Join me for a live Q&A on my YouTube channel and X account, Monday September 8, at 7:00 - 8:00pm ET. Questions will be taken from the comment section of this Substack post, as well as during the live on YouTube/X.
Please attempt to keep your questions direct and relatively brief, as I cannot read entire paragraphs during the show.
AnnouncementUNC Hiring Tenure-Track/Tenured Professor in Banking/Financial Regulation
— Organisation: Just Money — UNC Professor Opening on Financial Regulation
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UNC Hiring Tenure-Track/Tenured Professor in Banking/Financial Regulation”
The Cautionary Tale of Graham Linehan
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —Most Americans don’t know who Graham Linehan is, but to put it into perspective, he’s the Jerry Seinfeld of the British/Irish sitcom world. Back in the 1990s, Linehan starred in Father Ted, which is now regarded as one of the greatest sitcoms in U.K. television history.
On September 1, Linehan’s real life merged with sitcom-level absurdity when he landed at London’s Heathrow Airport and was immediately arrested by five members of the Metropolitan Police. His crime? Three posts on X.
At The Spectator, Linehan commented on the bizarre and ominous episode:
In a country where paedophiles escape sentencing, where knife crime is out of control, where women are assaulted and harassed every time they gather to speak, the state had mobilised five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer…(and no, I promise you, I am not making this up).
Budapest Is Back in the Game
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —Recent buzz about the possibility of Trump selecting Budapest to host peace talks between Russia and Ukraine has brought Hungary back into the public consciousness. During the Biden years, Viktor Orbán’s Hungary was relegated to something of a footnote and regarded with distaste by the reigning administration. Now, Hungary has moved from adversary to ally in record time—a welcome reset that offers a window into Trump’s recalibrated foreign policy.
As early as the 2020 campaign, then-candidate Biden branded Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán a “thug” and lumped Poland and Hungary together as “totalitarian regimes”—incendiary language that prior U.S. presidents avoided, even when the two countries were under actual totalitarian control of the Communist Party.
It was hardly surprising, then, that in 2021 President Biden chose a gay, married LGBTQ activist with two adopted children as ambassador to Hungary—a country whose constitution defines marriage strictly as a union between a man and a woman, bans adoption by same-sex couples, and enforces some of Europe’s toughest child-protection laws. U.S. Ambassador David Pressman ignited tensions by denouncing Hungary’s conservative stance on marriage and its 2021 Child Protection Act, which forbids gender propaganda in K-12 schools.
Esteemed economics journalist Ross Gittins wins 2025 E.J. Craigie Award
— Organisation: Prosper Australia —Ross Gittins wins 2025 E.J. Craigie Writing Award for the best article reflecting the ideas of Henry George. Prosper Australia is pleased to announce Economics Editor for The Age/Sydney Morning Herald, Ross Gittins, as the recipient of the E.J. Craigie Writing Award for 2025 for his article: Productivity Commission wants our big mining companies to […]
The post Esteemed economics journalist Ross Gittins wins 2025 E.J. Craigie Award first appeared on Prosper Australia.Stand Up. Fight the Roberts Court. Live the Constitution.
— —Not surprisingly given those extraordinary numbers, U.S. immigration officers have prioritized immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area. The Government sometimes makes brief investigative stops to check the immigration status of those who gather in locations where people are hired for day jobs; who work or appear to work in jobs such as construction, landscaping, agriculture, or car washes that often do not require paperwork and are therefore attractive to illegal immigrants; and who do not speak much if any English. If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United
States, they promptly let the individual go. If the individual is illegally in the United States, the officers may arrest the individual and initiate the process for removal.
-- Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, September 8, 2025
As fascism rears its ugly head, we are trapped between the craven and the unwilling
— Organisation: The Australia Institute —This week we heard Liberal leader Sussan Ley demanding Anthony Albanese show “leadership” to repair social cohesion. Leadership, in the Coalition’s opinion, is conflating peaceful anti-genocide protests and marches with what we saw last weekend, where neo-Nazis were platformed on the national stage.
That is not showing “leadership”. But it is in the tradition of the Coalition, which has spent the past decade refusing to acknowledge the growing threat of the far-right in Australia – right down to then home affairs minister Peter Dutton declaring “you can use left-wing to describe everybody from the left to the right” in response to a 2020 speech from ASIO director-general Mike Burgess warning right-wing extremism was on the rise. Burgess didn’t reference left-wing extremism, but Dutton still took aim at “left-wing lunatics”.
