Building humane alternatives to homo economicus Asad Zaman Introduction: As discussed in my recent article on self-knowledge as the key to understanding society (see ERA…
Superannuation is complicated A guaranteed government income in retirement would be simpler – Brendan Coates and Joey Moloney Stress prompts many to under-spend superannuation For…
Fatal Flaws in Interstate Bridge Project Traffic Modeling
The traffic modeling used to justify the proposed $7.5 billion Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) project is deeply flawed and leads to an inflated claim of need for the project, potentially causing significant environmental and financial harm.
Busting the ‘natural rate of unemployment’ myth Lars Syll Sixty years ago Milton Friedman wrote an (in)famous article arguing that (1) the natural rate of…
In honor of The Chris Hedges YouTube Channel reaching 99,000 subscribers, we are hosting a livestream Q&A at 4pm PT / 7pm ET tonight taking your questions. I will pull questions from the comments of this post, my X, and live on YouTube. To post your questions here, you must be a paid subscriber to my Substack. Please attempt to keep your questions direct and relatively brief, as I cannot read entire paragraphs during the show.
The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Markets have had a rough ride lately. Just last Wednesday, we hit fresh all-time highs, only to see a sharp selloff in the days since. As of writing this, the S&P 500 has dropped around 4.5% in just five trading days. So, what’s going on? What’s driving this pullback?
If you follow financial media, you’ll hear a common explanation: the bond market. Specifically, falling bond yields have been blamed for the market's weakness. But does that explanation really hold up? Let’s break it down and take a closer look at the broader macroeconomic forces at play.
The Bond Market’s Message—Should We Be Concerned?
A traditional macroeconomic interpretation of falling bond yields suggests that investors are flocking to safety due to concerns about future economic growth. If the market truly feared a slowdown, we’d expect capital to shift into bonds, pushing prices up and yields down. This logic, at least in theory, makes sense.
A year has passed since Kartik Athreya became director of research at the New York Fed. To get some perspective on his experience thus far, we caught up with Kartik and asked about his views on economics, the role of Research at the Bank, and his take on a few of the hot topics of the day.
The Coalition’s recent statements committing to “prioritise supply to the domestic market” is welcome recognition that gas exports are hurting Australians.
“The government can achieve this tomorrow by capping exports. It is not complicated,” said Richard Denniss, Executive Director at The Australia Institute.
“We have provided certainty of supply and price to the Chinese market for decades, while ripping off customers at home.”
Australia is one of the largest exporters of gas in the world. There is no shortage of gas in Australia, as highlighted in the Coalition’s recent statements.
Multinational gas export corporations already export 80 per cent of Australia’s gas and control almost all of Australia’s gas reserves.
One particularly powerful obstacle that has quickly materialized against the Trump Administration is the federal judiciary. Lawsuits challenging Trump’s flurry of executive orders have been filed, and federal judges have begun placing temporary injunctions on the president’s EOs.
For example, U.S. District Judge for D.C. Royce Lamberth issued a restraining order that bars the implementation of President Trump’s EO that transgender prison inmates be housed in prisons corresponding to their biological sex. Two days later in Washington State, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour placed a hold on the president’s EO that refuses to interpret the 14th Amendment as automatically granting birthright citizenship to children born to non-citizens temporarily residing in the U.S., either legally or illegally.
As global governance initiatives convene towards creating safety nets that proactively identify, prevent and mitigate risks around digital public infrastructure, there is an increased need to make transparent how DPI embodies the normative values it is postulated to have. Measurement is the first step in this process.
We are guided by the belief that effective measurement practices are an essential part of ensuring that DPI initiatives foster sustainable, equitable, and inclusive economic growth. By developing robust and comprehensive measurement frameworks and tools, we can better understand the impact of DPI and identify areas where interventions are needed to maximize its benefits for all members of society. To achieve this, we are excited to announce the formation of a new Community of Practice (CoP) focused on DPI measurement. This CoP will bring together experts, practitioners, and stakeholders from around the world to share knowledge, develop best practices, and advance the field of DPI measurement.
The CoP will initially focus on the following areas:
It’s been 18 months since the University College London Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IPP) and Bloomberg Philanthropies started developing the Public Sector Capabilities Index. Over this time, we have benefited from the insights, experience and expertise of 20 city governments in 11 countries, conducting over 60 qualitative interviews, as well as dozens of conversations with a wide range of city government experts and practitioners. As we embark on testing how we assess dynamic capabilities, we reflect upon what we have learned, what we are doing now, and what we still need to do.
