Gary Stevenson says Britain is FINISHED unless we fix this problem

If we don't get wealth taxes or some serious movement on wealth taxes from Burnham when he comes in, he will lose the next election.If he doesn't, it will be Farage.Farage will come in, he will cut taxes on the super rich, living standards will fall.I'm not Karl Marx here.I'm not saying seize the means of production.I'm saying, can we just stop this situation where working people pay 50 % and billionaires pay zero percent and so don't tell me if we try to tax them the country's finished.

You're getting emotional thinking about it.

Well you know like it's my country Chris.

You know Andy Burnham if he gets to watch a clip of this what's your what's your message to him?Hello and welcome to The Forecast.It's a welcome back to my guest today, because Gary Stevenson is perhaps one of the most well -known advocates now for a wealth tax in Britain.He, of course, is the man who was a former Citibank trader who then wrote a book about everything he thought was wrong with our economic system and why we need to tax the rich more and to tax all the poor.wealth.He has obviously gone massive on social media.

Gary's Economics is a huge YouTube channel in which people watch his thoughts on politics, economics and everything else in between.And now Gary's done a documentary for Channel 4 called How to Get Filthy Rich with Gary Stevenson, which is going out on Channel 4 this week on Wednesday.But you'll be able to see it on the Channel 4 streaming platform and on YouTube in a few days time in which he goes and meets people who are struggling, people who are extremely rich, and talks to them about his key idea of bringing in a wealth tax.And of course, it's an amazing time for Gary to be pushing this idea again, because we have a new government coming in.And Andy Burnham is now on record many times as saying we need to tax income less and wealth more.So welcome back, Gary.

Thanks for having me. I mean, does this feel like a moment you can seize?

It's the closest we've been in my lifetime.I would say I'm hopeful, but not optimistic.Listen, we've got a chance here.Inequality has been getting bigger and bigger.Really, the whole of my adult life.Living standards have been falling and falling.

Keir Starmer was never going to do it.I was lobbying him aggressively before he came in.I've been lobbying as hard as I can the last few months.Tone seems different.People are willing to talk to me.People are willing to listen to me. I haven't had any promises yet.

But look, if we don't get wealth taxes now, I guarantee you, I guarantee you, Andy Burton will fail on the economy.And that means he will fail in the election.And that means it will be Nigel Farage and reform.

So when you talk about lobbying, what do you mean?Have you actually been talking to Keir Starmer's people, or do you mean the videos you're making and the public campaigning you're doing?

Well, nobody's talking to Keir Starmer's people right now.Were you?

I mean, when you say you were...

Well, there was never any interest from any of Keir Starmer's people to speak to me.And I've always been trying to speak to them.So as you know, my channel sort of blew up one year ago, two years ago, when Keir Starmer came in, I wasn't really that big.But since he's been in, I've been growing up and I've been trying to get him to speak to me and I've had nothing.And I've had nothing really from anyone in Labour, to be honest, other than sort of the frozen out far left of Labour.

And what about Burnham's lot?

I haven't met Burnham.I don't know the guy.I would love to meet him.Obviously, if he wants to come on Gary's Economics, he's more than welcome.People who, well, as you probably know, everyone's trying to lobby Burnham's people.Everybody's trying to work out who Burnham's people are.

I'm talking to people who seem to have some level of connection.Some people are interested, some people are not interested.But the truth is, I'm not the only guy lobbying Burnham right now.Everybody's lobbying Burnham.And I don't have the money that my competitors have.What I have is millions of people watching my channel each week.

And I have the ability to say, listen, I can communicate your message.And also, if you don't do what I want, I can tell the public you're going to fail.That's the only thing that I've got.And I'm trying my best.to get some influence.

We'll talk about the programme in a minute, but just so we know what the idea is you are pushing, just describe the wealth tax that you want.

It's a tax on wealth, so not on income, so it's the assets you own, of 2 % on wealth above £10 million.So if you are worth £11 million, you'll pay 2 % per year on £1 million, which would be £20 ,000 a year.If you are worth £20 million, you'd be paying 2 % on £10 million, which is £200 ,000 a year.It would only be paid by the very rich.The idea is really, it stops this continuing trend we are in, where the working class gets poorer, the middle class gets poorer, the government goes bankrupt, and all of that wealth flows into the bank accounts of the richest people in the country, who currently we are not even able to tax.And it's worth pointing out, these guys at the moment pay extremely low rates of tax, because they are not getting money from their income.

We have a tax system that is good at taxing working people, 50%, 60%, it is not taxing these people at all.

Now, you described a lot of this and the basic ideas the last time we spoke at length on ways to change the world, which people can go and watch on YouTube as well.That was about a year ago.You're in a very different place now, aren't you?What has happened in the last year?

Well, I've blown up, obviously.I've become a bit of a celebrity and I think people are starting to realise social media is important.I think the Donald Trump thing was big.I think when Donald Trump won an election by going on podcasts.I think the political class is incredibly slowly, belatedly starting to realise the power of social media.You know, I went to university and I initially was writing for newspapers, I wrote for The Guardian.

