Funding the Future

Economic meltdown: coming our way

Three weeks ago, I warned that the war involving Iran could trigger a seven-stage economic crisis. Today, I think that risk is much greater than it was then.
The reason is simple. We are no longer looking at a threat to one global trade route. We are potentially looking at threats to two of the most important trade routes in the world at the same time.
Iran is now signalling its intention to close the Strait of Hormuz. At the same time, disruption in the Red Sea could make access to the Suez Canal effectively impossible. Together, these routes are critical to global energy supplies and world trade. A significant proportion of the world’s oil passes through Hormuz, whilst the Suez route is one of the key arteries linking Europe, Asia and the Middle East. If both are disrupted, the consequences will be felt everywhere.
In this video, I explain why these situations change everything. As a result, I revisit the seven stages of economic meltdown that I outlined previously and explain why events are now moving in exactly the direction that analysis suggested. Rising oil prices are only the beginning. Fuel shortages, supply chain breakdowns, food price inflation, business failures and a banking crisis could all follow.
I also explain why central banks are likely to make matters worse. Faced with rising prices, they may once again reach for higher interest rates even though inflation would be caused by shortages and disrupted supply chains, not excessive consumer demand. That mistake could deepen the crisis and accelerate the recession we face.
My concern is not simply that a crisis might happen. My concern is that it may already have begun. Markets are reacting. Commodity prices are rising. Diplomatic efforts are failing. The warning signs are becoming harder to ignore by the day.

Is accounting a time machine?

Most people think accounting records what has already happened: profits earned, cash received, assets owned, and liabilities owed. But that is no longer how much of modern accounting works.
In this video, I explain how accounting has been transformed from a system based on prudence and evidence into one that increasingly relies on expectations about the future. Using a simple example, I show how an investment purchased for £10,000 can be valued at £20,000 almost immediately, even though no additional cash has been received and no profit has actually been earned.
The key to understanding this process is discounting. Future cash flows are brought back into the present using an assumed discount rate, creating a present value that accounting often treats as if it were real wealth today.
As a result, expected future gains can be recognised now, long before they have actually occurred.
In effect, accounting creates a financial time machine, importing the future into the present and treating estimates and assumptions as if they were facts.
I explain how this logic underpins mark-to-market accounting, why it became embedded in global accounting standards, and why it represents a profound break with the traditional accounting principle of prudence, under which profits could not be anticipated, but losses had to be recognised as soon as they became likely.
But this, as I explain,  is about far more than accounting rules.
The same logic shapes financial markets, share prices, pension funds, investment decisions and corporate behaviour. Tomorrow’s income becomes today’s wealth, and future possibilities become present-day profits.
I argue that this process inflates reported wealth, reinforces inequality, redistributes power towards those who own financial assets, and even affects how we think about issues such as climate change, where future costs can be discounted until they appear almost insignificant.
The result is a financial system that often presents uncertainty as certainty and speculation as fact.
So is modern accounting providing a true and fair view of economic reality? Or has it become a mechanism for claiming ownership of a future that does not yet exist?
That is the question at the heart of this video.

Three steps to fix Britain

Britain’s economy is failing, but fixing it is not as complicated as many economists claim.
In this video, I set out three straightforward policies that could transform economic performance, reduce poverty, increase investment and create a stronger society.
The solutions do not come from neoliberal economics. They come from recognising how money, spending, taxation and investment actually work.
I explain why poverty is not just a moral failure but an economic failure, why greater equality can create a stronger economy, and why Britain’s savings system is currently failing to support productive investment.
I also argue that redirecting some ISA and pension savings into the UK economy could unlock more than £100 billion a year for investment, job creation and the climate transition.
The Financial Times recently asked how Britain can revive its economy. My argument is that the answers exist, but they lie outside the economic assumptions that have dominated British politics - and FT thinking - for the last forty-five years.
In particular, I argue that a successful economy must first ensure that everyone has enough income to live with dignity and security. People who are struggling to survive cannot fully participate in society or contribute to economic growth. An economy built on insecurity is an economy that will underperform.
I also explain why higher taxation on high incomes, and most especially that from wealth, has a role to play in rebalancing spending and fiscal power across society.
Finally, I suggest that Britain already possesses the savings required to transform its economy. The challenge is not finding the money; it is ensuring that money is used productively rather than being diverted into speculation and existing assets.
The result would be a stronger economy, better jobs, more investment, lower poverty and a more secure future.
Could these policies succeed where decades of orthodox economics have failed?

