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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:08]
B
This is going to be a very different show we're going to make today. The other day, I made a show in my car. I got in my car, I was heading out to Amsterdam for a conference, and I was listening to a conversation on the way and I got a bit ranty about it and I made a video in my car complaining about some of the things going on in the world, things I'm seeing. I just make zero sense to me. And so I talked about it with my son Connor, who helps me make this show. And he was like, dad, let's just do it in the studio. Make a proper show. Talk at the camera, talk to me. Tell people what you're thinking. Because when we make this show in London, we are always driving into town. We drive home and we spend two hours con there and back each way, talking about what's going on in the world. And like, most of the time, I feel like we're living in this parallel universe because I watch. Watch all these debates, I watch what the politicians are saying. And then we get in the car and we talk about it and we're like, this doesn't make any sense.
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A
What the hell is going on?
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B
What the hell is going on? What are they talking about? And so either I'm stupid or they're stupid, but we said, we're gonna make the show. I'm gonna talk about the things I'm seeing, what I think is going on in the world, and then give me your feedback. This is the one time I think, Connor, you're gonna let me. You're gonna let me read the comments on this one, aren't you?
- [01:33]
A
No.
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B
Yeah, I'm gonna read the comments on this one. If this is useful, we'll make loads more of them, and if it's not, then we'll just go back to interviewing people. But I am, I am. How do I put this? I am very worried about the political discourse in this country because I am seeing politicians argue about policy, they're arguing about ideas. And when they're making these arguments about taxation or wealth, taxes or immigration, most of them are skirting around the ideas that require a little bit of critical thinking of what's going on. And the big topic I'm going to talk about today is inflation, because I think it's the biggest crime. It's the biggest crime on the British people. And I don't think many people really understand what is going on with this. So I'm going to talk about it. I do think everyone has lost their minds at the moment. Myself included. Sometimes I'm going to try and be a little bit more rational and reasonable. And like, if you've not watched my show before, just for context, I consider myself a conservative libertarian in training. So what does that mean? Look, I believe in conservative economics. I believe conservative economics build the strongest foundation for a country. I'm also quite socially liberal. I do agree with the lefties on many ideas, I support a lot of their empathetic ideas. But ultimately I'm becoming more libertarian. Big shout out to Dave Smith. Love his show. It's been really useful to me. I've been going down the libertarian rabbit hole over the last 20 years. No, not 20 years, maybe 15 years. Reading a lot of Hayek, Friedman, Rothbard and just trying to understand how economic systems work. And when I read these books, everything kind of makes sense. So to kind of give that context, I am a conservative in terms of economics and I think the government should be just a little bit smaller because mainly everything they do is shit. And look, one of the reasons I thought this was really important to make is there's been this kind of political realignment that's been going on in the last, I don't know, five years, my whole life it was conservative labor. You voted red or you voted blue. And over the last five years we've seen a massive shift, reform, a brand new conservative, small C Conservative party have pretty much come out of nowhere. And if you read the polls, you look at the polls now, they are crushing 27%, 27%. But if they would have an election tomorrow, they would have a parliamentary majority, so say the polls. And that is a party that's come out of absolutely nowhere. And I think we can all agree Labour, they're not having a good time at the moment, but we're seeing massive growth with the Green Party. Zach Polanski is crushing. Zach Polanski's doing very well. And I think what this says is, I think the strong signal here is that we've had such abject failure from the state over the last 20, 30 years. People are exhausted and they're looking for hope. Would you say hope's fair?
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A
Hope.
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B
Hope. They're looking for someone to restore some sanity to this country. And I'm not going to pick a side in this moment. If you're a Conservative, you look at the Conservative Party and you look at the last 14 years and they weren't particularly a Conservative party. We've had high tax, high spend, surveillance, state, big government. These are not conservative ideas. And if you're a Labour Voter now, I think you feel you've been completely let down by the party. I think if you look at the shape of the Labour Party now that's in government, you don't really know what they stand for. And so when Zach Polanski comes out and starts talking about more traditional left wing ideas, people are shifting very quickly. But I think everyone's missing the point is that perhaps it doesn't matter who we vote for unless we have a honest conversation about what's going on with our government. It doesn't really matter who wins the next election because we're going to have more of the same. And so, yeah, hopefully, hopefully we'll get in some of this today. I think the youth vote, I really care about the youth vote. I've got my son here with me. He's 21, he's never voted in an election. The next election will be the first one he gets to vote in if I choose. If he chooses to vote, yeah. If he does choose to vote, it'll be the first one he's voted. You didn't vote in the last one, did you?
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A
No.
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B
Why didn't you vote?
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A
I don't think I had enough of an understanding of politics at that point. So I would just be voting whoever you said.
