"Trump Bombing Iran Just Increased Nuclear War Threat" The Terrifying Reality Andrew Bustamante Pt 2 | Impact Theory W Tom Bilyeu

Summary

Impact Theory Podcast: "Trump Bombing Iran Just Increased Nuclear War Threat" — The Terrifying Reality Andrew Bustamante (Pt. 2)

Date: March 4, 2026
Host: Tom Bilyeu
Guest: Andrew Bustamante (Ex-CIA, EverydaySpy.com)

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Episode Overview

This episode delves deep into the geopolitical, economic, and informational reality behind the recent U.S.-sanctioned bombing of Iran under President Trump. Host Tom Bilyeu and intelligence expert Andrew Bustamante dissect the complex motivations at play, the fog of war in the age of AI-driven disinformation, the critical role of China, and the fundamental forces driving state behavior. The episode pulls back the curtain on propaganda, information warfare, and the economic underpinnings of international policy, challenging listeners to recognize uncomfortable truths about power, history, and human nature.

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Main Themes & Key Insights

• Unpacking the Iran Situation: The episode breaks down how little outsiders actually know about Iranian public sentiment, the unpredictability of conflict, and the dangerous lack of experienced military advisors surrounding the President ([01:22]–[03:24]).
• The Real Intelligence Game: Israel and the U.S. leverage complementary strengths (human networks vs. technical superiority) to monitor Iran, but covert actions are both more mundane and more complex than most believe ([03:43]–[08:23]).
• Shadow Wars and Great Power Rivalry: The Iran and Venezuela crises are framed as fronts in a secret U.S.–China conflict, with oil (and thus China's interests) emerging as the real prize ([10:57]–[20:23]).
• The Economics of War: Economic imperatives—deficit spending, inflation, securing oil, influencing global markets—are identified as the true drivers behind military gambits, far more than ideological or security rationales ([20:23]–[27:50]).
• Propaganda and Disinformation: The conversation scrutinizes how repeated claims become public "truth," and how modern tech amplifies the challenge of separating fact from fiction ([29:08]–[31:49]).
• Institutional Distrust and Societal Reckoning: Both speakers agree that the rot of institutional corruption and incompetence is now visible to the public, creating mass cognitive dissonance and a crisis of narrative ([35:12]–[39:27]).
• Human Nature and History: The panel explores the historical cycle of empire, exploitation, and resource acquisition, arguing that nations act much as individuals do: in pursuit of self-interest ([39:27]–[44:17]).
• Capitalism, Democracy, and Collapse: From Europe's "bloated" bureaucracy to the U.S.'s relentless efficiency, the hosts debate paths to economic sustainability and the inevitability of cycles of debt and populism ([54:26]–[60:31]).
• Uncertain Futures: They conclude by acknowledging that, in the fog of war (and economics), the only certainty is uncertainty—but analysis and directness help cut through the noise.

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Detailed Discussion Breakdown

The Fog of War and Division in Iran

[00:32]–[03:24]

• Tom questions the media’s portrayal of division within Iran, paralleling perceptions of division in the U.S.
• Andrew highlights that unless you speak Farsi and have deep, inside knowledge, real public sentiment is unknowable:

  "Nobody who speaks English and not Farsi has any idea." ([01:22], Andrew)

• He warns that public reactions can shift quickly as hardships set in or as violence affects civilians, reinforcing how unpredictable and volatile such moments are.
• Critique of current decision-making in the White House: The lack of advisors with military and combat experience may be leading to rash, poorly considered actions.

Intelligence Operations and Myths vs. Realities

[03:24]–[08:23]

• Tom probes what clandestine activity looked like before the attack.
• Andrew details Israel’s extensive human intelligence operations in Iran, but emphasizes that technological surveillance remains a U.S. strength.

  "Israel has the most expansive network of human sources in all of Iran. ... Their capability can't compete with the United States's capability." ([03:43], Andrew)

• Dispels myths around fantastical espionage stories (like dentists implanting trackers in teeth):

  "I would call bullshit on that... Could it happen? Anything is possible. But is it plausible? Not so." ([07:06], Andrew)

• Reveals how mundane means (covert trackers in machinery, infrastructure) often provide the most reliable intelligence, showcasing the blend of complexity and banality in spycraft.

Oil, Economics, and the New Cold War

[10:57]–[20:23]

• Tom outlines his theory: Iran and Venezuela are proxy battles in a brewing U.S.–China standoff, with oil resources at the center. Disrupting oil headed to China damages their growth, pressures their economy, and serves U.S. strategic aims.
• Suggests Trump's military moves are timed to pre-midterm political concerns and the need for economic growth, describing his approach as high-risk, bigger-picture economic engineering:

  "At least I will give Trump that. He has a strategy. ... He's going to grow more than he plans to steal." ([12:12], Tom)

• Andrew largely agrees, noting China and Iran's mutual opportunism, and predicting that China will seek to fill any power vacuum left by conflict.

Economics as the Fundamental Driver of State Behavior

[20:23]–[27:50]

• Tom insists most modern "cultural" and "security" problems boil down to economics:

  "If you really think about what modern society is, it is entirely the answer to the question, how do I protect the resources that I've garnered?" ([20:23], Tom)

• Both agree that the attacks' target selection reflects economic rather than pure security concerns (e.g., targeting navy warships to secure shipping lanes, not just nuclear sites).

Propaganda, Disinformation, and the AI Era

[29:08]–[31:49]

• Andrew breaks down the difference between misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda:

  "Propaganda is a little bit different than what we're talking about here, which is really... disinformation. It's intentionally falsified information." ([30:18], Andrew)

• Highlights the institutional "memory" of earlier wars (e.g., repeated justification of action via WMD claims, which often go unsubstantiated).
• The challenge of real-time fact checking in an AI-driven, social media-saturated world:

  "We have to like check every time we see a video. Okay, is this real? Is this AI generated?" ([24:10], Tom)

Trust, Institutions, and the Mass Realization of Corruption

[35:12]–[39:27]

• Andrew posits that Americans are confronting the illusion of incorruptible institutions.

  "We've always believed that institutions are above [corruption] somehow. And what we're seeing now... is demonstrable proof that institutions aren't above that." ([35:12], Andrew)

• This realization breeds cognitive dissonance, disengagement, or radicalization.

The Human Story and Cyclical Nature of Power

[39:27]–[44:17]

• Tom "speedruns" American history to drive home the point that all nations rise through exploitation, self-interest, and force; this, he believes, is the "ground truth" of geopolitics.

  "America first, as far as I can tell, is if it's good for America, we're going to do it. Not that we're only going to think between our shores... as long as we believe that it’s going to be good for Americans." ([41:41], Tom)

• Andrew agrees with the cyclical, realist view but argues that history also features social change and progress, even if slow and inconsistent.

