Why we need to talk about wealth
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 15 September 2023
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There is no money left.
The reason Britain can afford less and less is apparently because we have no money. It's why we can't spend on schools, on hospitals, on defence. But what if it's not actually about scarcity at all?
Today, Lewis reimagines our state's finances and argues why we need to talk about wealth.
And - it's the first time in US history that a sitting President's child has been criminally prosecuted. Lewis talks to Olivier Knox of the Washington Post about what it means for Joe Biden and his bid to be re-elected ahead of Donald Trump now that his son Hunter is now facing serious jail time, should he be found guilty.
Editor: Tom Hughes
Senior Producer: Gabriel Radus
Producer: Laura FitzPatrick
Planning Producer: Alex Barnett
Social Media Editor: Georgia Foxwell
Video Producer: Will Gibson-Smith
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.8 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.3 | I will place economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government's agenda. |
| 0:20.4 | This will mean difficult decisions to come. |
| 0:24.6 | It's become a staple, a refrain of politics of the short Sunak era, |
| 0:29.5 | and on and off during the long years of conservative dominance, these long years of scarcity. |
| 0:36.4 | Difficult decisions. There's no money left. A variance of what Tony |
| 0:40.0 | Tony Benn used to call Tina, the most powerful argument in politics, he said. There is no alternative. |
| 0:46.7 | We're told that the reason why in so many areas, schools, hospitals, defence, why Britain can |
| 0:52.3 | afford less and less, why our country in so many places seems |
| 0:57.0 | to be decaying, is because the state just can't afford as much as we'd like. It's because there's no |
| 1:02.7 | money. But what if all of that just wasn't true? What if these years hadn't been years of scarcity at |
| 1:10.1 | all? Or at least not as much as we constantly told or seemed to think. What if these years hadn't been years of scarcity at all? Or at least not as much as we constantly told or seemed to think. |
| 1:14.7 | What if there is a way of fixing or going some way to fix our ailing state |
| 1:20.1 | and making things a little bit fairer along the way? |
| 1:23.7 | No politician is talking about it. |
| 1:25.9 | But on today's show, we are why we need to talk about wealth. |
| 1:30.7 | It's Lewis here. Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:36.1 | The news agents. Let's start with some facts. Taxes on incomes are now at their highest since |
| 1:42.1 | the Second World War in Britain. More and more people have |
| 1:44.7 | found themselves subject to fiscal drag, dragged into higher and higher tax brackets that they never |
| 1:50.6 | would have once been in. All because the Treasury is desperate, hungry, voracious for more and more |
... |
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