Epstein Files Unsealed, $1 Trillion Saudi Deal, and the Collapse of Japan’s Economy | The Tom Bilyeu Show

Summary

---

Impact Theory w/ Tom Bilyeu

Episode: Epstein Files Unsealed, $1 Trillion Saudi Deal, and the Collapse of Japan’s Economy
Date: November 20, 2025

---

Episode Overview

In this episode, Tom Bilyeu takes a deep, critical look at some of the week’s biggest headlines—ranging from the bipartisan rush to unseal the Epstein files, to the geopolitics behind Saudi Arabia’s colossal $1 trillion investment in the US, Japan’s economic fragility, and evolving social views on gender and relationships. Tom brings his characteristic rigor to unpacking the optics, incentives, and underlying societal dynamics that shape these stories, inviting listeners to question surface narratives and dig into first principles.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Epstein Transparency Act & Political Optics

• Unprecedented Bipartisanship:
  The House passed the Epstein Transparency Act 427-1, swiftly followed by a unanimous Senate vote to unseal the files—an exceedingly rare display of political unity, compared by Tom to post-9/11 consensus (01:41 – 02:22).
• Political Gaming & Moral Calculus:
  Tom likens politicians to pro athletes—“the NBA players of positioning, spin, lying, networking, care about governance”—arguing their behavior is driven not by personal morals but by short-term public optics (03:07 – 05:16).

  “If I try to map by morals, I’m completely baffled every time... If I map according to what’s the winning play in terms of public sentiment... people will change, they’ll flip-flop.” – Tom (04:09)

• Concerns of Sanitization & Partisanship:
  The show discusses worries about both parties sanitizing the released files, with Epstein’s brother claiming Republican names are being scrubbed under the guise of ‘national security’ (07:11 – 08:13).

  “There’s a facility in Winchester, Virginia, where they’re scrubbing the files to take Republican names out of there.” (Mark Epstein, quoted by Tom, 08:05)

• Cynicism About Government Transparency:
  Despite unanimous votes, Tom doubts full transparency, predicting redactions excused by ‘national security’ will obscure the most damaging information (07:18 – 08:41).

---

2. Market Confidence & the Power of Narratives

• Headline Management vs. Real Policy:
  Tom explains that much of politics revolves around winning the confidence game, not substantive outcomes. He relates it to market crashes, where belief—not always fundamentals—determines outcomes (08:59 – 13:06).

  “A market can absorb anything but a lack of confidence.” – Tom (14:54)

• Stimulus, Liquidity, and Social Bubbles:
  He draws parallels between modern stimuli (e.g., COVID relief checks) and the inevitability of speculative bubbles, noting that without education, people “YOLO into GameStop” instead of shoring up essentials (22:50 – 24:14).

---

3. Saudi Arabia’s $1 Trillion US Investment

• The Real Numbers & Political Timelines:
  Saudi Crown Prince MBS’s announcement of $1 trillion in US investment is framed as part of a race to show midterm wins, with skepticism about the details and contingency clauses (15:08 – 17:57).

  “This is a race to the midterms because he’s really getting people to commit a lot of money… All of them will have some sort of get out of jail free clause if they don’t like the next administration.”—Tom (16:25)

• Capitalism vs. Socialism Dynamics:
  Tom lays out the three-way battle: state-sponsored capitalism (Trump), ‘actual’ capitalism (his own preference), and the rising appeal of socialism among young and foreign-born Americans. He examines Venezuela’s implosion as a cautionary tale of nationalization and price controls (18:04 – 20:03).

  “In the 80s, the [Venezuelan] bolivar was worth more than the US dollar. Americans were leaving America to go live in Venezuela for economic opportunity. And now… it is an absolute shit show.”—Tom (19:01)

---

4. The U.S. Economy, Housing, and Tariffs

• Disconnect Between Macro Deals and Real People:
  While headlines tout foreign investment and a ‘booming’ economy, listeners are reminded of the on-the-ground reality: housing shortages, high prices, and middle-class struggles (20:03 – 20:52).
• Manufacturing & Wage Growth:
  Tom contends that bringing back domestic manufacturing, deregulating housing, and empowering workers to negotiate better wages could shift the economic dynamic—but warns about the rapid replacement of these jobs by automation (22:32 – 22:44).

  “If he [Trump] can bring back manufacturing jobs so the working class have jobs, if he can deregulate housing… that would be huge. And then we have to find some way to sensibly handle the rapid robotification of jobs…” (22:44)

---

5. Texas’s Stance on the Muslim Brotherhood & American Identity

• Designation as a Terrorist Organization:
  Tom admits unfamiliarity with the specifics but highlights the tension between national security and preserving foundational freedoms. He stresses the need for “assimilation” and laments America’s neglect of inculcating core values (24:49 – 26:31, 26:31 – 28:31).

  “I would say… your obligation is to make sure people that you’re inviting into your country share your values and they assimilate... The real beef I have is that we have not paid attention to our values… I want the federalist system that I grew up with. All of that is lovely, and I think is worth defending.” – Tom (26:31)

• Immigration, Economic Stewardship, and Demography:
  The discussion covers how neglected US towns bought up by immigrants reflect poor stewardship, and the need for policy, not scapegoating.

---

6. Japan’s Debt Spiral, Currency Crisis, and Geopolitical Risk

• Yen Carry Trade Explained:
  Japan’s historic low interest rates fueled a decades-long global “yen carry trade” (borrow in yen, invest abroad). Now, rising rates threaten to unwind this, forcing Japanese investors to sell US assets and strengthening the yen, potentially extracting liquidity from US markets (33:01 – 34:13, 34:13 – 39:19).

  “Now it’s finally beginning to rise… Japan is trying to pull itself out of a crisis-led deflationary spiral. Crisis-led deflation: bad. Innovation-led deflation: good.” – Tom (34:13)

• Systemic Fragility and Contagion:
  While Tom downplays immediate cataclysm, he notes that our highly interconnected global system means ripple effects of this shift could be significant (39:36 – 40:12).

  “Our system is so fragile, anything like this could end up having a contagion effect…” – Tom (39:36)

---

7. China–Japan–Taiwan Tensions

• Escalating Rhetoric:
  Japanese officials warn of existential threats from an attack on Taiwan, prompting Chinese retaliation, affecting trade, tourism, and political ties (40:12 – 41:11).
• China’s Ambitions & Taiwanese Divides:
  Tom recalls Xi Jinping’s public aspiration to ‘reunify’ Taiwan by 2027, and discusses the surprising internal split—some in Taiwan desire reunification, complicating Western narratives (41:11 – 45:20).

  “That one really shocked me, man… I look at China and I see something I don’t want. But that doesn’t mean the Chinese people aren't loving it.”—Tom (44:12)

• US Strategic Interests:
  Beyond moral posturing, the US cares about Taiwan for its dominance in advanced chip manufacturing and military positioning in the region (46:03 – 48:06).

---

8. Culture: Do Men Care About Women's Careers?

• Viral Tweet Debate:
  The episode ends with a fierce, data-backed discussion on whether men value women’s careers in dating and marriage (48:06 – 51:17).