The Collapse of Capitalism and Paths Forward

[48:00]–[60:31]

• Tom and Andrew debate the inevitability of problems arising from deficit spending, the role of central banks, and how populism is a predictable reaction to economic injustice:

  "We are automata that responds to stimulus in very predictable ways. And when you take us en masse, this is why history loops..." ([48:00], Tom)

• Both agree the only way out is to address systemic economic imbalances, though neither is optimistic about politicians making the necessary sacrifices.
• Discussion of Europe's model highlights tradeoffs: bloated bureaucracies in exchange for (theoretical) stability and less individual drive.

Closing Thoughts and Uncertain Futures

[60:31]–[61:00]

• Tom reiterates the central theme: in a landscape clouded by misinformation, propaganda, and structural flaws, only rigorous, clear-eyed analysis provides hope for navigating what comes next.

  "As we said at the very beginning, fog of war. It is unknown exactly how this is going to play out, but, man, your analysis is super, super helpful." ([60:31], Tom)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Judging Iranian Sentiment:

  "Nobody who speaks English and not Farsi has any idea."
  — Andrew Bustamante ([01:22])

• On Mythic Spycraft:

  "I would call bullshit on that ... it's easier than putting tracking items into fillings in teeth..."
  — Andrew Bustamante ([07:06])

• On Institutional Corruption:

  "...demonstrable proof that institutions aren't above [corruption]. ... And how do you process that? It's a perfect example of cognitive dissonance."
  — Andrew Bustamante ([35:12])

• On Economic Drivers:

  "Everything is economics."
  — Tom Bilyeu ([48:00])

• On Statecraft and Realpolitik:

  "America first, as far as I can tell, is if it's good for America, we're going to do it."
  — Tom Bilyeu ([41:41])

• On Democracy and Capitalism:

  "We are a capitalist country that follows democratic rule as long as it doesn't compromise our capitalist goals."
  — Andrew Bustamante ([37:59])

• On Disinformation:

  "Propaganda is a little bit different than what we're talking about here, which is really... disinformation."
  — Andrew Bustamante ([30:18])

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Key Timestamps for Segments

• Iran: Division & Unpredictability: [00:32]–[03:24]
• Israel/US Intelligence Collaboration: [03:43]–[08:23]
• Secret Wars & China’s Role: [10:57]–[20:23]
• Economics of War: [20:23]–[27:50]
• Propaganda, AI & Information Warfare: [29:08]–[31:49]
• Institutional Trust & Cognitive Dissonance: [35:12]–[39:27]
• Cycles of History & National Self-Interest: [39:27]–[44:17]
• Economic Collapse, Populism & Paths Forward: [48:00]–[60:31]
• Wrap-up & Reflections: [60:31]–end

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Where to Find Andrew Bustamante

• Website: everydayspy.com
• YouTube: Andrew Bustamante

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Final Reflection

The episode is a wake-up call to look past headlines and partisan narratives, recognize the primacy of economics in global conflict, and understand the real challenges of information verification in the modern era. Tom and Andrew urge viewers to approach current events with skepticism, curiosity, and historical awareness.

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“We are surrounded on all sides by bad options. And the only way that we are going to be able to navigate through... is either through a lens of what we believe to be fair, just, right, correct, tolerable—or we kind of pursue options and recognize that... some of the steps and decisions that we make along the path... will just make us more and more miserable.”
— Andrew Bustamante ([59:00])

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Listen if you want a bracing, unsentimental look at today’s geopolitics free of spin—this episode pulls no punches and delivers clarity amid chaos.

Transcript

[Tom Bilyeu]

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[Andrew Bustamante]

Wow.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Way to go. So, about that picture frame. Ah, forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested.

[Commercial Voice]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

Welcome back to part two of this incredible conversation. Without further ado, here we go. All right, you brought up a couple times the idea of being divided. How divided do you think Iran is? So it's. I think about what America looks like from the outside, and if you look at Minnesota, it looks like we're just bitterly divided. If you're walking down the average street, though, you know, it looks fine. You can look at one protest, and it's Iranians, Jewish Americans, and Americans, like, all out waving each other's flags and celebrating after Khomeini was killed. And so you're seeing stuff come out of Iran where it's like, oh, pro government people are marching. Oh, wait, anti government people are marching. Do you have any sense of, like, who's bigger? Is it 80, 20? What does that look like?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I have no. I have no idea. And what I love about your question is that we have to recognize that nobody who speaks English and not Farsi has any idea. So when you see something in the newspaper, when you see something on Twitter, when you see something hit your social media feed, oh, my gosh. Pro Iranian protests are in the street. People are crying about the death of Khomeini. That can be true without being 80 of the population and vice versa. I'm sure that there are people who are waving in the streets and very excited and setting off fireworks that Khomeini is dead. But does that make them the 80%? I don't know. And I have to push back. I have to challenge anybody who tries to say they know how that's going to turn out. Because the person today who loves the fact that Khomeini was killed, when their water doesn't work in three days, they may not love the fact that Khomeini was killed. Anything can change, right? I'm a pro US Person today because they killed the Ayatollah, but then a spare Israeli bomb kills my daughter at her school tomorrow. And now I'm not pro Israel in the United States anymore. Every day that this thing goes on, it becomes less and less predictable. And the first day that it started, we had no idea how it was going to go. So it's one of those things where like this really speaks to me. It really shows me the lack of prudent combat decision making and experience that surrounds the President in his perch at the White House. This is why you're supposed to have advisors who have combat experience and who have been in war and who have served in their positions for a long period of time and who speak truth to you, so that you don't make these decisions lightly. And instead we have a guy with no military experience as the Department of War, we've got a guy with no military experience as Department of State, we have the President. And the three of them together are basically the holy trinity of foreign policy right now. And that foreign policy is coming at the edge of a knife. All right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It would be irresponsible of me not to ask a former CIA agent what. Every time I see what's going on in the Middle east, especially with Israel in the mix, I am blown away by the intelligence. What will it have been like for clandestine agents in the build up to this?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Israel has the most expansive network of human sources in all of Iran. And what those sources look like and what they do and how they work, the United States would never know. We would never get to know because Israel's source protection process as a professional intelligence organization would protect their sources so well that we wouldn't know. We would just get the intel that Israel chooses to share with us. However, Israel's technical capabilities for leveraging technical surveillance, satellite based surveillance, airplanes that are able to collect signals intelligence, boats that are able to connect signals intelligence, tapping into underground underwater cables or underground cables. All that technological power really sits with the United States more than Israel. They have capability, but their capability can't compete with the United States's capability. So you would have their whole human network would come alive. Israel would basically say, hey, we want to get as much information, as much intelligence as possible on the ground, about five or seven different priorities. Khomeini, the head of the irgc, you know, these various leaders, when are they meeting, where are they meeting, etc. It wouldn't be intelligence about the attitude of the people. That's not what would be prioritized. What would be prioritized is plans, intentions, locations, movements, etc. And then of course, there would be a whole separate amount of intelligence that's trying to be covered on how will they respond, how will they react, what, what are their top three executables? What is the, what is the shelf plan like, what is the contingency plan? What folder will they take off the shelf? Turn to page one, checklist item one. Launch against Erbil. Check. Like everybody has these contingency plans pre, pre made, pre approved so that in the event of a leadership loss you can take it off the shelf and do what the leader wanted. So all of that human network would have been brought to life by Israel simultaneously. As Israel got technical, what's called identifiers or what is the word I'm looking for? My vocabulary is failing me. But as they got indicators, technical indicators and technical unique identifiers, cell phone numbers, actual IMEI codes from cell phones, WI FI details, cellular network providers, satellite phone units and frequencies. As they got these unique identifiers, then they would be able to use those using American technological capabilities to isolate the person using them and then to put essentially 24 hour surveillance on them. Satellite based, aircraft based, drone based, ship

