The Iran War Escalates, Economic Sanctions, and the Dark Side of Weight Loss Drugs | Tom Bilyeu Show Live

Summary

Podcast Summary: Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory

Episode: The Iran War Escalates, Economic Sanctions, and the Dark Side of Weight Loss Drugs
Date: May 8, 2026
Host: Tom Bilyeu
Co-Host: Drew

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Episode Overview

In this lively and expansive episode of Impact Theory, Tom Bilyeu and Drew break down headlines behind the Iran war escalation, the efficacy and consequence of economic sanctions, the ripple effects of American trade and industrial policy, and surprising new science behind weight loss drugs like Ozempic. The conversation moves fluidly from the geopolitics of the Strait of Hormuz to the foundations of middle-class prosperity, cultural rifts over AI and labor, the growing political debate on billionaires, and the unintended societal impacts of modern medicine.

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Table of Contents

1. The Iran War: Escalation, Strategy, and Quagmire
2. Economic Sanctions and the Limits of Pressure
3. Domestic Industry Policy, Tariffs, and Globalization
4. Class, Race, and American Electoral Politics
5. AOC, Billionaires, and Economic Myths
6. Hantavirus Panic and Pandemic Psychology
7. Ozempic, Weight Loss Drugs, and Human Desire
8. AI, Robotics, and the Disruption of Labor
9. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
10. Timestamps for Key Segments

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1. The Iran War: Escalation, Strategy, and Quagmire <a name="iran-war"></a>

(01:00–16:32)

• Tom identifies growing regional anxiety as Iran promises to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, demanding US reparations even after a potential US withdrawal. Despite official denials, US allies like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait momentarily restricted airspace, signaling real unease.
• Tom’s thesis: The U.S. might have underestimated Iran's ability to outlast both military and economic pressure, especially as US political will wanes. Iran may have adopted a “wait them out” approach, hiding capabilities underground until the US gives up.
• Key Concern: The US may be creating a forever war scenario: “I think this is a much bigger deal than people are letting on. This one shook me when I see what's really happening.” (Tom, 02:20)
• The panel explores exit strategies, drawing parallels with the War on Terror and the inherent difficulties of leaving power vacuums in the Middle East.

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2. Economic Sanctions and the Limits of Pressure <a name="sanctions"></a>

(07:26–20:15)

• Tom argues that economic strangulation has rarely broken the will of regimes prepared to let their populations suffer—historically true in theocratic states.
• Iran displays a willingness to harm its own ecology and let oil pollute the Strait rather than concede.
• Political consequences: Tom notes that Trump’s domestic popularity is at serious risk if the war persists into midterms.
• Drew points out: “We have decimated civilian infrastructure, we have bombed a girls school, we’re making more terrorists than we are making allies … this seems like an L for Trump, 100.” (19:15)
• Both agree: Iran will try to drag out the conflict, waiting for changes in US politics rather than negotiate seriously.

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3. Domestic Industry Policy, Tariffs, and Globalization <a name="industry-policy"></a>

(21:41–40:31)

• Discussion pivots to US-China trade tensions and Trump’s use of tariffs, which recently faced legal setbacks.
• Tom’s stance: Congress must step up to incentivize domestic manufacturing, using both “carrot and stick”—tariffs as stick, tax incentives as carrot.
  • “The big fucking glowing gigantor bubble of my request to the legislative branch of the United States is to deregulate. Get the fuck out of the way. Let the market do its thing.” (Tom, 32:05)
• Concerns about global supply chains, especially in critical areas like EVs, drones, and chips (“We’ve got to like really do something. … The executive branch has just done more and more through executive orders because we’re so divided people can’t come together…” Tom, 26:33)
• The CHIPS Act is discussed as a potential model for industrial policy—“If the specifics were tax incentives to get them to come build in the US I love it. I don’t care whether it was a Democrat or a Republican thing. Get chips manufactured here.” (Tom, 40:03)

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4. Class, Race, and American Electoral Politics <a name="race-politics"></a>

(41:54–59:09)

• The show tackles gerrymandering and redistricting, particularly how race has been used historically and the latest Supreme Court rulings.
• Drew provides an impassioned summary of how resource allocation by zip code or race perpetuates inequalities, with Tom probing on whether gerrymandering is ultimately necessary or harmful given historical injustices.
• Key point: Both agree the current system is dysfunctional, but fixing it is deeply complex given the legacy of redlining and disparate resource distribution.

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5. AOC, Billionaires, and Economic Myths <a name="aoc-billionaires"></a>

(59:25–76:23)

• The podcast plays and reacts to AOC’s recent statement: “There’s a certain level of wealth and accumulation that is unearned, right? You can’t earn a billion dollars. … You have to create a myth that since you didn’t earn that…” (AOC, approx. 59:25)
• Tom’s forceful rebuttal: “Once again proving that she does not understand the economy in the slightest.” (60:18)
  • Tom outlines how value creation works (by voluntary transaction), why market power and founder risk matters, and how fictional net worth differs from actual cash.
  • “If you want to help the middle class, it’s not an emotional support thing. … If you make something that people really would rather have than their money, then you can earn a billion dollars.” (Tom, 61:34)

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6. Hantavirus Panic and Pandemic Psychology <a name="hantavirus"></a>

(79:35–84:36)

• Dr. Drew joins to warn about renewed hysteria around outbreaks like hantavirus (“Hansavirus has been around a long time... Let's deal with the rats... but not panic.” 79:57)
• Tom and Drew agree that media fear-mongering and public health overreach are latent risks: “The only thing standing between us and being right back in Covid is fear. … If you scare them enough, they will be willing to snap in line.” (Tom, 84:36)

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7. Ozempic, Weight Loss Drugs, and Human Desire <a name="ozempic"></a>

(84:36–94:21)

• New reports and peer-reviewed studies show GLP1 weight loss drug users are experiencing not just reduced appetite but also diminished emotional attachment and libido, leading to what’s being called “Ozempic divorce”.
• “GLP1 drugs don’t just shrink your appetite; they rewire the brain’s entire reward system. … The same circuits that make you crave a cheeseburger make you crave your romantic partner. So if you turn off the desire for the burger, you also kill off your desire for your partner.” (Tom, 86:06)
• Tom warns of widespread, unintended societal consequences and urges caution with any intervention that rewires biology.

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8. AI, Robotics, and the Disruption of Labor <a name="ai-robotics"></a>

(94:21–103:07)

• The accelerating sophistication of robotic dexterity signals a looming phase change in labor markets, with robots replacing both manual and white-collar work.
• Tom: “Right now, the vast majority of people that will apply for any job are dumber than you. That is good. That feels nice. Not for long because you're gonna be going up against an AI which is smarter than all of us.” (96:16)
• Tom foresees “mice utopia” and social unrest as AI and capital displace human labor, requiring redistribution and a reimagining of economic value.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments <a name="quotes"></a>

• On the Iran conflict:
  • “We have not weakened Iran’s resolve, for sure ... Their goal is to watch the US lose their political will to keep fighting. And when they finally leave, then they just resurface all of the weapons that they were able to successfully keep underground.” (Tom, 02:47–04:50)
• On American political will:
  • “Countries are held back by the physical force they’re capable of and the moral outcry within their own country.” (Tom, 09:29)
• On economic policy:
  • “If you are a globalist, you are anti middle and working class. In the US. Full stop, end of story.” (Tom, 25:30)
• On value creation:
  • “If you make something that people really would rather have than their money, then you can earn a billion dollars.” (Tom, 61:34)
• On Ozempic and rewiring desire:
  • “If you turn off the desire for the burger, you also kill off your desire for your partner. That gets a big all caps: Yikes.” (Tom, 86:06)
• On AI and labor:
  • “Robots will come in all shapes and sizes... When people poo poo this stuff, that's you having anxiety and giving yourself an out of saying, oh, come on... this is a radical level of change that we are not ready for.” (Tom, 96:16)

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Timestamps for Key Segments <a name="timestamps"></a>

• 01:00 — Opening on Middle East escalation and regional politics
• 02:20 — Tom’s read on US-Iran stalemate
• 09:29 — The limits of force and the “moral outcry” constraint
• 19:15 — Drew’s critique of US strategy: “This seems like a dub to me.”
• 21:41 — Reparations as new Iranian strategy; legal troubles for Trump’s tariffs
• 32:05 — Deregulation, tariffs, and restoring American manufacturing
• 40:03 — Industrial incentives and the CHIPS Act
• 41:54 — Race, redistricting, and American elections
• 59:25 — AOC’s take on billionaires; Tom’s economic rebuttal
• 79:35 — Hantavirus, media, and public health policy
• 86:06 — The Ozempic divorce and chemical rewiring of desire
• 94:21 — Robotics, AI, and the future of human labor
• 102:11 — “Stabilize the middle class or there will be a revolution.”

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Conclusion

Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory delivers a sprawling, provocative tour through today’s biggest headlines and the deeper currents shaping society, economics, and technology. Tom’s signature candor, skepticism, and passion for first-principles thinking make for essential listening in a disruptive age—reminding listeners that so much of progress, policy, and even love itself is a matter of understanding incentives and consequences beneath the surface.

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For further detail, explore the following segments:

• [01:00–08:14] Iran War Analysis
• [21:41–40:31] Economic Sanctions, Tariffs, and Manufacturing
• [59:25–76:23] Class, Billionaires, and Economic Narratives
• [84:36–94:21] Societal Side Effects of Ozempic
• [94:21–103:07] The Coming Age of AI and Labor Disruption

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This summary omits sponsorships, advertisements, and non-content transitions for clarity and focus.

Transcript

[Tom Bilyeu]

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[Drew]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

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[Drew]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

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[Drew]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

Welcome to another Tom Bilyeu show live. We have got a lively one for you today. The Iran war has kicked back off, though Trump and Drew deny it, calling these strikes love taps. We'll get into that more. That is so wild. Love tap is a quote. Both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait briefly denied the US Access to their airspace, though both quickly have retracted that denial. Gonna talk about what that means. Iran is now promising to keep the strait closed even if the US Exits, unless the US Pays reparations. On a recent podcast, AOC read aloud from her upcoming book titled Please God, Send Help. I don't understand the economy. We're gonna play that clip. GLP1s are making people fall out of love. This one is insane. Because boys and girls, psa, we are meat puppets. We are processing chemicals day in and day out. And when you mess with the chemistry, things can go wrong. And all of you are going to be excited to learn. COVID2 hentavirus boogaloo just dropped a trailer for what is sure to be this summer's Can't Miss Blockbuster. Get your mask ready, everyone. Drew, I don't know what got into me this morning writing those. I couldn't. I help myself. There's madness afoot. Madness afoot.

[Drew]

All right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You and I disagree about whether what's going on in the straight right now is meaningful. I think this is a much bigger deal than people are letting on. This one shook me when I see what's really happening.