I switched to social media because I could see the power was there.And now I think people are starting to realise that.Obviously, Keir Starmer has failed quite spectacularly.And we're in a situation now where the Conservatives failed, you know, this kind of technocratic centrism failed.And I think everybody in this country knows, unless the Conservativescan find some way of stopping living standards falling, it's going to be fraged, it's going to be reformed.

And people are scrambling around for ideas.Listen, I've always said there's a quote from the American economist Milton Friedman.At times of crisis, the solutions will be chosen from the ideas lying around at the time.And the truth is, This boring technocratic centrism has failed.It failed for Sunak, it failed for Biden, it failed for Starmer.People need something different.

And the truth is there are only now two big ideas in contention for how we move forward economically, which is me and my lot saying tax the rich and Farage and his lot saying kick out the foreigners.

But when you say it's failed, I mean, the economy is actually in some ways you know, not doing as badly as it might be.Inflation isn't as bad as it might be.The Iran war now appears to be over.Energy prices are going to come down.The government will point to all sorts of incremental measures in which people's lives are getting better.Economically and in terms of inequality, what has happened in the last year?

But what you have seen is this continuing aggressive rise in living standards of the super rich.And in the last five years, we've moved to a situation where your average British family struggles in winter to feed the kids and turn the heating on.That's where we are.So this incremental improvement, it drives me mad, this bean counting mentality.And it's always people who you know they're comfortable saying, oh, things are fine.Things are fine.

I'm calling it let them eat growth.The ordinary man and woman on the street in this country, they know things are getting worse.They know things are worse than they were five years ago, and that's worse than they were 10 years ago, and that's worse than they were 20 years ago.They know that their parents could work regular jobs and buy houses and have families and retirements and pensions, and they know their kids will not be able to have that.And I think what you are seeing, what you are seeing really is the bifurcation of British society, where people like you and me, who are privileged enough to be able to go on TV and go on the radio and talk aboutthe economy, are always protected.

And we always go out there and say, oh, things are getting better, and people on the street know it's getting worse.You know, it drives me mad and it drives them mad.You know, I always remember during the Brexit debate, when I think it was George Osborne was on TV, oh, if we leave the EU, GDP will drop by 6 .7%.And some woman in the audience stood up and said, that's your GDP.That's your GDP.And this woman was totally right.

Listen, It's classic Westminster bubble stuff.Listen, we need to stop saying things are getting better while people know things are getting worse.If we keep doing that, then we might as well give the country to Farage right now.

So if we have about 1 % growth, where does that growth go?

Listen, when I first started my channel six years ago, I did a video about the massive amount of money being given away by the government in COVID.And the amount of money was this ungodly amount of money, £350 billion.And I couldn't describe how big it was.And the way that I landed on in the end was to say, this is three times the wealth of the world's richest man.So six years ago, the world's richest man was worth just over 100 billion pounds.And just a couple of weeks ago, the world's richest man went through a trillion dollars in six years, okay?

What we are seeing is these billionaires growing their wealth at 30, 40, 50 % a year.I interviewed a billionaire in the documentary, Basim Haidar, and he says he doesn't take less than 15%.Listen, if we have men and women billionaires growing their wealth at 30, 40, 50 % in economies which are lucky if they grow 2%, right?How fast does cancer grow?Look at the collapsing government wealth.Who's holding it?

It's not the viewers, is it?It's gone to the super rich.Where are the homes that used to be owned by people like my dad who worked for the post office?Who owns them now?Who owns the mortgages?Listen, you cannot accept this aggressive, rapid increase in inequality of wealth and not expect your kids to be poor.

It's as simple as that.And people can argue with me as much as they like, and they often do.Oh, your wealth tax is not going to work.Oh, it's impractical.Populist claptrap is, I think, what it is.on the documentary.

What's your alternative?Do we just let the thing go?Is that what you want?Do you want desperate poverty?I don't want it.And listen, I don't need to do this, right?

I'm a multimillionaire.I don't need to make this documentary.I do this because I don't want my kids and your kids and the viewers' kids to live in the kind of poverty that my grandma grew up in.You know what I mean?And if you don't like the solution, build a better one.The most frustrating thing for me on the documentary is when I interviewed a tax expert, and he said, your tax plans are ridiculous.

They're not going to work.

That was Dan Needle.

It was Dan Needle.

Who is regarded as a sort of central left.

Well, I'm not sure by who, but yeah.

Former Labour, you know, kind of sort of tax expert.

Yeah.

Who was kind of tripped up quite a few notable figures with his social media campaigning.And he's not at all impressed with your idea, is he?

No, clearly not.Clearly not.You know, I think that was for me one of the most interesting conversations I had in the documentary, because what you have here is Dan Needle.self -proclaimed tax expert, I'll believe him, and me, you know, inequality economist expert.And I'm saying from my perspective, inequality economist expert, if we don't do anything about inequality, then living standards are going to absolutely collapse.Poverty is going to explode in a rapid, accelerating way.

Desperate poverty for the vast majority of the country.And Daniel turns around and says, well, I'm a tax expert and your specific policy proposal is not going to work.Populist collapse, shall we call it.And what I said to him, which unfortunately didn't make it to the cut, was help me. I said, Dan, help me.Listen, I'm an economics expert here.Inequality economics expert.

