Decoding the Gurus - Gurometer: Gary Stevenson

Episode Date: May 10, 2025

The podcast arrives at 'late stage' Gary discourse as Matt and Chris attempt to enter the man, the myth, and the legend, Gary Stevenson, into a reductive classification system (that once again includes no mention of inequality). The gurometer was not built to handle this level of elite education and trading acumen, and has often been dismissed by arrogant elites due to its scrappy nature and lack of fancy credentials... but it persists. Just remember, an attack on the Gurometer is ultimately an attack on you, your family, and all you hold dear.SourcesReddit thread asking us to do betterJacobin: Portrait of the Trader as a Young RebelRichard Murphy's analysis of Gary's EconomicsTax Policy Associates' analysis of some tax reform proposalsGary on Twitter explaining that traders understand the economy a lot better than economists like Piketty and StiglitzThe full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (47 mins).Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurusGurometer of Gary01:02 Gary Stevenson: Other Opinions07:31 Gary's Wealth Tax Proposal12:21 Guru Features and Scoring13:11 Galaxy Brainness15:34 Cultishness18:04 Anti-Establishmentarianism20:04 Grievance Mongering23:15 Self Aggrandisement and Narcissism24:25 Cassandra Complex25:40 Revolutionary Theories28:12 Pseudo Profound Bullshit30:07 Conspiracy Mongering32:21 Excessive Profiteering34:24 Moral Grandstanding36:14 Guru Scoring and Analysis37:34 Quick Fire Guru Bonus Points40:37 Matt's confusing Binary Measure

Hello and welcome to the Decoding the Guru's Gurumator edition, where we engage in the science, Navy art, Gurometry, for your viewing pleasure. Me, Christopher Kavanagh, academic, raconteur, working class hero. I'm called many things, Matt. I wear many hats. And him, Matthew Brown, eccentric professor, crocodile wrangler, man about time, leather trouser wearing a fishnado. All three. Squeaky chair lover. That's me.

That's me. That's right. That's me. That's me. That's right. And the man that we are entering into the grommeter today is old Gary, our old pal Gary Stevenson of Gary's economics. Yeah. Gary was favored with one of the longest episodes. In modern history. Of the Coding the Gurries. Yeah. The coding occurs.

Yeah. Well, there's a lot to his proposals that took time to go through the ins and outs of the various tax code reforms that he suggested. Yeah, it was so complicated. That's right. All of those details, all the modeling we had to work through, it was the complicated stuff. Yes, or no, rather not.

I know, Matt. We did get a little bit of feedback though. You know, we sometimes we get feedback. I'll note that actually I anticipated that we would probably get more critical feedback than we did. And, you know, people often don't like it whenever we're critically covering people that they think are talking about important issues or whatnot. But I guess our decoding was just too rigorous, too hard to repud. So yeah,

I mean, of course there are people that, you know, take issue, but a lot of people who noted similar kinds of issues. Yeah, that's right. We're not the only people to have noticed this. In fact, you mentioned there was another episode or another article which we didn't know about but had been saying a lot of the same stuff. Oh yes, this is. Oh, the Jacobin, Jacobin.

Jacobin, yeah. Portrait of the Traitor as a Young Rebel. This is an article from January, February, March by Oliver Eagleton. I'm not usually someone that's in strong agreement with Jacobin. When I read the articles there, I often agree with a couple of things that I'm like, no, but no. But here, I have to say, it's raising very similar points to us about the kind of contradictions, shall we say, that are there. And they're covering his book, right? But they're highlighting the same tendencies. And some of the extracts that they highlighted were just as illustrative as our audio examples.

So yeah, that's an interesting horseshoe theory, Matt. We are horseshoeing round to Jacobin. Well, I like it. Well, when you're speaking to left-wing populist issues and you've lost Jacobin, then you're in serious trouble. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, guys. Though we did get this is that's funny.

I like the title could almost be a parody, but but it's not on the subreddit. There was someone who made a friend called DTG need to do better. We need to do better. We need to do the work. We need to do the work. And I will mention it's got zero up votes. This is not reflective of the broad sentiment of people. But it's just so perfect and formed that I have to read it. What is the purpose of their current hit piece on Gary's economics? You have someone who is actually bringing attention to how the economy is skewed and causing inequality to rise.