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B
I think you've got a better understanding than most of the public right now. But it'll be the first one where he. I think my son has enough information to vote. I haven't voted in the last three elections. I don't believe there's been a single party that understands what a government's meant to do and is able to deliver on it. I might not vote in the next election. We'll talk about that. But I am really interested in the youth vote because I've seen this rising socialist rhetoric. I'm obviously against socialism. I think it's a terrible idea. I think it's been proven to be a terrible idea every single time it's been tried. But I understand why young people are maybe considering socialist parties. I want to talk about that. I want to appeal to them and I do want to talk about the media. Obviously, we are the media now as well. Yeah, we produce a show. We have a show that sometimes 50,000 people watch, sometimes a million people watch. And obviously some of the people we interview, the things we talk about, are resonating with people. But I think we've been massively, massively let down by mainstream media. Either they've lacked a backbone, they've lacked a backbone to talk about the right things. They've tried to kowtow to the latest whim, or they've become politically aligned supporting terrible ideas themselves. So ultimately we're kind of in this doom loop in this country whereby every kind of four or five years, we have a new election, we're told change is coming, we vote in a new party and we just get the same shit over and over again. So I think a good starting point is if we're going to vote, if we're voting in an election, we have to think about, well, what is the role of government? What are they meant to do for us? Have they forgotten themselves? I think it's pretty simple. I think there's three things government needs to do for us. Firstly, they have to keep us safe. They have to protect us from criminals, from fraud. They have to protect us, they have to maintain law and order, which seems like it's the same as keeping us safe, but maintaining law and order is also maintaining order within the. Within business contract law. It's ensuring that we as a public have confidence that if we do the right things, we're honest, we're good people, that the state will serve us in a situation where maybe we have been defrauded, maybe we have been let down. And ultimately the state, their job is to allow us to flourish. And that is, I think, personally, I think that's mostly just getting out of the way, leaving us alone. But they have to allow us to flourish. And I think the important point on allowing us to flourish is identifying when they're getting in the way and not allowing us to flourish. When education goes bad, when tax rates are set at a level that makes maybe creating a business is particularly hard, if they're getting in the way of us actually flourishing, that's when we need to be concerned. And I think right now our government is failing on every level. And look, I know people will come out and say, well, look at the statistics, crime is down, blah, blah, blah, and the murder rate in London's down, so we're all safe. But people are going out, people are going to London saying, I'm not using my mobile phone because I don't want to have it snatched off me so you can give me all the stats you want. There is statistical safety, which we know the government will bend to make it look safe, but there is also the feeling of safety.
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A
It's also the general mood of the nation. Yeah, everyone's just a bit down, bit fed up.
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B
I think the country's depressed. I think the country is depressed.
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A
Everyone should be on Pip.
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B
Yeah, everyone should be on pip. We should all get a new brand new BMW. But no, I do. I think the country's depressed. Like when I talk to. When I go with my friends. It's quite negative chat at the moment. And I. Look, we know why the media's whipped us all up, of course, but actually, if you get to the end of the month and you've got half the disposable income you had the last month, and maybe you can't afford a holiday or, or maybe you can't afford to send the kids to the school you want to go to, or when you go to the nhs, you've got to wait two years. I saw this. I saw this interview with Rio Ferdinand when he was talking about why he'd moved to Dubai and he said, it isn't the high tax. It isn't. Nothing works in this country anymore. What is the. You know, he's out there living in the sunshine. He's got a beautiful house, a beautiful family. I'm sure every day they're having a lovely day, going to the pool and. But I bet he would rather be here.
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A
Oh, 100.
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B
Yeah.
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A
It's your home.
