Unlearning Economics

I finally did it. I finally made an 'economics of the simpsons' video.Thanks to my editor and my supporters!Patreon: patreon.com/unlearneconomicsMeans TV: means.tv/programs/unlearning-economicsCoffee: buymeacoffee.com/unlearningeconomicsReferences (in rough order of appearance)The World's Billionaires, ForbesConsumer Price Index, US Bureau of Labor StatisticsDistributional Financial Accounts, Federal Reserve https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/Share of Net Worth Held by the Top 1%, FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WFRBST01134A blueprint for a coordinated minimum effective taxation standard for ultra-high-net-worth individuals, Zucman https://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/report-g20.pdfTakers Not Makers, OxfamThe Antitrust Paradox, BorkAmazon's Antitrust Paradox, Khan, Yale Law Journal Vol. 126The Everything Store, StoneDOGE, USAID cuts and excess deaths, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x4ZHWjDcf4The Wage Standard, DubeMonopsony in Movers: The Elasticity of Labor Supply to Firm Wage Policies, Bassier, Dube & Naidu, Journal of Human Resources (2022)State of Working America Data Library, Economic Policy Institute https://data.epi.orgThe Effect of Minimum Wages on Low-Wage Jobs, Cengiz, Dube, Lindner & Zipperer, Quarterly Journal of Economics (2019)American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power, GalbraithUnions and Inequality over the Twentieth Century: New Evidence from Survey Data, Farber, Herbst, Kuziemko & Naidu, Quarterly Journal of Economics (2021)Trade union density, OECD/AIAS ICTWSS database https://www.oecd.orgJulia Pyke interview, Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4 (2025)Simpsons will cool it with N-plant jokes, Associated Press / Deseret News (1990) https://www.deseret.com/1990/12/26/18897868/simpsons-will-cool-it-with-n-plant-jokes/Simpsons Spurs Ire of Nuclear Industry, Harvard Crimson (1990) https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1990/12/6/simpsons-spurs-ire-of-nuclear-industry/What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy?, Ritchie, Our World in Data https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energyElectricity generation and health, Markandya & Wilkinson, The Lancet (2007)Balancing safety with sustainability: assessing the risk of accidents for modern low-carbon energy systems, Sovacool et al., Journal of Cleaner Production (2016)Fifth Assessment Report, Working Group III, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2014)Levelized Cost of Energy+, Lazard https://www.lazard.comHinkley Point C, National Audit OfficeFlamanville 3 cost review, Cour des comptesThe costs of the French nuclear scale-up: a case of negative learning by doing, Grubler, Energy Policy (2010)Historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors, Lovering, Yip & Nordhaus, Energy Policy (2016)World Nuclear Industry Status Report, Schneider et al. https://www.worldnuclearreport.org

Straight from YouTube...2 months laterThanks to Sorcha, Rosie Elliot, and my supporters!Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/unlearningeconomicsPatreon: patreon.com/unlearneconomicsMeans TV: means.tv/programs/unlearning-economicsReferences (in rough order of appearance)Project Café UK, Allegra World Coffee PortalUK Coffee Statistics, Lavazza Professional https://www.lavazzapro.co.uk/blog/uk-coffee-statistics/Café Nation? Exploring the growth of the UK café industry, FerreiraThe Flat White Economy, McWilliamsFamily Spending in the UK, Office for National StatisticsThe Economic Adjustment Programmes for Greece, European Commission (2010, 2012, 2015)The Euro and its Threat to the Future of Europe, StiglitzA Promised Land, ObamaThe café economy: Structural transformation in Greece in the wake of austerity and "reforms", Nikiforos, Missos, Pierros & Rodousakis https://www.lse.ac.uk/Hellenic-Observatory/Publications/GreeSE-PapersThe Long Slow Death of Global Development, Hickel et al.IbidWhy a cup of coffee costs what it does, Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/44bd6a8e-83a5-11e9-9935-ad75bb96c849Wage Hunters and Gatherers, BremanEconomic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour, LewisThe End of the End of History, HochuliState of Working India, Azim Premji UniversityThe Macroeconomics of Austerity, Calvert Jump, Michell, Meadway & Nascimento https://progressiveeconomyforum.com/publications/the-macroeconomics-of-austerity/Townscapes: A Universal Basic Infrastructure for the UK, Erker, Coyle & Westwood https://www.bennettschool.cam.ac.uk/publications/townscapes-a-universal-basic-infrastructure-for-the-uk/1 in 4 Bus Services Have Disappeared in a Decade, Campaign for Better TransportAusterity II: The Devolution, Flip Chart Fairy Tales https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2015/11/30/austerity-ii-the-devolution/IFS analysis on UK wages and local government cuts, Institute for Fiscal StudiesDid Austerity Cause Brexit?, FetzerThe Crisis of Academic Casualisation at LSE, LSE UCU https://lseucu.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/The-Crisis-of-Academic-Casualisation-at-LSE_-2023-LSE-UCU-Report.pdfThe UK's high streets have reached a tipping point – and Reform will reap the benefits, Harris https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/11/uk-high-streets-reform-shops-closing-hopePower to Change research on high streets and Reform UKDelivery start-ups finally get the K-shaped economy they need, Financial Times Lex https://www.ft.com/content/80381028-7aaa-441b-9b7e-6a97ec1e66cfLife, the Universe and Everything, AdamsThe Kite Runner, HosseiniInflation and counter-inflationary policy measures: The case of Spain, UxóSpain – one year on from the employment contract reform: what has changed, Garrigues https://bloglaboral.garrigues.com/en/spain-one-year-on-from-the-employment-contract-reform-what-has-changedWorld Economic Outlook, IMFNextGenerationEU disbursement data, European CommissionPredistribution versus Redistribution: Evidence from France and the United States, Bozio, Garbinti, Goupille-Lebret, Guillot & Piketty https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20220023The Capital Order, Mattei

