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The podcast arrives at 'late stage' Gary discourse as Matt and Chris attempt to enter the man, the myth, and the legend, Gary Stevenson, into a reductive classification system (that once again includes no mention of inequality). The gurometer was not built to handle this level of elite education and trading acumen, and has often been dismissed by arrogant elites due to its scrappy nature and lack of fancy credentials... but it persists. Just remember, an attack on the Gurometer is ultimately an attack on you, your family, and all you hold dear.

Sources

Reddit thread asking us to do better

Jacobin: Portrait of the Trader as a Young Rebel

Richard Murphy's analysis of Gary's Economics

Tax Policy Associates' analysis of some tax reform proposals

Gary on Twitter explaining that traders understand the economy a lot better than economists like Piketty and Stiglitz

Gurometer of Gary

01:02 Gary Stevenson: Other Opinions

07:31 Gary's Wealth Tax Proposal

12:21 Guru Features and Scoring

13:11 Galaxy Brainness

15:34 Cultishness

18:04 Anti-Establishmentarianism

20:04 Grievance Mongering

23:15 Self Aggrandizement and Narcissism

24:25 Cassandra Complex

25:40 Revolutionary Theories

28:12 Pseudo Profound Bullshit

30:07 Conspiracy Mongering

32:21 Excessive Profiteering

34:24 Moral Grandstanding

36:14 Guru Scoring and Analysis

37:34 Quick Fire Guru Bonus Points

40:37 Matt's confusing Binary Measure

Comments

Kit McLean

I’d never heard of this guy before your decoding, and man, he feels like a left wing (although not for long, I’d guess…) version of the “worlds smartest man” dude. It’s like he hasn’t even bothered to google the things he’s talking about. I happened to be listening to an audio book by J Doyle Farmer, Making Sense of Chaos at the same time as your ep, and that book breaks down many of the issues Gary talks about and proposes ways to address them. Also, shout out to Bernard Hickey, a left leaning economist in NZ who doesn’t treat his audience like brain dead slogan-zombies…

Jonathan Cano

Lots of butt hurt about this episode on the subreddit, LOL. I 100% agree with the episode myself.

CrystalJade

One feature I would like to comment on is this tendency for guru’s to take issue with academia. From whichever part of the political spectrum they identify with. It seems to follow Lacan’s discourse theory, namely that the university discourse works to uphold that of the master. This feature is like an indirect route towards challenging a system of power without appearing to do so directly. There is a possibility that those in power ignore academic discourse, however that tends not to feature in guru complaints about academia. So this feature instead seems to serve a different purpose. Instead it does always seem to persuade the general public, perhaps those outside of any particular field, that academic knowledge is failing to serve them in some way. It may also be a reason why the nascent science of gurometry (gurumetrology?) has developed and finds its place in discourse!

DJ Wearing

What were your scores for anti-establishmentarianism? I don't think they were mentioned, Chris just said it was 'high'. I'm assuming two 5s?

Tom Kerwin

To be fair to him, Gazza has said that 1% won’t be anything like enough. To be fair to you, yeah his rejection of Picketty et al is weak Here’s a question: could someone who wasn’t playing the populist, simplistic, rhetoric-drenched guru game get a message through to enough of the broad population that counteracts the right wing stampede? The proper economics podcast Matt shared definitely wouldn’t!

Linda Sears

I’m glad y’all agreed he has broicity. I think that may have been one of the main reasons Gary rubbed me the wrong way.

Amy S

Where do we see the updated gurometer?