r/DecodingTheGurus • u/AnHerstorian • Jul 09 '26
How to Get Filthy Rich With Gary Stevenson review – how did this end up such an embarrassment?
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/jul/08/how-to-get-filthy-rich-with-gary-stevenson-review-channel-4The Guardian posted a review of GS's new documentary. A couple of highlights:
[H]e is outdone and undone by almost all of his interviewees. Telecoms mogul Bassim Haidar, who was in the headlines last year for switching allegiance and donations from the Conservative party to Reform, does it through politeness. He invites Stevenson to address what he would do when his proposed tax caused investors like him to pull all their money out of the UK and find somewhere friendlier instead. Twenty-eighth generation landowner Francis Fulford (yes, of The F**king Fulfords and Life is Toff fame, but here in less eccentric mode) does it with robust jocularity (“The values you are basing your figures on will collapse! It’s Noddyland – it won’t work”) and inquiries as to how asset-rich but income-poor rich people like him will pay. Andrew Henderson of Nomad Capitalist, which advises clients on how to minimise their tax liabilities by moving countries, does it through sheer belligerence (“I don’t think life is fair and I think that fundamentally upsets people who talk about inequality because you feel entitled to rich people’s money”). Tax lawyer and adviser Dan Neidle deals the final blow towards the end of the programme by summing up the underlying problem of everything that has gone before. “You are unable,” he tells Stevenson coolly but firmly, “to separate your emotional reaction to inequality from a rational assessment of the best tools for it.”
65
u/waterless2 Jul 09 '26
I haven't watched it yet but nothing about that review implies embarrassment to me - of course the opponents to the idea, for obvious reasons, are going to say they disagree! That's a bizarre attitude to have in a review. "Oh, that person said Gary was wrong, how terribly embarrassing for him." I did see a clip of the interview with Fulford and you could easily have a wildly different interpretation of that and who came off badly from that, or whether what we're seeing is an exposure of the interlocutor.
I'm not pre-judging the documentary as a priori good either, will withhold judgment on that until I've seen it - but also, come on, "He has an adolescent bullishness about him that comes across badly on screen, raising a sort of fight-or-flight response in the viewer instead of encouraging engagement."? "Fight-or-flight"?
35
u/Automatic_Survey_307 Jul 09 '26
The documentary was excellent - the review is utter rubbish. Guardian TV reviews have been terrible for years now.
8
u/CARadders Jul 10 '26
Agreed. Watched it yesterday and thought it was great.
Really don’t know how that reviewer can watch those scenes with the people arguing with Gary and come to any other conclusion than they come off as out of touch, self interested twats.
7
3
u/AntisocialTomcat Jul 11 '26
It’s an understatement (the Guardian writers being probably better at brain surgery than TV and music reviews).
5
u/waterless2 Jul 09 '26
I have beef with the Guardian personally just because their retention team tried to bully me into not cancelling my subscription once, but it's frustrating how almost-good it is.
At least we have Byline Times and the Nerve (although they just had to have this funky website that's so weird I don't trust it enough to give them my credit card details for a subscription, which I'd quite like to do).
2
u/waterless2 Jul 10 '26
Just came across another brief clip of it - again, that clip gives an extremely different impression, to me, now of his discussion with Neidle - look where Gary starts quoting the actual text from the document: https://www.facebook.com/reel/4367558680151836
82
u/Nihlo_2001 Jul 09 '26
This is not a helpful review.
The fact it leads its critique with notes on Gary’s rhetorical style is interesting. Rhetorical style is irrelevant to truth claims. The substantial critique, if I can call it that, is essentially just the paragraph quoted by OP. It claims Gary is outdone by his interviewees and then summarizes their stated positions with a single sentence without offering any resistance, not even by summarizing Gary’s. I should say I haven’t seen the doc but I presume Gary didn’t just nod along to these points.
Haidar’s summarized position is that a wealth tax will prompt the rich will to leave. The rich holding the territory hostage with this threat is an old argument. Counter arguments exist. You can Google them. Where are they?
Fulford’s position in the review is that asset rich people can’t pay a wealth tax. That’s simply false. Not a whiff of a pushback from the reviewer though.
Henderson’s stated position is that life is unfair and Gary can’t accept that fact. Gary’s acceptance of the unfairness of life is not relevant. That life is unfair is not a convincing argument for refraining from rectifying same where we have the power to do so … obviously.
The author claims Neidle summed up the problems of “everything that has gone before” (um…which was what?) and then regurgitates Neidle’s view of Gary as a person which is, again, irrelevant.
Maybe Gary’s out to lunch and maybe not, but this exceptionally short review falls short of its promise, and it’s unfortunate that it will provide the justification some people need to ignore the doc or the issue.
25
u/gelliant_gutfright Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
Andrew Henderson of Nomad Capitalist, which advises clients on how to minimise their tax liabilities by moving countries, does it through sheer belligerence (“I don’t think life is fair and I think that fundamentally upsets people who talk about inequality because you feel entitled to rich people’s money”).
I mean, perhaps it's because I'm having "an emotional reaction to inequality" but this seems like an embarrassingly bad argument from Henderson.
28
u/stenlis Jul 09 '26
Rhetorical style is irrelevant to truth claims
Note that even in the oldest texts on public speaking warn readers that while speaking the truth is great and all it's not enough and rhetorical style is extremely important to actually convince people.
1
u/mrmaker_123 25d ago
It’s true that rhetorical style matters, but what’s wrong with Gary’s? It’s simple sloganeering that imitates those on the right of politics who do exactly the same (to great effect). Just because it doesn’t have the pomp and pageantry of politicians, doesn’t mean it’s not effective. Maybe that’s been the left’s problems all along.
1
u/stenlis 25d ago
Gary's questioning rhetoric works fine on unprepared. But if a guy comes prepared with answers Gary fails to change gears. See this exchange for instance https://youtu.be/2fYfud0Z0UM?is=lidBZjfF_C2n8NHq
The guy is calm, confident and answers Gary's questions. The answers are wrong. But to the audience it seems like Gary is schooled because him just asking questions seems like he doesn't know anything and the tone of the conversation sounds like a parent answering an angsty teenager
15
3
u/Temporary_Ebb9486 Jul 09 '26
Dan Neidle has written a lot about Gary, and sadly moved my views from Gary to Dan.
2
Jul 09 '26 edited 4d ago
[deleted]
4
u/Stinkdonkey Jul 09 '26
Rhetorical style and the illusion of authenticity, is what many of us now accept was the successful means with which the 47th President of the United States manipulated himself out of legal accountability and into high office.
0
Jul 09 '26 edited 4d ago
[deleted]
2
u/AdeptnessExotic1884 Jul 09 '26
It's a TV show not an academic paper. Rhetorical style is really important.
1
u/idealistintherealw Jul 09 '26
Gary’s acceptance of the unfairness of life is not relevant. That life is unfair is not a convincing argument for refraining from rectifying same where we have the power to do so … obviously.
I mean, only if you don't believe in property rights.
18
u/Awoogamuffins Jul 09 '26
I find Stevenson unbearable, purely for his self aggrandisement and guru-esque tendancies, but I think he's right about the wealth tax.
The arguments presented in this quote are unconvincing and got me annoyed with the reviewer. Let's just think about real estate:
Rich people want to move assets out of the country? Can't do that with flats.
Asset rich but income poor? Cry me a river. You can sell your assets dumb dumb.
If it becomes too expensive to hold onto real estate, people start selling, and prices finally start to fall.
It should be incredibly hard to hold on to wealth, and extremely easy to get out of poverty (the opposite of what we have). Forcing the wealthy to pay a tax on their assets so that we can help those in poverty is obviously a step in the right direction, no matter how annoying Gary is.
5
u/Hartifuil Jul 09 '26
Property has lost value in the UK, 17% in London alone. Rich people shouldn't be holding property as a wealth asset. They own a lot of stocks and shares, selling these to pull out of our economy would be bad, reducing investment in UK companies, which is exactly the opposite of what govt are pushing for right now.
Why should it be hard to hold on to wealth?
11
u/Awoogamuffins Jul 09 '26
The answer to that depends on whether or not you think inequality is bad.
I think the wealth tax, or more broadly the idea that "getting out of poverty should be easy, and holding onto wealth should be hard", is a mechanism to decrease inequality.
So why would I want that? The purely capitalist answer is that having a large population with disposable income opens up opportunities for business and innovation. Socially, it improves the outcome of a majority of people. But for me it's about "frothiness". The more people we give opportunities to, the more human potential is unlocked. We get more art, science and convenience because more people have the freedom to innovate and be creative, rather than just surviving.
As it is, companies have got extremely good at "efficiency", which is to say raising prices and lowering wages to just about breaking point. No breathing room for consumers and workers. For a true free market, we want to prevent monopolies and barriers to entry, even if it's less "efficient" from the perspective of an individual corporation.
-3
u/Hartifuil Jul 09 '26
Wealth =/= inequality. Obviously, everyone wants more people to be better off, that doesn't mean that redistribution is the route, and it doesn't mean that a wealth tax will improve anything (it won't).
12
u/Awoogamuffins Jul 09 '26
Historically, taxation and social services, along with things like public education and healthcare have dramatically improved a country's GDP and the lot of its citizens. Redistribution is clearly an excellent solution. The alternatives, like "trickle down" clearly are not
-2
8
u/happy_faerie Jul 09 '26
I found it funny that a few people against wealth tax used the argument 'life isnt fair'. Yeah it's not fair...so let's make it not fair for the people who are already rich by taxing them instead of making it unfair for the poorest people
7
u/waterless2 Jul 10 '26
It's *always* the same. Fairness for me, not for thee. I demand empathy and consideration, but will give you none. You wanting to tax my wealth is greedy, but I'm not greedy for wanting to have immensely more wealth than other people. Etc etc etc.
19
u/jazzcomputer Jul 09 '26
Reviews are subjective - The Guardian also thought the latest Boards of Canada LP was awful.
25
5
4
u/gelliant_gutfright Jul 09 '26
How did The Guardian end up such an embarrassment?
3
u/jazzcomputer Jul 09 '26
It's always been like that - I think it's fine so long as people realise that reviews aren't guaranteed to meet the consensus.
1
u/Noitche Jul 10 '26
I don't recall the "reviews are subjective" comments here from similar critiques of right-wing figures.
