One mad thing you forgot to mention is that the City of London elections give votes to the businesses in Square Mile based on the number of employees they have. The companies have about double the votes than the actual residents have and thus naturally dominate the elections. Mad that this all happens out in the open.

You're doing an important thing a lot of people forget to do: you accept the ugly parts of history and current reality of your country and are not afraid of speaking out about it. This is true patriotism.

That last line is a brutal assessment of modern society: "Tax means nothing to these people. Tax is something the little people need and the middle people pay."

I’ve lived in London for a year, and will never understand the dismissive arrogance of Londoners to “tax dodging Irish” when the city is built on tax dodging.

So here's fun. I had a look into the number of homeless people in London, and the number of empty properties in London, and it turns out you could give every single homeless person in London two properties, and you'd still have a load left over. Re blimps, you might want to look at Cardington in Bedfordshire, there's a couple of hangars there.

You can really feel the genuine anger and frustration in this one. Cuts close to home, but all stuff that needed to be said. Well done.

9 years is pretty old for a chimney sweep, I only hire 4 year old ones, they can get into all the tiny places.

Having lived in London for 2 years, I have to say I feel your pain. The place was bloody expensive, full of regulations and dominated by finance people. I’ll be surprised if there are still going to be a middle and lower class living in the bounds of London in 30 years.

Ordinary Guy always makes my day. Mentioned your TedTalk in a class presentation the other day and the feedback was incredible. Your videos are unmatched in quality, and your writing is incredible. You are the best.

New Yorker here. So many points about the decay of London apply to my hometown; the foreign interference in real estate, tax avoidance of bankers, massive homelessness problem, etc. It's like the elite in both cities have no idea their actions are completely unsustainable and will eventually harm themselves. P.S. I'm happy you included Delaware on the list of shady tax havens, it is literally the only reason the state exists. It's very fitting it was the first state admitted into the union.

Excellent video! I am a Londoner, I’ve loved my city since the day I was born and knowing that this shit is happening right on my doorstep is so depressing, you can see the inequality whenever you go to certain boroughs and the wealth disparity is disgusting

The way you walked out in the end said it all. I can honestly say that this video is so well put together and well documented and you truly had a personal passion for this this was very personal for you.

"Don't let the bastards grind you down" feels particularly apt on this video. Great content as always! 💜

You may want to disclose that Honey is basically a privacy nightmare and will track everything you do. With an unknown op sec so their own data may not be secured so well.

This video just happens to be amazing context for my study abroad trip to London! I watched it first before I left home, and a second time once I'd been here a while and seen all the things you talk about for myself. You bring up many things that the average tourist would never notice nor think about. I'll never see this place in the same way (although I can separate the truth of the matter from my enjoyment of visiting somewhere new and different).

The overall quality of your stuff is really exceeding itself every new video I see man. Love it. Keep it up.

I’ve lived in London my whole life and have always wondered why I’d hardly ever see anyone enter or leave those white pillar houses. Makes sense now.

I like the way that you built up from mild whimsy to the anger of the overwhelmed. It is so ridiculous how that top 1% are allowed to continue to steal and not even have to pay the taxes on their ill-gotten gains.

Your script writing and way of forming sentences is absolutely unmatch in my opinion. And it's f****** hilarious.

I live in San Diego, CA and we feel so many of these same issues with investors from around the world gobbling up trillions in property to use as tax skirts. The global elite are making cities around the world completely unlivable.

Mentioning the British overseas territories, but not the crown dependencies is a miss. I'm from Guernsey and we're notorious for being a tax haven, all the major international firms have offices on these tiny islands and genuinely half the work force is employed in finance. Our COL is comparable to London, on a tiny island in the channel. It drives out young educated people like myself and stifles out development as aside from hiding some ultra wealthy geriatric Russian bastard's money, there's little other to do. It's just depressing

You're doing something very real and meaningful with this content, it's strangely uplifting despite the subject matter usually being kind of depressing.

Always thought Ordinary Things was under-rated but everyone needs to see this. Amazing work, please keep it up

Incredible video! This must have been really hard to put together but it turned out really well. If you're interested, the London legal system has a similar story to the finance system. I'd love to see an oligarch video from you someday (look into Eurasia too- it's fascinating) but I also love your more ordinary things. Looking forward to learning about blimps!

"Heads were mostly hatted" is better than any Charles Dickens description of London lol. Great video, I love snark / sarcasm especially when it's backed up by really sound observations and research! Your writing is top notch and you have a great sense of humor. It's tough balancing humor with facts, so you do a really good job moving things along without it seeming too flippant or shallow.

