218 - Russian sanctions & Wartime specul...

For Halloween, we start with Ireland’s first witch trial: Alice Kyteler, the Kilkenny moneylender who buried four husbands and skipped town, leaving her servant to burn at the stake in 1324. For a real scare, we dive into the five numbers that should keep you up at night. The Shi ... Show More

A week of rioting in France, but we argue it’s no blip. Marine Le Pen is polling around 35%, with the next candidate on just 14%, and she could become the first ever to win outright in the first round. French public spending is 57% of GDP (31% in Ireland, and above anything the S ... Show More

Canada has appointed the world’s first minister for AI, and Evan Solomon joins us to explain why. Canada invented modern AI through Hinton, Bengio and Sutton, then watched big tech harvest it. Now Ottawa is subsidising up to 80% of compute for home-grown firms and has put €150 mi ... Show More

<p>The West’s co-ordinated financial weaponry is starting to bite, opening a <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/a-new-age-of-economic-conflict/21807968?utm_campaign=a.io&utm_medium=audio.podcast.np&utm_source=theintelligence&utm_content=discovery.content.anonymous.tr_show ... Show More

We tackle some of the many questions on the war in Ukraine that listeners sent in this week—why no-fly zones are <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/03/02/what-is-a-no-fly-zone?utm_campaign=a.io&utm_medium=audio.podcast.np&utm_source=theintelligence&utm ... Show More

<p>The West’s co-ordinated financial weaponry is starting to bite, opening a <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/a-new-age-of-economic-conflict/21807968?utm_campaign=a.io&utm_medium=audio.podcast.np&utm_source=theintelligence&utm_content=discovery.content.anonymous.tr_show ... Show More

It's been two years since Russia brought war to Ukraine. America, Britain and the European Union may not have intervened by putting boots on the ground—but they have launched a massive financial counteroffensive. Vladimir Putin’s government, his cronies and the businesses profiti ... Show More