AI Causing A Stir For Recent Graduates, Iran Peace Proposal Rejected, & CA Free Diaper Program

Key Takeaway

Focus on skill acquisition and minimize debt to maximize optionality in an AI-driven world. When you can't predict the future, become the person who adapts fastest. Learn AI tools immediately—people using AI will massively outcompete those who don't. You don't need a crystal ball; you just need to outwork those complaining about change.

Episode Overview

Tom Bilyeu and Drew discuss the turbulent geopolitical landscape, including Trump's Iran policy, potential AI displacement of jobs, and the upcoming midterm elections. They emphasize personal responsibility, skill acquisition, and adaptation as the keys to thriving amid uncertainty, while critiquing emotional policy-making and partisan thinking.

Full Transcript

Transcript of AI Causing A Stir For Recent Graduates, Iran Peace Proposal Rejected, & CA Free Diaper Program from Impact Theory. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

his proposal one little bit and Netanyahu is assuring the world that there's still work to be done. So, my question is are hostilities going to resume under the banner of the new I believe they're calling it project freedom. Is this Trump just looking for a reset to the 60-day clock? We're going to talk about that and more. Putin is saying that the war in Ukraine may be almost over. I thought for sure that was a typo. I had no idea that that was uh even possibly on the bingo card for this year.

So, that's interesting. Be very curious to see how that plays out. The commencement speaker, the AI commencement speaker, if you guys didn't see it, was pretty interesting seeing the crowd boo her uh as she made statements talking about AI being the new industrial revolution. Uh young people are not excited about AI and what it is going to bring and I think we have a nice big reckoning to deal with there. Speaking of reckoning, Spencer Pratt had an attack ad aimed at him here in LA and it lets you know exactly where the energy is on the left.

They want bigger and bigger government. Uh I am very eager to have this conversation as you guys might imagine. Female-dominated corporate positions are more susceptible to AI replacement according to new analysis that's coming out and that's causing quite a stir online. Battle droids and Rosie the robot from The Jetsons are now both real. If you guys haven't seen that footage, it is insane. And wealthy streamer Pokimane has gone viral for saying wealthy people are good, but the ultra-wealthy somehow they are magically bad. bad. bad. Uh Uh Uh all that and more today on the Tom Bilyeu Show live.

Drew, welcome. Uh You've been hit by the cold bug. So, if anybody is wondering why you sound like you have a cold, that is exactly why. But you showed up. I'm impressed. getting through the other side. I'm I'm rolling down. Uh it's hilarious though. I've been watching this commencement speaker for like the last like 10 minutes now. Just on a loop? It's It's just funny cuz she hits kind of the meme of just like, "Wait, did I strike a nerve? Like, I don't understand why she's so surprised, yeah.

He's wild. So, this is for the audience's hit. The rise of artificial intelligence is is is the next industrial revolution. True. True. True. Oh. Oh. Oh. What just happened? Did it? Yeah. Who's she looking at? Her mouth is not moving. What's going on? Okay. on? Okay. on? Okay. I struck a chord. May I finish? Uh She's so uneasy there, man. years ago. years ago. years ago. you guys are watching it. Like, the finger tap on the thing. can tell. Like, uh-oh, we're trying to regroup. Th- This is one of those things we talk about it, it's fun.

We talk about the breakthroughs. We talk about the new LLMs, but as a new graduate, I don't know if you're as excited because you're walking into this workforce that is quite literally being torn apart in real time. Now, I even with, you know, 50 years of life experience, looking at this one, it makes it so hard to look into the future and understand where things are going. When you're able to plan, like, so I come out of film school and I'm looking at how to break into the industry, and it's just a wall of confusion.

And that already was very startling. But if you had said, "Not only do you not know how to break into the industry, but the industry might not exist, or it won't exist in the way that you think of it now in the next like 3 years," that's a level of unnerving where you just go, "Have I just wasted the last, you know, however many 15, 16 years of my life?" And so, I am not at all surprised that graduates are on a knife's edge with this.

And the reality is that if she's right and AI becomes the next industrial revolution, revolution, revolution, this is where people need to understand what actually happened with the industrial revolution. It was a brutal, tumultuous time of people getting replaced, having put their life on one trajectory, and then having that completely upended. It ate two generations of people that were unable to make a pivot. So, it's not only you, but it's oftentimes your kids, and it's not until your grandkids come along that they're able to take advantage of that.

And that you can see that play out in the Industrial Revolution, the Great Electrification, and the Internet. So, it's like when this stuff plays out, it it really is disruptive and not for a short period of time. So, while I think ironically the young people will be the people that will adjust the easiest, it's people that are say north of 35-ish, 35-ish, 35-ish, they're really going to struggle because they have so much invested in their lives, debt that they're carrying, their job has to go well, they're not at the beginning of their career where they're not married, they don't have kids, um and they haven't yet built up well, some of them will have with college debt, but debt, but debt, but they haven't got as much of the yoke of responsibility that a lot of people that are north of 35 have.

And so, they'll adjust, but I get why they would boo a sentiment like that, and I'm extremely surprised why she's surprised. It It's one of those things, though. This is something that we have we were talking about, but we haven't necessarily seen anything been enacted. So, data centers are kind of on the chopping block. Now, we have we see somebody somebody somebody Many people are having negative response. Don't not in my backyard kind of of of Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like what we're seeing sentiment bubbling up, but we haven't seen anything actually happen, no legislation, nothing that has been sweeping.

So, to tell a young person, is it simply just hurry up and wait, or you'll be okay once we get to the other side of this? I don't know what those timelines are. How what would you tell like the the recent graduate who was booing? Like Okay, so, if it's like she tags out and she's like, "Okay, Tom, you step in here and give a speech." Yeah. Here it is. The impromptu, but I'll tell you, if she tagged me in, I'm not going going tapping on the podium.

I'm going to say, "Listen, to everybody out there, I have wonderful news for you. You are in complete control of your life. Your life is going to be a reflection of your choices. You are facing a very daunting enemy, and that enemy is a world that is changing so fast, it is nearly impossible to predict the future. Anytime that you're in that scenario, you want to maximize your optionality. So, focus on skill acquisition. The reality is none of us can see the future. We may all get replaced by AI, that's entirely possible, but for now, that's just a what if science fiction novel.

What you do know today is that people that are using AI using AI using AI are going to massively outcompete the people that don't use AI. So, you have been born into a world where humans have become the ultimate um apex predator because of our ability to adapt. So, your job right now is to make sure that you can adapt. Now, a big part of this is going to be you have to minimize your debt. And so, if you're already in debt, that is going to be the biggest thing you have to focus on.

Do not keep making that problem worse by taking on more and more debt. Live below your means, get a job, prove your value by leveraging AI, climb the corporate ladder. It became very apparent to me in my early 20s that you could drop me in at the bottom of any company and I could work my way up. The same is true for all of you. Do not be the person that is whining and crying about how the world is changing. Just win. The rules of the game are what the rules of the game are.

Don't spend all your time trying to change the rules. That is going to be what most people do, and they will get eaten by the wave of AI. You, on the other hand, my dear people sitting in this audience today, are going to retain control of your life. You're going to acquire skills like a fiend, and you're going to outperform all the old people who have gotten so calcified in their thinking that they will be easy to demolish. So, go forth and prosper. And there it is.

We need to He's available for bookings, everybody, if anybody needs a improv He's was to do great You take when the audience gives you the unexpected result, you can take me and I got you. I got you. It's one of those things that was like that sounded good and I need the hoo-ha-ha, but it does seem like if I'm a young graduate, I don't have anywhere to go. It's just cloud and fog and The bad news is they will hate my speech more than they hated hers.

And I've been at this long enough to know how strangely people actually respond when you're talking to the masses. If I can get an audience that has self-selected into the way that I view the world, it'll go well. But the audience at large is disgusted by my it's all your fault rhetoric. Yeah. And I say that I get it is provocative. I say it to trigger people, but I'm actually just trying to get people to understand if you make a different choice, you will get a different outcome.

And the goal here is to figure out what things do I need to do in order to get the outcome that I want. And we are living now in a time that is so intellectually poisonous that my main goal of being in front of a camera is just to give people an alternate reality, one of the incredible joy of personal responsibility, of being like oh, I just have to out compete people that are going to spend all their time lobbying government. They want bigger government. They want handouts, all that.

