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0:41

Hello and welcome to The Rest is Money with

0:43

me, Steph McGovern. And me, Robert Peston. How

0:45

are you Steph? What have you been up to? Yeah,

0:47

I'm good, thank you. I've had a

0:50

very child heavy weekend. Been doing lots

0:52

of things like swimming lessons, but without

0:54

the drama with the costume this time.

0:57

And in fact, I didn't even get in the pool. I was

0:59

so traumatised by the last time. But

1:02

yeah, lots of fun

1:04

family stuff, which has been great. What about you? Yeah,

1:07

so obviously probably boring you, Richard,

1:09

with you know, Midlife Crisis, Centristar,

1:12

my band. Yeah, you've just sent

1:14

me the booking link. I was like, why has he sent me this? Because

1:18

we've got a gig

1:20

coming up in a well-known

1:23

venue and you're invited. Very

1:25

good. Where is the venue? I don't

1:28

think I'm going to say because it's

1:31

not the biggest venue. And I

1:33

suppose truthfully, well, we

1:35

want to keep the people to

1:37

friends just for obvious reasons. Oh

1:40

my God, you're going to get stormed, aren't you?

1:42

You know, you're going to be sell faster than,

1:44

what is it, Rory and Alistair sold the London

1:47

Palladium faster than the Foo Fighters or something.

1:49

Did they do that? Yeah, is it going to

1:51

be like that? Yeah, we're North London's Foo Fighters,

1:53

definitely. Right, so we are

1:55

going to answer questions in this episode today. Just

1:58

a reminder if you want to send them. minutes,

2:00

rest is [email protected] or you can

2:02

send them on our social media.

2:04

So our first question actually comes

2:06

from two of our mates who

2:09

present the rest is entertainment, Richard

2:11

Osman and Marina Hyde. And so

2:13

they were talking about Trump. He

2:16

is what they had to say. And that's

2:18

the sort of thing we need to ask the rest is

2:20

money about, right? Peston and McGovern would tell us how something

2:23

which has never made any money at

2:25

all, which shows no sign of making

2:27

any money at all, which advertisers don't show any sign

2:30

in having an interest in advertising on how

2:33

that can suddenly be worth six billion dollars.

2:35

Yeah, because then we need to do it ourselves. So

2:39

that of course was a wonderful colleagues

2:41

from the rest is entertainment, Richard Osman

2:43

and Marina Hyde. Thanks, Richard and Marina.

