"I'm QUITTING!" Gary Stevenson vs Piers Morgan On Wealth, Economic Growth & Elon Musk

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: - Why are you so defensive? [00:00:01] Speaker 2: - Because you're asking me very personal questions. [00:00:03] Speaker 1: - You write a book about taking money off the rich. I said, how rich are you? [00:00:07] Speaker 2: - So if it's not personal, if it's not personal, if you tell me how much you're worth, I will tell you how much I'm worth. - If I tell how rich I am, you'll tell me how rich you are to the nearest five. [00:00:19] Speaker 1: - Nearest five. [00:00:20] Speaker 2: - Promise. [00:00:22] Speaker 1: - Go on then. Gary Stevenson is a former financial trader, a best-selling author, and a self-styled inequality economist. He's put a rockstar following online for his acerbic commentary delivered with passion from the unique standpoint of a multi-millionaire city trader turned heel on the system which made him. But of course, with a great following comes great animosity. Stevenson's critics say he's overstating his own success as a trader while transposing left-wing politics for real economics and manufacturing poverty porn from a position of personal comfort. [00:00:55] Speaker 3: - There is a consensus. The neo-liberal model has broken and it's not worked. - Consensus where? From people like Gary Stevenson? Or where's the consensus? Where's the academic consensus here? - I think the academic consensus is among economists who aren't working for the government. I think they're all looking at government decisions. - You say Gary Stevenson as a pseudo-academic economist? - I don't think he's pseudo-academic. I think he's literally an economist. That's his job. - What about, you mentioned-- - It's not his job, he's a city trader. He studied an undergraduate degree in economics. - Right. - Okay, he's not a professional economist. [00:01:25] Speaker 4: - He would just say, well, I've bet money on my predictions. I'm rich, therefore I'm always right. The trouble is just, obviously, nobody can verify that. [00:01:33] Speaker 5: - I saw some guy, I don't know his name. He was on Twitter. Skinny little dipshit. [00:01:39] Speaker 1: - Well, whatever your personal view of Stevenson, there's no question that many people do find him inspiring. Many of the issues he talks about clearly resonate with the everyday complaints of working people, both in the US and the UK. His rise to fame coincides with a red-hot stock market, which puts vast wealth on the ledges of a small group of tech barons, while actual wages stagnate. The economy might be growing nicely on paper, but everything seems to cost more and young people can't afford to buy a house or start a family. Well, last week, President Trump was revealed to have earned $1.4 billion from his digital currency trading business since returning to office. Everybody benefits from rising stock markets, he said in response, but do they? Well, Gary Stevenson has a new documentary out on Channel 4, it's called How to Get Filthy Rich, and among other issues, he calls for a wealth tax. [00:02:27] Speaker 2: - My proposal is a 2% tax on wealth of above 10 million pounds. [00:02:31] Speaker 5: - Absolute populist clap trap. - People are having to make a decision on whether they eat or whether they stay warm. [00:02:36] Speaker 6: Why is it only rich people are supposed to not look out for their own interests? Is everyone else looking out for them? [00:02:42] Speaker 1: - Well, the idea of windfall taxes on the filthy rich is about to become a big dividing line between Republicans and Democrats and they're on up to the next election. It's previously been a preferred policy of our next prime minister, Andy Burnham, although reportedly he will start with a bigger inheritance tax instead. At the heart of that debate is the age old question of whether vast wealth trickles down to everybody else. - Does a rising tide lift all boats or should we trust the government to take some money out of their bottomless pockets and spend it on everybody else? And above all, are we now living in a new era of greed is good, or as many people are warning, are we heading towards a revolt against the revoltingly rich? Well, joining me now is the former financial trader, inequality economist Gary Stephenson. In a moment, we'll be joined by two high profile defenders for free market capitalism. Tom Ellsworth, the PBD podcast contributor, also known as the BizDoc. And Christian Nemitz, he's the editorial director at the Institute of Economic Affairs. So welcome to all of you. Gary, great to have you back on Uncensored. Our last interview got everybody going and a lot of people watched it. Just in simple terms, what is the documentary about? [00:03:50] Speaker 2: - Documentary is a snapshot of the country, what's happening with the economy. People are struggling in many cases. I went around the country up and down talking to ordinary people. We're talking about their problems. Talking to some very wealthy people. We spoke to one billionaire. People who don't like my ideas about wealth taxes. Really, we're just trying to paint a picture that explains what's happening, challenges my ideas, and really puts to the country the question of what do you want to do? Because I think we're here at this crucial moment. Obviously, we all know there's about to be a new prime minister. And I think there is a public discussion about where do we go next? And I wanted to be part of that. And really, I want to use it to persuade the country. We need to do something about the grand wealth of the very rich. [00:04:29] Speaker 1: - We've had some seismic shocks as a country in the last 10 years. Brexit was one. I think most people look at it and think it's certainly not been a success, to put it mildly. And was a self-inflicted injury, if you like, on our economy. The pandemic, the COVID pandemic was a huge blow to global economy, obviously. And then you've got war in Ukraine, war in Iran, all these things, they all have an impact. Now, in history, these things happen. And governments have to deal with them. But they've been particularly big hits on the global economy generally. So the people that criticize you, I've heard them say, well, OK, but what he's saying is it's all the fault of the rich, right? If only the stinking rich, the billionaire tech guys and so on, just distributed their cash better, then all the problems would be solved. When, in fact, it's been incompetent governments who've mismanaged things, made bad decisions, like Brexit and so on. Now, do you understand that argument? That, in a way, you singled out the baddies to be, in a way, these rich guys who've been very successful. Many of them employ thousands of people. They pay, you know, sometimes billions in tax. Why are they the bogeymen for you and not other things that could be perhaps even bigger contributors? [00:05:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the first thing to say is I've got nothing against rich people. You know, I'm quite a rich person myself. You know, I think most people would be rich if they could. You know, this is not about attacking rich people. But it is about trying to understand what is going wrong with our economy. You know, so I quit my job in 2014. I used to work in markets. And I didn't start speaking publicly until 2020. That's when I started my YouTube channel. That's when I made my first YouTube video. And the reason I did that is because at the beginning of COVID, we knew governments were going to