PMQs #006 - The Quiet Leviathan — Inflation Is Breaking Everything

Summary

---

The Peter McCormack Show

Episode: PMQs #006 – The Quiet Leviathan — Inflation Is Breaking Everything

Date: December 31, 2025
Host: Peter McCormack
Co-host: Conor McCormack

---

Episode Overview

This year-end episode pivots sharply from a planned review of 2025’s political highlights to an impassioned and deeply personal exploration of inflation and its insidious, society-breaking effects. Prompted by a haunting old Internet post and a viral video, Peter and Conor McCormack reflect on the personal and systemic devastation wrought by persistent monetary inflation, framing it as the central, existential crisis for Britain and the West. They argue that inflation quietly erodes prosperity, social mobility, and even hope—turning citizens into modern serfs—while politicians and elites either benefit or remain complicit.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. A Haunting 4chan Post Sparks the Conversation

• [00:24] The show is inspired by Conor sending Peter a “devastating” 2013 4chan post about the slow, invisible collapse of living standards—not through cataclysm, but by “every day, simple things becoming a little bit more expensive.”
• [04:32] Conor adds: “This is the real purpose of inflation. To slowly degrade the wealth of the working class and create a feudal state. Inflation is an asset to the money changers, asset holders, hedge fund managers and the like. It is a poison to the working man.”

2. Inflation as the Single Root Crisis

• Peter and Conor both argue that all major issues—politics, social strife, inequality—are downstream of inflation.
• [05:15] “Every issue that we are facing as a people, as a continent, as a country comes down to one thing. Inflation. Don’t mess with our money supply.” – Conor
• Peter contends:
  • Prosperity enables generosity; when inflation erodes prosperity, social division increases.
  • Politicians avoid addressing inflation because fixing it conflicts with their pursuit of power.
  • “Altruism itself is a function of prosperity.” – Peter [06:01]

3. Personal Stories: Generational Decline in Living Standards

• [08:41] Peter compares his parents’ ability to raise a family on modest wages to how today’s families struggle for the same with much higher costs:
  • “Neither of them on a wealthy salary…they managed to have two more, moved twice…holiday every year…that life is now unattainable for equivalent wages. Why? Inflation. There’s literally no other argument.”

4. The Ethics (and Guilt) of Benefiting from Inflation

• Peter is candid about his own position:
  • “I absolutely 100% know that next year in the US they’ve got midterms coming…Trump is going to juice the market…that juicing…creates inflation…And I know I’m going to benefit from it.” – [10:24]
  • “It sucks to win while everyone else is losing.” [11:49]
• Rich people know this, but “don’t call it out and don’t explain it.”
• “If you’re somebody who benefits from inflation, you have an ethical duty to explain what it is so people understand…You are getting wealthier off the back of other people getting materially poorer. That’s what inflation is. That’s what it does. There’s no other argument.” [12:21]

5. Political Avoidance and Perpetuation

• Peter singles out politicians like Zach Polanski and “Gary Government” for focusing on “tax the rich” slogans instead of the root issue:
  • [15:02] “If you do not end inflation, not only are you making it worse for the poor, you’re going to make more people poor. This is why the middle class is collapsing.”
• All politics, right and left, largely amounts to a “defense of power” rather than genuine solutions to inflation.

6. Insidious Impact on Society and Culture

• Inflation degrades the quality of goods, social trust, and everyday happiness:
  • “It’s a cancer that eats everything good in society. Everything is getting worse.” – Peter [17:39]
• Examples:
  • Lower food and service quality
  • Small businesses forced to cut quality just to survive
  • Family formation, homeownership, and future planning are increasingly out of reach

7. Exporting Inflation & The Global View

• [21:10] Peter explains how developed countries export inflation to the developing world via debt and financial dominance, worsening global inequality:
  • “If we had a 50% currency devaluation overnight…your wages would buy half what they do tomorrow…That happens routinely in the Third World.”

8. Political Dead Ends and Systemic Pessimism

• Neither right nor left parties address the real crisis; all promise improvements but perpetuate the system.
• “None of it matters apart from this. If you don’t fix this, everything else is a distraction.” – Conor [04:11]
• Both warn of a future with even sharper super-rich enclaves (“Saint Barts filled with superyachts”) as living standards for ordinary people erode further.
• “Everything’s going to be like a little simmering flame burning away.” – Peter [34:17]

9. Call for Civil Disobedience, Constitutional Reform & Mass Realization

• Peter suggests it may take mass protest and constitutional constraint to force politicians into fiscal discipline:
  • “If we could bind government to not grow the debt…we may have a generation of pain to get back to a place where…the generation after can have something.” [41:02]
• He laments generational selfishness:
  • “Our collective job is to leave the world better than we had it for our kids. And we are demonstrably not doing that.” [27:55]

10. Vox Populi: Viral Expression of Public Discontent

• [46:27] The hosts play a viral video of a young woman angry about an £8 orange juice, using it as a symbol of grassroots exasperation with price rises and political failure.

11. Final Rallying Cry: Refuse to Consent, Raise Awareness

• Peter closes with a direct challenge: abandon the “lesser of two evils” electoral mindset, refuse to consent to the system, and make fighting inflation the only political priority:
  • "We have to stop consenting to this bullshit over and over again. You want a better country, tell them no more. Don’t vote for another fucking party…We cannot vote our way out of this. The incentives of government don’t change. We have to bind them to constraints.” [48:53]
  • “I’d love to build a massive coalition of people who said, I’m with you, Pete. Fuck these people. I’m not voting either. Fuck your shit. I’m not playing this game. I’m not fucking doing it.” [52:18]

