Can Ireland Fix Its Infrastructure Crisis Before It's Too Late?
20 August 2024 - 36 minsIn this episode, we're kicking off with a classic Irish disaster—a ladder, a man, and gravity having a scrap, but then we're diving deep into something even more painful than a sprained ankle: Ireland's shocking inability to build anything on time or on budget. We're talking about the Children's Hospital fiasco, the never-ending MetroLink saga, and why, despite having buckets of cash, our state just can’t get the job done. But here’s the kicker: while Ireland is dragging its feet, places like Serbia are throwing up high-speed rail links in a few years, all thanks to the Chinese. And it’s not just them. Italy and Spain have cracked the code on getting infrastructure done without bankrupting t...
Series Episodes
How Trump Could Kill the Dollar
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.
48 mins
28 May Finished
Why Nobody's Having Babies Anymore
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.
50 mins
26 May Finished
Britain Is Broke
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.
36 mins
21 May Finished
Immigration: What's The Plan?
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.
44 mins
19 May Finished
China Is Winning, Trump Doesn't Know It Yet
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.
39 mins
14 May Finished
Why Your Barista Has a Master's Degree
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.
34 mins
12 May Finished
