Episode description

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On this week's podcast we hit the UK and Australia's slide into authoritarianism, and ask Steve Keen if Mattias Cormann's appointment to the OECD will mean anything meaningful for climate action globally.

Adam Hills 🎟️ (Shoes Half Full)
Alex Lee (Dragon Friends) 
Dan Ilic (A Rational Fear)
Lewis Hobba (A Rational Fear)
+ Professor Steve Keen. (Patreon)

Big thanks to Naaman Zhou who coined this episode's title and the sketch within.

https://twitter.com/naamanzhou/status/1372357753503502337

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TRANSCRIPTION BY A COMPUTER:

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation. Hello Daniel, how are you?

Dan Ilic  0:06  
I'm well I'm well, I couldn't help but notice before as we come on, Mike, you, you're doing some vaping on the side there. Have you got a vape sponsor? Can you get a vape sponsor for the show? I

Lewis Hobba  0:16  
thought I would get that in just before the cameras started rolling. Yeah, I would say it's my shameful habit. I had no idea that this I was actually walking behind a guy who was smoking today, and I was vaping and he was smoking and he was like five steps in front of me and obviously 10 years behind me, but a few steps in front and he was blowing smoke and it was coming back as always inhaling my vape was inhaling his smoke and I thought, yuck

Dan Ilic  0:46  
Well, it's just one more thing to rag on you about you vapour. It's very exciting. I'm not ragging on our new Patreon supporters, though, because we've got some killer new ones. It's another record another week of seven new Patreon supporters. JOHN Miller, thank you for joining up fright bat became a fright manga Thank you. Oliver Kadett, Chris ebbeling Jason Halladay Brooks Santa Hugh Donaldson, thank you so much for supporting us on Patreon. If you want to support us on Patreon, go to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear. Now we're only a few weeks away from our Melbourne International Comedy Festival show Louis April 11 at the Melbourne Town Hall. I'm really excited about it. I can't wait to get to Melbourne. I can't wait to enjoy the festival.

Lewis Hobba  1:25  
Yeah, me too. I also saw on one of my weekly forays into Twitter that you are begging for guests, which I always which makes you feel very relaxed about the

Dan Ilic  1:36  
situation. No, that's not that's not true. I was after a suggestion for a big climate change name to join the show and I booked one. We've got Simon Holmes accord joining us he's mega brain on energy and climate. He knows all about the juiciest truth bombs about how Australia is missing out on the it's brand new green energy revolution. So he's going to be our interview guests which is fantastic. That's amazing. Yeah, it's awesome. Sami Shah Alice Fraser, James Colley who is the head writer the weekly and grow and transfer you and I and also Gabby bolt is due on a soundstage to for her only Melbourne show she is going to be an absolute mega star Gabby bolt. So you it's going to be one of those shows. You'll go. Oh, you know, I saw Gabby bouldered an irrational fear at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival back in 2021. Before she became an absolutely massive

Lewis Hobba  2:21  
Yeah, plus that we can see if we can get some of that homes are caught money on the Patreon.

Dan Ilic  2:26  
He is a patron subscriber he's a he's a Patreon supporter, so he already does

Lewis Hobba  2:31  
amazing he goes by Patreon.

Dan Ilic  2:33  
probably good. For more go to comedy.com Today you look for a rational fee. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on gadigal land. In the eora nation sovereignty was never said we need a treaty. Let's start the show.

Unknown Speaker  2:44  
A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks cambro

Unknown Speaker  2:51  
gum, and section 40 of

Unknown Speaker  2:53  
our rational fear

Unknown Speaker  2:55  
recommended listening by immature audience.

Dan Ilic  2:58  
Tonight Scott Morrison's response to the march for justice was the worst example of public tone deafness since meatloaf played at the AFL Grand Finals. It was so bad that Jenny asked him to imagine if he was a single dad. And for publicly diminishing his reputation Christian Porter announces plans to sue himself for defamation. And another COVID case confirmed in a Sydney quarantine hotel as usual. Melbourne says that we're doing it months ago. It's the 19th of March 2021. I'm spending my last job paper on lollies This is irrational fear.

Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former Duke of Edinburgh Dan Ilic. And this is the podcast that takes the week's toughest stories and gives them a big hug. Only if they agree to it. Let's meet our fear mongers for the podcast this week. He's taking some time out from his gruelling hotel quarantine regime of looking out the window. It's Australia's favourite will Anderson look alike. It's Adam Hill.