give out an enormous amount of money. The UK government gave out a trillion pounds. That's 20,000 pounds per person. If you did the analysis of where that money was going to end up, you could see very, very clearly from the very beginning that that money would go to the richest people in society. Now, I'm going to ask you a question, right? Imagine we pause the economy now for two years and during that period of time transferred a trillion pounds from the government to the richest people in society. What do you think would happen to ordinary living standards? They're going to fall, right? What drove me, the reason I started my YouTube channel, the reason I do everything that I do is because I could see at the beginning of COVID, we were going to have a cost of living crisis, an inflation crisis, a house price crisis, a stock price crisis, a gold price crisis. If you don't believe that, go and watch my video from June 2020. I predicted all of these things. If you do not do anything about rapidly growing inequality, you will see rapidly growing poverty. That doesn't mean if you have a wealth back. [00:07:00] Speaker 1: But again, I would say that that was, in a way, you could argue that was the incompetence of the government of the day, successive governments, in dealing with a pandemic. And it was dealt with in very different ways by countries around the world. And some did a lot better than others. And people think that the lockdowns and various things contributed to the fact that we screwed ourselves to a certain degree. So my question again would be, of course, if you dished out a trillion dollars to very wealthy people, that would impact negatively on everybody else. Conversely, if you just took a trillion dollars from wealthy people and gave it out to a lot of people with no money, your belief is that would lead to a more equal playing field, whatever. [00:07:41] Speaker 2: But a lot of people think that wouldn't happen. That's not what I'm trying to do. Right. I'm not trying to take money from the rich and give it to the poor. Listen, 30 years ago. You're not Robin Hood. Listen, 30 years ago, we had a situation where ordinary people, people like my dad could work a regular job, 20 grand a year, buy a house. What did he do, your dad? He worked for the post office for 35 years. And we had a government that owned a huge amount of wealth, plus 100% of GDP. In the last 40 years, that ability for working class people to own assets has disappeared and the government wealth has dropped from plus 100% of GDP to negative 100% of GDP. I am not trying to redistribute wealth. The redistribution of wealth is happening. 40 years ago, the working class owned wealth, the middle class owned wealth and the government's owned wealth. Government is bankrupt. Working class is bankrupt. Middle class people struggle in their own homes. That wealth is not disappearing. It is accumulating by the very rich. I am not trying to redistribute wealth here. The reason I care about wealth inequality is because I want ordinary people to be able to afford to own wealth. It's as simple as that. [00:08:36] Speaker 1: OK, let's bring in our other guests. Christian Nemitz, welcome to Uncensored. What's your reaction to what Gary just said? [00:08:46] Speaker 7: Well, we've had 18 years of almost complete economic stagnation. Most people are not much better off than they were in 2007. And so it's not surprising that lots of people, different parts of the ideological, political spectrum are thinking about why is that? Why did that happen? So therefore, we agree on part of the diagnosis. Something needs to change. Something isn't quite right. I don't buy Gary's explanation for it. I don't buy that wealth inequality is the issue for the simple reason that wealth inequality is not particularly high in this country and it's not rising. So if you look at the top 1% of the wealth distribution, the wealthiest 1% in the country, they hold about 22% of the total wealth. And that figure has been almost completely flat for more than 20 years. It is now actually lower than it was for most of recorded history. For more than it's lower now than it was throughout most of the 20th century. And it's far lower than it is in most other developed countries. That is really not the issue. It's actually something much more simple than that. The reason why the economy doesn't grow and the reason why real wages for most people don't grow is that we're not building anything. We've got the lowest level of housing supply in the developed world. We just need to build some houses like everybody else. It's as simple as that. And then you could again have a situation like what you've described with your father being able to afford a house on a normal salary. Yes, that was once the norm and it should be the norm again. It is still the norm in quite a lot of places. It's just, you know, when you have 40 years of abnormally low growth in the housing stock, then you are going to see problems like that. We need to do what governments of all shades, Labour, Tory, Lib Dem coalitions, what they've all said. They've all said we want to build. We need to increase the housing stock. It's just that every time you then have some NIMBYs complaining, saying no, not here and not there either. Then governments panic and roll back and don't do anything. We really just need to override NIMBY objections and build some houses. It's as simple as that. Build houses, build infrastructure, do the usual thing that make economies grow. [00:10:47] Speaker 1: Tom Ellsworth, welcome to Uncensored. You've been nodding your way there. So you agree with what Christian is saying? [00:10:55] Speaker 5: Yes, we've seen that in the United States. If you take a look at the boomer generation, a significant amount of the boomers' wealth is their home. And yes, they've got 401ks. If they were fortunate, had a pension or had an IRA that they built. But what they most have is the value of their home. And what we need is the affordable housing in this country. And that's what's going to correct it. It's not to put a microscope on the entrepreneurial set, many of whom have built billions-dollar fortunes on success, building jobs, building products, and biotech, medicine, and technology that we all enjoy. And it's improved our life. I don't think it's the focus on that. The focus here is there is an affordability crisis. There's things that have to happen and we have to improve it. But like when we had steroids and baseball, we didn't throw away baseball. We got rid of the steroids and brought a grand game back. And I think smart people can do the same thing here. Capitalism lifted more people out of poverty over time than any other system. So let's figure out how to correct it. You have functions that we look at. And I'll give you two examples. There is just a report that came out of the Fed that pointed out that the 7 million immigrants between 2021 and 2024 -- and by the way, that's the Fed number. There are larger numbers bandied about in the media. I'm sure you've seen them. They came in and they took housing. And so it increased the demand for housing, which caused the price for the housing to go up. So the challenge that you have there is that you've got a whole set of people that were looking for housing and rents were up and the price of houses were up. The other part of the report was that the financial policy, which was the government making mistake, exactly what you commented, Piers. The government made a horrible mistake and created runaway