And I just have to say [ __ ] that. I want to be super strong. Remember, everybody, is this actually in the Bible? Pray not for a lighter load, but instead pray for stronger shoulders or is that just something that came later? It's so dope. I wish it were in the Bible cuz this for sure for sure is the thing that if you want your life to go well, pray not for a lighter load, instead pray for stronger shoulders. And more aptly, hit the gym and get stronger shoulders.

Literally and figuratively. And the reality that you can outperform from around you is so startling that once you start going down that path, it's like, wait. It was really this easy? Now, you'll pay an extraordinary price of time and effort and persistence and consistency and all that to be sure, but it starts paying off fast, man. Like this is not something where it only pays off in 10 years or 20 years. It will start paying off immediately. So, yeah. It if I could get people to have a historical context on what happens when you have this kind of transformation, it is absolutely brutal for those that do not adapt.

Therefore, you must adapt. What is adaptation? It means learning the skills that are relevant today, and if those skills stop being relevant in 2 weeks, then you relearn the next thing, and you relearn the next thing. And even if AI really does take over and it becomes better than us at everything, you want to be the last person standing at your job or whatever. So, um yeah, that is the focus. Now, it's not a popular message today, but remember, I'm speaking to the 2%. That's it.

That's all we can do. All right, let's jump over to our Kelsi trade of the week. Shout out to Kelsi. Thank you for sponsoring another live. Shout out to Kelsi. We're looking at the US-Iran nuclear deal. Right now, 58% of traders think that there will have a deal done by the end before 2027 by the end of the year. Uh 34% and declining said it was before August. 9% 35% and declining said before September. So, it seems like we're going to get a deal in Iran eventually, but it's not quite here yet.

Um and this is on the news of Trump just rejected Iran's latest peace proposal. What's your over/under on when we'll get a deal in Iran? I think we'd have to really say what we consider a deal. If we're saying a deal where the US and the world are in a better position now than they were before all of this started, I don't know that you get there. So, in that way, right now, and I always leave the caveat that it could be darkest before the dawn, but the reality is I think Trump is up against um having to withdraw without getting what he wants.

So, will this come to a conclusion? Obviously. Will we make it out of 2027 without a conclusion? I can't imagine it. it. it. But I think that we're going to linger in this sort of weird in-between land for quite some time. So, that's just the hard truth of it. It is very easy for Iran to keep running an asymmetric warfare game, so just [ __ ] things up in the Strait of Hormuz enough that they put the world in a position where the world would rather pay $2 million per shipment than do what they're doing now.

I think that if in the end we stay in that kind of situation, what the messaging that's going to stick for Trump is that the Strait was open before you got involved, the nuclear um proliferation that you were concerned about with Iran was not as imminent as you would lead us to believe, and so you have egg all over your face. If he is unable to get allies on board, unable to get the Strait open, and ends up attacking a bunch of civilian infrastructure in Iran, and the Iranian people never rise up, it it is a catastrophe.

It's a catastrophe. The US will look weak. It will become clear to many people that despite having a gigantic military that we're burning through our weaponry very fast, far faster than we're able to replace it. We are not the World War II America that we once were. Um that you can through asymmetric warfare cause major heartburn, whether it's for the US or for China, that these big countries are only going to be as formidable as they are willing to wage total warfare. We in the US certainly do not have the appetite for total warfare.

So, we'll find out if China has the appetite for total warfare or if they even need to do it. Um but yeah, so the US tried to run a Venezuelan playbook on Iran, and it didn't work. I don't see any signs of it working. So, yeah, again, depending on what your definition is of get out of this, um um um I'll be surprised. With every passing day, I become more certain that we exit because we must, because there's so much political pressure on Trump to exit, but that we end up with a um Middle East that is far more destabilized than when we came in.

You said total war with China. We're talking about like proxy, right? Well, no, I'm saying so you're breaking into spheres of influence. The US is going to run uh run uh run uh the Western Hemisphere. We thought we were going to do something that wasn't just geographically based and was going to be okay, we are where capital is. So, we're going to have our hemisphere, the greater greater greater um Western Hemisphere and we're going to greater North America, I think that's what they're calling it. And we're going to have this capital uh where the capital is rising.

We're going to have the best relationship. We're going to go in, we're going to slap Iran around. We're going to let our GCC partners know we're the place you want to be. We can knock these guys down, only thing you were really worried about, normalize relationships with Israel. It's just a a new day. And honestly, I love the idea of that new day given how much capital is pouring out of the GCC nations. Now, with all of this, they're going to have to redirect that to their own protection.

I think when they told the US that we couldn't use their airspace, Saudi and uh I believe it's Kuwait, um when that happened, I realized, uh-oh, they don't think the US can protect them. And so, that means all that money that was theoretically going to flood into US markets is actually going to have to stay to a large degree in the home, you know, region. They're going to have to build up their own defenses. They're going to have to deal with now a more aggressive Iran.

And so, I think Trump can lop that node off in terms of his vision of the future. So, he will be able to extract himself. But, there are going to be like, "Dude, just think of what this says to our allies. Think of what it says to China in terms of our ability to stop them from taking Taiwan." They're going to be like, "Get the [ __ ] out of here. You don't have the political will to stop this. There's no universe in which you guys are going to come [ __ ] with us.

So, we're going to build this up. We're going to go in. We're going to try to take Taiwan via um um um not diplomatic, but administrative means where they get their people more and more in power with every day, people in Taiwan that actually want to unify with China. And then, they just start choking them off from a blockade perspective and say, you know, this we are reunifying in 2027. That's what it is. And then, if the US signals any hesitation, then it's just game over.

So, yeah, this will have ramifications. I want to drill down into the Cal Shibat again the Cal Shibat trade again because they have a specific language for what a yes agreement is cuz I think we are in a the sentiment looks bad, but we can still get a deal on the table. So, according to this, if the United States has agreed to sign or accepted a new Iran-US nuclear deal. And that's a ceasefire agreement that is a proposal that checks all the boxes. I know we're talking about 14 pro versus 9-point pro 9-point pro 9-point pro think technically just as we just accept.

accept. accept. Yeah. So, it's like, how much can they get us to slide? So, it's one of those things we might accept a deal, but then that sentiment might still very much be prevalent. We might have start rolling back from the Middle East, but I don't know if the UAE is going to get back on our side and stuff like that. So, a deal getting done is different than how people feel about the deal and the sentiment and trust that they have in the US. the US.

the US. Yeah, so, to speak specifically to this, yes, I would say you have something by the end of 2027. You have something but for me, you have something by the midterms. Like, if he's still caught in this quagmire by the midterms, it is game over for the Republicans to hold uh the House and the Senate. So, I think on that, his massive amount of pressure is there far more than the end of the year. Like once he's on the other side of the midterms, it doesn't matter anymore.

Nice. And then as far as like the sentiment and stuff like that, do you think that that's just going to take a little bit more time to build that get that rapport again with the IRGC nations and things like that so that way they are on our side? Well, just to pull things out. So, the IRGC is specifically the Islamic Republican Guard Corps or whatever in Iran, but the GCC nations so getting the GCC nations back on our side side side if this goes poorly, I don't think that happens in any it will be decades where we'll have to see how things play out, see how they normalize, see what the US's position is because if that happens, let's say that this is a total [ __ ] show, it does not resolve in any way that is positive to the US.

Trump loses the midterms for sure. Um then you have a very long shot Republican hold of the White House in what 28? So, then I think that becomes you might have a total reset at that point where maybe they could go in, but I wouldn't expect that. I don't think that's their focus for whatever reason that I don't fully understand. Um the Democrats are way friendlier to Iran than they are say to Saudi Arabia. Like I remember the whole fist bump thing with Biden. I mean, it's just so weird.

So, assuming that that whole thing holds, the economic play in the Middle East poof is gone. And then the we have been bad to you um conciliatory moves will almost certainly be made by the Democrats. So, I would expect them to lift sanctions on Iran and things like that. So, I think then that becomes a very different play in the Middle East. East. East. So, there I'll say I can make predictions, but I feel my crystal ball is very hazy. At that point, that one feels like a all bets are off kind of thing, and we need to see how things settle out.

Um and if that happens, I have to imagine that we shift our focus to China pretty immediately because Trump will want to let go of the catastrophic failure that this will have been if he can't bring it all around. Like, imagine if he walks out where they're like, "We're diluting some of our nuclear material so that um we can only make seven instead of 11 bombs." bombs." bombs." It if he walks out with a deal like that, it it will be read even by his his most diehard people will propagandize for him, but even by people that had been on his team up until that point, they'll be like, "Nah, like this is a pretty big failure." Yeah.

