{"podcast":{"title":"Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning","slug":"free-state-with-joe-brolly-and-dion-fanning-6213217","podcast_index_feed_id":6213217,"rss_url":"https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/641338125bde790011089c5b","website_url":"https://shows.acast.com/free-state-with-joe-brolly-and-dion-fanning","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/cover/1678981116872-078471f28dd3685d12e6a3cc8147fbb4.jpeg","author":"Joe Brolly","episode_count":390,"summary":"Free State is a podcast for the curious that stimulates, provokes, challenges and entertains, while never taking itself too seriously. Free State covers topics from sport to politics, love to loss, the human condition and how to fix the world, with guests from across the planet including Nigerian princes, former Prime Ministers, ex convicts, footballers, boxers and extraordinary people from every walk of life. Free State is presented by Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning. Brolly is a barrister, an original thinker with a fascinating backstory, who donated a kidney to a stranger and then led a crusade to transform organ donation on the island of Ireland, and Fanning is an award-winning interviewer and author. They are not motivational gurus or life coaches. They are two people from very different worlds, with one core belief uniting them - this is not a high performance podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/free-state-with-joe-brolly-and-dion-fanning-6213217"},"episode":{"title":"Heads I win, tails I also win: How private equity took over the world","slug":"heads-i-win-tails-i-also-win-how-private-equity-took-over-the-world","published_at":"2026-05-09T00:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/free-state-with-joe-brolly-and-dion-fanning-6213217/heads-i-win-tails-i-also-win-how-private-equity-took-over-the-world","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/free-state-with-joe-brolly-and-dion-fanning-6213217","url":"https://freestatepodcast.com","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/641338125bde790011089c5b/e/69fe60b2385e8d5e30ff1557/media.mp3","summary":"A study after the covid pandemic established that in care homes controlled by private equity firms the death rate was more than 50 per cent higher than in other homes. On Free State today we look at how private equity is capitalism cannibalising itself. Hettie O’Brien, author of The Asset Class, is on with us to talk about how this happened, how governments retreated from the public realm and left private equity take over the world. She explains how they took over the things we have to have, electricity, childcare, housing when governments retreated. And as they did, things became worse.  She explains how ideology took hold and while the masses were scolded for acquiring debt, private equity found they could live with it, or somebody else could die with it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.","meta_description":"A study after the covid pandemic established that in care homes controlled by private equity firms the death rate was more than 50 per cent higher than in…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3190,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/free-state-with-joe-brolly-and-dion-fanning-6213217/episodes/heads-i-win-tails-i-also-win-how-private-equity-took-over-the-world/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/free-state-with-joe-brolly-and-dion-fanning-6213217/heads-i-win-tails-i-also-win-how-private-equity-took-over-the-world.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}