Economics Explored

David Graeber's BS jobs thesis (previously covered in EP95) lacks microeconomic foundations, according to Dr Nicholas Gruen. In EP97, Economics Explored host Gene Tunny speaks with Nicholas about BS jobs and also about Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Nicholas is a big believer in the potential of CBDC, which he has written about in the Financial Times. About Dr Nicholas GruenDr Nicholas Gruen is a policy economist, entrepreneur and commentator on our economy, society and innovation. He is CEO of Lateral Economics, Visiting Professor at Kings College London Policy Institute and Adjunct Professor at UTS Business School.He was a Chairman of the Open Knowledge Foundation (Australia) (ending 2020), Chairman of international aged care management software provider Health Metrics (ending 2019), Council Member of the National Library of Australia (ending 2016), chaired the Federal Government’s Innovation Australia (ending 2014) and chaired the Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI) (ending 2016).He was the founding chair of Kaggle which was sold to Google and is an investor in numerous other Australian and international start-ups. He was also founding chair of HealthKit (now Halaxy).He has advised Cabinet Ministers, sat on Australia’s Productivity Commission and founded Lateral Economics and Peach Financial in 2000.Links relevant to the conversationRe. BS jobs:https://queenslandeconomywatch.com/2021/07/10/people-escaping-bs-jobs-covered-in-my-latest-podcast-episode-and-going-into-business-for-themselves/#commentshttps://www.griffithreview.com/articles/trust-competition-delusion-gruen/Re: CBDCs:https://clubtroppo.com.au/2021/05/19/central-banks-get-serious-on-digital-currencies-2/https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/central-bank-digital-currency-cbdc.asphttps://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/money-creation-in-the-modern-economyPlease send any questions, comments, or suggestions to contact@economicsexplored.com

Rachel Nolan, a former Queensland Government finance minister, speaks with Economics Explored host Gene Tunny about how government budgets are developed and just how much flexibility governments actually have.Rachel Nolan is Executive Director of the McKell Institute and is an honorary Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Queensland. Rachel was a member of the Queensland Parliament for eleven years from 2001, when she was elected as the youngest woman ever. She is a former Minister for Finance, Transport, and Natural Resources and the Arts. Rachel was a member of the Queensland Government’s central budgetary decision making body, the Cabinet Budget Review Committee.Links relevant to this episode include:Budget of the U.S. GovernmentThe Federal Budget in Fiscal Year 2020: An InfographicEconomics Explored EP31 Paying for the Coronavirus rescue measures with Joe Branigan (Note we've changed the name of the show since this episode was recorded so it doesn't clash with a popular YouTube channel)

Is it possible that a large proportion of jobs in advanced economies such as the US, UK, and Australia are mostly BS or pointless, as the late David Graeber who was an Anthropology Professor at LSE, suggested in his 2018 book BS Jobs? Economics Explored host Gene Tunny discusses the controversial thesis of BS Jobs with his Adept Economics colleague Tim Hughes.Links related to the conversation include:37% of British workers think their jobs are meaningless2016-17 U.S. State of Enterprise Work ReportPlease send through any questions, comments, or suggestions to contact@economicsexplored.com

While the internet and social media have badly affected traditional media, they have led to the emergence of a rapidly growing new media or independent media sector.For instance, leading podcaster Joe Rogan was reportedly paid $100 million to move his hugely popular podcast to Spotify. And independent journalists like Matt Taibi, Bari Weiss, and Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti are making decent livings through Substack and Patreon subscriptions and via revenue from YouTube.Economics Explored host Gene Tunny chats about the economics of new media with Matt Wong, Founder of Discernable, a new media start up based in Melbourne, Australia. Discernable's interviews and explainer videos reach over 200,000 Australian views per week. We serve over 1.2 million minutes per month.Check out Matt's Discernable channel via:https://www.facebook.com/discernablehttps://www.youtube.com/discernablehttps://www.discernable.io/Please send any questions, comments, or suggestions to contact@economicsexplored.com 

Economics Explored host Gene Tunny and Dr Brendan Markey-Towler discuss the theory of public choice, which assumes  politicians and bureaucrats are self-interested and pursue their own agendas. They consider what this means for the growth of government and the types of political institutions we should have. Please send any comments or questions to contact@economicsexplored.com 

A conversation on how nuclear energy can provide zero-carbon, reliable energy, and why it should potentially be considered as a key part of the world's response to climate change. A discussion between Economics Explored host Gene Tunny and Adept Economics Research Officer Ben Scott. Links relevant to the conversation include:Does nuclear energy have a future in Australia?What’s going on with the so-called hydrogen economy?OPAL multi-purpose reactorNuscale PowerPlease send any questions, comments or suggestions to contact@economicsexplored.com and we'll aim to address them in a future episode.