Let's go and jump over to 60 Minutes where Bibi sat down and talked about his perspective of what's left to do in the Iran war. Is the war with Iran over? And if it isn't, who will decide when it is? I think it accomplished a great deal, but it's not over because there's still nuclear material, nuclear material, nuclear material, enriched uranium that has to be taken out of Iran. Uh Uh Uh [snorts] [snorts] [snorts] there is still uh enrichment sites that have to be dismantled. There are still proxies that Iran supports.

There are ballistic missiles that they still uh want to produce. Now, we've degraded a lot of it, but all of that is still there, and there's work to be done. How do you envision the highly enriched uranium will be removed from Iran? You go in, and you take it out. With what? Special forces from Israel? Special forces from the United States? Well, I'm not going to talk about military means, but the president what So, a lot of uh chatter, whether this is real or not, a lot of chatter is saying that the whole thing where they were like, "Oh, one of our pilots was shot down, or two of our pilots were shot down.

Uh and they had to go and rescue them. That that was all just PR cover for a failed attempt to go in and extract the nuclear material from Isfahan. Um Isfahan. Um Isfahan. Um I I don't know enough about like the logistics on the ground, but that seems absurd to a level that like I can't fathom. fathom. fathom. Absurd that we would try that or that it Yes. Dude, you have If If what we have been told is real, and maybe it's not, but if what we've been told is actually real, that material was buried, like deep.

deep. deep. You don't run in with a couple shovels, dig it out in 25 minutes, jump back on your planes, and take off. Like that's like excavator equipment. Like you've really got to go hard in the paint to dig that stuff out, and you're a sitting duck while you're doing it. It's not like Iran doesn't know where Isfahan is. They can just launch an attack. So, if that's what happened, then I would imagine that yes, it would make sense that that failed spectacularly, and that we look like absolute morons for having tried it.

So, when he says that, I have to believe that what he means is not that you're running special forces operations. Though, he had a chance to say what I'm about to say, and he didn't, so take it for what it's worth, but but but my assumption is that would only come as either you have you resume like full-blown military operations. You absolutely oblit- obliterate everything that the only thing that Iran has left is insurgents, so that they're fighting like street level that you could create a perimeter and stop them from doing it.

But as long as they can launch missiles at you, like you're not going to be able to do that. They're just going to like bomb their own site to try to get a big PR victory if nothing else. So, that one just seems silly to me. So, when he says this, I'm like, yeah. I presume you mean that either this is negotiated, and so they say, "Fine, come in and get it." And then you go in and get it, or that you are you've established such total supremacy that you can just stroll in, take days and days and days, and not have to worry about getting shot.

All right, let's let him leave in plain. President Trump has said to me, "I want to go in there." And I think it can be done physically. That's not the problem. problem. problem. If you have an agreement and you go in and you take it out, why not? That's the best way. So, there he did say there isn't an agreement? Can it be taken out by force? Well, you're going to ask me these questions. I'm going to dodge them because I'm not going to talk about our military uh military uh military uh possibilities, plans, or anything of the kind.

And I'm just trying to get at how long is it going to take to achieve that aim? aim? aim? I'm not going to give a timetable to it, but I'm going to say that's a terrifically important mission. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. So, this uh 4-week war getting a little bit longer. Yeah, just a little bit longer. Just just a little. So, if you guys think you have a better read on what's happening, make sure you go check out Kalshi, use the code impact, and you get $10 off your own trades.

So, go make this money on this war. You might as well. well. well. Um Um Um we have to talk about the insider trading, too, of Trump cuz they are doing reports that allegedly right now conservative estimates is it's a 3x net worth gain since he entered into office to where he is now. So, would you put that I wouldn't put that in the insider trading camp. I would say probably just outright corruption. Not that insider trading's not corruption, but this gets into like the Trump phone and the crypto stuff.

Like, there it's Oh god, they're going to be investigating this until the end of time and rightfully so. All of our politicians need to be held to account. This kind of stuff is super gross. Um but but but Trump do it doesn't seem like he's doing direct trades. Now, are people inside of the administration, especially on like Kalshi and Polymarket, running these insane like um bets like hours before he'll make a big announcement. Yes, so um that part I think we really have to I think they even put something in front of Congress, didn't they to make it illegal for aids even in the White House to be betting on all this stuff and I think that that is incredibly important.

If you want to have any sort of legitimacy like if we're really going to let people gamble on everything like you've got to put some guard rails about who's going to have insider information because it it brings out some wild stuff. You see the guy that put a bet on temperature and he took literally going to say hair dryer. Jesus, man. So yeah, you've got a yeah. And then meanwhile the guy that that bet on the Venezuelan mission, he's one who got called to Congress and is actually going to trial now.

Like they're trying to bring charges against him for it. So it's one of those things where it's like People got to be careful. careful. careful. Yeah, where's that where's that line? Or the the Super Bowl person who camped out of the stadium and was watching the yeah timing the rehearsal and then was able to you know so this but Stuff like that I think you're going to have a hard time getting rid of cuz to me that one's just being clever but cuz he's not influencing it.

He's just learning about something and that really is um for anybody whether you're betting or whether you are investing you're saying either I'm better at this thing than you or I have information you don't have. Otherwise it's pure chance and that becomes far less interesting. So yeah, that one like okay, yeah, fair enough. People are going to find ways to get a leg up but like proper insider information yeah, you got to protect against that. Well, up until this month it was there it was all outside of the US, right?

You couldn't make deals on US soil on both Calchas and Polymarket until recently, right? So like you had people then using VPNs and going out of the country to do it. That's so wild. That is so wild. Yeah, this is we're in a wild wild west moment right now to be sure. We're going to want some guard rails. Now I'm a big believer people should be able to do with their money whatever they they If they want to literally light their money on fire, they should be able to light their money on fire.

So, I I've confessed this before. I get unhinged when people act like my money is their money. Like, whoa, do I have a problem with that? Uh and this was long before I got wealthy. I just really have beef with banks acting like uh it's their money and it is a privilege of mine to be able to access it. Like, what are you talking about? Uh so, yeah, I think people should be able to do what they want, but we've got to put guardrails. You I mean, this just gets wild way too fast.

All right, let's talk about the upcoming midterms cuz you just said Trump needs to have these things done by midterms, but there's been a lot of shaking up over the last weekend. So, right now Republicans are on the verge of a double-digit gain in the US House seats through redistricting. This is per CNN. Um somebody down here broke it down. So, the plus four that was in Virginia that was slated to go live has just been struck down by the Virginia Supreme Court. Um but you can see Florida, Louisiana Florida, Louisiana Florida, Louisiana sorry.

Is that because it's race-based? No, this is separate from the the race-based race-based race-based did that one get struck down but other ones are going through? The Virginia um cuz that's from Virginia state Supreme Court. Got it. So, their own state was like, like, like, their own state ruled their own state ruled it. The Louisiana um Florida um And I want to say I thought Arkansas was on here. They might have missed that one. one. one. That one is a Supreme Court win and that's the Voting Rights Act as a federal institution.

Got it. Um but I say all that to say is that if Republicans by one way or another are able to with gain power through the midterms, does that kind of free up Trump in a certain way? Or do you think like would that have a significant impact on how he finishes his presidency? presidency? presidency? Yes, the immediate math is if they retain power in the midterms, that is an extraordinarily extraordinarily extraordinarily powerful tool for them to be able to continue to push the Trump agenda.

If they're able to get a big enough margin that you have enough loyal soldiers that you can just ram your um um um your legislation through, they'd be in a much better position than him doing everything through executive order. So, yes, that I mean that would be extremely consequential. Now, consequential. Now, consequential. Now, I just I beseech America to you want you want to do everything via a policy where you are blind to what the outcome is going to be when you do it. And so, gerrymandering is a terrible idea.

It does not matter if it briefly advantages you, it will be used against you on a long enough timeline. You want a system where it is just as even keel as it can possibly be across all states. And we've got to get out of this mentality of populism, of our side is right and just and the other side is wrong and bad and they're going to break the country. Instead, you've got to take everything policy by policy. If somebody on the opposite aisle has a policy that is going to to put a very fine point on it, help the middle class thrive, then we want to lean into those policies.

If your team has a policy that is going to hurt the middle class, then we want to avoid those policies. Like we've really got to find a way to think about what the outcomes of the policies are instead of just like, is this my team? Yes, cool, I want it. Is it my team? No, then I don't want it without thinking about the cause and effect. Man, that one really really is rough. Now, of course, we're all going to disagree on exactly what is going to help the middle class thrive, and I'm happy to have the debate there.

