We use cookies where necessary to allow us to understand how people interact with our website and content, so that we can continue to improve our service.
We only ever receive anonymous information, and cannot track you across other websites.
View our privacy policy
Don't try to bet on this, there's a high risk you'll lose. The only way to protect ourselves is through collective action.
This is an AI-written (but human-edited) summary of Gary’s recent video: The Iran economic shock is coming. How to protect yourself
The US and Israel have effectively invaded Iran. Iran’s response has been to block the Strait of Hormuz – the narrow body of water through which an enormous share of the world’s oil and gas passes. Nobody knows how long it will stay blocked. What we do know is that this will cause a large increase in the price of energy, and knock-on increases in the price of food and pretty much everything else.
There is also something not being discussed enough in the news. This has already pushed up expectations for interest rates. Central banks were cutting rates. Now financial markets expect them to start hiking again. If you are looking for a mortgage, or already on a variable rate, this affects you directly.
When energy prices rise, governments come under enormous pressure to cap them, subsidise them, or cut energy taxes. It is the most visible, immediate problem. But it is the wrong answer, and here is why.
We can stop growing wealth inequality.
When the government subsidises your energy bill, it does not make the cost disappear. It pays the difference itself – money it either borrows from rich people or prints. That money flows directly to the owners of the energy. The result is the same one we saw after COVID: government wealth collapses, and the wealth of the richest grows. We are about to repeat the exact same mistake for the third time in fifteen years.
Gary came into this crisis owning a large amount of oil – hundreds of thousands of pounds worth. Not because he is some commodities genius. His background is interest rates trading. He owns oil for the same reason every other rich person owns oil: because he holds a broad portfolio of assets. When the oil price jumped, he made hundreds of thousands of pounds.
If you are an ordinary American paying more for petrol right now, despite the fact that the United States is the world’s largest oil producer, it is because you do not own your oil. Gary does. That is wealth distribution. It is not an abstract concept. It is about who owns the resources you depend on every day.
Fifty years ago, Western governments owned housing, energy, water, and transport. That meant that if something happened overseas, your government could cushion the blow. Look at what has happened to government wealth since then. It has been systematically hollowed out – crisis after crisis managed by borrowing from the rich and passing the proceeds back to the rich – until we now have governments, particularly here in the UK, that are functionally unable to protect you.
Buying oil now will not save you. The war is unpredictable. If it ends tomorrow, you lose money. And if you are not rich, taking on that kind of leveraged risk is dangerous.
The only way for ordinary people to get back their share of the resources is through tax. That is not a radical idea. It is the straightforward logic of a situation where assets keep flowing upwards, every crisis makes the rich richer and governments poorer, and wages alone will never be enough to close that gap.
If you want to protect yourself – not just from this crisis, but from the next one, and the one after that – you need governments that are capable of taxing wealth fairly. People like Gary, who are making money from your energy in the middle of a war.
Gary did not want to come back and make a video about war. He is tired. But this matters, and the people watching this channel deserve to understand what is actually happening to their money.
The argument is going to be won. The public understanding of inequality has shifted enormously in the last two years, and it will keep shifting. The future is there to be won.