The David McWilliams Podcast

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 geopolitical divorces of the 20th century: China’s break from the Soviet Union in the 1960s. We explore how competing worldviews, liberal restraint versus autocratic power are reshaping global alliances, leaving Europe disoriented and exposed. Drawing on history, geopolitics and economics, we ask whether this moment marks the true end of Pax Americana, and whether it’s permanent. Then we turn to the other pressure building quietly beneath the surface: debt. With sluggish growth, soaring deficits and rising bond yields, are the bond vigilantes about to make a comeback? From France to the US, we unpack why fiscal stress, not inflation, may be the real economic story of the next two years.Bonus segment: In partnership with IBEC, we look ahead to Ireland’s EU presidency and ask how Irish business can position itself in a world defined by geopolitical fracture, fiscal strain and intensifying competition, from AI and infrastructure to talent, trade and resilience.History, power, money, and the fault lines that matter next. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

15/01/2026 • 53:31

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 time, two oil superpowers, Venezuela and Iran, slide into fresh instability. Coincidence? Not quite. We unpack a world that feels wildly out of balance. In the U.S., markets are booming while consumer confidence collapses. The top 10 stocks now make up 40% of the S&P 500, profits are rising six times faster than wages, and young unemployment is running at 8.5% while older workers stack second jobs. GDP says “fine.” Lived reality says otherwise. Then we turn to energy, the thing that still prices everything. With oil hovering around $60 a barrel, sanctions wobbling, OPEC under strain, and Iran emerging as the real wildcard, we ask what happens next. Oil expert Carol Nackley joins us to explain why Venezuela’s reserves don’t mean cheap fuel, why Iran could flip the market overnight, and why political chaos makes long-term energy investment almost impossible. This episode is about imbalance, in money, markets, power, and psychology, and why when trust in institutions cracks, the consequences show up everywhere: in your wages, your bills, and the price you pay at the pump. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

13/01/2026 • 48:30

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 dramatic geopolitical reset in the region since 1989. We head to the Caribbean to ask who wins, who loses, and who has been quietly complicit all along. Economist Marla Dukaran joins us from Trinidad with jaw-dropping numbers: Caribbean states racked up debts to Venezuela worth 20–50% of their GDP, many of them “off the books,” even as 8 million Venezuelans fled their country. While leaders preached morality, they were bathing in subsidised oil. If Venezuelan oil disappears, and U.S. power reasserts itself, Cuba loses its lifeline. Could that trigger regime collapse? Could stability finally return to Venezuela? Or are we entering a new era where great powers carve up weak states and call it humanitarian? Think Monroe Doctrine 2.0, only faster, harder, and happening right now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

08/01/2026 • 45:36

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 something far more experimental? We’re joined again by Latin America analyst Juan Gabriel Tokatlian, who argues this is the birth of something unprecedented: a U.S.-managed protectorate where Washington negotiates directly with whoever actually holds power,the military and the Chavista elite, while keeping a “second round” of force on the table. From China’s billions now stuck at the back of the queue, to the return of 17th-century-style capitalism where corporations and states move as one, we explore what Venezuelans, Colombians, and the wider region fear comes next. If Maduro is gone… who’s really in charge now — and for how long? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

06/01/2026 • 43:50

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 growth might be reaching its sell-by date. The housing crisis rages, younger people emigrate, and a risk-averse political class hides behind admin. We break down the "known knowns" for Ireland’s year ahead, from capacity crunches to a society shaped by contentment, not ambition. And what if Troy Parrott brings us to the World Cup, could football give us the only real growth story this year? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

01/01/2026 • 41:48

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 petrostate collapsed without a war, why US policy is pushing the region to the edge, and what might really be behind American naval deployments off the Venezuelan coast. Is regime change in the air? And if Venezuela falls, is Cuba next? Latin America may be Washington’s backyard, but it’s about to become the world’s front line. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

30/12/2025 • 46:22

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 episode, we explore why China emerged from 2025 stronger than any other power, why it has no interest in ruling the world, and why that restraint may be its greatest strength. From the invention of a shared written language to state exams, from imperial bureaucracy to modern supply chains, we trace how China built power by consolidating at home while quietly extending economic influence abroad. This is a story of conquest, of control, and why the West still struggles to understand a system that values internal cohesion over imperial adventure. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

23/12/2025 • 42:37

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 continuous free‑trade zone the world has ever seen, stretching from Korea to Ukraine. By reopening the Silk Road after a thousand years, the Mongols allowed ideas, technologies, and capital to flow from China to Europe; paper, gunpowder, money, insurance, trade associations, even early globalisation itself. The same networks that spread innovation also carried the Black Death, halving Europe’s population and accidentally laying the economic foundations for the Renaissance. From biological warfare to free movement of people and goods, this is the story of how a nomadic empire reshaped the global economy, and why globalization is far older, darker, and stranger than we like to admit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