2:45

They've been talking about Trump and what's

2:48

been going on with him and,

2:50

you know, I'm set to become

2:52

president again, and basically where he's

2:54

getting his money from and they

2:56

were talking about this whole merger

2:58

between Trump media and technology group,

3:00

which is of course the business that

3:02

owns his truth social

3:05

media site, which is

3:07

basically the only place where

3:09

you'll hear Trump in

3:11

a social media sense, because that's the

3:13

only place he posts to. So that

3:16

company, Trump Media and Technology groups merged

3:18

with Digital World Acquisition Corp. And

3:21

when these rumors came out, it was going

3:23

to merge. The share price rocketed. Richard and

3:25

Marina were talking about how they were worth

3:27

something like three billion dollars his

3:30

stake in the shares. But actually

3:32

it's now what, 4.6 billion dollars. Yeah,

3:35

the close of play on Tuesday

3:37

after this astonishing rise in

3:40

the share price of this business, effectively

3:42

the first day of trading in

3:45

this business because of the merger

3:48

shares absolutely saw Trump's shares, as you

3:50

say, worth 4.6 billion

3:52

dollars. And quite strikingly

3:54

for the first time ever, I know

3:57

he boasts about what a billionaire

3:59

is. but the first time ever he

4:01

has joined as a result of

4:03

this flotation, this IPO, he

4:06

has joined the world's wealthiest 500 people

4:09

according to the Bloomberg billionaires

4:11

in there. My God, his

4:13

head is just going to be even bigger now. It's

4:15

funny how he's labelled it on the stock

4:17

market as well. He's used his initials, hasn't

4:19

he, for the ticker of

4:21

trading. So it's DJT,

4:24

Mr Trump's initials there. It

4:26

is. And actually, another thing that's interesting,

4:28

it's also come out as part of this whole IPO

4:32

of this business. Do you remember how we

4:34

were talking last week about TikTok

4:37

and about how Donald Trump has moved

4:39

from being, when he was president, in

4:42

the camp of people who were saying

4:44

the Chinese had to pull out of

4:46

the American version of TikTok and now

4:48

he's not so sure whether it's right

4:51

to close TikTok down

4:53

in America if the

4:55

Chinese don't dispose of it? And

4:58

we pointed to the fact that one

5:00

of his mates, also one of his

5:02

great supporters, is a billionaire called Jeff

5:05

Yass, who is

5:07

actually worth considering more, we think, than Donald

5:09

Trump. It turns out, and

5:11

the reason why that mattered, we pointed

5:13

this out, is that Yass is a

5:16

big investor in the parent

5:18

company of TikTok bike downs. Well,

5:21

it turns out there's another

5:23

connection, financial connection, between Yass

5:26

and Trump. It looks like he owns

5:29

a small shareholding in

5:31

the shell company that Trump's business

5:33

has merged with. So Yass himself

5:35

is a few million dollars richer

5:38

as a result of the

5:40

Trump flotation. Richard and

5:42

Marina's question off the back of

5:44

all this is, how can a

5:46

company be worth that much money

5:48

when basically, you know, it's never

5:51

made a profit and it doesn't look like it's got any

5:53

prospects to? I mean, one

5:55

answer is the greater fool

5:57

theory, which we might come back to.

6:00

But let's break it down and

6:02

try to give

6:05

a slightly more rational explanation initially.

6:07

Truth social, it makes tiny amounts

6:09

of money. I think it's revenues

6:11

for the first nine months of

6:14

last year were about $3 million. And

6:16

so if you were using, obviously, conventional

6:19

measures of

6:21

value, you would

6:23

say this company is massively

6:25

overvalued. I mean, multiple billion

6:27

market cap, almost no

6:30

revenues, a few million dollars at most.

6:34

But it's all about a bet that

6:37

he becomes president. And

6:39

actually, the opinion polls seem to indicate

6:41

that he may become president,

6:44

you know, free world feeling slightly

6:46

nervous about that, perhaps. And at

6:48

that point, given that it's the

6:51

only social media site that he

6:53

uses, you would slightly assume that

6:55

the numbers of people

6:58

that use truth social.

7:00

860,000 users at the

7:02

moment, which is nothing. But

7:04

you'd slightly assume if he decides,

7:07

which he's quite capable of doing

7:09

as president, that this is the

7:11

only channel of communication he's going

7:13

to use at that point, rather

7:15

more people decide they have to

7:17

tune in. That's a massive thing, that.

7:19

And at that point, it becomes a more valuable business. Can you

7:22

see a world then in which the

7:24

President of the United States is

7:26

only giving comms through a

7:29

social media site? That just

7:32

seems wild. But Steph, if you

7:34

remember, we were all

7:36

incredibly shocked, you know,

7:39

after he won the presidency, or indeed even in

7:41

the run up to the presidency victory

7:43

in 2016, we were all shocked

7:46

that he used Twitter,

7:48

now called X, but he used Twitter

7:50

for pretty much every single bit of

7:53

official and non official communication that

7:56

in itself completely changed

7:58

the model of. presidential communication.

8:01

He's quite capable of

8:04

simply deciding that he wants to

8:06

lie in his own pocket, even

8:10

as president, that therefore this

8:12

is the only social media

8:14

platform that he, you know,

8:16

in inverted commas, trusts.

8:18

Poor old Elon Musk will be weeping because

8:22

Elon is desperate to get him back

8:24

on to X because he was a

8:26

great driver. Wherever he goes, he is

8:28

a driver of traffic. I mean, shouldn't,

8:30

you know, the reason he's going to win the presidency,

8:33

probably, I mean, I don't know whether

8:35

he's going to win. Actually, we can talk about this another

8:37

time. I actually brought, when people ask me, I actually think

8:39

Biden, for reasons we probably, I probably need to talk to

8:42

you about on a different kind of podcast. But

8:44

anyway, I think there's a pretty good chance Biden

8:46

will win. But let's put that to one side.

8:48

The opinion polls indicate that Trump may well win.