  “The number one thing that you are valued for [by men] are your looks. They are signs of fertility... A guy is not attracted to a woman who can garner resources. That might be a collision for him… In a marriage, if a woman starts making more money than the man, the use of erectile dysfunction medication triples.” – Tom (49:05, 51:17)

• Modern Dating and Biological Realities:
  Tom insists that sexual and social dynamics are driven far more by evolutionary imperatives than social narratives—even as the cultural messaging remains at odds with biological reality (53:35 – 57:08, 57:14 – 60:09).

  “I weep for people… If you’ve got a moral framework that says life shouldn’t be that way, but you constantly encounter that life is that way, it will be a never-ending cavalcade of confusion.” – Tom (51:18)

• Demographic Data:
  Noting that women’s preferred male age range slides with their own age, while men’s stays fixed at 22, Tom argues that postponed marriage severely disadvantages women in the long run (55:31).

---

Notable Quotes

• On Political Gamesmanship:
  “This is a game… Behind the scenes, I don’t want you to see the plays I’m going to call. I want to try to trick you to get in the end zone. But getting in the end zone is all that matters: gain and retain power.” – Tom (05:17)

• On Social Welfare and Economic Bubbles:
  “If you’re going to insist on printing money, better to put it in the hands of the people and let them do what they’re going to do. But the bad news is, they’re just going to speculate, so it’ll create bubbles.” – Tom (22:50)

• On American Assimilation:
  “If you don’t care what America looks like in 50 years, yeah, then fling the borders open, let anybody in, don’t worry about assimilation… That’s not my vision.” – Tom (28:31)

• On Japan’s Economic Risks:
  “It’s pulling liquidity out of the US system and sending it back to Japan… It’s massive...The contagion could just whipsaw around.” – Tom (39:36)

• On Men, Women, and Value:
  “Once women understand that men want to feel powerful, I think they will have a much better understanding of sex and what turns a man on.” – Tom (60:19)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Epstein Files & Political Optics: 01:41 – 09:47
• Market Confidence Narratives: 08:59 – 14:54
• Saudi $1 Trillion Deal & US Economic Realities: 14:54 – 24:14
• Texas, Immigration & American Values: 24:14 – 33:01
• Japan’s Debt Crisis & Global Market Risks: 33:01 – 41:11
• China–Japan–Taiwan Tensions: 41:11 – 48:06
• Culture: Men & Women, Dating and Value: 48:06 – 60:09

---

Memorable & Surprising Moments

• Revelation that Venezuela’s currency once surpassed the US dollar and was destroyed by nationalization (19:01)
• Stat: In marriages where a woman out-earns her husband, ED medication usage triples (51:17)
• The “turkey voting for Thanksgiving” analogy to Taiwanese attitudes about Chinese reunification (44:12)
• Tom’s admission: “I have a Western mindset, a Western lens. I look at China and I see something I don’t want. But that doesn’t mean the Chinese people aren’t loving it.” (44:12)

---

Takeaways

Tom Bilyeu’s analysis spans from hard economic realities to deeply held social instincts, exposing the gap between headline narratives and underexamined dynamics shaping politics, markets, geopolitics, and personal relationships. Listeners are challenged to question appearances, scrutinize incentives, and embrace the sometimes uncomfortable realities beneath today’s biggest stories.

---

Transcript

[A]

Time.

[B]

It's always vanishing. The commute, the errands, the work functions, the meetings. Selling your car. Unless you sell your car with Carvana. Get a real offer in minutes. Get it picked up from your door. Get paid on the spot so fast you'll wonder what the catch is. There isn't one. We just respect you and your time. Oh, you're still here. Move along now.

[A]

Enjoy your day.

[B]

Sell your car today. Carvana pick up Fees may apply with Black Friday savings at the Home Depot. You can get up to $1,400 off, plus get free delivery on select appliances like LG, America's most reliable line of appliances. Check out the newest LG refrigerator with new mini craft ice straight from the dispenser shop. Black Friday savings on select LG appliances, plus get free delivery now at the Home Depot. Free delivery on appliance purchases of $396 or more. Offer valid 11.5through12 3 US only. See store online for details. The Senate passed the Epstein Transparency Act 4272 1. But speaker of the House Mike Johnson says he has concerns. We'll see about that one. Dems are now catching some heat that Epstein ties are coming out on their side as well. Texas Governor Abbott declares the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. Saudi Crown Prince MBS commits to investing $1 trillion in the US Japan's economy continues to be on shaky ground as the yen carry trade continues to unwind and things are heating up between China and Japan. And do men care about women's careers? Ooh, we go deep on that one.

[A]

The House passed the EPSTEIN Transparency Act 427 to 1. And then almost immediately the Senate unanimously voted for the release of the files. It's funny to me though, right? Because on the big beautiful bill or on the government shutdown, the House goes to the Senate. Give us three days. We'll get back to you in a couple. It's kind of like shipping, like three to five business days. We'll sign the bill again and then. But this thing got signed on Tuesday, went to the Senate. Yep, we're good on Tuesday. It was like a conveyor belt. So now it's on the president's desk this morning. We'll see if he signs it. But it seems that everybody. This is the first uni party unanimous vote I can think of since probably like the 911 like Patriot act funding. Like this has been a while.

[B]

So this is one of those where there is clearly a right side and a wrong side of history. That's why I think it is so wild that you had a guy vote against this. I'll be interested to see if he comes under scrutiny. But he certainly piqued my curiosity. Like I want to know who that guy is, what he's about. So from that perspective, you also have to take into account that there's so much optics, like it is terrible optics to go against this. No matter how sound your reasoning, like at the headline level, it's bad. So in terms of getting everyone to vote for it, you kind of just have to hold your nose and, and see what happens. Because I mean, how do you stand in opposition to this? It just doesn't seem possible.

[A]

Copy. All right, well, let's jump into Mike Johnson's comments.

[B]