Adam Hills  4:05  
Not the hotel quarantine that had a case this week. Just want to point that out.

Dan Ilic  4:10  
Well, how are you? How have you been spending your time Adam?

Adam Hills  4:14  
I'm writing a children's book. So that's great most of my time. And being that I'm alone in a hotel room you can imagine what's taking up the rest of my time.

Lewis Hobba  4:24  
children's book just like where's Wally, but it's one man alone a hotel's theory.

Dan Ilic  4:29  
There is again

Adam Hills  4:31  
I'm on my third draft and I'm really worried when I handed in the editors are gonna go well, we got really dark all of a sudden.

Lewis Hobba  4:39  
Because I write episodes of play school, and, and every now and again, if things are not going well in your life, you can sometimes read a first draft back. I had to do one there was teaching kids how to like ask for help from a doctor that were ever sick. And I read it back. I literally had Humpty Dumpty falling off a wall and screaming in agony that he's shattered his legs Oh, where was I last night like that is Blake Lewis. Anyway, they ran it traumatised kids

Dan Ilic  5:06  
and she's been busy auditioning for SBS his insight but didn't manage to get the top job what she sabotaged from within it's the feeds Alex Lee.

Alex Lee  5:15  
Hello and yes, I was I was the perfect hosts. How is

Dan Ilic  5:22  
the Fed going, Alex?

Alex Lee  5:23  
Great. Yes, just in case for all of your baffled listeners. We made a comedy series about me trying to audition to be the new host of insight and failing miserably and you can watch an SBS on demand.

Dan Ilic  5:36  
And finally, he's Elaine main. Sorry, he's a lane not main talking machine. It's Louis harbour.

Lewis Hobba  5:42  
That's very straight. Do you know i speaking of being not main I'm also not lame. I put up I put on 10 kilos in the last year. I'm jacked.

Dan Ilic  5:50  
So you've gone from looking like you've come out of Belson to looking like you're signed up for chadwicks. That's not too bad for you.

Unknown Speaker  5:57  
deep knowledge of modelling.

Alex Lee  6:00  
Writing diet Lewis

Unknown Speaker  6:03  
recommends,

Lewis Hobba  6:04  
I probably would have put on 20 kilos if it wasn't for the joule.

Dan Ilic  6:09  
Coming up Maverick economist Professor Steve Cain joins us to talk about Mateus Coleman's appointment to the Secretary General job of the OECD what it means for Australia and climate action. Will we see him use less planes in favour of a chopper. But first, a message from this week's sponsor?

Unknown Speaker  6:26  
Hi, I'm Nick Fuller. As New South Wales Police Commissioner, I love stripping down with others. But gaining consent can be a confusing process. That's why we've developed a new app to help men with important careers feel safe at night. If individuals have developed relations to a point where undergarments could be heading in a southerly direction, it's important to document the consent of each party before the engagement of horizontal proceedings. Simply take out your service New South Wales app and scroll to the sexual consent form. You and your sexual participants simply tick the boxes for the style and duration of sexual intercourse. Also note if applicable, which private high school participants attended. So we assign the most appropriate legal response should we even need to then simply sign on the screen or use a finger on the fingerprint reader. If one of your participants is too drunk to sign, definitely don't coerce them, or just place their finger on the fingerprint reader. They'll never be able to prove otherwise, then and only then can sexual intercourse proceed at a location of your choice. There is currently a 15 person limit per sexual event per household. But this will relax as COVID rules change. Now, this is important. If any participant changes their mind, it won't be automatically updated by the app. But we're assured by the Boston Consulting Group that this will be addressed in a future upgrade. So when emotions are running high, remember now app no wet. This has been a message from the New South Wales Police. Thank you.

Dan Ilic  8:01  
Yes, no after no after that line courtesy of the Guardians name. And so I saw it on Twitter and I had to steal it with consent. Of course, there was his tweet, I'll share it in the show notes. Yes, this week's first fear this crazy consent app. Now the start of the day, the New South Wales Police Commissioner was floating this idea about an app to get a whole bunch of people to jump on this app to engage with swapping consent over an app to kind of quell rising sexual assaults. So it's just something that normal, you know, adults would use to swap consent before during the day. But by lunchtime, he was resoundingly made fun of on social media, and the New South Wales, police commissioner McFaul had to retract the idea saying these on radio,

Unknown Speaker  8:41  
to be honest with you, the app could be the worst idea I have in 2021. But the reality is in five years, perhaps it won't but if you think about dating 10 years ago, this sort of concept of single people swiping left and right was a term that we didn't even know you know,

Dan Ilic  8:57  
Mick Foley might have appointed I didn't had no idea of consent until he actually floated this whole the idea of an F v mongers. Is this a good idea? Alex?

Alex Lee  9:06  
I think that was the one correct thing. He said that it was absolutely the most insane idea he could have thought of like, it's the kind of idea that you you know, you might whisper to your wife as you go to sleep and she goes, Okay, that's enough bedtime or like, something you put on the subreddit of shower ideas, but to be the New South Wales Police Commissioner, and to put it out there in the public is so crazy. And it was just, you know, after what has been a really awful few weeks, you know, for women in Australia just to display that level of ignorance about how consent works, how sex works, what the actual issue is, like, it really like bordered on not being funny, despite the many ways that it is hilarious that he said that out loud to people

Dan Ilic  10:00  
I just like the constant like, backpedalling he did over the last two, like lunchtime hours on radio. I really enjoyed that. Adam, what do you think?

Adam Hills  10:09  
I mean, okay, apart from the bass, like there's two ways to approach this the realistic way in the funny way. And the realistic way is, I think, if someone can force you to have sex, then they can force you to consent on an app. If someone's if someone's able to force you to do one thing, they can force you to do another thing. So that takes away the idea of the app being effective in the first place. But secondly, he also said this might be the dumbest idea I have in 2021 as if he's leaving it open for something dumber to happen.

Do you know what I mean? He's like, I don't want to call it yet. Because there's a whole bunch of months left in this year. This could go anyway,

Alex Lee  10:49  
he's gonna come back next month and say, Okay, that was stupid. It was stupid to suggest an app for sexual consent. It's a robot Okay guys, sex robot and you tell the robot at all times whether you want to have sex or not. Okay, that's it. That's the good idea.

Lewis Hobba  11:06  
It does make you want to sit in with a full a brainstorm session like Alright guys, it's the boys in blue blue sky thinking let's do this thing. What are we getting called? on thinking hansy crush? Who's that? Who's up there?

Dan Ilic  11:19  
I've done some research on iOS there's nothing like it but Google Playstore is a bit more of a wild west. Let me show you a couple weeks and have a look at some of those reviews. Yes to sex is an app he says check out these reviews out of rubbish I couldn't get past the first page not even select my gender and it is on friendly web keep asking for locations thumbs down

Lewis Hobba  11:41  
you like the bedroom I'm in the bedroom Yeah.

Dan Ilic  11:48  
Person yes just six yes five stars Rakesh Yes, he

Lewis Hobba  11:52  
was six that's a fun doing it.

Alex Lee  11:56  
Very looking forward to now I downloaded this app to be getting some sex. Yeah, I've maybe it's like a way for bots. Like there's so many sex bots out there. Maybe yes to six is like a dating site for bots.

Lewis Hobba  12:11  
And select which images in this square have. You know what I'm talking about?

Dan Ilic  12:16  
There's even one code only? Yes is yes. And this one actually uses smart contracts. It uses Ethereum blockchain. So anyone with an aetherium account or aetherium will be able to verify how horny all the other people are all around the world at once. Unfortunately,

Alex Lee  12:29  
anyone with an Ethereum account, has never had sex and never will.

Unknown Speaker  12:37  
What's your response to the call fleece speech

Unknown Speaker  12:39  
last night

Unknown Speaker  12:40  
I would like to start impeaching has to be given I've got to go in a couple of minutes because I have an international call that I have to attend to irrational fear.

Dan Ilic  12:52  
This week second fear one of the things people in the UK are known for is their stiff upper lip, you know their grin and bear it attitude. But that is drastically changing. British MPs have voted in favour of a bill that increases police houses for cracking down on power protests that are annoying. Yeah, it's a 307 page bill, which must have been very annoying to read. Other things. It says it's going to do incredible fines for damaging statues, like for three months to 10 years in jail. For instance, police will have the power to tell one person protest to stop shouting and could impose noise limits and have start and finish times for protests as well. It's basically ushering in a whole new era of authoritarianism. You know, when I think of annoying, loud mouth leaders that don't come anymore, more annoying than Boris Johnson, which is ironic. Adam, you live in the UK? How are you taking this?