8:50

And why is that? It's because, you know, the

8:52

people who love him, love him. And if they

8:54

love him as a politician, they're also going to

8:56

love him as a businessman, even though, and we

8:59

should be clear about this, his record

9:01

as a businessman is really ropey. There

9:03

was some analysis done a few years

9:05

ago looking at what he inherited and,

9:07

you know, what his

9:10

net assets are now. And

9:12

it didn't look, you know, this

9:14

idea that he is this amazing

9:17

entrepreneur doesn't really, you

9:19

know, stack up if he simply

9:21

put that fortune that he inherited

9:23

into the stock market and bonds

9:25

and being a passive investor. Certainly

9:27

according to this analysis, he would have been just as

9:30

wealthy today, or even because he's even more wealthy. So,

9:32

you know, the notion that he is this great wealth

9:34

creator, it's bollocks. Well, all

9:36

right, I was going to use the word

9:39

moot, which is a, and, you know, given

9:41

that he also is facing at this

9:43

time, and, you know, you might want to remind us how

9:45

much, how much trouble he's in there. But I mean, you

9:48

know, he is facing this fraud case in New York, which

9:50

is one of the reasons he needs all this money. Yes,

9:52

because this all comes back to

9:54

money that this whole merger with

9:56

this digital world acquisition corp is

9:59

so it could. on the stock exchange

10:01

and it's so he could basically create

10:03

this money because he's going to owe

10:05

a lot in these court cases, isn't

10:07

he? And what everyone is suggesting

10:09

now, the element to this is that he's probably

10:11

going to dump this stock, isn't he? He's probably

10:13

going to sell off his stock in order to-

10:15

He can't in the short term without the approval

10:17

of his fellow directors. Yes, six months. But the fellow

10:20

directors is literally Donald Trump, Julia, and his

10:22

mates. So they're going to agree that he

10:24

can sell it off, aren't they? Which means

10:26

he's using this as a way to raise

10:29

money. He's got the people who pumped money

10:31

into this to buy shares and pushed up

10:33

the price. They're Trump fans, aren't they? Like

10:35

you say, the people who are thinking this

10:38

is a way of supporting him, but it

10:40

could all come crashing down if he dumps

10:42

the stock. I mean, I'm sure a

10:44

lot of them are people who

10:47

just want to, in a sense, help him stay afloat

10:49

and regard all these court cases

10:52

as some kind of democratic conspiracy

10:54

about against him and therefore they

10:56

want to prop him up. We should actually,

10:59

though, look at this phenomenon, the

11:02

SPAC phenomenon. These

11:04

companies, special purpose acquisition

11:07

companies, SPAC- Shells. And

11:09

they're shell companies. And there was a bit of

11:12

a mania for them from about 2020 onwards.

11:15

And these are shell companies

11:17

led by sometimes charismatic

11:20

individuals who investors sort of bet

11:22

on as an individual that they're

11:25

going to make deals that turn

11:27

an empty company into an incredibly

11:29

valuable company. And there

11:31

is something, you know, for

11:34

those people who aren't sort of

11:36

obituary immersed in stock

11:38

markets, there's something slightly weird about

11:40

the ability of an individual to

11:42

raise billions of dollars on

11:45

the hope that they do some good

11:47

deals, which is what the SPAC craze,

11:49

the SPAC phenomenon was all about. But

11:53

it's as old as history that people,

11:56

sometimes they're conned, but sometimes people

11:58

do make money. identifying

12:00

somebody who looks like a

12:02

business genius or just somebody

12:04

who's very talented, throwing money

12:07

at them. And

12:09

as I say, it's a gamble. But

12:11

sometimes it pays off massively.

12:14

But with any business, I mean,

12:17

you'll know this, the quality of

12:19

the leader in terms

12:21

of whether you get money from investors

12:23

is incredibly important. I mean, I remember

12:25

when I was first looking at this

12:27

stuff in the 80s and 90s,

12:30

the cult of the so-called business

12:32

genius at the top of a company. They

12:35

were the companies that

12:37

found it way easier to

12:39

raise colossal sums of money.