And if we can just get everybody on board with when you have that thriving middle class, when people can get wealthy and they can also get poor, that you're in a good position, that you have high mobility between classes, yay. Then we can actually start talking about what policies are actually going to get us there. We've got 250 years of history to look at policies just in this country. We can also go out to other countries, look at what are the historical knock-on effects of one policy or another, uh but we're just not doing that.

Everybody are in their fields. This is all emotional. We're going to talk about this with the AI uh affecting women more than it affects men. And it's like we're in such a um a female-coded a female-coded a female-coded like legislative uh approach right now, where we just want everything to be equal, we want everything to be fair. Um it's even if you map it as coming from a place of compassion, it is so um divorced from the reality of cause and effect that we are paving the road to hell as fast as we can.

And so, we are going to have to come to some agreements about what we're trying to achieve, and then literally just look at the data. So, So, So, yeah. yeah. yeah. I feel like I got an uphill battle with convincing people of that, but nonetheless, And it's only going to get worse, too, because right now we're in the middle of election season. So, it's governors and mayors and state I just got the voting info infographic of like, "Hey, these are the thing the new ballot initiatives that we're sending over to you.

Are you okay with this 2% tax raise? Are you okay with this? Are you okay with that?" So, there's going to be a lot more of information and this stuff is coming through. So, I think your point of making it a policy individ- like separate from partisanship, I think is what we should be doing, but you know, you know, you know, political ads are going to political ads, so ads, so ads, so Political ads are definitely going to political ad, and everybody's going to slide onto a team, but it is um how do you break out of this?

So, um while I was on my trip, I decided, all right, like there's got to be somebody that presents a path forward that isn't only gnashing of the teeth and lamentations about all the things that are going wrong, which is fun, and I will keep doing it. But, it can't be the only thing. Um you've really got to paint a picture, a go-forward strategy. And the problem is as each of these policies go, they are more and more problematic. And so, we've somehow got to get people to balance the budget.

There was recently, I think it was a billionaire, somebody was like, "I'm backing Thomas Massie for president." I'm forgetting now who. And I thought my initial reaction was like, "I don't know if he has like a shot." But at the same time, like time, like time, like that might need be given that he's the only person wearing the pin about the debt. Uh that might be the person that until I see other policies that just default have to give backing to. Um so, Um so, Um so, that like changing the conversation as we start moving forward onto somebody who is talking about fiscal responsibility, um I think it's going to be very, very important.

We've really got to make that the conversation. Um but to get there, we have to get people to understand like it'll be a very simplified version of the economy, but we've really got to get people on board with that. Anyway. Uh and then the next part of this is getting people to understand that the things that sound fair end up being very unfair in the actual like implication. implication. implication. And so, I think a big part of that is going to be looking at healthcare. Uh I want to do a deep dive across and I've started doing it behind the scenes, but looking at, okay, my thing is because I don't need my current thinking to be right.

Uh I just want to find the right answer. Like doing an audit, okay, what are who's winning out there? Like who has a better setup? And what are we all aiming at? And as a country, do we agree with that anymore? And so, we'll have to start there. Like what as America do we want to do? So, if we're going to compare ourselves to like Denmark for instance, um well, what's Denmark aiming at? Are we aiming at the same thing? Uh so, so, so, it's going to be a um it's going to taking a very complex cloud of things that people are arguing about, narrowing that them down to like three to five things, just saying, "Okay, as a country, here are our three to five things." And then now let's debate about how we get there.

Um but nobody's just articulating the very specifics of what are we actually trying to achieve. We're going to jump there on the other side of our super chats and stuff like that cuz we I definitely want to break down I think there's three proposals we have here. The first is the Seattle rent control thing, the California diaper free diaper giveaway, some of Spencer Pratt's uh initiatives he's been doing that. So we'll do that at the bottom of the hour. But last thing from the international standpoint, Putin, in good news, says he thinks the Ukraine conflict is coming to an end.

So Russia had Victory Day this weekend. That's their parade celebrating World War II. And during the press conference, he said that he sees the Ukraine conflict winding down. So this seems like this is good news. There was a US-led ceasefire over the weekend. There were some prisoner swaps. So directionally seems like this is something that we would want to see more of, right? Yeah, anytime that you can bring a conflict to close where people are losing their life is a very good thing. Now, I don't know enough about the specifics here to know if this is Putin capitulating, which is how I read it.

As far as I know, they've been in a stalemate for a very long time. So I think this is Putin just taking an off-ramp. Um hey, great. I love it. Whatever uh we can get. Um but I don't see this as the Ukraine has actually reclaimed their territory, which would be my fantasy fantasy fantasy um to obviously a sovereign nation. If those people really want to be a part of Russia, let them vote uh to get that. So seeing Russia, whatever, 4 years ago rein stigate this engine of um well, if whether we think we have a reason or not, cuz I totally buy into the provocation theory uh that NATO just kept walking up closer and closer and closer to his door.

I totally buy that. Uh but at the same time, still don't want to see a sovereign nation be invaded. So, it would be wonderful to see the hostilities end, but it still will be distressing if he has been able to take to take to take part of Ukraine's territory. And I have not heard anything to the contrary. So, this feels like, okay, this is a frozen conflict conflict conflict rather than this just drag on forever. We're going to redraw borders. And so, then is it a question of he's just going to go back, regroup, and then launch another offensive moving forward?

I don't know. We'll see. I need to do a lot more research there, but this one doesn't just feel like unmitigated celebration. It is great. If it ends the killing, I'm all for it. Yay, total support. support. support. But it is sad moving into the era that we're moving into where countries are once again invading their neighbors because they can. And it is one of those things where ever since I think Kiev or Crimea was the last one and since then it was just like, okay.

There hasn't been any more advances, but those territories are still now under Russian control and it's been almost a year now at that point. So, it is one of those things where things where things where do you just brush your hands off if you're Zelenskyy and just call like call your losses and say, hey, you know, we have 80% of our territory still. Let's just double down on that 80 and give up this 20 or You have to do the calculus. Your country is is frozen in time first of all.

Like even if you're not losing, like if you've been able to reach a stalemate, stalemate, stalemate, even if you're not losing, you are unable to get your economy going again. There's a level of stress that's going to be playing out within your country. And man, you start pushing that into as many years as they're in now and that can set you back an entire generation. So, they've really got to be careful. And I can't imagine how many working age young men they've lost to this. So, not only do you lose a generation economically, but if you don't even have the the to start spinning that engine back up.

Um that can have massive consequences. I mean, look at what happened to Europe. They go from being the dominant global power in the world after World War I and World War II, it's like their level of subservience to the US and Russia became extraordinary because they just got absolutely obliterated. And so, um they sort of gave up in many ways or lost their ability to be a major player. Certainly as individuals just that ended. Um as an aggregate, they remain economic or they have rebuilt to being economically powerful, although they are desperately trying to squander that now.

But, um certainly Ukraine does not want to find themselves in that position. So, he's got to be running the calculus. What does it look like to get out of this? How do we stop the loss of life? How do we translate our military knowledge because now Russia and Ukraine are the two most knowledgeable for modern warfare on the planet, which whether they translate that into becoming weapons manufacturers or um training other countries or leveraging the knowledge to get better deals, um they've got something to their advantage if they can end the war.

But, if they can't end the war, man, it just one, you always run the risk of somebody does punch through and now um you've got a bigger problem on your hands. Uh so, Uh so, Uh so, they've got to be feeling the weight of that. So, yes, it isn't that you just like, "Oh, it's no big deal." This would be massive. It would require a change of their constitution, I believe, for them to let go of the territory. Um but nonetheless, man, nonetheless, man, nonetheless, man, the way that war works is eventually you either have a total victory where one side literally has just killed so many people, they are so dominant that they can tell you to do whatever the hell they want.

Um or everybody gets so fatigued and they've lost so much that they're like they're just not willing to keep fighting anymore. And it's very possible both sides have reached that point now. point now. point now. Over 2,500 killed, 12,000 plus injured, a 31% increase from 2024. If I was Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, 2,500? There's no way it's that low. And just in 2020 well this is 2025 according to a civilian deaths cuz I was just thinking cuz I remember Trump was talking about how Wait wait wait.

For Ukraine reaching an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 by late 2025. So deaths are in the six figures for sure. Um yeah, the the numbers have to be pretty large and I I think the total death count is north of a million between Ukraine and Russia. is Ukraine. And that's civilian These were civilian deaths. Yeah, yeah. Got it. Got it. Got it. Yeah, yeah. I was going to say the the combatant death rate is way higher than that. So even if anything, saving 600,000 lives and not having 2500 more people die, it seems like that would just be a good offer.

