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0:24

Hello. My profound

0:27

sense that capitalism was not

0:29

on my side began at the age of 16

0:32

when I discovered that the Midland Bank had

0:34

charged me interest on my modest

0:36

overdraft. Well, with a flash of revolutionary

0:39

zeal, I demanded to see the bank manager

0:41

in person. Now, in those days, bank

0:43

managers lived well away from mere counter-staff

0:46

in their own rather splendid carpeted

0:48

room, and I vividly remember telling

0:50

my own manager that such a policy was perverse.

0:54

How might I ever pay back my overdraft

0:56

when he kept topping it up with interest?

0:59

He leant back avuncularly in

1:01

his high-backed chair, fixed

1:04

me with a withering gaze before

1:06

memorably asserting, Mr

1:08

Taylor, the Midland Bank is

1:10

not a Robin Hood organisation.

1:13

Now, I suspect it was this early encounter

1:15

with banking practices that lay behind

1:17

my pleasure at reading in a new book that

1:20

banks had been forced to take a back seat

1:22

in financial matters since the global

1:24

financial crisis just over 15 years

1:27

ago. The new

1:29

masters were explicitly named

1:31

in the title of that book, Our Lives

1:34

in Their Portfolios, Why

1:36

Asset Managers Own the World.

1:39

Its author is Brett Christophers, professor

1:41

in the Department of Human Geography at Uppsala

1:44

University, Sweden, and he now joins

1:46

me from Stockholm. Brett,

1:49

as you describe it, asset management

1:51

has come to dominate the financial

1:53

sector really in a remarkably short period of time. So

1:56

let's begin with some basics. How would

1:58

you define asset management?

1:59

defying asset management and

2:02

how has it evolved over time

2:04

to the extent that you even describe us as

2:06

living in an asset managers society?

2:09

All it means is investing

2:11

other people's money basically. So

2:14

all sorts of different end investors, whether

2:16

that's individuals or institutional

2:19

investors like pension schemes, give

2:22

money to asset managers to invest

2:24

on their behalf. And you're

2:26

right, I mean, it's gone from the relative

2:29

periphery

2:29

of the financial business a few

2:32

decades ago to being right

2:35

slap bang center of it today. And

2:37

one of the things that really made a big difference there was

2:40

the global financial crisis, the

2:42

result of which was the regulators

2:44

around the world clamped down reasonably

2:47

heavily on banks, particularly investment

2:49

banks, which were seen to be obviously behind

2:51

that crisis. And asset managers,

2:54

which were already growing very, very strongly,

2:56

kind of emerged even more forcefully

2:58

from their shadows in the period since then.

3:01

What's also particularly important is that

3:03

especially over the last 20 years or so, asset managers

3:06

are really diversified in terms of

3:08

what they

3:09

invest in. So

3:10

if you go back to the 1970s,

3:13

1980s, which was kind of the origins of asset management,

3:16

when they took their money from their clients and invested

3:18

it on their behalf, they put the money almost

3:20

exclusively into financial assets, so shares

3:23

and bonds principally. But what's happened

3:25

since then is they've gradually diversified

3:27

into buying real assets, principally

3:30

housing and various forms of infrastructure

3:33

like energy infrastructure, transportation

3:35

infrastructure and so on. And so

3:38

what I mean by asset managers societies

3:40

is

3:40

the fact that our lives are

3:43

literally embedded in these

3:45

physical infrastructures that they control.

3:48

You talk about asset managers collectively

3:50

owning global housing

3:52

and infrastructure assets worth at

3:55

a minimum, and I'm quoting here,

3:58

$4 trillion.

3:59

Where do we meet them? I mean,

4:02

where do we encounter them?

4:03

Housing in all its forms, they're very

4:06

active in buying up and controlling.

4:08

So that means, you know, detached housing, it

4:10

means in particular apartment blocks, it

4:13

means student accommodation, it means

4:15

care homes, and in the US, it even means

4:18

mobile home communities as well. So across

4:20

the board, they're very active in housing. The

4:22

other things I think where we encounter

4:24

them, particularly utilities, so

4:27

electricity, gas, water

4:29

and so on. So whenever we pay

4:31

our gas bill or water bill or electricity

4:34

bill, part of that payment

4:36

is to the owner of the

4:38

network through which those services are provided

4:41

and increasingly that's asset managers. Two

4:43

other examples very, very quickly, a kind of social

4:45

infrastructure, by which I mean things like

4:48

schools and hospitals. And

4:50

then last but not least farmland as well. So a

4:52

lot of the food we eat on a day to

4:54

day basis is grown

4:57

on and delivered from farmland that

4:59

is around the world increasingly owned by

5:01

asset managers. How does asset management

5:04

operate in relation to housing?