I can absolutely guarantee you if we don't do something serious on top 1 % inequality, it's desperate, desperate, serious poverty for the majority of the country.I'm not just saying on it.I'm not just saying it.I've been betting on it for years.I've made millions of pounds betting on it.If you think this tax proposal is not working and you are the tax expert, help me. I will work with you for free to

build a tax that works."" And he laughed in my face.

But what the sort of the, the labour consensus is moving towards, and I think Dan Needle and other, you know, tax experts tend to support it, is rather than a wealth tax, the way you see it is an equalising of capital gains tax with income tax.So at the moment you'll pay 22 % on a major capital gain, if you're a higher rate taxpayer, they want to make it 40, 45 % to match the top rates of tax.And that would be on things like shares, property, art and other assets.And they say that would raise a lot of money.What is wrong with that?Because that is what Andy Burnham seems to favor.

Nothing's wrong with it.Nothing's wrong with it.You know, at the moment, we pay more, you and I and the viewers pay more on their income than wealthy people pay on their capital gains.It's not enough.The problem you have is capital gains is paid on sale, okay?So if I'm a billionaire, imagine I'm the poorest billionaire in the country.

I'm worth £1 billion.I'm going to make passive income of about £50 million a year, £1 million a week.Capital gains tax is paid on sale, okay?If you were making a passive income of £1 million a week, how often would you sell an asset?

You just wouldn't bother.

Well, you're going to be buying, you're going to have to buy £950 ,000 worth of assets every week.You're never going to sell.So listen, I'm not against the change.It's not a bad change, but it's not going to hit the top 1%.

It will hit all the people below that, won't it, who do end up buying and selling.It will help.It will hit small businesses.

It's an upper middle class tax.Yes.And listen, I want to be very clear about where we are right now, OK?Government can't borrow anymore, right?We have three options.And I guarantee you, and I will not be wrong, the government will do, and every government in the world in the next 10 years will do, one of these three options to some significant degree.

Significant increased taxation on the super rich.Significant increased taxation on high -end and working people.further dismantling of the welfare state.

Well, they'll do all three, won't they?

Well, actually, as we stand, they're going to do everything except the first one, because that capital gains equalization, I'm not against it.And what I think is really interesting about Dan Needle is, I never say Dan Needle's tax changes are rubbish.You know what I mean?I support what he's trying to do.I don't know why he's shooting down what I'm trying to do.We need it.

Listen, that is a tax on the upper middle class.And that money will be used to keep the welfare state going, and that money will end up going to the bondholders, the super rich.That's where it'll go.Listen, we are already...I'm not against this.If you want to tax the upper middle class more to keep the welfare state going, that's fine.

But what are you going to do about the fact that every single year, the 0 .1 % earn more and more and more and more of the real resources of this country?And the worst thing about it is, at the moment, we do not even have the infrastructure ready to tax them even if we wanted to.How dangerous is that, right?This is not an abstract thing.These are the real resources of our country.The buildings, the land, the hospitals, the schools.

This is real wealth.And every single year, more and more and more of that is owned by this tiny group of people who we currently do not have the capacity to tax, even if we wanted to.

Now, what you discovered, though, in the documentary, in what must have been a pretty bruising experience, was that sort of the brute force of the super rich when you confront them with this idea, which is a cold anger and a, you know, just a blunt response that, well, I will leave.

Yeah, you know, that's what's, yep.I think one of the best lines was Francis Fulford.He's like the 29th heir of this 40 million pound estate in Devon.And he said, we will fight it and we will win just like we always have.for thousands of years.But listen, I never expected the super -rich to support me in the taxation of the super -rich.

What I want with this documentary But that's not about support, that is about whether it will work, isn't it?Because Basim Haider is saying, I'll leave the country, then you won't have access to any of my wealth, you won't be able to tax me at all, even on the lower rates that I'm paying now.

Listen, we need to understand what a wealthy person is, okay?A wealthy person is not somebody who works for their money, like you or I do.A wealthy person is somebody who owns.And they don't have a massive bag of cash, you know, with a dollar sign on it, you know.They own your mortgage.They own the government debt, they own the houses, they own the buildings, they own the skyscrapers, they own the local Tescos, they own the local pub, right?

These are real resources, all right?If I own a billion dollars of Chinese mortgages, and when China comes to me and says, hey, we want the tax that you've taken, we want tax on the income you've taken from Chinese people, and I say, sorry, I live in Bahamas now, what do you think China does?Stops me getting the money.Listen, we have the power, they're not Gandalf.They're not magic.We have the power to tax them if they want.

Listen, the reason that we don't tax the rich, it's nothing to do with their magical ability to evade.And they use their political power and their media power.But listen, the world is changing now.

But there is a fear, isn't there, that's very widespread, I think, in politics that listens to those people saying, You try it, we'll be gone and then that'll be it.You know, Britain will be finished because none of the super rich will come here anymore.Now you're saying, okay, fine.We can take you as a one -off hit and we can tax what you have here before you get it out of the country or whatever it might be.But, you know, what the fear is, that that means nobody rich is ever going to come to Britain after that.What's your answer to that?

Chris, Britain will be gone.finished if you don't do anything.Everybody knows that.Everybody knows that.And listen, I didn't start this fight because I thought I was going to win, right?I'm one guy who makes videos in my kitchen, right?