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B
It's your home. Yeah. And nothing works anymore. Everything is. I. I keep asking this question, Connor. I think I've asked it to you, like, keep asking people, especially those who are kind of defending the state, they're in that place, they're like, no, no, no, this can be fixed if we. We just need to change the party. We just need to tax more. We just need more government. I say, name me. Name me. Name me one thing that's got better under this government in the last 25 years. Name me one thing. I can't think of it. And this comes down to what is the bullshit? I watch Question. You know me, I watch Question Time every. I watch Question Time every week. And you'll have three or four politicians or someone from the media, and I watch them arguing about all these different things government should be doing. And I keep coming back to the debt and inflation. It's my starting point. I care about economics. And right now we're in this place where as a country, we cannot afford everything we want. Rachel Reeves is about to do a new budget. Eight days, I think we're away from that. And we all have a feeling that taxes are coming. She said last time, it's a once in a. Last budget was a once in a generation tax rise. Was it 40 billion? I think they raised through taxes. And since then, all the economic data has been terrible growth is pretty much stagnant. 0.1% to the point. Growth is so bad, they're now blaming, I mean, they blame everything. Austerity, the Conservatives, Brexit. They're now blaming a cyber attack on Land Rover as a reason we haven't had growth. That's not the reason we haven't had growth. Okay? If you, if you go to any high street and you speak to the people who are closing down their businesses, their cafes, their shops, they're going to tell you why they're closing down. Because it's got more expensive to run a business and they have less customers. Okay? It's very simple. Business itself is very simple. You have to bring in more money than it costs to run the business. And, and people are really struggling to do this. And we've seen tens of thousands of jobs lost from the hospitality sector. Investors don't want to invest in the uk. It's really, really hard to grow business in this country. And so we're in this position now where conservative people are saying we need to drive growth, we need to reduce our spend, we need to cut spend. And then we've got left wing parties and left wing opinion leaders, people like Gary Economics, which by the way, I don't think we should be calling him Gary Economics because he doesn't understand economics in the slightest. Zach Polancier saying, let's tax the rich, we need to tax the rich. By the way, a lot of the rich are leaving. Most of my wealthy friends have either left or they're having the conversation about the biggest question they keep saying is where would you move to? Should I go to Dubai, Should I go to Portugal, Should I go to Switzerland? They're talking about where they would go to. And people don't want to leave. I'm going to say this again, people don't want to leave. But when you talk about taxing, you know, taxing the rich, you're missing the problem. You say there's like, this is like uncontrolled capitalism. Capitalism has got, you know, the riches have got richer and the poorest got poorer. And it's all because of capitalism. It's not because of capitalism. This is the thing that makes me so angry is that the biggest transfer in wealth that has happened in this country over the last two, three decades is inflation. Look at the, just look at the stats. And I think, why do people not understand this? Just go and look at the stats. House prices up 1500% when wages are only up 500%. I think that's over the last 30 years, is that correct? I think we got that.
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A
And so 1500% since the 80s, wages up 400 to 500, money supply grew over 10 times. Real wages today are lower than 2007. Just goes on.
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B
Okay, so this is, this just becomes really obvious. Like if you understand economics, you understand inflation is really obvious. What's going on, you know, when young people cannot afford a home. So say you should be asked to buy a home in your 20s, yet a family, husband and wife, two kids, one wage, because the mum was at home like my mom was, you know, raising us. Why could they afford a home then in their 20s, when we've had so much economic growth over those three decades, but now young people can't afford a home. Well, if houses have gone up 1500 percent and wages are going up 500%, it means those houses have become more expensive. They get in away from the young people. This is all inflation. This is the transfer of wealth. This is the most important thing we should be talking about now. And people like, if you are a voter and you are voting for a party that isn't dealing with inflation, you are voting for a transfer of wealth from the poorest and the middle, the poorest society and the middle class to the richest. And why, why does this happen? Okay, it's really simple. Milton Friedman, I go on about this to Conor all the time. He said, go read him. Go and Google this. Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. So what is happening here? When you create money, when you create money and you inject it into the system, wherever you inject it, that is being so Say government, say the government typically can't balance its budgets, needs more money, issues bonds. When they issue bonds, they're essentially creating new money that didn't exist before. They go and spend that money in the System. And Econ 101, Supply and Demand. When there's more money chasing after the same amount of goods, the price of the goods go up. This is the absolute basics of economics. But what's happening when the government is spending it, they're spending it before your wages go up. This is why when you go to Sainsbury's or Tesco and you buy your groceries, you buy your week's food, you spend £50, you've got one bag of stuff. When my mum, I said this, I made a video, I put on, I said, I put on my Twitter the other day, my mum would do her whole week shop would get a whole trolley for 50 pound. Now you get a bag. That is inflation. And it Happens before your wages go up. Now, why does inflation make the rich rich to the poor poor? Well, the rich own the assets. So when everything goes up in price, just as your rib eye and your carton of orange juice and your pint of milk are going up in price, so are the houses, so are the shares, so is the gold, so is the bitcoin. The assets inflate. But if you only own assets and your wages aren't going up at the pace of inflation, when you go and spend all the money you have, that just doesn't buy as much stuff anymore. But if you're one of the wealthier people and you own property and you own shares in companies and you own gold and bitcoin, that is also inflating, so your net wealth is going up. So the biggest transfer of wealth we have had over the last 30 years from the poorest and from the middle class to the rich is through inflation. There is no other answer for it. And so why does that happen? Who's blamed for that? This is all laid at the door of the government. It is governments who care more about winning power and saying the things you want to want to hear, then they care about running an economy which balances its books. We have to do at home. I have to balance my books, Conor has to balance his books. We all have to do that. Companies have to balance their books. But a government knows they don't have to balance their books. They know if they fuck up, they know if they spend too much money they can go and access more money. They know if they need to win votes, they can access more money. And I want to be as clear as possible. If you vote for a government that spends more than it brings in, you're going to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. And you might say, look, I get it, I empathize with this. You say, yeah, let's tax the rich. I empathize with that idea. I'm just going to give you the harsh reality of that decision is they're not going to pay it, they're going to leave because they're already leaving. We had, was it one of the founders of Revolut? He's gone. Created a multi billion pound business. He's gone.