[Tom Bilyeu]

based, like the street cameras and that they had hacked inside of the military bases. They could get into their cameras.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I mean it wouldn't be surprised. That would be an Israeli capability, most likely because it would take years capability. So if that happened, that would have been an Israeli capability, not an American capability.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What's the craziest kind of thing that actually happens that obviously you can talk about? I bring that up because I saw a report that's probably fake, but it was like, oh, just the kind of thing that piqued my curiosity where they said that they had so many dentists that were part of Mossad that they had been implanting into these high ranking guys teeth like tracking devices for years. And that was one of the ways they were able to know where all of them are. And then boom, when they struck it was because they were very confident.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I would, I would, yeah, I would call bullshit on that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, it doesn't like one of those. I wanted it to be real.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And I was like, there's technical issues, there's technical limitations with that. Right. How do you put a battery inside the tracking device? How do you power the tracking device when you need it? Like there's, there's problems there. Could it happen? Hey, anything is. Anything is possible. But is it plausible? Not so. Not when there's an easier way than putting, you know, tracking items into fillings in teeth that have incredible pressure whenever you chew on a pint nut. Right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So some of the craziest stuff I've seen is really more mundane. I think what makes it crazy is that it's so Mundane. When. When surveillance or intelligence equipment is built into infrastructure, when it's built into conveniences that the enemy then purchases for themselves. Right. So it's like, I'm gonna. I know that my enemy is purchasing tractors. So a tractor has enough space for you to put on a tracking device. A self. An covert cell tower. Yeah, a large battery. So now wherever that tractor goes, it's basically a hijackable cell tower that gives you data on anybody that's connected to its network. And you can selectively.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Crazy one.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Exactly. You can selectively turn that stuff on or off, and everybody needs it. And now you can actually have the tractor built in Germany by a Austrian company carrying an American technology. And then everywhere that tractor goes, we have a covert cell tower.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What do you think about that Bible app that got hacked, supposedly, and they were like, sending messages to people either right before the attack or right after?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I don't know. I haven't. I haven't heard about it, but it doesn't sound unrealistic.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, Again, I didn't spend enough time verifying it, but there was that. And then supposedly Trump had also hacked. Not him personally, but we had hacked their television systems, like, I think the actual TVs, and they were broadcasting a message to them after the attack happened, letting them know, like, hey, basically wa. For amnesty for people that, you know, basically get on the right side here. So very, very interesting. It's. Yeah, that kind of stuff is incredible. The page one really blew my mind. That's when I realized that, oh, this has been a failure of imagination on my part. The amount of time you would have to plan ahead for that is wild.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And that's the. The big thing to understand is the reason Iran was so successful, the reason Venezuela was so successful, is because they were able to tap into a. A stream of intelligence far enough in advance that they could execute with confidence, with high probability of confidence. Right now, Venezuela was a different beast because there. There wasn't an attack on infrastructure. There wasn't an attack. There weren't missiles that came in from boats off. I mean, there were, but it wasn't the same extent. Right. It was a different type of covert operation specifically to come in and capture one person at one specific period of time with minimal collateral damage. Whereas clearly with this attack, it wasn't run by the Americans, it was the Israelis that really ran the first round of. Of launching of attack in Iran. And it was a whole different beast. It was meant to topple multiple leaders at one time. It was meant to cause damage to military infrastructure that would be part of a counter attack. Like it was, it was a different beast. So one operation probably took six months. Venezuela probably took about six months of planning. Whereas successfully prosecuting Iran would have taken years. Years to build the intelligence, the network, the assets, the technical capabilities and then wait for the right moment to strike.

[Tom Bilyeu]

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[Andrew Bustamante]