12:42

But that brings us back to something we

12:44

talked about in the past, which is

12:46

someone like Adam Newman and WeWork, there

12:49

was so much hype around him as

12:51

the leader of WeWork. And he got

12:53

incredible amounts of investment,

12:55

but it was never worth it, was

12:57

it? It never turned into

12:59

a massive flop. So it's

13:02

always betting. That's what it feels like

13:04

in business. With stocks and shares, it

13:07

feels like it's always a gamble. So

13:09

sometimes it's a story. And sometimes

13:11

the story told by the leader is

13:14

fiction. But sometimes the

13:16

story is very persuasive. I had

13:18

a cup of coffee yesterday with a really, actually,

13:20

I have to say, I mean, I don't think

13:22

I was conned, but really impressive. Did

13:25

you give them some money? No,

13:28

I was more talking to him because

13:30

of the industry he's in, which I'm

13:32

pretty interested in. Go on, what is

13:35

it? So he's a bloke called Stefan

13:37

Wojno, and he created a brand new

13:40

business called New

13:43

Cleo. Right. This is sort

13:46

of you've got the pun, it's New

13:48

Cleo. It's a developer of

13:50

these new smaller, modular

13:52

nuclear reactors to generate electricity.

13:55

Right. And it's an amazing

13:57

story, actually, because they've taken

13:59

a technology. that was used in

14:02

Russian nuclear submarines decades

14:05

ago, which are these

14:07

lead-line nuclear reactors. And

14:10

they own all the intellectual property for them

14:12

and they are now trying to build these

14:15

reactors in Europe. And

14:17

for them, it's a particularly green technology because

14:20

what they do is they

14:23

take nuclear waste, plutonium, and then

14:25

they repurpose it as fuel

14:28

for these smaller modular reactors.

14:30

So it sounds like an amazing

14:32

story. You're both dealing with

14:35

the waste. It's in theory because there's no

14:37

carbon emissions, except I suppose in the sort

14:39

of development as it were of the actual

14:41

power plants where there are always carbon emissions,

14:43

but there are carbon emissions when you build

14:45

a wind farm. Anyway,

14:47

so it seems clean. And

14:50

this guy does have a track record because he is

14:52

a nuclear engineer and

14:54

he actually developed a nuclear

14:57

medicine business that was sold to Novartis a

14:59

few years ago for a few billion. And so he

15:01

sets up this business and investors

15:03

and he's raised hundreds of billions

15:06

of dollars already, way more than

15:08

he actually thought he needed. But

15:10

this is now a very substantial operation. The reason

15:12

I was talking to him actually, to

15:15

be clear, is because the thing that I found

15:17

quite sort of striking is because

15:20

in 2020, 2021 Boris Johnson said, we are going to be

15:24

a world leader again in nuclear, the company

15:26

set up here and now

15:28

they've got no approvals here. And

15:31

while the bureaucracy here is not

15:33

giving him permission to start at all,

15:35

he meets President Macron four or five

15:38

times and he's now got licenses

15:40

to start developing in France.

15:43

And so it looks like, I mean, who knows,

15:45

it may be, it

15:47

looks better than it really is, but

15:50

Macron is no fool, right? I

15:53

think he met Grant Shapps when he was business

15:55

secretary once by Zoom, but he's not met any

15:57

British ministers, but Macron Is personally into

15:59

it. The veins and as now basically

16:01

said you couldn't use our nuclear ways you

16:03

can do a big sigh yes I still

16:06

waiting for any kind of permission in the

16:08

Uk he I said Mrs. Lots and lots

16:10

of spend with the results which I'm is.

16:12

He was also very charismatic and I saw

16:14

a castle get wind. Best of us are

16:17

you guys are giving you money but he

16:19

also has you know it's own like others

16:21

who raise money. A genuine track record as.

16:24

That. See it. That story sales like

16:26

another example of why we are behind

16:28

in this country on you know energy

16:30

creation on leadership and things if we

16:33

are not see and like mark consumer

16:35

this guy has seen that potential and

16:37

we just don't see. It I met

16:40

was sort of baby like an entrepreneur diesel

16:42

and it would. You got a crisis. pretty

16:44

great courses, sort of want a bit more

16:46

that from your leaders but it also takes

16:48

us all because it was a brutal at

16:51

the difference between earth, a charismatic individual who

16:53

has a genuinely exciting business plan. another one

16:55

is a con artist which is I'm as

16:57

at the beginning the cycle greater fool theory

16:59

of investment which you remember because it became

17:02

incredibly source of popular and talks about during

17:04

the.com boom of the late. Nineties.

17:07

Either when everybody could see that there

17:09

was a massive stock market bubble which

17:11

is with it was your booze or

17:13

you know even your last minute.coms of

17:15

the values are being put on. These

17:17

companies were off the charts rights but

17:19

investors believed that they could always be.

