0:00 I looked at the the levels of sovereign
0:02 debt owed by the United States and
0:03 Britain and I looked at the numbers and
0:05 I thought this guy these guys are never
0:07 going to repay.
0:08 >> Do you think there's a second a
0:10 potential second crisis like that
0:11 coming? That's what I'm worried about.
0:12 >> Yeah, it's imminent.
0:13 >> It's imminent.
0:14 >> Yeah. If I had a lot of money to bet
0:17 now, I would bet on it. And they said to
0:19 him, "Where did you find 11 billion to
0:21 bail out AIG?"
0:24 Um and he said, "Oh, that's very
0:26 simple." said, "We have something at the
0:28 Federal Reserve that all offices have
0:30 got which is called a computer." And we
0:33 entered the number $11 billion. There is
0:35 a lot of zeros into that and we made a
0:38 transfer to AIG. He was the first
0:41 governor to say this is where money
0:42 comes from.
0:43 >> I feel like a lot of people are
0:44 struggling now and I think it can get a
0:46 lot worse. I'm feel so little confidence
0:48 that there's anyone out there who
0:50 actually does want to fix this.
0:51 >> Yeah. People lost their jobs. They lost
0:53 their homes. They lost hope. And they
0:56 turned to a strong man because the
0:58 strong man is going to defend them. And
1:00 what does the strong man do? He takes
1:02 them into a catastrophic war. And
1:04 millions of them die. So, you know, the
1:07 problem is what do we do with this
1:09 frustration and this anger?
1:17 >> Nice to meet an
1:18 >> Yeah, good to meet you. very excited to
1:20 talk to you.
1:22 >> I want to learn about how you convince
1:24 some very rich people to cancel 100
1:27 billion of debt.
1:28 >> Right. Yeah.
1:29 >> That's where I want to start.
1:30 >> Okay.
1:31 >> How do you do that?
1:32 >> Well, first of all, you have to identify
1:35 your target. And when I got involved in
1:37 this, I got hired by a bunch of NOS's to
1:39 do this job. and they said, um, we'd
1:42 like you to go to Washington and get the
1:44 debt canled because most of it is
1:46 decided at the IMF and the World Bank
1:48 and the Paris Club and and they all
1:50 gather, all the bankers gather in
1:52 Washington every twice a year. And I
1:54 said, look, I'm a really powerful
1:56 cookie, but even I couldn't do that, you
1:58 know. I said, what you have to do is you
2:00 have to mobilize the public. and they
2:02 say, "Oh, you can't do that because the
2:03 public aren't interested in finance and
2:06 money and sovereign debt and, you know,
2:08 compound interest and, you know,
2:10 bilateral and multilateral, you know,
2:12 all of this stuff is far too
2:14 complicated." I said, "I don't believe
2:15 that." I said, you know, it's not rocket
2:17 science and it can be explained and when
2:20 you explain it. Anyway, so then to my
2:22 surprise, one of the guys that appointed
2:24 me was a very wealthy man and I had to
2:27 meet them in the Christian aid in
2:29 Mayfair of all places. And I came out
2:32 and my husband said, "Oh, you messed
2:33 that up, didn't you?" I said, "Yeah, I
2:35 think I did." Cuz I I told him, you
2:36 know, they couldn't just go to
2:37 Washington and get the debt council.
2:39 Anyway, as a result, I get hired and I
2:42 decide that right, what we're going to
2:43 do is a big education campaign. we're
2:45 going to explain this stuff to the
2:46 people and mobilize them because I don't
2:49 believe people act until they feel
2:51 empowered, until they understand stuff.
2:54 And so we started and um and then I get
2:58 approached by a woman who says, "I've
3:00 had a vision from God." I said, "Oh,
3:02 God." She said, "Yeah, God has, you
3:05 know, told me that I have to help
3:07 Jubilees." So I said, "Well, that's
3:08 fine." Then I said we we haven't got a
3:10 proper office and we need at least in
3:12 those days that was 1996
3:16 97 we need at least 30,000 to get going
3:19 and you know we need a play and oh I
3:22 said the worst of all is we need
3:23 charitable status and you've got to you
3:25 know someone's got to deal with the
3:26 bureaucracy and it's not me. She said
3:28 don't worry. She came back 6 weeks
3:30 later. She had the money. She had the
3:33 place and she had, you know, charitable
3:35 status. And after that, I took her very
3:38 seriously. She's a wonderful woman.
3:40 Anyway, then um we began just basically
3:45 kind of breaking down the story into
3:48 bites, you know, that people could
3:51 understand. And we had a policy of
3:53 writing briefing notes on one side of a
3:55 page, bullet points, and drafting them
3:59 in a way that was an argument, you know,
4:01 as if you were a lawyer in front of a
4:03 court and you were trying to make the
4:04 case. So you don't just spew out
4:06 numbers, you use numbers as part of your
4:09 argument.
4:11 And we began and I trapesed around the
4:13 country and in little polls. I'd meet
4:16 five people then there'd be 50 and
4:18 eventually there were 500 people in the
4:21 audiences and so on and then people
4:23 started to say look this is a global
4:25 problem it's not a national problem so
4:27 then we branched out and it became
4:29 Jubilee 2000 let's cancel the debt by
4:31 2000 and it became international and
4:33 then I just had this exhausting period
4:35 where I traveled from Japan through to
4:38 Peru back to Africa down across to parts
4:42 of Asia and it was just exhausting and
4:45 you But we we got a lot of people
4:47 involved behind a brand which was
4:49 Jubilee 2000 with a very clear ask a
4:52 demand. Cancel the debt. Cancel this
4:55 much debt by the year 2000.
4:58 And the next thing the IMF was saying to
5:00 me, my god, what's going on? You know,
5:01 wherever we go around the world, these
5:03 little flags come up saying Jubilee 2000
5:06 and you know, cancel the debt and go,
5:08 you know, so they then had to start
5:09 beefing themselves up to deal with that.
5:11 The most interesting was I met a
5:14 Treasury official and he said to me, "We
5:16 don't know what's going on inside the
5:17 Treasury." Gordon Brown was tre was a
5:20 chancellor at the time. He said, "We
5:22 get, you know, thousands of letters and
5:25 the chancellor had to hire people to
5:27 kind of respond to this public outrage
5:29 because it's so much of it." He says,
5:31 "But you know, we get letters on pink
5:32 pieces of paper with a bunch of roses in
5:35 the corner and it says, "Dear sir, dear
5:38 Chancellor, I understand that in
5:40 calculating Uganda's debt, you chose as
5:43 a cutff point 1983.
5:46 Can I say that I find that entirely
5:48 unreasonable blah blah?" He said, "Who
5:50 the hell explained to her that Uganda's
5:54 cutoff date for the for the cancellation
5:56 of the debt was 1983?" I said, "We did
5:59 it." You know, it's not rocket science,
6:01 but can you just picture that woman
6:03 sitting at her kitchen table, right? And
6:05 then the chancellor writes back to her
6:06 and has to explain why they chose 1983
6:09 as the cutoff date for Uganda.
6:11 >> So by then she's mad as hell, you know,
6:13 and she gets on the street and she turns
6:15 up at the G8 summit in Birmingham, 1998.
6:19 And the the Treasury, this is a long
6:21 story.
6:21 >> No, it's fine. Tell me. I'moring. I'm
6:23 prepared.
6:24 So the so the so the Treasury and the
6:27 Foreign Office decide this is going to
6:29 be awful. There's going to be an
6:31 unpleasant crowd and they're going to be
6:33 going after the G8 leaders and they want
6:36 this is the Birmingham G8 some they want
6:38 it all to be pretty and nice and they
6:40 put up posters, you know, Betty go and
6:42 have your hair done. The G8 leaders are
6:44 coming to town and that sort of stuff.
6:45 So they want it all to be like that. And
6:48 um and we said, "Right, no, we we're
6:52 going." And then we'd had a big argument
6:53 with Germany, and Germany got massive
6:55 debt relief after the war in 1953,
6:58 but the German uh ambassador in Britain
7:01 said, "No, we didn't." Oh, no, we
7:04 didn't. You don't know what you're
7:06 talking about. You know, so I get
7:08 summoned into the the office,
7:10 international development office, and I
7:13 get told that to take my troops off the
7:15 lawn or something, you know. I mean, it
7:17 was just ridiculous. And I said, "Look,
7:20 go and do the homework. We've done the
7:22 homework. We know a professor who's an
7:24 expert in sovereign debt, and he's he's
7:26 explained to us about the 1952-53
7:29 debt relief deal, negotiated in London,
7:32 by the way. It's called the London
7:33 Agreement for Germany." And we'd started
7:35 talking to the German churches and we'd
7:37 said, "Give German, give African
7:41 children a future in the way that German
7:44 children were given a future in 1953."
7:47 Brilliant.
7:48 >> That riled them. They were so angry. So
7:50 they complained to um Blair and said,
7:53 you know, we're going to be embarrassed
7:55 at this summit. And so Blair then got
7:56 the troops out and the police in
7:58 Birmingham were like, "Yeah, you can't
8:01 go here. Can't go." So, we decided to
8:02 form a human chain and they said, "Yes,
8:05 you can have a human chain, but you're
8:06 going to be over there and then you're
8:09 going to be over there and you're going
8:10 nowhere near the world leaders, you
8:12 know."
8:14 And then on the morning, I just thought
8:15 they've killed my campaign, they've
8:17 killed this demonstration. Nobody's
8:19 going to turn up because, you know,
8:21 they'd been so aggressive about against
8:24 it. And I remember standing on a on a in
8:28 front of the hall where we were based
8:29 and looking at the railway station and
8:31 about 10:00 the doors open and
8:34 thousands. Now we think there were about
8:36 100,000 people there. The police say
8:39 there were only 70,000 but you know it's
8:41 the usual story.
8:43 >> And um at this point Blair had taken the
8:47 world leaders and flown them out to a
8:49 castle in the countryside because he was
8:51 embarrassed. They didn't want to
8:52 embarrass them with this demonstration.
8:55 Anyway, so we got there. So, as a
8:57 result, there were 3,000 journalists
8:59 left in Birmingham and with nothing to
9:01 do, there were no leaders. So, they
9:03 phoned us up and said, "What the hell is
9:04 going on? Why are all these people
9:06 here?" So, let's talk to you about
9:07 sovereign debt.
9:08 >> Yeah.
9:09 >> So, next thing I get a call from
9:11 Alistister Campbell.
9:13 The prime minister would like to meet
9:15 you. Uh, and prime minister is flying
9:18 back into Birmingham to meet you.
