Blindside threats whose effects are already measurable in the data.
TV & Streaming
Television sold $20 billion of ads a year on one trusted count of viewers. Now three rivals can settle deals, NBCUniversal has defected, and Nielsen stands accused of hiding data. The market calls it a vendor spat. It isn't.
TV & Streaming
Broadcasters' cable fees were a growth engine. Now pay-TV homes are falling 5.8% a year and price hikes can't keep up. A $1.2 billion yearly shortfall is hiding inside forecasts that still expect growth.
TV & Streaming
Young viewers now rent streaming one show at a time — subscribe, binge, cancel, repeat. Monthly cancellations have nearly tripled since 2019, quietly repricing $2.9bn of yearly revenue that services still value as if subscribers stay.
TV & Streaming
The companies that run your smart-TV menu — Roku, Amazon, Samsung — have turned the home screen into a tollbooth, taking an estimated $2.6bn a year from the people who make and stream the shows.
TV & Streaming
Streaming services are making ad space faster than advertisers will buy it. Auction ad prices are down 25.8% in a year; Amazon just added 50 billion more slots. That's a $3.1bn-a-year hole the Street still calls a soft patch.
TV & Streaming
Regional sports networks are collapsing, and the deals replacing them pay about half as much. We estimate $1.3bn of local-sports TV value destroyed each year — but team valuations still assume the old money.
US Macro Risk
Trust in the federal government has hit a 66-year low of 31%. That doubt quietly delays investment and hiring—an estimated $135 billion a year in lost output the market hasn't priced yet.
US Macro Risk
The SAVE relief plan is dead, collections restart in 2025, and 9–15 million borrowers may default again. The New York Fed already measured a 5–8% spending drop. The $20 billion yearly drag is missing from most forecasts.
US Macro Risk
A trillion dollars in commercial property loans comes due in 2026–27, refinancing from 3–4% into 6–8%. Community and regional banks hold 70% of it — and one failure could force them all to mark down similar loans together.
US Macro Risk
Water, power, and hospital systems run on 1990s control software ransomware crews know how to break. Attacks rose 22% in a year, and the $22 billion Change Healthcare hit proved one failure can freeze whole supply chains.
US Macro Risk
Interest on the national debt now costs more than the military—$951 billion in 2025, heading to $1.7 trillion by 2034. There is almost nothing left in the budget to cut.