Episodes

  • How Trump Could Kill the Dollar

    How Trump Could Kill the Dollar
    May 28 2026
    Monetary historian Brendan Greeley explains why the dollar's power has nothing to do with the Fed, why crypto is just a bank in disguise, and why politicising the dollar might be the fastest way to end its reign as the world's reserve currency.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    48 mins
  • Why Nobody's Having Babies Anymore

    Why Nobody's Having Babies Anymore
    May 26 2026
    Birth rates are collapsing, not just in rich countries, but everywhere from Mexico to Tunisia. The FT's John Burn-Murdoch joins us to unpack the surprising culprit, why young people aren't just having fewer kids, they're not even coupling up, and what it means for the future of work, wealth,

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    51 mins
  • Britain Is Broke

    Britain Is Broke
    May 21 2026
    Britain is running out of money, in a currency it prints itself. We unpack the gilt market panic, Starmer's impossible bind, and why the UK is starting to look more like 1970s Italy than the country that invented modern finance.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    36 mins
  • Immigration: What's The Plan?

    Immigration: What's The Plan?
    May 19 2026

    No policy. No plan. No housing. Sinead O'Sullivan is back to explain why Ireland took in more immigrants per head than any country in Europe, and why the middle class is about to feel what the working class has been shouting about for years.



    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    44 mins
  • China Is Winning, Trump Doesn't Know It Yet

    China Is Winning, Trump Doesn't Know It Yet
    May 14 2026
    China is winning, and Trump doesn't know it yet. As the two leaders sit down in Beijing today, we explain why the Chinese think America is an empire in decline, and why they might be right.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    40 mins
  • Why Your Barista Has a Master's Degree

    Why Your Barista Has a Master's Degree
    May 12 2026
    What happens when a country produces more graduates than it has elite jobs to give them? According to Peter Turchin, the Russian-American thinker behind End Times, that's exactly the moment civilisations start to crack. This week, we get into his theory of "elite overproduction" and ask whether Ireland is staring straight into it. We unpack the stats: most educated population in the EU, master's degrees doubling in 15 years, and nearly one in three graduates working in jobs that don't need a degree. We talk about why the barista with a first-class honours and the barman with an economics master's are not just funny anecdotes, they're leading indicators of political instability. We look at how the public sector is quietly absorbing the overflow that the private sector can't, why AI is about to pour petrol on the fire, and why historically it's not the abject poor who revolt, it's the relatively rich and bitterly disappointed.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    34 mins
  • The UAE, Iran, and the Hostage at the Heart of the Oil War

    The UAE, Iran, and the Hostage at the Heart of the Oil War
    May 7 2026
    The UAE has just walked out of OPEC after nearly 60 years, and the timing is no accident. This week, we head to Abu Dhabi and Dubai to ask what's really going on. Why now? Why leave the cartel in the middle of a war? What does it mean for the price of petrol in your car, for Trump's midterms, and for the geopolitics of the Gulf? We get into the strange tacit alliance between the UAE and Israel, why Iran's real leverage isn't the Straits of Hormuz but the Emirates themselves, and how Saudi Arabia's old swing-producer power is being quietly dismantled. We also draw a much bigger lesson for small countries everywhere, including Ireland: the multilateral world that small states have hidden inside since the 1940s is breaking down, and the UAE's gamble is a glimpse of the hard choices that lie ahead. Oil, war, money, and the end of an era, all in one episode.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    39 mins
  • The Failure Premium: Where is the Money Going?

    The Failure Premium: Where is the Money Going?
    May 5 2026
    This week, Sinead O'Sullivan is back, and she's got an answer that official Ireland really doesn't want to hear. We dig into the "failure premium", the staggering cost of a state that knows how to hand out subsidies but has forgotten how to coordinate, build, or own anything. We follow the money: why HAP quietly inflates the rent into the landlord's pocket, why housing a refugee costs €99 a night here and €13 in the Netherlands, and why we're paying premium prices for second-rate outcomes across housing, health, and infrastructure. We look at how a country adapts to dysfunction, sheds in back gardens, hollowed-out city centres, kids emigrating, until we stop noticing it's not normal. What happens when the multinational money slows down and we're left holding the infrastructure deficit we never fixed?

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    42 mins