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End Austerity! Reclaim the Right to Education, Health, and Social Security

— Organisation: End Austerity Campaign — Sunday 8th October 2023

At the Reclaim Our Future Conference in Marrakech, the End Austerity Campaign hosted a compelling session exposing the global rise of a new wave of austerity policies—currently impacting more than 6 billion people worldwide.

The session addressed urgent questions:

What are these new austerity measures?
Where are they being implemented?
What is the human cost of these policies?
And what feasible alternatives can governments adopt instead?

Drawing on powerful evidence and key findings from recent reports by campaign members—including ActionAid International, the Financial Transparency Coalition, Human Rights Watch, OXFAM, Global Social Justice, and numerous other civil society organizations—the session highlighted how austerity undermines fundamental rights such as education, healthcare, and social protection.

Speakers called for immediate action to reverse harmful economic policies and to adopt rights-based, equitable alternatives that put people and planet first.

Hundreds of organizations and academics call to end austerity, ahead of IMF- World Bank Annual Meetings in Marrakesh

— Organisation: End Austerity Campaign — Thursday 5th October 2023

PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release

Marrakech, October 5, 2023

330 major civil society organizations and senior academics from around the world have signed a declaration calling on the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and governments to end austerity measures, ahead of the IMF-WB Annual Meetings in Marrakech, Morocco, on 9-15 October.

Today, 6 billion people are living under austerity around the world, resulting in harmful cuts in public services and social protection amid a cost-of-living crisis. These IMF and World Bank-promoted austerity policies are being implemented in the name of ‘fiscal consolidation’ as countries struggle to pay their debts.

Marrakesh Declaration to End Austerity

— Organisation: End Austerity Campaign — Monday 2nd October 2023

We, civil society representatives and academics from all over the world, call upon governments, Ministries of Finance and International Financial Institutions to end austerity.

Today, more than 6 billion people are suffering from austerity, so-called “fiscal consolidation”, amid a cost-of-living crisis. We demand that governments immediately stop harmful public budget cuts in essential areas like education, health and social protection, and halt damaging reforms such as the privatization of public services and social security rights, which are exacerbating gender inequality, as women are the shock absorbers due to the subsidy they provide to the global economy through their unpaid domestic and care work. Instead of austerity cuts/reforms, governments must seek new sources of fiscal space to meet their Human Rights obligations and achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Specifically, we, the undersigned civil society organizations, trade unions and academics demand that governments, Ministries of Finance, the IMF, World Bank and other International Financial Institutions urgently:

End Austerity Campaign Statement on Morocco earthquake

— Organisation: End Austerity Campaign — Thursday 28th September 2023

بيان بشأن زلزال المغرب

تعبر حملة إنهاء التقشف عن خالص تعازيها وتضامنها مع الشعب المغربي على إثر الخسائر البشرية الكبيرة والدمار الذي خلفه الزلزال الذي ضرب مراكش وجبال الأطلس الكبير في 8 شتنبر.

End Austerity Activism Festival

— Organisation: End Austerity Campaign — Friday 1st September 2023

Date: Saturday, 7 October, 9am-6:30pm (Marrakesh time), 8am-5:30pm UTC
Venue: Cadi Ayyad University Club Marrakesh & online
Register to attend: https://forms.gle/zADLVqmp2RfXX7gX8

Join us for a full day hybrid event on October 7th 2023 in Marrakesh!

To kick off the World Bank & IMF Annual Meetings, we will come together to celebrate resistance against their failed economic model that puts profit before people and planet, and join forces in calling for a feminist, green and care-led agenda for the future!

The EndAusterity Campaign invites campaign members and allies, existing and new ones, to join the Festival to share their advocacy know-how and research, speak to their experience and lived realities in their communities, and inspire advocacy, action and art.

The American Mind Podcast: The Roundtable Episode #267

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

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.

Congress Take the Wheel | The Roundtable Ep. 267

State sponsored greenwashing misleading consumers and failing businesses

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

Despite the need to reduce absolute greenhouse gas emissions in line with climate science, the government continues to promote carbon offsetting and certify claims of “carbon neutrality” by the fossil fuel industry and other big emitters through its Climate Active scheme.

