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Source Material for Next Decoding: Gary's Economics (Patreon)

Published:
2025-04-28 02:01:33
Edited:
2025-04-28 02:02:43
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

It was requested and this is what Matt suggested as source material, I presume he is including the other two parts but this is what he said to post up. We will cover other stuff but if you think there is something very important/other relevant material to look at please post below. We anticipate this will be as popular as Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky.

Also this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVvoyRpxG-A

Files

Understand the Economy Part 3: Why is Inequality Ignored?

Wealth inequality is surging in the UK and around the world. But economists in the media and universities are blind to it, leading to poor and misleading analysis. Why? Part 3 of Gary's Understand the Economy course. The Trading Game is out in paperback, order here: Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trading-Game-Sunday-Times-bestseller/dp/1802062734/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=1MDX4XHMQKQ4I&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.jG0i7wu9hOWBsnDVSERGMnXgAwX-l13TLjdaemONV7ZEDwUXHwisBcZOiUaLfHv_ZmaRpl-yLXwFkJ-EqTDS2-wfqflS7tDsR5C2XstfsQfukGASPbJ6FRMkihKWJRD9E_8Bzcd9iwJDLnEWR_dSqn1hc0BajGgbPwEmraos4TKrWIiFkc7J2XLDohndz-DCWdXlQtjOUYNB8PI4HMxKyw.Ad2KydrecwbJpoOV4hYTefAT5zRePcX3rtvJGVBGW2k&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+trading+game+gary+stevenson&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1737282511&sprefix=%2Caps%2C92&sr=8-1 Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-trading-game/gary-stevenson//9781802062731?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAoVFluc4_Q0bGby0hvbMy-OQt2ER5 First video on the channel (mentioned in this video re: correct predictions) - https://youtu.be/EiblHqbpXHs UNDERSTAND, SHARE & PUSH BACK SPOTIFY - https://open.spotify.com/show/2807p01KIe4RRFjRTB5o25 INSTAGRAM - https://www.instagram.com/garyseconomics TIKTOK - https://www.tiktok.com/@garyseconomics BLUESKY - https://bsky.app/profile/garyseconomics.bsky.social X - https://twitter.com/garyseconomics FACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/garyseconomics PATREON - https://patreon.com/garyseconomics DISCORD - https://discord.gg/vqME6WsPd7 WEBSITE - https://www.garyseconomics.org SUBSCRIBE, SHARE & START A CONVERSATION Performed by Gary Stevenson @garyseconomics

Comments

iffydonatello

One third the way in: The 90s era MTV camera angles are upsetting.

Andy

Gary is far from a guru. I wonder if perhaps you guys are running out of people to decode, if Gary is coming up as a candidate. Nonetheless, this should be a good test of the Gurometer. I would recommend adding his most recent youtube video to your source material. (The one with the thumbnail that says 'Goodbye for now'.) He specifically discusses in that video (as well as others) how he intentionally does not want this movement to be about him, and why more people need to be discussing, spreading, and making it about the ideas themselves, not him as a person.

Joshua McMonagle-Ihasz

Do the one with Ha-Joon Chang, they way Chang and Matt say "yeah" after explaining something is similar. like they are "learning you" something. Maybe that style of communication for tenured professors and chris has is still to catch up

Adam Sher

Gary - probably not a guru but also not an expert on economics.

Adam Sher

Gary's most insightful moments come when he discusses why he doesn't teach people how to trade. It's one of the few times he provides details that demonstrate he has experience in something. As far as Gurus go, that gives him negative grifting points. A+

Ben Childs

I'm sensing heavy guru vibes here. I'm no economist, and I agree that inequality is a problem, but it really feels like he's trying to pull the Sabine Hossenfelder routine here.

Colin

I suppose one point is that Stevenson explicitly says he's trying to start a single issue political movement. So 1) Is it possible to do that without being to some extent a guru? What's the intersection of political leadership with Guruism? 2) Do we want political movements, and if we do are we going to have to put up with Gurus, or semi-Gurus? What would the alternative look like, and has it ever existed?

