The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Its Official. The Munk Member’s Podcast Has A New Name!

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. Thank you Munk Members for the hundreds of suggestions for a new name for our weekly podcast exploring current events with Janice Stein and Rudyard Griffiths. And, we have a winner! Friday Focus is our new show title. Kudos to Mary M. who was the first to come up with this punchy new name. On this week’s installment of Friday Focus, Janice and Rudyard explore how the War in Ukraine escalated this week, but not how many people expected. With Putin’s decision to stop all natural gas shipments to Europe, what was up to now a kinetic conflict in Eastern Europe has become a continent-wide energy and financial war between Russia and the EU. How is this conflict likely to play out? What are its likely impacts on inflation, the global economy and Canada’s national security? This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

These statues have to come down. It's always been a pandemic of the unvaccinated. The problem now is it's a pandemic of the willfully unvaccinated. Falling birth rates are good. They're good for our planet. They're good for our societies. We're not responsible for the escalation with Russia. We're not the ones who invaded Ukraine.

I don't think it's fair to portray people of color as victims. It is a very dangerous time in American politics. Hello and welcome to the Friday Focus podcast. Yes, you heard that right. We've got a new name for this podcast. Friday Focus features myself, Redyard Griffiths, Chair and Director of the Monk Debates. And my colleague, Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, it's internationally renowned author and scholar. So, Janice, what do you think of the new name? I loved it, Rudyard. As soon as I saw it, it kind of that's what we actually do.

We always do these on Friday and we focus on one or two big stories that we think will interest our listeners. Absolutely. And it, you know, it fit the bill. We wanted short, punchy repetition always helps in our, you know, data cluttered world. So we think this title is really going to break through. and just appreciate all the, I think, well over 100 suggestions that we received for the new name. Well, yeah, it was terrific.

And as it happens, I guess I can't say that. That's a CBC radio name show, but I'll use that expression to say we have on the program right now, Mary, a monk member who was the first to suggest this great new name for the podcast, Friday Focus. Mary, welcome to the program. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. So Mary, what we're so thrilled to have you. What made you think of Friday focus? Did this just kind of descend from the heavens into? Sort of.

I think it did. I tried different names and I thought that one seemed cute and appropriate. But, you know, I did submit a few names. So not just that one. But yes, I agree with you that it does describe what you're trying to do on the program because you do focus on several key stories of the week. And that seemed appropriate. Absolutely.

Mary, tell us a little bit about yourself. What leads you to the Friday Focus podcast? What are you looking for when you tune in? Well, I like the analysis. I like to, I like somebody to tell me about what. the key stories are and your analysis because you do have a lot of background on historical, political, whatever. So that's really what I'm looking for. And I find the conversations very interesting. I listen to most of them. Well, thank you so much, Mary. It really means a lot. It means a lot

to you. I know, Janice also. It does. Thank you, Mary. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And Mary, just to say, it will be our sincere pleasure to provide you two complimentary tickets to our next month debate. You're coming as my VIP guest so I can thank you in person. I better come. I'm in Ottawa, by the way. Well, we'll find a way to get you down here for sure. Don't worry. It's okay. Well, thank you so much. Well, thank you, Mary. Have a great rest of your day. There you go, Janice.

Mary was the first with Friday Focus. There were other members. I want to acknowledge that, which is terrific. But here we are with a new name for the show. And a momentous week, Janice, on so many fronts, we'll get to those in a moment. But I think we just do have to pause for a moment and share a reflection each on the passing of Queen Elizabeth. Do you have a story? I mean, this is a person who was just such a, I don't know, such a constant in our lives. we all have, I think, some memory that connects to Queen Elizabeth somewhere and some part of our lives.

I wonder what yours was. I think that's right. Rudyard, we all do. And so let's leave a slide for a moment. All the debates about the monarchy and the origins of the monarchy. And just talk about her as a person, which is why I think she's. she commands the respect that she does. So I'll tell you one story that has stayed with me several weeks into that very long and dark winter of the pandemic, which was particularly difficult for me personally.

She decided that she would give one of her speeches, which she did. and she ended it with four words that as I was listening proved inspirational to me. She said, and she used the words from an old World War II song, we will meet again. So she managed in those four words to do what she often does. she conveyed hope. She conveyed resolve, steely resolve. And I looked at her at her age. And I thought, well, if she can do that, well, so can I.