The Climate Active scheme actively encourages consumers to “make a positive impact right now, by supporting these organisations” without offering any proof that the businesses it certifies are taking climate action or verifying that emissions are being “offset”.

The Australia Institute has previously filed a complaint with the ACCC on the basis that Climate Active may be misleading and deceptive under consumer law.

The Australia Institute’s 2024 Climate of the Nation showed that there is widespread confusion around carbon offsets and carbon neutrality, and that the government should be responsible for verifying claims by industry:

Low-Trust Military

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Wednesday 14th May 2025

Sir Winston Churchill is known to have remarked that “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” That timeless mindset of deception has proven effective at enabling militaries to surprise adversaries on the battlefield throughout the history of human warfare. But when such tactics carry over into how the military communicates with citizens, ethical lines have clearly been crossed. This undermines the military officer’s oath of office and sows distrust among the public that the military is supposed to serve. Such a case is presently before us.

A recent report in the New York Times revealed that the pilot of the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter that knocked American Airlines flight 5342 from the sky in January made several errors. The pilot ignored a warning to change direction and collided with the plane, killing everyone on both aircraft. This information was not released by the U.S. Army nor the Department of Defense, even though the official policy of both is maximum disclosure, minimum delay. But in this and countless other cases, the military’s actions are hostile to official DoD policies.

“Don’t waste it”: Labor’s historic policy opportunity

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Wednesday 14th May 2025

On this episode of Follow the Money, Stephen Long, Walkley Award-winning journalist and Australia Institute Contributing Editor, joins Ebony Bennett to discuss the Murdoch press bogeyman, supporting the public broadcasters and the prospects for major, progressive reforms in the second Albanese term.

This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 13 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: Stephen Long, Senior Fellow and Contributing Editor, the Australia Institute // @stephenlongaus

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

Show notes:

Worth a Punt – 2% Levy on Gambling Revenue Could Replace Free-To-Air Advertising Spend by Stephen Long and David Richardson, the Australia Institute (August 2024)

Cortright Testimony to Oregon Transportation Commission, May 8, 2025

— Publication: City Observatory — Wednesday 14th May 2025

Joe Cortright, City Observatory

Testimony to the Oregon Transportation Commission

May 8, 2025

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I’m Joe Cortright with City Observatory.

As you remember I testified six weeks ago, when I pointed out that faced with cost overruns, what this commission has done is frown, shrug, and then give the same people more money to do more of the same. And I noted that you get the behavior that you reward, and what you’ve been rewarding is low-balling cost estimates, overestimating revenue and minimizing or ignoring risks, and we’re seeing that happening in real time today.

On your agenda, I’ll just draw your attention to Item K, which deals with the Interstate Bridge Project. If you’ll notice, you don’t have an estimate of how much this project will cost, and you’re being told that you’re just approving a $2 billion STIP allocation, but what you’re really doing is signing a blank check for whatever this project ends up costing.

Did You Save Anyone Today?

— Organisation: Strong Towns — Wednesday 14th May 2025

This Strong Towns member-submitted article was originally published in the Institute of Transportation Engineers’ Florida-Puerto Rico Division newsletter. It is shared here with permission. In-line photos were provided by the writer.

The latest legal developments in Trump's effort to use the Alien Enemies Act to disappear Venezuelans

— Author: Heidi Li Feldman — Wednesday 14th May 2025

In the past week or so, more precise contours have emerged in the legal contests over the lawfulness of the Trump regime's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act and the mechanics of the regime's deportation Venezuelans to CECOT, a prison camp in El Salvador. One way or another these fights will culminate in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Three issues have gained prominence:

whether detained Venezuelans may have their habeas petitions handled via class action
whether the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) permits Trump to declare Tren de Aragua (TdA) a foreign invasionary force
what steps constitute due process for removal of alleged TdA members under the AEA

Courts have already taken positions on each of these, clearly splitting over the first two and just beginning to address the third. While I have firm views as to the proper legal answers to questions (1) and (2), the fact and ways that federal district courts are disagreeing over them highlights that the Supreme Court might side with the arguments I reject. My purpose in this post is to give a deeper sense of the issues and to sketch the positions courts have taken thus far.

