Episodes
Thursday Oct 29, 2020
The Looking Forward Podcast Episode 86: Australia's Coronavirus Endgame
Thursday Oct 29, 2020
Thursday Oct 29, 2020
Scott Morrison’s mid-year plan for a COVIDSafe economy is back on track having been derailed by Victorian bungling, but with vaccines uncertain and international borders closed, what is the outlook for Australia’s coronavirus Endgame? Can services like education and tourism ever rejoin king coal and iron ore as the foundations of our prosperity, at least any time soon? Why would any business invest when Governments can shut you down at any time?
Scott and Chris are joined by Andrew Bushnell to answer those questions and also focus on our first COVID State election in Queensland, which also looks like a post-economics election, with ballooning debt and public service payrolls barely even mentioned (except by the IPA!). It’s the clerisy’s business model at work…
And the other election coming up is in the USA - and it seems Trump’s comeback has made it once again too close to call (except by the panellists). The call is made on Florida and the Latino vote. Both candidates played to their strengths and strategy but only one can be vindicated.
Culture picks (53:28-1:05:43) look at streaming services La Révolution and the disappointing Brave New World, while the coverage of the AFL Grand Final gives Bushnell a chance to wax lyrical about Richmond FC.
Show Notes:
'Enough is enough': Gladys Berejiklian calls for states to open borders, pull their weight on hotel quarantine; Jodie Stephens
Budget 2020: When will Australia re-open its borders?; Mosiqi Acharya
https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/budget-2020-when-will-australia-re-open-its-borders
Still the Sunshine State? (IPA Review)
https://ipa.org.au/ipa-review-articles/still-the-sunshine-state
New IPA Research Proposes Models For A Queensland Upper House
https://ipa.org.au/ipa-today/new-research-proposes-models-for-a-queensland-upper-house
Culture Picks:
Brave New World (TV Series 2020)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9814116/
La Révolution (TV Series 2020)
Wednesday Oct 21, 2020
Wednesday Oct 21, 2020
Gideon Rozner joins the panel to compare world leaders’ various responses to coronavirus and how this links to politically polarised ideals of “leadership”. If leadership for progressives just means technocracy and more lockdowns, is that why Gideon’s labelling of Jancinda Adern as “incompetent” saw much frothing and outrage across domestic and global media?
We highlight the various leadership styles of Saint Jacida, Chairman Dan, the Donald and others, and ask what can be made of their approaches to gaining followers or popularity through the crisis? And we explain the difference between the errors of State leaders Daniel Andrews and Gladys Berejiklian.
The big question is why should performative leadership’ be rewarded while sheer managerial incompetence is ignored; and whether leadership and management can even be meaningfully separated?
In the USA President Trump aims to buck the media and the consensus of negative polls; but are those polls really reflective of the likely Electoral College outcomes? Will Americans vote on the virus, or economics and other themes that favour Trump? (37:06-52:40)
Culture Picks this week include American historical legal drama film, The Trial of the Chicago 7, written by Aaron Sorkin; Sally Rugg’s book, How Powerful We Are: Behind the Scenes with One of Australia's Leading Activists; and Apple TV series, Ted Lasso, Created by Brendan Hunt, Joe Kelly, Bill Lawrence. (53:00-1:06:24)
Show notes
From ‘beacon of hope’ to ‘incompetent’: world media on Jacinda Ardern’s big election win; Toby Manhire
Thirteen Days – A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis; Robert F. Kennedy
https://www.amazon.com.au/Thirteen-Days-Memoir-Missile-Crisis/dp/0393318346?tag=
The Pollster Who Thinks Trump Is Ahead; The Editors/National Review
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-editors/id1150237453?i=1000495152748
Culture Picks
2020 American historical legal drama film, The Trial of the Chicago 7, written by Aaron Sorkin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial_of_the_Chicago_7
2020 TV series, Ted Lasso, Created by Brendan Hunt, Joe Kelly, Bill Lawrence
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10986410/
Book by Sally Rugg, How Powerful We Are: Behind the scenes with one of Australia's leading activists
Wednesday Oct 14, 2020
Wednesday Oct 14, 2020
We may look back on this as the week when the global wave of coronavirus lockdown hysteria recedes, as more sensible voices and experts come to the fore, including a key WHO adviser condemning the use of lockdowns as a primary means of control for the coronavirus.
