okay so recently i've been thinking about ways  to grow the channel um and i reached out to  

this organization called Patriotic Millionaires in  the U.S. and asked if they were interested in the  

message they invited me over to give a speech  in Washington DC it was in the middle of April (2022) 

it went down well, it's hopefully going to give us some chance to reach out to some more American viewers 

so here is me talking to the American Press and what Patriotic Millionaires in Washington DC

[Applause]  

When i was 14 i used to deliver newspapers  for £12 a week that's $16/week, when i was 19 

and i was studying maths and economics at the  London School of Economics (LSE) for lunch i used to  

get these two scotch eggs for 75p ($1) because that was  the only way i could afford to eat lunch every day  

when i just turned 25 i made my first million  dollars by betting that the us economy would never  

recover from the financial crisis, let me tell  you how i did that, so i grew up in east london  

right next to the skyscrapers of the financial  district and um we used to see em in the  

background we're playing football in the street  but the kids who played in the street next to  

those skyscrapers never got jobs inside them and  i know because i worked in one for four years  

and people used to say to me that's an  interesting accent where are you from

the reason i got that job is because i found out  that before the financial crisis Citibank used  

to hire one trader a year through a poker style card  game that was basically a maths game i was good  

at maths and i was good at games so i entered that  competition and i won and that is how in June 2008  

i became an interest rates trader for Citibank  without knowing anything about financial markets  

four months later i sat on the trading floor  and i watched the world economy blow up  

and all the traders and economists said next year  things will get better and one year later when  

things hadn't gotten better all the traders and  economists said next year things will get better  

and one year after that when things still hadn't  gotten better all the traders and economies said  

next year things will get better it was  around about then i started to get suspicious  

you see i was working on the trading floor  and i was surrounded by very wealthy people  

from elite universities from extremely rich  families from elite private schools but i  

didn't come from that kind of background and i was  still living on the streets of east london and i  

could see a lot of things that they couldn't see i  could see how much people were struggling how they  

couldn't afford to buy houses how they couldn't  get good jobs so i could see my friends mums  

selling their houses to support their  kids who would never be able to afford  

homes of their own so where are those homes  going where are those people's money going  

and i was working at the same time in those  skyscrapers and i'd been to those guys luxury  

penthouses and i'd heard about their million dollar  bonus checks so i knew where the money was going  

so what happens to an economy where all the  money flows to the richest and nothing is left  

for the rest well i'll tell you what happens that  economy dies and i'm not just saying that i bet  

on that i put a massive bet that the us economy  would never recover from the financial crisis  

and by the end of 2011 a little kid from Ilford,  East London who had just turned 25 years old  

was citibank's most profitable trader  in the world and that kid was me and i  

did that by betting at the U.S economy your  economy would die and you know what they did  

they gave me two million dollars and  they said well done mate do it again

so i quit that job but i didn't stop trading  i went home and i kept betting from my dining  

room table every year that your economy  would die and every year i was right and  

every year i made a ton of money but you  know what i don't want to be right anymore  

and you know why because if your economy dies my  economy dies too and my community my friends and  

my family their future their hopes and dreams they  are dying as well and i don't want that to happen  

but it will happen it's going to happen it's  happening right now my economy is collapsing  

because your economy is collapsing and hundreds  of millions of people are not going to be able to  

afford homes to have families they don't know  how they're going to feed their kids that is  

what happens when an economy collapses and it's  happening right now and the only way to stop that  

is to reduce inequality and the  only way to make that happen  

is to actually force rich people to pay their  taxes and the alternative is economic disaster  

and i'm not just saying that i'm betting on it  and you guys had better make sure that this time  

for once i'm wrong and i really hope  that you do thank you [Applause]

housing could be so much more affordable wages  could be so much higher and we could have so  

many more options in how we live our lives some  of them put a lot of money into paying economists  

and think tanks to tell you that inequality  is important for the economy that is not true

[Music]