The David McWilliams Podcast
by David McWilliams & John Davis
NewsE · Explicit
Latest episode
Fixing a Broken Economic System with Mariana Mazzucato (Live from…
Fixing a Broken Economic System with Mariana Mazzucato (Live from…
About this podcast
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.
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
The newest 50 of 716 episodes
- Fixing a Broken Economic System with Mariana Mazzucato (Live from Kilkenomics) · 41 min · Season 2026 Episode 92Recorded live at Kilkenomics 2026, UCL economist Mariana Mazzucato joins us to discuss her new book, The Common Good Economy, looking at why the state is always the one bandaging…
- John Burn-Murdoch on Why Hard Work No Longer Pays (Live from Kilkenomics) · 35 min · Season 2026 Episode 91Recorded live at Kilkenomics, we’re joined by the FT’s John Burn-Murdoch, the most interesting data journalist writing today. Wealth inequality’s share may not have budged in 40…
- The AI Reckoning: When a Trillion-Dollar Bet Meets Rising Rates · 35 min · Season 2026 Episode 89The AI story has flipped from a technology story to a credit story, and that changes everything. Anthropic’s bonds have been downgraded to junk, Elon Musk says credit markets are…
- Bibi or Tibi? Israel’s Deadlock and the Midterms the Ayatollah Could Decide · 37 min · Season 2026 Episode 89In Israel, Netanyahu has lost ground but still frames every choice as “Bibi or Tibi,” and liberal Israel faces a once-in-a-generation chance to oust him, if it can stomach…
- The Five Scariest Numbers in the Global Economy (A Halloween Special) · 35 min · Season 2026 Episode 88For Halloween, we start with Ireland’s first witch trial: Alice Kyteler, the Kilkenny moneylender who buried four husbands and skipped town, leaving her servant to burn at the…
- Is France the Canary? The End of the Centre and Europe’s Generational Revolt · 43 min · Season 2026 Episode 87A week of rioting in France, but we argue it’s no blip. Marine Le Pen is polling around 35%, with the next candidate on just 14%, and she could become the first ever to win…
- The World’s First AI Minister: Can Democracies Make Haste Slowly? with Evan Solomon · 45 min · Season 2026 Episode 86Canada has appointed the world’s first minister for AI, and Evan Solomon joins us to explain why. Canada invented modern AI through Hinton, Bengio and Sutton, then watched big…
- Peak Humans: Modernity Vs. Tradition · 42 min · Season 2026 Episode 85Broadcasting from the Aran Islands, where the population has crashed from 48,000 to 3,000, we look at what may be the biggest data point of 2026: for the first time ever, the…
- A View From NYC: The Diaspora and the Midterms · 40 min · Season 2026 Episode 84Live from New York, with a radical idea: treat the Irish diaspora as our greatest soft power asset. Every Irish child costs the state about €500,000 to educate, and America…
- The Tiramisu Budget: Is Ireland West European or West African? · 44 min · Season 2026 Episode 83Ireland’s budget surplus is €9 billion, but the Department of Finance reckons €23 billion of the €34 billion in corporation tax is transient AI-boom money. Strip it out and we’re…
- Mr 5%: The Armenian Who Invented the Oil Industry and Gave It All Away · 44 min · Season 2026 Episode 82Calouste Gulbenkian never drilled a well, never owned a rig, and still died the richest man in the world. We follow the Armenian fixer from Constantinople who took 5% of…
- The End of The Housing Crisis? · 34 min · Season 2026 Episode 81Dublin prices have fallen 5.2% last year, the biggest drop since 2014, and the buyer's strike is real. The premium over asking has shrunk from 7% to 2.6%, and the average couple…
- Are Teenagers Getting Dumber? · 40 min · Season 2026 Episode 8015-year-olds across the OECD are now testing at levels last seen among 14-year-olds a decade ago, we've lost a full year of cognitive ability in ten years. One in five teenagers…
- The Welfare State vs Immigration: What Ireland's Numbers Actually Say · 34 min · Season 2026 Episode 79Can a generous welfare state and large-scale immigration coexist? Fresh research says it depends on who arrives and what kind of welfare state they arrive in. In the UK, an…
- Xi vs Trump: Inside the Chinese Economic Machine · 43 min · Season 2026 Episode 78Trump and Xi sit down in Washington today, but the real story is how China actually built its economic juggernaut. China expert Yanmei Xie breaks down the "catfish in the sardine…