David Johnson of Stanford speaks about his work and teaching on Negotiation and Design Thinking (e.g. David's Stanford course Negotiation by Design: Applied Design Thinking for Negotiators). David provides some great insights into how design thinking can help improve our negotiating skills. As part of this discussion, host Gene Tunny and David reflect on how better negotiating skills, gained through design thinking, could help us solve important economic, social, and environmental challenges. Toward the end of the episode, David talks about a book he is currently writing on Climate Activism by Design.Other links relevant to the conversation include:Designing Online Mediation: Does “Just Add Tech” Undermine Mediation’s Ownmost Aim?Negotiation: From Boardroom To Bedroom with David Johnsond.school resourcesAbout this episode's guestDavid Johnson is a lawyer, writer and professor. He teaches Advanced Negotiation at Stanford Law School, and Design Thinking at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. Across the last 20 years he has also practiced law in Silicon Valley, primarily as General Counsel for tech companies and, most recently, a non-profit foundation.He has testified before Congress and the California Assembly on law and technology issues. He has conducted dozens of trials and appeals, including two state Supreme Court arguments. His client list included some of the biggest names in science and technology: Apple, Caliper, Google, McKesson, Sankyo Pharma, and The Computer History Museum.In 2007 David completed a JSM in Law, Science and Technology. His thesis explored design methods for software and their potential application to systemic environmental issues. In 2014, David wrote, produced and delivered the world’s first free online course on Negotiation to some 5,000 students in 47 nations. General Electric thereafter licensed the course for a four-year run in their executive education program, “Brilliant U.” Last year, during sabbatical in Singapore, he wrote a keynote article for the Singapore Academy of Law, Design for Legal Systems. Now back at Stanford, David is working on a book applying design thinking to climate change activism, working title: Climate Activism by Design. In addition to writing and teaching, David is an avid skier and sailor, and a diligent but decidedly average tennis player.

Professor Douglas Allen from Simon Fraser University, Canada has concluded COVID lockdowns have been the greatest peacetime policy failure in Canada's history. Professor Allen speaks with Economics Explored host Gene Tunny in this episode of Economics Explored.Links relevant to the conversation include:Professor Allen's Lockdown CBA for CanadaEconomist: Lockdowns ‘Greatest Peacetime Policy Failure’ in Canada’s History - Foundation for Economic EducationOur World in Data - CoronavirusPlease get in touch with any questions, comments and suggestions by emailing us at contact@economicsexplored.com.

A conversation on just how worried we should be about future inflation in this time of MMT and QE between Economics Explored host Gene Tunny and returning guest Darren Brady Nelson, chief economist of the Australian libertarian think tank LibertyWorks and a policy adviser to the Heartland Institute.Charts of data referred to in this episode:Charts on CPI, money supply, US 10 year bond yield, and asset pricesThis is the classic book by Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz mentioned in this episode:A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960Please send through any questions, comments, or suggestions to contact@economicsexplored.com and we will aim to address them in an upcoming episode.

Dr Brendan Markey-Towler returns to the program to speak about the important insights of Evolutionary Economics, which owes a lot to Joseph Schumpeter's perspective on economic growth emphasising creative destruction.Brendan is the co-author of the 2020 book Economics of the Fourth Industrial Revolution Internet, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain, published by Routledge. He has a PhD in Economics from the University of Queensland.Please send through any questions, comments, or suggestions to contact@economicsexplored.com.Links relevant to the conversation:What is evolutionary economics - Brendan's Medium articleBooks with chapters on Schumpeter:Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic GeniusThe Great EconomistsThe Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic ThinkersNelson and Winter's 1982 classic:An Evolutionary Theory of Economic ChangeVeblen's article:Why is Economics not an Evolutionary Science?