The David McWilliams Podcast

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.

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.

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?

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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!

This week we talk to Matthew Ruddy, a young Dublin entrepreneur who did everything right - built his first business at 17, worked alongside the lads at Dogpatch Labs. Except he's now living in Brisbane, not Dublin. Matthew's story captures what's happening to an entire generation. These aren't traditional emigrants heading to London building sites, they're highly educated risk-takers who desperately want to stay home but can't afford to take entrepreneurial risks when rent costs two grand a month. The statistics are staggering: home ownership among 25-34 year olds has fallen by 48% since the mid-90s; the highest decline in the world. This housing catastrophe is causing a mental health crisis among young adults in English-speaking countries, with Ireland leading the pack. It's creating a vicious cycle where young talent either takes safe multinational jobs or emigrates entirely, starving Irish startups of the people they need. Meanwhile, we're left wondering where all the young entrepreneurs have gone. They're everywhere but home.