Podcast
The David McWilliams Podcast
Hosted by David McWilliams & John Davis · EN
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.
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.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
47episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Immigration: What's The Plan?
2d ago00:44:20Tap to summarizeNo policy. No plan. No housing. Sinead O'Sullivan is back to explain why Ireland took in more immigrants per head than any country in Europe, and why the middle class is about to feel what the working class has been shouting about for years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →China Is Winning, Trump Doesn't Know It Yet
1w ago00:39:45Tap to summarizeChina is winning, and Trump doesn't know it yet. As the two leaders sit down in Beijing today, we explain why the Chinese think America is an empire in decline, and why they might be right. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →Why Your Barista Has a Master's Degree
1w ago00:34:22Tap to summarizeWhat 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 crack. This week, we get into his theory of "elite overproduction" and ask whether Ireland is staring straight into it. We unpack the stats: most educated population in the EU, master's degrees doubling in 15 years, and nearly one in three graduates working in jobs that don't need a degree. We talk about why the barista with a first-class honours and the barman with an economics master's are not just funny anecdotes, they're leading indicators of political instability. We look at how the public sector is quietly absorbing the overflow that the private sector can't, why AI is about to pour petrol on the fire, and why historically it's not the abject poor who revolt, it's the relatively rich and bitterly disappointed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →The UAE, Iran, and the Hostage at the Heart of the Oil War
2w ago00:38:37Tap to summarizeThe 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? What does it mean for the price of petrol in your car, for Trump's midterms, and for the geopolitics of the Gulf? We get into the strange tacit alliance between the UAE and Israel, why Iran's real leverage isn't the Straits of Hormuz but the Emirates themselves, and how Saudi Arabia's old swing-producer power is being quietly dismantled. We also draw a much bigger lesson for small countries everywhere, including Ireland: the multilateral world that small states have hidden inside since the 1940s is breaking down, and the UAE's gamble is a glimpse of the hard choices that lie ahead. Oil, war, money, and the end of an era, all in one episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →The Failure Premium: Where is the Money Going?
2w ago00:42:10Tap to summarizeThis 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 but has forgotten how to coordinate, build, or own anything. We follow the money: why HAP quietly inflates the rent into the landlord's pocket, why housing a refugee costs €99 a night here and €13 in the Netherlands, and why we're paying premium prices for second-rate outcomes across housing, health, and infrastructure. We look at how a country adapts to dysfunction, sheds in back gardens, hollowed-out city centres, kids emigrating, until we stop noticing it's not normal. What happens when the multinational money slows down and we're left holding the infrastructure deficit we never fixed? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →Ireland Is Killing Its Entrepreneurs
3w ago00:41:26Tap to summarizeIreland 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 week, we ask why young Irish people have stopped backing themselves, and why a country that looks rich on paper is quietly losing the very people who make economies dance. We get into the difference between wealth that's extracted (the multinationals) and wealth that's created (the Ryanairs), and why one is far more fragile than it looks. We bring in Schumpeter and Nassim Taleb, follow a hypothetical 27-year-old called Kiera as the numbers crush her before she's even begun, and ask whether Ireland has become a nation of doubters, quietly punishing anyone who dares to have a go. We float a fix: stop parking the multinational windfall in a pension fund our 25-year-olds will never see, and turn it into a startup fund they can actually use. Because without risk-takers, there's no return, and without return, there's no economy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →Is America Losing Control?
3w ago00:44:20Tap to summarizeThe 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, to explain how the United States became the financial centre of the world, and why that dominance may now be under threat. At the heart of it all is a simple but unsettling reality: America doesn’t just produce goods, it produces money. The rest of the world needs dollars to trade, invest, and survive financial shocks. That gives the US enormous power, but also creates dangerous imbalances. We explore how decades of financialisation have concentrated wealth and influence in a small group of investors, reshaping both the American economy and global politics. Meanwhile, rising geopolitical tensions, particularly around Iran, raise a bigger question: could a single strategic misstep do to the US what the Suez Crisis did to Britain, quietly ending its era of dominance? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →The Premature State: Why Ireland Can’t Build Itself
4w ago00:44:15Tap to summarizeIreland 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 premature state. Despite extraordinary wealth on paper, everyday life tells a different story. Housing is broken, infrastructure lags behind, public services struggle to deliver. So where is all the money going? The answer, as Sinead argues, is structural. Ireland has become exceptionally good at spending money, but never properly learned how to build systems. For centuries, key functions of the state were outsourced, first to the British Empire, then the Church, then the EU, and now multinational corporations. The result is a country rich in resources, but lacking the institutional muscle to turn that wealth into a functioning society. We also take on the reaction to this kind of thinking; the “nitpickers” who focus on minor details to avoid confronting big, uncomfortable truths. If Ireland’s problem isn’t money, but capacity, then the implications are far more serious than any short-term fix. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →Subsidies, Strikes and the Coming July Clash
Apr 2100:33:31Tap to summarizeIreland 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 organised group of farmers and truckers managed to bring the country to a standstill, exposing just how vulnerable the state really is. So far, the response has been to just throw money at the problem. With subsidies set to expire in July, long summer nights, rising tensions, and the spotlight of the European presidency arriving, all the ingredients are in place for a perfect storm. Add in growing populism, rural frustration, and anti-immigration sentiment, and the question becomes unavoidable: has the government just incentivised the next crisis? At the heart of it all is a bigger issue, a state that increasingly relies on cash instead of control, short-term fixes instead of long-term thinking, and political optics over real strategy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →Is Ireland the Worst-Run Rich Country in Europe?
Apr 1500:43:34Tap to summarizeIreland 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 back from the noise of protests, strikes, and rising fuel costs to ask how can a country with so much money deliver so little? From housing and healthcare to transport and infrastructure, the pattern is the same, soaring budgets, missed targets, and no consequences. We explore the idea that this is an insidious system where incentives are broken, accountability is absent, and a permanent “Mandarin class” operates behind the scenes, untouched by elections or outcomes. The result is an economy where public spending fuels inflation, squeezes workers, and hollows out the productive sector. This has graduated from a left-versus-right story to a question of care versus contempt. Unless that changes, Ireland risks squandering a once-in-a-generation windfall while the cracks in the system grow wider. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →