Debunking Economics - the podcast · Steve Keen & Phil Dobbie

Beyond the Barrel: Should We Windfall Tax Big Tech and Banks?

·43 min·2 clips

Steve Keen and Phil Dobby dissect windfall taxes — starting with the UK's North Sea oil surcharge and its $71.40 per-barrel trigger — then broaden into whether the same logic should apply to banks, big tech, and any company that massively exceeds its own profit forecasts. Keen argues through a Modern Monetary Theory lens that taxing foreign-owned export profits is a way to redirect money that would otherwise leave the domestic economy entirely, reducing the burden on workers and the middle class. The conversation covers resource nationalisation (Norway as model, Australia as cautionary tale), the built-in windfall in bank money creation, the mischief of share buybacks, the race to the bottom in corporate tax rates, and why Keynes's plea to 'let finance be national' has been comprehensively ignored. Throughout, the hosts use dark humour about Trump-era politics, the Beatles, and Steve Keen's ill-received Singapore conference jokes.

As heard by us

A windfall tax debate that broadens into a serious argument about taxation and money.

The episode takes a windfall tax debate and uses it to ask a broader question: who should pay when profits come from luck as much as effort? It starts with oil and gas, then moves to big tech and the case for taxing unexpected gains.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a serious fight over windfall taxes, start here.

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