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 com...

  • 49 minutes 27 seconds
    The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy!
    This episode is a deep dive into a simple claim: This is the year the mask slipped. The United States has decided that the grand bargain it presided over since 1945 is finished, and the consequences are immediate for markets, alliances, and Europe’s security. We begin in Japan, where a sharp move in long-term government bond yields is forcing a rethink of the global carry trade, and shaking risk assets worldwide. Then we go to Davos, where Mark Carney frames the moment as a “rupture, not a transition,” arguing that integration has become a weapon: tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities. We unpack the post-war deal: America as global policeman, underwriting security in Europe and East Asia, and what America got in return. Then we examine the new reality: tariffs on allies, closeness to rivals, and a Europe that may no longer accept subordination, with Greenland/“the Battle of Nuuk” emerging as the flashpoint that could make the break irreversible. Part one ends with the biggest question of all: if the unipolar world is over, what replaces it? Part two next week looks at Ireland, a country with a profound vested interest in the status quo, now facing its end.

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    22 January 2026, 4:00 am
  • 39 minutes 43 seconds
    Trump vs. The Fed: Sabotage, Showdown, or Economic Revolution?

    Donald Trump is taking aim at the most powerful, and most opaque, institution in the global economy: the Federal Reserve. By moving to oust Jay Powell through a criminal investigation, Trump has triggered a battle that cuts to the heart of who really controls money in America, and by extension, the world. Is this an unprecedented act of economic sabotage? A dangerous authoritarian power grab? Or is Trump simply calling the bluff of a self-regarding central banking elite who’ve been pulling the levers of the economy from their marble citadels for 40 years? In this episode, we go deep on interest rates, the dollar, and the political economy of money, from Nero and Henry VIII to Lenin and Hitler, to explain why powerful leaders have always wanted to control the currency. We explore what “financial repression” really means, why Trump wants rates at 1%, and who wins (and loses) when money is made cheap. What if the central bankers aren’t the neutral technocrats they claim to be? What if independence has been more myth than reality, and quantitative easing has already blurred the lines between the Fed and the government?



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    20 January 2026, 4:00 am
  • 53 minutes 31 seconds
    The Great Uncoupling & Fiscal Crisis: America, Europe & the Bond Market Reckoning

    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.

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    15 January 2026, 4:00 am
  • 48 minutes 30 seconds
    The Bipolar Economy: Trump, Oil & the End of Balance with Carole Nakhle
    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.

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    13 January 2026, 4:00 am
  • 45 minutes 36 seconds
    Venezuela Falls, Cuba Trembles with Marla Dukharan
    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.

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    8 January 2026, 4:00 am
  • 43 minutes 50 seconds
    After Maduro: Who Really Runs Venezuela Now? with Juan Tokatlian
    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?

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    6 January 2026, 8:46 am
  • 41 minutes 48 seconds
    What If 2026 Is the Year America Leaves Us Behind?

    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?











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    1 January 2026, 4:00 am
  • 46 minutes 22 seconds
    What's Really Going on In Venezuela? Oil, Empire & the Next Proxy War
    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.

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    30 December 2025, 4:00 am
  • 42 minutes 37 seconds
    2025: China’s Year
    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.

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    23 December 2025, 4:00 am
  • 37 minutes 53 seconds
    Was Genghis Khan the World’s First Globalist?
    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.

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    18 December 2025, 4:00 am
  • 42 minutes 44 seconds
    Can Wind Power Make Us Rich Again?
    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.

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    16 December 2025, 4:00 am
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