It’s Thinking time! This week we cover the little glitch that caused big problems, slowing growth in luxury goods, and China’s secretive supercomputing prowess.
TBL Thinks is our way to summarize the most important paywalled, longer reads relevant to global macroeconomics, helping you cut through the noise. With that in mind, please enjoy.
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CrowdStrike 3, you’re out!
CrowdStrike Explains What Went Wrong Days After Global Tech Outage (WSJ) By now you’re all aware that a glitch in CrowdStrike’s software on July 19 resulted in outages for millions of Microsoft Windows software users. CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity company providing endpoint security, threat intelligence, and cyberattack response services. In a post on X on July 19, CrowdStrike’s chief executive George Kurtz said that the issue was caused by a bug in a software update, and that “this was not a security incident or a cyberattack.”
In an incident report published on July 24, CrowdStrike said a bug in a quality-control tool it uses to check system updates for mistakes allowed a critical flaw to be pushed to users’ machines.
The outage affected almost every industry, including airlines, financial institutions, government entities, corporations, hospitals, schools, and courthouses. Tens of thousands of flights were cancelled, courts had to either close or delay trial proceedings, and several industries reported technical issues. One particular TBL team member was personally victimized by not being able to order Starbucks on the app and had to walk in and engage.
CrowdStrike’s stock has since plunged, and Kurtz has been summoned to testify before lawmakers. The company stated that it will do more testing for the type of update that caused the outage, along with a gradual rollout to large groups of users so it can check for problems.
The company also warned in a blogpost on July 20th that bad actors were trying to take advantage of the outage, and a file posing as an update was being sent around by hackers, and included malware enabling hackers to remotely control or monitor a user’s device.
In a world that increasingly reliant on technology and AI for its functioning, this small glitch in a software update that led to several industries across the globe coming to a standstill has caused a crisis of confidence. We wonder if there will be knock-on effects to the world economy, or to proposed legislation to regulate the Internet.
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Champagne Problems, Literally
LVMH Growth Slows as China’s Slump Weighs on Luxury Spending (BBG) Wealthy shoppers are reigning it in, leading to luxury powerhouse LVMH sales growth slowing down. Organic revenue at the group’s fashion and leather goods unit, its biggest division, grew 1% compared to a 21% growth the year before. Sales in the region that includes China fell 14% but was offset by strong spending by wealthy Chinese travelers, particularly in Japan where a weak yen helped lift sales by 57%.
LVMH, full name LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, also stated that champagne demand is facing a severe slowdown with volumes down double digits, however cognac sales in the US, which were once affected by inflationary pressures, are now recovering.
LVHM’s report is just one of many citing a decrease in high-end luxury demand. Swiss watchmaker Swatch Group AG reported a 70% drop in profit and blamed it on collapsing demand from China, and Cartier’s parent company Richemont posted sales that barely grew in the recent quarter. Cognac maker Rémy Cointreau also reported a bigger-than-expected slump in sales and blamed slacking US demand and worsening markets in Southeast Asia. The slowdown in luxury appears to be broad and confirmed across companies and continents.
China’s Secrecy around Supercomputers
China is Getting Secretive About its Supercomputers (WSJ) Decades-long collaboration between the US and China on supercomputers is being disrupted as China becomes more secretive due to the US’s interference in its technological progress. The communist country has stopped participating altogether in a prominent international supercomputing forum—Top500, a forum ranking the world’s 500 fastest super computers—marking the end of an era.
Central to the US-China technology cold war, the country with the faster supercomputers can hold an advantage in developing nuclear weapons and other military technology. Although Top500’s latest rankings released in June proclaim the US has the world’s fastest three supercomputers, it is hard to be certain with China not participating.
Top500 cofounder Jack Dongarra, along with other analysts, thinks that Beijing is worried that the US would increase its sanctions on China if it showed the progress it has made on its supercomputers. The US started curtailing China’s access to US technology in 2015, followed by more sanctions by the Trump administration in 2019 which the Biden administration tightened even further.
Dongarra believes that although officially the world’s fastest supercomputer, called Frontier, is in Tennessee, China has faster machines. Based on his assessment of Chinese scientific papers and attending conferences, Dongarra believes that a Chinese supercomputer called Sunway may be more powerful than Frontier. Supercomputing should become a fixture of the US-China tech cold war.
Unchained empowers you to fully control your Bitcoin with a collaborative multisig vault, where you hold two of three keys and benefit from a dedicated Bitcoin security partner. Purchase bitcoin directly into your cold storage vault and eliminate exchange risks with Unchained's Trading Desk.
Unchained also offers the best IRA product in the industry, allowing you to easily roll over old 401(k)s or IRAs into Bitcoin while keeping control of your keys.
Don’t pay more taxes than you need to. Use code TBL for $100 off when you create an account.
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