Any reaction to Leader Thune seeing the bill without adding amendments or changing it? I am, I'm deeply disappointed in this outcome. I think I'm told I've been at the state dinner. I don't know. I was just told that Chuck Schumer rushed it to the floor and put it out there preemptively. It needed amendments. I just spoke to the president about that. We'll see what happens. So is he. Do you think he may veto it? You say you spoke to the president? I'm not saying that. Is he supportive of it in its current form? Pause it for a second. So super random side note, I think the best way to view this is as a basketball player walking into the stadium. Like once you understand politicians are playing a game, it attracts a certain personality type. People that have been survivorship bias. Right. So all the people that weren't quite good at all the different elements of the game, they sort of fall off. And then you get these people that are like the NBA players of positioning, spin, lying, networking, care about governance. Like it, it's a whole mixed bag. It's not just bad things but like the more that I try to map, okay, how politician going to respond to XYZ thing. If I try to map by morals, I'm completely baffled every time. Or at least they certainly don't share my morals. If I map according to what's the winning play in terms of public sentiment? Not even the long term. Like you're going to look good in this way because if you go with even the long term historical. I want to be in the right side of the, you know, I want to be in the right side of this issue. That won't map. It's what is the short term perception of the long term tale of this thing that you'll find, okay, yeah, people will change. They'll flip flop. They will say one thing, do another. They will, like Trump, be 100% against releasing 100% for releasing files, then 100% against releasing files, then back to 100 for releasing the files. And all of that maps when you go, okay, what's the politically expedient thing?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so thinking of them as athletes for me reveals. This is a game. This is people training. This is behind the scenes. I don't want you to see the plays I'm going to call. I'm going to try to like trick you to get in the end zone. But getting in the end zone is all that matters. Gain and retain power. Gain and retain power. And like that loop. You're black pilling me. I don't know if you know how much, and I am sort of joking because you didn't force me to write deep dives, but you did put your finger on something that was obvious and had to be tried and it just ended up smashing. But every time I sit down to write one of these, I'm really trying to find, okay, my goal is to figure out like the one coming out on Mondays about gutting the irs. So I'm like, was it good, was it bad? Democrats end up hyper funding the irs, right? Sounds like great idea. Get all those tax dollars that you can. Then you look at the math and you're like, there's nothing here, Nothing here. It's like 200 billion over 10 years worthy estimates. That's nothing. What's happening right now? How. Why are we even talking about this? So you then got the IRS and you put tariffs in its place. Anything there more than what they're doing? It's instead of 200 billion every 10 years, it's 200 billion a year. And I get why people want to be excited about that. Even that not going to close the gap. So it's like you start writing this stuff and you're like, okay, then what is the solution? And you just get really dark into like, all right, everybody fend for yourselves. Getting the public to do the right.

[A]

Thing seems impossible once Trump signs a bill. It's not like these files didn't get posted on X. There's still another layer of kind of, I'm gonna call it government secrecy that it does have to pass through. So even though Johnson seems a little bit bullish on it or bearish on it, Trump doesn't like it in its current form. They still have a way.

[B]

Supposedly Trump has seemingly said just, yeah, whatever, give them everything.

[A]

Yeah. Do you think that there are going to try to kind of do a little bit of that positioning before they just release it.

[B]

A thousand percent.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think that they will hide behind the fact that this is a national security threat. And so all those things that you see redacted, that's just all national security. Now Epstein's brother, Mark Epstein is saying. And we should pull that clip up. Is saying that right now Republicans are scrubbing Republican names and they're going to. I don't know if he's the one that said under the guise of national security, but it seems self evident to me that that's precisely the argument they will use when we get a whole bunch of redactions. This is Jeffrey Epstein's brother.

[A]

The reason they're going to be releasing.

[B]

These things and the reason for the flip is that they're sanitizing these files.

[A]

There's a facility in Winchester, Virginia where.

[B]

They'Re scrubbing the files to take Republican names out of there. That's what I was told by a pretty good source.

[A]

They are sanitizing the files. Can you partisan your way out of this though? Because I feel like there's certain things like, yes, money printing, yes, benefits for snap, yes, healthcare for illegal aliens. But I feel like you can't partisan your way out of like they're all the PDFs where there was no PDFs over here. It's just you got.

[B]

They will. Partisan government is a game of spin. So yeah, of course they will. Of course they will.

[A]

And the spin has started. Donald Trump Jr. Tweeted. So a convicted sex offender who trafficked kids get invited to a private dinner with Obama and a meeting with Jeffries five years after being released, but it's somehow still all about Trump. The Epstein saga is a hoax regarding Trump, but not the Democrats who he funded and enabled him.

[B]

There, there's your partisanship. There it is on our side, bro. It's just coincidence that he's hanging out with him. What do you mean on the other side though? It's clearly it's wrongdoing. Yeah, get, get used to this. But oh man. So how do you parse through this as an individual? This gets relatively simple, but as the masses, this is the game. The masses is a game of confidence. So I'm reading 1929, very good book. Really hope we can get him on the show. And one of the things that you see so in my head, the way that the Wall street crash of 1929 happened was like it was a day it crashed. People jump, commit suicide, game over. We Know that afternoon, oh, we're in a great Depression.

[A]

That's the Black Monday one. Got it.

[B]

Okay. And it's not how it works. And what happens is, like, there's a bunch of, like, smaller crashes and there's a really big crash. And. And then for a year, people are like, no, no, no, bullish. It's coming back right around the corner. It's going to pop again. And then it's not for a year that people are finally like, oh, shit. I guess this is really a problem. So people cannot tell what's happening in real time. That is the problem. Like, people get confused. There's all these competing narratives, and ultimately it's. It really is just a game of confidence. If, if they could have in 1929, gotten people to believe everything is going to be fine, everything would have been fine. Er, there are still math behind the scenes. But what really exacerbates the problem is everybody goes, oh, I need to save my money. Which you do. But in saving your money, you exacerbate the problem. It's. It's like anxiety. Like, once you start feeling anxious, you pay attention to how anxious you are, you get anxious about being anxious and that spirals. The anxiety happens. And so it's. When I first started dealing with anxiety, I was really annoyed by the fact that if I'm not thinking about it, I'm never anxious. It's only once I start thinking about it, then I get anxious and I'm like, that's dumb. We're hitting pause for a moment. There's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere. We'll get back to the show in a second. But first, let's talk about the hardest part of scaling any business. As a business owner, you never clock out. Your business is on your mind 247 7. So when you're hiring, you need a partner that works just as hard as you do. That partner is LinkedIn Jobs. When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. Bad hires kill momentum. Dead good hires accelerate everything. LinkedIn makes sure you get the good ones. Post your job for free and let LinkedIn's new feature help you write job descriptions that actually work. Then it gets your job in front of the right people with deep candidate insights. Plus, you can share with your entire network. Add a hashtag hiring frame to your profile picture and get two times more qualified candidates. Turn your network into your recruiting team. Over 2.5 million small businesses already use LinkedIn for hiring. They're finding their next great hires while their competitors are still posting on job Boards that just don't work. Post your job for [e-mail] impacttheory. That's LinkedIn.com impacttheory to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. We'll be right back to the show in a second. But first, let's talk about the biggest pharmaceutical race of our time. Ozempic went from diabetes drug to cultural phenomenon in just a few years. There's a war happening behind the scenes that most people do not see. Demand is exploding and supply cannot keep up. Novo Nordisk is scrambling to produce more while Eli Lilly races to steal the crown. But here's what's really dangerous. A black market is emerging. Shady online sellers are pushing cheap, unregulated knockoffs. Right now, millions of people are injecting mystery vials with zero FDA oversight. Business wars is diving into this billion dollar showdown between Big Pharma's biggest players. The question isn't just about market dominance. It's about whether they can close the supply gap before one bad vial destroys everything. Follow Business wars on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes early and ad free. Right now on Wondery plus, data brokers are legally harvesting your information. Your home address, your email, your phone number, even your Social Security number and flipping it for cash. Scammers use it to steal identities. Criminals use it to commit fraud. Stalkers even use it to find victims. That's where Incogni comes in. Incogni finds where your data is exposed across hundreds of data broker sites and removes it automatically. You give them permission, they go to work. No phone calls, no forms, no stress, just real results. So if you're serious about privacy, take action right now. Go to incogni.comimpact and use code impact to get 60% off your annual plan, risk free for 30 days. Again, that's incogni.com impact and use code impact. Incogni is spelled I N C O G N I. Thanks for staying tuned. Now let's get back to it. But that's exactly how confidence in the markets work. And that's why it's banger line, this idea that a market can absorb anything but a lack of confidence.

