Media worth consuming – August 2026

Top five links

AI usage in corporates is a mania with few understanding what a waste of time and money it is.

Americans infatuated with Nordic welfare states forget the high taxes on ordinary workers, and the lack of prosperity and entrepreneurship it leads to.

How “temporary” migrants to Australia can legally stretch their stay to at least 15 years.

If lettuce makes people sick and has minimal nutritional value and flavour, why do we consume it?

Five cartoons that make fun of big government and its supporters.

Finance

Private credit has removed much of the junk out of the US high yield bond market. Average recovery rates on US corporate debt have dropped in the last three years with covenant light loans, asset light businesses, liability management exercises and asset stripping manoeuvres delaying and reducing recoveries. The argument for buying TIPS now when the real yield is 3% and what you should sell to make room for them.

The US bond market shrugged off the announcement of the US Treasury buying long end bonds. Scott Bessent responded by arguing he can use the government’s general operating account to buy long end bonds, but that will reduce the runway until the next debt ceiling fight. The US government has issued 10 year and 30 year bonds at the highest yields in decades. The combination of growing US government debt and hedge fund basis trades could cause another financial crisis. Trump’s jawboning of the Fed harks back to Nixon ending the gold standard.

Why oil prices haven’t soared when oil inventories have dropped. Over $1 trillion of investors’ capital is trapped in zombie private equity funds, with managers reluctant to sell assets below previous high watermarks and end their management fees. The LA Lakers have been sold at a 25% premium to the price paid a year ago, in what some are calling a fire sale as the departing owner is being investigated over related party loans from his insurance companies.

AI focussed hedge fund Situational Awareness reported a 439% gain in the first half of 2026, but then its long and short positions were both hammered in July. This forced a fire sale of most of its assets to Citadel in what has been called the fastest momentum crash in modern history and the largest trading loss ever recorded, prompting some reflections and lessons for investors. Jane Street lost $15 billion in July on similar holdings, but it has still generated $40 billion in net trading revenue in the year to date. Hedge fund blow-ups typically have three characteristics: excessive leverage, a lack of diversification, and then being taken down by a foreseeable negative scenario.

Across a range of scenarios and approaches, it is very difficult to see AI hyperscalers making a decent return on equity. A long article on the debt and accounting games used to finance data centres. Nvidia’s $500 billion financing platform shifts credit risk away from Nvidia to investment grade bondholders, who are dependent upon counterparties of varying quality for their ultimate repayment. It wasn’t just OpenAI; Anthropic’s Claude model also went rogue and hacked into three organisations.

China’s manufacturing dominance has moved beyond cheap goods to advanced sectors, with domestic demand largely met by domestic supply, leaving substantial capacity for exports. Evergrande’s founder has been sentenced to life in prison, with 56 others to serve prison terms, for fraud offences which included inflating the property developer’s revenues by $78 billion.

Politics & culture

An arbitrator has ruled that the Washington Post must reinstate and backpay an employee who was fired for mocking the death of Charlie Kirk. An Alabama jury awarded a man $9.25 million in damages from the New York Times after the newspaper incorrectly named him as part of a car accident where a young mother died and then failed to apologise for their error until a lawsuit was filed two months later.

Socialists and Communists laud Fidel Castro, who died a billionaire with his wealth stolen from impoverished Cuban citizens. Democrat Socialists are upfront that they want government to own businesses, while Republicans are quietly gathering taxpayer funded stakes in major corporations.

Some academics saw the resignation and then suicide of Cambridge Professor Jason Arday as a case of racial harassment, others saw a fabulist and plagiarist. The University of Oregon is forcing students to take classes to learn how “The inequitable distribution of social, economic, and political power in the United States and globally is sustained through systems of oppression”. The WNBA’s policy on who is eligible to play is about to be tested with two former NBA players nominating for the next WNBA draft.

$533 million of American taxpayers’ money was spent on building a Texas factory to produce artillery shells, but the equipment was so poor it couldn’t produce a single usable shell. Ireland bought a private jet to ferry its Prime Minister but deliberately chose to exclude navigation equipment made in Israel, leaving it unable to land in the frequently foggy weather of Ireland. Florida ran a billboard ad in Times Square thanking New York City’s Mayor for sending so many jobs to Florida. After the release of Anthony Fauci’s diary and emails, reviewers are calling for him to be jailed for misleading Congress, including one describing him as “a megalomaniacal egomaniac milking Covid for everything it's worth”. Right wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos has been arrested by ICE for overstaying his visa and is set to be deported to the UK.

Australian governments spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year in taxpayer funded grants to left of centre NGOs that lobby governments to implement left of centre policies. Australian Senator Lidia Thorpe had a meltdown at an expert witness to the Senate Inquiry into Racism, telling him “We are trying to eradicate people like you from the system we have to deal with.”

Economics & work

Scotland raised its top income tax rates and saw the tax collected fall. The way the Australian government divides the GST punishes states that deliver productivity, investment and growth. The simple economics of why government run grocery stores are reliant upon taxpayer subsidies and almost always fail.

Why inflation indices exclude government spending and why that matters, especially when government spending is rising faster than incomes. Iran’s inflation is soaring driven by war damage, sanctions and the collapse of oil exports.

Australians thinking house prices won’t fall more than 10% should consider the 10-20% fall in house prices in Canada and New Zealand. Australia’s net overseas long term arrivals of 476,870 for the year ending 30 June 2026 was another record high.

Fewer Australians are starting and running businesses but more are becoming property investors, with tax policy and regulation part of the problem. Technology has allowed travel agents to become travel consultants, and will do the same for other jobs. Some good data on which Americans are not working and why. A working paper that finds minimum wages lead to lower employment, hours and income for low income workers. The long term data is clear, free markets lift incomes for all, lifting poor people out of poverty. Are big welfare states socialist by default?

Miscellaneous

Scientists have found that rapid weight loss on a “soups and shakes” diet can put type 2 diabetes into remission. Ten foods that are most likely to give you food poisoning. A meandering article on appetite and indulgence ranging from the restrained Swedish smorgasbord to the American buffet and now the era of Ozempic eating.

Chinese surgeons are pioneering a technique to open up the brain’s pathways to clear waste and reduce the symptoms of Alzheimer’s, but early stage results are unclear on whether it provides meaningful long term gains. Long time vaccine critic RFK Junior has called on American parents to vaccinate their children for measles. Lack of air-conditioning could be more dangerous than guns, with more French and German excess deaths this year from heat related issues than Americans who have ever died in mass shootings.

A journalist asked McDonald’s for a copy of the data they had on him from using their app and got a 515-page report back. An Australian tech firm has an army of bots baiting fraudsters, wasting their time and learning their tricks before selling the intelligence to banks seeking to stop their customers being defrauded. An outlaw motorcycle gang member has been jailed for breaching his parole conditions after using an air rifle to try to win a prize for his daughter at an Adelaide Festival. Ricky Gervais is set to marry his partner of 44 years, citing the death tax as the primary motivation. A fringe NFL player has returned to his old college for another year as he will be better paid playing for the college.