How You Lose Your House

Middle class families are getting poorer generation by generation. And the trend is accelerating.

The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson is released on 5 March.

UK readers use this discount code at Waterstones for 20% off: TTG2024

US readers use this discount code for 25% off at Barnes & Noble: TRADINGGAME25

UNDERSTAND, SHARE & PUSH BACK

SUBSCRIBE, SHARE & START A CONVERSATION

Performed by Gary Stevenson
@garyseconomics

[janetaylor-powell]

When Thatcher gave ‘the right to buy’ to people to purchase their own council houses back in the day, now, nearly half those homes are in the hands of private landlords… I wondered how come? Thank you for explaining it to me. ✌🏾❣️

[lee]

Thank you for this Gary. I've never had a pot to piss in my whole life. I've managed to pay off the mortgage on the council house I lived in all my life. I'm 53, disabled, and genuinely worried about my future. God bless.

[Skylark_Jones]

A friend of mine is a homeowner. Before Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng made their budget announcement in 2022 he just about managed to pay his mortgage; after the announcement which led to the Bank of England ramping up interest rates, his mortgage TRIPLED! He is now in debt - this, on top of food and energy price rises because of corporate price-gouging! When Sunak took over as PM and Hunt became Chancellor, they decided they were going to rub salt in the wound by imposing more austerity cuts with tax rises on ordinary earners, whilst letting the super rich off the hook. A lot of tax payer's money ends up in tax breaks and subsidies to big corporations. It isn't a surprise to learn that British Gas has had a tenth-fold increase in its profits - a 930% in one year! This is SCANDALOUS. Meanwhile the energy companies fleece the public, council tax and rent increase letters are beginning to drop through the door! Why is it everytime there is a crisis, we end up paying, never the fucking rich???

[UMN]

My grandparents owned a house, my parents rent, I live in overcrowded social housing. At this rate if I manage to have kids they'd probably be homeless. Thank you Gary and those behind the scenes for advocating for us. ❤

[GoneSailing]

Hi Gary, I only discovered your channel a couple of days ago after seeing you on PoliticsJoe. I have been catching up on your videos since. I really appreciate your no-nonsense, easy-to-understand style, knowing it comes from experience. Many of us watching your videos can relate what you are saying directly to our own lives (I know that because I am seeing the thumbs-up button going mad as I write this). You are making me think of wealth, tax and politics in a new light.

[Alex-cwrz]

My grandfather worked at a toilet paper factory as a machinist. The factory started selling off it's cottages in 1950s/60s. My grandad already owned his own home and they offered him one of these cottages and he could afford to buy one without even saving money. He said someone who needs the cottage should get it. A sentiment I wish more people had today. Anyway to buy a terraced house on that row today would be about £260, 000. On the topic, the factory would make blue and pink toilet paper and the river that ran at the bottom of the factory would be dyed blue or pink depending on what toilet paper they were producing that day. Luckily the river is less poluted now, apart from the water company.

[stuartmckenzie]

Fair play to the guy, he is telling you he is wealthy in a system designed to protect the rich, yet unlike most he has exposed the system and given remedy that clearly is a disadvantage to him. We could do with a lot more unselfish people like Gary, well done young man 👏

[mikemaldanado]

When i did a little digging into who was buying all of the homes in my area, without even seiing them, i quickly found out that it tied to blackrock.They have so much money that i imagine they are always looking for new investment ideas. After some more digging i found they bought 40% of the houses in my parents area because models showed it was a good place for the rental market. The reason i looked into who the buyers were is because talking to people in the area i couldn't find one person that had the money to buy a home at the prices they were selling for.

[northwestcoast]

Nice insight Gary. There is a massive problem with ‘Turkeys voting for Christmas’ with this one, as it were. The whole mindset that you look after your parents in old age and ‘why should my tax go to paying for your mum’s care’ and so on.

I’ve experienced this first hand and managed, with great difficulty, to protect my mum’s house from the grasping hands of the local authority. We had to literally draw all the money out as cash, about £100k and hide it so they couldn’t get at it.
They tried coming after us but we held firm and they finally gave up. It was a very stressful time being a target of state sanctioned theft.

