What We Read Today 23 April 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.

• China Flash PMI remains weak (Houses and Holes, Macro Business) Nothing much is improving in this preliminary reading of PMI (Purchasing managers’ Index) for April. See summary table after the Read more >> jump.

• Donbass’ Roots of Violent Division: Geography, History, Culture (Ivan Nechepurenko, The Moscow Times) Hat tips to Roger Erickson and Chuck Spinney. In case you thought you understood the cultural, ethnic, political and social issues involved in Ukraine, read this to find you were totally ignorant. If you understood even part of this why didn’t you send us an article so we could have been informed earlier? By the way, this article only goes back about 500 years or so. If it went back a millennia and more it would have mentioned that Ukraine and other river-crossed regions all the way into central Asia were overrun by Vikings although possibly more as traders than as warriors.

• Digital Tipping Point: Larry Lessig’s Electrifying Keynote Speech at FISL Con (2004) (Larry Lessig, Minds.alpha) Hat tip to Roger Erickson. This discourse on freedom and the contradictions that exist in “the land of the free”. Lessig is the law professor who gave legal standing to Creative Commons. The address is available in four short video segment links in this article.

• 14 Failed Businesses from Wildly Successful Billionaires (Daniela Pylypczak, Dividend.com)

Today there are 12 articles discussed ‘behind the wall’.

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