Nicholas Gruen

Latest Episodes:

Hegel, Fidelio and Emu: Podcast with Tyson Yunkaporta Dec 05, 2021

Show notes

Here's how Tyson describes this exchange:

Nicholas Gruen is a white Kant philosopher who keeps talking to me about Western philosophers when I'm supposed to be working. We kick this one off with a Fidelio monologue I wrote for the Opera House this season, while I try to finish a chapter on the Enlightenment and Nicholas tells me the best bits of the Age of Reason that will be worth keeping after the global economic system collapses. And I get schooled on my "vulgar Marxist interpretation" of Hegel, which I completely deserve.

Jokes and other things with Tyson Yunkaporta Oct 2021 Oct 12, 2021

Show notes

A long chat prompted by the issues in this essay — "Needing the eggs: 70 years of going through the motions".

Prominent Australian economist Dr Nicholas Gruen gives his thoughts on both David Graeber's BS jobs thesis and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) Jul 25, 2021

Show notes

I talk to friend and collegue Gene Tunny who's doing a great job running an economics podcast from Brisbane. From his shownotes:

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.

Links relevant to the conversation

Re. BS jobs:

https://queenslandeconomywatch.com/2021/07/10/people-escaping-bs-jobs-covered-in-my-latest-podcast-episode-and-going-into-business-for-themselves/#comments

https://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.asp

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy

The placebo effect is too valuable to ignore Jun 25, 2021

Show notes

If we're testing a drug, we want to make sure that it works better than a placebo (like a sugar pill). But if the placebo effect is real we shouldn't ignore it. Our medicine should mobilise it to improve health and to do that it needs to understand it better.

Eureka Podcast: Nicholas Gruen talks with Misha Saul Jun 16, 2021

Show notes

From Misha's website

Nicholas is a prominent Australian economist and has chaired various Australian government groups and initiatives as well as Kaggle, where he was an early investor. Lindsay Tanner has described him as "Australia's foremost public intellectual".

We cover:

Toyota, Tech and Isegoria
Problems with technological scale vs human-centred design
Our inability to solve child abuse and indigenous disadvantage
Corporate value phoniness
The surreal waste of government programs
Mentorship
Interesting people
Investment philosophy
The Australian Dream and Australian identity
The meaning of life and what Nicholas would do with a billion dollars
New banking initiatives
Plain packaging cigarettes
Regrets and the long shadow of the Holocaust
A Poem
Advice he’d give his younger self
“We need the eggs”, a joke that gets better with age https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-M3Q2zhGd4

The poem Nicholas recites is from The Fiftieth Gate: A Journey Through Memory by Mark Raphael Baker, and I extract it and its lead in sentence below:
"My parents sing a Yiddish lullaby to their numerous grandchildren about what might have been:

”Sleep now child, my pretty one
Close your dark eyes.
A little boy who has all his teeth
Still needs his mother to sing him to sleep?

A little bly who has all his teeth
And will soon attend cheder.
There he will study Torah and Talmud
But still he cries when mother rocks him to sleep.

A little boy who will become a great scholar
And a successful business man as well.
A little boy who’ll grow to be a bridegroom
Has soaked his bed as if he’s in a pool.

So hush-a-bye my clever little bridegroom
Meanwhile you lie wet in your cradle.
Your mother will shed many a tear
Before you grow to be a man.

Shloft zhe mir maybe eltern, maybe sheyne
Sleep my dear parents but do not dream.
Tomorrow your children will shed your tears,
Tuck your memories in bed and say goodnight.”

The Greatest Music of All Time: Nicholas Gruen edition Jun 16, 2021

Show notes

Nicholas Gruen speaks to Tom about his favourite records, including Paul Simon's "The Boy In The Bubble", how the demise of pop culture and politics began with fast food and continued with social media, his book, "Together: rethinking community and competition in the age of Facebook" and how he thinks we could fix our ailing democracies: https://tinyurl.com/36wpd255.

My Favourite Economist on the micro-economics of the miracle of the internet May 28, 2021

Show notes

In physics, we’re used to the idea that at different scales and at different stages of some process, very different things happen. We inhabit Newton’s world of medium-sized things and speeds – planets, trees, footballs and travel at walking, driving or flying speed – even space station speed. When things get very big or fast – intergalactic or close to the speed of light – very strange things happen that defy our own intuitions. And inside atoms when things get even weirder. Likewise during a ‘phase transition’ of some matter from one phase to another – from solid to liquid for instance – strange and counterintuitive things happen.

Something similar has happened on the internet where transactions costs have fallen to near zero. And strange and fascinating things are happening. Anyway, I’ve been mulling over this for a while now, and verily, along comes this compelling OECD study of the internet. So I’ve written it up in this week’s column in the Age and SMH.

From: ClubTroppo, Nov 2012

Nicholas Gruen on the value of public data and scientific infrastructure Apr 08, 2021

Show notes

From ABC Radio National's Science Show.

We hear people criticise the cost of the census. In Australia it happens every five years. There is also debate over the collection of medical data. Nicholas Gruen has studied the value of public information such as that provided by the census. He says there are clear cost benefits to collecting data and making it available. The Public Health Research Network generates $16 for each dollar spent on it. And the census generates $6 for each dollar spent.

Originally broadcast on Sat 18 Jan 2020.

The case for more independent fiscal policy has never been stronger Apr 04, 2021

Show notes

In a March 2021 Financial Times article Dr Nicholas Gruen proposed an independent fiscal policy advisory body so that fiscal policy is freed from political tinkering. Economics Explored host Gene Tunny speaks with Dr Gruen about his proposal in this episode.

Objectivity in science and the art of evidence based policy Feb 09, 2021

Show notes

Nicholas Gruen is interviewed by Michael Lester for Northern Beaches Radio on this essay.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected