This is the book they’re talking about:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/727417/the-trading-game-by-gary-stevenson/

I’ve seen a couple of his videos before, and remember having the same reaction he described “They see a young kid, used to work as a trader, talking about the economy, and think, who the f*$% is this? He’s not even an economist?” But I also remember that what he said made sense, makes sense.

He mentions something like this in the video, but I had a similar thought that I’ll share. conspiracy theorists love to think about the dark figure in the shadows, holding the power, pulling the strings, to make the world as they see it. And while that can be scary, it’s also comforting, because the alternative is far worse, that there isn’t anybody behind the curtain. We’re all drifting, rudderless; lunging catastrophically from collapse to collapse. Nobody’s in charge, and the only real rule of the world is take care of you and yours, because that’s about all the control in your life that you’ll ever get, and most of the time you don’t even get that.

There still are people in the world that DO want to help others, the problem is that there are so many people only presenting themselves as such, that it’s hard to tell one from the other. It’s why authoritarians rise to power, they tell everyone that they have a rudder, and will steer us to calmer waters, when in reality they’re profiting off the storm.

It’s also why strong social welfare programs is the only real answer, because when everyone is already in calm water, they don’t feel the need to sail into a storm in search of something calmer.

“work”