5:07

Asset managers tend to be very, very

5:09

aggressive in increasing

5:11

the rents and indeed other costs

5:14

that tenants incur in living

5:16

in housing that is owned and controlled

5:19

by asset managers. And that's not to say

5:21

that other potential owners

5:23

of housing, whether within the private sector

5:25

or the public sector are necessarily not

5:28

interested in increasing rents where they can

5:30

obviously they often are, but

5:32

asset managers tend to be particularly aggressive

5:35

in that area in terms of increasing rents.

5:38

And then on the other side, they also tend to be very,

5:40

very aggressive in doing whatever they

5:42

can to cut the cost that they

5:44

incur in owning and

5:46

managing that housing. And so that can be basic

5:49

kind of maintenance expenditure,

5:52

the costs incurred in running a call

5:54

center that responds to tenant queries,

5:56

those kind of things, but also long-term

5:59

capital expenditures.

5:59

So making sure that the housing is kept

6:02

up to decent quality and invested in for

6:04

the long term. What they're concerned with,

6:06

asset managers, is selling

6:08

them on at a later time, isn't

6:10

it? Yeah, that's absolutely

6:12

correct. As a rule, they

6:15

are interested in buying and selling, and they're

6:17

interested in selling at a higher price

6:19

than they buy. Energy, especially renewable

6:21

energy, as I understand it, is the largest

6:24

sector for asset managers investing

6:27

in infrastructure. Now, clean

6:29

energy, well, that's surely

6:30

a good thing, something we all want. I mean,

6:33

what do you see as the downside of

6:35

asset managers' involvement in

6:37

terms of our, well, our energy future

6:40

and the climate? They

6:42

are huge investors, and

6:44

increasingly large investors in clean energy,

6:47

but they're not yet getting out of

6:49

dirty energy. So we need to kind

6:51

of look at the other side of the equation as well.

6:54

But focusing specifically on the clean energy side

6:56

is that one of the things my research has

6:58

shown is that asset managers are

7:01

fundamentally very, very risk averse.

7:03

And so what we see happening around the world is

7:06

that governments are increasingly relying

7:08

upon the private sector in general and asset

7:10

managers who have most capital

7:13

available at their disposal to

7:15

lead investment in the clean energy transition.

7:18

But they only do that when governments

7:21

make it very, very profitable and

7:23

very, very stable for them to carry out that investment.

7:25

You're right about it being a very physical, if also

7:28

strangely intangible, type

7:30

of ownership.

7:30

What do you see as the effects

7:33

of this invisibility? Asset

7:35

managers tend to be immune from

7:38

the scrutiny that other types

7:40

of owner often encounter,

7:42

particularly when they prove to be owners who

7:44

are not necessarily acting in the best interests

7:46

of those that are using or living in those assets.

7:49

Almost always the asset management firm,

7:52

if it owns housing, will contract

7:55

out the management of that housing, dealing

7:57

with the tenants to another company.

7:59

Even if you can find out

8:01

who owns it, then always there'll

8:03

be an intermediary company, or at least one,

8:05

maybe even more intermediary company, between

8:08

the company that owns the asset and the ultimate

8:11

asset manager owner. So finding out who

8:13

actually the owner is, is often a pretty

8:16

significant task in and of itself. There's

8:18

a kind of a detachment from scrutiny

8:21

because of that invisibility. Let's

8:23

concentrate a little bit on the UK for a moment.

8:25

How active are asset managers

8:28

here? And in what sectors

8:29

are they operating? First of all, they're very

8:32

active, but they're particularly active

8:34

on the infrastructure side. So

8:37

housing, historically at least,

8:39

has been less an area

8:41

of focus in the UK than for asset

8:43

managers than in say the US or parts

8:46

of continental Europe. But in

8:48

infrastructure,

8:49

there have been probably more active

8:51

in the UK than anywhere else in the world.

