From The Godfather to the Blockchain: How Easy Money Seduced Wall Street (and the White House)

The David McWilliams Podcast

David McWilliams

News & Politics

4.6 • 643 Ratings

🗓️ 12 August 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’ve always said to understand the economy, you have to understand human nature, and nothing reveals that better than watching the biggest players do a Godfather-style U-turn for easy money. In this episode, we connect the dots between Marlon Brando’s Don Corleone and Jamie Dimon’s pivot from calling crypto “a fraud” to using it as loan collateral, all while the President of the United States holds stakes in coins of his own. We unpack how the $2 trillion crypto market has morphed from anti-Wall Street rebellion to one of the most powerful lobby groups in America, funnelling cash to Congress to rewrite the rules. Along the way, we lift the lid on stablecoins, explain why money is a public good (not a private printing press for the TikTok age), and ask what happens if the dollar’s last line of defence, the Fed, gets taken out. Life imitating art imitating life… and the ending might not be pretty.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Mac, just before we start, I was on Amazon looking for a little beach read, you know,
0:06.5	and lo and behold, look what I see.
0:10.1	David McWilliams, money, a story of humanity at number one, beating the likes of J.D. Vance
0:17.0	and his hillbilly elegy and Ezra Klein.
0:20.1	Dave McWilliams, number one, boom.
0:22.4	This is the economics version of Top of the Pops.
0:25.5	You can have a whole lot of love soundtrack in the back.
0:29.0	But yes, no, you're right.
0:29.9	It's great to see that money is number one in the Amazon bestsellers in the UK
0:37.3	under the area of economic history, which is fantastic.
0:42.4	Again, thank you so much listeners for supporting the book, for buying the book, for buying the
0:47.2	audiobook. It's really great to see. And it is kind of nice to be number one ahead of the likes
0:53.0	of J.D. Vance and even Ezra Klein,
0:55.8	who I respect in New York Times, but who comes with a massive, massive audience.
1:00.1	So again, thank you very much.
1:02.2	And if you haven't bought your summer, read if in August you're heading off now to the beach,
1:06.6	you're thinking, what should I grab?
1:08.6	What should I read?
1:09.8	Grab money, a story of humanity. You will not
1:12.8	be disappointed, and that is from an unbiased reviewer, the fellow who wrote the bloody thing.
1:21.4	Hey, it's Adam Grant from Worklife, a podcast from TED. This episode is brought to you by FreshWorks.
1:27.8	Freshworks believes the complexity is the enemy of efficiency, so stop wrestling with bloated
	...

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