Ymirsdreams

I'm already getting hives. 1:20-73 -- Why these issues aren't discussed at university: probably because they were covered at GCSE level when supply and demand curves were studied. 2:55 -- this is true, but that's also because he did Maths & Economics. MAs and BAs focus more on the history, ideas, and philosophy of economics, and the math is often rather quant (Utils, etc). Also this is a mischaracterisation. Most economics at University level in the UK is covered under PPE (Politics, Philosophy, Economics) courses, and the Econ content of that is much more history, phil, ideas, theory, etc. 3:08 -- less a game, more MatLab, but ok. (He's making it sound like SimCity, which is fine, but that would be more of an MSc project he's describing.) 3:33 -- for all Gary fans swap out 'Environment' and 'Climate Change' at this point and see how you feel about this stance. (I've heard all these arguments before from Austrian Economists.) 3:55 -- RAM: can't speak on this. This may be true for the MA project or tools he was using, but were he doing Behavioural Economics this would not be the case. He's basically describing 'rational actor' or 'homo-economicus' and this is a very well understood flaw in the 'Classical' theories at this point. 5:36 -- this is all fair but it depends on the size and scale of the model. For example a model of a street in Kensington is likely fairly accurate on the aggregate even if it doesn't account for the teenagers stuck at home who can't find a job at age 19. 8:45 -- EHEM https://www.lisdatacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/files/Call_for_Papers_ComparativeInequality@LSE_2025.pdf I googled and found a call for papers in 10 sec. 11:51 -- Mischaracterisation. The press and media *cover* interest rates a lot, but they aren't the 'only' or even the core response. (Bonds are also altered, policy on imports, quotas, there's a lot.) This is getting too long so I'll carry on in a reply to this post.

Tree

This guy is just lying. He's got to know what he's saying isnt true.

Matt Dear

Looking forward to this one! I watched quite a bit of his content when he started up, but have fallen off in the last couple years. It will be interesting to see how he stacks up. I think there's definitely parallels to be drawn with his content and guruism. But his intent feels quite different to the average grifter. The personal mythos, and the gold-advocation, are maybe some standout points. Other than that? Not sure!

Daniel VI

Joe Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Will Hutton, Gabriel Zucman, Thomas Piketty. Thomas Piketty can you hear me……Your boys took one hell of a beating!

Empty_Cognizance

Interesting… recently I've seen this guy on my YT homepage quite a bit, and have actually saved a couple for watching if I ever care to but haven't yet… perfect timing

Ethan Milne

The Reddit is gonna become a battleground again

Unfitforpurpose

Yeah, not sure that Neo Liberal Shill quiz is going to save you from this one lads.

SizTheWorld 🇿🇦

I just don't like how he consistently mentions my country, as a cautionary tale, when he talks about wealth inequality...he's not wrong, but we have other stuff too. I do wonder if the society you hear him from affects how amenable you are to it. Probably why I've never heard an American(other than Hasan) like what he had to say

iffydonatello

If I remember correctly, Nassim Taleb also claimed he was one of the few to predict the housing crisis. And he was as full of sh-t. The question isn't whether it could have been predicted (it was) but people rushed in to take advantage of the bubble before it popped. And that had little.to.do.with economists in my understanding.

kurdelis

First decodee in a drug rug!! You have to wonder if that is like the suit for Eric.