And that's all I've ever been, right?I don't have, okay, I'm a millionaire.I'm not a billionaire.I can't compete with, you know, all of these big billionaires.I can't compete with Elon Musk, right?I'm one guy who sits in my kitchen and understands what's happening and tells the truth.

Listen, the advantage that I have is every single time that Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer or even Joe Biden or Donald Trump says, I'm not going to do anything on the billionaires and you're going to get richer, it will and is continually being revealed to be a lie and to be incorrect again and again and again and again.And the people out there on the streets of not just this country, because I've been around the world in the last two years, I could list, I've been to Australia, New Zealand, France, Japan, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, all of these countries, everyone can see Everybody can see inequality is getting worse, stock markets are at all -time highs all over the world, and ordinary people can't feed their kids.And I'm not just talking about the bottom 10 % anymore.This is the bottom 50%, and it'll be the bottom 60%, and it'll be the bottom 70%.So don't tell me if we try to tax them, the country's finished, because for people unlike us, people who don't have fancy jobs like us, it's finished anyway.You know, my sister's got two degrees and she can't afford the rent, and that's normal.

You know, that's normal.And it wasn't like that before.If we don't do anything, we're finished.And everybody knows that.

And how did you find the process?

Painful.

Of sitting down with these people?I mean, I suppose to some degree, this is why you got out of what you were doing at Citibank in the first place, because you didn't really like it.Yeah.

So people who haven't worked, I guess you've probably presented documentaries, people who haven't like worked on documentary maybe don't realise like what you see is like five minutes with a contributor and often I have to spend three, four, five hours with that person.to get these five minutes of footage.And I had to spend, you know, a number of hours with people who I didn't really enjoy spending their time with.And it was hard just like sitting in their energies.Like I interviewed this guy Andrew Henderson, he's a nomad capitalist and his whole thing is he teaches rich people how to not pay taxes.There's no win, is it?

You don't want it to be Bessie Meyer, though, right?

Well, stay on Henderson, because he was very aggressive in saying, or maybe aggressive is the wrong word, but he was very forthright in saying, why is it only the rich who have to take decisions in everybody else's interest?We already pay a vast chunk of the tax take in Britain.Why is it that we've got to?you know, be caring about others in the way that the rest aren't.It's because they own the goddamn houses.

They own the mortgages.They own the government debt.They own the food supply.They own the energy supply.You know, when when Musk invades Iran, I make a ton of money because I own the oil.You know what I'm saying?

Listen, the reason that we need to force the rich to give back is because they own everything.And if we don't, then you have nothing.This is simple.Listen, this is not about morality.It's not.I don't do this because I'm a moral person.

This is a simple question of do you want your kids to be poor or not?That's it.Listen, look at human history.This last 70 years we've had...Isn't that a moral question?Well, listen, I'm not Mahatma Gandhi, alright?

I'm an economist.You know, I'm just telling the public what it is, you know, and I bet on this and I make money on this and listen, at the end of the day, people can watch the documentary and they can watch me arguing with Dan Needham and Andrew Henderson and the British public can make a choice.

But are you saying, when you say it's not a moral question, are you saying this is actually a practical question for the rich because otherwise there's going to be a revolution?

Well, listen, let's talk about, well, more than anything, to be honest, I don't expect nothing from the rich, right?But what I want to talk to is ordinary people.the poor.I think the situation of the upper middle class is really interesting, why they don't fight harder, they're giving everything away.But if you want to talk about the rich, I think the situation for the rich is interesting as well, because the very rich, they live these lives of incredible luxury, right?You've probably met some of them.

And these guys, they don't want to pay tax.And if they don't pay tax, they'll get richer and richer and richer, and the rest of us will get poorer and poorer.The welfare state will be shut down.You know, the NHS will go, education system will go, you know, give it 20 years, this stuff will be gone.And it is clearly, rapidly, politically and economically destabilizing the countries and the societies that they live in, which provide them incredible luxury.And you can't help but look them in the face and just say, why?

Like, let's call time on it.Let's just listen.People think I'm trying to redistribute wealth.I'm not.I am the person who is trying to stop the redistribution of wealth that is already happening.And listen, it is very hard for me to look at what's happening now and not be reminded of what was happening in Europe 100 years ago.

These guys will push and they'll push and they'll push.They will take more and more and more.And poverty will become increasingly desperate, increasingly normal, increasingly common.And people would demand answers.And we know how that's going to end up.

But what do you say to them?Because for them, they say, stop saying I don't pay tax.I do pay tax.I pay millions of pounds in tax in a lot of these cases.What I don't do is pay the same percentage in tax as the person who's earning 30 grand a year.And he says, well, yes, but the person earning 30 grand a year is maybe paying 10 ,000 pounds to the treasury.

I'm paying millions, so don't tell me that I'm not contributing.What's your answer to that?

Look at the wealth distribution, look at ownership, right?50, 60 years ago, ordinary people like my dad, like everybody's mum and dad worked regular jobs and owned houses.They can't now.You know, people with advanced degrees owned houses.They can't now.Owned pensions.

They can't now.Government used to own wealth.Government wealth has gone from plus 100 % to negative 100 % of GDP.The wealth that used to be owned by the working class, used to be owned by the government, used to be owned by the middle class, it has not disappeared.It is being owned by the rich now.That tells me at current rates of tax, we will move very quickly towards extreme inequality of wealth.