So it was astoundingly a moment of personal connection that has stayed with me. And I think that's what many have experienced. Wow. Yeah. My story was I actually had an opportunity to meet the queen in Calgary. I guess this would have been probably back in the 2000s. And anyone who's gone through that experience is quite kind of ritualistic and formalistic. You line up and the queen comes down and you're not allowed to extend your hand.

She has to extend her hand to you and you're not really allowed to speak to her. You can't. The convention is that she, and I'm sure this just saves her time and frustration. I get it. It's not a criticism. So she comes down the line and I bow and her majesty, you know, very politely asked, well, what do you do? At the time I was leading an organization working on Canadian history. We did a lot of work with veterans helping them tell their stories.

So I told her a little bit about our project. And then I said, you know, your majesty, can I ask you a question? And she kind of looked at me. Her eyes squinted a little bit. I saw a bit of that steely Windsor Reserve. And she said, okay. And I said, well, Your Majesty, what is your biggest memory from the Second World War? And her eyes, Janice, just lit up.

Like, just amazing eyes. That was all I remember. And she was clearly struck by the question. and said in reply, it was being in the palace, I guess referring to Buckingham Palace and the worry of my father and the anxiety of the first few weeks of the war, the beginnings of the blitzes, and the sense that everything could be lost, you know, that Hitler could succeed, that England could, the United Kingdom could be conquered. And you just realize what an incredible life stretching through the arc of these momentous events in our history and carrying into our present a memory of these

seminal moments. And I, you know, so it's more than just continuity that she represents. She's kind of, to me, someone who helped us remember all these important chapters in our past. She did, you know, Roger, but there is a common thread between the two stories. One very public, the yours, and, you know, her vivid memory of those extraordinary times and mine, much more personal. But there's a thread there, resolve, hard times, the capacity to get through hard times with resolve. And this extraordinary sense of obligation that she had. And those are virtues that we see all too little as time passes. So there is a sense of loss for those virtues, I think.

Yeah, here, here. Well, let's spend this week's show talking about hard times because something you and I have spoken and emailed a few times this week, we think something, you know, pretty important has happened here. maybe that's kind of being missed by the media or is not necessarily getting the attention that it deserves. And that's Janice, I think a shared sense on both our parts that the big news of the week obviously was the closing down of the Nord Stream pipeline by Putin, effectively shutting off critical energy supplies to Europe and the United Kingdom and causing European governments now to

engage in this remarkable debt-fueled response to what will be a very, very challenging winter in effect, subsidizing possibly to the tune of over a trillion dollars, the consumer and business industry costs of incredibly expensive natural gas and energy. That's the story we all know. It was all over our headlines this week, but I think what you and I sense, Janice, where I want you to weigh in is this was the escalation of the war that you and I were concerned about months ago. I certainly got it wrong in terms of how it would escalate. I thought it might escalate on the battlefield with the introduction of a biological or chemical weapon or some kind of crisis on the battlefield. Instead, Janice, am I correct that this war has taken not only a

dangerous turn, but a significant amplification with the events of the last seven days. You know, Richard, I think you are absolutely right, except I would not use instead of. I think this is the next stage, but I have not taken off the table in any way, the possibility of escalation. If things continue to go very, very badly. what he has done is use Russia's supply of oil and gas to Europe as a weapon. He's weaponized it. And in exchange, what the coalition that supports Zelensky has done, and it did it before, frankly, was weaponized the financial system. So we are seeing war by all means.

The war extends across the military sector, the energy sector, the financial sector. So this is a war that is in fact growing in scope as we speak. What's Putin's strategy here, Rudyard? It is one that he thinks that time will work in his favor, that if he can stoke public dissent in Europe as prices for fuel sorts through the roof, as European shiver, particularly in Germany, if there's a very cold winter, that their support for the war in Ukraine will crack, that they will push their political leaders to Presolensky for some kind of settlement.

That's really the strategy. And that's why these next eight months are so critical. Willie succeed. You just described the European response. It is just extraordinary, frankly. I think a trillion dollars may be conservative for a year. Look at what Liz Truss has done. Prime Minister for a day.

Extraordinary. She has frozen the price for consumers. she's going to subsidize British consumers for the winter. And the estimates of that in a, and let's just put this in context, you can hear the astonishment of my voice. Inflation in Britain is between 8% and 10%, depending on what you count. The Bank of England is in a ruthless fight to control inflation. And this is the biggest single government expenditure, which could dwarf what the British government

frankly spent during the pandemic in order to counter Putin's move and prevent public opinion from turning against this war. So you could, and I think you're absolutely right to use the word escalation. This is a war on all fronts. As Putin frankly now bets the house. house. That's what he's doing. He is betting the house. Thus far is not prevailing on the conventional battlefield. They're in a stalemate. Okay. Up the ante. Bet the house either force Western governance into the most inflationary set of actions or break public support for the war.