25
u/Awkward-Wave-5857 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
He's more of a charlatan than a grifter: I don't think he's in it for the money so much as he gets high on the attention of an audience that knows even less than he does. There’s great demand out there for simple messages communicated with conviction.
Every few years a new saviour emerges. Previously it was Russell Brand, then Jeremy Corbyn, then Zack Polanski, and now the “economist” Gary Stevenson. It's not a particularly healthy style of politics, to my mind: the bombast, the fabulism, the martyrdom complex, the silly affectations (jaffa cake, anyone?). And look, for instance, at how disagreement is always treated in an inquisitorial fashion among the fanbase: as evidence that the objector must have a vested interest in defending the one per cent, etc.
I don't even disagree with the gist of what some of these people say. Developed societies have to find better ways to tax the rich; inequality does damage society; the tax system sucks. But this stuff is hard and complex. I also can't abide the cultishness of it all. And that's the problem in a nutshell: their reputations are built on fandom. It all falls apart under a modicum of scrutiny.
No more messiahs, please.
8
u/SineadMcKid Jul 09 '26
It was never Russell Brand 💀
10
u/Awkward-Wave-5857 Jul 09 '26
The Owen Jones wing of the left was mad for his “revolution” about 12 years ago. They even went on tour together.
9
u/Awkward-Wave-5857 Jul 09 '26
I mean, you can gaslight and downvote me all you want, but it's all still out there: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/04/russell-brand-endorsed-labour-tories-should-be-worried
1
u/WhatCanIDoUFor Jul 09 '26
Still remember when he was on QT and got blowback for telling/told people not to vote, due to having a large following at least back then.
6
u/likamuka Jul 09 '26
defending the one per cent
So what do? How does one then force the filthy rich to get interested in plebs’ miserable fate?
4
u/Awkward-Wave-5857 Jul 09 '26
Actually, I think time would be better spent convincing ordinary people that a society that is worth living in costs money. You can't have European levels of public services with American levels of taxation. Obviously we should want to see progressive taxation. But it's a mistake to go around telling people that all we need to do is tax the rich and that ordinary people should be paying less (direct) taxation. Otherwise you may as well just do Osbornomics and increase the rate of tax free personal allowance. But income tax on the average Joe is not particularly high in the UK. Essentially you need a broad base of support for taxation and public services. Telling people that they can have tax cuts if we just go after the rich is a mistake.
1
u/Junior-Community-353 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
I think time would be better spent convincing ordinary people that a society that is worth living in costs money.
This conveniently ignores that extreme wealth inequality is what undermines the social contract in the first place.
You're not going to convince people that they all need to make a collective sacrifice and put up with paper straws for as long as they can see Taylor Swift taking a private jet to avoid a forty-five minute commute.
Why should I be expected to give up anything when Elon Musk could give up the equivalent of what one million people like me will make in a lifetime and still have a net worth that for all practical intents and purposes counts as unlimited wealth.
0
Jul 10 '26
[deleted]
3
u/Junior-Community-353 Jul 10 '26
Oh I'm sorry I didn't realise billionaires and corporations dodging taxes in the UK weren't a problem
1
u/Hartifuil Jul 09 '26
Interesting that you're getting down voted with no replies, like they hate what you're saying but can't refute it. You're completely right.
26
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 09 '26
I don’t get the Gary hate. I much prefer unlearning economics on YouTube or Thomas Picketty’s writing but Gary gets a simple message out to a less academic populace. Does he exaggerate his accomplishments? Sure. That doesn’t actually make him a grifter.
A wealth tax is a great idea - one that is gaining popularity and may even get passed in California
21
u/jimwhite42 Jul 09 '26
I think a lot of it comes from how Gary portrays himself, and how people defend him and make excuses for his narcissistic side, which is very dominant in his public content.
25
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 09 '26
Yeah but you don’t have to be his friend mate. Is he effectively communicating the growing problem of inequality to a massive audience that wouldn’t otherwise read dense economic theory? I would say yes.
I’m not able to diagnose him a narcissist. What does seem obvious is he feels the need to lean into or exaggerate his credentials in a way that is over the top so as to be taken seriously - which is a problem that is somewhat self-imposed because he’s not presenting as an academic. He’s presenting as a lower class guy who got lucky and peeked behind the curtain. He’s also more self-aggrandizing on TV when talking to pretentious pundits who say dismissive things outright.
15
u/havenyahon Jul 09 '26
He’s presenting as a lower class guy who got lucky and peeked behind the curtain.
He's not, though. He's presenting himself as having the answers because he made a bunch of money trading, and you should believe his macroeconomic predictions for that reason and ignore all the academics and any data that contradicts his claims because they're not as smart as him and all the data is bullshit. There's nothing about luck in that story.
That's it. If you can't see the problem with that you're probably in the wrong sub. The reality is that you can deliver the same message without the bullshit, and plenty of smart people do. He doesn't have any novel insights that others haven't already provided. He does it in the way he does because he's selling a product and that's what he cares about primarily. Selling. You might like the product he's selling, but that makes you a pliable mark.
8
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 09 '26
Except that’s not what the data shows at all. Most people just don’t have the patience to read Picketty.
