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The David McWilliams Podcast

David McWilliams & John Davis

300 episodes · Explicit

The aim of this weekly podcast is to make economics easy, uncomplicated and accessible. With the world at a political, technological and financial tipping point, economics has never been so important to all of us and yet, it’s made inaccessible and complicated by so many.

More about the show

I’ve always thought what is complicated is rarely important and what is important is rarely complicated.

That will be our motto.

Every week we are going to tease out some big economic or political issue facing us, not just here in Ireland but in Europe and further afield. Globalisation has brought us all together. We all face similar challenges whether you live in Dublin, London, Minnesota or Milan.

If you would like to enjoy all of our content ad-free and have early access to episodes, subscribe to DMCW+ on Apple Podcast. You can also find our early access ad-free episodes on Spotify by searching for the David McWilliams Podcast Premium Feed on the app or by clicking here.

Want to join our crew? Join at davidmcwilliams.ie/crew, where you can enjoy ad-free listening, as well as exclusive bonus content such as premium episodes, our macroeconomics course, early access to episodes and pre-sale access to tickets for Dalkey Book Festival & Kilkenomics.

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Episodes page 2 of 6

  1. Why Your Barista Has a Master's Degree

    · 34 min · S2026 E38

    What happens when a country produces more graduates than it has elite jobs to give them? According to Peter Turchin, the Russian-American thinker behind End Times, that's exactly the moment civilisations start to…

  2. The UAE, Iran, and the Hostage at the Heart of the Oil War

    · 39 min · S2026 E37

    The UAE has just walked out of OPEC after nearly 60 years, and the timing is no accident. This week, we head to Abu Dhabi and Dubai to ask what's really going on. Why now? Why leave the cartel in the middle of a war?…

  3. The Failure Premium: Where is the Money Going?

    · 42 min · S2026 E36

    This week, Sinead O'Sullivan is back, and she's got an answer that official Ireland really doesn't want to hear. We dig into the "failure premium", the staggering cost of a state that knows how to hand out subsidies…

  4. Ireland Is Killing Its Entrepreneurs

    · 41 min · S2026 E35

    Ireland is now officially the worst country in Europe for young entrepreneurs. Just 5.1% of our 20-somethings are building their own businesses, less than half the rate in Slovakia. So what the hell happened? This…

  5. Is America Losing Control?

    · 44 min · S2026 E34

    The global economy runs on one thing: the US dollar. What happens when trust in that system starts to crack? In this episode, we go deep into the mechanics of global finance, from dollar “swap lines” to shadow banking,…

  6. The Premature State: Why Ireland Can’t Build Itself

    · 44 min · S2026 E33

    Ireland is one of the richest countries in Europe, so why does it feel like it isn’t? We sit down with economist and engineer Sinead O'Sullivan to unpack a deceptively simple but deeply uncomfortable idea: Ireland is a…

  7. Subsidies, Strikes and the Coming July Clash

    · 34 min · S2026 E32

    Ireland has bought itself three months of peace, but at what cost? This week, we unpack the fallout from the recent fuel protests and what they reveal about the deeper fragility of the Irish system. A small, highly…

  8. Is Ireland the Worst-Run Rich Country in Europe?

    · 44 min · S2026 E31

    Ireland looks like a success story on paper: booming tax revenues, record public spending, and a global reputation as a modern, wealthy economy. Yet on the ground, something feels deeply off. In this episode, we step…

  9. The Housing Finale: Can Ireland Build Its Way Out?

    · 38 min · S2026 E30

    After two episodes on how Ireland’s housing market became so brittle, we get to the only question that matters: how do you actually fix it? In this final part of our housing series with Ronan Lyons, we move from…

  10. How The Housing Market Was Designed to Fail - Part 2

    · 44 min · S2026 E29

    In this second episode with Ronan Lyons, we wonder how did a country that once struggled to keep its people end up unable to house them? The answer is a story of unintended consequences. Population booms that were…

  11. The Brittle Housing Market: Why the System Is Worse Than You Think - Part 1

    · 36 min · S2026 E28

    Housing is the biggest expense most of us will ever face, and across Ireland and much of the Western world, the system simply isn’t working. Is this another housing bubble, or something more dangerous? In this first…

  12. The Next Global Recession?

    · 44 min · S2026 E27

    What does Muhammad Ali’s Rumble in the Jungle have to do with the next global recession? In this episode, we go back to the 1970s oil shocks, when a geopolitical crisis sent energy prices soaring, wealth flooding into…

  13. Did Big Tech Ruin the Internet? with Cory Doctorow

    · 40 min · S2026 E26

    What happened to the internet? Why did the platforms that once felt useful, fun and liberating become manipulative, cluttered and hostile? In this episode, we talk to writer, activist and digital theorist Cory…

  14. Is the West Losing Africa to China?

    · 45 min · S2026 E25

    South Africa is one of the places where the 21st century is being made in real time. Against the backdrop of war in the Middle East, we ask what rising energy prices mean for countries already struggling with poverty,…