---

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On living through the collapse:
  • “There will be no collapse…It’s far more insidious than that…Every day, simple things will become a little bit more expensive...This is the collapse, the reduction of the American man into a feudal serf…incapable of feeling love or hate.” – 4chan post, read by Peter [00:49]
• Summing up the theme:
  • “Nothing matters apart from this. If you don’t fix this, everything else is a distraction.” – Conor [04:11]
  • “Inflation is going to kill us. The centralization of government, the access to the money…the money printer is going to destroy us as a society.” – Peter [06:19]
• Personal impact:
  • “It sucks to win while everyone else is losing.” – Peter [11:49]
• Ethical imperative for the wealthy:
  • “If you’re somebody who benefits from inflation, you have an ethical duty to explain what it is so people understand…It is theft, let’s call it exactly what it is. We are stealing from the poor and the middle class to make the rich richer.” – Peter [12:21]
• Describing political failure:
  • “If you do not end inflation, not only are you making it worse for the poor, you’re going to make more people poor. This is why the middle class is collapsing.” – Peter [15:02]
• On exported inflation:
  • “A large amount of our inflation [is exported] to the Third World.” – Peter [21:10]
• On the futility of electoral politics:
  • “You cannot fix this from the inside. None of it matters.” – Peter [44:32]
• Closing call:
  • “This country doesn’t work anymore. We can fix it. They won’t fix it. It’s down to us…You want a better country, tell them no more…We cannot vote our way out of this…the incentives of government don’t change. We have to bind them to constraints.” – Peter [48:53 / 52:18]

---

Important Timestamps

• [00:24] Reading of the 4chan “collapse” post
• [04:32] The real purpose of inflation
• [08:41] Personal family history vs. modern reality
• [12:21] Ethical duty for the rich regarding inflation
• [17:39] Inflation as a “cancer that eats everything”
• [21:10] Exporting inflation to the developing world
• [27:55] Intergenerational duty and selfishness
• [34:17] “Simmering flame” metaphor for gradual collapse
• [41:02] The need for constitutional fiscal constraints
• [46:27] Viral orange juice video segment
• [48:53 / 52:18] Final rally and refusal to consent

---

Conclusion & Tone

Frank, angry, sometimes despairing but also hopeful, the episode urges listeners to recognize inflation as the true, all-consuming threat to prosperity and freedom. Peter and Conor issue a rallying call for mass awareness and action, refusing to accept “lesser evil” politics and emphasizing collective responsibility towards future generations.

Peter’s final words:

“This country doesn’t work anymore. We can fix it. They won’t fix it. It’s down to us…Love you, have a great new year. Let’s go make 2026 bang the government.” [53:00]

---

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Welcome to the show. Hope you're doing well. I'm your host, Peter McCormack. I've got your co host, the radical Mr. Conor McCormack here. How are you, boy?

[A]

Doing well. Actually, no, I'm not. I just read probably one of the most beautiful and devastating things I think I have in a long time.

[B]

Yes, I know exactly what you're talking about. So this is our final show of the year and there's. There was a lot to talk about and we've been planning this show for a week or so. We were thinking like it's final show of the year. What do we do? We could do a review of the year, talk about the biggest things. And we kind of planned it around that. And then we've been sat in a hotel for the last two hours just doing a bit of work, bit of planning that goes into it. And Connor sent me a tweet. He's going to bring it up. And with this tweet, we, we realize we need to talk about something else. It's not, it's not the big stories of the year. I think it's what is the most important topic we need to talk about. I've been ranting about this on Twitter a lot recently. It's about inflation. And so this was. There was a tweet that went with it, but It's a post from 4chan and I'll read it out because some of you are going to be listening and it's a. It's a bit long, but bear with me. There will be no collapse the way some of these people think of it. It's not going to be like the movie dawn of the Dead or whatever, when one day suddenly hits the fan and the prices skyrocket and everyone begins to riot and the SS comes marching down the street to kill everyone. There will be no happening. It's far more insidious than that. Read the poem Hollow the Hollow Men by T.S. eliot and you'll understand. You'll just notice that every day simple things will become a little bit more expensive. Everyone's homes and apartments will start to get smaller. Your work hours will get longer, but your pay will decrease. You'll see your family and friends less and find that in time you care less about them. Every day you'll find yourself lowering your standards for everything. Work, food, relationships, et cetera. Job security will no longer exist as a concept. You'll notice houses and apartments shrinking. People will start hanging onto clothing longer and longer. Less people will get married. Even less will have children. People engross themselves in technological distractions and fantasy while never truly experiencing the world. Whatever dream people used to have about what their lives were going to be will become from a distant memory, will become for them a distant memory. The only thing left for them will be the reality of their debt and. And their poverty. And every minute of every day they will be told, you are stupid, ugly and weak. But together we are free, prosperous and safe. This is the collapse, the reduction of the American man into a feudal serf incapable of feeling love or hate, incapable of seeing pitiful the. The pitfall, the pitiful nature of his situation for what it is, or recognizing his own self worth. When was actually posted. Holy. Do you know what's wild 2013? Do you know what's what? Because you know what, con? I was reading that, thinking, hold on, he's talking about, like, what will become. I was thinking, no, we're living through this now. And actually that was 12 years ago.

[A]

All right, look, but it was still happening.

[B]

All right, listen, we were planning a show. We were going to talk about the clown show of politics this week. And somehow Keir Starmer still being our Prime Minister despite him being completely fucking useless. But you sent me this, and you're like, you need to read this. This like his hard, like what?

[A]

I think it summarizes everything that you could possibly want summarized, but don't know how to articulate what you feel. Not aggressively, not blaming anyone, but I don't know, I just found it just wrapped everything together quite well for me, but it's fucking devastating.

[B]

Like, does it explain a fee? Does it contextualize a feeling?

[A]

Yes. And it also means nothing else matters. Nothing matters apart from this. If you don't fix this and everything else is a distraction.

[B]

Okay, okay, let's get. Let's dig into this. Like for you, what Particularly, let's get.

[A]

The tweet that went with it. Sorry. Because. Sorry.

[B]

Oh, there's the poem though. Let's read that.

[A]

This is the real purpose of inflation. To slowly degrade the wealth of the working class and create a feudal state. Inflation is an asset to the money changers, asset holders, hedge fund managers and the like. It is a poison to the working man. So it's about inflation.

[B]

He mentioned that Hollow man tweet. When you click on that image and you go through it, I think it showed it because I don't actually know it. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper. T.S. eliot Hollow Man. Oh, God.

[A]

Oh, it's real, all right.

[B]

But like, for you, it means something different to me. I'll do mine after.

[A]

What.

[B]

What does that contextualize for you? What does that mean to you?