17:21

There was a wizard of a greater

17:23

food by the my is they needed

17:25

says that a greater fool theories You

17:27

know if you can soar see the

17:29

something's overvalued but you sign on because

17:31

you think whilst you live other idiots

17:33

going to be pot again and then

17:35

I will. Mind that even greater idiot the

17:37

myself who buy me out of the right moments.

17:39

It's a very days Chris what is best It

17:42

just turns out either it's to the risk is

17:44

that you might end up being the greater fool.

17:46

Yes ended up well that's. Interesting because coming

17:48

back to this whole and merger. Between

17:50

Trump's business and this digital of the shell.

17:53

company people have already side salad and

17:55

the says as well so that that

17:57

there will be pulling you know just

18:00

jumped in on this and thought, well, I can make

18:02

a bit of money here and then sell them off.

18:04

Speaking of fools, can I, um, I don't think I've

18:06

ever told this story about when I met Trump and

18:08

had to interview him because you know, that

18:10

whole point you were saying about charisma and things. I

18:13

remember when I was interviewing Donald Trump when

18:15

he was in the UK once because he was,

18:17

um, he was, he was wanting to mourn about

18:19

the wind farms near his golf club. So he,

18:21

you know, he'd agreed to do this interview with

18:23

me on that basis, but obviously with a view

18:25

of it being much more wide reaching interview. And

18:27

this was before he was president. So, you know,

18:29

he was doing the apprentice and things like that.

18:32

He was still a massive name at the time,

18:34

but when he walked into the room, he

18:37

did this, it was, it was so

18:39

surreal. So before he arrived, his,

18:42

um, team, you know, these people who

18:44

think they're important, always have a massive entourage, don't

18:46

they? They have all the different advisors and various

18:48

of the people and they will always say to

18:50

you before the interview starts, you know, you know,

18:52

there's certain questions you're not allowed to ask or

18:54

as soon as Mr. Trump walks in, you've got

18:57

10 minutes with him and it starts him and

18:59

he walks in, blah, blah, blah. Don't ask him

19:01

about his hair. Don't ask him about his ex

19:03

wife, which instantly puts in my head. Final question.

19:05

What did your ex wife think about your hair?

19:08

Anyway, so that all of that carry on goes on.

19:10

It's something, you know, you and I have experienced

19:13

for years. I remember when I was your

19:15

producer that I would always have that argument with

19:17

the spad of whoever, the special advisor to

19:19

whichever politician we're interviewing with after this cat

19:22

and mouse game. But with Trump's, I got

19:24

told all this and then he walked

19:26

into the room and he just stopped

19:28

dead in the room and just looked

19:31

at me and just went, wow,

19:35

you're so beautiful. I can't do his voice. I won't

19:37

try. I used to be able to do his hair

19:39

quite well. Anyway, he thought that obviously

19:41

this is a man of judgment is what you're about

19:43

to tell me. No, it isn't. That's the

19:45

point. He goes, wow, you're so beautiful. If

19:47

we do this interview now, everyone's just going

19:49

to be staring at you and not listening

19:52

to me. So I'm going to leave the

19:54

room and make myself look better. He then

19:56

genuinely went to walk out of the

19:58

room at which point. I am

20:00

just burst out laughing because this is the most

20:02

weird compliment I've ever had. So I was, and

20:05

I knew it wasn't a compliment. It was him

20:07

trying to disarm me. He was thinking, female journalist,

20:09

what will she care about? She'll care about how

20:11

she looks. And I do care about how I

20:13

look, but I'm more bothered about content. And

20:16

anyway, I just replied back and it was a bit

20:18

of a like, well, I don't

20:20

really know what to say. I was like, oh, love,

20:22

I've had better lines than that down club bongo. And

20:26

that was my genuine response to Trump. And

20:29

then I think he thought that I was then

20:31

coming onto him because he then just was like,

20:34

whoa, but what was interesting was he

20:36

was like that with me. So he'd

20:38

done this over overkill of being, you

20:40

know, telling me I'm beautiful, whatever. But

20:42

with the male producer, he did

20:45

the opposite. He did like this aggressive, macho

20:47

thing of after the interview, went over and

20:49

like slapped him on the back, a lovely

20:51

guy called Sean Farrington, who now presents Wake

20:53

Up to Money. But he went up to

20:55

him, slapped him on the back and was

20:57

like, hey, Sean, you know, you're basically saying

20:59

you better make me look good in this

21:01

edit, otherwise you'll have no career. It

21:04

was just like the two extremes of his,

21:07

you know, his way of dealing with people.