[A]

All right, let's jump over to the White House now, where Trump hosted the Saudi crown prince yesterday who decided to increase his investment in the US to $1 trillion. That doesn't even sound like a real number anymore.

[B]

Thank you very much. Well, thank you, Mr. President. In fact, pause it for a sec. Sorry, you just said something that, um, I was Thinking about that this morning, I don't even know what the number is after a trillion and we're already at 38 trillion. It does not take long to get to a thousand trillion, which is a new number that I don't even know what the fuck it's called. That's wild. All right, sorry, relation for about nine decades. And we've been working together for a long time. But today it's a very important time in our history because there's also a lot of things that we're working on in the future. We believe in the future of United States of America. We believe in what you're doing, Mr. President, really creating a lot of good things, a good foundation to create more economical growth, more business in America. And it will also your work for the world peace. I believe. Mr. President, today and tomorrow we're going to announce that we are going to increase that 600 billion to almost $1 trillion of investment. Real investment and real opportunity by details in many areas and the agreement that we are signing today in many areas in technology and AI, in rare materials, magnet, et cetera. That would create a lot of investment opportunity.

[A]

So you are doing that now.

[B]

You're saying to me now that the 600 billion will be 1 trillion. Definitely. Because what we are signing, it will facilitate that and positive. For a sec. Drew, this is a race to the midterms. This is a race to the midterms because he's really getting people to commit a lot of money. All of them. They're way too smart to. Not all of them will have some sort of get out of jail free clause if they don't like the next administration or if Trump becomes a lame duck. So there are going to be just like all the caveats in the universe. But if he can get some of this stuff going by the midterms, oh my God. But he is going to have to focus relentlessly on jobs for the middle and working class. Jobs for the middle and working class. If he pulls that off, oh my God. And we really do have a race. I'm shocked at people's read on my read of Mamdani. Socialism is on the rise dramatically. And he represents that. So you've got this like battle to either return to our capitalistic roots to become China or to become socialist in a non Chinese way. And I can walk through the difference if people care. But that, that is the, the like thing that's happening right now. And it matters a lot. And it all has to start bearing fruit by the midterms.

[A]

Are you Saying that it's, it's a race between true, let's call it true capitalism, state sponsored capitalism, and then socialism.

[B]

Yes, got it. Okay. Trump wants state sponsored capitalism. Tom wants actual capitalism, which might be the dark horse. And then obviously the young want. The young and especially foreign born want socialism. And I'm, I am going to, whether we do a deep dive about it or not, I am now hell bent to learn about Venezuela. It's terrifying. It's terrifying. I did what I call a hook storm in the deep dive on Venezuela. And I was like, I cannot believe these numbers are true. In, in the 80s, the Bolivar, the now completely worthless Bolivar was worth more than the US dollar. Americans were leaving America to go live in Venezuela for economic opportunity. And now, now it is an absolute shit show because guess what they did, Drew? They nationalized their largest and most successful industry. And then they put out in like the 80s, 80s or 90s, they put out a thousand price restrictions. Sound familiar? Rent freezes, grocery store buses, shit like that. And created shortages and everything basically immediately. And then the country just over like 25 years just completely imploded. It's so wild. And even though that happened like the real implosion happened in like the 2010s, that's yesterday. People are still voting for the same policies that, that, that one is where I'm like, hold on, I'm in the matrix. I'm the only non npc. And this is just like meant to fuck with me or something. Yeah, I mean this is crazy.

[A]

People are struggling, especially in the middle class. And while Trump is. The economy's great, everybody's giving the US money, people still can't buy houses, grocery prices are still high, eggs aren't $13 anymore, but gas still isn't $2.99. Like there's still certain things that are pulling strains on the economy, housing being a biggest one. And while we are advocating for push on a national level, federal level, I think at the state and local levels we can do a lot more, whether it's regulation, rollbacks with housing so we can build more houses or something. But I'm curious to see how Trump walks that line. Between I'm doing all these deals that makes the US a good investment, but how is that trickling down to the people who are actually going to be voting for him, the people who actually have to go inside that booth.

[B]

Look, he's really trying to bring back a ton of manufacturing. If he does that, then there's going to be a lot more jobs for the working class. That would be a huge win. Tariffs are never going to cover the shortfall, but they're certainly an interesting play in that it is a tax and it will cause a little bit of inflation, which, given that you're in the situation where you ironically need some breaks on all the bubbles that are forming in the stock market, but you can't change the interest rate, so you, like, have to throw sand in the gears somehow. It's really. It's really fascinating. I think it's too little, too late, but it is. He's trying things. Now, that one, obviously, I credit to Besant, but it'll be interesting to see if it. If he can cash any of these checks before the midterms, because if he can slow the growth in the stock market without causing a depression, you're already in a stealth recession. But if he can slow that down without putting us into a depression, if he can bring back manufacturing jobs so that the working class have jobs, if he can deregulate housing. And by the way, a big part of when I say that the working class has jobs, they also have negotiating power so they can get their real wages up. That would be huge. And then we have to find some way to sensibly handle the rapid robotification of the very jobs that we're just starting to bring some back.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So we'll have to see how that plays out. That has one of those countervailing economic forces. We'll see. We'll see. But if he can get things. If he doesn't get things moving by the midterms, it's game over.

[A]

Do you think that's why he's pushing for those $2,000 tariff checks?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Literally just trying to bribe.

[B]

It's a bribe, man. But here's the thing. If you're going to insist on printing money, better to put it in the hands of the people and let them do what they're going to do. But the bad news is they're just going to speculate so it'll create bubbles. It's not like people run out and buy groceries with the stimulus checks. We know from COVID they go buy stocks, Bitcoin meme coins, because it's liquidity. So this is why. Shout out to Raoul Paul, longtime friend of the show, Amazing guy. He talks about liquidity is all you need to pay attention to. And if you do stimmy checks like that, you flood the system with liquidity. Now, liquidity always chases a return. And so people. But the problem is it's. Oh, God, you're putting money in the hands, rightly, yes. More love. I'm just saying, because you have not also educated them. You create a knock on effect, which is they YOLO into GameStop. Now, I know you made some ducats off Gamestop, but ooh, not where I wanna see people put that money. So now how will society read that starting January 1st, people get a quote unquote Trump account when they're born. So if you've got a baby, cross your legs hard, because that baby, if it comes out January 1st or later, it gets a Trump account. And I'm a big believer in what that could become.

[A]

According to Greg Abbott, governor of Texas, he just designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organization. This bans them from buying or acquiring land in Texas and authorizes the Attorney general to sue to shut them down. I understand the fear of foreigners taking over America. I understand the fear of the way that Israel took over Palestine, that other countries will take over America, making them a foreign terrorist. Seems like a line to me. That's a bit aggressive. How do you feel about that line?

