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On this episode of Follow the Money, the Australia Institute’s Joshua Black and Jack Thrower join Glenn Connley to discuss the enormous cost of going to university, the absurdity of university vice-chancellors being paid more than the Treasurer, and why the practice of using international students as a political football must end.

This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 20 May 2025 and things may have changed.

Order After America: Australia and the new world order or become a foundation subscriber to our Vantage Point series and save 25% on the Australia Institute website.

Guest: Joshua Black, Postdoctoral Fellow, the Australia Institute // @joshuablackjb

Guest: Jack Thrower, Senior Economist, the Australia Institute // ‪@jack-thrower

Host: Glenn Connley, Senior Media Advisor, the Australia Institute // @glennconnley

Show notes:

Since election day, conservative media have decided to begin a scare campaign around the government’s proposed changes to the tax concessions on superannuation. Currently, the earnings in superannuation funds are taxed at just 15%. This is a significant tax concession for most people and a very large one for the richest in Australia, who would be paying a 45% rate if super was taxed like income.

This means that the richest in Australia are getting a 30% tax break on their super, so it is little wonder that many of them are using super not to save for their retirement, but to avoid paying tax.

Superannuation tax breaks are being abused

The entire reason for the superannuation tax concessions is to encourage people to save for their retirement so they will not need to go on the age pension. This, in theory, reduces the burden on the government.

But the problem is that when you offer the richest people in Australia a 30% tax break, they will take advantage of it. The richest 10% – most of whom would never be eligible for the age pension receive $22bn in tax breaks by having money in super rather than having it taxed like income.

Attending oral argument last week in the case touching on birthright citizenship pending before the Supreme Court, I observed a combination of confusion, omissions, and outright lies from some of the justices. As the lawyer for one of the amici, I witnessed the Court address the propriety of the nationwide, universal injunctions that have been issued by several district court judges blocking the execution of President Trump’s day-one executive order on birthright citizenship.

Let’s begin with the lies.

Early in the argument, Justice Sotomayor unequivocally stated that the Court had held 127 years ago that anyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen, and repeated that holding in three other cases since. That is false.

The Supreme Court has never held that the children born on U.S. soil to temporary visitors or illegal aliens are citizens. The Wong Kim Ark case to which she was referring explicitly dealt only with a child born to parents who were lawfully and permanently domiciled in the United States—and the word “domicile” or one of its derivatives was repeated nearly 30 times throughout that opinion. Any language in the opinion beyond that is not part of the holding, but is rather non-binding dicta. The same is true with the passing references in the three other cases she cited—they are pure dicta. So her claim that the Court has already issued holdings that are contrary to the president’s executive order is simply untrue.

The United States cannot reindustrialise until it definancialises

Trump’s mass tariffs announced on so-called ‘Liberation Day’ were an aggressive attempt to force global patterns of production to change. This approach was short lived however, as the sky-high tariffs against countries like Vietnam (46%) and Bangladesh (37%) were hastily delayed in favour of a flat 10% tariff. Whilst Trump initially doubled down on his tariffs against China, increasing them to a high of 145%, he has now retreated on these too. Chinese imports into the US will now be subject to a 30% tariff.

Trump’s tariff offensive shocked the world; however, it appeared inspired by an essay written by former financier and current Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, Stephen Miran.

In the essay, Miran argues that global imbalances in trade have caused widespread economic issues within the US, namely the decimation of US manufacturing. In response, he outlines a plan to use tariffs as leverage to negotiate a depreciation in the US dollar by convincing trading partners to diversify their reserve holdings away from US dollar denominated assets. He dubs this the ‘Mar-a-Lago Accord’.

This article was originally published, in slightly different form, by Strong Towns Chairman Andrew Burleson on his Substack The Post-Suburban Future. It is shared here with permission. Image provided by the writer.

Nicola Cetorelli, Gonzalo Cisternas, and Asani Sarkar

And it doesn’t involve changes to capital gains tax or negative gearing, which would be more effective but, strangely, the government won’t touch.

It’s a lever which the government has pulled before – and it worked.

The government could direct the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) to force lenders to limit the number of loans they offer to investors.

In 2014, with investors flooding the property market and prices out of control, APRA introduced a 10% limit on the increase in the number of investment loans which banks could offer. Then, in 2017, it put a 30% limit on the number of interest-only loans which could be offered.

By limiting the number of investment loans, a natural consequence was that interest rates for investors went up. Interest rates for owner-occupiers stayed the same.

For the first time since investors sent property prices soaring in the early 2000s, the market was tipped in favour of owner-occupiers over investors.