9:22 So, we said, "Fine, great." and we
9:24 didn't we said look if you don't cancel
9:26 the debt we're going to make a stink you
9:27 know anyway as a result they began
9:29 cancelelling debts
9:30 >> so who was cancelelling the debt just
9:31 the major countries
9:32 >> so no the point was this was mainly
9:34 official debt peter this was um it's
9:38 called bilateral debt this is the debt
9:39 that Britain had lent to say an African
9:42 country and then Japan had lent money to
9:44 that country and then so had Germany and
9:46 so had the United States Japan is one of
9:48 the biggest creditors actually so then
9:51 you had to look at the whole story of
9:53 that country's debt. It's quite
9:55 complicated really. Um yeah and and so
9:58 it's owned by public in so the
10:00 institutions are the governments that
10:02 you know British said you know the
10:04 British government guarantees the
10:06 exports of for example armament
10:09 manufacturers and one of the things we
10:11 found out was that there were armament
10:14 factories in Newcastle that were
10:16 flogging um weapons to the Nigerian
10:19 dictatorships basically and the the
10:22 government is offering them a guarantee
10:25 against their loss. says, "Should the
10:27 old bad dictator not repay the debt and
10:30 it's it was called the export credit
10:32 guarantee department." They've changed
10:33 the name because we so lambasted this
10:37 this outfit. So they were getting
10:39 subsidies from the taxpayer. You know,
10:41 the gray tomatoes back home was not
10:45 being subsidized by the taxpayer. But if
10:46 you were selling
10:48 weapons to the Nigerians, you were you
10:50 had your losses guaranteed. So what
10:52 would happen is of course the dictator
10:54 would default on the loan and then the
10:58 British government would go to the Paris
11:00 Club and the Paris Club is where all the
11:02 creditors meet and they sit around the
11:04 table and they summon Nigeria and say
11:06 look will you pay and um and so you know
11:10 so the big institutions are the
11:11 sovereign lenders but then the Paris
11:14 Club is terribly important but so is the
11:16 IMF and the World Bank because they also
11:18 make loans. So we had to deal with these
11:20 big bad guys, you know, and I said,
11:22 "Look, it's no good going and banging
11:24 your head against a wall in Washington,
11:26 you know, the IMF's wall. You got to
11:29 lobby, you know, your Treasury
11:31 secretaries at home and give them a hard
11:33 time then because they're on the board
11:35 of the IMF. Those that's the real
11:36 target. Leave the bureaucrats alone.
11:38 They've got no power." And that was
11:40 quite a hard shift in thinking for the
11:44 NGO sector, if you like.
11:46 >> I must have loved you. Well, you know,
11:48 there were times, I mean, I I have a
11:50 lovehate relationship with most of the
11:52 because what happened was after we'd
11:53 closed up shop. Um there was this huge
11:57 uh uh uh this huge um UN conference on
12:03 the climate in Copenhagen and the um
12:07 the NOS's the green NOS's came to me and
12:09 said, "What would you advise us to do in
12:11 order to make an impact?" I said, number
12:13 one, you've got to have a powerful
12:14 cookie like me
12:17 offering leadership and and setting
12:20 targets and mobilizing the groups,
12:23 bringing everybody together over our
12:25 dead bodies. So what happened was 150
12:28 NOS's went to Copelagen with their
12:30 different stories and nobody heard the
12:33 word they said really. Of course they
12:34 did.
12:34 >> And the point was, you know, I was I
12:37 wasn't perfect. I made mistakes and I
12:39 can be a difficult old woman really. Um
12:42 but but the point was um it was
12:46 essential to kind of focus in on the ask
12:49 and on um the way in which we were going
12:52 to and who we were going to bring in on
12:54 the story and the branding and all of
12:56 that stuff we had to get right. And it
12:58 took not just me but the team at the
13:01 front, you know, the leadership team
13:02 because everybody else has got lots of,
13:04 you know, so Christian Aid was only too
13:06 glad to put Jubilee 2000 all over their
13:09 their building and and you know, only
13:12 too glad somebody had given them a task.
13:14 They they had so many other things they
13:15 were doing and and oh right, 30 days to
13:19 the millennium, this is what you've got
13:20 to do. It's just was really, you know,
13:22 good way of organizing.
13:25 But as I say, it it riled a few people.
13:28 >> I wonder if those people got straight
13:30 back into debt again after they were
13:31 cleared.
13:32 >> So So what happened was that for a while
13:35 it was hugely beneficial and some
13:37 countries like Uganda
13:40 um and Tanzania made good use of it. But
13:43 the problem is Peter that the creditors
13:45 love an empty balance sheet, right?
13:48 >> They love it when there's just nothing
13:50 on the balance sheet. So they all piled
13:52 in. So, and especially into Uganda, the
13:54 next day the World Bank was saying,
13:55 "Right, well, you haven't got any debts
13:57 now. You haven't got any problems. Let
13:58 me offer you a loan." And um and that is
14:02 the really big problem because it's
14:04 fantastically lucrative to lend money to
14:06 poor countries because the rate of
14:07 interest is so much higher than
14:09 elsewhere
14:10 >> and you get to take their assets as they
14:11 don't
14:11 >> and you take their assets, you take
14:13 their airlines and they whatever assets
14:15 they've got, their ships, their yacht
14:17 sailing out in the seas, high seas and
14:19 so on. um or you try to um and uh and
14:24 you know I mean it's it's kind of really
14:28 lucrative and you know whereas at the
14:30 domestic level we have bankruptcy law so
14:32 if someone can't pay and they're
14:34 starving to death like Charles Dickens's
14:36 dad was they put him in Marshall Z
14:38 prison in those days but after that they
14:40 thought you know he's in prison
14:42 he's not economically active let's get
14:44 him out of prison back on the street and
14:46 start again so we have a bankruptcy
14:48 process in in at the domestic level, but
14:51 we don't have one at the international
14:53 level. We can't say Haiti is collapsed
14:56 and it's, you know, falling apart and
14:59 it's full of gangsters and whatever it
15:02 and it's in no place whatsoever. We've
15:04 got to help this country stabilize and
15:06 come back again. But no, instead we say,
15:09 let's go and loot some more.
15:11 >> This show is brought to you by my lead
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15:36 I do worry about debt a lot now.
15:38 >> Yeah,
15:39 >> I do worry about it. I
15:42 I think about I mean we just made a show
15:45 before you came in where we were talking
15:46 about the 40 trillion of debt that the
15:48 US has and the 10 trillion they've got
15:50 to roll over this year and the
15:52 >> 3 trillion of debt we have here now and
15:55 the way it really seems to just be
15:57 socialized to the public. I don't I
16:00 don't actually think the public really
16:02 generally understands the role that debt
16:04 plays. No,
16:05 >> I think they think of debt as um
16:07 something they use to buy a car or a
16:09 house and the government has some debt,
16:10 but they could, you know, that's fine. I
16:12 don't think they realize they actually
16:13 pay for the debt through higher prices.
16:15 >> Well, you know, I'd like to contest
16:17 that, you know. Let's
16:18 >> contest it.
16:19 >> Yeah. So, the point is it's I mean, I I
16:21 I love the whole question of debt
16:24 because it's about political power
16:25 essentially. It's really all about
16:27 power. But what's also fascinating is
16:30 that there was a time when we did not
16:32 have a developed credit system. And the
16:35 whole point about the credit system is
16:38 that it's a kind of miraculous thing.
16:40 You know, when you go to the bank um to
16:43 borrow 3 million quid to buy a
16:45 one-bedroom flat in London,
16:48 there's no money in the bank.
16:51 What there is is a piece of paper which
16:53 you have to sign which says I promise to
16:55 pay by this date and this is and at this
16:59 interest rate and I'm offering you this
17:01 collateral and with that boom you get
17:04 them 3 million quid no questions asked
17:06 you know
17:07 >> press a button on a computer
17:08 >> sorry
17:09 >> they press a button on a computer
17:10 >> they press button on the computer and
17:11 they try and they do this at the Federal
17:14 Reserve as well and um Bernani gave the
17:18 first ever television interview um ever
17:21 given by a fed governor to this
17:23 wonderful guy Scott P who's just been
17:25 sacked by the new owners of whatever
17:30 uh institution he was part of. But Beni
17:33 gave this interview and they said to
17:35 him, "Where did you find 11 billion to
17:37 bail out AIG?"
17:40 Um and he said, "Oh, that's very
17:42 simple." He said, "We have something at
17:44 the Federal Reserve that all officers
17:46 have got which is called a computer."
17:48 and we entered the number 11 billion
17:50 dollars. There is a lot of zeros into
17:52 that and we made a transfer to AIG but
17:56 in return they had to offer collateral.
17:58 They had to repay over interest and over
18:01 a period of time and in fact the Fed
18:03 made a profit out of that. But you know
18:06 he was the first governor to say this is
18:08 where money comes from. I enter numbers
18:10 into a computer. It's not a simple
18:12 process because you got to have
18:13 collateral because you got to make a
18:15 promise because you do have to pay more
18:18 because there's a rate of interest and
18:19 so on. But anyway, that that process is
18:22 wonderful thing. It means that I can
18:24 without enough capital, I can borrow
18:27 enough money to buy a house and that is
18:29 an amazing thing. So it means that we
18:31 can we can tackle the climate if
18:33 necessary. Um because you know the
18:37 climate, you know, protecting us from
18:40 the climate is going to require
18:42 retrofitting housing. It's going to
18:44 require dealing with flooding and
18:46 droughts and god knows what else. And
18:48 that's going to require a lot of money.
18:50 And we can do that thanks to the
18:53 monetary system. But it is um Thank you.
18:58 We can do that thanks to the monetary
19:00 system, but there are limits to our
19:01 capacities. There's the limit of whether
19:03 or not we haven't already screwed up the
19:05 climate enough not to be able to do too
19:08 much more. There is the limit of our
19:10 intelligence and of our physical
19:13 abilities and so on. The our capacity
19:15 has finite limits but within that money
19:18 is not a problem. Right. Now, in the
19:20 case of the United States and it's $40
19:22 trillion,
19:24 those the trillion dollars are as a
19:28 result of the American government
19:30 borrowing and the the the American
19:33 government is borrowed dollars and it's
19:35 borrowed dollars from the American
19:37 people. Mainly the American people know
19:40 that putting their money in the Fed is
19:42 just about the safest place they could
19:43 keep their money for their retirement
19:46 and so on. And then they the Japanese
19:49 and the Chinese and the Brits all offer
19:52 uh to lend money to lend dollars to to
19:55 the US as well. So they've got all these
19:57 dollar bills and the fact is they they
20:00 they accumulate that and they they they
20:04 should use that for investing in the
20:06 United States. And the wonderful thing
20:08 about it is that with that money by
20:10 borrowing they can invest. Now our
20:12 government at the moment has say oh we
20:14 can't possibly borrow any more money.
