BTC prices (denominated in RUB) shoot up.
- 323 5y ago
  The liquidity in this market is tiny: volume of $10 million in the last 24 hour.
  - cliftonk 5y ago
    Any diff in that price vs spot presents an arbitrage opportunity, so price should still be close to accurate.
    - 323 5y ago
      This is a unique situation. Spot is closed, you are looking at CME futures, which would not usually move since the underlying spot market is closed. So few people capable of doing this arbitrage would bother.
      - kasey_junk 5y ago
        There is no such thing as a fx spot market. All fx is done directly with the counterparty. That said most of those counter parties are closed because they trade in Europe & the US.
323 5y ago
It's a bit premature to judge, you need to wait until the Moscow market opens, when the Central Bank of Russia is active.
- sb057 5y ago
  Might be a bit difficult to judge from that given that they've ordered banks to not allow foreigners to sell: https://www.reuters.com/business/russian-cbank-orders-block-foreign-clients-bids-sell-russian-securities-document-2022-02-27/ https://www.reuters.com/business/russian-cbank-orders-block-...
  - ______-_-______ 5y ago
    That's a nice life hack. If you forbid anyone from selling a currency, the data will prove that it's holding its value just fine!
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Operative words there 'foreigners' and 'securities', not 'Russians' and 'Rubles'.
    - Nowado 5y ago
      It's truly amazing what you can get done with few hours of spare time and a central bank.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - drexlspivey 5y ago
    This is about securities not Ruble
- berberous 5y ago
  When is that?
  - 5y ago
jaimex2 5y ago
- nyokodo 5y ago
  > it's like when the UK announced Brexit. The UK didn’t get kicked out of the global financial system. The comparison is like comparing a shooting star with an asteroid impact.
- labster 5y ago
  The best way for Russia to recover is to leave Ukraine, then all sanctions will be lifted.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    I think the bear will be visiting the dentist first before all sanctions will be lifted.
    - labster 5y ago
      All the new sanctions should be lifted or it’s not a very good incentive for them to stop. I agree you can’t unring the bell, though. Even if Russia stopped today, Europe will still accelerate plans to become energy independent.
sgjohnson 5y ago
With $600bn of foreign reserves, they can easily prop up the Ruble, if they want to.
- rad_gruchalski 5y ago
  Large chunk of those reserves is now frozen. They can’t do much about it.
  - 323 5y ago
    They have 20% of reserves in gold. Gold can easily be used as collateral to get dollars.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > Gold can easily be used as collateral to get dollars At a deep discount. The buyer would run the risk of secondary sanctions by the U.S. They would also, likely, want to take custody, all of which can result in striking discounts. (I beliece Iran got dimes on the dollar for their gold.)
      - slaw 5y ago
        China is not afraid of U.S.
        neoromantique 5y ago
        China is indeed afraid of U.S. https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/chinese-state-banks-restrict-financing-for-russian-commodities https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/chinese-stat...
        bcrosby95 5y ago
        Regardless, using human emotions in geopolitical discussions is weird. I don't think China is afraid of the US, I think China is doing what China thinks is best for them, which may include going along with the US, or not, or doing something inbetween (most likely).
aurizon 5y ago
Al Cap had it right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Slobbovia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Slobbovia His parody of the USSR, where Russia was upper slobbovia and the East Bloc countries were Lower Slobbovia. Their monetary unit was the "Rasbucknik", of which one was worth nothing, and a large quantity was worth even less, due to the trouble of lugging them around. Conditions couldn't be worse, as tourists were readily assured by the miserable, highly vocal residents. One day a US beggar washed up on the shores of Lower Slobbovia, he had almost nothing, just a Lincoln penny. Instantly he became the wealthiest man in the country, bought everything in sight, lived in a palace etc etc. Al Capp did it well. Much of his stuff would be politically incorrect these days, so google him. Of course, to him the Rouble was the Rasbucknik, of course, it may well go lower....
- CyberDildonics 5y ago
  Al Cap had it right. Al Capp did it well This reads like a bag of cliches that a high school student would come up with while trying to mimic mad magazine.
friedman23 5y ago
if anyone is looking to get rid of their rubles, I have a few nfts that I'm willing to exchange for them
mmaunder 5y ago
I think the 98 crisis will be pale in comparison. Background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Russian_financial_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Russian_financial_crisis I wrote a thread comparing 98 with this: https://twitter.com/mmaunder/status/1498105293493792771?s=21 https://twitter.com/mmaunder/status/1498105293493792771?s=21
- jacquesm 5y ago
  It would highly surprise me if it didn't. In fact I totally expect that other financial markets will melt down as well. This is going to be a pretty bitter pill to swallow but if that's the worst that comes from this then fine. It feels like it is 1928 or so, or maybe 1939.
  - scythe 5y ago
    I think it's rather 1956. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis Putin is trying to go all-in with his last few chips. If he succeeds, he'll be in the game for a few more rounds. If he fails, he'll be out. Hitler had allies. He had what was when he took power the best mathematics universities in the world (with comparable success in other areas; he eviscerated German academia, though), and (IIRC) the second or third-largest economy. Putin has a doomsday device that he doesn't actually want to use.
    - usr1106 5y ago
      > Putin is trying to go all-in with his last few chips. [...] If he fails, he'll be out. Or he tries the nuclear option. I would not longer rule that out. He has already lost the first round.
      - Sebb767 5y ago
        Honestly, my hope is that none of the Oligarchs or the Russians at the trigger want to see the world in a fiery end. One thing that might be tricky is if he deploys tactical nukes, though. They're small enough so that the other nuclear powers won't go for all-out annihilation (probably), but still a step towards further escalation.
KaoruAoiShiho 5y ago
You shouldn't be holding cash anyway.
vanusa 5y ago
The table describes RUB futures - no the current RUB. And the volume on these settles is quite small.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  That's because markets are closed. And I am wondering if they will even open today.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - SEJeff 5y ago
    If they do, expect circuit breakers to stop them.
    - CamelCaseName 5y ago
