Where does media bias come from?  Anyone who really wanted to know had that question answered when much of the media took a break from attacking Trump to attack the Associated Press.

What does the AP have in common with Trump? Both were hurting Hillary Clinton’s chances to score payoffs from dictators, arms dealers and tycoons with terrorist ties for the next four to eight years.

The Associated Press got in trouble with the rest of the media for digging up dirt on the Clinton Foundation. Instead of just repeating the usual Clinton denials, it actually ran the numbers and noted that more than half the “ordinary folks” who got meetings with her had donated to her Foundation.

Instead of reporting on the AP story, the media went to war on its own. It wasn’t just the usual suspects like Vox and Slate who have a reputation for attacking any actual reporters who stray off the reservation and actually do their jobs. This time all the big boys were on the job.

The sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is approaching its annual nadir. By early September each year about two thirds of the ice cap has melted, then the sea begins to freeze again.

This year looks unlikely to set a record for melting, with more than four million square kilometers of ice remaining, less than the average in the 1980s and 1990s, but more than in the record low years of 2007 and 2012. (The amount of sea ice around Antarctica has been increasing in recent years, contrary to predictions.)

Meanwhile, the habit of some scientists of predicting when the ice will disappear completely keeps getting them into trouble.  But would it matter if it did all melt one year? Here’s the point everybody seems to be missing: the Arctic Ocean’s ice has indeed disappeared during summer in the past, routinely.

And when it did, during a period known as the “Early Holocene Insolation Maximum” (EHIM), it was the best thing that ever happened to humanity.  Here’s why.

China is at mounting risk of a Japanese-style "liquidity trap" as monetary policy loses traction and the economy approaches credit exhaustion, forcing a shift towards Keynesian fiscal stimulus.

Officials at the Chinese People’s Bank (PBOC) have begun to call for a fundamental change in strategy, warning that interest rate cuts have become an increasingly blunt tool. They cannot easily stop companies hoarding cash or halt the slide in private investment.

Sheng Songcheng, the PBOC’s head of analysis, set off a storm last month by warning that the economy had “started to show some signs of being caught in a liquidity trap.”

Caixin magazine said last week (8/16) Chinese companies are hoarding record sums of “dead money” rather than spending it. The growth rate of private investment has dropped to 2.1% over the last seven months, the lowest since global financial crisis. 

The International Monetary Fund warned in June that China’s corporate debt has reached 145% of GDP. “Vulnerabilities are still rising on a dangerous trajectory. They must be addressed immediately,” it said.  China’s entire financial system is clearly out of kilter.