18/12/2025 • 37:53

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 staggering 600 gigawatt potential of offshore wind off Ireland’s coast, enough to power every home and factory in the EU, several times over. So why haven’t we built a new offshore wind farm in 20 years? From floating turbines to fiscal unions, Dutch perpetual bonds to data centres in the Burren, we break down how wind could be Ireland’s next IDA moment, if we can overcome our engineering phobia and stop thinking like a museum. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

16/12/2025 • 42:44

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 presidency. Here in Ireland, neutrality suddenly feels less like a principle and more like a liability. In this episode, we ask: is Europe still a power bloc, or just a museum with great croissants? From Russian disinformation to Chinese green tech dominance, we break down the numbers behind Europe’s strategic decline, and what Ireland needs to wake up to before it’s too late. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

11/12/2025 • 46:36

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. Why? Because the official poverty line is €33,600, but it now takes at least €52,000 a year just to stay afloat. That’s a 40% gap between what’s measured and what’s felt. Rent has passed €2,000 a month, groceries are up 16% in a year, childcare can cost over €1,000 monthly, and still we’re told the economy is “booming.” Inspired by Michael Green’s viral Substack and Kyla Scanlon’s “vibecession,” we unpack the growing chasm between income and cost, and how it’s fuelling backlash, burnout, and political blowback from New York to Newbridge. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

09/12/2025 • 35:46

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 Dublin’s Herzog Park, to Northern Ireland’s uneasy edges, we trace how geography becomes politics. Then we go back to the original culprit: William Petty, Cromwell’s cartographer, the man who mapped Ireland in 13 months and turned land into an asset class. His Down Survey redrew Ireland and created the blueprint for colonialism, capitalism and the straight-line borders that still ignite conflict from Central Asia to the Middle East. We follow the rulers, the rebellions, the dispossession and the economics behind every “line in the sand.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

04/12/2025 • 36:32

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 who litigate. China lays highways and high-speed rail at warp speed; common-law countries file objections and environmental reports. Europe, meanwhile, risks turning into a mausoleum economy with great croissants, beautiful cities, and a shrinking industrial base. We ask does China’s engineering mindset can deliver both stunning bridges and harsh social controls? Does a world of tariffs, security fears and cyber-fragility forces us to rethink who we let run the show: the builders or the barristers? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

02/12/2025 • 50:00

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 Central Asia? To get there, we bring in historian Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads, to map the region we lazily call “the Stans”; Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan, plus Afghanistan, Iran and their neighbours. Together we unpack why this vast strip of land, once the beating heart of the Silk Roads, is suddenly back at the centre of the global game: home to huge reserves of oil, gas, uranium, rare earths and critical minerals, a young and growing population, and wedged between Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Iran. We hear how Central Asian states are learning to play everyone off against everyone and why the new Great Game isn’t a neat East vs West story at all. If the world is getting more dangerous, more digital and more fragmented, what does it mean that Ireland is the EU’s weak link on defence, with tiny cyber budgets, under-protected seabed cables and a very cosy version of neutrality? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

27/11/2025 • 38:53

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 America, Ireland, and Britain no longer build the infrastructure that made them great? From the riveted, soot-stained genius of the New York subway to China’s ability to throw up a hospital in ten days, we explore a new way of understanding global power: engineers vs. lawyers. Guided by Dan Wang’s Breakneck, we trace how China’s engineer-run state builds at breakneck speed while lawyer-dominated America litigates itself into paralysis, and how Ireland, with a Dáil stuffed with talkers rather than doers, finds itself in the same boat. We dig into the numbers, the politics, the personalities, and the quiet collapse of Western state capacity. If the people running your country don’t know how to build, how can the country itself ever hope to? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

25/11/2025 • 39:08

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 gold rushes that reshaped the map: California in 1849, the Australian fields, the Klondike, and the deep shafts of South Africa. We meet Johann Sutter and the prospector who accidentally ruined his carefully built New Helvetia, the pioneers who turned empty coasts into booming economies, and the engineers and chemists who turned raw gold into the backbone of the 19th-century gold standard, global trade, and the first great age of financialisation. More recently, we ask why is gold nudging $4,000 an ounce? Why are central banks loading up on bullion again? Is this a bet against the dollar, a sign of geopolitical jitters, or the start of a new monetary era as fiat money and the old globalisation order creak? From mudslides in Malibu to vaults in Fort Knox, this episode is all about gold, what it did to the world before, and what its new surge might be telling us now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