Anon y mouse

This will be quite a high-stakes decoding. A plea to Chris and Matt: please don't make the mistake of thinking that economics is a "science" and that GS is doing a Sabine "disgruntled academic" act. Economics is fundamentally political and much of the highly complex mathematics involved is used to give the impression of a hard science when in actuality it is about recommending policy choices, not measuring the precise alignment of planets in the solar system. GS recognises this and it's one of the key assumptions of his critique. Lots of academic economists get very defensive about this because they really want to be thought of as "scientists" and he is attacking that edifice (look up the phenomenon of "physics envy"). One of the reasons we are stuck in the situation we are in with rising inequality and no remedies to improve things is because of discredited economics mumbo jumbo like the "laffer curve" - a mathematical model that was used to justify the tax cuts during the Raegan admin, which has since been shown to be deeply flawed. The same is true with much of the economics that's used to justify low tax, privatisation policies now. Even things like GDP and GDP growth were never designed to be a measure of the success of countries (they were designed as inventories during WW2 but subsequently because used as the central measure of economic success). Check out the work of Prof. Ha Joon Chang for more on this - he was a professor at Cambridge Econ. dept for several decades and clearly identifies the flaws of much of the economics field (he pointed out clearly that you should always question economists to see what political agenda/policy they're pushing behind their mathematical models). Chris and Matt should also look at his work to revise their answer about tariffs in the neoliberal shill questionnaire: Chang is one of the foremost experts on trade and tariffs and makes the important point that unrestricted free trade is mostly bad for developing countries, and developing countries should use tariffs to protect infant industries while they grow.

Bill

I am so looking forward to this!

Miles Curry

Glad you all are doing him! The FT article reveals a clearer picture. Another thing y'all might want to at least acknowledge: He often says that economist don't measure Income inequality, but this is just not true. One metric that I know of are are consumer credit usage: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g19/current/ or savings rate: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF10963. However, I'm not an economist and it looks there are other 'income inequality metics' out there. To me, consumer credit usage and savings rate show pretty easily when consumers are needing to use credit cards or are able to save. It's the very simple measure of a difficult economic time, and for him to not mention that shows that he doesn't really have a firm grasp of economics. That, on top of him saying their aren't metrics to investigate income inequality really lowers his credibility. Thanks for doing him! Looking forward to it!

alice

Yaaaass 💯💯

Jake

Liyke, the maffs is _really_ difficult, bruv. I'm the best economist in the world, innit.

Frances goulart

Highly complex mathematics? What kind of alcoholic beverage goes with that?

Joanna Mulvaney

will be interesting. i have little patience for people who treat economics as a science. but can we skip the accent mocking? i know its super hilarious for people with standard accents to make sure we know we are inferior to you but when we use our telephone voices to try to fit in you mock us for trying. can’t win.

Dan M

Part 3 gave me a negative impression but part 4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9ROtVQt98s), while flawed, made me appreciate that there's some interesting thought being shared in addition to the academic conspiracy theorizing and self-aggrandizement. I would be glad if you included that in your prep!

Neil vdp

I’m just glad we have ourselves a down to earth, renegade insider - who is always right with his predictions - who is here to blow the lid on this whole scam. He’s just like BAM, this is what’s going down, no doubt about it. I knew elite universities were peddling a load of shit, but now I can hate these incredibly rich and stupid economics professors, who on the one hand, are completely blind to wealth inequality and too stupid to make correct predictions, and on the other hand, actually know it’s a scam and are just keeping it rolling because they selfishly benefit. Thanks Copernicus! Sorry, I mean Gary. 😆 Wealth inequality does matter and I don’t like how it’s steadily shifting to the top in Australia. There’s some truth in there, but is Gary feeling the pull of the guru-verse?

Damien

He seemed to take an eternity to say not a whole lot apart from he's your man if you fancy a flutter!

Anon y mouse

>Decoding The Gurus >CREATOR >12h >Anonymouse would this be the kind of thing economists at elite institutions aren’t >interested in? https://www.lisdatacenter.org/wp->content/uploads/files/Call_for_Papers_ComparativeInequality@LSE_2025.pdf Actually this rather proves my point. The International Inequalities Institute at LSE is not in the Economics department. It's a multidisciplinary institute (anthropologist Jason Hickel is a visiting fellow). Of the two keynote speakers one is a development economist (very much not the mainstream of econ) and the other is a sociologist. The point is that you won't find this sort of thing in the economics departments of the big economics schools (particularly the US Universities that tend to dominate in economics, Harvard, Chicago, MIT, Stanford etc.). Inequality studies are found in the public policy departments or other more interdisciplinary departments.

Rob

I know why he suggested this one: I, the field outsider, am right, and all the experts are wrong!