Things Past

— Author: Julia Doubleday — Wednesday 14th May 2025

I wrote about Proust once before. It was over a year ago, in February 2024, and I must have been midway through book 2 of Proust’s 7-volume epic In Search of Lost Time, also translated as Remembrance of Things Past. Now, I’m nearing the end of Volume 7, the last in the series. The final volumes have been a particular struggle to get through, as my health declined precipitously since the summer, leaving me homebound and mostly bedbound. I lost days and weeks to severe migraines, trying to relax beneath a silk eye mask beneath an icy cold cap direct from the freezer.

Eventually, I swallowed my pride and began listening to books on tape, something I discussed in this essay about learning to accept my need for mobility and accessibility aids. But by this time, my relationship with my gorgeous Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition novels was personal and emotional; I was fixated on finishing them the old-fashioned way. Slowly and steadily, I crawled through books five and six. I knew that, like me, Proust had been chronically ill, and I knew that, like me, he had been getting sicker as time went on.

I joked that reading the books while getting sicker, knowing that Proust was writing the semi-autobiographical books while getting sicker, made me feel like I was living in some warped Charlie Kaufman screenplay.

21 Years of Growth, 21 Years of Risk: What Sacramento’s Budget Really Says

— Organisation: Strong Towns — Wednesday 14th May 2025

EVENT: Post-election debrief – members & supporters event

— Organisation: Prosper Australia — Wednesday 14th May 2025

A Strong Towns View of the New SpaceX Company Town

— Organisation: Strong Towns — Wednesday 14th May 2025

Righting Wrongs (w/ Kenneth Roth) | The Chris Hedges Report

— Author: Chris Hedges — Wednesday 14th May 2025

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

On this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, host Chris Hedges speaks with Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the author of Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Frontlines Battling Abusive Governments. Hedges and Roth discuss HRW’s work and how it has changed over time, from its Cold War origins to the social media age.

Roth explains his approach to human rights work:

Bottom-Up Shorts: How To Make a More Walkable City

— Organisation: Strong Towns — Tuesday 13th May 2025

“Out of control” Vice-Chancellor pay must be reined in – submission.

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Tuesday 13th May 2025

Australia’s Vice Chancellors are among the highest paid in the world, at a time when the institutions they oversee are plummeting down international rankings.

The new analysis, which is now before a Senate Inquiry, recommends sweeping changes to the governance of Australian universities, to deliver better results for students, greater scrutiny of universities’ accounts and a significant increase in transparency within the higher education sector.

The first recommendation is a cap on Vice Chancellor salaries at $430,000 per year, which would more than halve the pay of those currently earning the most.

The submission is now before the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee’s Inquiry on Tertiary Education Legislation Amendment (There For Education, Not Profit) Bill 2025.

We Can’t Solve the Housing Crisis While Making Infill This Hard

— Organisation: Strong Towns — Tuesday 13th May 2025

Can China “Buy” America? Fifty Years Ago Last Week the Ford Administration Created the Government Body That Stops That From Happening.

— Author: Nathan Tankus — Publication: Notes on the Crisis — Tuesday 13th May 2025

Can China “Buy” America? Fifty Years Ago Last Week the Ford Administration Created the Government Body That Stops That From Happening.

I have ended up taking a lot longer to write up my biggest picture thoughts on the dollar than I initially expected. Partially this is because things seem to have stabilized- for now- and thus I didn’t feel the pressure to rush a piece out. Just yesterday China and the United States announced a tariff agreement- at least for the next ninety days. But the other reason I haven’t put out a big picture piece on the dollar is I have struggled to put all my thoughts on this topic into one piece. Before the coronavirus pandemic- when I was in a very different place in my life- my goal was to go off to undertake a PhD in law in Europe where I would write a three chapter dissertation on the international law of money. My June 2018 talk which I published in the newsletter last month provides the rough skeleton of my thinking. How do you get all of that into one piece?

