Media Worth Consuming – December 2022

Top 5 Articles

Five factors that point to long term inflation being higher than it has been in recent decades.

Central banks losses from stupid monetary policy decisions will ultimately be borne by taxpayers.

Nigeria is limiting bank withdrawals to try to force use of its digital currency.

Venture capital has created a culture of seeing billionaires as geniuses, when they are more likely to be psychopaths who exhibit Machiavellianism and narcissism.

Regulating cryptocurrencies would give them legitimacy they don’t deserve.

Finance

Why did people clap Sam Bankman Fried admitting he stole billions of dollars? The collapse of FTX looks a lot like the collapse of BCCI in 1991. Financial journalists often see doom ahead, but when something goes wrong it is rarely as systemic as predicted.

Valuing private investments is tricky, with valuations often marked up quickly and marked down slowly. Most private equity LPs don’t roll into continuance funds with the key hurdles being conflicts and the short time frame to decide. Banks are ramping up their use of the Fed’s discount window facility in a sign that funding conditions are tightening.

Top tier American law and accounting firms received $1.4 billion in bailout loans that were later forgiven, which helped boost partner payouts to record levels. Hertz will pay $168 million to settle litigation caused by the company reporting its cars as stolen and having the renters arrested, when the cars were validly rented. Amazon is losing market share as it has prioritised profit margins over customer experience. Facebook is getting smashed because it wants to control the customer rather than giving customers what they want.

Politics & culture

Donald Trump has taken legal action against the Pulitzer Prize Board after they failed to withdraw prizes awarded for clearly disproven allegations of collusion with Russia. Joe Biden is going to spend $36 billion of taxpayer’s money to bailout broke, union run pension funds. A newly elected congressman from New York appears to have invented jobs, charity work and a university degree on his resume.

Qatari representatives have been banned from the European Parliament after evidence that they were handing out wads of cash to members of parliament. Britain’s NHS is an another example of the public sector being a racket for the enrichment of insiders, cronies, bureaucrats and interest groups.

Economics & work

Greater liberty and free markets have an enormous correlation with higher GDP per capita, but many on the left and right want to ignore the evidence. Eastern European nations that pursued free economy policies have substantially outgrown their less free counterparts. Some musings on the policies and institutions that drive high growth economies. Today’s Fed has done far less than previous Fed Boards when faced with high inflation.

Miscellaneous

Early stage testing is showing promising results for a vaccine for melanoma. Dishwasher rinse aid causes stomach problems. New Zealand has passed laws than ban anyone born after 2008 from buying cigarettes in their lifetime, setting the stage for an age based black market. A Canadian study found that unvaccinated people were 72% more likely to be involved in a serious traffic accident. Lifetime pollution for EVs is less than petrol powered cars, with batteries far more efficient at converting energy to momentum.

Identical twins have been awarded $1.5 million in damages after being wrongly accused of cheating by their South Carolina University. A 16 metre tall aquarium in a Berlin hotel exploded, sending water and fish through the hotel lobby and onto the streets. A professional men’s cricket team was all out for 15 runs.