20:16 it, you know, because otherwise we'll go
20:18 bust. It'll be the end of the world and
20:19 that's nonsense. They could borrow right
20:22 now because their credit is sound if you
20:24 like. But there's a sort of ideology
20:27 which says you're not allowed to do
20:28 that. But the point is with that money
20:31 the government should invest and create
20:33 new jobs uh new uh entrepreneurs, new
20:38 companies and all of those jobs
20:42 uh entrepreneurs and companies going to
20:44 pay tax revenues and they're going to
20:46 enough pay a tax enough tax revenues to
20:49 repay the initial investment by the
20:52 state.
20:52 >> But this is how it should work.
20:54 >> This is how it would work. However, if
20:56 you allow the economy to weaken, if you
20:58 mess up the economy and there ain't
21:00 enough jobs and people don't have enough
21:02 income, uh they have to work two jobs
21:05 and so on and they, you know, they
21:07 really and their health costs are very
21:10 expensive and so on and so forth. If you
21:12 run your economy in that way, you find
21:14 that the returns don't come back to the
21:17 treasury and that then builds up your
21:20 deficit and your debt. So the debt is a
21:24 function of the weakness of the American
21:26 economy. When the American economy
21:28 recovers and prospers, when there's full
21:30 employment, when people have decent
21:32 incomes, when companies are making
21:35 profits, boom, the debt goes down as
21:38 night follows day. So when you worry
21:41 about the debt, the key thing to worry
21:43 is not the debt. The key thing to worry
21:45 is about how do we fix the American
21:46 economy so that people begin to prosper?
21:49 And at the moment, they're not
21:50 prospering. They are
21:51 >> and the British economy
21:52 >> and the British economy the British and
21:54 investment um Peter which is really one
21:57 of the most important tools the state
21:59 has both private and public investment
22:02 in Britain is the lowest amongst all the
22:04 OECD countries. China isn't sitting on
22:07 her butt saying oh dear the debt is a
22:10 terrible thing. Oh dear it's the end of
22:12 the world. China is investing in her
22:15 future. And that's because the Communist
22:17 Party can't afford to have a social
22:19 uprising. They can't afford to have a
22:21 social revolt. You know, they're not
22:23 democratic, but they have to pay
22:24 attention to those billions of Chinese
22:27 who can be can be difficult. So, they're
22:30 investing in their people's future and
22:32 in particular tackling climate breakdown
22:35 because they have big problems with the
22:37 deserts in the north of the country and
22:39 so on. Um,
22:40 >> but don't we have that risk here as
22:41 well? we have it as well. But we we
22:44 pretend we are we pretend our
22:46 governments pretend we're helpless in
22:48 dealing with this that we have to wait
22:50 for the Bank of England to think about
22:52 whether or not we can have affordable um
22:55 rates of interest for our bond issues.
22:58 We have to think about whether or not
22:59 foreigners will be able to buy those
23:01 bonds. This is all rubbish. You know um
23:04 the the Chinese say sorry we are going
23:07 to manage a financial system. One of
23:10 their tools is capital controls. We will
23:13 manage how much money floods into the
23:14 country and how much floods out. We're
23:16 not going to leave that to something
23:17 called the market. We're going to manage
23:20 that. Furthermore, we're going to manage
23:22 investment. We're going to give funding
23:24 to the local authorities and we're going
23:26 to encourage them to use it to tackle
23:28 climate breakdown. We're sitting on our
23:31 hands saying, "No, we've we've got no
23:33 money. You know, we're only the fifth
23:35 richest country in the world, but
23:36 somehow we have no money and we can't
23:38 create new money." And the debt is a
23:40 terrible thing for me. The really
23:42 terrible thing is the fact that people
23:44 in Britain are on such low wages.
23:47 >> Um, and in real terms, their wages have
23:49 been stagnant and falling since, well,
23:52 at least since 2010, but since the GLA
23:55 financial crisis and all the time their
23:58 costs have risen, energy prices rising
24:01 and so on and so so forth, you know, and
24:04 >> why
24:04 >> and so and people are mad as hell. And
24:07 you know the thing is that that we need
24:08 to understand is why are people in
24:10 France angry, in Britain, in the United
24:13 States, in India, in Hungary, in Russia,
24:16 why are they all mad at the same time?
24:18 Why are they all demanding authoritarian
24:22 leaderships at the same time? And the
24:24 reason is they're all confronted by one
24:27 global uh financial system which is
24:30 generating instability and insecurity
24:32 around the world. And people are saying,
24:34 "Please protect me from that stuff."
24:36 Right.
24:36 >> Is it designed for that though?
24:38 >> What the the system?
24:40 >> Yeah. I mean, is is does the instability
24:42 benefit the credit the creditors?
24:46 >> Some people are making loads of money
24:48 out of this. Loads of money. This is And
24:50 everybody can see it. It's not even
24:51 secret.
24:52 >> It used to be hidden.
24:53 >> It used to be hidden. No, no, no. These
24:55 new billionaires are completely brazen.
24:58 Really? Yeah. people love the
25:01 billionaires love capital mobility.
25:04 I can be Facebook or I can be Amazon and
25:08 I can invest in uh Britain and I can
25:11 reap massive profits and push over the
25:14 boundary and into Ireland into a tax
25:16 haven.
25:18 You know, that's heaven. And the
25:19 government won't bat an Ireland. And
25:21 they're not going to be unkind to me
25:23 because I'll go back and say, "Sorry,
25:24 I'll take Amazon out of your country if
25:26 you're nasty to me."
25:27 >> Which they won't. which they won't. And
25:30 so, and our government pretends to be
25:32 pretends to be helpless really. And
25:35 that's for me that pretend impotence is
25:39 the thing that angers me the most.
25:40 >> Is it more that they're just
25:41 incompetent?
25:43 >> They actually don't understand what
25:45 they're doing.
25:45 >> I think they don't understand how it
25:46 works. And and that for that I blame the
25:49 economists really. The economists have
25:51 constructed a system and an architecture
25:53 global and and domestic which is doing
25:57 this which is funneling money from
25:59 everybody up to the few
26:02 >> and they're they too are sitting on
26:04 their hand saying nothing to do with us.
26:06 You know, it was one I loved the Queen
26:08 of England in in whenever it was 2007 89
26:12 saying to the London School of
26:14 Economics, why did you guys not predict
26:16 this crisis? And they were totally
26:19 annoyed, afronted that you should even
26:21 ask. It's not their business to to
26:23 predict a crisis, you know, they they're
26:25 doing some theoretical stuff that that
26:28 they got their PhD for and that they've
26:30 done very well in. and what don't
26:33 involve me in the messy business and how
26:35 the economy is run but they are the
26:37 architects of that that economy
26:39 >> you predicted it
26:41 >> yes and I predicted it because I'd been
26:43 working on sovereign debt I was in a
26:45 very privileged position you know I was
26:47 like it was an eagle-eyed view of the
26:49 world and and my pals at home were just
26:53 obsessed by the if you like the micro
26:56 the local economy the domestic economy
26:59 but I had I was very privileged I could
27:01 And I was very worried about the levels
27:03 of sovereign debt owed by the poorest
27:05 countries until I looked at the levels
27:07 of sovereign debt owed by the United
27:09 States and Britain. And I, you know, I I
27:11 remember the moment in a sense of
27:14 consciousness when I'd been so focused
27:16 on the poor countries. I'd ignored
27:18 Britain and the United States. And I
27:21 looked at the numbers and I thought this
27:22 guy these guys are never going to repay
27:24 either the private but mostly the
27:26 private debt. the public debt invariably
27:30 will get repaid because the economies
27:32 are too big and United States is far too
27:34 big and powerful ever to default on its
27:37 debt actually unless they really screw
27:39 it up. But um that's not the problem.
27:41 The problem was the private debt. People
27:43 have borrowed crazy money. I love Did
27:46 you see the big short?
27:47 >> Of course. Yeah.
27:48 >> You know the scene with the with the um
27:50 pole dancer?
27:51 >> Yes.
27:51 >> It that tells the whole story cuz when
27:53 the banker says to her, "Have you got a
27:55 mortgage?" She says, "Me? I haven't got
27:57 one mortgage. I've got five mortgages.
28:00 >> Yeah. But also there is
28:01 >> And that's when he realizes it's all
28:03 gone wrong.
28:03 >> I mean, the film's brilliant, but it
28:04 also has that really sad ending where
28:06 you see the family pack up their car.
28:08 They've lost their house.
28:09 >> Yeah.
28:10 >> And there's like a reality to this,
28:12 which
28:12 >> Yeah. And then worse still, Mr.
28:14 President Obama says, "We mustn't take
28:16 the law into our own hands and make sure
28:18 the guys who screwed these families up
28:20 pay."
28:21 >> Yeah.
28:22 >> Let's not mess that. And Mr. Professor
28:24 Larry Summers, another very clever
28:26 economist. Let's not unsettle the
28:28 banking system. Let's not We're worried
28:30 about the secondary banking system in
28:32 particular. You know, care those
28:34 families, they'll find a way. They'll
28:36 find a caravan somewhere.
28:38 >> Bring something with Larry Fink.
28:40 >> But he owns their properties.
28:42 >> Yeah.
28:42 >> It you did predict that first global
28:46 financial I think about was it 2006 you
28:48 wrote the book?
28:48 >> So I wrote the book in 20056. Yeah, it
28:51 was published in September 2006 and I
28:53 had a lot of trouble with the publisher.
28:55 I said, "You can't call it the coming
28:57 first world debt crisis because by
28:59 September 2006, it would have come
29:02 >> and then my book will be out of date." I
29:04 said I was so wrong, you know. I I just
29:08 watched it just carried on and on and it
29:12 wasn't until 9th of August 2007 that the
29:15 floods, you know, the the
29:17 >> Was it Leman?
29:19 >> No, that wasn't Leman. even took until
29:21 October 2008 and between August 2002
29:25 people wandered around think there's
29:27 been some little
29:29 >> you know hiccup in the banking system
29:31 nothing much you know the governors all
29:34 they've sorted it all out really it was
29:36 only when layman went that people woke
29:37 up to the fact this is major you know it
29:40 was extraordinary I watched that I I
29:42 remember going to the United States in
29:44 January 2008 and reading the New York
29:46 Times I thought these people don't know
29:49 what's happening and And I had friends
29:50 who at that time had a load of money in
29:52 the money markets, you know, and I said,
29:54 "If I were you, I wouldn't leave them
29:56 there."
29:57 >> I bought my first family home. I can't
29:59 remember it was June, I think it was
30:00 June 2006 or June 2007,
30:03 >> right?
30:03 >> Where wherever you see the chart, I
30:05 bought the peak and it dropped and it
30:07 took 14 years or something to get back.
30:10 Do you think there's a second a
30:12 potential second crisis like that
30:13 coming? That's what I'm worried about.
30:15 >> Yeah, it's imminent.
30:16 >> It's imminent.
30:17 >> Yeah.