That same year, reporting partly based on the ASIO threat assessment briefing indicated right-wing extremists represented a third of all ASIO domestic investigations, with security agencies sounding the alarm that the Covid response was being used to recruit new members to far-right causes.
Live the Constitution: Take Concrete Collective Action
— —On Labor Day, I had the honor of leading part of the Santa Fe Rally for Collective Action, planned and designed by Indivisible Santa Fe. We succeeded in turning out hundreds – by some estimates, a couple of thousand. People had the chance to hear from speakers from labor, civil rights, and immigrant rights groups. Speakers from ISF primed the crowd to move from only showing up to rallies and marches to using these gatherings to kick off concrete, ongoing collective action.
We ended the Labor Day rally by distributing signs and informational brochures for businesses faced with ICE raids. The sign asserts the business’s constitutional right to exclude ICE from private areas in the absence of a valid judicial search warrant. The brochures explain how businesses can define and demarcate private areas, what distinguishes private and public areas, how to prepare employees for an ICE raid, and more.
My job was to explain the materials to the crowd and ask each of them to take a packet to a business and ask the owner or manager to display the sign. As I told the Rally attendees, we were asking them to live the Constitution and to invite Santa Fe businesses to do likewise.
America First Realism
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —In this country we stand at a crossroads—as a movement, as a party, and as a nation. The world is not what it was a generation ago, nor is America’s place in the world. The unipolar moment is over. And yet many in the GOP seek to claim the mantle of America First while continuing the same failed adventurism of the past. National Conservatism as a movement agrees that these people and ideas must be stopped. But we have failed to check their influence in the party in large part because we have not offered an alternative that meets the real threats to American security and balances national interest, the deterrent effect, industrial capability, and political will.
In a piece that was recently published in the National Interest, I sketched out a framework for what a real America First foreign policy looks like. I called for developing a doctrine that I called “Prioritized Deterrence.” That essay was the first step toward spelling out a set of foreign policy principles that can unite National Conservatives and set the agenda for the Republican Party for the next generation.
Volunteers Use Red Chalk to Protect Pedestrians and Drivers Under California’s New Law
— Organisation: Strong Towns —
The End Times of Academia
— —The year is 2013. The Great Recession has turned into the False Recovery, Trump is but a Twitter pest, and I was a new PhD with two small children who had ditched academia for journalism — a move akin to leaving the Titanic for the iceberg.
I did not regret it and still don’t. I was freelancing for a pittance while staying home with my kids, but my mind was free to wander. My articles attracted interesting people — one of whom, anthropologist Ryan Anderson, interviewed me that May. I am reprinting that interview with Ryan’s permission. Our 2013 conversation covers issues relevant to 2025 — including careerist conformity, economic exploitation, and threats to intellectual freedom.
Trump’s Flag-Burning Executive Order Is Constitutional
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —In 1989, Justice Antonin Scalia cast the deciding vote to overturn the conviction of Gregory Lee Johnson, who was arrested and found guilty of violating a Texas statute after he burned the American flag outside the Republican National Convention. The author of the Court’s 5-4 opinion was Justice William Brennan, the leading liberal and advocate for the “living Constitution” on the Supreme Court. For conservatives, it was one of the two most widely criticized votes of Justice Scalia’s illustrious career (the other being his vote refusing to recognize that parents have a natural, constitutionally protected right to direct the upbringing of their children).
But the opinion by Justice Brennan, which Justice Scalia joined, is not as absolute as it has subsequently been portrayed.
It specifically held that Texas violated the First Amendment by prosecuting Johnson “in these circumstances”—that is, expressive conduct or symbolic speech as part of a political protest that was not designed to incite a crowd (nor did it have that effect). It also held that the “government generally has a freer hand in restricting expressive conduct than it has in restricting the written or spoken word.” Only laws directed at restricting the communicative nature of expressive conduct implicate the First Amendment, and even then they can be upheld for a valid governmental interest.
Walking Small: Buford Pusser’s Family Gets Answers. Will Nashville?
— —Multiculturalism in Australia: A Deliberate Success, Not an Accident
— Organisation: Per Capita —When Pauline Hanson declared in her infamous maiden speech in the 1990s, “I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate,” it was a statement driven by fear and division. I remember the impact it had—not just on public discourse, but on the lived experience of Asian communities.