21:10

But to be fair to him, when he did

21:12

have charisma in the room, like lots of people,

21:14

you know, I myself was like, yes, you have

21:16

got charisma whether you agree with him or not.

21:19

But he was a bit of a twat. I don't know

21:21

if you can use that word on the phone, but there we

21:23

are, just bombs in. We're meant to

21:25

be answering other questions, shall we? Well, we've

21:27

answered Richard and Marina

21:29

of Central London's question. So I

21:31

think it's probably time to move

21:34

on to some other questions. So

21:36

we've got a question from Tom Bullock and

21:39

it's about the impact of leap

21:41

years. It says this year is

21:43

a leap year. He was wondering

21:45

whether working an extra day affects

21:47

the world of business and finance

21:49

positively or negatively once every four

21:52

years. So, come on,

21:54

Steph. Well, it's kind of a

21:56

adjusted awareness statistics, isn't it? But the

21:58

Centre for Economic and Business did

22:01

some analysis on it, which picked up quite

22:03

a few headlines at the time. And

22:05

they worked out that it boosts the economy by

22:07

£8.6 billion, plus it

22:09

adds not 0.3% to GDP. But

22:12

that's a mathematical thing. It's

22:15

not reality in the sense of these things all

22:17

smooth themselves out in the end. But

22:19

yeah, in short, that's what they reckon

22:22

it adds. But the reality is you

22:24

won't see that reflected in the statistics, will

22:26

you? I mean, the

22:28

point is, I mean, which I

22:30

know the top understands, is that,

22:34

you know, it's the amount that

22:37

any of us produces, you know,

22:39

per hour, per day that

22:41

matters, not some sort of

22:44

notional GDP figure

22:47

for a leap year versus

22:50

a non-leap year. And

22:52

I'm afraid just the harsh reality is

22:54

if the extra day happens to a

22:56

fall on a working week as

22:59

an employee, you may go boo-hoo or a

23:01

better employee. You don't earn any

23:03

more money, do you? Because your salary doesn't change,

23:05

but you are working an extra day. Because I

23:07

was reading that this year as well. You've

23:10

got the leap day, which is an extra

23:12

working day. You've got one, there's one less

23:15

bank holiday and there's one less weekend day.

23:17

So actually, there's three more days of work

23:19

in this year than next year. Which you're

23:21

not being paid for, are you? Yeah. Well,

23:23

if you're on a salary note, but if you're freelance, very

23:26

different. But again, that comes back to

23:28

only if you work weekdays and not weekends. But

23:30

it's an interesting question, Tom. And in short,

23:32

doesn't really make much difference. Well, I think

23:35

your point was you get better value for

23:37

money from your employees if you're a business

23:39

owner. Yeah. Right,

23:41

it's time for a break. After

23:43

which, we will be answering more of

23:45

your questions. We've got all sorts of

23:47

things. People asking about what it means

23:49

to be economically inactive and why they

23:51

use that term. Also someone

23:54

wondering how we can sort out their

23:56

housing market problems by incentivising older people

23:58

to do that. sell their larger properties

24:00

and that's all coming up after this

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24:32

only. Exclusion supply. Welcome

24:39

back to the Rest is Money with me, Steph McGoverns.

24:41

I'm with me, Robert Peston. So, we're

24:44

answering your questions. We've

24:47

got questions about the gig

24:49

economy, about being economically inactive

24:52

and also about the

24:54

housing market and how we can encourage the

24:56

older folk and big houses to move to

24:58

smaller ones and free things up in the housing

25:00

market. But let's start with this question about economic

25:03

inactivity. So, Deborah asked

25:05

this one. She says, why is

25:07

my retired husband economically inactive? He

25:09

still pays tax and buys stuff.

25:12

Previously, he worked in a state

25:14

school, which doesn't produce anything economically

25:16

measurable. So, I genuinely don't understand

25:18

why he's considered economically inactive simply

25:20

because he's now paid from a

25:22

pension fund rather than from education

25:24

funds. Come to that. I don't

25:27

understand how I'm economically active working

25:29

in public service. I don't do

25:31

anything which generates wealth in my

25:33

role. Please explain because I understand

25:35

your explanations. So,

25:39

one of the things that I

25:41

think we absolutely have to take

25:43

head on as a society is

25:45

this idea that if you work

25:47

in the public sector, you

25:50

are not in inverted commerce

25:52

producing something valuable. Education,

25:55

the education of

25:57

our children, the giving

26:00

them the ability to thrive in life.