      I don't believe there are circuit breakers on most forex markets? Please correct me if I'm wrong. Unless you meant the Russian stock market, which is closed tomorrow I believe.
      - darksaints 5y ago
        There aren't. It's a distributed market, there is no way to effectively stop trading.
      - kasey_junk 5y ago
        CME forex futures has circuit breakers. There is no such thing as a “forex market”. You are trading directly with a counterparty in forex. Those contracts do sometimes stipulate circuit breakers.
        cottager2 5y ago
        > There is no such thing as a “forex market”. You are trading directly with a counterparty in forex. That’s called a market. You probably mean a market maker, who may buy or sell a security at a market price without an available counter party. Any market can have a circuit breaker. But usually forex doesn’t because the whole point of the market is to provide a way to convert currencies when needed, compared to stock markets where the main goal is to efficiently allocate capital.
marksuckaturd 5y ago
[dead]
dukeofdoom 5y ago
nikolay 5y ago
What's the benefit of having a strong Ruble in this situation. I am pretty sure Putin and his team already have thought about the different scenarios - it's not like this was something spontaneous!
- capsicumspray 5y ago
  Not necessarily a strong Ruble - but a steady Ruble . A rapidly decreasing exchange rate in this case has a similar effect to a high inflation rate. The buying power of savings (especially imports) is rapidly dwindling which makes people feel poorer and worried their live savings from hard work will be worth less. "I am pretty sure Putin and his team already have thought about the different scenarios". After Kudrin left, there is little evidence of a coherent economic policy from Russia. There is little evidence that Putin even remotely considered the economic impact of this ill advised adventure.
  - nikolay 5y ago
    I think the West is making a terrible mistake by giving enough evidence that countries should escape its control. SWIFT is ridiculously archaic and the most expensive email system in existence.
every 5y ago
Well, there go my borscht futures...
- dron57 5y ago
  Borscht is Ukrainian, not Russian!
jleyank 5y ago
When I traveled in the early 90's to Europe on business, I saw the currency changers selling rubles, but they would not purchase them ... Perhaps this will be at least short-term result of Ukraine?
- jacquesm 5y ago
  That's because they were usually getting them at a substantial discount or were whitewashing rubles into hard currency. No point in reversing that again.
rhegart 5y ago
American war propaganda = 70-75% fake sensationalized news, Russia war propaganda 95-99% fake. Just FYI.
ahmed_ds 5y ago
Food for thought. What would be the endgoal when it comes to energy supply for Europe if sanctions keep mounting up? Do you think Europe will innovate and join hands together with come up with better self contained sustainable renewable energy solutions? Or would you think this will ramp up arctic drilling? My opinion: Let's first go beyond Europe. look at COP(s). Since the Paris agreement, developed country has failed to provide funding for the climate funds but more surprising is that they failed to show initiative to transfer technology for renewable energy production in developing and developed country. This shows the European and the US government has a tendency not innovate or not to share. The developing and LDC countries governments are bound to invest in fossil fuel plants. Coming back to Europe we see the entire continent significantly reliant on one single country for their energy and fossil fuels. There is only one 'viable' and immediate solution, Arctic drilling. If the effectiveness of sanctions have taught me anything, get them hooked into capitalism then use that as stick. Controlling arctic energy resources will essentially make Europe less reliant on Russia if both the United States and Canada starts heavily investing in it. It might not surprise you when it happens, but when it happens we will convince ourselves this was the right decision.
- nine_k 5y ago
  Even the strongest proposed sanctions against the Russia's financial systems carve out provisions for paying for fuel. And I suspect some of Europe will buy, and Russia will sell, because it'll need to buy certain Western goods. (If you read The War With Newts, you can compare it to the European nations still selling drilling equipment to the newts when they were used it to destroy the Europe's very land.)
- VictorPath 5y ago
  > Controlling arctic energy resources will essentially make Europe less reliant on Russia if both the United States and Canada starts heavily investing in it. So you're saying we should enact the plot of "Don't Look Up", but in real life.
- chasil 5y ago
  Ukraine itself has massive oil and gas reserves that have not been developed. I can see intense E.U. interest in these reserves when this is over. https://hir.harvard.edu/ukraine-energy-reserves/ https://hir.harvard.edu/ukraine-energy-reserves/
democracy 5y ago
Happy to see well coordinated effort from the 1st world to support Ukraine! Go Ukraine! Our hearts and minds are with you!
democracy 5y ago
atm they say the street price is ~200 rub per dollar (~80 a week ago)
readingnews 5y ago
Pffft, I live in the U.S. I think my 401K lost about 20% of its value in the last 30 days.
- avereveard 5y ago
  As a millennial, this is the fourth or fifth world changing crisis I'm going trough. My 401k (local equivalent) is going to be whatever scraps I can scavenge after the climate wars.
- throwaway_4ever 5y ago
  Then you’re investing extremely poorly, as a market-weighted global stock portfolio is up 1.4% in the last 30 days. Only down 5% in 90 days.
- ABeeSea 5y ago
  SPY is up 12% YoY. A 30 day metric isn’t how retirement investing works.
morpheos137 5y ago
What happens when countries locked out of the fiat system start demanding payment for exports in gold?
- VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
  The countries that make those payments also get hit with sanctions. There are very few countries in the world right now willing to defy USA, UK, Canada, and EU for the sake of buying some stuff from crippled Russia with gold bars.
joelbondurant2 5y ago
vanusa 5y ago
Possibly of interest to this thread: Russian bank Tinkoff now offering to exchange rubles for dollars at a rate of 171 rubles per dollar. It was 83 before the European/US announcement about targeting the Russian central bank. Currency market formally opens tomorrow. This is brutal. https://nitter.net/PaulSonne/status/1497987741354799108 https://nitter.net/PaulSonne/status/1497987741354799108
jansen555 5y ago
This is temporary. Within a year it will bacl to normal. Russia has a lot of gold backing their currency. USA last verified their fort knox publicly like 50 years ago. A nuke to any NATO countries will bring uo Rubbles as everyone else will drop. A large part of Russian currency is in oil. They sell using Euros. And China desperately need it. You have world factory willing to sell you stuff and you got food and oil and even gold. Guys you all need to read up history and Sun Tzu not getting geberal education from twitter.