Lori Wallach has been fighting for better trade for decades, starting by campaigning against NAFTA in the 90s and now fighting bad tariffs in the current US administration. In both instances, trade deals have favoured corporate interests and disfavoured workers. We had a fascinatin in-depth discussion about how Lori has approached trade throughout her career and how her views have developed as the political climate has changed. We also reflected on how misunderstandings and misdirection about trade have been hijacked by both of our professions, getting in the way of proper democratic debate. Finally, we reflected that there have been many victories in builkding a better economy and we'd better not succumb to doomerism.Check out the website Rethinking Trade for background on Lori and her organisation Rethinking Trade: https://rethinktrade.org/Originally recorded on July 7th, 2026.

My allegiance is to democracyReferences (in rough order of appearance)Barry's Economics, "The Wealth Tax Debate Is A Trap" — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_luCGP5pKjwTrevor Noah, billionaire wealth monologueMr Beast / Jimmy Donaldson, Wall Street Journal interviewElon Musk buying Twitter for $44bn (2022), Tesla stock as collateralThe $1 salary club, and Jeff Bezos's $81,840 salary / Rotterdam bridge — Amazon proxy filings and general reportingGabriel Zucman, "A blueprint for a coordinated minimum effective taxation standard for ultra-high-net-worth individuals" (G20, 2024) — https://www.taxobservatory.euWealth Tax Commission, "A Wealth Tax for the UK" (Advani, Chamberlain, Summers, 2020) — https://www.wealthandpolicy.com/wp/WealthTaxFinalReport.pdf"Should the UK have a wealth tax? The Wealth Tax Commission five years on", LSE (1 Dec 2025) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEhGlqV4zn8Advani, Hughson & Tarrant (2021), "Revenue and distributional modelling for a UK wealth tax" — https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/156926/1/WRAP-revenue-distributional-modelling-UK-wealth-tax-Advani-2021.pdfWealth tax simulator — https://taxsimulator.ukwealth.tax/Tax Justice UK, "Taxing Wealth" — https://taxjustice.uk/campaign/taxing-wealth/Tax Justice UK, "How would a wealth tax work in practice?" — https://taxjustice.uk/blog/how-would-a-wealth-tax-work-in-practice/Oxfam, "Tax the rich" — https://www.oxfam.org.uk/get-involved/campaign-with-oxfam/fight-inequality/tax-the-rich/Patriotic Millionaires UK, ten tax reforms — https://patrioticmillionaires.uk/latest-news/policy-recommendations-2025taxpolicy.org.uk, "UK wealth tax: high risk and anti-growth" — https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/07/22/uk-wealth-tax-anti-growth/Wojciech Kopczuk, "What happens when you tax the rich?", Money & Macro Talks (7 May 2026) — https://www.youtube.comThomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014)James C. Scott, Seeing Like a StateAnisha Steephen, "The Fiscal State Under Siege: Why People Hate the IRS, and Why You Should Care", Notes on the Crises (12 June 2025) — https://www.crisesnotes.com/the-fiscal-state-under-siege-why-people-hate-the-irs-and-why-you-should-care/Richard Murphy, videos on taxing wealth — https://youtu.be/vJRdnaJpWl8 and https://youtu.be/CkJxUR9Fc9sIntro music license:Music: Bensound.com/royalty-free-musicLicense code: KEJVC6SJTY1FKMKHArtist: : Benjamin Lazzarus