[Drew]

So that the war. That was not a war that was supposed to be Three weeks, that is lasting eight weeks, that is, we won already. That we completely obliterated, but we didn't obliterate, because now we're back and forth like, now is the time that it's serious for that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

All of that, like, I can get behind. That's Trump being Trump. But the fact that the GCC nations are getting tense that you've got. There was reports, and I don't know if this is actually true, but it looks true that one of the Iranian officials. Officials was riding on one of the bombs aimed at the uae and it said, when the US Leaves, it's just going to be you and I. And I think that's really what's happening, is that we have not weakened Iran's resolve, for sure. Like, we've obviously done a lot of damage to the country, and I'm sure that we have meaningfully disrupted their ability to strike back on conventional forces in the way that the US Is doing. But I don't know that we have made it so that they can't out last us. We leave for political reasons, and then they're able to really start causing trouble in the region. And I think that the flinch that we saw on behalf of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait lets you know that, yeah, they're getting nervous.

[Drew]

So are you. Is your base assumption that once the US Leaves, Iran is now activated and they're going to cause havoc irregardless of our presence there, or once we leave, things will cool out if we leave?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, I think Iran pops our head back up and goes, yeah, they didn't damage us as much as they wanted you to believe. And so, I mean, look, it's all propaganda all the time. Trump is saying that they have like 17 or 18% of their missile capability left. They're saying that they're at 120% capable. Now, the truth is going to be neither of those answers. But if Trump is admitting to 17 or 18%, they're probably somewhere north of that. So I think that underestimating Iran would be a huge mistake. And given that Trump. Somewhere in all of this, Trump is losing the will to fight in the conventional sense, the way that he was prosecuting the war before. So when I try to start mapping out what Rubio has been saying, hey, we've, we're completely done with that. That's a wrap. Meaning Operation Epic Fury. It's done. We accomplished our goals. One of two things is true. Either they're trying to reset the clock on Congress's ability to stop them from, you know, bombing and so they're trying to say, hey, we ran that. It ended. It was over for a month. Ish. I mean, we're approaching a month now of the ceasefire. So been over for a month. And then they attacked us. We kept our cool. We didn't want to reenter. And then some escalatory thing happens. We relaunched a new initiative. This is a new thing. So that's option one. Option two would be they are looking for an exit ramp and they are just trying to build the picture for the American people that this was a success and that the failure of Project Freedom, the ability to escort people, really was a. Oh, like, we are not going to be able to do what we thought we were going to be able to do, which was show enough muscle that we can get people through the straight. I think people are super hesitant. And they saw that Iran's like, oh, cool, we're just going to bomb you like we told you not to do that. They did it. And then, listen, this may just be me, but my read. So they go to transit the strait to take the ships out because they have paused or just abandoned Project Freedom. As they were doing it, Iran said, don't try to move your ships through. They did. Iran attacked, and then the US Pushed their ships out to the blockade, out more in the open ocean. Now, could you read that as a retreat where the US is sort of tucking tail and running and trying to get their ships out of position, of being a sitting duck, it certainly doesn't tell me that they plan to go back to helping ships transit. And so if that's a stalemate, you're in a rough position. So I don't know that what I'm about to say is true, but if what I'm about to say is true, hopefully you will understand why I am somewhat paranoid about what's going on here. Um, so if what's really happening is that US Runs Project Freedom, it does not go well. Nobody is taking them up on it. They're not having success with that. Iran has gone underground, has stopped poking their head up because now they realize we have to play a waiting game. And their goal is to watch the US Lose their political will to keep fighting. And when they finally leave, then they just resurface all of the weapons that they were able to successfully keep underground. So if that's really what's going on, that. That paints a pretty dark picture.

[Drew]

Now, what are the likelihood you would say that this is something that will continue to. How. What's the likelihood that you think that this Actually will go on. Like, I don't see an end in sight. So that's why, to me, this is the forever war. Concern that a lot of people had at the beginning is the exit strategy is where things kind of get messed up. Same thing happened with the war on terror. We knew how we were going to get in there. We knew who we needed to attack, we knew who we needed to grab. But then once we grabbed them and attacked them over there, then it's like, okay, wait, we can't just leave. There's going to be a vacuum of power. Yada, yada, yada, we're there four years later. What do you think the exit strategy, or at least the off ramp is now? Is it just getting the Iranians at the negotiation table and trying to find a deal that works for everybody? What do you think is that if

[Tom Bilyeu]

the economic strangulation doesn't work, then the US Is going to be forced into a decision whether they're willing to go back to bombing. And what we saw was that in bombing the non civilian stuff, we couldn't get them to back down. And so the way that I look at this is the way that I think about raising dogs. So at any time a human has the capability, especially if you put weapons into it, you can just kill the dog, right? So it's like if the dog is doing something you don't want it to do, you can hurt it. Especially if you have small dogs. I think about this with my Pomeranians, it's like I could snap their neck, break a leg, whatever. But you don't. And so you get yourself put in these weird positions because you don't want to over escalate. And so even though Trump is right, like we could go in and obliterate them. We could knock them, we could literally knock them back 25 years. I mean, it would, it would be. The level of devastation that we could bring upon the country is just unimaginable. And they really can't stop us from doing it. But we have an internal mechanism that will stop us from doing it because it will be so abhorrent for us to go in and blow up their energy infrastructure, for us to decimate civilian bridges and, you know, the power grid and all that stuff.

[Drew]

It.

[Tom Bilyeu]

The outcry inside the country would be unbearable. The outcry globally would be unbearable. And so even if Trump actually has like the will to do it, there are mechanisms that are going to stop him. And so I've said many times, countries are held back by the physical force that they're capable of putting forward and the moral outcry within their own country. And so Trump is really looking increasingly like he's stuck. He's behaving like he's stuck. And so when I try to map out, like, what he's doing, okay, he wants to get a deal done through negotiation. I believe that. I think that that's Trump's preferred method. But I think he went and did the things that he thought that he could get away with from an internal political revolt perspective, and it didn't back Iran down. And so I keep coming back to that phrase that Steve Wyckoff said very early, before we started bombing, Trump is surprised that they haven't capitulated. And Trump keeps saying very similar words. The more he bombs things, break things, threatens things, economics, all of that, he's just like anybody else. They're not a normal country. Anybody else would have waved the white flag of surrender by now, but they're not going to do it. That's my read. My read is there is nothing that will make them wave the flag. Their own people starving to death won't matter if they. Looks like it's unconfirmed at this point. But I want to say right now, boys and girls, there is oil leaking out into the sea. And one very plausible explanation for why there is suddenly an oil slick appearing around Carg island is that they are not going to cap their wells because they know that will damage the wells. So they would rather just destroy the ecology of the ocean just by pouring the oil into the ocean. And so it's like there are, there may be a willingness or on behalf of this theocratic regime to let their people suffer, to impose deep ecological problems into the strait, to make sure that once they outlast the U.S. and they will be able to outlast the U.S. once they outlast the U.S. then they can just rise back up. They've built all of this stuff underground. It's entirely possible that they are able to either manufacture or get deliveries of missiles from Russia or from China. And so what we may be looking at, again, this is all speculation right now. But what we may be looking at is a country that, in Trump's own words, does not behave like other countries, is not acting in a way that we in the US Would think represents good sense. But if you don't, if you're willing to let your own people suffer, because I won't say they don't mind, but if you're willing to let your own people suffer with which theocratic regimes the world over have proven that they are. Then when you have a country that's beholden to democratic principles, and you know that the president is deeply unpopular, certainly outside of his own base, it's like, yeah, these guys aren't going to be here for long. They're certainly not going to last the summer. They will not. Trump won't get past the midterms. If he's still in this at the midterms, it's game over. Like, he will be impeached. It will be the first act of the new House and Senate. So it's they know that. Hang tight. We'll be back in just a moment. Let's talk about the worst investment most guys make on repeat cheap clothes. You buy them, they look fine, but six months later they're pilling, shrinking or just falling apart. So you replace them. You do it again and again. You're spending more over time and you never actually have anything worth keeping or wearing for that matter. That's the whole model behind Quince. 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[Drew]

That does not inspire confidence. So again, how what is the end result then? Because if they just wait it out.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Well, my job is not to inspire confidence. My job is to paint the picture that I think is accurate. So if now what you're asking me is, okay, you're Trump, what would you do to get out of this? So I'm not obviously I don't have any insider information about how Iran is metabolizing the economic impact of what's happening and what they're doing at the negotiating table. But if you can't break them with the economic sanctions, the only path that I see, there's always a path that I'm not seeing. But the path that I see right now is you really do have to keep the economic sanctions going, try to get China to make sure that they're going to stay neutral. So figuring out like, okay, if I go back and I just absolutely demolish their energy infrastructure, what's China going to do? Because China gets a meaningful amount of their oil from Iran, and I can't imagine they stay on the sidelines forever. So a big part of the conversation I'm going to be having with Xi is like, listen, I can't let these guys control the waterways. You know that international waters have to remain open for everybody. Tariff, tariff, threat, whatever on those guys. I just need you to stay out of it. And then Trump would have to go in and do the thing that's going to break their back. Now I you get into things where I think it is unadvisable. But nonetheless, if I'm Trump and I Understand that this is existential for me, for the Republican Party. Then I'm like, okay, we have to figure out what the pressure points are. I think he has to be a lot smarter than the threats that he was making before. I think you need to go like, let's say, okay, you seize Carg island, but that's it. You don't go anywhere other than that. But now you've got people that are sitting ducks. Or I mean, seizing it would be preferable. You may have to break it. But that, like I said, that has China consequences, that has humanitarian consequences, that has God knows how many years or possibly decades of damage to the Iranian people. You could arm the Iranian people, but they tried to do that through the Kurds and it didn't work. It's like this is a. If. If the diplomatic and economic paths don't work, you have to put forward a credible list of things that you can break where the people inside the country are going to rise up. That's really the only option. Because I think they will. The theocratic regime will fight to the last man. They're not going to relinquish control. It will have to be killed out of them.

[Drew]

Yeah, this seems like a dub to me. Because if our hope is. If our hope is an internal revolution, which right now we have decimated civilian infrastructure, we have bombed a girls school, we're making more terrorists than we are making allies. And we're reliant on China, China's responsible. Why are you guys there in the first place? And this. And Trump just leveraged that additional 10% on China and he can't afford to get into a economic transaction with China, like economic sanction battle with China. So it seems like this is a L for Trump. 100. Like, I don't see a way comes out where he can like spin this, make it look good and all these other things.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I mean, there's a way that it can come out. I just don't think that we're on the path right now. So if the economic sanctions really are breaking them. If.

[Drew]

I mean, they've economic station since the 70s.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I know, man. That's the thing. Like this is one of those where I have a feeling that Iran is willing to let their people suffer and they'll be able to drag this out longer than a democratic nation has the political will to do it. I mean that just like right now, today, if you're asking me to calciate, that's exactly what I would say.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Is that you are in a position where this does not end well for Trump for sure. For the U.S. very likely, though, there are again, the bad bad news is that if the Middle east becomes a dumpster fire and people start sourcing oil from other places, those other places will include the U.S. maybe Alberta. Alberta is trying to break away from Canada. So it's like there's ways that this could still end up to the advantage of the US As a whole, but very doubtful that it would end to the advantage of the Trump administration.