283 points by eifec 5y ago

Long lines at the ATMs: https://mobile.twitter.com/taxfreelt/status/1497811412265099265 https://mobile.twitter.com/taxfreelt/status/1497811412265099...

adriand 5y ago
Seeing this really makes me sad. We rightly stand in solidarity with Ukraine, but ordinary Russian people will also suffer enormously because of this. Imagine living somewhere where your future just got vaporized and if you speak up about it, you risk ending up in a gulag. It’s a nightmare.
- b0sk 5y ago
  It is sad. Unfortunately the least damaging way to put pressure on Putin.
- wahnfrieden 5y ago
  Solidarity with working class on both sides
- tartoran 5y ago
  It is, especially considering the typical Russian is not for a war in Ukraine and is also not a Putin supporter. Putin is a president by force, Russians cannot unseat him without any bloodshed.
  - sg47 5y ago
    I haven't seen any calls for him to resign, just protests against the war. What's the breaking point for Russians against Putin?
    - XorNot 5y ago
      When internal security forces switch sides (or stand down). Tends to be how revolutions go.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Or when someone close enough to Putin grows a pair.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        Maybe it'll be the guy in this clip. https://twitter.com/smod4real/status/1496913558138867731 https://twitter.com/smod4real/status/1496913558138867731 It's quite something, and makes it pretty clear Putin's getting the "no one wants to give bad news" treatment the Soviets were similarly famous for.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        Is he still breathing?
  - kangda123 5y ago
    Are you sure they are not for war? For example: https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-ukraine-crisis-poll-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-uk... They are surely less for war now but the effect would be opposite if they managed to capture Ukraine within a few days.
- keymone 5y ago
  They should be standing on main squares of their cities or standing in territorial defense units inside Ukraine, not in front of ATMs. Zero empathy until the war is stopped, people are dying, we don’t give a single flying fuck that somebody is inconvenienced by atm queue.
  - propagandist 5y ago
    No sympathy with people who have no control and don't support this war? The last pill had support at 8%. You can't speak your mind in Russia. The population is not guilty.
    - sg47 5y ago
      That's the price for standing and watching Putin take more and more power.
    - keymone 5y ago
      people of russia have control. they can go and protest or they can go and fight their fascist army. if they choose to do neither - they are complicit, so fuck them.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    Yeah no, I do actually sympathize. I'm not booking a ticket to Ukraine to go fight, and similarly people in Russia have not signed up to revolt. Everyone has their own lives and families to look after. I may be fine with hurting 'Russia' in the abstract, but it's not really fun that the only way to realistically do that is to hurt the ordinary people.
    - keymone 5y ago
      people of russia have control. they can go and protest or they can go and fight their fascist army. if they choose to do neither - they are complicit, so fuck them.
- labster 5y ago
  Please, show me a war where the elite, political class suffered more than the commoners. I’ll wait. I’m as sad as anyone that OnlyFans “content creators” in Russia aren’t getting paid ( https://news.yahoo.com/russia-blameless-onlyfans-stars-ve-122647835.html https://news.yahoo.com/russia-blameless-onlyfans-stars-ve-12... ) but democracy is worth more in the long run.
  - DC-3 5y ago
    In WW1 the British upper classes, who made up the officer class, were killed at a substantially higher rate than the largely working class enlisted men.
    - gruez 5y ago
      1. what was the army participation rate of the upper class vs the lower class? A cursory search seems to suggest the differential was 17% ("officer class") vs 12% ("largely working class enlisted men"). That's close enough that differences in army participation can drown the two out. 2. also relative to the army participation rate, is the suffering of civilians. If working civilians had to suffer rationing, starvation, and disease, while the nobility just chilled in their country side estates tended to be servants, that could more than make up for 1% (or whatever) of nobility dying in battle.
  - imglorp 5y ago
    Sure, the elite everywhere will rest safely in private, but their very public, pet tyrants often don't always as well. Caligula, Hitler, Saddam, Gaddafi, et al did not retire peacefully.
  - beachy 5y ago
    In Cambodia, just days after the Khmer Rouge took power, they ordered 2 million people living in Phnom Penh and other urban areas to head to the countryside. The idea was based on an extreme version of Maoism and a belief in the superiority of the Khmer people, the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia. Citizens were to be turned into traditional rural peasants, referred to as the "old people" by the Khmer Rouge. Urban workers and intelligentsia elites were viewed as "new people" and easily expendable.
- usr1106 5y ago
  > ordinary Russian people will also suffer enormously True. But who will remove Putin from power if not the Russian people? They won't do so without suffering a lot, they have been used to criminal leaders for more than a century. I am not saying it's the fault of individual people. But all there governments have been incredibly inhuman basically for centuries. It certainly affects the society.
  - TwoNineA 5y ago
    How many of those have voted for Putin?
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Nobody knows. Not even the Russian election committee.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      In a free and fair election? Zero.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        It wouldn't be zero. Strangely enough there really are Russians that want to go back to 'the good old days' and they will vote for Putin in an actual free election.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        I'm not saying zero people would vote for Putin in a free and fair election. I'm saying there hasn't been such a thing, and that means we don't have any good idea what that number would really be.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        Ok.
