James O’Brien meets Gary Stevenson | LBC

James O’Brien meets Gary Stevenson | LBC

Hello and welcome to full disclosure a podcast project that is conceived entirely to let me spend more time with interesting people than I would ever get on the radio um and this week’s guest is a bit special Gary Stevenson who is the author of a new book called The Trading

Game and who also hosts a very popular YouTube channel Gary’s economics you’re here because people told me I should interview you well that’s good thanks for them it’s isn’t it so getting quite a lot of messages cuz we try and make sense of some of essentially economic

Inequality on the radio program and I noticed over the last couple of years the number of times people were saying is you’ve got to speak to Gary Stevenson you’ve got to speak to Gary Stevenson and you start off in my job thinking what is he some sort of financial David

Ike or something and then you realize that actually you are someone supremely well qualified um and and particularly interesting because because of the journey that you’ve been on I sense though speaking of that and not wanting to jump ahead unduly I sense a bit on the economic equality question you’ve

Been a little bit surprised or disappointed by the failure of media to pick up sooner on the urgency of your mission is that fair to say yeah that’s definitely fair that’s definitely fair I mean so I quit my job in the city back in 2014 and um I was I’ve been

Passionate about inequality since then and I I didn’t want to be putting myself in places like this so you know I went back to University I studied at Oxford and I went worked at think tanks these kinds of things um but I was really when when Co happened beginning of

Covid I studied economics University at two universities Land school econ economics and Oxford you don’t really look at inequality there but I look at it a lot at the very beginning of Co we knew governments all over the world were going to give out huge amounts of money

And from the amounts of money are enormous by the way the UK deficit since the beginning of Co is 800 billion which is £16,000 per UK adult truly mindblowing sums of money is that that’s a figure you can conceive of isn’t it 800 I think the big thing is you divide

It per person how whenever it’s National numbers I always divide it per person so you know 50 million adults in the country 800 billion 16 saw that last week with GDP as opposed to GDP per capita and coming down you realize actually that does affect me that is

Meaningful yeah so I think that’s a good sort of trick of dividing by 50 million is not probably up everybody’s sleeve but know 16 Grand per person yeah I knew these enor amounts of money were’re going to be paid out enormous the US number is 10 trillion which is $80,000 per

Taxpayer the first question you should ask in my book if the government is going to give enormous amounts of money out is who’s going to get richer yeah because if the if the amount of money given out is enormous truly enormous somebody or some group of people is

Going to get enormously richer yeah and you know I did my sort back of the [ __ ] backet calculation and what I saw was this is going to end up overwhelmingly with the rich and the very rich and and if you’re somebody like me who’s made a lot of money by betting that growing

Inequality will collapse living standards that worries you and I think what frustrated me most was not that people didn’t care about that it was that the discussion wasn’t had yeah it’s it’s if you know you’re about to massively change the world distribution in your country there should be a

Discussion did did the people doing it know I think we’re going to come back around a few times in the course of this conversation to how much of it happens by accident and how much of it happens by Design yeah but obviously sunak was an analyst at Goldman Sachs before

Working for a hedge fund and he had his I mean with with Boris Johnson in number 10 sunak was obviously 100% in control of the P strings would he have known without much shadow of a doubt about the distribution you just described in all honesty I don’t think he would have done

I don’t think you will have done you know I studied with these people and I worked with these people I’ve been five years universities with these guys um I think nowadays a modern economics degree you’ve got to understand how much it’s kind of brainwashing if you economics

Degrees are hard right but what you really do especially if you go far you spend five seven 10 years memorizing the algebra of extremely complicated models but those models which you memorize have no inequality in them they’re what you what what economists call Representative agent models which is a model which

Looks at the average person we only looking at the average person and of course if you only car by the average then we don’t really care about the distribution and um if you spend 10 years memorizing these models and Rich son probably only did undergrad maybe did NBA as

Well when you spend years and years memorizing certain kind of model you tend to forget other models exist and I think economists nowadays just don’t tend to think about distribution and really the story of my career is basically making money because distribution matters and economists don’t think about that which means they

Mispredict means they don’t predict correctly and and that was the a Tipping Point for you in terms of putting your head above the paret instead of in Terms of becoming something of a crusader that you thought because what you feared would happen did happen well I think you

Knew would happen did are we talking about the obvious stuff are we talking about the people getting hundreds of millions of pounds worth of contracts for for supplying PPE or are we talking about stuff further below the St actually it’s it’s not just that it’s not just the pp stuff what we’re talking

About is the fundamental structure of the way that Co was dealt with economically so all right let’s start with the assumption that you have to do lockdown okay and you know I’m not going to have any opinion on that because I know there’s a lot of strong

Opinions but that was the political Nar of at the time let’s start with the assumption that you have to do lockdown as soon as you do lockdown a ton of people lose their jobs essentially and lose their incomes so basically government has to support them this is

The situation and the obvious thing to do is what was done which was essentially the Central Bank printing money lent to the government government gives the money out loads of money gets given out and it looks like nothing’s changed right because you you’re not working for a period of time but you’re

Still getting your income yeah you know doesn’t really matter still making your bills as well but we know the government makes a loss here because the government comes in and PS a load of money out so we know somebody makes a gain and we know it’s not the fur worker because the

Fur worker is simply replacing their lost income so I was sort of thinking about this a lot the beginning of Co like a mystery who ends up with the money you know if we if we giving hundreds of billions to fured workers but F workers don’t get richer it’s like

A magic trick you who gets richer right so I follow the money through the system right Okay the reason followed workers are not richer is because the companies are not paying their wages so are the companies richer well actually the companies are not richer because these specific companies the employers of

Followed workers are shut down they’re not richer okay so where is the money that used to go to the companies okay well that came from the customers and this is actually the correct answer customers are not spending money spending massively collapsed during covid but then you might think okay well

That’s not a problem because we’re all customers so then you’re just going to get a transfer of money from government to the people the problem is it’s not all customers that got richer and that’s because it’s not all spending which collapsed during covid what collapsed during covid was non-essential or luxury

Spending so if you’re a poor ordinary family and most of your expenditure is rent mortgage food bills you still have those expenditures the expenditures which disappeared are luxury expenditures and who has the luxury expenditures it’s the rich so basically what happened during covid was the money

Which the rich used to put into the economy was replaced by the money the government puts into the economy government prints the money it goes to you you pay your mortgage it goes to the guy who owns your mortgage which is the rich people and it’s basically legal for

Them to spend it so it was inevitable from the very beginning that we would have 800 billion transfer from the government to the rich and I think anyone who bothered to look at this would would have seen this and you would be like okay so what we’re doing

