How Wall St. Gambles on Your Future w/Ann Pettifor

We’ve all heard it before: any time a politician tries to put forward a policy that might finally improve people’s lives—think Mamdani's fast free buses, affordable homes, or renewable energy infrastructure—they’re met with the same line: we can’t afford it. Media pundits and technocrats alike obsess over the national debt, balancing the books and not “spooking” the ever mysterious bond vigilantes. 

It’s an obsession that paralyses action on the very challenges we most need to meet, from transforming our energy system to providing care for the most vulnerable. 

It’s also, as today’s episode explores, deeply misleading. 

Our guest today is Ann Pettifor, the esteemed political economist and author most recently of The Global Casino: How Wall Street Gambles with People and Planet, which covers everything from the shocking power of Wall Street to Keynes's legacy to what money really is: in Ann’s view, an incredible human innovation that could be leveraged to transform our world for the better, rather than enrich a small minority. In today’s episode, she tells us how.