      - 5y ago
- xiphias2 5y ago
  Sadly Russians need to be forced to get rid of their dictator. The only way to do it is if Putin stops getting more money from outside, and it will be extremely painful at this point.
- prostoalex 5y ago
  Russian economy (applies to Eastern European in general) is generally cash-heavier than Western world. Having been burned by inflation before, Russians are skeptical of ruble as a life-savings mechanism, and diversify into gold or hard foreign currency, which is the reason you see those currency-exchange kiosks with neon signs well beyond areas frequented by foreign tourists.
- EugeneOZ 5y ago
  Point of no return has passed. Things like this will affect not just 0.001% of the population (as the idea of blocking Github), it will affect everyone in Russia. And this will finally make them fight against the regime.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    > And this will finally make them fight with the regime. Don't be too sure of that. But it does increase the chances.
  - throwhauser 5y ago
    "Fight with" can mean "fight for" or "fight against", which do you mean?
    - EugeneOZ 5y ago
      fixed, thanks.
- throwaway6532 5y ago
  All it takes is 5 million of it them out on the street in protest and Putin's goons will be overwhelmed. They face arrest while Ukrainians face bombs. The whole world is rallying behind Ukraine and the Russian people themselves have the biggest power to stop him.
  - slaw 5y ago
    5 millions unarmed protesting people can do nothing to dictatorship. You need military to stand against Putin.
    - kangda123 5y ago
      Exactly, Belarus did not go well.
    - sg47 5y ago
      If 5 million people march against him, the army will follow
      - slaw 5y ago
        That didn’t happen in Belarus and Hong Kong.
        throwaway6532 5y ago
        3% of the population rising up is enough to make social change. At some point there is a tipping point where even the army can't stop it.
        slaw 5y ago
        There is no point where unarmed population can win with military and police. 2 million Hong Kong protesters out of 8 million population didn’t win.
- zelon88 5y ago
  From my US perspective the average Russians are enabling their government by allowing them to wage war. If average Russians leveraged consequences on your leaders that reflected your 8% approval rate; then the conflict would end. Also, from a US perspective and ignoring the news media... from a former webmaster... Russia is literally the Brotherhood of Nod from the CNC game series. Your leader is Kane. By all appearances; Russia has no organic traffic. Just spiders and saboteurs. I have never seen a large organization that did not unilaterally geoblock any and all requests specifically from Russia and Belarus. Do you know why? Because there are no legitimate users from those countries. Just the worst kind of spam; the worst kind of fraud; basically the bane of the internet. Probably about 3/4 of the crap in the honey pots is Russian sponsored. It would be great if Russian citizens would demand accountability from their government for harboring and promoting international cybercrime. I can't speak for the rest of the world but from where I'm sitting; Russia gets a lot more value from being part of the internet than the rest of the world gets from Russia being a part of the internet.
  - gruez 5y ago
    >By all appearances; Russia has no organic traffic. Just spiders and saboteurs. [...] Because there are no legitimate users from those countries. Just the worst kind of spam; the worst kind of fraud; basically the bane of the internet. That sound suspiciously close to "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
  - maybelsyrup 5y ago
    > From my own US perspective the average Russians are enabling their government by allowing them to wage war. If average Russians leveraged consequences on your leaders that reflected your 8% approval rate; then the conflict would end. From my US perspective, average Americans are enabling their government by allowing them to wage a 3-decade long war against Russia. If average Americans leveraged consequences on your leaders that reflected your president's god awful, approval rate, then the conflict would end. You don't have to stan for Putin to see that US and NATO (i.e. the US) have a huge amount of responsibility for what's happening right now. The crazy thing is that it's the only thing we as Americans have even a hair of a say about. We can't influence the Russian government. Maybe we can influence our own. > Russia is literally the Brotherhood of Nod from the CNC game series You love to see guys just tell on themselves like this. > zelon88 Completely unrelated I promise but what do those numbers mean
- markvdb 5y ago
  Sad indeed. Do you see any creative options? I wonder if the Ukrainians could try to make it super easy and somewhat attractive for Russian soldiers to defect. Maybe the EU could fund desertion bonuses for Russian soldiers and make a deal with remote countries like Paraguay to temporarily resettle them? Could be a very cost efficient and humane way to tilt the military power balance. It would also put economic pressure on the Russian military apparatus to increase soliers' wages, and Ukraine would get hold of some much needed gear.
  - ilammy 5y ago
    > I wonder if the Ukrainians could try to make it super easy and somewhat attractive for Russian soldiers to defect. That's what they constantly calling for: surrender if you're in the action. It's very attractive when the alternative is getting shot. Of course, there's matter of what to do with POWs after this is over, whether to kick them out back to Russia from them to taken to the wall or to the gulags. But that would be later. The problem is acting on that when you're a soldier. All soldiers of all countries are brainwashed into following orders, not making they personal educated decisions about every operation they participate in. It's also a bit hard to just go and surrender when you're not cued in into what's happening and was not following news for the past week from the comfort of your home. It's a bit hard to surrender immediately when your first contact with the other side starts with a strike on your column and gunfire in your direction.
    - FpUser 5y ago