The great AI con trick

What if AI’s biggest innovation is not intelligence at all?
What if its real achievement is finding a way to take other people’s work, package it, and charge them to access it?
In this video, I argue that the economic model behind AI deserves much closer scrutiny than it currently receives.
AI systems are trained on enormous quantities of human-created content: books, articles, websites, blogs, videos, images, music and much more. Without that content, AI would have nothing to learn from and nothing useful to say.
Yet the creators whose work makes these systems possible are rarely paid. In many cases, they are not even asked for permission. Their knowledge, creativity and labour become the raw material for products that are then sold back to the public.
That raises fundamental questions about copyright, ownership, economic justice and the concentration of wealth.
Drawing on ideas from political economy, I argue that what many AI companies are doing is best understood as rent extraction. They are creating systems that allow them to charge for access to information that they did not originally create. The result could be a new form of digital landlordism, in which a handful of technology companies gain the power to charge rent for access to knowledge itself.
I also explain why this issue matters to me personally. Over more than twenty years, I have written tens of thousands of blog posts, produced more than a thousand videos and written books whose contents now appear to have been absorbed into AI systems. Like countless other creators, I have never been paid for that contribution, even though it helps make these systems valuable.
The debate does not stop with copyright. It extends to democracy, regulation, taxation and the future distribution of economic power. Who should benefit from AI? The creators whose work made it possible? The public? Or the shareholders of a small number of giant technology companies?
I also examine the wider political implications of AI, including the very different perspectives offered by Tony Blair and Pope Leo XIV. One sees AI as a central pillar of our economic future. The other warns of the dangers that arise when powerful technologies are allowed to operate without sufficient democratic accountability.
This is not simply a debate about technology. It is a debate about economics, democracy, ownership and power. It is about who gains, who loses, and who will control one of the most important technologies of our age.
If AI is going to shape our future, then we need to decide whose future it will be. That is the question at the heart of this video.

Tony Blairosaurus

Tony Blair once claimed to stand for equality, public services and social justice. So what happened?
In this video, I look at Blair’s extraordinary new essay on AI, politics and the future of government, and argue that it reveals something much deeper than a fascination with technology. What it really reveals is the complete triumph of neoliberal thinking over the values Blair once claimed to support.
Blair now argues that governments must adapt themselves to AI, shrink the state, cut support for people with disabilities, prioritise defence spending, and surrender ever more power to markets and corporate interests. He presents this as inevitable. I argue that it is dangerous.
This is not really a debate about artificial intelligence. It is a debate about democracy, inequality, power, human worth, and whether politics should serve people or markets.
In this video, I explore why Blair’s argument reflects neoliberal ideology at its purest, why oligarch money and AI corporations now appear to shape political thinking, and why disability and social security have become central battlegrounds in modern politics. I also look at the extraordinary contradiction between Blair’s conversion to Catholicism and Pope Leo XIV’s direct warning about the dangers posed by AI and concentrated technological power.
At the heart of this discussion is a much bigger question. Should politics exist to serve markets and production, or should it exist to serve people, communities, democracy and the planet? Blair increasingly appears to believe the first. I believe the future depends upon resisting that idea.
This is not just a critique of Tony Blair. It is a critique of the political system that produced him and of the future now being proposed in the name of “modernisation”. If you think politics should still be about people, democracy and well-being, this discussion matters.