26:02

That is unbelievably valuable. And yes, Deborah

26:04

is right that it's quite hard to

26:06

put a monetary value on it. In

26:08

the days when you were making garden

26:12

equipment, you could measure your output by the value

26:14

of the garden equipment. When I worked at Black

26:16

& Decker, I should have. And

26:21

you could obviously measure your output by... What

26:23

were you making? Blowers or something? Leaf blowers.

26:25

There you are. It's called a

26:27

leaf hog. Yeah. So that

26:29

leaf hog as a retail value, we

26:31

can work out the value of your output.

26:34

Now a class of 30 children as a

26:36

brilliant teacher, if you are giving

26:39

them the resilience and the knowledge to thrive in

26:41

this very challenging world, that's incredibly valuable. And I

26:43

think... So when he worked

26:45

in a state school, your

26:47

partner Deborah was incredibly, I

26:50

think, productive. And

26:52

you don't say what you do in public

26:56

services. You say you work

26:58

in public service. But again, I'm absolutely certain that what

27:00

you do is stuff that

27:02

society needs. And in fact, to

27:04

be clear, when... I mean, there

27:07

are two separate questions here for

27:09

me. One is when we do

27:11

the calculations about productivity and

27:14

GDP and all the rest of it, there

27:16

is an issue around whether the

27:18

Office for National Statistics, which makes these calculations,

27:20

puts the right value on the output

27:22

of the public sector. But separately from

27:25

that, I actually have quite

27:27

a sort of strong ethical view

27:29

on this, which is we have

27:32

to value public servants. And

27:34

in more than just monetary terms,

27:36

we just have to recognize these

27:38

people do absolutely vital work.

27:40

And although... And I think the

27:43

heart of your question

27:45

is that your husband

27:48

is obviously making a contribution to the

27:50

economy because he's spending money. Yes, of

27:52

course, in that sense, he's

27:54

making a contribution to the economy.

27:56

But it's a spending is

27:59

different. from working. Essentially

28:02

this idea of being inactive or

28:04

not in this economic sense, it's

28:06

a definition which is used by

28:08

statisticians to work out what type

28:10

of people there are in the

28:12

economy to allow them to analyse

28:14

what's going on in the jobs market. So if

28:17

you're in work or you're looking for work

28:19

you're economically active. If you're not in work

28:21

and you're not looking because you're retired, which

28:23

is in Deborah's husband's case, or you're too

28:26

ill or you're studying full time, then you're

28:28

economically inactive. So they use these terms in

28:30

order to just work out what's happening in

28:33

the jobs market. But I agree, I think

28:35

they're really unhelpful in another sense. For example,

28:37

I hate it when we

28:39

label jobs as either skilled or

28:41

unskilled because I would argue every

28:44

single job needs an element of

28:46

skill to it and I think it was shown

28:48

during and the kind of underlying thing to that

28:50

is that skilled jobs are more important than unskilled

28:53

jobs. And that again really annoys

28:55

me. We all saw in the

28:57

pandemic the most important people, a

29:00

lot of them would be deemed

29:02

unskilled by these definitions that

29:04

we have when actually the society would

29:06

have collapsed without a lot of them.

29:08

If we're talking about people collecting rubbish

29:11

or people working front line in the

29:13

supermarkets or front line and I think

29:15

that those types of people actually are

29:17

the backbone to the economy. So it

29:19

really drives me nuts when we do

29:21

these definitions. I mean at

29:24

the moment the reason why this

29:26

distinction between active and inactive, you

29:28

know, it's being talked about so

29:30

much, is because since

29:33

the onset of Covid,

29:36

the number of people

29:38

classified as inactive

29:41

has risen very sharply and from

29:44

memory there are something like a

29:46

half a million people since the

29:48

onset of Covid who

29:50

have labeled themselves

29:52

or been told by their

29:54

doctors that

29:57

they are either physically too unwell

29:59

to work. or have

30:01

mental health issues, which makes it very difficult

30:04

for them to work. And

30:06

at the same time, we've

30:09

got massive shortages in some

30:11

industries of people.