      >" whether to kick them out back to Russia from them to taken to the wall or to the gulags." I think if that's the offer they'll pass
  - FpUser 5y ago
    This is very good idea. Not sure about Paraguay as it will just guarantee nothing but miserable life but if offered resettlement into West I think they would leave in droves. Putin might wake up without the soldiers.
  - ketzo 5y ago
- kangda123 5y ago
  Aren't ordinary Russian people fairly supportive of the Russian imperialism? Didn't Putin have a very strong improvement in ratings in 2014, when first meddling with Ukraine's affairs? Around half of Russians were positive about the current invasion days before it started (and went well south from there). Keep in mind, we talk about one of their most brotherly nations out there. It's sad in some universal way but I'm far from feeling empathetic. It's been too much abuse.
  - dpierce9 5y ago
    Do you trust opinion polls of people subject to autocratic regimes? Do you trust the people doing the polling? If you lived in Russia and you got a call from a stranger asking if you support Navalny would you say yes? Seems obvious these issues basically mean all such polls are garbage.
    - kangda123 5y ago
      Well, we know that in many dictatorships support of the leader is marginal (e.g. just across the border - Belarus). This does not seem to be the case with Putin. And yes, you can say you don't like the war in a poll. It's not North Korea.
      - dpierce9 5y ago
        Maybe you can see changes but you can’t see the actual number. The people being polled and the pollsters themselves are incentivized to lie. They poisoned Navalny and then killed the doctor who treated him. If I am Russian living in Russia and I am asked by a stranger if I support Navalny, I don’t see any problem lying.
        x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
        I doubt the average Russian is worried of receiving the same treatment that Navalny was given. The same way the average American isn't worried about being treated like Snowden or any other person labeled "enemy of the state".
- OrvalWintermute 5y ago
  Responding as someone that has spent a good amount of time there, having trained a long time to fight Russians. > We rightly stand in solidarity with Ukraine Which Ukraine? There are actually two of them! The eastern half is culturally, economically, philisophically, politically, Russian and in Russia's sphere of influence. The western half is like continental Europe. This is why I have joked w friends there, calling the East "Little Russia", or, "Western Russia". This was before all the recent wars too. > Imagine living somewhere where your future just got vaporized and if you speak up about it, you risk ending up in a gulag. It’s a nightmare. The Russians on the Wastern Front really defeated the Nazi War machine of Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe & SS, not us Yanks & Brits on the West. They did this at a huge cost and lost ~8-10M men, ~20M in total, in the process. This is actually seared into the Russian memory. They will never permit a hostile enemy this close to their borders again. Particularly not an enemy that promised a number of times never to move NATO Eastward [1] [2] , and has recently fomented color revolutions [3] in a number of their allies, and, is regularly enlisting NGOs to attack them. Nope, we gave them casus belli a long time ago, and the US mainstream media regularly stokes the fires of Russophobia [4] Remember, it is the same Pro-Nazi Azov Battalion [5] that found a prominent place in the Western Ukrainians military, and then promoted them to SF, and gave them western advisers and western arms. > "Although Moscow had little choice but to acquiesce to the admission of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic into NATO, Russian concerns grew as enlargement continued. It didn’t help that enlargement was at odds with U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s verbal assurance to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in February 1990 that if Germany were allowed to reunify within NATO then the alliance would not move “one inch eastward”—a pledge Gorbachev foolishly failed to codify in writing. (Baker and others dispute this characterization, and Baker has denied that he made any formal pledges.) Russia’s doubts increased when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003—a decision that showed a certain willful disregard for international law—and even more after the Obama administration exceeded the authority of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 and helped oust Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi in 2011. Russia had abstained on the resolution—which authorized protecting civilians but not regime change—and former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates later commented that “the Russians felt they had been played for suckers.” These and other incidents help explain why Moscow is now insisting on written guarantees." [6] Yet, here we are, literally getting in bed with Nazis for the sake of NATO adventurism. This is why I am against getting involved. [1] https://mltoday.com/new-document-us-promised-not-to-expand-nato-eastward/ https://mltoday.com/new-document-us-promised-not-to-expand-n... [2] https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-news-01-27-22/h_190327bbaa80435566e3164ef6dc4ed1 https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-news-01-... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution [4] https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/25/235254/ https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/25/235254/ [5] https://www.vice.com/en/article/3ab7dw/azov-battalion-ukraine-far-right https://www.vice.com/en/article/3ab7dw/azov-battalion-ukrain... [6] https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/19/ukraine-russia-nato-crisis-liberal-illusions/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/19/ukraine-russia-nato-cri...
baron816 5y ago
Looks like a run.
- meepmorp 5y ago
  According too this article: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russians-withdraw-2413-billion-from-their-bank-accounts-during-ukraine-invasion/ar-AAUiV65 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russians-withdraw-2413-... Russians withdrew 111 billion rouble ($1.3 billion) on Wednesday and Thursday. That's a marathon.
learc83 5y ago
Not sure how much cash those people think that ATM can hold.

