Donald Trump’s top economic advisor, Kevin Hassett, recently outlined the administration’s economic vision, and after digging into the details, one thing stands out: it looks eerily similar to what Europe did following the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). If Trump gets his way, the U.S. economy could end up looking a lot like Europe’s—stagnant growth, higher unemployment, and structurally weaker economic conditions. Let’s break it down.
The Core Strategy: Fighting Inflation by Shrinking the Economy
Hassett laid out two main pillars of Trump’s economic plan:
Increase Labor Supply – This means pushing those receiving government assistance into the workforce, which effectively increases unemployment before they find jobs.
Lower Aggregate Demand – Achieved through government spending cuts, meaning less money flowing through the economy.
Theoretically, this will bring down inflation. But at what cost? If history is any guide, slashing government spending and pushing more people into the labor market without increasing demand leads to stagnation—a scenario Europe found itself in after the GFC.
Like a herd of American buffalo, joy and high spirits have stampeded across America since January 20, 2025—Liberation Day! The country has been liberated from the bleak, suffocating prison of woke tyranny—and we will need all the determination we can muster if we are going to finally put an end to it. The spirit of Making America Great Again is once more at large in the land, stronger, more inspired, and more determined than ever.
It is hard to keep up with the astounding multitude of executive orders President Trump is signing in his first weeks in office. One deserves more attention than we might be inclined to give it: “Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday.” It is focused on preparing “a grand celebration” of America on July 4, 2026, among “other actions to honor the history of our great Nation.” This includes the construction of the monument garden Trump tried to launch during his first term, now to contain 250 statues in honor of our nation’s birth.
Just when you think you can't be more alarmed and disgusted by the Republican Fascist regime, further horrendous stuff happens. Just because none of it is surprising doesn't mean it isn't shocking. Nothing Trump, Musk, the Trump cabinet heads and other Trump appointees are doing is unexpected, yet it is still very hard to process and absorb. Same for the support for all of this by the Republican Fascists who form the majorities in both the House and Senate of the federal government.
The fear and loathing, overlaid by feelings of incredulity and unbelief, can be disorienting and paralyzing, not just for us ordinary folks but also, I imagine, for state executive branch members and state legislators who prepared for months to respond to the reign of Republican Fascism at the federal level. Yet they, and we, are going to have to act if we are to give ourselves any protection at all.
I’ve spent my career looking at bad, unforced decisions. I describe them as times that people took a lot of time and talk to come to a decision they later regretted.
On this episode of Follow the Money, Senior Economist Matt Grudnoff joins Ebony Bennett to explain how tariffs work, Trump’s 25 per cent levy on steel and aluminium imports, and how big a deal this will be for Australia.
This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 11 February 2025 and things may have changed since recording.
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.
Higher Education Reform Part II | Cincinnatus Series Ep. 2
Want to make a sign that gets noticed? Here is a template and tips shared by the Visibility Brigade, who make different signs each week.
Origin and Mission
The Visibility Brigade model was born in 2020 out of a frustration due to the lack of physical messaging in the real world regarding the existential crisis we face as a nation. We present our messages at a pedestrian walkway over Route 4 in Paramus, New Jersey.
Our goal is to remind folks of this crisis, to suggest simple actions to take and to support pro-democratic state and national candidates. However, perhaps the greatest purpose at present is to comfort heartbroken voters and let them know that they are not alone.
Who We Are And What We Do
As Margaret Meade once wrote,
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
A Visibility Brigade needs only a handful of dedicated members (5 minimum) to create weekly actions. This requires a weekly dedication of 60-90 minutes a week of placing a simple message in a public location, usually an overpass or other well-trafficked locale.
The Australia Institute’s Democracy Agenda for the 48th Parliament proposes reforms aimed at strengthening Parliamentary debate, increasing government accountability, and enhancing the integrity of our political institutions.
Joined by Greens Senate Leader Larissa Waters and independent MPs Kate Chaney, Zoe Daniel, Helen Haines, Sophie Scamps, Monique Ryan, Andrew Wilkie, the Australia Institute’s Director of Democracy & Accountability Bill Browne launched the report today with a press conference at Parliament House.
Looking for narrative and storytelling directories, libraries or hubs? Here is a live list collated by the Commons librarians. Contact us if you if a suggestion to add.
The supposedly large campaigns run by community independents have been used to justify the Albanese Government’s rushed changes to electoral laws. Labor Special Minister of State Don Farrell explicitly linked the laws to an attempt to limit funding for community independents, saying “if you can’t get your message across after spending $800,000, then maybe you shouldn’t be in politics”.
