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Barry's Economics

Barry's Economics

Barry's Economics 57 Episodes Oct 19, 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

Why “Don’t You Understand Economics?” Is a Con - Barry's Economics
Why “Don’t You Understand Economics?” Is a Con - Barry's Economics Oct 19, 2026 00:17:49 “That's just basic economics.”It's a phrase that gets used quite a lot to shut down arguments about wages, rent, taxation and inequality. But what happens when the research contradicts the textbook?No sponsors, ever.... this channel is funded by viewers:▶ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/barryseconomics▶ Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/barryseconomicshttps://paypal.me/barryse
The Game Is Rigged. That’s the Best News You’ll Hear All Year - Barry's Economics
The Game Is Rigged. That’s the Best News You’ll Hear All Year - Barry's Economics Oct 12, 2026 00:42:52 People love telling us that success is down to mindset, hard work and refusing to give up.But what happens when that advice ignores the conditions people are actually trying to succeed in?In this video, I look at the psychology of learned helplessness, the research into how we understand control over our lives, and the ways social systems can shape what we believe is possible for ourselves.This is
The Rich Think You're Jealous. The Science Says You're Not - Barry's Economics
The Rich Think You're Jealous. The Science Says You're Not - Barry's Economics Oct 5, 2026 00:24:39 Do poor people hate rich people?It’s an idea we hear all the time, but what happens when you actually test it?This video looks at what decades of research into fairness, inequality, wealth and social class can tell us about where resentment really comes from, why rich and poor people can see the same world so differently, and what happens when some voices are much easier to hear than others.The ev
Your Actions Ripple Further Than You Think - Barry's Economics
Your Actions Ripple Further Than You Think - Barry's Economics Sep 28, 2026 00:12:06 One of the most powerful beliefs in modern politics isn't a policy.It's the belief that nothing can change.You hear it everywhere and I feel it too. Most of us do. But the strange thing is that when researchers study how change actually happens, they keep finding the opposite. Social change rarely arrives because everybody suddenly agrees.It often begins with surprisingly small groups of p
A.I Is Jurassic Park (And We’re Already In The Park) - Barry's Economics
A.I Is Jurassic Park (And We’re Already In The Park) - Barry's Economics Sep 21, 2026 00:35:00 Jurrasic Park is about AIAI is Jurassic ParkJurassic Park is a great film about what happens when humans build things before thinking about the consequences. A lesson we can learn from, in particular, with the current fastest technological development in human history - AI.This week's video touches on research on our inability to underprice distant threats, to the way our brains struggle to un
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

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