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November 29th, 2006
Here’s to a place where the classes really do mix
Where is the last place in Ireland where all the classes mix? With the increasing hierarchies in the education system, the health system and sports facilities, where can you see the full social mix?
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November 26th, 2006
Our future is not in the EU alone
Are we coming to the end of an era? Will the world’s economic geography shift dramatically in the next 20 years? What if the action does, in fact, shift to Asia?
For the past 50 years, the North Atlantic has been the place to be. This was the epicentre of the known world. Ireland has been ideally placed between the United States and Europe – the world’s economic superpowers.
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November 22nd, 2006
The Pope’s children of today are the ‘kidults’ of tomorrow
Have you noticed the size of kitchens these days? In the past, kitchens were bog standard affairs. Today, they are huge, cavernous spaces where you could land a Blackhawk helicopter. Walk into any estate in urban or rural Ireland and you will see builders’ vans, cement mixing machines and Polish lads in overalls fitting double glazing to outsized windows in these monster-kitchens. Irish families are getting smaller, but our kitchens are getting bigger. When we were kids, “an island” was a piece of land projected up from the sea, like the “Isle of Man”. Today “an island” is the essential centrepiece of the latest status symbol – your kitchen.
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November 20th, 2006
In Search Of The Pope’s Children: Episode 3
In this programme David takes us back to learn some lessons from history. What is stable today can change dramatically tomorrow, David poses the questions about a ‘plan B’ for Ireland going forward – how are we going to deal with china? With immigration? And with increasing monthly mortgage repayments?
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November 19th, 2006
Friedman the free thinker
It’s probably a bit sad if your hero is a five-foot-three Jewish intellectual with a weakness for hard sums, statistics and argument.
But for many economists, Milton Friedman – who passed away aged 94 last Thursday – was the real deal. The reason he was so important is less to do with the accuracy of his theories or their universal applicability than because he stood up and argued for economics and science at a time when it was deeply unfashionable.
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November 15th, 2006
Would you like to dance?
I heard Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet on the radio yesterday and it all came flooding back. Few of you know what it is like to be a redheaded teenager at a disco. Spandau Ballet’s “True” was the slow-set number of choice in my youth and simply hearing Hadley’s voice was enough to give me the creeps.
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November 14th, 2006
David McWilliams Webchat on RTE.ie
The below webchat took place today on the RTE website, www.rte.ie, reproduced from the original location, here.
David: Hello everyone. Thanks for sending in all the emails. Good to see you’ve nothing better to do at lunchtime! Does your boss know?
MR: David – What is going on with the property market? Is it just due [...] -
November 13th, 2006
In Search Of The Pope’s Children: Episode 2
In this programme David examines our relationship, or national obsession, with property. New Ireland begins and ends with the property explosion. The boom has not just changed Ireland economically, it has changed us as a people and turned us into a nation of property speculators. Property is the new pornography.
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November 13th, 2006
Audio: David McWilliams interview on Ryan Tubridy show
David discusses his current TV series based on the book and tells Ryan about his business and family background on the Ryan Tubridy show on RTE radio 1.
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November 12th, 2006
Central Bank tries to stem tide
In the 10th century, the King of England, Ethelred the Unready, faced a crisis. Danish longships threatened rape and pillage all along the east coast of England.
Sensing that his armies would be routed, Ethelred conjured up a scheme: instead of facing the enemy head on, he would persuade the tide not to come in, thereby stopping the invaders before they even set foot on land.
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November 10th, 2006
Popes Children Episode 2 Trailer
Preview clip for the second episode of “In search of the Pope’s Children” which airs on Monday November 13th 2006 at 9.30pm.
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November 8th, 2006
Why America now wants to save Saddam from hanging
The other night on ‘Questions and Answers’ on RTE, the audience – in a show of hands – decreed that Saddam was a bad man but not bad enough to hang.
This is the mainstream view in this country. The subtext is that if Ireland were the occupier, we would lock him up for life, but those blood-thirsty Americans will hang him simply for electoral advantage.
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November 6th, 2006
Popes Children: Episode 1
If you have just watched the first episode of the Pope’s Children on RTE1, thanks for watching!
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November 5th, 2006
A society with too much money and few values
What would you do if it was your daughter? How would you feel if your little girl was attacked so violently by that coward, to the sickening chorus of cheers from other teenage girls?
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November 4th, 2006
Why is it an article of faith to be against Nuclear power?
The world – and that means Ireland too – is at a once-in-a-century crossroads. We are moving away from carbon based fuels to nuclear power. This century will be nuclear and we had better get used to it. While the language and prejudices of the 20th century still (understandably) dominate the nuclear debate, the realities of the 21st century point unambiguously to a nuclear future. Nuclear power does not mean nuclear weapons and this distinction will become increasingly apparent in the years ahead and the world is already going nuclear. Led by France and Asia, in twenty or thirty years’ time, nuclear power will be the norm. Ireland cannot opt out or shirk responsibility indefinitely.
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November 1st, 2006
Uruguay or Switzerland?
For years in Ireland, political and economic debate has focussed on relocating industry and financial opportunities from Dublin to the regions. The rationale being that people and money accumulate in the city at the expense of rural Ireland and so, it is incumbent on the elected representatives from rural Ireland to make sure some of the goodies were divvied up more equally. Dublin has been portrayed, unfairly, as a long shadow which blights and darkens the countryside. In fact, the opposite is the case. Dublin and big cities in all countries are the dynamos of the national economy. Without the heat generated from cities, there would be no such thing as a national economy.
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November 1st, 2006
Popes Children Episode 1 Trailer
Preview clip for the first episode of “In search of the Pope’s Children” which airs on Monday November 6th 2006 at 9.30pm.
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