  15. Why Some Countries Create Jobs and Others Export People

    · 40 min · S2026 E24

    Broadcasting from South Africa, a country of huge energy, huge potential, and brutally high unemployment, we use that lens to ask what actually creates jobs? From there, we go back to Ireland in 1990, when employment…

  16. Shedonomics: Can Europe Survive China’s Manufacturing Machine?

    · 37 min · S2026 E23

    In this episode, we unpack the new China shock, as exports to Europe surge nearly 30% in just two months and a €359 billion trade deficit keeps widening. From electric cars to fast fashion, Chinese firms are flooding…

  17. St Patrick's Day Special: Who Exactly Are The Irish Americans?

    · 51 min · S2026 E22

    On St. Patrick’s Day, we go beyond the parades and pints to ask: what does the Irish diaspora actually mean for Ireland today? From the Presbyterian migrants who helped shape revolutionary America, to the famine…

  18. The Economics of War

    · 28 min · S2026 E21

    What happens to the global economy when a war erupts at the world’s most important energy choke point? In this episode, we trace the economic shockwaves already rippling out from Iran: surging oil and gas prices,…

  19. America's Road to Tehran - Part 2

    · 47 min · S2026 E20

    In part two of our history of Iran and the Middle East, we move from the 1979 Iranian Revolution to the bombing of Tehran today. This is the story of how America’s Cold War obsession with the Soviet Union mutated into…

  20. How the West Lost Iran: Oil, Coups, and the Road to Revolution - Part 1

    · 47 min · S2026 E19

    Iran didn’t suddenly become the geopolitical flashpoint it is today, the roots go back decades. In this first part of a two-part series, we trace the economic and political history that reshaped Iran from the 1940s to…

  21. Can Democracy Survive an AI Economy?

    · 41 min · S2026 E18

    In this episode, we ask what happens when economic evolution moves from human speed to machine speed. Fresh from an off-the-record discussion with a Nobel Prize–winning AI pioneer Demis Hassibis, we unpack how AI is…

  22. Can Europe’s “Hidden Continent” Finally Break Free?

    · 40 min · S2026 E17

    Broadcast from Serbia, this episode dives into the Balkans, the most misunderstood, most underestimated corner of Europe, and one with the biggest upside if it can ever stop tripping over its own history. We look at…

  23. Can You Prosper Without Building Proper Cities?

    · 38 min · S2026 E16

    This episode begins at the ancient seven-arch bridge in Killaloe, the crossing point where Clare, Tipp and Limerick collide, and jumps to Višegrad in eastern Bosnia, where Ivo Andrić’s The Bridge on the Drina uses one…

  24. Revenge of the Nerds

    · 37 min · S2026 E15

    For forty years, the software engineer was the hero of the modern economy. That era may now be ending, fast. In this episode, we argue that software engineers are becoming the horses of the 21st century. Just as the…

  25. What Happens to an Economy When Credit Stops Flowing?

    · 40 min · S2026 E14

    Credit is the lifeblood of a modern economy. When it expands, ideas turn into companies, small builders become employers, and innovation compounds. When it contracts, the damage is slower, quieter, and far harder to…

  26. Can the New Fed Boss Shrink QE Without Crashing Everything?

    · 44 min · S2026 E13

    If central banks “control money,” why do we still get credit booms, banking crises, and bubbles, and what can a new Fed chair actually do about it? Who actually controls money, the central bank, commercial banks, or…

  27. Why Did Bitcoin Crash Again? The Scam That’s Been Around Since Dante

    · 40 min · S2026 E12

    Not even “thermodynamically sound energy through time and space” makes Bitcoin money. In this episode, we take another hammer to the sacred cow of crypto and ask a simpler question: what does money actually have to do…

  28. Swipe Left on Society: Singledom, Sexless Men, and the New Politics of Loneliness with Aideen McQueen

    · 49 min · S2026 E11

    We think the biggest cultural shift of the last 15 years is inflation, immigration, or housing. It isn’t. It’s singledom, a shockwave moving through Western societies since the smartphone slid into our pockets and…

  29. Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference with Rutger Bregman

    · 48 min · S2026 E10

    In a world where “might is right” is having an ugly little renaissance, Rutger Bregman returns as the perfect antidote: a stubborn, data-backed case that humans are cooperative, that culture is malleable, and that your…

  30. Ireland’s American Problem: The Jockey, the Horses, and the End of the Easy Money Era

    · 38 min · S2026 E9

    Ireland has spent the last two decades riding a unique position: European by treaty, American by economics, a “bridgehead” for US multinationals into the EU, and a country whose prosperity has quietly depended on…

  31. The Great Global Rebalancing: How Trump's America is Losing its Grip on the World's Capital with Sony Kapoor

    · 45 min · S2026 E8

    Everyone watched Trump at Davos and thought they were seeing American power. We think they were seeing something else: a flashing warning light. The core idea of this podcast is simple: diversification is the oldest…

  32. The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy!

    · 49 min · S2026 E7

    This episode is a deep dive into a simple claim: This is the year the mask slipped. The United States has decided that the grand bargain it presided over since 1945 is finished, and the consequences are immediate for…

