Media Worth Consuming – June 2023

Top Six Articles

Some American doctors are unhappy about the corporatisation of medicine and are starting their own businesses to offer better and cheaper care to patients.

Australian low income households spend an average of 51.6% of their income on rent, up from 41% five years ago.

Australia already has a higher than usual percentage of workers employed in construction, rubbishing claims that increased supply of housing will fix excessive population growth.

As recreational drug use grows, children are increasingly caught in the crossfire.

Tesla falls far behind tobacco companies on S&P’s ESG scores.

Rowan Atkinson lampooned the UK’s crackdown on free speech.

Finance

US leading economic indicators continue to indicate a significant slowdown is coming, however other similar indices suggest the US is unlikely to have a recession soon. For American consumers as a whole, interest income has gone up as much as interest payments.

High yield bonds yields have been gradually falling, with the limited supply more than offsetting recession fears. Private equity firms thought that hedging interest rates on their deals was a waste of time and money but are now paying the price as the average interest rate on US leveraged loans has increased from 3.9% to 10%. US commercial mortgages coming off interest only repayments are set to experience high default rates due to a combination of falling property values and higher interest rates. Westfield is defaulting on loans across its US malls, largely due to excessive leverage.

Chinese real estate agents are offering to help buyers obtain “negative down payment” loans, where the bank lends more than the purchase price on an inflated valuation. Chinese shopping mall owner Dalian Wanda is being compared to Evergrande, as its bonds trade at 40% of face value. China’s economic growth is falling with state control of the economy a significant part of the problem.

Odey Asset Management has blocked redemptions on its flagship hedge fund and several other funds after sexual assault allegations were reported in the press against the now-sacked founder. JP Morgan has given notice it is no longer willing to act as Odey’s custodian, which could force the firm to wind down. Many clients of Silicon Valley Bank in Asia have lost their deposits but still owe their loans in full. There’s financial advice in the lyrics of the Rolling Stones.

Politics & culture

The long story of how Huawei got busted spying on Denmark’s TDC in an attempt to win a 5G network contract. A Chinese financial journalist has been blocked from social media after likening the country’s downturn to the Great Depression. North Korea has stolen an estimated $3 billion in cryptocurrencies in recent years, using the funds to advance its nuclear and ballistics programs. North Korea has imposed a strict border lockdown leading to widespread starvation. A Vietnamese noodle stall operator has been jailed for five years for making a video mocking a celebrity chef which also drew attention to the lavish lifestyle of Vietnam’s Minister of Public Security.

New Zealand is using race as one of several factors to determine who gets priority for surgery. A jury in New Jersey has ordered Starbucks to pay $25 million in damages to a former manager fired because she was white. The Washington State head of diversity was fired for being racist.

After the US Government mandated warnings about sesame, some manufacturers chose to add sesame to their products to avoid regulatory complications. The US government oversaw the greatest fraud in history with $400 billion of taxpayer funds stolen or wasted in Covid programs. The US Supreme Court has ruled that governments cannot keep excess proceeds from assets seized and sold, overturning the common practice of home equity theft. The US Government is buying up huge stores of data on its own citizens, overriding constitutional protections.

A lawyer’s arguments on why getting a conviction against Trump for mishandling classified information is unlikely. Republicans have valid claims that the law is not being applied equally with Democrats committing many similar offences, including Joe Biden who is running away from those investigating him on the same issue. A producer has left Fox News after posting the following caption under footage of Joe Biden; “wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested”.

Politicians in Illinois send their kids to private schools as they know how bad the public schools are, but they have hypocritically cancelled a scholarship program loved by minority families desperate to escape bad schools. Iran and Belgium have completed a prisoner exchange where Iran received back a convicted terrorism plotter and Belgium received back an aid worker held on spurious charges.

Economics & work

The argument that big government and budget deficits have caused profit margins at American corporates to expand. Two graphs demonstrate that greedflation is bunk. Why it is often said that “inflation is taxation without legislation”. For the first time in decades, inflation is higher in the UK than emerging markets. Beyonce’s two sold out shows in Sweden are estimated to have added at least 0.2% to the country’s CPI. Governments so often ignore the fact that “wealthier is healthier” when increasing the regulatory burden. The marshmallow test helps explain why some countries are rich while others are poor.

Miscellaneous

Several countries are working on nuclear powered cargo ships, although major hurdles need to be cleared before they could become common. A quick tour of the world’s first nuclear powered cruise ship, which was launched in 1959.

Three of the first people infected with Covid worked at the Wuhan lab, including the man leading the lab work on bat viruses. The manager of Harvard’s morgue has been charged with illegally selling body parts. A Belgian man faked his death and turned up to the funeral in a helicopter to find out which of his friends and relatives cared about him. A 76 year old Ecuadorian woman was wrongly declared dead and woke up during her wake, before dying a week later.

A lawyer submitted bogus case information in court after using ChatGPT to shortcut his research efforts. The Salt Bae Burger restaurant, dubbed the worst restaurant in New York City, has closed. How ultra processing of food changes its structure to encourage you to eat more and eat faster. A beer factory in Japan turned local waterways blood red after it leaked food colouring.