20/11/2025 • 31:54

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 imagination, storytelling and constant reinvention. From Mulholland’s aqueduct to the studios that wrote America’s myths, we asks: what does a place like this tell us about capitalism, churn and the Uber-ised, gigged-out modern economy? From there, we fly back into something touchier: Ireland’s relationship with the United States. We lay out just how dependent Ireland is on U.S. investment, jobs and tax, and then ask why so much of the Irish left, especially what he calls the “presidential left”, is reflexively anti-American. We unpack third-worldism, neutrality as moral performance, climate politics as a Trojan horse, and the growing gap between Áras rhetoric and how ordinary Irish people actually live, work and travel in a world where America is still our best friend Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

18/11/2025 • 47:55

Live at Kilkenomics, we welcome Roscommon's own economics star Kyla Scanlon author of In This Economy for a fast, funny, and razor-sharp tour of where money and mood collide. We get into her “vibecession” idea on why feelings beat spreadsheets, the AI splash that’s propping up markets, and why America is drifting from a work economy to a casino economy. Why are unprofitable companies dominating the stock market? What happens when a whole generation treats the economy like a casino? And how did social media become both the marketplace and the message? From America’s leveraged bet on tech to Ireland’s own Gen Z drift, we follow the vibes, the volatility, and the very weird definition of adulthood emerging in 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

13/11/2025 • 37:57

A tech bubble always feels rational until it doesn’t, as Wall Street fuses with Silicon Valley and the entire American economy becomes a single hyper-leveraged bet on AI, we trace the early tremors: falling job numbers, concentration of risk, a market propped up by story over profit. The real shock comes at home, Ireland’s new Future 40 report quietly maps out a country sleepwalking into decades of slower growth, soaring age-related costs, and a housing crunch that will outlive an entire generation. The proposed solution currently is to import more workers into a market that can’t house the people already here. We break down the numbers, the politics, and the intergenerational showdown now shaping Ireland’s future, a collision of tech mania, demographic reality, and a state betting tomorrow on the backs of the young. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

11/11/2025 • 39:18

Twenty years ago, The Pope’s Children changed how Ireland saw itself; a country high on credit, confidence, and Celtic Tiger ambition. Two decades later, we’re back where it all began: the suburbs, the shopping centres, the bouncy castles and breakfast rolls that built a new middle class. We revisit the characters who defined an era, Decklanders, RoboPaddy, Breakfast Roll Man, and the forces that reshaped Irish life: class, credit, and cultural reinvention. From boom to bust to boom again, we ask what really changed, and what just got a rebrand.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

06/11/2025 • 38:03

Australia is the country Argentina should’ve been, and the country Ireland could become. Seventy years ago, Argentina and Australia stood side by side as the world’s great hopes, rich in land, resources, and ambition. Today, one is a model of steady prosperity, the other a warning wrapped in inflation and political theatre. We dig into how two nations with the same starting line took radically different paths: Australia’s pragmatism versus Argentina’s populism. From Perón to protectionism, from housing booms to resource riches, it’s a lesson in how economic choices shape destiny, and why Ireland should listen carefully before history starts to rhyme again. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

04/11/2025 • 41:07

As Ireland square up to the All Blacks at the weekend, we are all New Zealand this week, podcasting from the edge of the world, Richie McCaw's old stomping Christchurch, New Zealand. We explore why the world’s richest men are turning NZ's quiet and beautiful South Island into their apocalypse insurance policy. Peter Thiel has bought hundreds of acres near Lake Wānaka, joining a wave of tech billionaires building bunkers at the bottom of the planet. They call it resilience; it looks a lot like retreat. From Victorian settlers fleeing moral decay to modern tech evangelists escaping the society they built, New Zealand has always drawn utopians convinced the world is ending somewhere else. We trace the country’s shift from colonial outpost to libertarian life raft, unpacking The Sovereign Individual, the book that shaped Silicon Valley’s doomsday economics. A journey through empire, ideology, and the strange new faith that the future belongs only to those who can afford to escape. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

30/10/2025 • 33:27

Somewhere between a biker bar in Nimbin and a data centre in Virginia, we try to make sense of the biggest capital boom in history. The AI revolution has garnered $400 billion of spending this year alone, nearly half of all US growth. What if it’s all built on industrial lettuces, tech that expires faster than it earns? From NVIDIA’s chip race to Meta’s debt-fuelled data farms, the same story keeps repeating: speculation first, profits later. Live from Australia, we trace how bubbles drive innovation, and destruction, from railroads to radio to AI. They ask who really benefits when Silicon Valley welcomes the bubble, Wall Street fears it, and democracies are left to clean up the crash. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