Adam Hills  13:46  
This is something I've been following for a while. So when COVID hit, you know, the government brought in a whole bunch of rules, including, you know, how many people could gather publicly, there can't be any more than 30 people, all that kind of stuff. And remember at the time, I think labour, the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn was in opposition and said, Yeah, okay, let's have a time limit on this. let's let's let's not have a law that could go forever, that stops people protesting, and then 12 months down the track, it's kind of come to fruition, but the idea that it's not just if it's annoying, if you inconvenience anyone, if you put someone you know, if you affect someone's ability to go about their business, that's the whole point of a protest. If you're not being annoying in a protest, you're throwing a fate.

Dan Ilic  14:32  
And some of those extinction rebellion protests for 2019 felt really festive, you know, it felt like they were they were like, you know, it was parade it was Carnival with a existential attitude. Really, it was

Adam Hills  14:45  
part of a bigger thing that and this, this happens, you know, this is the thing that happens in times of a pandemic, in times of a crisis, government introduced laws and a lot of those laws aren't lifted at the end of it. Right. And I think we've talked about this on the last leg in London. We've got to our slogan, why Make sure they don't keep the shady shit.

Dan Ilic  15:02  
Have you seen a lot of examples of where sunset clauses haven't been put in place for loans like

Adam Hills  15:07  
this? I mean, there's just little sneaky things like even the fact that, you know, Melbourne went into Melbourne had a five day lockdown, what, three, four weeks ago. They've come out of lockdown, but they're still not allowing international arrivals. Which is why, you know, I know this because I tried to get into Melbourne, and I've got a quarantine in Sydney, because there are no international flights coming into Melbourne at the moment. And it's just a little sneaky. It's not an infringement on people's human rights. But it's just a little sneaky. There's a similar thing going on in China that I read today where the Chinese government has said they will only accept foreign arrivals if they've been vaccinated with the Chinese vaccine.

Dan Ilic  15:42  
Right? Wow. Well, that's pretty good. I mean, you can get that pretty easily. They just, they knocked off the Pfizer vaccine. So it's cheaper, it's easier to get you just get on Alibaba.

Lewis Hobba  15:55  
The the I remember when the extinction rebellion protests were happening in the UK, though. That's one thing. I think we actually talked about it on the show, that chief of the Met, came out and complained about a tactic that extinction, extinction rebellion protesters were using when they were getting picked up by the cops. And he made a request that they stopped doing it. And it was that they were going floppy. anytime they grabbed them, they were going there was the head of the man and his name was says Steven something. And essentially, there was a press release saying so Steven has asked you to stop being fluffy. And it was one of the all time great press releases.

Alex Lee  16:36  
That's a great tactic. My son does that. Like all his limbs tend to liquid if you try and put him in his highchair. I'm gonna ban it. I'm gonna tell him it's against the law now,

Dan Ilic  16:47  
but in a court of law is going slumping annoying. Is it annoying enough to get 10 years in jail?

Lewis Hobba  16:53  
I think that there is a box for that on the consent app. If it doesn't work out.

Dan Ilic  16:58  
Adam, this is pretty interesting. Like, from your perspective, how is all this playing with the current protest at the moment for this poor woman who was abducted by a police officer? Like how how what's the sentiment, like in the UK about these laws being passed? Well, I

Adam Hills  17:13  
mean, you know, a lot of a lot of this. A lot of this has happened since I've been back in Australia. But I mean, it's, there's a word that's thrown around a lot. And it's one of those ones. It's almost become a marketing advertising term. But I think it still stands it's optics. It's the optics, when a woman is kidnapped and murdered, on the way home walking home in the middle of London, and then a peaceful vigil is held, and the optics are police kneeling on the backs of women who are holding a peaceful vigil about a woman who was murdered by a police officer, you can see how that looks terrible. And I think it's not just in Britain, if you know everything that's going on in Australia this week, with Scott Morrison's dealing with with, you know, claims of rape of sexual harassment and all that kind of stuff. It's it's, it's kind of worldwide. I mean, wasn't it? wasn't his his response to say that we didn't, there are protests happening and we're not shooting anyone. And aren't we great?

Dan Ilic  18:08  
Yeah, that that's the next thing I want to talk about is isn't that that was such a crazy thing that happened earlier this week. As Monday is 1000s of people and myself included, marched across cities around Australia, all about gendered violence and inequality. Scott Morrison decided to use very loose words in question time noting that the protesters were lucky they lived in Australia because protests in other countries nearby were met with bullets. Talk about kind of lowest common denominator, fear mongers should should women feel grateful that tempt the authorities would piglets, shirting women, Alex?

Alex Lee  18:43  
It seems like they weren't given that courtesy in the UK in their protests, basically. But no, I mean, it was, it's just sitting low, like you said, the very lowest bar for your government that you are not shooting protesters and then asking for credit for it. And the reason it is that is because he's not doing anything else, like he offered to go and to, for the women to come into his office and meet with him the organisers of the March, and they said, No, like, the very least you can do is come out and see all the women on the street and see what we're asking for. And he wouldn't even do that. And so, you know, all he can give him the only thing he could think of to give his government credit for and the way they've handled this is that they're not shooting people. And you know, that government can mobilise very quickly like I This isn't funny at all, but I you know, I read how after the the sexual assault of Brittany Higgins, the government very quickly moved forward, the date of the cleaning of the of the office that took place in so they so there's evidence of that that they it was due for a clean on Monday, they moved it to a Sunday. Like they can act very quickly if they need to, and if this is the only thing they can do to address this issue that, you know, hundreds of 1000s of women are asking for. It's it's, it's more than depressing.

Dan Ilic  20:08  
And and when you when you when you said optics before, kind of remind me of that moment, Alex, you just mentioned how he invited the protest organisers into Parliament House. It's almost like he hasn't read any news about the kind of safe space that Parliament House has been for women over the last

Unknown Speaker  20:26  
few years. It's like people want to be.

Dan Ilic  20:28  
Yeah, exactly. Very strange. Louis, has this been the kind of friendly banter you've been doing on drive on Triple J?

Lewis Hobba  20:35  
Yeah. Right. That was flume. Anyway, feel unsafe, give us a call. Blake, like, you know, obviously, we do a very dumb and silly show on Triple J. And so you know, we keep it pretty dumb and silly. But there are days obviously, where it's very hard to do that you guys would all know that you've all worked in jobs where you get paid to be dumb and silly. And there are days and there are weeks when that feels like you are going counter to the issue or that you are your silliness is I don't know, the wrong noise to be making and this week, it did feel like that to be honest, it was a it was a really it was a really difficult week and to say their response, do you just like oh, that's fine, I'll be silly they're gonna pay attention and then they don't like hire out man like this is it's just it's very, very bleak to say that response and just to say not no movement whatsoever from the people who need to be listening.

Alex Lee  21:33  
Yeah, I do think it's so I did get a bit of perverse pleasure in reading the tweets from men who went to the march but just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that there were there was a lot of like, just here at the march just in case anyone wanted to know a man at the march and there are a lot of women coming up to me saying thank you for being at the March the march so just keep that in mind everyone.

Lewis Hobba  21:57  
I really saw quite a lot of people who like mosques in the stories and then the masks off when their photo went on the grid. You can see the whole

Alex Lee  22:11  
they should have sought match at the match which is just like a flashing sign that said I'm one of the good ones

Dan Ilic  22:19  
Well, I don't know if you heard the full clip of Scott Morrison question time he said much worse and I'm very surprised the media didn't pick it up.

Unknown Speaker  22:25  
The Prime Minister as

Unknown Speaker  22:27  
it is good and right mr. speaker that so many able to gather here in this way whether in our capital or elsewhere, to do so peacefully to express their concerns and their very genuine and real frustration

Unknown Speaker  22:42  
This is a vibrant liberal democracy Mr. Speaker not far from here. Such marches even now are being met with bullets not here in this country

Unknown Speaker  22:51  
members on both sides

Dan Ilic  22:52  
now these women or people if we can call them that and I'm asked my team and we can are lucky they went crushed by tanks Mr. Speaker, we have tanks we can do all those fine Phillies marching today. And I'm pretty sure I can say that should count themselves fortunate. We don't send them to offshore detention. Mr. Speaker, we've got plenty of women there shorts against international law, but it's fun. I was quite happy to meet these women in my office in Parliament House, just them with me surrounded by men with guns. There's no safer space. Mr. Speaker, the member for Kingston is warm. I've had empathy training. I could if they wanted me to give them a massage, Mr. Speaker, calm them down, listen to their concerns. And I would have told them like I'm telling you, we all know when it comes to holding an investigation of a member of the National cabinet that Samantha for the states, Mr. Speaker and I would have been quite happy to explain that to those hysterical girls organising them after that today. And I'm definitely sure that's fine to say I've got hysterical girls of my own Mr. Speaker. Just shocking can't believe he said that kind of a labour.

