Funding the Future

Bankers are once again claiming that they are being treated unfairly. Santander boss Ana Botín has argued that higher taxes on banks make no economic sense and that banks should be treated like any other business.

In this video, I explain why that argument is wrong.

Banks are not ordinary businesses. No other sector enjoys the same combination of privileges, protections and public support. Banks can create money when they lend. The...

Britain’s universities are facing a growing crisis. About one in five of them is now considered at financial risk. Courses are being cut, staff are losing their jobs, and some university towns could face serious economic damage if institutions fail.

But this crisis is not an accident.

In this video, I argue that the problems facing universities are the predictable result of government policy. For...

UK interest rates are far too high, and the Bank of England is making a serious mistake by keeping them that way.

Mortgage holders are paying more, renters are facing rising housing costs, businesses are struggling to invest, and public services are under increasing pressure. Jobs are at risk.

The Bank insists that high interest rates are needed to control inflation, but does the evidence act...

Every day, people tell me the same thing: they feel as if they no longer understand the world around them.

Politics makes no sense. Governments seem incapable of solving obvious problems. The wealthy become richer while ordinary people struggle. Climate change is ignored. Public services deteriorate. And yet we are constantly told that everything is normal.

This video is for anyone who feels that something is deeply wrong.

After a ...

Fifty years ago, in the long hot summer of 1976, I went to university to study economics. Since that time, I have spent half a century reading, writing, teaching, researching, campaigning, and thinking about that subject in some way or other.

To mark that anniversary, and the twentieth anniversary of the Funding the Future blog from which this YouTube channel grew, I have written a new free ebook examining fifty thin...

Most British mortgage holders live with uncertainty. They always face the risk of higher repayment costs through no fault of their own. A change in interest rates, a financial crisis, a war started by Donald Trump, or turmoil in global markets can suddenly increase the cost of keeping a roof over their heads.

But it does not have to be this way.

In the United States, millions of homeowners have fixed-rate mortgages that last for th...

Labour says it wants to build new towns. But if Rachel Reeves funds them through PFI-style private finance, those towns could be financially crippled from the start.

PFI was sold as a clever way to build public infrastructure without increasing government borrowing. In reality, it was a fiscal illusion. The state still paid, but paid far more than it needed to. Schools, hospitals and many other public assets were locked into contra...

In this video, I challenge one of the most deeply embedded assumptions in modern economics: the idea that there is a shortage of money.

The reality is very different. The world is awash with cash. Investment funds, pension funds and wealthy savers are sitting on enormous piles of money that they cannot find productive uses for. Berkshire Hathaway alone is holding hundreds of billions of dollars in cash because it cannot identify in...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ju...

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...

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 go...

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 ...

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...

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 hav...

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...

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 supplie...

Brexit failed. Britain is poorer as a result, trade is harder, investment is weaker, and many of the promises made during the referendum campaign never materialised. The evidence increasingly suggests that the UK economy is smaller than it would otherwise have been, while businesses, universities, scientists, artists and musicians all face barriers that did not previously exist.

As a result, Labour is quietly moving back towards&nb...