x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

The David McWilliams Podcast

David McWilliams & John Davis

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

news & politics

All Episodes

50:00

China Explained with Dan Wang

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/12/02

We talk to writer and analyst Dan Wang, whose bookBreakneckargues that China is anengineering state,run by people who build, while America, Ireland and the wider Anglosphere have becomelawyer 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

en

38:53

Is Central Asia the Next Front Line of Global Power?...

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/11/27

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 ofThe 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

en

39:08

Why Can’t the West Build Anymore?

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/11/25

Reporting from New York, with a Bitcoin slump at his heels and the Hollywood-launch buzz ofMoney: A Story of Humanitystill 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

en

31:54

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

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/11/20

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,

en

47:55

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

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/11/18

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

en

37:57

Vibecession, AI Mania & The New Casino Economy with...

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/11/13

Live at Kilkenomics, we welcome Roscommon's own economics starKyla Scanlonauthor ofIn This Economyfor 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 acasino 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

en

39:18

The Tech Crash, The Demographic Time Bomb, and...

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/11/11

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

en

38:03

The Pope’s Children at 20: How Ireland Grew Up

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/11/06

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

en

41:07

Australia, Argentina & Ireland: A Tale of Three...

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/11/04

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

en

33:27

The Life Raft for Billionaires: Why Tech Titans Are...

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/10/30

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

en

42:47

The AI Bubble: Boom, Bust & Baked in Nimbin

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/10/28

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

en

38:37

The Lost Sailors: From Aboriginals to Schumpeter

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/10/23

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

en

41:47

The Land of Opportunity Down Under: Australia

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/10/21

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

en

54:43

Saudi the Kingmaker: Gaza, Trump & a New Middle East...

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/10/16

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

en

36:44

The Behavioural Budget: How Tax Shapes Us

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/10/14

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

en

42:38

The Art of Creation with The Edge - Part Two

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/10/09

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

en

44:17

The Art of Creation with The Edge

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/10/07

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

en

46:20

What is Radical Politics?

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/10/02

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, nearly9 in 10 peoplethink immigrants should adapt to local customs, yet most MPs don’t. In Germany, it’s the same. In Ireland, the gap is

en

36:33

Culture Wars in the West, Alliances in the East

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/09/30

While the West burns itself out on culture wars, the East is quietly stitching together something bigger. This is the age of geo-economics, where oil, factories, and sheer population size matter more than headlines. On Russia’s border, the numbers tell the story: 4.5 million Russians facing 107 million Chinese. Add India into the mix and you see the outline of an alliance with the power to redraw the map. Meanwhile, Europe feels tired, America feels divided, and the old certainties of Pax Americana

en

38:14

Who Owns the Flag? From the American Revolution to...

The David McWilliams Podcast ·

2025/09/25

We’re in New York this week, celebrating my mam’s 90th birthday and launchingThe History of Moneyin the U.S., but the backdrop is America’s deepening culture war. With the 250th anniversary of the Revolution looming, both liberals and MAGA are fighting to “own” the flag, the story, and the soul of America. We dive into Ken Burns’s new PBS seriesThe American Revolution, the forgotten role of General O’Hara (an Irishman who surrendered for the British), and why 75% of Black troops fought for the

en

618 results

Similar Podcasts

Boletines RNE

RNE

BBC News

BBC World Service

برامج

مونت كارلو الدولية / MCD

Journal Afrique

RFI

要闻解说

RFI - 法国国际广播电台