[B]

I don't know enough about the Muslim Brotherhood to know if that's like the most out of pocket shit ever or if I should be clapping. I. I have no idea. So, yeah, to your point, should they be designated a terrorist organization? I do not know enough to comment on that. So what I do know enough to comment on is countries need to protect their values. So if the Muslim Brotherhood presents a threat to our values, you need to do something. It may not be designating them as a terrorist organization. That really may be out of pocket. But yeah, you have to do something aggressive.

[A]

We had this conversation when we were bringing up Dearborn, Michigan, which was kind of the home of all the old power plants before they got exported to Mexico and Canada. There is something for the place where cheap land is. That's where the foreigners will go. They'll duck, hunker down, they'll commerce amongst themselves. They'll kind of build up their own prosperity. We have to take accountability. I feel like in America to say we can't outport jobs, we can't export jobs, we can't not feed into communities. Then when communities get desolate and cheap and run down, another migrant group comes in, buys up that land, builds it up, and then becomes a voting majority in there. And then say, wait, wait, wait, you guys aren't allowed to take that over. It seems like the government has left it, put a for sale sign on it and turned their back on it. And they just they thought maybe other Americans were going to buy it. I don't know what happened. What, There has to be some accountability on that side, right? We can't get mad that other people are taking advantage of our cheap land, overlooked towns when we're not taking advantage of our cheap land and overlooked towns.

[B]

So I'll take a different approach to that. And I will say that your obligation is to make sure that the people that you're inviting into your country share your values and they assimilate. If you did dumb things and you let people inside your country, now you have a bigger problem. Because now you need to, whatever you do, you need to be doing as a policy so that if you're willing to put a policy that affects everybody born here, not born here, great, then, yeah, I'm all for doing it at the level of policy. But the real beef that I have is that we have not paid attention to our values. We have not inculcated our children with what I'll call American values. We have not paid attention to the demographic of teachers that have such a huge impact on our children. Like, none of that has been conscious at the national level. So therein lies the problem. We are, we have a very distressing number of people in America that hate America. And so I have a very big problem with that. And I would say it's an all hands on deck. You don't become an authoritarian dictatorship to combat that problem. That to me is you're just, you're becoming the monster that you're fighting against. But yeah, you do need to. For instance, you've got to secure the border. Yay, we did that. But will Trump be, will the Republican Party be in power in another three years? It's not looking good right now. So will the borders just swing back open? Very possible. So there I'm like, oh, like you've definitely got some worry to do. Along those lines, we don't care about assimilation. We have a bizarre narrative forming where we're like, but wait, we're all immigrants. And it's like, okay, hold on. When, back when we were immigrants, it was, you had a nation where if you send somebody over here, they were like 80% likely to die in their first year. So that's very different than a government that's like crippled by debt. Huge entitlements. Huge entitlements. And now you're a target for people to come in and use your sort of open mindedness against you. We're acting as if we don't have a culture now. We've had a culture for 150 years. So all of that stuff is just completely disingenuous in my opinion. And so now it's like, well, if you don't care what America looks like in 50 years, yeah, well, then fling the borders open, let anybody in. Don't worry about assimilation and just do your thing and it'll become what it becomes. And if it shatters into a bunch of smaller, ethnically divided sort of mini nations, then it is what it is. That's not my vision. My vision is I like the United States of America. I want all 50 states to still be all 50 states. I want the federalist system that I grew up with. All of that is lovely and I think is worth defending. I want freedoms. I see them eroding all around the world, including aggressively in Western Europe, which is crazy to me. So, yeah, I think that that is worth fighting for. And I can tell that we're going to get sucked deeply into this as a culture in the coming five to 10 years. It is going to play out horrifically across Europe because they are now waking up to what it means to have people in your country that don't believe in your country. And it ain't gonna be good. We're hitting pause for a moment. There's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere. The Average person spends 13 hours a year on hold and the average company spends millions on call centers that customers still hate. But there is a much better solution. AI call centers. Bland builds AI voice agents that handle your entire call operation. They sound human, they work 24, 7 and they actually get cheaper as you scale. They're the only self hosted voice AI company, so your data never goes to large providers like OpenAI or Anthropic. That way everything stays on your servers, completely secure. The results speak for themselves. Companies cut costs by over 40% using bland and Bland handles it all for you. Customer support, appointment reminders, follow ups, almost any use case you can think of. If you're a large business, Bland is offering to build a free custom agent for impact theory listeners. Just head to Bland AI agent to get a voice agent trained specifically on your business and your use case for free. I want to talk about something your phone carrier is not telling you. You're paying twice for your phone service, once with your monthly bill and again when they sell your data to the highest bidder. AT&T Verizon, T Mobile. They have made headlines for massive data breaches and surveillance scandals. When they're not losing your data, they're actively selling it. They create invasive profiles of who you are, what you like, who you talk to, where you go. Their business model relies on monetizing you. Even if you use a vpn, encrypted messaging, and private browsers, those tools can't protect you at the network level. These attacks happen below the surface, where your apps can't reach. Kape is a secure mobile carrier that doesn't play this game. They don't collect your name, Social Security number or address during signup. Their business is cellular service, not selling your data. Click the link in the show notes to get 33% off your first six months with Cape the Subaru Share the Love event is on from November 20th to January 2nd. During this event, Subaru donates to charities like Make a Wish, helping Grant More than 3,900 wishes so far when you purchase or lease a new vehicle during the 2025 Subaru Share the Love the of event, Subaru and its retailers will make a minimum $300 donation to charity. Visit subaru.comshare to learn more. Thanks for staying tuned. Now let's get back to it.

[A]

Let's go to Japan. Japan is in a very precarious situation. On one side they are under crippling debt. I would say they're probably the most immersed, most first country debt written nation. They're probably leading the way that way. And then on the other side, China is now kind of breathing down their necks, but starting with the debt of it all. We talked about this briefly a couple months ago about the the Japanese yen carry trade and how money was cheap in Japan. They were able to lend it rates were near zero. It was basically you get yen, you can then invest it in other places, make your profit, pay it back in yen. You're basically playing 0 to 1% interest rates on that. Interest rates are now picking up on these things. Now that's breaking the global markets and Japan is one of the now Japan is having to pay its own debts off. So now it's selling some of its foreign investment and Japan is one of the biggest investors in America and that's how it's kind of impacting us. That was a bit of a speedrun. Let me know if there was any holes on that and how what is the second order consequences of this? Because it does seem like Japan is now hunkering down, trying to fight inflation in their own internal prospects. Now they can't do as much foreign investment anymore.