There was a perception during covid that what we were doing was pausing the economy and in a sense we were but what we were also doing was transferring an enormous truly enormous amount of money from the government to the very rich so you haven’t ped the economy have you you’ve changed the distribution

Massively but not deliberately not because they didn’t understand what you’ve just described once you understand that if I ask you a question imagine we pause the economy for a year and in that period of time we massively changed the wealth distribution so that we bankrupt the government and

Enormously enrich the rich what do you think will happen to living standards when we open the economy again they will collapse and you know I put a video out on YouTube June 2020 saying at the end of lockdown you will see an enormous increase in inequality an enormous

Increase in house prices an enormous increase in stock prices enormous increase in inflation and a cost of Le crisis for ordinary people and I didn’t just say that I started betting on it and I made a lot of money because that’s what I do that’s my history and these

Things were predictable all you need to do was bother to consider the effect on the distribution and nobody did and that the most mind-blowing thing you know you could say okay the conservative politicians are corrupt and they tried to hide this I I actually think a lot more is down to stupidity than

Corruption here what about the labor politicians why didn’t they say they weren’t calling it out what about the bank of England what about the universities why wen’t they saying anything just just before we track back to to to your origin story Gary what what does betting on it mean what does

Because the what does that actually involve so back when I was a Trader after the 2008 crisis I had I had a similar idea which was that inequality would would keep interest rates low for long but in the co situation what was actually happening we all talk about the

Increase in the government debt what we never talk about is the increase in cash Holdings by the rich right and and it exactly offsets the government that it must do you know which is again a shift of yeah power and wealth and you know if it’s if it’s 800 billion 166,000 per

Person imagine that will go to the top 5% that’s 320 grand for every single adult in the top five it’s a lot of money it’s a lot of money so what’s that going to do probably cause inflation but most obviously cause asset prices to

Rise so the first thing I did was I went I put a massive bet on the gold price I bet that the gold price would go up significantly right at the beginning of covid um people just a for a complete idiots guide that’s an option you take

An option on I’m I’m a little bit versed to say what how I did it because I know people might might go and do it and it is very dangerous I use the spread betting website which which is so you could have lost a ton of money yeah yeah

I could I could have lost a ton of money and when I say that I just have to say that spread betting is very dangerous and is very risky to do um yeah it’s there goes the other the subtext of my question which was oh I’ll

Have a bit of this and now already well I mean I I still think asset prices have a long way to go and I think the big the next shooter drop which I don’t think people have quite quite ready for inflation will definitely fall significantly over the next six months

Interest rates will almost certainly start to fall they’ll probably fall a decent chunk once that the only thing that’s stopping these rich guys are still sitting on piles of cash yeah the only thing that’s stopping house prices going up is interest rates are so high they can’t lend them to you you can’t

Afford the mortgage once those interest rates come down I think those house price property Starts rock again we could have a long discussion about what that means for people what that means for society I think it’s I think it’s very dangerous and potentially very

Damaging um we may get on to that we may not um but I sense this won’t be our final I hope this won’t be our final or our only conversation let’s go back then to to to ilford to East London because I I guess it it’s it’s hard for someone

Like me not to already sound a little bit patronizing Now by saying something like that level of financial acurity that you’ve just just displayed is not something that people ordinarily associate with the background that you had which is something you’ve lived with for pretty much all of your ad Liv yeah

I mean so what was that background tell me a bit about growing so I grew up in ilford ilford for those who don’t know is it’s kind of contested East London ess6 Borderland um I won’t get involved I I well culturally it’s a mix of both

Um nowadays I’m an IG gr up is an extremely immigrant area very high South Asian population I grew up mainly with relatively recent migrants from India Pakistan sometimes IR Africa um I went to schools that were very South Asian um I was pretty poor my first primary

School there were a lot of kids that their families had only come over in the last sort of 10 15 years and they were still quite poor as well um I was in a small house pretty sort of Crowded House trains running through the garden um but I was very good at maths

Always very good at math and like from literally Primary School yeah for as long as I can remember basic Prodigy good like there it’s like almost weird I didn’t start well one a few competitions once I got into secondary school but Primary School you weren’t really doing

Those things um I didn’t really realize how good I was probably until so I passed my 11 plus and I went to grammar school there’s still grammar schools out there in that that part of the world um and I kind of assumed there’s going to

Be loads of like dead smart kids here um but I was still kind of kind of quite effortlessly the best at at specifically Mass I was quite a lot of subjects but yeah and I was in sort of the school math team and I was we were winning all

The competitions and I was sort of yeah I don’t I don’t know where game from It’s Always Been math has just been a talent of mine and then I think if you you grew up in East London good at maths you see Canary wolf being built when

You’re a kid literally yeah was yeah yeah and you kind of think well I’m going to go work there one day won’t I that sort of what I would do so what did it represent to you did it represent wealth privilege you know what that’s Escape it’s such a funny question

Because when I was a kid you fantasize about being rich but the weird thing is when you come from quite a poor background you know version on a very poor background you actually have no idea what being rich kind of looks like you know what I mean and there were some

Sort of richer kids and bankers kids in the grammar school that I went to but it’s actually kind of an abstracted ideal and then you know you go in and see you know I went not to make a lot of money staring the book and then when I

Made the money A lot of people are sort of confused why didn’t you ever spend any money but I think actually looking back in hindsight what I really wanted was to not be poor anymore not to be you get so the thing is we live in this you

Know maybe things are changing nowadays but especially when I was growing up in the 90s and 2000s he had this sort of American Dream mentality and these idea ideas about meritocratic society and when you’re poor you get looked down on and you get judged I mean which is

Absurd when you’re 13 but it happens you know you’re conscious of that you think yeah definitely especially when I got into the grammar school because you would know that your house was smaller than other people’s or that you’re people just know that you Bor you know it’s it was a very upwardly striving

Society that I grew up in you know what I mean this so you never question what you should be aiming for you you yeah I mean my parents are very religious and they’re not really particularly materialistically driven they didn’t they’re Mormons I think they my parents are Mormons yeah but it came

From it came from the society around me and I also think it came from a sort of a sense of unfairness I was always a very good student I always think it’s a stupid story but I remember when we just turned sort of 16 17 a lot of my friends

At school if they got like good grades their parents give like 100 quid every we start thing and obviously my parents won’t give me nothing and then their parents will buy cars and I remember hearing a couple of girls be like have you seen R’s new car he must be doing

Really well for himself and I remember thinking we’re 16 what do you think and know I was working at paper and I was up at 7:00 a.m. before 7 a.m. every day delivering papers for £ 13 a week my boss cut my pay to £12 a week one week

