To recommend Gary Stevenson's youtube channel?

[Justputtingthisoutthere]

Hope this is OK?

Reading discussions about how much tax we pay versus the poor value for money in services they buy has prompted me to post.

I stumbled across GS, on Facebook I think, a couple of weeks ago and in my opinion he deserves a wide platform.

I admit to being very ignorant about economics, and have learned a lot from him. He's from a working-class background, studied at LSE, became a v.successful trader, is now a multi-millionaire, and is advocating for higher taxes for the super-rich, with the aim being to inform the public and push for policy change.

I won't post a link in case it's not allowed, but do Google him if you're interested.

[title edited at OP's request]

Its very open minded of you to listen to nonsense.

People don’t care about the multimillionaires though - they care that Debbie down the road has got a better car than them because either she’s a benefit scrounging mobility liar, cash in hand tax dodger, evil landlord or a horrible higher rate tax payer. Everyone is too busy looking around themselves with envy and greed to have time to look at who is really siphoning off the wealth of the country. It’s awful.

He is very articulate and I think he gets through to lay people. Gary is the kind of guy who would probably have been classed Working Class Tory years ago. Or more patronisingly ' barrow boy accountant'.This gives him a wider perspective than some Oxbridge don.

Richard Murphy is good too. They de- mystify the subject.

I find him arrogant and his views disempowering.

His arguments are that he got rich because he's so smart but no one else can do this. I'm not convinced by either point.

Yes there are issues with wealth inequality but I don't see this guy being the solution.

Ha-Joon Chang seems to take him seriously. I think he knows something about Economics.

I’m not convinced by any of the 3 points!

He’s full of nonsense and false claims. Like he’s the top trader in the world but left just because he had a moral objection to being so rich despite being so clever. It’s total rubbish

Yes. In reality he’s a failed banker who now makes money selling cod economics to laypeople who don’t know any better.

Didn’t he leave because he had a nervous breakdown?

Make something of yourself, yes.

Get paid for the work you’re doing enough to live a reasonably comfortable life, no. I can - and have - worked harder than my parents and many of the middle class kids I was sent to school or worked with. Both groups are better off than me due to changing social choices and the changing economics of our times, which I have no impact in. Ffs I rented a house while in a professional job for 12 years, paying increasing rent and eventually 2ce the original cost of the house. That was given to the landlords feckless single parent daughter when he eventually forced us out.. And to be honest I know student nurses now working harder than I ever did who can’t afford to move out of their parents’ (at least they have the option, I had none). This is what we are discussing. The changing economics, the reducing likelihood of making a living no matter how hard you work, and how to reverse that. Because there is no point in working damned hard for nothing in a Victorian / Regency -like world dominated by social connection, and many will actively choose other paths. There is no honour in being a fool for inherited oligarchic elites.

We’ve been discussing these issues for a long time and neoliberalism is not capable of making anything better. Eg (2010)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11331574

Schools and education and work is not a fix any more. Selina Todd’s Snakes and Ladders is a good read on this. But it’s not about reason or results. It’s about power and what people can be forced into.

OK I’ll rephrase. I accept that there are some industries where it is difficult to earn good money without certain attributes and/or luck. Typically they are industries lots of people want to work in (Eg healthcare and teaching) and the govt have to keep a lid on salaries because they represent a large percentage of the govt’s cost base.

if anyone wants to be financially successful and are willing to work hard in one of the industries which are more financially rewarding, then there is no reason why they can’t.

So we just accept that these careers/jobs which are essential for society no longer pay well enough to support a decent standard of living? (See also retail, hospitality, etc, etc...)

The problem is also pensions -I imagine
if pay goes up final pension goes up and that has to be paid out for maybe 20 years -that’s a long time. All those thousands of retiring public servants - the money has to come from somewhere.

This is v interesting - the big companies don’t make a lot of money as profits are paid out to shareholders in dividends and stock buy back - so only the rich shareholders get richer

I listened to Gary's Trading Game. I found it very interesting and plausible. But I don't know much about economics So I would be interested to hear why people above think he's a grifter.

But I certainly did start to smell a bit of bullshit as the book went forward. He just seemed so certain that he was "the special one". He is clearly is unable to recognise that he is just one of a large pack of gifted people. The specturm of human ability just isn't that wide. He may have had some advantages that helped him do well at that particular point in time but if he had stuck with it, it probably would have all just evened out. I can understand why someone not recognising that at 21. But you really are a fool if you still think you're special at 30.

I also think that he was so intent on portraying Citibank as the bad guys but I thought they stuck with him and tried really hard with him despite some very poor behaviour on his behalf. And he let them down, led them a merry dance and I wasn't sure what he really thought he would achieve by that except his own misery.

Hi. There are sectors like broadcasting, publishing, museums: galleries, politics, policy, investment banking that are incredibly socially powerful/ are thought leaders, but are predominantly led by upper/ upper middle class. To wnter into these fields the starting pay (aside from banking), is very low, and these fields have social codes that can be very hard to navigate. Your class, education and ability or have funds in place at start of career to offset the low wage, are prohibitive for many not in this social class. Those already with this knowledge and financial support / safety net, have an advantage. This results in for example creative industries where it has been surveyed, there is very little diversity in terms of class. https://www.gold.ac.uk/news/panic-announcement/

I like Gary's Economics. I think what I've learned is that politics and economics are inextricably linked. As much as everyone could agree that there's too much unequal distribution of wealth and we should tax wealth....that all sounds great. But we live in countries/nations who all have our own rules set by government and parliament. So you can only fix it with global agreement. I do agree with the general idea that markets aren't inherently bad, but there is tendency for power to concentrate. That kind of concentration combined with complex and hard to understand processes about how the stock market works is very, very bad for survival of society in the long run.

I think we need huge investment in science to help with coming challenges in climate change, health care and building better housing etc. If we did do a wealth tax some of it needs to help tackle these issues.

I also think we need huge global investment in strategic defense to prevent world war three.

In terms of wealth redistribution, it's essential to prevent the rise of extremism. That really is the justification for doing it. Money, or scarcity mentality, makes people mad.

I like the way Gary frames the argument. Governments are broke - or so they say. They can't do the things they were elected for and are always looking to save money. Millennial and Gen Z people are unable to afford a mortgage or sometimes even a rent. Yet Britain is a very wealthy First World nation. So if HMG doesn't have it and Joe Bloggs doesn't have it ; where is it all? And the answer is the 1%.They've tucked it up. Over simplified but essentially true.