AI: Should the Pope be worried?

Pope Leo XIV has issued his first major encyclical, and despite headlines claiming it is about AI, this video argues that its real subject is power.
Who controls artificial intelligence? Who benefits from it? Who is excluded from decision-making? And can democracy survive when a handful of corporations control the digital systems that increasingly shape our lives? Those are the questions the Pope is really asking.
In this video, I explore the political economy behind the Pope’s argument, linking it back to Pope Leo XIII’s response to the industrial revolution in Rerum Novarum in 1891. The comparison is striking: then it was in factories and industrial capitalism that power was concentrated; now it is in algorithms, data centres and platform monopolies. The technologies have changed, but the concentration of power has not. If anything, it has intensified.
This, then, is not really a debate about technology at all. It is a debate about democracy, accountability, ownership, inequality, work, and whether governments still govern in the public interest.
The Pope argues that human beings must never be reduced to data points or economic inputs. He warns that AI cannot make moral judgments, and that technological progress without democratic control risks deepening inequality and undermining freedom itself. At the same time, he is also asking whether elected governments still have meaningful authority when unelected corporations increasingly control the infrastructure through which information, communication and decision-making now flow.
The encyclical raises profound questions. It challenges the idea that technology is neutral, and instead insists that all technologies reflect political choices about ownership, governance and power.
So, why are governments so reluctant to regulate AI corporations when they know markets do not automatically defend freedom? And why may democratic intervention be urgently required if society is to retain any meaningful control over the future being created around us?
Whether you are religious or not, these are among the most important political economy questions of our time.

Is fear destroying Britain?

Everyone talks about inflation, government debt, economic growth and productivity. Politicians obsess about deficits. Economists argue about interest rates. Businesses complain about uncertainty.
But what if Britain’s biggest problem is none of these things?
What if the real crisis is fear?
In this video, I explore how fear of failure, fear of mistakes, fear of judgment, and fear of uncertainty have become embedded in British society. I argue that this culture of fear now shapes how governments govern, how businesses invest, how schools educate, how politicians communicate and how individuals live their lives.
Drawing on the remarkable story told in Dear England and Gareth Southgate’s transformation of the England football team, I suggest that success comes not from eliminating uncertainty but from learning how to live with it. Southgate’s insight was simple: people cannot perform at their best when they are frightened of failure. Once players stopped fearing mistakes, they started playing the football they were capable of producing.
I also examine how neoliberal thinking has encouraged a culture obsessed with perfection, optimisation and control, and how that culture generates anxiety, conformity and political paralysis. When people are taught that every failure is a personal fault, risk-taking declines, creativity suffers, and innovation becomes much harder to achieve.
This video also explores why the opposite of fear is not courage, as many people assume, but curiosity. Fear closes down possibilities. Curiosity opens them up. Fear demands certainty. Curiosity accepts uncertainty. Fear narrows horizons. Curiosity expands them.
I argue that Britain’s education system, political culture and economic institutions increasingly rely on fear as a mechanism of control, creating a society that is less resilient, less creative and less capable than it could be. 
The alternative is curiosity, playfulness, resilience and coherence. These are not abstract ideals. They are the foundations of successful teams, successful organisations and successful societies.
If Britain is to thrive again, we need to stop being frightened of imperfection and start embracing uncertainty. We need less fear and more curiosity. We need less control and more coherence. And above all, we need to remember that freedom from fear may be one of the most important political goals of all.

What is it about Reform?