ACOSS’s Peter Davidson, Professor Helen Hodgson, Think Forward’s Thomas Walker, and Per Capita’s Emma Dawson discuss just how we can broaden the tax base, creating a more fair, equitable, and sustainable tax and transfer system for all Australians. Recorded on the 20th of February as part of Per Capita’s Community Tax Summit, at Solidarity Hall at Victorian Trades Hall, Melbourne.
The Community Tax Summit bought together Australian NFPs, Think Tanks, Advocacy Groups and more to kick off a “big conversation” about Australia’s tax and transfer system. There our panels of experts and those with lived experience demonstrated that there is an genuine appetite for tax and transfer reform, which is both needed and wanted in the next term of Parliament.
Lived Experience Panel, moderated by Nicole Bieske from Brotherhood of St Laurence. Nathan Carolus shares his experience of Jobseeker and employment service provision. Juanita McLaren shares her experience as a researcher and a single mum on income support and child support. Peter Sutton shares his experience with JobSeeker, the Disability Support Pension and Rent Assistance.
This powerful panel will change your views on welfare, showing the real reasons people find themselves needing assistance and the inadequacy of the current system.
Recorded on the 20th of February as part of Per Capita’s Community Tax Summit, at Solidarity Hall at Victorian Trades Hall, Melbourne. The Community Tax Summit bought together Australian NFPs, Think Tanks, Advocacy Groups and more to kick off a “big conversation” about Australia’s tax and transfer system. There our panels of experts and those with lived experience demonstrated that there is an genuine appetite for tax and transfer reform, which is both needed and wanted in the next term of Parliament.
Travers McLeod (Brotherhood of St Laurence), Kasy Chambers (Anglicare Australia), Elly Desmarchelier (Disability Rights Advocate) and Jenny Davidson (Council of Single Mothers and their Children) discuss the ways Australia’s tax and transfer system is impacting those most vulnerable in our community.
Recorded on the 20th of February as part of Per Capita’s Community Tax Summit, at Solidarity Hall at Victorian Trades Hall, Melbourne. The Community Tax Summit bought together Australian NFPs, Think Tanks, Advocacy Groups and more to kick off a “big conversation” about Australia’s tax and transfer system. There our panels of experts and those with lived experience demonstrated that there is an genuine appetite for tax and transfer reform, which is both needed and wanted in the next term of Parliament.
My grandmother had a “joke” (really more of a parable) about a guy who sees a pie cooling in the window, and steals it. Unfortunately, he leaves a perfect handprint on the sill, so he sneaks into the house in order to wash off his handprint. But then it’s obvious that the sill has been washed, since it’s so much cleaner than the wall. So he washes that wall. It’s still obvious that something has happened because that one wall is so much cleaner than the others. When the police came, he was repainting the attic.
Bennelong MP Jerome Laxale has vowed to fight for renters at an Everybody’s Home town hall designed to spotlight Australia’s deepening housing crisis ahead of the federal election.
On Tuesday, Everybody’s Home kicked off its series of online forums with incumbent MPs from key electorates, beginning with Mr Laxale.
Mr Laxale said: “There has been a huge shift in housing perception … It’s because of groups like [Everybody’s Home], and advocates … who are fighting for renters, like I do.
“It’s not always politicians who need to change their minds, the community also needs to change their mind. Politicians have a role to play but as important a role is to get a community-led campaign to advocate for more change, that comes down to persistence and passion.”
Mr Laxale also warned against proposals for first homebuyers to pay for a deposit through their super.
“People under the age of 40 don’t have $50,000 in their super to raid. It will mean the country and the individual will be worse off by withdrawing from their super,” Mr Laxale said.
“Super is for retirement, it’s not a piggy-bank on the side…we know from world experience across the ditch that it doesn’t help with housing affordability and will leave individuals worse off in the long run.”
Mr Laxale said Labor’s main housing priority is to build more homes.
“It’s been a rocky road to get housing policies through parliament … but our focus is the delivery of homes and we will do what we can,” he said.
While the Trump Administration is considering taking Greenland and Canada under its wing, there’s another foreign country America should watch over, in the way that a parent cares for a child: California.
If the Golden State were a nation, it would have the fifth-highest GDP globally: $3.8 trillion (more than India, and more than New York and Florida combined). It’s the most populous state, officially home to 39 million residents—eight million more than Texas. It has the most members of the House (52) and the most Electoral College votes (54).
California’s farms supply more than half of America’s fruits and vegetables, half our dairy, and every almond. The Central Valley, which spans 450 miles from Redding in the north to Bakersfield in the south, has 1% of U.S. farmland but produces 25% of Americans’ food.
California’s market power means that its laws affect 49 other states. In 2016, California adopted a “History Social Science Framework” for K-12 education to “feature the contributions of diverse peoples of all sorts to the story of California and the United States.” Publishers like McGraw Hill updated their textbooks nationwide to avoid printing a separate California edition. “LGBT” appears 21 times in the framework.