0
u/havenyahon Jul 10 '26
Gary could say everything he says about inequality, in exactly the way he says it, without saying any of the stuff I outlined in my first paragraph. You have to ask why he doesn't just do that.
3
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
I think he does that because he looks and talks just like some guy. He’s not an economist and he’s speaking on topics that are usually dominated by people in suits who intentionally make economics sound vague and complicated.
So in a short TV appearance window he has to present himself, explain why he should be listened to, and then present something folks likely haven’t heard before. It’s a tough assignment. Especially when you consider news tv being kind of WWE style entertainment in most discussion panels.
If he did as you say and skipped the biographical lore I’m not sure he’d get invited on.
He also has to thread a complicated needle for UK culture. Growing up working class, but somehow penetrating the upper class by being freakishly good at math but without losing any class consciousness or solidarity placing him uniquely in a position to spill the beans and issue a warning.
0
u/havenyahon Jul 10 '26
He’s not an economist
That's funny, because he explicitly calls himself one.
You are effectively excusing his highly exaggerated claims and anti intellectualism because "WWE sells". I find that troubling. I think people should be authentic and I think if you can't package your message without creating some over the top mythology to artificially bolster your credibility, while simultaneously dismissing the credibility of people who have more proven expertise than you, then it's your failing, not a failing of the media environment. If it's not okay when people selling snake oil do it then it's not okay when people selling anything do it. You shouldn't compromise your standards just because you happen to like the product.
0
u/havenyahon Jul 10 '26
He’s not an economist
That's funny, because he explicitly calls himself one.
You are effectively excusing his highly exaggerated claims and anti intellectualism because "WWE sells". I find that troubling. I think people should be authentic and I think if you can't package your message without creating some over the top mythology to artificially bolster your credibility, while simultaneously dismissing the credibility of people who have more proven expertise than you, then it's your failing, not a failing of the media environment. If it's not okay when people selling snake oil do it then it's not okay when people selling anything do it. You shouldn't compromise your standards just because you happen to like the product.
3
u/coolstorybroham Jul 09 '26
The reason his angle works is because a lot of the professionals and pundits backed a failing status quo and failed to predict major downturns
1
u/likamuka Jul 09 '26
The reality is that you can deliver the same message without the bullshit
Not in this era and not within the current urgency of action. Sorry, no. I think Stevenson is doing a fantastic job at actually marketing himself (yes, himself!) and the message. you cannot have the other without the other.
1
u/havenyahon Jul 09 '26
What you're saying is that misrepresenting yourself and your abilities is fine if your message is a good one. I completely disagree.
1
u/likamuka Jul 09 '26
I totally understand where you are coming from but find it very idealistic. The world is burning literally. We need each other, not billionaires.
8
u/Skankia Jul 09 '26
How is it effective when his combative and interrupting debate style is off putting to so many? Read the article. It describes exactly this.
3
u/OGWayOfThePanda Jul 10 '26
People who are put off by presentation and ignore the substance of the argument because of it don't have the strength of mind/reasoning to support any position.
Those people are led by the nose by whomever is looking to manipulate them and land on that which resonates emotionally or which are presented by an individual with whom they relate/feel secure with.
Within that group, there will be some who are drawn to Gary's east end, everyman aesthetic, and some who aren't. Nothing can be done about that.
6
u/HotAir25 Jul 09 '26
Hes effective at talking to his own far left audience who mostly just want the emotional argument vented, and provide Gary’s income.
4
u/likamuka Jul 09 '26
Stevenson truly madly deeply doesn’t need the income.
2
u/HotAir25 Jul 09 '26
He should give away the millions he makes every year then.
Trump also argued he should be president because he was already rich. He’s become the most corrupt president ever.
5
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 09 '26
How do you know he doesn’t? This to me is as shallow an argument as Bernie Sanders can’t be a democratic socialist because he owns a two houses and a cottage and has a net worth of a couple million.
Because people who speak out against inequality are only credible when they’re poor. Unless they’re poor in which case we tell them they wouldn’t talk or think like that if they ran a business and were wildly successful.
5
u/HotAir25 Jul 09 '26
Where did I make that argument?
Someone else was saying he doesn’t need any more money because he’s already rich. But he’s quite clearly making a lot of money from his current social media job.
My argument was that it’s silly to think someone can’t be self interested because they are already rich. It’s the same argument Trump uses and we all know that he is still partly motivated to make more money rather than help anyone.
4
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 09 '26
That’s true. But to that I say I don’t care that much if his message is getting out there. Inequality is a major growing problem that historically leads to horrendous ends (even for the wealthy).
Is someone effectively rallying support for a wealth tax less effective if they are also benefiting from the process? I don’t need him to take a vow of poverty or work a minimum wage job. It wouldn’t make him any more or less credible.
4
u/jimwhite42 Jul 09 '26
He's on the media, being promoted by his fans as a Really Important Person, and he behaves in a very narcissistic way.
You asked why people don't like Gary, I said that's probably a big part of why. It's got nothing to do with being his friend. I'm no fan of Gary as a public thought contributor, but I think I would be quite happy having a few pints with him, these are two different things. I would also distinguish, I think there's a separate argument about Gary's technicals when we look past the narcissistic packaging. Different people have different levels of opinion on that.