Liberal MP Paul Fletcher claimed that “[t]hese amounts being spent on campaigns in individual electorates are without precedent in the Australian political system”.
Since these claims are being used to justify sweeping changes to Australian electoral law, they warrant close scrutiny.
The data reveals that the line being pushed by the two major parties does not stack up.
Despite what the Labor and Liberal parties might wish to suggest, million-dollar campaigns were not uncommon before the 2022 election.
Over the past year, a fantastic group of practitioners and researchers, led by Rainer Kattel and Mariana Mazzucato, have been exploring whether the concept of dynamic capabilities, can be measured — and whether such measurement could provide valuable insights to guide city leaders and other stakeholders in their decision-making.
As part of our campaign to commence to socio-economic duty, we’re asking supporters to write to their MP about Early Day Motion 258. This EDM calls for the socio-economic duty to be commenced in the strongest way, alongside consultation from trade unions, campaigners, and community groups. MPs from any party can sign this EDM! You […]
A live list of training and planning tools about narrative and storytelling collated by the Commons librarians. If you have a resource to add please contact us.
Counter or Transformative Narratives, Feminist Basket of Resources, Oxfam, see pgs 105-106 Purpose: Exploring the differences between “counter” and “transformative” narratives this is a simple exercise to source this knowledge and build it collectively. We do this because often we get stuck in responding or reacting to others, rather than thinking about our own narratives, what we believe in, what we are for. Time: 20 mins
President Trump has already appointed more Supreme Court justices than any president in 50 years. He now has a chance to be the first president since Eisenhower to appoint a majority of the justices on the Court. If he does, he would solidify his place as one of America’s most consequential presidents, and he would lock the Court’s liberals out of power for a generation.
If President Trump waits for a vacancy, his opportunity to secure his legacy may slip away. It is possible that neither Justices Alito nor Thomas will retire before the 2026 midterms. And three other justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, will soon be older than 65, the common retirement age, and could in theory vacate their positions between the 2026 midterms and the conclusion of President Trump’s term. If the Democrats win the Senate majority in 2026, they will likely block any appointments President Trump would make to the Court in the interim.
To guard against this, within the first 100 days and without a single justice announcing their retirement, Trump should nominate at least two candidates for the Supreme Court. Alternatively, he could make as many as five nominations for the justices aged 65 or older. President Trump can specify that these nominations will vest upon a vacancy actually arising, and the Republican Senate should swiftly confirm the nominees.
Here is a live list of resources to read, watch and listen to collated and recommended by The Horizons Project and their partners about resisting authoritarianism. These resources are sourced from their monthly newsletters, The Vista.
In a letter, published in newspapers today, CEOs, investors and academics have called for governments to stop subsidising and approving fossil fuel projects and to implement policies that will drive investment in decarbonisation.
Signatories include business leaders and investors across a range of sectors including resources, retail and superannuation.
According to the letter Real Zero means:
Setting a deadline for ending fossil fuel use, rather than relying on offsets.
Rapid reduction in fossil fuel use and absolute greenhouse gas emissions, not delays based on future technology promises.
A managed end to fossil fuel production, including a phase out of subsidies.
“A critical mass of Australian businesses have declared their support for or signed voluntary climate commitments aligned with 1.5 degrees of global warming. It is welcome to see the private sector actually start to align their advocacy with these existing commitments,” said Polly Hemming, Director, Climate & Energy Program at The Australia Institute.
“To have any chance of staying within the liveable bounds of climate change, we must all be as ambitious as we say we are. ‘Real Zero’ must be the aspiration. ‘Real Zero’ must be the goal.
The Global Nonviolent Action Database details some 40 cases of mass movements overcoming tyrants through strategic nonviolent campaigns.
This article written by George Lakey was originally published on Waging Nonviolence. The Commons librarian has added quote marks and additional images to the original article.
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With Donald Trump set to take office after a fear-mongering campaign that reignited concerns about his desire to become a dictator, a reasonable question comes up: Can nonviolent struggle defeat a tyrant?
There are many great resources that answer this question, but the one that’s been on my mind lately is the Global Nonviolent Action Database, or GNAD, built by the Peace Studies department at Swarthmore College. Freely accessible to the public, this database — which launched under my direction in 2011 — contains over 1,400 cases of nonviolent struggle from over a hundred countries, with more cases continually being added by student researchers.
Even a (so-far) nonviolent constitutional crisis moves swiftly. So far today there have been significant developments in two ongoing lawsuits to check the unlawful, unconstitutional conduct of the Trump regime. Both bring us closer to the inevitable face-off between the federal judiciary and that regime.
