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Barry's Economics

Barry's Economics

Barry's Economics 57 Episodes Sep 14, 2026

Barry’s Economics is about explaining the economy without the jargon. Using humour, storytelling, and behavioural science, Barry explores wealth, power, inequality, and the hidden forces shaping everyday life.

Episodes

Diary Of A CEO Responded To My Takedown. I Wasn't Ready For This - Barry's Economics
Diary Of A CEO Responded To My Takedown. I Wasn't Ready For This - Barry's Economics Sep 14, 2026 01:00:16 Steven Bartlett replied to my clip about Diary of a CEO. At half past midnight. Edited.Do you know Steven Bartlett? Not know of him. Know him?Most of us feel like we do. We know his voice, the lean-forward, the frown before he disagrees. And we've never met him. This video is about why our brains can't tell the difference, and what that same wiring does to a man that 50 million people are
Voldemort Is Not The Problem - Barry's Economics
Voldemort Is Not The Problem - Barry's Economics Sep 7, 2026 00:31:10 What if Voldemort isn't actually the main villain of Harry Potter? What if he's a symptom rather than the actual problem - a symptom of something truly sinister (I'm not saying that Voldemort isn't sinister btw)This week's video draws on research into how radicalisation develops across the world, alongside Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson's research on Why Nations Fail. An
The Dark Side of Meritocracy: Why 'Hustling' is a Trap - Barry's Economics
The Dark Side of Meritocracy: Why 'Hustling' is a Trap - Barry's Economics Aug 31, 2026 00:35:15 Life's a Meritocracy, right?We like to think meritocracy rewards the people who are most talented, driven and capable.But what happens when the very things you're told will help you get ahead can actually work against you?In this second part of the meritocracy series, I look at the "hustle penalty" and the hidden costs of how you present yourself when you're trying to move up
Why The Rich Think The Poor Are Lazy - Barry's Economics
Why The Rich Think The Poor Are Lazy - Barry's Economics Aug 24, 2026 00:33:51 Why do we work? The obvious answer is:Because we have to.But what if that's only part of the story? This week's video looks at the biggest lie you've been told about your own motivation, scarcity, UBI experiments and the rather uncomfortable possibility that if we looked at the studies and acted on them we come.... become more powerful than we could possibly imagine.It might give us th
The Iceberg Is Innocent: The Titanic's True Villain - Barry's Economics
The Iceberg Is Innocent: The Titanic's True Villain - Barry's Economics Aug 17, 2026 00:31:20 The real Tragedy of the Titanic Wasn't The Iceberg.This week's video is what we get wrong about tragedies.This is a story about who gets killed, what power does to us, and how to change course so the when disaster hits - it doesn't need to be a tragedy.I’m Barry Ferns – a comedian whose personal journey through failure, homelessness, and rebuilding led me to explore the socio and behav
The Psychological Trick That Keeps You Arguing About Immigration - Barry's Economics
The Psychological Trick That Keeps You Arguing About Immigration - Barry's Economics Aug 10, 2026 00:32:45 This video is about why immigration is always the argument. Not whether the arguments are right. But why that particular argument, and not wages, or land, or who owns what, is the one that keeps being handed to you.I go through the neuroscience, the leaked internal documents, the 2.7 million posts study, and the numbers on what people believe about immigration versus what is actually happening aro
I've Watched Genius Comedians Vanish - Here's Why | Barry's Economics
I've Watched Genius Comedians Vanish - Here's Why | Barry's Economics Aug 4, 2026 00:26:19 I've been a comedian since I was 15 and in that time I've watched some of the most talented people of my generation become household names. And I've also watched some of the most talented people of my generation disappear completely.Not because they weren't good enough or because they didn't work hard enough.Because talent and recognition are two completely different things.Thi
The Psychological Trick That Kills Every Wealth Tax - Barry's Economics
The Psychological Trick That Kills Every Wealth Tax - Barry's Economics Jul 27, 2026 00:17:34 Why Doesn't It Seem Possible to Tax The Rich Even a Little Bit More? Well...There's a trick that's been used against the public for over seventy years. It's completely legal, it's very well funded, and it's working on you right now.It doesn't involve lying. That's the clever part. You never have to say anything false. I want to show you how this trick works, and you
Nobody succeeds alone - here's what they're not telling you - Barry's Economics
Nobody succeeds alone - here's what they're not telling you - Barry's Economics Jul 20, 2026 00:31:56 This is the final part of my conversation with Gary Stevenson, recorded before his documentary came out, and it's the most personal of the three episodes. We talk about why meritocracy is a myth, why success is mostly survivorship bias, and why Gary treats fame and politics as a game (his words, not mine, and he's honest about what that's covering for).He also breaks down Jeff Bezos&#3
The Trick The Rich Play On The Poor - Barry's Economics
The Trick The Rich Play On The Poor - Barry's Economics Jul 13, 2026 00:35:43 Part 2 of my Conversation with Gary Stevenson - the economist who quit a trading job that made him millions and has spent the years since campaigning for a wealth tax, and this week his documentary "How to Get Filthy Rich" aired on Channel 4, Wednesday 8th July at 9pm.Gary came in for a two and a half hour conversation, and this is the second of three episodes we've cut from it. &quo
The Channel 4 Documentary Everyone's About to Watch - Barry's Economics
The Channel 4 Documentary Everyone's About to Watch - Barry's Economics Jul 8, 2026 00:30:32 Gary Stevenson quit a trading job that made him millions and has spent the years since campaigning for a wealth tax, and this week his documentary "How to Get Filthy Rich" airs on Channel 4, Wednesday 8th July at 9pm.Gary came in for a two and a half hour conversation, and this is the first of three episodes we've cut from it. We talk about the billionaire he interviewed who's ne
The Psychological Trick That Keeps you Obedient - Barry's Economics
The Psychological Trick That Keeps you Obedient - Barry's Economics Jun 30, 2026 00:33:48 Why do poorer people love Period Dramas like Downton Abbey, that adore the very Privileged aristocracies that kept their great-grandparents in poverty? Why do we worship Billionaires despite their clear exploitative behaviours?This is the psychology of how shows about the British class system became comfort viewing for the people it should enrage. And how we fall in love with the Myths of the Supe

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