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PODCAST

Talk Cocktail

Jeff Schechtman

Jeff Schechtman talks with authors, journalists, newsmakers and opinion shapers, and sheds light on the issues of the day, from local stories to national and international headlines and ideas. jeffschechtman.substack.com

news & politics

All Episodes

38:28

Corruption is America’s Operating System: A...

Talk Cocktail ·

2022/03/10

Historian and journalist Sarah Chayes, argues that we can’t fix our floundering democracy until we face — and fix — our current levels of corruption. In her view, we are in a “pandemic of corruption,” fostered by a network of corrupt businesses and political leaders worldwide. Before we can begin to set things right, however, we first have to grasp what modern-day corruption really is. Behind this evolving crisis, says Chayes, is a shift in the very definition of power. Where society’s leaders

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24:43

The Battle of Banks Not Tanks: A Conversation with...

Talk Cocktail ·

2022/03/02

Beyond the minute-by-minute reporting of the ground war, the Twitter feeds, TickTock images, there are broader and more economically complex issues surrounding the war in the Ukraine, and the world’s response to it. Issues that include sanctions, the SWIFT system, and the seizure of assets, including yachts and private planes parked around the globe. All part of the interconnectedness of a global economic structure that Russia, for better or worse, has been a part of. Few understand the intricacies

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18:11

Recipe for Survival: A Conversation with Dana Ellis...

Talk Cocktail ·

2022/02/28

All the way back in 1971, with the publication of Frances Moore Lappe’s Diet for Small Planet, the world began to take notice of the connection between what we eat, who we are, our environmental future, and the sustainability of our food supply. Since then, the external forces that impact all of these things have brought more pressures to bear. The state of our climate and its consequences, the quality of our food, and how long we live are all going in the wrong direction. Even more problematic is

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22:36

Tell Me A Story: A Conversation with Frank Rose

Talk Cocktail ·

2022/02/23

It’s the power of narrative that shapes every aspect of our lives. We rush to tell stories to our friends and family to validate our experiences. We buy products and brands because of the story they tell us. We vote, make friends, and even enemies, because of the stories that we believe. Narrative has an emotional pull on us. Sometimes we take away joy, anger, laughter, or sadness. People don’t rush out in large numbers to see PowerPoints, policy discussions, or even most documentaries. But they

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27:42

How Global Migration is Actually Moving the World...

Talk Cocktail ·

2022/02/14

At no time in civilization have so many forces been at play in reshaping the world. The complexity of everything is growing. Global geopolitical risks are rising. Technologies are impacting everything and creating new anxiety. Climate change is reshaping our very topography. The economic gap within and between nations is rising, and a younger generation feels alienated from being able to control the levers that will shape their changing future. Arguably, this convergence of forces and events is

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22:03

How Chinese Language is the Core of its Culture: A...

Talk Cocktail ·

2022/02/04

The story of how the world's oldest living language adapted to the modern world is one that carries within it the story of how language itself shapes our vision and our thinking. How the quest for progress is often stronger than the pull of history. It’s how a language can literally be reinvented, iterated and adapted, and at the same time carry a country along with it. That is the story of the evolution of the Chinese language that my my guest Jing Tsu tells in her new book Kingdom of Characters:

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32:14

A Love Letter to Spy-craft: A Conversation With...

Talk Cocktail ·

2022/01/25

For as long as humans have interacted with each other, spies in one form or another, have been with us. To quote the legendary John le Carre, “Jesus had only twelve friends over for dinner, and still one of them turned out to be a double agent.” And while the nature of spy-craft has evolved, its fundamental missions remain the same. To gather actionable information. To get results. So when we look at our failure to fully understand the Soviet Union during the Cold War, our inability to understand

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37:44

Politics Without Celebrity - Kati Marton’s The...

Talk Cocktail ·

2022/01/14

Imagine a political leader that is not about celebrity or attention? In a time when we have elected a reality show star as President, when celebrity politics is the lifeblood of the American political class, it’s hard to imagine a politician or world leader whose life is private; who keeps their own counsel, who listens first, who shuns celebrity, and yet proves powerful as a leader. Such was Angela Merkel, who served for 16 years as German Chancellor. Its first and only woman Chancellor, and

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30:38

January 6th Was a Rallying Point For White Hot Hate

Talk Cocktail ·

2022/01/04

As we witnessed on January 6th, the level of hostility and anger awash in the country today has real consequences. Demagogues and hateful rhetoric have real power. And while some argue that history teaches us that such rage burns white-hot and then dies out, what happens while it's burning hurts people and sometimes changes nations. It’s really no different than when we see protestors in other countries attacking America, burning the American flag, and taking Americans hostage. In a world moving

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26:50

How Fame, Fortune and Education Ended Objective...