And I know we're up in arms over the Iran war and we lost 13 people on paper. You know, maybe that number's a little higher or not, but I can only imagine 500 to 600,000 casualties. Um that changes the attitude of a country very fast. Yes, especially if you've gotten out to a static war. It's one thing if they're still pushing in they're still gaining territory. It feels existential. It's another where you've lived for four years with them holding the territory. You've kind of gotten used to it.

So at some point it becomes easy er. It's certainly not easy, but it becomes easy er to broker a deal. Um yeah, we'll see. This I really was surprised to hear that announcement. Just shows that Iran has been sucking all the oxygen out of the room in terms of um what people are paying attention to. I still say that China is the only thing anybody really needs to be thinking about if you're in the US. Uh but you know, anytime that you can spare human life.

But going to the China if at all, do we really have any say with the Taiwan invasion? Cuz I feel like Iran has taught us we we're not as untouchable militarily as we thought we were. So do we really want to play that game with China? I think China has a free lane to Taiwan. I don't know if we get in the way It's one of those that right now today that would be a really hard decision to make about how involved you get because much of our modern way of life is still contingent on getting chips out of Taiwan.

And so if China were to take it today and decide, "Hey, we now have it and we're going to choke you out." It that's a very, very difficult position. We would be giving up a lot of leverage against China at a time where we're clearly trying to do things to increase our leverage. Um so that one is I don't think it would be as simple as the US just going, "All right, listen. Spheres of influence. of influence. of influence. Taiwan, go ahead and take it. We got it.

We're not coming over." I think there would be a lot of posturing. I think that it would escalate, escalate, escalate. I think we would send a ton of uh military hardware uh if they don't move while we're still overextended in Iran, of course. So that one becomes um I think that there would be a pretty big standoff, but I don't think America doesn't have the appetite to to to see like boots on the ground in Taiwan. No way. Uh and especially because we've already started deploying as fast as we can chip manufacturing here in the US.

Um I would be very surprised uh if we did anything more than exchange rocket fire. Um but I don't know even that because our economies are so intertwined. There's so many suppliers that get their stuff from China. China. China. I I feel like if China were to be like, "Oh, you guys want to get like you want to push back on this? Okay, supply chain off." And I feel like that would be enough. From from a drone perspective, they could certainly do that. Uh do they have a strong enough chokehold on the rare earth minerals that we need to build our other stockpiles?

It would be tough. I don't know. know. I don't know. I'm even talking about consumer goods and like how we were kind of choked out in 2020. in 2020. in 2020. Yeah, but keep in mind that right now China doesn't buy their own goods. If America doesn't buy them, then they collapse economically. So there is like if you imagine us both holding the other person by the nuts, you're in the right image. Like this is a standoff. It's not like China has all the leverage and we have none.

It's like you squeeze mine, I'm going to squeeze yours, so why don't we both chill the [ __ ] out? So, that's why it's like it's going to be interesting to see where this goes because China's made it very clear that by 2027 that they're going to reunify, and I think part of the reason that they've broadcast that is to let the US know, get yourself in a position where you're not incentivized to come in militarily because this is going to happen. You know that we're militarily dominant in the region.

You guys are going to have a much harder time projecting power here than we will. So, um just be ready. Like build your chip fabs on ground or work out a much better relationship with us. We've obviously not chosen to build a much better relationship with China. Uh then we'll see what comes out of the meeting, but that one feels like um it would go economic long before it goes kinetic. Uh I I'm sure China is well aware based on what's just happened in Iran that the US has lost a lot of confidence in its ability to ability to ability to um um um defend defend defend uh you know, a local that is not local to them.

So, I'm sure they will use that to their advantage, but as of right now today, we couldn't just be like, "Okay." Yeah. We'll see. China's making a move and China and Trump are uh Xi and Trump are meeting this week, so we'll see if anything comes out of that meeting and what that would what those ramifications will be. Yes, and I don't you may be wanting to move on, but uh I'll say one quick button here. China's been making moves for a very long time. China has upgraded their policy to officially be dismissive, and I quote, of the West.

And so, um that is all for sure. However, right now China is in a weaker position than they have been in for a while given that we've taken Venezuelan oil off the table. We've disrupted the Iranian oil. So, given that they're trying to trying to trying to hold back their reserves and they're being very strategic given that they're in a precarious position from that perspective right now. They're not going to want to launch a war that is going to be just oil and energy intensive right now.

And so, Washington knows they've got a bit of time. Also, China right now is not in their strongest economic situation. When they had their basically their equivalent of the 2008 the 2008 the 2008 Great Financial Crisis, it's like they're still dealing with that. So, they're like she's been purging his military. They're not in a super ready position. Now, part of why he's purging the military might be to get ready to have a pure loyalist military in 2027, but they're not huh famous last words, but I can't fathom them making a move right now for those reasons.

I think he has to shore up stability in the military from a personnel perspective. They've got to make sure that their economy's back on solid footing which is going to require them to have a good partnership with the US who's buying a massive portion of their goods. They'll try to offload that to a better relationship with Europe, a better relationship with Canada. They'll try to keep pushing their relationships in South America. But like as all that gets reconfigured, like this isn't just an easy go get them kind of thing.

Copy that. All right, let's jump over to the super chats. We got two super chats. First up from Truth Devon says, "Tom, I noticed when having a convo with people, I know some people can't track cause and effect and even if they wanted to, do you think it's a an IQ issue? When you talk to people, do you assess their intelligence level to know what they what you can say?" Uh yes. All of life is one big IQ test. So, that is just a brutal reality, brutal reality, brutal reality, uh but also frame of reference.

So, there I've encountered more people who I thought was smart enough to deal with the issue, but their frame of reference makes them process the world emotionally, uh and via shortcut. So, they've just established a worldview and they don't want anything to challenge that uh because it's deeply distressing. It is weird how the human mind seems truly to be wired for defensive position and to prove that you're right. Um that is a very startling reality of evolution. Um evolution. Um evolution. Um but yes, intelligence determines whether or not you can do it and then frame of reference determines whether you will do it.

it. it. Benjamin Nickel, Texas, says, "What happens if the US continues beating on Iran and China/Russia tell US citizens to stop the government or will they attack us directly?" Yeah, you know, for the first time today I was thinking about that. At what point does the world think that what we're doing is so unhinged that they try to be retaliatory? retaliatory? retaliatory? Um I think that that will come in the form of kinetic warfare is effectively zero. Um zero. Um zero. Um but if the US started being territorially acquisitive, that's when I think people would say, "Okay, yeah, we're going to have to actually uh do some kinetic warfare and push back." I don't think we're headed in that direction at all, so about like civil war like No, no, no.

We're talking Well, so they said two things. Will the US try to stop itself? The people of the US in some way political, violent They didn't say violent, but I think it's on the table of options if you say yes, the people of the US are going to stop the government. Uh does it get violent? But it's not the only way. And then would other people kinetically try to stop us? I don't think they're going to kinetically try to stop us. I don't think they're going to kinetically try to overthrow the government, but I do think that there is growing pressure growing pressure growing pressure um for people to ally against us.

You're already seeing it with Canada. You're already seeing it with Europe um with people trying to broker a closer relationship with China. So, I think that that's very real and we'll see how that plays out and then I do think that in the US you're already seeing a fracture on the right where they're having their own civil war and so that puts them in a much much much weaker position and then um by using the democratic process to just vote in a totally new group of Congress and Senate, I think that you could really bog down the the Republican Party.

I think if that happens at the midterms, Trump is going to get impeached. It will basically stop any legislative agenda that he has. He'll try to do as many things as he can via EO. He'll do things that internationally that he's got the power to do, but he'll really really really get bogged down and then towards the end of his presidency, people will realize that he's not going to be able to help them get reelected. So, they'll start abandoning him and he'll really lose whatever whatever whatever power that he still has post a failure at the midterms.

