Free Thinking - Christine Lagarde

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2014

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As International Monetary Fund Director Christine Lagarde gives this yearâ€™s Dimbleby Lecture, Anne McElvoy asks seasoned Lagarde watchers Gillian Tett and Ngaire Woods to analyse her performance and to reflect on whether her growing personal mythology is enough to alter the reputation of the oft-criticised organisation she fronts. Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently said â€œhow ever many entrepreneurs you think you need, it isnâ€™t enoughâ€* to cope with the worldâ€™s challenges. But entrepreneurs are often portrayed as greedy and ruthless in films like The Wolf of Wall Street. Luke Johnson and Mariana Mazzucato consider where the truth lies. Plus Anne considers the portrayal of boxers in culture with Anna Whitwham, Lynda Nead and Steven Fowler.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that at some level of genius. It also helps
0:21.2	that it's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream
0:26.1	van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC sounds.
0:32.1	This is a download from the BBC. For more information and our terms of use, go to BBC.co.uk slash radio three.
0:40.7	Hello in tonight's show, high finance, low skullduggery and the enduring appeal of slugging it out in leather gloves.
0:47.6	One, left to the jaw, boom. Two, right in the jaw. Boom. Three left up a cut. Four, right up a cut.
0:52.9	Five, left hook to the liver. Six, right hand to the spleen, seven, jab their head, eight jab to the body.
0:59.1	I'm glad I'm going to death for a living no more.
1:01.4	Mike Tyson there, we'll be going the full 12 rounds on the portrayal of boxing in culture later on.
1:07.5	Luke Johnson will be discussing whether we overpraise entrepreneurs or malign them. But first,
1:13.1	the magic of a mere monetary official, Christine Lagarde. At the Davos Forum of the
1:18.4	world's leading business folk financiers and gurus a few weeks ago, I had a Lagarde moment. The
1:24.4	chief of the International Monetary Fund gets the red carpet treatment there. We were
1:28.8	brusquely told to move on from a table. Madame Lagarde is going to sit there, panted a flunky.
1:34.8	We were in fact due to speak to the woman herself at an entirely different location, but the
1:39.8	deployment of Lagarde's name to end all arguments was telling. This week, the impeccably turned out IMF Boss was here in London,
1:47.6	recording tonight's centrepiece Dimbleby lecture for the BBC.
1:51.3	By 2030, the global middle class could top five billions from two billions where we are today.
1:59.2	These people will inevitably demand higher living standards
2:03.2	as well as greater freedom, dignity and justice. And why should they settle for less?
2:10.3	Christine Lagarde. Well, in her lecture, she tussles openly with many of the big questions of
2:15.2	power and wealth, who has it, how to keep a fragile world economy from giving us the kind of scare we got in the
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.