America’s Economic Breakdown, Minnesota’s Political Bombshell & The Rise of Gen1 Robots | The Tom Bilyeu Show LIVE

Summary

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Podcast Summary: America’s Economic Breakdown, Minnesota’s Political Bombshell & The Rise of Gen1 Robots

Podcast: Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Episode: The Tom Bilyeu Show LIVE (January 7, 2026)
Host: Tom Bilyeu
Co-Host: Drew

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Main Theme & Purpose

Tom Bilyeu and Drew kick off the first live episode of 2026 with hard-hitting discussions on America’s failing economic architecture, the growing political movement toward collectivism (especially in Minnesota), systemic corruption, and the disruptive rise of first-generation humanoid robots in industry. Unafraid to challenge conventional narratives, Tom breaks down the complex drivers behind today’s crises—economic, political, and technological—offering accessible explanations and actionable insight for the audience.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Individual Success vs. Systemic Failure

Timestamps: 02:05–03:40

• Tom asserts that on an individual level, those who are proactive and intelligent can still succeed despite societal headwinds.

• However, he "frets" about people lacking “intellectual bandwidth”—the system’s structure should not leave them behind:

  "We owe them good architecture, cultural architecture, so that they can just live their life."
  — Tom (02:05)

• He recommends an “all weather” economic strategy (à la Ray Dalio) for individuals but underscores the danger of flawed economic systems for society at large.

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2. Collectivism vs. Private Property: The Minnesota Shift

Timestamps: 03:40–15:10

• Discussion centers on Minnesota’s new political leadership (Governor Dani, Tenant Director C. Weaver) and their explicit embrace of collectivist policies.

• Tom dissects the phrase from Governor Dani's inauguration:

  “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”
  — Governor Dani, cited by Tom (04:00)

• Tom’s interpretation:

  “The second you hear somebody say anything about collectivism, you need to hear what they are actually saying. I’m going to take your shit."
  — Tom (04:27)

• He traces the disastrous history of collectivism, referencing China and Ukraine, and draws a direct line from socialism to economic decline, loss of innovation, and catastrophic famines.

• C. Weaver’s policy on property:

  “We will transition from treating property as an individual good to a collective good.”
  — C. Weaver (07:43, 12:56)

• Tom clarifies key political terminology:

  • Democratic socialism (what’s being advocated): “Socialism. Period.”
  • Social democracy (Nordic model): High tax rates on privately owned assets, not government ownership:

  “The Nordics do not do government owns everything. It’s all high tax off of private ownership.”
  — Tom (12:17)

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3. Economic System Dysfunction: Why the Economy Feels ‘Rigged’

Timestamps: 15:45–24:15

• Tom explains how socialism fails due to human nature:

  “If a family will tear itself apart over wills…imagine a country, bro."
  — Tom (15:45)

• He highlights the complexity of the modern economy and the role of debt and money printing:

  “Anytime that your budget is not balanced, you are being stolen from by your own government.”
  — Tom (20:27)

• Inflation is described as hidden theft from ordinary people. Over-explaining the system causes “most people to tune it out and say, fine."

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4. Capitalism’s Flaws and the Need for Guardrails

Timestamps: 24:15–27:41

• Tom acknowledges that unchecked capitalism leads to oligarchy and power concentration (“a king who has all the resources”).
• He advocates for regulated capitalism—avoiding both anarchic individualism and total collectivism.
• Investment advice: Diversification is sanity; concentrated bets = high risk and high reward.

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5. Minnesota’s Political Bombshell & Systemic Corruption

Timestamps: 28:18–39:42

• Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota, abruptly exits the 2026 race amid major fraud scandals involving the Somali community and state aid programs.

• Tom laments the lack of sincere leadership and calls for “the untouchables”—incorruptible reformers dedicated to transparency and rooting out fraud:

  “It would be very straightforward to build a system that tracks all of this. But we’ve got to have the will as the people to demand that kind of accountability.”
  — Tom (33:54)

• He criticizes politicians’ lack of a genuine moral North Star—most are motivated purely by re-election.

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6. Populism, Polarization, and Political Cynicism

Timestamps: 39:54–44:49

• Case study: Attack on JD Vance’s home as a symptom of rising political violence due to economic decline and zero-sum thinking among citizens.
• Trump’s wild claim: Possible end of income tax. Tom is highly skeptical (“2% chance”), stressing that balancing the budget is “the best thing.”
• 2028 Democratic nomination speculation: Tom blasts Gavin Newsom for fiscal irresponsibility (“king of no balance budget, king of spin”).

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7. America’s Economic Malaise: Root Cause Analysis

Timestamps: 44:49–47:21

• Tom asserts the “actual economy” is broken by excessive government spending and a system that forces everyone (even those working multiple jobs) to be investors.
• Society’s lack of connection between deficit spending and economic hardship leads to demands for unaffordable social services and unchecked debt.

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8. FAFO: Automation & The Next Era of Disruption

Timestamps: 47:21–56:16

• Drew reports on Hyundai’s Georgia plant replacing immigrant labor with “Gen1” Atlas humanoid robots.

• Tom reframes labor automation as driven by consumer demand for “cheap shit”:

  “You want cheap shit. You are the problem now. Of course, I’m the same. But we’re all the problem, Drew.”
  — Tom (48:27)

• He predicts that rapid AI/robot advancement could make “this time different”—with machines potentially surpassing humans at almost everything.

• Tom’s caution: Every revolution “has always created more jobs, not less,” but AI could finally break this rule. Human-ness could simply become an aesthetic choice.

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9. Capitalism vs. Socialism: Ideal vs. Reality

Timestamps: 56:16–58:50

• Super chat: Can we only criticize socialism for real-world failure, but defend capitalism idealistically?
  • Tom: All systems are artifacts of flawed human psychology; “they all end badly” unless checked by cultural/religious guardrails.
• Capitalism is “most in line with the architecture of the human mind”—works best with responsible guardrails.

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10. Can Change Happen Without Overthrow?

Timestamps: 58:50–59:07

• Question: “Real change doesn't come until we flip the monopoly board.”

  • Tom: “False… Revolution can come through diplomacy for sure.”