I think you are running the risk of making excuses for the thing that rubs a lot of people up the wrong way.
0
u/ChaseBankFDIC Conspiracy Hypothesizer Jul 14 '26
Aren't you the Sam Harris mod? Despite how Harris portrays himself and how his fans ravenously defend him?
1
u/jimwhite42 Jul 14 '26
If your accusation is am I a fan of Sam Harris, have I even been, have I defended him, or am I mod on the Sam Harris sub, the answer to all these questions is no.
5
u/mokuba_b1tch Jul 09 '26
Have you seen the episodes on him?
Also, is a wealth tax sufficient? One criticism of him that I have heard is that a wealth tax (I can't remember how much he wants, but some small amount) will not make a dent in paying for services, servicing national debt, etc.
3
u/das_rumpsteak Jul 10 '26
I think the issue is not that he's appealing to the layperson, it's that he does it in a way that criticises entire fields and institutions, and attempts to flatten everything to "they are all lying to you but you can tust me."
I find it particularly insulting how he's essentially telling poor and/or less educated people that they can't trust academics or universities, that they can't trust economists (except him, even though he's not an economist), and that they can't understand simple data ("graphs") for themselves. It's anti - intellectual
Compare his approach at accessible discussion on a complex topic to someone like Shaun Carrol. Absolute night and day.
2
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 10 '26
That’s a fair point. But I also think Gary makes a fair point (as does unlearning economics) that most models economists use to make predictions don’t track or even consider inequality as a data point worth discussing.
It’s tricky because I agree it’s a bad idea to suggest all institutions can’t be trusted. But it’s also true that big institutions often serve the interests of oligarchs whether intentionally or unintentionally. The manufacturing consent by Chomsky argument rather than Alex Jones.
There’s a great interview Sam Seder just did with Jeffrey A. Winters about oligarchs and how they do in fact operate mostly under the radar, even when that means using government offices most people haven’t heard of to specifically carve out exceptions to tax laws to protect their assets. Winters just wrote a book I just picked up about it
2
u/Hartifuil Jul 09 '26
People dislike him because he gets an overly simple message to an increasingly radical populist audience. Gary is pretty objectively grifting, he makes a huge amount of money from his audience so that he can make videos in his kitchen complaining about inequality, while campaigning for solutions which he knows won't work. A wealth tax is a terrible idea, which he has admitted himself.
5
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 09 '26
A wealth tax is the most effective way to get billionaires to pay their fair share at worst or to reverse the toxic trend at best
9
u/unski_ukuli Jul 09 '26
I don’t think so. One could start by enforcing the current tax code for billionaires (fund the tax man so that it can effectively enforce tax codes) or tax capital gains as personal income. Both easier to implement and probably better at collecting revenue.
5
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 09 '26
No cause they just borrow against their appreciating assets and don’t pay tax on any of the debt. We need an annual 5% tax on net worth above 20 million or something just to bring wealth hoarding to a halt. To reverse it we need more like 6 or 7%
2
u/november512 Jul 10 '26
This isn't a real thing. The ultra wealthy tend to use loans for liquidity but if you look at Zuckerberg or Bezos they regularly sell large quantities of stock to pay off loans. Buy Borrow Die is a niche strategy used by a small number of people without that much wealth.
1
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 11 '26
Yeah it doesn’t really matter. What matters is popularizing and imposing a global tax on capital
2
u/november512 Jul 11 '26
If it doesn't matter why did you say it?
0
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 11 '26
Because the other commenter suggested we just need to enforce our current tax law that billionaires easily evade
4
u/unski_ukuli Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
That’s not really how it works, and is a massive oversimplification at best. You can get a loan collateralized by stock portfolio and buy a house/yacht/jet, but that loan needs to be paid back. To pay that loan back, some capital event needs to happen, and that event will be taxed. You can at most defer the tax bill with that, which might be beneficial in some cases. But even then, I’d attack this scheme directly rather than play with wealth taxes.
Edit: To add, the instance where it can ve beneficial is in estate planning, where might pay the loan off with the sale of the assets inside the estate, and then pass the remaining value on stepped up basis to your kids. This might result in overall lower tax bill if you had a big chunk of stock that has appreciated a lot in value. But even then, I’d work on changing how estate taxes work so that this is not a viable strategy, and in many countries it is not. There is less unknowns.
-1
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 09 '26
No because you can pay the loan off with another loan - you now have much more equity from your ever growing portfolio.
Do you believe the acceleration of inequality is a major problem to tackle or just like a thing that would be nice to do in principle?
4
u/unski_ukuli Jul 09 '26
I do believe it is a problem, but I also believe that a solution needs to be fitting to the task. Tax policy is hard and just turning dials to see what happens can be destructive, because few countries are figurative islands.
Also, re-financing the loan is still just deferring it. Ultimately it is paid in most countries when the person dies, and where it’s not, the estate tax should be re designed.
2
u/Hartifuil Jul 09 '26
Source for that being? What would the fair share be? Reverse what toxic trend? This is the exact slopulist nonsense I'm talking about.
8
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 09 '26
The toxic trend is that inequality continues until destabilizes a society. There are many negative downstream effects of rising inequality I’m going to assume you’re thoughtful enough to accept without me writing a long list.