Yeah, two observations here. One, listeners, you know, remember we have an Italian election coming up towards the end of September. This could be a major test of an important European power in terms of these very rights on fascist parties potentially creating a coalition government that is now going to have to pick up in a sense the mantle of the fight against Putin in Ukraine or not. And that's the big question. So in a sense, the first domino may fall as early as this fall. And I think Italy is the weakest country. My observations, regarding the week as we saw it was, yes, indeed, Janice, you know, expenditures out of the UK to subsidize energy to the tune of possibly the equivalent of the entire national health service, four to five percent of GDP in this year alone. And I guess I just, I wonder, Janice, you know, it seems like every crisis that we face in the West, from the great financial crisis to COVID to this energy crisis, we have one response.

which is massive subsidies that have very little in the way of means testing, that seem at times conveniently maximized to return political advantage to the incumbent party by putting a proverbial chicken in every pot, and often work deeply against the laws of economics, which is if you subsidize the price of oil, you are going to encourage more consumption, because people will have, in a sense, hard caps on what they have to spend. So if something is capped, they often spend more of it because they don't have to incur the

costs of the totality of their consumption. Now, I get it. They have to do something to respond to this crisis. But the fact that this stuff isn't rigorously means tested, that it isn't simply targeting the most vulnerable in society, that it's targeting people who've made other types of choices in their lives, choices to have three cars, I don't know, choices to have vacation properties, choices to go on fancy vacations to Mauritius. I mean, I'm partly being specious here, but I'm making a point, which is, I think, an important one to our listeners, is that at a certain

point, we have to take responsibility for ourselves. We have to live our lives in ways that assume that things can go wrong. And you have to structure your life in such a way. Now, I'm not saying the most ill-fortunate, the most vulnerable in our society, but the vast majority of us in the middle class and higher up the pay scale, we need to assume some responsibility for ourselves so that every crisis that we face, every challenge that comes down the pipe, isn't responded to with yet another debt binge that simply threatens the value of our currencies, that emiserates our children that will drain the spending capacity of governments in the future to sustain the social safety nets that make our democracies work politically, arguably, because we're not at

earth's throat yet, fighting over the dwindling, you know, spoils of the public realm. So I just feel all this, Janus, it's such a knee-jerk reaction. I'll finish this rant with just this final quote that Putin made, which to me is, it suggests that, again, this is a war on a new front. It's very Russian, so you have to spend a moment thinking about it. I'll post a link to this speech in our show notes. He said, quote, the economy of mythical entities is inevitably being replaced by the economy of real values and assets. So let's not fool ourselves. Putin isn't simply targeting the energy infrastructure of Europe and Great Britain. He is targeting the debt financed, hyper-financialized. economically unequal, economic model that the West and Europe in particular has been running to excess since the great financial crisis. He's put his finger on an additional strategic weakness of ours, which is our profligacy when it comes to debt, which is our willingness to make capital free by manipulating through our central banks every single marketplace under the sun.

He's got his finger on it. He's pressing on that pain point. And I think we're naive to think that this war is now just about energy. It's about the financial system that we've predicated in the West. And it is a vulnerability. It is a security threat to us. I guess that's my point. Thank you for listening to this edition of the Friday Focus podcast. I'm Rudyard Griffiths, the chair of the Monk Debates.

I was joined on this program as I am each week by Janice. Rowe Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. Janice and I would love your reactions to what you heard on the program today. Also, your suggestions and ideas about future topics that we should cover on Friday Focus. Please send us your suggestions now to podcast at monkdebates.com. That's MUNK Debateswithan S.com. This podcast is produced by Aidan Moscovic and generously underwritten by the Peter and Melanie

Monk Charitable Foundation. Please visit our website, triplew monkdebates.com, to access hundreds of podcasts, dialogues, and debates on all the big issues and ideas shaping our world. Again, you can do that right now at triplew monkdebates.com.

While you're there, consider, if you're not already, becoming a free monk debates member. You get all kinds of great benefits and perks as a complimentary monk member. You can grab yours right now at triplew monkdebates.com forward slash membership. Thanks for listening to this program.

We'll do it all again soon. Bye bye.