And they are going to clip up his message and undermine it. Chris and Matt aren't doing the decoding. They aren't addressing his paper. That's linked to his thesis. It actually comes across as making fun of a serious issue in a very non-serious way. Strong criticism. Yeah. So there are not many people lining up to sign off in this, including people that might otherwise agree. So I don't think it's fair to say that's a covered sentiment, but

the poster continued. You know, somebody was saying that, well, it wasn't a hit piece. They were critical, but don't you think they made fall points or whatnot? And he said, do you think they just put names out of a hat? Chris actually said he went to the trouble of listening to Gary's books. So yeah, it was a deliberate choice to tear him down. Why? Because he doesn't like Gary's politics. If you haven't noticed, that's

how they choose their guru. I love it. I love it. So that's it, but we've been caught, you know, he sees straight through us. He sees through us. So, you know, we really, the fact is, you know, we noticed this young upstart working class character was getting a bit of attention. Starting to, you know, make people take wealth inequality seriously. Proposing taxing the very rich. I mean, that just makes me see red. I'm furious.

I was furious, man. I was livid, absolutely livid. And I thought this cannot stand. We got to stop this before he does more damage. We got to take him down. The Daily Mail tried, the Financial Times, but goddamn it, we can do our piece for these poor, benighted billionaires. That's it.

And we've done them, and we've been putting the cover in with all these hard, right? Or like it's seeing, you know, right wing, my go heads. It's taking years, years to build up the credibility we needed in order to take on Gary. But my God, it was worth it. Now, some people might have noted that our next episode is going to be on the All In podcast. I mean, but well, obviously we're going to endorse them fully, but I guess our thing has been scuppered. So now we'll just have to pretend to critique them too.

They, you know, give cover to our actual. Very, very deep, deep cover. Yeah. So deep. I don't, I just, some people, you can't be happy. You know, there's just people all over the internet, Matt. They have opinions. What can you do? But that to be fair to the subreddit and the general response, you know, there were people that specific issues or what not, but like overall, the general response was very positive. So it could be very critical and be reasonable as well, but it wasn't in this case. So there we go. Well, I was just glad to hear that

the thing you read out before, which I hadn't come across where I'd actually done some half-assed economic modeling on my own, just to check how much a 1% wealth tax on people, assets over 10 million pounds, 10 million pounds, 20 million pounds, various things that Kerry mentioned. I just wanted to do a check to see how much difference that would make. And when I did my half-ass analysis with the help of AIs, I kept getting the same answer, which is not very much.

Like it's not gonna make a huge difference. And I was really glad to hear that you saw a criticism from an economist who was pointing out that exactly the same thing, that it wouldn't actually make a huge difference. It's not to say we shouldn't do it. It's just, that's the one thing that Gary talks about, like it's gonna fix everything

Where is our message or our understanding is that the pictures a bit more complicated than that? that's That's just a way to deflect. I mean, that's our that's the message our paymaster sent us about how to get people off this It's all too complicated. It's all too hard. Don't even bother. Don't even try It's all too complicated. It's all too hard. Don't even bother. Don't even try. Yeah.

Well, I did see as well, Matt, just to say that we weren't wrong on this, that I was having to look at Derry's timeline and he was responding to someone saying that, making the same point we did, that traders aren't economists and that they might be good with like specific markets and assets, but they tend not to have a grand perspective on the other things that aren't relevant to trading and whatnot. There are lots of things in economics that is not trading for an exchange or commodities or what have you. Yes.

Yeah. And the person was suggesting that maybe people like Thomas Piketty or Joseph Stiglitz would be good to interview on the channel to Gary. And Gary helpfully responded saying, having spent a lot of time in both elite university economics departments and treating floors, I can tell you with absolute certainty that treaters are much, much more likely than economists to be assessing the economic picture broadly. So that's just to be clear, we are accurately representing Gary. He got mentioned, Thomas Piketty and Joseph Stiglitz.

And from Gary's perspective, nope, the Citibank traders, they've got a better grasp of what's going on. So there you go. So we weren't wrong to assess that that was his stance on things. Right? No. There we are. That does not surprise me.