You know what I mean and um you’re working so much harder than everyone yeah you’re getting better grades than everyone everyone else has so much that you don’t have you’re getting look down on in a way which is obviously absurd and I think part of you

Just wants to show people you know I’m as good as anyone else basically it’s yeah I mean there’s a lot going on already then isn’t there because you you’re looking at that myth of hard work which I mean runs right to the core of conservative politics in many ways if

You are very very wealthy it must be because you’ve worked very hard even if you’ve just had your dad buy you a car that you that you’re driving around in but also um so your unfairness was was more about you to start with you’re thinking more about you and it’s not

Fair would you think it’s not fair that Mom and Dad haven’t got more or would you coming later right but to start with it was just not this isn’t fair on me no and I think this is you know we could have a massive discussion about selfishness and selfishness for people I

Think you know nowadays I bounce around sort of left organization sometimes sure guys that want to sort of help help the youth help the poor what I can tell you is when I was a kid no one was helping me yeah no one was helping me and I think

You you you rais kids in this kind of hostile space and I was in London you know what I mean so if you live in some Northern cities you know which are struggling there you might not be surrounded by wealth in the same way I

Was you know I mean you live in London you’re surrounded by I went to grammar school so there kids around me that are a lot richer than me and um yeah if I don’t take me out of there who takes me out of there and and you can’t

Be what you can’t see so so you could see yeah something to which you could Aspire in a way that in some of the environments you’ve just described possibly kids couldn’t was there nobody then that cuz I I went to public school and I went to lsse but oddly I I left

Lsse not really understanding what the other people were doing when they went on the milk ground and when they applied for Stu I no one ever took me to one side and said by the way if you want to prioritize making a ton of money over everything else yeah then this is what

You do you do did not did you did no one ever say to you if you want to work in that building that’s just been built over there this is what you need to do there is absolutely no doubt that for My Career Success I owe a massive debt of

Gratitude to the middle class Indian Community of Ila County High School the gramar school that I went to right basically I went to quite poor primary school and it was a lot of sort of recent migrated pakistanis that most of them are quite poor yeah then went to

The grammar school was kind of slightly better to do Indians that had a massive sort of community and and a sort of cultural Community Family understanding of what the good jobs were and like an enormous percentage of my mates not Grammar School it’s the blue color and white colar you’re describing really

Basically and a huge percentage of my you know I’ve got a WhatsApp group of my friends from that school and it’s like 80% dentists and bankers got yeah yeah and that’s like you know there was a mate of mine called called Vikes who I studied with and he was just like I’m

Going to be a banker and um you know his parents were shopkeepers and um to be honest I don’t think I would be where I am today if it wasn’t for that kid Vic and and my other friends you know Anish she’s mentioned in the book

And because they found the map they had the route they they knew knowledge is from the families I wouldn’t I wouldn’t even even know what LC was really probably I got a friend of mine a girl I dated went to Manchester Metropolitan she thought she was going to Manchester

Unit right she’s you know she’s from norch and I’m not trying to mock her or her this is the thing is if I was in her place that would have been me you know if you don’t if nobody tells you how do you know you know you’re you’re 17 when you make the

Application it’s the vocabulary of privilege and a lot of people that speak it fluently don’t even know they’ve got it that’s what you’re describing makes perfect sense to me what you’ve just described it’s a lack of information the word Manchester on the heading of course it’s Manchester where else am I going

Going to Manchester yeah exactly you don’t know you know you don’t know it’s um and I was L and I suppose so when did the words first appear in your in your vocabulary then when did you first become aware of the of Economics at County High School talking about it yeah

I mean obviously we all know Oxford and Cambridge I me obviously I wanted to go to Cambridge um but you know actually LSC L School of Economics is just as much a ticket to a good job as as Oxford or Cambridge and tons of people never

Even heard of it well in this country but another point you make very well in the book is that for people from other countries whether they’re the you know the sons are members of the Chinese poit Bureau or or the daughters of Russian oligarchs they know exactly what an lsse

Degree is worth in in The Wider world it’s odd that but the Brits are often a bit behind the curve well I mean you say that but then these guys that come over you know Gaddafi sent his kids you know I’m sure your average Libyan on the

Street knows about LC the truth is actually again it’s a class thing right you know of course it’s these guys are these guys are kind of they’re above the British you know these guys are like the Sons and Daughters of of extremely wealthy people in poor countries it’s an

International Elite yeah isn’t it that you um So What by GCSE then if I’d met you at 15 16 and said what do you want to be when I grow up would you have said Rich Banker or both or neither yeah I think Banker yeah you want to be a

Banker yeah it’s funny actually writing this book I was quite good at words back in the day what it comes across yeah but um I tell you the big reason why I went because you could have gone into law you know what I mean that’s the other sort

Of thing the reason I went into the reason I chose maass instead of anything with words is and probably this is the same reason I went into trading I walk in and do an English exam I write a good paper you’re the marker it’s up to you I walk

Into a math exam I put the right answer down for every question you can’t stop me and trading is like that and it just felt like again you have this we talk about selfishness you know this absolute dogged insistence on I’m going to make it work and I’m not going to let anyone

Stop me so it was like you do math because maths is there’s a fairness to maths there’s an objectivity there an objectivity yeah you know I got I got friends that work in fashion my sister works in the Arts you know you can write you can you can make the best piece of

Clothing you can write the best play you put it on the table and that guy doesn’t like it you’re out and you know as a Trader or as a mathematician if you’re right you’re right how much of this do you think you would have been able to

Articulate before you sat down and tried to write it or have you have you been on a bit of a journey of self-discovery when we should mention the title when while you were writing the trading game have you found it therapeutic almost yeah definitely I mean the book runs

Until 2014 which is when I quit Finance um and obviously it’s coming out now 10 years later most of the writing was done in the last sort of year year and a half um you know I came out of trading quite traumatized to be honest um and I needed

To spend a lot of time rolling ideas around in my head um it’s called the confession and I think there’s a lot of sort of questions to be asked you know a lot of people instinctively say you made a lot of money working in finance that’s wrong that’s immoral

Um but where were they when I was 13 you know what I mean you know where were they when my needs money to buy a house you know what I mean yeah of course um what sort of people are you talking about Gary who who says that to you are

You sure it’s actual people it’s not your own conscience no I definitely see them I trust me you should read my YouTube comments um no there’s definitely I think really I want to get people asking these questions I tell you what it’s very easy to point in the bankers and say they’re

The problem yeah of course and there’s a lot of media about Finance that points to the bankers and says they’re the problem you know what I mean and there’s a lot of Institutions out there that are supposed to help kids like me yeah you know we’ve got the weal estate which is

