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Affordability has become a pervasive mantra in American politics. Both President Donald Trump and his Democratic opponents are vowing to stem the rising cost of living. Over the last few decades, while automation and trade have kept the prices of manufactured goods in check, costs have increased significantly in three sectors of the economy: healthcare, housing, and education. Young college graduates, renters, new homebuyers, and parents are particularly exposed to the latter two. They have also cross-subsidized rising healthcare costs through entitlements and employer-sponsored group health insurance pools, likely contributing in part to delayed family formation and rising political discontent.

This inflationary pattern, known as “Baumol’s Cost Disease,” has been attributed to the labor-intensive and as-of-yet automation-resistant nature of these sectors. But another factor is that all three have become increasingly regulated over the course of the last century to the point of quasi-nationalization.

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Joshua Lawrence is a research fellow at Notes on the Crises and graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. Find him on Bluesky here.

Market Update Preview

Kevin Warsh ran his first FOMC meeting today, and it played out about how we should have expected: a dramatically pared-down statement, a more hawkish dot plot, and a clear signal that the new chair wants to keep markets guessing. We got a brief sell-off into the close, then a rebound — not much damage overall, with rates ticking higher.

I'll lay out why I think the market could genuinely benefit from a rate hike here (yes, really), the back-of-the-envelope math on how much interest income that adds to fiscal, and why the short-run picture still looks like a healthy pause rather than the start of something worse. We hit the levels we'd flagged, I trimmed a little risk, and I think we build a base here through the June tax drain before the next leg.

The bigger payoff this week is on the long-run side: oil's drop is buying the cycle more time, and I walk through the actual math of the credit cycle — why steady acceleration paired with collapsing fiscal is the real danger, why 2022 didn't cascade, and why this time will look different. Full breakdown below, including the updated cycle-top timing.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss the latest interest rates decision, Greg and Matt Grudnoff’s field trip to a Senate committee, and why one newspaper is running a front-page story about Pokémon card collectors and capital gains.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 18 June 2026.

Support the research powerful interests fear. Make a tax-deductible donation to the Australia Institute’s End of Financial Year Appeal before 30 June.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute // @grogsgamut

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

Show notes:

The bleak view that unemployment needs to rise shows the RBA acts firstly in the interests of companies, not workers by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (June 2026)

Charities play an outsize role in the social, cultural and economic life of the nation, delivering goods and services on which lives depend. To effectively serve their communities, charities also participate in politics: campaigning for changes to law and government policy, challenging government decisions, and seeking to influence public opinion on contested issues. But charities that speak out politically have long had a difficult time in law. For many years, Australian charities engaging in political advocacy risked losing their charity status under an old common law rule. In a landmark decision in 2010, the High Court of Australia swept that rule away, but since then, successive federal governments have tried to use law in different ways to interfere with charity advocacy thought to be politically embarrassing or undesirable.

Charities matter, and so does the legal framework in which they operate. Charities & Politics argues for a principled approach to the legal task of ascertaining the public benefit of charity advocacy—an approach underpinned by liberal democratic values. This would provide charities with a powerful framework to resist government efforts to interfere when they speak out.

A principled legal approach to charity advocacy holds promise in another way as well: it can promote a politics of the common good characterised by trust, as opposed to the dismal politics built on self-interest and fear that we see too often today.

There is no better place to hear what America’s historians and history teachers think about the American Founding than in Philadelphia’s historic Old City. While recently on a guided walking tour through the neighborhood, my guide—a prominent scholar of 18th-century Philadelphia—was so overcome with emotion at a particular site that he breezed past a more notable landmark.

The first stop was the Old London Coffee House on the corner of Market and Front Streets, a hub for colonial life since its establishment in 1754. Philadelphians would meet there to discuss politics, hear the news of the day, and conduct business. One such historical detail about the coffee house captured the emotions of my guide: slave auctions used to be held in front of the building.

As he was choking back tears, he led my group right past another landmark just a few doors up the street. A plaque on the building noted the site of John Dunlap’s print shop. The Irish-born Dunlap emigrated to the colonies in the 1750s to apprentice at his uncle’s Philadelphia print shop. His uncle left the business in his care in 1766, and Dunlap eventually bought it outright. He went on to serve in the Continental Army during the War for Independence and saw action at Princeton and Trenton.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

Since the Zionist siege of Gaza began 19 years ago, people from around the world have been organizing to break through it and establish a humanitarian corridor to guarantee that Palestinians receive the supplies they need to survive. International flotillas are one way people challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza. As is occurring with all forms of resistance to the Zionist State, retaliation against activists is escalating. Participants on the most recent flotillas have been subjected to abuse, torture and rape perpetrated by the Israelis with near impunity.