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A
16,000 millionaires.
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B
16,000. We've had 16,000 millionaires have left the country. Was it in the last year? Last year the biggest exodus of millionaires from any country in the world is from the uk. But the billionaires are leaving now. Improbable. The founder, he said he's Leaving purely because labor are threatening an exit tax. And I talked about this in my video. An exit tax, right. If you implement an exit tax, you're signaling to very rich people. Get. Get out now. Get out now. And you also signaling to people, don't come to our country and create money because when you leave, we're going to, we're going to take it more of you. And this confiscation is happening everywhere. We saw it with the inheritance tax on farms. We talk about it. Well, I mean, inheritance tax itself is confiscation. We should be honest about that. You. If I've, if I've gone to work and worked my ass off for 40 years and created some wealth I want to pass on to my kids, I should be able to pass on to my kids. That's our family's money. I want to teach my kids how to look after that and create for their kids and so on. Create that kind of generational wealth. I do not want to give it to a government that pisses it away.
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A
My only question is, right if, if it's so simple. I've got the world debt clock up right now, right? US 38 trillion in debt. China 16 trillion in debt. Germany 3. You just go down the list. Every single country's in debt. If it's so simple, why does no one do it?
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B
Well, look, I mean, every fiat currency, like pounds dollars, every fiat currency always fails. I think they usually. You'll have to look this up. I think they last about 90 years. But this happened with Rome, is that thing. How many times do I think about the fall of Rome? Every day. The Roman Empire, one of the most successful empires ever. It struggled under its own size and weight. They started with the coin clipping. That was its own version of inflation. And we've essentially clipped the coin by printing money, by just creating money out of thin air.
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A
Is it because it's the easy option?
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B
Of course it's the easy option. If we have an. Who has ever won an election by having a manifesto that says we need a massive amount of austerity, I think Javier Milei in Argentina is about the only person I can think in recent memory has said, guys, we've got a problem here. We've had decades of inflation and hyperinflation. This monetary experiment we're trying, it's just not working. He won an election based off that. But if we have an election in four years, we have to have austerity as a country. There is. We cannot afford all the things we want. There isn't Enough tax revenue coming in. And so the governments keep borrowing money and keeping us more into debt and driving up inflation. We have to be honest with the nation, say we cannot afford all the stuff we want. It's a bit like, Conor, if you got paid at the end of the month and you went and bought yourself a Mercedes and then went on holiday with your mates to first class to Miami and then you came back and you went and spent three grand on clothes, you would have no money left. So you go and get a credit card, but that credit card would have interest. But it's like, it's so easy to do. Spending money is easy, right? It's even easier for a government. But no political party is going to win an election by coming and saying, we are broke. And by the way, we can look at our debt. 3 trillion. Go and look at unfunded liabilities. That is a. Steve Baker talked about this a lot. He's one of the few politicians recently in government has talked about this problem. He warned of it. He would come on the show tomorrow and say, guys, I told you about this, I warned you about this. The unfunded liabilities, I think I feel like they're like 8 trillion, 10 trillion. Again, a massive problem. But you're not gonna come in and win an election by saying we need to cut the nhs, our welfare bill. Uh, we're going to have to cut our spend by, I mean, we're, we're about 150 billion over our tax revenues, I think. I mean, our debt interest, the interest on debt alone not paying off the debt, just the interest is over 100 billion now. Nearly 10% of our, nearly 10% of our tax receipts. And look, fact check me, I might be a few percent out, but the trend, the trend is the same. We spend more on debt interest than we spend on educating our kids. I mean, just think about that for a second. And you know, my friend, friend over in the US talks about this. He talks about money is a proxy for time. That's what all money is. When you work and you save money, you put it into the bank and you want to save it so you can buy yourself time at the end of your life not to work and perhaps time for your kids. Well, when you spend more than you have, you're stealing time. When our government overspends every year and creates all this debt, they are stealing time from your future. Connor, you're gonna have to work harder than I had to to buy a house. And your kids would have to work even harder. That is A transfer of wealth from the future. It's a time machine. It's a financial time machine. It's bringing money from the future to the present and it's stealing from you and your grandkids. That's all it is. But no one's going to win an election like that. And so we have to kind of accept that there is an education problem in the country. We're not teaching people about the reality of government and the reality of money. And we have to have a very honest conversation about what do we want to do here? Do we want. Because I would. It's easy for me to say this, but I would vote for austerity if a government came into power now and said, yeah, by the way, we're fucked, we've got no money left and we have two choices. Choice one is a harsh reset. Now all US MPs are all going to take a 20% pay cut and by the way, we're going to have to take 10% off the NHS and we're going to have to take 20% off the welfare bill and we're going to have to end the triple lock with. We're going to have to go through all this pain to restore our country. I would vote for it because the only other choice is party after party, which deficit spends, which gets us more into debt, which drives a bigger wedge in society that makes everything harder. And so we end up like Argentina was. And people say that's crazy. We can end up like Argentina.
