Media worth consuming – September 2025

Top five articles

Roy Morgan’s labour force surveys have Australia’s unemployment rate rising faster than the ABS measure.

Could Trump’s changes to immigration explain the difference between a weak labour market and a host of solid US economic indicators?

The Trump Administration was wrong to push for Jimmy Kimmel’s sacking for disinformation, but the biggest joke is that Democrats suddenly care about freedom of speech.

There’s a growing group of developed economies competing to be the next to face a sovereign debt crisis.

Rather than getting people to change their diet, one company is re-engineering junk food by loading it up with protein.

Finance

The argument that the tech sector’s high growth rates and margins are unsustainable. Back of the envelope maths points to AI struggling to ever make enough revenue to cover the enormous capex. There’s a wave of lawsuits against AI programs for their involvement in defamation, suicide and murder. Several interesting charts and stats on Nvidia’s share price and business model.

A venture capital firm has raised a fund with an unusual pitch, that this fund will be their last. Venture Capital firms are offering all sorts of trinkets to be at the front of the queue to invest in hot start-ups. Private equity has lost its way becoming too big, too slow and too expensive to deliver alpha. With equities at all-time highs, some corporates are looking to pull capital out of their currently overfunded pension plans.

Over 54% of US stocks are now owned by passive funds, which could have significant implications for efficiency, concentration and correlation. Emerging market economies are predominantly issuing in their local currencies, which brings a range of risks and rewards for both issuers and buyers. The Chinese federal government is set to bailout one trillion yuan of local government debt.

Politics & culture

Trump sacked a Fed Governor for alleged mortgage fraud but three of his cabinet are alleged to have also claimed multiple homes as their primary residence. CBS has been widely criticised for editing an interview with Kristi Noem to cut the list of crimes committed by an infamous migrant now facing deportation. Several mainstream media outlets criticised Trump for raising concerns about painkiller use during pregnancy, despite previously reporting on studies that flagged potential problems. Autism researchers stress there are no clear factors known to cause autism, but it isn’t vaccines.

The leader of a South African opposition party has been found guilty of hate speech for encouraging the killing of white farmers. Two groups of experts are divided over whether Israel has committed genocide. Decades of data show men and women in relationships are roughly equally likely to physically attack each other, but men are far more likely to cause serious injury.

To stop governments restricting free speech, a good start would be dismantling government bodies that police it. An Irish comedian was arrested for anti-woke tweets, just three weeks after appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast where he warned the UK was becoming a police state. The UK’s Deputy Prime Minister resigned after being exposed for underpaying property taxes.

Nova Scotia has implemented a ten-week hiking ban to reduce bushfire risk. Harvard and other elite universities are inflating student grades. European agricultural subsidies are easily defrauded with Greek farmers claiming they were growing bananas on snow covered mountains. Tucker Carlson gave Mark Cuban a public lesson on what charity is; putting your hand in your own pocket. Owning a home makes citizens far more invested in their country.

Economics & work

Three bad months in a row have US CPI at 2.9%. The US Treasury Secretary criticised the Federal Reserve for its ultra-stimulative monetary policies since 2008, with the long-term consequences of setting interest rates too low becoming much clearer.

Rather than looking for the US or the IMF to prop up its currency, Argentina should float the Peso. Argentina’s Milei has shown richer nations what’s needed to correct their fiscal imbalances. It’s not just high taxes that harm economies, but also complex ones that require endless hours of paperwork. While corporations pay corporate tax, the burden ultimately falls on employees through lower wages. Countries with high tariff barriers are much poorer than those with low tariff barriers.

Charlie Kirk’s focus was mostly social issues, but his emphasis on hard work and merit is good economics. For American college graduates, the unemployment rate for men is double that of women.

Japan’s relaxed building zoning allows micro-buildings to flourish in what might otherwise be wasted space. Property developers in New York City are building numerous 99 unit buildings to get around a requirement to pay higher wages when constructing buildings with 100 or more units. Following a substantial drop in net migration, New Zealand’s housing has become much more affordable and 80% of the population are neutral or happy with that. Only 12% of migrants to Australia are skilled, a significant factor in Australia’s atrocious productivity levels.

Miscellaneous

A lawyer named Mark S Zuckerberg is suing Facebook for repeatedly closing his accounts, as they claim he is impersonating their CEO. The world stone skimming championships were rocked by a cheating scandal with some competitors using altered stones. A Canadian man was arrested for DUI and driving without a licence after being pulled over on his way to buy a Slurpee in a child’s pink Barbie jeep.