• Tom’s proposed fixes:

  • Balance the federal budget (spending ≤ revenue)
  • Cap debt to GDP growth
  • Dramatically deregulate housing
  • Enable intuitive saving and home ownership

  “If you do those things, then you can’t imagine how much better things would be…That would solve so many problems.”
  — Tom (59:05)

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Notable Quotes

• On Collectivism’s Dangers:

  “We are not a collectivist species. We can cooperate, but we’ve gotta know what’s in it for us.”
  — Tom Bilyeu (23:20)

• On Economic Complexity:

  “The economy to be real, must be expressed in a complex fashion that makes most people turn their brain off and just say fine. That's the entire problem.”
  — Tom Bilyeu (21:41)

• On Populism & Political Dysfunction:

  “We are in such a politically dysfunctional moment that it’s all about taking shots at the other side. And this is not just a Tim Walz problem.”
  — Tom Bilyeu (32:51)

• On the Inexorable Advance of Robots:

  “These are going to get so much better, Drew. And they're going to get so much better so fast... These are your Gen1 bots. Like, think about how fast your iPhone updates. So your bots are going to update like that.”
  — Tom Bilyeu (49:18)

• On Finding Middle Ground:

  “Capitalism is the only system that we have found so far that when at least properly checked at the edges, is the most in line with the architecture of the human mind.”
  — Tom Bilyeu (57:53)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:05 — Tom’s philosophy on individual success vs. systemic danger
• 04:00 — Analysis of Minnesota’s shift toward collectivism
• 12:17 — Tom contrasts democratic socialism and social democracy
• 20:27 — Explaining inflation as hidden theft
• 33:54 — The need for incorruptible reformers (“untouchables”)
• 39:54 — Populism, polarization, and loss of trust
• 44:49 — Analysis: What’s truly broken in America’s system
• 48:27 — Why automation and robots are inevitable (“You want cheap shit.”)
• 53:05 — Tom’s outlook: fights over AI & automation are healthy, but ultimately resistance is futile
• 56:37 — Addressing capitalism's flaws; religion as societal regulator
• 59:05 — Tom’s multi-point plan to save the system

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Tone & Style

• Candid, unsparing, deeply analytical
• Tom is passionate, sometimes blunt, frequently weaving in historical examples, and unsparingly honest about both left and right political failures.
• The episode is interactive (with chat and super chats), humor-laced, and actively engages contrarian ideas.

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Conclusion

This episode of Impact Theory offers a powerful, well-argued roadmap for navigating America’s present crises—economic, political, and technological. Tom Bilyeu insists that systemic fixes are possible, but only through deep understanding, transparency, cultural reform, and pragmatic economics. As America enters an era of rapid change, the call is to combine personal responsibility, collective reform, and technological adaptation—or risk deeper social fracture.

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Transcript

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[Tom Bilyeu]

Happy New Year, everybody. Welcome back. 2026 is going to be a banger, as we will see today. This is wild. I am excited to be back in the seat. I had a wonderful break. Drew, welcome back. I hope you had an equally wonderful break.

[Drew]

I needed one more day.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, that. Hence the outfit.

[Drew]

I needed one more day.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I wish people could see the pajama pants and everything. Drew walked in. Eric, we called you the dude. So there it is, everybody. Drew needs one more. I do not. I am ready to go. I was chomping at the bit this morning over the weekend. The absolute world was popping off. This was so wild.

[Drew]

I know. We have a big super chat though. We wanted to get to.

[Chat Moderator]

Indeed we do. From Johnny. Good night. 4710 for 100 bucks. Thank you so much for that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

No joke.

[Chat Moderator]

Tom, I've been waiting for you to go live. Will you say you believe that we'll make it, especially if we do the 26 things you laid out in your video. My name is Goodnight, Johnny Goodnight and my life will and is forever change. Thanks, Tom and team.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Well, I appreciate that. It's very easy for me to say individually. Yes, you can make it. You will make it if you do the right things. I won't be so bold as to say that I am flawless and so just do the 26 things that I say and you're going to be perfectly fine. They are an incredibly good start. They are how I live my life. But I would adjust my behavior immediately if I saw a different feedback from the market. That's very important for me to state you cannot just get a piece of paper and go, I'm just going to execute against this. I think at an individual level, if you have the requisite intelligence, you are going to be fine no matter what happens. So at that place, I don't fret. Where I fret is that there are, call it half of the world that doesn't have the time or the intellectual bandwidth to figure all that stuff out. And we owe them good architecture, cultural architecture, so that they can just live their life. So anyway, I feel a moral obligation to do that. So when I'm sending out warnings, it's really about the architectural level. Never worried about the average human. The average human. Just follow Ray Dalio's advice economically anyway, around an all weather strategy and you'll be fine. You might not come out the other side wealthy and any of your friends at YOLO into something that hits, they're going to look at you and laugh. But anybody that invests like that is going to be toasted. So anyway, I don't lament at the individual level if you meet minimum intellectual requirements ever. Like, I don't have any concerns whatsoever. I hope that helps.

[Drew]

Dani was inaugurated on January 1st.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, it was.

[Drew]

This line keeps coming back. So I want to talk about it on the backs of his tenant. Director is also using the same line. So I want to hear it, hear it from him, hear it from her, and then you can kind of give your take on what it actually means.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Let's do that. We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism. God damn. What? I mean, they're really just saying it. Hell.

[Drew]

And then this is from his 10.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Is that from his speech?

[Drew]

That was from his ignite.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I got to watch the whole thing. It didn't make my radar at all. I guess it just all got swallowed by Venezuela.

[Drew]

Yeah, because it was the first and then the last. Holy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. The second you hear somebody say anything about collectivism, you need to hear what they are actually saying. I'm going to take your shit. Okay, so when he says collectivism, he means I'm going to take your shit. Now, how do I know he means that? Because I'm not being hyperbolic at all. I mean, he literally means whether even he knows it or not, I'm going to take your shit is because what happens is you put people in the game of life. We are all economic units. We all trade our time for money in some fashion. But some people are very good at playing that. Game. And so they will be able to get disproportionate value out of their time than the next person. Okay? And so what ends up happening is you put everybody in that game. Some people play it way better than others, and so they end up with more. And then people go, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not very fair. We need to think of this as a collective. And so now I'm going to need to take some of the things from you and give to other people. Okay, cool. Problem is there are going to be some people that go, no, now what? Now what do you do? You take it by force. That's it. And so this is played out over and over and over and over and over, over and over and over, all throughout human history. We will put somebody in prison if they don't pay their taxes. Anybody disagree with that. So they. They will already lock you up if you don't pay your taxes. Now, you can imagine if they say, no, no, no, we've got to make this ship more equal. And then you go, but hold on a second. I'm better at this game than other people. Why can I not play the game to win? Um, and they go, because that's not fair. And so, drumroll, please. We're going to take your shit. So this is one of those where the. The through line is so direct and so short. This is not like convoluted pathing or anything that you have to take. It's very simple. If we can all agree that if you put people of differing levels of intelligence in a game that can be won or lost, that people with the higher degrees of intelligence, on average, they're going to win more. And then if you try to equalize the outcome that you have to take people's shit. That's. That is what collectivism is. And so now go research it. Go research China. Go research the 45 million people dead just from starvation. By the way, there was way more dead for other reasons. Go research Ukraine. And the Famine, was it 28, 23, 28. Somewhere around in there as Disney is being formed in America, tens of. Did they get to tens of millions? I think it was like 12 million people were starved to death in Ukraine. That's collectivism. Read about the kulaks. You have more shit. So that's obviously not fair. So what do they do, Drew? They killed them. And so what happens when you kill the people that are winning at the game? They tend to be the people that are brighter, more talented, have better ideas. When you kill them, those ideas just Go away. That's how the people ended up starving to death. You killed the people that knew how to do it. In the name of what say with me now collectivism. So, yeah, we're gonna kill you and take your shit. So,