28/10/2025 • 42:47

Deep in an Australian rainforest, surrounded by birds older than any cathedral, We unpack one of the greatest mysteries in human history, how the first people to sail across open seas, 60,000 years ago, became a civilisation that forgot how to sail. The Aboriginal Australians, the oldest continuous culture on Earth, arrived when Europe was still under ice. They built languages older than Latin, mapped deserts the size of continents, and thrived for 99.7% of Australia’s human history before a single European set foot here. Then, in just decades, 90% of them were gone, wiped out not by conquest, but by microbes. From this collision of worlds, we explore what makes societies innovate, why isolation freezes progress while connection multiplies it. Drawing on Harvard anthropologist Joseph Henrich’s idea of the collective brain, they trace how collaboration fuels invention, from the first tools to AI. The episode arcs from the Aboriginal sailors who crossed 100 miles of open water before anyone else, to the Nobel Prize winners studying the alchemy of innovation, and ends with Ireland’s own late awakening from creative isolation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

23/10/2025 • 38:37

Cycling through Brisbane in the heat, we've found a country that hasn’t had a recession in nearly half a century; a statistical miracle in modern capitalism. Australia’s economy has grown steadily since the 1980s, powered by the luck of geography and the grit of immigration. Iron ore alone earns more than €100 billion a year, and one in three residents were born abroad, making it the most immigrant-driven economy in the rich world. Its central bank floats the currency to stay competitive, its politicians spend sparingly but smartly, and its cities remain among the most liveable on Earth. Yet beneath the sunshine and swagger lies a tension: record house prices, soaring costs, and a nation riding two horses at once, one facing Washington, the other Beijing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

21/10/2025 • 41:47

Live from Christchurch, literally tomorrow, we bring on Andrew Maxwell, fresh off stage in Riyadh, to ground-truth the social shift you won’t see in think-tank PDFs: 8k-seat comedy arenas, mixed audiences, and a culture moving at startup speed. With approximately 17% of the world’s proven crude reserves, a sovereign fund near $900bn, and a population that’s 65% under 35, Riyadh can bankroll outcomes, including a Gaza deal. Female labour-force participation has doubled since 2016, internet use is near-universal, and Vision 2030 is pointing trillions in capex at tourism, sport, and tech. We dig into how a Saudi–Egypt–Pakistan triangle (money, manpower, nukes) changes the bargaining set, why normalisation with Israel would be a geopolitical earthquake, and what a “phase two” looks like. We also hit the shelved India–Gulf–Med trade corridor, Qatar’s broker role with Hamas, and why Europe’s mostly a spectator in a multipolar game.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

16/10/2025 • 54:43

We promise this isn’t another boring budget breakdown! This week, we’re asking a bigger question: what if taxation isn’t really about raising money, but about changing behaviour? With Ireland awash in corporate tax revenue, the old logic of “tax to fund spending” doesn’t quite hold. So, should we start using taxes to shape how people act, from derelict sites to carbon emissions, and borrow the money we need instead? We explore how Ireland’s unique position in global finance could make it a testing ground for a new kind of economic thinking, one where the budget becomes less about arithmetic, and more about incentives, behaviour, and human nature. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

14/10/2025 • 36:44

We’re back with The Edge for part two of our conversation. This time, on the creative mind itself, we talk about what connects the artist and the entrepreneur: the instinct to imagine something that doesn’t exist and make it real. From James Joyce’s Volta Cinema to U2’s Berlin reinvention, we explore how creativity and risk are two sides of the same coin, and why failure, not success, is what really drives innovation. The Edge opens up about reinventing old songs, finding confidence in chaos, and what it means to stay curious for decades. We also dig into AI and the future of music, asking whether algorithms can ever truly create something new, or if the human imagination will always win out.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

09/10/2025 • 42:38

Live from the basement, we sit down with The Edge, the musician who wanted to be a scientist, to talk about the spark that connects rock bands and startups. From U2’s early ambition to his work with Endeavour, The Edge shares how curiosity, mentorship, and a willingness to fail can turn creativity into success. We explore why Ireland can’t rely on multinationals forever, how to build a real culture of innovation, and why begrudgery has held us back for too long. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

07/10/2025 • 44:17

We like to think of the centre as steady, sensible, and grounded, but what if the “centre” is actually the most radical place in politics right now? The real fault line in modern politics isn’t about tax or spending, it’s about culture. Onn those cultural questions the political class has drifted miles away from the people they claim to represent. In Britain, nearly 9 in 10 people think immigrants should adapt to local customs, yet most MPs don’t. In Germany, it’s the same. In Ireland, the gap is smaller but still real. On economics, tax, spending, capitalism, the public and politicians broadly agree yet on culture, they’re worlds apart. With Financial Times' John Burn-Murdoch, we dig into the numbers from Ireland, the UK, Germany and Denmark, and ask: if the centre has abandoned the centre, who’s really radical anymore?What is Radical Politics? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

02/10/2025 • 46:20