inflation under Biden. And that increased the price of assets. Gary, who describes himself as an economist, certainly understands that, that what happened was the asset costs themselves, values, were inflated by that. So now you have those two things. If we look at Austin, Texas, we can see how if you leave the system alone, it can correct. You had in Austin when announcements were coming from Oracle and HP and others in 2019-2020 that they were going to move away from California because they were upset about, uh-oh, taxation and regulation, and they were going to move to Texas. Well, guess what? In the Austin, Texas area, builders saw that as opportunity and started building and extending the housing supply in Austin. There was a price spike during COVID, but as the building continued and the supply came on the market, prices today are down 15% to 20% in Austin from their high. And they still say there's an estimated 15 houses, 15,000 housing unit shortage in Austin. So in other words, you see, if you leave the system, it can go there. Now we need government not to do what Biden did and not to do what the inflation did, but I don't want to just tax the wealthy and then hand it to the government. Whereas we've seen in Minnesota's, um, uh, learning centers and in California's hospices, fraud gets created. I don't want to just give that to the government that I already don't trust to do good things with money and then trust them to bring it back to the people that need it. No, I think if we get out of the way with regulation and move things more clearly, I think you get it. And that's what I agree with. And that's why I was nodding. Okay. Gary, your response. [00:14:27] Speaker 2: I mean, I wish getting out of the way works. Um, we've been getting out of the way in this country for a long, long time. And we've moved from a situation where ordinary working people can afford housing, pension, education, healthcare, to a situation where half the country can't simultaneously feed the kids and turn the lighting on. Um, listen, I've been betting on this for years and years and years and years and years. And I've made millions of pounds as a trader. I've made millions of pounds since I've quit betting on what's going to happen. Listen, we can see that the wealth is being transferred. You know, ordinary people used to be able to afford homes. Governments used to own wealth. That wealth is gone now. You cannot run your wealth down forever. Now that is gone, there is only three choices. Three choices for every government in the world. Three choices for the British government. Three choices for the American government. Significantly increased taxation on the very rich. Significantly increased taxation on working people or dismantling of the welfare state. I guarantee you, I absolutely guarantee you, we are going to see some combination of those three things. And I want to make it clear, I'm not trying to raise taxes and give it to the government. The reason this says tax wealth does not work is because working people are paying 50%, while billionaires are paying nothing. If you don't change that... Gary, where is your philosophy worked around the world? In this country right here, Piers. In this country right here, in this country, and in the US, in the 30, 40 years after World War II, the golden age of capitalism, we were taxing the wealth at 90%. We taxed the Beatles 95%, yeah? Nineteen for you and one for me. Listen, we did it, and that was... [00:15:50] Speaker 1: But that drove many people to leave the country. [00:15:52] Speaker 2: And it drove ordinary people to be able to buy housing. [00:15:55] Speaker 1: Right, but if you drive all the wealth creators out of the country, how is that good for a country? [00:16:00] Speaker 2: Tax wealth not work. I'm not trying to tax anybody in the business. [00:16:03] Speaker 1: There was a massive migration of wealthy people when taxes went to 95%. They all just buggered off. How does that help the country? Listen, I'm not talking about taxing work here. I'm talking about taxing asset hoarding. When I asked you to cite a time or place this has worked, you chose a period when we taxed people at 95%. [00:16:20] Speaker 2: So you don't think it was a good economy in the US? [00:16:21] Speaker 1: Well, I just don't think you can, with a straight face, say you're not about taxing the rich, when you look back to the golden period in your eyes as being when we tax the rich 95% of their income. [00:16:30] Speaker 2: I think we should tax the super rich at much, much higher rates. What would you tax on that? 95%? At the moment, all right, what's the average passive income of a billionaire? Say that again. What's the average passive income as a percentage rate of a billionaire? You tell me. So I interviewed a billionaire from my documentary, Bassem Haydar. He says he doesn't take less than 15%. So if you're the poorest billionaire in the US and you've got a wealth of $1 billion, at 15%, you are going to be making $150 million a year, $3 million a week, right? And these guys at the moment are untaxed. [00:17:01] Speaker 1: Why shouldn't they make that kind of money? [00:17:03] Speaker 2: Because if you allow them to make that kind of money and you do not tax it, then over time, they will buy more and more and more of the assets and assets such as housing will become unaffordable to ordinary people. Listen, you cannot simultaneously have an untaxed billionaire class and an asset holding middle class. You must choose. [00:17:19] Speaker 1: Okay, Christian. I mean, look, there'll be a lot of people watching this in America and the UK who'll be nodding along going, yeah, you know, why should super billionaires not just pay a bigger slice of the pie and help out those less fortunate? [00:17:31] Speaker 7: Well, but they are, I mean, not specifically on asset ownership. We don't right now, we don't have a wealth tax. We don't have a tax that meets the textbook definition of a wealth tax. But of course, we tax the wealthy in lots of different ways. And these 90% rates that you mentioned, nobody actually paid those. That was a headline rate with lots of deductions and ways around it. The total tax take in the 1950s and 60s was far lower than it is today. We are now at historic peacetime highs. We have historically high, abnormally high level of taxation and government spending right now. It's gone up even in the last six years compared to just before the pandemic. We now have government spending of 45% of GDP up from about 40%. Where again, you have to ask, where do we see the improvement? Where are the public services that have improved? Taxes are already abnormally high. And when it comes to, okay, this is mostly income and consumption, but we also have taxes on assets. We have capital gains tax. We have inheritance tax. We have transfer taxes, so stamp duty on share ownership transfer. None of those are technically wealth taxes. But we have lots of, say, roundabout ways of taxing wealth. And actually, Britain already raises more from these taxes than other economies in the OECD, including, actually, countries that have a technical wealth tax. So Switzerland has one. They raise about 1% of GDP from their wealth tax. But they have, in other ways, they have a tax system that is much lighter on either the income rich or the asset rich. So if we could import the Swiss system wholesale with the wealth tax, then yes, I would take that as a package deal. But not the wealth tax in isolation. In isolation, that's a terrible idea. I