30:19 I mean I
30:19 >> even it could be a couple of years
30:21 >> and and you know I couldn't get it right
30:23 last time and I can't I mean if you can
30:25 get the timing right then as you know
30:27 you could make loads of money
30:29 >> but if I were if I had a lot of money to
30:31 bet now I would bet on it and people are
30:34 I mean on is it Kelshi and uh
30:37 >> and these other poly market I think it
30:39 is
30:40 >> they're betting on it all um and you
30:42 know lots of people are predicting and
30:44 the thing is persevering and it's been
30:48 persevering mainly because of stock
30:49 market delusionism. I mean, I've never
30:52 understood the stock market and I don't
30:54 think it's possible to understand it,
30:55 but the fact the stock market was
30:57 rattled last week by one by the Treasury
31:00 Secretary Bessant screwing up over bonds
31:03 buybacks shows that the bond market uh
31:07 the stock market really doesn't know
31:08 what's going on. You know, they don't
31:10 know how bad it is, but they are
31:11 beginning to wake up to it. But for me,
31:13 the key thing is the rate of interest is
31:16 whether or not the Fed puts up rates.
31:19 And I'm my friends are all shocked at me
31:22 because I'm with Mr. Trump on how you've
31:24 got to have low rates really. Um, and
31:28 the problem with the year bond deals
31:30 rising and rates rising is they become
31:33 like a dagger pointed at a balloon,
31:36 right, at a bubble. M
31:38 >> and it in two I mean if you look at I've
31:41 done a
31:42 >> blog today if I may
31:44 >> promote my Substack um thing and I've
31:46 got a chart in there of the way in which
31:49 Greenspan ratcheted up um the interest
31:52 rate and it's and I say it looks like a
31:54 dagger really and I mean and this went
31:56 on for about a year and a half before
31:59 finally the bubble burst and that's
32:02 going to happen again because we haven't
32:04 learned the lesson from from and you
32:06 know Most economists didn't see that or
32:09 didn't didn't understand that at the
32:11 time
32:11 >> or I mean is it a lesson or is it like
32:14 I'm I'm I'm starting to accept that uh
32:17 if you control the debt you have the
32:19 power and if you understand the debt you
32:21 probably make money on the way up and on
32:23 the way down.
32:24 >> Sure. you know, I mean, and so my book
32:26 is called The Global Casino precisely
32:29 because it's all about gambling and all
32:31 about speculating
32:33 >> and we live in a world of to almost
32:35 total deregulation
32:37 um you know of where there are almost no
32:40 rules and so speculating is the quickest
32:43 way to make. Why would you want to
32:45 invest in a wind farm in Britain or in
32:49 you know building retrofitting council
32:51 housing when all you have to do is sit
32:54 on your butt and take a bet that
32:56 something's going to happen and just
32:57 money just you know rolls in. So we now
33:00 I mean the dominant for me the dominant
33:03 mode for most capitalists now is
33:04 speculation not real investment and then
33:07 the government sits on its hand and said
33:09 well I can't do anything because I'm you
33:11 know I have no money.
33:14 It's terrifying.
33:15 >> If if we do have another crisis like
33:17 2008 it feels like it would obviously be
33:20 a lot worse because there's a
33:22 considerably more debt.
33:23 >> There's considerably more debt and much
33:25 more exposure and the question is who is
33:28 exposed? You know, we've been noticing
33:30 lately that private credit institutions
33:32 have just popped up from nowhere. These
33:35 are guys who set up companies uh the
33:39 purpose of which is not understood.
33:41 The aims of which are not a bit like the
33:44 South Sea bubble
33:46 and we know they've been lending not
33:48 huge quantities. I think it's about 3
33:50 trillion 1 to 3 trillion you know huge
33:53 quantities of money relative to the
33:55 whole of the US um economy or the global
33:58 economy but nevertheless we don't know
34:00 where that money has gone and and the
34:03 ability of those borrowers to repay so
34:05 that's one area but there's quite
34:08 there's the shadow banking system as
34:09 well because what's happened is
34:11 >> the banking the banking sector has
34:13 evolved to actually operate beyond the
34:17 reach of government regulators of
34:19 central banks and so on. So they operate
34:21 in what I call the sort of stratosphere
34:24 where we really don't know what they're
34:25 doing basically who they're lending to,
34:28 whether and at what rates and whether or
34:30 not you know and and whether they're
34:32 using our pensions for that lending. You
34:34 know these are institutions like Black
34:36 Rockck which you sort of
34:38 >> scoop up people's savings
34:41 >> and have all this cash and need to
34:43 invest it in something in order for
34:45 their for it to be interest bearing for
34:47 it to be revenue bearing. So they lend
34:50 out this all this cash that they've
34:52 collected to god knows whom you know in
34:55 order to get some interest back on it.
34:57 Um so so I I think it's extremely
35:00 worrying um because of the quantities
35:02 and because of how much of it you know
35:05 is linked to so you know it's it's not
35:08 just does black rock go bust it's what
35:11 happens what happens to all the kind of
35:13 streams around which the money has
35:15 flowed really
35:17 >> is it fixable
35:19 >> yes you know um in my book I argue that
35:23 we have twice transformed the
35:24 international financial system in 1945
35:27 Five, a bunch of economists sat around a
35:29 table at Britain Woods.
35:32 Um, Roosefeld banned the bankers from
35:34 attending the creditors.
35:36 >> Hold on. Is this the book The Creature
35:38 from Czech Islands about?
35:40 >> Which book?
35:41 >> There's a book, The Creature from
35:42 Czechal Island. Wasn't that about
35:44 >> No, that's about the uh
35:45 >> Was that Woods 2?
35:46 >> No, no, no, no. That's about the setting
35:48 up of the Federal Reserve in the United
35:50 States.
35:51 >> Okay.
35:51 >> And it's that story. The bankers were
35:53 all present at that. I think Rothschilds
35:56 and everybody they want to set up a a
35:59 central bank such as the Europeans had
36:01 in in the United States and until 1913
36:05 United States didn't have a central
36:07 bank. So it didn't have a a body that
36:10 could be the lender of last resort for
36:12 example. So that story is a different
36:14 story. Now 45 is Bretton Woods and 45 is
36:17 when uh having
36:20 destroyed the global economy in the 20s
36:22 with the great depression big crash in
36:25 29 then the great depression all of
36:27 which then leads to a catastrophic world
36:29 war the economists sit around the table
36:32 and they say we can't do that again you
36:34 know we're going to manage the system
36:36 and they introduce regulations
36:39 specifically around the movement of
36:40 capital and uh all kind and trade They
36:44 insisted that there should be balances
36:46 between not imbalances between trading
36:49 countries and um it becomes called it's
36:53 called the Bretonwoods architecture and
36:54 it leads to what every economist on the
36:58 left and the right calls the golden age
37:00 of economics 45 to71 there was a golden
37:02 age there were no defaults there were no
37:05 crises u there were trade there were
37:08 trade arguments there were trade
37:09 imbalances they came up but nothing
37:12 serious happened in that time And then
37:13 in
37:14 >> 71,
37:15 >> my friend has a website called what the
37:17  happened in 1971. What happened in
37:20 71 is that President Nixon unilaterally
37:23 and without consulting any of his people
37:26 including his foreign policy advisor
37:29 Kissinger, he doesn't tell Kissinger,
37:31 who's his man dealing with all of the
37:33 rest of the world, that I am going to
37:35 tonight on a Sunday night when the
37:37 cowboy show is over, I'm going to
37:39 announce the United States is destroying
37:41 the international financial
37:42 architecture. It's called the Nixon
37:44 shock. And again, it's a story that was
37:47 kind of buried because at the same time
37:49 he tried to do something with the
37:51 British with the American domestic
37:53 economy and I don't know there was all
37:56 kinds of policies that were accompanying
37:58 that. So that this breakdown of the
38:00 international financial system is seldom
38:02 discussed. I think Nixon was more
38:04 destructive than Trump actually, but he
38:06 never he doesn't get that reputation
38:09 anyway. So then, so what we know is that
38:11 in 45 we'd wrecked the thing and we
38:14 rebuilt it and then in 71 overnight one
38:18 man decides with just three or four
38:20 advisers that he's going to blow it up
38:23 again, you know, and so and then he says
38:25 to the IMF, "Go away and design me a new
38:28 architecture for the world." And the IMF
38:30 says, "Well, yeah, what do you think?"
38:32 And nothing comes of it in the end. You
38:34 know, it gets run by Wall Street
38:36 essentially. So the the world is now in
38:38 my view is what my book is about is
38:40 governed by Wall Street.
38:42 >> This was coming off the gold standard
38:45 >> 1971. Yeah.
38:47 >> Nix is a it wasn't really a gold
38:49 standard. It was the gold standard is
38:51 the 1920s and the 30s.
38:53 >> I thought it was 1971 they he took us
38:55 off the gold standard. What happened was
38:57 that currencies were linked to gold and
38:59 your job as a as a finance minister was
39:02 to keep your currency in balance and you
39:04 had to do that by not building up a
39:07 massive surplus like China has done or
39:10 building up a massive deficit like the
39:12 United States had done because that
39:14 caused an imbalance. You had to keep
39:16 your currency at a value at at a value
39:19 linked to the price of gold. And that
39:22 was a kind of discipline that was that's
39:25 different from the gold standard of the
39:27 1920s and 30s. But I don't want to go
39:29 into how because it's complicated. But
39:31 it was really about currency management.
39:33 Um the gold thing linking it to gold.
39:36 And then they said, "No, don't worry
39:37 about whether your currency is up or
39:39 down. You know, just do as you please.
39:41 Let the markets decide whether it's up
39:43 or down." So we now have a situation,
39:45 you know, where China has built up this
39:47 massive, in my view, quite wicked
39:49 surplus and dumping all their surplus on
39:52 the rest of the world and Britain and
39:54 the United States have massive deficits
39:56 as do other countries. And as a result,
39:59 Peter, you get political tensions.
40:01 People start falling out with each
40:03 other. You know, you look at Canada and
40:05 and the United States right now. You get
40:08 tyrants like Trump erect elected because
40:10 he's going to build a war with Mexico.
40:13 You know, that's why it was so important
40:15 in in in 45 John Maynard Kes. You got to
40:19 manage trade stuff, you know. You can't
40:21 just let it leave it to the market.
40:24 >> Some of the people who listen to my
40:25 podcast and they're not fans of Kees.
40:28 I know the man is kind of denigrated
40:31 around the world very deliberately. I
40:33 mean who knows
40:34 >> is it more because um
40:38 what his idea that you could uh print
40:42 create money to solve uh times of
40:44 economic crisis has actually just become
40:46 the norm and it's to solve any spend
40:48 issue.
40:49 >> Has it been abused as a mechanism?