[Note: As readership of Heidi Says has grown, it has been brought to my attention that some background on me might be useful. I’ve expanded the “About” page accordingly.]
The scale and pace of Republican Fascist activities escalates daily. Bizarre, sadistic, dangerous measures spew from Trump, his overlord Musk, and the puppets in his Cabinet. It makes it difficult to focus. Yet we cannot effectively oppose this utterly rogue federal executive branch if we succumb to disorientation. My advice, based on what works for me: don’t chase every new bit of breaking news. Find the issue or area that most concerns or interests you and follow that closely. Find a couple of commentators or publications you trust and read them regularly.
Do not forget that we are in a long, hard slog. It will take decades to reverse this country’s slide into corrupt fascism. It can only be done through the accretion of small efforts, none of which may seem efficacious in the moment. Do what you can when you can. Go to a meeting of a local progressive organization. Write a letter to the editor. Make phone calls to your members of Congress. Participate in economic boycotts of companies selling out to Trump. Speak truth in public. There are millions of Americans who want to change the country for the better. No one of us is going to make it happen and even all of us trying will not make it happen quickly.
Recorded on the 20th of February as part of Per Capita’s Community Tax Summit, Dr Ken Henry AC gave the opening keynote address in the Solidarity Hall at Victorian Trades Hall, Melbourne.
Currently, Chair of the Nature Finance Council, the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation and Wildlife Recovery Australia, and a non-executive director of Accounting for Nature Ltd and the Digital Finance CRC, Dr Henry served as the Secretary to the Treasury from 2001 to 2011. He chaired the Howard Government’s tax review taskforce in 1997-98, the Rudd Government’s tax review published in 2010, and the Gillard Government’s White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century (2011 and 2012).
The Community Tax Summit bought together Australian NFPs, Think Tanks, Advocacy Groups and more to kick off a “big conversation” about Australia’s tax and transfer system.
There our panels of experts and those with lived experience demonstrated that there is an genuine appetite for tax and transfer reform, which is both needed and wanted in the next term of Parliament.
Recorded on the 20th of February as part of Per Capita’s Community Tax Summit, Per Capita’s Emma Dawson, ACOSS CEO Cassandra Goldie, Professor Roger Wilkins and Professor Sharon Bessell lead a discussion on Inequality of Wealth Income and Opportunity in the Solidarity Hall at Victorian Trades Hall, Melbourne.
The Community Tax Summit bought together Australian NFPs, Think Tanks, Advocacy Groups and more to kick off a “big conversation” about Australia’s tax and transfer system.
There our panels of experts and those with lived experience demonstrated that there is an genuine appetite for tax and transfer reform, which is both needed and wanted in the next term of Parliament.
Recorded on the 20th of February as part of Per Capita’s Community Tax Summit, Dr Angela Jackson, CPSU National Secretary Melissa Donnelly, Professor Fran Baum AO speak on the importance of social infrastructure, care, and service industries and how they have been overlooked and neglected for too long. Recorded at Solidarity Hall at Victorian Trades Hall, Melbourne.
The Community Tax Summit bought together Australian NFPs, Think Tanks, Advocacy Groups and more to kick off a “big conversation” about Australia’s tax and transfer system.
There our panels of experts and those with lived experience demonstrated that there is an genuine appetite for tax and transfer reform, which is both needed and wanted in the next term of Parliament.
Recorded on the 20th of February as part of Per Capita’s Community Tax Summit, Economist’s Saul Eslake, Alan Kohler, Anglicare Australia’s Maiy Azize, and Prosper Australia’s Tim Helm discuss the current housing crisis in relation to the tax and transfer system. Recorded at Solidarity Hall at Victorian Trades Hall, Melbourne.
The Community Tax Summit bought together Australian NFPs, Think Tanks, Advocacy Groups and more to kick off a “big conversation” about Australia’s tax and transfer system.
There our panels of experts and those with lived experience demonstrated that there is an genuine appetite for tax and transfer reform, which is both needed and wanted in the next term of Parliament.
Professor Miranda Stewart’s keynote address on Australia’s tax and transfer system and directions for reform. Recorded on the 20th of February as part of Per Capita’s Community Tax Summit, Solidarity Hall at Victorian Trades Hall, Melbourne.
Miranda Stewart is a Professor specialising in taxation law and policy at the Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne and an Honorary Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University. In 2024, Miranda was a visiting fellow at the Australian Treasury. Her most recent book is Tax and Government in the 21st Century (Cambridge University Press).
The Community Tax Summit bought together Australian NFPs, Think Tanks, Advocacy Groups and more to kick off a “big conversation” about Australia’s tax and transfer system. There our panels of experts and those with lived experience demonstrated that there is an genuine appetite for tax and transfer reform, which is both needed and wanted in the next term of Parliament.