mean, wealth taxes, that's the thing about them. They have been tried many, many times before. This is not a remotely new idea. Until the early '90s, half of Western Europe had wealth taxes. I grew up in a country that had a wealth tax at the time. There are good reasons why they were abolished. The reason is simply that they are complete bureaucratic nightmares. You barely raise any money once you subtract the bureaucracy cost, the cost of simply valuing all the assets. That alone, that swallows up, that requires such a massive bureaucracy. And even a lot of supporters of wealth taxes concede that point. And that's why even Gabriel Zugmann, the economist, I think you had him on your channel, he is the guru of wealth taxation. Even he concedes that point. Even he said wealth taxes so far have been a failure. We are in complete agreement on this. The only point on which I differ from his views is that he thinks it's going to work next time. He says, he thinks, well, we just have to tweak it a little bit. Real wealth taxes have never been tried. Next time it will be great, whereas I'm saying, what we've seen, that's as good as it gets. [00:20:21] Speaker 1: Tom, you know, it's interesting. In New York, I go there a lot and you've got Mayor Zora Mandani, who crashed into power and took everyone by surprise and has carried on surprising people. A lot of people are liking what they hear from him. This was his 250th birthday message to the United States. It went viral at the weekend. [00:20:41] Speaker 6: As we mark 250 years, what do we see? We see a city of contradictions within a nation of contradictions. We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world, one where children go to sleep hungry while the world's first trillionaire hungers for more. We see monopolies that dominate every industry and oligarchs who buy elections. We see mass agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans. We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt streaked hands, those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone. And we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of a precious few. [00:21:28] Speaker 1: I mean, Tom, you know, it could be American version of Gary there. [00:21:36] Speaker 5: No, very much so. And as a matter of fact, there are some contradictions in there. He was pointed out on social media that he was actually sitting at the desk backwards. Apparently, that's George Washington's desk, one of the artifacts of the early Capitol in New York. And he was actually sitting there backwards. He later came out and said, oh, no, no, that was supposed to be symbolic. Well, we're not buying it, just like people are not buying the rest of the story. Down here in Florida, we are seeing people move from New York. And I'm not talking about billionaires. I'm not talking about Citadel. I'm talking about people that are coming down here that are saying what's about to happen to my home and the property tax in New York. And a gentleman that said I was a plumber. I had three units that I was renting in Jamaica. And then I had a house that I'd stayed in so many years in Astoria. I have found out with the rent controls and things you're going to have. I have to get out now because we're all assuming that the property values are going to go down because of the rental environment that Mandami is going to create. Well, that may make it nice for people to find cheap housing. But what will the quality of that housing be? And those very people, regular middle class people looking for retirement that are prematurely selling their real estate and coming down to Florida. Well, I've seen it with my own eyes. And in terms of wealth tax, Christian, I'll tell you something that just broke over the weekend. Ro Khanna, who, Pierce, I know you know him, politician from California, proponent of the wealth tax that's on the ballot coming in November. Over the weekend, he said, it's not billionaires. I'm taking it all the way down to 50 million. This is exactly what people said, that as soon as you give the government a knob, they're going to turn it and they're going to turn it against the middle class. 50 million dollars in they haven't even got to the election yet. And it's already 50 million dollars. The good news, they're taxing the rich. The bad news, tomorrow, you're rich. [00:23:31] Speaker 1: Right. That's an interesting question, Gary, because what is your idea of rich? I mean, let me be blunt. How much are you worth, for example? [00:23:38] Speaker 2: I haven't got a spreadsheet, but I'm not a billionaire. You know what you're worth. I don't know what I'm worth. Listen, I'm a millionaire. I'm a multimillionaire. [00:23:44] Speaker 1: You know what, you presume you know what taxes you pay and what income that's based on them. [00:23:48] Speaker 2: That's the question from my accountant, to be honest. Are you shy about revealing your wealth? I don't have to work again. I can go to Nando's whenever I want this. [00:23:55] Speaker 1: Well, okay. Let me give you a ball. Are you 5 million, 10 million, 20 million, 50 million? How much are you worth? Well, you go first. [00:24:02] Speaker 2: No, you're asking the question. You go first. [00:24:04] Speaker 1: Well, no, because you're the one who's written the whole book about- No, you tell me. How much are you worth, Peter? You've written the whole book about wealth taxes. [00:24:07] Speaker 2: I'm not- That's not my- Listen, please. That's a personal question. How much are you worth? Well, no, I'm asking you. Yeah, I'll be, please. How much are you worth? When you have your own show, you can get me on and ask me. Well, listen, I'll show you mine if you show me yours. Why are you uncomfortable about just saying what it is? Because that's a personal question, mate. Listen, I'm a millionaire. I'm a millionaire. [00:24:23] Speaker 1: If you're writing a whole book in which you want people like me to pay more tax, it's fine. [00:24:27] Speaker 2: So you're worth more than 10, aren't you? More than? You're worth more than 10, aren't you? More than? 10 million quid. Well, I won't go into the details, but I certainly think- Oh, so why should I then? [00:24:36] Speaker 1: I certainly think you are aiming people like me- Listen, I'm in the comments, Piers. So I don't think it's an unreasonable question, given that you're the one that wants to make people like me pay more tax, which is fine. I've got no problem with you wanting to do that. But it's interesting to me that you're a little bit diffident about where you place yourself in the world. [00:24:53] Speaker 2: Because, Piers, I'll be honest, Piers, I'm sick of this. I'm tired. I'm tired. I come out every day. I bet on the collapse of our society. I write every year. I don't want it to collapse. And every day, it's the fucking Gary Stevenson show. I'm bored of it. I'm bored of it. [00:25:05] Speaker 1: You literally do the Gary Stevenson show, don't you? [00:25:07] Speaker 2: And the Gary Stevenson show is about- [00:25:08] Speaker 1: And you've got a documentary, which you want to hammer rich people and make them pay more tax. [00:25:11] Speaker 2: Listen, it's about economics education. Listen, the public- [00:25:14] Speaker 1: Which again, I have no problem with you wanting to do that. Yeah. But it is a little bit contradictory that you're so reluctant to tell us at least what you're personally worth. [00:25:22] Speaker 2: That's right. If your house is on fire and the fireman comes, do you ask him how much he's worth? Well, there's no