- há 13 minutos
Ex-trader, economist and social media sensation Gary Stevenson says the growing wealth gap is the root of many of the UK’s problems. And he knows what to do about it: tax the filthy rich.
Categoria
🗞
NotíciasTranscrição
00:00:02Are you worried about what might happen to inequality if rich people increasingly stop
00:00:07paying taxes? You have an obsession with this solving inequality. The world is going to be
00:00:12unequal. Why is it only rich people are supposed to not look out for their own interests?
00:00:16Why is it that rich people are supposed to suddenly be high-minded for everybody else?
00:00:20Is everyone else looking out for them? I'm Gary Stevenson. The rich middle class is dying,
00:00:26their wealth is being sucked away and is being owned by an international super rich elite.
00:00:31I believe the economy is rigged in favour of the rich. People can't afford homes because they are
00:00:36being out-competed, they are being squeezed out by this growing super rich class. Growing wealth
00:00:40inequality means working people are suffering. We had a flat before this. People are moving
00:00:45into vans because they have to. While many are struggling, people are having to make a decision
00:00:51on whether they eat or whether they stay warm. The super rich get richer. I've got 24 houses,
00:00:56about 3,000 acres of land. I own 10 properties in the UK, worth well over a hundred million.
00:01:04I grew up working class, but I became a millionaire at 25. Now I fight against the inequality affecting
00:01:12our society. If we do not do anything about this system, then very, very quickly the billionaires
00:01:17will own everything and you will own nothing. Of course, a lot of people disagree with me.
00:01:23Absolute populist claptrap. I saw some guy, I don't know his name, skinny little dipshit,
00:01:29begging for the government to tax us more. With one global shock after another, how the economy
00:01:34works is more important than ever. I think people don't understand what's going wrong in the economy
00:01:40and it frightens them. I'm going to tell you how I think we should fix our broken system.
00:01:45If you think this doesn't affect you, you're wrong. This economic crisis of growing inequality
00:01:50and falling living standards is going to get worse and worse. And why so many of us feel
00:01:55poor, while some keep getting filthy rich. London's One Hyde Park is one of Britain's most exclusive
00:02:16private residential addresses. This ultra high end, lavish development boasts 86 luxury apartments,
00:02:23a private cinema, and a tunnel to a nearby Michelin-starred restaurant.
00:02:30I'm here to meet international business entrepreneur and Reform Party donor Basim Haider
00:02:36at the home he recently snapped up for a reported £42 million.
00:02:43Hey, Gary. Hi. Nice to meet you.
00:02:45Very nice to meet you.
00:02:45Nice to meet you, Basim.
00:02:46Yes. How are you? Come on in.
00:02:48Thanks for inviting us in.
00:02:50You're welcome.
00:02:51Would you like some tea or...?
00:02:53Yeah, sure.
00:02:54Why not. Thank you very much.
00:02:56This is Avi.
00:02:57Hi. Nice to meet you.
00:02:59Gary.
00:02:59Hi, Gary.
00:03:00Born to Lebanese parents, Basim was raised in Nigeria, where he made his fortune in telecommunications
00:03:06before settling in the UK in 2010. His business interests stretch across continents. Most recently,
00:03:14he founded a medicinal cannabis company in South Africa. He's very, very rich. Some reports
00:03:21have him as a billionaire.
00:03:23This is kind of the main lounge.
00:03:26That's a dramatic view, isn't it?
00:03:27Yeah.
00:03:29So, when it snows, it's quite nice, and I think more in the summer, you know, with the green.
00:03:34Get running in this park much?
00:03:36No.
00:03:37Yeah, I do enough exercise here. The building is actually quite nice. A lot of facilities,
00:03:40the gym, the swimming pool.
00:03:42Yeah.
00:03:42We have a golf simulator.
00:03:44Please.
00:03:45Looks like a nice sofa.
00:03:48I used to work at DFS. Do you know DFS?
00:03:50Yeah, of course. But they're always on sale, no? At DFS.
00:03:53Well, that's the secret.
00:03:54It's a joke that it always, like, yeah.
00:03:57But I don't think we had this one.
00:03:59So, we come from the same background, anyway.
00:04:01Okay.
00:04:01Because I came from a super poor family. I was selling cars while in university, and that's
00:04:07how I started. And I had no capital, basically. But I did think of a small idea in the telecom
00:04:13sector that I thought, maybe this could work. And it did work very well. I took all the
00:04:18risk. I spent all the money that I had saved and started my first little business. Then
00:04:22I went into the oil business, financial technology, then, you know, real estate and so on. And
00:04:28then 20 years later, I expanded internationally and started to operate in more than 42 countries.
00:04:34There's, like, conflicting ideas on the internet about whether you're a billionaire or not. I don't
00:04:39know if you are.
00:04:41But it doesn't matter.
00:04:42I mean, I would be interested. But whether you are or not. But yeah, I'm interested to
00:04:46know, like, what the life of a billionaire or a near-billionaire is like. Would you mind
00:04:50telling us a little bit about what you own? I've heard you own a lot of property in the
00:04:56UK, a lot of properties in the UK.
00:04:58Can you tell us, like, how many properties or what it's worth?
00:05:00Around 10 properties, well over 100 million in properties in the UK.
00:05:04Okay. How much does your wealth grow on average each year?
00:05:07It depends. I mean, in some years, it grew 50%. In some years, it grew 1%. In some years,
00:05:12it didn't grow. It had a negative growth.
00:05:13I mean, obviously, you can make 5% in, you know, some government bonds. So I guess we're
00:05:17talking more than that.
00:05:18No, no, no. I don't. Anything below 12, 13%, I'm not interested. I don't look at.
00:05:23And 12, 13% of even 1 billion pounds would be 120, 130 million pounds.
00:05:29But that's, yeah, but then I reinvest. So I'm constantly reinvesting. I'm constantly
00:05:35building stuff.
00:05:36In the UK and in Europe, we have sort of growth of 1%. And then we have a billionaire class
00:05:42whose wealth is growing at sort of 12, 13%.
00:05:44Because we invest smartly. You see, if governments invested smartly, they would also grow like
00:05:49that.
00:05:49My concern is, if we don't do anything about the rapidly growing wealth of the richest,
00:05:55what will happen is the disappearance of wealth in the rest of society. I think we're
00:05:59already seeing the collapse of government wealth, the collapse of working class wealth.
00:06:03I think we will next see the collapse of middle class wealth. And I'm worried about what that
00:06:08will mean for the future of ordinary working people. Do you think it would be fair for the
00:06:13richest people, people with the broadest shoulders, to pay more tax?
00:06:17I think this is more ideology than reality. I think the word broader shoulders, what does
00:06:23that actually mean? It doesn't mean anything in reality. I mean, you could have narrow shoulders
00:06:28today and tomorrow be wealthy. I don't think this is the solution.
00:06:31You know, here and around here, there's unbelievable luxury, unbelievable opulence for the people
00:06:37who can afford it. But you come to Ilford, where I grew up, people can't afford to turn
00:06:41the heating on. And I think the world and history shows us incredible wealth and luxury can frequently
00:06:48be surrounded by desperate poverty.
00:06:53And I fully agree with you, but I don't think we can blame the wealthy for that.
00:06:57I've built businesses and I've hired tens of thousands of people. I think we can blame
00:07:02governments for bad policies.
00:07:03Do you think the kind of wealth that you've managed to make is still something that is achievable
00:07:09or attainable for young people?
00:07:12But why not? I mean, what stops them? If they've got the right education, the right motivation,
00:07:19they're hungry, I think they will find a way.
00:07:25So for some, the way to get filthy rich is build businesses and buy as much as you can.
00:07:39Here's the problem as I see it. The rich are rapidly buying up more and more of the assets
00:07:44and wealth of this country. Property, land, businesses, homes. This concentration of wealth
00:07:50at the top pushes up prices and squeezes everybody else out. The richest 56 people in the UK now
00:07:57own as much as 27 million of the rest of us. Wealthy entrepreneurs like to claim that they're
00:08:02making all of us richer by building businesses and employing people. But do ordinary working
00:08:07people benefit? I don't think so.
00:08:15Since 2020, I've thrown myself into publicly calling out the dangers of inequality and stating
00:08:22my case for change. OK, welcome back to Gary's Economics for this special short video. I'm
00:08:29finally allowed to tell you I am filming a documentary with Channel 4. I want the public to be part
00:08:36of
00:08:36this film. And of course, I want to speak to the government, especially anyone in the Treasury.
00:08:41So come on, Rachel Rees, Darren Jones, Torsten Bell, you know who you are. Come here to my wonderful
00:08:47kitchen table and talk to us. Thank you. Happy that?
00:08:56I was a working class kid growing up in Ilford, East London, but I always wanted to be rich.
00:09:04I was very good at maths and I got a place at the prestigious London School of Economics,
00:09:10studying maths and economics.
00:09:13And that got me a job working as an interest rates trader for Citibank in Canary Wharf,
00:09:19starting in 2008, the year of the financial crisis.
00:09:26My job was essentially to bet on how fast the economy would recover. Economists and traders
00:09:33consistently predicted a rapid recovery. But when I went out and spoke to my friends and their families,
00:09:40what I saw was people who had no money to spend and were getting poorer over time. I became convinced
00:09:48that we had a structural crisis of inequality. So I bet aggressively against a rapid economic recovery.
00:09:55And I was right. And I became a millionaire at the age of 25. I didn't want to continue getting
00:10:01rich
00:10:02by betting that other people would get poor. So when I was 27, I quit that job. And ever since
00:10:08then,
00:10:09I've been working to try to educate the public about the dangers of growing inequality to the economy
00:10:16and to their lives.
00:10:22While the uber wealthy have seen their fortunes grow rapidly in recent years, wages for everyday
00:10:27working people are, in real terms, less than they were almost 20 years ago.
00:10:39I'm in Greater Manchester to meet Nathan and Vicky, parents to two young boys.
00:10:57How do you feel the mood is in the country as a whole and in this area where you live?
00:11:05I think people feel lost and they feel like there isn't a sense of direction.
00:11:09They don't understand what's going wrong in the economy and our communities. And it frightens them.
00:11:14I think there's a lot of fear. You know, we're going to become far more tribal. It's going to be
00:11:18far
00:11:18more you versus me. And that's a problem. How do you feel about the economy? The general cost of
00:11:25living is far, far more than it used to be relative to wages as well. What are your main
00:11:31expenditures? The mortgage, the energy bills, any time you want to go and take the kids out on a day
00:11:36trip. The weekly shop now I find when I'm going around the supermarket, I'm like, that only used to be
00:11:41this amount last week. And it's now gone up by sort of 20, 30p, which isn't massive on the grand
00:11:49scheme. But when it's doing that every couple of months and things are rising quite rapidly,
00:11:55it soon adds up. Is it difficult to feed a family of four? With two boys, yeah. Hungry boys.
00:12:02Yeah. So the essentials of childcare, food, mortgage, bills, is that taking up?
00:12:10A large amount of what we bring in. If we were to go down to one income,
00:12:15we wouldn't be able to afford the house, never mind any of the other luxuries.
00:12:19Does that worry you? Because obviously... The worry is, with two young kids,
00:12:23how's it going to be for them? Yeah. It's natural to want better for your kids than you get.
00:12:27And I think that's been the case for generations. You worry that... We're going the other way.
00:12:31OK. We're completely going the other way.
00:12:35In the last few years, the world of the super rich has grown at an unprecedented
00:12:39rate. In 2025 alone, the average billionaire grew their wealth by 231 million pounds each.
00:12:49At the same time, the working class are increasingly struggling to access even
00:12:54basic essentials such as food, housing and energy. And young people from even middle-class families
00:12:59are struggling to buy homes of their own. My name is Tom. I'm 38 years old,
00:13:05an immigrant to the UK, living in North Yorkshire. As part of this documentary,
00:13:09I asked people to send in videos explaining how the economy is affecting them.
00:13:14I have two jobs in the public sector. The second job, I may as well be doing it for free
00:13:19because
00:13:19it lifts me in the higher tax bracket and, of course, affects my child benefit.
00:13:24Many spoke about working hard but still finding things difficult.
00:13:28Everything costs so much. Even just keeping your vehicle on the road costs so much nowadays.
00:13:33Insurance costs so much. Tax costs so much. Feel like you've failed your family.
00:13:38It's a far cry from when I was a kid and my dad, who worked in a factory making televisions,
00:13:45early enough that my mum could stop working and look after me full time.
00:13:50I feel like the UK is becoming an increasingly more unequal place to live in. It's extremely unfair.
00:13:55Why am I being told to just work harder when the opportunities that I have are nowhere near the
00:14:00opportunities that people had 20, 30 years ago?
00:14:03We had to move in with my mother. So I'm a 43-year-old, successful manager,
00:14:11and we cannot afford to rent. We cannot afford to live.
00:14:25The UK is one of the richest countries in the world, but it doesn't always feel like that for
00:14:29a lot of people because inequality is so high. But I wasn't always this way.
00:14:35After World War II, there was a massive investment drive in housing and public services
00:14:40and a political consensus across parties that ordinary working people deserved a decent,
00:14:46basic standard of living. Two of the beneficiaries of that were my parents.
00:14:56Hello.
00:15:01How are you doing? You all right?
00:15:02How are you doing? You all right?
00:15:06This is Paul's study.
00:15:08Do you do much study, Dad?
00:15:10Paul does study. My study's a mess.
00:15:12Oh, I see my book there on your bookshelf.
00:15:14Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:15:14You signed this one?
00:15:15Yeah.
00:15:16Yeah, yeah.
00:15:17Yeah.
00:15:17Do mum and dad. Thanks for being my mum and dad.
00:15:19Yeah.
00:15:20Yeah.
00:15:22You came and saw your...
00:15:23It's all true.
00:15:24You were talking in Brighton.
00:15:25Yeah, yeah.
00:15:25There's some family pictures up there.
00:15:28Oh, yeah, lots more and more family photos.
00:15:30This is my dad's 30 years working four-year-mail little trophy.
00:15:35I had another seven and a half years after that, so 37 and a half years.
00:15:39Four-year-mail.
00:15:40But, you know, I've got a good company pension out of it, so can't complain.
00:15:51Yeah.
00:15:51A lot of young people nowadays, and I guess also me when I was young, making money, getting
00:15:57rich, being successful is very important to them and was very important to me.
00:16:02But it never felt to me when I was young like that was like a big priority for you in
00:16:08your life.
00:16:09No.
00:16:11No, I mean, I never wanted to be rich, never had that ambition.
00:16:15But we just wanted to have enough to have a comfortable life.
00:16:20You know, we were able to buy our own property when we got married.
00:16:23You know, I was 26 and your mum was 23.
00:16:25Yeah.
00:16:26And we had a mortgage.
00:16:30We just put down a 10% deposit, which I'd saved.
00:16:34You were able to pay it down over time?
00:16:35Yeah.
00:16:36The limit the financial institutions would lend you was two and a half times your salary.
00:16:42But it was enough.
00:16:43Yeah, but that was enough.
00:16:45When I hear you talk about work and money when you were young,
00:16:50it almost feels kind of a bit antiquated in a sweet way in this kind of you get a job
00:16:56and as long as you're willing to work, willing and able to work, that's going to get you a house,
00:17:01financial security, enough to raise a family, a pension, a retirement.
00:17:05That's right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:07And I think we still tell that to young people.
00:17:09But increasingly, I see people who are working hard, doing their best,
00:17:13you know, struggling, struggling to pay the bills.
00:17:24That's right.
00:17:24My parents live much more comfortably than my grandparents.
