The David McWilliams Podcast

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.

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.

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.

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 begin to fade. The question isn’t just who holds the power now, it’s whether we’ll even recognise the world that emerges next. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re in New York this week, celebrating my mam’s 90th birthday and launching The History of Money in 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 series The 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 Crown. We reflect on Monica Lewinsky’s powerful talk on shame in the internet age, before turning to the fallout from Charlie Kirk’s killing, how one event is being weaponised to fuel division, echoing darker moments of history like Kristallnacht. And we look ahead: could the 2026 World Cup become the liberals’ unlikely answer to MAGA pageantry? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does golf tell us about money, power, and the way economies work? From billion-dollar sponsorship deals to the rise of LIV Golf, from Tiger Woods to Trump’s golf courses, the fairways of golf are lined with lessons about globalisation, soft power, and the business of status. In this episode, we tee off on the economics of golf, how a game that looks leisurely on the surface is actually a high-stakes arena of geopolitics, big business, and class. Along the way we explore why Ireland punches above its weight in the sport, why golf courses matter for land use and housing, and why golf has always been about more than chasing a little white ball around a field.This is a special bonus episode from Sky Sports. Watch all 3 days of The Ryder Cup exclusively live on Sky Sports. Upgrade today or Stream live with NOW - Available without a contract Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Between 250,000-300,000 tourists land on the island every year, 2,500 a day in summer, and yet it still feels authentic, alive, and deeply Irish. In this episode, we ask: how do remote places like Inishmore thrive in today’s economy, while once-wealthy regions like France’s Île de Ré struggle with emptying out? We dig into the wild history of cod and salt (the currency of empires), why Ireland salted beef instead of fish, and how the Aran Islands are now punching above their weight in the global experience economy. From lobster-pot pubs to the death of distance, we explore what makes people pay not just for goods and services, but for memory, tribe, and authenticity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the solution to Ireland’s housing crisis has been sitting on our doorstep all along? We dive into the Danish model of cooperative housing, where 7% of Danes live in co-ops, and a full third of Copenhageners do too, and explore how the GAA, with its 2,200 clubs and pristine community pitches in every village, could spearhead something similar here. Forget developer margins and speculative bubbles: in Denmark, a co-op share might cost €70–100k, with monthly housing costs around €800, compared to a private flat at €400k and €1,200 rent. We talk about the power of collective ownership, intergenerational communities, and why housing is really about dignity, not speculation. Along the way, we get into Jim Gavin’s presidential bid, Fianna Fáil’s GAA connection, and why our presidency has become more like Ireland’s Got Talent than a serious constitutional role.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AI investment is exploding: the “Magnificent Seven” of Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, Tesla, and NVIDIA, are ploughing almost 7% of US GDP into AI and data centres. That’s the same scale as the US housing boom in 2006, and greater than the dot-com bubble at its peak. Today, just seven firms make up 34% of the S&P 500, the highest concentration in history. Earnings per share in these companies grew 37% last year, compared to just 6% in the rest of the index. But history warns us, RCA in the 1920s, dot-coms in the 1990s, that transformative technologies can change the world while destroying fortunes. The question now: is AI the next revolution, or the next bubble waiting to burst? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Broadcast from Île de Ré, we dive into France’s mounting fiscal mess and political paralysis. With Macron a lame-duck, bond markets charging Paris more than Athens, and a nationwide strike looming, we ask: could Europe’s cornerstone become its weakest link? We unpack France’s towering state-and-semi-state debts, why Japan can print and Paris can’t, the ECB’s “will they/won’t they” backstop if Le Pen takes power, and how a sovereignist turn could trigger a rewrite of France’s constitution, goodbye Fifth Republic, hello Sixth. Along the way: Anglo-Saxon doom-mongering, De Gaulle’s Jupiterian legacy, contagion math, and why life in “paradise” can still feel like purgatory. Big stakes, bigger history, and a very French cliff-hanger. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We took economics to a music festival, and somehow packed the tent. In this Electric Picnic highlights episode from Mindfield, we rock up bleary-eyed and buzzing, then dive straight into the big stuff: what Trump’s assault on America’s institutions means for money, markets, and the rest of us. We map the new super-cycle from post-war social democracy to Reagan-Thatcher finance, to today’s populist reboot, and why we think the US is flirting with a fiscal, monetary, and dollar crunch. Closer to home, we ask why Ireland looks rich on paper but feels poor in reality. In between, we tell the story of the 1992 currency crisis, a lo-fi mission to the Dorchester, and accidentally swapping the Central Bank for UBS and because we were literally in a field surrounded by stages, we tackle the music economy: streaming’s winner-takes-all logic, Daniel Ek’s “music costs almost zero,” algorithms that feed nostalgia over novelty, and why culture only renews when the young can afford to create.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is the US drifting into Peronism? We trace the playbook, tariffs and import substitution, national champions, censorship-by-intimidation, and a war on independent institutions, and map it onto Trump’s America: sacking a Fed governor, menacing J-Powell, firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, deploying the National Guard, and the Treasury taking a slice of Intel. Along the way, we tell the family story that makes the point better than any chart: two Italian brothers leave Lombardy in 1950, one goes to Argentina (then the world’s 7th-richest country), the other to the US. Eighty years later, identical genes, opposite outcomes. Why? Institutions. We uncover why “markets” aren’t a moral compass; why an emerging-market test now applies to America; what Turkey teaches about politicos capturing central banks; and how a weaker, politicised dollar would rattle Bretton Woods, push allies away, and turn a stock market priced for perfection into kindling. It’s part musical, part macro: from Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina to Don’t Cry for Me, Oklahoma. We’ll explain how it starts, how it ends, and what the rest of us in Europe should do while the richest third-world country in history experiments on the global monetary system. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ten years ago, Angela Merkel opened Germany’s doors to more than 1.1 million asylum seekers in a single year with the words “Wir schaffen das” (“We can do this”). Today, Germany has over 3.4 million asylum seekers, about 4% of its population, and politics, society, and culture have been transformed. In this episode, we dive into what really happened over the last decade. We talk with historian Katja Hoyer about the numbers, the culture clashes, the rise of the AfD from a fringe party to polling at 25%, and the everyday realities in towns where the refugee population doubled overnight. From schools where 80–90% of kids now have migrant backgrounds, to half of Germany’s welfare claimants being non-Germans, the story is as much about economics and integration as it is about politics. We pull it apart: the hopes, the backlash, and the future of immigration policy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The state has quietly become the biggest buyer of new homes. In fact, builders like Cairn Homes now have forward sales of nearly €946 million, much of it locked in by government deals. That means up to 80–85% of new builds are being bought by the state, at an average price of €382,000 per unit, while wages lag far behind rising house prices, which jumped 7.8% last year. So who’s being pushed out? First-time buyers. Instead of solving the housing crisis, the state is inflating prices, nationalising the property market by stealth, and creating what could be the most expensive council houses in the world. In this episode, we join the dots between Dutch disease, tax windfalls, political PR, and the future of Irish society. Why are nurses, teachers and young couples emigrating when billions are gushing into Ireland? And how did estate agents, once kings of the market, become an endangered species? We break it all down, numbers, history, and politics, to show why the government itself is now the main culprit behind Ireland’s housing mess. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After nearly 11 years of war, Putin’s maximalist demands have shrunk to a sliver of land in Donetsk, a pyrrhic victory after countless lives lost and millions displaced. But while the Kremlin clings to a symbolic scrap of territory, we explore whether Ukraine’s true future lies not in NATO membership but in becoming what political economist Harold Laswell once called a “garrison state.” What does that mean? Think of countries like Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, or even Finland in 1940: highly militarised, heavily armed by allies, but able to survive and rebuild under constant threat. Could this be Ukraine’s path, a nation of 40 million people with a vast agricultural base and heavy industry, rebuilt under an American security umbrella and billions in European aid? We pull apart the history: from the Treaty of Moscow (1940) that fixed Finland’s borders for decades, to Eisenhower’s warning of the military–industrial complex, to the Peloponnesian War’s clash of Sparta and Athens. Can democracy thrive in a garrison state? Is Europe ready to bankroll Ukraine’s reconstruction? And will turning Ukraine into a military bulwark finally secure peace, or only prepare the ground for the next war? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have we caught a case of Dutch Disease? Ireland’s dependence on foreign multinationals looks less like a golden goose and more like Japanese knotweed, invasive, overwhelming, and slowly strangling everything around it. Yes, the jobs are plentiful and the tax coffers are bulging, but the hidden costs are piling up: small businesses being elbowed out, rents spiralling, public spending ballooning, and a state increasingly captured by the very companies it courts. We trace how multinationals now pay almost 90% of our corporate tax, how graduates are sucked into big tech rather than start-ups, and how housing and wages are being distorted in the process. Ireland’s economy, once sold as nimble and entrepreneurial, is bending instead to the whims of boardrooms in California and Basel rather than Leinster House. Along the way we draw comparisons to the Premier League eclipsing Irish football, Trump’s short-term deal-making on the world stage, and even brothel keepers in Saigon.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’ve always known Dutch Disease as what happens when a country strikes oil or gas and accidentally hollows out the rest of its economy. But what if the United States’ great “resource discovery” wasn’t energy, it was debt? This week we talk to Brendan Greeley about his brilliant framework for understanding America’s political economy: the world’s insatiable appetite for U.S. Treasuries has turned debt into a commodity tap Washington can turn on at will. We explore how this constant borrowing props up the dollar, guts manufacturing, swells Wall Street, and fuels a political scramble for control of the spigot, with eerie parallels to Ireland’s own multinational tax windfall. Along the way, we ask why old economic theories can’t explain the dollar’s resilience, why quality of spending matters more than quantity, and what history says about how this all might end. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’ve always said to understand the economy, you have to understand human nature, and nothing reveals that better than watching the biggest players do a Godfather-style U-turn for easy money. In this episode, we connect the dots between Marlon Brando’s Don Corleone and Jamie Dimon’s pivot from calling crypto “a fraud” to using it as loan collateral, all while the President of the United States holds stakes in coins of his own. We unpack how the $2 trillion crypto market has morphed from anti-Wall Street rebellion to one of the most powerful lobby groups in America, funnelling cash to Congress to rewrite the rules. Along the way, we lift the lid on stablecoins, explain why money is a public good (not a private printing press for the TikTok age), and ask what happens if the dollar’s last line of defence, the Fed, gets taken out. Life imitating art imitating life… and the ending might not be pretty. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We all love a boom story, until it turns into a 40‑year hangover. In 1995, Japan’s nominal GDP hit its high‑water mark. It took until the 2020s to get back there. Debt has exploded to 250% of GDP. The population is shrinking so fast that by 2070, one in three Japanese will have vanished, down from 128 million in 2010 to just 87 million. What went wrong? A bursting property bubble, a banking system in denial, and a culture where shame trumps change. For four decades, Japan has been the economic equivalent of a superstar striker refusing to retire; still wearing the jersey, but stuck on the bench.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week marks 80 years since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and we’re taking a deep dive into Japan’s extraordinary economic story. In part one of our two-part series, we explore how Japan went from a feudal, isolated society to one of the most powerful economies in the world. With our guest Russell Jones, a brilliant economist and my old boss, we look at the Meiji Restoration, post-war reconstruction under America’s wing, and the wild property and stock market bubble of the 1980s. Along the way, we chat about Trump’s war on economic statistics, a touch of Cold War nuclear tension, and even a special Electric Picnic-related announcement! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.