Fallen apart sure Charities religious institutions you know schemes for diversity none of them were there for me sure the guys that took me out of poverty with the banks right and um right KY there’s this there’s a story that I want to tell about really really for me the big

Picture story is three levels basically me the individual the banking industry as an industry and our society and three levels of what happens when you make a person an industry and a society obsessed with money and what it does to them spiritually and what it does bizarrely to them

Economically because you know I made millions of pounds and I end up sleeping on a mattress on a cold floor in an unfurnished house and I think what we see as a society you know I’ve got a YouTube channel and I put videos out every week saying if we we don’t deal

With wealth inequality living standards will collapse and your kids will live in poverty and the number one most common message I received by a million miles is Gary how do I make money right followed by why don’t you give all yours away yeah yeah yeah I imagine I’ve seen some

Of them presumably the guys who ask that pay for my YouTube channel to give it away the distinction here is between the individual and the institution isn’t it it’s why your book your life is so important so fascinating because you you you constantly walk that tight route

Between the what it’s done to you and it’s a bit like I have a catchphrase when I’m talking about people who voted to make themselves poorer without realizing what they were doing I would say contempt for the conmen compassion for the cond but it’s sometimes quite

Hard to know where that line is isn’t it between the people that are um yeah encouraging the culture and falling victim to the culture while at the same time thinking that they love it sometimes I’m I feel like angry the state of the world um I think it’s easy to point fingers

But listen I’m somebody and this is described in great detail in the book who has made millions of pounds because I believe and I bet on the fact that our country is going to fall into desperate poverty and I don’t just say that you know I was one of the

Best paid traders in the world because I believe that you can look at my predictions from the begin of covid they’ve all come true um and I have I have anger and you can see some of that in the book but um so what you’re agitating for is a world in which

You wouldn’t be able to make money in the way that you do but as long as you can as long as that world exists it’s pointless to because if you don’t CU money is essentially it’s not quite finite is it with quantitative easing and stuff like that but but in terms of

That that pot of money there it’s going to end up somewhere you would rather it ended up there but it’s not going to so why shouldn’t it end up there with you there’s a story there’s a story in book so I I first started betting on sort of

The collapse of the economy early 2011 and it just happened massively coincidentally that about a week or two after I put that bet on the Fukushima earthquake happened and 20,000 people died in Fukushima and I made something like $1 million um which I put in the book $550 per person and

Um I think it’s very obvious I didn’t cause the Fukushima earthquake you know what I mean thanks for clearing that up yeah but it makes you think doesn’t it yeah it makes but I think probably the big picture the big picture I want you to think about for that is after that I

Went on to bet on the collapse of living standards in this country across Europe in the US and I made even more money much more money um and for that I got paid millions of pounds since then I’ve quit that job and I’ve spent 10 years trying to sort of connect with

Governments media political institutions think TKS to say for free by the way yes of course to say we need to stop this yeah how much I achieved you know we’re growing listen we have built a society where the best paid 10,000 economists in the world are all Traders and it is they

Are legally not allowed by the employers to talk publicly and I could go back and I could make a couple of million pounds a year working for these guys you know that’s that I mean just in case anyone needs that explaining the point is that they’re making a ton of money out of

Understanding an economy that is taking us all essentially to helling a handcart or taking Society to places of inequality that would become close to apocalyptic yeah but number one they get paid massively more to bet on it than they ever could get in paid trying to

Fix it yeah and number two it’s like tax kid like me right from no from nowhere from nothing can walk into the City and within two three years be a famous millionaire well let’s do that then so so you’re in your what second third year

At lsse when you start thinking how do I get well start start with the first day at lsse actually and the tale of the tracksuit oh the tracks yeah so you know an echo track um I don’t know if they’re still popular maybe they not um you kind of

Like a it’s not onesie but like a color coordinate with this big Rhino on the front I have a navy blue and white one which I love which I wore to LSC and um went into my first economics lecture which is in a massive West End theater like a thousand students and um

Everyone everyone’s filing in and I I had a very like clear plan at LC which was you sit at the front every lecture every class and you understand everything that they say and if you don’t understand you ask a question so I walked in with my little sort of Nike

String backpack of my echo tracki sat on the front and started asking the professor questions and you know there’s a bunch of like kids of Chinese and Arab billionaires thinking like who the hell is this kid basically um and I think they just thought this is mad basically and then um but the

Quality of the questions you were asking must have given the lie to the idea that you were mad you know what wouldn’t it I think some people LC might be upset with this right on in my opinion yeah LSC is a university nowadays which does not primarily pick it students based on

Intelligence no its ability to pay listen if everybody’s their dad is a millionaire have they picked the smartest kids in the world yeah and what percentage of kids in the world have a dad who’s a millionaire so I mean what that leads us to and we’re jumping around a bit too

Much which is my fault um that leads us to the idea that you don’t actually have to be that intelligent to make an awful lot of money in the city but you do to make it in the way that you made it I think you need you need to have a I want

To get to this this ability to read the runes as it were but but but again so you you thrive at LSC you smash your exams yeah yeah you you presumably come to the attention of people for all sorts of reasons partly because of your apparent background and that makes

People go well he doesn’t I’m not quite sure what hole this Peg is supposed to this Peg is supposed to fit into did you have any good relationship with teachers were there any professors that there a couple of teachers there was one first year teacher called Vin nagaraj Indian

Guy from India not British Indian who was really sort of encouraged me you know try and understand some of the math guys were really nice you know I love maass um I think there’s a particular culture within economics that is in my mind quite elitist um but really it’s

Funny I grew up with these sort of British Indians Bri British pakistanis I ended up hanging around with Indian Indian and Pakistani pakistanis cuz he was kind of what what I was used to and you know I’m still friends with a lot of them today um

But I was I look back writing the book when I was a teenager I was insane I was so competitive I wouldn’t allow myself to be beaten in any exam really so I think really that’s who you were though I’m the guy that comes top yeah well I

Think it comes partly from getting expelled from school at 16 right you know like I got expelled from school a year before my gc’s and I didn’t have no school to go to and I had to study for a year lying down on the floor of my front

Room you know what I mean with your own books was there some class issues involved in that do you think you describe it as being expelled for for selling three quids worth of weed if if you had been the son of one of the people you describe in the book one of

The Wealth do you think it would have happened do you think you had a little Target on your back maybe I think they would have expelled anyone who was the guy who brought the weed in even if it was three pounds of weed but why was I

The one who brought the weed in you know what I mean yeah yeah yeah you know if you’ve got one kid in there who knows 10 drug dealers on his street and doesn’t have no money and you’ve got 10 kids in there that never met a drug dealer in

Their life and have got a lot of money they’ve got a lot of money yeah you know this is Adam Smith this is the Invisible Hand in the market to work before we crack on how traumatic was that how how how how upset were your mom