8:54

In the UK, many of the

8:56

infrastructure networks

8:58

for the delivery of water

9:00

services, gas services, sewage

9:02

services, electricity services are very

9:05

significantly owned by asset managers. And

9:08

then I think the other very significant one is social

9:10

infrastructure. So huge

9:12

numbers of schools and hospitals. Let's look

9:15

at a little example. I've got a clip here. This is

9:17

from a 2017 Radio 4 documentary, Macquarie,

9:21

the Tale of the Riverbank. And here,

9:23

Dominic Smulders, who's a boat

9:25

broker, he's telling a reporter about

9:28

the

9:28

time when locals first

9:30

spotted sewage in one part

9:33

of the River Thames. We

9:35

noticed quantities of foam

9:37

normally in the morning coming down

9:39

river, and they were literally, I suppose, the size

9:42

if you cut a football in half, blobs

9:44

of foam coming down the river. What colour?

9:48

Brown. It was affectionately

9:50

known by the locals as Crapaccino.

9:59

biggest privatised water company,

10:02

making operating profits of £2m a day. Well,

10:07

back in March 2017, Thames

10:10

Water was ordered to pay a record £20m fine for

10:12

repeatedly leaking

10:15

sewage into the River Thames. Now, when the leaks

10:18

happened, Thames Water's owners were

10:20

investors from around the world. Many of

10:22

their funds concealed offshore

10:24

with Ultimate Control, wrestling

10:26

with Macquarie. Now, just

10:29

tell me a little bit more,

10:29

Brett, about this case and what

10:32

it illustrates in terms of your thesis. So

10:34

Macquarie Bank, as

10:36

well as being other things, is

10:39

the world's largest asset manager in

10:42

the infrastructure sector. The

10:44

key thing to appreciate here is

10:46

that, as we kind of alluded to earlier,

10:48

is that short-termism is

10:51

endemic to the asset management

10:53

industry. So asset managers

10:56

invest through investment funds,

10:58

and in most cases when they invest in

10:59

housing and infrastructure, they invest

11:02

via so-called closed-end funds

11:04

that have a fixed lifespan, and

11:06

therefore they require the asset

11:09

manager to sell the assets before the

11:11

end of that fund life in order to return

11:14

the capital to the investors who they are investing

11:17

on behalf of. So as we said earlier, that means

11:20

they are buying and selling, and indeed

11:22

as soon as they

11:22

buy, they are thinking about, well,

11:24

how can we most profitably sell that

11:27

asset? Now, what that means, my

11:29

research suggests, is that as far as

11:31

they can, they avoid

11:34

capital expenditures for

11:36

the long term if they possibly can,

11:38

because they are not going to be around for the long

11:40

term. They prefer kind of sticking

11:42

plaster solutions, a kind of band-aid

11:44

solution. So I would argue that what

11:47

happened in the case of Thames Water under

11:49

Macquarie's stewardship for around a

11:51

decade

11:52

is kind of precisely what one expects to

11:54

see, which is very poor

11:57

performance on upkeep, and

11:59

in the case of Thames Water, water you saw repeated

12:01

criticism by the industry regulator, combined

12:04

with maximum extraction of shareholder

12:07

profits. Tell me, in buying these vast

12:09

swathes of infrastructure and

12:12

housing, and would it be accurate

12:14

in your view to see asset managers really

12:16

as increasingly standing

12:18

in for governments? Insofar

12:21

as governments both nationally and locally

12:24

used to be seen at least as appropriate

12:27

custodians for things

12:29

like

12:29

housing and various public-facing

12:32

infrastructures, then yes, I

12:34

think that's right. I mean, the key differences

12:36

I suppose are twofold. So one is that quite

12:39

clearly asset managers are not democratically

12:41

elected, far from it. And

12:44

then the second one would be that also

12:46

quite clearly they don't have the

12:48

interests of citizens

12:50

at large at heart. They have their

12:53

own

12:54

interests primarily at heart, plus

12:56

the interests of those investors

12:59

they represent. We should point out, I suppose,

13:01

that asset managers will claim in

13:03

their defence that it's in the interests of

13:05

ordinary people for their funds

13:08

to perform well. I mean, if people

13:10

are putting money into and giving

13:12

it to asset managers, they know that if

13:15

these funds do perform well, then

13:17

their retirement savings are going to increase

13:19

and perhaps housing supply will

13:21

expand in areas with a shortage.

13:24

So might it not be said that it's only ourselves

13:26

that will be hurt by criticising or

13:29

seeking to curb their

13:31

activities? Any time they receive

13:33

criticism, such as the criticism I provide

13:36

in the book, their stock response is to

13:38

say, well, you know, we do good

13:40

things. We take the savings

13:43

of ordinary workers like firefighters

13:46

and teachers and we invest

13:47

it. And if we do well, then

13:49

those are the people who gain and they say, yes,

13:51

you know, we're investing in housing. So if

13:54

you want more housing, then you shouldn't be criticising

13:56

us. Well, I mean, take the latter of those

13:58

first. I think it's fair to say.

