Millionaires Scheme Threatens Everyones Wealth!

How To Get Filthy Rich (Ch4)

Rating: One out of five stars

Ultra–Left–wing economist and YouTuber Gary Stevenson, who advocates a return to the 95 per cent tax rates of the 1960s, says he loathes inequality above all things.

Gary professed himself to be a millionaire on his ranting documentary How To Get Filthy Rich. This apparently gives him the right to tell other millionaires that they've got too much money for their own good.

But he's glossing over the most egregious inequality of all. Some rich people earn their money... and others are just chancers who gambled and won.

He opened his broadside by paying a call on entrepreneur Bassim Haidar at his £42million apartment in One , Knightsbridge, which boasts an ozone–infused swimming pool and a tunnel leading to the Michelin–starred restaurant next door.

'Unbelievable luxury, unbelievable opulence,' carped Gary. 'You come to Ilford, where I grew up. People can't afford to turn the heating on.'

Mr Haidar, born in Nigeria to Lebanese parents, pointed out politely that he, too, came from 'a super poor family'. Working as a car salesman, he saved enough money to invest in his own start–up telecoms business.

Now 55, he says, 'I'm constantly re–investing, constantly building stuff. I've hired tens of thousands of people.'

Contrast that to how Gary admits making his own pile, as an interest rates trader for Citibank in Canary Wharf during the financial crisis in 2008: 'I bet aggressively against a rapid economic recovery and I was right and I became a millionaire at the age of 25.'

Within two years, he'd pocketed his bonuses and left the City. Like all gamblers, he believes his winnings are the result of his special insights. But that's magical thinking. He simply got lucky.

Gary's wealth was accumulated with little wider benefit to anyone. No jobs were created, no homes built, no communities established. He won because others lost. Few people would complain if City wideboys were taxed at a higher rate than the rest of us. But funnily enough, that's not what Gary advocates.

He wants to see an annual wealth tax of two per cent on everybody worth more than £10 million. If that wealth is invested in land, property or businesses, Gary doesn't care - he insists the government should take two per cent of it, year after year.

Channel 4's pet toff, Francis Fulford, whose estate in Devon has been in the family for 26 generations, pointed out in his usual fruity and robust language that this was 'Noddyland economics'.

To pay a wealth tax, he'd have to sell land. Entrepreneurs would have to break up their businesses. Prices would collapse and industries would founder. The country would go bankrupt and we'd all be broke. What kind of equality is that?

Gary never did tell us How To Get Filthy Rich. But he's got a foolproof plan to leave us all dirt poor.