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You had said about Venezuela, you said, listen, I think Venezuela is a decoy. And the reality is this is the beginning of a secret war between the US And China. And that is part of my read. So my read is twofold. You put China as the backdrop to both Venezuela and Iran. China was buying 90% of Iran's oil. Now, that doesn't mean that 90% of China's supply is from Iran, but they were buying 90% of Iran's oil. So basically Iran is a gas station for China. We know that China is doing everything they can to get around the US Sanctions. The US has been trying to control China and basically everybody else through sanctions. Not working as well with China because they have ways to get around it. Plus they have a ton of leverage on us. But if you go after Maduro, that's one set of shadow fleet oil tankers headed to China. You go after Iran, that's another shadow fleet of oil tankers going after China, but are going to China. And part of the timing, I think, is he knows he's running out of time to get to the midterms and to avoid the house flipping blue. He's only got one option and that's economic growth. And if people don't understand that Trump is reckless, economically reckless, and he has exactly one agenda, and that's I'm going to spend like a fool so that I can keep getting elected, which everybody now is doing on both sides, sides of the aisle. At least I will give Trump that. He has a strategy, maybe a terrible one, but he has a strategy which is to grow more than he. And some people get uncomfortable with this language, but he's going to grow more than he plans to Steal. And to me, inflation is theft. And so when you're deficit spending, you are stealing from the poor and working class more than anybody. You're creating the insane K shaped economy that we're all dealing with right now. And so I see him looking at Venezuela and is like, cool, I can damage China and get control of however many billions of dollars of oil. I look at Iran and I can do the same. I can hurt China once again with their access to cheap oil and I can get control of it. And, and I think this is arguably the single most important thing as to why they moved. Now he's got $2 trillion of promises from the wealth that's been accumulated in the Middle east, But only about 780 to 790 billion of that is more or less guaranteed. So if he wants to get the rest of it, which is all sort of a smile and a handshake, he's got to find a way to stabilize the region so that they're not like, listen, we've got our own problems here. We're having enough trouble with Vision 2030, we're going to deal with that. But if he can stabilize that, if you can make sure that the Strait of Hormuz can continue to flow, now he's got the ability to say, hey guys, stabilize the region for you. Big gamble on my part. But now I want to make sure that these things actually happen. And if you put a positive spin on that, it's looking at uniting the Middle east with economics, which I actually think is very smart. I just don't love that it's such a big gamble.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I think that you're, you're far closer to right than you are to wrong for sure.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Give me the parts that are wrong.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I don't think anything's wrong. I think that there's, there's a couple of nuances that are important to understand. Right. So China's already deeply in bed with Iran as convenient partners, not as, not as loyalist partners, not as ideologically aligned partners. But like you said, they're the fuel that the gas station. Right. For China. China is also supporting them through their ballistic missiles and through their scientific research and through other technological endeavors. So as Iran modernizes, they're modernizing on the back of Chinese technology, which is exactly what China wants. So there's a very convenient relationship there for the two of them. China doesn't see that convenient relationship going away with a change in regime. Because the question is, is the United States actually going to replace Iran with a pro Western regime? Are they going to put the time and effort and, and, and invest into that. Is Israel going to try to put a pro Israel regime in there? No, they're, they're totally happy with Iran. The United States and Israel are totally happy with Iran just being a burnt out hole in the ground for the next 25 years. They don't care about the Iranian people. They're not there to rebuild democracy. They're not. And, and if the clerical leadership tries to stay in power, the theocracy tries to stay in power, everybody who becomes the new Ayatollah is going to be the next person to get whacked, killed, blown up right along with their wife and their kids and their family, just like Khomeini got killed. We've completely abandoned this idea of just war or the idea of international law where you don't strike the head of a state. We've given that up and we've shown that between both Venezuela and Iran. But what will happen is there will be a vacuum. There will be a vacuum that needs to be filled with money, technology, basic survival needs. And China will try to fill that gap just like they tried to fill that gap in Afghanistan. So I do agree that China is a big part of this and a big part of, of Iran's future, whether we like it or not. The timing is really interesting. I think you're, you're totally right. Saudi curbing its spending recently because it's having its own issues is largely tied to it feeling like it needs to protect itself against Iran. And every wealthy collegiate country in the Gulf is concerned about the Shia Crescent encroaching on their security. They spend a great deal of money on mass surveillance and national defense, et cetera, et cetera, and stability would help them feel like they could spend their money on something else. That's a really intelligent approach to the question that I had never considered before.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's interesting. When it comes to the economic stance, my own community thinks that I oversimplify the world because I'm always breaking things down into economics. And I think that they are wrongly making things complicated when if you really think about what modern society is, it is entirely the answer to the question of how do I protect the resources that I've garnered? How do I, how do I accumulate them? Well, and then how do I protect them from outside forces? Like that's what society is. And so at a fundamental level, we are economic units. We approach the world from through the lens, lens of economics. And I think people get blinded either by the, we should talk about the Israel of it all. Like that whole, it's really becoming this weird thing for me in terms of everybody looking at them saying they're puppet mastering the US I'm a whole explanation about what I think is really going on there. But people are going, I think, far deeper into conspiracies, which are often terrifyingly true, but they go even deeper into that lane than you need to. You can stop at the okay, Trump is trying to protect his legacy. There's a huge economic incentive to do this. Trump is running a. To your point about legacy, he's running a gambit here in the US which is, okay, I'm going to spend money recklessly, but I'm going to make sure that we deregulate and that we grow and that we get all these global investments. Some of the investments don't pan out. Like looking at what's going on with what was it Stargate or whatever it was like the AI thing. The partnership with OpenAI seems to be more or less up in the air. Maybe it's real, maybe it's not. And so if he doesn't find a way to put money in working and middle class people's pockets by the midterm, he's toast. And if he gets ousted, like if he becomes lame duck, they will lame duck, they will impeach him immediately. And then the second he's out of office, they're going to pursue him doggedly to put him in jail. And so if he does, these are rumors. I don't know if this is true. But if he ends up actually pursuing Obama legally, dude, whatever he does there is going to be brought to him tenfold when he gets out. So it's like, you don't have to go to like crazy back bendy land to look at all of the behaviors that are manifesting and go, yeah, this explains those behaviors, right?

[Andrew Bustamante]

It violates the 8020 rule, which is something that we follow at CIA where, where 80% of an of an explanation rests with 20% of the causes. So if you look at 100% of what's happening right now, 80% of it's explainable with 20% of variables. That's exactly what you're saying. Like, hey, economic incentive, convenient timing and the upcoming midterms and personal ego slash legacy. Because Trump is still Trump after the next round of elections, like after 2028, he's still Trump. And if he still wants to make money and if he still wants to live high on the horse and if he still wants to be the one that's involved on the inner inside decisions for all major trades. Like it's beneficial to be a winning president rather than be a laughingstock president. Not to mention all the legal Troubles.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Right.

[Andrew Bustamante]

There's 20 of the explanation that explains 80% of the problem. All the back Bendyland stuff might also contribute 1 or 2% to the overall explanation. But let's stick with the macro level ideas. Right. What moves the dial the dial the most with the least explanation? It's that whole idea of, of the simplest explanation is oftentimes the most correct.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. And I think if people look at the targeting I actually went through for right now and look, this is early fog of war, so all of this stuff will update.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And thank you for validating. The fog of war piece is so interesting and people aren't acknowledging it. You are 100% right. The first few days we don't know what's original, what's new, what's repeated, what's real, what's not real.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Especially with AI dude, this is getting crazy. We have to like check every time we see a video. Okay, is this real? Is this AI generated? And I know people clown on Grok, but if you're on X, dude, I'm glad people go grok, is this real? So that it can at least do some form of fact check. It's not always going to be right, but it'll say, you know, this footage has been circulating since 2025, or this is confirmed footage out of some other country that's not involved in this. So that you are able to somewhat rapidly sift through what's total BS and not. But it is. It's really getting crazy how much of this stuff can be faked, how real it looks. And by the way, people are just straight posting video game footage and because on your phone it's small enough, you can't tell that it's a video game. But if you're on a desktop, you zoom in. It's so obviously a video game and yet it'll have like five and a half million views. So the propaganda, the informational warfare, like