[Drew]

yeah. And then his tenant director, C. Weaver, said something the similar. And we'll transition from treating proper as an individual good to a collective good. This white especially. She also said people of color will be impacted who are homeowners. So this was a bit more hyperbolic in the title of the captioning, but it's the same principle of individual property ownership versus collective property ownership.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yep. And sorry, really fast, because I'm going to guess one of the things that people are going to push back on is. But Tom, we already have some degree of socialism in the US And I would say, yes, that's true. And I would say there's an amount of, hey, let's all pay taxes and have some communal things. And we want to redistribute the wealth in that fashion. And I would say, yeah, that makes sense. When you have private property and you say, hey, you control the means of production, you get to reap the benefits. But we're gonna tax people. Mm. I don't think anybody has a beef. If it's a flat tax, everybody pays 20%. Whatever. No one's gonna complain about that. The people that make more money will pay a huge. A much larger raw dollar. But it's still just a percent. Cool. You could do what the US does, and roughly half the country doesn't pay any tax at all. It's like 3% of the tax. And then the other 50% pay 97% of the tax. You could do that. And there is a point at which, when it's based on, I can still own my private property, it's mine. That people go along with it. Some of it's go along to get along. Some of it is, yeah, it's better that certain things like the military being the most obvious, that are handled at the level of the government. And yes, I, speaking for myself, I don't want an anarchic system. I don't want a libertarian system, that I want a well functioning, lightly regulated capitalist system. Cool. So the goal is to how much tax can you take from people where everybody feels good about it and take that and you help people. And all of that is wonderful and beautiful. And I think it's amazing. What they're talking about is they're saying, change your relationship to property. What they're talking about is getting Rid of private property. So you can't own the property yourself. You can do something with it if you've got the right, you know, approvals and all of that. But it's not owned by you. It's owned by the government. Now, do things get better or worse when the government takes it over? Worse, always and forever. Because there's no money signal, price signal. There's no competition. And so there's no one forcing you to get better. When you only have one department of water and power in your town, they're going to be ass. When you only have one Internet service provider, they're going to be ass. When the government runs something, it's just going to be ass. Like by definition. As a quick reminder, the rate of retirement from the United States government is bottlenecked by how fast we can move files into a mine where the files are stored. In the age of AI and computers, we still physically move the files into a mineshaft. Okay, that's real. I'm not making that up. So that's what happens when the government runs something.

[Drew]

So with all these pushes, I've seen something. I was trying to find the article. I couldn't find it. But you know, Mamdani did something as research the permit pipeline to build new housing. And let's take what boggles down the New York housing build housing process down. So if he were to do certain things that would be. Let's just call it democratic socialism. Like we're going to do 75% capitalism, 25% socialism on certain aspects.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Democratic socialism is socialism, Social democracy, which is what I.

[Drew]

Okay, maybe I can. I thought he said democratic socialism.

[Tom Bilyeu]

He said democratic socialism, not social democracy. So social democracy is ultra high tax across everyone. That's the Nordic model.

[Drew]

Okay, copy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Democratic socialism is socialism, period.

[Drew]

Okay, so you're saying all the nuances. He's not going toward Nordic. He's going full socialism. Correct communism. Okay, I had some people in the chat disagree.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So they are wrong. I mean that of his own admission. So if you want to play homegirl, she's about to say the thing which is we want no more private property. That's not social democracy. That's democratic socialism. That is socialism. Okay, The Nordics do not do government owns everything. It's all high tax off of private ownership.

[Drew]

All right, let's play this talking about housing and see if this could be a viable way to fix it. While I look up the differences between

[C. Weaver]

those two socialisms, I think the reality. Reality is, is that for centuries we've really treated property as an individualized good and not a collective good. And we are going to. And transitioning to treating it as a collective good and towards a model of shared equity will require that we think about it differently. And it will mean that families, especially white families, but some POC families who are homeowners as well, are going to have a different relationship to property than

[Tom Bilyeu]

that was her searching for the politically correct words there. A different relationship to property. Dude, this is so wild.

[Drew]

This is so this, this idea isn't dying though. So is this just. They just have to fafo until they find out.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Like, I mean that's the trajectory that we're on because we are in a position right now where we have so failed people with the current economic system that they want something different and that is necessary. But the what is the different thing is going to matter a lot. And right now, some percentage of people the thing that they want is going to be horrific. Like it's actually horrific. We've tried it over and over and over. It's so wild. It'd be utterly fascinating to hear people's explanation of why this time is going to work. But this time it's going to work always boils down to because the people now that are like me, that think like me, they would be able to pull it off. Everybody else was dumb not it violates a principle of the way that the human mind is wired, which is actually why it doesn't work. Stick around. We'll be right back after this. Foreigner hosts on VRBO deliver quality vacation rental stays with fast responses and clear instructions.

[C. Weaver]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

All right, let's dive right back in. If you could get everyone to agree, socialism would work. You can't and it doesn't. And that's why, dude, families will tear themselves apart over wills, which is just how to distribute the resources. If a family will tear itself apart, imagine A country, bro. Like, people are not going to agree. And by the way, you're going to get a bunch of politicians, bureaucrats, nameless, faceless, that are going to decide. And the level of maddening that that becomes, it just chokes out innovation. It chokes out progress. It's so wild. And so people are running these mental models that I'm just like, where, like, are you not encountering history and going, okay, what specific thing would I have done differently? Because it always comes down to you have to be right every time. Because if you're right every time, then you can ignore the will of the people. But one first, what are we trying to do? And does everyone agree with that? So everyone would have to agree with the desired outcome. Then you would have to be right at every step as to what to do to get to that desired outcome. And then you could ignore the will of the people because you're able to get them to their desired outcome. But I'll just put it to you. If there was a powerful AI, and if you did exactly what it told you to do, and it would lead to a good outcome, would you completely give up your will and just do what the AI says? Some very meaningful percentage of people are going to say, absolutely not. Principle alone. I'm not going to do that. So what on earth makes you think that they're going to do it? For a government that a doesn't have an end state that everyone agrees with is wrong a lot. And so now people have a reason to say I disagree and think we should do it this way. And once somebody disagrees, what do you have to do to get them in line? You have to shut them up, lock them up, whatever. Kill them tends to be a very popular answer. So I'm just like, bro, when I. Okay, so there's a fascinating thing that people will do when they come up with a new philosophy on investing. And they'll say, if you had invested this way from like 1901 until today, how many years would you have been up? How many years would you have been down? People do not do this with ideology. They don't go, oh, with this ideology. Not, not what would have happened? What did happen? Oh, shit. This ideology killed more people than basically anything. So socialism killed way more people than war. But I think most people agree war sucks, but they don't agree socialism and communism suck. I don't, I don't understand. I can give you a reason in terms of the way that people are paristatized by their own emotions, which make them connect Dots that don't actually connect. And they think, because this feels right, it must be right, it must actually work. But they don't understand how the human mind is actually architected. So good.