00:17:27And when I left school, my generation expected to be better off than our parents.
00:17:35And there were opportunities. For kids like me who could pass exams, university was available,
00:17:41affordable and offered the chance to climb up the social ladder and even become wealthy.
00:17:47Then the future seemed secure.
00:17:50I'm visiting my old school to see how young people feel about their futures today.
00:17:57I want to find out what's changed since I was a teenager sitting in an economics class.
00:18:02Extremely rich.
00:18:03So when I came here, I really wanted to get rich and to be a millionaire.
00:18:11That was basically my main ambition. And I kind of wanted to know if that is still your experience.
00:18:18So I'd say even now being rich or having financial security is even more of a priority,
00:18:23especially considering the economy. And that's why now I'm looking at degree apprenticeships rather
00:18:28than just university, because I think you have the on-job valuable work experience that you really need.
00:18:33And university, it doesn't really offer that to you.
00:18:35Do you worry about the cost of university and the debt?
00:18:39University is something that everyone wants to do, but especially with the state of everything
00:18:43at the moment, I don't think it's possible.
00:18:45Do you know how much it cost me to go to university?
00:18:48How much?
00:18:49I finished here in 2005. It cost me for three years, 3,000 pounds.
00:18:55For me, it cost 30,000 pounds.
00:18:5730,000 pounds. How do you feel about the fact that we were able to go to university for 1
00:19:02,000 pounds a year?
00:19:04Yeah, I think you guys are lucky.
00:19:0920 years after I took my A-levels, I have an appointment with my old head teacher.
00:19:16Hello? Hello.
00:19:18How are you doing?
00:19:19Oh, hi. Hello, Gary.
00:19:21Sir Dan Moynihan now runs a group of academies which educate a total of 44,000 children.
00:19:28How do you feel the financial prospects for young people are, and how have they changed in the,
00:19:35I guess it must be 30 or more years now, you've been working in education?
00:19:38It's much harder to get financial security. The aspiration to have that kind of middle-class
00:19:44life is still there for youngsters, but the reality is it's really hard for them to get to it.
00:19:50I mean, I run a big group of schools, 55 schools. 10 years ago, we never had food poverty.
00:19:56Okay.
00:19:57We've got community hubs in most of those schools which are giving out basic food products to families
00:20:03because they can't survive week by week.
00:20:06What percentage of kids do you think are sort of needing something like that now?
00:20:09Well, in our schools, about 43% of youngsters are eligible for something called the pupil premium.
00:20:15It means they get free school meals because family income before benefits is as low as 7,400,
00:20:21which is not survivable. So I've never seen poverty to the extent that we have today ever in the past.
00:20:31Before we met with you, we spoke with some of the sort of young economic students and lots of these
00:20:37economic students were not planning to go to university. What do you think about that?
00:20:40I think there's a higher education premium. In other words, if you go to university,
00:20:45you do expect to earn more, but the value of that premium has reduced over time.
00:20:52And people, of course, are coming out with 40 to 50K of debt.
00:20:56Yeah.
00:20:56And students are aware of that. Now, degree apprenticeships are a great alternative.
00:21:00That's what a lot of them were looking to do. They were talking about degree apprenticeships.
00:21:03But the problem with degree apprenticeships is you can get to do the degree and you don't get debt,
00:21:08but they're dominated by sharp elbowed middle class families. The persistence of democracy requires
00:21:14a fairer society and people need to think there's a link between their effort and their achievement.
00:21:21And at the moment in this country, that isn't the case. So I do think that growing inequality
00:21:26is a genuine threat to democracy in this country. If people are generally unhappy and become
00:21:31increasingly so, they look for solutions outside electoral politics. And that's a bad way forward.
00:21:42For me, and a lot of kids like me, university was seen as the main way to get a good
00:21:48job,
00:21:48to make money, to escape from poverty, and maybe even to get rich. When I was young,
00:21:52university was largely paid for by taxes. Now, in England and Wales, university students have to pay
00:21:59their tuition fees themselves over £9,500 a year. Since I went to university, the average student debt
00:22:07for a student in England has increased enormously to £53,000. The job security me and my dad had
00:22:16is now a thing of the past. In the social media age, many people are looking for new ways to
00:22:23get rich.
00:22:29Everything you were taught about money is wrong. Saving will never make you rich.
00:22:37Recent years have seen the growth in the phenomenon of online finance gurus
00:22:41urgently and directly addressing the viewer, claiming to be able to reveal the secrets of how to make money.
00:22:47This guy is inspiring. There's something genuine about Grant Cardone.
00:22:51Influencers selling lifestyle content and courses has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry.
00:22:57If you earn a £100,000 salary after taxes, you're actually only left with £67,000 yourself.
00:23:04Whereas me, as a landlord, if I make £100,000, I get to keep the whole £100,000.
00:23:09Samuel Leeds is a self-styled property expert with over half a million YouTube subscribers.
00:23:15This is a tour of my £40 million mansion in the Palm, Dubai. I've just added
00:23:22another one onto my second, third, fourth, fifth home collection.
00:23:26I first became aware of him when he interviewed controversial influencer Andrew Tate,
00:23:30and I became part of the conversation.
00:23:33I saw some guy, I don't know his name. He was on Twitter. Skinny little dipshit,
00:23:39begging for the government to tax us more. I was going to talk to you about him.
00:23:42Are you talking about Gary Economics? Must be him, yeah.
00:23:44Is he got skinheads? Yeah.
00:23:47Skinny little dipshit. Gary Stevenson.
00:23:48Every revolution in history began with the assassination of the taxman,
00:23:53not sucking the taxman off.
00:24:02I'm meeting Samuel Leeds at a hotel he recently acquired,
00:24:06in addition to his growing property portfolio.
00:24:13Hi. Good to meet you.
00:24:15This is Samuel Leeds. Yes.
00:24:16Nice to meet you. How are you?
00:24:17Very good. Thanks for coming down.
00:24:19That's all right. No worries.
00:24:22So we can sit in here, maybe. This is a decent room there.
00:24:25Tell us a little about Samuel Leeds. What was it? What was your childhood like?
00:24:29What was it like growing up?
00:24:30Failed in school, got ADHD, dyslexia, thought I was stupid, flunked out of school age 16,
00:24:35cleaned snooker tables, and then got into property.
00:24:38What did money mean to you when you were a child?
00:24:40I think for me, I just wanted to be able to make enough money that I could just move out.
00:24:46And the intention was never to own hundreds of properties, make millions.
00:24:52Would you say you're addicted to making money?
00:24:55I think I'm addicted to growth. I'm addicted to building businesses.
00:24:58I'm addicted to seeing projects completed. I'm addicted to the game.
00:25:03I like winning. I'm addicted to winning. It's a passion. It's a mission.
00:25:06It has to be.
00:25:08Sometimes I worry with people like yourself. When they speak as if anybody can get rich
00:25:14if you just try, it has a really bad effect on the mental health of young people, especially young
00:25:21men. Because in a world where it's so hard to make money, they're being told it's easy to make
00:25:27money if you just try. And the consequence of that logically is if you are poor, if you are not
00:25:35making money, that's your fault.
00:25:37Yeah, it's a very nuanced conversation because I could equally argue that people become most
00:25:44depressed when they're not in control. Whereas when you actually give people control and say,
00:25:49look, it's not going to be easy. It is tough, but you can do something about this.
00:25:53Not get rich, but make an extra £500 a month. I don't think that does cause people mental health
00:26:01issues. Certainly the way I am as a human being would rather focus on my life, my economy,
00:26:07my family. As well as his property business, Samuel Leeds sells courses and mentorship programs,
00:26:15claiming to teach how to get rich in property. I charge £12,000 to be part of my academy,
00:26:22where you get one-on-one mentoring. And everyone says, no one's going to pay that vote. That's
00:26:26ridiculous. Well, these guys have, I mean, right now there's a thousand people in this room. So when
00:26:32people say no one's going to pay that, they are. You're just missing out.