And what that means is, I want to be very clear, extreme inequality of wealth means if you are not very rich, your grandkids are homeless.That's what it meant.Listen, my grandma grew up in London.A hundred years ago, she was born in the richest city, in the richest country in the world, and three of her siblings died of tuberculosis, a disease of poverty.That will happen again.Look, if you want to know the future of this country, if we don't change the tax rates, go to India.

I stayed in a hotel in Mumbai, luxury hotel.There was a whole family lying on flat and cardboard boxes, naked, dying on the streets.And luxury taxis came up, and people stepped over them when into the hotel.And don't ever tell yourself that that cannot happen here.Read your Charles Dickens, right?It happened here and it will happen here again.

That is what.So listen, don't tell me you pay enough tax.If you are rapidly getting richer while every other group in the country is rapidly getting poorer, you are not paying enough tax.

And I mean, you also know this from your own personal experience because you're still a trader, as you say, you still have lots of assets.I mean, do you have any sense of what percentage of your wealth you pay in tax every year?

To be honest, probably not that much because I don't have a huge income now, right?Yeah, I don't have huge income I made some money from the book and obviously I'll be in that whatever 45 % tax bracket But but on your assets on the assets no on the assets.It won't be much No, because that's our tax system, isn't it?We tax work and we don't tax.Well, how does that make you feel?You don't think it's a moral question.

Listen, look we can individualize this as much as we like, you know, I mean I am.But that's what you've got to do, isn't it?I mean, when you go and talk to these billionaires, you are sort of individualizing it.

You're saying to them, look, you know, you've got to step up.

No, otherwise everything is I'm not I'm not I don't come here I don't come on this show and I don't do this documentary to tell the billionaires to step up I don't expect the billionaires to fight for every last penny and to take everything I expect them to take everything from the public I come here to tell the public not to let them take it I don't expect to be listen when Francis Fulford says to me we will fight and we will win I want to tell the public are you gonna fight?Are you listen?I talk about my grandma and the poverty she grew up in.Look at the enormous increase in living standards in the course of her lifetime.You know, and that was she lived through World War II, right?They didn't ask for it.

They didn't beg for it.

They took it.They took it.

You need to be organized.You need to understand the problem.You need to fight.And crucially, crucially, they taxed the rich.And that's how they got those living standards.

I mean, there is a sense when you watch Francis Fulford, who is this aristocrat, who you go and visit, you know, in his you know, vast country house, stately home, whatever it is.And he says that, he says, you know, yes, fine, you know, we will fight you.And even if you get something now, we will win in the end.And there is a sort of a sense of whether, you know, that he's, it's not that he's right, but he's, that's truthful.Because in our political system, you know, it feels inevitable that if Andy Burnham or the Green Party or whoever it is who may eventually bring in some source of wealth tax along your lines.Does it?

The pendulum will swing.Won't every rich and upper middle class person turn on the left in that scenario and just vote for whoever they think is the best person to reduce their tax bill?

You've heard this famous Tony Benn quote, obviously.Tony Benn, the Labour politician.There's no final victory.There's no final defeat.only the same fight to be fought again and again and again.So toughen up, bloody toughen up.

Listen, there are always richer people and there are always poorer people.And the truth is, richer people are obviously richer and more powerful than poorer people.So if we create a very individualized society where everybody fights what they can get, over time wealth will accumulate and Concentrate more and more more amongst the rich for the simple reason that I pay my rent to the rich So they'll get richer and richer if we fight this as individuals We will lose and that is why the vast majority of human history is extreme inequality and the vast majority of the current world is extreme inequality But we have done it And I'll tell you what amazes me most about what my grandparents, you know, our grandparents generation did.They moved from that extreme inequality, extreme poverty to the middle class society, working class society of the late 20th century with no historical precedent.So don't sit here and tell me it's impossible.It is possible.

We have done it.We can do it.

But it's a perpetual struggle.

People like you and me and our viewers have to stand up and fight.

I mean, what there isn't at the moment is a political movement that is credible in terms of government, you know, the Green Party are nowhere near being able to form a government and they've got, you know, they've got a problem at the moment really in terms of sort of Zach Polanski's political visibility.If the Labour Party don't take it up in your form, and it looks like they're going to go for capital gains tax rather than wealth tax, then What is the answer?Do you think it's a new political movement?Do you think it's pushing the Labour Party until they give in?

If we don't get wealth taxes or some serious movement on wealth taxes from Burnham when he comes in, he will lose the next election.And I'll bet any money on that.I will bet you any money on that.And I'm a tired man right now because I'm working incredibly hard to get him to do that.And if he doesn't, it will be Farage.Farage will come in.

He will cut taxes on the super rich.Living standards will fall.he will fail on the economy, and I will still be here.And I will still be here.Listen, every single time they fail, my power grows.Every single time they fail, my power grows.

And people will realise this is the only way out.Listen, it's not easy.It was never easy.And that is why the history of the world and the history of this country is poverty and inequality.But it can be done and it will be done if enough people understand.Listen, it's not complicated.

If you allow inequality to grow and grow and grow and grow, then extreme poverty will definitely become the norm.Once people understand that, then they will stop voting to cut tax on the rich.