RyanShook 5y ago

Putin has gotten much more than he bargained for. Inspired by the people of Ukraine.

senectus1 5y ago
I'm not certain that Ukraine is winning all that much. sure there are a lot of encouraging and heartwarming videos out there, but Ukraine keeps losing key locations and infrastructure. I'm keen to see some more pointy support for Ukraine. this invasion was completely unprovoked and unwarranted.
- NoOn3 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jaimex2 5y ago
  They're not. Propaganda machines are in overdrive. For context, Germany with the help of the USSR took Poland in about 31 days, which was considered fast. It's day 3, Russia is knocking on the capital and Ukraine is on its own. This is pretty one sided.
  - LegitShady 5y ago
    Kiev is located less than 100km from belarus, where russia is staging and sending troops from. You could literally drive from kiev to belarus in an hour and not break the speed limit, if there wasn't a war on. Maybe your analysis is too simple for the comparison you're making?
    - vlunkr 5y ago
      Also, over 80 years of technological advances complicates the comparison quite a bit.
  - 5y ago

ABeeSea 5y ago

Not nearly enough.

sgjohnson 5y ago
It’s the ordinary Russians who are hurt by this, not the elites. I doubt the elites care what the Ruble is worth, because they operate in foreign currencies (namely USD and EUR). Most of their oil is sold in EUR, and other commodities in USD.
- totony 5y ago
  This perception that ordinary people should be immune to the actions of their governments is weird. Civilian opposition to their government is what prevents unnecessary wars. It's not other's duty to fix your country. Civil unrest is the only way to prevent war and a lot of bloodshed.
  - kadoban 5y ago
    That doesn't really work that well in a strong dictatorship.
    - throwaway6532 5y ago
      Does if enough people do it. Strong dictatorship be damned. Heck Ukrainians stood up to a brutal crackdown in the Maidan revolution to oust a pro-Russian puppet leader. It's about numbers and resolve.
      - kadoban 5y ago
        At best that's a messy plan. Are you willing to intentionally make millions of people as miserable as possible on the slim chance that they'll overthrow the people with all the guns and power? Note that the Maidan revolution was driven from within, as far as I know, not forced on the people from without.

fallingknife 5y ago

I don't think Putin realized how quickly public pressure would build against him and force reluctant governments like Germany to reverse course.

jimbob45 5y ago
In what way are you saying Germany is reluctant?
- MiroF 5y ago
  Much of the US media spent the 2 weeks up to the invasion excoriating the German government for being reluctant to commit to certain sanctions if Russia invades as well as offering scant military aid to Ukraine.
- csee 5y ago
  They were blocking the SWIFT move and refused to allow weapons to pass through their country.
- usr1106 5y ago
  Germany has not exported weapons to countries in war since WWII. They still insisted to not to do so last week, only changed yesterday. Germany is one of the biggest buyers of Russian energy. You could also say one of the biggest payers for Putin's war. Not their intention, but still a fact.
  - throwaway9798 5y ago
    It's Germany and by extension EU's own fault for not developing alternative sources of energy. Note, I said alternative sources of energy not alternative fuels. How did Germany come to being so reliant on Russian energy? What were the Germans thinking when they were happily decommissioning their Nuclear and Coal power plants in favor of what was largely Russian Oil & Gas? Its not surprising that the west finds itself again in this situation.
  - usr1106 5y ago

rafale 5y ago

Great for exports. Oh wait...

gruez 5y ago
Even europe isn't going to stop buying their main export: fossil fuels.

eifec 5y ago

And funny how crypto markets have not realized this at all yet e.g. https://www.binance.com/en/trade/BTC_RUB https://www.binance.com/en/trade/BTC_RUB - i would have thought with 24/7 trading (unlike futures which take a break for the weekend), they'd be leading indicators

paulryanrogers 5y ago
Could it be offset by increased demand?
- gruez 5y ago
  Increased demand for crypto? If anything that would make BTC prices (denominated in RUB) shoot up.
323 5y ago
The liquidity in this market is tiny: volume of $10 million in the last 24 hour.
- cliftonk 5y ago
  Any diff in that price vs spot presents an arbitrage opportunity, so price should still be close to accurate.
  - 323 5y ago
    This is a unique situation. Spot is closed, you are looking at CME futures, which would not usually move since the underlying spot market is closed. So few people capable of doing this arbitrage would bother.
    - kasey_junk 5y ago
      There is no such thing as a fx spot market. All fx is done directly with the counterparty. That said most of those counter parties are closed because they trade in Europe & the US.

