The David McWilliams Podcast

Canada 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 tech harvest it. Now Ottawa is subsidising up to 80% of compute for home-grown firms and has put €150 million behind Bengio’s “safe by design” AI. How do slow, deliberate democracies regulate a technology teaching itself at...

Broadcasting 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 human race is shrinking. The global fertility rate has dropped to 1.8, below the 2.1 needed to replace ourselves, and of 236 countries studied, 219 are in decline. The twist is that it’s happening fastest among poorer, less-e...

Live 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 pockets the return when they emigrate. So scrap tax for two years for anyone coming home, and give citizenship to a third generation of Irish Americans. Then the midterms, four weeks out. Trump is on 33%, the lowest of any midt...

Ireland’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 looking at a €13-14 billion deficit, heading for €20 billion by 2029. Meanwhile we’ve just pumped €7.4 billion of tax cuts and handouts into an economy already at full employment. Recorded live from New York, where financ...

Calouste 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 everything: the Turkish Petroleum Company, Royal Dutch Shell, even a deal with Stalin paid in Hermitage art. His maps shaped modern Iraq and left the Kurds sitting on top of the oil, and his split of upstream, refining and distrib...

Dublin 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 on €108k can borrow just enough for a €484k home when a three-bed semi in Dublin asks €635k. We break down why: young people are maxed out, we're still building 1980s houses for a 2020s population, and the force dr...

15-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 in the rich world would struggle to read their own phone bill. We dig into why: screens, AI shortcuts, the death of patient reading, and a "snowflake-isation" of education that's swapped hard exams for so...

Can 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 average migrant couple needs a primary earner in the 55th percentile to pay their way. In Germany, it's the 28th. In Ireland, our back-of-envelope sums say the 65th, or about €62,000 a year. We break down why Ireland's...

Trump 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 tank" strategy behind China's EV dominance, why Chinese carmakers compete profit margins down to 3-4% just to win market share, and how a Leninist system mobilises household savings to fund it all. Hosted on...

This 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 analyse the "Ed Sheeranization" of Ireland,the delicate balance between American corporate reliance and European political identity, and the systemic risks posed by the global AI arms race. From "Dutch disease" to the challe...

There 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 implications of Donald Trump’s "fairway diplomacy" in Ireland, the structural fragility of European bond markets, and the sudden shift in rhetoric from AI leaders calling for regulation. Is the move to "pace the frontier" is a moral...

This 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 37% in Limerick and 33% in Cork, the discussion highlights how high excise duties and archaic licensing laws are strangling a $4 billion industry that supports 92,000 jobs. The episode explores why a country that markets its...

Donald 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 extraordinary Irish-American relationship: 40 daily flights to the US, $1.3 trillion in American investment, 300,000 jobs, and a bond built more on kitchen tables than diplomacy. We're joined by Donal Casey, former CEO of Rory McI...

A 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 among young voters, and the historical tensions between East and West that are reshaping the continent’s future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We explore the new ideological divide between Silicon Valley’s techno-optimists and institutional economists like Daron Acemoglu. Will AI drive shared prosperity or concentrate wealth among a new technocratic elite?  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our 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 30%. We crunch the CSO numbers and ask the question nobody wants to: how many migrants can Ireland's housing market actually take before something breaks? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As global central bankers convene for the Jackson Hole symposium, the interrogation of American fiscal credibility takes center stage. With US national debt surpassing $40 trillion and interest payments now exceeding the defense budget, the Treasury faces a critical standoff with the bond market. This analysis explores the limits of yield manipulation, the threat to the dollar’s role as global col...

On 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 the merchant class, redefined the relationship between faith and finance, and built the foundations of modern capitalism. From the streets of Paris to the boardrooms of the Bank of Ireland, this episode uncovers the hidden h...

August 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 collapsed, why Irish banks have become safe deposit boxes where money goes to die, and how the Central Bank’s over-regulation is forcing the state to take over the construction industry. Discover why Ireland is fighting with...

I 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 man who helped break those walls down, was a masterclass in financial sovereignty. We discuss his six-trait framework for identifying world-beaters, the psychological grit required to ignore "overvalued" labels, and wh...

We 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 local objections are stalling massive developments like Dunsink. We'll walk you through why the state succeeds at attracting foreign investment but fails at building homes, and what this means for the next generation of Irish...

We 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. This episode breaks down how America’s $1 trillion debt service is driving aggressive financial maneuvers and what the erosion of the global rules-based order means for the future of the Eurozone. We analyse the structural f...

Tech 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 Korea. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This 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 about "demographic warfare," the new reality where migration is weaponised to pull the strings of global politics. From the lanyard class in Brussels to the average dude on the street, the gap over immigration is turning...

Is 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, and why 3,000 years of Greek wisdom might be more useful than a Silicon Valley algorithm. It’s a bit of mythology, a bit of economic history, and a reminder that while intelligence is great, wisdom is what keeps the social f...