[Drew]

Yeah, let's jump into the part about the reparations. So this is from the Hormuz letter. Breaking news. Senior Iranian official Mohezin Rehazai rejects the US Strait of Hormuz proposal as unrealistic, saying Iran will not allow the US to exit the crisis it created without paying reparations for war damage, with the strait remaining closed until the US Pays, even if all US Forces fully withdraw from the region. So it seems like irregardless of what we do on a war front, Iran saying it's not over until we get that check.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. So this is one of those where, yeah, if you can't break them, it's going to create more problems for you. And then the question becomes how far are you willing to go to break them? And then what will be the unintended consequences of you breaking them? And they won't be good.

[Drew]

They won't be good. All right. And then in other news with Trump and more bad news, US trade courts rules against Trump's 10% global tariff. So this is official now, there was the emergency led tariffs that he did with the individual companies. Then when that one got strike down initially he did the glow, the 10%, just blanket tariffs. They now rolled against those as well. So it seems like tariffs isn't the way the US Government wants to raise revenue.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, I mean, look, the real answer is that if you want to use the power of the purse, that's really tied to Congress. And so Trump has been using executive orders and tariffs to try to get around that. Now, whether we want to hamstring our president on the international stage as much as I think some people want to is a bigger question. So giving him the power to use tariffs is probably not a bad idea, given that whether we want this moment to be this or not, we are in a moment where globalization has absolutely decimated the working class here in America. Our inability or unwillingness to balance the budget has completely eroded the middle class and working class. So you are in a position where you Absolutely must return jobs to US shores. For people that fall into that bucket, you must find a way to put some leverage back in the hands of the average worker. You do that by making it so that we can't just so that we're not incentivized to just outsource jobs everywhere. It's very important because if you try to do it through a toward authoritarian top down means it's gonna. That's even worse. But nonetheless, we've gotta find a way to get the middle class back in a healthy position. Trump has been using tariffs as one of the ways to try to work on that. Now, anybody that criticizes Trump's methods, I, I get it. But like, we're not showing a willingness as a Congress to do the things that we need to do. And so the real.

[Drew]

What do you mean by that?

[Tom Bilyeu]

The real battle, the real discussion that we have to have as a country is what are the elected officials doing to help the middle and working class? Like, what are they actually doing? Because we'll talk about this later with AOC's just absolutely fucking moronic take on the economy. The same thing with Bernie Sanders. The very people who act like they're fighting the hardest for the working class are the ones who are hurting them the most. Measurably, demonstrably. Not like theoretically, you can just point to it, show exactly what's going on. If you are a globalist, you are anti middle and working class. It's really in. In the US Full stop, end of story. Like, you might be doing great things for the working class in China, but you are absolutely not doing great things for the working class in the US and so America has to come to some sort of reconciliation of like, okay, I hate Trump. I don't want it to be done his way. But right now the entire message is, I'm not Trump. Fuck Trump. Stop Trump. It isn't help the working class, because I think what they're going to see is, oh yeah, shit. Like, they're the things he's doing, even though I hate them. He is trying to address the real problem at the level of the physics of the situation. And that's where it gets maddening. He shoots himself in his own foot by being as bombastic and rub it in your face of the other team as he possibly can be. Which, of course the reason that he got elected was because this is a populist moment and that's what people want. But nonetheless, it has this really caustic nature that is creating as many problems as it's solving. But as a nation, we have to understand that the most popular Democratic policies, and I try never to speak in like those binary terms, but the most popular policies that the Democrats are using to rally their base are so anti middle and working class, but it animates that the overproduced elite population. We really probably have to actually talk about all this nuance. I don't see a way around it. And so, yeah, you're in a position where the very people that you're trying to, the very people that you message you're trying to help, you are, you are knowingly hurting or you're so ignorant that you're hurting them. But either way, it's, it, it's devastating.

[Drew]

Do you think right now Trump doesn't. Let me rephrase that. So if all the judges Supreme Court let Trump have free reign for this year, you think that we would be in a better position economically?

[Tom Bilyeu]

No, I don't think giving anyone free rein is a good idea.

[Drew]

But it sounds like what you're, what you just said was that what I

[Tom Bilyeu]

want them to do very succinctly, I want Congress to get involved in passing legislation that will accomplish what Trump is trying to do with tariffs. Maybe they use tariffs, maybe they don't. Tariff seems like a reasonable answer. We're seeing how it plays out. It is a cost borne by multiple parties instead of just one. So for all the people that want to see more tax, like, hey, here it is in the form of a tariff. But you at least get the other countries to pay some part of that as well. Yes, in the things that are being tariffed, it will also cause the prices to go up. But there is a reason that the countries hate these tariffs. It forces things back into the country, things to be manufactured in the country. You absolutely must. So once you understand somebody's base assumptions, you understand the cascade. My base assumption is a massive amount of manufacturing must return to the US you absolutely as the US and my advice is every country, you must stop treating China as the global hub for manufacturing because they will fuck you. And people just seem completely blind to that reality. We have to bring that back. Now, if somebody has a superior idea on how we incentivize people to manufacture here in the US with urgency, immediacy, great. I'm very open. It doesn't have to be a tariff, but it has to be something. I want to see Congress lead that instead of basically through abdication. The executive, not just Trump, but the executive branch has just done more and more through executive orders because we're so divided people can't come together, come up with a sensible cause and effect plan. And so until I see a plan that isn't, just stop him no matter what, then I'm like, yeah, I would rather him be able to wield tariffs than us do nothing and just keep marching down the globalism path by default. But I would much rather see Congress leading this with actual real leadership and economic understanding than abdicate and force the executive to do it.

[Drew]

The way that Congress can incentivize manufacturing to come back, I'm assuming would be in some type of tax break, tax incentive, cut, whatever, like that and punishment.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's carrot and stick. So the tariffs are the stick. And what we want is Congress to understand that they're going to have to wield some of that stick. So what are you going to do, for instance, to stop China, which is subsidizing the EV car market, from just literally coming in and taking over the EV car market here in the US

[Drew]

you tariff themselves where they can.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's one answer. That's certainly the default answer. So it's tariffs and, and what do they call them? Non trade barriers. So you're looking for what are the ways that you can cockblock them because otherwise they're just going to sweep the nation like, or the world. China has picked certain industries that they're like, yeah, we're going to apply essentially tax dollars to these industries to make them cheap, to make sure that these companies are innovating like crazy and then we're going to take over the world because we think that they're important drones. Drones control warfare. They control drones. You have to run a lot of math to be like, oh, that's a bad position for the US to be in right now.

[Drew]

But we are manufacturing drones in house. We have Andrew Palantir and that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Listen to what those guys themselves are screaming. The supply chains are controlled by China. This was a gigantic mistake. And we're only doing this because of the fact that we ran these suicidal policies forever and somebody has to do something to wake the fuck up and now bring this stuff back in house. So yes, thank God we're doing something. But dude, they're banging pots and pans to say this supply chain is still not in our control. So there are people behind the scenes sure. That are going crazy. We just did some kind of deal. I, I'm way, like almost not even at the headline level on the deal that theoretically we just found secured something with Greenland for rare earth minerals. But I'm not saying nobody's making noise about this. I'm saying as the government, we've got to like really do something. So this is Trump working with those guys who are obviously Trump aligned to get these things done. And I'm just saying if we don't want Trump controlling this shit, then Congress has to work with these companies. But they are not. They're putting every stumbling block that they can in their way. I don't think it was Andrew, but Palantir had to sue the US Government because they were blocking them out so hard for like a decade. So all of this stuff has been like this insane fight to get the I wish there was less conspiratorial language, but to get the globalism globalistly minded. However, you would say that people to stop doing things that are contrary to the interests of the middle and working class in America.

[Drew]

Help me square the circle. On one side we have we need to deregulate and let entrepreneurs run with everything and take the mantle. On the other side we have the government needs to be interventionless on certain industries so that way we can, we can thrive. What which one is entrepreneurial led and which one is government led?

[Tom Bilyeu]

So I think you often confuse me, saying the government has to change their approach, for the government needs to take control of this process. I'm saying the government needs to change their approach. The more we can get towards a free market, the happier I will be. So we are so far from the free market that when I'm talking about this stuff, largely what I'm saying is the tariff thing is a different conversation. It happens to be one of the things we're talking about right now. But my, like if you were going to do. Hold on, I'm answering the question. If you were going to do like, you know those bubble graphs that the bigger the bubble, the more the person cares about it or talks about it or whatever. The big fucking glowing gigantor bubble of my request to the legislative branch of the United States is to deregulate. Get the fuck out of the way. Let the market do its thing. Hang tight. We'll be back in just a moment. It's time to bring on the blooms at the Home Depot with Spring Garden deals. Find savings on hanging baskets and flowers to brighten your backyard or any space that needs instant color. Then get everything you need to plant and protect them with low prices guaranteed on soil and mulch. Dig into Spring Garden garden deals for four days at the Home Depot, now through May 10th exquisite supply. See homedepot.com pricematch for details. There's a new way to Sweetgreen Meat Wraps handheld. Hearty and made for life on the move. With bold, chef crafted flavors, fresh Ingredients and over 40 grams of protein, they're built to satisfy without slowing you down. Try wraps today in the app [e-mail]

[Drew]

available at all participating locations.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You can't reason with the sun. Trust us. We've tried.

[Drew]

This summer, it's time to put that

[Tom Bilyeu]

angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's Omnishade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your [e-mail] to spend more time outside and less time slathering on aloe lotion. You're welcome, Columbia. Engineered for whatever. Thanks for staying tuned. Now, let's get back to it.

[Drew]

Now, inside, domestically.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, I mean, that's all we can do.

[Drew]

No, I mean, tariff is like, yeah,

[Tom Bilyeu]

that's still a domestic thing that has external policies. It's not like we can go control China's policies.