The opportunity of a lifetime. The first big test for the newly elected government.

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Tuesday 13th May 2025

The 55 groups congratulate the Prime Minister on his resounding election victory, which they say has delivered a mandate for “optimistic and ambitious” action on climate change.

The letter – published in several newspapers today – points out that, as well as being an existential threat, climate change has intensified the cost-of-living crisis, pushing up energy, grocery and insurance prices.

The signatories call upon the re-elected Albanese government to commit to a fast and fair phase-out of fossil fuels, in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

“This is the opportunity of a lifetime for the Prime Minister,” said Mark Ogge, Principal Advisor at The Australia Institute.

“Anthony Albanese can be a leader who finally brings an end to Australia’s destructive fossil fuel addiction, while – at the same time – helping Australians through a cost-of-living crisis.

“The first and most important thing he can do right now is to stop the biggest, most destructive, most unnecessary fossil fuel project in the country: the expansion of the North West Shelf gas export terminal.

“This project would release more than four billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

“It would also allow the ongoing destruction of one of Australia’s and the world’s greatest cultural treasures – the 40,000-year-old Murujuga rock engravings. These are eight times older than the pyramids and are being ruined by acid gas emissions from the adjacent gas plant.

Countering China’s Eurasian Bloc Is Our Real Challenge

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Tuesday 13th May 2025

Kenin Spivak’s response to my piece, “Striking Iran Would Be a Mistake,” reflects a familiar but strategically short-sighted instinct within American foreign policy: the belief that forceful action against a dangerous regime, if justified morally or militarily, must also be wise geopolitically. But as I argued, and will expand upon here, the deeper question confronting the United States is not merely whether Iran goes nuclear, but whether the geopolitical structure of Eurasia becomes locked into a sinocentric configuration—one that fuses Iranian energy, Russian military-industrial depth, and Chinese strategic coordination into a single bloc capable of overturning the Western-led order.

The real catastrophe is not Iran’s enrichment centrifuges—it is China’s encirclement of the West.

Student Loan Delinquencies Are Back, and Credit Scores Take a Tumble

— Organisation: Federal Reserve Bank of New York — Publication: Liberty Street Economics — Tuesday 13th May 2025

Andrew F. Haughwout, Donghoon Lee, Daniel Mangrum, Joelle Scally, and Wilbert van der Klaauw

Small Changes With Big Impacts in Dallas

— Organisation: Strong Towns — Tuesday 13th May 2025

Preserving America’s Cyber Sovereignty

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Tuesday 13th May 2025

In the rapidly digitizing landscape of modern America, our homes, businesses, and national infrastructure are increasingly reliant on interconnected devices—collectively known as the Internet of Things (IoT). These devices promise convenience and efficiency, but they also pose an unprecedented cybersecurity challenge. From smart thermostats to baby monitors, each device can become a potential gateway for cyberattacks. The Biden Administration’s development of the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark (CTM) attempted to meet this challenge. While we take issue with many elements of that administration’s broader regulatory agenda, the CTM represents a rare case of smart, market-aligned governance.

The CTM is a voluntary labeling program for consumer IoT products that allows manufacturers to demonstrate they meet certain cybersecurity standards. But its true innovation lies not in the sticker slapped on a product box—but in the market incentives it unleashes. Unlike heavy-handed federal mandates, the CTM respects consumer choice, empowers corporate accountability, and opens the door to a new kind of risk-based procurement that strengthens our national cybersecurity from the ground up.

Fast Posterior Sampling in Tightly Identified SVARs Using 'Soft' Sign Restrictions

— Organisation: Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) — Tuesday 13th May 2025

We propose algorithms for conducting Bayesian inference in structural vector autoregressions identified using sign restrictions. The key feature of our approach is a sampling step based on 'soft' sign restrictions. This step draws from a target density that smoothly penalises parameter values violating the restrictions, facilitating the use of computationally efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling algorithms. An importance-sampling step yields draws from the desired distribution conditional on the 'hard' sign restrictions. Relative to standard accept-reject sampling, the method substantially improves computational efficiency when identification is 'tight'. It can also greatly reduce the computational burden of implementing prior-robust Bayesian methods. We illustrate the broad applicability of the approach in a model of the global oil market identified using a rich set of sign, elasticity and narrative restrictions.

