28 min listen
Flying Blind
FromAnalysis
ratings:
Length:
29 minutes
Released:
Feb 15, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
What do we really know about the policy choices confronting us? Covid-19 has been a brutal lesson in the extent of our ignorance. We face hard decisions, and argue about them ferociously, when in truth we’re often in the dark about their full consequences. But Covid is not unusual in this respect - and we could learn from it. Other areas of life and policy are similarly obscured. Not that we like to admit it. How well, for example, do we know what the economy is up to? Quite possibly not nearly as well as you might think - even to the extent that it’s recently been suggested the first estimates of GDP can’t be sure of telling the difference between boom and bust - the problem really can be that extreme. Some recessions have turned out to be illusions. In this programme Michael Blastland examines our collective ignorance and how it affects policy and debate, asking if public argument needs a lot more humility.
Producer Caroline Bayley
Editor Jasper Corbett
Producer Caroline Bayley
Editor Jasper Corbett
Released:
Feb 15, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Peston and the House of Debt: Robert Peston asks if skyrocketing household debt or the banks caused the 2007-8 crash. by Analysis