00:26:35His free online webinar promotes his introductory course. He urges viewers to sign up for a limited
00:26:42number of places. I also want to say, if you've got people that are negative in your family,
00:26:46do you know what? Don't even tell them. Just come down, spend two days getting mentored,
00:26:50work through the programs, use the contracts that you've got, and let them see the money.
00:26:55I wanted to put to him my concerns about his selling techniques.
00:27:00I watched a webinar and you did this thing on that, where you, um, you gave some
00:27:06interesting information about property. And then you did this thing where you said,
00:27:10this deal won't be there. If you ask me tomorrow, it'll be gone. If you don't have the money,
00:27:14you should borrow it from someone in your family. And you said,
00:27:22if you have people in your family who are negative about this, just don't tell them.
00:27:26And I've got to be honest with you, that sounded in an incredibly irresponsible message to send.
00:27:33Well, for a start, all of those people that enroll are going to end up over the moon and super
00:27:39happy.
00:27:40All of them? Yeah, they will, yeah.
00:27:41You never have anyone who's unhappy?
00:27:43If anyone is unhappy, which is extremely rare, but if they have a change of circumstances,
00:27:48if they don't, we refund them. Why'd you sell it so hard, Sam? Why'd you tell people?
00:27:52Because I believe, because I'm passionate about what I do.
00:27:54I felt concerned that people will end up on a course where they get pressured to buy a 12,000
00:27:58pound course. There are reviews online of people saying they get pressured, right?
00:28:02And there are a lot of people online who say that they have been pressured to pay 12,000 pounds
00:28:06for
00:28:06a course. People who don't have 12,000 pounds have borrowed. They said they've been pressured to take
00:28:09personal loans. I think the thing is, Gary, do you ever encourage you to take loans to buy your courses?
00:28:14I'm very passionate about my product, but my customers are very happy.
00:28:16So my programs are helping people make more money. 86% of them are doing deals. 97% of them
00:28:24say they'd recommend to a friend. Independent stats.
00:28:30I'll do a quick story with Gary. I'm really glad that he's registered for my course now.
00:28:36You did it yesterday? I haven't registered for any of your courses.
00:28:39You said you did it yesterday, right? Watch out for this guy.
00:28:44Successful. Gary Economics. Thank you.
00:28:47Drive safe. Here we are. Drive safe.
00:28:58The super rich are owning more and more of the real wealth and assets of this country.
00:29:03Land, property, buildings, businesses, homes. They make passive income from those assets. That's money
00:29:08they make every year without even getting out of bed. For the very rich, the amount of this passive
00:29:13income is enormous. For the poorest billionaire in the country, with a wealth of just one billion
00:29:18pounds, at a rate of just five percent, he will make 50 million pounds a year in passive income.
00:29:24That's nearly one million pounds every week. If this continues, it is inevitable that the billionaires
00:29:30and the super rich will own a larger and larger share of the real wealth of this country, meaning
00:29:34other groups in society, the working class, the middle class and the government will progressively
00:29:39own less and less and less. Okay, so how do we fix it? We need to introduce a form of
00:29:45tax that rich
00:29:46people cannot avoid. We need to tax them on their wealth as opposed to just their income.
00:29:52The form of tax that I'm proposing is a wealth tax of two percent on wealth of above 10 million
00:29:57pounds.
00:29:58That means somebody with a wealth of 11 million pounds would have to pay just 20 000 pounds a year.
00:30:04Somebody with the wealth of one billion pounds will have to pay 20 million pounds. Some estimates
00:30:09suggest that this could raise 24 billion pounds a year. Money which could be used to support the NHS,
00:30:15build affordable housing, or it could be used to cut taxes on working people,
00:30:20meaning you could keep more of your hard-earned income.
00:30:30Maybe it's not a surprise that those who've accumulated large amounts of wealth are keen to
00:30:35keep hold of it. One way of doing that is to reduce your tax bill.
00:30:47Andrew Henderson is the founder of Nomad Capitalist, a company which openly assists
00:30:52wealthy individuals to legally avoid paying tax by moving countries.
00:30:57Are you worried about what might happen to inequality if rich people increasingly stop paying taxes?
00:31:03You have an obsession with with this solving inequality. The world is going to be unequal.
00:31:08Do I think it's entirely fair? I don't think life is fair. And I think that fundamentally upsets
00:31:13people who talk about inequality because you feel entitled to rich people's money. About half of
00:31:19Americans don't pay any federal income tax. Okay.
00:31:23Is that fair? Why do they get to be protected by the military and get services? They don't pay a
00:31:28single dollar in federal tax. You know, in the US, I think it's something like the top 1% of
00:31:32taxpayers
00:31:33pay 40% of the tax. If you have to pay tax for the services you're getting, why should half
00:31:37the
00:31:37people not have to pay anything? Well, the people in the US who don't pay tax,
00:31:42the reason they don't pay tax is because they don't make a lot of money. So you think that poor
00:31:46people should pay more tax? Yes. I think everyone should pay something. Why is it only rich people are
00:31:50supposed to not look out for their own interests?
00:31:52Yeah. Why is it that rich people are supposed to suddenly be high-minded for everybody else?
00:31:57Is everyone else looking out for them? I guess the question is, if rich people don't pay tax,
00:32:02who pays the tax? Well, that's exactly the point. It goes to the heart of the argument.
00:32:06You want nobody? They are the ones paying the tax. You want nobody to pay tax?
00:32:10I think they'd be the best system. Is it the most pragmatic system? No. So you think we should
00:32:14close down the schools and the NHS and have private everything? If I'm in charge, I'd say
00:32:19everyone pays a user fee for what you need. If you don't have kids, why are you paying? Oh,
00:32:24because it's part of the greater society. Right. That's the argument we make. You know,
00:32:28my father told me growing up about, you know, something like the NHS, for example. He's like,
00:32:33once people get used to having a lot of government services, you can't really
00:32:36pull them back. People just expect more and more and more and more. And we move the bar on what
00:32:41becomes acceptable. Let's be honest. Go and look at most people. They're wired for comfort.
00:32:48Okay. They prioritize comfort over success. And then they blame wealthy people for being wealthy.
00:33:00I've got no hatred for Mr. Henderson. You know, he does what he does. He makes his money doing what
00:33:06he can. The question is, what are the consequences for the rest of us? It's going to depend on whether
00:33:11your average British man or woman takes the kind of Andrew Henderson path of like, well, I'm going to do
00:33:16everything I can to fight for myself. In which case, we're basically fucked. Or whether they can be
00:33:22convinced to work together to protect their collective interests. One of which is rich people paying tax.
00:33:45Some rich people are happy to pay their fair share, including me. I'm a member of Patriotic Millionaires,
00:33:53a group of wealthy individuals who think that those with more should pay more.
00:34:04It falls upon the British public to demand that these politicians do something about inequality.
00:34:09If you do not demand reduced inequality, a fairer taxation system where you pay less and the rich pay
00:34:16more, this will get worse and the politicians won't do it for you. You need to demand it.
00:34:23Julia Davies made her millions building up an accessories business. What was it that originally
00:34:30appealed to about Patriotic Millionaires? Why did you decide to join back in 2020?
00:34:34It's just that it is right. We know that we need more money to fix all of these problems,
00:34:39you know, all of these things that are just going wrong. And you know, and I, I just want to
00:34:43live in
00:34:43a country where people are thriving. We know that money has absolutely concentrated into the hands of
00:34:48few and few people. And that's why people can't afford to buy a house. That's why people are
00:34:52struggling to send their kids to university who, you know, absolutely, that's what they would have
00:34:56been focused on before. So we just need to, you know, really get people to, to understand that and
00:35:00start listening to people who genuinely care about them. Yeah. I think that, I think that's the key for
00:35:05me is, is making sure people understand that when people like you or me campaign for wealth taxes,
00:35:10it's not just about kicking the rich. It's, this is what is causing poverty to grow. But you know,
00:35:17the, the concept that, you know, it's kicking the rich to ask them to pay a really moderate amount
00:35:22of tax. It's just such nonsense. You know, nobody says it's kicking working people when they've got
00:35:26to pay income tax. Yeah. And they're already paying a much higher rate of tax than most wealthy people.