parallel, is there? No, there is, because that's what I am. Listen, I'm the best inequality economist in this country. And I'm telling you very clearly, if you do not fix this, poverty will explode. And listen, it's up to the British public- [00:25:37] Speaker 1: Okay, look, but look, when you say that, and there are people that agree with you. Yeah. But interestingly to me, people on the left have criticized you. So Professor Richard Murphy, the economist and founder of the Tax Justice Network, said on his website, let's be clear about this, the wealth tax that Gary seems to promote is not going to happen because he has no idea how it can happen. And there's no one who can explain how it might work to him or for him. As a consequence, however much noise he might make, people are wasting their time supporting his cause and the other organizations promoting this idea. So he's not on the right, he's on the left, this guy. So you've had criticism like that from both sides. Rory Stewart called you out as a pseudo-economist. You said his comments were scandalous and did eventually get an apology. But you know, these allegations come at you. To me, it would be a really interesting exercise to just say to people, I'm worth this. And I think I should pay this amount of tax. I'd find that quite powerful if you did that. But when you look a little bit shifty about it, I'm like, well, hang on, you are branding yourself the great economist of our time. Yeah. Your whole premise is taking money from wealthy people and redistributing it. Fine. But why not just be candid about your own wealth status? Because I'm tired, Piers. Well, you won't be tired. You should just get more sleep. I'm tired. I was up all night watching England. [00:27:01] Speaker 2: Well done. I come out every day and I campaign for greater taxation of the richest people in the world. And I get attacked by the richest and most powerful people in the world. And if I'm totally honest, Piers... I don't know how to attack you. If I'm totally honest, Piers... I'm not attacking you. If I'm totally honest, Piers, it's scary. It's scary being me. And it's scary being attacked by the biggest newspapers and the richest people in the world. And I don't want them to know where I live. And I don't want them to know how much I'm worth. And I don't want them to know what tax I pay. I don't want them to know my mum's made the name. I don't want them to know where my mum lives. [00:27:26] Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think if you don't mind me saying, look, I used to run obviously a daily newspaper. Yeah. If you're going to put yourself up there on the parapet as the great economist of our time. Yeah. With all the solutions. And the main solution is taking money from wealthy people. Obviously, they're going to get pissed off. [00:27:41] Speaker 2: Yeah. [00:27:41] Speaker 1: But also, they're going to want to know, well, how does this work? What's motivating you? How rich are you? Yeah. How much more are you going to pay? And all these kind of things. I don't think they're unreasonable questions. I don't think it's like an attack. It's more like, well, come on. You're the guy that wants to be the knight in shining armour. So come on. Piers, I don't want to be on the parapet. I wish I didn't have to be on the parapet. [00:28:00] Speaker 2: But you put yourself on the parapet. Yeah, listen, what did I do before I was on the parapet? I was at university. You do books. You do a YouTube show. Where was I before that? [00:28:08] Speaker 1: I can't think of a bigger parapet. [00:28:09] Speaker 2: Where was I before that, Piers? Well, you were in the world of making money. No, I was at university. I was two years at Oxford studying inequality. And what I want to be, to be honest, is in a library with smart people figuring out how to build a wealth tax. But nobody's forcing you to do high-profile stuff. No, nobody. I'll tell you, nobody is. Nobody is. No. But if I was in the university... So why are you complaining about it? No, I'm not complaining about it. You are. [00:28:31] Speaker 1: If I was in the university... You're complaining a little bit like you want the old violin out. Woe is me. My life is tough. Everyone's criticising me. To which I'm like, if you're going to come out with quite dramatic economic policy, and you believe fundamentally this is the solution, you've got to be prepared to take criticism for it. [00:28:47] Speaker 2: I know, and I'll take a lot of criticism for it. But listen, I don't do this for me. I don't do this for you. Listen, I know that if we don't deal with growing inequality, then ordinary British people will fall into further and further desperate poverty. And I know that's going to happen. And I see it happening. And they see it happening. I don't want it to happen. I come out here. I tell them, if you don't want your kids to be poor, you need to deal with this growing inequality. The only way to deal with that is growing taxation. And you want to know how much I'm worth. You know what I mean? You want to know who my girlfriend is. I don't care who your girlfriend is. Honestly, I don't really care. Unless it's Tim Kardashian or something. Listen, I'm quitting soon. Really? Yeah, because I'm tired of it. I'm tired of the Gary Stevenson show. I don't want it anymore. What I want is for this country not to fall into poverty. I've told my piece. If you want to understand what I think about the economy, go watch my YouTube. There's 200 videos there explaining in great detail the economy. But you know a lot of economists. We've got two of them here, right? Yeah, yeah. [00:29:37] Speaker 1: They think a lot of what you're saying is bullshit. [00:29:40] Speaker 2: Yeah, and Christian Nemitz is paid by billionaires to argue. Oh, who funds you? Who funds your think tank? [00:29:47] Speaker 7: Well, I mean, you can look at the website. The people who don't mind their name in the public domain. We publish them. And many don't. Many don't. Because they don't want just the oil and extinction rebellion showing up at your door. For the same reason that you said you don't want details about you in the public domain because you have a bonus. The same is true. Okay, well, all right. [00:30:04] Speaker 2: So Christian is not denying or confirming whether he is paid for by billionaires. I'm not being paid for this. I turn up for free. Listen, if I was doing this for money. But you make money for everything. If I was doing this for money, there'd be another book, wouldn't there, Piers? You know that. My book was the number one best in the country last year. I could get paid a lot of money to write another book. Instead, I'm on here having you ask me about my financial situation. I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here, Piers. Well, no one's forcing you. No, no one's forcing me, but I do it for the people of this country. Because I don't want them to fall into poverty. [00:30:31] Speaker 1: Yes, but my point to you, Gary, would be you're coming out with very controversial ideas, which many people in the world of economics think are simply unworkable. And that's on my left and right. [00:30:42] Speaker 2: And many people think that they are workable. Have Gabriel Zucman on. Listen, I'm the biggest public campaigner for this. I work incredibly hard to make people aware of this. I am not the guy. Why are you so defensive? Because you're asking me very personal questions. It's not that personal. [00:30:55] Speaker 1: You write a book about taking money off the rich. I