The two suits are both proceeding in federal district courts, the federal trial court level. Both have been brought by coalitions of state attorneys general. State of New York v. Donald Trump is before Judge John J. McConnell in the District of Rhode Island. This is the lawsuit seeking to prevent the Trump regime from freezing or otherwise interfering with the flow of Congressionally appropriated funds to the individuals and states meant to receive them. I will call this the funding freeze case. The other lawsuit is State of New York v. Donald J. Trump. It is before Judge Jeanette A. Vargas of the Southern District of New York. Here the plaintiffs are trying to prevent anybody other than the usual career civil servants from accessing the Treasury's secure payments systems and associated records. The litigation was prompted by Secretary of the Treasury Bessent giving access to "consultants" hired by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), compromising the personal and financial information of millions of Americans. I will call this the Treasury systems case.
As wildfires in California resulted in almost 40,000 acres burning and tens of thousands of buildings being destroyed, the backslide in global climate politics brazenly continues. Many jurisdictions around the world are battling against the economic impact of intensifying nature catastrophes and extreme weather events, at the same time, climate inaction and sluggish action plague governments. Most recently, the Federal Reserve announced its resignation from the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), a worldwide cooperation of central banks and financial supervisors. Under the auspices of the NGFS, central banks have been working on understanding what the impact of climate inaction looks like for economies all around the world —and more increasingly specifically in the Global South— and how they can enable climate action for financial world and government agencies. In light of Fed’s withdrawal, it is important- now more than ever- to understand what kind of weight global climate cooperation efforts can have in the greening of the financial system.
The American people have made their voices heard. In giving Republicans unified control of Congress and sending President Donald Trump back to the White House, they told the world exactly what they want: a return to American greatness, prosperity, and security—in other words, the Golden Age of America.
As I begin my term in the U.S. Senate, I am humbled by the faith the people of Indiana have placed in me, and I am energized by the mandate the Republican Party under Donald Trump’s leadership received from voters nationwide. I pledge to deliver on my campaign promises and to put America first in everything I do.
Americans could not have been more clear: they are tired of failed policies, eroding values, and being a laughingstock on the world stage. They demand, and are entitled to, a government that works for them, not against them.
It’s long past time their elected leaders actually fight for their interests—leaders unphased by the influence of special interests or foreign powers.
My agenda for this session of Congress is straightforward and unapologetic. Alongside my colleagues in the Senate, I plan to rebuild American industry, secure our borders, strengthen our military, and remove toxic influences from our culture. I am laser-focused on advancing this blueprint for national renewal.
There have been improvements, including the replacement of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, increased funding to some agencies and the introduction of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), although without the power to hold public hearings whenever they are in the public interest.
Overall, the government’s broader record on integrity and transparency remains wanting.
There is no Whistleblower Commissioner or Office as Labor promised in 2019.
This government’s record on dealing with freedom of information requests remains poor.
Integrity agencies remain underfunded even as their responsibilities expand.
Ministers are not required to, and do not proactively, publish their diaries to reveal who they are meeting with.
The response to the Robodebt scandal has failed to achieve justice for victims of the unlawful scheme, with the NACC subject to adverse findings over its handling of the matter.
David McBride is behind bars for blowing the whistle on alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.
This Tuesday, the Australia Institute and Fairer Future will convene a roundtable of integrity experts and officeholders emeritus to discuss the decline in accountability and the role of the integrity arm of government: including auditors, ombudsmen, anti-corruption commissioners and information commissioners.
The media is invited to attend community independent Senator David Pocock’s keynote address, which will open the roundtable.
With the federal government having long treated birthright citizenship as a requirement of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, President Trump’s executive order denying it to children of noncitizen, non-permanent resident mothers faces an uphill court battle. Still, opponents of birthright citizenship can hope that the result will elucidate Section 1’s much-debated “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” phrase and clarify whether an amendment is necessary to reinterpret it.
This issue is not trivial. My colleagues and I at the Center for Immigration Studies recently put together a preliminary estimate that illegal immigrant mothers gave birth to between 225,000 and 250,000 babies in 2023. That number is larger than the total number of births in any single state in 2023 except Texas and California. All of these children are automatically U.S. citizens, and through their birth they increase their parents’ chances of remaining in the country as well.
With the U.S.’s sub-replacement level fertility, isn’t having more children exactly what our country needs? “I want more babies in the United States of America,” Vice President J.D. Vance recently declared, and with good reason. Deaths will soon outnumber births in the U.S., bringing the risk of economic and cultural stagnation as our population ages.
On this episode of After America, Matt Duss, Executive Vice-President at the Washington DC-based Center for International Policy, joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss Trump’s Gaza announcement, the freeze on US development funding, and the new Cabinet’s approach to China.