[A]

Well, every issue that we're facing comes from you. Yeah. Every issue that we are facing as a people, as a continent, as a country comes down to one thing. Don't. Inflation. Don't. Don't mess with our money supply. And ever since we've gone off that. You said to me recently that at the end of the big short, like, they knew it was bad, they knew it was wrong, and they knew they would just blame it on the immigrants. Yeah.

[B]

Which is happening.

[A]

Everything's downstream of this. When there's money problems and people like, money runs the world. We all know it. It's just a reality. And every issue follows the money.

[B]

And altruism itself is a function of prosperity. Right. You can be kind and generous, but. And the immigration thing. Look, I'm not going to say it's not an issue.

[A]

Of course it is.

[B]

It needs discussing.

[A]

There are many issues. Yeah, but none of them can be discussed until you fix this, because they're all worthless and meaningless.

[B]

It reminds me there's a book called the Road to Serfdom by Hayek that I tell everyone to read. It basically maps out this. This is very Hayekian. What it is is that ultimately inflation is going to kill us. The centralization of government, the access to the money, the money printer is going to destroy us as a society. We'll all end up becoming serfs, going by the road. Serfdom. But I've been trying to deal with this loosely around other concepts. I put out a tweet this week where I was. I was having a pop at Zach Polanski and Gary Government, but really I'm having to pop out the entire political system, the machinery of the state, because, like, inflation makes me really angry. And the reason it makes me angry. Well, do you know what, Colin? Bring it up. That other tweet, the one I sent you. Because what was really weird for this, when we sat there, I was having a Coke Zero and Connor was having a cappuccino. He saw that tweet and I saw this tweet which says the island of St. Barts is packed with hashtag superyachts owned by some of the wealthiest individuals gathering to celebrate the New Year. Among them, Jeff Bezos, Michael Jordan and Sergey Brin, to name a few. The marine traffic map shows the current traffic in the area. Looks and Barts is a wonderful, beautiful Caribbean island, but it's the one, it's like the, one of the wealthiest where the richest people go. And so all the billionaires are getting together to celebrate New Year and pat themselves on the back. And I might, I might start sounding like a bit of a Marxist here. I'm not opposed to people making money. I want people to make money. I want people to create businesses and create wealth. What I don't want is the ability to create money without doing anything. Because government allows for the creation of money. Because when you win, when you win by inflation, someone is losing by inflation, they're winners and losers. Because it goes back to that point where I was talking about in the last 30 years, house prices have gone up by 1500%, but wages only up by 500%. So the reality of that is when my dad bought his first house, I know the first house he bought in a place called Kempston near Bedford. He, it was a four bedroom detached house. It was a single wage. My parents had two kids, my brother and sister and my dad was a aircraft engineer.

[A]

Three kids.

[B]

Well, I wasn't born at the time when they bought the house. Yeah, no, I was. The accident that came later on. The unplanned devil child that came later on. So they had two kids at the time. Mum wouldn't have been working, dad would have been on a single aircraft engineer salary. But with that salary he bought a four bedroom detached house. And as an engineer and my mum as a nurse, they managed to have two more. They moved twice after that and ended up in, you know, beautiful much, much larger house. Neither of them on a wealthy salary, not even a board level. You know, they had, my dad had a senior manager salary and my mum had a nurse's salary and we had a holiday every year and my parents put two kids through private school. And that's like. I don't say this as a flex, I say it as the reality of where their money went. The equivalent, now, the equivalent to salaries would not be able to go anywhere near to pay for the same life. Why? It's inflation. There's literally no other argument other than inflation. Okay, I want to be as clear as possible with that, but the thing that makes me really angry about this is all the rich people out there who know this is happening, who you don't call it out and don't explain it. And so I know myself, this is an absolute truth. And it's not a flex. It's not like, oh, Pete's got loads of money. I haven't. I'm okay. Life's been good to me. But I absolutely 100% know that next year in the US they've got midterms coming. Trump is going to juice the market. If you juice the market through money creation and QE or whatever tactic they use that juicing of the market is going to create inflation because they're going to increase the money supply. And I know I'm going to benefit from it. I'm going to benefit from it.

[A]

And I did. We did a show just before this and you said, like, this year is the richest you've ever been. You said you don't feel any happier.

[B]

No, I don't. I don't. Oh, God. Shall I repeat what I said? Yeah. Okay. So I was with my boy Danny, who took over my podcast, and he was asking me about this, and I've always had this, like, view on money that is being poor sucks. I've been there. When you have to make very tough choices about what you can afford in life, what you can't, or you're getting. Towards the end of the month, you've got no money left. You could go two or three days without any money, or even longer for other people, that sucks. But I think you don't need a lot to be happy. If you can buy a house, afford a car, have a holiday a year, treat your kids, go out for the occasional meal. I think most people are, would be happy with that. That's being eaten away at now. When you start to make money while everyone else is losing, it sucks.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

If you could go out and buy a nice sports car and in the same time, friends, family, people, you know, cannot do this. Even worse, they are having to cut back on things. They can't have a family holiday, they can't go out for, take their kids out. They can't afford things because they get to the end of the month, they've got no money left. It sucks to win. Why? Everyone else is losing. And maybe, God, if I had a super yacht and I was out in Sabarts, I wouldn't notice it.

[A]

I think that might be why they do it.

[B]

Yeah, probably. Do you want to be around poverty when you're that fucking rich?

[A]

Can't feel good.

[B]

Can't feel good. No. What do you get? In some bars, you are literally just surrounded by other rich people and you're going from yacht to yacht and drinking champagne.

[A]

And the thing is, they. These people aren't doing anything about it. There may be slight examples, but they're still Playing the game.

[B]

Let's do the most.

[A]

You are advocating for the one thing that is getting you richer right now.