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A
We can end up with 115% debt to GDP.
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B
Yeah, Lynn Alden says that the event horizon on that, I think it's 130, 130%. No country's ever come back from that without a default. We do not want a default on our currency. So listen, look, you can say tax the rich. It sounds great. That's going to win you votes. And it's really easy to say virtuous things. It's really easy to go on the BBC and Scott and as Zach Polancy's been doing, say tax the rich. As Gary Economics has been saying, tax the rich. Oh, have you got that? Yeah. Let's play that video of Gary Economics, which by the way, my one defense of Gary. And Gary, please come on the show, I'll talk to you. We had a little chat on Twitter, you didn't reply afterwards. But come on the show, let's talk about this because I actually think you and I see exactly the same problem. I think if you sat here we'd have a Conversation, we'll talk about the problem. And we'd both say, yeah, yeah, we totally agree. We are on the same page. The difference between you and I is, and this is why I don't call you Gary Economics. I call you Gary Big Government because you think the solution is more government. It's more tax. You think the way to put out a fire is put gasoline on it. I disagree. I think the answer is tough choices and rebuild our economy and make government smaller. But play this video because I think it's interesting because he's been doing. I've heard a lot of people repeat what he says.
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C
You need to make it unbelievably, painfully, extremely clear to all of the people that you know that the reason their living standards are getting worse is because of growing inequality. They want their.
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B
Because he's wrong. The living standards of people are not getting worse because of inequality. You can grow the pie and the rich get richer during that at a more exponential rate than the poor and middle class. But if you grow the pie and if people have more money at the end of the month and they can afford more things.
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A
Then.
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B
What did he say?
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A
Everyone gets richer by growing the pie, right?
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B
No, not necessarily. So you can grow the pie only for the rich and still make. Make life incredibly difficult for the poor. So if you grow the pie through deficit spending, you're going to make life really difficult for the poorest in society and you're going to squeeze the middle class and the richest are going to get richer. That's going to happen. But if you grow the pie by just growing the economy through free market economics, by building businesses, by building wealth and prosperity, by creating jobs, maybe the rich at the top will get richer. Maybe so because they created the businesses, maybe you'll get more millionaires, more billionaires. But we want that. We want a country full of millionaires and billionaires because that means they're creating jobs and creating opportunity. But we want millionaires and billionaires who've done it through hard business, not through asset inflation and deficit spending. That is the. That is not what we want to do. Sorry. So, yeah, so he's wrong on that.
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C
Families, their kids and their grandkids to be able to afford housing, food, eating, financial security. The only way to deal with that is dealing with growing wealth inequality. And the only way to deal with that is taxing the millionaires. So listen, that's what I want you guys to do. I want you guys to go home to your communities. I want you guys to resist hatred and division. And I Want you to educate, educate, educate your families, your friends, your community. The only way to protect your.