Adam Hills  24:05  
It's hard to believe that that his original statement came from someone who came from marketing slogan I'm not as bad as Pol Pot isn't.

Dan Ilic  24:21  
next guest is one of our favourites on irrational fear. He's a maverick economist to tells it like it is I assume because I'm not smart enough to know what he's actually talking about. It's Professor Steve Cain stave Welcome to irrational fear. irrational mode after

Steve Keen  24:34  
we're one of those experiencing for the last few months reading economics.

Dan Ilic  24:38  
I bet I bet Now look, as an economist of regard, you kind of get into these incredible places like the OECD. So I wanted to pick your brain about the Mathias cormann appointment. You know,

Lewis Hobba  24:49  
can I use my prop in really quickly before you get stuck into ICD and just say that I don't know what the day is.

Dan Ilic  24:57  
Yeah, so embarrassing, but

Lewis Hobba  24:59  
I just want to just Want to put that out there?

Alex Lee  25:01  
You know how you find it really hard to focus on talks for long periods of time Louis removed that check. And pretend I made a joke about OCD. Okay.

Dan Ilic  25:19  
I enjoyed it. Oh, yeah. So let's go back. Let's go back to the bare bones here. What is the OSI OECD and and how is Mateus as Commons appointment? significant?

Steve Keen  25:37  
Yeah. So the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development was once called the rich man's club had about 20 nations and it mainly America and and Europe. And now it has about 3738 nations. And it's lastly there was quite a progressive Mexican leader, Angel guaira. And he was quite in favour of non orthodox thinking on economics, particularly after the OECD completely fluffed it back in 2007. When in their economic report for to the middle in June 2007. Their chief economist said what a fantastic year 2008 was going to be, which is gonna have an economic recession, it was going to be a book. So after that Angel established what's called the new snake, which stands for new approaches to economic challenges. And that led a lot of progressive thought into the OECD, which is how I managed to get past the past the guards at the gate. And, and, and now, Angel had been there for three terms, 15 years, which is extremely unusual. So they needed a new replacement. And nobody on the planet thought that anybody from Australia had a chance because if any part of the planet is burning, it's burning it up. It's Australia and climate change have become a major focus of the OECD in the last seven the last half, half dozen years. And lo and behold blow was down with with a Saharan wind. Matthias Korman wins the ballot, which was quite remarkable, a tribute to Australia's capacity to play the numbers game. And now a man who's in the playing numbers is leading us in something which is deadly serious, which is the amount of carbon dioxide and other pollutants we're putting into the biosphere. And we've been putting up modly many, many environmental organisations will concern that the OECD is lead on climate change resumed go massively into reverse under corpsman, and now we're gonna find out one way or the other.

Dan Ilic  27:39  
Now, do you? What's your instinct on this? Do you think corpsman is going to be a good faith actor in the US and push the OECD on climate action? And therefore push Australia to be more progressive on climate action? Or do you think his words are meaningless? And he's just going to play the same game that he's always played?

Steve Keen  27:57  
categorically? I'd say yes to that question. Sorry. Yeah, I think he's gonna he's gonna stuff the place up. But if you read his statement about it, he talked about how we needed to go guaranteed normal growth, with safeguards for human rights and environmental concerns. And so everything is the environments in the background, forget about that, you know, let's get the growth going first, and the environment could take care of itself, which it will do, it will take care of us as well. So I'm, I'm thinking will push us five badly backwards, and we'll be there. We'll go from leading on the issue to being reactive. So I'm putting me down as a sceptic of him, not climate change.

Dan Ilic  28:40  
And the OECD, you know, it has this big mandate to promote policies that had some sort of economic and social well being for people all around the world. How powerful are they in terms of shaping what goes into agreements, like what we'll say caught in a few months time? Well, that's

Steve Keen  28:56  
the only organisation which has the status of a nation when it goes to the mediflow. cope and so on. So there's, you know, there'll be 40 countries plus the OECD. So it has really

Dan Ilic  29:06  
it's got like a nation status.