[Chat Moderator]

From the chat they said, yes, we need a different relationship with property. How else could it become affordable if the prices will continue to go up?

[Tom Bilyeu]

If property, they're, they're stop. They're already wrong. So you don't need a different relationship with property, you need a different relationship with money. The problem is right now, people do not understand how they've been taken advantage of by debt and money printing. So money printing is very simple. The government saying, I'm going to take more of your money and I'm going to do it without you having to vote on it. If people understood money printing as that, then every time we go over budget, they would understand that the government is saying, I'm still going to take this money from you. And the reason it gets complicated is because the government is technically taking it from anybody who holds dollars, but they're still taking it. And I presume everybody that can hear my voice right now is their life is in some way impacted by the dollar. They might not hold it directly, but they're exposed to the US economy in some very meaningful way. So. But people don't understand how, they don't understand how it works. It's so interesting. I know if I read the comments, I'm going to be maligned endlessly by people who do not understand.

[Drew]

It's interesting because it is split because I'm getting a portion of. Socialism doesn't kill those people.

[Tom Bilyeu]

People kill people.

[Drew]

And then on the other side, it's working hard in America.

[Tom Bilyeu]

They're not wrong, by the way.

[Drew]

Like, working hard in America doesn't get you anything.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes, correct. The economy's fucked. Yeah, but can we agree on why the economy.

[Drew]

You said earlier though, that like America can go into Venezuela and do all these things and Venezuela will buy in as long as their kids feel like they have a better health and stuff like this.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But what will they do if they don't?

[Drew]

But that's what America is now.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Correct? So you know my philosophy. So I don't know how I'm surprising you right now. Our economy is totally fucked. We have stolen from the American people. This can be traced back from anyone who holds dollars. You are being abused right now, today, anytime that your budget is not balanced, you are being stolen from by your own government who does not have the balls to just get you to pass legislation because they know that you wouldn't pass it if you have, let's say, a $4 trillion budget. Sorry, what do we have? $6 trillion budget, 4 trillion in taxes, roughly. It's a $2 trillion deficit. So you've got the $2 trillion delta. There. There is no delta. They're just money printing, which is secretly taking the money from you, but it's still taking the money from you. And so. Oh, this really makes me mad. I'm going to say in a single sentence and no one is going to understand this or very few people will understand it. The economy to be real, must be expressed in a complex fashion that makes most people turn their brain off and just say fine. That's the entire problem.

[Drew]

In order for the economy to run efficiently, it has to be run out of way for.

[Tom Bilyeu]

For the economy to be understood, to

[Drew]

be understood as it actually works. Got it. Okay.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It must be explained with all the complexity which will cause most people to tune it out and say, fine, the government tells you to your face, I'm going to steal 3% of your money every year. And people just go, I don't understand it. Fine. So when I make it simple, I am lying because the economy isn't as simple as I make it sound. But at least people can understand the effect. And the effect is in the last five years, 25% of your money was stolen by the government. 25%. And then any number that is the same percentage year over year is what's known as exponential growth. So they are stealing exponentially more money from you every year. So 3% on a dollar is 3 cents. But the next year it's now a dollar and 3 cents and they're going to take 3% of that and on and on and on and it just compounds and gets bigger. And so everybody's just like, yeah, I don't really want to understand why that's true. I don't want to understand why inflation, which Tom Bilyeu used to think inflation was just a law of nature. I just, it happened. I didn't know why it happened, but just everybody seemed like it was just

[Drew]

always there, which is cool with it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. So that is the government stealing money from you. All of this is architected off the human mind. The value of quote unquote, money is just an artifact of the way the human mind works. The fact that people won't acquiesce to socialism and communism without violence is just a way that the human mind works. Ants don't have a problem with it. Ants. Okay. Oh, I gotta die. Yeah. No worries. Bees. Oh, I don't get a fuck. Okay, cool. Like those guys. They get a fuck, I just have to go die. Yeah, okay. No worries. Humans aren't like that. We are not a collectivist species. We can cooperate, but we've gotta know what's in it for us. And it could be the. Your genes get passed on, which is why you'll fight much harder for your family. You'll fight harder for your own children than you will for your nieces and nephews. But you'd fight harder for your nieces and nephews than you would for strangers. Kids, just. That's the way the human mind's architected is what it is.

[Chat Moderator]

Much like socialism tends to end up in a dictatorship as it starts to devolve. Is capitalism destined to always devolve into a tale of two economies?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes, it's more nakedly going to be. A person will turn themselves into a king because they just control all the resources. So you have to keep it in check because if you let Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, whatever, like, win all the money, then you just all do what they say. And they say, look, I love you guys. This is what we're going to allocate capital to. I'm the best capital allocator. I think we can all agree, so just do what the fuck I say. And I get a couple guys speaking up. You gotta go fucking kill them real fast. And you get back on track. It's all the same. The human mind works in a very knowable, ish way. Look, it's very complicated, of course, but God, when you start taking these trends over long enough periods. This is why I'm saying I don't want to live in an anarchic system where the biggest genius can fucking trick everybody in the game of capitalism, like pump and dumps real, you can make a stock feel like it's valuable. People tend to trade on fomo. The reason the best advice you will ever get on the stock market is buy low, sell high is because everybody buys high and sells low. People. But people don't think they do it. People think, obviously, bro, I'm going to buy low and sell high. No, you're not, motherfucker, by the numbers. You're going to buy high and sell low. That's why that had to be said out loud. So what they're saying is when everyone else is panicking, you buy. And then when everybody else thinks number go up forever, you sell. But nobody can do that because the future is too unknowable. And you have these really strong emotions that tell you, oh, shit, this time it's different. The number is going to stay down forever. And so I've just got to, like, cut my losses. And you probably bought in when you thought numbers going to go up forever. So I don't have to worry about eating in a month because I'm going to be 10 times richer than I am today. No, you are not. Something is going to change. You are going to be surprised in some way. This is why I get it. I'm sure I'm part of the meme about Michael Saylor and the like. How many chairs are you sitting on right now, Tom? But the reality is that when taken across a lifetime, making one concentrated bet is the surest way to get rich and the surest way to go broke. And spreading your exposure across a whole bunch of uncorrelated assets is the surest way to be okay. And it's like, I'll take the okay. I'm the guy that you come to who's like, hey, listen, there are fucking patterns. Let's look at all those patterns. Also, I don't think I'm the luckiest guy on planet Earth. So I'm like, yeah, like, I could get hit by whatever this problem is. I will not see the future clearly. So the odds that I get all of this right are basically zero. So I'm going to try to diversify as much as I can that that's what you're here for. So if you're here for somebody to stand up and beat their chest and say, I know everything perfectly and this is all going to work out just like this and put all your money in xyz, you know you're on the wrong channel. Stick around. We'll be right back after this.