Dane here, the same is slowly happening to Copenhagen, not at all in the same scale, but in the last ten years, the house pricing and amount of newly build "Luxury" apartments have gone up insanely high

Small correction: The Queen doesn't need to ask permission to enter TCOL(plc). I mean, she does generally need to "phone ahead", but this is the same for everywhere, as the local police will tend to be involved in security arrangements, so moving across police jurisdictions will usually involve making arrangements with the police in each of the jurisdictions.

18:10 this dude laughs like he's only ever read about laughter in books

I was just starting to get interested in this topic, the fact that London is the money laundering capital of the world is such an unknown and important fact, thank you for this

Bro imagine if politicians were held to the same standard as claimants of universal credit.

I say this everytime but honestly you have to be one of the funniest creators on this measily website. lots of love xxx

This is happening in Canada too. it seems to be a common trend for commonwealth countries, focused around their lifeless marketable cities.

I assume you're based in London. So many naturally classic backdrops and you took full advantage along with good creative green screening for other locations. I also feel I have a better grasp on exactly HOW the "british empire" continues to suck the blood of the world even while retaining almost no overseas territory. Shadowy. Good work.

He's going bigger and bigger with his topics in each video and I'm all for it.

BLIMPS ARE SO COOL I'm excited to see you make a video about them! Always wanted to learn more about them in a more entertaining way, looking forward to it!

Found you from the Internet Historian, and haven't stopped watching. Great content, love it))

I've always wondered what it must be like to live in such a touristy city. I thought people must be annoyed all the time. When I went to Paris this was proven true, however I went to London right after and, if people were annoyed, they didn't show it at all. Everyone was extremely helpful even if it was an inconvenience to them. It's one of my favorite memories from that trip.

As a Belgian I always loved to cross the North Sea and visit the UK multiple times each year. I had fallen in love with certain aspects of the culture and my visits to London were always highlights. As beautiful as the city can be in certain buroughs, I had never felt more alienated than when I found myself in Canary Wharf. Basically an artifical island, loaded with skyscrapers and yuppies. I went to see a game of football in the only sports bar on the island, and apart of having been the only one not dressed in thousand-dollar clothing, I heard some of the business execs who went there for a pint after a long day of work talking about how it's 'just some bad luck' that they just lost the 300K they bet on Arsenal or whatever. Like your video states, I feel London is in the grip of a group of individuals so wealthy and disassociated from everyday working-class life, that it dwarves the charm of some of the more cultural things the city has to offer. I sometimes wonder if there even is a middle class in London, because all I'd seen recently were either loaded yuppies, or dirt-poor beggars, hardly an inbetween. I often wonder what London would look like if the billions of pounds in avoided taxes were to be actually spent on city infrastructure or social programs. Anyway, thanks for another great video. Your wit and investigative qualities are unparalleled on this platform, and I get only the best of dopamine rushes when I see your captivating mug pop up in my subscription box. I hope you keep going strong and wish you luck with whatever video you're working on next.

Fun fact about the million Pound notes: they only exist to back Scottish and Northern Irish Pounds. While the Bank of England is by far the largest bank and largest issuer of currency in the UK, there are a few banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland that can issue their own Pound Sterling notes. To ensure their value, they have to be backed by Bank of England Pounds 1:1. There's a similar situation for most of the overseas territories, such as Gibraltar, the Falklands, and even the Crown Dependencies such as Jersey and Guernsey. A few territories, however, don't even use Pounds, such as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, which use Dollars that are pegged 1:1 to the US Dollar.

PLEASE COME BACK!!! Found your channel last week and have binge watched all of your videos. Your content and writing skills are underrate. Phenomenal work. 🤗

The production quality is improving every video and the topics are becoming more and more political. I think it's very impressive how you link information together because, especially in political-historical context, it's not simply about facts but mainly what fact is connected with which reasoning and influence. Considering that these connections are blurred and being blurred constantly, you are doing fantastic work. I'm excited for every upload man

Hey, my great grandfather committed tax evasion leaving my family to fend for themselves, we’re still friends with the extended family he made there. I don’t dislike him but learning more about what he did explains the grudge my family has.

Mark Blyth: democracy is an insurance polic for the asset owning class, the issue now is they have been skimping on their payments.

The way the traders hesitate on the word "kindness" in Auld Lang Syne always gets me

LOVING the videos Ordinary Things!!!! The cost of living IS indeed going bananas. My family have lived in London and my family's family before that (Besides a few decades where they were forcibly relocated during the Blitz). They have always been Londoners, even the Irish and French ancestry from migrants who WANTED to live in London. I don't see how I can continue to live here. It's a great shame and I can't help but feel hollow when I see the level of tax evasion by the richest in this city. Anyway...Recommendations on cheap places to live (in the UK mind you) would be welcome haha.