For 60 years, IBM was the heartbeat of our family. As a son, I (Andy) grew up in its orbit, my childhood punctuated by eight moves up and down the East Coast before eighth grade. Each new school, each cardboard box packed in haste, was a testament to IBM’s growing reach. We laughed that its initials stood for “I’ve Been Moved,” a lighthearted nod to a company we revered for how it respected the individual, its unmatched customer service, and its unrelenting pursuit of excellence.

As a father, I (Rich) dedicated 30 years to IBM, following my father-in-law’s path as a field executive. I led teams that launched groundbreaking technologies, and was proud to steward a legacy that didn’t just shape our family but redefined industries worldwide.

As shareholders, we grieve what IBM has become—a company where “I’ve Been Misled” now overshadows its once-proud ethos.

This is our urgent warning to Fortune 500 CEOs: embracing divisive political agendas like DEI courts material risk, derails your mission, and betrays the American values that drive success. DEI was never about diversity—it was about control, elevating race and sex over merit in a way that fractured many corporate cultures, IBM included.

This article was originally published, in slightly different form, on Strong Towns member Michel Durand-Wood’s blog, Dear Winnipeg. It is shared here with permission. In-line images were provided by the author.

Thomas Klitgaard

The obvious answer to the question of why the United States runs a trade deficit is that its export sales have not kept up with its demand for imports. A less obvious answer is that the imbalance reflects a macroeconomic phenomenon. Using national accounting, one can show deficits are also due to a persistent shortfall in domestic saving that requires funds from abroad to finance domestic investment spending. Reducing the trade imbalance therefore requires both more exports relative to imports and a narrowing of the gap between saving and investment spending.

Borrowers have endured two full years of pain, as rates shot up quickly but started coming down slowly.

People are still hurting, and there’s no need to keep inflicting unnecessary additional pain.

“The Australia Institute welcomes the news that the RBA has finally acted by reducing the cash rate by 25 basis points,” said Greg Jericho, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute.

“This cut goes some small way to redressing the failure to cut rates at its April meeting.

“Households have been smashed by the rate rises which began in May 2022. Almost half of the increase in cost-of-living pressure on employee households is attributable to interest rate rises.

“The pain of these rate rises continues. In the first three months of this year, spending on retail was flat as households continued to cut back on spending to pay mortgage bills.

“The Reserve Bank should not end here. Over the past year, unemployment has remained at around 4.1%, and yet in that time, inflation has fallen from 3.8% to 2.4%, and private-sector wage growth has fallen from 4.1% to 3.3%.

“There is no wage price spiral. There is no need for unemployment to rise. The Reserve Bank should focus on achieving full employment.”

The post Australians still hurting. RBA should keep cutting.  appeared first on The Australia Institute.

On the 50th episode of After America, Nick Bryant joins Dr Emma Shortis to reflect on the second Trump presidency, why division is the default in American political history, and what the United States might look like after Trump.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 15 May 2025 and things may have changed since recording.

Order After America: Australia and the new world order or become a foundation subscriber to Vantage Point at australiainstitute.org.au/store.

Guest: Nick Bryant, author of The Forever War: America’s unending conflict with itself // ‪@nickbryantoz

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

Show notes:

The Forever War: America’s unending conflict with itself by Nick Bryant (2024)

When America Stopped Being Great: a history of the present by Nick Bryant (2020)

On the 7^th May 2025, the European Parliament adapted a report suspending Turkey’s European Union (EU) accession talks referring to Turkey’s non-alignment to the EU’s common foreign and security policy and democratic backsliding, following a crackdown of mass protests after the arrest of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, a potential challenger in the forthcoming presidential elections. The Report conceives of Turkey as a strategic ally and proposes to deepen cooperation on issues of mutual interest. This is not new. In the EU’s official reports and strategic position papers published in the last decade, the EU has conceived of Turkey as a strategic partner to deepen cooperation on particular issues such as migration management, approaching the relations in a ‘transactional’ manner rather than membership per se.

College acceptance season is here—and with it the reminder that the college admissions process is broken.

Application essays, formerly written by highly paid tutors for those who could afford it, are now being composed by artificial intelligence. At the same time, the Ivory Tower’s embrace of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), which elevates race and sex above all other considerations, has made a mockery of merit.

In the midst of this systemic failure, the University of Austin (UATX) recently implemented a never-before-attempted policy that removes the subjectivity of AI-infused essays and DEI-infected applications: admissions based almost solely on standardized test scores.

