Making bucket loads of money from crime is one thing but what do you then do with it all? Investigative journalist Geoff White explains how big time crims are making their dirty money clean. 

Guest: Geoff White, author of Rinsed: From Cartels to Crypto, How the Tech Industry Washes Money for the World’s Deadliest Crooks.

Coffee prices have climbed on commodity markets but not so much in cafes. Why is that?

People are drinking less alcohol, especially Millennials and Gen Z. And the drinks industry has noticed.

Low-alc and no-alc drinks make up a tiny fraction of the market. But it’s growing at 7 percent a year. And, as more of us either moderate our drinking or stop altogether, the future for these drinks look bright.

But the way they’re advertised, marketed and packaged makes them look very like alcoholic drinks and there’s some concern they may act as a gateway to alcohol.

Guests:

Simon Strachan, CEO, Drinkwise

Elfrun von Koeller, Managing Director & Partner, Boston Consulting Group

Andy Miller, CEO, Heaps Normal

Dr Ashlea Bartram, Senior Research Fellow, National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction, Flinders University

TikTok, the phone app that sends a stream of viral videos to every user, is in trouble in the United States. 

The company must either change its Chinese ownership, or leave the American market.

In response, TikTok is underlining its economic contribution, in Australia and elsewhere.  So how much difference does it make?

Guests:

Dr Joanne Gray, Lecturer in Digital Cultures, University of Sydney

Ariana Hendry, Co-founder, Beysis

Kristian Kolding, Head of Consulting, Oxford Economics Australia

Professor Vili Lehdonvirta, Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University

As they say a “diamond is forever”. But does it matter if that diamond is grown in a lab or mined from the Earth? Especially if they both are chemically, physically, and optically identical.

And given that cost of living pressures are colliding with consumers’ desire to not compromise on size or quality, more and more Australians can see the logic behind lab grown gems.  In America, lab-grown may have peaked.

Guests:

Cormac Kinney, Founder & CEO, Diamond Standard

Paul Zimnisky, Leading Global Diamond Industry Analyst

Talitha Cummins, Founder, the Cut Jewellery

Eloise Sohier, Customer, The Cut Jewellery

This year’s Budget tries to do several things at once. In the short term it offers cost-of-living relief but tries not to contribute to inflation. In the longer term it departs from decades of economic orthodoxy by picking industries to invest in.  Specifically, green hydrogen and critical minerals.   

But will it work? And how responsible is it? Three of the country’s leading economists offer their views.

Guests:

Shane Oliver, Chief Economist, AMP

Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW Business School

Luci Ellis, Chief Economist, Westpac Banking Group

Australians have a sleeping problem. The most conservative estimates show one in 10 have a sleep disorder, which is having an impact on their safety, wellbeing and productivity.

This ends up costing almost a $1 billion a week. And that’s not all. The total cost of inadequate sleep is thought to be as high as $75 billion a year.

We’re not alone either. International research shows places like the US, the UK and Europe are facing similar problems, with similar costs.

Guests:

Shanthakumar Rajaratnam, Chair of the Sleep Health Foundation

Professor Ron Grunstein, The Woolcock Institute 

Wendy Troxel, The Rand Corporation

Zafina Ademi, Professor of Health Economics, Monash University

You don’t need to be paying too much attention to be aware that economic growth matters.

Growth is central to economics. And growth of the last 60 years has delivered. We’ve seen a rise in prosperity, and developments in health and education.

But the pursuit of growth has also had consequences.

In his new book Growth: A Reckoning, Daniel Susskind explores the tension between the positives and negatives created by the pursuit of growth.

Guest:

Daniel Susskind, Research Professor in Economics at King’s College London

Research shows loneliness costs the Australian economy $2.7 billion per year or $1565 per person.

The World Health Organisation has also declared loneliness to be a global health concern. And it’s estimated loneliness has an equivalent health impact on the body to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Before the pandemic older Australians were found to be the loneliest in the nation. But now the data now shows this has shifted and younger Australians are the feeling the effects of being alone and isolated.

Technology has allowed us to be more connected than before, but has all this left us lonelier than ever?

Guests:

Andrew Dempster, Principal Director & Leader of the National Mental Health Advisory Business, KPMG

Roger Wilkins, Professorial Fellow at Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, and Co-Director of the HILDA Survey

Liesel Sharabi, from the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University.

Lixia Qu, Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Institute of Family Studies.

The growth of cyber-crime is considered to be the biggest challenge facing Australian businesses.

Collectively cyber-attacks cost the economy $42 billion dollars last year, with ransomware the most disruptive type of hack, costing $3 billion.

So what is the government doing? And what can organisations do, both to lower their risk of attack, and if the hackers succeed in accessing their systems?

Guests

Nick Espinosa, Chief Security Fanatic, Security Fanatics

Dr Jay Jeong, Senior Research Fellow, University of Melbourne

Dr David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Cyber Security, Griffith University

David Cullen, National Director of Advocacy, CISO Lens

Abi Bradshaw, Head of the Australian Signals Directorates Cyber Security Centre