So, I think there's so much power in the hands of the people through voting right now that I don't think this is the moment where it would break violent. Um so, play that clip on a loop if I end up being wrong, but that's my read right now. now. now. All right. Let's jump over to local politics now. We're starting in California like so. Then we're going to hit Seattle. Rent control. We're going to hit the California diaper policy. But right now, Spencer Pratt has just had an attack ad launched against him and certain people are laughing cuz they say yeah, this ad she sounds great.

before you hit play, I want to set the stage for this is frame of reference at work. So, the the person laughing at least in this tweet is EndWokeness, very right-leaning outlet right-leaning outlet right-leaning outlet and for them this is like hysterical. Like, what kind of [ __ ] would think that this is a good idea? This just makes Pratt look better. It makes Pratt look better to undecideds, maybe, and to Republicans. But, left-leaning policies are left-leaning policies for a reason. And the people on the right who, in the last election, won by like a super slim margin, have somehow convinced themselves that themselves that themselves that there's been a just a total tidal shift, and even the people on the left realize, "Oh, this is all crazy, and, you know, we should be doing more right-leaning policies." That is not what's happening.

And I I am just really trying to get people to understand, "Mom Donny was not a fluke." a fluke." a fluke." There is a lot of energy behind going more in that direction. Uh we'll play the Pokimane clip later. There's real energy among people that have a left-leaning temperament. Even when they're making money, they have no sense of like, "Oh, these things that I'm spouting get me killed first." As a reminder, uh both in Cuba and in Iran, the left-leaning people that got them elected then got killed because they're like, "You were super useful, but now we can't have that.

Like, you guys want equality and all that [ __ ] Like, that's not what's on offer." So, um just being very aware that the left is going in their own direction. People that that lean left, they're going in their own direction. The energy is very socialist in nature, and I don't think people are being honest about that. So, when they put forward this ad, if your instinct is to laugh and be like, "Ha ha ha, they're committing suicide," you're not understanding what's actually going on in the psychology of people that lean left.

left. left. So, with that now, watch this understanding, you may be on the side that thinks this is funny, but this is a good ad for people that think think think in a left-leaning fashion. Republican Spencer Pratt is the last thing Los Angeles needs for mayor. Pratt opposes using taxpayer money to build brand new houses for unhoused neighbors, saying it's time for the homeless to get help or get out. Pratt thinks LA So, the the left is taking a page out of a playbook that is both pure resentment and compassion.

And the two get intermingled, and especially when they make their arguments, they can argue from a place of compassion. Um Um Um I don't know that everyone will agree with me, but Katie Porter to me is the embodiment of somebody who says compassionate things, but is clearly just a bitter angry person. Everything about the way that she talks, her tone of voice, the way she holds herself, literally everything about her screams like this is a person who inside is just angry. angry. angry. And so, when I look at that, um um um they want they want they want to build free houses for homeless people as a one-two punch of like [ __ ] landlords, like these are people like housing is a right.

You're going to hear more people say that. They may even say that here, but I I've certainly heard that out of many left-leaning politicians that housing is a right, which is absurd. That's insanity. But they're like, "Hey, everybody should have it. We're going to use taxpayer dollars to build it, despite the fact that the government would be the world's worst people to build these houses. Look at what they've done with the rail and a whole host of other things. Like they'll get bogged down in bureaucratic nightmares.

They'll fund NGOs with the money." I mean, just it becomes pure insanity. But they want that. So, when they hear Pratt doesn't want to build houses for the homeless, they don't think, "Oh my god, thankfully somebody's being fiscally responsible." They think he's an [ __ ] Like, what kind of tyrannical uh monster would side with the {quote} landlords that want to charge you money for housing. Like, that's crazy. That's what they're going to hear. Let's keep it going. It needs thousands more police officers rather than more social workers.

And Republican Spencer Press Spencer Press Spencer Press Okay, pause. So, same idea here. Uh Police officers are tyrants. Right. Police officers are tyrants. Um social workers are kind and loving, and we don't want to put more people in prison. Prison is, you know, just a brutal place that doesn't do any good for anybody. And so, we've got to get these people back out on the street. We've got to show them compassion. Not realizing that the number of like violent offenses come from a ridiculously small number of like just actual individual humans.

That there are just some people that either through mental illness or whatever have ended up in a place where for them, violence is just an option. And so, you're getting now more of these like there was a guy recently who refused to press charges on a guy, and then like some matter of months later goes and kills somebody else. And now the guy's like, "Oh, [ __ ] Like, maybe I should have pressed charges." So, it's one of those where if you are trying to respond to a violent outburst violent outburst violent outburst with the part of you that is devastated, as I am by the way, that somebody has ended up in this position either because they were, I mean, take drug and alcohol impacted at birth, right?

I mean, just you're setting somebody up for failure. Um if you're raised in a broken home, if you're abused, like all of these things break the human psyche, and they set you up to do horrific things down the road. And like that's rough, man. They did not do anything to deserve to be in that position. But nonetheless, like when they roll up and the person is having a mental health crisis and they're putting other people in jeopardy, you have to physically restrain them. You can't show up and be like, "Listen, everything's going to be okay." Like that ship sailed a long time ago.

And so, that's where I'm like, I get it. It is It I'm like, I get it. It is It really is a human tragedy, dude. I've been way too close to this. When you see somebody who was um broken in childhood for whatever reason, you're talking about IQ earlier. No one has earned their IQ. Nobody. So, uh maybe you got dealt a bad hand, and because of that, you were unable to defend yourself when you were young, and just every kid is vulnerable. And so, you just get broken.

And now you're an adult. Anybody that doesn't meet that with like deep, deep empathy, which again, a quote that sounds like it should be from the Bible, but probably isn't, there but for the grace of God go I, right? Dude, I think that way too often in my life. It's like I really believe the importance of childhood is so extreme. Any of us could have been broken in childhood, and the ones of us that dodged it, just like we got lucky. And so, And so, And so, I hear about somebody in emotional distress doing a very bad thing, and I'm like, "Fuck, that is so brutal." Because you can track it back often times to head trauma, drug and alcohol abuse, uh genetic misfire, whatever.

Like there's so many things that they didn't do to earn that bad thing, but nonetheless, like if you've got somebody that kills, like you got to lock them the [ __ ] up. Yeah. Uh the next one, this is public employees public employee unions should have less power. Employee unions should have less power, not more. LA is on the right track, and needs to stay the course. Vote no on Republican Republican Republican LA is on the right track. That that is crazy. As somebody that's lived here now for like 32, 33 years, I assure you LA is on the wrong track as evidenced by increasing homeless populations, populations, populations, encampments everywhere, open drug addiction, like addiction, like addiction, like gnarly.

gnarly. gnarly. The number of taxpayers that are fleeing bad. So we just have less money to deal with things. with things. with things. Now, the thing in that that I expect people have a knee-jerk reaction to is that the union should have more power. And I think they're going to find it weird, the thought of wait, why wouldn't we want workers to have more power? The reality is that unions have like almost no correlation with um um um employee power employee power employee power in terms of being able to actually get your wages up.

Globalism, like when you chart that, that that has decimated workers' ability to increase pay over time. Unions had like something like a 2% correlation. It was very, very low. So getting people to understand what ends up playing out with unions is that they end up basically being able to hold people hostage, the politicians, cuz they can vote as a block. And so now they're saying we want to get these policies, which as you can imagine will be good for them. There's also uh a lot of feedback loops where it's like, "Hey, dear politician, uh if you help us get this money secured from an NGO or whatever, then or government grants or um government contracts, we'll then feed back into your campaign." So that gets very incestuous on both sides.

So don't think anybody's clean here, but looking at that, what ends up happening is, just like regulatory capture, the unions are not voting for the things that are going to be best for the consumer or for the business, they're voting things that are best for the union. And so when you look at education, education, education, to give the union more power. Exactly. So we end up spending more per student than basically anywhere else on Earth, and we're middle of the pack in terms of results. So to me that is a catastrophe, and it shows you that throwing money at the problem, strengthening the union, neither of those things help.

And so, you want to put yourself in a position where people can be fired, that they're held accountable to results. But, we just as a society, roughly 50% of people have completely abandoned that notion. And so, we're constantly in this super precarious position where you've got a body that is able to get itself more and more power to help politicians get elected, they yield worse and worse results. results. results. And go back to that image for me. I have a growing hypothesis that I fully understand is going to be very unpopular, but uh I have a growing hypothesis that hypothesis that hypothesis that unions, unions, unions, especially in education, that whole mentality of collectivism, we've got to get what's quote unquote fair.

I need to see the image. And this is pure anecdote and I have no idea that this is going to end up being true, but if you had said, "Tom, I'm about to show you a picture of a union, um do you expect to see more men or women?" I would default say you're going to expect to see more women. And I really think that part of what makes women so powerful from an evolutionary perspective is this desire to caretake, to look after people, to make sure people are okay, to connect with humans, to think more about humans.