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B
Yeah, like. So he's wrong. He's right about the problem, but he's wrong. Well, no, he's right about the impact of the problem, but he's not identifying what the problem is correctly, and he's not identifying what the solution is. So, so he is saying he's talking about housing. Right. Why is housing so expensive? Well, inflation means currency debasement. If you debase the currency, as we said, assets become more expensive. Housing's up 15%, 100%, while wages are only up 500%. That has happened because we debased the currency. Okay. That has happened because people have gone, hmm, what do I do with my savings if I put them in the bank and there's inflation, which is higher than interest rates, and they lie about the measures of inflation anyway. But if I do that, it's a melting ice cube. If I put £1,000 a year for 10 years in my bank account, yeah, I have £10,000 at the end of it, but it doesn't buy what 10,000 pound would have bought me at the start of it. But houses are going up, so maybe I should buy a second house, because if I buy a second house, that's going to go up in value, so I protect my income. So by destroying the currency, you've made houses a currency. It's like Jeff Booth says, if the money isn't scarce, everything else is scarce. So it's like people, I've been out to Venezuela, I've been out to Argentina. I've seen it. When I was out in Argentina, I went for a dinner with these guys and I was like, tell me about inflation in this country. And they're like, pete, everyone In Argentina has two jobs. They have their normal job, which is 70% of the time and 30% of the time, they're a financial director. They're trying to get rid of their Argentine in peso, and they're trying to get other things that protect the value because it's being debased so quickly. And so this is why I want to talk to Gary, because he talks about wealth inequality and says, tax the risks, tax extreme wealth. The truth is they're already leaving and they're going to leave. And for every billionaire who takes away his, the money he pays in tax and the money he spends in the economy and the jobs he creates, you've got to replace that. Like, you have to find a way of replacing that. So what are you going to do, because if you scare off 10,000 millionaires, you've lost income, you've lost tax receipts, you've lost spend. And so if your budget stays the same, you've got three levers you can pull. This is it, it's really simple. Guys like you have three levers. Government has three levers. They can cut their spending, cut public spending, cut public services, they can raise taxes or they can borrow more. They're your three choices. If you cut public spending, you can maybe get to a point where you balance your budgets, but you can have a situation where NHS waiting lists are going to go up potentially, or you're going to get rid of, I don't know, free bus passes for old people. You're going to get rid of things that people rely on. You can raise taxes, but if you raise taxes, you're going to make everybody poorer, they're going to have less money to spend in the economy and more people are going to leave. Or you can borrow more, but if you borrow more, you're going to be deficit spending and you're going to drive inflation, which is going to make the poorest in society. These are the three levers. Like we have nothing else. And so when Zach Polanski comes in and talks about raising capital gains tax or taxing the rich, it will fail. Tax receipts, let's just go look at the Laffer curve. Tax receipts will drop. And so the only sensible option out there, there is a fourth lever, we'll talk about that, actually. But the only sensible option we have is to have a government that is honest with the country and balances the books. The fourth lever, the only other option available is growth. You have to grow the economy. But we've created a country which is hostile to entrepreneurs, it's hostile to people creating business. I talk to investors. No one wants to invest in the UK at the moment. Tax is too high, energy costs are too high. It's too hard to create a business. And you know, you know me, con. I've created six, seven, eight businesses in my time. A couple have failed. It's hard, it's really hard. But there was always benefits to creating a business. Like I was a risk taker, I wanted to go out, I wanted to create a business because I wanted to have money. You know, I wanted to have a good life for us as a family. But it's hard. I spent 20, 25 years getting up at 6am, working 12 hour days, 16 hour days. I've. How many flights have I done? Probably a thousand flights in the last 10 years I've been away from my family, in shitty hotels, eating shitty food, you know, missed holidays, missed parents evening, stressed over making payroll. Creating a business is really hard, but there were always benefits. But right now, I mean, I know so many people have been closing down their businesses. It is hard. All the risk has been put, all the risk has been put onto the entrepreneur and all the benefit is for the government because taxation is so high. If you want to create a little business in your, in your town center, you want to create a. I've created a cafe, right? It's so hard. There's less disposable income, so there's not as many customers available. The taxes have gone up higher, the business rates are high, the, the minimum wage rates are high. It is so hard to create a business now and just say, just say at the end of it, you make a bit of profit, the government's going to take a large percentage of it anyway. I understand why people like, I can't be bothered to do this. I mean, I think, I can't remember. I remember years ago, people used to say, only one in five new businesses survives the first year. It might have changed now, but I mean, the odds are stacked against you. If we go back to what is the role of government allowing us to flourish, why are they putting more hurdles in our way? I mean, look at the state of our town centres at the moment.
- [35:50]
A
Dead.
- [35:51]
B
Dead. I mean, our town centre, Bedford, I love it. We've got businesses there. We're losing businesses. It's not what it was when I was younger. Why are we putting so many hurdles in the way of entrepreneurs who want to go and create an artisan bakery?
- [36:05]
A
Because we demonize them. Well, that culture of like, if you're successful, you're the issue.
- [36:13]
B
Yeah, yeah. And by the way, we want your money. The big difference when it got to the US is we celebrate. We celebrate, but they celebrate success. They want to be successful. We won't be able to fail. Look, what I'm really getting into here is that we will have an election in four years time and I might not vote again. Like I think about this, I might not vote again. Daniel Priestley put a great tweet out earlier where he was talking about, entrepreneurs don't really generally care about politics. It was a brilliant tweet. They just want to get on with creating businesses and making money. But every now and again, the obstacles are so big. They have to, they have to get involved. And this is where we're at right now. It's like labor have objectively failed. This government has objectively failed at every level. They don't look like a Labour Party anymore. Not what I knew as a Labour Party when I was a kid. They don't care about the working class. You go up and down this country, you go to any town, you find working class people and say you're going to vote for Labour. Absolutely no chance at all. The people who get up, set their alarms, get up at five in the morning, six in the morning, go and do a hard day's graft, do that, you know, day in, day out, and at the end of the month, just trying to build a life for their family. They've got nothing left. They're like, I've got no money to go out, I've got no money for a holiday. It's because Labor. I think the problem with labor is they don't care about the working class. They actually care about the non working class.