What happens when somebody like you becomes more powerful and you're becoming more powerful as a louder voice is the people you're going for come for you.

Yeah, I've noticed.

Well, tell me what you've noticed.How are they coming for you?

Well, I mean, there's been a lot of attacks in the media, obviously.Financial Times ran a 5 ,000 word gossip piece on me, which was, which was a lot of fun.

Which was about whether your account of what had happened was true.Yeah.

And there's been a sort of...

But that was quite a while ago, wasn't it?

Yeah.And now there's this sort of broad attempt to sort of say, oh, Gary's just an idiot.Gary doesn't have any postgraduate degrees, which I do, by the way.And they just, you know, they try and flood the internet with a lot of nonsense about you.But the truth is, you know, I've only ever had one person ever say anything negative about me on the street.And it was while I was filming this documentary.

And it was a man who just walked out of treasury.And he came up to me and he just held me quite tenderly by the arm.And he leant into me and said, I just wanted to say that you're completely economically illiterate.And I think he's, to be honest, that's just the perfect metaphor for this documentary and where we are at the time.And the absolute inability of this elite intellectual class to understand how divorced they are from what's happening on the show.

Did he explain why he thought you were illiterate?

No, he walked off.Presumably he thinks that I've never been to university, which a lot of people like to assume.Look, people will change.There's this stubborn, arrogant, idiotic centrism, which is not giving change.Listen, that centrism is going to die and there'll be two moves left.It's either me and fair taxation of the rich, or it's Farage.

And to be honest, I'm not worried about Farage.

I mean, you say the centrism is dying, but I think there's an argument that over the last year, since last time we spoke, that was true.And politics was going to the left and the right.You know, the Green Party had this big resurgence over the last year or not resurgence, but growth.And, you know, reform are leading the opinion polls.But what may be happening with Andy Burnham is a pullback to the centre.Farage is in political trouble over the money he's been receiving from fraudsters and crypto billionaires.

Zach Polanski's in a little bit of trouble too over, you know, his council tax and various claims in his history that, you know, he's kind of, he's gone a bit quiet over the last few weeks.Don't really know what's going on there.Kemi Badenoch, suddenly the most popular politician in Britain and Andy Burnham is now back.I wonder whether you're worried that politics is pulling back into the centrist consensus.

Listen, Keir Starmer was popular when he came in.He won a landslide two years ago.Rishi Sunak was popular when he came in.You know what I mean?Listen, if you don't deal with collapsing living standards, that popularity does not last.And listen, people want sensible, centrist politics.

People don't want to take a risk.But sensible, centrist politics that does nothing on rapidly growing inequality fails.Biden failed, Starmer failed, Sunak failed, Mertz in Germany failed.Every single one of these people don't want to take, of course, they don't want to take a massive risk.You know, andlike me and people like Zak Polanski are portrayed as whatever maniacs or communists they want to call us.

But that centrism is not going to work.And you know, what I really want is for there to be a space where we can talk sensibly with the centre about let's fix this.You know, I'm not saying, I'm not saying, I'm not Karl Marx here.I'm not saying like seize the means of production.I'm saying, can we just stop?this situation where working people pay 50 % and billionaires pay 0 % and get benefits for their kids because they've got so little income, and wealth inequality grows every year, poverty grows every year, it's obviously not going to work.

The thing that frustrates me the most is the intellectual poverty of this argument.Gary's a communist, Gary's a communist.Listen, I'll tell you who I am.I am the guy that's come down from the Titanic's lookout and said, there is the iceberg.We are going to hit the iceberg.And people turn around to me and say, okay, well you've fixed it then.

I'm tired of doing this alone.I want the centre to work with me.Listen, I'm very worried Burnham doesn't do this.And I know what's going to happen if Burnham doesn't do this.I want to work with Burnham.I want to work with Burnham.

I want to work with these centrist politicians, but they need to let go of this idea that you can allow all of your wealth to be owned by 0 .1 % of the population who have no capacity to tax.and not expect poverty.

If you want to work with Burnham, don't you need to demonstrate your own political popularity?You know, YouTube views isn't enough for a politician to go, oh, well, we've got to take this guy seriously.And he has a democratic right to be part of this conversation.

Listen, if Burnham's not going to work with me, what's he going to do?What's he going to do?He's going to come in.He's going to fail on the economy.He's going to be very unpopular, very unquickly, just like Starmer.He's going to do exactly what Starmer did.

Listen.

But in terms of your right to be part of the conversation.

Yeah.

What is your right to be part of the conversation?

I'll tell you what my right to be part of the conversation is.Go and watch my first video on my channel.from six years ago, right?June 2020, right at the beginning of COVID.Nobody knows who I am.I put out a video saying we are about to have a massive cost of living crisis, inflation crisis, inequality crisis, austerity crisis, house prices will go up, stock prices will go up, gold price will go up.

Nobody else said that.Listen, it's not a coincidence that I was the guy that got that right.And I'm also the guy that correctly predicted the 2008 aftermath.Listen, And it's, you know, it's not, I'm the same guy who was, you know, top at LSE.Listen, I'm the only guy predicting this correctly.And listen, I don't, listen, I don't want this.

Is that true?You're not the only person.