[B]

Well, someone like Elon Musk, I think he is anti inflation. I think so. But look, I just think if you're somebody who benefits from inflation, you have an ethical duty to explain what it is so people understand and be honest about that. You are getting wealthier off the back of other people getting materially poorer. That's what inflation is. That's what it does. There's no other argument. I'm not accepting it. If you say different, you're full of shit. And I'm not having it. I'm telling you because I know. Because if they juice the markets next year, which they will, the majority of my money is in assets. Okay, and what does that mean when you're in assets? Well, it means you hold things like property, stocks and shares, Bitcoin, gold. You hold things which are scarce. They have a scarce supply. And when the money isn't scarce, everything else is. So what I mean by that is if they create new money, that money is chasing after the goods and services, okay? That means those goods and services get more expensive. But if your wages aren't increasing the same amount, you're experiencing inflation. That is why life gets more expensive. There is no other answer to this. So. So if you're a rich person out there and you know this has happened, or if you maybe you didn't, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. You right now, the first time you learn is me. You have a duty now to go and read up on this. And you have a duty to say no more because it's completely unethical. It is theft, let's call it exactly what it is. We are stealing from the poor and the middle class to make the rich richer. And this is why I go after Zach Polanski and Gary Government. Okay? Those two people are great examples for me because the reason I go after them specifically, and I'll go after everyone else, don't worry. But I go after those specifically because they're out there with their tax the rich slogan. So, okay, cool, cool story. Tell me, Zach Polanski, how you're going to end inflation. Because everything I've seen from you is about money creation and multipliers, which is inflationary. Gary Government, I've not seen you tackle this. Neither of you have come out and said the most important thing this government can do is end inflation. The most important thing that we can do, the biggest tax we can put on the Rich people. And the biggest tax break we could put on the poorest is ending inflation. I know why you don't want to talk about it. Because your goal is power. Your goal is that you want to be elected. You are exactly the same as Nigel Farage. You're exactly the same as Keir Starmer. You're exactly the same as Kimmy Badock. You're all the fucking same.

[A]

Your job got super wealthy donuts.

[B]

Yeah. Yes, That's. Yeah. But you're playing the same game. You're a politician. Your job is to win power and defend power. Okay? You might say nice things, you know, you might say, we want to help the poor. If you do not end inflation, not only are you making it worse for the poor, you're going to make more people poor. This is why the middle class is collapsing, okay? This is why mum and dad shops and businesses are closing down. This is why middle class people used to be able to have a holiday, can't have a holiday. Or they now can't put their kids through private school. This is all downstream from inflation. And it's a direct question. Zach Polanski and Gary Govman, what are you going to do about it? Why won't you answer the question? Tell me. I'm not your enemy. I see the same problem as you. Like, I see exactly the same. I see the inequality exactly the same. And I don't see it as a Marxist and I don't see it as corporate greedy profits. I see it all as downstream from asset inflation. I see exactly the same as you. Your solution is tax the rich. By the way, they'll just leave, they'll be in St. Barts. Or it's more money creation, which is more inflation. Like, I know I'm not got the biggest podcast in the world, but I'm not your enemy. I'll talk to you. Let's have the conversation. Why when you have the conversation? Because you can't answer it. And nobody, nobody wants to answer this question.

[A]

It's too hard.

[B]

But it is.

[A]

I told people don't like doing the hard things. It is too hard. The incentives once again.

[B]

No, you're right.

[A]

If you need the power, you need the money short term. How do you campaign? You got donors.

[B]

Do people even at your age discuss inflation?

[A]

I don't think it's understood enough. Yeah, people don't understand how money works.

[B]

Imagine they taught this in school.

[A]

They just care that they have enough in their pockets. Like that's the thing when you degrade it so much and just fucking bash and bash, and bash. And slowly. Take a little, take a little, take a little. People don't see it, but 10 years down the line, you can't afford to feed yourself, you can't afford to buy a house. Well, look, it's giving you other things to think about. You can't be bothered to think about, oh, what's inflation? Because you're working out, how do I put food on the table, how do I buy clothes? It's fucking embarrassing.

[B]

I mean, it's evil.

[A]

It's evil.

[B]

It's a cancer that eats everything good in society. Everything is getting worse. You remember I was talking about that Tucker Carlson interview with Matt Walsh. Go and watch it. I recommend anyone listening, go and watch it. There's a really, really important bit in the middle, middle to end where Matt Walsh talks about everything is getting worse. And he said the, you know, and it is everything. But, but if, if you want a good lens, it's when you go out for dinner, if you want to go out for a pizza. These days, most places are getting the cheese from the same place, the tomato from the same place. Like, the quality is just degraded. The experience going has degraded, the flavors have degraded because we've centralized food production and delivery around less and less companies. And also if you, if you're running a pizza place and at the moment you've got business rates and you've got high employment regulation and you've got higher minimum wage and you've got higher taxation and you've got the most ridiculous energy prices in the world in every single direction where you just want to make a pizza, you want to make a good pizza. People come, have a good time, you know, spend time with their family. That's all you really want to do. And you want to make a bit of profit for yourself. But if in every direction you've got arrows coming at you of cost and pressure, you're looking at the pizza you're making going, well, really want to use that cheese from Napoli. But the cheese from Napoli is quite expensive. If we use that mozzarella that we get from that central supplier, it's not tasty, but we save a pound of pizza, we get that tomato. If we get that tin tomato that we get from so and so and we don't import it from wherever and we save another pound, like we are forcing people to have shit stuff so the rich can get on their super yachts and go to some bars. And I just want to reiterate, you've.

[A]

Tried it, by the way.

[B]

What's that?

[A]

You've tried it with a coffee shop. Yeah, it's hard and it's not making any money.

[B]

We don't make any money.

[A]

You could easily go and make that coffee shitter.

[B]

We make a good cup of coffee, though.

[A]

We do. But it doesn't matter if you make no money in the end of the day, like, you're in a position where you can afford to do that. Imagine you weren't. What would you do? You make the coffee shitter.

[B]

Well, yeah. So we're in that weird position where we don't have to make a profit because it's part of the football club. And you're totally right. People should understand that. If that place had to pay my salary, we wouldn't be using Monmouth beans, we wouldn't be using Jersey milk. Because if we use. If we stopped using those, we can make a profit. And this is why everything's got worse. Like, everything has got worse because of inflation. And it makes me so angry.

[A]

It makes a lot of people angry. But this brings us to the current climate we're in, the current choice of language, which is blame me on the immigrants. And I'm not saying it's not an issue, but I think when you. You anger people so much over and over and you just bash them and bash them and put them down, eventually they go quite extreme. And that's what you're seeing.