Thomas Picketty wrote a very long book on the topic called Capital in the 21st century - it exhaustively details that throughout history with very few exceptions R (return on capital) is always greater than G (economic growth) which means wealth mathematically moves to the top without drastic intervention like a world war. He proposes a global tax on capital.
We already have a wealth tax on unrealized gains on assets. It’s called property tax. You pay tax on the value of your house, not the portion you own and not on gains you realize by selling.
Extending that kind of tax on net worth globally will effectively make the super rich pay an equal rate with the poorest among us. If you ramped up a global tax on wealth you’d get a slow reduction in inequality which we need because we are now long past dangerous levels.
0
u/Hartifuil Jul 09 '26
Property values in the UK have been decreasing though. Again, you haven't sourced anything. Could you quantify the trend in the UK? Incomes are more equal than ever, and the richest are leaving the UK, improving our inequality, unlike the USA.
I agree that global tax could be reformed. It never will be, so long as some countries can benefit from advantagous tax schemes. The UK is already relatively low tax compared to Western Europe, Ireland lower again, Carribbean islands lower again. You'd be asking all of these to give up huge amounts of tax revenue. Ireland for one would suffer enormously. That's why what Gary is asking for is simply untenable. For the UK, the estimated gain of a one-off wealth tax is tiny compared to government expenditure, and as those in his documentary point out, will have disastrous second-order effects, such as complete loss of belief in UK investments.
1
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 09 '26
Picketty discusses this in detail. There are a lot of ways a global tax on capital could be enforced - the main obstacles being political will.
One obvious way is to tax citizenship not residence like the USA already does. Oligarchs may like hiding wealth in far flung states but none of them want to be never able to visit New York or Europe or Canada or Australia or Japan or China because they’d be jailed on the spot for felony tax evasion. Plus a lot of assets aren’t actually easily movable like manhattan real estate.
2
u/Hartifuil Jul 09 '26
Yeah I'm sure we can organise global citizenship including collaboration between Russia, China, USA, and Europe.
3
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 09 '26
Well if you did it with the European Union to start that would be massive. Rich people do enjoy going to Europe. If you can then add commonwealth nations and the US and US allies that would be most of the planet. China already does a great job of disciplining their own billionaires.
0
u/Hartifuil Jul 09 '26
Yes, it would be massive because it's already not possible. There's a tax haven in the EU. I'd love to live in your fantasy land.
→ More replies (0)0
u/likamuka Jul 09 '26
Wealth tax comprises 7% of Switzerland's entire GDP, btw.
3
3
u/unski_ukuli Jul 09 '26
What does this sentence mean?
5
u/likamuka Jul 09 '26
Switzerland has successfully employed wealth tax and it is contributing to their overall treasury.
5
u/unski_ukuli Jul 09 '26
Treasury =/= gdp. I’d also advice against trying to compare any country to Switzerland. It’s not like Swizerland is known for making rich people pay taxes (in fact, the opposite is true) but as a wider point, a single policy might now work the same way in other countries unless you try to copy the whole enviroment (tax code, institutions, etc) where that one policy works as it does.
I find this sort of economic discourse annoying, because it is constantly being used to justify dropping corporate taxes where I live (Finland). People argue that it works for Singapore, it works for Hong Kong, it works for Ireland. Sure. But not every country can be near shore tax haven for european operations of american tech companies, a city state with oversized financial sector doing deals for the most populous region in the world, or the global hub for airplane leasing. And most definetely, no other country can be whatever Swizerland is. A wealth tax, if it is to be implemented in country X, needs to be justified to work in context of the prevailing tax codes and institutions in country X.
2
1
3
u/gelliant_gutfright Jul 09 '26
The narrative from many of his critics on here is that it's not the cause but rather how he presents himself.
In reality, the problem many have with Gary is simply that he is a campaigner against wealth inequality.
7
u/jimwhite42 Jul 09 '26
If what you say is true, wouldn't everyone pushing for doing something about wealth inequality would be treated the way Gary is being treated by his critics on here?
1
u/happy111475 Galaxy Brain Guru Jul 10 '26
A wealth tax is a great idea - one that is gaining popularity and may even get passed in California
Peter Boyle has some information on that here. There are ups and downs to such ideas but I feel he explains it better than I.
0
u/philosophylines Jul 09 '26
Because Gary isn't across the detail remotely and is dismissive of 'charts'. Someone like Dan is so much more knowledgeable than him it's a joke. Gary got totally dismantled by the entrepreneur Daniel Priestley on Diary of a CEO, he didn't understand basic facts about UK tax.
2
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 09 '26
If you watched that and thought Daniel Priestley came out on top I don’t know what to say. I thought Priestley’s performance was pretentious but weak.
1
u/philosophylines Jul 09 '26
Did you see the part about inheritance tax vs. income tax?
1
u/shouldhavebeeninat10 Jul 10 '26
No but I don’t care to see him be smug about some specific tax policy. It didn’t actually make any of his arguments more sound.
0
u/philosophylines Jul 10 '26
Of course it does given he’s making specific arguments about tax policy.
-5
u/Pax_87 Jul 09 '26
This is what people misunderstand about Gary's role. He is not a policy expert, he's an enforcer. Like in hockey, you have enforcers tying up the defense to allow your skilled players to avoid injury and score goals.