30:13

There are many, many employers who

30:16

are saying we just can't get

30:18

the staff, the employees, the skilled

30:21

and unskilled people we need. And

30:23

so, one of the biggest challenges

30:26

for the government, and you hear, for

30:28

example, the Chancellor talking about this a lot,

30:30

and it features in both the

30:33

last budget and in the fiscal

30:35

event that he did before that,

30:37

is he is trying to create

30:39

both carrots and sticks to

30:42

get people who are classified

30:44

as economically inactive back into the

30:46

jobs market to make themselves available

30:48

for work. And there's a fair

30:50

amount of controversy around the way

30:52

that they're reforming the benefits system,

30:55

because there's always a question when you reform

30:57

the benefits system to try and encourage people

30:59

back into work about whether you're penalizing people

31:01

who the state should be supporting and shouldn't

31:03

be forced back into work. And

31:05

so, there's an interesting question around,

31:07

let's go back to Deborah, maybe

31:10

she'll come back and tell us

31:13

whether her husband would

31:15

consider going back into

31:17

the workforce in different

31:20

sorts of conditions. He may have just decided, I want

31:22

to retire, I just want to do

31:25

the other things that people do in retirement.

31:27

But there is this really interesting debate going

31:29

on about even people

31:31

who are over 60, even over 70, a

31:33

lot of them are capable of

31:35

working in a physical sense.

31:38

They've chosen not to. What

31:40

would it take to persuade those people to go back

31:43

into the workforce? Because this

31:45

feeds into not only the

31:48

terrible problems that some industries have recruiting the

31:50

right people, it also feeds into the whole

31:52

debate over immigration. One of the reasons we've

31:54

got hundreds of thousands of

31:56

people coming to this country from

31:58

abroad is because quite a lot of

32:00

people who live here don't want to work. And

32:03

so if you think immigration is a problem,

32:05

then you've got to somehow find a system

32:08

or you've got to change the incentives so

32:11

that people who choose not to work, you

32:13

know, change their minds and decide working is worth it. Yeah.

32:16

Yeah, I actually got quite a few messages on

32:18

my social media pages as well this week. So

32:20

thank you to everyone who sent in those as

32:22

well. And one of them, which is a really

32:25

good question, how can the

32:27

government incentivize older couples to

32:29

downsize to free up larger family

32:31

homes? That's a question that's come from

32:34

Deborah. And Robert, we talked about this,

32:36

didn't we? We were talking about the

32:38

housing market. We did a whole special

32:40

on this, which you can listen back

32:42

to. But you had some quite kind

32:44

of novel ideas you've talked about in

32:46

terms of how we incentivize the older

32:48

generation. I mean, I think this is

32:51

such an important question, because the thing

32:54

that we pointed out in our housing

32:56

special is that an

32:58

astonishing number of people live in

33:00

homes that are way too big

33:02

for them. And I haven't

33:04

got the statistics in front of me. And as I said, we

33:06

did give those statistics in that housing special. But

33:09

the summary of this is if

33:12

you could persuade people,

33:14

particularly older people, to

33:17

downsize, move into smaller

33:19

properties, you could

33:21

solve, perhaps stop the

33:23

entire housing shortage crisis in this

33:26

country. But by goodness, you'd make

33:28

enormous dent in the problem. And

33:31

so my suggestion, I

33:33

haven't mentioned my book bust for some time.

33:35

No, you haven't actually. But anyway, I'm

33:38

feeling nostalgic for it, so I'm going to bring

33:40

it back. Anyway, in that book, my

33:43

suggestion is that you reform the stamp

33:45

duty system. Stamp duty is a big whack

33:47

of money that people pay

33:50

when they're buying a house. And my

33:53

suggestion was that if

33:55

you are selling to

33:58

downsize, you

34:00

should basically be exempt

34:02

the stamp duty on the purchase of

34:05

the smaller property because I think that

34:07

would be a massive tax incentive For

34:10

individuals. Yeah, good idea And as we said we

34:12

have done a whole special on that if

34:14

you want to listen back to that housing special

34:16

Then we will put the link to it in

34:18

the description for this episode, right? We

34:20

better wrap things up and thank you for

34:22

all the questions just a reminder you can send

34:24

them to us on email Best is [email protected] or

34:27

you can send them via our social medias

34:29

Just search the rest is money you can

34:32

send them to Robert nice personal account But

34:34

anyway, that's it from us. We

34:36

will be back on another episode