Gary Stevenson
Gary Stevenson is a UK-based economist and former interest rate trader who now campaigns on the issue of wealth inequality. Through his organisation, Gary’s Economics, he helps make the opaque world of finance and wealth comprehensible, in plain language, and he explains how inequality becomes entrenched and perpetuated.
Gary, who experienced poverty as a youngster growing up in England, worked for Citibank in London and Tokyo - a job he initially won in a card game - and in 2011 became the bank’s most profitable trader globally by correctly predicting that the after-effects of the 2008 financial crisis would lead to a long term stagnation in interest rates and a rapid rise in asset values. He retired from the City in 2014 aged just 27, as a multimillionaire.
He talks to Project Twist-It about how his education at the London School of Economics and at Oxford, along with his career in the City and his early experiences of poverty, have shaped his understanding of economics, wealth and inequality.
“People are not stupid and people realise when things are getting worse.
People see that it’s 13 years since the financial crisis. Wages have stagnated, stock prices are up 300%, 400%, 500%, house prices have doubled. And they can see that the lives of ordinary people are getting worse in really significant ways. ”