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.

America’s Fight Night | The Roundtable Ep. 322

“One Nation continues to remain silent on the real causes of the housing crisis,” Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize said.

“Our housing crisis has been decades in the making as successive governments have walked away from building homes that are affordable and as more investors have milked homes for money.  

“Pauline Hanson is right to be angry about the homelessness and housing crisis, but she fails to point the blame at the real, structural causes of it.

“Senator Hanson claims to be for the battlers of Australia but we have failed to see her campaign for more social housing that’s actually affordable for the people who are doing it the toughest, and that we are severely lacking in this country.

“It’s disappointing that we did not hear a word about the need to massively expand public and community housing but instead heard her support tax breaks that line the pockets of investors and push housing out of reach for everyday Australians.

“The solutions that will make the biggest difference to housing affordability and fairness in Australia include building social housing at scale, strengthening renters’ rights, and seeing the Parliament – including Senator Hanson – pass investor tax break reform.”

sofie@hortonadvisory.com.au // lauren@hortonadvisory.com.au

On this episode of Follow the Money, Leanne Minshull and Rod Campbell join Ebony Bennett to discuss Australia’s dud deal on gas and the Australia Institute’s new petition calling on the government to hold a plebiscite on a gas export tax.

This episode was recorded on Tuesday 16 June.

Sign the petition calling for a national plebiscite on a 25% Gas Export Tax.

Support the research powerful interests fear. Make a tax-deductible donation to the Australia Institute’s End of Financial Year Appeal before 30 June.

Guest: Leanne Minshull, co-Chief Executive Officer, the Australia Institute // @leanneminshull

Guest: Rod Campbell, Research Director, the Australia Institute // @rodcampbell

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

Show notes:

For generations, Democrats have portrayed themselves as the party of ordinary Americans—factory workers, waitresses, truck drivers, police officers, construction workers, and middle-class families trying to get ahead. Yet one of the most striking features of modern American politics is how often Democrat leaders, activists, and media allies seem genuinely baffled by the very people they claim to represent.

The latest example comes from Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse, whose reaction to President Trump’s appearance at a packed UFC event on the White House lawn last weekend revealed a familiar pattern among America’s cultural elites. To tens of millions of Americans, UFC is simply entertainment. It is competitive, exciting, patriotic, and increasingly mainstream. To Hesse and myriad other journalists and political commentators, however, its popularity seems to require explanation—as though they are studying the customs of a distant tribe.

That reaction says far more about elite America than it does about UFC fans, and few institutions better embody elite opinion than the modern Democrat Party.

As the Fourth of July approaches in this semiquincentennial year of the Declaration of Independence, the best commemorations will contain some element of civic education—a reflection on the words and deeds of the American Founding. In advance of celebrating what Frederick Douglass called “the first great fact” in our nation’s history, Justice Clarence Thomas delivered a civic cri de coeur at the University of Texas at Austin on the principles of the Declaration and the character necessary for maintaining the American way of life.

Exhibit A was the black American community in which he was raised. Identifying himself as “American by birth and Georgian by the grace of God,” Thomas showed his affection for a country where the black residents of Pin Point, Georgia, affirmed the nation’s “promised ideals” even as they experienced “the indelible mark of segregation and its companion evils.” Their moral fiber in the face of Georgia’s segregation laws and customs taught him his worth as a human being and his rights as an American. As Thomas put it, “At home, at school, and at Church, we were taught that we were inherently equal…. [T]hat you did not get your rights or your dignity from those governments, but from God.” That moral self-understanding, shaped by the ideals of the American Founding and a culture shaped by Christianity, was central to Thomas’s message about the Declaration of Independence.

One of the many things I’m months late to covering is the war of choice that the United States and Israel launched against Iran. This, of course, is related to geopolitical events in the middle east that have happened for the past three years. I have mostly avoided commentary on these events in this publication, instead writing about my personal opinions on social media. Yet I can no longer sustain a division between my commentary now that the baseline functioning of the oil market has been disrupted. This war, which started on February 28th has gone on for 108 days and, as of this writing, it has been announced that the U.S. and Iran have signed a deal. At the same time, Israel restarted bombing Beirut, Lebanon which has been a major sticking point for Iran. It is thus unclear whether this deal will survive Israeli intransigence.