If an applicant receives a 1460 or above on the SAT, a 33 or above on the ACT, or a 105 or above on the Classic Learning Test (CLT), that student is automatically accepted. (Full disclosure: I am the president of the CLT.) Any student with lower scores can still be admitted with the added consideration of Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate scores, as well as one-sentence descriptions of up to three significant achievements such as outstanding athletic accomplishments or examples of personal fortitude.

UATX does not accept essays, insincerely elongated lists of extracurricular activities, proclamations of intersectional victimhood, or any other non-merit-based materials.

Energy Australia has admitted that its Go Neutral scheme, which falsely told customers they could offset their gas and electricity usage, did nothing to stop climate change.

This is a landmark moment in the fight against greenwashing by companies pumping millions of tonnes of emissions into the atmosphere.

Energy Australia owns and operates some of the highest polluting industrial sites in Australia.

Now it admits that carbon offsets cannot undo the damage it causes by burning vast volumes of fossil fuels.

The admission only came after the Parents for Climate group took Energy Australia to the Federal Court over its Go Neutral claims.

ENERGY AUSTRALIA STATEMENT

“Today, Energy Australia acknowledges that carbon offsetting is not the most effective way to assist customers to reduce their emissions and apologises to any customer who felt that the way it marketed its Go Neutral products was unclear.

Energy Australia has now shifted its focus to direct emissions reductions.

Energy Australia acknowledges the importance of consumers understanding the climate impact of products and services offered to them and that offsets are not the most effective means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

The false carbon neutrality claim of the Go Neutral scheme was certified by the Australian government through its Climate Active program.

On this episode, Allan Behm joins Paul Barclay to discuss Australia’s diplomatic strategy of ‘pre-emptive capitulation’, America’s international bullying and how Australia should use its unrecognised national power.

This discussion was recorded on Monday 24 February 2025 and things may have changed since the recording.

Order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.

Guest: Allan Behm, Special Advisor in International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute

Host: Paul Barclay, Walkley Award winning journalist and broadcaster // @PaulBarclay

Show notes:  

AUSFTA: A bad deal then. Even worse now. by Jack Thrower, the Australia Institute (March 2025)

With friends like these, After America (February 2025)

Polling – President Trump, security and the US–Australian alliance, the Australia Institute (March 2025)

The Wrap with Amy Remeikis

Well it didn’t take long for it to be business as usual, did it?

Not even two weeks out from a humiliating loss, the Coalition is still pretending it remains just as relevant as ever, with shadow finance minister Jane Hume issuing orders to the government on its planned modest super changes.

In case you need a refresher, Labor plans on lowering the tax break from 30% to 15% on earnings on super balances over $3 million.

So it’s not even the total. It is a tiny change that means people with superannuation balances over $3 million will get a slightly lower tax break on the earnings (like the interest) above $3 million.  Everything under $3 million is untouched.  You may have heard this could end retirement in Australia. It’s such a massive change that it is going to impact a whopping 80,000 people, or 0.5% of the population. Even taking into account inflation, we are talking about a giant 550,000 people from the working population of 14.5 million people.

So please, bring out your violins for the (at most) 3.5% of people this is going to impact, who will be receiving a slightly smaller tax break on their multi-million dollar super earnings, and are already (if you speak to accountants) working to restructure their assets as businesses, so they can maintain a higher tax break.

How Do Good Ideas Spread? Why we should support it, when we should not, and why we often talk at cross purposes

by Ruth Puttick

Spreading “ideas that work” is talked about day in and day out by many governments and those who support government improvement efforts. It is taken as a given that sharing and learning can be a better use of resources than always inventing from scratch. And that using better solutions can solve problems, generate value for residents, and help to save money for governments. But what does spreading ideas really mean? How does it happen in practical terms? And do we spend enough time stopping the old, ineffective interventions as much as we advocate the adoption of new ones?

Ideas are in the imagination

First, let’s get precise about what we mean by “ideas”. How to spread things that work is a question that gets asked all the time. It feels obvious. Why not share good ideas? But there is a lack of precision in this statement, and the lack of precision matters.

Two weeks ago, Federal District Court Judge Beryl Howell permanently enjoined the Trump Administration from implementing the president’s executive order targeting the Perkins Coie law firm. Trump’s order suspended security clearances for the firm’s lawyers and barred them from federal buildings, prohibited the government from engaging the firm, and directed that it be investigated for violating civil rights laws.