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[Tom Bilyeu]

All right, let's dive right back in.

[Drew]

We got to talk about this breaking news. Tim Waltz has dropped out of the 2026 Minnesota governor's race. Praise Jesus, prayed by the plagued by the Somali daycare, health care, all types of fraud. They were frauding everybody over there.

[Tom Bilyeu]

This is Wild. He was talking so much shit up to like 45 minutes ago. I did not see this one coming. I'll be honest now, is this part of him, like, making a deal, like, do not pursue me legally and I'll peace out. Maybe so. All right, let's play it. I haven't heard this yet.

[Minnesota Speaker]

So this is what happens when your own federal government wages war against you. This is what happens when they target communities for their own benefit. This is what happens when they scapegoat. And this is what say happens when they no longer hide the idea of white supremacy. When you hear the Vice President, United States, talk about now white people won't have to apologize for being white. That's never happened once in my whole damn life. And I think everybody in this room knows what they're doing. So we're here today to say enough of this. We're here today to stand that Minnesota will protect their neighbors.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So that was not. I thought that was the speech where he pieces out.

[Drew]

No, but there's things like, you're leaving,

[Tom Bilyeu]

but even you're still firing shots.

[Drew]

Yeah. To me, it's like you're you. You. Your hand is red. You have no leg to stand on battle grace. Like, you can't talk shit. Walking out when you have started shit. Like, it's just.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Agreed. But let's look at this in two ways. Let's look at this in the. I really didn't know this was happening. And I love the Somali community, but for only one reason. I love the Somali community because Tim Walls would say they have come over from a war torn country that partly America was involved in destabilizing, and they've got a chance to come here and make their life a little bit better. And so, yeah, like, we want to see these guys thrive. And we obviously, we need to be very careful about fraud. If he gave that speech, I'd be like, I get it. I get where you're coming from. I want good things for them. Like, I remember the first time I met a Somali cab driver. This is like way back in Minnesota. I was there for something called Icebreaker. This is back when I was selling this pre quest. I was selling into Target and had a Somali cab driver. And I was like, bro, you're from Africa and you came to Minnesota. I'm like, it is so cold here. What are you doing here? And I was just utterly fascinated by this guy. And I was like, bro, this is so dope. Like, I wish you the best, Hope everything goes great. Like, you know, be careful. It's cold here. Uh, and so, like, having animosity towards him didn't even occur to me. Thought it was dope. But when you start seeing the fraud, it's like, you've gotta be like, hold on. We have absolutely smashed with a hammer at least two generations. We've destroyed millennials, we've destroyed Gen Z. Hopefully we get it together in time for Gen Alpha. But fucking hammer blow to those kids, psychologically, they're so fubar so and rightfully so, because what we've done to the economy is, is just an absolute moral abomination. So you've got to be like 10 toes down on. You've gotta root out the fraud. I'm here to make sure that this all goes away. Dear Somali community, we want to see you guys have a beautiful life. You've got to root this out like, nobody's going to have more access to your community. And I get than you guys and I get that this is going to be very hard. But you've got to stand up for the ideals that make America rate. And one of those is rule of law. Like, we've got to be a place where people can trust that their tax dollars are being used efficiently so that we remain a high trust society, so that people are ecstatic to pay their taxes and that we can do incredible things to uplift our community. So you guys have to turn inward and police yourselves so it's not just all coming from the outside. Like, if he was giving that, we should be like, yep, cool word. But we are in such a politically dysfunctional moment that it's all about taking shots at the other side. And this is not just a Tim Walls problem. This is on both sides. It drives me absolute batshit crazy that in populist moments, that's all you're gonna get. That's all you're gonna get. You're not gonna get anybody else. I get it, but I still hate it.

[Drew]

Yeah. So we talked about the downfall of Doge a couple months ago and it was just Elon had the vision, he had a plan, he got there and the politicians were the ones getting in the way. It wasn't even, you know, it wasn't like he couldn't do it or he couldn't find it. It was too much minutia to move to actually get to this. We see it now happening in Minnesota live, where people are uncovering businesses, institutions, ways that they're kind of taking advantage of the resources and stuff like that. It does seem like on a federal and state level, we do need some type of doge fraud detection? Because a lot of money, especially with a country that's about to be $40 trillion in debt, we are wasting a lot of money. We're spending. A lot of money is being stolen. A lot of money is being unaccounted for. The Pentagon hasn't passed a budget in the last 25 years. They're at now 10 trillion and unaccounted for. So it's like do you think that this is actually be something that we can reign in? We tried it this year, it didn't work. Is this just we need a better person to run it other than Elon? Or is it just corruption comes with politicians and we just don't know. We won't be able to intertwine the two.

[Tom Bilyeu]

We need the untouchables. We need a group of people that really believe that they can clean up the corruption, that are going to call it out, that cannot be bought, bribed, nothing, no amount of money is going to make them sway from their principles. And they've got to go into every state, every nook and cranny of the federal government and hold people accountable to creating a system that has total transparency so the American people can see exactly what their dollars are being spent on. So we can see what we are getting from all of this. It would be very straightforward to build a system that tracks all of this. It would be very straightforward to improve the systems that we have in the US government. But we've got to have the will as the people to demand that kind of accountability. And to do that, we have to come face to face with the fact that right now America is rife with corruption. It is an absolute travesty. Politics are going to bring it out. It's not unique to America in any way, shape or form. But it's. This is a real problem and we've got to tackle it as such. And if we don't do that, we will just continue a slow and steady decline into irrelevance where we milk the people for everything they're worth. We create all these barnacles of fraudsters on the turtle, as I like to say. And ultimately turtles do drown from too many barnacles being put on it. This is Game Theory 101. Game Theory 101 says if you create an exploit, people are going to exploit it. It is that simple. People will not see it and look away. There is some subset of people that will maximize the exploitation. We have to face that reality of humankind and go in and stop this Stuff from happening. This, this is absolutely crazy. And we're allowing it to be this political bullshit. And this really needs to be about what actually works. And efficiency of tax dollar works. Wild inefficiency, massive amounts of fraud are how you bankrupt a country. And we think that money printing to cover all of that works. And it doesn't. It leads to the morally bankrupt economic system that we have currently that people are blaming on capitalism and has absolutely nothing to do with capitalism and has everything to do with debt and money printing.

[Drew]

Somebody asked, can you clarify the corruption that Walt specifically you think is guilty of? Is it one of those things that was just under his watch so it falls to him?