The response was not defiance, but caution. People stuck together for safety, retreating into familiar cultural spaces. Ironically, this reaction reinforced the very stereotype she invoked: communities appearing insular, not out of unwillingness to integrate, but out of a need for protection.
This past weekend offered a powerful contrast between two visions of Australia. On one hand, the Premier’s Multicultural Gala Dinner was a vibrant celebration of diversity. Hundreds of people from across ethnic communities came together to share meals, dance, and connect. The evening began with a moving Welcome to Country from Uncle Shane Charles, grounding the event in respect for First Nations people.
It was a reminder that the success of multiculturalism in Australia is not by accident—it is the result of decades of deliberate effort, relationship-building, and trust. It is a project built by communities, advocates, and policymakers who believed in a more inclusive society.
Two Porch Crashes, One Block: Why Park Avenue Needs Quick-Build Safety Now
— Organisation: Strong Towns —
A New Democratic Approach for the NDP
— Publication: Perspectives Journal —There can be a new era of democratic innovation for the federal NDP as it rebuilds from the ruin of the 2025 general election. Its upcoming federal leadership race, moreover, presents this chance to model the democratic transformation that the party ostensibly values. Nearly a decade ago, the combined federal and provincial NDP riding association that I was once a part of put forward my policy resolution to support “participatory budgeting;” a democratic process whereby citizens decide how to spend portions of a budget on capital and operational projects. These organizing efforts never became a policy priority for the party. Today, the federal NDP has an opportunity to use the leadership race to support in-person regional participatory assemblies and open-source digital platforms, such as pol.is or decidim, to amplify the voices of citizens. Democratic renewal of institutions like political parties, therefore, involves democratizing election platform development and internal party decision making structures.
The Decline and Fall of Gabe Schoenfeld
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —I see Gabe Schoenfeld has attacked me again. I usually try to let these things go, but sometimes a little context is demanded.
The piece is, as usual, filled with bile and unrelieved nastiness. What Gabe leaves out is that we used to be friends, or at least friendly acquaintances. We met through Manhattan conservative circles, where we had many friends in common, including the late, great Fred Siegel (whom I am confident would be distressed at what Gabe has become).
Gabe snidely writes that one should not pity me. On this we agree. I do not need or deserve any pity. My life has gone and is going quite well.
Not so for Gabe. His first disappointment (that I know of) came when he finished a PhD in Soviet studies…just as the Berlin Wall fell. Like many disappointed academics, he bounced around the nonprofit sector until landing as an editor at Commentary. This was the Neil Kozodoy Commentary, when the magazine was good. I wrote for them back in the day. Gabe did not edit me; Gary Rosen did. But even then, Gabe and I were friendly enough.
Are Businesses Scaling Back Hiring Due to AI?
— Organisation: Federal Reserve Bank of New York — Publication: Liberty Street Economics —Productivity crisis? Australia’s “lazy” oligopolies could step up
— Organisation: The Australia Institute —On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Matt and Elinor discuss the Australia’s latest economic growth data, Trump’s threat to hit countries with digital taxes with extra tariffs, and this week’s political fight over aged care.
Early bird tickets for our Revenue Summit at Parliament House in Canberra – Hon. Steven Miles MP, Senator David Pocock, Kate Chaney MP, Greg Jericho and more – are available now. You can buy tickets for the early bird price of $99 – available for a limited time only.
Dead Centre: How political pragmatism is killing us by Richard Denniss is available to pre-order now via the Australia Institute website.
This discussion was recorded on Thursday 4 September 2025.
Host: Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist, the Australia Institute // @mattgrudnoff
Host: Elinor Johnston-Leek, Senior Content Producer, the Australia Institute // @elinorjohnstonleek
Show notes:
The Family: The Foundation of America’s Next 250 Years
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —At this moment in history, we face a choice: Will America’s second 250 years be greater than its first 250 years?
If we have the courage, the discipline, and the vision, I believe this generation can lay a foundation of renewal so deep that our descendants will look back on us with gratitude, just as we look back on the Founders. And the most important choice we can make together to ensure that the next 250 years of America are greater is to focus—through our laws, our labors, our loves—on making the family the centerpiece of everything we do.