13:59

that asset managers are really

14:02

not interested in significantly

14:04

increasing housing supply. That's

14:07

diametrically opposite to their interest. They're

14:09

interested in buying existing

14:11

housing and more than that,

14:13

they're interested in buying housing specifically

14:17

in areas where there is a housing shortage, precisely

14:19

because that maintains the upward

14:22

pressure on rents that generates their profits

14:24

as investors. That argument

14:26

that we are benefiting ordinary retirement

14:29

savers with their pensions is

14:31

a very, very misleading one. It's ultimately a

14:33

red herring for two main reasons. The

14:35

first of those is that actually, if you look at the data,

14:37

less and less of the

14:39

money that is being invested by asset

14:42

managers represents retirement

14:44

savings. They represent lots of other constituencies

14:47

around whom it would be much harder for them to

14:50

spin a positive public relations story.

14:52

To the extent that they do invest

14:55

retirement savings, most of it

14:57

is not the retirement savings of nurses

14:59

and teachers, it's the retirement savings of bank

15:02

executives, consultants,

15:05

and indeed asset management professionals themselves.

15:08

Brett Christopher,

15:09

that's a fascinating study

15:11

of an area which was relatively

15:14

new to me, I must admit. Thank you so much for

15:16

the moment. Now, as Brett

15:18

was talking so very learnedly there

15:21

about the world of asset managers, I found

15:23

it difficult to stop myself from

15:26

imagining those managers. I mean, was

15:29

it sheer prejudice on my part that all I could

15:31

see before me were what were lines

15:33

of smart, suited, convivial,

15:36

confident, white men? But

15:38

I now have a chance to investigate my suspicions

15:41

about the homogeneity of the financial

15:43

world, because I'm joined

15:46

from Copenhagen by Megan Tobias

15:48

Neely, who's an assistant professor in

15:51

the Department of Organisation at Copenhagen

15:53

Business School and author of Haged

15:57

Out, Inequality and

15:59

Insecurity. on Wall

16:01

Street. Megan, can you just

16:04

explain to me the nature of

16:06

hedge funds and if you will as

16:08

well their relation to asset

16:10

management?

16:11

The people I interview in the hedge fund industry

16:13

would describe themselves as in the broader

16:15

field of asset management. And overall,

16:17

asset management tries to maximize

16:20

returns while minimizing risk. However,

16:22

hedge funds differ in that they try to generate high

16:24

returns regardless of stock market conditions.

16:27

And a major topic of debate in the hedge fund industry

16:29

focuses on the paradox that hedge fund managers

16:32

must be simultaneously risk averse to still

16:34

make profits during market downturns and

16:37

more aggressive risk takers to outperform their

16:39

competition when the market goes up.

16:41

Give me a sense of the annual income

16:43

of hedge fund portfolio managers.

16:45

I mean, what kind of range of incomes

16:48

are we talking about here?

16:49

Yes, it's quite eye-opening. Today

16:51

the hedge fund industry really drives the divide

16:54

between the richest and the rest. So in

16:56

the United States, where for reference

16:58

the median household's income is roughly $51,000, hedge

17:03

fund portfolio managers on average bring

17:05

home $1.4 million each year. And

17:07

this number doubles among the top 100 hedge funds. Even

17:11

entry-level analysts collect nearly $680,000

17:13

annually. These

17:16

salaries have launched many hedge fund workers in the

17:18

top 1% of U.S. households, which on

17:20

average bring in $845,000 per year as a whole household. And

17:25

these numbers increase exponentially for top

17:27

hedge fund managers who can earn hundreds of

17:30

millions, even billions of dollars in a single year. No

17:32

amount of human capital can explain these earnings.

17:34

They really defy any rational calculation

17:36

of supply and demand. Ordinary

17:38

investors, Meghan, typically

17:41

make money when the market goes up, and they

17:43

lose it when the market's doing badly. But hedge

17:46

fund managers are a breed apart.