And dad when that happened long time ago I know but still we mentioned before we sat down I went through something similar at a completely different school and the thing for me looking back is the fact that it and also my dad couldn’t really afford to send me to the school

He sent me to so when I got slung out it was such a kick in the teeth for him but presumably going to grammar school would have been a big deal for your mom and dad and then yeah they also very religious my parents very religious and

My dad got called to pick me up and um didn’t say much I remember in the car he just said like what what what did it feel like and I just said felt right I went home and I went straight to bed and I woke up in the middle of the night and

My mom was crying I right about this in the book yeah I know and I remember thinking and in a sense it’s a horrible thing to think but this is what I thought at the time I remember thinking what are you crying for I’m the one

Who’s getting me out of this you know you’re not going to have to I’m the one who’s going to have to work you my tits off you know the whole year to get me out of this and I knew I would get me out of it um but you know I was quite

Known as like the smart kid in this school and um everyone thinks you’re going to go to Cambridge and suddenly everyone thinks you’re going to go to prison you know what I mean yeah I do um and uh it hardened me a lot I mean and one

Good thing is it totally stopped me taking drugs which I think was a very good thing um but it’s a lot to put on a 16-year-old kid yeah and and and and and it’s a lonely business as well isn’t it as you’ve just touched on because I mean

Your mom’s coming at it from a place of care as I know you know and she’s worried about you whereas you’re coming at it almost from a mathematical perspective and you’re saying well hang on I can’t translate your care and your love and your concern into exam grades

The only person that can get the numbers as in the exam marks is me so so spare me the sentiment I guess looking back you’re looking back and you sort of you see a kid who’s angry at the unfairness around him again you know what I mean

And and he knows he continually knows no one’s coming through yeah no one’s ever com you’ve mentioned this a lot of times it’s a real recurring theme for you it’s not just you know I know there’ll be people that watch this especially you know young people from no I’m not

Suggesting for a minute that it’s a unique experience and it’s another great illustration of the difference between our experiences growing up is that at a school like mine there’s people teaching you not just what the difference is between Manchester University and Manchester Metropolitan but the difference between Christ Church College

Oxford and brn college I just this language this vocabulary of privilege that we talked about at the beginning what what I am quite interested in is is is is how alive you were to it when probably most of the kids you were at school with even the ones who had

Similar Ambitions to you would not have been as alive to the as a young man I didn’t know okay I was you look back and you know writing the book you do a lot of looking back yeah I was numb to it I was numb to it and I think that there’s

A kind of in this culture we give to young people especially young men but not just young men that tells them you are the money you make and if you don’t make money you’re a failure and if you do make money You’re great and simultaneously gives them virtually no realistic chance of making

Money you are training you’re kind of training a psychopathy into these guys yeah because you you you put them in an impossible situation yeah you put them an impossible there’s a there’s a Japanese horror movie I like called Battle Royale have you ever seen it no I

Haven’t well it’s hunger gam ripped it off send his send a a class of Japanese school kids to an island and he say now fight fight to the death one of you wins and um this is kind of the situation that we put young people in because nowadays young people from poor

Backgrounds what chance do they have you know I went to my friend’s 50th birthday party and one of his nephews was there and um he’s he’s a fan of the channel he’s GED how do I make money what do I say to these kids yeah

What do I say to these kids you know be born 30 years earlier you know if you want to if you want to make money nowadays I’ll be born rich the best the best strategy have a rich dad you didn’t have a rich dad try again you know what

I mean like really what do I tell these kids you know if they tell me I want to learn Japanese I’ll give them the textbooks if they tell me I want to get really ripped I’ll tell them go to the gym every day what chance do the young

People have to make not even just to make money even to buy a home to have a family well I was about to say what about the difference between the concept of being rich and the concept of having enough CU what really drives you is the

Is the knowledge and the fear of people who haven’t haven’t got enough but backing up again yeah you get on on course at LSC not necessarily through the traditional route but you do the comp the City Bank competition which you I like this story a lot actually because

You you you sail through the earlier rounds they’re looking for potential Traders and you are top of the class pretty much from from until you get to the final round when something quite weird happens it’s funny one it’s another sort of a little metaphor for life I think

Yeah like um yeah so I was very struck by that yeah I was like this I was one of the top students you know I mean LC and I got very very very good exam grades and I just kind of thought well you get a great job then number one

Student at LC you’re going to get a great job coming to a second year and suddenly CV cover letter CV and cover letter and this guy you know this guy was like head of the junior United Nations and and this guy is like played the obot Royal Albert Hall and this guy

Like has founded a charity that drives dirt bikes through the Sahara Desert for some reason and you you you were expelled from school and and fluffed pillows at a sofa shop next to a sewer Works in beckon you know what I mean and you were like okay and you suddenly

Realize it’s just a lie isn’t it it doesn’t matter what your grades are there’s no way in there’s no way in for you it’s just that it was rigged from the start and um fortunately you know I started to be did you send off your CV

In cover no I didn’t bother there was nothing on the CV how I Val to a Merch bank how am I going to be there’s not nothing on there what’s going to make you stand out basically you know what I mean what am I going to put you know are

You sure I I mean I think nowadays you might have people that might see the value of well he’s actually worked the pay he’s worked but but also to be an analyst surely the people with the best exam results would be quite but you apply in second year you don’t have so

You haven’t got your F now you don’t have the grades yet got you you don’t even have the grades yet right so um what I did was I just became a bit of a dick basically it was kind of a strategy I started to become really like objection

Like loud in the lectures and started to like really like show off my abilities more start to like argue with the lecture start to almost humiliate the lectures right intentionally what were you trying to prove I just had to make myself visible trying to prove I’m good enough for this

Job yeah I just figured mythical this theoretic if I make myself big enough and if I make myself seen enough that I’m not just like a comedy figure I’m actually really hot smart I won’t I won’t be ignored but James it worked yeah I was in the library one day kid

From the year above from Grimsby who was being paid by City Bank to look for talent comes up to me heard you good there’s a City Bank runs a game is this what the game is like it’s a Maths game I heard you good at maths go for it and

That’s how I got my job and um do you think that wouldn’t have happened without the other if you hadn’t been drawing attention to yourself in class in lectures then you wouldn’t have someone wouldn’t have said to him we can’t know for sure we can’t know for

Sure but I mean he found out about me somehow you’re quite conscious of serendipity aren’t you which is odd there’s a curious mixture of self assurance bordering on arrogance which you know I can’t really accuse anybody else with that from um but but also humility because all these key moments