40:52 >> I mean he's he's definite he did not
40:54 believe you should have deficits. He
40:56 didn't believe you should have a high
40:58 level of debt. He thought it was a bad
40:59 thing. And he explained, "You're going
41:01 to get it if you if you allow your
41:03 economy to collapse. You're going to get
41:04 a deficit. I don't want that." He said,
41:06 "I want to see this happen." That was
41:09 his policy. That was that was his
41:12 monetary policy. Um so he's now what
41:16 happened is but he said you can't do
41:18 that. You can't manage um your spending
41:22 and your income if you just leave it to
41:26 the market because the market, you know,
41:27 the market is is isn't a thing. It's
41:30 just a couple of people taking a bet on
41:32 something. Do you know what I mean? Um
41:35 you got to be a human being and
41:36 intervene and manage this process. Um
41:39 and so he said you've got to manage if
41:41 if if there's a as it was in the 1920s
41:44 when he was writing there's this big
41:46 crater this hole of noneconomic
41:49 activity. People are unemployed
41:52 you know businesses are failing there's
41:55 bankruptcies there's suicides marriages
41:57 are breaking up. There's just this big
41:59 economic crater in the economy. Then the
42:02 government steps in and starts filling
42:04 the crater with investment and jobs and
42:07 it gives opportunities for people to get
42:09 money and to go and spend and do stuff
42:12 and then it brings the economy up to the
42:15 level
42:16 you know uh you filled the crater then
42:19 you don't keep throwing money at it at
42:21 that point because otherwise you'll get
42:23 inflation and and and you'll have too
42:25 much. You've got to you then make sure
42:28 that you keep this imbalance. you don't
42:30 you don't you don't carry on spending
42:32 >> but they have I think so I mean
42:34 certainly since 2008 have we had have we
42:36 had a surplus
42:37 >> so no the point well uh Clinton had a
42:40 surplus in 2000 and it was very damaging
42:43 actually but the point is that yeah no
42:46 we've said we're not going to care about
42:48 this stuff if it goes like that well
42:50 that's the way the market and the market
42:52 you know the market and the thing I I
42:55 loathe most about these market people is
42:58 that they promise us that the market
43:00 will discipline somebody or some
43:02 business if they do wrong and it doesn't
43:05 you know people don't get disciplined
43:08 um
43:09 you know they make more money out of
43:11 gambling and sping they don't get
43:13 disciplined I mean people don't learn
43:16 from it in a sense that and if they do
43:18 make huge losses as they did in 20079
43:22 what happens the taxpayer walks in and
43:24 bails them out
43:25 >> exactly
43:25 >> they don't get disciplined so you know
43:27 what horrified me. I remember watching
43:30 very closely of course in 20078
43:34 um and I thought I watched the bankers
43:36 and the bankers were convinced they were
43:38 going to go to jail. They knew they were
43:40 due due to go to jail
43:43 >> and this was this kind of odd period
43:46 after after
43:48 you know they bailed out Northern Rock
43:50 and they dealt with uh be this is before
43:53 RBS.
43:54 >> I remember the run on Northern Rock.
43:55 >> Yeah. And um
43:58 Gordon Brown says, "Mr. Banker, please
44:00 come into the treasury and help us solve
44:03 this problem, you know, because we know
44:05 that you know understand how the thing
44:07 works." And the bankers think, "Wow,
44:10 yes, sure. I'll come in and help you."
44:12 So after the crisis, we didn't fix the
44:14 system. It it consolidate itself. It
44:18 consolidated itself. It got bigger and
44:20 better really. And then and then we
44:23 blame Kanes for God's sake. You know,
44:25 Kane's had it's not what Kanes wanted at
44:28 all. And when when he is denigrated,
44:30 it's kind of by the forces of evil in my
44:33 view.
44:34 >> People who want control,
44:36 >> people who want the system because, as
44:38 you say, there are loads of people
44:39 making money out of the way it works at
44:41 the moment and speculating and taking
44:44 risks and looting looting. You know, I
44:47 have to say I think the president of the
44:48 United States is looting the account the
44:51 bank accounts of millions of American
44:53 people if with only if only with his
44:55 crypto account is these memes. And today
44:59 the Wall Street Journal tells me that
45:03 uh about a million people have lost $3.4
45:06 billion investing in his um Trump is it
45:10 >> Trump coin?
45:11 >> Trump No, it's the meme. Is it the meme
45:13 that he launched on the day he was
45:14 elected? I thought that was Trump coin.
45:16 >> Well, maybe it's a Trump coin.
45:18 >> Uh, and you know, so kind of
45:22 >> open corruption
45:23 >> and he's not going to do anything about
45:25 managing that. Nobody's So, so it's it's
45:28 a bad old world.
45:30 >> Now, I know that running a business
45:32 means you're always reachable until
45:33 you're not. And the second you miss that
45:35 call, that text, that follow-up, someone
45:38 else picks it up. That's the bit people
45:40 don't think about. You don't just lose
45:41 that customer because you were worse
45:43 than the other guy. You lost them
45:45 because you didn't answer. That's why
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46:35 p.
46:38 It is not controversial to say that
46:40 there are a growing number of people
46:42 looking at the state of the UK and
46:44 asking some serious questions. What
46:46 happens if taxes keep rising? And what
46:48 happens if this political environment
46:50 becomes even more hostile to
46:52 entrepreneurs and investors? Now I have
46:54 been asking these same questions too
46:56 like why should our entire lives wealth
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47:00 decisions of one government. Now one
47:02 option is leaving the UK which many have
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47:10 to leave, having a plan B can give you
47:13 options. And this is where Expat Money
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47:32 any single government or system. Now,
47:34 ExpatMoney has put together a free
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47:43 That is expatoney.com/pr.
47:51 I I worry about this a lot because I I
47:54 feel like over the last few years we
47:57 >> you know we've always had infla I've
47:59 always had to deal with inflation but
48:00 we've always been able to someway build
48:02 an economy that grows outgrows the
48:04 inflation numbers but
48:05 >> I feel like a lot of people are
48:06 struggling now and I think it can get a
48:08 lot worse.
48:09 >> Um and as you rightly said we've got you
48:11 know political discontent. I probably
48:13 would if I vote I probably vote for a
48:15 different side of the bird than you
48:17 would.
48:18 >> Yeah. But I'm I'm filled with so little
48:20 confidence that there's anyone out there
48:22 who actually does want to fix this.
48:24 >> Yeah.
48:24 >> Because I I think the solution I don't
48:28 think the country has a stomach for it.
48:29 >> Yeah. I mean I you know I'm watching
48:32 this with horror. You know we're going
48:34 to have a fascist president of France
48:37 very soon. Mrs. Le Pen is a fascist.
48:41 >> Um and
48:42 >> a fascist or a nationalist.
48:44 >> She's a nationalist.
48:46 And what happens with nationalists and I
48:47 grew up under nationalists Peter in
48:49 South Africa
48:50 >> what happens is you know they they
48:52 accumulate power and they turn into bad
48:55 guys really bad guys but I mean we I
48:57 don't want to have an argument about
48:59 that
49:00 >> because I think people's anger and their
49:03 frustration and and their
49:06 disillusionment with governments is
49:08 absolutely justified and I'm I
49:11 understand fully that you know and but
49:13 the problem is the way it's being
49:15 channeled. You know, Trump said, "Vote
49:18 for me and I'll build a wall against
49:20 Mexico, and I'll look after you, the
49:23 small guy, the little guy,
49:24 >> and I won't start any more wars,
49:26 >> and I'm not going to start any more
49:28 wars." And here he is. He's reneged on
49:30 everything, and and he's hurting he's
49:33 hurting the American people. Now, as far
49:35 as I'm concerned, you know, that's what
49:37 can happen when you have a guy standing
49:39 for these unattainable kind of
49:42 nationalist ideals. he owns into he
49:45 turns into this big bad guy and I I'm
49:48 Mrs. Le Pen will be the same ultimately.
49:51 And the point is we saw this in the
49:53 1930s. You know, we got Hitler in
49:56 Germany in the 1930s because exactly the
49:59 same thing happened then. We had a
50:01 massive debt crisis in 1929. A massive
50:04 crash. Then a deep depression. People
50:07 lost their jobs. They lost their homes.
50:09 They lost hope. And they turned to a
50:11 strong man because the strong man is
50:14 going to defend them. And what does the
50:16 strong man do? He takes them into a
50:18 catastrophic war and millions of them
50:20 die. So you know the problem is what do
50:23 we do with this frustration and this
50:25 anger? In my view it should be channeled
50:27 into how can we fix this problem? How
50:30 can we deal with the financial system?
50:32 How can we deal with the bankers?
50:33 Because the bankers are a lot of the
50:35 problem. How can we begin to manage our
50:37 economies to serve the interests of the
50:39 people and not to serve the interests of
50:41 Wall Street. That's what I think we
50:43 should be talking about.
50:45 >> How do we do that?
50:46 I mean, one of the reasons I don't vote
50:47 anymore is I don't think it matters if
50:50 they come in from the left or the right,
50:51 they seem to make promises they they
50:53 never keep.
50:54 >> I think I tell you what's happened. When
50:56 I was a young woman, and I'm because I'm
50:58 quite an old lady now.
50:59 >> You're not that much older than me, are
51:00 you?
51:01 >> No, I'm I'm 80 next year, but when I was
51:04 my father,
51:05 >> when I was in my 20ies, I remember being
51:08 very impressed with Parliament, you
51:11 know, and I thought, gosh, at those
51:12 people, they're doing good works. In
51:14 those days they had political power.
51:17 >> They made decisions about the allocation
51:19 of public resources to in Britain. And
51:23 then Mrs. Thatcher comes along. She
51:25 says, "No, let's privatize everything."
51:27 So they take energy, water, flog all the
51:31 water, flog all the energy, fogg
51:32 everything we've got, give it to the
51:34 private sector. They're going to run it.
51:36 Now T's water is running the water
51:38 system and our politicians are helpless
51:40 and we blame them. Right now I'm think I
51:44 I I would nationalize T's water
51:46 tomorrow.
51:47 >> Well, Bernham wanted to, didn't he? He
51:48 came back and said it'll be too
51:49 expensive now.
51:50 >> Yeah, because we have no money, which is
51:52 the other lie, basically. Of course, he
51:55 listens to all those economists who tell
51:57 them, you know, there's if there was to
51:59 be a crisis tomorrow, we'd find money.
52:01 If there's going to be a war against
52:02 Russia, we'll find the money, right?
52:04 There is the money, but we just choose
52:06 not to spend it on nationalizing the
52:09 water companies so people can get decent
52:11 clean water and our rivers can be
52:13 cleaned up. And so that's for me that's
52:16 the problem. The economists, the central
52:18 bankers, all those officials, the
52:19 treasury are saying there is no money.