CuriousGeorge

For some reason, each time I see this guy, I think I know him from a Guy Richie or Trainspotting.

Linda Sears

Just a few observations: his first cognitive error was overgeneralizing by saying all academics who study economics only use these models and math, and his second one was presuming that people who get PhDs in economics continue only using these models and math. Presumably, a PhD student would be specializing in some aspect of economics. In that case, the student could conceivably concentrate on income inequality because it is important to him or her to study it. At least in the U.S., an undergraduate student of economics would also have taken courses in history and political science, which would expose the student to other perspectives on wealth inequality. For example, Marx and Engles are showing up for a brief visit in my class this week. I’d be more receptive to his critique if he was more specific and just talked about his experience as a student of economics. Of course, he then would not be able to make the claim that there is a kind of brainwashing occurring in the field. My final observation is he seems to be arguing that economists only live in their ivory towers and don’t see what is happening in the greater world; this may be very true for some, but others probably have kids struggling to land a job or get a place to live or parents unable to pay for healthcare.

d1e5el

I've seen and read quite a few things from him over the last couple of weeks, and even made some notes... I think I'll make a post on reddit as this section seems less suitable to all that much text

Unfitforpurpose

Jesus, got a bit public school in here didn't it.

JF

It's a pet peeve of mine when people phrase things as if they're talking about the whole field of Economics, when they're almost exclusively talking about Macroeconomics. The way he talks in the beginning, you would almost think Economists are forced to spend their whole time in undergrad and PhD studying macro theory specifically. Most Economists focus on empirical work not theory, and it's definitely a minority focusing on questions that regard the whole economy. Speaking to my own experience, I had to take macro theory classes in my first year of my Economics PhD program, where we did focus mostly on the representative agent models he mentioned. However, we also discussed heterogeneous agent models (which have existed for decades) and the well-known criticisms of the representative agent models. Overall, I don't know if that way of teaching makes, but I think the motivation was understandably to start with simpler models and build up to more complex ones.

cd

can’t help thinking that the author of this video seems to have slept through quite a portion of his economics education- at least at UZH we economists learned about inequality…

CrystalJade

I quite like his approach. It has people talking. Many disagree. I don’t believe ad hominem attack represents good criticism. The question is about the level of truth in the theory he promotes. I don’t know about the inputs to economic models that shape policy. That said I know financial modelling at the level of asset prices. It sounds to me as if he is challenging the status quo on how economic policy is made, and this feels uncomfortable. Nobody seems to explain why the status quo represents how things ought to be; rather they dismiss his critique in a rather out of hand way. There is a fantasy frame that supports and upholds views about this subject. Perhaps even a consensus. One that can flatten reality into numbers and discard anything that falls outside of simplifying assumptions. This is where the debate ought to be located.

Anon y mouse

I feel like I've been spamming the comments for this decoding so I'll make this my last contribution. I'd like to share/submit this video from Unlearning Economics (Cahal Moran - an academic economists who could be an interesting guest for DtG to discuss economic issues) which shows why economics is quite different from other academic disciplines. A lot of the usual problems with dysfunction, gatekeeping and elitism are dialled up to 11 and the field can be very arrogant. It is also the worst discipline for diversity and insularity. I think this helps to contextualise Gary Stevenson's attitude towards the discipline: https://youtu.be/AeMcVo3WFOY?si=2FWKSL1O6fo8nuxQ "The Toxic Culture of the Economics Profession" (it's also a pretty entertaining watch)

Jared Wold

The widespread belief that economists don't care about inequality somewhat baffles me. Most say they do! https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/inequality/ I wonder if part of the reason this occurs is that econ is so policy focused that inequality work is often not viewed as such. In my PhD cohort, there are students working on : pay transparency laws, discrimination is access to business startup capital, and access to subsidized childcare, which are all too narrow to talk about as inequality writ large, but are all certainly about inequality.

Niek Vandeursen

Excited for this one, enjoying all the comments across all platforms trying preempt and prevent the (imo) inevitable negative coverage. Obvious charlatan and perhaps more annoyingly very long winded and boring.