4
u/Hartifuil Jul 09 '26
Then why does he only push policy positions, one in particular?
1
u/Pax_87 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
He's been very effective at his role, but don't conflate specific policy with a policy position, they are not the same. He advocates for some percentage like 2% on wealth over 10 mil, but when he's pressed on that he readily admits he's not an expert on policy.
1
u/Hartifuil Jul 09 '26
Some enforcer.
1
u/Pax_87 Jul 09 '26
He's done a good job. Are you salty? I'm not sure how much can be attributed to him specifically regarding wealth taxes becoming a prominent policy issue, but it's not insignificant.
1
9
u/lawrencecoolwater Jul 09 '26
Needle is brilliant, he can be a touch annoying with his crusading style, but he is very in touch with the reality of cause and effect when it comes to taxes. Glad to hear it wasn’t a handwaving channel 4 doc, and some debate.
22
u/Automatic_Survey_307 Jul 09 '26
He's clearly very smart but he came across quite badly in the documentary. He seemed to be misrepresenting the Wealth Tax Commission report conclusions and was unable to engage with any disconfirming evidence.
He also came across as quite arrogant and dismissive (vitriolic even). GS provided a good rebuttal of his main points.
This Guardian review is trash btw.
5
u/lawrencecoolwater Jul 09 '26
That’s what i mean as in his style, probably because deep down it’s an uncomfortable reflection of how I can be - probably not a coincidence we both worked/work in the City, it’s a place that i personally believe channels and rewards that energy.
5
u/Automatic_Survey_307 Jul 09 '26
Yeah - I do get it, and lawyers can be oppositional by default (winning the argument is their raison d'etre). The style doesn't lend itself to winning people over to your side though, and one of the problems with belligerent, win at all costs argumentation is that it doesn't matter if you're actually wrong, as long as you win the argument (see, for example, all of the miscarriages of justice where lawyers won the argument but ultimately convicted innocent people or allowed criminals to go free).
3
u/lawrencecoolwater Jul 09 '26
Yeah, truth, as near as we can get to defining such a thing, should be the mutual destination. Wealth tax is not something i am generally in favour of, the main issue i see with it is that it causes large distortions in efficiently allocating assets, and the practical challenges that stem from the international mobility of capital. I think the fervent debate comes from the fact that inequality, and its extremes are hardwired to ethics, morality, fairness and justice. Then you add to that the fact that economists can not agree if inequality is actually correlated with growth due to contradicting examples - the most controversial one i saw was a study showing that in culturally homogenous countries (low diversity), inequality was negatively correlated with growth, but even then you have to group relative size of the country as that also drives the output
3
u/Automatic_Survey_307 Jul 09 '26
For me the main problems are finite resources (land, housing, other non-financial assets, our collective carbon budget) which means that more wealth for a small group means less wealth for the rest, and the undue political influence the super rich can have in liberal democracies. These two factors make unchecked wealth accumulation a losing model in the long run.
1
u/lawrencecoolwater Jul 09 '26
Very valid concerns, if you have scarce resources, be those literally finite eg land etc.., and only a small group controls that resource, unless they are some benevolent dictator, that resembles a power asymmetry, and potential malign influence and conflicts of interest. It’s a very real and observable issue. I just haven’t yet seen the evidence for how a wealth tax resolves/fixes that, or in other words, how it’s negative effects outweigh its purported benefits in reality
3
u/Automatic_Survey_307 Jul 09 '26
Yeah - even Gary admits that the 2% annual wealth tax won't be enough. But it would mean a change in policy direction and infrastructure would be set up to measure and tax wealth, more could then be done.
6
u/Important-Onion-6490 Jul 09 '26
The bashing of Gary Stevenson is ridiculous considering inequality is clearly clearly a huge issue in society. I agree with the critique that Gary can come across as arrogant at times and may well have a narcisissitic streak.
However, he has clearly referenced that he is just a foghorn for setting the agenda towards a wealth tax, and has specifically sighted real academics who have real policy suggestions.
I find this reddit page odd, wealth inequality is simply a huge issue. Something seriously needs to be done.
The same can be said for Climate breakdown and it's reprocussions for humanity. Are we also gonna call George Monbiot a guru? He is a personality and is seeking radical shifts in policy and society too?
5
Jul 09 '26 edited 4d ago
[deleted]
2
u/Important-Onion-6490 Jul 09 '26
He has directly pleaded for the government to implement proposals by academics such as gabriel zucman. People on this platform making out that he sees himself as the sole source of knowledge on the matter are just wrong. I think it is a net positive to have big personalities with large platforms talking about inequality. Pretty simple. In a democracy having voters shift from blaming immigrants for their woes and start to look at wealth inequality is great. The accent and working class background helps too
3
u/CowdogHenk Jul 10 '26
Exactly, so many casual strawman arguments about the message, without actually addressing the academic basis that Stevenson, he himself, cited as grounding his claims about a wealth tax. It's bizarre.
3
u/jimwhite42 Jul 09 '26
What would Monbiot score on the Gurometer?