- The Ed Sheeranisation of Irish Economic Policy · 39 min · Season 2026 Episode 77This episode provides a midterm assessment of the Irish economy, exploring the disconnect between record-breaking macroeconomic data and the lived experience of the public. We…
- Pacing the Frontier: Global Capital, Bond Markets, and the AI Pivot · 42 min · Season 2026 Episode 76There has been a transition from a world of abundant capital to one of scarcity. With the rising interest rates across the US, UK, and France, we discuss the economic…
- The Death of the Night-Time Economy: Why Ireland is Closing Down After Midnight · 38 min · Season 2026 Episode 75This week, we analyse the collapse of Ireland's night-time economy, noting that 2,205 pubs, one in four nationwide, have closed since 2005. With regional closure rates hitting…
- Fairway Diplomacy: How Golf Became Ireland's Secret Weapon Against Trump · 41 min · Season 2026 Episode 74Donald Trump touches down in Doonbeg this weekend for the Irish Open at his own golf course, and we're asking whether Ireland should protest or play along. We unpack the…
- Germany’s Seismic Shift: The Rise of the AfD · 42 min · Season 2026 Episode 73A deep dive into the AfD’s 44% victory in Saxony-Anhalt and its implications for the European Union. We analyse the collapse of Germany’s political center, the demographic divide…
- The AI Culture Wars · 37 min · Season 2026 Episode 72We explore the new ideological divide between Silicon Valley’s techno-optimists and institutional economists like Daron Acemoglu. Will AI drive shared prosperity or concentrate…
- Ireland's Immigration Numbers Don't Add Up And Housing Is Paying the Price · 37 min · Season 2026 Episode 71Our population's just hit 5.5 million, and 72% of that growth is migration, not births. Five years ago 57% of work permits went to doctors, nurses and scientists. Now it's just…
- Jackson Hole Reckoning: The $40 Trillion Debt Crisis and the End of Fiscal Exceptionalism · 36 min · Season 2026 Episode 70As global central bankers convene for the Jackson Hole symposium, the interrogation of American fiscal credibility takes center stage. With US national debt surpassing $40…
- How A Massacre Created Modern Capitalism: The Huguenot Legacy · 36 min · Season 2026 Episode 69On the anniversary of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, we explore the extraordinary economic impact of the French Huguenots. Discover how these religious refugees pioneered…
- 20 Years Since the Celtic Tiger: Why the Irish Banking System is Still Broken · 35 min · Season 2026 Episode 68August 2006 marked the beginning of the end for the Celtic Tiger, but the legacy of that crash continues to stifle the Irish economy today. We explore how the refinancing game…
- The Chief Rule Breaker: David Gardner on Beating the Market · 45 min · Season 2026 Episode 67I first came across The Motley Fool while working in the "bulge bracket" banks of the late 90s, where the goal was often to keep the public out. Sitting down with David Gardner…
- The Caveman and That Dunsinking Feeling · 35 min · Season 2026 Episode 66We mark Mack's 60th birthday by tackling the systemic paralysis of the Irish housing market. We examine the "CAVE" phenomenon: Citizens Against Virtually Everything, and how…
- The Yen Dollar Euro Salad · 34 min · Season 2026 Episode 65We explore the US Treasury’s unprecedented decision to prop up the Japanese Yen by selling Euro assets, a move that bypassed the ECB and shattered decades of diplomatic norms…
- AI Deflation: The New Railway Crash? · 36 min · Season 2026 Episode 64Tech bros promise a miracle, but history warns of a bubble. We explore how AI-driven deflation could trigger a global debt meltdown, starting with the warning signs in South…
- What Does The Ceuta Incident Mean For Europe? · 35 min · Season 2026 Episode 63This week, we’re diving into a story that wasn't on anyone’s bingo card: 50,000 people breaching one of the most fortified borders in the world in a single weekend. We’re talking…
- Prometheus Abides · 37 min · Season 2026 Episode 62Is AI our new Prometheus, or have we just opened Pandora’s box? We dive into the risks of "techno-feudalism," why the "middleman" being replaced by robots is actually just us…
- The €133 Billion Black Hole: Why Ireland Can’t Track Its Spending · 39 min · Season 2026 Episode 61Theoretical physicist Matt Fenlon joins the podcast to expose the systemic lack of transparency in Irish public expenditure. As the state budget doubles to €133 billion, Fenlon…
