David McWilliams

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | David McWilliams

Once you start looking, the signs of an American recession are everywhere. The second-hand market is heating up, a classic pre-recession indicator. People are unloading luxury goods. Second-hand clothes apps, such as RealReal, Depop and Grailed, are filling up with designer handbags and sneakers bought during the la-la economy of the pandemic. This always happens before a crash. You might remember that eBay boomed before the 2008 recession.

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | David McWilliams

In the 1998 movie The Horse Whisperer, Robert Redford is a man with a special ability to communicate with horses and, using a combination of emotional intelligence and body language, put them at ease, rendering the previously unruly and capricious, calm and predictable. This week, Micheál Martin proved that he – never mind Keir Starmer, Giorgia Meloni or Emmanuel Macron – is the ultimate Trump Whisperer. He becalms the mercurial president. Martin speaks Trump.

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | David McWilliams

The grave of Tom Casement, brother of Roger, lies in Deansgrange, not far from that of John Boyd Dunlop, the inventor of the pneumatic tyre. Had it not been for Dunlop, Roger Casement would probably have been buried close to his brother. Dunlop’s invention, the pneumatic tyre, led to an explosion in the demand for rubber, much of which was harvested in Congo.

2 months ago | irishtimes.com | David McWilliams

In the Maga movement, trade surpluses with the United States are an affront to its core ideology. And the country with the largest trade surplus with the US has the largest target on its back. In the world of Donald Trump, the bigger the trade surplus, the bigger the crime against the US. He regards a trade surplus as evidence of America being taken for a ride.

2 months ago | irishtimes.com | David McWilliams

The dilapidated state of our cities and towns is an embarrassment. The sight of such urban vandalism should make us wince. With a homeless crisis, vacant buildings, no matter how outdated, are a monumental waste. More perplexingly, wholesale urban dilapidation is evidence of a bizarre collective attitude concerning our heritage and culture. Why have we allowed this to happen? Who is benefiting from it and in what world is dereliction a positive thing?