[Drew]

No, but I'm saying it's like you want that berry with the EVs to not come in. That's a regulation. Like, you want to keep the EV market out of China. You want to make sure we're not getting where Earth to incentivize us to build it here.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I think that's going to have to be part of your strategy because you are where you are. This is like whenever I talk about the Fed. I'm not saying abolish the Fed today. You, you would destroy planet Earth. If you just said the Fed doesn't exist anymore, that would be stupid. You have to have some sort of unwind plan. So we are in a position where for the last 30 years we churn, we turned China into an absolute manufacturing powerhouse. It had huge advantages. Like, if you understood assets, you got so rich during this period. It has been wild. And now I'm saying, listen, as somebody who's made a ton of money off of understanding that, I am screaming into the void seemingly that we have to begin changing those strategies. We have to do things that are good for the workers, and we have to make sure that we have a level of protectionism around our markets. Okay, so what does that look like? So Drew's trying to find where the delineation point is for me. Who wants a free market or a more free market? But what are the things where you want to see us be interventionist? We are going to have to run Parallel paths right now, deregulate so that we have incentive to build, that we become the best place in the world to build because we don't have all these stupid problems in, in place from a regulatory standpoint. I'll give one example and then I'll move to where I do want the interventionism. If you look at the graph that shows what I think the graph that I saw is actually Europe. But if you look at the graph of Europe versus China in terms of CO2 emissions, basically Europe has destroyed their economy from an energy perspective to have like a slight downturn there, but they're very low. Like Europe doesn't put out much carbon emissions already very reasonable. They have trended down a little bit. And so if you look at the graph, it looks like this sort of slight trend down. When you look at the graph, including China, dude, it's almost a straight line up. It is orders orders of magnitude bigger than the entire European output, let alone like whatever minor trend down they're showing. And so what people need to see in that graph is not that China is evil. What people need to see in that graph is everybody went, we're going to be virtuous, we're just going to outsource it to China. It's still going to get done. Whether we have our companies there or we buy something from their company and we just focus all of our energy on assets. But we, we are not making less shit, we're just making it in a different country. We're not outputting less CO2, we're just outsourcing it to another country. And so if I can get people to understand that, it's like, listen, instead of being able to beat the drum and say we reduced our CO2 emissions, look at global CO2 emissions, only care only about global CO2 emissions and say, okay, given that, what are we going to do in this world? Okay, if we want to transition our, what does that look like it's going to be solar and nuclear. Talking to me about anything else is just stupid. So you start looking at that picture, making sure that you're strong, that you're as close to energy independent as you can be, that you're keeping energy costs down for your people. Okay, anyway, that's an example of deregulation. How people think, oh, by putting all this regulation, we were saving the planet. No you weren't, you were sending it off to China. So you empower China, you still polluted the Earth is as much as it was going to be polluted. You just didn't do that in your own country. And so I'm saying stop doing that. And so now as the US you can get jobs back here where they're not just like, well, I can't get away with some of these things so I'm just going to go to China. So you want to get in that position also incentivizing innovation, all that is going to be absolutely critical. The places where I want intervention is that we are in the place that we are. China will subsidize their industries. It creates a very unfair advantage where they can go in and artificially because it's a free market on your side, but it's not a free market on their side. So now you're in this weird position where you have to try to even the playing field so that it gets back to being something closer to an actual free market on a global scale. And by doing that, you also incentivize the building manufacturing here in your own country, which then has the bonus effect of workers will you have less ability to go build your car manufacturing plant in China or wherever. Now you're going to be incentivized to build it here in the US which puts more strength in the hands of the US worker. So yes. I've never once said that. I'm just like a let companies do whatever they want guy. So you have to be realistic about first of all, where we're at on the timeline and where we're at on the timeline is we do have to be protective against a country that we turned into an apex predator.

[Drew]

Yeah. And then people in the chat are asking about the CHIPS Act. What's your opinion on the CHIPS Act? And is that the type of legislation you would like to see that manufacturers internally.

[Tom Bilyeu]

When I heard about the CHiPs act it sounded great. I haven't looked super closely at it and so I don't know if in the details it still sucks, but the idea of putting in again, I don't know if they just were cutting a check, if they were pre buying something, if they were giving tax incentives. I don't know what the specifics are, but if the specifics were tax incentives to get them to come build in the US I love it. I don't care whether it was a Democrat or a Republican thing. Get chips manufactured here.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Are they actually manufacturing the chips? That's another thing. Like I personally, we have a once in a while it's more than a generation, but at a minimum if you've got a once in a generation entrepreneur who's building chips now in The US that's far more interesting to me than the government doing it. I hate that the Trump administration bought into Intel. Absolutely despise that. That's just for reasons I've talked about before, and I'm happy to go deeper, but that's a terrible idea. But, yes, Create the soil in which companies go, oh, I want to build chips, I want to do it in the US

[Drew]

Copy, copy. Where should we go next? I feel like we landed this plan.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. I mean, the only thing I would say is if there's any buddy in chat that is like, this is stupid, or if they have like, a keen argument and it's not just blanket name calling, I'm certainly open to that. But, yeah, otherwise, if you.

[Drew]

Yeah, let's say the CHIPS act was the last thing I've seen, but if anybody else sees anything, Ryan, let me know, Feel free. No, mainly the chip sack that I

[Tom Bilyeu]

send over was the thing I saw everyone bringing up.

[Drew]

Would you send over? I didn't even see that. Oh, yeah, I sent you the chips. Oh, chipset. Yeah, yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It was just. Was there, like, specific.

[Drew]

You were saying that there needs to be more legislation that pushes it. And some people were like, well, what about the chipset?

[Tom Bilyeu]

And it's like, yeah, if we're actually building chips and it's done in a way where the government isn't doing it from the top down, I love it.

[Drew]

It's very interesting, though, because we started this with the Iran war and we kind of weaved through and got here. Do you think that America now should. Let's even call it, ought to focus about our problems domestically instead of playing world cop? Or do you think that certain international security measures supersede the prosperity of the middle class?

[Tom Bilyeu]

I think the age of the US Being an international cop are effectively over. And I don't think that's what's happening in the Middle East. I think what's happening in the Middle east is the US Recognizing that the world order is changing. And I think people are surprised see us in the Middle east because we don't understand that it has become the home of capital. Remember, Trump understands where the investment dollars are coming from. And just as another psa, while all of the VC firms that you know the names of are in Silicon Valley, here in San Francisco, they are being funded. The number one funding location is coming from the gcc. I mean, this is basically an Abu Dhabi question. I forget how many of the largest, like, gatherings of capital are, but there it's something like 7 of 10 of them are in Abu Dhabi. So it's wild, it's massive. The. The Middle east has really become the home of capital. And so once you understand that, then it's like, oh, okay, Trump is in this quagmire where he's got to get investments to come back to the US so that he can get these factories going, so that he can get AI build out, so that we can dominate over China that is currently winning in certain areas. And by the way, out of Elon Musk's own mouth, this will be a paraphrase, was very close, that given current trends, China will outpace everybody in compute. So, as of right now, China is on the path. They're not currently doing more than the us, but the gating factor for AI is going to be energy, and China is winning that war by a lot. So you can think Trump is dumb all you want, but the reality is he understands that capital is coming out of the uae. He understands that they're going to be transitioning that oil money into something in the future. And right now, the us, the thing that we make our money on is the markets. And so if you can get that capital to flow into the US to build in the us, build our AI infrastructure, help us transition away from China, it really is brilliant. It really is brilliant. No matter who it's coming from. That is absolutely brilliant. It is the thing that you must do. It's hard for Americans to accept that we have to go hat in hand to the people that are wealthy around the world. And Elon has said he thinks that the sovereigns, meaning largely people in the Middle east, are the wealthiest people in the world, that it's not him, that they control far more wealth than he does, which I think is true. First of all, his is tied up in fictional money and theirs is tied up in actual cash because it's flowing out of the ground. So everybody wants to talk about the

[Drew]

paper oil price until you need to actually go buy a barrel oil.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That is correct.

[Drew]

Chili Willie said, our goal as a nation is to make people rich or become rich. That is what. That is what we believe life is all about. And if you don't, then someone else will. I'll combine that with Dr. Jameson 8 or. Yeah, Tom's idea that Trump in America is doing this for the middle class is stupid. No one in any power gives a fuck about the middle class. Do you understand? So both of those are the same things said in different ways to me is that I don't think America's core aim to. Your point is for middle class or to increase manufacturing, I think it's to acquire resources and to protect the resources that we have. And I think that's our one and two. And when I look at it through that Trump's. All of Trump's policies make a lot more sense to me. But looking at it through a middle class or making America great or helping the poor and the disenfranchised, none of these moves make sense unless you only look at it as a resource protection extraction play. In my opinion.

[Tom Bilyeu]

If I have ever said that Trump is fighting for the middle class, my apologies. What I think I've said is that the things Trump are, is doing are necessary to help the middle class. So make no mistake, any politician that refuses to balance the budget, Trump being chief among them, is not helping the middle class. Okay? That's devastating to the middle class. Nobody I have not seen, maybe Thomas Massie. I've not seen anyone bang this drum harder than me. But what I'm saying is very clear. There are physics. If you want to help the middle class, it's not an emotional support thing. It is a make sure that there are enough jobs here that the workers are in a position where there are more jobs than there are workers, meaning the jobs are seeking the workers, not the other way around. And that puts them in a good position. When you go, dear American worker, you're charging too much. I'm going to send this job somewhere else. Now, all of a sudden, they're in a weak position. Or if you let people flood the country because they're cheaper labor, then the American worker is in a bad position. Trump is doing. Whether you think he's doing it for them or not is irrelevant. He is by accident because he's evil. Whatever. He's doing something that is good for the middle class. Now, he hasn't balanced the budget. That's fucking evil. But the necessary things that you must do to help the middle class are stop letting cheap labor into the country and incentivize people to manufacture here so that there are plenty of jobs for American workers to work in. And if you put them in that position, they are in a stronger position to bid up their own salaries. And so I'm not sure where the confusion is. I'm not asking anyone to believe that Trump is in it for anybody other than him. What I'm saying is there are physics and so whether he's doing the right thing for the wrong reasons or the right reason is completely irrelevant. Doing the thing is what matters. And right now, I think we can all agree he's the only one that was stopping labor from flooding into the market and he's clearly trying to return manufacturing to the U.S. is anybody taking beef with that? Because if so, let's talk about it, because that would be retarded.

[Drew]

Manufacturing jobs have declined though, so we'll see. Hopefully we get through this economy. Or maybe we just need more AI robots to increase manufacturing.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I mean, that's a whole separate argument. It and if we want to get into the AI of it all, we certainly can. And what that looks like and that's a whole different kettle of fish. And it's going to be a very different conversation in terms of what are the knock on effects of that and how do we get to the other side of that. It's a fascinating conversation and we as a nation are going to have to have it. But what I'm trying to anchor everybody on is don't get stuck in your feels. Just start mapping out what needs to be true in order to empower the middle and working class. Once you map that out, then you go, okay, cool, how do we get there? And there are knowable paths to get there. And if you have a better one than what Trump is doing, then like, hey, let's talk about it. So I think that's important. The more that we can as our own little community, the more that we can get that national dialogue to happen, the better off we're going to be. But there, there, this is a deterministic universe. There are knowable steps that we can take that will move us closer to that or farther away from that. I've mapped out exactly why tariffs work. We can talk more about it. The need to get manufacturing back here. I've talked about it now when the rebuttal drew is that, yes, but it's not working. It's like, okay, but if the physics are the physics, then it's like the strategy that we have deployed has not yet yielded the results that we want. But is it still the actual necessary thing? Must we return jobs? And if the answer is no, we don't need to return jobs, then let's lay out what, what, how do we do it then? And if it is that we must return jobs, then instead of brushing it off and saying, well, this is just stupid, you go, okay, why, even though we're trying to return jobs, why so far have we moved in the opposite direction? Is this a timing thing and just they haven't broken ground, they haven't started building the places enough? Is this. No, there's some Other angle here, where we're destroying more jobs than we return. Is it an AI problem in robotics that, yes, we're building these factories, but a factory that used to require 20,000 people now requires 200? And so that's the fundamental problem. Now we can have the real conversation, but when we just stop at the thing that feels like, oh, this feels good, this feels right, or I'm mad or whatever, then we never get to the cause and effect. We have to exist in the cause and effect. Cool.