00:35:30Yeah, yeah.
00:35:33That's perfect. There you go.
00:35:35We're protesting alongside workers at the sharp end of cuts to our public services.
00:35:41Andrew Myerson is a doctor working for the NHS. So can you see poverty growing in this country?
00:35:48Absolutely. In our A&E departments, I, I see increasing numbers of people who, um, are, are,
00:35:53are coming in with, uh, with, uh, not only of course for, for, for medical issues, but for social issues
00:35:58as well. They, if, if, if they don't have any heat, they don't have any food, they don't have any,
00:36:02any social care, they don't have any, any, any social connections. It feels like everything that
00:36:08binds us is, is breaking apart. I saw this list of all of the public services that have been taken
00:36:12from us over the last decade. 112 emergency facilities, 244 courts and tribunals, 600 police
00:36:18stations, 750 youth centers, 800 libraries, 926 football pitches. All these things were closed.
00:36:25Over a thousand swimming pools, 1400 short start centers, 8,000 bus routes, 25,000 NHS beds.
00:36:33That I think is just a horrific. Yeah, obviously you see a doctor working in NHS coming out,
00:36:43shivering in the cold, no jacket, lifting off all of the, uh, services that have been, um, cut.
00:36:52It's emotional, isn't it? What can you say? It's emotional.
00:36:56It's emotional. I just work hard to make things better. And, um, and, uh...
00:37:14And I know a lot of other people do too.
00:37:29One way of getting rich that some in Britain have excelled at over the centuries is to be born rich.
00:37:53The peculiarities of the British class system mean that the aristocracy
00:37:57and the landed gentry have long been able to attain huge amounts of wealth.
00:38:03It's emotional.
00:38:03Hello. Hi. Hi, you're Gary?
00:38:06Yes, how are you?
00:38:07How are you?
00:38:07How are you? Right, come on in.
00:38:09France's Fulford is the 29th generation to inherit his property here in Devon.
00:38:15Would you like me to take my shoes off or...?
00:38:18Why do you want to take your shoes off?
00:38:19I don't know. I don't know if it's a tradition.
00:38:24Sheba!
00:38:28No, shut up.
00:38:30Shut up, or you go out for a room.
00:38:35Can you tell us a little bit about, like, what it is you own?
00:38:39You want this, obviously...
00:38:40Well, I've got this big house, which you've seen, and then I've got about 3,000 acres of land.
00:38:46Most of the land is let out to tenant farmers.
00:38:48And then we've got about 24 houses, which range from cottages to farmhouses, and vary in what rent they get.
00:38:58Okay, and would you know roughly how much it's all worth, all together?
00:39:02Yeah, I mean, you see, from a point of view of land, it's probably 28, 30 million, and then
00:39:09the houses, the this, the that, the cottages, all the rest, maybe another 10.
00:39:14But, say, 40 in total.
00:39:16If you look at this map, Gary...
00:39:18This is your land?
00:39:19This is 1841, right?
00:39:21So, that was the estate in 1841.
00:39:24200 years ago.
00:39:25You got it. Well done.
00:39:27This was made in 1841, right?
00:39:29Wow.
00:39:30I feel like I shouldn't touch it.
00:39:31They made things well, but it's not like the modern crap.
00:39:36We've lost that.
00:39:37This top corner.
00:39:38Yeah, top left have gone.
00:39:40That went to pay taxes, etc.
00:39:42You ever said about that?
00:39:43The loss?
00:39:44Well, it's a sad, isn't it?
00:39:45But it is.
00:39:46But that's it.
00:39:48We've been at another little sale down there from the National Trust.
00:39:52And where are we now? Where's the house?
00:39:53There.
00:39:54There in the middle.
00:39:55Okay, so all of that all around.
00:39:56Okay.
00:39:58Okay.
00:39:59All right.
00:39:59Hasn't changed very much.
00:40:03Fuck you, doing a big poo in the middle floor.
00:40:05Don't let me step in it.
00:40:06I'll clear it up later.
00:40:08Okay.
00:40:09All right, well, we'll all clear one up later.
00:40:11Oh, I knew what was going to happen.
00:40:17I knew what was going to happen.
00:40:17Are these your geese?
00:40:18Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:40:19The two white ones were given to us the other day by a friend.
00:40:24So this land is all yours then, is it?
00:40:27Yes.
00:40:28Everything you can see is mine.
00:40:30I might be the Lion King.
00:40:34My proposal is a wealth tax of 2% on wealth above £10 million.
00:40:39That would mean that if you're worth £35-40 million, you would have to pay a fair bit more.
00:40:45You know, you'd be looking at paying 2% on £30 million, so £600,000 a year.
00:40:51How do you feel about that?
00:40:53Well, not very good, do I?
00:40:56Apart from the fact that I think the economics is bollocks, because if you start taxing more people,
00:41:01the values which you're basing your figures on will collapse.
00:41:05If you suddenly put a £600,000 extra tax on my land, they expect that land to remain at the
00:41:13same value.
00:41:14Landowners and farmers are always the same.
00:41:16We're asset rich, but income poor.
00:41:18And so if you start trying to tax assets, effectively, you destroy the rural economy.
00:41:23Would it destroy if you, because at the moment...
00:41:25Because it can't bloody well pay out of the income produced by the brother.
00:41:28But perhaps if you had to sell some of your land, that land could be bought by farmers.
00:41:33Well, it could be bought by someone.
00:41:34I want ordinary working people to be able to afford assets.
00:41:37What sort of assets do you want them to be able to afford?
00:41:39Well, in the first case, their own home would be nice.
00:41:41Yeah.
00:41:41I think it would also be nice for them to be able to own a little bit of, you know,
00:41:45the productive assets.
00:41:46Like, why shouldn't an ordinary working person or an ordinary farmer be able to own a farm?
00:41:50Well, they can rent one, probably, or they can afford to buy one.
00:41:54It's, that's not economics.
00:41:56That's toy time.
00:41:58That's noddy land economics.
00:42:01It just, you know, that does not work.
00:42:03The people who farm your farms, they don't own it, do they?
00:42:06No, they rent them.
00:42:07Yeah.
00:42:07And that's why, because that actually allows poorer people who want to go into farming an ability
00:42:13to go into farming.
00:42:15No, you want to destroy that system.
00:42:17Well, I mean, I would like to change the system to where those farmers would one day be able
00:42:23to own a farm.
00:42:24Sometimes they do.
00:42:25What you're actually saying is, well, let's destroy wealth.
00:42:30There's a difference between selling when nobody wants to destroy it.
00:42:35Hang on, you do.
00:42:36Because the effect of, the effect of what you're saying is to destroy this.
00:42:41For nearly a thousand years, we've looked after this landscape, et cetera.
00:42:45But I've parted trees for a hundred years' time for my great-grandson to harvest them.
00:42:50I guess the question is, Francis, what about everybody else's great-grandsons?
00:42:54What are they going to want?
00:42:55Well, it depends how hard they work.
00:42:57They work hard like you.
00:42:58Look at you.
00:42:59You seem to think that when people make a lot of money and become very rich,
00:43:03that money is somehow locked away from society as a whole.
00:43:09Yeah.
00:43:11The rich people, if they are rich, aren't making a sort of corner in all housing, are they?
00:43:18How many houses do you own?
00:43:20What?
00:43:20How many houses do you own?
00:43:2124.
00:43:21Of course.
00:43:22But that's not the point.
00:43:25Wealth does dissipate, and it dissipates downwards.
00:43:29And people benefit.
00:43:31So the idiots who dine in, you know, those restaurants, you might go to them.