Could've also extended on how this tax havens are also a huge factor of capital flight and poverty in the third world, and how they play a part in the general flow of wealth from third world countries to first world countries (UK is not the only one playing this game)

A core memory I have of London is having to pass a booth where I was asked you if I "would like to" donate 20 pounds before you could enter. Just have a entrance fee ffs.

"A city full of bankers." Ah, I getcha. They're the real problem with London. *taps nose*

Really glad you've been able to keep up this pace in terms of putting out videos. Love it. Thank you.

These legal and financial rituals is what is giving me an incredible anxiety and the biggest confusion in my life. There are so many regulations, laws, tax rules in place that the ordinary person would need to read several books just to become familiar with them and need to hire at least 3 lawyers not to make a mistake. A single minor mistake in the ritual can, in the best case, end up as a lifelong indebtedness and life of a slave. Like how did we go from hunting and worshiping forest spirits to being yuppies and feeling happy when the stonks go up.

The issue of companies holding office space and property is a problem that apparently managed to radiate from London like the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in the 80s. I live in New York City and it's estimated that nearly 100,000 empty "pied-a-terre" apartments exist: Vacant properties that exist solely as foreign investments that the owner will occasionally breathe the same air in. This number is included in 250,000 or so units that exist in the confines of the city of New York's boroughs that are just sitting vacant because the speculative property market refuses to lower prices, considering the average selling price for an apartment in Manhattan sits just under $2 million and the average rent sits at about $3500 (with studios at about $3000 and a 4 bedroom at $4500). New York City has this weird unspoken rule amongst landlords that if you're renting out a unit, the renter should make roughly 40 times whatever the monthly rent is, which is made especially frustrating given that this implies that people should make minimum $120,000 in a city where the average individual yearly income is around $30,000 and the average household income sits just under $60,000. Given NYC's estimated homeless population somewhere at 80,000-100,000, the city could potentially house all of these people more than twice over.

spitting the door step was a good touch

beautifully written as always. idk if youre gonna see this, but i love your content man. the hard work you put in really shows. also kudos to you for the bits you film in public spaces, especially the one at 12:38 lol

12:55 - When you say “…You’ll see that the rich are still living off the backs of the little guy” and those two bourgie yuppies walk past you and DEFINITELY hear you - - That moment was *ART* 🤌💋💥

Lmfaooooooo Rishi being PM now is insane

"It's something the little people need, and the middle people pay" That's a fantastic mic drop

Surprised he didn't bring up that the EU started working on financial transparency measures that might have cracked down on this shortly before Brexit *mysteriously* started being discussed and campaigned for.

Great video! I had no clue that major governments and corporations had ever made _any_ attempt to hide corruption! I never thought governments and corporations had learned or would ever learn their lesson. At last, my faith in humanity has been restored. :)

thank u for this ! it’s so depressing when u can’t afford to live in the city you’ve grown up in. idk how they expect to have their café’s and restaurants staffed when us peasants can’t afford to live, and therefore, work here.

The British government is more concerned with making the English people a hated minority in their own homeland than anything else. They'll never put a stop to this.

Man this is so based. Excellent job compiling such complex systems.

This was awesome

20:38 there is no way that’s worth 6.45M where I live in Somerset you could buy a mansion near the coast with 6 bedrooms and 50 acres for 1 M 🤦🏼

Nothing wrong with not paying taxes. The problem is that it's not available to the lower and middle classes.

I came for the jokes, ended up learning about an ordinary thing. Thanks ordinary things!

what a fucking hitpiece. great work. honestly fascinating how (where I was in America at least) schools will teach a lot about banks and economics but always seem to cut off right about where globalism starts. thanks for filling in ordinary people on what our systems would like to omit.

They increase taxes on others to compensate for the lost tax, which only reinforces monopolies and establishment.

Imagine coping so hard you say the creation of a task force specifically to clean up your bullshit was something to be proud of. I hope that announcer was paid well for that performance.

"All the money you made will never buy back your soul" - Beff Jezos

It’s ALWAYS a good day when OT uploads. Can’t get enough!

The use of Erik Satie at 12:58 is brilliant. I commend you sir.

I think the biggest problem with democracy is that it gives people the illusion of change, when in reality, the establishment will always be the establishment and they are never your friend. Britain, London more than anywhere else in the country, is a perfect example of that

Yo, I've never heard my city described in such accuracy 'til just now. Cheers.

The quality of your videos is still going up. This video is excellent, there were a number of subjects I knew something about but you connected them and really drove home why this is such a problem. Please keep on doing stuff like this, the world needs videos like this. Seriously!

Superb video, mate. Congratulacions.

