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Richard Audoly, Miles Guerin, and Giorgio Topa

The great Christian apologist and literary critic C.S. Lewis provides a surprising amount of moral and political wisdom despite not being a political thinker in any formal sense of the term. For example, the three lectures that form The Abolition of Man remain a must-read for understanding the crisis of our time, as well as the path to recovering the wisdom that will allow us to overcome it.

Without relying on divine revelation or biblical faith per se, Lewis takes aim at what he elsewhere calls “the poison of subjectivism,” and also makes a compelling defense of the existence of a moral consensus among mankind that transcends cultures, polities, and historical epochs. In the book’s final section, he provides a searing analysis of the profound tendency of the modern project “to conquer nature for the relief of man’s estate,” which leads to the temptation to conquer human nature in the name of illusory “progress”—that is, to abolish human beings once and for all.

Zara Jacob, Donghoon Lee, Daniel Mangrum, Joelle W. Scally, and Wilbert van der Klaauw

Écoutez la discussion complète sur le balado Perspectives Journal, offert sur Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music et toutes les principales plateformes de balados.

Alors que les politiques commerciales et économiques de l’ère Trump transforment les décisions concernant l’emploi, l’industrie et les investissements, les travailleurs et travailleuses et leurs communautés au Canada en ressentent déjà les effets. Du secteur manufacturier aux services publics, en passant par l’inflation liés aux guerres, des choix économiques sont faits qui redéfiniront l’avenir du travail des deux côtés de la frontière — souvent sans que les travailleurs et travailleuses aient voix au chapitre.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss the federal budget, the latest wages data, and why the government is making Australian workers wait-o for the WATO.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 14 May 2026.

Visit The Point for research, analysis, explainers and factchecks from experts at the Australia Institute and beyond.

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

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

Show notes:

Australian workers have been hard done by and tax reforms in the budget only begin to return some fairness by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (May 2026)

The original design of the NEM assumed that private markets and price signals could not only guide investment in generation, networks and retail, but also accommodate changing environmental requirements.

Experience has shown that this is not the case. The NEM now operates as a hybrid in which reliability and investment are secured through administrative intervention and long-term contracting, while emissions reductions are driven by a set of overlapping federal and state policy instruments.

The analysis makes several recommendations to fix the NEM:

• Split the Australian Energy Market Operator into two bodies, a rule-bound market operator and a national grid authority with responsibility for reliability, transmission integration, long-term contracting and emissions integration.
• Consolidate transmission under public ownership within the grid authority.
• Operate generation under a mixed public–private model.
• Reforming distribution, while keeping public ownership available as a long-term option.
• Retaining retail competition, but default pricing should be treated as a public obligation linked to system costs.

“Australia’s transition to a low-emissions electricity system has exposed the structural weaknesses of the National Electricity Market.” said Professor John Quiggin, Professor of Economics at The University of Queensland and author of the report.

“After decades of patchwork reform, the elegant design of the original NEM is almost invisible under all those tweaks.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud, a Palestinian historian and author, in his new book, “Before the Flood: A Gaza Family Memoir Across Three Generations of Colonial Invasion, Occupation, and War in Palestine,” traces the long arc of Palestinian resistance to the Zionist settler-colonial state leading to its current form in Hamas. It is resistance, defined by Palestinians themselves, as Dr. Baroud explains, that is the “sole leverage” of the Palestinian people in their struggle for existence, which began before the Nakba of 1948.

The British political landscape has undergone a seismic shift following the May local elections. A map once dominated by the Labour Party’s familiar red has been dramatically redrawn, signaling widespread rejection of the political establishment across the U.K. This was not just a protest vote—it pointed to a complete collapse of the party in areas that were once considered its safest and most reliable strongholds.

Labour lost control of over 30 councils, watching its majorities disappear in traditional heartlands like Gateshead, Sunderland, and South Tyneside—areas where the party had held power for nearly half a century. Across the capital, Labour’s solid red blanket has been replaced by a multicolored patchwork of parties. The party lost 11 boroughs, including flagship councils like Westminster and Wandsworth, which were seen as key pillars of its 2022 resurgence. In East London, Havering saw a historic shift: once dominated by resident-led groups, Labour was swept out by an insurgent force: Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

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.