[B]

Well, there is another key point on. On immigration, which I think a lot of people maybe don't understand. My friend Alex Gladstein wrote a book, I think it's called check your financial privilege. Whilst we have inflation in our country, we actually export a large amount of our inflation to the third World.

[A]

How's that work?

[B]

So we want cheaper and better things. So if we can't produce them in our country, we indebted other countries. So we make big loans to other countries and they're indebted to us. And at the point they can't pay off their loans, we go and say, okay, well, you can't pay off your loans. Well, maybe we will take over where you produce your tea. You now produce your tea for us and you send it to us. Or when you farm your salmon or your shellfish, you send it to us. And so we've exported a lot of our inflation to other countries. The America does it through the dollar. Every other currency getting weak against the dollar is them exporting their inflation to other countries. And so in these Third World countries, where you haven't got stable democracies or stable leaders who are pretty much corrupt and willing to take massive loans off Western governments or the IMF or whoever, and they pocket quite a bit for themselves and impoverish their country. And then you go and see a currency devaluation. In Malawi, where I went to where the currency was devalued, just. I can't remember what it was. 50% overnight. If we had a 50% currency devaluation overnight, Conor, your wages would buy half what they do tomorrow than they do today. That happens routinely in the Third World, and we're trying to fight pushing water uphill. Right. Can you imagine what it's like with a 50% currency devaluation? And so you occasionally get people in these countries that go, fuck this, I'm done.

[A]

But that's because it's obvious. This is not obvious.

[B]

No, this is insidious. The most insidious thing is slow inflation. The 2, 3, 4%, where over time you're just chipping away and chipping away at you. It's insidious, it's evil. I don't think there is any subject I want to focus more on over the next year than inflation. I think I'm just going to go after everyone on it. I think I am. I just think I'm like. I'm not going to let Zach Polanski get away with gaslighting people with his economic ideas. I'm not gonna allow it. I'm not gonna allow Gary Government to not discuss inflation. I'm gonna constantly be on them. I'm gonna be the same with reform the conservatives. I don't care. Inflation's the number one thing we have to deal with as a country, because if we don't, this is the future. And look, we're already expecting.

[A]

It's the present.

[B]

Well, yeah. No, come on. Actually, it is the president.

[A]

This 2013.

[B]

Yeah, it's the present.

[A]

They knew it was the future. And even probably then it was the present.

[B]

It was like that point I said to Danny is like, you know, if you. Sometimes people look in your life and they think, oh, he's got a good life. And I think you should be happy. I have. I've been. The last few months, I've been a bit miserable, no doubt. And I think what it is, is doing well sucks when everyone else isn't. It really does suck. And I feel like the nation is depressed. I feel like the nation is sad. And it's not because it's not just because the economy is tough. It's because there seems no way out. The economy isn't growing. So what are the opportunities for pay rises. You know, there might be isolated opportunities if you've lost your job, what jobs exist out there? Every time you go to Sainsbury's or Tesco's, your shopping gets more expensive. Yeah. Maybe you have to go to shop in different places that you're not used to. You're having to make sacrifice things you used to want to have and you cannot see a way where it gets better. And I think this is multi generational.

[A]

No pursuit. Sorry, no pursuit.

[B]

No pursuit of happiness. But I think for you and your generation, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's like just even being able to get on a ladder and be part of the game is hard. Then you've got the people who, you know, maybe mid 20s, late 20s, early 30s, they're like, I want to have kids, I can't fucking afford to have kids. I can, I can barely pay my bills. And you got people maybe similar to my age who may be like, hold on, I'm 45, I've got a weak ass pension and there's no pay rises come in, I, no savings, I can't afford a holiday. Like who's actually doing well?

[A]

The guys are saying, yeah, but who.

[B]

Is actually doing well?

[A]

Saint Barts.

[B]

And I think that's, that's why I'm.

[A]

Like, it's not funny at all, really.

[B]

No, but it's like that, like perverse humor. You're not laughing at what's actually happening. You laugh and how ridiculous is that?

[A]

We, if you don't laugh, you'll cry.

[B]

Yeah. You laughing about how ridiculous it is that we've got to this place where everybody knows within the elites and the political climate, they know how pernicious inflation is, how devastating it is, but none of them have the backbone to say we need to shift these incentives. It's actually, do you know what it's like I said to Danny and I mean, I mean what I'm going to say now is that I, I'm 47 and I @ my age have a duty to my kids. Connor, who's here, the guy you all like more than me. But I have a duty to Connor and his sister, right? But I also have a duty to, as we all do have a duty to the younger people of this country because again, I can maybe support Conor and give some guidance and we work together. But say Conor does well, how's he going to feel doing well when his friends aren't Our job? Collective, I say collective. We, you might go, it's not my fault, I'M just saying, as a group of older people, our collective job is, is to leave the world better than we had it for our kids. And we are demonstrably not doing that. When, when we increase debt and when we drive inflation, we're saying to the kids after us, for us to be happy in the short term, you got to suffer. You could have it harder than us, Connor. That's it. That is what the adult generation is saying to you right now. I want better stuff now, so you got to go.

[A]

Without. I.

[B]

Just. I mean, I'm not saying that to you, but you know what I mean. Yeah, but like, how.

[A]

Cowardly. How's this play.

[B]

Out? But before we get that, how cowardly is.

[A]

That? It is.

[B]

Cowardly. But this is why you should be more.

[A]

Angry. I have. Like I said, it's the most beautiful and devastating thing I've read in a while because it summarizes everything perfectly. But then you sit back and realize, oh, we were fucked from the start. The second that money printer went on, got switched on, we were done. Nothing else has mattered since, really. When you think about it, it's all a distraction. And this is why I've said all these little issues. It's like, look over there. So you don't actually see what's going on here. Let's do it slowly instead of quickly. So you don't really realize. Yesterday you had £10 and now you have £9.

[B]

98. Little bit, little bit slow.

[A]

Decay.

[B]

Vile. Yeah, it's vile. And that's what I'm.

[A]

Saying. How's it, how does it play out? Like, if this carries on, Is that where we're at now? Where it's like eventually, like the people have kind of woken now, some.