The historic Great Barrington Declaration led by Professor Sunetra Gupta (Oxford) and Jay Bhattacharya (Harvard) replaces lockdowns with “focused protection” to protect the most vulnerable people from the virus, while allowing those at much lower risk to work and/or return to school and life generally. How well does this map in Australia’s unique context to IPA Research calling for a strategy based on “Medical Capacity”? Report co-author Asher Judah joins regular panellists Scott Hargreaves and Chris Berg to discuss.
For months the IPA has been pointing to harm and suffering caused by the lockdowns yet the Victorian government is only beginning to admit this, and that “roadmap” goals are unachievable. As we survey the destruction of the State’s once great health system, its economy, and its people’s mental health, is there finally scope for a U-turn?
This week’s culture picks include four-part docuseries, Before the Web by Jim Epstein; The IPA’s Climate Change: The Facts 2020; and George Friedman’s novel, The Storm Before The Calm. (45:08-59:15)
Show notes:
The Great Barrington Declaration
Reaching Immunity | A Private Summit of Epidemiologists Against Lockdowns; AIER
Medical Capacity: An Alternative to Lockdowns; Daniel Wild and Asher Judah
https://ipa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Medical-Capacity-An-Alternative-to-Lockdowns-IPA.pdf
Support for eased restrictions grows as Melburnians reach breaking point (IPA Research), Shannon Deery
The Australian Century, Asher Judah
https://www.connorcourtpublishing.com.au/The-Australian-Century-_p_14.html
Culture picks:
Before the Web: The 1980s Dream of a Free and Borderless Virtual World, Jim Epstein
https://reason.com/video/before-the-web-the-1980s-dream-of-a-free-and-borderless-virtual-world/
Climate Change: The Facts 2020 (Chapter 19); IPA
https://climatechangethefacts.org.au/
The Storm Before the Calm, George Friedman
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/252382/the-storm-before-the-calm-by-george-friedman/
Wednesday Oct 07, 2020
The Looking Forward Podcast Episode 83: Trump's COVID: Halo or Catastrophe?
Wednesday Oct 07, 2020
Wednesday Oct 07, 2020
Trump has tested positive for COVID-19 less than one month before the US election. What will this mean for the politics surrounding the upcoming election and could this revelation play for or against Trump’s faltering campaign? (1:59-21:45)
Trump has also received a kind of ‘cocktail’ of medication in response to contracting the virus, not all of which is available to the common American citizen. In the spirit of Right to Try, should this accelerate clinician’s access to beneficial drugs rather than just waiting for a vaccine? And are lockups and the wait for a vaccine just making people’s health worse? (21:45-35:59)
We discuss last night’s budget and our sudden emergence as a big-State social democratic country with a small state low(er) tax revenue base. Will this Keynesian but pro-business budget lift us out of recession, or is it time to look at productivity? (36:00-50:31)
Culture picks this week include Musical label, Cryo Chamber; Aeschylus’ play, The Eumenides; and a two-part TV series by Billy Ray, The Comey Rule. (51:29-1:04:21)
Show notes:
“Effect of calcifediol (Vitamin D treatment; M Castillo, et al
Is it wrong if I ask for the same?; Tyler Cowen
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/10/is-it-wrong-if-i-ask-for-the-same.html
Donald Trump takes zinc. Maybe you should too; Allysia Finley
Why Human Challenge Trials Will Be Necessary to Get a Coronavirus Vaccine; Alex Tabarrok
All the president's medicine: How doctors are treating Donald Trump; Sascha Pezenik, Sony Salzman and Dr. Divya Chhabra
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/presidents-medicine-doctors-treating-donald-trump/story?id=73423761
Debt To Hit $2.05 Trillion, 60 Years To Pay Off; IPA
https://ipa.org.au/ipa-today/debt-to-hit-2-05-trillion-60-years-to-pay-off
Culture Picks:
Musical label, Cryo Chamber
https://www.cryochamberlabel.com/
Play, The Eumenides, written by Aeschylus
https://www.ancient.eu/The_Eumenides/
‘Ah, how miserable! Three New Oresteias’; Emily Wilson, LRB
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n19/emily-wilson/ah-how-miserable
TV series by Billy Ray, The Comey Rule