Oligarchy or democracy?

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Monday 12th May 2025

On this episode of After America, Elizabeth Pancotti, economic policy specialist and former advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders, joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss what the second Trump administration is doing to the American economy.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 8 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: Elizabeth Pancotti, Managing Director of Policy and Advocacy, Groundwork Collaborative // @ENPancotti

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

Show notes:

Trump’s tariffs won’t wreck Australia’s economy. But America’s could be cooked. Dollars & Sense (April 2025)

A Note to City Staff Worried About Admitting Traffic Safety Mistakes

— Organisation: Strong Towns — Monday 12th May 2025

Spring Cleaning at Foggy Bottom

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Monday 12th May 2025

The Trump Administration’s plan to reorganize the State Department is the most ambitious effort of its kind since the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998. Announced on April 22, it calls for reducing State Department offices from 734 to 602, a 17% cut. While the plan outlines a 15% cut across all existing bureaus, so-called “functional” bureaus, as opposed to the traditional geographic bureaus that oversee specific parts of the world, would in particular be slimmed down, especially those grouped under “J”—for example, the Under Secretary of Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights.

“J” (which confusingly used to be called “G”) has been around for a few decades. The world of J includes offices such as the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (a white elephant created under Hillary Clinton), the Office of Global Criminal Justice, and the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), mocked internally as “Drool,” that would either be drastically cut back or eliminated altogether.

A considerable amount of the media’s drive-by criticism of the Trump reorganization plan takes at face value the name of an office or what it seems to be doing instead of asking if the work could be done elsewhere, or not at all. The names of these offices, however, have absolutely nothing to do with the work they actually do, much less the tangible value they provide in advancing an America First foreign policy.

Seattle’s new subway!

— Publication: City Observatory — Monday 12th May 2025

Subways for stormwater: Another subsidy for cars and contributor to high household costs.

In Seattle, cars and trucks; roads and parking lots are responsible for half of stormwater volumes, and contribute most to toxic runoff, but pay nothing for an extremely expensive subway to keep their waste from polluting sensitive waterways.

Instead, the cost of sewage subways gets build to urban households, many of whom don’t even drive.

Seattle’s putting the finishing touches on a new 2.7 mile subway connecting some of its hippest neighborhoods between Wallingford and Ballard. Built at a cost of about $700 million, this shiny new 18 foot, 10 inch diameter tunnel is big enough for a standard single track urban train. No, this isn’t unexpected progress on the region’s long delayed “Sound Transit 3” plan. Alas, this tunnel will only carry waste-water.

Your Questions Answered: White House vs Road House

— Author: Sarah Kendzior — Monday 12th May 2025

Thank you, subscribers, for your thoughtful questions! I answered most and tried to address the main points of those I didn’t list. I apologize that I ran out of space!

I do these Q & As once a month. If you’d like to submit a question, become a paying subscriber. You can do that here:

Paying subscriptions are particularly appreciated right now. This newsletter is my main source of income for a family of four. Thank you for considering it!

And away we go…

How Strong Towns Metro Milwaukee Is Building a Regional Movement for Change

— Organisation: Strong Towns — Monday 12th May 2025

Who Finances Real Sector Lenders?

— Organisation: Federal Reserve Bank of New York — Publication: Liberty Street Economics — Monday 12th May 2025

Nina Boyarchenko, Hyuntae Choi, and Leonardo Elias

Decorative Image: Internet Banking Technology concept

The modern financial system is complex, with funding flowing not just from the financial sector to the real sector but within the financial sector through an intricate network of financial claims. While much of our work focuses on understanding the end result of these flows—credit provided to the real sector—we explore in this post how accounting for interlinkages across the financial sector changes our perception of who finances credit to the real sector.