[B]

Awaking. My worry with this, Conor, as I keep saying, is that every election acts like existential crisis. The last US election, it was an existential crisis for the Republicans if Kamala followed Biden. But for Democrats, it was an existential crisis if Trump wins. Same in the UK. Conservatives were so, so shit for 14 years. It was an existential crisis if they won. And for Conservative voters, it was an existential crisis if Labour won. And look, Labour, let's just be honest, an absolute shit show. Kia, man, come on. Time's up that. Time to resign. You can't fix this, by the way. If we get to the next election in three years time, you're going to see the reason the signal will be more of an existential left v Right crisis is you're going to likely see a coalition between the Greens and the Lib Dems representing the left. And I think you're probably going to end up with some weird coalition between reform and conservatives. And look, reform aren't going to admit this. They'll do the deal after the election. But you will see these coalitions because both see each other as the existential crisis. It is not the existential.

[A]

Crisis. Does any of it.

[B]

Matter? Well, no, it does because this is the existential.

[A]

Crisis. Exactly. So does any of that matter? Coalitions are not like. It makes no.

[B]

Change. No, but that's the exact point. The existential crisis is this. It's not the left or the right because neither is going to fucking deal with it. Nobody has come around, nobody has come to the table and said inflation is tearing our country apart. It's eating. Everything is good. Everything is getting rubbish because of inflation. We have no, you know, no hope of kids getting on the housing ladder. We want kids. The birth. How can kids, how can we afford. How can our children afford to have kids.

[A]

Themselves? You pop up the two child benefit cut. It's like another.

[B]

Bandage. Sure. Which is all they have. Sticker, plaster sticker. Eventually you run out of sticking plasters. The existential crisis is this. And I mean I've said I refuse to vote for decay. If someone doesn't deal with inflation, we are getting more decay. We are condemning you, your sister, your friends, kids, if you can afford to have them, to something much worse. And look, you are sorry, where's Zend up? I mean.

[A]

I Do they just get bigger and bigger.

[B]

Yachts? I mean, sure, sure, but like, where does it end up for everyone else, this is.

[A]

Like. Does it just get further and.

[B]

Further? Of course.

[A]

Yeah. So you just have Saint Barts filled with super yachts and the world around it on fire. Is that end goal? Is that what we're talking.

[B]

About? Isn't that where we are.

[A]

Now? But you know what I'm talking about. Like it can get worse and worse. And is that. Is that genuinely where we're heading to? And everyone's all okay with.

[B]

That. But the weird thing is when you say on fire. I remember when I went to Argentina, like it's.

[A]

Nuts. Everyone's okay with that. They know that is what's. What eventually will happen. And they're.

[B]

Cool. What do you want about.

[A]

The. The elites, the rich people, elites, politicians, everyone who knows it here but doesn't say it here, they're cool with.

[B]

That. That is wild. I mean, it's insane. Connor, I hate to break it this to you, but people are selfish. And fucking cruel. They are just, they are, they are selfish and cruel. I, when I, we, me and Kurt went out to Argentina, right? And when we went out there, I was going into a place that experienced high inflation and bouts of hyperinflation. And it was such a weird experience because I got there and I don't know what I expected to see. I guess when I got to Buenos Aires I expected to see poverty everywhere. And I didn't. We went out to dinner every night and the restaurants were full. I saw one homeless person. I saw everyone milling about, going to work and doing their jobs, right? And when we went out to dinner on the, I think it was the second night, I said to Juan, Joanne, who was with us, I said, dude, this is what I expected. There's a Starbucks, people are getting coffee. I've not seen any real homeless. It looked better than London. It's weird. It looked better than London. Would you say that's fair, Kurt? Lovely. Yeah, it was lovely. And he said, the weird thing about inflation is it makes you almost nihilistic. You live for today, you cannot plan for the future, you cannot save because your money is eviscerated. And the saddest thing, we went to this rugby match and we chatted to the people after. And this guy told me this story, said, oh, because in Argentina they're very, very family orientated. He said, there's been a brain drain. The young people have just left. They go to Australia, America, some of them come to the UK because there's no opportunity for them. Like they can't own a house, they can't get a job, they can't save. And so it's this weird thing where it's this, there's no collapse, you know, things just get slowly and slowly worse and worse. And so everything is not going to be on fire. It's just going to be like a little simmering flame burning away.

[A]

Slowly. Yeah, but where does that lead.

[B]

To? Well, I look, I think look.

[A]

Like a simmering flame always gets bigger and then the whole forest is on.

[B]

Fire. Well, I mean, I don't know. I could tell you the, the options. If in the next election we have a left wing coalition that wins, this is going to get worse. They're going to try and flatten the experience of people. They're going to try and redistribute. They will create money to try and stimulate the economy with their multiplier fantasies and inflation will get worse. They will try and tax more of the rich. The rich will leave, which means more of the Burden of the tax will fall on the poor in the middle class. It will get worse. You might get a conservative coalition, I think economically that may slow this. They will be a bit more fiscally responsible and they may slow.

[A]

This. But like you said, the slower the more.

[B]

Vile. Oh, just either way is terrible.

[A]

Right? Yes, but the slower, the more vile. So maybe actually the right option, as in the right wing option is more violent itself. Unless you actually stop.

[B]

It. It's like, let's not choose. They're both vile.

[A]

Man. No, but it's like, come on, it's like when we said about it was that Tucker interview where he was like, this is like the soft phenyl. Oh yeah.

[B]

Authoritarianism.

[A]

Yeah. The one you can't see is.

[B]

Worse. Yeah, but that.

[A]

Is. I would rather have Argentina and enough people wake up than slow, mitigate the risk and people just get on with.

[B]

Stuff. Yeah. I think though, Tucker's where he says the slow feline version is actually.

[A]

The left wing version in terms of authoritarianism. Sure. But what I'm talking about is I would rather have the in your face version because at least then there's a hope. Enough people will be like, in Argentina, what the fuck? This is like, let's vote for a guy that has a chainsaw out. Because it like the slower, the easier it is to get by without anything being.

[B]

Done. So you want to go, you want to go to the Marxist.

[A]

Version, John, the.

[B]

Buzzer. Who knows? Like, what I'm saying is both suck, both are going to get worse. And even if you get a left wing coalition, they will make this worse. And you would certainly get a right wing coalition afterwards. And it might be something even more extreme.