If if it hadn’t been for for your mate at school or or your particularly your friends of Indian origin who knew about this path and and if it hadn’t been for that bloke who so you’re very I think you live constantly with the path not taken the path you could have stayed on

Despite your brightness despite your wit you’re very conscious of the Gary who I think is still living in ilford yeah I’m very aware that very very few people from my background ever makes yeah but very very few people from your background have your brain but but you

Don’t think the brain is a guarantee of getting out it’s not enough it’s not enough and there’s a story like about a friend of mine in the book’s called Jamie Silverman who’s super smart super talented and listen I I’ve been from a poor background growing up on a poor Street

And then you go to a grammar school and you go to Ln you they work in the city there were kids I grew up with smarter than those guys and most of them are drug dealers now yeah you know that’s what because that’s the only path you know and the thing is

I’m I’m not going to tell anyone to become a drug dealer right of course do I turn around to these guys and say try and become an investment banker what are the chances I actually get in and this is one of the great myths of meritocracy because if the banks were run in

Anything like a meritocratic fashion they would be bending over backwards to find kids like the ones you describe because they’re going to be five or 10 points not 50 or 60 points but five or 10 points better than the kids I went to school with who not so much anymore but

Back in the day they’d waltt into the city simply by Dent of the tie they were wearing I think it’s a little bit more robust now the selection procedures But but so so so it’s not a meritocracy so rich doesn’t make 600 million quid because he’s clever than everybody else

No well I mean you know I think you find Rich son didn’t make that much money before he married the daugh I thought you might say something like that which leads us back to Taxation and the question of what what taxes you might be

In favor I talk a lot about me being a very successful Trader in 2011 I was the top Trader the top Trader every single other year I was there was a guy who in the book is called Billy also never went to University grew up in Liverpool you

Know I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the small number of guys from working-class backgrounds who get there tend to do pretty well because you’ve got to be a hundred times better than the people from the public school background if you’re not very very good

You’re not getting in no and you got in so you won the game we didn’t you didn’t tell me Theory so so I won the first round and then we got to the final round which is in Canary WARF in the big city got building this what did you feel like

Walking in there the first time I was a man on the mission yeah I was just like to the man of born or or or a little bit of insecurity inside you or just not even bothering with thoughts like that because you’ve got places to go you got

A lift to get you know it’s like it’s hyper Focus game game game and I think in hindsight most of the other guys probably went there to network a little bit cuz they figured they won’t win I knew I weren’t going to network no one

So I’m in for the game basically and um and you know I killed the game there’s all these like just just did really really well flew into the final round let me get into the final round and I’m there with other guys I played against him in the earlier rounds and I’m

Thinking I’m better than them maybe there’s a bit of arrogance there but that’s what I thought and um you’re playing the game and I was a very aggressive player this particular game trying to boss it trying to dominate it and you think you’re winning you think you’re winning end of the game cards

Turn over everyone else has the highest possible cards the combination of cards in the game everyone has the highest possible cards and I have the lowest possible card and it’s impossible the odds are in the book it’s like one in 15,000 or something and you know straight away like it’s been rigged

Against me there’s no way that happened by chance and and I lost by a million miles cuz these guys were all high and I was low I thought it was going to be low um and you you know your blood runs cold for a minute and you’re just like what

What has happened and then the big guy walks up to the front and he goes the winner of a game is Gary Stevenson and he goes Gary was so good in the early rounds that we intentionally rigged the final against him because he wanted to

See how what he did when all all the odds were against him and what I did was just absolutely put my nuts on and and lost by a million miles and that’s what they wanted to see but I think this for me when I think about this I think about

My first bonus which is another story which i’ had been led to believe by my by management would be about 100 Grand and turned out being like 400 Grand and you see this kind and when that happened I thought back to my dad and my friends

Dads and how much how hard they worked for so little but I also thought back to so I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced like poverty but no I haven’t you walk into the shop you buy the cheapest thing in the shop what is the cheapest thing in the shop and you

Skip meals and your mates buy your meals cuz they feel bad for you and when I was at Uni I used to have for lunch every day two Scotch eggs for 75 from Tesco on the I Tesco or say by H station Kings and um 75p 75 every day lunch and then

Suddenly someone turns around and gives you 400 Grand and you start to realize the whole thing is just is just the game we’re just being played we I didn’t need to live that life of poverty the money is there the money is there the wealth is there the assets are there

The whole thing is just it’s just a game played for the amusement of these people almost you know and they you know they they enjoyed playing the they wanted to see me squirm a little bit and then put me through and you know I I think I

Think about this when I see young people being told just hustle harder yeah hustle a bit harder and you’ll make your way up and what happens if it doesn’t work there’s no way nowhere to land is there there’s no safety net there’s no the worst thing about the hustle a bit

Harder in your make it is it makes it your fault always as opposed to the system being completely rigged you know when you make a system that guarantees 50% will fail and then you guarantee 60% will fail and then 70% and then 80% and every time you tell them you didn’t

Hustle hard enough so I mean the the the the the not the bulk of the book but the destination of the book is the disillusionment isn’t it in a sense it’s not quite the right word but but it it’s you we’re touched now yeah on these contradictions on in a sense the your

Dreams came true and it turned out that it wasn’t what you wanted after all you you you push so hard to get it you push so and I think my so I’m in this particularly absurd situation where the exact thing which I made my big money on I start in 2008

Just for the financial crisis and then I’m betting on interest rates interest rates go to zero in 2008 and everybody’s saying well when will they come up well they’ll come up when the economy recovers next year everybody thought we’d have a big bounce back you know I

Don’t know if you remember the Roaring 20s predictions for postco or pent up demand remember pens up demand yeah everybody everybody predicted a massive bounce back then just like they did during Co 2009 didn’t happen Okay next year 2010 didn’t happen Okay next year I’m sitting there the beginning of 2011

Surrounded by millionaires who’ve been wrong every single year they ever ever worked basically and um you’re thinking in all honesty it’s pound signs because you know you walk onto the pitch there’s this story I heard Wayne Rooney I don’t know if this is true when he

Walked in for the first time he got promoted to the senior team at Everton and he’s he did training with the senior team am I allowed to swear because apparently he SW course he said this lot of [ __ ] aren’t they apparently yeah and um you have this realization that these

Guys surrounding you who are multi-millionaires are not that good basically and you’re just like well I’m going to do it then and um what was it based on what were you what were you plugged into that they weren’t well okay so this is I lost a lot of money in one

Week in 2010 which was I was 23 um and as the sort of diligent former LSU student that I was I went back to the books and I started bringing my books in trying to read through what happened and this scalo I sat next to he

Let me do it like one day let me do it a second day and I could tell he was getting bit pissed off about it third day just slams the book out of my hand Slams on the floor what are you doing mate does this look like [ __ ] Jack andori to you and