Steve Keen  29:09  
Yeah. It's so it gets a seat on the board, which is unusual for an international organisation only they've got to take a backseat and do it in the backroom. The OECD is both in the back room and the front. But frankly, speaking, of course, it's the major countries that carry the the weight of the whole thing so America dominates Germany second, and and China and Russia bringing up the rear. But it does make a difference. If you have an organisation which was enabling non orthodox thought, critical thought about climate change and economics to be heard. And suddenly you've got a guy who's reading from a copy of Samuelson then I think it's a major step backwards.

Dan Ilic  29:48  
And you actually you've been presenting recently to the OECD and you had a very strange moment where the Australian permanent ambassador to the OECD as soon As you came on the conference calls to talk, decided to take his camera offline. Despite him actually being part of the conversation, he turned his thing turns

Steve Keen  30:09  
himself off when I was turned on. Yeah, that was not promising. I was talking about what's called modern monetary theory.

Dan Ilic  30:17  
I can only guess that he he either either didn't care for you to say or to he really enjoyed what you had to say so much that he had to he needed a bit of privacy. What do you think? It was?

Steve Keen  30:29  
The Tobin situation angle I haven't heard before and I'm not gonna go anywhere near it. He's, he was quite, he was invited to be discussing to Stephanie Kelton presenting arguments about what's called modern monetary theory that says the state doesn't need to borrow money from the public doesn't need to text to spend, it's got its own capacity to create money. And that's how it finances itself, and so good on him for being a discussant. But if you look at the comments on YouTube, what people had to say there about his comments where I've been pretty spot on, basically, he just trashed everything. Stephanie had to say because he fairly obviously hadn't listened to what she was saying in the first place. He's He's, he's a conventionally he has a PhD in economics. He wrote his he lectured at the A Anu. So he's got all the mainstream credentials that I have been attacking for the last 20 years of books like debunking economics, and I think he is going to basically say, to, to call it to calm and, you know, let's let's get it back on the straight and narrow. Let's go back to the good sound economics. Well, good sound economics got us into the stink in the first place. So I'm not hopeful about where the OC is going to find itself. And I think it's not quite as bad as appointing Donald Trump before a pandemic. But I think it has similarities.

Dan Ilic  31:48  
Well, I, I'm pretty the way you kind of frame it, I get very kind of despond because he always say for a lot of people is this black box that is so powerful. And yet, you know, there's little we can do about it, when it comes to getting the right people in there to affect the right kind of change. I wonder, like, who are our allies in the OECD in that regard, like who are the who are the champions of climate action in that, in that, in that organisation that we should be kind of following

Steve Keen  32:16  
on doubleview group called Naik, which stands for new approaches to economic challenges. That's the that's the progressive element inside the OECD. And then you've got every every country, which is a member, and there are 37 countries, every country has an ambassador, so called. And the ambassadors funnily enough, once they're appointed, they act under the auspices of the OECD, rather than their own countries, so they can't be recalled by their own country, they have to be removed by the OECD itself, there are about half a dozen to a dozen, I think the Irish rep for one is very good, the Mexican rep, there's some people who are supporters of the critical attitude towards what we're doing to the environment. But like most of these organisations, they're very much driven from the top down. And people are very loath to step outside the consensus. So if you get somebody at the top like Coleman, who proves to be somebody who will carry you know, a lump of coal into the, into the proceedings and, and talk about good economic girly men. Then we can see the OECD go quite substantially backwards, all white and say, I've got a feeling the climate might decide to intervene and say, you might not take me seriously, but I do.

Dan Ilic  33:29  
Yeah, that is the worst situation we could possibly hope. Do you guys have any questions for Steve, before we wrap up?

Alex Lee  33:36  
I mean, I guess I always think that our Well, you know, Mathias common he was, you know, he is toeing the party line. But this is the point where he's not part of the government anymore. He's acting off his own steam. So like, what is the justification? Do you think for this kind of black rat? fuckery? Like, what's he getting from this? Like? That's what I always want to know, with people like that, like, what's in what's in it for you to destroy the planet like? Yeah, is it just a Cush? Is it just a cushy job for him? Or do you think that there's something else going on?