[Andrew Bustamante]

the misinformation, like whether it's intentional or unintentional, the fog of war, the misinformation, the information warfare landscape, it's, it's so dense right now, it's shocking. I interrupted you.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm sorry. No, not at all. I was going to go through like one of the things that helped me validate, like what's really going on here are the places that are being targeted. So if you look at in the early days, we've got leadership decapitation. That was like a big part. So I'm trying to answer, like, what's really driving this? Why would you do this? Now, if this was really about the nuclear deterrence, would you see the following three things? Leadership, decapitation, maybe like the people that pull the trigger. But he's decentralized it and something tells me that they knew that and that the second they got him, it's just going to scatter out to the fringes. So they could still launch something if they had it. Navy warships, that's economic. All day. That's. We don't want you to be able to stop the Strait of Hormuz. Now they're going to tell you, well, we don't want them to attack our vessels. Huh? That's why you guys were able to take out all 11, basically lickety split. I think they were poised because they knew like people. Analysts have been warning Saudi Arabia for years now. The biggest vulnerability to Vision 2030, which for people that don't know was their attempt to move away from oil revenue. Get into technology. Exactly. Get into tech. Investing is a huge thing for them. Also getting into just tourism and bringing people to the region. And so your biggest problem is the Strait of Hormuz. You've got Iran, you know, despotic regime that can close that when whatever they want. And if they decide that you're a problem and they want to like shut that off now, you guys are screwed. Also, people analysts have said that if Iran were to close that for a meaningful period of time, basically a global recession is guaranteed, which if that happens on Trump's watch, it's game over. So leadership decapitation, going after the Navy warships immediately and then military infrastructure, they. There's rumors that maybe they did go after one of the nuclear sites.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But remember when this was really about nuclear. They drop big ass bombs on nuclear facilities. That's not what they're doing this time. So there's something else going on. Either you feel like, okay, the nuclear threat really is the big deal, but we've already tried breaking that. Now we have to kill their leaders. Fair. Like if that's your argument. But if you are actually trying to hurt Iran and dismantle it, you'd be going after their energy, you would be taking out the oil. But if you're trying to preserve it and you're trying to make sure, like if this is an economic play, none of what I just said proves it's economic. But all of that at least leaves that on the table. And so that's where it's like, this gets. I think the targeting would look very different if we were really just worried about the nuclear side of this.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Correct. I agree with you. And, you know, we have multiple pieces of evidence along the trail that suggest it wasn't about nuclear weapons. We were told it was about nuclear weapons. In fact, the only real evidence we have that it was about nuclear weapons is that the president said it's about WMD.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Right.

[Andrew Bustamante]

At least in 1992, when we went into Iraq for the second time under the clause. Under the. The accusation of weapons of mass destruction, at least during that period of time, there was an intelligence assessment that had been fudged to say that they're a wmd. We don't even have that this time. We just have the word of a president on Air Force One saying that the nuclear program was obliterated in June of 25, and then somehow saying, actually, we need to go back again. It was still obliterated. Right, but we need to go back again.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I was so confused when he first started saying, we're negotiating and they won't give in. I was like, what are you negotiating about?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Exactly.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I was legitimately confused. And then he finally started repeating the nuclear capabilities. And then I was like, wait, how do I square the circle of. You completely demolished it. But now. Psych. Just kidding. They've already built it back. I was like, hold on. It's only been, whatever, eight months.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Exactly.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So, yeah, this. That all feels a little flat to me. But it's a great talking point.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And it's propaganda and. Exactly. Because if you repeat something enough times, it creates something called the availability heuristic for all the people listening. Meaning we believe it's a heuristic. We. We bias ourselves to believe the thing that we hear the most, even more so than the thing that we believe to be true.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's so wild.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So when you hear over and over again, they've got weapons of mass destruction. They got weapons of mass destruction. They're creating nukes. They're creating nukes. They're enriching nuclear. They're enriching uranium. Enriching uranium. Even the most intelligent, intellectual, educated people that I've met will still say, well, we didn't want Iran to have nuclear weapons. No shit, you don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But that's not why we went in there.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Certainly not right now. That's. There was a really funny meme that admittedly made me laugh, probably a little too hard. And it was like, because I was reading it as if it were true. And it was like, ancient Israeli artifact found thousands of years old. Finally they were able to decipher it. And it says, Iran is a week away from nuclear weapons. And I was like, yeah, gu. Like, we have played this card so many times that it's getting a little bit crazy. I'm very distressed, though, how well propaganda works. Like, that's the problem is it's an effective tool, and so people are going

[Andrew Bustamante]

to go for it. So propaganda is a little bit different than what we're talking about here, which is really, as much as I hate to say it, it's disinformation. It's intentionally falsified information. And there's. There's published evidence and there's documented evidence. The White House page to this moment, if somebody here can do the search, The White House website still, to this exact moment, says that the Iranian nuclear capability was fully demolished, fully obliterated, in a June 2025 press release. And then it goes on to also say anything saying otherwise is fake news. That's literally the headline on whitehouse.gov it's incredible. And it's still up. It's still there. Like, you can see it right now.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm assuming they're saying, though, that they rebuilt it. Like, that's got to be the angle, which I haven't even heard that argument, by the way. It's just, we can't let them have weapons of mass destruction, and they won't say the magic words.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Right. So the. The. So between the White House saying it's obliterated, the ODNI document published that says they're not even trying, you got multiple pieces of evidence saying that this is not really why we're going in. And all you have is somebody saying it. And when somebody says something they know isn't true, that is disinformation. When they say something that they don't, that they incorrectly state, that's misinformation. And the challenge is that we've become very comfortable with living in a world of misinformation where we don't know if something's complete, if it's fog of war, if it's accurate. Inaccurate. But then disinformation has space.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

To get in there.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But do you see a world where that doesn't exist? I mean, that. I think the weird thing about living in this moment is simply that we're aware that it happens and it still happens. Like, that's the thing that people have a hard time with, is previously we suspected that it happened. We don't really know. And the information didn't travel fast enough. And only a select few people really knew how deep the rot went. Now because of social media, there's just cameras everywhere. We see it all the time. We understand, like going through Covid opened a lot of people's eyes because the government didn't yet understand how much information could be transmitted via social media. Once Elon gets X now all of a sudden you see a true unfiltered view of what people really, what some people really think. Obviously it's not universal, but you get that eye opening thing and then you hear the government response to that, which is to shut it down, to introduce the idea of mal information. It is true, Mr. Bustamante, but we can't let people know it. And now you really, you're like, wait, what? And you're actually in Ministry of Truth territory. And I think I was reading there's a book by James Burnham called the Machiavellians Defenders of Freedom. Phenomenal book. My community will have heard me talk about this a gazillion times. People must read that book. And in it he laments and he's like, I don't know what's going to happen because we're now living in a world where the government can't hand us a shared narrative and we need a shared narrative. And if I, I, I don't want to speak on his behalf but like, it felt to me like he was more or less saying we kind of need like to find our way back to that, that we're not going to be able to survive this landscape where there's no shared narratives. And my thing is that I think humans have to pass through this moment. We have to accept that this is what humans do. They lie, they try to control the narrative. And then on the other side of it, much like we discovered, oh, leeches and things like that don't really work. We need a scientific method to test these wives tales to see what's real. We need like new veracity checks and information and maybe that's AI, maybe it's something else, I don't know. But anybody who wishes to go backwards, the only thing I can say is that's the only bad strategy. We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere. The traditional retirement playbook was designed for a different era. Bonds were safe, savings accounts paid real interest. The dollar held its value. That world is gone. Inflation is eroding, purchasing power faster than traditional assets can grow. That's where block Trust IRA comes in. They bridge the gap between old retirement protection and the new asset reality. They use Animus AI, an award winning system that manages crypto volatility systematically while traditional accounts just sit there losing value to inflation. Animus actively repositions their clients return 26% over self managed accounts in 2025, including fees. As a member of the impact theory community, you can get a funding bonus of up to $2,500 in value when you fund your account today. Just visit tomcryptoira.com now to sign up again. That's tomcryptoira.com this is a paid advertisement. Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action.