[A]

Than. But then we're saying both are evil. I'm not voting for the lesser of two.

[B]

Evils. Yeah, but what I'm saying is if you get the right wing one, you might slow this down. But I think you will have a real fracturing of society and that means you then get another left wing one. Existential.

[A]

Existential.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So then it's like, well, what can you do about it and what will happen about it? I think we're gonna see. I think, I don't think we're far off. Large scale national protests and civil disobedience. I don't think we are. It's like the other day when, you know, went to the football, went to watch Bedford Town and we saw, you know, I won't name them, a couple of people we know who are teachers and I said to them, how's school. And they said to us, yes, hard. And there's an immigration issue with this in that the classes, the demographics are very diverse now and you've got kids who don't speak English and they're not able to give the amount of time they need to to English speaking kids because they've got to give more time to the kids who don't speak English just to help them get through. But, but the bigger issue is when I said how the finances. And they said, look, it's tough. We're buying supply, teachers are buying supplies to teach kids to give them. Like, how fucking far have we gone wrong? Where we can spend 110 billion a year on debt interest and we spend 80 billion a year on education. And teachers are now who are underpaid themselves having to pay to buy supplies to teach their kids. And even worse, the guy I saw in the pub the other night where he said, he does the PE, he said, we're about to lose our PE premium, 15 grand a year for a primary school to be able to take kids, to be able to play competitive sports against other kids. And it's that thing, it's like every time there's a budget, we've got less money. What do we cut now, what do we cut next? We'll cut the PE premium, we'll cut foreign languages. Like, what else are you going to.

[A]

Cut? Then people would say to this, if you're asking for no more printing of the money, you're gonna have to cut more.

[B]

Stuff. Then it just becomes choices like my. So going back to that point where I said, I think my duty is to you as a dad and to the next generation as an adult, does that make sense? Okay, my priority, if our priority is kids, we have to provide two things for kids, a good education. Actually, three things. A good education, good healthcare and the opportunity to build a life. They're the three things. And so where are the sacrifices that I have to make or we have to make as adults? And then you have to just draw up the government budget and say what's going. If we mandate, just say, just say the country got so pissed off, it was like, we've had enough, we give up, we're not playing this game anymore. Large scale protests brought down the government and someone with a big enough voice said what I think, which is, I think we need a codified constitution which binds government. If we could bind government to not grow in the debt, just that, that it had to actually say shrink the debt 1% a year, 2% a year. So that we knew in two generations we'd massively reduce the debt. The government would have to find things to cut. Okay. And yes, they're cutting things at the moment, but they will be cutting towards allowing prosperity to come back and inflation not to rip. And so what that means is we may have a generation of pain to get back to a place where you might be the generation it skips. So the generation after can have something that might be.

[A]

It. But there's pain already. So, yeah, I get. It's just, are we willing to make that sacrifice? And I think there's too.

[B]

Many. I.

[A]

Am. Let's be frank. I think there's too many pussies out there who are not willing to give that.

[B]

Sacrifice. Call it how it is.

[A]

Com. It's.

[B]

Sad. Call it how it.

[A]

Is. The guys in Saint Barts are not willing to pay that sacrifice, but.

[B]

They'Re the ones who compare the easiest. Again, it's like I was listening to Sacha the other day. He said, like, I grew up in an okay neighborhood, but it's like so many people I know are super rich now, worth more than 100 million. It's like, how did we get so there? I think 1 in 10 people in the US are now millionaires. Like, millionaire was a goal. I'd love to be a millionaire one day. He's not that special anymore. You can't retire as a.

[A]

Millionaire. Yeah, but what's the difference between that one and the other nine compared.

[B]

To. Sure. Like once you got the one, getting the other nine is like a lot.

[A]

Easier. No. Oh, you said 1 in.

[B]

10. Oh, yeah. No.

[A]

No. No difference now between the nine and that one has got.

[B]

Fucking. But 1 in 10 being a millionaire is inflation. It's mainly property.

[A]

Millionaires. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. They own a property that's now worth whatever. They're asset rich, not cash rich. It's. I mean, look, this was meant to be a review of the year and like, it isn't really. It's a. Well, it isn't. Isn't. It's kind of like we got to deal with this. We. We're going to head. We've got three more years of a Labor government, three more years of this shit show. And they have not got a grip at this. If they're not going to get a grip on this, we have this weird opportunity right now as a country usually. Let's think, let's go back to, I don't know, the Blair years. Labour supporters thought Blair was doing a good job, so they were mainly happy lib Dem voters probably thought, well, we're never going to win, but we'd rather have labor there. And Conservatives didn't really have much of a punch. They didn't really have much of a chance and until Brown came in. And so it's really hard to get significant change in a country at a time like that, when it's. I don't want to say 50 50, but I think you know what I mean, we're in this. We've got this weird opportunity whereby everyone fucking hates the government. Everyone hates his Labour Party. Keir Starmer has done a. I mean, just this week, everything we saw with that Allah Abdur El Fatah was just that to me was a symptom of everything that's wrong in this country. It's just another shit show from this shit show of a government. They're so hated labor, they're hated by their own voters, they're hated by opposition voters, they're hated by the left, they're hated by the right. They don't stand for anything. Kira's a complete wet wipe. We're at a time where everyone is unhappy with them. I think we saw it was it. If there was an election tomorrow, they'd retain four seats. They have a parliamentary majority. They've gone from parliamentary majority to four projected seats in two years. And despite the fact that I called him the Malcolm and said it's a complete shit show, it was inevitable. It was kind of inevitable because you cannot fix this from the.

[A]

Inside. None of it.

[B]

Matters. None of it matters. You cannot fix it from the inside. And actually the signal of parliamentary majority to four seats is how desperate people are. Give me hope, give me reform, give me green, give me something that fixes this shit show. Sorry, guys, nothing's going to fix this shit show from a political level. It's just not going to happen. I think, I think everyone who says it is is either hoping, coping or scared of trying something.

[A]

Different.

[B]

Yeah, we have to fight inflation. I just. I think it's all I'm going to start talking about next year, a few other.

[A]

Things. But yeah, I mean, we had like so many other different things, but we saw that one thing and we kind of just came in off the cuff and.