Steve Keen  34:14  
Well, it's certainly a cushy job as part of it. I mean, he he is a green mentioned international character, I think was he's Belgian by birth. He speaks about four or five languages. He was in Europe until his early 20s. So he's in that sense, he's an international persona, and that's a strong thing in his favour. Probably a major factor why I think that they put forward anybody else like, Who's that bloke used to be Attorney General Christians, somebody I don't think he would have gone down all that well. But Coleman certainly has a an establishment that says he'd be laughing with you here with me. I think it's a it's a major status thing for himself, relocates him back in Europe. It's all sorts of massive positives of music. First small slide. When it comes to what he's doing, I think most of these people are genuinely sincere. They really believe they're doing the right thing by the by the current climate in what they're doing. And I know economists like William Nordhaus. So I think we'll actually, I hope to see tried for eco side at some stage, given what he's done about climate, but he genuinely believes he's doing good for the climate. Now, Coleman will probably think of imposing economic discipline, and standard rule of law is all that's necessary, and he's doing the right thing. It'll be quite sure he's doing the right thing. So so they actually believe that you know that there's sincerity? I don't question it. But the funny thing is, I had a school teacher once who gave me a great insight of sincerity, we were having a class discussion about some politician fighting like crazy amongst ourselves school, the school days, and one kid pipe gun, or at least he's sincere. And the hospitals here and our teacher who normally just let us run, Riot chirped up and said, Don't override sincerity. The most sincere person you'll ever meet in your life will be the maniac chasing you down the road with an X tronic.

Unknown Speaker  36:09  
A very big x

Steve Keen  36:11  
is the biggest x humanity's never seen

Adam Hills  36:14  
if Alex's question is, what's, what's in it for Mathias cormann? My question is what's in it for the Australian Government?

Steve Keen  36:20  
That's huge. And I think that's a really important question. Because Australia's been on the nose internationally, it's actually been called out by a couple of international organisations for how badly it's behaved on climate change. And this is a way that the country which is deservedly criticised as the greatest legged on the planet now has a voice at the head of the table. So I've got a feeling that's a major reason why he was in there. And that's why I'm particularly we got to the position, mate, you, you keep us from being under attack.

Dan Ilic  36:50  
Man, just for a period here, I was really excited about how Australia was the pariah internationally, but like to see that we've now got some cover because of Coleman actually hurts me a little bit. I, I worked at the 2015 cop and I did a show every night about the winners and losers of the cop negotiations in Paris. And Australia was always number one, two or three of world actors at the Yeah, in the negotiations. And so I was one of those things where it's like, well, maybe 2021 maybe this next cop coming will be a little different. And there'll be enough international pressure to turn us into a good actor, but fuck now it seems that that's gonna be harder than ever.

Lewis Hobba  37:32  
You know, they say about cost in a cab.

Unknown Speaker  37:39  
They made

Dan Ilic  37:42  
Thank you, Professor Steve Cain. Really great to have you big thanks to all of our guests. Adam hills, Alex Lee Lewis haba and we got anything to plug Adam you got to plug anything?

Adam Hills  37:51  
Yeah, go on Melbourne International Comedy Festival coming up and some shows in Canberra in Sydney.

Alex Lee  37:56  
Alex Lee got some the plug. And my Dungeons and Dragons podcast. Dragon friends is also doing comedy festival but it's sold out. So who cares?

Lewis Hobba  38:06  
For dragon friends is your beautiful water bottles. Would you like to tell everyone about that?

Alex Lee  38:10  
Dragon friends, that's freedom a good home and I completely distanced myself from that.

Dan Ilic  38:15  
Oh, yes, I saw those water bottles on Twitter and I kind of mentioned them on this show. Louis, you got anything to float?

Lewis Hobba  38:22  
Yes, Dan, a rational fear the live show on the 11th of April at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Dan Ilic  38:29  
And you've listeners of this show. If you use the code podcast, you get a big discount which is great. Steve Cain, you want to plug your Patreon?

Steve Keen  38:37  
Yeah, Patreon on patreon.com slash Prof. Steve came to me gasbag about the idiocy of mainstream economics. I'm giving away free software at the end of the month by the way package called Ravel. So have a look at that and see what you think.

Dan Ilic  38:52  
Not a concern tab. That's an unusual choice. Big thanks to rod Mike's the birth of foundation our Patreon supporters please join us on Patreon so we can keep making this show big thank you to killing David David bluestein, Kate Holdsworth, Rupert Degas and Jacob round on the tepanyaki timeline. Don't forget to come to our Melbourne Comedy Festival shows Until next week, there's always something to be scared of good night.

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