Who else?Who else?Who else is getting, listen.Lots of people got rich after 2008.You're not the only person.

Okay.So find me one, one, find me one person in politics or media who correctly predicted the cost of living crisis in 2020.Find me one, Krish.Find me one person.I don't want to be, listen, I'll be honest.I would much rather be on the trading floor with people who are not Idiots, right?

I don't want to be dealing with these politicians who don't know what's happening, don't care what's happening, who get rich either way.I'm sick of it, right?But I have to.How else do I get this in?

So why don't you go into politics now?Because you are a lot more political in your messaging now than you were.

Yeah, I mean, that's because I have become politically influential.Look, if I'm totally honest, me not going into politics is a mixture of two things.There's one, which I think there is a genuine case that I'm really potentially more politically powerful doing what I'm doing in social media and media.But if I'm being totally honest, I don't want to do it.I don't want to do it.I'm tired.

I'm tired.I'm tired of being the one.Listen, I'm tired of, of screaming that living standards are going to collapse year after year and then watching them collapse.

I'm not a politician.

You know what I mean?

I mean, you, you, you did, you, you sounded pretty ragged in your latest.Yeah.video.

Quite ragged right now.

You're basically saying you need to stop in a couple of weeks.

Yeah, if anybody's read my book, you know, people will know I had a really bad burnout, you know, in my in my 20s.And I've suffered from burnout before.And, you know, I'm the kind of person that is obsessive about my work.And I have a tendency to overwork and I've had mental health problems.I've had problems with burnout.And I don't want that to happen to me again.

But listen, This is, I want to just move over this slide.This is not like a Marvel movie, right?This is not Gary Stevenson saying, I'm not Iron Man, right?Listen, I'm a very good economist with a very good track record, with a very good understanding of how inequality is going to affect our economy.I'm telling you right now, and I've been saying it for years, with a string of incredibly good predictions, if you do not take action on this growing inequality, then poverty will aggressively and rapidly get worse.I'm not planning to fix this by myself.

Listen, do we not all want the same thing here?Surely we all want a country which is not riven by desperate poverty.Listen, I grew up in poverty.I don't want that for the kids that are growing up now.I hate this adversarial nature of it.Listen, I'm not a politician, I'm an economist, and I'm a trader, and I'm a very good economist, and I'm a very good trader, and I make correct predictions again and again because I'm right on one simple thing, which is you cannot allow inequality to rapidly grow in an accelerating fashion and not expect poverty.

Well, with your trader hat on, a lot of people are also arguing that we're in a massive asset bubble at the moment.And there's going to be an enormous crash in America because AI stocks in particular are massively overvalued.What do you make of those predictions?And do you think that might be a correction to the super -rich?

Look, I'm not an expert on AI in particular.My trader's insightis that there probably is a significant amount of overvaluation there, which means that there is definitely potential for a big pop and a big drop.And I'm short, I'm short tech stocks, I'm short AI stocks, but I'm long pretty much everything else.If there is an asset bubble, an AI specific asset bubble pop, I will, like all other rich people, be buying everything else.That's what we always do.

You know, I've got cash on the sidelines, they've got cash on the sidelines, we'll buy everything.

So you're going to hedge against it, basically?

No, because quite simply, listen, as inequality increases, wealth inequality increases, what you're doing there is you're transferring economic power away from regular ordinary people towards the very rich.Now, regular ordinary people spend basically their entire income over the course of their life on goods and services, whereas incredibly rich people, because their lifetime income is so high, they spend almost their entire lifetime income on buying assets.So as inequality gets richer and richer and richer, as it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, what you are doing is you are you are shifting economic demand away from goods and services, which is what you produce, by the way, when you work towards assets.And you will see asset prices go up and up and up and up and up.And I'm aggressively long assets.I've been reducing that over time because of the massive increase.

But if we get a dip, I'll buy again.

So if there is a crash, it will be ordinary people.

It always is.In 2008 it was, in Covid it was, you know, in this Iran war crisis it will be, you know, 2011 sovereign debt crisis, it always is.When was the last time?When was the last time an economic crisis didn't see the rich get richer?Not in my lifetime.

In this conversation you said, you know, you will be here.You will be here if Farage becomes Prime Minister and fails.You'll still be waiting.But you're also warning that you can't go on by yourself.I mean, are you just talking about arrest?

No, I'm not going to stop forever, obviously.I can't, I can't, you know, I walk down the street and I get stopped, you know, fucking 20 times a day.Don't stop, keep doing it, keep doing it.And I can't, you know, this is my country, you know, and obviously there are times when I would like to leave, you know, but the truth is you can't run away from this.It's happening everywhere.You know, this is our fight.

You know, you don't get to choose the times you're born in, you know, and my parents were lucky enough to be born into a growing economy where all they had to do was get their head down and work and take care of their family.We don't have that luxury.Now, we are born in difficult times and we have to fight this.

There's a moment in the documentary where you you cry because one of the...

You can't say, tell everyone that, Chris.

Where one of the campaigners comes and tells you what the consequences are of the government not having enough money to spend.Why did that hit you, the way it did?

So that was at NHS Stockton with Andrew Myerson.And I know him a little bit.I've had a drink with him once or twice in the past.It was a freezing, freezing cold day.It was sleeting that day.And I'm sure you've had your fair share of sitting out, doing shoots out in the cold.