Yeah. It is interesting. He never mentions going to university and studying without mentioning that it was an elite university. Yeah, I know. God damn it. And it's just like every chance he gets. I mean, people, even if you're a fan, you love the message, all that stuff.

You think his little berets call that's fine, but you must notice that every chance he gets, he leans on his elite status, right? Elite schools, best grades, best trader, super rich, super successful. He knows so much and that's why he's so successful. And it just reminds me of the right-wing American populace like Trump or whoever who play that card as well. They, on one hand, they've got the gilded bathrooms and they're the most successful,

the best at everything, whatever, but they're also totally disparaging institutions and elites. It's like it's a formula where we sort of love like the good elite, you know, like there's like, they've got to be elite, but they've got to be like the only good elite or a small subset. It's like, I know it's like in medieval times, you know what I mean? There was the good king, and but he's surrounded by bad advisors and exploitative nobles. But you know, there's a king there. His motives are pure and cares about the little people.

Maybe that's a strong, a long bow to draw, but it's a pattern I have noticed. Well, I guess I think we're going to see more of that when we, like I say, cover the all in podcast next. So look forward to more of that and much more on the nose, that kind of position. But I will get to that. If I hear the All In podcast, these multimillionaires and billionaires talking about elites and where they mean journalists and academics, I will throw up. I'll have a tantrum. I'm going to squeak my chair. I'm gonna go on the desk.

Yeah, yeah, that's... I think you may prepare your squeaks in advance, because I think they definitely are going to do that. But let's see, you know, to be positive. Yeah, you know, maybe not. Maybe not. Hope springs eternal. No, well, grommetry for those who don't know, it's this Archean science. It was developed in the 18th century by a French theosophist called Gary Gromader. And God, I lost the ability to riff there when I referenced Gary. Yeah, no, it isn't. It's a thing me and Matt came up with where we note the features that we have found recurrent

amongst the various secular gurus that we've covered. And we've identified 11 features. We give people scores from one to five on each of them. And then we give them some bonus points at the end for fun, for shits and giggles. So we'll vote for a little due. Shall we begin the classification? We shall. We will start off as usual with Galaxy Brainless.

So God, I keep forgetting which one this is. What the hell? Are you serious? It's not the Polymath. I just get mixed up with the Polymath. It is. It is. It's it's it is. Stop getting confused about that. It is cleamed polymorphic ability, like willingness to venture opinions extremely confidently across a broad array of subjects.

The concept of staying in your lane physically disgusts you. Um, yeah. So what about that? Does Gary do that? Well, he does focus on economics and he does have a small number of ideas, all seemingly based on his master's thesis. And they're not exactly new ideas either. So I'm not sure if he does go highly on this. I don't think so. I think that if you look at his videos, it is basically Gary and a little bit of economics that's in his videos. So I would currently I don't know overall but you know over time but currently I just give him a two in this Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you know like he covers a few other topics, but they're they're on his podcast, but that's that's

That's all right. Oh, look at this. I've seen the tsunami coming. What did you give him predicting the future? Sorry, i'm getting ahead of myself. I'm just seeing evidence of Cassandra. I'll give him, I'll give him a... I'm going to give him a two, just because even though the field of wealth inequality, taxation, you know, this field of economic labor, the broad field of economics, it. It is a nicely defined field and you wouldn't be going out of your lane if you focused on that and had expertise in that. But it seems like Gary does like claim to expertise over the entire field based on his trading abilities

and based on his master's thesis. So there's a little bit of galaxy brainness there in terms of the discrepancy. But so I'll give them a two. That's a very minor point. Two is very low. One is the lowest. Next one. Next one is cultishness, like creating strong in-group, out-group boundaries and

encouraging parasocial devotion, presenting people as attacking you unfairly, that you are a wounded bird that needs, you know, help from your followers and whatnot to withstand attacks. Does Gary do that? I would say he does. Another classic thing of coalitionists is He does. Another classic thing of cultishness is representing a criticism of you as an attack on the movement, on the community that you represent. Quite true. He does do the wounded bird thing, absolutely. And he's always sighing and moaning about being so tired. A bit of a moaner. Of being so tired and he can't shoulder.