No government seems to have any appetite to deal with this chaotic old age care crisis. Theresa May almost did but bottled out in the end.

I think enough people still don’t understand just how financially catastrophic old age care has the potential to be.

[gee]

Current care fees for my mum are £6200 per month. If that's not f ucked up I dont know what is. Edit : Made this comment two month a ago and just had another thumbs up so I read it again and spotted the typo, correction 6.5 k per month. For those people saying look after her yourself, have you ever cared/lived with someone who has dementia? particularly a parent? Apart from the obvious, I find it torturous seeing my mum slowly lose her faculties.

[jelly_fischer]

I pray that the UK will change their tax policy to focus on taxing the huge lakes of wealth, rather than the small puddles and trickling streams, lest they dry up altogether.
Love the channel, much love from the USA

[tomasohaodha]

The prospect of losing your home to pay for your end of life years is something that happens a lot even in wealthy countries. Switzerland for instance, I was stunned when I spoke to many ordinary people, who told me their parents' homes had to be sold to pay for the extortionate fees of nursing homes. Govt offers very little help. It means the next generation lose that entire inheritance of their parents' home, often in just a matter of two or three years of nursing home costs. What's bizarre is how many other Swiss people I spoke to who thought this system was right and fair, I couldn't believe it. As an Irishman, with our history of being evicted from our homes during the Plantations, I find it hard to fathom how people could be fine with such a system, even in supposedly rich Switzerland :/

[skabbymuff]

Subscribed. Heard an interview with you recently, found you fascinating. Mainly because you're a geezer. And that means a lot to me, I can relate - growing up in rough times in rough areas is fucking hard. And that also despite your clear arrogance (which I feel is both completely deserved and part and parcel of who you are) you are now making moves to make things better for other people. You've 100% earned my respect, and we need more people like yourself if we are going to level the playing field for decent hard working normal people. Everybody deserves a chance in this life.

[miklosmarinov]

Who becomes a politician?
Someone who attended elite schools, comes from a wealthy family background, and is born into the landlord class. That’s why Westminster politicians are often wealthy individuals with significant property portfolios. They don’t want to tax themselves or their rich families.

Instead, they squeeze every last penny out of the working class. 😟

I’m glad you’re standing up for the cause, and I wish you all the best! One of your enthusiastic subscriber 🤗

[drock]

Long time follower here and am looking forward to getting your book.

Thanks, as always, for the no nonsense wisdom and relating things in layman's terms.

Often a problem with the left is the unnecessary use of academic longting explanations - which while usually technically correct - alienates or causes an instant elitist aversion to those who actually need to receive and digest the message.

Sometimes man's need to understand the message, how it impacts their lives and take action, and in turn get back to their lives. Something the right actually understands quite well!

[robbiemack]

Brilliantly put, Gary.
Tax as a tool for redistribution, not just for state spending.

[poshpaddy]

"If we tax the wealth back from the people who are taking your wealth, we can use that to give you the things you need which you otherwise have to sell your home to afford" Boom!

[michaelparkinson]

There are two elephants in the room, one is diminishing property ownership, the other has been diminishing pension provision. Final salary pension schemes were closed out from the 1990’s onwards as such more and more people facing retirement now have insufficient assets whether that is housing, pension provision or savings. As Gary points out many people who may have relied on inheritances will find that after several years of nursing or care home costs that trickle down may turn out to be worth zero.

[lesleyrobertson]

My grandma’s house paid for her care home. So the money went upwards.
Inheritance tax taken off when my father died the rest went on his care.
So my generation and my kid will be left with nothing and unable to buy a house

[jameswhitty]

Came across your videos and wisdom just today morning and I'm in awe. You strike me as a Robin Hood carater. I'm a working dad with a 3 years old beautiful child. Moved to London months before the pandemic, lost my fixed position/job and house back in Portugal, made redundant from the first job I had in London due to the pandemic. My fingers are crossed for this great country to be how it should be and you say it very well how it should be. Hope you know what I mean.