323 5y ago

It's a bit premature to judge, you need to wait until the Moscow market opens, when the Central Bank of Russia is active.

sb057 5y ago
Might be a bit difficult to judge from that given that they've ordered banks to not allow foreigners to sell: https://www.reuters.com/business/russian-cbank-orders-block-foreign-clients-bids-sell-russian-securities-document-2022-02-27/ https://www.reuters.com/business/russian-cbank-orders-block-...
- ______-_-______ 5y ago
  That's a nice life hack. If you forbid anyone from selling a currency, the data will prove that it's holding its value just fine!
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Operative words there 'foreigners' and 'securities', not 'Russians' and 'Rubles'.
  - Nowado 5y ago
    It's truly amazing what you can get done with few hours of spare time and a central bank.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- drexlspivey 5y ago
  This is about securities not Ruble
berberous 5y ago
When is that?
- 5y ago

jaimex2 5y ago

nyokodo 5y ago
> it's like when the UK announced Brexit. The UK didn’t get kicked out of the global financial system. The comparison is like comparing a shooting star with an asteroid impact.
labster 5y ago
The best way for Russia to recover is to leave Ukraine, then all sanctions will be lifted.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  I think the bear will be visiting the dentist first before all sanctions will be lifted.
  - labster 5y ago
    All the new sanctions should be lifted or it’s not a very good incentive for them to stop. I agree you can’t unring the bell, though. Even if Russia stopped today, Europe will still accelerate plans to become energy independent.

sgjohnson 5y ago

With $600bn of foreign reserves, they can easily prop up the Ruble, if they want to.

rad_gruchalski 5y ago
Large chunk of those reserves is now frozen. They can’t do much about it.
- 323 5y ago
  They have 20% of reserves in gold. Gold can easily be used as collateral to get dollars.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > Gold can easily be used as collateral to get dollars At a deep discount. The buyer would run the risk of secondary sanctions by the U.S. They would also, likely, want to take custody, all of which can result in striking discounts. (I beliece Iran got dimes on the dollar for their gold.)
    - slaw 5y ago
      China is not afraid of U.S.
      - neoromantique 5y ago
        China is indeed afraid of U.S. https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/chinese-state-banks-restrict-financing-for-russian-commodities https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/chinese-stat...
        bcrosby95 5y ago
        Regardless, using human emotions in geopolitical discussions is weird. I don't think China is afraid of the US, I think China is doing what China thinks is best for them, which may include going along with the US, or not, or doing something inbetween (most likely).

aurizon 5y ago

Al Cap had it right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Slobbovia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Slobbovia His parody of the USSR, where Russia was upper slobbovia and the East Bloc countries were Lower Slobbovia. Their monetary unit was the "Rasbucknik", of which one was worth nothing, and a large quantity was worth even less, due to the trouble of lugging them around. Conditions couldn't be worse, as tourists were readily assured by the miserable, highly vocal residents. One day a US beggar washed up on the shores of Lower Slobbovia, he had almost nothing, just a Lincoln penny. Instantly he became the wealthiest man in the country, bought everything in sight, lived in a palace etc etc. Al Capp did it well. Much of his stuff would be politically incorrect these days, so google him. Of course, to him the Rouble was the Rasbucknik, of course, it may well go lower....

CyberDildonics 5y ago
Al Cap had it right. Al Capp did it well This reads like a bag of cliches that a high school student would come up with while trying to mimic mad magazine.

friedman23 5y ago

if anyone is looking to get rid of their rubles, I have a few nfts that I'm willing to exchange for them

mmaunder 5y ago

I think the 98 crisis will be pale in comparison. Background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Russian_financial_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Russian_financial_crisis I wrote a thread comparing 98 with this: https://twitter.com/mmaunder/status/1498105293493792771?s=21 https://twitter.com/mmaunder/status/1498105293493792771?s=21

jacquesm 5y ago
It would highly surprise me if it didn't. In fact I totally expect that other financial markets will melt down as well. This is going to be a pretty bitter pill to swallow but if that's the worst that comes from this then fine. It feels like it is 1928 or so, or maybe 1939.
- scythe 5y ago
  I think it's rather 1956. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis Putin is trying to go all-in with his last few chips. If he succeeds, he'll be in the game for a few more rounds. If he fails, he'll be out. Hitler had allies. He had what was when he took power the best mathematics universities in the world (with comparable success in other areas; he eviscerated German academia, though), and (IIRC) the second or third-largest economy. Putin has a doomsday device that he doesn't actually want to use.
  - usr1106 5y ago
    > Putin is trying to go all-in with his last few chips. [...] If he fails, he'll be out. Or he tries the nuclear option. I would not longer rule that out. He has already lost the first round.
    - Sebb767 5y ago
      Honestly, my hope is that none of the Oligarchs or the Russians at the trigger want to see the world in a fiery end. One thing that might be tricky is if he deploys tactical nukes, though. They're small enough so that the other nuclear powers won't go for all-out annihilation (probably), but still a step towards further escalation.

KaoruAoiShiho 5y ago

You shouldn't be holding cash anyway.

vanusa 5y ago

The table describes RUB futures - no the current RUB. And the volume on these settles is quite small.

jacquesm 5y ago
That's because markets are closed. And I am wondering if they will even open today.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- SEJeff 5y ago
  If they do, expect circuit breakers to stop them.
  - CamelCaseName 5y ago
    I don't believe there are circuit breakers on most forex markets? Please correct me if I'm wrong. Unless you meant the Russian stock market, which is closed tomorrow I believe.
    - darksaints 5y ago
      There aren't. It's a distributed market, there is no way to effectively stop trading.
    - kasey_junk 5y ago
      CME forex futures has circuit breakers. There is no such thing as a “forex market”. You are trading directly with a counterparty in forex. Those contracts do sometimes stipulate circuit breakers.
      - cottager2 5y ago
        > There is no such thing as a “forex market”. You are trading directly with a counterparty in forex. That’s called a market. You probably mean a market maker, who may buy or sell a security at a market price without an available counter party. Any market can have a circuit breaker. But usually forex doesn’t because the whole point of the market is to provide a way to convert currencies when needed, compared to stock markets where the main goal is to efficiently allocate capital.