[B]

Yeah. So the second and third order consequences is that what you were just describing is known as the yen carry Trade people bought, people borrowed very cheap money invested largely in American assets. The American assets paid more interest than they paid interest to carry the yen. And so they got to keep the spread spread. And for decades, like 40 years, Yen stayed really low, very cheap. And now it's finally beginning to rise. And Japan is trying to pull itself out of a a crisis led deflationary spiral. Crisis led deflation bad. Innovation led deflation good. So they're in a crisis led deflationary spiral. They're trying to print so much money that they actually get inflation that it over tendency to save. And so now they're like pumping, pumping, pumping money into the economy. But that's going to have effects in terms of the bonds. To be honest, I am shocked that it's not impacting the shorter term bonds, but so far it's not, at least not nearly as much. So right now the Japanese government isn't in sort of any increased crisis. I think people are freaking out and I'll get to what they're freaking out about in a second, but they're freaking out for Japan when Japan isn't. You have to worry about right now, right now we have to worry about is the yen carry trade. Now the reason that the yen carry trade becomes problematic is as the interest rates go up because people are saying, well wait a second, there's so much liquidity in the system, you're going to have to pay me more money if you want me to put my money into your long, long long tail bond. And so to get people to put money into that 40 year bond, then now the rate is going up. And so now people are like, well hold on a second, that might have been exactly how I was doing. My yen carry trade was to put it way out on the 40 year time horizon to get that super low rate. And now people are realizing I'm going to have to sell some of my American assets to go pay off my yen. And so the yen is actually getting stronger as well. So now you've got a currency problem where you're like, oh, I could be in a position where the value of the yen starts skyrocketing against the dollar. And so even just the yes, I can still sell for dollars and the dollars are looking great, but the dollar to yen currency exchange not looking great and I'm super in trouble. And so it's pulling liquidity out of the US system and sending it basically back to Japan. And so if people are no longer able to get that sort of fake cheap money out of Japan, where's it going to come from? And anywhere else that tries to run this, people are going to be a little bit skeptical. Like if Zimbabwe was like, hey, we've got really low rates as well. People are like, yeah, but you also hyperinflate your currency so that's going to be tough to replicate. And so that could create a sucking sound out of the public markets here in the US to the tune of like it's less than 10%. I think for the most part when you start looking at how many people are running the trade, but somewhere call it 15% unless still could be very, very problematic. Is it going to be a cataclysm? No, but it's going to one. Your system is so fragile, anything like this could end up having a contagion effect and that would be problematic in and of itself. Japan will be fine still for a while. Watch the rates, they're climbing steeply. And if it starts affecting the short term, because I think they refinance most of their debt in nine years or less. So if it starts impacting that duration, then Japan would be in trouble because then their interest rates will go up and you'll get the exact problem we have, which is fiscal dominance where you can't raise or lower the rates anymore because if you raise the rates, the debt becomes unbearable. If you lower the rates, you reflood the system with liquidity and you get the bubbles forming everywhere. This honestly, okay, this is like I'm now out of my depth. Nobody should. This is like one of those, hey, just run intellectual models with the following information. It's possible that the yen carry trade starts sucking some of the inflation out of our own stock market. Would actually wouldn't be terrible if it did it in a slow way. That's probably better than it is better than a rupture. Like if something bursts and you reprice rapidly, that's way worse than this happening slowly over the next, say 24 months where people get a chance to calmly reposition. That's a much better scenario and that seems to be more how it's playing out. It's growing steeply, but only at the real, real tail end of the curve. Tail end of the duration. So hopefully this gets people to react now and that we'll see more and more people start unwinding these in a more orderly fashion.

[A]

Yeah, the OG poster is saying that the exposure is upwards of $20 trillion. So it's one of those things where it might not hit immediately on one country or another, but it's one of those things if this person starts selling, then that person starts selling and you can kind of see that.

[B]

Yeah, it's massive. The good news is that's global.

[A]

Yeah, globally.

[B]

Now the bad news is we're a very globally Internet interconnected economy. So it's one of those. The contagion could just like whipsaw around. One of the things I didn't realize is in reading about the crash in 1929, a lot of the American crash was because the Europeans were struggling so much that now there's fewer people buying your assets here in the US and so there is like the. Just how do all the different countries interrelate? It gets very complex very fast.

[A]

And then on the flip side of that, Japan is now worrying Warren Citizen to avoid China as Beijing escalates retaliation. This is from Mario Narafal. It seems that the political chantins are starting to kind of heighten up in there. China is also cautioning students studying Japan about heightened risk. China accounts for 27% of Japan's inbound tourism and hosts 37% of the country's international students. So Japanese firms are pulling back investments. Chinese firms are. Chinese firms are facing trade restrictions. It seems that these are tensioning and all this came from the Japanese PM saying that if China were to attack Taiwan, that would be an existential threat for Japan and they would have to respond. It seems to me that just by saying that China, China's reaction makes it feel like they were planning on doing that. I don't know if they were planning on doing it this year, next year. I don't know what the timeline was, but it seems like they were planning on their eye in Taiwan a lot more than we might think.

[B]

Xi has spoken openly about reunifying with Taiwan. I'm someone needs to fact check me on this, but I believe he said I will reunify with Taiwan by 2027, bro. That's like right around the corner.

[A]

So.

[B]

Like it's a big deal now. I didn't realize that Japan was so sensitive to Taiwan. I knew we were sensitive to Taiwan because so much of our chip manufacturing is from Taiwan. But I did not realize that Japan had this kind of beef. Now China, as I've said several times here on the show, China absolutely hates Japan because they had real beef in like in and around World War II. And yeah, China has a long ass memory and they really are going to be quick to react to anything that Japan says. So this, this will be one to watch. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

We've had ongoing conflicts in Russia and Ukraine and that Seems to be the litmus test that everybody thought, like, okay, seeing how that China's paying attention to how the world reacts to that. Because if Russia ends up winning, like, okay, you can't just take more territory now in 2025. Okay, bet. Let's do it.

[B]

Yeah. Well, so the most interesting argument that I've heard from Andrew Bustamante around what's going to actually happen with China and Taiwan is that they'll deal with it the way that they dealt with Hong Kong. That first it will be administrative, because right now, Taiwan is actually divided. So I don't know if it's exactly 50, 50, but they have a. I think a president that is pro the US and they are pro independence, I should say. And then they have a congress that is pro reunification with China. It's either that or flipped. And I didn't realize that they were divided like that. I didn't realize that some people wanted to reunify with China. And the fascinating thing is knowing the history. So Chiang Kai Shek, I believe, was the name of the guy that founded Taiwan. He was fighting with Mao over what ends up becoming the People's Republic of China. And so they're colliding huge civil war. Is the Communist Party going to win or not? And the Communist Party ends up just thrashing Chiang Kai Shek. And so he flees with his army to Taiwan, thinking, all right, we're going to regroup for a minute, then we're going to come back and we're going to retake China. And then it just never happens. So given that, I was like, wait, so the idea of people in Taiwan wanting to reunify with China would be a bit like, if the. I mean, to be. I guess this is revealing my bias. But if you think of it as if the north and the south in our civil war fought, and the north ended up fleeing and the south won and they run all of America. And then the north is like, actually, slavery is not that bad, so we want to reunify with you guys. I'd be like, whoa, I did not see that one coming. If the south were saying, actually, no, we are gonna, like, take the little bit of the north that they still remain in. And the north was like, yeah, yes, please. I'd be like, whoa, wait a second. What. What were you guys fighting for ideologically then the first time? So I don't know if just enough time has gone by that they're looking at China and how miraculous China's last 40 years have been. And they're like, we Want some of that. And they think that it's going to keep going on and personal liberties are a small sacrifice. I don't know. I don't know enough about Taiwanese politics to know what they're thinking. But that one really shocked me, man. That one really shocked me. And look, I think I can just very credibly be accused. I have a Western mindset, a Western lens. I look at China and I see something I don't want. But that doesn't mean that the Chinese people aren't loving it. So it could be that. And maybe many people in Taiwan are like, no, bro, I don't have a fucking American mindset. Get out of here. I'm way more closely aligned with China. I want a strong government. I don't want the separation. But woo, like, for me, I'm just like, yo, that is like a turkey voting for Thanksgiving. I'm just like, I don't understand what is happening here.