[Tom Bilyeu]

People are assuming that I think that Walls is corrupt. I don't know if Walls is corrupt. That needs to be investigated. What I'm saying is his tone does not say, I care deeply about the corruption. And obviously, if there's corruption, we have to solve this immediately. If, when the Nick Shirley thing came out, he held a press conference and was like, holy hell, this is wild. These are crazy. We've got to look into this. I don't just take his word for everything, but this is worthy of investigation. I'm going to be working with the federal government. I'm going to be working with state. And the one thing everyone in my state needs to know is that your tax dollars are being spent efficiently. He did not do that. He went on the campaign trail and was beating the drum to make sure that Somalis want to vote for him. And listen, man, I get it. Like there is, there is. It is impossible to get a man to understand something where his paycheck depends on him not understanding it. He famous quote, poorly phrased by me, I'm sure. But the idea is that he gets elected in part through Somalis voting as a block. And because of that, politicians in Minnesota make sure that they appeal to that voting bloc. And instead of going, what's my North Star? I want to make sure that Minnesotans are thriving on every metric that the government can influence, man. I'm going to list the top 25, whatever. And so we're going to go through and we're going to make sure that the programs that we have are positively influencing the metrics that we care about. And I would suggest that they reduce it to five. But anyway. And so we look at those five metrics and we say, cool. Is this program helping that? Hurting that neutral to that? If it's helping, we do more of it. If it's neutral, maybe yes, maybe no. If it's hurting. Definitely no. But that's not how he's running the state. He's just thinking about. This is the first time I'm going to say it in 2026, but it won't be the last. Politicians will do and say whatever horrific lie they need to tell in order to gain and retain power. Once you understand that, then you understand what's going on here. So this is a guy that he doesn't give a fuck about any sort of moral North Star. He cares only about get me back in power.

[Drew]

I'm not saying where he goes from here, though. Like, your whole country, your state is cooked. So I don't understand how that lets you fail upward. But hey, probably won't fail upward.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I doubt that. Not if. Not if he gets caught up in this corruption, what it will look like is enough people believe the way that he believes, that he will be invited to speak and all of that and he'll give more speeches like this and he'll get paid to do it and he'll be just fine and he'll find a way to derive meaning and purpose. I think he coaches or something. I used to probably go back to that and make plenty of money, do that occasionally to feel good about himself. Here's the bad news, man. If we're all waiting for the quote, unquote, bad guys to be obviously bad to themselves and to like, be crushed, no, it's not going to happen. That, like, guilt spiral is way more about your genetic lot than it is you did something bad. There are plenty of people who feel guilty and you're like, why do you feel guilty? Like, you seem like on balance, a pretty good person, but they just get in a twist. And then you get people like Mao who literally die, still in power, having starved tens of millions of people to death. Yep.

[Drew]

So, yeah, not a single drop of guilt. All right. We are closely tracking a breaking news story. A couple people sent it to us in the chat.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Chat. Thank you for that, by the way.

[Drew]

Yeah, we didn't really have anything new to cover, so we haven't really, you know, queued it up or anything like that. But it was announced that Early Monday, a 26 year old named William DeFore used a hammer to break four windows and damage a vehicle at J.D. vance's East Walnut Hills residence in Cincinnati, Ohio.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And yeah, welcome to politics in 2026, man. Everything feels existential. This is what happens when you have a declining economy. People realize we're fighting over a pie that is actually shrinking. And so who gets what piece of the pie. It really, really matters. And so people will be violent. This, this is human history over and over and over. So unfortunately, we really are in that moment. And so that's why populism is on the rise. And until we solve that problem economically, which, by the way, Trump made an announcement. I don't know if we have the clip, but he made an. I think I did put it in. He made an announcement that we might not be paying income tax anymore. Now this feels like a wild statement that I do not believe he has any ability to back up yet. But you want to talk about something that would make people happy? If he can pull this off by the midterms. Holy bejesus. That at some point in the not too distant future you won't even have income tax to pay because the money we're taking in is so great, it's so enormous that you're not going to have income tax to pay. That at some. We'll see, man. Like, it feels far fetched right now. Um, but yeah, if he actually pulled that off, that would be incredible. I, I'll put it at like 2% chance.

[Drew]

But is it more important to remove income tax and give people that day to day dollars back into their pocket, or is it more important to take that extra, let's call it 800 to a trillion dollars we would have, and

[Tom Bilyeu]

throw that toward like the debt in no uncertain terms. Balancing the budget would be the best thing that you could do. That's my North Star. Because that's what's best for people in the long run. With my value system, being able to control their own destiny, being able to save their money, that to me is just like the top, top, top, top, top. Anything else you would have to tell me what's your goal? So, for instance, putting money in people's pockets, like actual checks coming to your

[Drew]

house, I was thinking zero income tax

[Tom Bilyeu]

they now have, you know, so I'll rank order them. Zero income tax gets you the most votes at midterm, followed very closely by a $1200 stimmy check and then the one that's actually the best for you. But people would be like, in fact, they'd be violently opposed to it. What am I saying they would be violently opposed to it is balancing the budget. That's what they should actually do. But that one's hard. That one's going to make people mad.

[Drew]

Yeah, I feel like we're, we're never going to get to a balanced budget, so.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Well, we've had a balanced budget before. So never say never. But you're not going to get there with Trump. No way. No, universe. You're not going to get there with any Democrat that has so far raised their hand. You're certainly not going to get there with Kamala Harris. So I can feel that chick revving up to run in 2028. She's more like taking harder stances now than she did when she ran. This is crazy.

[Drew]

That was. When you do a presidential race in 107 days, Gavin Newsom is really kind of positioning to. It's his race to lose, I would

[Tom Bilyeu]

say, in terms of the Democratic nomination,

[Drew]

Democratic side of it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What's Polymarket have that, do you know?

[Drew]

Oh, I don't know what Polymark has.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Pull him up. Pull him up.

[Drew]

I was going to ask. So from your perspective, though, as a. I'm not going to call you a lifelong Californian, but you've been here for a while, a very long time. Do you think that Gavin Newsom can do.

[Tom Bilyeu]

He is a train wreck and he will steal all of your money through inflation.

[Drew]

She's.

[Tom Bilyeu]

He is king of no balance budget. He is king of spin. I, I am shocked that people like this guy, like, actually shocked.

[Drew]

I don't get him at 37%, AOC at 11%.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So he really is at full front runner. Damn.

[Drew]

He's. He's.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That is crazy. Is that him that had the huge spike? What happened there? What did he do there? I don't know if the blue line is that, but it looks like it is. Yeah, it is. What did he do? When was that?

[Drew]

I think that's when he announced he wasn't returning to governor. I have to check. Yeah, that was in August.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Wow.

[Drew]

I mean, from his perspective, that's what's left. That's the only thing that's remaining.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That one is heartbreaking.