This discussion was recorded on Friday 7 February 2025 and things may have changed since recording.
How can you organise more efficiently and effectively? Coaching is a leadership practice that is essential to ensure the success of your campaigns – from the initial stages of a campaign strategy and managing your team, to building the right work processes and mapping your biggest challenges.
Here is an introduction to coaching from a session held at the FWD+Organise Conference in 2024 in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. This session explored best practice approaches based on the works of Marshall Ganz and the Leading Change Network. Learn more about coaching using the Marshall Ganz approach.
Leadership is enabling others to achieve shared purpose in the face of uncertainty. Coaching enables others. – Marshall Ganz
Coaching 101
Coaching is different from managing or mentoring. Whilst Managing focuses on performance and accountability and Mentoring focuses on guidance and providing perspective – Coaching focuses on facilitation of self-discovery and personal growth.
Frontline organisations supporting people impacted by Australia’s housing crisis have faced their worst summer on record, experiencing an unprecedented surge in demand, according to Everybody’s Home.
The national housing campaign’s ‘Under Pressure’ sector survey of dozens of frontline organisations found that nearly nine in ten (87%) had a major increase in workload during December and January compared to previous years, due to the worsening housing crisis.
The vast majority (98%) of organisations—including those in housing, homelessness, domestic violence, and other social and community services—reported increased workloads over the past year and expect demand to keep rising in 2025.
As a result of soaring demand for their help, three in four (76%) organisations reported more complex casework, seven in ten (72%) cited increased waitlists, while two in three (67%) said they’ve been unable toprovide clients with long-term housing solutions. Three in five (63%) reported staff burnout and attrition as a major impact.
Pretty much every civil society organisation (CSO) I’ve come across over the years wants to do something good for a particular community.
This can be as small scale as a local neighbourhood centre aiming to provide spaces where locals can connect, with each other as well as with any services they need. It can be at a much a wider scale, like climate action groups which campaign to save the whole planet from the potential impacts of global heating. Hell, even the National Rifle Association aims to represent the interests of its members – albeit those interests are far removed from mine, and dare I say yours.
Earlier today, I wrote about the dangerous trajectory toward violent conflict set off by the Trump regime's refusal to comply with federal court orders. Now, the twenty-three states who won an injunction to pause Trump's efforts to stop funding federal programs have filed a motion with the court seeking emergency enforcement of this judgement in the face of repeated violations by Trump officials and staff. The lawsuit is New York v. Trump. Today's motion from the plaintiff-states triggers what I expect to be an evermore pitched battle between the federal district court and the Trump regime.
After years of political division and the Democrats’ abuse of the justice system, President Trump’s promise of “retribution” has set the stage for a defining moment in American history. In 2016, Trump confronted a similarly delicate task of balancing retributive justice and national unity. After threatening to “lock her up,” Trump famously declined to pursue charges against Hillary Clinton. He stated that such a move would be too divisive and did not “want to hurt her.” But now, with the stakes even higher, the demands for accountability—and perhaps retribution—have grown louder and more urgent.
The challenge Trump faces lies in pursuing justice without weaponizing it, or even appearing to weaponize it. Accountability is essential to restoring public faith in our government, but it must be handled with fairness and restraint. As Trump himself recently clarified, retribution is not about vengeance—it is about fairness and restoring integrity to institutions that many Americans rightly see as having betrayed their trust. To meet this challenge and complete the restoration of due justice, clemency must work in tandem with justice.
Trump and his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, must offer not only strict consequences for wrongdoing but also a path to rehabilitation to social and political life for those willing to admit fully their violations of the public trust.
Like many people with Long COVID, I spend a good amount of time learning about my disease. I spend an additional large chunk of time educating friends, family, the audience of my newsletter, and even my own doctors about Long COVID.
Without the help of clear, frequent, and reliable public health communications about what we’ve learned, the public remains ignorant about Long COVID. And that isn’t likely to change with Trump in the White House, Elon’s minions skulking around federal agencies like the NIH, and RFK Jr eyeing HHS; it’s likely to get much, much worse.
The Gauntlet is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
If 21st-century Republicans have an idol, a graven image we collectively worship, it is Gross Domestic Product. All discussion about the flourishing of our nation is reduced to GDP, and its increase is seen as an ironclad refutation of anyone who questions whether America is, in fact, flourishing. But GDP, as today calculated, is largely fake, disconnected from the actual production of value. Worse, flourishing-as-quantity is a destructive way to view our society. It was once commonplace that the value of very many things, a mother’s love or a scarlet sunset, was immense, but unmeasurable. We have forgotten this, to our detriment. To truly make America great again, a crucial first step is dethroning GDP as a measure of our greatness.