Since the RBA raised the cash rate from 4.10% to 4.35% in May – the third straight rate hike – unemployment has risen to 4.5% and the March quarter National Accounts reveal household discretionary spending was already stalling before the rate rises, as households cut back in order to pay for essentials.

“The current level of inflation has not been driven by either wages or consumer spending,” said Greg Jericho, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute.

“Rather, it’s been driven by increased profits and the war in Iran.

“For too long the Reserve Bank has punished households out of a belief that a wage-price spiral was just around the corner.

“Maybe they finally get it. Maybe the RBA board members understand they’ve been unfairly inflicting unnecessary pain on mortgage holders.”

The post Rates on hold. Maybe the RBA finally gets it … appeared first on The Australia Institute.

Join me at 7:00 pm on June 29 for a livestream in which we will discuss Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. Make sure to read before joining and come with questions to put in the chat.

If you have already read the book, we will also pull questions and comments from the comment section of this Substack post. To comment here, you must be a paid subscriber — see you on June 29!

Pre-order my new book "Requiem for Gaza"

On this episode of After America, foreign policy analyst Matt Duss and Dr Emma Shortis discuss the war on Iran, what the administration might be planning with regards to Cuba, the UFC fight on the White House lawn, and what a more progressive Australia-US alliance could look like.

This episode was recorded live on Friday 12 June.

Support the research powerful interests fear. Make a tax-deductible donation to the Australia Institute’s End of Financial Year Appeal before 30 June.

Guest: Matt Duss, Executive Vice President, Center for International Policy // @mattduss

Host: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @emmashortis

Show notes:

Shorter America: Alliances crumble; White supremacy at home and abroad; History matters (always) by Emma Shortis, The Point (June 2026)

What’s the Left’s Vision for Foreign Policy After Trump?, The Ezra Klein Show (June 2026)

The usual focus of the Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE) is research – its framings, its findings, and the implications of the knowledge that the research generates. This issue of the journal is different because its focus is on teaching.

For university academics, this is familiar territory, of course. Teaching is something they nearly all do and, for the rising proportion of academics who have ‘teaching focused’ contracts, it is effectively the whole job. A journal issue that focuses on teaching should therefore be of keen interest to everyone working in or hoping to work in academia. It should also interest students who are seeking an intelligent and critical appreciation of what shapes the courses they study. For other readers less directly involved in educational institutions, it may also be of interest because of teaching’s influence on the ideologies that shape how the economy is understood and people’s views about what could produce better outcomes.

When 18-year-old student Henry Nowak was fatally stabbed by Vickrum Digwa, a British Sikh, a horrific local crime quickly escalated to international headlines due to a catastrophic law enforcement failure. Spurred by Digwa’s false accusation of racism, responding officers immediately handcuffed the mortally wounded teenager, even as he told them nine times that he could not breathe, and four times that he had been stabbed. That Nowak was arrested and treated as a criminal while taking his final breaths has shocked and appalled the United Kingdom.

Body-camera footage of his harrowing final minutes also caught the attention of the U.S. government. The State Department warned on X that “Ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilizational decline that must be rejected across the West.”

On Monday, June 8^th in Ottawa, over 300 ACORN members from across the country gathered on Parliament Hill before marching to the government offices of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada. ACORN Canada is a community union made up of everyday low-to-moderate income people, organizing with more than 190,000 members in 30 chapters across 23 cities. ACORN Canada is the largest tenant union in the country.

The June 8 action organized by ACORN tenant leaders from across Canada was an escalation that came after months of unanswered emails, letters, and phone calls to the federal housing minister demanding a fair say on Canada’s housing policy. ACORN’s demand of the government is simple: give tenants a seat at the table as they consult on the renewal of Canada’s National Housing Strategy. The process, thus far, has been totally secretive and discussed behind closed doors without a voice for tenants in the room.

Gender Equality is facing new challenges in 2026, including rising authoritarianism, misogynistic anti rights figures, nudifying apps and other tech-facilitated abuse. The good news is there are phenomenal people and groups around the world leading the way in dismantling harmful gender stereotypes, challenging unfair policies, creating shared prosperity and building a gender equal future. Following the recent Women Deliver international conference held in Melbourne, GEN VIC CEO Micaela Drieberg provided an update on the state of gender equality in 2026 at home and abroad.

