Okay. Welcome back to Gary's Economics.

Today

we are going to talk about

revenue raising and redistribution.

Okay.

Today I'm going to dispel

a couple of the common myths about tax.

So we exist

in a country and increasingly

a world where governments

can't pay for the things they need 12 00:00:20,760 --> 00:00:22,960 because they don't have any money.

So people are talking about how can we raise money?

And when I talk about taxing the rich,

people think that it's mainly about revenue raising.

This is true.

It's true.

Increasingly we are in a situation

where the middle class are very squeezed

and they don't have much money.

So if you want to actually provide

decent public services,

you have to go after the very rich.

But I don't actually push for taxation

because I want to raise revenue.

The reason I push for taxation

is because ever since I was a trader in the early 2000,

I realised that the economy wouldn’t recover

because wealth was being transferred

very quickly from the middle class

and from government to the super rich.

If the middle class loses its wealth

and the government loses its wealth,

the economy will lose its spending

power, wages will collapse,

the rich will become very rich,

and asset prices will go through the roof.

This is the world we are living in.

Unless you are very rich,

your family and your government is losing its wealth

and you are becoming poor.

For me, tax, whilst revenue raising is a factor,

tax is primarily

about protecting ordinary people

from the rich and stopping wealth transfer

from ordinary people to the rich.

Listen, unless you're very rich,

the assets you own now

will not be owned by your kids and your grandkids.

Those assets will pass to the very rich

because they have enormous amounts of passive income,

which their kids can use to outcompete your kids.

And your kids will end up owning nothing.

This is what I'm trying to avoid.

For me,

taxation is about protecting

the assets

of ordinary British families

and Americans and Australians

and all the other guys who are watching the channel.

It's not just about revenue

raising, tax is about defence,

defence, defence, defence.

I want you to view tax as equivalent to an army.

You have an army to defend yourself from other armies.

You have taxes to protect yourself from the rich.

We had taxes for a long time, and people like my dad

and my friends

dad could afford houses, your kids

and your grandkids will not be able to afford houses

because those houses will be bought by the rich.

The only way to protect yourself from

that is to tax the rich more.

It's not about revenue raising, it's about defence.

The next point is redistribution.

A lot of people don't like my channel

because they think I'm a communist

who is calling for redistribution.

I'm not calling for redistribution.

The redistribution is happening.

I'm trying to stop the redistribution.

Every year,

every decade, every generation,

the middle class and governments get poorer

and those assets gets transferred to the rich.

The government and ordinary families

end up deeper and deeper in debt to the rich.

This is a redistribution.

The redistribution is happening.

The middle class is dying.

They are being eaten by the rich.

I'm not trying to redistribute wealth.

I'm trying to stop the redistribution of wealth

so that your kids and your grandkids

can have something to have kids of their own.

So to conclude, tax is not about revenue raising alone.

It's about defending yourself from the rich.

Redistribution from the rich to the poor

and the ordinary

might be nice in an ideal world,

but right now the main thing is to stop them

from eating your assets alive.

Protect yourself

from the rich, raise taxes on the super rich,

the hoarders of wealth, lower

taxes on ordinary working people.

Tell your friends, tell your mum, support the channel.

Thank you.