said, how rich are you? [00:30:58] Speaker 2: Well, so if it's not personal, if it's not personal, Piers, if you tell me how much you're worth, I will tell you how much I'm worth. But I'm not the one who's coming out with all these policies wanting to take. Do you think it's not a personal question? I don't care. So tell me then. No, I'm asking you. I'm the interviewer. Listen, listen, I'm tired of this. You don't have to ask them. I do find the overly defensive. No, it's a personal question. Listen, have you read my book? Have you read my book? Huh? Have you read my book? I read some of your book, yeah. So it's in there exactly how much I've earned. It's all in there. Why don't I just say it? Because I'm tired of the Gary Stevenson gossip show. Honestly, Piers, I wish I could come on here and we could have a sensible, intelligent conversation about economics. We are. So what has my wealth got to do with the global economy, Piers? [00:31:36] Speaker 1: I just think it's quite interesting that some... I actually think it's more interesting you don't want to say it than it would be if you did. If you said to me, after all your stuff, trading and books, if you said I'm worth 5 million, 10 million, 20 million, I'd be like, yeah. Listen, Piers, I'm getting older. I'm getting older, I'm tired. It's the overly defensive body language. Piers, I'm tired. I'm going to quit if you keep asking me these nasty questions. I'm going to quit because I'm tired. What's making you like that? Why not just own it? [00:32:02] Speaker 2: Because I'm tired, Piers. I'm tired of coming out and watching the world burn every single year. I'm betting on it and make money on it. You know, I just... I'm saying my piece. I'm educating the public. I've got a YouTube there. I've made a documentary. Go and watch it. I would like for you to watch it. I would like for you to watch it. I would like the public to understand why they're getting poorer and then do something about it. [00:32:19] Speaker 1: Christian, you summarised Gary's stances. I bet money on my predictions. I'm rich, therefore I'm always right. And you're an egghead economist with an economic 101 textbook. You said that about Gary. So is that how you view what's going on here? [00:32:34] Speaker 7: Well, that is a line of defence that you always use. You're saying you're betting on particular economic outcomes and make money in that way. Nobody can verify that. That's easy to say. And then... [00:32:44] Speaker 2: Well, watch my YouTube predictions. They're there. You can go and watch June 2020, my first YouTube video. I predicted the cost of living crisis, the inflation crisis. Yes, so did an IEA publication at the time. The gold prices. [00:32:54] Speaker 7: That doesn't mean that you're right about the mechanism. You know, you haven't shown that inequality is the reason for that. So, of course, if you had bet on poor economic outcomes for the last 18 years, you would have been right most of the time. But that doesn't mean that you're right for the right reason. It would be a bit like, say, somebody betting on a Brexit outcome. [00:33:12] Speaker 2: I'm right on all of the specifics. House prices, austerity, gold price, stock price, inflation crisis. It's a lot of specific predictions. [00:33:19] Speaker 7: We have an asset deflation right now. You know, it has gone up or gone down by a fifth. [00:33:23] Speaker 2: I mean, none of that would have been that difficult to predict with a pandemic, would it? Well, I've made an awful lot of money predicting it, just like I did in 2011. Yeah. Listen, it's very easy. To be honest, I really miss the trading floor. I miss the space where I can come on and debate people like you. And you say, yeah, you're right for the wrong reasons. And I say, well, let's bet on the future. Do you think our living standards are going to improve in this country? Marginally, yes. Like they have all the past. Okay, well, you're going to be wrong. [00:33:45] Speaker 1: Do you? The living standards will improve. I think it depends entirely on government policy. [00:33:50] Speaker 2: What policies are important? [00:33:51] Speaker 1: I would immediately call a referendum and take us back into the European Union. [00:33:54] Speaker 2: Okay, so that's not going to happen. You think we're going to... Well, why can't it happen? Well, you think it will happen? [00:33:59] Speaker 1: No, why can't it happen? Well, I'm not saying it can't. You asked me what I would do. Yeah. I think that's been one of the single most self-destructive things that any government has done in my lifetime. Okay, so you think we... I was quite phlegmatic when it happened. I voted to remain, but was happy to be proven wrong. And here we are 10 years later. It's clearly been a massively damaging act of self-harm. So if I was Andy Burnham coming into number 10, I actually think, given he was against it to start with, I would say, look, I'm just going to ask the British public a simple question, right? Do you still believe in this? Or do you think it hasn't worked? It's been an act of self-harm. I'll ask the question. And if you overwhelmingly say you think it's been a bad thing, then we'll go back into the European Union. [00:34:42] Speaker 2: So we'll try and reform them from within. What you're saying is you're not going to make a prediction. [00:34:46] Speaker 1: I'm saying that government policy can often determine a country's economic fortune. [00:34:50] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's the same thing I'm saying. [00:34:51] Speaker 1: And so I think there's been, we have been... Okay, let me ask you a question. We've endured a lot of very mediocre governments for a long time. [00:34:56] Speaker 2: Let's consider the US and Europe, which don't have the situations of Brexit. Do you think living sounds will improve in those countries? They might, depending on the leaders and their policies. [00:35:04] Speaker 1: What do you think are the important policies? I think the important policies, I mean, I take a different view to you, where I've not seen much evidence around the world, where if all you do... I'll give an example. I call it the politics of envy. The VAT on private schools, when that first came out, I said, well, you know what happened in Greece? Of course, none of them knew what I was talking about. I was on question time. And I said, well, in Greece, they brought in VAT on private schools. And two things happened. One, a lot of the schools shut down because it was a step too far for them on their financial models. And secondly, all the kids at these schools then got flooded into the state system and overwhelmed it. So it failed on every single level. And it raised, I'll call, money. So my point being, that's what I call the politics of envy. I'm not saying that if you ask the British public, I think there's a poll. You said there was a poll, 4,142 British adults found that 75% of the public support a wealth tax along with many. I'm sure we do. If you've got no money, the first thought you might have is an envious one of people with lots of money and take some of that and redistribute it. I would say, for example, let's look at Elon Musk. Do you think he's a force for good or bad? Put aside his comments on X and the political stuff. But in terms of the businesses he's created, the jobs he's created, the number of people who benefit from being in his orbit, would you think he's a force for good? And the nature of the businesses. So we look at Neuralink, let's look at Tesla, let's look at SpaceX, you