- Rich Country, Broken State · 45 min · Season 2026 Episode 60Ireland has cash coming out of its ears, and nothing to show for it. Sinead O'Sullivan is back to expose the wild dysfunction inside the Irish state: no one is accountable…
- Spain Won Again, 500 Years Later · 41 min · Season 2026 Episode 59Spain beat Argentina 1-0 in a scrappy, dirty World Cup final, in what felt like 500 years of history playing out on a pitch in New Jersey. We use the final as an excuse to ask…
- Is AI About to Crash the Global Economy? · 41 min · Season 2026 Episode 58History says yes. We rewind to 1873, when a stock market wobble in Vienna triggered a global railway crash that took down banks, empires and 80% of world lending in a matter of…
- Mbappé vs Le Pen: The Battle for France · 43 min · Season 2026 Episode 57On this 14th of July, as Les Bleus face Spain in the semi-final, France is heading into a political crisis that could reshape Europe because where France goes, Europe usually…
- England V Norway: A Tale of Two Oil Discoveries? · 41 min · Season 2026 Episode 56Norway turned North Sea oil into $2 trillion in the bank. Britain turned it into tax cuts, unemployment cheques and a housing bubble. We unpack the tale of two oil finds, why one…
- Alexander Hamilton: How a Caribbean Orphan Built America · 38 min · Season 2026 Episode 55250 years on, we ask the question: would America even exist without Alexander Hamilton? We tell the story of the French-speaking outsider who created the dollar, faced down the…
- Ireland's Silent Sell Off and the Employee Ownership Solution · 32 min · Season 2026 Episode 54Every day that the Irish Financial Service Centre is open, they're selling an Irish business into foreign ownership. Since 2018, overseas acquirers have spent over €100 billion…
- The Death of the American Dream · 33 min · Season 2026 Episode 53SpaceX just IPO'd, surged, and torched billions of small investors. It's the new American economy. From prediction markets to crypto to day-trading teens, we look at how the US…
- The Man Who Broke the Global Economy · 42 min · Season 2026 Episode 52Alan Greenspan just died at 100, and he might be the most consequential person of the last 30 years that nobody talks about. We unpack the wild story of the jazz clarinettist…
- Why Did Brazil Never Make It? · 35 min · Season 2026 Episode 51The country of the future has been stuck in the future for 100 years. We dig into Brazil's wild economic story; slavery, the secret "whitening" immigration policy that sent…
- The EU Is Cracking · 40 min · Season 2026 Episode 50Europe just got overtaken, and it knows it. From a bar in Brussels, we unpack the ancient fault line tearing the EU apart, why China's rise has spooked the continent more than…
- World Cup Series: Haiti · 44 min · Season 2026 Episode 49Haiti just qualified for its first World Cup in 50 years, and they come from the poorest country in the Americas, a place where gangs run the capital and the average person earns…
- Could Canada Have A Brexit Moment? · 43 min · Season 2026 Episode 48Mark Carney is being hailed as the new leader of the free world. While he's facing down Trump abroad, his real headache is at home, Alberta, Canada's Texas, is gearing up for a…
- Inside the World Cup's Narco State · 41 min · Season 2026 Episode 47We head down Mexico way to unpack the country hosting the World Cup, a $1.8 trillion economy living side by side with one of the most powerful criminal networks on earth. Drugs…
- Why Social Democracies Win World Cups · 41 min · Season 2026 Episode 46The FT's Simon Kuper joins us to kick off our World Cup series, on why tiny social democracies keep producing the best football teams, why FIFA is laundering reputations for…
- The Coming Water Crisis · 29 min · Season 2026 Episode 45Forget oil. The real fight is over the world's most precious and least understood commodity; water. We're joined by Paul O'Callaghan of BlueTech Research to explain why two…
- Why Trump Is About to Come for Ireland · 41 min · Season 2026 Episode 44Made in Kinsale, sold in America, the Ozempic boom is making Ireland rich and dangerously exposed. We unpack how three companies now pay nearly half our corporate tax, and what…
- How Trump Could Kill the Dollar · 48 min · Season 2026 Episode 43Monetary historian Brendan Greeley explains why the dollar's power has nothing to do with the Fed, why crypto is just a bank in disguise, and why politicising the dollar might be…