That's super necessary. You need that, but it has to be in dynamic tension with personal responsibility, uh male like ambition and aggression. Like, all of those things, they they have to like hold each other accountable. And when they don't, things get out of balance. And so, um there's that woman, Helen something something Helen. Helen Andrews, the feminization of society? Yes, if that's her name, yeah. Uh talking a lot about this issue and I think it's really potent. And she's like, "Things broke quote unquote woke when women started making up the majority of that given role.

And so, this is one of those, um, I will beat to death the drum, women are incredible. Lisa's one of the best business partners I've ever, I mean, literally, my wife is up there in the top echelon of, and I've worked with incredible people, being a woman just has had no impact in terms of her ability to perform as an entrepreneur. It's incredible. So, uh, and we have a host of females here at Impact Theory that are incredible. I had a host back at Quest, incredible, incredible.

incredible. incredible. However, However, However, without that dynamic tension, you end up in a problem. And so, that's where I think we're going to see more and more of this, and women need to come to an understanding that, oh, this is how we go pathological, just as men have to understand how they go pathological. And right now we're not seeing it. They wrap it in this language of compassion, how could you ever push back? I can push back because it yields terrible results. Mhm. And I want to kind of ground this for a second cuz you started this at the beginning saying that this is a slant toward depending on what the what part of the partisan side they're leaning toward.

So, right now we're talking about the LA mayor race, but I'm saying right now this is going to be in Ohio, this is going to be in Florida, this is going to be in Texas. So, while we're breaking down this specific entity, I think the same guidelines that you're pushing should be applied to wherever our viewers are listening from and whatever political ads they're going to see in their YouTube TV shows that's going to be coming increasingly frequent over the next couple months. So, this is the groundwork that you're setting out, but this is also kind of a a cause and effect breakdown if you will give me that generosity of how to approach these ads when they're saying these claims and when they're saying certain things.

Yes, the that's all true. The reason that I wanted to talk about this specifically is that I think in California, they think that people on the right think that, oh my god, Spencer Prescott has on lock. Like his ads are incredible and I am admittedly optimistic and I certainly as of right now, he's the only candidate that I would ever consider putting any energy behind. energy behind. energy behind. Um, however, I think it is a mistake to think that there is a huge swath of independents that are swayable.

I think we're a one-party state for a reason. We have been a one-party state for a very long time and there's a actually a name for this, but I forget. It was based on a Boston politician who um, basically ran ran the city more or less into the ground to get people to leave that didn't want to be a part of his policies and I think that California does the same thing. By being so anti-business, by doing things that are so left-leaning, people on the right like myself go, okay, am I really going to try to get people over the hump in terms of looking at cause and effect or do I just go, I got to get the [ __ ] out of here.

Yeah. And so, more and more people leave making the state more and more one-party and that is the thing I really want to call attention to. It's like no one no one should want a one-party state, a one-party country. Like that's how you really get yourself in trouble and I see people increasingly calling for that. for that. for that. Um, so, yeah, that would be on either side of the sheet too. People like vote with their feet. Like Yes. And it creates good [clears throat] and bad things.

So, you can go somewhere where the policies that you want to see enacted then get enacted and you get to run that experiment, but it's bad in that you end up getting instead of these like really mixed places where it's all about persuading the persuadable, doing something that works for the vast majority of the people regardless of whether they're left-leaning or right-leaning. right-leaning. right-leaning. Um, that that to me is way better because remember, I'm coming at this from an evolutionary perspective. Where what I'm saying is evolution had to get us to be able to cooperate in these really large groups, like massive, tens of millions of people, hundreds of millions when you go to the country level, uh to be able to cooperate together.

And the solution that it came up with is basically uh the left-right divide, as we call it, Yeah. male-female divide, which breaks similarly-ish along the left-right divide, and religion, so that we can have this meta value system that can be communicated very rapidly. So, So, So, I'm saying we need those two things. You will function at your best. So, I look at Florida and I'm like, "Well, you guys are just going to If you keep going and you get more and more right, then you're going to start having a pathological problem on that side.

As California gets more and more left, you're going to start being pathological on that side." And so, it's like uh moments of moments of moments of populism are populism are populism are problematic. Like, populism is in and of itself a pathological state of being. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's keep it going with the different policy initiatives. We have Pramila Jayapal. Uh she's a congresswoman running in Washington. This is her tweet. "Seattle has one of the worst housing crises in the country. I see it every time I'm home in my district.

People working full-time jobs who can't afford rent, teachers, nurses, and transit workers who can't live in the city they serve. Families on housing assistance waiting list have been frozen for years. This is a policy failure, not an inevitability. We built this crisis by choosing developers over people. We can choose differently. Housing is a human right. We fight for it like no one." There we go. He's talked about the housing is a human right thing. Um and then, in response to that, uh Caleb Hammer, let's go to the wide real quick, G.

Uh he retweeted it and then actually, I literally just closed that tab out. You're killing me right now on the live, guys. You're killing me. Um Caleb Hammer retweeted and showed some of um Texas's policies that literally showed that we have overcome this just by increasing the supply of housing. So, it's one of those things where we kind of hear of a problem. I think every political ad starts to say, "Here is this ominous problem. Here is this bad guy politician who's caused it or this billionaire who's caused it or this bad person X.

And then here I am that's going to make everything better." That's the typical setup for the beginning of a political ad. So, when it comes to housing, I know you did a whole deep dive of it, but what are people missing that uh uh rent control isn't the thing? What what's the part that what's causing this disconnect? this disconnect? this disconnect? Well, on rent control itself, the reason that that policy is never going to work is because you are trying to take something that the free market is incredibly good at, which is incentivizing people to build new things, to set the price based on what people can actually afford, and to dynamically adjust when anything gets out of balance based purely on human selfishness, right?

So, the landlord's trying to make as much money as possible, the builder's trying to make as much money as possible, but they're up against the realities of the people that are willing to pay. When there's a shortage of housing, you are putting the landlord in the position of power, and you're de- you're de- you're de- uh powering your you're making it harder for the people that are trying to buy or rent, you're making it much harder for them. Where them. Where them. Where if you create a situation where builders can take all the risk of building something cuz they may overbuild, and they may put themselves in a situation where they lose all their money.

But, if they don't build, then they don't have a job. So, these guys are trying to walk that line. that line. that line. When you leverage that, when you have the ability to tap into the selfishness of humans trying to do something awesome with their lives, trying to be ambitious and build something cool, and they will realize very quickly, "If I build something better than my competitors, I'm more likely to get people into my house." So, the most selfish thing they can do aligns with the selfish desires of the person trying to rent or buy, and now you're in a great position because selfish desires are aligned.

When the government tries to be a nanny state, and do it from the top down, they end up breaking it because and this is the part, no matter how many times I say this, people just it it doesn't click, and I don't know what else to say. The reason this all breaks down is because you, dear viewer, you, your mom, your dad, your friends, none of you will work for free. And because you won't work for free, a house, a house, a house, a building, an apartment complex, those are all businesses.

And you're expecting somebody to do the upkeep. But the person that you want to do the upkeep, they have to pay somebody to come in and fix the thing. But that person won't work for free. And the person making the PVC pipe that the plumber is going to go buy at the store, they won't work for free. And the person at the store won't work for free. And so what we say is, there's no universe in which a government employee, really think about government employees for a second, there's no universe in which the government employee is going to be able to price everything to take into consideration how rapidly all of those prices are moving because who knows, something happens, like right now in Iran with oil, oil affects the price of plastic, PVC is made from plastic, so now a plumber's job is being impacted by the cost of the PVC for them to do the job, ah, all of that stuff.

There's no way for a politician to know. So when they say that apartment can only cost this much, then the landlord goes, "Whoa, I don't want to own this building." Then the builder goes, "I don't want to build any buildings. A, there's so much red tape, and B, even if I get this built, who's going to buy it?" it?" it?" that they can make money, but the landlords can't make money because the politicians are convinced that they know how to set prices. It is absurd in the extreme, but people, because they're not looking at cause and effect, don't understand why things can't be free.

And the reason things can't be free is no one will work for free. So we are all the collective problem. The second we're willing to work for free, and just, "Yeah, of course, I'll go do that thing." And by the way, not only work for free, but work on what the government official tells us to work on for free. So now you might be doing a job where you don't enjoy that thing. Tough [ __ ] You've got to go do it for free because we've got to offer the free housing and that's what the free housing is going to require.

