The Russia stock market is down 71% from its peak in May. The size of their bubble as well as their corruption, makes ours look small by comparison. Oligarchs who borrowed huge from western banks using stock as collateral are suddenly in serious trouble. But lest we forget, the LTCM collapse in 1998 that nearly took out the world financial system was triggered by a Russian government loan default. But this time, just a paltry $47.5 billion is at risk. Whew. I’m glad we’re not talking real money or anything like that.
Bank runs in Russia are escalating too.
Wikipedia has a sobering timeline of the current Russian financial crisis.
Thank god we got rid of all those nukes while we had the chance!