[Drew]

Yeah. But to the point with this Tim Wall situation, the left kind of backtracking on a lot of the gender affirming care and things like that they ran on in 2020. I don't honestly know what the Democratic platform is in 2028. So that's why there's like 40% socialism. Yeah. Like, that's just the biggest block. But I don't think DNC is, is up to that. They don't want that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

They are. They are. So they're all eyes on Mamdani right now. He won in a landslide in the economic center of the United States. If you're in the Democratic Party and you're not like that, then you're dumb as A box of rocks. It's like, dude, every day a boomer dies and you're. If you're trying to appeal, Gen Xers are going to be a big question mark. But if you're trying to appeal to millennials, Gen Z. And I don't know if any Gen Alphas can vote yet. I don't know what their top age is or will be able to in 2028. But, bro, they all want to hear that socialism works. And that's exactly how Mamdani got going. Mamdani knows how to make the unpalatable sound palatable. And they're all historically illiterate. And so they'll be like, yeah, this is dope. That is exactly what you should do. And because it goes like this, the economy is broken. Can we agree? Yes. Like, even that asshole Tom Bilyeu agrees. The economy's broken. What is the economy? Capitalism. So what's broken? Capitalism? How do we fix it? Socialism. That's the logic. It's wrong. But that is exactly what's going to happen. Because if you get into the realities of. No, wait. In 1913, we created this saying called the central bank. And central banks smooth out, like, the problems. And it really does that, and it really is good at that. But, oh, it does come with one problem. You can't save your money because you're going to get annihilated by inflation. Because every time something bad happens, and bad things happen all the time with increasing frequency, we have to steal from everybody and smooth that out. And what that means is you have to own stocks. Not just the right stocks. Or, sorry, not just stocks. The right stocks. And so I know you're too busy working three jobs right now, and you're trying to raise a family. Thank you, by the way. But you're. You are going to have to figure out where to invest your money and a meaningful percentage of your money. And if you don't, you're going to get left behind. That's the actual economy. But you will notice the problem is that we spend more money than we take in, in taxes. And nobody understands that part, so we just go. But I want all these services, Drew. I want them all to be free. I want free buses, Drew. So now I'm going to authorize. I'm going to vote aggressively for that unbalanced budget. Not being able to connect the dots. That's exactly why I can't afford a house and I am forced into the stock market. That I don't understand.

[Drew]

Okay, I feel like this episode should just be Titled fafo, because this is another story about that. So I don't know if anybody remembers that last summer there was ICE raids in Georgia for a Hyundai plant. There was a lady who seen a bunch of South Korean immigrants coming in when ICE was popping off, and she's like, I'm gonna call them, get them all deported. 245 people got apprehended, some have visa violations. Hyundai made a statement saying they brought these people over to train up the Georgia base to kind of get the plant rolling. Those people were there temporarily. They're not going to be there in long. Justin. Boston Dynamics, the Humanoids. The Atlas now works autonomously in that Hyundai factory in Georgia.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yep.

[Drew]

So whatever happened with the people, it doesn't matter anymore because there's robots everywhere calling autoplay. And I think it's very interesting how we keep, again, talking about AI and how there's going to be this impact and it's going to do this thing. And this is something on a smaller scale, you know, 200, 300 jobs. But it just shows you that there was a problem with ICE over the summer. That problem has now gone away. Whether they're caught in court or whatever, it doesn't matter now, because now the robots will come in there and take that place.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I want to be very clear. The reason that they put robots in is because you want cheap shit. You are the problem now. Of course, I'm the same. But we're all the problem, Drew. People. People seem to think it's some boogeyman out there somewhere. The boogeyman is, you want cheap shit. And so as long as you would rather your gun daddy be cheap as fuck, then they're gonna put robots in place. So there it is.

[Drew]

And then this is the new Atlas. Ikka Walk. It can carry heavy things, and it's actively walking the line as. As you guys can see in this video, it's doing the same things that we're seeing. Tesla, Optimus, Promise, and things like that. So is. This could just be the first release of.

[Tom Bilyeu]

These are going to get so much better, Drew. And they're going to get so much better so fast. If these things are running AI and I cannot imagine a universe in which they aren't, they are actively training them right now. They have bots that are, like, watching humans do it, or humans are controlling them or whatever, and everything that bot learns, it instantaneously updates the other bots with how to do it. And so every bot that's being trained then sends reinforcement, learning to all the other bots. And so these things will get fast, get intelligent fast. Oh, God. This. And like, these are your Gen1 bots. Like, think about how fast your iPhone updates. So your bots are going to update like that. So think about what these bots are going to be in 10 years. Dude, if you have a six year old, they're still in high school in 10 years. So, yeah, this is, this is all going to happen. So now the question becomes, does it just make everything better and do we have more jobs? Sure, we're not working in the factory because bots can do that, but that frees us up to do other stuff. Just as a reminder to myself, if nobody else. Every technological revolution, every single one, has always created more jobs, not less. Now every time I write a deep dive and I say, anybody that ever says, this time is different, run the opposite direction, they do not know what they're talking about. But with AI, I find myself going, maybe this time it's different. So, yeah, the past tells us that this is only going to be good, that it will create jobs that we can't imagine right now, and it will create more of them. But my current assessment of AI is that AI on a long enough timeline. And what is that? Is that three years? Is it 30 years? Is it 300 years? But AI on a long enough timeline becomes better than us at everything. Not some things, not most things. Everything. If you want something that really feels human, you don't go to a fucking human, you go to an AI. It's way better at mimicking the quirks of being a human in a way that feel right. And if you think I'm crazy, do you know that your Spotify Shuffle isn't actually random? When I think it was Apple that discovered this. But if you put your music on actual random people go, this isn't random. It'll sometimes play the same song twice in a row. That's not random. Yes, it is, motherfucker. Because random is literally. There's that one time where it plays the same song six times in a row. So you have to architect something that feels random. So eventually human will be a vibe that something gives you. That painting, that painting feels human. And that painting will have been done by a fucking bot that understands what you think human feels like. It's not actually human. It will be. Yes. They will be better than us at everything. So the only thing that will matter is if you're like, no, no, no. For real, for real, for real. I only eat tomatoes harvested by Tina because I know Tina. I watch her do it. And it matters to me that these were harvested by Tina. Okay. A bot's not gonna be able to do that, but it'll be able to make the appropriate amount of fucked up in the tomato so that it feels more authentic and homegrown than Tina would be able to do. So yeah, this, this, this one. Oh God. Maybe this time it really is different.

[Drew]

No, so, so there was a good point. Automation. This is from Dr. Or 4205 said automation was held back by labor laws. We should have been fully automated. We should have had fully automated plants decades ago. I know right now on the docs there was some dock workers that were pushing back against.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh my God.

[Drew]

Trying to stop that automations and stuff like that. So is there any. Do you think that that might be a headwind for a lot of these AI initiatives? Of course the humans is getting in the way of not wanting it to happen.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Thousand percent. And to be honest, yeah, do, do your thing. Create friction. It's, it's one of those where the whole thing that I'm fighting for is people need to be able to say what they believe to be true. People need to be able to fight for the things that they think are right. And you do not want somebody from the top down telling them to shut up and sit down. Now I want to be able to make my best case argument for why they shouldn't do it. But the fact that some people are really going to feel like no, no, no, we got to slow this down, do their thing. They, as long as they're fighting within the rules, they should fight. I'm going to fight just as hard on the other side, but they should fight for what they believe to be right. So I don't mind that kind of friction. I think in the end it's silly because any technology that promises an advantage will be developed. Because like I was saying before, the architecture of the human mind, anything that you can exploit to get an advantage, people will to the maximum every time.