[A]

When I first heard this situation, I thought it was similar to Puerto Rico, where we just need strategic bases in that region, where we have a bunch of bases in Japan. Taiwan being quote, unquote neutral will at least help us get closer to China if we need to. North Korea, who knows what they're up to. So I felt like that's what this came down to. Taiwan having a little bit of break. America kind of separated them just to kind of say, okay, now we can have a presence there. Need be. We have Japan, where I think that's like our second or third most military bases outside of America. So it's like we have these strategic strongholds in that region. Is there something else there other than like men playing political animal? Us just trying to get as many pieces on the risk board as possible.

[B]

Like, why does the U.S. care.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

About Taiwan or Japan? About Taiwan, largely for us is the. They control the chips. That would be the most problematic part. It just influences so much of our modern way of life. We have got to rush to be able to manufacture these in the US at some point either China is going to diplomatically pressure Taiwan because right now we cut off Taiwan from sending ships to China.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you can imagine that China at some point either. And look, it's very possible. Well, that they've already had the breakthrough that they need and they're going to be building their own ships and they just don't care anymore. But if they do, you could see them diplomatically pressuring Taiwan to stop sending them to US. And so this is where you really don't want that to play. Out. And then militarily, if they're like, no, no, we will do an amphibious invasion or whatever and we're just going to strong arm Taiwan back into the fold, then obviously at that point, you're at real risk. Now, China may say, listen us, play nice and we'll keep sending you chips, but I don't want to put myself in that position. So we need to get independent from that very, very quickly. But yes, so from having alliances in the region, hugely important for us. We've been a, a unipole power now for a long ass time since like the late 80s, early 90s. So this is just again, it's Thucydides trap. This is just a very bitter pill to swallow. For somebody that's used to being a hegemonic power, suddenly having to share the stage and having them go, you're going to get out of our region altogether, militarily, everything. And that certainly puts you in a much weaker position. So, yeah, that we don't want to see that happen. We don't want to see an ounce of our influence be diminished. We don't want to see our military have to be removed. We don't want any trade changes. Like, we want to control the terms of everything. And that has been declining now for decades with China.

[A]

All right, let's jump into culture. There's been a lot of things happening. First, there's this supervival tweet about men and their career and their care. So men do not care about careers, ladies, I'm sorry, they just don't. They will your careers about your career, ladies. I'm sorry, they just don't. They will date a waitress at Applebee's over a corporate exec if they treat them right and make their lives easier.

[B]

I think this is one of those that like goes viral every so often because, yes, this is so self evidently true that I don't even understand, like, who's confused? Are guys confused by that? Women confused by that? So, yeah, like the mo. And this is one of those times I so wish my wife was either here in the feed. The most tumultuous time that my wife and I went through, from my perspective, it wasn't for her, but from my perspective was when she decided she wanted to be an entrepreneur and I was like, whoa, I have to like, completely remap, like my thinking about our relationship and how we're together and like, what this means. Uh, so, yeah, if she thought I was gonna be like, oh, my God, this is amazing. Being married to an entrepreneur is the best. It was like that was a wild miscalculation on her part. Now I ended up realizing I want my life, my wife, to live a life that she feels fulfilled and she loves and she's excited. I want her to become the woman that she wants to become. But we a hundred percent had to navigate like, well, hold on. Because there are things that I expect from a wife and if I'm not getting them, then I'm not gonna be satisfied in my marriage. So we've gotta map out like how we get both of us in a position where we're both happy. Because marriages are huge compromises. And if we're not getting the things that we want. So here's a PSA for women. And I get how distressing this is. But the number one thing that you are valued for are your looks. They are signs of fertility. And if you don't understand that there is a gigantic algorithm running in a man's brain for that, life is going to be a never ending string of confusion. Once you understand that, then it's like, okay, got it. So I'm gonna have maximum social power when I'm young. That's just the way that this goes. Assuming that I'm beautiful. And P.S. if you're not, and then you, you remain unbeautiful and you're old. Like that's really a double whammy. But there certainly are other things like looking after somebody, being nurturing, taking care of. Like those are hugely valued aspect from men to women. So if you think of it from, we're going to come together as a unit to survive a very harsh environment where we have to raise children together. Then you'll get. Okay, we're gonna divvy up these tasks. Now. I think men and women are equal, but they are valued for very different things. And this is just an acknowledgment of that. A guy is not attracted to a woman who can garner resources. And in fact, that might be a collision for him because the higher the bar, the woman sets for you need to out earn me. Which will just be the standard Dynam dynamic. In fact, here's a stat that ought to freak you out. In a marriage, if a woman starts making more money than the man, the use of erectile dysfunction medication triples.

[A]

He can't get it up.

[B]

That's one of those where I'm like, ladies, I need you to hear that again. He cannot get an erection because you make more money than him. That's real. So brace yourselves. Men need to feel powerful they need to feel that they are doing the thing. They need to feel that they are providing and taking care of you. And that this has become so clouded in our modern discourse. I weep for people because I'm like, dude, life is. If you've got a moral framework that says life shouldn't be that way, but you constantly encounter that life is that way. One, it's just constantly triggering, and two, it will be a never ending cavalcade of confusion. You're just going to be like, what? What is going on? I make all this money, I've got this big beautiful house, and I can't find anyone to date me. And I want to be like, you would have a way easier time finding someone to date you if you had a terrible apartment. And he felt like inviting you back to his just nice apartment was like making you happy and excited that you were making no money. So when he buys you, like, you know, I used to think that Red Lobster was like the fanciest restaurant in the world. That he takes you to Red Lobster and you're like, oh my God, like I'm eating wonderfully. Like, that gives him the ability to feel the way he wants to feel without having to be in the top 1%. So by you, like a woman who is tall, wealthy, extremely intelligent, ambitious, you're a fucking nightmare. That is not what guys are looking for. Because now they have to be even taller, even more ambitious, even more successful, making even more money in order to impress you. And so their level of anxiety is going to be through the roof because they're like, am I really going to be able to find somebody? Is she really going to stay with me? Is she always looking over my shoulder at the next person? And then to make it worse, like all the like psychotic things that have happened in culture now with dating apps and stuff where women are like the three sixes or whatever, like, it's just, oh my God. Yeah.

[A]

So anyway, is that one of the things where it's. It comes down to the man wants to feel impressive? Like, he wants to feel like he can impress his woman?

[B]

Yes, of course.

[A]

That's the. That's the. Because it seems like that's the common thread of all this, is that nature.