On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Hayden discuss the latest monthly inflation data, the proposed improvements to Medicare, and Australia’s misguided obsession with federal budget surpluses.
This discussion was recorded on Thursday 27 February 2025 and things may have changed since recording.
Subscribe to Between the Lines, The Australia Institute’s fortnightly newsletter.
The Holocaust is the quintessential example of human evil for people in the West. In the rest of the world, especially in the Global South, the atrocity of the Holocaust — genocide — has had a closer proximity both in time and place. Colonialism in Africa, destructive wars in Asia and most recently, genocide in the Middle East, have shaped the lives of billions of people.
On this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra joins host Chris Hedges to discuss his latest book, “The World After Gaza.” Mishra argues that the shifting power dynamics in the world means the Global South’s narrative on atrocity can no longer be ignored and the genocide in Gaza is the current crux of the issue.
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.
On this episode of Follow the Money, Dr Emma Shortis and Ebony Bennett discuss Trump’s efforts to “rinse” Ukraine for its resources, the administration’s moves to dismantle significant portions of the Federal Government, and how the Australian Government can use its significant bargaining power to push back against the American President.
This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 25 February 2025 and things may have changed since recording.
Subscribe to After America now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your favourite podcasts.
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.
It’s long past time to rein in the field of public administration, which supplies the bureaucrats who populate the administrative state. About 12,000 U.S. students a year graduate in the field, mainly at the master’s level through the Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree. About half of all MPA graduates end up in government, mostly at the state (25%) and local (15%) levels, but some (about 10%) at the federal level. This means that about 1,200 public administration graduates enter the federal bureaucracy every year, presumably in leadership and management-track roles.
Christi Grimm, a former inspector general in the Department of Health and Human Services, is one such MPA holder who did damage from the federal bureaucracy. Grimm issued a panicked report on COVID in its early days that President Trump viewed as an attempt to undermine his handling of the crisis (she has since sued for reinstatement after being fired shortly after Trump’s second inauguration). Another is Karen Chen, a senior analyst on environmental issues in the Government Accountability Office, who previously worked for Michael Bloomberg’s net-zero initiative for local governments that sought to counter policies of the first Trump Administration.
Salmon are dying in the pens of commercial farms and their rotting remains have been washing up along Tasmania’s beaches for the past week.
The foreign-owned salmon industry must come clean about the scale of this disaster and ensure Australians that not a single diseased fish is processed for sale.
The industry must ensure diseased fish do not end up on Australian supermarket shelves or dinner plates.
“Hundreds of thousands of salmon are continuing to die,” said Eloise Carr, Director of The Australia Institute Tasmania.
“The regulation of this industry is completely inadequate, so we don’t know much. But it looks like the dead fish are being extracted too slowly from pens that are still full of other fish. You can see the carcasses rotting and falling apart.
“Tasmanians are rightfully starting to ask what is being done to protect the health of consumers in all this?
“The salmon industry claims it gets more scrutiny than on-land agriculture. When there is a breakout of avian flu on land, the entire chicken flock is euthanised. In salmon pens, it appears the dead and live salmon are in the same pen. The dead ones are taken to the tip. What happens to the live ones?
“The Environment Protection Authority has not provided an update about this disease for a week now. Australians deserve better. Is this bacteria transferable or harmful to humans?”
With new tariffs on China back in the headlines, this post seeks to offer some perspective on how much China’s exports have really been affected by multiple rounds of U.S. tariffs and export restrictions over the past seven years. The key takeaway is that U.S. imports from China have decreased by much less than has been reported in official U.S. statistics. As a result, the recent tariff increase on China could have a larger impact on the U.S. economy than is suggested by official U.S. data on the China import share, especially if favorable tariff treatment for direct-to-consumer imports is ended.
But new research by The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work has found that sacking public servants actually costs the country money and makes providing services less efficient.
The new briefing paper – Restoring Public Sector Capability Through Investment In Public Service Employees – debunks several of the myths promoted in the political debate around the size of Australia’s public service. One such myth is that Australia’s public service is “bloated” or “inefficient”.
The research found that, despite claims to the contrary, most of the public service jobs created since 2022 were not based in Canberra.
Thank you, subscribers, for all your thoughtful questions! I answered most of them and tried to address the main points of the questions I didn’t list. I apologize that I ran out of space before I could get to them all!
If you’d like to submit a question, become a paying subscriber. You can do that here:
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Notes on the Crises pivoted on February 1st into around the clock coverage of the Trump-Musk Treasury Payments Crisis of 2025. Today is Day Twenty Seven