52:22 And the government has, you know, the
52:23 government has something which no
52:25 corporate has, which is that behind the
52:28 treasury there are 30 million taxpayers.
52:31 Are you a taxpayer, Peter?
52:33 I'm a high taxpayer.
52:35 >> Yeah. I can't avoid paying my taxes,
52:37 right? And and I don't just pay my
52:39 income taxes or my I pay other taxes all
52:42 the time, right? And I must do that by
52:45 law because, you know, I'm not like
52:47 Amazon. I can get caught and go to jail.
52:50 So, so the government has legal legally
52:53 enforced sources of income. And that
52:56 makes the central bank a very powerful
52:59 creditor because that money is coming in
53:01 not just this year but next year, the
53:05 year after and in 30 years time indeed
53:07 in a 100 years time this institution
53:10 will still be collecting revenues from
53:13 taxpayers. That gives this institution
53:15 the power to create new money, new
53:18 credit which could be used to clean up
53:21 our rivers for example. But so when they
53:24 say oh there is no money they are I mean
53:28 it's it's called austerity it's it's a
53:30 kind of neo it's called neoliberal
53:33 economic thinking but it's a very
53:35 defeist type of economic policy but the
53:38 people who do well out of it are the
53:40 creditors.
53:40 >> But is it is the worry of taking on more
53:43 debt at a time where we've got low
53:45 productivity we've got stagnation
53:48 stagnated growth. If we were if we had
53:51 high growth, we had four 5% growth,
53:53 maybe they would be more confident. Are
53:55 they worried about the bond market re
53:56 the action?
53:57 >> We have low productivity, Peter, because
53:59 we have low investment. If you don't
54:01 invest in your economy, if you're not
54:03 innovating, if you're not, you know,
54:05 improving the way you work at things, of
54:08 course you've got low product. to blame
54:11 the lack of money on low productivity
54:13 when actually it's the fact that you
54:15 haven't invested that has led to low
54:17 productivity is completely wrong.
54:19 >> This is the this says to me that the
54:21 entire institution of government is just
54:23 failing on its mandate.
54:25 >> Yeah. And that's thank to the way in
54:28 which you know as I say on the one hand
54:30 they they've been hollowed out of power.
54:33 Parliament has been hollowed out. Who
54:35 wants to be an MP today? I mean, I know
54:38 some people are really desperate to be
54:39 in, but it's not really something you
54:41 aspire to because it's, you know,
54:44 politically weak position to be in. Um,
54:47 and then you have the economists, the
54:49 London School of Economics, the
54:51 Treasury, and the Bank of England saying
54:53 to these politicians, and our
54:55 politicians are ordinary people like us,
54:57 saying, "Sorry, but you know, you can't
54:59 do this. There's no money." And it and
55:01 it's that lie which I think is so which
55:05 is what I think is losing l you is
55:09 leading to the rise of authoritarianism.
55:11 And these guys are sitting there saying
55:13 we don't know why everybody's so angry.
55:15 We don't know why the right wing are
55:17 doing so well. We don't know why Mrs. Le
55:19 Pen is winning. We don't know why
55:21 President Trump became the president.
55:23 You know, they honestly don't know. They
55:25 don't believe. They can't see it. Sorry,
55:27 I'm
55:28 >> No, it's fine. It's fine. And it's quite
55:29 interesting because if I did vote
55:32 >> Yes.
55:33 >> And if I voted in France, I would be one
55:36 of the people at least listening to Le
55:38 Pen.
55:38 >> Yeah.
55:38 >> As I have listened to Nigel Faraji. I
55:41 wouldn't vote for Nigel though. Um I've
55:44 only if the times when I did vote, I did
55:46 vote conservative and I'm actually a fan
55:48 of Margaret Thatcher. But but I am one
55:50 of those people who's not sure on all of
55:52 the privatization.
55:53 >> Yeah.
55:53 >> I think privatizing things like British
55:55 Airways is a good idea. Yeah. I don't
55:57 think privatizing things like Royal Mail
55:59 is a good idea or the waters because and
56:01 having foreign people own our waters and
56:02 not care what is in it. And my
56:04 libertarian friends and my uh uh
56:07 libertarian friends will be like
56:09 shouting at me and in the comments
56:11 going, "Pe, you you're a disgrace, but I
56:13 I just I understand the power of
56:15 corporate greed."
56:16 >> Yeah.
56:17 >> And sometimes it doesn't work in the
56:18 best interest of the public.
56:20 >> Um but at the same time, I I and I see
56:23 what you're saying about, you know, they
56:25 they can create more money. they can
56:26 they can
56:27 >> fix the water. But my worry with that is
56:30 is that
56:31 >> the debt interest now is so high, they
56:33 will still have to pay that.
56:35 >> Yeah.
56:35 >> At a time where our economy isn't
56:37 growing and real wages are falling. And
56:39 so this it's like it's just a big mess.
56:41 >> Yeah.
56:42 >> The whole thing's a mess.
56:43 >> So in my view, what we have to do is get
56:45 a grip on the Bank of England.
56:46 >> Don't you need to go and get them to
56:47 cancel the debt again? You now bashing
56:49 on doors.
56:50 >> And not our debt. I mean the poor
56:54 African countries, they've got masses of
56:55 external debt and that's a very
56:57 different problem from what from our
56:59 debt. Our debt's not really a problem.
57:01 >> No, we I would go and see the Bank of
57:03 England. I think I might
57:05 appoint a new Bank of England governor
57:08 and I would say look your mandate is not
57:10 sufficient. Your mandate is inflation.
57:14 Who is hurt by inflation? You might be
57:16 in hurt when your the prices of goods in
57:19 this in the supermarkets go up and so
57:21 on. But the people who are most hurt by
57:24 inflation are creditors because if you
57:26 own a debt, if you if you if you've lent
57:29 you know a million pounds to somebody
57:31 and prices rise and incomes rise and
57:34 like this and the value of money rises,
57:37 the value of your debt falls. So the
57:39 creditors hate inflation. They would
57:42 rather have a situation in which prices
57:45 fall, incomes fall, investment falls,
57:48 and the value of the debt goes up, you
57:51 know, and because that's how the system
57:53 works. So, we have a a monetary policy
57:57 aimed at looking after the interests of
57:59 creditors only.
58:00 >> You mean we have a system that benefits
58:02 the rich?
58:03 >> Yes. Because the rich are the ones that
58:04 lend money and the banks and the um
58:07 private equity firms and private credit
58:10 firms, they're the ones Yeah. And and
58:12 and and the economy is run to there's
58:16 millions of debtors. There's only
58:18 thousands of these guys, right? You
58:20 know, and and Bank of England does not
58:23 care about the debtors. So my first job
58:25 would be to say, "Sorry, we want a new
58:27 mandate for the Bank of England." I
58:29 mean, I'm talking pie in the sky stuff.
58:30 Nobody's going to elect me to do this.
58:33 But, you know, we need um a new
58:35 governor. We need a new mandate. The the
58:38 priority is not going to be inflation
58:41 because while we think inflation is a
58:43 bad thing, we know how good it is for
58:45 the the creditors. The priority is going
58:47 to be to lower interest rates and enable
58:51 the government to invest money in the
58:53 real economy and generate income for
58:56 everybody. But that that would also then
58:58 require people within government knowing
59:00 where to invest the money and invest it
59:02 while they don't have the best track
59:04 record recently.
59:05 >> No. So the the point is the whole idea
59:08 in the past was let foreigners come in
59:10 here and and invest. I would say look
59:12 the first thing I would say is a lot of
59:14 our housing stock is very old is out of
59:16 date Victoria and I I live in one old
59:19 house. It's very drafty. My energy bills
59:22 are really high. Number one is retrofit
59:25 all of the housing stock of the British
59:27 Isles. And that means you got to hire
59:29 laborers, you've got to hire architects,
59:31 you've got to hire plumbers, you've got
59:32 to hire uh plasterers, you've got to,
59:35 you know, and those are manual jobs and
59:37 there's thousands and thousands of jobs
59:40 just in that project. And then what do
59:43 you do? You protect us from what's
59:45 coming. big floods, big drought and you
59:48 know which is causing houses in London
59:52 for example to subside. Subsidance is
59:54 becoming an issue because of the
59:55 droughts. Floods are an issue. So you
59:58 could help against all of that while at
1:00:00 the same time employing people who get
1:00:02 income and then pay taxes and send it
1:00:05 back to the government and balance the
1:00:07 books. So, you know, to balance the
1:00:09 books, to reduce the deficit, you've got
1:00:11 to invest in the economy, and there's
1:00:14 lots of work that has to be done. Let me
1:00:16 tell you, there's no shortage of work
1:00:18 that has to be done in our economy.
1:00:20 >> Well, that would be that would require
1:00:21 them then pointing the money in the
1:00:23 right place. Um, yeah,
1:00:24 >> you know, we we have a large welfare
1:00:26 state at the moment. Yeah.
1:00:28 >> Some people want to take the pensions
1:00:29 away, the triple lock. Oh,
1:00:31 >> that's again the story. We have no
1:00:33 money. You know, our p I'm a pensioner.
1:00:36 I pay my taxes. I get a pension, but I
1:00:39 still pay taxes. I'm still making a
1:00:41 contrib. And furthermore, I not only get
1:00:43 a pension, I actually have to because my
1:00:45 pension, the state pension is so low, I
1:00:48 actually work hard and I have additional
1:00:50 income and I pay taxes on that and I
1:00:53 dread it when HMRC comes to my door
1:00:55 because I know I'm going to have to hand
1:00:56 over thousands of pounds to them. So, so
1:00:59 we pensioners are not draining the
1:01:01 economy of the of of resources. The
1:01:04 problem is that all those young people
1:01:06 like my grandchildren don't know where
1:01:09 to go to look for a job. They're the
1:01:11 ones that the worry. Get get that going
1:01:14 then pensions will fall as a share of of
1:01:16 the nation's, you know, budget. That's
1:01:19 all.
1:01:19 >> I can tell it's making you angry. Yeah,
1:01:21 it does make me angry because it's
1:01:23 totally unnecessary and it's you know
1:01:25 what makes me angry is the arrogance of
1:01:27 this of the economists, the arrogance of
1:01:30 the London School of Economics, the
1:01:32 arrogance of all those Treasury
1:01:33 officials and the arrogance of the Bank
1:01:35 of England staff really. They think they
1:01:37 know it all, but they are creating the
1:01:39 conditions in which we get people like
1:01:42 Mrs. Le Pen and President Trump and they
1:01:45 don't think they're responsible. They
1:01:47 just think it's because people are
1:01:48 naturally wow people just get badteered
1:01:51 for nothing. That's that's ridiculous.
1:01:53 >> The the arrogance that you talk about of
1:01:56 these people
1:01:57 >> um
1:01:58 >> how does that manifest itself? How do
1:02:00 you mean?
