Media worth consuming – February 2026

Top five articles

Since the Financial Crisis, US households have less debt relative to GDP, corporates are about the same but government debt levels have more than doubled, an indication of where the next debt crisis may come from.

Fiscal dominance has already eroded the independence of the Fed, with the Fed Board under pressure to lower interest rates to stave off default.

The Supreme Court ruling that Trump’s tariffs were illegal was the easy part, deciding if and how refunds are paid will be the hard part.

A British bus driver was sacked for chasing down a thief and defending himself when the thief attacked him.

Hawaii’s law banning political memes and satire during election years has been struck down in a court case run by satire website The Babylon Bee.

Finance

The ratio of insider sales to insider buys was at a five-year high in January, indicating American executives think their company stock is poor value. US corporate layoffs might simply reflect a cutting back of bloated bureaucracies. A major lift in the US PPI in January points to US inflation rising in the near term.

Cryptocurrencies have slumped, but cryptocurrency SPACs have fallen even more. Chinese gold speculators are believed to have lost at least $1.4 billion after an exchange collapsed when the gold price surged. Indonesian stocks have fallen over 10% and international investors are panic selling over concerns that concentrated ownership shenanigans will result in Indonesian stocks being excluded from global indices. Following a slump in foreign direct investment in China, the country now invests more overseas than it receives.

Hamilton Lane used a headline reduction in fees to substantially pull forward fees on unrealised gains in private assets bought at a discount and then quickly valued higher. The shares of private credit manager Blue Owl slumped after it announced it had sold a chunk of loans at 99.7% of par to partially repay investors in a gated fund.

AI is upending private debt and equity investments in software companies. The volume of US syndicated loans trading below 80% of face value has doubled this year, with one-third of these involving software companies. Lenders to a Thoma Bravo owned software company have agreed to self-report any coordination amongst themselves within three days or lose their voting rights. Bonds sold by Electronic Arts slumped after the company threatened to defease the bonds instead of buying them back under change of control provisions. Lower rated US corporates are increasingly borrowing via leveraged loans and private credit, with the average high yield bond credit rating increasing. Some investors are using box spreads to borrow short term at a low interest rate, but with the risk of a margin call.

Politics & culture

The greatest legacy of the DOGE program may end up being getting US citizens to help expose fraud and waste. California has spent $12 billion on high speed rail, but still hasn’t started building it. Americans spend by far the most on healthcare, yet live shorter lives than most other wealthy nations. After the US government cut off subsidies for junk food, PepsiCo cut prices for its snacks by up to 15%.

An illegal immigrant to the US was employed by the Pennsylvania National Guard and a Minnesota prison, but is now facing deportation. After some US media outlets published a sob story about an Irish man locked up in an American immigration detention centre, it emerged he fled Ireland in 2009 when ordered to appear in court to face drug charges.

The US State Department is acting to deport foreigners who worked to deny Americans their right to free speech, but those being targeted claim they are being punished for their speech. Australia’s recently legislated hate speech laws are retrospective, vague, deny procedural fairness, encourage victim blaming and give enormous power to a single government minister.

Most of the board and scheduled speakers at the cancelled Adelaide Writers’ Festival have demonstrated gross hypocrisy on free speech and antisemitism. Writers’ Festivals can learn a great deal about balance, good manners and sportsmanship from the Australian Open. Staff at Liverpool Hospital gave a Bondi massacre victim a false name, apparently fearful she would be treated differently if hospital staff knew she was Jewish.

The BBC used the headline “Nine arrested in France over death of far-right student” to describe the murder of a man who was protecting a feminist rally. The Washington Post has announced a round of layoffs after years of bleeding readers and losing money, but rather than fix the product, staff want a new owner who will subsidise their unpopular opinions. Increased competition has resulted in some American white collar workers paying recruiters to find roles for them. Harvard is considering capping A grades at 20%, which would be around half the current level.

Oregon’s far left policies have seen crime and drug use soar, with higher income residents leaving and thirteen counties voting to leave the state and join neighbouring Idaho. A conviction of a high-profile doctor for sex abuse in California has been overturned, as the judge ignored concerns from the jury foreman that one of the jurors couldn’t understand English. A New York jury has awarded $2 million in damages to a person who had gender transitioning surgery at sixteen. The mother and lawyer of a youth who made widely publicised but false race hate crime allegations have each been ordered to pay $1.6 million in damages. The Supreme Court ruling against Trump’s tariffs points to six of the nine justices making partisan decisions, split three each way.

The spying on key Trump figures by the Biden administration, which the FBI tried to coverup, is another low point in the partisan abuse of power in America. The FBI uses “assessments” as a way to spy on Americans when it doesn’t have sufficient evidence to open an investigation. Chinese spies used government mandated backdoors in telecommunications infrastructure to spy on high ranking US and UK politicians.

Switzerland will hold a referendum in June that if passed, will impose migration restrictions if the national population exceeds modest growth levels. If the Liberal Party wants to turn around its poor reception with young Australians, it should start by reforming migration policy to prioritise productivity and housing affordability. South Sudan’s President appointed a man who had been dead for five years to a committee organising the country’s next election.

Economics & work

If the US government froze spending at the current level, it would have a balanced budget in seven years; alternatively, it could cut spending like Argentina did and balance the budget in one year. Raising interest rates does little to reduce housing inflation caused by poor government policies that inflate demand. Australian residential rents have increased at 2.5 times the pace of wages over the last five years, with excessive low skill, low wage migration mostly to blame. Supporters claim that the Marshall Islands has introduced a world first UBI scheme using US government payments for military access, but the quarterly payments are well below a basic income level.

The announcement of Kevin Warsh’s nomination for Fed Chair delivered a blow to debasement trades, reflecting his disdain for QE, though he has a history of supporting other unnecessary interventions by the Fed. Paul Krugman detests Kevin Warsh, labelling him a political animal, but one who shouldn’t be able to do much damage given the minority of Fed members appointed by Trump. If Kevin Warsh winds back QE, it may create room for interest rate cuts. The Fed is given far more reverence than it deserves, with the same applying to the RBA.

Miscellaneous

Many environmental groups refuse to speak up about Chinese over-fishing. A Kansas woman has been sentenced to three months jail for making a false allegation that her former partner accessed her bank account while living on the International Space Station. Two Israeli citizens with classified information clearances were arrested for using their knowledge to bet on when Israel would bomb Iran. A four year old girl from Connecticut was called for jury duty, with the system administrators noting that they don’t conduct a birthdate check as part of the call-up process.

If you want a calm mind, try reading a book. A light bulb in San Francisco has racked up almost 125 years of continuous service. US restaurant chain Cracker Barrel requires employees travelling for company business to eat at other Cracker Barrel restaurants for “all or the majority of meals”. Endurance athletes at the Winter Olympics were drinking concentrated broccoli juice to speed up their recovery. Some NFL players lost money on an after tax basis for playing in the Super Bowl.