He's carrying the cross. He's carrying the cross for everyone, but it's making him so tired he's got to go have a break for the time. So yeah, what would you say, Chris? I give him four. I give him four for this. Not because of necessarily making outgroup like a

target, but just the very, very strong in-group reinforcement stuff and parasocial manipulation stuff. Yeah, I see the strong parasocial manipulation stuff, but also the demonization of the outgroup, setting it up as us and them type thing. And he he does, right? He does. But the art group is a bit like, you know, it's a they, that's partly why, like, I kind of feel like it's a amorphous elite that, you know, like the the the, the bad rich, I guess. But, but it's also, it's also bad. Oh, academics.

Yeah. Also bad academics. Like academics are. Oh, it's not just bad academics. It's all academics. No, I know what I mean. Academics are bad because they're stupid and they don't care. Yeah.

So I think that there is it, you know, a lot of a lot of political populism tends to be like that. You tend to kind of, you know, separate society into the good guys and the bad guys. It's a powerful lever, emotional lever for moving people. So I'm tempted to give them a five, but I'll moderate. I'll give them a four. That's all right. Anti-establishment terrorism. What's that Matt? What is that? Well, it is what it says in the team being against the establishment

I guess setting yourself up as a principal source of knowledge basically knocking down authoritative or conventional sources of knowledge or alternative opinions to basically puff yourself up more. A lot of our gurus do this because it almost goes with the territory of being this outsider, this iconoclastic, heterodoxy type person he's saying the things that the mainstream is not saying. Does he do this, Chris?

Do you think he might do this? I did detect a touch of this in some of his statements and whatnot. It was hard, you know, it's only because I've been doing this for such a long time that I was able to pick up on the subtle hints. But yeah, he does this all the time. Does it a lot. And it's everybody in the economics field is an idiot that only knows how to do representative agent modeling. The other traders, they're competent folk, right? In

general, like Gary, you know, they were doing very well earning money, but also they don't have the compassion that he has for, you know, the society and inequality and the media. It's all clickbait stuff to try and take people down. So, uh, Gary, Gary himself is the solitary person. He sits at the intersection of the Venn diagram. Yeah. Of talent, competence, wisdom, competence, and compassion. And intellectual power as well. Raw intellectual elite.

Oh, and authenticity. I think that also applies. So yeah, lucky for people that he came across along. So yeah, anti-establishment sentiment. Hi. Now, Matt, the next one, it's kind of related to this. Again, it was hard to detect any note of this in the content, but I think it might have been there. Grievance mongering. Did you detect any note of grievance in his content? Yeah, I did. And I know you detected a whole lot more of it after reading the book as well. There's a fair bit, a fair bit, a fair bit.

It's quite impressive. You know, I mean, at this point during the podcast as well, but I'll just say it again that, like Gary, however he paid for his university, he went to LSE. He got internship at Citibank and he was given his deferred stock payout, even though he chose to leave early in a way that many other people in similar circumstances have been unable to get payouts. And he was on sick leave for, according to himself, like six months or so in Tokyo, not doing any work.

And then he got the payout. And yet there's still a strong sense that there was like, injustice, injustice involved. Right. And yeah, so yes, I did detect grievance mongering, his grievances were mongered in it. And I mean, even you can just take the fact that in the book, and this is partly what happens in memoirs, right? But I think it's an example is he gives all of the people he doesn't like unflattering nicknames, right? The slug, the ice woman, whatever, you know, like the rat, they're all like one dimensional. In interviews, he's tried to say, you know, they're not good or bad. I tried to paint everybody, but no, they that's not really the case. You can see the people that he thinks are good or bad.

And that's it. Like they are. They're just bad people who were bad to him. And it often does revolve around the extent to which they, you know, were foils in in Gary's various endeavors. So, yeah, we've been wondering five. And the thing that I am compelled to mention in in Gary's various endeavors. So yeah, Grievance Mongering 5, kind of created for me, Matt. Yeah. And the thing that I am compelled to mention is that Grievance Mongering, yes, it often

involves a personal sense of grievance against lots of parties. If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at patreon.com slash Decoding the Gurus. Once you do, you'll get access to full length episodes of the Decoding the Gurus. Once you do, you'll get access to full-length episodes of the Decoding the Gurus podcast, including bonus shows, gurometer episodes, and Decoding academia. The Decoding the Gurus podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on

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