Hello readers; I’m long overdue for major updates across a whole range of issues. I have continued to work full time on Notes on the Crises but the work of setting up a physical office takes significant time and energy. Among other things, I have secured a fiscal sponsor so I could take 501(c)3 donations, and continue to pursue investigative work which is taking time and effort to gestate.

The Firth of Forth sounds confusing to American ears. It is an inlet of the North Sea, called a “firth” and produced by the river “Forth.” On this body of water in Eastern Scotland sits Rosyth, the location of the manufacture and drydock service for the U.K.’s only two aircraft carriers.

The flagship aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, still “new” in naval terms, is visiting Rosyth—not to assert British naval prestige but to begin maintenance. Commissioned in 2017, the ship had already spent most of 2025 under repair after corrosion was found in its propeller shaft. Now, despite recent $4.3 billion refits, it’s once more out of action for further upgrades and inaccessible-system inspections, pushing its availability deeper into the future.

Three thousand miles to the west, a Canadian-born civilian sits on her living room couch, contemplating her approaching death. She isn’t terminally ill, but the state won’t provide the medical home care she needs. Canada has promised health care via socialized medicine, but it will instead administer a lethal injection within days. This is the regime of MAID, Canada’s euphemistically termed Medical Assistance In Dying legislation that legalized assisted suicide in 2016. This “choice” is presented as a compassionate right. However, in practice it underscores a disquieting fact: the machinery of death is more functional than that of living care.

In the fight against slavery, abolitionists eventually prevailed over slave owners. The long fight was not won in the sensible centre, but by “radical, democratic” absolutists who risked their lives in the fight to save the lives of others. It scares me to think how the ABC, or indeed most of the world’s media, would report on such a debate today.

Can you imagine the economic modelling on the jobs that would be lost in the slave-using industries? Or the endless discussion of the impact on the price of clothes if slaves didn’t pick cotton?

And can you imagine the modern debate about the best way to compensate hard-working slave owners whose business model was based on long-accepted rules allowing whipping and branding?

Slavery persists today, and England (the major global slave trader of the 1800s) paid out the equivalent of over £17 billion in compensation to slave owners in 1837, but it’s important to remember that change was driven by abolitionists, not centrists.

The incrementalism on the path to abolition was a consequence of sustained pressure against change, but the incrementalism was never the goal. Unsurprisingly, few mock the extremism of those who fought to end slavery in the US and UK, and few argue abolitionists would have achieved more if they had asked for less.

Artificial intelligence is good and red tape is bad.

Really? Wasn’t this a chance to deal with the big issues? To pave the way for genuine reform?

Maybe more will filter out in the coming weeks. After all, the roundtable was conducted behind closed doors. Maybe I’m an old cynic, but I have my doubts.

In the lead-up, we were treated to lots of ideas. Some great, some good, and some thinly disguised self-interest. Yes, I’m looking at you business lobby groups who want to cut the company tax rate.

As it got closer, the push was on to confine it to deal only with small things. After decades of successive governments dodging real reform, all that had been achieved was making all the big problems progressively worse.

And small things are what we got, including the call to reduce red tape.

If people truly want to reduce red tape, then they should come up with specific proposals on what should be changed. Vague calls to reduce red tape are meaningless.

This is exemplified by the call to freeze the National Construction Code. Not only would such a freeze stop good changes from being added, it would also stop bad regulations from being removed or modified. But this was all justified as part of a push to speed up housing approvals and construction times.

The federal government has little to do with building approvals. But it has been out telling everyone who will listen that the problem is housing supply. You know … that thing it has almost no control over but is instead controlled by state governments.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

For millions of Palestinians, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is more than just a humanitarian organization — it is a lifeline. For 75 years, it has provided crucial infrastructure support and sustained a population facing heavy repression at the behest of Israel. For the past 22 months, the organization has proved as important as ever in the midst of genocide.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Matt and Elinor discuss the big fine handed to Qantas, how a training levy on businesses could improve productivity, the misunderstandings around the causes of Australia’s housing crisis, and the latest from the government’s economic reform roundtable.

Sign our petition calling on fossil fuel producers to pay a climate disaster levy.

Dead Centre: How political pragmatism is killing us by Richard Denniss is available to pre-order now via the Australia Institute website.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 21 August 2025.

Host: Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist, the Australia Institute // @mattgrudnoff

Host: Elinor Johnston-Leek, Senior Content Producer, the Australia Institute // @elinorjohnstonleek

Show notes:

SA algal bloom underlines urgent need for National Climate Disaster Fund, the Australia Institute (August 2025)

On August 11, President Trump officially declared an emergency in the District of Columbia. Violent crime had reached such levels that he was compelled to utilize authorities granted to him under Section 740 of the Home Rule Act, which requires the D.C. Metropolitan Police to be put at the president’s disposal for up to 30 days. This was followed by the president’s deployment of the D.C. National Guard and various federal law enforcement officers, including Homeland Security, the FBI, and the DEA, to walk the beat in an attempt to combat the disorder that plagues our nation’s capital.

The move has all the hallmarks of the Trump law and order agenda. Much like the man himself, it emphasizes creating a vibe of confidence and authority through public shows of force to more or less will the desired end into being.

As the kids say, “You can just do things.”