No nation in human history has entrusted so much of its future to the virtue and vitality of its families as America. The great empires of Europe—France, Spain, and England—placed their hopes in armies and palaces. The stability of their regimes rested on the health of a king’s bloodline and the strength of his throne.
But America bet her future on something humbler, yet infinitely stronger: not the pomp of royalty, not the machinery of a permanent bureaucracy, not the shifting will of mobs. We staked it all on what G.K. Chesterton called “the most extraordinary thing in the world”: an ordinary man and an ordinary woman, bound in covenant love, passing on their faith and virtue to their ordinary children.
We staked it all on the American family.
Creed and Culture Both Matter
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —My colleague and friend Andrew Beck has written a useful and provocative essay about a subject that has been simmering in American politics for decades. The dual accelerants of events and ideology brought that simmer to a boil in 2020. The disputed question remains open: What is an American? It’s impossible to answer that question without its predicate: What is America? If we answer those questions, we are led to the primordial question of politics, which concerns justice: Are America and her institutions good?
These are the fundamental queries at the heart of the assimilation debate. What are we assimilating new Americans to—and why? The Right remains divided on these issues, as it has in different and shifting ways in the postwar era. Until the Left moderates on the topics of citizenship, assimilation, and civilizational stability, it will be up to the American Right (and its fellow travelers across the Atlantic) to have a rational argument about the preservation of American and Western civilization.
Creedal Mutations
AnnouncementFinance and Society conference 2025
— Organisation: Just Money — Copenhagen Business School, 11-12 September
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Finance and Society conference 2025”
Why Somaliland Matters
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —By the grace of God, I was carried out of Somalia’s darkness and into the light of freedom. When I became an American citizen, I did so knowing exactly what it meant. I understood that renouncing one citizenship for another isn’t an exchange of passports, but a solemn vow to live by the principles my new country strives to uphold.
So when I am asked where I am from, I answer without hesitation: America. We are not defined by where we begin, but by where we choose to stand and belong. And from that belonging—rooted in my past, yet spoken as an American—I say Senator Ted Cruz is right about Somaliland. When he calls for U.S. recognition, he isn’t indulging in nostalgia or sentiment. He’s stating a fact.
For 34 years, Somaliland has governed itself. It holds elections that matter and maintains an army that defends its borders. It collects taxes and delivers services, and it issues passports that are used across the world. By every measure of sovereignty, Somaliland is a state. What it lacks isn’t legitimacy, but acknowledgment. And the time for acknowledgement is now.
I know this not as an abstract argument, but as lived experience.
Economic Capital: A New Measure of Bank Solvency
— Organisation: Federal Reserve Bank of New York — Publication: Liberty Street Economics —
Technology and the Future of Central Banking at the RBA
— Organisation: Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) —The American Mind Podcast: The Roundtable Episode 283
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —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.
A Grade of AI | The Roundtable Ep. 283
Letter from: Dr Ted Trainer (NSW) On money and banking
— Organisation: Economic Reform Australia (ERA) —Staff Appointment
— Organisation: Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) —Ecocide and Resistance in Palestine
— Publication: Progress in Political Economy —As a Palestinian scientist and ecologist deeply rooted in Palestine’s landscapes and communities, I bear witness to a catastrophic unfolding—a systematic assault on our ecosystems, livelihoods, and survival. This assault is not collateral damage in conflict; it is ecocide.
“Ecocide” refers to severe, widespread, and long-term environmental destruction that undermines the ability of inhabitants to enjoy and sustain life. Although Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute recognizes wartime environmental harm as a war crime, this threshold has rarely been met or invoked in practice. Advocates now call for ecocide recognition as the “fifth international crime against peace,” to hold perpetrators to account in both war and peace contexts. In Palestine, environmental degradation is not incidental—it is intentional, protracted, and aimed at breaking the eco-sumud (ecological steadfastness) of the Palestinian people.
Since October 2023, Gaza’s environment has suffered nearly unimaginable devastation:
Will AI kill traditional media?
— Organisation: The Australia Institute —On this episode of Follow the Money, Clive Marshall, former CEO of the Press Association (UK), and Emma Cowdroy, Acting CEO of Australian Associated Press, join Australia Institute Executive Director Richard Denniss to discuss artificial intelligence and the news.