Talk Cocktail ·

2021/12/27

Too often when talking about the media and journalism we engage in a board discussion of ideas, policy, and how the levers of power really work What we often forget is that all of this is made up of people. People who bring to the exercise of power and of reporting on it, their own values, education, and personal history. In that fact lies much of what is wrong with the media today. It's how we lost sight of the power of class in journalism, why we’ve tried to bury class differences inside racial

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19:23

The Modern Era of Television Begins with HBO: A...

Talk Cocktail ·

2021/12/15

The link between what we watch in movies and on television and the business, the money and the people behind it, are inseparable. Business decisions impact and shape what we see, just as one hit can change the finances of an entire company or industry The story of HBO, and the way in which it disrupted television, beginning back in the early 1970s, is perhaps the penultimate example. Just as today we are going through a sea change with respect to how stories are delivered to us, HBO was the

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31:35

The Shattering: America in the 1960‘s: A Conversation...

Talk Cocktail ·

2021/12/07

Think of all that has changed as a result of startups and creative destruction. Nothing is the same as it was because of the sometimes revolutionary ideas of entrepreneurs. In a similar way the 1960s were a time of creative destruction for America and the world. The post war paradigms that had shaped the country through the late 40’s and early 50’s were shattered. And just as today we are struggling, socially, politically and economically to come to grips with the our technology disruption, on a

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33:49

The Post-Pandemic Normal Will Never Be the Way It Was

Talk Cocktail ·

2021/12/01

Everyone desperately wants to know what the post-pandemic world will look like. Adam Tooze has been thinking hard about it and he thinks he knows. Comparing the US experience to China’s, he notes how cultural and political differences have determined successes and failures in dealing with the unprecedented challenge of COVID-19. Tooze argues that, like soldiers returning from mortal combat, we are suffering from a kind of national — and even global — PTSD. Tooze, Columbia University history and

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25:46

Has the Death of Faith Made Us More Tribal?

Talk Cocktail ·

2021/11/30

In The Universe Is on Our Side: Restoring Faith in American Public Life Bruce Ledewitz argues that there has been a breakdown in American public life that is beyond issues or politics. He argues that America is living with the consequences of the death of faith, which Nietzsche presumed would be momentous and irreversible. According to Ledewith, America's future requires that we begin a new story by asking a question posed by theologian Bernard Lonergan: Is the universe on our side? My

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26:02

The Rise and Fall of the NRA and What it‘s Cost Us: ...

Talk Cocktail ·

2021/11/19

For the past 40 years, the debate about the proliferation of guns in America has revolved around the NRA. All public policy has been shaped and driven by the political influence of the NRA. Few if any lobbying groups in American history have ever been so powerful for so long. But how did this power evolve, and what led to its downfall. What was behind its scorched earth “never give an inch” philosophy and was it simple greed and old fashioned corruption that brought it down? Four years of

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28:54

China: Enemy or Competitor?

Talk Cocktail ·

2021/11/11

Elbridge Colby, is co‑founder and principal of The Marathon Initiative. He served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development from 2017 through 2018, and led the development of the 2018 National Defense Strategy. In his recent book, The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict, In it, Colby addresses our relationship with China in brutally frank terms Some of the questions he sets out to answer: Do we need a grand strategy for China,

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29:12

A Story of What Went Right in the Battle Agaisnt...

Talk Cocktail ·

2021/11/09

Amidst all of the noise and debate about vaccine mandates, less than clear information from the CDC, and the broader context of healthcare and society, it’s easy to forget that these vaccines are truly miracles of modern science, and that the herculean effort to develop them in record time, is a science story for the ages. But the story doesn’t exist without the understanding the players. The global panoply of scientists, entrepreneurs, government officials and market forces that all came together

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27:15

How the Index Fund Changed Finance and Why It‘s Still...

Talk Cocktail ·

2021/11/02

Never have so many individuals been actively engaged in trading in the equity markets. Robin Hood, Reddit, meme stocks, crypto, blockchain are the language of a whole new world of mostly young traders. And most of them will lose money. They think they can outperform markets that have long humbled the smartest guys in the room. So back in the early seventy, a group of those guys got together to imagine and evolve a way to passively participate in the markets. Long before information about the

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00:00

Dirty, but Essential Work: A Conversation with Eyal...

Talk Cocktail ·

2021/10/28

Workers left their jobs at a record pace in the past few months. They left because of health concerns, child care issues and because, post pandemic, they did not want to return to what they saw as rotten jobs. Jobs that were ethically and morally challenging. The pandemic has brought new light to these workers. Often, in what has been called essential work. It has highlighted and personified the work we often don’t see, but that we all rely on for keeping the wheels of society working. Studs

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27:42

Looking for America: My Conversation with Evan Osnos

Talk Cocktail ·

2021/10/18

Without comparing one historical era to another, suffice it to say that we live in a nation filled with anger, despair and at best anxiety. Our ideological, economic and cultural divisions have infected every fiber of the public square. And all of this is happening amidst loss of faith in our once valued institutions, both public and private. A loss of faith in facts and truth, and in the fundamentals founding principles of self governance of fairness and selflessness. But we didn’t get here

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1,369 results

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