- [37:52]
A
It was. They used to be the party for the productive and now they're the party for the unproductive.
- [37:58]
B
Yeah.
- [37:59]
A
The arm workers ones on benefit.
- [38:02]
B
And I feel a little bit sorry for them in some ways. Right. You know, if you get away from some libertarian utopia that I think it'll be a nice world to live in and you just accept this reality where we have governments and sometimes we have a Conservative, sometimes we have a Labor government. It would be nice if we had to have a Labor government, which I would never vote for, but if we had to have a Labor government, it would be nice for them to come in at a time of prosperity, where the country's doing well and perhaps they can invest a bit more in the NHS and support people who just have a little bit less in the world. I absolutely get that. But we voted in the labor, we kind of got them by default. I don't think people really wanted a Labour Party. They just did not want Conservatives anymore because they were such a failure during the 14 years by not being a Conservative party that they got handed a shit sandwich. And they've tried to do what labor does, which is invest in public services, support people. Maybe we've got a little less in the world and we just can't afford it as a country. We cannot afford this. The money isn't there. And so what have they done? They've done every, every. Every decision that Rachel Reeves has made has damaged this country, damaged his country more. And so they won't survive the next election. And it's kind of funny watching them now because all the people who are kind of like, oh, I'm not going to vote for labor anymore. Zach Polancky speaks a lot of sense. All those people are now looking at labor and think they're a right wing party, that people are saying they're stealing policies of reform. So look, I think the only conversation we should be having right now is why is this happening? And I think the only answer is the mechanics of government is absolutely and utterly broken. Absolutely broken. And when the election comes around in, I don't know, three, four years time, just say, Zach Polanski goes and reads some Hayek, some Mises, starts to understand economics and comes in and says, look, we're a green party. We want to protect the environment. Cool. Get it. But we also want a productive country. So we're going to strip back the size of the state, we're going to reduce taxation, we're going to make it an environment that's positive for entrepreneurs. We're going to support the future generations of this country, want to build and build things. I would, they would, they would get my vote. They're not going to do it. They're going to be high tax, bigger government. But I don't care who does it. We just have to have that conversation. It's the only answer for this country is to rebuild it. And I keep seeing people, I get into these debates with people on Facebook, they keep going, yeah, but. And I say, drop this socialist nonsense. And they're like, but look, look at the Nordic countries, look at Sweden, look at Norway. Firstly, we're not the same as those countries. Culturally, geographically, they're entirely different countries, but each one of those countries, they respect property rights and they essentially have kind of free markets to an extent. And they built their wealth before they built their strong social programs. And even if we wanted to do that, the first thing we have to do is rebuild our economy. And then culturally, we have to change.
- [41:27]
A
So they buy into it. Yeah, clearly we don't buy into it with the 16,000 millionaires leading.
- [41:32]
B
Well, culturally they're very different. But people are leaving. Norway tried to wealth tax, people left, it didn't work there. And so I look, I think, okay, is it just me? Am I, I don't think it is just me, but is it just me? And then I think about the young people, this country, and I think, what are we teaching them? And for me, it's like the only solution is a country that returns to foundational principles of freedom and liberty, not a country that locks people up for tweets, not a country that gets in the Way of entrepreneurs, not a country that has a regulation for everything. So much red tape that you cannot get through it to create a business. It's a country which is founded on freedom and liberty. And I really do want to talk to the youth vote with my son Salva here, because I'm seeing the Green Party. They keep posting their polls of young voters who are all turning to green. And I get it. But I am deeply concerned about young people thinking the idea the solution is socialism. I think they're entirely on the wrong path, but I get it, I get it. I mean, you're sold this life journey. You go to school, you get a degree, you get a job, a well paid job, and you buy a house. And they've gone to uni, they've studied, they've got their two one, their first whatever, and they've come back and they cannot get a job. And the chance of buying a house before they hit their 30s is small unless you've got someone to help you. It's minuscule. You've got people still living with their parents in their 40s. I get it. And they're looking and going, huh, I was told to do all those things by this capitalist society. And I cannot buy a house and I cannot get a job. Huh. But Zach Polanski saying, well, this is unfair. Capitalism has failed. You know, here's all this free shit you could have. I get why they. I get the draw for it. It is just, I know it's the wrong path. Like nothing is actually free. When somebody tells you something is free, somebody else is going to work, somebody else is getting up in the morning, going to work to pay for it. That's it. And we fail. We have failed the young people of our country so badly. All this deficit spending, this massive debt that we have as a country, we have stolen from their future. And you wonder