our host for the hour, richard dalton asked. falkenrathraises interest rate unexpectedly. china pma dropped to an eight-month low. u.s. mortgage approvals rose more than forecast in january to them highest level in more than six years as the property market .trengthens this shows the change in the global housing market. we are expecting some of that. i is some manufacturing construction spending and total vehicle sales a big number that is being driven. subprime lending a big deal. >> earnings after the bell, mbia as well. >> we have company news. >> berkshire hathaway sales will rise as much as the s&p 500 through 2008. the first time the company missed on the five-year target dating back to 1965. after ringing up record earnings last year, looking to do more deals this year. in the united states. microsoft ceo is shuffling management. mark penn will fill the new role of street -- cheap strategy officer according to people familiar with the matter. executive bp tony bates was -- leaving the company. the employees of citigroup being questi

i expect a stronger response than the united states. >> let me bring in richard falkenrath. livan destroys the hydrocarbons card for the united states and the west. if we don't have a hydrocarbons card, dr. falkenrath, what do we have? >> very little direct leverage over vladimir putin. one thing i would like to ask nick, he knows diplomacy is a book -- combination of carrots and sticks. we have mostly been talking about sticks and they are very small. are there any carrots, positive inducements we can offer vladimir putin to get him to come down? one thing that has been tossed out is promising the new july's ukraine, never to take it in -- neutralize ukraine, never to take it into nato. ? >> it has been an important principle since all the american presidents since the end of the cold war that any european democracy ought to have at least the right theoretically to join nato nde you -- nato and the eu. talked to they russian foreign minister yesterday and president obama spoke to vladimir putin yesterday and they are floating this idea to the russians of autonomy of crimea i

richard falkenrath jones is now. good morning. us now. good morning. i sighed for the media frenzy and the genuine care, what is richard falkenrath focused on? >> first, the data we are getting is fascinating and not -- and not yet confirmed and somewhat contradictory. something i learned from investigations like this is to be careful to cooperate facts. but if the data is right, particularly about the manual disablement of the beginning is ams, what it tells us human being did it purposely. it shifts to a number of important questions. who he or she was and what was the motive to possibly do that. it strikes me that this is too complicated to be a suicide attempt. in aviation history we have seen pilot to attempted to commit suicide just by crashing the plane. so some other plot must have been afoot. >> we got a further headlines, and let's bring them up. >> the defense minister in addition to saying the police have not searched the pilot's house they said they will search his house if needed. you talked about an individual being involved. there is qu

i am joined by richard falkenrath. it seems like more foul play is ?g to look like foul play. it is hard to see how so many things could go wrong. if it is true the navigational transponders were turned off, that would require a deliberate act by somebody who knew what they were doing. all signs point to follow play. ist is important to say there are still a lot of contradictions in the publicly available information and fragmentary information. we have not seen the last twist and turn in the story. >> no, we have not, and i want to talk about the coordination. there are several countries involved in this. the united states is not leading the investigation. it is the malaysian authority, the malaysian government that is . is that somewhat hampering things? >> malaysia is not known to be an extremely competent government, and this is a very complex investigation with several different tracks. one looks at the aviation technology, and a second looks element, the manifest, the history, if any of them had a motive, if they were connected to terrorist indic

to trap -- two passengers traveled on stolen passports perdomo to bring in richard falkenrath who served as national security adviser under george w. bush and currency a fellow at the council on foreign relations. richard, you dealt with several incidences like this as well. what is your inclination, you got instinct? an act of terrorism? >> 50-50. very unusual for airplanes to catastrophically blow up in the middle of flight when they are at altitude but it is also unusual for them to be attacked by terrorists. inre's very little evidence the public domain. it looks like it could really go either way. >> what is alarming is these two individuals were able to travel on stolen passports. has ports that were reported stolen even two years ago. >> if these facts are right, and it sounds like they are, it was a huge failure on the part of the airline and the aviation authority in a while a lump or. it cannot be happening -- inco .ell alone for --kuala lumpur sounds like an idiosyncratic glitch. >> is at the airport or airline responsible? >> it could be the airlines, the airport, or the cust

richard falk and wrapped explains why -- richard falkenrath explains why. >> to get from one countryo another, you need one. not surprisingly, terrorists, criminals, and fugitives have been trying to get their hands on stolen passports for a long time. in 1980, it was establish the basic standard for all passports currently in circulation. they have four main features. in the upper right-hand corner, identifyingnique number. in the middle, some basic data about the person holding a passport. at the bottom, the same data in machine-readable form. and most importantly on the left, a standard picture. in the old days, it was fairly easy for a criminal to travel on a stolen passport as long as he or she fit the basic description of the person stolen from. the most important thing was to replace the photograph. and since on old photographs it merely consisted of a physical photograph covered by lamination, all they had to do was cut the photograph out, replace it, and they could travel. after 9/11, it became clear that the international community needed a better passport. starting in augu