I was like he was like look how old are you and I was like 23 he’s like you’re not a kid mate the answer is not in them books right if you want to understand the economy go home and ask your mom yeah ask your friends ask your friends

Moms ask about their financial situations look at the advertisements on the tube walk down the High Street what shops are closing down what shops are opening up that’s the economy the economy is a real world that’s where you’re going to get it and I think the only reason this guy thought like this

Because he didn’t go to university really um where you’re sort of trained that it’s numbers and you have to invert a matrix to work out the economy which is kind of obviously absurd right and um I describ that in the book as the most important thing I ever heard and I

Think it definitely me for my career it wasn’t I started you go and you ask people you discover that they’re not just struggling what you find out if you ask I mean back then I was in my 20s I’m older now obviously it’s a generation of people whose parents own homes who will

Never own homes yeah that’s what you see and how can you turn around to a kid who would never own a home his parents owned a home and said why don’t you spend more money it’s a breach of the social contract because the time was for for for parents

Generations in return for time you give me all your time MH and you get property in return yeah and that’s broken you’re right and this is one of the things I think these are the times when people have contacted my show to say you’ve got to speak to Gary Stevenson because there

Still seems to be a very widespread failure to understand the significance of what you’ve just described that the the the the cessation of traffic coming back in this direction in return for me giving you so they why aren’t young people working yeah well you know mental health is an

Issue but equally what what do you want them to work for survival now you know increasingly the thing that matters overwhelmingly for the financial outcomes of individuals is not their work it’s not how hard they studied it’s not what subject they did it’s how rich their dad is and how much they inherit

And it’s worse now than it was when I was young and when you were young it’s much much worse much now what you get as a result is you get micro level social Mobility which is I can get richer than the guy who grew up next to me but I can

Never get a house yeah so I can never like actually take that big step up yeah there’s no big picture social mobility and I think that’s you combine that with this culture that tells people you are your financial outcomes it’s a that is the disaster for mental health if you

Tell people if you don’t afford and the thing is I I’ve got mates right I went to grammar school not everyone’s from a rich background the kids from poor backgrounds you know single parent families they’re working hard they’re working hard this guy buys a house nice big million pound house and this kid’s

Like I don’t understand how he got the house well that kid got 600 Grand gift from his mom but he doesn’t go out and post on Instagram I got 600 Grand gift from my mom and then kids from poor families struggling and struggling and struggling they don’t they don’t see

That really all that’s happening is inheritance really now if you’re working for your money you’ve already lost the game’s finished capitalism’s over and and you can talk about the Duke of Westminster and the difference between um inheritance tax and income tax and the way it’s weighted towards I want

People to read the book so I haven’t I haven’t gone into some of the uh you know the sort of more powerful parts of the narrative the the decline the time in Japan the the the the I mean let’s be honest the failure to develop relationships because you were so completely

I’ve ever AC how you end up on that treadmill um but how you get off it is pretty Grim isn’t it in your case it’s Grim I think there’s a humor to it of course there’s humor to it it’s oblique humor and you and you were brought

Pretty low and I think there’s no doubt about that and that is as a consequence of that when you said then when you worked walked into City Bank for the first time yeah it it it occurred to me that you never stopped to wonder whether you actually really wanted this yeah

That’s 100% And it’s crazy because you know then I make all this money don’t spend nothing yeah don’t spend nothing that’s why you sleeping on a mattress yeah yeah yeah and I was kind of Frozen Frozen inability inability to to to spend the money

Um what do you do now are you in a better place now I mean if you got I’m in a I think it’s funny some people I do these interviews and people are you’re so much better now you’re so much better now I had a very severe depression when

I lived in Japan it’s like I don’t think I ever call it a depression in the book but depression and um that depression changed who I am right depression changed who I am and you know a severe depression is a very very serious thing very serious thing and you know people lose their

Lives to it you know people can’t eat people can’t sleep and you know you know now I wouldn’t have been able to write this book if I was still in that place yeah but I think it put some cracks in my heart that are still there yeah and I

Think if it wasn’t for those cracks I probably wouldn’t be doing the work that do not because you’re looking after yourself a bit more as well no yeah because of the crack it’s funny isn’t it because you know you look at what I did you read this book and I think you can

Very easily say he’s a very selfish boy isn’t he but actually he’s not doing anything for himself at all I don’t know that I would say that to be honest and for a number of reasons some of which you’ve touched on most obviously I think getting given a £400,000

Bonus yeah and thinking two things thinking I never should have been hungry and and my dad’s earning 20 grand for a a Year’s hard SLO that’s the opposite of selfishness that’s that’s immediately thinking of cuz even you weren’t even thinking a hungry you you were thinking of a theoretical yeah 20-year-old who’s

Having two poach Scotch eggs for lunch every day that’s not selfishness to pursue wealth in the way that you did yeah there’s a there’s a selfishness in the sense of the exclusion of all else yeah as in as in a focus but it’s not a selfishness in the terms

Of I don’t care who suffers as a consequence of My Success that’s what I think of selfishness in the context of the city and you never come across as being like that well I mean when I when I was writing it it’s quite you know recently to read the audio books I read

The whole audio book and um some moments are really sad yeah and there’s one moment that really really struck me um you know towards the end of the book you know his mental health my mental health is collapsing really and um there’s a point where it’s it’s really clear the

Bank is going to fight him and he’s he’s out in Japan he doesn’t why are you in the third person it’s I I think it’s it’s probably a defense mechanism to a degree because it’s such a that was such a painful time in my life but well and then there’s a point at

Which in the book I he starts talking to himself yeah and he start he starts talk and he’s and he he says I could reach out of help I’m not going to and he’s strategizing all he’s thinking is how do I win this fight how do I win

This fight how do I protect myself what do I do and there’s one moment where he just tells himself go to sleep and it was heartbreaking for me because you see like yeah how unsupported he was and um again when I look back at myself when I was younger

What I see is a young man who wanted who didn’t want to be poor anymore and had very little support and um there’s a lot of young men and a lot of young women out there that are in that situ yeah but that’s the that I don’t know whether

That’s the real killer is that you got all the prizes you got all the money and somewhere really really deep inside you were still crying out for support you still wanted someone to such a cliche that most clich but most people never get to see it’s you know when you’re so many people

Out there I’ve got friends like this if I just had a bit more money it would be right yeah if I just had a bit more money it would be right and I think this is personally if you want to know my honest opinion I think this is I don’t

Think you’ve got any other kind have you this is a societal sickness seeping into the individual yes so I think we have created a society which is unhealthily obsessed with money and then individuals receive this message if I had a bit more money and it’s all I you talk about the

