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#MonetaryPolicy201 is a monthly series about the basics of monetary policy. It’s a “201” series because I will be grounding the basics of monetary policy on their largely forgotten legal foundations. The beginning of this series will focus on various aspects of the question: “What is Money Finance”? This is the Second Part, find Part 1 here. You will need a paid subscription to read the full series. You can subscribe here. Your reader support which makes my Freedom of Information Act project, archival research and general writing possible. 

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February 7, 1:00 pm Hirshon Suite (2nd Floor of 55 W 13 St, in New York City)


More “Announcement
Book Talk – Rethinking Capitalism: “The Habitation Society: Creating Sustainable Prosperity””

On this special crossover episode of After America and Follow the Money, Dr Emma Shortis and Ebony Bennett discuss the role of Elon Musk, Trump’s pause on all US foreign aid, his ability to ‘flood the zone’, and just how much better he is at it this time around.

This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 28 January 2025 and things may have changed since recording.

Get your tickets for the Australia Institute’s Climate Integrity Summit 2025 now.

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

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

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

Show notes: 

Claremont Institute scholars, including me, Ed Erler, Tom West, John Marini, and Michael Anton, President Trump’s incoming Director of Policy Planning at the State Department, have been contending for years—decades, really—that the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause does not provide automatic citizenship for everyone born on U.S. soil, no matter the circumstances. Other prominent scholars, such as the late University of Texas law Professor Lino Graglia, University of Pennsylvania Professor Rogers Smith, and Yale Law Professor Emeritus Peter Schuck, have come to the same conclusion based on their own extensive scholarly research.

President Trump’s second term thrusts the question of birthright citizenship to the forefront of American politics: should the United States automatically grant citizenship to any child who happens to be born on U.S. soil? Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution requires doing such a thing. Yet defenders of birthright shut down any debate by framing opposition as cruel and racist—and obviously wrong as a legal matter.

But there is a strong constitutional and moral case for limiting birthright citizenship. It’s the argument that led the Trump Administration to issue an executive order that defines a new status quo: going forward, children of illegal aliens won’t receive recognition of their citizenship by the U.S. Department of State or any other executive agency.

Start with the Constitution. The question of birthright citizenship goes back to the 14th Amendment, one of the three ratified in the immediate wake of the Civil War. The relevant portion reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The phrase at issue is “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” (known as the jurisdiction clause). Proponents of birthright maintain that the phrase merely means subject to the laws and courts of the United States.

Universities in Ohio value DEI over academic programs. From looking at the program reviews that three notable universities in the state recently undertook, however, this is not immediately obvious.

By all appearances, these institutions made assessments based mostly on budgetary metrics. Kent State University announced a four-year plan to cut nearly $70 million from its budget. The University of Toledo is suspending or consolidating 48 degree programs to save more than $21 million. Miami University has cut or consolidated 18 programs according to its new program prioritization process.

Programs with low enrollments, fewer majors, high faculty-to-student ratios, and little grant potential are also being put on the chopping block. While humanities used to have some of the highest enrollment numbers compared to other departments, they have seen enrollments collapse in the last several decades.

New findings released today reveal alarming trends in firearm ownership across Australia, showing that the number of guns in private hands has grown significantly since the Port Arthur massacre, and regulation across states and territories is failing to keep pace with community expectations.

Key Findings:

• There are more guns in Australia than there were before the Port Arthur massacre.
• Firearms are not confined to rural areas, with a third of guns in New South Wales located in Sydney, Newcastle, and Wollongong.
• All states and territories are failing to meet key criteria for effective gun control, including data transparency and limits on the number of firearms a person can own.
• On average, a firearms licence holder owns more than 4 guns, with two individuals in suburban Sydney each owning over 300 firearms.
• Three-in-four Australians support limits on the number of firearms an individual can possess.

The report found gun ownership in Australia varies significantly across states. Western Australia is the only state with a cap on the number of firearms a licence holder can own, while New South Wales is the only state making comprehensive data on gun ownership publicly available. This inconsistency across the country has facilitated access to new weapons that are illegal in one place but not another.

Following a lawsuit for alleged mistreatment, a major medical care provider in Pennsylvania is expanding its care for LGBTQ+ people.

This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actor

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Text originally filed January 16, 2025

While LGBTQI+ people have long faced discrimination and brutal oppression, international law has typically failed to recognize it as a crime. Until now.

By Bec Chau, Dan Hill and Daniel Pejic

There is an old European proverb: “Where two fight, a third one wins.”