[B]

How. Just out of interest, how, how's it, how's the year been viewing? Doing.

[A]

This? Very.

[B]

Interesting. Like working with your.

[A]

Dev. I mean, God, no, we learn a lot. We learn a lot. I'm probably quite privileged for that because I get to listen to experts and everything all the.

[B]

Time. I thought you're about to compliment me.

[A]

Then. No, no, no. I wish you would shut the fuck.

[B]

Up. I'm very privileged to work with my son. I complimented Conor earlier. I said to him he is my favorite person to run ideas by because he tells me the truth that other people won't. And it's very helpful sometimes, but I'm. Is. Is. Have you felt a bit more pressure having a camera on you and a mic on.

[A]

You? Massively. Especially the topics we're speaking about.

[B]

Now. It's tough. Well, they like you, but you.

[A]

Have to happen because if you don't.

[B]

Then. Shall we bring up. Should we bring out the video? That girl? I know it's. I know it's like linked to what we've just did, but it's like. I think it's kind of.

[A]

Important. Eight pounds for this. That's one hour of hard labor work for a bit of orange juice that I could go to the forest and pick and stomp on and make my own juice. Huh? Keir Starmer, what are you doing for our country? Labor. We'll find he was better than conservative, but clearly we was wrong because our salaries ain't going up, but the Damn prices are.8 pounds. Do something about it before we start a revolution. I'm tired and I'm fed up. And I know that people are too. I'm not the only damn one who's fed up of these stupid.

[B]

Prices. Eight balva and orange juice. That is.

[A]

Wild. I mean, it's a silly little video, but it kind.

[B]

Of. No, but it's.

[A]

Everything.

[B]

Yeah. And look, we know why an orange juice costs eight pound. And we know why it feels expensive. Okay? And that's like this. That's everything right now. Everything you want to go and buy. We know why the price has gone up. And we know while they feel expensive because prices go up faster than wages. And the interesting thing is, is that the more of this that. Well, like she's saying, we thought you were better. Care. We thought you were better. That's clearly a lefty. She's realized it doesn't work. The more people that realize that this is broken, that the incentives are broken, that the financial system is broken, that money creation causes this problem. If we can. If we can get. We have to get a whole country to realize this is a big task. You have to. But if you can get enough, you got to get this message out there to everyone. It's like fractional reserve banking, central bank money creation, government fiscal policy, or inflationary. All of those three things create inflation. We have to somehow who's that? It's Keir Starmer. Shut up. We have to somehow get this message across. I think that's our mission for the next year Con. I mean, I know we had all these things we were going to talk about, you know, I just think we need to focus on this. This. This feels like the most important thing happening right.

[A]

Now. Yeah, I.

[B]

Agree. Anything else you want to say? Close the.

[A]

Euro. Close the euro.

[B]

Right? Yeah. But, like, I'm optimistic. Do you know why I'm optimistic? Because I believe in the British people. I believe in you guys. I do. I believe in. I believe in the British people. It is the people that made this country. Not the government we create, they extract. Let's just be very fucking clear. They don't create shit, okay? We create, they extract. That's actually. That's not true. They create government departments and they create rules and they create regulations. But it's like I put in a tweet the other day, I said, if government collapsed tomorrow, if Keir Starmer actually woke up and went, yeah, I'm a fucking retard. Nobody wants me. I'm going to quit. If he actually did that and the government collapsed and all we were left with was the border border force protecting our borders, the police stopping crime and courts arbitrated on contracts, we would suddenly have a shitload more money. We could spend more money on education, we could buy more stuff. We could go on holiday, we could invest more. The country will get better. We are the people that create the stuff. Government are the ones that extract it from us. And they extract it in three ways. They extract through inflation, through the money, they extract through bureaucracy and make everything harder. And they extract through infringements on our civil liberties, like taking our rights away. They extract constantly from us. Okay, we have to get to the point where we go, no, sorry, fuckos, we're not having this anymore. You're not going to make us poor with inflation. You're not going to take away our rights, and you're not going to add layers of bureaucracy that make everything harder. We don't want this anymore. I say that collectively. Some of you may, but, like, we don't want this shit anymore. This country does not work anymore. We have to stop consenting to this bullshit over and over again. You want a better country, Tell them no more. Don't vote for another fucking party. Don't vote for a party that just says, you know, I promise you we'll fix this. We've just seen what happens with the manifesto promises they fucking keep to it labor promised no increases in taxes on working people. It was central to their manifesto. Rachel Rees, what happens? First, budget, she raises national insurance of employers. That is a tax on you, the consumer. Second, budget, she extends the threshold for taxes. They've said no taxes on working people. Budget after budget, they've increased taxes on working people and they've increased borrowing. They have absolutely failed on their manifesto. So what, because Zach Polanski says this or Nigel Farage says that, you're going to believe them? How many, like, wake up. How many times are we going to go through this? We cannot vote our way out of this. The incentives of government don't change. We have to bind them to constraints. We have to say as a people, no more. No more. No more of this fucking shit. I'm not voting. Do you know what? I'd love to build a massive coalition of people who said, I'm with you, Pete. Fuck these people. I'm not voting either. Fuck your shit. I'm not playing this game. I'd love to do that. And I know some people are gonna go, well, if you don't vote, you should. You'll let somebody else. It's like that Fuentes video. They'll vote for the lesser of two evils. No, sorry, no. I'm not voting for the lesser of two evils. I'm not voting. I'm not playing your fucking games anymore. I'm not doing it. I'm not fucking doing it. Not doing it. No way. No more. Fuck off. Not doing it. I'm over it. Happy New Year. Happy New.

[A]

Year.

[B]

Fuck. Happy New Year. Thank you to everyone who supported the show. Everyone who's written in suggested books called me A on YouTube, said, Conor is the best. Thank you to everyone who supported the show. Thanks to Kurt rdp. Thank you to my boy Conor, the radical, the groper in the corner for keeping on the straight and narrow. But no, no, seriously, look, I love you all. I believe in a better future. This country doesn't work anymore. We can fix it. They won't fix it. It's down to us. Love you have a great new year. Let's go make 2026. Bang the.

[A]

Government.