[Andrew Bustamante]

People like convenience and they like closed loops. And I don't think that people ever assume that other people didn't lie, steal, cheat. I think people have always known that people lie, steal and cheat. We've all got the creepy uncle we don't want to be around, and we've all got the grandparent that we don't like. And we all know what it's like to know somebody, at least if it's not you, that has a mom or a dad who wasn't a very good mom or dad. So we understand that people lie, steal, cheat. We understand that people are corrupt. But we have always believed that institutions are above that somehow. And what we're seeing now over and over again is demonstrable proof that institutions aren't above that. And that incompetence that we joke about around the coffee pot at work exists in government. Institutions as well exist in the halls of the wealthiest, most powerful government in the world, the United States. And how do you process that? It's a perfect example of cognitive dissonance where we always thought that we were so powerful and strong and uncorruptible and democratic. And now we see examples to the contrary. And then there's no space in our cognition for both things. So they, they fight in our head. And in that struggle, it's just so much easier to choose one side or the other or to just take yourself out of the fight and just stop paying attention. And to try to live in your video games, in your, you know, your drug use, in your job, whatever it might be, and it's somebody else's problem. My father in law is fantastic at saying it's just going to fix itself. That's what he honestly believes things so often do. Yeah. So I think it's not necessary that people used to trust people and don't trust people. I think people have always known you can't trust all people. But when the institutions themselves start to break down, and when your institutions break down and you're raised on an ideology like we were as Americans, raised on an ideology that institutionalized the ideology, now it questions the ideology itself. If you can't trust the institution that's. That's being driven by the ideology. Is there something wrong with the ideology? And I really do wonder if people are finally coming to grips with the fact that the United States isn't the democracy it always said it was. We are a capitalist country that follows democratic rule as long as it doesn't compromise our capitalist goals. But when our capitalist goals become threatened, we're willing to give up elements of our democratic pillars to preserve our capitalist advantage. And that's something that you don't see in Europe, and that's something that you don't see in other democracies around the world. They actually don't choose capitalism over democracy. They choose the other way around.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's interesting. Let me make sure that I've understood what you've just said, because if I do, we've got a point of wonderful collision here. So what I just heard you say is that in Europe, as one example, they are willing to sacrifice their capitalistic ambitions to protect democracy. And I would say that Europe is among the most abusive, kleptocratic institutions on planet Earth, that they are robbing their people blind and their people don't even realize it, and they would not have the ability to do so if America wasn't taking care of their security. And so we've lived in this post World War II bubble where we have come to believe that success and prosperity are these laws of nature. They just are. Like, somehow the west is magically delicious and hey, lucky us. Like, we're here. Bummer. Like, if you live somewhere else. But the west, it's just magical. And they don't understand how America came to be. For instance, like, I'll speed run what I view as the real American story. And this is what I see with what we're doing with Iran. This is the thing that makes Trump such a fascinating figure to me is he can be honest about this kind of stuff. Like, he's got, you know, who President Polk was.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yes.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, so he's got a lot of Polk in him. Like, well, as long as if I get a good result, then we're good. Like, nothing else really matters. All right, Speedrun of the US I'm Being abused by a despotic government. So I'm going to jump on a boat. I'm one of the entrepreneurial, adventurous type. I'm probably going to die like the numbers are. But I'm the type of person that would respond to Shackleton's call for a horrible job where you're likely to die. But if you make it, baby, there is just glory and wealth above all else. So I am Columbus, I roll up in the Caribbean and I realize, oh my God, these guys are fucking lovely people. They're so easy to kill. This is crazy. And so they grab our swords, don't even realize they're about to cut their hands. This is is awesome. We're going to enslave them, obviously, make them grab some gold. If you don't come back with gold, I'm going to have to chop off your hands. Like just real fast though. So cool. We come start realizing there's just all this immense fertile land. This is rad. And now all these people come, the vast majority of them die. But we are inviting over the most entrepreneurial, the most adventurous, the most hardcore literally on planet Earth. They come over, they flood the shores. This is obvious. I'm condensing a lot of history here, indiscriminately take over. They maybe would have been fine living side by side as long as they could have your whenever they want it. But that obviously doesn't go well fighting on both sides. I am not somebody who paints an unrealistically chirpy picture of Native Americans, but we end up colliding and the people that become the first Americans end up winning that through disease, through warfare, better technology, as is usually the case, we keep pushing across the country, taking as much from anybody else as we can. We'll buy it if you sell at the right price, but we'll certainly kill you and take your shit if we have to, which is exactly what we do in the Mexican American War, which ends up giving us a third. Speaking of Polk gives us a third of what we now think of as America going from sea to shining sea. And from all of that comes the most dominant country the world has ever seen. And if you're willing to be honest about like what those kinds of transformations take and that they have happened all throughout human history, forever as far as the eye can see. Because that's just what humans are like. I think people get a lot closer to the ground truth. So when I look at the scenario of whether it's how Trump is behaving with Iran, it's Very in keeping with what humans are like. America first, as far as I can tell, is if it's good for America, we're going to do it. Not that we're only going to think between our shores. Not that we're not going to do wars or be adventurous. As long as we believe that it's going to be good for Americans. Going to put dollars in their pockets, let us overspend, whatever, get us elected. I mean, that's really the question, then we're going to do it. And so that to me is a human thing. And when you look at institutions and realize that they are corrupt from the top to bottom, it's always been that way, right? And so now to me, it is the great reckoning of how do you integrate the fact that this is what humans are like, this is what humans do. And so it feels to me like as somebody who became a student of history quite late in the game, and I was like, whoa, this has been here waiting for me to discover this whole time to realize what humans are really like. If you, if you really want a glimpse into humanity, read the Gulag Archipelago. Whoa. About the Soviet death camps, basically the Gulags. And it's basically, I don't know, 1200 pages of a guy who was in it just screaming. I mean it is literally effectively a guy screaming for 1200 pages. It's crazy. So anyway, I'm like, okay, I want us to find a path to the other side of that where we don't have to somnambulize, if that's a real word. People, put them back to sleep, get them to eat your spoon fed AI created narrative of what this all is. Nobody's a bigger proponent of AI than me, but I'm also terrified of how it will be used to give us a narrative. So, yeah, I mean, in the end, that is how I'm parsing this is how do we get to the other side of that without having to pull punches? So anyway, bringing it back to Europe. So you look at Europe, Europe to me is not a like clean democracy that is treating its people well. They're living in a post World War II false version of what the world order really is, when what it really is is hardcore people that will do whatever they can until they meet sufficient physical force that stops them from the