[Drew]

Let's talk about aliens. The Trump administration is set to release the first UFO files today. The Department of War put out a long article. I'll be honest, guys, I was going through this this morning. It's just a bunch of black and white dots right now. It's kind of like the JFK file releases, where it's a bunch of stuff, but none of this stuff is actually going to get you the answer that you're looking for.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Have you heard the take on this about you can graph out the. On one line, you've got the increase in photographic abilities, right? So your megapixels just go up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. And then the quality of UFO photos stays flat and it's like, well, that's fishy. So, yeah, I think this one to me is, man, do I want it to be true. But the reality is I have a growing sense that we live inside of a simulation. And because of that, there's no reason to build other civilizations, as that would be a lot of processing power. And so if you're going to have aliens, they're only going to essentially render when they interface with us. And so my gut is this is just them spinning up distraction stories. I mean, you guys were saying before we started rolling that if. If Iran doesn't distract enough from the Insert Epstein files or whatever it is you're trying to distract people from, then throw them some aliens. I think that's probably about right.

[Drew]

Yeah. This is a distraction from the redistricting because they're taking away all the black districts because being black is now racist according to the Supreme Court. But we're not gonna.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Hold on because I didn't know you felt that way. So are you saying that the districting by race you like, you think that that yields good outcomes?

[Drew]

Districting by race is a cop out because what actually means is districting by zip code. So we had this conversation before on the pod before. But catching everybody up, segregation is an amazing thing. Jim Crow was a wizard. So what you do is you separate people and then you just disenfranchise the people that are separated. So I can say, hey, you go over here, you go over here. Everybody has their own everything. But not the resources are going to this one place and not to the other place. Historically we have said that that's wrong. Every school should get the same amount of resources. Then they said, okay, we're not going to give you resources, we're going to tie the resources to the property values. That's the way that you can now control the value of property and the amount of resources that go into schools and things like that based from a government without saying it's based on race. So that was fine, but then now you say because of that separation that you have now caused, you're now saying that because they're separated and the majority of people over here are black and the majority of people over here are white, we can't call it a race anymore. It has to be something else. But we're taking away the voting power, the voting power of that historical district and now we're changing it up. So it's one of those things where I didn't say that it was good or bad. I said this is the situation in which we are in kind of like the manufacturing tariff conversation. If I had to start from ground one. No, of course not. We shouldn't do race based districting. But you can't Jim Crow me then redline me and then separate this over here and say, oh yeah, by the way, I can't just. You can't have voting block based on your race. But I can get denied loans based on my race. I get lower school resources based on the race. But when it comes to voting, that's when we all have to be every man for himself, enjoying arms. So that's the hypocrisy of it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But do you think the going to the. I can get a loan denied based on race if that happened, that's patently illegal.

[Drew]

They're literally stripping away protections in the housing market right now that says I could the whole like race gender protections as like the last application, the last page on your application. That arm that is responsible for doing that inside of Hub literally just got fired and like let go. So they're no longer now you, you, you can now say no and you don't have to explain why. Whereas before it's like I can say no if I can tie it to your credit score or I can say no and tie it to X to show that it's not based on gender, race, creed, like that. But the gender race, creed enforcement arm of HUD is now dismantled. So if that is happening, nobody would be able to enforce it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I, I'd have to look at this. But are they trying to. So your read on the situation is that what they're trying to do is get back to being able to discriminate.

[Drew]

Race protection, resource protection and resource extraction. That is the, that is the base assumption. So Republicans are trying to protect, preserve their resources. What is their resource power in the Congress? They know that Trump is going to get demolished in the midterms because he's making gas $5 and he's spending $72 billion on a war that everybody told him not to go to. But so instead of saying, hey, let's just lose because that was a bad policy and we should get punished for bad policy, instead we're going to redistrict. So in the next midterms, they're estimating 15 to 20 seats that the Democratic Party will lose based on Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee and all these other places. And even with California redistricting and Virginia redistricting, it's still net loss for the Democrats.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, so your, the base assumption that your belief is riding on is that there have been so many historical injustices that you're now much like with the Fed, where maybe the Fed was a bad idea to begin with, but we have the Fed now, so we have to deal with the Fed. So because of that, to bring it back to redistricting, you're saying all of those things have led to the fact where right now it is more just. I don't know what word will feel right, but it's better to allow districts to be drawn in weird ways that capture a race based vote as they are likely to vote together. Ish. I don't think you'd go all the way to monolithic. But they're likely to vote together. Ish. And since they will want to vote together. Ish. And have their voice be heard as a collective, that it's a good thing to draw the lines. However you need to draw them to make sure that the people are grouped by ethnicity.

[Drew]

But that's the thing. The crazy drawing of the lines happened 50 years ago.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, yeah. What I'm trying to get to is heard on the like this is a because there were past injustices question, because you said very clearly if I was doing this from scratch, we didn't have these years of problems that have. I think your base assumption is they've been put behind economically, educationally, for so long now, the only way for them to protect their interests are to be allowed to vote as a block.

[Drew]

It. No, because it. The there we're conflating two things. So the reason that there are black districts was because of the historical racial injustice. The reason now that they are.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, sorry, just so I make sure I understand. So they were sort of forced into areas they would otherwise be more evenly distributed geographically.

[Drew]

We're talking about black people. They. Yes.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay. So they never would have ended up in these sort of tight geographic regions were it not for things like redlining.

[Drew]

Yes.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay. Now because they've been geographically grouped, it's better. Even though the lines are a little weird. It's better to do the weird lining to sure that they can vote as a block.

[Drew]

It's not better or worse. The. Well, the way that the Supreme Court just ruled it was that you cannot maintain a district just because it was historically, it's a historical black district.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, understood. What I'm trying to figure out is you have a base assumption, but when I put forward the base assumption, you're saying I'm off.

[Drew]

No, my base assumption is that we shouldn't have weird redrawing lines. And you keep. You phrased the question as you are happy with the redrawn lines with one ethnic, ethnical body. I'm not happy with that. But that's where we are. So now removing that is removing a dissenting voice in politics. And I think that there shouldn't be one party states.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes. So I feel like I've acknowledged that. So I understand that you're saying I wouldn't have done the lines like this from the beginning. However, racial injustice has led us to this place. Now all I'm trying to figure out

[Drew]

is given that, am I okay with gerrymandering? Yes. No.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, so you are happy about the ruling.

[Drew]

I. The reason I'm not. I'm not happy about the ruling is because instead of Republicans saying, hey guys, let's redistrict the entire city, it's let's take away this district so it's no longer like.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's the method of changing gerrymandering that you don't like the meth.

[Drew]

It's gerrymandering, period. I don't like.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I don't think I'm going to be able to get there. I don't understand and am fully willing to accept this is a me problem. But rather than drag everybody through me trying to figure out where I'm going wrong, I'll leave it there.

[Drew]

Anything else on UFOs?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Nope, not for me.

[Drew]

Let's talk about AOC and her take on billionaires. This has gone everywhere. Let's hear it from her. There's a certain level of wealth and accumulation that is unearned, right? You can't earn a billion dollars. That's right. You just can't earn that. That's exactly correct. You can, you can get market power, you can break rules, you can do all sorts of things, you can abuse labor laws, you can pay people less than what they're worth, but you can't earn that. Right. And so what? You have to create a myth that since you didn't earn that, you have

[Tom Bilyeu]

to create a myth of earning it.

[Drew]

There's a certain level of wealth. You have to create a myth of earning it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. So welcome to aoc. Once again proving that she does not understand the economy in the slightest. I don't know who the cheering seal is sitting across from her, but she clearly also does not understand the economy. So this is the kind of thing that's absolutely maddening. So once again, there is a way to help the working class, the middle class, we should all be focused on that. It is the thing that creates the broadest level of stability. Whether you are a billionaire or not, you should care deeply, intrinsically for your own well being. You should care about the middle class and the working class for sure. And there are ways to solve this problem. What they're talking about is, it's just actually idiotic. It's, it, it isn't true. First of all, she doesn't understand how value is created because people don't understand the nature of where value comes from. They are left making statements like, you can't earn a billion dollars. Okay, first of all, the way that you earn a billion dollars is very straightforward. You create something of value where people say, I would rather have that product than my money. So the people are making a decision at the point of transaction as to whether that thing that you're selling is worth more to them.

[Drew]

Money.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay? Now of course that you can get into places where there's distortion. And if this is why we don't allow, like take grocery stores, if they could have a secret cabal and get together and all say that they're going to charge some exorbitant amount of money for something that you literally need to survive, then it's like, you know, you're basically a drug dealer at that point. So there are reasons that we get together as weak people and we tell, we create a government and we Say we want to be protected from the people that could otherwise bully or harass or harm us, and they're meant to break that up. So from that perspective of wanting to actually help people a thousand percent, we should want to do that. But if you make something that people really would rather have that thing than that amount of money, then you can earn a billion dollars. I have earned more than a billion dollars. I've generated. This is a better way to say it, I've generated more than a billion dollars in revenue.

[Drew]

Cool.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Now, by doing that, I created a billion dollars in value. I was able to sell the company, blah, blah, blah. So obviously, for me, this is all very straightforward. I was not breaking labor laws or anything like that. Now, you can look at and say people shouldn't take a job because that amount of money is not the right amount of money that I, for whatever reason on the outside, think that they should be willing to accept. But this is where markets come into play. When people have options and they can go somewhere else, then it's like, well, given my skill set, my interests, my passions, the amount that I want to work, et cetera, et cetera, this job makes sense for me, or it doesn't. And because anybody can work or not work as they see fit, then it's like it's a constant negotiation of what that person is worth to the company as a whole to be able to make the product at a profitable rate. So another important thing to understand about value creation is it is not like somebody like Elon Musk has whatever $700 billion sitting in the bank, he has created value out of thin air. Other people looking at the share that he owns, they say, I would rather have that share of your company than my money. Okay, Again, a completely voluntary transaction. And then we run a theoretical math equation and say, if you were willing to sell all of those shares to these people and they were willing to all buy them. Because saying that you'll be willing to buy it or the fact that one guy just bought it an hour ago for that amount of money does not mean that if you tried to sell them all at once, they would actually sell for that. In fact, they wouldn't. But nonetheless, we run this fictional calculation. We say, oh, that's what you would be worth if you were able to do all of this stuff. Okay? That's where those values come from that she's pushing back on, on now. I don't even think she understands the difference between money in your pocket and the fictional wealth of somebody's net worth. But even if she did, then I'm not sure what sort of mental gymnastics she has to go through in her mind to think that there's no way to create something of value for enough people that they would be willing to pay their hard earned money for that thing. So then she gets into wage theft, saying that if you are the person who created the invention, you're willing to take all that risk, you're willing to work, yada, yada yada, you, in a free market way, give people the option to either work or not work at that company. And then you're able to get a band of people together, keep them focused, pointed on the same thing, make enough right decisions over a long enough period of time that you're able to get the product to market, all that stuff. I don't get where she's saying that the math doesn't add up and that you somehow must be a thief. And then keep in mind, I think she's a multimillionaire. So this is wild. You've got somebody who through a free ish market has been able to make herself incredibly wealthy and yet at the same time is turning around and saying, but the people that have been even more successful at the same game that I have been obscenely successful at, somehow they have lied, cheated. And so I'm like k, did you lie and cheat? Just less so anyway, this is all absurd. It's absolutely ridiculous. We should all be very focused on making sure, sure that we fix the problem with the middle class. But that has to do with balancing the budget.