Pratt Boy Summer | The Roundtable Ep. 317

On this episode of Follow the Money, Matt Grudnoff and Ebony Bennett discuss the government’s important changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, its “brutal” cuts to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), and why some “broken promises” may not be such a big deal in the eyes of Australians.

This episode was recorded on Wednesday 13 May.

The latest Vantage Point essay, Rich Kid Poor Kid: The Battle for Public Education by Jane Caro, is available now for $19.95. Use the code ‘PODVP’ at checkout to get free shipping.

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

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

Show notes:

Budget 2026: What the government’s housing tax changes mean for first home buyers and housing affordability by Matt Grudnoff, The Point (May 2026)

The New York Times columnists Ross Douthat and Ezra Klein disagree more often than they agree, which made it significant that just before the first anniversary of the 2024 election each arrived at, basically, the same explanation for Donald Trump’s victory. “It is completely obvious that the [Democratic] party lost in 2024 because it overcommitted to a range of unpopular left-wing positions,” Douthat wrote. Whatever else the 2024 election may have been, it “was also an ideological referendum, and progressivism lost.”

Klein’s explanation was even more detailed, making it a tougher read for his followers, who are more sympathetic to the Democratic cause than are Douthat’s. “From 2012 to 2024, Democrats moved sharply left on virtually every issue,” Klein observed, with electoral results that were precisely the opposite of those expected and intended.

Democrats became more uncompromising on immigration and lost support among Hispanic voters. They moved left on guns and student loans and climate, and lost ground with young voters. They moved left on race and lost ground with Black voters. They moved left on education and lost ground with Asian American voters. They moved left on economics and lost ground with working-class voters. The only major group in which Democrats saw improvement across that whole 12-year period was college-educated white voters.

Market Update Preview

Inflation continues to heat up, the April CPI came in at 3.8% annual, beating expectations. That matters a lot in this framework, because the model has been telling us late-cycle CPI surprises are the marker that the long chain of price hikes needed to defend balance-sheet expansion is finally working through the system. Today's print isn't a one-off. I think it kicks off a trend of hotter-than-expected inflation reads through the summer, with oil, the Iran supply shock, and lingering tariff effects all stacking on top of each other.

Equities sold off on the print, then bounced and held. Rates pushed higher, with the 10-year continuing the climb — and I want to walk through why rates are doing what they're doing even with the Trump administration jawboning the Fed. This is the late-cycle market function I've been watching for, and it's holding so far.

The bigger picture: in nominal terms flows are actually re-accelerating into summer, but in real terms the deficit impulse is deteriorating fast. There's a tension here that resolves one of two ways by end of summer, and the bank credit data is doing something that needs explaining. Full breakdown below, including why I'm still not looking to short and what the actual inflection point would have to look like.

Join me at 7:00 pm on June 29 for a livestream in which we will discuss Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. If you can, read before joining!

The novel was inspired by a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger called Christ’s Body in the Tomb. The painting was completed between 1520 or 1522. I have a picture of the painting pasted on the inside cover of my copy of The Idiot, which was translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. The painting shows the elongated corpse of Christ with wounds peppered along his body signifying the horrific torture he suffered before death. The flesh is in the early stages of putrifaction.

It is rare that mayoral campaigns receive national attention, but Spencer Pratt’s bid for mayor of Los Angeles has. Since his initial campaign announcement in January, Pratt has been gaining momentum and is now polling in second place behind incumbent L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. His campaign has primarily focused on restoring the city to its former glory, particularly in the wake of the damage from the horrific Palisades fires of 2025. Two weeks ago, he uploaded his now-viral campaign ad, featuring the hit song “Not Like Us,” as he showed off the untouched properties of Mayor Bass and city councilmember Nithya Raman. The video then showcases the charred ruins where Pratt’s home previously stood, along with the trailer he now resides in.

Whatever the fate of Pratt’s campaign, he has hit on a messaging strategy that right-wing candidates would do well to emulate going forward if they want to be successful in the digital age. Conservatives have had trouble breaking out of their image as out-of-touch intellectuals. Pratt’s message has more emotional impact. And his language is assertive. In the past, Republican leaders like George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, and Mike Pence had a cultural reputation for being passive. Pratt’s ad makes him look like something out of the John Wick action series.

