Hard Liquor, Soft Power: The Death of Proportionality

History says yes. We rewind to 1873, when a stock market wobble in Vienna triggered a global railway crash that took down banks, empires and 80% of world lending in a matter of months, and ask whether we're staring straight at a rerun. AI spending is now bigger than the entire US defence budget, the same handful of companies are quietly funding each other in a circle, and China is quietly open-sourcing the whole thing to undercut Silicon Valley. If it pops, it'll pop between now and October. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this 14th of July, as Les Bleus face Spain in the semi-final, France is heading into a political crisis that could reshape Europe because where France goes, Europe usually follows. We dig into why Marine Le Pen is now the favourite for the presidency, why the French football team has become her loudest critic, and, with France on the brink, why a World Cup win might yet influence politics in a way that few sporting achievements have ever done before. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Norway turned North Sea oil into $2 trillion in the bank. Britain turned it into tax cuts, unemployment cheques and a housing bubble. We unpack the tale of two oil finds, why one country nailed it and the other blew it, and what it says about how nations really make, and lose, their fortunes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

250 years on, we ask the question: would America even exist without Alexander Hamilton? We tell the story of the French-speaking outsider who created the dollar, faced down the states, and set the world's biggest economy in motion, before being murdered in one of history's strangest duels. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every day that the Irish Financial Service Centre is open, they're selling an Irish business into foreign ownership. Since 2018, overseas acquirers have spent over €100 billion buying up Irish companies. I'm joined by Alan Coleman to look at why this is happening. We look at employee ownership trusts as a solution already working in the UK and Canada, the tax barriers holding it back in Ireland, and the surprising historical Irish precedent for the idea. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.