Dead Centre: How political pragmatism is killing us by Richard Denniss is available now via the Australia Institute website.
Keep up with everything that’s happening at the Australia Institute by subscribing to our newsletter.
Guest: Clive Marshall, former Chief Executive Officer, The Press Association (UK)
Guest: Emma Cowdroy, Acting CEO, Australian Associated Press
Host: Richard Denniss, Executive Director, the Australia Institute // @richarddenniss
Host: Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director, the Australia Institute // @ebonybennett
Show notes:
Media and Democracy, the Australia Institute
GHF Contractor Tells All On Genocidal Israeli 'Aid' Plan (w/ Anthony Aguilar) | The Chris Hedges Report
— —This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.
“I've witnessed a lot of war and in that there is nothing that compares to the level of destruction, the level of [dis]proportionality, the absolute disregard for Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law and considerations of the laws of armed conflict. [Nowhere] in my career… have I witnessed anything close to the absolute escalation of violence and [unnecessary] force I witnessed in Gaza.”
What Is Natural Disaster Clustering—and Why Does It Matter for the Economy?
— Organisation: Federal Reserve Bank of New York — Publication: Liberty Street Economics —What makes Modern Monetary Theory different?
— Organisation: Economic Reform Australia (ERA) —Europe’s Right on the Precipice
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —During a debate with his political nemesis Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln noted that “public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.” The centrality of persuasion, which Lincoln correctly identified as the fundamental mechanism of statecraft in a democratic society, is the reason the Right is ascendant in America today. The Left has been telling its story for a long time, but the chasm between their claims and reality finally grew too large for most voters not to notice.
This opened the door for Donald Trump, a figure whose defining quality is a penchant for pointing out the failures of America’s political class—and it turned out that a majority of Americans agreed with his assessment.
The president’s achievement, properly understood, is reorienting conservatism toward using power well—what used to be called statesmanship—across four key categories: ideology, elections, policy, and competency. Each of these should be understood as a particular relationship with power. Ideology is alignment with the nation, the proper source of power. Elections are about persuading citizens to confer power. Policy is the design of a program for the use of power. Competency is the apt use and execution of power.
Call for Papers: 2026 AIPEN Workshop: The International Political Economy in the Second Cold War
— Publication: Progress in Political Economy —After decades of deepening economic integration, the world economy is increasingly challenged by rising geopolitical and geoeconomic rivalry, notably, but not only, between the United States and China. Around the world, trade and investment barriers are rising, leading to the fracturing and rerouting of value chains. Strains are also beginning to appear in the international monetary and financial systems. Global governance institutions are gridlocked and increasingly dysfunctional, even as the global problems they are purportedly designed to address are intensifying. For many states and societies, including Australia, the fracturing of economic globalisation presents acute new challenges, even as new opportunities are also emerging to attract trade, investment and development finance. The world is clearly standing at a historic inflection point, but where are we heading?
The 16th AIPEN Workshop is inviting papers, panels or roundtable submissions that seek to interrogate these and similar themes. As always, AIPEN 2026 is also inviting submissions related to any area in the international political economy broadly understood, including policy-related issues, reflecting the breadth and depth of the study of political economy in Australia and beyond.
The 16th AIPEN Workshop will take place at the University of Queensland, 5-6 February 2026.
Modern Monetary Theory and taxation
— Organisation: Economic Reform Australia (ERA) —The Economist’s latest piece on tipping points is a wake-up call for policymakers and CFOs
— Organisation: Economic Reform Australia (ERA) —Ed Broadbent’s Lessons for Rebuilding Today’s NDP
— Publication: Perspectives Journal —“The working stiff doesn’t get as much attention as before, or respect, and if any party works overtime to win their vote, it’s the Conservatives,” John Ibbitson wrote in the Globe and Mail on January 11th, 2024. “They would never have won that vote on Ed Broadbent’s watch.” Broadbent, who passed away at the age of 87 on the day Ibbitson’s article was published, had been elected leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada amid the first great crisis of post-war social democracy in the 1970s. The origins of that crisis, as he understood it, ran deep in the contention between capitalism and democracy: slower economic growth, rising oil prices, demographic change as populations aged, and a shifting industrial landscape that produced new employment patterns. The combination of these social and economic pressures precipitated a fiscal crisis that was seized upon by those who sought to subordinate society to the dictates of the market.