[Andrew Bustamante]

foundation that people are just people and people don't change. And, and all of life is based on resource limitations that ultimately, ultimately we fight for. I, I can't disagree with you. That is, that is the logical conclusion Based off of that foundational evidence, I think what we need to adjust for is the fact that people can change. People can change, people can make different decisions. And oftentimes people do make different decisions. Sometimes the pain that we run into is sufficient to get us to change something about our ideology, something about our point of view, something about our vision. Right? That's, that's how civil rights came to be. That's how the end of slavery came to be. Economically, it just made sense to keep having slaves. But at some point there was a social transformation that fought against that same thing with women having the right to vote. At some point there was a social. I'm not saying there wasn't also an economic benefit, but it didn't start from the economic benefit, it started from something else. And an economic benefit was found later on. Very similar to what we're seeing I think right now with our environmental protection passions and interests. Like economically you don't protect the government, you don't protect the environment, but there's something else at play that we then find an economic benefit to add to it. So there's a social element that's very unpredictable. And when you talk about people being people, you also have to acknowledge that people, people change as different phases of their life change. If you put a 25 year old in power as a king or a queen or whatever else, they literally change the way they rule by the time that they're 65 and die. We are, we are all different people in college than we are when we have a couple of kids. We're all different when we're broke than when we're wealthy. Like we change, we change, our questions about the universe and ourselves change, our interests change, our values shift, even though we are still the same core people and, and if you take everything away from us, we will very quickly revert back to animalistic survival tendencies. For the most part, there are still exceptions that don't do that. There are people who give up all worldly goods to become monks or become priests or nuns or whatever else. So, so there are exceptions to the rule, which makes it hard to apply the rule consistently everywhere. But when it comes to the institutions themselves, those are not monks and those are not, those are not the rarities. If anything, the institution becomes the place, the saving grace for the, the low, low performance people. That's a safe haven. When you don't have any other skill, you find your way to doing something that's safe and simple and protected and follows the same regimented process as something else. So I don't disagree with you that people are people. And I don't disagree with you that we need to find a way to come through where we currently are. But where the two things don't line up for me are if you believe that people are so kind of not pessimistically but realistically tied to their, their carnal desires, their carnal core processes, then how could you ever believe that we would come through? Unless what you're really saying is that in the filtering process of coming through, 60% of people don't make it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm saying something slightly different. So this started with you saying that people have to come to grips that we're not the democratic country that people think we are. That this is, we are willing to make concessions for our capitalistic tendencies in a way that Europe is not. My read on the situation at a high level is, is very different. And it goes something like this. Everything is economics.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Everything is economics. I agree.

[Tom Bilyeu]

We build up from that. And we are not a capitalistic nation and haven't been for a very long time. You can't be capitalist and deficit spend. Let's start with that because now you are rigging the game. You can only do that with a central bank. The second you have a central bank, you're rigging the game. Every empire ever that has had a central bank has collapsed. They all collapse for the exact same noble, predictable reason, and that is debt and deficit spending. The math just ends up taking over. And so the reason that people are so angry and they have a right to be angry. And this is actually what I was thinking about when you were saying people change. I'll say it slightly differently. We are automata that responds to stimulus in very predictable ways. And when you take us en masse, this is why history loops, because we're just going to respond. If you create a K shaped economy, always and forever, for all time, ever, ever, ever, you're going to get populism. Because populism is, oh, life sucks because you're stealing from me. I just don't understand how. And so they elect a big strong man to come and slap people around, get they want to tribe up and be on a team because it's, it's scary now they don't know how they're going to make ends meet. The pie really is shrinking, right? And it's being siphoned up to the elite, to the wealthy. And everybody else is left to fight over scraps. Everything's getting more expensive. And so they just want someone that's they want to be on a team, and they want someone that's going to fight for their side and they want to win. Hurt. Yep, they want to win. They want to hurt the other side. And so when I look at this, I go, okay, let's say you really had a gun to my head and I had to solve this problem based on cause and effect, based on first principles, thinking, based on the economy being close enough to a machine that you can think from an engineering perspective, I would go, okay, you absolutely have to have a thriving middle class. You cannot have the distance between the poor and the wealthy that you have right now. So then you start asking, well, how do I get there? And if you ask the left, they're going to say you take from the wealthy and redistribute to the poor, which does not work. So you have to do it through force, which I certainly go down that path. From an explanation, My, my community's heard it before. But the other one is you have to create a situation where there's tolerable inequality, but that you don't get intolerable or toxic inequality. And how do you stop that? You stop that by having a balanced budget, because that stops inflation. Inflation stops all of the money from fleeing into the stock market, which is how the value goes up and up and up. And so anyone, I've never heard an argument, and I look for them for how you solve the current, what feels like a cultural problem, unless you address the economic problem.

[Andrew Bustamante]

What's the problem? Or you're saying in general, any problem? No, no, no.

[Tom Bilyeu]

The, the, the economic problem that we are dealing with right now, that we deal with all throughout history, always and forever is exactly the same. It is debt and deficit spending. And if you understand what that's caused by and you stop that, then you would naturally find yourself working back out of this problem.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But you can't. In a, in a country that creates its own currency. The only, the only option is to create a deflationary pressure on the currency, like what Clinton did when he got, when he was in office. But to create deflation on the currency is essentially to cost companies more than it costs consumers.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So you're already inside of a frame of reference. And the frame of reference that you're inside of is the central bank. Bank. Once you have a central bank, you're just asking politicians, hey, please don't abuse the ability to create money. And for a long time they won't. That's why these cycles take between 150 and 250 years, but they always Break always.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And they always print more money. Yeah, I agree.

[Tom Bilyeu]

They always fail for the same reason. Once you realize you can print the money, it's just the temptation is too strong. And then once you get the weaknesses, the 2000 crash, the 2008 crash, Covid, you get those three successive things and now all of a sudden, the momentum, the economics, you're just like, you have to keep printing, you have to keep printing. And that's creating this crazy K shaped economy, which then gives rise to populism, which is exactly why Trump happens eight years after the 2008 financial crisis. And now you're in deep.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So do you see a solution? Do you see a way out?