  33. Trump vs. The Fed: Sabotage, Showdown, or Economic Revolution?

    · 40 min · S2026 E6

    Donald Trump is taking aim at the most powerful, and most opaque, institution in the global economy: the Federal Reserve. By moving to oust Jay Powell through a criminal investigation, Trump has triggered a battle that…

  34. The Great Uncoupling & Fiscal Crisis: America, Europe & the Bond Market Reckoning

    · 54 min · S2026 E5

    America and Europe are drifting apart, not just politically, but philosophically. In this episode, we dig into the consequences of that split, comparing today’s transatlantic rupture to one of the most overlooked…

  35. The Bipolar Economy: Trump, Oil & the End of Balance with Carole Nakhle

    · 49 min · S2026 E4

    In a single week, Donald Trump goes after the Federal Reserve, criminalises Jerome Powell, and shakes the idea of central bank independence, the quiet pillar holding the global financial system together. At the same…

  36. Venezuela Falls, Cuba Trembles with Marla Dukharan

    · 46 min · S2026 E3

    Washington moved on Venezuela, and the shockwaves are racing across the Americas. Oil, refugees, collapsed regimes, back-room deals: this may spell the beginning of the end for Cuba’s 65-year experiment, and the most…

  37. After Maduro: Who Really Runs Venezuela Now? with Juan Tokatlian

    · 44 min · S2026 E2

    Broadcasting from the streets of Medellín, we dive into Latin America’s reaction to the stunning removal of Nicolás Maduro, and the strange new reality taking shape in Caracas. Is this regime change, an oil grab, or…

  38. What If 2026 Is the Year America Leaves Us Behind?

    · 42 min · S2026 E1

    It’s 2026, and Ireland is skating on a thin economic edge. With the US retreating from Europe, American industry is stalling here, no new labs, no new factories. Our entire model of tax-light, job-rich multinational…

  39. What's Really Going on In Venezuela? Oil, Empire & the Next Proxy War

    · 46 min · S2025 E105

    Venezuela once rivalled Switzerland in wealth, today it’s produced more refugees than Syria. What happened? We go straight to Buenos Aires to talk to leading Latin American analyst Juan Gabriel Tokatlian about how a…

  40. 2025: China’s Year

    · 43 min · S2025 E104

    For 2,000 years, China has played a different game. While Europe fragmented, fought, and conquered outward, China focused inward, on standardisation, stability, and turning a vast empire into a single nation. In this…

  41. Was Genghis Khan the World’s First Globalist?

    · 38 min · S2025 E103

    We usually remember Genghis Khan as history’s ultimate destroyer but what if he was also its first great economic integrator? In this episode, we rethink the Mongol Empire not as pure terror, but as the largest…

  42. Can Wind Power Make Us Rich Again?

    · 43 min · S2025 E102

    Ireland controls seven times more sea than land, and with the Atlantic blowing 25% stronger winds than the North Sea, we sit on one of the greatest untapped energy jackpots on Earth. This episode dives into the…

  43. Europe Under Threat: Can the Centre Hold?

    · 47 min · S2025 E101

    Europe is under pressure militarily, economically, and politically. NATO spending is up 45% since 2014. Germany’s exports to China have dropped 11% in a single year. France is bracing for a possible far-right…

  44. The Great Affordability Lie?

    · 36 min · S2025 E100

    Around the world, people feel poorer, even when the numbers say we’ve never been richer. In Ireland, GDP is soaring, household wealth has more than doubled since 2014, and yet most families are pinned to their collar.…

  45. Petty Lines in the Sand

    · 37 min · S2025 E99

    We’re diving into the economics of borders, the lines we pretend are ancient but were mostly scratched into the earth by soldiers, surveyors and empire-builders with rulers. From Ukraine’s shifting frontlines to…

  46. China Explained with Dan Wang

    · 50 min · S2025 E98

    We talk to writer and analyst Dan Wang, whose book Breakneck argues that China is an engineering state, run by people who build, while America, Ireland and the wider Anglosphere have become lawyer states, run by people…

  47. Is Central Asia the Next Front Line of Global Power? with Peter Frankopan

    · 39 min · S2025 E97

    Leaving the US after weeks on the road, we zoom out from New York and Washington and asks a question we almost never ask in Europe: what if the real future of geopolitics isn’t in Brussels, Beijing or DC, but in…

  48. Why Can’t the West Build Anymore?

    · 39 min · S2025 E96

    Reporting from New York, with a Bitcoin slump at his heels and the Hollywood-launch buzz of Money: A Story of Humanity still in the air, we dive into one of the most important economic questions of 2025: why can…

  49. Is $4,000 Gold the First Crack in the Fiat Era?

    · 32 min · S2025 E95

    Broadcasting from under the Hollywood sign in the middle of a rare Californian downpour, we follow the water straight into the gold. Starting with LA as a city built on pure imagination, we jump back to the original…

  50. Hollywood, Soft Power & Ireland’s Anti-American Left?

    · 48 min · S2025 E94

    Reporting from West Hollywood, in a rock ’n’ roll hotel with no parties and no drugs as house rules. We take a walk down Sunset Boulevard and into the strange engine of L.A.: a city built almost entirely on…

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