17:49

On 9-11, David Yarrow,

17:51

one such man, was watching TV

17:53

in his hotel room when the first plane

17:55

hit the World Trade Centre. Now,

17:57

while most viewers reacted with understanding

17:59

the market,

17:59

shock and distress, David here kept

18:02

a very cool head and seeing the market was about

18:04

to plummet his trading instincts kicked

18:06

in and he he shorted

18:08

key vulnerable shares

18:10

like airlines. In other words he was betting

18:13

on them going down. I've got

18:15

a 2009 clip from BBC One's The

18:17

City Uncovered in which David

18:19

Yarrow explains his decision.

18:22

On 9-11 between the two planes in those 15

18:25

minutes we did a

18:27

sufficient amount of remedial work on the portfolio

18:29

that by the time the second plane went in

18:32

the fund which

18:34

we can always see the price of actually started

18:36

ticking up and ticking up and

18:39

did so for the next 10 or 12 days because

18:42

we were in a position that we could suppress risk

18:45

and the same with the Madrid bombings and the same

18:47

with the dreadful London bombings in

18:49

the summer four years ago. So there

18:52

is no doubt that right in the cornerstone

18:54

of what we do is this concept

18:57

that whatever happens

18:59

we should be in a position to turn

19:01

around to investors and say their

19:03

money's safe. Shorting the

19:06

practice the one we've just heard about is

19:08

where investors make money I think from betting

19:10

on a decrease in the price of shares

19:13

and other assets but that's only one

19:16

of a bewildering array of strategies

19:18

open to hedge fund managers. Megan I

19:20

mean tell me a little bit more about

19:22

the hedge fund industry and and

19:25

what it does and why what it does

19:27

differs from more everyday

19:29

forms of investment. One thing that

19:31

really fascinated me about this practice

19:33

of short selling is that it goes back to the hedge fund

19:35

industries founding father so to speak whose

19:38

name is Alfred Winston Jones

19:40

and he was actually a Marxist sociologist.

19:42

Driven by this sense of skepticism that investors

19:45

could accurately predict the future he focused

19:47

instead on techniques that financial

19:49

workers could use to mitigate the risk of unexpected

19:52

market swings. He developed a technique

19:54

of short selling to do just as you

19:56

said make money even on

19:58

a security that's expected to.

21:03

And

22:00

this allows the hedge fund manager to reign

22:02

with little scrutiny of the employment practices

22:04

that privileges their interests and again

22:06

naturalizes and kind of normalizes the

22:09

primacy of their role, these who

22:11

are almost exclusively white men, in leadership

22:14

and among the highest compensation. Gender

22:16

essentialist and racist beliefs are really

22:18

rampant on Wall Street, where people hold

22:21

implicit beliefs that white men are naturally

22:23

more emboldened and savvy risk takers

22:25

than women and men of color. And this came up in how

22:27

people described getting pushback for

22:29

taking risks or being treated differently when they took

22:32

the same risks as their white

22:34

men peers on the trading floors.

22:36

And we know that people are more likely to trust people like

22:38

themselves with respect to gender, race and

22:40

social class status. So for

22:43

as a form of social exclusion, this practice

22:45

of hedging out others, so those unlike us

22:48

and deemed as instinctively untrustworthy,

22:50

helps to bond and create solidarity between

22:52

those who are included on our circle,

22:54

which hedge funds insiders themselves often

22:56

described as akin to fraternities, families

22:59

and even tribes. And this came up in all

23:01

kinds of practices like hiring

23:03

practices to find for who is a good fit

23:05

to initiation rituals. One

23:08

hedge fund, for example, did an initiation

23:10

ritual of karaoke, a karaoke

23:12

night for new hires where people would drink a

23:14

lot and embarrass themselves in

23:17

front of the whole firm in order to fit in. And

23:19

this kind of gives you an example how sometimes it's actually

23:21

processes of that create social bonding,

23:24

but then also at the same time can lead to

23:26

certain people getting excluded.

23:27

May I go and read you here? These

23:30

are the words of a woman you call Cynthia. Now,

23:32

she was running her own hedge fund

23:34

consulting firm out of her home

23:37

in Upper East Side in Manhattan. Now,

23:39

she's talking here about a firm

23:41

that managed $10 billion with only 25 employees.

23:46

I think that's unbelievable. It's

23:49

really that simple. But it wasn't like sitting

23:51

here thinking, let me see how I can milk

23:53

people to make $2

23:53

billion in a year. It wasn't

23:56

that at all. It was like friends and

23:58

family who invested the money. It was really

24:00

the best and brightest, and they

24:02

just ended being mired down

24:04

by all the bureaucracy. And not because

24:07

they wanted to do anything illegal. They just

24:09

wanted to be able to do what they wanted to do, so

24:11

it freed them to be able to do

24:13

it.