The Racketeer Influences and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly known as “RICO,” was passed by Congress in 1970 as part of that year’s Organized Crime Control Act. It was designed to reach not just the foot soldiers of organized crime organizations, but the crime bosses themselves.

Although it did that directly by allowing charges to be brought against the leaders of “criminal enterprises,” it also did so indirectly by allowing prosecutors to go after low-level criminals and even drivers, doormen, etc. with threats of hefty, 20-year felony sentences and offers of reduced-sentence plea deals in exchange for turning state’s evidence against the mob bosses.

Such tactics work. Faced with the potential of decades in prison, many “loyal” foot soldiers—particularly those who merely observed rather than engaged in crime—find that the price of continued loyalty is simply too steep. So they sing. They implicate mid-level mobsters, who then sing even more loudly to implicate the bosses. The most famous example of this is the Five Families case in New York in the 1980s, prosecuted by then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani, which led to the conviction and imprisonment of several top Mafia bosses.

Canadian cities are complicated by a constant attempt to simultaneously meet future demands while correcting the issues caused by past planning and design decisions. What we are left with are “messy cities;” urban areas that are considered iconic and even praised for their development, cleanliness and diversity, withstanding their systemic and structural issues such as housing affordability, traffic congestion, pollution, and social isolation. Despite the “messiness,” cities constantly adapt to change because of the communities that live in them.

Approximately 31 million Canadians, or roughly 76% of Canada’s population, reside in cities and their surrounding regional suburbs. The historical development of most Canadian cities as we know them today, have been “messy,” growing through long periods of economic, social exclusion, and racism. Amid these oppressive periods, subcultures of resistance emerged through art, the reclamation of spaces by community, and the emergence of cultural events and festivals celebrating those communities.

This article is read by Eunice Wong. You can find her work at www.eunicewong.actor.

Text originally published May 8, 2026.

America’s Suicide Pact

 — Author: Chris Hedges — Friday 8th May 2026

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Recommended video: Are we at a Galileo moment in economics?

 — Organisation: Economic Reform Australia (ERA) — Friday 1st May 2026

Recommended video: Are we at a Galileo moment in economics? Richard Murphy What if everything you think about money is wrong? And does it matter…

The post Recommended video: Are we at a Galileo moment in economics? appeared first on Economic Reform Australia.

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More pain coming as RBA hikes interest rates again

 — Organisation: The Australia Institute — Friday 8th May 2026

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss the rationale for the Reserve Bank’s third interest rate hike for 2026 and how changing the way trusts are taxed could reduce inequality.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 7 May 2026.

Visit The Point for research, analysis, explainers and factchecks from experts at the Australia Institute and beyond.

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

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

Show notes:

In this budget, all eyes are on CGT. But Labor’s rumoured family trust tweaks might also help fight tax inequality by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (May 2026)

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The Case Against New York Times v. Sullivan

 — Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Thursday 7th May 2026

In 1964, the Supreme Court of the United States revolutionized our country’s understanding of the First Amendment. More specifically, the Court’s ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan caused a fundamental change in how we think about the relationship of the First Amendment’s protection for freedom of the press, on the one hand, and the problem of libel, on the other.

According to the traditional view swept aside by the Sullivan Court, libel—or publication of defamatory falsehood—was simply outside the scope of the freedom of the press, a licentious abuse that the Founders never intended to enjoy constitutional or legal protection. During the lengthy period that this view prevailed, those who published false and defamatory matter were open to being sued successfully for damages, whether the victim of the libel was a private or a public person.

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The Sun Sets on Great Britain

 — Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Thursday 7th May 2026

White House lawn speeches greeting foreign heads of state are usually sleepy pro-forma affairs, filled out with the clichés of long-standing ties and mutual interests. But President Trump’s speech welcoming King Charles was no mere boilerplate. It was a masterpiece of ironic and subtle mischief on multiple levels—triggering the Left, offering a ground of unity for the Right as we draw near to the 250th anniversary of the American Founding, and, for those who listened closely, a rebuke both to Britain and the rest of Europe for their supine and rapidly declining civilizations. Making all the “No Kings” protestors look silly was just a bonus.

As everyone knows—especially Pope Leo XIV—Trump is not typically known for subtle rebukes, so kudos are deserved for his speechwriting staff for crafting a succinct and enthymematic message worthy of Aristotle, though it was fully in accord with Trump’s main instincts and central purposes.