00:43:36You did use to go to them.
00:43:37Where you were spending four or five hundred pounds a head drinking good wine, et cetera.
00:43:42There's people there who are benefiting.
00:43:44The waiters, the cooks, the staff, the taxi drivers.
00:43:47As you enjoy the excesses of the trading floor after hours eating and drinking, you know,
00:43:57you were just, your wealth was being spent.
00:43:59So let's just imagine in the future, you know, your nightmare comes true.
00:44:04And I managed to get my wealth tax into law.
00:44:08And suddenly, very, very wealthy people such as yourself do have to pay significantly more.
00:44:12How bad would that actually be for you and your family?
00:44:16It would be disastrous, obviously.
00:44:18But so we would probably end up borrowing the money to pay the bloody taxes, knowing that your
00:44:25government were doomed to perdition.
00:44:27Sorry, Gary, your life at the top would be very limited.
00:44:31But we would work out a way to win through as we've won through every bloody to over the last
00:44:39thousand years.
00:44:40For one thousand years.
00:44:41Yeah, we fight to win.
00:44:43I think the rest of the country should probably try to do that as well.
00:44:52Francis Fulford believes that wealth trickles down from the very rich to the rest of us.
00:44:58That is a economic theory that was popularized a lot in the 80s when Margaret Thatcher was the
00:45:03prime minister and aggressively cut tax on the richest people in the country.
00:45:07The idea is basically that if you allow the rich to have loads and loads of money,
00:45:12they will invest and build new productive assets, making everybody in society richer.
00:45:17The problem is that the rich don't have to use their money to build new assets.
00:45:22They can also buy existing assets from people like you.
00:45:25And I think that that is what's happened.
00:45:27And that has led to ordinary families and the government holding less and less wealth over
00:45:32time and more and more of our country's wealth being accumulated and hoarded by the richest
00:45:36people in the country.
00:45:38Where this impacts people the most is the affordability of housing.
00:45:43Can I pay my bills?
00:45:44No, I cannot.
00:45:46I'm homeless.
00:45:47Hastings has massively changed since I've been here.
00:45:51We're a really deprived area and now I can't afford to rent a room.
00:45:56I would love when I finish university to be able to get a job, to be able to get a
00:46:00car,
00:46:00to be able to move out.
00:46:02I don't want to be living under my mum's roof when I'm in my late 20s, but the cost of
00:46:06living
00:46:06is making that feel kind of impossible to get on the housing ladder at the moment.
00:46:12I'm travelling to Bristol, only 70 miles from France's Fulford's ancestral seat.
00:46:19Like many places across the UK, it's a city that's seen housing prices soar.
00:46:29The average monthly rent in the city is now almost £2,000, forcing many into less secure accommodation.
00:46:38An estimated 800 people now live in trucks, vans and caravans here.
00:46:49Hello.
00:46:50How's it going, mate?
00:46:51Not too bad.
00:46:52My name is Gary.
00:46:52Gary, nice to meet you.
00:46:53I'm Nathaniel.
00:46:54Nice to meet you.
00:46:54Come on in.
00:46:55We're going to come have a look at your van, are we?
00:46:56Come on in.
00:46:57Good book collection.
00:46:58Yeah, so a lot of them are my girlfriends.
00:47:00This was her side, but we've moved a lot out because we had a load of water coming in that
00:47:04side.
00:47:04Okay.
00:47:05So you've had to spread everything around again.
00:47:07So everything doubles as two.
00:47:09So we've got seating, which is storage.
00:47:11Yeah.
00:47:11You know, all of that's pull out storage, storage under here, storage under there.
00:47:16So how long have you lived in here?
00:47:17It's probably been about 18 months now.
00:47:18And before that, you were not living in a van or you were living in a different van?
00:47:22No, we had a flat before this, but the flat just became too expensive.
00:47:25People are moving into vans because they have to.
00:47:28I've worked for the ambulance service for just over 11 years.
00:47:31Driving ambulances?
00:47:32Well, I've worked as an ECA here, an emergency care assistant, which is just below a paramedic.
00:47:37So me and a paramedic would go out on a frontline shift to do 12 hours together and do the
00:47:40same work.
00:47:41In the ambulance, providing?
00:47:42Emergency first aid work.
00:47:43Okay.
00:47:44Left the ambulance service in July, just through sheer exhaustion.
00:47:47So now I'm just doing delivery driving for Amazon, just to fill in the holes.
00:47:51Amazon is all right money, long, horrible hours, and it's agency work.
00:47:55It's zero hours.
00:47:56You don't know if you're going to have tomorrow's shift or the next week's shift, but it's something.
00:48:01I've got to sustain myself.
00:48:02I need logs, I need gas, I need, you know, food.
00:48:06But yeah, I pay all my normal taxes.
00:48:07I pay my income taxes, which I've done, well, since I've left school.
00:48:10But it's kind of mad, right?
00:48:11Like, you are somebody who has worked your whole life.
00:48:13Yeah, I've worked my entire life.
00:48:14This is not somebody who's fallen off the bottom.
00:48:17This is somebody who's worked his whole life.
00:48:18Yeah, my entire life.
00:48:19I've had very few breaks.
00:48:20Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:48:21Very few breaks.
00:48:23The largest concentration of vehicle dwellers is alongside Bristol Downs.
00:48:28This phenomenon has been met with opposition from local homeowners.
00:48:32Tony Nelson is the chair of the Protect the Downs Action Group.
00:48:36Thanks for taking the time to meet me in this beautiful location.
00:48:40Yes, it is stunning.
00:48:41You know, it means a lot to the people of Bristol.
00:48:43They come here for family gatherings.
00:48:45They used to come here for school visits to learn about nature.
00:48:48Yeah.
00:48:49And they can't anymore because of the health risks.
00:48:51Because of the caravans?
00:48:53Well, it's the health risks that get bought by people who think they can just use the bushes
00:48:59as cesspits.
00:49:00And it's just reached a point where it's not sustainable.
00:49:03Do you think it's been driven by economic circumstances?
00:49:06Partly that.
00:49:07It's also very much driven by Bristol is a great place to live.
00:49:11There's only a handful of people who really are here because they don't have a choice.
00:49:17They're working, but they're saving a pretty penny, which is fine.
00:49:20It's a rational choice.
00:49:21Who wouldn't make that choice?
00:49:22Who wouldn't not want to pay tax?
00:49:23But if you're going to go off-grid, go off-grid properly.
00:49:26This is a shared public space and people don't want you here.
00:49:28You live near here?
00:49:30Yeah, I live a few streets that way.
00:49:32Have you been here long?
00:49:33I've lived in Bristol for about seven years now.
00:49:36Okay.
00:49:36Does it upset you that some of these people might be born and raised in Bristol
00:49:39and now they can't afford to live in Bristol?
00:49:42Yeah, but that's a reality.
00:49:44I haven't been able to live where I want to live all the time.
00:49:46I've had to move around.
00:49:47You've got to go where the work is.
00:49:48You've got to go where you can afford to go.
00:49:51Where do you think these people should go?
00:49:53They're adults.
00:49:54They get to choose that.
00:49:55They choose to come here.
00:49:57They can find somewhere else where they can go.
00:50:04While we filmed, Bristol City Council were serving the Vandwellers' notices
00:50:08to vacate the area within a week.
00:50:11Sorry to bother you.
00:50:12My name's...
00:50:13Sorry, we can't talk.
00:50:15Can't talk.
00:50:15Nobody can talk.
00:50:16No one's going to talk at all.
00:50:18I'll go to our press office.
00:50:19That's great.
00:50:20As part of their Vandweller policy, Bristol City Council state that welfare,
00:50:25safeguarding assessments and support is available to vehicle dwellers through our enforcement action.
00:50:34I think what this shows us is to anyone who didn't already know, you know, this is not
00:50:39scroungers asking for handouts.
