Media worth consuming – November 2025

Money markets are starting to show signs of indigestion from heavy Treasury Bill issuance.

When it comes to disposable income per capita, the US has a commanding lead over European nations.

The six yearlong prosecution of a Finnish MP for hate speech demonstrates the disdain that European governments have for free speech and freedom of religion.

CBA, Temu, HCF and electricity providers were named as the shonkiest providers of products and services for 2025, with CBA earning a spot in the hall of shame as a four time winner.

10% of Facebook’s revenue is believed to come from scams and banned goods, with the company responding by charging higher ad rates to likely scammers.

Finance

The Buffett indicator and the Schiller P/E both indicate the S&P 500 is historically expensive. Big Tech companies have halved the depreciation rate of their hardware, increasing their short term profits. How share-based compensation can create substantially misleading income and cashflow metrics.

UBS is liquidating a fund that had 30% exposure to First Brands invoices. Five credit red flags that First Brands displayed well before its bankruptcy. Blackrock marked its loan to Renovo down from 100% to 0% in a month, after ignoring obvious warning signs in the six months before. Blue Owl gated an unlisted private credit fund, before proposing then scrapping a merger of the fund with a publicly listed fund it manages. Howard Marks on how the worst loans are made in the best of times. Academics and practitioners are arguing over whether private credit outperforms public credit.

MicroStrategy’s ”infinite money glitch” has broken due to the fall in Bitcoin and the likely expulsion of its shares from several equity indices. Tether has hired two gold traders from HSBC to look after its rapidly growing, $12 billion gold stash. Chinese government bonds issued in USD trade at a lower yield than US government bonds, but there’s technical factors rather than perceived credit risk driving this.

Politics & culture

Key officials in Trump’s first Presidential term buried evidence that would have dispelled the Russian collusion narrative. A Democrat member of Congress called out a string of Republicans for taking donations from Jeffrey Epstein, but it wasn’t the infamous Jeffrey Epstein, rather a New York neurosurgeon who subsequently joked that he should start donating to Democrats.

Trump’s Homeland Security chief has spent $172 million of taxpayer’s money on two private jets. Minnesota taxpayers have been funding a Somali terror group via a government program for kids with autism. The highly criticised Bureau of Meteorology website upgrade cost $96 million, way beyond the $4 million that the agency first claimed it cost. Zelensky’s right hand man has resigned after his office and home were raided as part of an anti-corruption crackdown.

Health insurance costs average $26,993 per American family, with hefty increases expected in 2026. A computer error by a Maine healthcare provider led to the families of 531 living hospital patients receiving condolence letters for the apparent deaths of their relatives. The UK Government is refusing to release data that may show links between Covid vaccines and excess deaths, claiming that relatives of people who died may become distressed or angry. British police made over 9,700 arrests in 2024 for offensive social media posts. 7-Eleven fired an employee in Oklahoma for shooting a customer who was strangling and threatening to kill her.

The BBC is being investigated for deliberately misleading viewers with anti-Trump and pro-Hamas news programs. The BBC’s complaints unit upheld complaints about the infamous “pregnant people, women” news broadcast ruling that the newsreader’s facial expressions were inappropriate. An article from an ABC board member and journalist on the BBC’s bias issues is an interesting turn of events, given the ABC has the same bias issues. Pennsylvania has outlawed hair discrimination.

Economics & work

Central banks are shrinking their balance sheets, but above target inflation means they should be doing more of it. The Fed has stopped the winddown of QE despite markets showing signs of a bubble.

Japan’s forthcoming spending binge will exacerbate the country’s debt to GDP ratio and put downward pressure on the Yen. There’s no easy solution for governments with too much debt. The UK’s poor economic performance since Brexit is still better than Germany but would have been much improved if British politicians had used the opportunity to implement small government and economic freedom. Socialism in Cuba has 89% of families living in extreme poverty with a quarter of the population having fled in the last five years.

A graduate economics student at MIT became famous for his groundbreaking research on AI, before it emerged that his study was made up. A thorough review of Auckland’s planning and population changes doesn’t support the argument that zoning changes alone can fix excessive demand.

The CEO of Ford said the company is 5,000 mechanics short for jobs paying $120,000 a year, while many university graduates are struggling to get professional jobs. Gen Z has grown up watching influencers “make easy money”, which has warped some into underestimating how hard earning a living can be and how important work is.

Miscellaneous

A Campbell’s foods executive was fired for making comments that including racism, admitting coming to work high and saying that their food was “highly processed”, “bioengineered meat” and for “poor people”. A bald eagle dropped a dead cat through the windscreen of a car travelling along a freeway in North Carolina.