. >> that is richard falkenrath. former director of the national security council and former deputy commissioner for the new york police department. terrorism is something he knows about. does this look like terrorism? >> it is suspicious. it fits the pattern because we know a few facts. you wait for the facts to speak for themselves. there are more than one possibilities to explain. you do not lead to the most extreme right away. when you hear hoof beats, think of horses and not zebras. the first premise is this was an accident. second, it was an act of terrorism. you do not reach that until you have some data. >> one piece of data investigators are looking into is the discovery that two passengers boarded the plane with missing or stolen passports. not just that, they bought their tickets one after another. >> two data points in conjunction that are extra suspicious. they were bought from the same travel agent in thailand. that is possibly a passport fraud international transportation link. they also bought one-way

also, former white house advisor richard falkenrath. >> the aircraft did not land at some airport nearbyscenarioot like a loss -- this is not like in "lost" aenario and the people are on beach. we know where all the airstrips are in that area that can handle a jet of this size. you've really are down to some form of crash. the ocean somewhere. it needs to be found. the questions of -- the scenarios, none of them can be rolled out. who did this and why they did it. it is too early to say. the data is too fragmentary. >> back to the tsa founder, where do we go? >> go to the very beginning, you have to look at everybody who ched the air force since it landed in kuala lumpur. all those things have been examined. transpondershave 2 a lowerff, it flew at altitude, they were still communicating with the ground. that is a scenario, a head office is where you put all the investigative things together. this leads you to assume it has to be one or both of the pilots. >> someone else who also knows what is going on on an airport is laura gladding, president of the association of professional flight

and in the next hour, richard haas will join us and richard falkenrath will join us as well to give us perspective. more companys driven. softbank president is coming to washington. he will not be doing hard lobbying on trying to get a sprint-t-mobile merger approved. regulators have stood firm. but he will make the argument for consolidation in the mobilephone business through advanced wireless broadband as an alternative to cable. softbank controls sprint which has been considering an offer for t-mobile but u.s. regulators squashed that. >> i would think a lot of americans alike, who we? >> one of the richest men in japan. he transfer -- transform the mobile industry over there. that is something we will continue to monitor certainly in the coming days. the last front page story, going right to the chart you were just showing. the csi 300 stock index and china fall into a five-year low. it dropped more than three percent today. the trigger was after china reported experts -- exports tumbled 18% in february. economists were looking for just a 7.5% gain. this was an unexpected drop but

our guest -- we have the advanced study director and richard falkenrath also joining us. also another guest on the phone. we will start with you. threats or will they go anywhere? >> no, i think they are very real. as secretary of state kerry , the ruble fell. the stock price in russia fell more than 10%. >> ok, you say that it has an effect. i come back with, why is putin not backing down? >> because putin has made an economic and military calculation -- a political and military calculation. >> he does not think we will follow through on our threats? >> i think he thinks on a certain level we will not follow through. especially on a military level. but i do not think he has calculated to what level economic sanctions can influence developments on the ground in russia. >> do we have influence, given what happened in syria, do we run the risk of he is calling our buff and we -- our bluff and we are stuck? >> yes, we do. i think secretary kerry from rhetoric is way out in front of what the international community is prepared to do. no one likes that vladimir putin has done

here is richard falkenrath. he is enjoying a surge in popularity but why? >> he's a strong leader and the russians like that and this is the sort of action the place of the national sentiment inside russia. he is feeling confident now at home. >> what do you think the outcome will be? >> i think they will annex crimea and the international community will have some slaps on the wrist and will have to accept it. >> there is nothing we can do about it? >> we have no leverage over russia right now. it hurts the western european economies as well if we deploy the sanctions. they rely on russian natural gas and oil. it is easier to sit and watch where you have almost no economic interdependence with russia than to: tough sanctions. if you are in europe, it it hurts the bottom line. >> what about their own sanctions? >> it makes it worse for everyone and it could backfire and cause escalation in eastern ukraine. this emboldens the new government inkiev like if they type -- if they try to lock it crimea. the only way to get there is through the ukraine. they could

richard falkenrath is here. he is a former white house security and visor. he is a commissioner for county terrorism. he is now a principal at the chertoff group. i guess we need to start with this. you are an expert in counterterrorism. that is what you did at the new york city police department. does the situation to your i have the hallmark of terrorist acts? >> is suspicious. it fits the pattern. you wait for the fact to speak for themselves. there are more than one possibilities to explain this. in general, you do not leap to the most extreme or most exotic right away. one of the mottos i have had is that when you hear the hoofs, think of horses and not zebras. you do not reach that conclusion until you have data. >> investigators are combing the season and have not to date found anything. how unusual is that for a plane to this appear? -- disappear. >> very uncommon. planes are the safest when they are cruising. it has to be at altitude. it has to be in an area with no air traffic control coverage and limited radar. it has to be over water. it does hap