[Drew]

I have a thought experiment, please. Would you rather it's 100% binary? Would you rather on one side.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Drew]

Flat tax, 10%. Everybody pays 10% and gets out. Period. No ifs, ands or buts. That's on.

[Tom Bilyeu]

On revenue.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Or on their income.

[Drew]

Yes. On the money that comes to your account. No, no shady business you can't loan. Again, like everybody just 10% agreement. We're all on the same page.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, but it' on net worth is what I'm really getting.

[Drew]

Oh yeah. Not unrealized gains on any other basis. No, no. Just straight up honest 10%.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yep.

[Drew]

But wages are tied to productivity or that's. So that's one situation. No more taxes or lower taxes significantly.

[Tom Bilyeu]

When you say wages are tied to productivity, what do you mean exactly?

[Drew]

The when wages broke productivity in like the 70s, how they broke.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But you're just trying to do it generically at a high level that will never work.

[Drew]

Work that wages, if we tied rages to Output revenue or wages to percentage of revenue created. You don't think we could do wages in that way?

[Tom Bilyeu]

I don't think you can do anything where it's generic. I think you have to do everything tied to the person.

[Drew]

Okay.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Because for instance, it's like having a minimum wage at every level in the company. You're going to create insane distortions around, okay, I have to pay this much for that person, but that person isn't there yet. So the number of people that I have mentored in my career is very high. And the reason that you do that is it's, you're often overpaying for them in the beginning. But then over time it's like, okay, we get to a point where now you're trained up, you're worth the investment and then hopefully I get some return back on that because I've made you like really incredible. And then there will be a point at which you'll almost certainly leave, you'll go somewhere else and you'll take that knowledge. And I get that that's the name of the game. But it's like you take a risk on somebody that you think is really bright and then you train them up. Now if I couldn't do that because the cost of that person at the beginning isn't just a little off, it's a lot off. Now it's like, okay, this is not a good exchange.

[Drew]

But my, I guess my response is then that person wouldn't be higher. The reason that I'm trying to get

[Tom Bilyeu]

is because I, that's what I'm saying. But that's going to have knock on consequences that you're not thinking about.

[Drew]

No, because I think then the people that have jobs will be at positions that they should be positions. Because I think just like there's regulatory capture, I think that there's like employment capture.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But so I, I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. But moving on from that, rather than beat a dead horse, let me ask you are you don't think that an individual is capable of successfully negotiating their own salary?

[Drew]

I didn't say that. This is what the point that AOC is making because AOC's base assumption is that wage theft is a thing. And this is something that I'm starting to see like propagate as like a actual policies. People think that what should be paid is the same as taking payment. And on the flip side with like taxes, what should be paid is paid. So that's why I'm like, it's Kind of this dichotomy. So on one side you can have the. There could be billionaires, trillionaires, whatever, like that. There's no more wealth taxes. There's no more. We expect you to pay this, but everybody's paid at their quote, unquote, fair share. And we'll say fair share as the people that are getting paid is getting tied to the output of their production on the revenue. So if, for example, if that means McDonald's employees are getting paid $6 an hour and then middle managers are getting paid 200,000 hours, it is what it is. People be. The people who only have the skills to be McDonald's employees will be McDonald's employees. The people who have skills to get to that 200 will be. Get to that 200. Yeah, but then on the flip side, you don't get tax. Or we can have this disproportionate system now where people aren't getting paid the wages that they are supposed to get paid. And I'm saying tied to productivity.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Drew]

And then in the flip side of that, we're trying to come at you with taxes and all these other things to try to generate the revenue that should be. Then get to the large bucket of people to help the social programs. Specifically to the social programs. I know there's NGOs, and I know there's fraud and all these other things. I'm trying to isolate as many let's variables as possible.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Let us retrench back to a very finite idea. So should people be compensated based on what you're calling the productivity? What I'm saying is that has to be applied not even by job title, has to be applied by person. So now we get into the question of who should be making the decision of whether that person is productive. What I'm saying is you want the person closest to that person's actual output to say how they're contributing. The way that you do that is essentially the structure that we have now. So you have every individual is fighting to make the case that they're doing better, they contribute more meaningfully to the output of that role, that company, than the next person. And then you have a manager or a company owner that is assessing that and saying, do I have fear of loss with this person? Am I willing to pay them this additional amount that they're asking? Or would I rather lose them and have to replace them and they can go work somewhere else? The second you take that up to the government level, you are fucking your entire nation. You are damning them to Eternal misery, pain and suffering because you will make stupid decisions and people will not be able to run their company efficiently. You want entrepreneurs like an Elon Musk that come in and go, 80% of you at X don't make any fucking sense. You're all fired. And you don't want anyone else to be able to make that decision because first of all, they're not going to understand what he's going to be able to do from a technological standpoint. They don't understand that he's got ability to spin up data centers faster than the next person. And so somebody other than him, you really might have other people contributing more meaningfully, but with him, it's a very different calculation. And down and down through all the different employees. And so trying to put some sort of blanket statement where we look at a graph and we go, oh, but companies now are more productive and employees are capturing less than that. Well, guess what? I have a real clear answer for you. You have globalized your economy. And so now we have given a trick to everybody who's trying to optimize their business. And they say, I cannot get somebody to do this job for me here and there's no incentive for me to do anything other than go somewhere else. And so I'm going to go somewhere else and I'm going to find somebody in Bangladesh that's cheaper and they'll do the same thing. And I'm going to do that. Or in the case of farmers, I'm just going to bring in illegal workers here. Everybody's going to turn a blind eye and they're going to work for less money.

[Drew]

Money.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And so what I'm telling people is that thing that you think is a billionaire being an asshole, and that's why there's a break in, that is you are not creating fear of loss. So one, we have a culture where people are not trying to be the hardest core motherfuckers anymore. They very much stand in a defensive posture against the company that they're working with. And then on top of that, they're in just a weakened position because that company can and will go anywhere internationally and they will find somebody who will do the job up. If I could just get people to understand the amount that you get paid is in direct proportion to the difficulty of the problem you solve and how easy it is for your employer to find somebody else who can solve that equally difficult problem but for less money. And so if you want to solve this problem, it is not going to be some tyrannical top down Bullshit. Where Mao is telling everybody how much they can pay their employees, which is exactly what you were fucking pitching, and instead go, hey, how do we actually make sure that these people have some leverage? And the answer is, is stop globalizing your fucking economy.

[Drew]

Okay, somebody asked in the chat, how do you explain, like, how do you point out the disproportionate play gaps between CEOs and workers, like, how they, like, increase them over time?

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's very simple. If the employees have no leverage, then the boss is going to keep taking more for himself or handing it to the people that he thinks really drive the innovation and control of the company. Company. And by the way, this is going to exacerbate a thousandfold as white collar workers are now having to compete also with AI. And so it's like, yeah, you're a little bit better than the AI, but the AI is effectively free. And so now I'm going to discount your work. I'm even going to accept some problems in my company that come from the AI went a little rogue or whatever. And so getting people to understand the physics of the situation are you have to create fear of loss. You have to put your boss in a position where they're like, damn, I can't lose this person. And if you cannot create that fear of loss, you are in a weakened position and you will not be able to negotiate the salary that you want.

[Drew]

I think I got it. Ryan, you got anything over there? Not seeing anything you haven't already said? Cool.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Now I'm gonna take a second on this one because unfortunately I'm not able to speak and get a sentiment from the community at the same time. But I know that this take is going to be largely unpopular. And the great irony of that is I am trying to actually empower people to get what they want, meaning the working in the middle class. I make all kinds of content. If you want to get wealthy, you've got to start buying assets. Simple as, okay, your job is a different story. Your job, unless you're going to be the owner of the company, is not about you getting wealthy. It's about you having meaning and purpose, doing something that matters, contributing to something that you think is meaningful, earning a living, hopefully being able to sock away money that you can buy assets with. But in the current economy, if you do not own assets, you are being fiscally raped. Okay, Just. That's what it is. And so on that side, if you want to be in a good position, you need to be voting for people that are doing things that are Making sure that there are plenty of jobs here where you're not just letting cheap labor flood in. And the companies are incentivized to build locally. If they're incentivized to build locally, and it will be some amount of carrot and stick, then they will start building locally. And that's going to put you in a good position. So that's like, beat that drum. Beat that drum. The other drum, the drum that's being beaten right now is resentment. You're not all of you. So to whoever needs to hear this, you're letting the anger over you being in a bad situation focus your resentment on a thing that will not solve your problem. Okay, if you're focused on resentment, who the fuck is doing this to me?

[Drew]

Me.

[Tom Bilyeu]

If you're focusing there, you're going to empower politicians. Politicians are the problem. So if you are empowering politicians, your life will get worse. I understand in the short term it's going to feel better, but remember, politicians will deficit spend. They will give you, quote, unquote, free things and they will steal everything from you in order to do it. If I can just get people like, if and if you have pushback and you think that that's the wrong set of cause and effects, please let's debate that. Because the reality is by deficit spending, they are. And yes, this is an oversimplification because they do it to you in many, many more ways, but it is. This is the mechanism by which you're getting fucked. They deficit spend and do other things that cause money printing. And they put you in a position where you cannot get ahead because you don't own assets. And so no matter how much money you make, no matter how much money you save, if they are spending more than they make as a government, they're going to have to tax you. They won't be able to get it all from billionaires. Remember, even if they took 100%, even of the fictional, fictional net worth, it only buys them a handful of years. Okay? The, the billionaires is not where the money is trapped. Where the money is trapped is in everybody else. And so they will just keep lowering and lowering and lowering the barrier for the people that they're going to tax. This is exactly why it's written into the California, the bill that they're trying to get passed, that they can do exactly that without having to go back to the people. So to solve your problem, the goal is to find out what's the cause and effect of the thing that gives the average worker the ability to make More money over time. And the answer to that is skill set. Right? So you can create fear of loss and then making sure that the pool of people that are able to compete against you for that job is smaller. That's just it. And if you're put in that position and you're awesome and you're creating fear of loss with the person that's making this decision, and it's a seller's market, right? Your. Your labor is incredibly valuable because there are these incentives to make sure that they're building in your country, and that's it. And if we stay focused on that, disempower politicians put ourselves in a much stronger place where they're not pilfering all of our money, you'll be in a good place. Once you can save your way to prosperity, you're good. If you can't save your way to prosperity, you're fucked. And right now, you cannot.

[Drew]

Have we ever been able to save our way to prosperity?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Of course.

[Drew]

In 1912.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes. Now, listen, to be honest, up until 2000, you were in pretty good shape. There were a few times. World War II was pretty rough, Obviously the Great Depression. But, man, for the most part, we just weren't doing the debt thing like we're doing now. So. Yeah, look at the interest paid on the debt. Look at money printing. The M2 money supply. It is like, starting in 2000, it's just almost a vertical wall. It's crazy, man.

