#151 - Paul Morland & Philip Pilkington - Britain Is Going Bankrupt And Nobody Will Say Why

Thinking Class · Nov 5, 2026 · 55m · transcript

Britain's economy is a demographic Ponzi scheme. The models don't work. The Treasury knows it. And nobody will say it out loud.

Paul Morland and Philip Pilkington are the authors of Bust: The Economics of Population Decline. In this conversation, we think out loud about:

• Why the economic growth models we depend on were built for a world of rising populations — and break down in a world of falling ones

• The demographic Ponzi scheme: how Western economies became dependent on importing the young to service the old

• The grey economy — what happens when retirees overwhelm the workforce and…