Per Capita also launched the new season of our ‘Homes Not Houses’ podcast, examining the housing system through a gender lens. From child care responsibilities to the gender pay gap to domestic violence, there are many factors that can make women’s experience of housing different to men’s. We explore what is needed to create a gender-equitable housing system.

Watch the recording below.

The post Gender Equality in 2026 with Micaela Drieberg appeared first on Per Capita.

Migration debates are a recurring feature of Australian politics. But what does the evidence tell us? At our April John Cain Lunch we heard from Melbourne University’s Professor Karen Block about her research on the interplay between host communities and migrants and the complex ways in which this interaction affects health inequalities, integration, inclusion and social cohesion. Watch the recording below.

Karen Block is head of the Migration and Health Unit, Nossal Institute of Global Health in the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. She is also the Deputy Director of the Melbourne Social Equity Institute (MSEI) and the Academic Convenor of the Anti-racism Hallmark Research Initiative. For the MSEI, she leads work across the priority area of Migration and Mobility and Community Engaged and Coproductive research.

Prof Block has a strong national and international profile in the area of migration studies. Her recent and current research includes a range of projects involving immigrant and refugee-background young people, women and families focused on social inclusion across the life course, health inequalities, gender-based violence, anti-racism, and working in collaborative partnerships with communities and community-based organisations.

Polling shows the vast majority of Australians want a fair return for their gas.

Unions, community groups, charities, crossbench MP’s and business leaders are calling for a gas export tax.

Research by The Australia Institute reveals that if the Albanese Government had introduced a gas export tax after it was first elected, it would have raised more than $70 billion by now.

The research also shows that:

• More than half the gas exported from Australia is given away royalty-free.
• The Japanese government collects more tax from Australian gas exports than the Australian government.
• Enough gas to supply Australian homes and businesses for more than 20 years has been used in gas exports in the past 5 years, while Australians have been threatened with shortages.
• Allowing unrestricted gas exports from the east coast of Australia has resulted in domestic wholesale gas prices more than tripling and electricity prices doubling.
• Australian beer drinkers pay more in beer excise than the gas industry pays in Petroleum Resource Rent Tax.

“It’s not clear why the government won’t impose a 25% tax on gas exports, but what is clear is that they are not in a hurry to do it,” said Leanne Minshull, co-CEO of The Australia Institute.

Dozens of organisations working across housing, homelessness, and social services are urging Parliament to pass investor tax break reform without delay, as a two-day inquiry into the proposed changes kicks off.

Fifty-seven national and state-based organisations have signed an open letter to politicians. They include Everybody’s Home, ACOSS, National Shelter, Homelessness Australia, Anglicare Australia, Better Renting, and Tenants’ Union of NSW.

The organisations said the reforms will help build a fairer housing system designed around people instead of profits, and expressed concern about the property industry’s fearmongering.

The renewed call comes as members of the crossbench and opposition want to delay parts of the reform from passing.

“The quicker we pass reform to investor tax breaks, the sooner Australia has a fairer housing system,” Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize said.

“Time and again, inquiries and research tell us that investor tax breaks have made housing more expensive, made it harder for renters to buy a home, and made inequality worse.

“Right across the country, we’re hearing from peak bodies, frontline services, renters, concerned parents, and even landlords who support the government’s proposed changes to negative gearing and the CGT Discount.

The Wrap with Greg Jericho

Governments can change the country for the better or worse. Failure to act for 26 years on housing affordability has left many Australians renting for most of their adult lives and led to for the first time since WWII, most Australians in their early 30s not owning their own home.

The path to undoing the damage will be long. But the changes made by the government in the May Budget have had an immediate impact. Finally there is hope that no longer will the housing market be treated as a place to increase wealth rather than a place to find a home to live in and grow a family.

This week it was reported that investor loans by Westpac had fallen 20% in the month, and a property investor bemoaned to a business conference that “these tax changes are a status war. They are killing residential investment and encouraging owner-occupier demand”.

Oh gosh, a government doing something to help home-owners rather than investors?!

Yes, it is possible, and that’s why we keep pushing for changes that make the economy fairer and our society better.

Good policy is a choice, and it’s why we keep pushing for better choices.  

For 26 years, we pushed for housing policy that put people before investors. This year, we finally broke through. We now have reforms that will make housing more affordable by reducing enormous tax concessions that deepen intergenerational inequality.