00:50:41You know, this is millions of hard-working people across the country doing essential jobs like,
00:50:47you know, working in an ambulance, helping sick people who can't afford basic housing.
00:50:53You know, and that is the situation. It wasn't like that 20, 30, 50 years ago.
00:50:57We have to change things.
00:50:59I think if we keep going the way we are going, there'll be more and more people like Nathaniel,
00:51:03up and down the country, working hard and unable to afford even the most basic quality of housing.
00:51:16The wealth tax is an idea which has been around for well over a century.
00:51:19There are different wealth taxes which have been implemented in many countries in Europe.
00:51:22We currently have them in Norway, Switzerland and Spain.
00:51:26For those who think it is impossible to tax the richest people in our society at higher rates,
00:51:30and are looking for an example of a fairer tax system that worked,
00:51:33you need to look no further than this country right here.
00:51:36In the 30 years after World War II, also known as the golden age of capitalism,
00:51:41we taxed the richest people at much higher rates.
00:51:43A top rate of income tax was over 90% and an inheritance tax that reached as high as 80%.
00:51:48And I don't think it's a coincidence that at that time, when we taxed the rich at much higher levels,
00:51:53ordinary working people could afford homes and financial security.
00:51:57The most comprehensive recent study on the feasibility of a wealth tax in this country
00:52:02is a piece of work called the Wealth Tax Commission, written by a team of academics and tax experts in
00:52:082020.
00:52:11The Commission suggested the idea of a one-off wealth tax.
00:52:15That would be a step in the right direction.
00:52:17But a better solution, I believe, is to have an annual wealth tax on the super-rich.
00:52:35Dan Needle is a leading tax expert. He runs a policy think tank and is a vocal opponent of my
00:52:42wealth tax proposal.
00:52:49You must be Dan Needle.
00:52:51I'm Dan. Good to meet you.
00:52:53How are you? You good?
00:52:54Yeah, I'm really good.
00:52:55Shall we see?
00:52:56I regret not wearing a hoodie today. Often I'm in hoodies and people take the piss out of me,
00:52:59but I should have realised this was the hoodie-appropriate interview.
00:53:02Yeah, we could have matched.
00:53:03So my proposal is a 2% tax on wealth of above £10 million. I know you don't like it.
00:53:12Can you give us an explanation of why?
00:53:15Absolute populist clap-trap, and the people pushing this should be ashamed of themselves.
00:53:18If the Chancellor stood out and said, we're going to have a wealth tax, we're going to have 2%
00:53:22on all wealth over £10 million,
00:53:24it would require, let's be generous, like a year of planning at least. You then need to build the systems.
00:53:29You need to tax 20,000 people. You're not going to raise any revenue from a wealth tax before 2029.
00:53:34You could be in favour of a wealth tax, but anyone claiming that it's an answer is deluded.
00:53:39Well, the Wealth Tax Commission did a huge amount of work on the wealth tax, more than anyone else in
00:53:44the world,
00:53:44maybe more than everyone else put together. They concluded an annual wealth tax is a non-starter.
00:53:49And that was a result of the work that they did.
00:53:52Is that what they concluded?
00:53:52That's what the report says.
00:53:54What I saw was that they proposed that for revenue raising, a one-off wealth tax they preferred,
00:54:02but they said explicitly in the paper, if you are worried about inequality, that will not be enough.
00:54:07And if you're worried about inequality, you probably want to look at annual wealth tax.
00:54:11That's what was in the report.
00:54:12But it wasn't that strong, and the foreword said, and I quote you exactly,
00:54:16you can get, but the foreword said exactly that it's a non-starter for the UK.
00:54:20There are limits to the extent of redistribution that can be achieved using existing tax on wealth,
00:54:26even after effective reforms. An annual wealth tax could be justified on this conditional basis.
00:54:32That's pretty weak.
00:54:34Is that saying it's a non-starter?
00:54:37The foreword says an annual wealth tax is a non-starter. Let me ask you a question.
00:54:41Someone invests in the UK, a foreigner invests in the UK, do you charge wealth tax on their UK investments?
00:54:47If they're incredibly wealthy, I say yes.
00:54:49OK. But then, why is someone very wealthy going to make an investment in the UK,
00:54:54rather than, say, France, if they're going to have a 2% hit on their investment every year?
00:54:59Why would they do that?
00:55:00I think that's a very good point, and I think it's very possible that if you have a wealth tax,
00:55:04it will make it less attractive for foreign investors. But I think that what we can do is
00:55:09improve the wealth ownership of the general public, and we can make a wealthy general public,
00:55:12and it will be profitable to invest here, and we can have an investment here by six people.
00:55:17But this is really serious. So, suddenly, you're creating a massive incentive for foreign private
00:55:23companies and foreign wealthy people to pull their capital out of the UK. These are big effects.
00:55:28In fact, the effect of a wealth tax has been modelled.
00:55:31OK.
00:55:31It's been modelling in Germany and in the US. Wealth tax is less significant than the wealth tax
00:55:37you're proposing. And they're estimated a hit to long-run GDP of between 2% and 5%.
00:55:41You were just completely blithely dismissing the idea that foreign investment is important.
00:55:46No, I'm not. Of course I'm not dismissing that. I'm not dismissing that.
00:55:49You were. Sometimes people say yes.
00:55:49I'm an economist, right? I know what's going to happen. And I'll tell you right now what's going to happen.
00:55:54This is my job.
00:55:54No, no, no. If you were a proper economist, you would have thought about foreign investment.
00:55:58You think I'm not a proper economist?
00:55:59Why haven't you thought about foreign investment problems?
00:56:01Of course I've thought about it.
00:56:02No, you haven't. I've read...
00:56:04Why do you think I haven't thought about it, Dan?
00:56:06Because there's no evidence you've ever thought about it. When I asked you that question,
00:56:09you were thinking about it for the first time.
00:56:10Dan, when you have very high levels of inequality, it leads to very low levels of wages.
00:56:15And I think that if you have a world in which certain parts of the world have very low levels
00:56:19of
00:56:19wealth inequality, and other parts of the world have very high levels of wealth inequality,
00:56:22what you will get is a very large wage differential between the low inequality world and the high
00:56:27inequality world. And that will create an incentive for people to move capital to the low inequality
00:56:32world, which is largely the reason why Europe is being de-industrialized like the UK, two places
00:56:38like China, two places like Asia. And I think if you do not do something about inequality, wage levels
00:56:43will become equalized between those two places and living standards in the West, in Europe, will fall
00:56:47to the levels of Asia. This is why I'm concerned about growing wealth inequality, and I think something
00:56:52needs to be done about it.
00:56:53That is, Gary, that is a completely unserious response to an investor today saying,
00:56:57do I invest in the UK or France?
00:56:59So, do you think poverty is getting worse?
00:57:00In this country?
00:57:01Yes.
00:57:02I think in the last few years, yeah, I think poverty has got worse, yeah.
00:57:06Do you care about that?
00:57:07I care about that.
00:57:08Do you worry about that continuing?
00:57:10Sure. But the fact I worry about it doesn't mean that I can then seize on any initiative that has
00:57:16a nice
00:57:16name and refuse to think about the consequences of it.
00:57:18Why do you think I've not thought about the consequences?
00:57:20Because you show no sign of thinking about the consequences.
00:57:23You are unable to separate your emotional reaction to inequality with a rational assessment of the
00:57:27best tools for it. There are lots of ways that we can and should tax wealth better.
00:57:34So, capital gains tax, probably the most important tax for people with wealth that they live off.
00:57:41You need to look at stamp team, you need to look at council tax in terms of those taxes
00:57:45being too high. You also need to look at other elements of tax on property being too low.
00:57:50And that's why I and many others across the political spectrum, the answer is a land value tax.
00:57:56If you tax something, you get less of it. So, tax generally has an adverse effects on growth.
00:58:02But land is different. Because if you tax land, you do not get less of it.
