https://ellenbrown.com/2026/06/01/the-ai-revolution-where-capitalism-meets-socia...

The AI Revolution: Where Capitalism Meets Socialism: The Abundance Paradigm, Part 2

[Part 1 in post #1451]

.....

The days of the free market, as arbiter of resource mobilization, are indeed numbered.

Australian Labour Reduces Tax Incentives for Housing Speculators


This week Phil and Steve dig into the storm of controversy over Australia’s new budget rules targeting property speculators. The Labor government has scaled back negative gearing and abolished the 50% capital gains tax discount for established dwellings—major tax shelters that have historically rewarded people for gambling on rising asset prices rather than working productive jobs. Steve demonstrates that the country’s absurd house-price-to-income ratio is driven entirely by the acceleration of private mortgage debt, heavily fueled by decades of destructive government policies designed to protect the wealth of baby boomers. Phil notes that while these changes may discourage real estate hoarding, Australia’s massive, housing-reliant pool of intergenerational wealth still avoids inheritance taxes.

So, is this a smart move by the Australian government, and could curbing the rentier class finally force the financial system to back local innovation instead of property speculation?

https://profstevekeen.substack.com/p/australian-labour-reduces-tax-incentives?ut...

Apropos the previous post:


Today on MSM (Aperture)

Money: humanity's biggest illusion

Money has no intrinsic value whatsoever and only works because enough people collectively agree to believe in it, making it one of the most successful shared fictions in human history

Obviously - money is created out of thin air....

It's time currency-issuing governments got rid of parasytic bond holders who should get a job...

https://profstevekeen.substack.com/p/the-worlds-anti-migration-shift-to?utm_sour...      


The world’s anti-migration shift to the right

Nigel Farage in the UK. Pauline Hanson in Australia. Why is being anti-migration such a vote winner?

Phil and Steve confront the global surge in anti-immigration rhetoric and right-wing political momentum, tracing its roots to the structural failures of neoliberalism rather than the actions of migrants themselves.

Steve dissects how decades of fiscal paranoia, deregulation, and slashed public spending on health, welfare, and education systematically eroded working-class security, turning migrants into easy scapegoats for falling real wages and housing shortages.

They evaluates how corporate-led migration has been historically weaponized by business elites to depress labour costs at the expense of local training, while contrasting the economic benefits of “capital deepening” through technology against raw “capital broadening” through rapid population expansion.

Ultimately, it paves the way for Pauline Hanson and Nigel Farage tocapitalise on very real working-class anxieties, but their adherence to the exact same deficit-obsessed economic playbooks will only invite further structural chaos.

Meanwhile, Labor in the UK want to ditch Starmer in favour of Burnham, but the latter's
policies are still uncertain.

Hopeless, while Neoliberalism rules......

Frank wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2026 at 11:15am:


Can you present your counter-argument?

"Bollocks" isn't good enough.

How can Burnham fund the public services his supporters want?

(This Is Money)

Is wealth-tax advocate Gary Stevenson set to become economic adviser for Labour under Burnham?

Stevenson, who authored Trading Game, has advocated in favour of a 2 per cent annual tax on people in Britain with total assets exceeding £10million.

A wealth tax taxes the very wealthiest in society a much higher rate of tax instead of going after people's earnings.

Oxfam says it would be a tax on 'the total value of a person's assets over a certain amount set by the Government.

Assets can include cash, property or land, stocks, businesses, valuable possessions, and other forms of wealth.'

Stevenson has claimed the tax would only target the 'ultra-wealthy', which he believes equates to approximately 0.04 per cent of the population.

The author and former City trader claims an annual wealth tax would raise £22billion to £24billion for the Treasury annually.   

On his website, Stevenson states: 'The aim isn’t just revenue, but to slow the aggressive growth of billionaire fortunes that act as a black hole sucking money out of the wider economy.'

Stevenson has argued that Britain's current tax system is 'rigged against working people.'

He said: 'We aggressively tax work while allowing massive piles of inherited or accumulated wealth to grow virtually untaxed.

Stevenson is also in favour of taxing capital gains and dividends at the same rates as income tax.

He has argued that this would ensure that 'money made by money is not treated more favourably than money made by work'.

Inheritance tax is also in Stevenson's sights. He has advocated in favour of 'more aggressive' inheritance taxation and the closure of tax 'loopholes' for trusts and other vehicles.

Stevenson said certain extremely wealthy families pass on colossal sums tax-free.

Stevenson also has his eye on unmovable assets of the ultra-wealthy.

He said on his website: 'Even if billionaires move to tax havens like Dubai, their assets—such as UK real estate, supermarket chains, and infrastructure—remain in the country and can and should be taxed at the source.'

Stevenson also has his eye on unmovable assets of the ultra-wealthy.

He said on his website: 'Even if billionaires move to tax havens like Dubai, their assets—such as UK real estate, supermarket chains, and infrastructure—remain in the country and can and should be taxed at the source.'