Yes, there is some benefit to having in our quiver of analytical tools an aggregate way to view additions to economic value, the production of new goods and services. Think of 20 men and women who do nothing except eat and drink what is at hand. They produce no value; the GDP of their little society is zero. If, however, they begin to produce anything, goods or services, they produce value. How to measure such production has, however, generated different approaches, and the method we use today, while it serves our desire for simple ways of viewing the world, conceals truth in order to serve political ends.
With organizations like Democracy Forward and Public Citizen winning court-ordered pauses in the various unlawful actions taken by Trump Cabinet officials kowtowing to Elon Musk's unlawful DOGE (which I urge everyone to call FIDO or DOGGY), we are quickly headed toward an unprecedented clash between two branches of the federal government.
For many Americans today, the idea of a government refusing to obey a federal court order or judgment summons up the image of federal troops in Alabama, enforcing the school integration required by Brown v. Board of Education. That clash pitted the state of Alabama against the federal judiciary. President Eisenhower, as chief executive of the federal government sent the U.S. army to Alabama to enforce the Supreme Court's ruling and related federal judicial orders. We now face a different configuration. Trump is not going to order enforcement of federal court orders in cases he or his Cabinet officials have lost.
Wildfires are terrifying. They are especially gobsmackingly horrible when you add in hurricane-style winds. I will never forget the day of the Marshall Fire when my daughter stepped out of the car and literally blew down the street, forcing us to race after her and catch her. In those environments, it's easy to see how a wildfire can spread so fast and furious. My heart continues to go out to all in Los Angeles who are still navigating the immediate aftermath of this. We in Boulder know that it'll take a long time to recover - and that even after you rebuild your house, you will still shudder when the wind is strong.
Australia’s productivity growth has reverted to the same stagnant pattern as before the pandemic, according to the Productivity Commission’s latest quarterly report.
Productivity is complex and often misunderstood in media and policy debates. So before we read too much into this latest data, here are six key things to understand about productivity.
1. It’s about quantities, not costs
Productivity “measures the rate at which output of goods and services are produced per unit of input”. So it’s about how many workers does it take to make how many widgets?
Most Australian workplace managers don’t know how to measure productivity correctly.
If someone says “higher wages mean lower productivity”, they don’t know what they’re talking about. Wages aren’t part of the productivity equation. People often cite “productivity” as a reason for a policy they like because they can’t say “we like higher profits”.
In fact, high wages can encourage firms to introduce new technology that improves productivity. If labour becomes more expensive, it may be more profitable for firms to invest in labour-saving technology.
But lower productivity isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes higher selling prices can lower productivity. It seems odd, but works like this: if prices for commodities such as iron ore or coal are high, it becomes profitable for mining companies to dig through more rock to get to it.
On September 30, 1938 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain stood outside 10 Downing Street and declared the Munich Agreement had appeased German Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s territorial aims.
“I believe it is peace for our time,” he said.
“…Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.”
Germany violated the agreement almost immediately. Six months later it had invaded all of Czechoslovakian territory and another six months after that, after German troops marched on Poland, the world was at war.
We know how that ended.
We know how history has judged the appeasement policy of 1930s leaders, which included both major parties in Australia, who held tight to the British empire’s coat tails even as other commonwealth nations pushed for independence. Australia’s government did not ratify the 1931 Statute of Westminster, a British law which gave formal legislative independence to commonwealth nations, until 1942. John Curtin was prompted to ratify it after the Fall of Singapore, which put to bed the deep belief Britain would be able to protect Australia in a war.
Australia began turning to America. And we’ve been turning blind eyes, ever since.
None of this should be new information to any student of history.
What may be new is the role of the British press during the appeasement policy.
As I watched the fires in Los Angeles unfold in January this year, my mind of course reflected on the 1999-2000 Black Summer bushfires in Australia. Both these seasons have wrought significant damage to humans and other animals, and to land, infrastructure and property. There has been a huge personal, collective and financial toll involved. Climate change is of course driving these unprecedented events, and there are significant health impacts for people.
During these disasters we are conscious of the direct risk posed to fire fighters, but the air pollution generated presents health and safety challenges for workers and others more broadly. When working hard physically in any role we of course breath more deeply, taking in more smoke and ash from the fires. Ultimately, the 2019–2020 Black Summer fire period in Australia burned 24.3 million hectares, killed or displaced 3 billion animals, and killed 33 people directly — with a further 455 people killed indirectly due to the smoke and ash pollution, which enveloped four-fifths of Australia’s population.
