What We Read Today 19 March 2014

Econintersect: Every day our editors collect the most interesting things they find from around the internet and present a summary “reading list” which will include very brief summaries of why each item has gotten our attention. Suggestions from readers for “reading list” items are gratefully reviewed, although sometimes space limits the number included.

• String of suicides rocking financial world baffles experts (Michael Gray, New York Post) Hat tip to Sig Silber. All of these suicides were with a physically aggressive technique. There were no wrist slashing or overdose cases among them. Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, is quoted:

“The suicide-research literature doesn’t help very much with the question of why the method of these suicides is so out in the open.”

• Why Putin Did It (Christopher Dickey, The Daily Beast) The article quotes carrier foreign service officer and former U.S. Ambassador James F. Matlock, Jr. (1981-1983, Czechoslovakia; 1987-1991, Soviet Union) who thinks the current situation is the result of more than two decades of ill-conceived actions by American “hawks”:

… throughout the Clinton administration and especially during the George W. Bush administration, “the United States insisted on treating Russia as the loser,” says Matlock. The Obama administration famously tried a “reset” of relations with Moscow, but “then Congress’s penchant for minding other people’s business when it cannot cope with its own began to take its toll.” In supposed defense of human rights, the hawks on the Hill piled insult upon insult—at least in the eyes of Putin, and also in the view of many Russians who identify with his sense of grievance.

Wow! Could America have used council from Nelson Mandella during this period? See also Matlock’s WaPo Op Ed: The U.S. has treated Russia like a loser since the end of the Cold War. and also from TDB: Vladimir Putin’s Seizure of Crimea Is Based on Pure Fiction.

• Lawmaker: Missing airliner may have landed in southeast Asia, for use as ‘weapon’ (Catherine Herridge and Associated Press, Fox News) Hat tip to Rob Carter> Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told Fox News that

the two most plausible scenarios at this stage are that Flight 370 ran out of fuel and crashed into the Indian Ocean, or that the plane has already landed “somewhere in southeast Asia” as part of a terror plot.

“It could have landed somewhere, filled with explosives and then sent somewhere else to cause some great damage, and I think we have to look at all possibilities right now.”

• Southeast Asia’s Infrastructure Deficit (Stevebn Keithley, The Diplomat) Hat tip to Rob Carter, who forwarded a commentary which Econintersect will summarize and paraphrase:

Make transportation networks, not war or a richer 1%.

• Short Sellers Target Chinese Developers as Rout Deepens (Weiyi Lim, Bloomberg) See also Faltering Bonds Condense Risk as Builder Collapses: China Credit (Justina Lee, Bloomberg) and Bloomberg video below. The vultures are circling. See also first two articles discussed ‘behind the wall’.

There are 13 articles discussed behind the wall today.