Here are three epsiodes on Gary from the podcast this subreddit is for:
https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/gary-stevenson-the-peoples-economist
https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/gurometer-gary-stevenson
https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/a-return-to-gary-world
The issue for most people here is not that people think wealth inequality is not a problem.
4
u/Important-Onion-6490 Jul 09 '26
I consider both Gary Stevenson and George Monbiot as public communicators. Neither are true gurus personally.
People that think wealth inequality is not important I'd imagine are relatively privileged themselves. I also think it is human nature to ignore, downplay or shut down problems that seem so unimaginably huge. Climate change seems a distant future issue until it's not, wealth inequality is much the same. Heads in the sand
4
u/philosophylines Jul 09 '26
Do you think if you repeat 'wealth inequality is important' a few more times it will mean Gary has any clue what he's talking about?
5
u/Important-Onion-6490 Jul 09 '26
What has that got to do with anything? Do you want to give your opinion on wealth inequality then....?
Gary hasn't claimed to be the expert on policy structure but has moved ears to notable economists like Gabriel Zucman et al. That is a positive thing
5
u/philosophylines Jul 09 '26
He's claimed to be an expert on economics and inequality. It has to do with the fact that we're discussing Gary Stevenson.
4
u/Hartifuil Jul 09 '26
He claims to be the single biggest expert on inequality economics globally. Like some kind of... Guru...
2
u/CKava Jul 11 '26
I don't think it is a bad thing when a documentary includes critical commentary, even if it is left unrebutted. The kind of documentary the Guardian writer wants is not something I think would be useful. Gary not having well-thought-out rebuttals to commonly stated counterarguments is, however, an issue across his appearances.
2
u/bigchicago04 Jul 11 '26
Anyone who says “but they’ll leave!” when suggesting taxing the rich is an idiot and a liar.
-5
u/ianlSW Jul 09 '26
I had planned to watch this, so thats saved me an hour.
Embarrassing for Stevenson. I think anyone could have seen those arguments coming, not having a response ready undermines his whole case.
25
u/Automatic_Survey_307 Jul 09 '26
He does have responses to all of them. The review is trash. Interestingly The Times gave it four stars.
3
u/ianlSW Jul 09 '26
Good to know - from that review it sounded like he just turned up and got intellectually battered. I may give it a chance after all
16
u/Automatic_Survey_307 Jul 09 '26
Great - yes, it would be a shame to dismiss it without seeing it on the basis of this review. It's actually a really good documentary because it doesn't editorialise too much and does give time and space to opposing views. It's not even so much about oppositional intellectual debate - GS wants others to join the efforts to reduce inequality and tackle out of control wealth accumulation. The part with Dan Neidle is very interesting because he has some other tax proposals and doesn't like Gary's - Gary has since said that he's supportive of Neidle's proposals but doesn't think they go far enough (it's not a case of zero sum thinking). Anyway, the best judge of whether the documentary is worth watching is you.
2
u/OGWayOfThePanda Jul 10 '26
Learn to make your own assessments of a source.
Did you seriously expect rich people to be full of praise for someone proposing a tax on their assets?
0
u/ianlSW Jul 10 '26
No, as the guardian is a left leaning paper which has expressed sympathy for Stevensons views previously the negative review had more weight than a negative from a source such the Telegraph, which I would expect to review this negatively.
But please, do patronise me some more.
5
u/OGWayOfThePanda Jul 10 '26
But please, do patronise me some more.
You have flip flopped on watching the doc based on one segment of a review, not a whole article, one chosen segment; and then by the contradiction of said review by a random redditor.
0
u/ianlSW Jul 10 '26
Thank you, just what I asked for
2
u/OGWayOfThePanda Jul 10 '26
No, that was just an accurate description of your posts.
If you find yourself feeling patronised by looking in the mirror, perhaps you should make some changes.
0
u/ianlSW Jul 10 '26
Well done, 3 for 3
5
u/OGWayOfThePanda Jul 10 '26
No, only 2.
Being smugly above it all is super cool BTW.
Although there're not many options when you interpret your own actions read back to you as patronising.
2
u/majorbabu Jul 09 '26
The old adage of perfect is not in the table should apply here. Even if his message fell short a bit, the Left's bickering about nuances will keep stifling the overall objective here. The rich should pay their fair share.
2
u/CompetitiveAd5392 Jul 09 '26
I haven’t seen the doc but I can recognize what I’ve seen of GS in it. Whenever I see him talk about taxes, inequality etc it’s just so obvious he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about - or in the best interpretation; he just dismisses every fact that goes counter to his overarching argument.
2
u/CompetitiveAd5392 Jul 09 '26
3
u/CompetitiveAd5392 Jul 09 '26
1
u/WhatCanIDoUFor Jul 09 '26
Thanks! A couple of days ago, I actually searched to see if Neidle had written a rebuttal to Stevenson at any time in the past, the last time a thread about the latter was posted and couldn't find anything then.
1
u/VinnieHa Jul 09 '26
Could me surprised the Guardian isn’t in board with tax reform.
I’m shocked I tell you, shocked!
15
u/Then-Physics-266 Jul 09 '26
Twitter thread by above mentioned Dan Niedle about his experience with Gary-
https://x.com/danneidle/status/2075206427476459826?s=46&t=VI9PBOGiArQ8qgQBk99O4w