[B]

Has hardwired a man to be judged by his ability to provide access to more resources than she would otherwise have. So if she's already got. I mean, just think of the height thing. If you're a 6 foot woman and you will only date guys that are taller than you, or guys will only date women shorter Than them. It's like, well, you just wildly narrowed your field and theirs, so that's tough. Now it is what it is. Tall women should not be embarrassed. They should be as tall as they can be. Like, do your thing. But if you want to know if you just narrowed your dating pool. Yes. Dramatically. Dramatically.

[A]

I don't know because I'm conflicting in this because like, yes, I get that. But that's also under the assumption that there's going to be like this great reckoning where there's just going to be a bunch of 50 year old cat ladies who are like, oh snap, there's.

[B]

Going to be a great reckoning there. There are already, dude, the number of videos you can find where women are crying because they're like hitting 40 and they never had kids and they never found a man and all of a sudden they're turning invisible. Because men, you can look at a graph, this has been studied many times. Look at a graph. What age do women find attractive? It's two years above them and two years below them, no matter how old they are. So if they're 50, they find 52 year olds down to 48 year olds attractive. What age does a man find attractive? No matter what age he is, the answer is 22. So a guy could be 75, he finds a 22 year old attractive, he could be 16, he finds a 22 year old Attractive. So it just isn't true for women. So already like that's just a bitter pill to swallow. Women, when you're young, you feel like your youth is going to last forever and you're the one person that's escaped the curse. And then all of a sudden you realize that 40 year old guy is making a ton of money, he's dating a 26 year old and you're fucked. And now you could date a six year old. But you, I think you are going to struggle.

[A]

These are, these are the two graphs. So this is the. A woman's age versus the age of the man who looks best to her and how it kind of. So if she's 22, 23 and then when she's 50, a 46 year old, and then when you go to men it's 20, 20, 21, 22, 22.

[B]

Just straight, straight Cliff.

[A]

That's funny. All right, well it's going to be a rude awakening then.

[B]

Yeah. So this is why I say you're having a biological experience. Don't try to run from that. Try to understand what that means. Try to map your life out based on that. I mean, listen, here's the really uncomfortable thing that if anybody wants to clip me maliciously, I'm about to give you some that women of old used to teach their daughters. You get a man when you're young and beautiful, and then you start having children. And now you guys are connected forever. And that's the play. Watch Titanic. This is what the whole theme of that setup is, is that the mom is like, I'm broke. You're young and beautiful. You need to marry this rich, successful guy. And then the whole family is set up forever. You've got to do it now, while you're young, so that you can get a high caliber man. And that just. It is what it is. And then of course, the young guy who has nothing. It's such a modern story, but back then that would have been like, gasp. Everybody clutches their pearls. Like, what are you doing? You're gonna throw your whole life away on like this good for nothing guy. Like, if you want to fall in love, fall in love with somebody rich. Don't fall in love with some fucking hobo kid. Like, that's wild.

[A]

So that's nature, the plot of materialist.

[B]

It'S the plot of reality. Because remember we were hardwired on the savannah where if a guy could go out and get a kill, if he could collect more wood for the winter, whatever, you were actually more likely to survive. If your guy was a better hunter, better fighter than when the village got raided, you were less likely to get carried off and raped. Like there were real consequences. And so those. Just because in the world those consequences don't really exist anymore, doesn't mean that we don't still have the algorithms running in our brain. And so there's this wild mismatch. It's why people eat Oreos. It's like, oreos taste good because from an evolutionary perspective, if you found something that was sweet and salty at the same time, you better eat as much of that as you can, because, oh buddy, it's got everything you need to survive the winter. So you would shove that stuff in your face as fast as you could. And now when you can just go to the grocery store and get as much of it as you want, you turn into a 600 pound person that is fusing to the fabric of your couch. Now, we are not evolutionarily wired for the level of abundance, so we have these mix matched cues, but we still have them. And so if you don't realize that you have them and so you just go, I'm hungry, therefore I'm going to eat instead of going, maybe I'm bored, maybe I'm stressed. And I have to have rules in my life because I understand I'm having a biological experience and that leads somewhere bad. Then you're going to be an absolute mess because you are not mapping what is real to your behavior. And so this is where I'm just like, I'm. I really am sad. Young people already have it bad because they are just getting bombarded with socially messaging where it's like, girl, you don't need no man. Like, good luck with that. We are meant to pair bond, and so that's a big part of this. And we're living in an age where people think getting. Finding somebody later and later in life is better. And I didn't really think about this for a long time. I just happened to meet the woman of my dreams when I was 24. So I didn't think about how lucky I got because I did not intentionally seek somebody out when I was younger. If anything, at the time, I would have had the exact opposite thought, no, no, I don't want to get married right now. So that's where I'm like, oh, we should probably have cultural messaging around. Yeah, you do want to get married when you're young. In fact, we should have cultural messaging around. You want to get married when you're young. You want a pair bond, you want to be in a committed relationship. You want to grow together, you want to shape each other. I'm never going to tell people that they ought to have kids, but from an algorithm standpoint, you really need to look at that, because not having kids can be amazing. My wife and I absolutely love not having kids, but it's not the path that nature wants us to walk, and so we have to be very cognizant of that.

[A]

Infinite amp said 30% of men get ED by 40 years old. Stop lying to women.

[B]

30% of men get what ED by 40 years old? Erectile dysfunction. Got it. Got it.

[A]

Stop lying to women because you can't get it up.

[B]

Hold on. Well, easy there, chief. I'm not struggling in that department. Okay, well, here's what I would say to that. If. If you can see in the data that everything is fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. Woman starts making more money, and then the rate triples. You could say, no, Tom, listen, that's correlation. It. It's just mapped to age. Maybe that's worth looking at the data to see, because this certainly is partly a Erectile dysfunction is a sign of early heart disease. Now I will say once women understand that men want to feel powerful, I think they will have a much better understanding of sex and what turns a man on. So you can ignore that and think that I'm lying to women, but they will be very confused about what turns their man on. All right everybody, thank you so much for joining us. If you haven't already, obviously subscribe. We are here every Wednesday and Friday. It'll be a little bit different than New Year, but every Wednesday and Friday at 6am Pacific. Hope to see you there later everybody. Love you. Bye. Most healthy habits are hard. Meal prep takes hours. Gym routines get derailed all the time. Complicated supplement regimens fall apart, often within weeks. But AG1 Next Gen is different. AG1 NextGen delivers what your body actually needs. 75 plus vitamins and minerals, 5 clinically studied probiotic strains plus prebiotics and superfoods. It replaces your multivitamin, probiotics and more in one simple daily drink. AG1 Next Gen comes in three new flavors, Tropical citrus and berry. All plant based flavoring with 0 added sugar, 0 artificial sweeteners, 0 erythritol. Every flavor maintains NSF certification for sport, so you know you're getting the strictest quality standards. Subscribe today to try the next gen of AG1 and if you use my link, you'll also get a free bottle of AG D3K2, an AG1 Welcome Kit, and five of the upgraded travel packs with your first order. Click the link in the show notes or just head to drinkag1.comimpact to get started again. That's drinkag1.com impact.