The order explained that these restrictions were appropriate because of Perkins Coie’s “dishonest and dangerous activity,” including hiring Fusion GPS to manufacture a false dossier to “steal an election.” As counsel to Hillary Clinton, the firm worked with Fusion GPS to produce the Steele dossier, which was used for the Russia hoax that destabilized the first Trump Administration.

by Anjum Dhamija

“We lack some basic capabilities, let alone dynamic capabilities,” quipped one of our research participants. A similar sentiment was shared by many of the government officials we interviewed, indicating a potential understanding of these capabilities being different and more difficult to practice than other capabilities. In this blog, we further discuss the emergence of dynamic capabilities in the city governments of Chennai and Srinagar in India and the conditions in which these are practiced. This research is part of the Public Sector Capabilities Index project to develop a tool for measuring and developing city government capabilities across the globe.

Dynamic Capabilities and Context of India

Structuring Conditions of Public Sector Capabilities: What are they and why do they matter for city governments?

by Kwame Baafi, Ruth Puttick, and Maria Nieto Rodriguez

City governments are, as a rule, idiosyncratic. They can look and feel different, they can face different challenges, and work in different ways. Yet there are similarities. Understanding the patterns in and consequences of commonalities between city governments around the world is essential for our work to develop the Public Sector Capabilities Index, a global measure of city governments’ problem-solving abilities. As researchers, we want to ensure we are making meaningful comparisons between city governments, and for city governments, we know they want to learn from and emulate cities like them.

Here we set out how we are exploring these similarities by incorporating city governments’ structural conditions into our measurement approach, and why these wider conditions matter for city governments and their dynamic capabilities.

What City Observatory Did This Week

Seattle just put the finishing touches on a new 2.7 mile subway connecting some of its hottest neighborhoods:  unfortunately, its only built to carry stormwater runoff, not people, even though its big enough to accommodate a train.

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Dallas City Council Approves Sweeping Parking Reform in 14–1 Vote

 — Organisation: Strong Towns — Friday 16th May 2025

This story was originally published, in slightly different form, on the writer’s LinkedIn. It is shared here with permission. Image provided by the writer.

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Billionaire Britain 2025

 — Organisation: The Equality Trust — Friday 16th May 2025

Introduction For the past 35 years, various governments have claimed to have variations on a similar set of goals for the UK economy: decarbonise; spread more wealth and growth out of London; end the housing crisis; encourage the growth of new (and frequently greener) industries; and to encourage stronger communities.  It’s proved seemingly impossible for […]

The post Billionaire Britain 2025 appeared first on Equality Trust.

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Soft plastic recycling is back in supermarkets! 

 — Organisation: The Australia Institute — Friday 16th May 2025

For many of us, the end of June will mark the return of soft plastic recycling run by the Soft Plastics Taskforce (SPT), which is made up of the three major supermarkets: Woolworths Group, Coles Group and ALDI. But this may be premature since the joint recycling strategy from the Ministry of the Environment and Water and the Ministry of Climate Change and the Environment and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is still developing a plan to recycle legacy soft plastics that have been stockpiled following the collapse of REDcycle. The bins in supermarkets from June mean shoppers will be able to deposit their soft plastics at the front of participating supermarkets nationwide; however, since the capacity to recycle all plastics is not yet a reality, this will only be a trial.

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Why Foreign Campus Demonstrators Must Go

 — Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Thursday 15th May 2025

President Donald Trump’s administration has mostly defended its efforts to deport visa-holding foreign students on the grounds that the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) allows deportation of those whose actions might have “adverse foreign policy consequences.”

But the administration could do a better job of articulating squarely what adverse consequences, exactly, it fears from the actions of high-profile detainees like Columbia University’s Mahmoud Khalil, who engaged in and helped organize anti-Israel protests.

Section 237(a)(4)(C) of the INA renders deportable any alien “whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” (author’s emphasis) if the Secretary of State “personally determines that the alien’s beliefs, statements, and associations” would compromise U.S. foreign policy interests.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a two-page April 11 court memorandum for the Khalil case, asserted that Khalil’s “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities” fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States, and therefore undermined “U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world.”

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The College Economy: Educational Differences in Labor Market Outcomes

 — Organisation: Federal Reserve Bank of New York — Publication: Liberty Street Economics — Thursday 15th May 2025

Rajashri Chakrabarti, Thu Pham, Beckett Pierce, and Maxim Pinkovskiy

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Multisolving in the UK – reflections from ‘Multisolving’ book club’s journey so far

 — Organisation: Multisolving Institute — Thursday 15th May 2025

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The economy (it still exists)

 — Organisation: The Australia Institute — Thursday 15th May 2025

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Elinor returns to discover the economy does in fact still exist, before her and Greg discuss the latest wage data, house prices and Trump blinking on his China tariffs.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 15 May 2025 and things may have changed since recording.

