Counterpoint
Michael Duffy and Paul Comrie-Thomson field commentary and debate from all sides of Australian society, economics and culture.
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4 Episodes of this Podcast:
Counterpoint - 2009-11-02
Published: 2009-11-01 09:00:00Black swans, debt, risk and mother nature The idea that All swans are white" was held to be true, in all possible worlds until black swans were found in Western Australia. That discovery changed, forever, the way we view the world and our understanding of what is possible. Nassim Taleb has taken the discovery of black swans in the natural world and utilised it as a metaphor for unprecedented happenings. The internet, the 9/11 attack on New York and the recent global financial crisis are examples of Black Swan events. Such events were once unimaginable yet like a black swan, they are now part of our known world. Highlights of Nassim Taleb in conversation with UK Conservative party leader David Cameron. They discuss how Black Swan thinking can be applied to make an economy more robust and less prone to collapse.
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Counterpoint - 2009-10-26
Published: 2009-10-25 10:00:00The not so wild, wild west Popular culture has long told us how the American frontier was wild, in fact it´s been branded as the Wild West. But the authors of a book published earlier this year make the controversial claim that the west, with the important exception of the warfare between settlers and indigenous people, was not so wild after all. They say that despite the absence of government authority in the west, often for decades, the settlers did a remarkably efficient job of working out how to get on and resolve their differences with each other. Pirates Many books have been written recently that use economics to explain aspects of everyday life. The Invisible Hook by Peter Leeson takes the genre in a new direction by looking at what economics can tell us about the behaviour of pirates. Leeson says you could construct a whole business course around the workings of a typical eighteenth century pirate ship. I can't believe I'm sitting next to a Republican !! Author Harry Stein explains what it´s like for a conservative to live and work in one of the most liberal and progressive enclaves in America.
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Counterpoint - 2009-10-19
Published: 2009-10-18 10:00:00Too much stimulus? When does a continuing fiscal stimulus become a bad thing? Economist Steve Kates argues that the federal government´s cash splash was unnecessary and may have disastrous consequences. Make all drug use legal Highlights from the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, presented by the Sydney Opera House and the St James Ethics Centre Age of Reagan Ronald Reagan firmly believed that unlimited government is inimical to liberty in vicious forms like communism, but also in such supposedly benign forms as bureaucracy. Biographer Steven F. Hayward discusses his second volume on the former US president: The Conservative Counterrevolution, and the enduring legacy of Ronald Reagan.
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Counterpoint - 2009-10-12
Published: 2009-10-11 10:00:00Stop whingeing about capitalism There has been plenty of commentary about the end of capitalism, the failures of neo-liberalism, the return of Keynesian economics. Oliver Hartwich and Cassandra Wilkinson extract some sense out of all this chatter. Highlights from People with Flat screen TVs should stop whingeing about capitalism: the Festival of Dangerous Ideas The arts are no longer dangerous Have artists given up being the custodian of culture? To find meaningful contemporary art John Carroll looks to film and quality TV. Julian Morrow from The Chaser also joins the discussion and asks if the arts in Australia can ever really be thought of as dangerous? Highlights from The Arts Don´t Deserve a Place in this Festival: the Festival of Dangerous Ideas Patrick Cook: peace, politics and prizes Patrick Cook takes a look at the past peace-prize-winning US presidents.
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