We were out there for hours.And I've spent a lot of time interviewing some pretty unpleasant people.But then here we have people who are really fighting to make things better.And this guy, Andrew Myerson, is a big, massive guy, massive Canadian doctor.He wasn't prepared for the cold and he had like a little fleece on him and he was freezing.And then he reaches for this little like crumpled up bit of paper.

He'd handwritten all of the things that have been cut, you know, whatever it is, you know, 3 ,000 football pitches, 10 ,000 hospital beds, you know, I don't know the numbers.Just went through all of them, you know, all of these youth centres, everything.And his hand was shivering.He went to get this out and his hand was shivering and I saw him pull it out.And I think it's, you just...you see how hard people are willing to fight, you know?

And it just makes you think it's not worth letting it all go, is it?I guess it's as simple as that.

You're getting emotional thinking about it.

Well, you know, like, it's my country, Krish.And I don't have to do this fight either.But if enough of us fight, we'll win.

I mean, you say it's your country, and one of the attacks on people on the political left is that they're not patriotic.You know, often made from the right.Well, you know, it's just...

I don't think this is a perfect country.I don't think this is the best country ever.I live for two years in Japan and I love it, but it's my country.My mum's from here, my dad's from here, and everybody I grew up with is from here.And the Beatles are from here, and 80 % of the musicians and the artists I've ever loved are from here.I'm not trying to deal with this flag -waving stuff.

It matters.I grew up in poverty.I don't know what your childhood was like.I grew up in poverty, and it's not fun.And we're going back there.And our ancestors fought so hard to escape that poverty.

And we don't have to go back.We don't have to go back, but that's where we're going.And whether that's patriotism, I don't know, but it matters to me.

So you said what you hope for Andy Burnham.If he gets to watch a clip of this, what's your message to him?

I'm here.Listen, I don't want Andy Burnham to fail.I want to work with him.And look, I'm not expecting Andy Burnham to wear a tax wealth not work t -shirt.I'm not expecting him to go fool Gary's economics or whatever.Talk to Gabriel Zucman, you know, if you want.

Gabriel Zucman is a very prestigious French economist.He's done great work on wealth taxes.Put the work in, you know, and I'm not I'm not saying wealth taxesI'm not saying wealth tax tomorrow.Just show me some seriousness.Show me some seriousness.

And then I will go out there and I will get all of the influencers I know to go out there and say, listen, they're showing us a willingness to work towards this.

And on the wealth tax, just finally, I mean, yeah, I mean, I've talked to you a little bit about this before.I mean, The wealth tax as described would raise what you hope, 18?

It depends on the planning, you know, 20, 26, you know, 18.And that sounds like a lot of money.It's not a huge amount of money in terms of the government budget.

It's not, you know, you could spend that money on a lot of good things, but it's not really a transformational amount of money for the whole of Britain.

Is there a next step?The wealth tax is about us having the capacity as a nation to prevent wealth inequality from becoming extremely high.So at the moment, you have one very small group of society that is rapidly accumulating the wealth.And I think it's important that the viewers understand that's real things.That's your house.That's the land.

That's the natural resources.That's the buildings.That's the skyscrapers.That's the shops, right?These are being aggressively concentrated in small hands.That's growing.

And at the moment, we don't even know how much they're worth.We're not measuring it.And we have no capacity to tax them because they can very easily avoid income taxes.So really, the wealth tax is about us having the option as a country to choose, we don't want to be incredibly unequal.And I'll be very clear, 2 % is not enough.I know 2 % is not enough, but at the moment, we can't tax them even if we want to.

You know, this is, there's a hole in the bottom of the boat and we start patching up the hole.You know what I mean?It doesn't take us to perfection.It doesn't take us to like an idealized utopia, but it stops us from having to go to the point of extreme inequality.People say it's not a magic wand.I never said it was a magic wand.

Listen, I'll be very clear.I'm a cancer doctor telling you you've got cancer.Now, we can cure your cancer if you want.That doesn't mean you're going to win the London Marathon next year.But do you want to cure your cancer or not?And listen, once it's done, then I'll go on holiday and I'll turn my YouTube into a Japanese learning channel.

You know what I mean?And my work will be done.Listen, I have one very simple message.If you allow inequality to grow very, very rapidly, then the vast majority of people will very rapidly become poor.You need to have the capacity to tax the very rich.Currently, we don't.

Let's build it.

Well, the film is on Wednesday night at nine o 'clock, 90 minutes.

Then people will be able to watch it.

And then people will be able to see it on YouTube.

from, I think, Sunday.

From Sunday.And I mean, do you think you'll do more?I mean, you clearly found it hard work.I mean, like there's a lot of work goes into a documentary compared to a YouTube video.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.Do you think it's worth it?Well, listen, this is an experiment for me.It's about whether we can reach, whether we can have a political impact, whether we can really push the message.If we get loads out of it, then maybe I'll do it again.But there's a lot of shooting in the cold with unpleasant people.

So I'm not in any rush.But this one I'm very proud of.So, yeah, please watch it.

Gary, thank you very much indeed for joining us on the forecast.That's it for this edition.Until next time.Bye bye.