10 Sunday Reads
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetence, corruption, and policy failures:
• TheDirtySecretBehindtheFarmedFishYouEat . Our appetite for seafood is growing. In the last 60 years, the global consumption of fish has more than doubled. As demand has increased, so have dangerous levels of overfishing: One-third of the world’s fish stocks are currently being harvested at unsustainable levels. Investigation into fish farming’s forced labor, rancid waste, and harmful chemicals, and what it means for the seafood on your plate. ( New York Times Magazine )
• Why Did DOGE Exist? Now We Know . Turns out, Elon Musk’s pimply minions didn’t actually want to cut government spending. They wanted to get a piece of it for themselves. ( New Republic ) see also They came to Washington to dismantle government. Now, they’re profiting from it. DOGE alumni have leveraged their government experience, raising at least half a billion dollars for firms spanning cyberwarfare, AI and data centers, a Post analysis found. ( Washington Post )
• Why aren’t AI companies being charged for hacking? A blogger asks whether hacking is legal now, after Anthropic models broke into three systems and OpenAI’s hit an Australian government health site. AI companies claim their hacks were unpredictable accidents — but they follow foreseeably from deliberate design choices, and that establishes criminal intent. ( Musing Mortoray )
• The Immigration Crackdown Is Making It Much Harder to Build Houses : A summer surge in immigration raids is raising labor costs and freezing projects. Nearly two-thirds of builders surveyed in September said enforcement is hitting their workforce. ( Wall Street Journal )
• Just. So. Much. Corruption. : Catherine Rampell on depravity and deprivation in Trump’s America, starting with the suspiciously timed oil and stock bets placed about 15 minutes before Trump walked back his threats against Iran in March. ( The Bulwark ) See also Trump’s Corruption Is Different In Kind : He isn’t just more corrupt than most politicians; corruption is his raison d’être. This isn’t just “government corruption” to be reformed away. It’s a GOP crime spree, and voters need to know it. ( Off Message ) see also United States of Oligarchy Exposes Trump Regime Corruption : The Nerd Reich podcast interviews Casey Michel about his new book on how America’s wealthiest ally with dictators and oligarchs betting against democracy. ( The Nerd Reich )
• Fabrications, fraud and false accounting: how Deloitte helped Abramovich hide $10bn : The Big Four firm spent years faking documents that helped the sanctioned oligarch conceal assets and dodge tax ( The London Bureau of Investigative Journalism )
• MAGA Built the Censorship Machine It Spent Years Falsely Accusing Democrats of Building : Mike Masnick on the projection: the apparatus MAGA warned Democrats were building is the one it built itself. ( Techdirt ) see also All the Things You’re Not Allowed to Say In Texas ; How new state laws and university policies at Texas Tech, Texas A&M, and UT Austin are restricting what professors can teach ( The Atlantic )
• CFTC Staff Were Told to Retract Analysis of Suspicious Oil Trades : Chairman’s adviser intervened to take over examination of lucrative bets that were made around Trump reversal on Iran power plant attack. ( Bloomberg free )
• He Was a Suspect in the Yogurt Shop Murders for Thirty Years. He Can’t Forget. : Michael Hall on Forrest Welborn, who spent decades under suspicion in the infamous Austin murders. He spent decades as a suspect in the infamous Austin murders. It all but destroyed his life. This year, he was finally exonerated. So why doesn’t he feel free? ( Texas Monthly )
• Megyn Kelly’s Extreme Makeover : We’ve seen some drastic heel turns in the media over the past few decades, but none quite as morally appalling as a former self-described advocate for female empowerment suggesting that a woman in this situation might have craved the attention because no one would have wanted to have sex with her otherwise. Does the TV host turned YouTube polemicist really believe what she’s saying? Sophie Gilbert on Kelly’s transformation from Fox anchor to combative YouTube host, and her comments on the Cornell case. Does the TV host turned YouTube polemicist really believe what she’s saying? ( The Atlantic )
Video of the day : Why AI Is Sucking Up the World’s Wealth (Bloomberg Originals)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Bob Michele , J.P.Morgan Asset Management’s Chief Investment Officer and Head of the Global Fixed Income, Currency & Commodities group (GFICC). JPMAM runs about $4.3 trillion (as of March 31, 2026).
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