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Perspective
NYT – Public Works Funding Falls as Infrastructure Deteriorates – Binyamin Appelbaum 8/8
FT – Who was convicted because of the global financial crisis? – Kara Scannell and Richard Milne 8/8
Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice
NYT – The Political Payoff of Making Whites Feel Like a Minority – Lynn Vavreck 8/8
NYT – Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart – David Leonhardt 8/7
- Watch out for single entity stable value products.
Real Estate
WSJ – The Best Place for a New Warehouse? An Old Mall – Esther Fung 8/8
- “The pressure for speedy online package delivery is prompting companies to look for distribution facilities closer to residential areas or highways.”
- “Some of the best locations, it turns out, are dead malls.”
- “Warehouse landlords say they like former malls because the shopping centers occupy swaths of space relatively close to where consumers live or near main highways.”
- “But it isn’t easy to convert a mall into logistics space quickly. Developers say it takes a community ready to accept that the mall has failed as well as understanding that there are viable job opportunities in logistics real estate.”
- “The dramatic shift in the retail industry and growth of e-commerce have led some analysts to estimate that 400 or so of the roughly 1,100 malls in the U.S. will close in the coming years.”
- “Meanwhile, the appetite for industrial space continues unabated. Roughly 247 million square feet of industrial space is expected to be delivered this year, according to real-estate services firm JLL.”
Finance
WSJ – Daily Shot: TheAtlasInvestor.com – Euro Junk Bonds & US Treasuries 8/9
South America
- “A growing number of Venezuelan officers are openly breaking ranks with the president and taking up weapons.”
- “Venezuela has a history of coups and attempted overthrows at times of crisis, and many in the country now wonder if this is one of those times.”
- “But the nation’s leaders are keenly aware of that, too, and as they face their greatest turmoil in years, they appear to have come prepared: The government has spent years ensuring that the military’s top commanders are deeply invested in the status quo.”
- “In a single day Mr. Maduro promoted 195 officers to the rank of general. Venezuelan generals, more than 2,000 strong, enjoy a range of privileges, from lucrative control of the food supply to favorable rates for exchanging dollars.”
- “Eleven of the 23 state governors in Venezuela are current or retired generals, along with 11 heads of the 30 ministries, giving them an extraordinary stake in preserving the government’s control over the country.”
- “And the defense minister, Vladimir Padrino López, an army general, has been granted an even more lucrative arrangement, with expanded powers to control the country’s ports, as well as parts of the oil and mining industries.”
- “’Maduro has made sure to give many rewards to senior military officers in exchange for loyalty,’ said John Polga-Hecimovich, a political scientist who studies Venezuela at the United States Naval Academy. ‘While he is completely dependent on them to stay in power, they have much to lose if he is gone.’”
- But…
- “Most midlevel officers, however, are far removed from the high ranks or patronage systems on offer from the government. Instead, said Raúl Salazar, a retired general who served as defense minister under Mr. Chávez, they see a deepening poverty caused by the food and medicine shortages that are plaguing the country.”
- “’Their families, their friends, their acquaintances, everyone is suffering and they begin to ask themselves if it’s getting better or worse,’ General Salazar said. ‘Everyone has the same voice that talks to them each day, and that is their conscience.’”