[Tom Bilyeu]

There is a way out, but I don't think that we're going to take it. It's what Ray Dalio calls a beautiful deleveraging. There's basically four forces. One of them is to move in the opposite direction so that you're not just inflating your currency, but you're going to have to do some inflation still because you've got to spark the economy, you have to do some redistribution of wealth, you have to do some increasing of taxes and you have to balance your budget. And so the one thing, austerity, one thing that people aren't going to do is the austerity. And so we're just, we're in the spiral now where barring some major change. And that's why I say Trump's gambit is that he's going to grow his way out of this. So your only two options are to basically devalue the currency like crazy, which he's doing. It's not great, but he's doing it. And then you have to grow even faster than you devalue the currency so that you can get growth in your economy, pay off the debt with the weaker dollar. But if you can return manufacturing back by making your exports cheaper because you lowered the value of the dollar, now you can actually do that. Now you've got working class jobs again. But of course it's all happening right at the same time as AI, which is going to be an unknown disruption or.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah. Or potentially AI is what contributes to making things so much less expensive. And then the inexpensiveness of what we create, plus the reduced value of the dollar, AI basically saves the day. I'm sure that's one potential outcome too.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It literally. Now, if you were going to steel man, the argument of Europe doing this better, because they're definitely going to be people in the comments right now that are like Andrew Come on, you've got this chance to show this capitalistic asshole, like how this actually works. What is the thing that makes you look at Europe and go, that's better?

[Andrew Bustamante]

So I think there's two things based off of what we're talking about. And again, I don't think that the gap between us is too significant. I think that it might be a bit of nuanced how we, how we define our terms, right? So when I talk about capitalism, what I'm talking about is generating money, creating a profit, generating money, making a good or a service that's of need and then pricing it as high as possible to the person who can't get that good or pro or that good or product on their own, that good or service on their own. So then they're willing to exchange maximum optimal currency money in exchange for the service or good that they're getting. In the United States, we are very focused on capitalism. How much money can I make? How can I make optimal money? How can I make a bad pizza at a high price rather than making a good pizza at a low price? That's, that's how we think in the United States. That's how. And that's not how everybody thinks, but that's how the wealthiest, most successful businesses become the wealthiest, most successful businesses, because they're able to optimize their pricing. That is a very capitalistic thing. And then we, we have all, traditionally, we have carried that mentality into other parts of our life as well. That's why Americans are obsessed with efficiencies, right? How do I, how do I make the, the house the most efficient price to heat or cool? I mean, for, for most people, the only reason they invest in solar or insulated windows isn't because they care about the climate. It's because they're trying to take the cost of insulated windows over the next 10 years against the cost of heating or cooling my house for the same 10 year period. And will I save money or not? So we've got this focus on efficiency that just doesn't exist outside of the United States. Not in Asia, not in Europe, not in Africa, not in Latin America. So when I talk about a capitalist country, that's what I'm talking about is this relentless desire for more and more efficiency rooted in the idea that we want to be very efficient with the money that we earn versus the money that we spend. That efficiency doesn't exist in Europe. So in Europe, their governance, their institutions are happy to be fat and slow and inefficient. And overinflated. And they have to charge their people an incredible amount of taxes to pay for the big bloated bureaucracy that they have. And they give up on the opportunity for fast, rapid decision making because everybody has to have seven different committees before they go anywhere. I'm not saying it's better than the United States. What I'm saying is that they will continue to, to value this bureaucratic bloatedness because it will, they believe, prevent them from becoming this capitalist villain right away. Is there room for corruption? Of course. All institutions can be corrupted, right? And is there, is there an incentive in Europe for the middle class to try to earn more and make more?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Not really.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I've, I've traveled throughout Europe and I've, I've been shocked at the lack of individual ambition and drive among most people. And when you just look at the number of millionaires and billionaires in the world, you can very clearly see that if they start in Europe, they end up coming to the United States because they culturally don't fit into that environment. All of that being said, one of Europe's biggest weaknesses is the fact that it has been able to since 1945, live in this bubble of what's the right democratic process instead of in a bubble of we need to protect our borders, we need to be strong, we need to keep ourselves safe. It was only this morning that the French President Macron came out and said that to be free you must be feared. And he talked about that in the context of the fact that, that France is deploying nuclear tipped air to air ground missiles all across its European allies. Tactical nukes being actively deployed, not, not used in war, but, but pre positioned forward deployed so they can be called upon. So now we're already seeing how Europe is following our lead. Europe is following the authoritarian model more so now than it was in the past. To be free, you must be feared. That is a very different message than what they believed in the past. Right? To be free, you must be, you must be fair. To be free, you must be, you know, have a common goal, whatever else. Just like you were saying earlier, like the, the Machiavellian book that you were talking about where, where we need a common narrative to put us all together. In my experience, that is all true, that is all real. And we are struggling right now because there is no common, valid, credible, authoritative, not authoritarian, but authoritative narrative for us to follow. So, so we are surrounded on all sides by bad options. And the only way that we are going to be able to navigate through bad Options is either through a lens of what we believe to be fair, just right, correct, tolerable, or we kind of pursue options and recognize that some of the steps and decisions that we make along the path of choosing options will just make us more and more miserable. It's like the person who ends up pursuing a career in law even though they hate law because they want more options, where the person who goes into non profit work never makes enough money but has an abundance of happiness in their job. I'm not one to talk about being happy. I'm not one to talk about being wealthy. I'm the kind of person who kind of jumps between. Sometimes I feel like. Sometimes I feel like I want more options. Sometimes I feel like I want to live a little bit happier and more comfortable and. And I've got the freedom to make those decisions. So we are all in a world now where we've been promised that we're going to be wealthy, and now we're realizing that's not really true. Just like the generations before us. And we've watched our parents not get wealthy, we've watched our grandparents not retire wealthy. And now here we are, anybody between the ages of 25 and 55 staring in the mirror and saying, man, like, I believed all this for a long time and now I'm coming to grips with something. I've. I can see, but it's different than what I believe. So I have that cognitive dissonance again.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Well, we shall see. As we said at the very beginning, fog of war. It is unknown exactly how this is going to play out, but, man, your analysis is super, super helpful. Where can people keep up with you?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Absolutely. You'll find [e-mail]. it's the company that I own. You'll find me on YouTube at Andrew Bustamante. And if you Google me anywhere, you'll. You'll find Andrew Bustamante probably more places than you want to find me.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I love it. Hopefully this ends way too quick for us to have you back on, but God forbid it drags out. We'll definitely do this again, man. Really appreciate you taking the time.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Thanks, brother.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Of course. All right, everybody, if you have not already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. 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. 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. 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.

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