Anyone with eyes to see the misaligned interests of our major industrial factions can see that an existential clash is coming between the climate industry and artificial intelligence. The under-asked question is how the patriot, who cares little for the discrete interests of either party but greatly about his country, should proceed.

For the last 30 years, American businesses and investors have tripped over themselves to remake their portfolios with a focus on “sustainable” energy. Governments have subsidized this industry to the tune of trillions and made men rich off of their collective participation in this cultish climate scheme.

Smart observers have noted there are many ways to combat the observed “climate crisis” besides a hyper-focus on carbon-emissions reduction. But none of these alternative strategies line the pockets of the forces that have set up financial, industrial, and political projects in support of the shift.

Innovations in solar, wind, and other non-coal/oil/gas energy production schemes are impressive—if you start with the premise that it is urgently necessary to move away from fossil fuels. The entire global project is a house of cards, and the moment someone credible says, “What if we don’t need to worry about that?” the foundational cards are removed and their wealth crumbles.

Before the ink dried on the flurry of Executive Orders signed on Donald Trump’s first day (back) in office, while partygoers nursed inaugural hangovers or perhaps hadn’t even stilled the flow of celebratory champagne yet, the Washington Post reported that federal health agencies had been told to “pause” all external communications.

HHS, the FDA, the CDC, and the NIH are among the agencies implicated by the guidance.

Across town, I nursed my own pounding headache. This news wasn’t helping.

Mine wasn’t the result of too much celebration or champagne; mine was the result of my November 2023 COVID-19 infection, since which I’ve had migraines nearly every day for 14 months.

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At the beginning of each presidential term, an inaugural address provides an opportunity for a president to set the tone for things to come through an artful articulation of principle, a considered reflection on the present and the future, and, at least on some occasions, an inspired political poetry that appeals to “the better angels of our nature.” Donald J. Trump’s Second Inaugural Address did much of this, but with the soaring poetry (which was ample enough) appearing only in the final section of the speech.

More than a few commentators have noted, not without justification, that Trump’s address on the 20th of January 2025 at times resembled a State of the Union Address more than a classic inaugural one. But there is a perfectly justified reason for this: President Trump and his supporters believe, rightly in my view, that the Left’s zealous commitment to DEI and the new racialism, transgender ideology, “saving democracy” by burying it, “lawfare” directed against political opponents (most notably Trump himself), and the censoring of free political speech in the name of fighting “misinformation” threatens the very fabric of our constitutional republic, along with its indispensable moral and cultural prerequisites. In these circumstances, it was not possible or appropriate to declare as a victorious Thomas Jefferson had done in 1801, “We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.”

Central America, a region critical to America’s security and prosperity, stands at a dangerous crossroads. Emboldened by the Biden Administration, leftist regimes have unleashed a wave of corruption, organized crime, and authoritarianism that threatens not only the region’s stability but also the interests of the United States.

Recently, Honduras’s socialist President Xiomara Castro brazenly threatened the United States, declaring she would expel U.S. military bases from the country if President Trump followed through on his plans to deport illegal Honduran nationals.

Castro’s comments were nothing short of audacious. She accused the U.S. of benefiting from Honduran territory for decades without paying a cent, and suggested that any deportation policy would force her government to “reconsider cooperation” in military matters. This brazen attempt to intimidate a democratically elected American president is a striking reminder of how far leftist leaders are willing to go to undermine U.S. interests while demanding handouts.

June 5-7 at Brown University. Applications due March 1, 2025


More “Announcement
Political Economy of Finance Summer School 2025”

The Trump 2.0 era has officially begun, and it’s off to a fast-paced start. In just a few days, we’ve seen sweeping changes, executive orders, and policy shifts that are already making waves. While political discussions abound, my focus here is on what really matters to traders and investors: the markets. Specifically, how will this new administration’s fiscal priorities impact market movements in the months and years ahead?

Setting the Stage: A Bull Market in Transition

As we stand today, markets are on the edge of all-time highs. This follows nearly two years of a relentless bull market that has pushed asset prices steadily higher. The key question is whether this momentum will continue in the Trump 2.0 environment, or whether we’re about to see a shift.

To answer that, we need to focus on the primary driver of markets over the past several years: fiscal flows. The fundamental idea here, rooted in Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), is that government spending adds financial assets to the private sector. Those assets, whether saved or spent, ultimately funnel into financial markets, driving asset prices higher.

In short, fiscal flows are the lifeblood of the markets. When government spending accelerates, markets tend to follow suit. Conversely, when spending slows, so do markets.