[Drew]

All right, let's go to Dr. Drew, who's absolutely losing it over this hantavirus thing. I think it's much to do about nothing, but let's. Let's let Dr. Drew talk.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm worried, really worried. You know, we have a hantavirus outbreak in a. In a. In a cruise ship, and everybody's wanting to do it all over again. It's. Are you friend? Not good. It's not.

[Drew]

The virus.

[Tom Bilyeu]

A respiratory virus. Stop it.

[Drew]

It.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Stop it now. Stop. The news agencies need to stop. Everybody needs to stop. Hansavirus been around a long time. It's nasty. Yeah, so is tb. So is a lot of other things. So is rickettsia. Let's deal with the rats. Problem downtown of Los Angeles. We have murine typhus and bubon and pneumonic plague breaking up, breaking out. Deal with that. But I die cross. The fact is that there are structural and philosophical excesses in public health that need to be kind of addressed. And is anyone at public health thinking about this?

[Drew]

I don't think they are. I mean, I think one of the most healthy, useful outcomes of the COVID era was the absolute loss of credibility of the public health religious cult. And also right back in.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I think we all go into public

[Drew]

health just like when people go into medicine.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You just have to scare people.

[Drew]

So you think this is a scare away from now? It will be a big deal or.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes. If they start. If people start dropping like flies and they say, listen guys, we understand Covid ended up having a much lower fatality rate, but hantavirus has a 26% fatality rate. Covid had a whatever 1%. It's 26 times worse. And so now we just. We gotta take it seriously. And they'll talk in very grave tones. And there are still people wearing masks from COVID bro. Yeah, so this will.

[Drew]

But I mean like Asian countries wore a mask all the time. So the mass culture is globally it's looked at differently than how it is now.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes. That's interesting. So you're telling me that you don't think that there are people that wear a mask as I'll call it a political statement?

[Drew]

I mean, maybe. I don't know. I don't.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Wow. Okay, so we might.

[Drew]

So it's like I'm only wearing a mask to show everybody that I'm anti. What. Like what. What is the political statement that I'm saying with the mask?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes. So I think that there are people that wear masks specifically to indicate I'm a good boy or girl, I do what is right for everybody and I'm not a selfish prick. And the people that refuse to get the jab, the people that refus to wear a mask, they're putting everyone else in danger. And they're a mega Republican and they're. They're deadly. They are a real problem. And while I don't think that we would fall into the psychosis that we fell into during COVID if for no other reason than there's at least X where people can continue to say what they think is true. Yes. I think that people will trade almost anything for safety.

[Drew]

Okay, that's interesting. I don't have that experience. I think there is a. We have to be honest though. I think there is. You know how there's Trump derangement system tds. I do think there's a cds. There's a Covid derangement syndrome where since COVID there's certain things in individual communities minds that broke. And ever since then it's never again. You'll never get me. So I mean there. I have seen it on the right where it's like, I will never get another vaccine ever, because they're all trying to kill me.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Me.

[Drew]

So then I can only assume on the left there's somebody that's gonna wear a mask everywhere and say all you guys are. Was it carriers of COVID 76 whenever the new Covid is. So. Okay. It's interesting, though, I didn't know that that was still like, front of mind. Like, I see people in the airports and stuff wearing masks, but to me, that's like, all right, you're not trying to get sick. And I've seen Asian countries do that outside of COVID So that's why it wasn't like a.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But there may be people in the airport that are wearing a mask because they don't want to get sick and. Or they have a cold and they're just trying to be cool about it. It. I'm not saying everyone wearing a mask is that. I'm saying we are. The only thing standing between us and being right back in Covid is fear. That's the sum total of my statement. So I think that there are people that if you scare them enough, they will be willing to snap in line. And when they snap in line, all the people that use it as a way to lord over other people, to use it as a cudgel, to get more control, they will grab that cudgel and they will start beating people just like they did the first time. Time. I don't think anything has changed in the way that the human mind works. And so the thing I hope people take away from what happened in Covid is that when people are scared, they will conform. When people are in a position to conform, the people that want more power will take more power. And you must be eternally vigilant for that reality of the human mind.

[Drew]

Got you. Got you. All right, let's jump over to Ozempic. Another Ozempic story back to back. Heck, we talked about last time that it was breaking addictions and it was changing, like, people's behavior patterns. Another revelation. It is making people fall out of love, and now relationships are collapsing. This is a doctor who had a video talking about this very thing. Thousands of people on GLP1 weight loss medications like Ozempic and Wegovy are reporting something that their doctors never mentioned as a side effect. Their relationships are totally changing and not in the ways that that were expected. Three things. Number one, several users report losing interest in activities, foods, and even people they previously found deeply pleasurable. The drugs quiet the brain's reward system. Broadly not just around food. Number two. Therapists are reporting an uptick in couples where one partner on a weight loss drug has become emotionally flatter, much less engaged, and in some cases, less romantically interested. The partner, often on the medication, not on the medication, often describes feeling like they're living with someone totally different. Number three. Researchers studying GLP1 receptors in the brain found they are present in areas governing emotional attachment, motivation, and bonding, not just appetite. The drug may literally be changing the number on the scale and also the person attached to it at the same time. Of course, talk to your doctor before assuming this flatness. Is depression the case, the cause? Maybe biochemical and specific.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, this. This one is crazy. The biology of what is happening with GLP1s is wild, and it goes way beyond weight loss in some absolutely terrifying ways. Family law attorneys now actually have a name for what they're starting to see. They're calling it the Ozempic divorce. There was a Swedish study published this year that tracked roughly 12,500 rapid weight loss patients. Their divorce rates are almost double the national average. University of Virginia neuroscientists just published the mechanism that is likely at work here. They published in Nature, very prestigious journal, GLP1. Drugs don't just shrink your appetite. They rewire the brain's entire reward system. And that, by the way, is the same system that makes another human being feel like a prize, like something that you want. Want. The drug dampens dopamine in, like, these really specific areas of the brain. And the affected, affected circuits are the same ones that fire when you crave a cheeseburger. So it's understandable you want to dial that one down if you're obese. But the same circuits that make you crave a cheeseburger make you crave your romantic partner. So if you turn off the desire for the burger, you also kill off your desire for your partner. That gets a big all caps. Yikes. The Kinsey Institute studied 2,000 people this year. Between 50 and 60% of GLP1 users said their sex and dating lives had changed. Some felt more confident, ironically. Others reported lower libido, less obsession, and less overall emotional pull. And I'll be very interested to see if the people that felt more confident felt more confident because they were less interested. The very thing that I tell people is if you want to be successful in romance, you've got to have a willingness to walk away. And if you don't care, you've got a real willingness to walk away. Given the pill, microplastics are already Declining birth rates. Young people having less sex, which is wild porn, offering other low lift sexual outlets for men. The rising tension between the sexes, making all of the risk, fear and sacrifices just less appealing. And suddenly we really do have a cocktail that is designed to further decrease societal stability and increase the rate of which our population declines. This one is crazy. We've got to be careful. And I will beat this drum to death. We are having a biological experience whether we like it or not. We are meat based machines that run on chemistry. If you start messing with the chemistry set, you risk deregulating the system in ways we cannot predict. Neurochemistry is everything. We count on it to make relationships feel worth all the sacrifice, which by the way, they are sacrifice. And if it's not worth, people will just eject out. We're wired to connect. Societies require high degrees of trust to be stable. We are all better off cooperating with a romantic partner. I think people just, they ultimately make better decisions. They become a better version of themselves. Assuming of course a relationship is healthy because of all of that. We need to be careful with this one. Sophisticated drugs are great. I love them as much as anybody else. I'm glad that we have them. But we also have to be honest about the risks. Both the obvious risks and the downstream invisible ones that we're starting to see here. This is why I always say be slow to take exogenous substances. That's a fancy way of saying be slow to take anything from outside the body. Right. Since I got skin cancer, I've been super obviously hesitant to be out in the sun, but I know I need vitamin 3, so it's like I've got a supplement, but I'm always like a little.

[Drew]

Oh.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Isolating compounds makes me nervous. I would rather do things the good old fashioned natural way. So. So as a reminder to everybody, I get it, and if you're in a dire medical condition and you're just not able to get yourself in the mental place to regulate your diet normally, then using a GLP1 inhibitor could work. If you have a drug addiction or a gambling addiction, I think that we're gonna start seeing some pretty incredible results come out of this. But we have to be aware that it's impacting you at the level of chemistry, which is tightly regulated already, which is working on levels in your life that you may not even be aware of of. So be very, very careful with this stuff.

[Drew]

There's one thing you're missing.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Please.

[Drew]

I just lost 30 pounds and I'm hot now. And you were My fat husband. Now I need a single husband, a skinny husband. And I think that's what we're really talking about. People are increasingly going from fours to sevens and threes to eights. And now it's like I could do better than this. I could do better than all of this. And then it goes start at onlyfans and make a bunch of money.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Well so a. You're probably right that there is some of that. But the hilarious thing is is that that's also a confession that being overweight makes you less attractive and that when you are in shape and your partner is not, that makes them less attractive to you, which makes you more likely to bounce, which is a pretty big nuke dropped on the Body Positive movement.

[Drew]

Oh yeah, that's dead already. Body Positive movie is dead. Everybody knows that Lizzo's on like it's a rap. Like what are we doing?

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's hilarious. She's caught a lot of backlash for going on a Zimpic.

[Drew]

Her Amy Schumer. Who else was like Adele caught some flag.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I don't that she was Ozempic but she was early.

[Drew]

They lost some weight. Like that's what I mean. Like the whole I'm big because I have to be is you don't have to be big anymore. So now I don't have to defend it. So now I don't. It's not a thing anymore.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's so wild.

[Drew]

Yeah, very, very, very short lived. But this is interesting though because I'm even going back to the pill thing because that's what really blew my mind about this conversation because I didn't know the studies that we talked about this months ago. If you're on the pill, it literally changes who you're attracted to and things like that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Drew]

Is the juice worth the squeeze? Like the stuff that we're actually metabolically changing in our bodies. I feel like they definitely have some consequences because if I can. If it changes who you're attracted to, I can only imagine it changes moods, emotions or like all the other things. And who knows what you do from those manipulations on that side. So what is that balance between this is going to make me healthy? I don't even know if that's the right word. But this is going to make me get an outcome that I think I want to want versus now. This is manipulating my biochemistry and it might have long term effects.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, I think the having the drugs is an incredible win. It's such a breakthrough. It's great for humanity. The problem is we need to Be skeptical. We need to be paranoid at all times. We need to be thinking, how quickly can I stop using this? We need to be very hesitant to take a drug for any extended period of time. But being able to, you know, you snap your femur and to know that you can use oxy to help you get through, you know, that initial period to pain is great, but when doctors like, no, it's not addictive at all, like, that's a very different message than, listen, I'm going to give you whatever, 12 of these pills, that's it, you are going to get addicted if you're not careful. And everybody having that understanding of the knock on effects, why we need to be paranoid, why we want to get off this stuff as quickly as we can. That I think is incredibly helpful. And so same with plastics. It's like, I am very glad that plastics were invented. It's made a lot of things in our modern life possible. But I'm also glad I know not to hold receipts anymore because of the amount of BPA that that puts into your body. So it's like you want to make sure that people have access to these things. But to understand everything is a trade off, especially when it comes to health. And you've got to be very, very thoughtful. And it's not an accident that people are getting overweight. It's not an accident that people are dying of cancer. It's like these things have knock on effects and we need to want to map them. I don't want a nanny state. I don't want something where it's like nobody's allowed to think for themselves or have access to this stuff. I think it is insane that someone can be dying and they can still deny you the ability to try some crazy experimental treatment. It's like if, if I want to try dry humping a nest of killer bees, like I should be able to do it. Like if it kills me, it kills me. But it's like I'm already on my way. So anyway, that, that's my personal bent. I absolutely despise the nanny state. But yeah, I think right now we need to be making sure that people understand just, just at a general level, these things will have consequences and we won't know what they all are for a very long time. So be careful.