know. In other words, do you think overwhelmingly he's a force for good or not? [00:36:35] Speaker 2: So Elon Musk is a trillionaire. So if he makes 10%. Put that to one side for a moment. [00:36:40] Speaker 1: Do you think he's a force for good in job creation and the kind of businesses he's created? Which he would say, Gary, come on mate, what more do you want me to do? I'm bringing in green energy cars to millions and millions of people. I'm creating Neuralink so that people who are paraplegic can communicate. SpaceX is going to revolutionize so many things in the world. I'm using it in Ukraine so they can communicate better. I want to take this to Mars. And he said, Gary, why do you hate me? Why do you want to take all my money? Why do you want to punish my success? And I'm not sure what the answer is. [00:37:13] Speaker 2: The answer is, if you have a trillionaire, these guys are going to make every year, passive income, something like 100 billion quid. [00:37:21] Speaker 1: Why should that be yours? [00:37:23] Speaker 2: I don't want it to be mine. [00:37:24] Speaker 1: Why shouldn't he get the due reward for what he's creating? [00:37:27] Speaker 2: If you allow there to be untaxed trillionaires, then they will be buying an enormous amount of assets every year and it will drive asset prices up. And it will squeeze out other elements of society. And what you'll see is what we are seeing, which is the working class and the middle class and the government will lose their wealth. It's a simple mass. These guys... Yeah, I think they're a horrible people. I think they're a horrible... Please, come on, let me finish. Of course. Please, please, come on. Listen, you bring me out here, let me speak. Mate, stop playing the victim. It doesn't suit you. Listen, I'm going to speak on... Playing the victim in the old violin, so it doesn't work with me. Listen, if you let this guy grow his wealth at that rate, at that rapid, rapid rate, in economies which are going one or two percent, then purely mathematically, over the long run, over even the medium run, they will own everything. This is simply a question of, do you want the British public? Do you own stocks? Yeah, I do, yeah. And you invest in the stock market? Yeah, of course I do. [00:38:11] Speaker 1: So what are you doing that's any different? [00:38:13] Speaker 2: I'm not a trillionaire. [00:38:14] Speaker 1: And I'm campaigning for wealth tax. The big difference is... You're not as successful, but you are investing in companies and hoping to make a profit. [00:38:22] Speaker 2: And there's nothing wrong with doing that, Piers. The difference is, I want to have a system which does not drive average people to poverty. [00:38:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. Yeah. It's how you get there. If you do not... Most economists I've talked to, most successful people say, Yeah. The best way to do that is stimulate growth. Most rich people tell you... Growth ultimately is the most potent trickle-down thing any society can have. Do you think you're... If you have economic growth, everybody will benefit. Piers, do you think your viewers believe that? I think they haven't seen growth for so long, they're not quite sure what it looks like or what it feels like. Do you think life is getting better for you, the average person in this country? No, because I think we've had crap governments with crap economic policies. All right. And we've been hit by other things which have... And what's your plan? What's your plan? How do you fix it? Well, when I run for Prime Minister, I'll let you know my plan. Are you going to do that? Including my personal finances. Yeah? Yeah, because I sincerely hope I'm more successful than you. [00:39:09] Speaker 2: Well, you probably are. We'll find out when you tell me how rich you are. Well, I'll do that when you tell me. Will you? Go on. If I tell you how rich I am, you'll tell me how rich you are to the nearest five. [00:39:21] Speaker 1: Nearest five. [00:39:22] Speaker 2: Promise? [00:39:24] Speaker 1: Go on then. [00:39:25] Speaker 2: You will? Go on then. And you won't lie. You promise? [00:39:27] Speaker 1: I won't lie, I won't lie. [00:39:28] Speaker 2: All right, five. Five? Yeah. That's not... You've got more than five million. Tell me. [00:39:34] Speaker 1: More than you. Tell me. Tell me. More than you. Tell me. You said to the nearest five. I've got more than you. That's not to the nearest five. You fell for my trick. Come on, Piers, tell me. It's to your nearest five. Piers, are you lying to your audience? You promised to tell me. I have more than you. So my point to you is... To the nearest five, please. So my point to you, Gary, is you... Why are you lying? So I'm not lying. You said you'd say. I said I've got more than you. But you want to take my money. I don't want to take your money. And I'm perfectly entitled in that circumstance to ask you quite tough questions about why and why you think it will work, particularly when economists are on here who don't think it will work. [00:40:08] Speaker 2: Okay. [00:40:08] Speaker 1: So they think it sounds good. [00:40:10] Speaker 2: Piers, you've promised me you'd tell me. Yeah, I just told you. More than you. To the nearest five. Let me bring in Tom. To the nearest five, Piers. Piers, to the nearest five. [00:40:17] Speaker 1: Let me bring in Tom. Come on. Compared to your five. Piers, that's very dishonest. Compared to your five more than you. I'm not the one lecturing people about, you know, wealth taxes. [00:40:26] Speaker 2: But you lied on your own show, Piers. [00:40:28] Speaker 1: How do you feel about that? I'm not lying to anyone. Oh, comedy. Let me ask the biz doc here. Tom, how much are you worth? [00:40:39] Speaker 5: Americans are normally quite proud, as you say. Oh, boy. You know, we can have my accountant on next time. And, you know, Piers, obviously you're too successful. We should take you back to BBC and make you a weekend weatherman. Exactly. We need to penalize you because you've been so successful. So, no. And by the way, about Elon Musk, there's a fable here. The word trillionaire is being paraded about almost as, you know, doom porn. Oh, trillionaire, he's going to make this kind of interest. He's going to be buying this up. Let's look at Elon Musk. You brought Elon Musk, not me. Let's look at him. 2002, eBay buys PayPal. And then Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn, Peter Thiel, Palantir, Elon Musk. They all go their way with a lot of capital. What does Elon Musk do? In a matter of months, in 2003, he launched Tesla. In 2010, he then floated the company, IPO in American speak. He then, what did he do? If we had said, that's it, PayPal, Tesla, you've had too much success. Time to take it. Time to turn it down. You've gone far enough. We don't want you to get interest on that and do it. He didn't take the interest on that. You know what he did? He went out and built more companies, including SpaceX in 2019. And you know what he did with that? With Starlink specifically? Starlink, guess what happened? In 2022, when Prime Minister Fedorov made an urgent call from the Ukraine and said, communications have been knocked out by the Russians in the early days of the war. Will you give us Starlink? Exactly. And I'm emphasizing the point. Yeah. If I stop Elon Musk because I said he had too much, we never get Starlink. [00:42:21] Speaker 1: Yeah. [00:42:21] Speaker 5: And to say, he's just got a trillion dollars. He's going to sit on it like a mountain of money. He's