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The Dollar, the Ape & the End of an Empire
Season 2025 · Episode 52

The Dollar, the Ape & the End of an Empire

The David McWilliams Podcast · David McWilliams

June 24, 202540m 5s

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Show Notes

 Live from a packed GAA hall at the Dalkey Book Festival, this episode tackles one of the wildest questions in economics: how did humans, flimsy, anxious apes, end up running the world, and why did we invent money to do it? We dig into the evolution of money as a collective hallucination hardwired into our psychology. Along the way, we unpack how 90% of dollars exist only digitally, how the pandemic rewired our sense of value, and why the dollar’s global dominance might be nearing its final act. From Mesopotamian beer tabs to the Fed’s modern firepower, we trace the story of money as a force that built empires and could just as easily unmake them.












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