[Drew]

Yeah, gotta watch out for those. All right, we got some new robots that just dropped at this point the dexterity. And a lot of these robotics are increasingly getting better and better. It's funny because when you see them, it's kind of like the most simple, basic task. I don't know if you guys are looking at your phone right now. It's a robot, wireless, like electric taping, two wires together. And it doesn't look as impressive, but just knowing that a couple months ago they were just claws and not actually individual fingers, it's just showing the rate of change in the progress that's happening.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, that's well said. It. Understanding that right now it's still moving slowly and all of that. Yep, absolutely. But when you stretch out the rate of pace even five or ten years, this stuff starts to get pretty extraordinary. So those hands, which are already able to do basically electric tape wiring, they have robots that can perform surgery like on grapes. They can cut the skin of a grape and sew it back on. So, I mean, they're really developing a high level of dexterity. That's what it is today. Think about it, in 10 years. So that's where I'm always like, when people poo poo this stuff, that's you having anxiety and giving yourself an out of saying, oh, come on. Like, this is still awkward. Yeah, but it's not going to be for long. So this is, this is a radical level of change that we are not ready for. We are not ready for this.

[Drew]

I think one thing that was interesting, we talked about this a couple months ago, is that when we think of robots, we always think of like humanoid robots. We don't think of all the different iterations that are going to come between that. So if you look at factory line workers or how they assemble cars and, you know, just those arms that get in, like attached, that's technically a robot. So with this added dexterity, we might not see humanoid robots, but we'll definitely see, you know, maybe it's like a rolling blob with arms that can then change all the potholes or something like that. And we'll start to see like these smaller iterations rather than just everybody's a human and it's a robot and that's what we're doing. Like, there's some other form factors.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's a great point, man. It is a great point. Robots will come in all shapes and sizes, and there are, I'm sure, many, many things that we humans do where we're not actually the right design for that thing, whatever that thing is. And so the fact that they'll be able to build these robots that are designed specifically for that one task is, yeah, I think it's going to make a big difference. And that's where, man, Whenever we're talking about the economy and I'm like, okay, we need to empower jobs by, you know, you're doing things here in the US or whatever your country is. I do. I am haunted by robots, AI. Cause I'm just like, God, they're gonna enter the labor force in, in a way where imagine right now the vast majority of people that will apply for any job are dumber than you. That is good. That feels nice. Not for long because you're gonna be going up against an AI which is smarter than all of us. So that's where this starts to get like, oh, but. And then I've been thinking a lot about. Because everybody stops their thinking at, well, we'll just do UBI or we'll have universal high income. You won't. We already have universal high income. People just don't realize it. People don't realize that today a poor person has access like more technology and comforts than a king would have had 300 years ago. So it's crazy that people think, oh, all of the pain and suffering that humans go through is just going to be alleviated as soon as we, we have universal high income. We are designed to compare ourselves to other humans. And so if the government is giving out checks, then we're just going to do things to try to win the checks of other people. And so even though you'll have another check that comes in next month, there's going to be somebody that's very good at collecting a lot of people's checks every month. That's the world we already live in. So it's like it's just going to be the same thing. So you're going to get all the same stuff that you have to deal with with. It'll be wild.

[Drew]

I think we're kind of seeing this happen now. Kit Moon said in the chat that they were call center workers.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Kit Moon. We haven't heard from Kit Moon in a while.

[Drew]

Yeah, they were in the chat, Moon, they were a call center worker and then they got let go because it got outsourced to the Philippines. And now I think all call centers at this point are now all robotic automated agentic AI.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's gotta be a lot where.

[Drew]

Yeah, it's like a large percentage, at

[Tom Bilyeu]

least the sort of initial.

[Drew]

Yeah, yeah. So we're already seeing kind of matchmaking, the maturity of certain markets versus others already happening. The angle is going to be 75% robotic AI software, non human in all of these labor forces. What is that going to do? We were talking about globalization earlier. Like, globalization is the reason why wages are stagnant and things like that. Yeah, AI would probably have that same effect times two, times three, because now I don't even have to cross the street. I don't. There's not a time difference. There's not a. The language barrier. Now it's like, all right, all I got to do is buy this thing from SpaceX and then now I'm good for the next four years and I don't have to hire anybody.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So, yeah, I think the honest answer is mouse utopia. I wish that weren't true. I think a big part of the. Oh, God. So let me walk through all the phases because some of them are going to be awesome. Okay, so you're in a phase right now where it's wonderful you can leverage AI. It's not better than you, but it empowers you, allows you to do more. It's exactly what I teach in Impact Theory University. You right now is the greatest time ever to start a business. So leveraging AI to do something great now is rad. Then we're going to go into a phase where it's going to start creating a lot of disruption. We're going to have pockets of violence. And it will create the disruption by acting very similarly to globalizing the economy. So you're going to have a lot of people, quote, unquote, people being AI, in this case entering the workforce. And so now companies will have fewer employees, but they'll be more productive. Then you're going to enter a phase where there's so much unrest based on that that you start redistributing wealth. And as you're. What. What's really happening is the government is just going to print a ton of money and it to some extent will be fine because the productivity increases that will be coming off of AI and robotics will be so extreme that you can print without inflation. So remember, inflation is the ratio between the goods and services that are coming out, the increase in goods and services that are coming out, and the availability of the money supply. So if those stay roughly the same, even though you're printing money like crazy, you actually don't feel it in the rise of price because it's how much of these two competing for things. If you have fewer goods and services and there's more money competing for it, then prices skyrocket and the inverse. Right, so, so, so the productivity boost that we'll get from AI, this is literally what Kevin Warsh is betting on. The increase in that can be matched with a massive amount of printing. And as long as they match evenly, you're in very good shape. As that happens, though, what we're going to find is that humans compete with each other and we're going to go back to the same kind of race that we're having now. And people will create things, they'll create scarcity. And so there's still going to be geographic scarcity because not every place is as desirable as others. And so you're gonna have to have some mechanism. It will be money again. And so we'll use that money, the people that are able to aggregate more of that distributed wealth, those people will be able to go to the nicer areas. And you're gonna find yourself ending up back in a very similar situation. And this is why people say, like man, even if you reset everybody to zero and just said, okay, go, you're still gonna end up with a wealthy class. It's just how it works. Because some people are better at that than others. Now, on a long enough timeline, if AI becomes better than us at everything and AI has its own agenda, then all bets are off and you get into some very weird territory.

[Drew]

Truth. Devin had a good point in the chat. He said that there's no way to remove globalism and capitalism. Now. This is economic second year class. I did. Due to comparative advantage and absolute advantage, there's no reason for companies to stay local.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes, there is. They don't want to be shot in the back by Luigi Mangioni.

[Drew]

But that didn't. The United Helps didn't make one different change in their policies. Like they're not. I don't think that's actually going to be incentivizing factor for companies.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, of course it is.

[Drew]

No, are you like, that's the, that seriously, what's the phrase?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Dead ass.

[Drew]

I'm like, you know that, that meme with the little, the scary raccoon looking thing that does like this, this is where I'm at right now is like, like, so you. We just have to kill more enough CEOs that people come to locally. That's the solution.

[Tom Bilyeu]

No, that would be a terrible solution.

[Drew]

That's the way to stop globalization. Then that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So the French Revolution and every revolution that has happened because you hollow out the middle class so hard that people go, yeah, I'd rather kill somebody. This is what happens and what they end up doing. I mean, look at France. So France had the French Revolution killed millions of people far outside of the actual initial revolt. Keep in mind, revolts lead to tyranny they do not lead to equality, but they nonetheless happen. And so anybody paying attention, this is the Gilded Age, anybody paying attention goes, we have to avoid that. And so you start doing things that are in the public interest. Now if, if America really is just hell bent on imploding and I become a lone voice, then what will end up happening is either the wealthy will go full cyberpunk and they will build here in the US citadels that can't be breached. I actually pitched a comic to webtoon about this called Immunity. It was the only one they didn't pick up. I still think it's a great idea. But the, the ultra wealthy end up building these citadels and you get cyberpunk or they leave and they go somewhere that's capital friendly. Like right now. If, if it weren't for the recent bombings, it would be in the uae. So then the last case scenario is everybody just gets Cuba'd and so everybody gets neutralized. The government's so corrupt, there's no way for the wealthy to, to regain traction. And then it's boats and they still leave and they go to the place that's more capital friendly. But there this experiment has been run over and over and over and over and over and over. So you don't have to guess at what's going to happen. Like this one is really just. I don't know which flavor you're going to have. But I'll look back at thousands of years of history. I can tell you exactly how it ends up in one of a very few ways. Because that's just how humans are. That's the nature of the economy. And so the only confounding factor is AI because AI could throw a curveball. Whether that's the they enslave us curveball, whether that is the they slow down the mechanism well enough, whether that is the they are so good at parsing the data that they find that one person who's likely to break violent, they go do something, they either bukelium, put them in prison or whatever, you know, so look there. That new technology could be a confounding variable, but maybe AI just never quite gets to the level that we think it's going to get. And it just is like a tool, like it is now. And then you're back to one of the old ways this plays out, but in no uncertain terms. And I'll look right into the camera when I say this. Dear America, you must find a way to stabilize the middle class and the working class or there will be a rebellion. What's the word I'm looking for? What are those things called? A revolution. There'll be a revolution. With that, we got a wrap. Thank you guys very much. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will see you on Monday. Peace. Let's talk about a pattern that is guaranteed to be killing your progress. You know what you need to do? You need consistent nutrition. We all do. You need vitamins, probiotics, greens. We all know that we should be doing more of it. When your morning gets chaotic, you skip it. When you travel, you skip it. When your routine breaks, everything tends to break and that inconsistency compounds against you every single day. Day AG1 is designed to solve the execution problem. One scoop 8 ounces of water and you're done. You're getting 75 plus ingredients, vitamins and minerals, pre and probiotics, nutrient dense superfoods, everything that used to require six, seven different supplements and perfect planning now happens in one drink that takes about 30 seconds to make. Right now, AG1 is giving you $87 worth of free gifts with your first subscription description. You get a welcome kit, Travel packs, vitamin D3 plus K2 and flavor samples. Click the link in the show notes or visit drinkag1.comimpact to claim this offer.