1:02:01 >> Oh well I mean I if you try and talk to
1:02:05 them if you try and say look first of
1:02:08 all they only allow certain people to
1:02:11 discuss the economy.
1:02:13 >> You have you listened to the BBC lately?
1:02:16 The BBC won't. No,
1:02:17 >> no, you don't. Well, I've
1:02:18 >> given up on the BBC.
1:02:19 >> Lots of people have given up on the BBC,
1:02:21 but no radical economist asking for an
1:02:24 alternative system is allowed to get on
1:02:26 the BBC.
1:02:27 >> Who's a good radical economist? Who do
1:02:28 you like?
1:02:29 >> Well, there are people like Professor
1:02:30 Mariana Matsucato and she argues that
1:02:33 the state is entrepreneurial. You know,
1:02:36 she argues that Mr. Tim Cook or Mr.
1:02:40 What's was he called? The founder of
1:02:41 Apple,
1:02:42 >> Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs did not invent
1:02:44 the Apple phone. That was invented
1:02:46 inside the military, inside a p publicly
1:02:50 financed taxpayerbacked defense industry
1:02:52 in the United States. They worked out
1:02:55 what's the stuff called that enables you
1:02:57 to track maps and
1:03:00 >> oh GPS.
1:03:01 >> GPS that was invented by the by the
1:03:04 public sector taxpayerbacked investor
1:03:06 which was the American state, right? And
1:03:09 the same applies to the British state.
1:03:11 There's lots goes on, you know, the
1:03:13 invention of new medicines, the the
1:03:15 inventions of new procedures within
1:03:17 within the NHS
1:03:18 >> of Concord, the British state working
1:03:20 with the British.
1:03:21 >> Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying that the
1:03:23 British state can run the all of the can
1:03:25 do things.
1:03:26 >> It can, but you see it. What I'm trying
1:03:28 to say is that Mariana Matsucatu is an a
1:03:32 a professor of economics who has argued
1:03:35 that the state is like an entrep can be
1:03:37 entrepreneurial and was in the case of
1:03:39 the Apple iPhone and the internet. All
1:03:42 of that came out of public spending and
1:03:45 she's I don't think that she uh is
1:03:48 invited into the treasury for example.
1:03:51 Um, and there are plenty of other
1:03:52 economists who, and I, you know, I I
1:03:54 don't want to get them into
1:03:55 difficulties, but but really who could,
1:03:58 um, and of course, a lot of people don't
1:04:00 want to be branded as radical because
1:04:01 then they really will never be invited
1:04:04 to.
1:04:04 >> I'd like to be a radical. I Yeah, it's
1:04:07 it just doesn't seem that the the state
1:04:09 in invests in that way now. It it puts
1:04:11 money into Yeah. welfare or it puts
1:04:14 money into free stuff, cheaper stuff, or
1:04:17 it legislates for higher taxes or it
1:04:20 legislates for free like cheap buses. It
1:04:23 keeps to me it keeps trying to fix the
1:04:26 affordability problem rather than create
1:04:29 like creating wealth.
1:04:30 >> Yeah.
1:04:31 >> And to me that to just
1:04:33 >> So that's because Mrs. Thatcher, your
1:04:36 heroine, was one of those who said,
1:04:37 "We've got to let the private sector run
1:04:39 the economy." And then the public sector
1:04:41 has got to just be left with all the the
1:04:44 problems basically. You know, let
1:04:47 because the private sector does rule and
1:04:48 look after old people with Alzheimer's.
1:04:51 No, they the market doesn't really think
1:04:53 that that's a viable thing to do. So,
1:04:56 let the state do that. Okay? Let the
1:04:58 state look after little babies, you
1:05:00 know, in families where there's drugs
1:05:01 and all that. let the state look after
1:05:03 kids who are in care. We in the market
1:05:05 don't want to do that sort of stuff
1:05:07 really. It's not profitable. And so we
1:05:10 the state gets left with all of this
1:05:12 work which is pretty essential for us
1:05:14 and for our well-being. And it and we
1:05:17 and the state has not got the for
1:05:19 example the state is not in a position
1:05:21 to clean the rivers and to clean up the
1:05:24 water system because everything it's
1:05:26 been because it's been privatized. It's
1:05:28 not in a position and due to its own
1:05:31 fault, it's like cutting off your own
1:05:32 legs. Actually, as you say, the royal
1:05:34 male is run by a Czech billionaire. And
1:05:36 so, for example, I've been I'm really
1:05:39 annoyed my my postman no longer knocks
1:05:42 on the door when he's delivering a
1:05:44 parcel or she's delivering a parcel
1:05:47 because she's been told she shouldn't
1:05:48 waste time knocking on the door and
1:05:49 waiting for me to open the door. And so
1:05:51 the other day when I was expecting
1:05:53 medication,
1:05:54 she nobody knocked on the door but they
1:05:57 left a note to say we tried to contact
1:05:59 you and your medication was blah blah.
1:06:01 Do you know what I mean? This is
1:06:02 happening because the private sector
1:06:04 doesn't want to spend money on you know
1:06:06 ensuring that people get their
1:06:08 medication through the post.
1:06:09 >> There must be a halfway house though. Um
1:06:12 I am a conservative and I've listened to
1:06:14 your points and I've resisted start an
1:06:16 argument cuz I quite like you. I don't
1:06:18 really want to have a political debate
1:06:19 with you. have too many of those.
1:06:21 >> Yeah.
1:06:21 >> U but I think I do think there's an
1:06:23 important role for the private sector
1:06:25 and
1:06:26 >> we agree on that Peter I and so does
1:06:28 Kanes. The thing about Kanes is he's
1:06:31 derided from the left as well as the
1:06:33 right because the left say that he
1:06:35 wasn't a Marxist really. He wasn't no he
1:06:39 was very much in leave the market to do
1:06:41 what the market can do best and I'm I'm
1:06:44 with you on that. But there's a whole
1:06:46 lot when the market fails and that's our
1:06:49 problem because the biggest problem
1:06:52 Peter is is is not the market in even
1:06:55 the market in water. The biggest problem
1:06:57 is the market in money you know because
1:07:00 the market in money
1:07:02 you can't marketize money. Money is a
1:07:05 promise to pay. I promise to pay. If you
1:07:07 if you've got a loan for £3 million, you
1:07:10 signed that contract and the money
1:07:13 appears in your bank, you've got to pay
1:07:15 it back again. Now, if the the £3
1:07:17 million is paid to
1:07:20 Mr. Jones in Australia, how do you know
1:07:23 you're going to get it back again?
1:07:24 Because the currency is going to change.
1:07:27 Uh he might, you know, end up committing
1:07:30 suicide or something. When you going to
1:07:31 get your money back? There's no way of
1:07:33 enforcing what goes on in Australia. But
1:07:36 we agreed to deregulate the financial
1:07:39 system so that people could lend
1:07:40 acrossboard. I remember going to Hungary
1:07:43 at the height of the crisis when a bunch
1:07:45 of Irish people had left Dublin because
1:07:48 housing was unaffordable in Dublin and
1:07:51 they were living in Budapest and they
1:07:54 wanted to buy flats and live in them. So
1:07:57 they borrowed money from the Austrians,
1:07:59 right? Oh, and the Austrians were
1:08:00 offering them a good deal. They got a
1:08:02 fantastic. Then suddenly there was the
1:08:04 Euro zone crisis. Voom, the Austrian
1:08:07 currency did this and the Hungarian
1:08:08 currency did that and these poor old
1:08:11 Irish people were in deep trouble. So
1:08:14 that's why crossing boundaries with
1:08:18 money with in the market of money is so
1:08:21 dangerous for society. But we decided in
1:08:25 after the 1970s that we were going to do
1:08:27 that and we're living with the
1:08:29 consequences.
1:08:30 >> Yeah. There's no one doing that.
1:08:33 >> There's no one doing that. They're not
1:08:34 going to stop the lending now
1:08:35 internationally. There's too much
1:08:37 crossber tax.
1:08:38 >> Well, you know what's going to stop it?
1:08:39 I'm afraid another catastrophic world
1:08:41 war. Yeah. More protectionism, more
1:08:44 right-wing nationalism. People are going
1:08:46 to put up the barriers. China already
1:08:48 has barriers. You can't just throw money
1:08:50 at China. You just can't you can't just
1:08:52 take money out of China. But it's going
1:08:54 to get worse. Mrs. Le Pen is going to
1:08:56 say, "Let's look after the French." Just
1:08:58 as Mr. Trump said, "Let's look after the
1:09:00 Americans. Let's put up barriers against
1:09:02 Canada." And blah. You're going to get
1:09:04 much more of that. And then you're going
1:09:06 to get another catastrophic world war.
1:09:09 Then we'll say, "Oh dear, we messed up.
1:09:12 Let's fix the system."
1:09:13 >> Do Do you worry about nationalism itself
1:09:15 or what comes with nationalism? Because
1:09:18 I'm quite proud.
1:09:19 >> No, no. I I I I'm Me too. I'm I'm also
1:09:23 proud. I'm a South African that's become
1:09:25 a Britain. I'm very proud to be a
1:09:27 British person and and and but that's
1:09:30 not nationalism if you think I mean when
1:09:32 I grew up
1:09:34 under Africana nationalists in South
1:09:36 Africa
1:09:37 >> and they had this sense that they were
1:09:40 superior to everybody else you know to
1:09:43 English people to other white people but
1:09:45 particularly to black people and they
1:09:48 were extraordinarily racist um you know
1:09:50 the Hitler was anti-semite he would
1:09:53 blame all the Jews for something and was
1:09:56 terribly unfair and and and the and the
1:09:58 South Africans treated black people as
1:10:01 if they weren't human beings, you know,
1:10:03 and when you go to South Africa today,
1:10:05 it's a very very different story and you
1:10:07 see how wonderful these human beings are
1:10:09 just as we all are. So there is a
1:10:12 problem with the kind of nationalism
1:10:14 that turns into racism and anti-semitism
1:10:18 and then that what that does is to fuel
1:10:22 differences between people and when you
1:10:24 fuel differences between people you have
1:10:26 you start fighting and the next thing
1:10:28 you're at war and the next thing it's a
1:10:31 global war.
1:10:32 >> But isn't nationalism in some ways
1:10:35 putting your country first and the
1:10:37 people of your country first? Naturally,
1:10:39 if you're doing that,
1:10:41 >> you're going to be building perhaps
1:10:42 people who've come in as immigrants
1:10:44 second and it can be therefore to be can
1:10:48 you in under that framework
1:10:50 >> people will naturally call you a racist
1:10:52 if you're nationalist.
1:10:53 >> No. So the point is you know it's a kind
1:10:56 of balance thing Peter because what I
1:10:59 think as you do the absolute priority is
1:11:02 to look after the domestic economy. If
1:11:04 I'm an elected politician, my job is to
1:11:06 look here.
