Media worth consuming – March 2024

Top Six Articles

The combination of high marginal tax rates and the withdrawal of welfare means UK families can be better off earning £99,000 than £140,000.

Australia’s population boom is skewed to low skilled migrants, dragging down productivity and housing affordability.

When Germany and the State of New York shut nuclear power plants emissions and electricity prices increased.

Social media is ruining kids academics outcomes, mental health and personalities.

Harvard consistently failed to follow the science on Covid and fired an academic who consistently pointed out its errors.

This year’s five winners of the Ruth Bader Ginsberg Woman of Leadership Awards include Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk, Michael Milken and Sylvester Stallone, with family members claiming the choices desecrate her legacy.

Finance

Services inflation in the US and Europe remains stubbornly high, hovering around 4%. Short sellers are increasing their bets that commercial real estate will face significant challenges. PWC is being investigated by Chinese authorities following its failure to detect $78 billion of inflated revenues at Evergrande. The short seller who was fined and banned from trading in Hong Kong after reporting on Evergrande’s financial shenanigans has asked for an apology and a refund of the fine.

Global corporate defaults are tracking towards their largest total since 2009. Wide ranges in where private debt is marked raises concerns that some funds are inflating loan values to minimise return volatility and maximise fees. With the rising cost of debt, some companies are choosing to raise equity to repay debt, a reversal of the trend of the last 20 years. Catastrophe bonds delivered impressive returns to investors in 2023 as no large loss events occurred, but modelling the risk of these bonds is getting harder.

Academics are struggling to replicate earlier studies that found companies with higher ESG scores had higher stock market performance. India accounted for 78% of global equity options trading in 2023, with millions of retail traders losing money gambling on weekly options. Short volatility strategies are much bigger than they were in 2018 when they blew up, but there’s disagreement whether they could cause another rapid unwinding. American airline JSX has made private flights much cheaper, but its competitors want to shut it down by imposing greater safety standards.

Politics & culture

The NSW and Australian Governments backed a loser by allocating taxpayer funds to an experimental hazelnut farm in a region too hot and dry to sustain viable production. Just like Snowy Hydro, California’s high speed rail is way over budget and years behind schedule. Government employees in America are paid considerably more on average than their private sector counterparts.

Since the Spanish government offered greater pay and benefits to women in the military in 2022, 41 men have changed their gender identity thus gaining an instant pay increase. Denmark is considering adding women to its military draft and increasing the minimum service period from four months to eleven months. A British man has been jailed for two years for a racist sticker campaign, but the judge involved is being criticised for allowing far more dangerous criminals to walk free.

While global attention remains focused on Gaza, Israel continues to expand settlements in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority prioritises payments to terrorists who have killed Israelis while reducing regular salaries and services. A Chinese businesswoman and her lawyer have been detained after she rejected a settlement offer from the provincial government that was less than 6% of the debt owed.

Oregon has reversed its drug decriminalisation legislation after an apparent increase in public drug addiction. A New York woman was arrested for changing the locks on her house after squatters had illegally moved in and changed the locks themselves.

Economics & work

Colorado’s spending cap forces politicians to give refunds to taxpayers when taxes collected grow faster than the combined growth rate of population and inflation. The sectors in the UK economy experiencing the fastest price increases are all heavily regulated. Rent controls are a triumph of short-term politics over basic economics. The poorest Australians are predominantly renters, with soaring rents leading to an increase in shared housing. Just like Australia, Canada has had a migration surge which has sent rents soaring.

Miscellaneous

Early stage studies have found that daily small doses of apple cider vinegar assist with weight loss. Both pilots on an Indonesian flight fell asleep causing the plane to deviate off course, though it ultimately landed safely in Jakarta. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey swept up five awards at the Golden Raspberry Awards, the annual “honours” for the worst films and actors.