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We don’t need billionaires, and we can structure the market so we don’t have them

 — Organisation: Economic Reform Australia (ERA) — Friday 1st May 2026

We don’t need billionaires, and we can structure the market so we don’t have them Extracted from an article by Dean Baker [1] The Economist…

The post We don’t need billionaires, and we can structure the market so we don’t have them appeared first on Economic Reform Australia.

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US war on Iran shows renewable energy is an inflation management tool [1]

 — Organisation: Economic Reform Australia (ERA) — Friday 1st May 2026

US war on Iran shows renewable energy is an inflation management tool [1] Ingrid Walker The growing energy crisis shows that fossil fuels present a…

The post US war on Iran shows renewable energy is an inflation management tool [1] appeared first on Economic Reform Australia.

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Comparative economic evolution of three countries

 — Organisation: Economic Reform Australia (ERA) — Friday 1st May 2026

Comparative economic evolution of three countries – and how to improve New Zealand’s mismanaged economy Steven Hail Steven Hail argues that New Zealand is enduring…

The post Comparative economic evolution of three countries appeared first on Economic Reform Australia.

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Why the rich don’t pay taxes

 — Organisation: Economic Reform Australia (ERA) — Friday 1st May 2026

Why the rich don’t pay taxes Lars Syll Beneath the civic ideal of taxation as a collective, equitable endeavour lies an entrenched hypocrisy: the architecture…

The post Why the rich don’t pay taxes appeared first on Economic Reform Australia.

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Neoclassical economics vs MMT on the status of savings

 — Organisation: Economic Reform Australia (ERA) — Friday 1st May 2026

Neoclassical economics vs MMT on the status of savings Jim Byrne The following link – https://www.linkedin.com/feed [1 ] – which appeared on 1 Apr 2026…

The post Neoclassical economics vs MMT on the status of savings appeared first on Economic Reform Australia.

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Why Minsky still matters

 — Organisation: Economic Reform Australia (ERA) — Friday 1st May 2026

Why Minsky still matters Lars Syll Perhaps the foremost financial crisis theorist of our time, Hyman Minsky, had as his central idea that crises are…

The post Why Minsky still matters appeared first on Economic Reform Australia.

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“Half-baked” gas reservation a distraction that won’t raise a cent in revenue

 — Organisation: The Australia Institute — Thursday 7th May 2026

While the policy provides clear proof that Australia never had a ‘gas shortage’ and has been suffering from excessive gas exports, a gas reservation policy won’t change the sad fact that Australia is giving away more than half of the gas it exports for free.

Dr Richard Denniss, co-CEO of The Australia Institute, says the policy is a distraction after the government caved into the gas lobby and appeared to rule out a gas export tax in next week’s federal budget.

“The government is trying to shift attention away from its determination to keep giving more than half the gas Australia exports away for free,” Dr Denniss said.

“The Albanese Government wants Australians to think it’s doing something about gas, but instead of collecting $350 million per week from a gas export tax, it is pursuing a new policy that won’t raise a cent.”

“Labor has the numbers in parliament. It has the support of unions, crossbenchers and, most importantly, voters. One nation voters want a gas export tax. Clive Palmer supporters want a gas export tax. Labor voters want a gas export tax.”

Dr Denniss has branded a gas reservation as the “wrong solution” to a problem which has been deliberately engineered by the gas industry, which has created fake fears of shortages in Australia while it was exporting vast  quantities of Australian gas overseas.

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Is the national anti-corruption body failing?

 — Organisation: The Australia Institute — Thursday 7th May 2026

On this episode of Follow the Money, journalist and writer Nick Feik joins Ebony Bennett to discuss the NACC’s handling of its Robodebt investigation, its decision not to hold public hearings so far, and concerns about the legal experience required of some senior leaders.

This episode was recorded on Tuesday 5 May and some things may have changed.

The latest Vantage Point essay, Rich Kid Poor Kid: The Battle for Public Education by Jane Caro, is available now for $19.95. Use the code ‘PODVP’ at checkout to get free shipping.

Guest: Nick Feik, journalist and writer // @nickfeik

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

Show notes:

Built to fail? NACC: the integrity body undermined from the start by Nick Feik, Michelle Fahy & Elizabeth Minter, The Point (April 2026)

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