In this episode, I explore the rise of hard-right populist parties and the paradox at their core: voters under economic strain accept short-term benefits while surrendering long-term rights and opportunities. We trace how capitalism generates inequality, how inequality fuels populism, and how populism reshapes democracy into a system of selective protection. The essay examines Poland, Hungary, and France as case studies, and considers the broader structural loop: capitalism → inequality → populism → authoritarian drift.

Sanctions have become structural features of the global economy. This episode traces their rise since 2014, the adaptation of targeted states, and the consequences for finance, trade, and humanitarian flows.

When we speak of capitalism, it often appears as a single, fixed system. But closer examination reveals a more complex picture.

Rising interest rates have turned what once seemed a manageable tool of crisis response into a structural risk. U.S. debt now nears the size of the economy, with annual interest costs exceeding defense spending and credit ratings downgraded. For decades, cheap borrowing and the dollar’s reserve role muted consequences, but those assumptions no longer hold.

The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner, even as war rages in Gaza. Exports are rising, arms sales are flowing, and Israel is embedded in Europe’s flagship research programs. Meanwhile, citizens take to the streets in protest, demanding a break that institutions refuse to deliver.

In August 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska — a setting unprecedented for U.S.-Russia relations and fraught with implications for Ukraine, Europe, and the Western alliance.

This episode examines the structural tension between capitalism’s claim to fairness and the profound inequality of starting positions it relies on. 

This episode examines how the United States’ use of the atomic bomb in 1945 marked more than the end of a war. It marked the beginning of a system—a geopolitical structure in which the right to possess and deploy ultimate violence became concentrated, controlled, and enforced through silence, spectacle, and selective legitimacy.

In this episode, we examine the deliberate unraveling of the global trade system by the very nation that once built it.

Most people think economics is reserved for Wall Street analysts or government policymakers, but the reality is that you're making economic decisions every single day.