marksuckaturd 5y ago

[dead]

dukeofdoom 5y ago

nikolay 5y ago

What's the benefit of having a strong Ruble in this situation. I am pretty sure Putin and his team already have thought about the different scenarios - it's not like this was something spontaneous!

capsicumspray 5y ago
Not necessarily a strong Ruble - but a steady Ruble . A rapidly decreasing exchange rate in this case has a similar effect to a high inflation rate. The buying power of savings (especially imports) is rapidly dwindling which makes people feel poorer and worried their live savings from hard work will be worth less. "I am pretty sure Putin and his team already have thought about the different scenarios". After Kudrin left, there is little evidence of a coherent economic policy from Russia. There is little evidence that Putin even remotely considered the economic impact of this ill advised adventure.
- nikolay 5y ago
  I think the West is making a terrible mistake by giving enough evidence that countries should escape its control. SWIFT is ridiculously archaic and the most expensive email system in existence.

every 5y ago

Well, there go my borscht futures...

dron57 5y ago
Borscht is Ukrainian, not Russian!

jleyank 5y ago

When I traveled in the early 90's to Europe on business, I saw the currency changers selling rubles, but they would not purchase them ... Perhaps this will be at least short-term result of Ukraine?

jacquesm 5y ago
That's because they were usually getting them at a substantial discount or were whitewashing rubles into hard currency. No point in reversing that again.

rhegart 5y ago

American war propaganda = 70-75% fake sensationalized news, Russia war propaganda 95-99% fake. Just FYI.

ahmed_ds 5y ago

Food for thought. What would be the endgoal when it comes to energy supply for Europe if sanctions keep mounting up? Do you think Europe will innovate and join hands together with come up with better self contained sustainable renewable energy solutions? Or would you think this will ramp up arctic drilling? My opinion: Let's first go beyond Europe. look at COP(s). Since the Paris agreement, developed country has failed to provide funding for the climate funds but more surprising is that they failed to show initiative to transfer technology for renewable energy production in developing and developed country. This shows the European and the US government has a tendency not innovate or not to share. The developing and LDC countries governments are bound to invest in fossil fuel plants. Coming back to Europe we see the entire continent significantly reliant on one single country for their energy and fossil fuels. There is only one 'viable' and immediate solution, Arctic drilling. If the effectiveness of sanctions have taught me anything, get them hooked into capitalism then use that as stick. Controlling arctic energy resources will essentially make Europe less reliant on Russia if both the United States and Canada starts heavily investing in it. It might not surprise you when it happens, but when it happens we will convince ourselves this was the right decision.

nine_k 5y ago
Even the strongest proposed sanctions against the Russia's financial systems carve out provisions for paying for fuel. And I suspect some of Europe will buy, and Russia will sell, because it'll need to buy certain Western goods. (If you read The War With Newts, you can compare it to the European nations still selling drilling equipment to the newts when they were used it to destroy the Europe's very land.)
VictorPath 5y ago
> Controlling arctic energy resources will essentially make Europe less reliant on Russia if both the United States and Canada starts heavily investing in it. So you're saying we should enact the plot of "Don't Look Up", but in real life.
chasil 5y ago
Ukraine itself has massive oil and gas reserves that have not been developed. I can see intense E.U. interest in these reserves when this is over. https://hir.harvard.edu/ukraine-energy-reserves/ https://hir.harvard.edu/ukraine-energy-reserves/

democracy 5y ago

Happy to see well coordinated effort from the 1st world to support Ukraine! Go Ukraine! Our hearts and minds are with you!

democracy 5y ago

atm they say the street price is ~200 rub per dollar (~80 a week ago)

readingnews 5y ago

Pffft, I live in the U.S. I think my 401K lost about 20% of its value in the last 30 days.

avereveard 5y ago
As a millennial, this is the fourth or fifth world changing crisis I'm going trough. My 401k (local equivalent) is going to be whatever scraps I can scavenge after the climate wars.
throwaway_4ever 5y ago
Then you’re investing extremely poorly, as a market-weighted global stock portfolio is up 1.4% in the last 30 days. Only down 5% in 90 days.
ABeeSea 5y ago
SPY is up 12% YoY. A 30 day metric isn’t how retirement investing works.

morpheos137 5y ago

What happens when countries locked out of the fiat system start demanding payment for exports in gold?

VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
The countries that make those payments also get hit with sanctions. There are very few countries in the world right now willing to defy USA, UK, Canada, and EU for the sake of buying some stuff from crippled Russia with gold bars.

joelbondurant2 5y ago

vanusa 5y ago

Possibly of interest to this thread: Russian bank Tinkoff now offering to exchange rubles for dollars at a rate of 171 rubles per dollar. It was 83 before the European/US announcement about targeting the Russian central bank. Currency market formally opens tomorrow. This is brutal. https://nitter.net/PaulSonne/status/1497987741354799108 https://nitter.net/PaulSonne/status/1497987741354799108

jansen555 5y ago

This is temporary. Within a year it will bacl to normal. Russia has a lot of gold backing their currency. USA last verified their fort knox publicly like 50 years ago. A nuke to any NATO countries will bring uo Rubbles as everyone else will drop. A large part of Russian currency is in oil. They sell using Euros. And China desperately need it. You have world factory willing to sell you stuff and you got food and oil and even gold. Guys you all need to read up history and Sun Tzu not getting geberal education from twitter.