going to move interest and look around and say, what can he buy? That is a partial argument. Gary, come down to Fort Lauderdale. Sit with Pat and I. Let's talk about solutions. We're trying to put solutions out. It would actually be interesting to watch you do that. We want a consulting company. [00:42:41] Speaker 1: They have a very nice setup down there. I went down there a few months ago. It was great. They took very good care of me and you'll have a good time. But it would be an interesting debate. Christian, Polymarket says the next UK chance of his check is likely to be Ed Miliband. He's just under 40% of the money that's going in on that in the prediction markets. Many seem as the ultimate green socialist. A guy that is a sort of net zero zealot and would be a bit disastrous for us. What's your view of people like Ed Miliband? [00:43:09] Speaker 7: Well, I'm not going to comment on individual politicians. It is, of course, possible that the next government, whatever the exact complexion of it is going to be, it is possible that they will be sympathetic to the idea of a wealth tax party, because it polls very well. It does very well on YouGov and other polling companies. And because they are in a difficult fiscal situation. So we still have a massive budget deficit. They don't really want to raise taxes that most people can see. So it could well be that as a populist gimmick, a government will say, yes, we will introduce a wealth tax because most people think, oh, that's got nothing to do with me. I'll never pay it. It's just that what's then going to happen is, well, it could be the same thing as in the 1970s. Labour government in the 70s also wanted to introduce a wealth tax. And then once they started to look at the practicalities, once they had their civil servants trying to draw up a plan, they realized this isn't worth it. This is more trouble than it's worth. We are going to need such a massive bureaucracy to do the valuation. And that takes us back to, you know, I'm not interested in how wealthy either of you two are. But I believe both of you when you say that you can't tell the exact figure that you wouldn't know. It's just that that is true of most asset owners. They don't know the exact figure. And that all of that wealth has to be valued. That is the big difference between asset taxation and taxes on income or consumption. If I sell something to you for, say, £100, of course, the taxman can say, right, I want 20% of that. But if you own an asset and it's never been sold or it hasn't been sold for 10 years or 20 years, whatever, how are you going to value it? You are going to need an army of bureaucrats running around the country trying to value everything. So how much is this building in which we're filming this? How much is this worth? I guess nobody knows. I'm sure you can find an estate agent who is going to value it for a lot of money. But that is the problem with wealth taxes. You need a massive bureaucracy. [00:44:55] Speaker 1: OK, so my question, Gary, finally for you, so you said you're worth about £5 million. And your argument is the wealthy people in the world should pay, like the interest they make on that money just comes in. So how much do you make a year from that? [00:45:10] Speaker 2: Well, again, it's a question from my accountant, isn't it? Do you know roughly? I mean... Well, I'll probably make about 5% on it, won't I? [00:45:16] Speaker 1: 5%. And do you give that away? Do you redistribute it or what do you do? [00:45:19] Speaker 2: No, I use it for me, so I can have a family, so I can have kids one day. Yeah, of course. As do you know? [00:45:25] Speaker 1: So your lecture is to the wealthy, you should give away your interest you make. But when it comes to you, Gary Stevenson, no, because you've got your family to take care of. I mean, do you understand how people don't watch that and go, but you're just a hypocrite. [00:45:39] Speaker 2: Piers, I'm not here to talk to the wealthy. I'm here to talk to your viewers. I'm here to talk to your viewers. I get it. I think my viewers will be thinking, well, hang on, you want other wealthy people to give their interest away, but you want to keep all yours, because you've got a family to feed. Piers, I'm here to talk to your viewers whose kids will live in poverty. I'm here to tell them the quite simple economic fact... [00:45:59] Speaker 1: They quite like some of the interests that you want to take away from other wealthy people. I'm here to talk to the quite... [00:46:03] Speaker 2: They're quite like some of yours. I'm here to tell them the quite simple economic fact, which is if we do not do anything about top-end taxation... That's about 250 grand a year, isn't it? ...then the kids will live in poverty. [00:46:10] Speaker 1: Just doing the massive top, mate. [00:46:11] Speaker 2: Listen, I'll pay my tax and I will pay my tax. And if there's a wealth tax that affects me, I won't pay it. [00:46:15] Speaker 1: I don't mean that. I mean, the interest that you talk about, that wealthy people should... You mentioned with Elon Musk, he makes all this interest, he should just give it away. But you don't. [00:46:23] Speaker 2: I'm not telling anybody to give anything away. I'm telling the poor, if you do not stand up for a fairer tax system, your kids will be poor. You need to fix the tax system. Here's where I'll agree with you. Simple as that. Here's where I'll agree with you. [00:46:33] Speaker 1: I agree with you that there is a big poverty issue. I do agree there is a massive wealth equality issue. The bit that I'm not so convinced about is your solution. And that's why it's an interesting debate. I like the fact you do what you do. I don't think you should give up. I think you should carry on doing what you're doing. I think you should be a bit less defensive about it. You should be a bit more open and just say, look, this is the deal with me. I think you should as well. You've promised to tell us how wealthy you are. But I'm not the one doing all the books, documentaries and YouTube channels about taking money for the wealthy. [00:47:01] Speaker 2: You promised today to your viewers. I said, I've got more than you. To the nearest five. That's not a number, Piers. Huh? That's not a number, Piers. [00:47:10] Speaker 1: I just don't want to make you feel bad about all that hard work you put in. [00:47:13] Speaker 2: Is it really big? How big is it? [00:47:14] Speaker 1: I just... You know, size isn't everything, Gareth. Yeah. Let's leave it there. I said absolutely no one ever. Lovely to see you all. Interesting debate. Don't give up, Gareth. You should be stimulating this debate. I think it's interesting. But don't be quite so defensive. You don't need to be. Just put it out there, what you want to do. Let the economists pick it up. And let's hopefully get a Prime Minister of this country in particular who can have some bloody decent economic policies which stimulate growth and help everybody. That would be great. On that positive mode, I will end this debate. Thank you all very much. Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent. The only boss around here is me. If you enjoy our show, we ask for only one simple thing. Hit subscribe on YouTube and follow Piers Morgan Uncensored on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And in return, we will continue our mission to inform, irritate and entertain. And we'll do it all for free. Independent, uncensored media has never been more critical. 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