ZacTax: How To Build Financially Healthy Cities

— Organisation: Strong Towns — Monday 12th May 2025

The Week Observed, May 9, 2025

— Publication: City Observatory — Monday 12th May 2025

What City Observatory Did This Week

Leave the car at home, take the income. For years, City Observatory has calculated that Portland earns a billion dollar a year “green dividend” because it enables local residents to drive about 20 percent less than the typical urban American. Portland’s Mayor effectively argued that the city can earn an even bigger green dividend if it further reduces the amount of driving in the region

Why Dutton’s ‘one tune’ division and animosity didn’t work for Australians

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Monday 12th May 2025

Well, Dutton’s fear-based politics at least.

For the second election in a row, voters have delivered a progressive super-majority to Parliament and now the only thing standing in the way of Labor implementing its progressive platform is Labor.

Dutton has always been a political hardman. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull once described him as a “thug” unsuited to being prime minister of a multicultural society like Australia.

After leading in the polls for months ahead of the election, Dutton hardly put a foot right during the campaign. Egged on and amplified by the Murdoch press and a host of right-wing lobby groups, Dutton’s instincts to announce Trump-like policies to sack half of Canberra’s federal public service, blame immigrants, delay climate action with his nuclear distraction and lean hard into the culture wars – decrying the need for Welcome to Country at Anzac Day, ‘wokeness’ in school curriculums and universities – led the Coalition to its worst defeat in decades.

Peter Dutton gave a gracious concession speech on election night. Several Liberal politicians remarked that those comments reflected the Peter Dutton they know in real life, with Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie calling Dutton a “good guy”.

Step Up for Open Access: Join the OA Week 2025 Planning Team

— Organisation: Open Access Australasia — Monday 12th May 2025

A rich country in a housing crisis?

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Sunday 11th May 2025

On this episode, Maiy Azize joins Paul Barclay to discuss the housing crisis, how the government stopped directly providing housing and started subsidising private investors, why immigration is not to blame, how the housing crisis is an inequality crisis, why ‘supply’ is not the main problem nor main solution, and why Australia needs to massively invest in social housing.

This discussion was recorded on 20 March 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: Maiy Azize, national spokesperson, Everybody’s Home and deputy director, Anglicare Australia // @MaiyAzize

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

Show notes:

Australia’s sick housing joke, Dollars & Sense (March 2025)

You're Surrounded By Wind Turbines!

— Organisation: Climate Town — Sunday 11th May 2025

Just Answering Questions: I’m Back!

— Author: Sarah Kendzior — Saturday 10th May 2025

UPDATE 5/11 AT 6:PM: I am closing questions because there are a lot! I’ll post my answers this week. The answers will be open to everyone to read — I don’t paywall in times of peril. But if you’d like to keep this newsletter going, consider becoming a paid subscriber:

I am back from a one-month, nine-city book tour for The Last American Road Trip — and I’m still hungry for questions! Welcome to the return of the monthly Q & A. We’ve got some catching up to do, but first, a few announcements:

Comments on the previous article by Harry Chemay

— Organisation: Economic Reform Australia (ERA) — Thursday 1st May 2025

Comments on the previous article by Harry Chemay Wayne McMillan In the previous article, Harry Chemay has faithfully kept to the findings and conclusions from…

Statement: On the media narrative linking the Greens’ electoral losses to their stance on Palestine

— Organisation: Free Palestine Melbourne — Saturday 10th May 2025

10 May 2025: In recent days, we’ve seen a wave of commentary linking the Greens’ electoral losses to their principled support for Palestinian human rights and pro-Palestine rallies. This narrative is not only inaccurate—it is irresponsible.

Forgotten Americans No More

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Friday 9th May 2025

Mr. President, I rise today to engage in this great debate that is raging across our country. Turn on the TV, read the newspapers, or open your phone and you will be overwhelmed by the back-and-forth over tariffs, trade deficits, prices, and markets. We hear the talking heads say that America simply can’t afford President Trump’s insistence on more favorable trade policies. We hear much less about whether America can afford to continue down the road we have traveled these past 30 years.