The counter arguments, based on Neanderthal greed/survival instincts:

Would a wealth tax harm growth and jobs?

Labour has been warned that a wealth tax could drive £100billion out of the country as the rich flee, harming growth, investment and jobs.

Asset manager Rathbones said a fresh tax raid on wealth and property under a new Prime Minister and Chancellor 'would be economically damaging to the UK'.

It is feared that a lurch to the left under a leader such as Burnham following the resignation of Keir Starmer could see the tax burden surge even higher.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has already announced £75billion of tax hikes since taking office less than two years ago, pushing the tax burden to its highest level since the end of World War II.

Mohit Kumar, an economist at Jefferies, said: ‘Fear is that Burnham policies are left leaning and if the new Chancellor is not credible, it would raise concerns over deficits and borrowing.

‘Burnham has said that he would respect fiscal rules. However, it is not obvious where the money for any additional spending will come from.

'Taxes have reached a stage where further rise in taxes would be counterproductive.’

Unions are already urging Burnham to tax wealth, including by equalising rates on income and capital gains, as well as increasing tax on banks.

Re the underlined: or would increasing taxes on the ultra wealthy, to avoid "the aggressive growth of billionaire fortunes that act as a black hole sucking money out of the wider economy" indeed INCREASE productivity?

.........

It's time to find the answer to that question, by introducing a wealth tax now.

Depending on the outcome, and given that the current tax regimes are destroying social cohesion, it might be necessary for the sovereign currency-issuing state to issue its own 'public money' - no taxing, or borrowing interest-bearing money from the private sector required.

https://publicmoneypublicgood.net/

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGt7swnEb3g


Gary Stevenson, the economic activist behind Gary's Economics, interviewed renowned economist Ha-Joon Chang to discuss major flaws in how modern economics is taught.

Their conversation focused on real-world issues, economic inequality, and why traditional schooling misleads people.

The Flaws of Traditional Economics  (Neoclassicism): Focusing on math over reality

Universities often focus on complex mathematical models. Chang argues this ignores real-world inequality and political struggles.

Ignoring the individual: Standard economics treats all people as rational, selfish individuals. This ignores poverty and how wealth is actually spread across society.

The role of technology: Both economists debated how new tools like AI affect wages and productivity.

About Ha-Joon Chang: he grew up in South Korea and teaches economics at the SOAS University of London.
He wrote the best-selling book 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism.
Chang favors diverse economic perspectives over traditional (neoclassical) views.

.........

Gary Stevenson built his wealth by working as an interest rate trader at Citibank. After the 2008 global financial crisis, he made highly profitable trades by correctly predicting that growing economic inequality would force central banks to keep interest rates low. His journey to becoming a multimillionaire—though not quite a billionaire—happened through several key steps:

Winning a Bank Contest: While studying economics and mathematics at the London School of Economics, he won a card-based recruitment game held by Citibank. This earned him a spot as an intern, and later a full-time job as a trader.

Understanding the Big Picture: Unlike many of his highly mathematical peers, Stevenson understood human behavior. He realized that rising poverty and a weak economy meant that governments would not be able to raise interest rates.post the 2008 GFC.

Betting on Low Rates: He used interest rate derivatives (financial contracts) and leveraged his positions. By betting that interest rates would stay down, he made tens of millions of pounds.

Quitting and Trading Independently: He quit his job at Citibank in 2014 to study at the University of Oxford. He later returned to trading with his own personal money to build up more wealth.

Today, Stevenson is best known for running his campaign channel, GarysEconomics, where he campaigns against wealth inequality and explains his financial theories to the public.

Further Exploration: Read his confession of working in high finance in 'The Trading Game'.  Discover how the super-rich manage their money (The Guardian). See why he believes the wealthy should pay more tax (SBS Australia).

......


Gary Stevenson went from rags to riches by betting that life would get harder.

"I come from a poor background [in the UK] and I've made millions of pounds by betting that living standards in Western countries, including the UK, including Australia, will get worse and worse and worse," he tells The Feed.

While working as a rates trader in London after the GFC, he bet that interest rates would remain low because rising inequality would prevent spending, and the UK economy wouldn't recover.

"I figured out, if I could understand why the economy was weak ... I could make a ton of money."

.....


Indeed central banks kept interest rates low to counter the recession caused by the GFC, until they had to lift interest rates (according to mainstream economics) to counter the post-covid induced inflation.

Stevenson obviously possesses extreme intellectual talent - a finance trader who made a fortune trading derivatives during the GFC when ordinary citizens lost their houses and jobs. 

A pity he doesn't mention the capacity of the state to issue its own money: he is still promoting 'tax the rich' - an uphill battle because economists, politicians and mainstream  media are all indoctrinated in Neoclassical "small government'/low tax/low spending ("living within your means") ideology, when c-i governments are NOT finance- constrained, and have command of the resources available to the entire nation.