[Drew]

Is there some initiative then to maybe go into areas that are a bit less sexy then? For example, we were talking about the Dyson robot before Break that harvests the strawberries. And it's like, okay, that's an immigrant population. They usually rely on other low wage, low wage labor to get that job off the ground. Should that be kind of the initial focus on AI to at least maybe get it off the ground, to not have those labor laws or those protests or picketing? Because I feel like right now I

[Tom Bilyeu]

think it should be way simpler than that if you have strawberries that need to be picked because the price at which it costs you to pick them now is a price people are not willing to pay at the grocery store. Get a robot in there to pick them. Innovate your way to creating a product that people want. This is why I say you have to understand humans as economic engines. Once you understand that we all want to get things, food, shelter, clothing. I don't even need you to go all the way to video games and shit like that. But like, there are things that we need and we don't want to have to spend our entire day playing the survival crafting game that is life, going out and finding our own food. That's how you starve to death in the winter. And so we ran that experiment, we, for God knows how many tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years, we were all playing an episode of Alone. And so it was like, yeah, people just dying all the time. And so we're like, all right, this sucks. Let's start living in bigger groups. Let's start specializing. You're very good at raising strawberries. I couldn't care less. I like killing deer. The other person's like, I don't care about either of those. I want to do daycare. Yeah, cool. You watch my kids. I'm gonna go pick the strawberries. Whatever. And so, and that's how the specialization happens. We all like different things. And so you get that psychic energy from the things you like to do. So we all want to pursue the things that we like to pursue. And so then it becomes a game of, oh, whoa, by doing a thing, I get paid money. You look over at that other thing that you like doing, and that one people value even more, so that pays more. So you start doing that thing. And that's how economies are born. They're not shoved down on people from the top down, which is what people get confused about. It's all come up from the bottom that you don't want to starve to death in a winter, but you also don't like going and picking grubs. You want somebody else to do that shit for you while you weave a basket.

[Drew]

Ipso fact.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Ipso fact.

[Chat Moderator]

We've got a super chat.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Let's hear it.

[Chat Moderator]

Yeah, super chat, Tom. Inflation, boom and bust monopolies, central banks, cronyism, corporatism, etc are all capitalism the same way you think dictators, famines, breadlines are socialism. You can't just talk about capitalism idealistically.

[Tom Bilyeu]

My beloved giver of the super chat, thank you for your super chat.

[Chat Moderator]

This is Brutus. Lugo too, by the way.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Brutus. Oh, okay, so it's in all caps. Unless he has a 2026.

[Chat Moderator]

The last line is not all caps.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh my God, Brutus, I'm so proud of you. Okay, so Brutus knows me better than that. I trust. And so this is why, when asked in this episode if I think that capitalism left unfettered and some were good, I said, no, you basically are just going to give birth to a king who has all the resources and tells all the plebs what to do. So you've got to keep that system in check. So there is. Humans are not idealistic and all of these systems are merely echoes of the structure of the human mind. So, yeah, they all end badly. But the good news is, when we come together, we do have the ability to build cultural initiatives, maybe the right way to think about it, that keep us in check. This typically manifests as religion, where we can say, you should do this thing not because you need to understand the nuances, but because big man in sky says, do it or you're going to burn forever in hell. It is literally evolution of the human mind, asking and answering the question, how do we deal with things where dumb people cannot comprehend these really nuanced things? I know, let's come up with a punitive sky God who says, if you don't do these things, you don't need to fucking understand it, you just need to do it. And if you don't do these things, you burn alive for all eternity. It's really brilliant if I'm honest. Like as somebody trying to build a virtual world, that one's pretty clever. Religion is the shit. So whoever invented that, well played. That's very impressive. So, yeah, you need something that keeps people in check from capitalism, from communism, socialism, all the isms. The thing you need to understand is that capitalism is the only system that we have found so far that when at least properly checked at the edges, is the most in line with the architecture of the human mind. People will do it naturally. You don't have to force them to let them compete. And they will compete.

[Chat Moderator]

Now, true or false? Real change doesn't come until we flip the monopoly board.

[Tom Bilyeu]

False.

[Drew]

Really? Yeah. Revolution can come without through

[Chat Moderator]

we can get there.

[Drew]

Diplomacy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It can come through diplomacy for sure. So here's the thing. Are you ready? Would you like to fix the entire system? Yes. Okay. Step one, balance the budget. Never let the government spend more. Step two, I guess never let the government spend more than the rate of GDP growth in debt. So if your rate of growth is 1.8, you can spend up to 1.8% in debt because you'll make it up in one year. Huh? That's not so bad if it's 3%, 3%, but that's it. And deregulate housing dramatically. Not to zero, but dramatically. Because the only asset that people understand intuitively is a house. So if you do those things, then you can't imagine how much better things would be just fixing those. It wouldn't be a panacea, but holy bejesus, that would solve so many problems. Because then you could look at people and go, hey, listen, just save your fucking money. Just save your money because it's not going to be inflated away into nothing because they're not money printing and you'll be fine. Save, save, save. And once people can save their way to money. If somebody doesn't save, that's on them. But right now you have a system. The people that are failing, it's not because they did anything wrong. They're failing because they've been smashed in the face with 100,012,100,1213, almost 113 years of terrible economic policy that has just been building and building and building behind the scenes. And starting in 2000 with the DOT com crash and then really accelerating in 2008 with the housing crash, it's just, just look at the M2 money supply graph. That is the graph of misery. If you look at that and you want to understand, why does my life suck economically? Just look at that graph. The fact that all you need to do is look at that graph tells you everything you need to know. And. But that's just complicated enough. All right, it's nine. Do we have any super chats we need to get to before we go? All right, boys and girls, thank you. First of all, if you were here as one of the real ones on day one of 2026, we thank you very much. We are now on a three day a week cadence. Please hit that subscribe button. We really want to bring you the best content that YouTube has to offer. We are very grateful for your guys's engagement. It absolutely means the world to us. 2026 is going to be a wild ass year. We are here for it. We are trying to be a grounded place of reason where we welcome your ideas. So you can debate in the chat, you can yell into the void about what a dummy I am, all of that's fine. Or you can cheer by all means, but let's actually focus on these big issues. And they are big issues in a way that is optimistic but realistic. And we are going to have a great time. So mad love to all of you guys. I hope this is going to be a banger year. And we'll be back on Wednesday, Monday, Wednesdays, Fridays, 7:00am Pacific Time. We will see you there. Love you. Bye.