Reform is rising because trust in politics has collapsed. Economic insecurity, failing public services, unaffordable housing, insecure work and a loss of belonging have created the conditions in which Reform can thrive.
In this video, I argue that Reform is not the cause of Britain’s problems; it is a symptom of much deeper failures that have been building for decades.
I explain why so many people have lost faith in Labour, the Conservatives, government institutions and the political establishment as a whole.
I look at the role played by austerity, deindustrialisation, stagnant wages, housing shortages, declining public services and the growing sense that mainstream politics no longer understands the lives of ordinary people.
The video also explores why immigration has become such a powerful political issue, and why it is often acting as a proxy for wider anxieties about insecurity, identity, opportunity and control. Simply dismissing or attacking Reform voters will not solve these problems. Understanding why people are angry is essential if an alternative is to be created.
Most importantly, I set out what that alternative might look like. I argue for a politics of care based on security, dignity, health, housing, opportunity and democratic participation. Drawing on modern monetary theory and resulting policies of full employment, I explain why governments have far more capacity to act than neoliberal economics suggests, and why rebuilding hope is the only effective response to the politics of grievance.
If Reform is to be challenged, the conditions that created it must be changed. This video explains how that might happen, and why the future of British politics may depend upon it.

What if national debt = national savings?

What if the national debt is not a burden at all?
What if it is simply the nation’s savings? 
Any sensible analysis shows that this so-called debt is no such thing: it's just a massive savings bank operation.
That sounds like a contradiction, but it is not. In fact, understanding this point changes almost everything about how we think about government finance, public spending, austerity and economic policy.
In this video, I explain why every pound of government debt is also somebody else’s financial asset. I show why government bonds are not like household debt, why they function as savings accounts with the state, and why the financial system depends upon them. Pension funds, insurance companies, banks and many of the world’s largest investors all rely on UK government bonds as a safe place to hold wealth.
I also explain why governments that issue their own currency are fundamentally different from households, why the UK government cannot run out of pounds, and why the idea that Britain must one day “pay off the national debt” makes little economic sense. The national debt exists because people and institutions want somewhere secure to save their money, and the government has a duty to accept those savings. 
Along the way, I challenge some of the most common myths in economics.
Are bond markets really in control of governments?
Do bond vigilantes dictate public policy?
Does rising government debt automatically create a crisis?
Or have politicians, economists and commentators misunderstood the role that government bonds actually play in a modern economy?
The answers matter because misunderstanding government debt has helped justify decades of unnecessary austerity, underinvestment, and fear about public spending. If we get the nature of government bonds wrong, we get much of economic policy wrong as well.
If the national debt is actually national savings, then the debate about government finance needs to start in a very different place.

Why are the rich still partying?

Oil prices are under threat. Food supplies are becoming more fragile. Critical raw materials are under strain. The risk of a major economic shock is growing by the day.
Yet stock markets remain close to record highs.
Why?
In this video, I explore the strange disconnect between financial markets and economic reality. The FTSE 100 and S&P 500 continue to rise despite mounting geopolitical risks, growing pressure on energy supplies, concerns about fertiliser production, and warnings that supply chains could be seriously disrupted.
I suggest there are three reasons why this is happening.
First, pension funds and life assurance companies continue to pour money into stock markets because that is what they have been trained to do. Institutional habits create a constant flow of money into shares, regardless of whether those shares are realistically valued. There will be a heavy price to pay for this. 
Second, markets are behaving irrationally. We have seen this before. The dotcom bubble and the financial crisis of 2008 both followed periods when investors convinced themselves that prices could only ever rise. Today, AI speculation appears to be creating a similar mood of market exuberance.
Third, the ultra-wealthy live in a world detached from everyday experience. Rising food prices, energy bills and housing costs do not affect them in the same way that they affect most people. As long as asset prices keep rising, they have little reason to question what is happening.
I also discuss the growing risks hidden within the shadow banking system, the lessons we should have learned from 2008, and why governments should already be preparing for the possibility of another financial crisis.
Most importantly, I ask what should happen if another bailout becomes necessary. Should taxpayers once again rescue private institutions with nothing in return? Or should public support come with public ownership?
The wealthy may still be celebrating, but every financial party eventually ends. The real question is who controls what happens when it does.