Financial analysts are underestimating the risk of ‘unintentional escalation’ in Ukraine – any hope of avoiding it necessitates a prompt response and some very hard choices for the West.  Will the West choose to crack down on tax evasion and dark money?  Activists in Brazil are determined that potentially catastrophic policy choices for the Amazon forest won’t slip through unnoticed.  How ad tech and algorithms, albeit unwittingly, create a seed bed for fake news. How the behavioural choices recommended by the Stoics in antiquity might help us cope with the uncertainties of today.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“If the West wants to see itself on the right side of history, targeting Russia is not enough. It must clean out its own Augean stables”. Daron Acemoglu, in the article on tax havens

ARTICLE OF THE WEEK

Enna Ashford and Joshua Shifrinson, How the War in Ukraine Could Get Much Worse
(Foreign Affairs, 8 March 2022)
Many analysts (most of them in the financial markets) are in denial about the severity of the war and about what’s coming. This article will be their wake-up call. The principle of “unintended escalation” highlights the risk that Russia and the West could fall into a deadly spiral. It doesn’t have to be nuclear – it could be conventional escalation as the West and Russia may now be entering into the terminal stages of a series of mutually destabilizing choices which could produce a larger European conventional conflagration. The coming weeks will most likely be more perilous – the reason why the two authors recommend that the West (led by the US) “should double down on finding ways to end the conflict in Ukraine when a window of opportunity presents itself”. This may involve difficult and unpleasant choices (metered paywall that may require registration, reads in 7-9 min).
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Daron Acemoglu, Closing Tax Havens Is the True Test of the West’s Resolve
(Project Syndicate, 8 March 2022)
For 30 years, Western governments and financial institutions have been profiting from the schemes allowing the Russian (and other) oligarchs to stash their money abroad, thus removing any incentive these elites might have had to rein in their countries’ authoritarian leaders. The considerable amount of dark money circulating in the international financial system and held in tax havens (USD7.5tr +, or 8% of global financial wealth) has been supported by a massive infrastructure of bankers, accountants, and lawyers around the world. It’s such an integral feature of the current financial system that it will take political courage to clamp down on tax evasion and dark money (metered paywall, 6-8 min).
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Constance Malleret and Tom Phillips, Thousands protest against Brazil’s ‘death combo’ of anti-environment bills
(The Guardian, 9 March 2022)
At a time when scientists fear that the Amazonian Forest might have passed (or is just about to pass) a tipping point (turning into a Savannah), demonstrators in Brazil called a major protest to denounce what environmentalists call a historic assault on the Brazilian environment under President Jair Bolsonaro. This article exposes a reality at the confluence of two issues we often refer to: (1) the acceleration of climate change; (2) the acceleration of activism. Both will be a dominant feature of the coming years with multiple reverberations across countries, industries and businesses (free access – reads in 3-4 min).
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Mohamed Suliman, How to Disrupt the Fake News Market
(Project Syndicate, 10 March 2022)
The fake news market is a serious systemic issue that is endangering societies and putting many democratic countries at risk. Misinformation online travels through a decentralized system that separates advertisers from the platforms where their content ultimately appears. Understanding it is therefore essential to mitigate its nefarious impact. By connecting ad placement to traffic, companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Google are facilitators of the fake news market, while being only part of the overall system. Ad tech companies are ultimately responsible for the environment that funds fake news (metered paywall – reads in 6-7 min).
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Amanda Ruggeri, The ancient guide for uncertain times
(BBC Future, 9 March 2022)
Epictetus famously said: “it is not events that disturb people, it is their judgments concerning them”. When we live in troubled times and so many people find it difficult to cope and adjust, the teachings of the Stoics (a school “built for hard times”) can help. Some key takeaways. (1) Recognize what you can (and can’t) control. (2) You always choose how to respond. (3) See every challenge as a learning opportunity – and a test. (4) Remember that change (and loss) are constants. (5) Rehearse for the worst but don’t spin your wheels worrying. (6) Keep it to the simple facts and avoid catastrophizing. (7) Help others and ask for help – but protect yourself emotionally. Wise and helpful (free access – reads in 8-10 min).
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