Media worth consuming – January 2024

Top Five Articles

A French academic has infuriated private equity firms by exposing their high fees and inflated returns.

For Australians with mortgages, CPI significantly underestimates the recent increase in their living expenses.

Additional research finds that excessive screen time is detrimental to children’s mental health, but the issues can often be reversed by switching off the devices.

After losing in two lower courts, Finland’s government is appealing to its Supreme Court to convict a former politician of hate speech for quoting the Bible.

How to network like a Davos regular.

Finance

CNN’s fear and greed index has tipped into extreme greed. A New York office building valued at $605 million in 2014 is now being valued at around $150 million in a distressed debt sale. US office buildings are being sold and rented with significant incentives, in an attempt to fool investors into paying more.

Chinese property developers are resorting to gimmicks to sell homes, including “buy a house, get a wife for free”. The Chinese government has spent $85 billion building Xiongan city, but few people want to live there. Chinese wealth management group Zhonzhi has filed for bankruptcy.

Adebayo Ogunlesi’s wife told him to quit whining about being an investment banker, so in 2006 he started GIP which has just been sold to Blackrock for $12.5 billion. Large investors are demanding cash back from existing PE funds before investing in new funds. An analysis of indicative margins in US and EM bond markets found enormous changes by the time the bonds priced, demonstrating that the process is used as a momentum tactic instead of a genuine attempt at price discovery. How Costco has delivered for shareholders by focussing on customers and employees.

Politics & culture

China’s population declined by over 2 million people in 2023, with the birth rate down to around one baby per woman. A false story about children buried in mass graves in Canada has sparked attacks on almost 100 churches in the last two years. PwC has relaxed diversity targets in the US after the recent Supreme Court ruling against race-based college admission processes.

In a legal technicality, five Swedish police have been ordered to pay the court costs of a convicted rioter who attacked them. Canadian police arrested a journalist disliked by the ruling party on a trumped-up assault charge. The UK Government is quashing the convictions of hundreds of people wrongfully convicted of theft caused by faulty government software. Queensland clubs with poker machines donate only a tiny fraction of the revenue from them to community groups.

Just like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, Donald Trump is being treated with kid gloves for mishandling classified information. A New Zealand MP has resigned following multiple allegations of shoplifting. British police have cracked a money laundering gang that shifted over $1 million in cash per trip from London to Dubai by flying business class and taking extra bags. A solid overview of crime statistics in the US. In 2013 many thought Bitcoin was untraceable, then Sarah Meiklejohn proved the opposite was true.

Economics & work

Javier Milei gave the World Economic Forum a lecture on the evils of collectivism and the prosperity that comes from free markets. Argentina’s President wants to pass a law banning government employees from describing government services as “free” as taxpayers are paying for them. In the 1990’s, Peru underwent an economic turnaround similar to what Argentina looks set to go through. Estonia is a textbook case of a country becoming prosperous after it dumped socialism for free markets.

Over the last 50 years, the tax to GDP ratio has grown enormously in Europe, but the debt to GDP ratio has also risen significantly as European politicians simply cannot stop themselves from overspending. At some future point, bond markets are going to pull back on lending to governments that run endless deficits. Japan’s central bank and government wanted inflation, now that it has arrived the general population isn’t happy.

With the growth of America’s welfare state, around 20% of welfare payments go to households that paid the taxes to fund them. 1% of the US Government’s flood insurance policies are for properties that have made repeated claims. Atlanta has a major problem with squatters, with the lengthy process to evict them making it worse. When Henry Ford increased worker’s pay and introduced social conditions, productivity surged.

Miscellaneous

An American paediatrician was sacked by her University and is being investigated by the state medical board for “misinformation” after she correctly warned of the dangers to children of Covid vaccinations. Scientists have made progress in figuring out why Covid has a much lesser impact on children and have discovered how dead red blood cells make urine yellow. Americans are switching alcohol for cannabis. Mandated drug addiction treatment can be more effective than voluntary treatment if addicts are made to stick with the program.

A long podcast on the advancements in nuclear power, which points to a renaissance of large plants. Some creative ways to reuse the blades of wind turbines.

Six principles of persuasion. ESPN used fake names to direct Emmy awards to on air staff who were ineligible for the awards. How Bluey become a children’s television hit. The debate over whether wearing socks to bed helps you sleep better. A thirteen year old boy became the first person to go far enough in Tetris to break the game.