Trading floor right what you’re having on the trading floor is 100 multi-millionaires making a million pounds a year telling themselves I do this for my family working 100 our weeks never seeing their family M why do they do it why do they do it and personally you’re my personal opinion I

Think that when we train young people especially but not only young men to focus exclusively on money we don’t give them affection they they start thinking you know really when I look at the trading floor and I look at myself as a young man I see a lot of

Young men starved of Love starved of affection that think if I just make a bit more money finally you know whoever it is finally my dad will love me finally I’ll get the support that I need you know what I mean they’re trained to to think that money will get them there

And you well it did it for me well that’s the but but a lot of people would never realize that would they they just wonder why they’ve still got this Goring emptiness inside them because they’ve there’s a line about when you go to Singapore and you hook up

With a former colleague and you say he’s got a perfect flat a perfect boat and a perfect girlfriend and you introduce me to them sequentially as if they as if to him they somehow have equal my things yeah yeah yeah um but he still thinks he’s won somewhere inside he knows he

Hasn’t is your point I think if he’d won then he’d stop doing it if he’d won then he’d stop you’ve got the French bloke who’s constantly boasting about his sexual conquests yeah yeah yeah and and that that you can’t keep pursuing the p pounds unless you’re hungry it’s funny these guys

You’re never full you’re never full you’re never satisfied These Guys these EXT Traders they message me oh you read the book am I in it yeah how much getting paid for it straight away and it’s like mate I’ve written a whole book here yeah about how I mean okay people

Take it the way they want the message I want people to get is obsession with money is destroying the things that matter but who’s it aimed at then to be honest I want when I do my YouTube I’m always very aware I try to talk to Ordinary People yes um but who

Can change what you describe where does the pressure for change come from and how does it reach a point where it’s going to well first of all we’re going to run out of time so what is the change that we need to see most simp you need

To reduce inequality of wealth you need to reduce inequality and not just reduce inquality basic distribution you still have someone who’s the richest person in the country by a mile but the mile will not be 100 miles this is not about income this is not about tax this is

About doctors lawyers heaven forbid maybe even Bankers this is about families that are accumulating wealth of 10 501 million and have been for a thousand years and they’re using the income from that wealth to buy the rest of the wealth and they sit there quietly watching the money pouring if you look

At government wealth it used to be a decent chunk of this one of the most government wealth is dropping to zero middle class families are clearly losing their wealth less home ownership more more indebtedness where’s the wealth going do you know who sat there last week uh no tell me Bernie Sanders okay

Three people in America have got the same amount of wealth as the bottom half of the entire population was talking about musk Gates and Bezos but the question I have what do they do with the income from that money yeah if you if you’re a billionaire and these guys are

Multi multibillion you have a passive income every year 50 million quid what they do with that yeah they use that to buy your mom’s house that’s what they do and that’s the reason why kids can’t get houses you know what I mean these are the guys who are owning the assets and

That so that’s the goal yeah how you get there you are now on a path that says information the more people who know it and the more people who understand it the more like it has to be to happen yeah but what do you do now do you what

Do you do next what what what is I mean I don’t think in a sense you’ve never had ambition beyond what you’ve already achieved you achieved it and you turned it turned out it didn’t turn to dust in your hands exactly but it turned out not

To be the thing that you thought it would be it’s still you you you still carry the burdens that you were born with or that you grew up with you still have the demons that you grew up none of that disappeared that when you when you

Became you don’t need to work ever again you made more than enough money to live on for the rest of your life what do what do you do I mean is there a third act a fourth act in your life or or have you now found your

Path for the foreseeable it’s I spent years and years and years trying to understand the economy and I was paid a lot of money because I was judged to be very good at understanding it I climbed to the top of the mountain and looked at what’s happening and what I saw was a

Tsunami coming that’s what I saw what I people are being told that this is a temporary economic crisis that will resolve it’s not true this will get worse and worse and worse how many people know that and love it this to me is the question we started

With in a way isn’t it about the how many people not because they’re like the you know like that Leonardo diio film but I know that was environmental catastrophe so most of us aren’t looking up yeah even if someone’s telling us even if you’re shouting there’s a

Tsunami coming yeah H how many people are fully aware of this and filling their boot as a consequence most of the very rich in my opinion are simply obsessed with growing their Bank balances and they’re very successful at doing it without any thought of the consequences as there as

The wealth of the rich grows and grows and grows and grows and the wealth of the middle class in the government collapses and collapses because that is ultimately where the wealth is coming from they just look at one side of the coin and you know we have plenty of

Stories they tell themselves which is I got here because I work hard because I deserve it and I’m sure a lot of them do work hard but the consequence in my op so did your dad exactly ex listen I mean I I tell you I’ve seen people work hard

Yeah yeah um the consequence is the impoverishment of of of the masses of the people of this country I and so what’s the breaking point have you been to India no I haven’t go to Mumbai okay and that will tell you how bad things can get before people demand change but they’re still

Not demanding it on a meaningful some are some are but the average living stand of there is a lot worse than it is here yes and that is a democratic country um things can get a lot worse and economically it won’t revert the only thing that can stop this to be

Honest I don’t think rich sonak is going to stop this and unfortunately I don’t think the incoming labor government is going to stop this I would like to put a question to the the British people which is who fixes the economy when the people whose job it is to fix the economy are

Definitely not going to fix the economy and that is why I’ve got a YouTube channel that speaks to Ordinary People and tries to build a movement of ordinary people because Richie Sak’s father is one of the richest men in the world David Cameron made 10 million pound a year after leaving office Boris

Johnson’s got to be a multimillionaire Tony Blair’s worth what 100 million you know I would love for one of these guys to come in and put their foot down unfortunately I don’t think the very rich are going to do this so I want to build the understanding amongst Ordinary

People if you don’t demand reduction in wealth inequality things will get worse but if you achieve reductions in wealth inequality things can get better the trading game a confession by Gary Stevenson is out now um and the YouTube channel Gary’s economics is um as as you’ve said free and a new post is

Is is put up every single week the guardian called you exceedingly smart and a man and a man with a conscience well that’s nicer then I’m not sure it comes close mate Gary Stevenson thank you thank You

At 21 years old, Gary Stevenson joined Citibank as its youngest trader. Three years later, he became the bank’s most profitable trader by betting on the collapse of the economy. He went from living in his parents’ two-bed terrace in east London to earning millions. But it didn’t feel right making money by betting on disasters. So, he quit, leaving his dream job in the City to campaign on the issue of wealth inequality. He tells James why our obsession with money is destroying the things that matter. Gary’s new book, The Trading Game: A Confession is out on 5th March.

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