I moved to London 3 years ago and despite everything you said about it being true, I still love it here. Maybe that’s just because I moved here from LA, which is a considerably bigger cesspool by comparison.

As a foreigner who lives in London, this city has good things: very cosmopolitan, you have access to cultures from all over the world and the parks are huge. But it's also ridiculously expensive and I can't wait to move to one of the smaller commuter towns (with a bit of luck if my boss allows me to wfh permanently). There are flats here that should go against the Geneva convention. Bed, kitchen and a cubicle for the fucking shower all in the same place. How are those even allowed to be rented? Rn I'm paying 1200 plus bills for a flat and the bills have doubled since I moved and the NI as well, like ordinary things said. That's why hearing these things infuriate me so much. Fuck the rich. Excellent video.

This was awesome dude. Being from the north it's absolutely heartbreaking to see people voting for the Tories because they think immigrants are the biggest problem. I wish I could convince everyone to watch this video and realize that the biggest problems are those gits.

Eurodollars are not complicated. Eurodollars are simply US dollar denominated bank deposits issued by banks outside the Federal Reserve System. It's simply confusing because most people don't actually know what a deposit is. You see when you deposit money at a bank, the cash you hand over isn't actually yours. What you get instead are essentially receipts which can be redeemed for the same amount of money you deposited. (To keep things simple I won't go into money aggregates, the payment system, interest rates, monetary policy, autonomous factors or correspondence banking.)

My father worked in north africa as an oil consultant and said that Tripolis was more beautiful than London

You're the only youtuber I don't skip the in-video sponsor, as its so funny.

Informative video. These tax loopholes schemed by government entities themselves are shameful. $15 billion a year is only a fraction of the budget of the UK though. I hope that there is reform on this but this will not solve many of the UK or similar problems that most developed countries face.

18:09 I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but good gracious his laugh *needs* to be timestamped :-D

She doesn't walk anywhere anymore

I am more and more convinced that the entire issue of today's price hikes and issues on the house market are entirely due to tax evading mega trusts/corporations/billionaires/oligarchs/younameit. I'm perfectly okay with paying taxes, it's how we support eachother more effectively and get the best things done, but if those billions of dollars are never taxed, everything will collapse eventually. We can only hope that when it all collapses, the resulting legislation gets rid of tax evasion

I remember hearing about London being the tax haven capital of the world and being confused because I never heard about it that way. Tax havens are so stupid and it's great that most people in power choose to use them or ignore them :).

Video Ideas: - Emoticons and emoji - Weaponry - Graffiti - Private military organizations - Sex toys - Diseases (and/or medication) - Audio reproduction (Headphones, speakers, and such) - Childhood crazes - Alcohol - Drugs/altered consciousness - Conspiracy theories (a more general history of the concept)

I've seen your videos in my feed, never watched til now. It's rare that I come across anyone (on or off the Internet) who's even heard of the City of London. I like your eye for history and sense of humor, so I subscribed.

Fun fact, the UK’s economy is over 70% financial services. If London was independent, we’d be an entirely different country. And would probably revert to feudalism and subsistence farming in a matter of months, since we literally have no economy.

Gotta say, this is one of your best. Been watching regularly since early 2020, and it's been nice watching your evolution. Honestly (and I understand this is maybe a little backhanded), I initially subscribed because I went "this guy's funny, he's essentially stolen Charlie Brooker's Wipe shtick and joke style, but I miss having new stuff of that and this guy is really good at it". Over the time though, it's been really great to see the way you make these videos has developed. You've kept the Brooker influence, but really come in to your own and bring a lot more of your own style into it, and partly because of that, and partly because of the topic, this seems like a video that could go viral way beyond your others. More and more often now I get excited for your videos and I think that's only going to grow as this run continues.

One of the best videos I've ever watched on KZfaq.

Good effort on this one man. You did a really good job of simplifying something that is intentionally complex and obscure

Completely fascinating. I know next to nothing about finance, but you broke it down really well. Looking forward to watching more of you!

I love the fact that this one is currently top 20 on trending, well deserved 💯🤙

come for the ad reads, stay for the insightful content.

This is legitimately the best documentary on London in recent times

I love to attempt to understand a city I've never been to before or even the country.

Can't wait for this channel to blow up more. Love how you edit your videos and make depressing subjects entertaining and funny.

Also, one correction: the German hyperinflation ended before the rise of Nazism as a mass movement really started. The global recession that followed coincided with the rise of Nazism. It was known as the great depression and was driven by deflation rather than inflation.

8:23 I really thought you were going to say, "wheelbarrows full of Deutsche marks to the bank to wheelbarrows full of bodies to a mass grave".