24:13

Now, Megan, those words suggest the

24:16

way in which hedge funders, they

24:18

often do seem to see themselves, don't

24:20

they, as bold, as anti-bureaucratic,

24:24

as contrarians, at your description.

24:26

Yes, absolutely. I think she captures so well

24:28

the allure. How hedge funds are known is the

24:30

kind of anti-establishment segment

24:33

of finance, where people go to flee these rigid

24:35

bureaucratic investment banks and the corporate politics

24:37

and stringent regulations. And while she

24:39

called them cowboys, others would

24:42

also call them things like mavericks or nonconformance,

24:45

which really reflect this kind of masculine

24:47

belief system about hedge fund managers being independent,

24:50

anti-establishment, and contrarian.

24:52

For example, one hedge fund billionaire said, I'm anti-establishment,

24:55

I'm revolutionary.

24:56

My goal is to really break

24:58

down barriers between executives, employees to

25:00

encourage a sense of openness and meritocracy.

25:02

And this was echoed in a number of my interviewees.

25:05

This sort of stigmatized, feminized connotation

25:08

associated with bureaucratic work in investment

25:10

banking. I think that many of the problems

25:13

that I find as endemic in the hedge fund industry

25:15

are true for investment banking as well.

25:17

So there's all kinds of forms of gender and racial

25:19

and class bias that influence these supposedly

25:23

meritocratic systems to outright

25:25

discriminatory and preference based employment

25:28

practices, two forms of sexual harassment, which was rampant

25:30

in hedge funds. And these have all been

25:32

found to be pervasive in the bureaucratic investment

25:34

banks, although I would say it's taking

25:36

more efforts to try to affect change. And

25:39

in the hedge fund area, there's a little bit

25:41

of movement in the last couple of years in this space, but generally

25:44

it's very resistant to that because it doesn't have

25:46

to. For example, at one conference

25:48

I attended, an elder statesman made a call

25:51

for doing more sustainable investments and

25:53

ones that promote more equity and diversity

25:55

and inclusion. And the presider

25:57

of the panace responded, good luck with that. audience

26:00

erupted in laughter and I think it really captures

26:03

kind of the mentality that they don't have

26:05

to play by the rules of everyone else. There's

26:07

very little motivation and accountability for change

26:10

because the industry is so close knit and reputation-based

26:13

and there are severe repercussions for people who go against

26:16

the herd and this came up in several of my

26:18

interviews. People who described you

26:20

know never being able to return to the industry

26:22

after raising issues at a firm

26:25

with respect to unequal

26:27

pay or sexual harassment.

26:28

The focus of your book really

26:31

does seem to be that this is an industry

26:33

where we really want a more

26:35

diverse group of people being

26:38

attracted to it and occupying key

26:40

positions within it. That's

26:43

one of your most important recommendations.

26:45

Increasing the gender and racial diversity

26:48

of these powerholders is really no quick fix.

26:50

Many of the forces preventing racial minority

26:52

men and women in general from

26:55

becoming top earners but that's different from

26:57

understanding why elite white men garner

26:59

such high compensation at hedge

27:01

funds and elsewhere in our economy more so

27:03

than in every other eras and contexts where

27:06

white men control the upper echelons of society.

27:08

What I found is that that's when we think about change

27:11

in this system in this broader kind

27:13

of transforming the economic and social systems of

27:15

inequality that allow specific groups

27:17

of people to garner such high pay for

27:19

their labor while also allowing others

27:21

to struggle to make ends meet all

27:24

under the pretenses of this level playing field.

27:26

You know it becomes really difficult to enact alternatives

27:30

but the first step is sort of recognizing that the

27:32

ultra-rich pay by different rules so systemic

27:34

change is really the only way to slow

27:36

this concentration of money, status and power

27:38

into fewer and fewer hands that so forcefully

27:41

forecloses upward mobility for everyone else.

27:43

Meghan Neely, thank you very much. Now

27:46

this is the last program in the present

27:48

series of Thinking Aloud. We

27:51

will be back at the end of

27:53

August when we will be, well

27:56

we'll be quietly celebrating the 25th

27:58

anniversary.

27:59

of this programme of Thinking Allowed.

28:02

That was a Thinking Allowed podcast

28:04

from BBC Radio 4. You'll find a treasure

28:07

trove of other Thinking Allowed programmes on

28:09

BBC

28:10

Sounds.