The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Spencer Klavan, and Mike Sabo devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

Pax Donaldiana | The Roundtable Ep. 281

This week, the legacy media allowed their hatred for Trump to overrule any desire they may once have had for peace in Ukraine. The president held meetings with Putin, Zelensky, and European leaders, apparently making serious headway toward a conclusion to the war. Meanwhile in Florida this week, illegal immigrant Harjinder Singh allegedly killed three people after losing control of his semi-truck in the course of an illegal U-turn. Despite failing English and road sign tests, Singh—who crossed from Mexico into California—was able to obtain a commercial driver’s license thanks to Gavin Newsom’s governance in CA. Matthew Peterson joins the guys to discuss the tragic outcomes of Leftist policy and the Democrats’ ongoing efforts to rehabilitate their image. Plus, are movies dead? And other media recs.

The length of the working day and the challenges of work–life balance are pressing issues for many Australians, as well as lively matters of public controversy. While the winning of the eight-hour day is celebrated as a past industrial achievement, contemporary discussions of working hours often overlook its rich history.

Tracing 150 years of campaigns for rights and for the fair distribution of productivity gains, historian Sean Scalmer shows how these movements successfully reduced the length of the standard working week from 60 to 38 hours per week, and how economic, social and political shifts since the early 1980s have stalled this long-term progress. Today, industrial laws provide inadequate protection for excessive hours, and Australian women increasingly shoulder long hours of paid work with the bulk of unpaid domestic labour. This has produced a social crisis for all Australians, but is yet to inspire adequate political action.

As debate over our working lives intensifies amid ongoing political, economic and technological challenges, Scalmer’s labour of love on the history of work and play affords us a way to understand the past so we can win back our time—collectively.

When I was growing up in North Carolina in the 1980s, a Chinese restaurant in town had its walls covered with photos of Marines and always gave a discount to any Marine who walked through its doors. The story behind the restaurant is remarkable.

It was founded by an immigrant who, as an impoverished child in China at the end of World War II, had been befriended by a company of Marines. They essentially “adopted” him and gave him his own bunk in a barracks and a Marine uniform, taught him English and basic drills, and sent him to a Christian religious school in China, which they paid for. When the Marines left when the Communists took over, “Charlie Two Shoes” as the Marines called him (“two shoes” being their best approximation of Tsui, his last name) was persecuted by the Communist government due to his friendship with the Americans. The government imprisoned him for years and then sentenced him to house arrest upon his release.

After a series of challenges, Charlie was miraculously able to get in touch with his old Marine buddies. As China was opening up in 1983, they arranged for him to immigrate to America, where he settled in North Carolina, started a Chinese restaurant, and eventually became a U.S. citizen. His various children generally thrived in America. Some ran the restaurant while others became doctors and pharmacists. In 2013, Charlie became the 18th honorary United States Marine. That same year, he accompanied some of his old Marine buddies on a trip back to China, his first visit since leaving 30 years prior.

On this episode of Follow the Money, Senior Economist Matt Grudnoff joins Ebony Bennett to discuss the Government’s economic roundtable, why taxing wealth more effectively would make Australians better off, and why removing as-yet-unnamed ‘red tape’ isn’t going to fix productivity.

Dead Centre: How political pragmatism is killing us by Richard Denniss is available now via the Australia Institute website.

You can listen to Dollars & Sense each week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Guest: Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist, the Australia Institute // @mattgrudnoff

Host: Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director, the Australia Institute // @ebonybennett

Show notes:

This was a question asked of Anthony Albanese on Wednesday, after alleged war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu denounced him as a “weak” leader who had “abandoned Australian Jews” and “betrayed Israel”.

What led to this? Australia is joining most of the rest of the world in the (largely symbolic) act of recognising Palestine and has cancelled the visas of far-right Israeli politicians who called Palestinian children “little snakes” and the “enemy”. Children.

Netanyahu is wanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Palestinians are being deliberately starved through Israel’s policies.

It is not an allegation that Israel has plans for the mass removal of Palestinians in Gaza, it is documented. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, most of them women and children, and that is just the numbers we have from when Gaza still had infrastructure in place.

We have no idea how many are still trapped beneath the rubble. No way of counting the missing. Israel’s forces are not fighting against a military. There is no safe place for people in Gaza, no way out, and no way to be safe.

And still, STILL, our leaders are being asked “how do we get the relationship with Israel back on track?”.

When do we stop pretending that Israel has any moral authority to criticise any other nation state?

We pulled into Bastrop around noon. This is a bad move: everyone knows you don’t go to a rundown gas station in small-town Texas unless you’re looking for trouble. We were, so we walked right in.

The Gas Station is the only major surviving site from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the 1974 low-budget classic by Austin director Tobe Hooper, who cast local unknowns in leading roles and filmed in rural areas near the city. An exploration of human savagery more artistic than its title implies, the film tells the tale of road-trippers who stumble upon a family of sadistic cannibals. It is visceral, violent, and at times, beautiful.

The final shot — masked killer Leatherface twirling his chainsaw in the haze of the rising sun, unpunished and unexplained — is cinematic poetry. A light so lovely, it makes the darkness feel worse. It is a very American story.

How Places Form People: The Moral Pedagogy of Urban Design

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Why This Canadian City Said Goodbye to Parking Mandates (And How It Really Happened)

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The Young Voice Shaping Salt Lake City's Future

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The Road That Killed Legend Jenkins Was Working Exactly as Designed

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