why people are voting for socialism. And so we got to deal with this. And I like when I. It's almost, I'm telling you, but I'm telling everyone in the country, like, if you turn around and you said, what message do you want to have for the young people in this country? You know, do you want every young person in this country to have the opportunity to go out there, get a job, create a business and make money? Or do you want to tell everyone and all the young people of this country the reason you can't do these things is the government's fault. So the government has to give it to you. Which one do you want? Because I'm pretty Sure. Most people would say we actually want young people to have an opportunity to create business, to be successful, to make money. And they do. I have young people. We had that Ethan guy came to us who want to create businesses. And I would say to them is that I am not the smartest person in the world. I think we know that. And I'm a uni dropout. I didn't get a single A. I think a C was the highest I got in economics in A level and I got a B in maths at gcse. I have crap grades, no degree, but I've been okay. And the one thing I know is, and I always knew is I can outwork people. I can get up at six in the morning and I can outwork people. And I would say to every young person in this country, just reject socialism. Just reject this idea that you are a victim and blaming everyone else. Just get up, go to work. If you get a job at a coffee shop, go and be the best barista in that coffee shop because the boss will recognize you and one day you'll run that place. And one day maybe you open your own coffee shop. Well, you don't want to do that. There are so much opportunities still out there for young people. You can go. I. I didn't have this when I was a kid. You can create a business in one day online. What you need to do, just go and solve a problem and someone will pay you for that solution. You solve it. You solve that problem for a lot of people, you'll make a lot of money. Just go out there, Just work hard to create a business. Reject this idea of socialism because every single place, every single time it's been tried on the history of this planet, it's been an abject failure. It's caused the deaths of, of over 100 million people. Socialism does not work.
- [46:36]
A
So it does.
- [46:39]
B
Listen, look, why do I do this? Why am I, Why am I doing. Why am I having this conversation at a camera? I'm 47 years old now. I am looking down, I'm looking down the barrel of retirement. I deeply care about the future of this country and I deeply care about the young people in this country. And they've been sold a lie and they've had their future stolen from them by government, which have continued this feared experiment of endless debt to pay for the things we can't afford. We will get the country we deserve and we will get the government we deserve. Like this is on us. If we allow the political discourse to continue as it is. If we're not honest about what is going on in the country, why we're in this position we're in, come the next election, we will vote in another party and if they do not get a handle of this, we will have more of the same. And what are you going to see? You're going to see more inflation, you're going to see more borrowing, you're going to see more debt, you can see house prices get even further away from young people. We're going to see less businesses, less jobs. We are going to head down that path that Venezuela had went down, the Argentina went down, like we're going to go down. And other European nations are doing as well. France, I mean, France itself is a basket case. We have to entirely shift the conversation in this country.
- [48:12]
A
To.
- [48:15]
B
How do we rescue the currency, how do we stop growing the debt? How do we grow wealth and prosperity in this country? How do we make the UK the best place in Europe for entrepreneurs? How do we stop young, talented people going, well, I've got an idea for a business. I'm going to go to Dubai and do it because I can live tax free and I can buy a cheap house. How do we stop them going to America because they know investors are going to value them and going to invest them. How do we make the UK the best place to invest? Yeah. How are we going to fix education? How are we going to teach our kids, stop indoctrinating them with bullshit and just teach them critical thinking? How are we going to teach them to be prepared for this world, to give them the ambition to go out and create jobs? And how do we become, we should become a country that celebrates success. So, yeah, I deeply care about this country and I deeply care about the young people in it. And I am sick of watching politicians. This is the reality of our politicians. If they do not get a grip of this, if they do not stop debasing the currency, if they do not stop stealing from the future of our kids. There's only two answers. Either they know they're doing it, which means they're evil, or they don't know they're doing it and they're too stupid to be in the job. It would be my first question I ask any politician who wants my vote, explain to me what inflation is, explain to me how it happens and how do we stop it and should we stop it? Just if they cannot answer those questions, you're not worthy of vote. You shouldn't even be in government. So, yeah, I hope this was useful. Look, let me know what you think. Put something in the comments. Do you want me to make more of these? Should I rant more at the camera? Should I talk more about this? Let me know. I think it's time to wake up. We will get the country we deserve. We will get the government we deserve. We have to make our governments talk about what's really happening in this country. Because otherwise I am. I am deeply concerned about the future of this country. Anyway, thank you. I'm Pete McCormack. See you all soon.