I'll spoke to Joseph Thomas Plummer, author of Rainy Day Economics. Joe trained as an architect and civil engineer before coming to economics through a run of hard times, from 9/11 to the financial crisis to more recent disasters, and his book asks how we you design an economy that holds up in the worst of times, rather than just the good ones. It mixes memoir with big-picture argument, built around ideas like resilience, sustainability, and putting people ahead of GDP. We talk about where his outsider's eye on economics is most useful, where I push back, and what it would take to build a society that plans for the rainy days instead of just reacting to them. We ended talking a lot about resillience and how much we need it to cope with the increasingly volatile world we live in. There's some interesting application of the design principles put forward by Joseph to the economy in the 21st Century.Don't usually like linking to Amazon but Joe's book is self-published so it's the best place to get it: https://www.amazon.com/Rainy-Day-Economics-Designing-Thrives-ebook/dp/B0FDTZF2VPOriginally recorded on June 23rd, 2026.

Another converted YT video - Acast doesn't have video functionality yet!The audio on this one is a bit dicey for the outdoor parts but enjoy nonetheless.

Hettie O'Brien is a journalist at the Guardian who has written the timely book ‘The Asset Class: How Private Equity Turned Capitalism Against Itself’. I was extremely pleased when Hettie sent me this book and a request for an interview/blurb because it was something I’d been thinking about a lot recently - as have many others. Private equity firms generally bear little to no risk for their decisions as they asset strip not just other companies, but care homes and the public services we all depend on. There are few industries where the profit motive sits so blatantly at odds with any discernible benefit for anyone other than the owners. As O’Brien shows, private equity has its claws in a wider array of modern problems than you might first think. We had a really fun chat about the charactewrs in this tale, how private equity really works, and what to do about it.Get her book here:https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-asset-class/hettie-obrien/9781399619288

Jumping on the manosphere bandwagon.References (in rough order of appearance)https://www.youtube.com/@UCjUb0pALtzJwPDu67lkqHdA Scott Galloway, Notes on Being a Man https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06838/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/what-did-men-do-to-deserve-thishttps://ifs.org.uk/publications/conservatives-and-economy-2010-24https://academic.oup.com/oxrep/article/41/1/105/8157931?login=falseHousing affordability report, Jan 2025 Nationwidehttps://ifs.org.uk/publications/changing-cost-childcarehttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-842X.2003.tb00423.xhttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1359432X.2022.2106855#abstracthttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6926602/https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0306180https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yl6JpVZTdMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqloPw5wp48&t=9698s&pp=ygUVY29udHJhcG9pbnRzIHR3aWxpZ2h0

I spoke to Professor Nick Chater to discuss his provocative new book It’s on You! How the Rich and Powerful Have Convinced Us that We're to Blame for Society's Deepest Problems. As a behavoural economist, I initially went into the field because it offered an alternative to the moribund old theories of rationality and equilibrium. Yet I was gradually disappointed that behavioural approaches only tweaked the model, offering an account of how ‘biased’ individuals strayed from rationality, and how we could ‘correct’ their behaviour. The focus on individuals was retained and the thought was that solving economic and social problems only required minor tweaks to their choice environment, known as “nudging”, an approach which took off in governments and corporations across the world.The field of behavioral economics has promised that we could solve society’s deepest problems—from the climate crisis to retirement security—by simply "nudging" individuals toward better choices. But Nick and his coauthor George Loewenstein argue that this focus on what they call the ‘individual-frame’ has been a massive distraction. In this interview, we explored how major corporations have used behavioral science as a clever sleight of hand to convince us that we are to blame for systemic failures, all while they quietly lobby against the regulations and taxes that would actually create change. We dove into why it’s time to move past the "nudge" and start rewriting the social and economic rulebook to prioritise the common good over individual responsibility, adopting what they call the ‘systems-frame’.Nick has a lifetime of research behind him and went from, a nudge convert to a nudge heretic. I was really great to get his perspective on how that happened and how we can use behavioural science for good.Originally recorded on Tuesday 17th March, 2026.