Order ‘After America: Australia and the new world order’ or become a foundation subscriber to Vantage Point at australiainstitute.org.au/store.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute and Centre for Future Work // @grogsgamut

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

Show notes:

‘Australia’s wage growth remains solid. But now the recovery needs to be sustained’ by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (May 2025)

Economist busts myths on QandA | Richard Denniss highlights, the Australia Institute (April 2025)

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Bellowing from the sidelines. The declining influence of Australia’s traditional media.

 — Organisation: The Australia Institute — Thursday 15th May 2025

The research explores the declining influence of media endorsements and leaders’ debates on election outcomes.

Key points:

• The 2025 and 2022 elections are the only ones in the past thirty years to have been won by a party without the endorsements of most major newspapers.
• Anthony Albanese leads the first Australian government to have never been endorsed by The Australian since the newspaper was founded in 1964.
• From 1996 to 2019, most Australian newspapers endorsed the winning party, including Kevin Rudd’s 2007 victory.
• This year’s televised leaders’ debates reached 12% of voters, at best.
• The first leaders’ debate, conducted behind a paywall on Sky News, was seen by, at best, 2% of voters.

“The endorsement of newspapers used to be much sought-after, but these days such endorsements are practically irrelevant,” said Joshua Black, report co-author and Postdoctoral Fellow at The Australia Institute.

“Despite the endorsements of all News Corp mastheads and the Australian Financial Review, the coalition suffered a major defeat.

“Anthony Albanese has now won two elections with only a handful of media endorsements.”

“Televised debates are still touted as key events but they are barely watched by voters,” said Skye Predavec, report co-author and Anne Kantor Fellow at The Australia Institute.

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When Yuppies Are No Longer Urban

 — Organisation: Strong Towns — Thursday 15th May 2025

This story was originally published on Diana Lind’s Substack, The New Urban Order. It is shared here with permission. Images were provided by the writer.

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The Bottom-Up Revolution Is...Using Media To Build a Better City

 — Organisation: Strong Towns — Thursday 15th May 2025

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Judge Ho, Original Intent, and the Citizenship Clause

 — Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Thursday 15th May 2025

In 2006, James C. Ho wrote an article titled “Defining ‘American’: Birthright Citizenship and the Original Understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Since his appointment to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018, his article has gained greater attention and authority than it otherwise might have done. Judge Ho was nominated by President Trump as an adherent of original intent jurisprudence, and the president’s confidence in Judge Ho’s fidelity to the Constitution seems to have been amply borne out by some of his early opinions. In one concurring opinion, he wrote that “it is hard to imagine a better example of how far we have strayed from the text and original understanding of the Constitution than this case.”

“Text and original understanding” are, indeed, the reliable touchstones of constitutional jurisprudence. But Judge Ho did not live up to those standards in his attempt to uncover the meaning of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, even as he has recently indicated he understands the high stakes involved. He did write that “under our Constitution, the people are not subjects, but citizens.” While Judge Ho provides no acknowledgment, this is a close paraphrase of a statement made by signer of the Declaration and the Constitution and Supreme Court Justice James Wilson quoted in chapter two. “Under the Constitution of the United States,” Wilson wrote in 1793, in the case of Chisolm v. Georgia, “there are citizens, but no subjects.”

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Current ScholarshipEngendering fiscal space: External debt, concessional finance, and special drawing rights

 — Organisation: Just Money — Thursday 15th May 2025

Ilene Grabel

More “Current Scholarship
Engendering fiscal space: External debt, concessional finance, and special drawing rights”

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Gov. Bill Lee and Our State's Cruel Anti-Immigrant Actions

 — Author: Betsy Phillips — Monday 12th May 2025

When asked about recent federal immigration sweeps, the governor told reporters 'we want to be a part of that'

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✊ End Austerity Now: Resistance Rising at the Spring Meetings ✊

 — Organisation: End Austerity Campaign — Wednesday 30th April 2025

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The 2025 IMF & World Bank Spring Meetings showed the system is broken.
Our movements are fighting back — stronger, louder, unstoppable.

  1. Bretton Woods is Broken: People Demand Justice, Not Austerity

As the 2025 IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings conclude, one thing was clear: despite mounting crises, the Bretton Woods Institutions are still clinging to austerity. Under pressure from the US’s hardline “America First” stance, the Fund and Bank doubled down on failed orthodoxies — austerity, private finance, and political caution — while sidelining the twin emergencies of debt and climate.

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