Putin hits the panic button

| 3:00 pm EST March 2, 2022
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The Russian ruble is now worth less than an American penny. The Russian stock market is apparently going to stay closed indefinitely. And three major international oil companies are now divesting themselves of their investments in the Russian oil market because they no longer expect there to be a Russian economy.

Instead of realizing that he has to back down in Ukraine in order to have any chance of ever getting his economy back, Vladimir Putin is now making panic moves. According to The Kyiv Independent, Putin has signed a decree prohibiting Russians from leaving Russia with more than $10,000 in foreign currency.

This is a fairly crude last ditch attempt at keeping foreign currency from leaving the Russian economy, even as the ruble bottoms out. It’s also a de facto attempt at preventing wealthy Russians from fleeing a collapsing Russia and taking their money with them.

The thing about this kind of move is that it won’t really help in any way, and will instead merely contribute to the financial panic that’s spreading across Russia. The more tightly and desperately Putin tries to lock things down, the more he motivates his own people to try to overthrow him – and perhaps motivates the Russian oligarchs to selfishly side with the people.