00:58:06I think really what's happening is, we're just coming from different backgrounds. You're a tax lawyer,
00:58:11so you're looking at the simple and obvious changes that could be made in the short term,
00:58:14which are often not made for political reasons. I'm an inequality economist, and I can see that
00:58:19inequality is causing this massive long-term problem. And I want that to be dealt with.
00:58:24Thanks, I know I generally do appreciate that.
00:58:25Not at all.
00:58:26It's nice to meet you as much as it was a little bit combative.
00:58:28Combative is fine.
00:58:35Dan Needle's main tax suggestion when I spoke to him was a land tax.
00:58:39That is a tax on holdings of specifically only land and not other forms of wealth.
00:58:44My main problem with this is that it will not be paid by many of the richest people in our
00:58:49country.
00:58:49You can be a billionaire without earning any land at all, but you cannot be a billionaire without
00:58:54earning billions of pounds worth of wealth. That is why to specifically tax the richest,
00:58:59you need to go for wealth taxes.
00:59:04But what does Basim Haydar think of this?
00:59:07I'm not against paying more income tax, but I just don't believe that wealth tax is a solution.
00:59:14And it's very simple. If you are saying people should pay 2% over 10 million,
00:59:20if the government receives this 2%, where would they spend it?
00:59:24I mean, there's lots of things you could do with it, but my preference would be that you cut tax
00:59:29on
00:59:29working people so that actually the government wouldn't get any more money. It's not an increase
00:59:33in tax, it's a shift in who pays tax. But if there was a wealth tax, you would sell assets
00:59:37here?
00:59:38I would exit completely. I would exit, I mean.
00:59:42And sell your UK assets?
00:59:43Yeah, even if I sell them at a loss, I don't care. Because it becomes a matter of principle.
00:59:47Wealth is mobile, so I'll walk away. I'll walk away. And listen, I'll take a hit for one year,
00:59:53that's fine. But then I'll go. And I'll never come back.
01:00:00If a wealth tax were to be introduced, would the rich really simply pack their assets into bags and
01:00:05leave? I think that a lot of these threats are just scaremongering. Rich people generate the
01:00:11majority of their income from owning assets. This is real things that you and your family need.
01:00:17Your house, your supermarket, the farms that grow your food, the power plants that create
01:00:21your energy. They own real assets. They also own your debts, your mortgage, your student debt,
01:00:26and the government debt. Many wealthy people own assets which are fundamentally fixed to this
01:00:32country. And we could tax these billionaires on their British assets, even if they leave.
01:00:37And if they choose to leave and sell their British assets, well then we would have a chance to have
01:00:42British assets owned once again by regular British working people. It means British people could own
01:00:48stocks and shares. It means they could own pensions again. It means farmers could own farms and workers
01:00:52could own their share in the company that they work in. It means we could all have passive income,
01:00:55rather than just the billionaires. We've got to stop normalising this idea that it is normal to try and
01:01:02avoid contributing to public services and infrastructure if you could massively afford to
01:01:05do that. You know this whole thing about saying that if we tax wealth more people are going to leave?
01:01:10Well I'm a millionaire. I'm not going anywhere. I love Britain. I love the British people. I'm not
01:01:14going anywhere because you know what? Why would I? Why would I uproot myself and my family just to avoid
01:01:20contributing a bit more? Which I want to contribute because I'm happy to pay more tax because I want to
01:01:24see Britain
01:01:25getting back to where it was, going back in the right direction.
01:01:37I think the argument for a wealth tax is gaining in momentum.
01:01:43As one crisis after another shakes the global economy, the idea is increasingly being debated
01:01:49in the real world and online and some leading economists back it.
01:01:54There is a problem in our tax systems which is that the very rich have lower effective tax rates
01:02:01than the rest of the population. Now there's a very simple solution
01:02:05you know which is a progressive taxation with tax rate going you know if necessary to 80, 90, 95 percent.
01:02:15Dr Faisa Shaheen is the Executive Director of Tax Justice UK, an economist and an advocate for a form of
01:02:22the tax system.
01:02:23Labour are terribly unpopular now. It looks like they need to shift. Do you think we have a chance to
01:02:29tax the rich more?
01:02:30Yeah I do think we have a chance. I think actually people are really starting to see that the system
01:02:37is rigged and I just think the blinkers are off for a lot of people and so I believe we
01:02:42can win it but
01:02:43that doesn't mean you know it's just going to happen. It's going to take us even stepping up even more.
01:02:48The way that you fix this economy is you go for the billionaires, we're not taxing working people,
01:02:53that's your way out. I honestly think the public are there to be one, the public are there to be
01:02:57one but
01:02:58we don't have the money of the billionaires. But what we have is all of you guys out here who
01:03:02are
01:03:03going to go back to your friends and families and tell them in nice, calm, polite ways the reason
01:03:07the economy is collapsing is because of growing inequality. If you want to protect your kids,
01:03:11if you want to protect your living standards, your ability to get a home, you need to take action
01:03:16on billionaires. You need to force your politicians to take action on inequality. Listen, did your granddad
01:03:21fault any great-granddad fault any great-great-great-granddad fault we're now, it's your turn.
01:03:38When I started making this documentary, I asked to speak with someone at the treasury,
01:03:43but they've declined to take part.
01:03:48The government say that they are making the tax system fairer by abolishing non-dom status,
01:03:53applying VAT to private schools, increasing capital gains tax and adding new taxes to private jets.
01:04:00I don't think these policies go anywhere near far enough to address the serious issues caused by inequality.
01:04:13And I want the government to hear what people have been telling me about how they are struggling.
01:04:23It honestly feels like things are getting tougher for regular people faster than they used to.
01:04:29And as a parent, I dread to think what life is going to be like for my kids.
01:04:35What would I say to the government? I'd say, do your job, look after people, tax billionaires.
01:04:42Things are becoming more unequal. And I'd like to say to government,
01:04:45you can't keep squeezing a sponge indefinitely and expect to get anything out of it.
01:04:50I'm taking the video testimonies people sent in to Westminster.
01:04:54I'd say to the government that in the sixth richest country in the world,
01:04:57there should not be such terrible poverty, and this should never be accepted.
01:05:00I have nothing against people having money. But when people can own so much,
01:05:05that have such an impact on so many people at the other end of the wealth spectrum, that has to
01:05:10change.
01:05:11I got so many messages like this. And these feelings were backed by a recent poll,
01:05:16which found that 75% of the public support a wealth tax.
01:05:20I think it's quite embarrassing, to be honest, that the government is not willing to speak about
01:05:25the issue that is, you know, one of the most demanded economic policies in this country.
01:05:32If politicians don't care about inequality, and if the government doesn't do something radical about it,
01:05:39then I fear that the growing gap between the rich and the poor will tear this country apart,
01:05:44ruining people's lives and their futures.
01:05:51But these are problems our country has dealt with before, and we could again.
01:05:57100 years ago, my grandma was born here in London, at the back end of the Industrial Revolution,
01:06:07and three of her siblings died of tuberculosis, a disease of poverty. In the course of her lifetime,
01:06:15this country changed from a country where ordinary people died of poverty en masse, into a country where
01:06:26people like my parents, like my dad, could get a regular job, on a regular wage, and buy a house,
01:06:35and raise three kids, and get a pension, and get financial security, and have a retirement,
01:06:41and send all three of those kids to university. That happened in the lifetime of my grandmother,
01:06:47in the lifetime of my grandmother, alongside enormous increases in the taxation of the rich.
01:06:53Increases which have since been reversed. How will we change this country for our grandchildren?
01:07:01I know what I'm betting on, and I know what I'm fighting for. Good luck.
01:07:16Raw, toxic, dirty business. The new factual drama uncovers the sick truth behind Britain's sewage scandal.
01:07:24Stream now. And Monday at 10, Uber Butler will stop at no means in how to trick your way onto
01:07:29the
01:07:29property ladder. Gogglebox is next.
Comentários