That is not a question that people in this city are asking. For many, it is not a question that appears to have occurred to them at all. The debates right now are about the future and how President Trump’s policies will shape it. That is good. These are important debates that we should have. But, today, I rise because I want to speak about the past.

I am speaking as an American but, in particular, as a proud Missourian, a boy from Bridgeton. My folks—they weren’t wealthy. My grandfather was an infantryman in World War II and returned from the war with an eighth-grade education and some money he won playing craps on the Queen Elizabeth on his way home. All of his children worked in his butcher shop growing up. Later, I remember seeing my dad work seven days a week on the midnight shift to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. He worked hard and lived honestly. And, just one generation later, look where we are.

Dallas Just Made It Easier to Build the Housing It Desperately Needs

— Organisation: Strong Towns — Friday 9th May 2025

05/09/2025 Market Update

— Organisation: Applied MMT — Friday 9th May 2025

Less Talk, More Walk: Better Design Starts Outside, Not in the Conference Room

— Organisation: Strong Towns — Friday 9th May 2025

New York City’s Trump Administration Lawsuit Was Fundamentally Amended Based on Notes on the Crises Memo No. 1

— Author: Nathan Tankus — Publication: Notes on the Crisis — Friday 9th May 2025

New York City’s Trump Administration Lawsuit Was Fundamentally Amended Based on Notes on the Crises Memo No. 1

I have a lot of writing to get out over the next couple of weeks, especially following up on the Trump Tariff Crisis and the Future of the Dollar. I also need to dig back into the state of play at the Bureau of Fiscal Service. Today however, it's important to document signs of the impact Notes on the Crises is already having. One major sign I’ve had my eye on is the impact of my March 13 piece, published simultaneously in this newsletter and Rolling Stone, on New York City’s lawsuit against the Trump administration over its so-called “clawback” of 80.5 million dollars of congressionally appropriated FEMA funds.

29 years on, Australia’s gun laws still fall short of John Howard’s pledge

— Organisation: The Australia Institute — Friday 9th May 2025

Some, including his pledge to introduce a National Firearms Register, have still not been implemented.

12 days after 35 innocent Australians were massacred, then-Prime Minister Howard announced a National Firearms Agreement. He was lauded for his bravery in standing up to the powerful gun lobby. It was considered one of the finest moments of his time in office and remains a key part of his legacy.

But, almost three decades on, the Howard reforms are not living up to their promise.

Australia still does not have a National Firearms Register.
Australia still allows minors to hold some licences and operate firearms.
Australia’s gun control laws vary from state to state, making them difficult to enforce.
There are now 800,000 more guns in Australia than after the 1996 gun buyback, which saw 650,000 guns taken out of circulation.

“Australians need gun laws that live up to the Howard Government’s bravery and, right now, Australia does not have them,” said Alice Grundy, Research Manager at The Australia Institute.

“The National Firearms Agreement, announced 12 days after the Port Arthur massacre, was ambitious, politically brave and necessary for public safety.

“However, some of the provisions set out way back in May 1996, and reaffirmed by all Australian governments eight years ago, remain unimplemented.

Economics Isn’t Everything

— Organisation: The Claremont Institute — Thursday 8th May 2025

President Trump’s barrage of tariffs has produced in response a barrage of criticisms. Some take the form of an appeal to expert authority: economists, we are told, agree that tariffs are bad policy, and thus the administration’s recent “Liberation Day” tariffs are prima facie irrational.

Such claims are, of course, exaggerations. At least some economists—even if unorthodox ones—have supported the use of tariffs in certain situations. Indeed, it is hard to see how economists can claim to reject tariffs in principle since they as a class do not reject all government interventions in the market. We rarely hear that economists agree in condemning the income tax or social assistance to the poor even though these policies are market interventions.

Nevertheless, suppose all economists actually agree that tariffs should be rejected in principle. What then? It does not follow that tariffs are necessarily bad public policy. Economists specialize in the conditions that make for an efficient and prosperous economy—but that is not the sole aim of government policy. A strong economy is not the same thing as a strong and secure political community. The latter is the aim of the statesman, who must take a more comprehensive view of things than the scholar who specializes in economics.