Media worth consuming – August 2025

Top five articles

The similar yields of US treasuries, investment grade bonds and equities points to minimal reward for risk.

QE went way too far and we can only guess at how its reversal will play out.

Victorian politicians are upset about a billboard that correctly linked high migration with the rental crisis. The Australia Bureau of Statistics incorrectly claims journalists are misusing their migration data to highlight the fact that migration levels are very high.

A homeschooled seventeen year old solved the Mizohata-Takeuchi conjecture, a maths problem that had been unsolved for 40 years.

Finance

Milder tariff outcomes and buoyant corporate profits might explain the bullish market conditions. The huge flow of capital into AI has significant implications for US GDP, power generation and the stock market. Sam Altman compared current AI spending to the Dot Com bubble. Hedge funds are shorting the VIX, a bet that markets will remain calm. The number of companies founded in China has collapsed over the last six years. A short article questioning why a failure to pay personal debts is treated much harsher than corporate bankruptcy.

Politics & culture

Trump’s frequent interventions in private businesses resemble crony capitalism, which is likely to drag down future economic growth. He doesn’t seem to understand the trade-off between foreign investment and trade deficits.

Democrats are upset that Republicans are following their example in gerrymandering. Stephen Colbert asked the Governor of Illinois why his state engages in gerrymandering while he was criticising Texas Republicans for doing the same. As more evidence is released, it has become clear that the Trump-Russian collusion narrative was a fraud involving senior Democrats, government officials and the mainstream media.

An illegal immigrant employed as a police officer in Maine was arrested by immigration enforcement, with various government departments blaming each other for his wrongful employment. The UK’s minister for homelessness has resigned after evicting four tenants and increasing the rent by 21% on her rental property.

Despite receiving $28 million in taxpayer subsidies over seven years, a not for profit supermarket in Kansas City has closed down due to rampant theft, rotten food and empty shelves. Chicago’s underfunded pension funds are gradually sending the city broke, but the Mayor has responded by increasing the overly generous benefits.

The UK has raised its capital gains tax twice, but tax receipts continue to fall. US tariffs are a more politically palatable form of a value added tax. The combination of high taxes and lax enforcement has made selling illegal tobacco in Australia a haven for organised crime. In a rare win for whistleblowers in Australia, a mining services company has been fined $7.5 million for making false statements about a whistleblower.

With a fertility rate of 1.0, China’s population decline is set to accelerate in coming decades. China, India and Turkey are happily buying huge quantities of sanctioned Russian oil. International aid is often stolen, corrupted or misdirected by the regimes that cause the suffering. Modern government often gets in the way of people pursuing happiness.

A Victorian GP has been found guilty of professional misconduct and lost the right to practice due to his often satirical social media posts about abortion, gender and Covid, again demonstrating the need for Australia to legislate basic freedom of speech protections. The City of Montreal has fined a church $2,500 for failing to obtain a permit to host a conservative singer as part of a worship service. A Florida school teacher gave a boy an award as “most likely to become a dictator” for his conservative views.

Economics & work

US labour force data appears balanced once the deportation of illegal immigrants is considered. US goods and services inflation are both trending higher.

Switzerland’s government spending restraint has underpinned its prosperity. Singapore became “crazy rich” by prioritising economic freedom, small government and low taxes.

New Zealand and Canada have demonstrated that cutting migration makes housing much more affordable. The soaring cost of land has driven Australian housing to levels unaffordable for most middle income families. Australia’s Productivity Summit didn’t discuss migration, despite its huge impact on housing affordability and productivity. A podcast explains why productivity has slumped in developed countries as governments have increasingly strangled free markets.

If Australian governments replaced stamp duty with land tax, it would make it much easier for people to move into homes that match their family size. Chris Murphy’s paper outlines what real tax reform would look like for Australia. When payroll and income taxes are included, middle income European workers often take home less than half the total cost of employing them.

Miscellaneous

The cost estimate for a renewable energy zone in central NSW has blown out from $650 million to $5.5 billion in five years, another reminder that the transition to renewables will be far more expensive than promised. A concept electric car broke a string of world records after covering 40,075 kilometres in less than eight days. The earth is spinning fractionally faster, with leap seconds being retired and a negative leap second now possible.

A Mississippi judge apparently used AI to write an error ridden restraining order. The owner of a Texas Restaurant named “Trump Burger” is an illegal immigrant who is set to be deported. A long shot, thought bubble that Norway should buy Harvard.

A fan was ejected from a WNBA game after mocking a player whose wig fell off during play. A Dutch snack food company has released 9 volt battery flavoured corn chips. A zoo in Denmark has offered to take elderly pets as food for their predator animals. Firefighters in British Columbia suspect the cause of a bushfire was a bird dropping a fish onto a power line, which caused sparks to land on dry grass.