1:11:07 >> But I also mean the domestic people
1:11:08 >> and the domestic people. And I want and
1:11:10 I, you know, I want boundaries, you
1:11:13 know, I'm not we have boundaries all
1:11:15 around our country. You know, we don't
1:11:17 allow a rotten chicken to come. We I
1:11:20 hope we not this talk about we import
1:11:23 eggs which are give give us salmonella.
1:11:27 I hope that's not the case. you know, we
1:11:29 have but we've actually cut back on all
1:11:32 of that management of the borders. We
1:11:35 must manage our borders and there's no
1:11:37 question in my mind. That doesn't mean
1:11:39 say we must be unwelcome to everybody
1:11:41 because you know our population is
1:11:43 getting old and we need young people to
1:11:44 come and work in the NHS. But we've got
1:11:47 to manage it and I'm not against that.
1:11:49 And I'm with you that instead of us
1:11:51 focusing on the global economy, we
1:11:54 should be focusing on the domestic
1:11:56 economy. We should be our politicians
1:11:57 should be saying the most important
1:11:59 thing is we should grow here and I'm
1:12:02 going to do everything necessary to make
1:12:05 sure that we grow here. I'm going to
1:12:06 ensure that Amazon pay taxes here for a
1:12:08 start so that I can pay for those
1:12:10 pensions. I'm going to make sure that uh
1:12:12 they don't just get away with money
1:12:14 cheating and all of that. I'm going to
1:12:16 make sure the banks are very careful
1:12:18 that whom they give loans to. Do they
1:12:20 give loans for productive activity or do
1:12:22 they give it for speculative activity?
1:12:24 If they're giving for speculators, I'm
1:12:25 going to close them down. You know, I'm
1:12:27 going to make sure that the Bank of
1:12:28 England keeps interest rates low so
1:12:30 little businessmen can start up new we
1:12:33 could have a thriving private sector.
1:12:35 Let's focus on the domestic economy. And
1:12:37 it's our it's it's the fact that we've
1:12:39 been told no, don't worry about that.
1:12:41 Don't worry about having for example gas
1:12:44 storage facilities in Britain. We can
1:12:46 always get it from the markets. the
1:12:48 inter suddenly suddenly we there's a
1:12:50 shortage of gas and there's we're coming
1:12:52 to import it and the price is very high
1:12:54 and now we're no no in the old days we
1:12:57 used to have buffer stocks
1:12:59 >> bring back buffer stocks so that when
1:13:01 prices change because there's a a riot
1:13:04 somewhere or there's a drought somewhere
1:13:05 we don't pay the price for it you know
1:13:08 this is this is prioritizing the
1:13:10 interest of the domestic economy and
1:13:12 it's a very different thing
1:13:13 >> do you have any hope left
1:13:16 >> yeah I have hope because you I I didn't
1:13:19 just run a global debt campaign for the
1:13:23 sake of it. I wanted to see some real
1:13:25 change and I was and everybody says to
1:13:27 me, "You can't do to people." This was
1:13:29 the the age of loads of money, you know,
1:13:32 and and all of that. And people aren't
1:13:35 interested in poor people in African
1:13:37 countries. And anyway, they'll all blame
1:13:39 the Africans because, you know, after
1:13:41 all, those people don't know how to
1:13:42 manage their finances and they're all
1:13:44 corrupt, aren't they? And they said
1:13:46 that's therefore you you won't you won't
1:13:48 succeed. And we said no, we're going to
1:13:50 go and do that. And then we found and
1:13:52 when the government woke up and there
1:13:54 were hundreds of thousands of people
1:13:56 standing up and saying, I think you
1:13:58 should cancel those debts because I
1:14:00 could see they were rotten. The
1:14:02 government was astounded. Blair couldn't
1:14:05 understand it. You know, so I'm very
1:14:07 hopeful because that woman who writes
1:14:09 letters from her kitchen table is loads
1:14:12 of those women. And I'm hopeful that
1:14:14 that they will stand up and do
1:14:16 something. Right.
1:14:17 >> Well, I hope you're right. I've got a
1:14:19 22-year-old son and a 16-year-old
1:14:20 daughter.
1:14:22 >> She's just gone off to the Reading
1:14:24 Festival. So, gosh, petrifies me. Um,
1:14:28 and they have they're in a very
1:14:30 different world from when I was their
1:14:31 age, and I just want them to be have the
1:14:34 opportunity to get a job, buy a house,
1:14:37 have kids.
1:14:38 >> Yeah.
1:14:38 >> And it looks like a steep mountain to
1:14:41 climb at the moment.
1:14:42 >> I'm with you. I have a 18-year-old
1:14:44 grandson. It's exactly the same thing.
1:14:47 >> Absolutely. It's a it's really worrying.
1:14:49 So, we've got to get together and say,
1:14:51 "Look, right, there is a different way
1:14:53 and it's got to be inclusive." You know,
1:14:55 the thing that bothers me most is the
1:14:57 climate. You know, this catastrophe
1:14:59 we're seeing in a pool today. That's not
1:15:00 by accident. We know what's happened is
1:15:03 some glacia is has, you know, cut off
1:15:06 from some mountain or smashed through.
1:15:08 But we knew the glacias were melting.
1:15:10 Why were they melting? because we're
1:15:12 burning fossil fuels and we knew this we
1:15:15 knew this a 100 years ago but we
1:15:16 certainly knew knew it 25 years ago and
1:15:19 we haven't done anything about that and
1:15:21 that's going to be more harmful for our
1:15:24 kids even than this messed up economy
1:15:26 you know
1:15:27 >> I'm not sure if that I I read it was a
1:15:29 geological event that wasn't climate
1:15:32 change
1:15:33 >> thing it's geological in the sense that
1:15:36 you know if you break down the glacias
1:15:38 then you know that's geological isn't I
1:15:41 don't Yeah. No, but I don't know if it
1:15:43 was uh a climate change thing. It could
1:15:46 it could happen happen anyway.
1:15:47 >> Yeah. You know, we can have all kinds of
1:15:49 eruptions. I agree. Which are which are
1:15:51 not climate change. But it's also the
1:15:54 case that we now I live in Suffukk and
1:15:57 the harvest there are failing. Um, and
1:15:59 if you look at the fields of vegetables,
1:16:02 I mean, it's I think the wheat harvest
1:16:04 has been okay this year, but the
1:16:06 vegetable harvest, potatoes,
1:16:09 >> but I don't think the right or the left
1:16:10 have got this climate thing right. So,
1:16:11 but but
1:16:12 >> yeah,
1:16:13 >> I would say I tend to be more with the
1:16:14 libertarian people on the right who have
1:16:16 denied for a long time that climate
1:16:18 change
1:16:19 >> is real or caused by humans. Uh although
1:16:22 I've seen a shift recently to say
1:16:24 someone saying, "Oh, it is, but we need
1:16:26 to use the money to use the technologies
1:16:28 to cope with this."
1:16:30 >> Um to to me, and I get shouted at this,
1:16:33 but I think it's pretty clear from year
1:16:35 to year that the planet's getting
1:16:37 hotter.
1:16:38 >> Whatever your reason is,
1:16:41 >> I my parents didn't would never have
1:16:43 thought about having air conditioning in
1:16:45 the UK for the summer. Everyone I know
1:16:47 is like, I think I need air
1:16:48 conditioning. So, there's something
1:16:49 going on there. I I
1:16:50 >> I agree with you there, but I think the
1:16:52 left swung too much the other way and
1:16:53 made everything too expensive. I think
1:16:55 again all of this stuff is like
1:16:58 >> I think too much of the opinion and the
1:17:01 voice is given to the very loud either
1:17:03 side.
1:17:04 >> Yeah.
1:17:04 >> Who want to have they want to hold the
1:17:06 levers of power
1:17:07 >> and so they're very loud.
1:17:09 >> They shout at each other.
1:17:10 >> Most of us in the middle just get stuck
1:17:12 looking at this fight going
1:17:14 >> I just want to go to the pub.
1:17:16 >> No, I mean that's those are the Those
1:17:20 are the common sense people and we've
1:17:22 got to use our common senses and we've
1:17:24 got to Yeah, I agree with you. There's
1:17:26 too much I mean but for me the
1:17:28 extremisms arises from the anger really.
1:17:31 And how do you how do you stop uh how do
1:17:34 you stop young people from stop being
1:17:36 angry if they can't get a job? I can't
1:17:38 go around saying to my grandson there's
1:17:40 no prospect of a job and I expect you to
1:17:42 be very polite about it and very nice
1:17:44 about and don't fall out with the
1:17:46 neighbors. you know, he's going to get
1:17:47 mad as hell if he can't get a job.
1:17:49 >> Well, he needs meaning in his life.
1:17:50 >> He needs meaning. He needs to feel he
1:17:52 belongs to us, you know, that he has a
1:17:55 role to play and so on. And when they
1:17:56 don't, you you just cannot blame them
1:17:59 for their attitude. And that's but for
1:18:01 me, that's where the extremism comes
1:18:03 from, you know. I mean, he he hasn't
1:18:05 been hurt yet, but there are plenty of
1:18:06 people that have already been hurt.
1:18:10 >> Anyway, Peter, there's good people like
1:18:12 us around. Something
1:18:13 >> Yeah. And and you know, you're from the
1:18:15 left. done probably more from the right
1:18:17 and we've had a great disc. We haven't
1:18:18 had a fight.
1:18:19 >> No, we haven't.
1:18:20 >> We haven't fallen out. We've not thrown
1:18:21 anything at each other.
1:18:22 >> You've been very kind and generous to
1:18:24 me.
1:18:24 >> Well, it's very kind and generous of you
1:18:26 to come in. I was I was really excited
1:18:28 to talk to you because I uh when Chelsea
1:18:31 mentioned your name and I read the
1:18:34 Jubilee 2000, I was like, I remember
1:18:36 this,
1:18:36 >> right?
1:18:37 >> I remember this happening.
1:18:38 >> Yeah.
1:18:39 >> And I now you tell the story of the
1:18:40 people link in arms. I feel like I
1:18:42 remember that as well. Yeah. And
1:18:43 >> so I was like, "No, this would be an
1:18:45 honor to meet you and talk to you." So,
1:18:47 thank you for coming in. I really
1:18:49 appreciate you and everything you've
1:18:50 done. And
1:18:51 >> fingers crossed we get some people like
1:18:53 you maybe in government with some people
1:18:56 maybe like I don't want to say me, but
1:18:59 we can work together and figure this out
1:19:00 because at the moment it's it's a
1:19:02 battleground. I don't like it. I'm kind
1:19:04 of over it. So fingers crossed.
1:19:07 >> Thank you and thank you everyone for
1:19:08 listening. Don't be too mean to us in
1:19:10 the comments. See you soon.