And it's like screaming into the void to get people to understand this is malleable. You can know why we have to set this over to the free market. We can know why a policy will have a negative impact, why it makes the amount of available housing go down the more you try to control rents. Like this is all knowable. It's easy to explain. And yet people just keep banging their heads against this absolutely asinine policy of trying to make this stuff free. Yeah, I finally got those uh graphics up which prove exactly your point.

So if you can see on the left before rent control, this was the amount of permits uh building permits by quarter. Once rent control was instituted, the amount of housing supply dropped down. Less people were Dramatically. Dramatically drops. We go to Austin in 2022 at the height of the pandemic, they kind of opened up their housing market. Anybody could build wherever, whenever. And as you can see since then it kind of dropped down. Uh Kind of It was significantly It is a cliff. Uh Now I don't know if some of that is projected or if that's all real, but that is a cliff, man.

So basically, if you leave it to the free market, they will see, "Oh, there's constrained supply because people flooded into Austin during COVID." That constrained supply, prices skyrocketed. Selfish builders, remember you want them to be selfish, then aligned their selfish desires with the selfish desires of the people trying to rent and buy and said, "We're going to make a bunch more because I as the builder think I'm going to get wealthy and then that's going to be great for you because that's going to drive the cost down and lo and behold it actually does drive the cost down because all of those builders making their individual decisions not doing it up at the level of the government where they are never going to have the level of visibility that they need.

They just get to be entrepreneurial and they get to try something and say, "I think I can do this better. I can build something. I'm reading the market right." And we get to harness that energy, and it brings cost down. It It is Look, I get it. it. it. If you're not entrepreneurial-minded, and you're stuck at a job, and you watch somebody who is become a landlord, and they build all this incredible housing, and it's selling like hotcakes, and you're looking at that, and you're getting angry because they're pulling away from you, I get why you get frustrated.

But, if you then go to the government, and you say, "Fuck these [ __ ] Like, you've got to curb that. It's gross what they're charging." Guess who ends up stepping in to help write those laws. It's going to be somebody that's advantaged by those laws. It may or may not be the landlords themselves, but it's going to be somebody. It's going to be uh We're just talking about them. It's going to be a What are they called? No, when they come together? A union or something. It's going to be a politician.

They're going to be getting something from someone somewhere that is advantaged by this. And it may just be the homeowners. The homeowners are like, "Hey, we're going to vote." They come together as a block, and they're like, "We want to make sure that you can't build more houses." This is what's called NIMBYism, not in my backyard. So, now I've got my house. I don't care if the next generation behind me can't get theirs. I want the value of my house to go up up up up up.

And so, you end up putting yourself in a position that is completely against your own best incentives. So, yeah, it becomes wild when you divorce yourself from cause and effect. effect. effect. Martin in the chat that said, "Why would a builder ever build low-income housing when they could change when they could charge much more for the higher end?" I think the point here is everybody wants to build the higher end housing, but when there's so much more housing, the competition drives the rent prices down just naturally.

just naturally. just naturally. Well, now they're wrong about that. So, uh this is somebody that has not spent any time being an entrepreneur. So, uh in high-end housing, you're taking a much bigger risk on every house. So, part of the reason that you do low-end housing is it's much easier to get in and get out. Um so, you can do something that is um you're extending far less capital to build that house. And so, if you're like, I want to do a volume play, um let's say that you really believe one, it also you might have something where they grew up uh in a position where they didn't have wealth and so, they want to create something beautiful for people.

Um and then you have the lack of capital outlay. So, if you're like, I know how to go into these houses, I can turn them fast, I can make something that looks beautiful for the neighborhood. Um and it just makes me feel good about the people that I'm contributing to, that's how you end up there. But, there are going to be more people that are building middle-class and building lower income. Um so, yes, for the most part, people will follow the money. But, there is a risk and reward um ladder that you go up.

So, that's again, this is why you want it to be handled by the free market, everybody pursuing their own best interests best interests best interests um ends up coming out in the wash being more broadly spread out than when the government says, "No, no, no, you're going to focus on this thing." All right. And our next policy I want to go through. Um Gavin Newsom tweeted it, so I'm going to start with his tweet first rather than start with the allegations, but um here are the facts.

It's a $6.2 million contract. It covers 40 million diapers in year one. So, this is the free diaper thing. Free diaper program and it's about 15.5 cents per diaper, not 50 cents is clean. And the Baby to Baby, which is the NGO that is going to head off of it, it's a non-profit organization that through that was chosen through a regulated competitive procurement process. It's a national non-profit based in California with strong experience in delivering diapers for families in need. In the last 15 years, they have distributed over 300 million diapers to families in need across the country.

So, I'm going to take Gavin for at for his word and just let all the spin go. Yep. Looking at this program, the promise is 400 free diapers for all newborns in California, $6.2 million contract. This is something that I heard you say in the past, you know, if you want if government wants to do anything, they can do anything they want. They just have to balance the budget and get to it. Yeah, I'll say that ever so slightly differently, which is if people want the government to do something like this, then the people should vote for it and as long as the government has balanced their budget, um I despise I despise I despise there being a sense that we work for the government.

Okay, the government is a servant, quite literally, to the people. Just as a PSA. Yeah. But yes. Um and then so then this was kind of the the lay of the land how we're laying it out. There's something to Steve Hilton who's uh running for governor of California. And his whole pitch is, why don't we just do it direct to the consumer themselves. So again, he's using the old figures at that um 50 cents per diaper, but this is his pitch. All right, so Gavin Newsom is taking $20 of your money to send 100,000 babies 400 diapers.

That works out at 50 cents per diaper. We just came into Target to check out what you could buy it for in the store. Here you go, just check this one out here. 162, $26. That works out at 16 cents per diaper. Gavin Newsom's diapers are three times more expensive. This isn't even Costco. Why is it three times more expensive for Gavin Newsom to send diapers to 100,000 babies than just leaving the money in the bank accounts of the parents in the first place? Because he's going to some total [ __ ] nonprofit which the cronies of his are going to make money and that is what is wrong with California.

Instead of just cutting taxes so you can afford diapers and sending it out in this ridiculous bureaucratic scheme. bureaucratic scheme. bureaucratic scheme. So there's kind of a a running kind of speculation that although on paper this seems like a good idea, this is what's wrong with government. It's a way to funnel money through different avenues, stuff like that. Um I wanted to lay both of those out there in front of you. So again, the people who are at home when they get their political ads, they can kind of at least try to see through the minutia of what's being like told to them.

So, kind of lay out the pros and cons of those two scenarios. Wouldn't it just been easier to cut taxes and give single working mother or or um uh new uh newborn parents more money in their pocket so they can buy as much diapers as they want or is it the government stepping in and if it's as long as it's affordable in a balanced budget, that's the way to [ __ ] do it? Give us kind of the pros and cons of both arguments. So, right now the reality is that people break into one of two camps.

You either think people are too stupid to make their own decisions and therefore you want the government to do it for them or you think the people are responsible, can think through their own problems and therefore you want to put the power in their hands. So, whether it's diapers or school vouchers, anybody that says, "Nope, you don't get to decide for yourself because we don't trust parents to think through this problem well." problem well." problem well." Uh that is a nanny state person and they are an enemy of the state as far as I'm concerned.

So, we have to get on board with the reality that the government is a servant to the people and that if we decide as the people that we want to help expected mothers, then great or mothers with small kids, I love it. Uh I think that making sure that parents um have tax incentives, making sure that um parents are able to make their own decisions, I fully support all of that. So, putting the money in their hands in terms of a tax break, win. Putting the money in their hands in terms of a coupon that they can spend, it's a win.

Um that also allows the private market to go and compete for that by making a better product or a cheaper product um that people can then make the decision as to whether or not that's how they want to spend. Like if they just want to get an unending amount of diapers because they go through them faster than the government thinks they should, whatever. whatever. whatever. Put them in control and that to me is where all of this breaks. You either think people are too stupid to make their own decisions and the government needs to make it for them or you're like, "Hold on.

I want to be able to think for myself. People need to be able to think for themselves, and therefore, if we're going to balance the budget and then distribute things like this, fantastic. Let people make the decision for themselves, but that is the breaking line. It doesn't need to be whether we do it or not do it. It is a much more interesting question to say, "How do we do it?" First, from where I'm sitting, it can only be downstream of an already balanced budget. No new taxes for you.

We're already being taxed to an absurd rate in California. And then, let the people decide. Put it in their hands. Yes. Um Push. If you think that one if I didn't cuz I didn't give you the pros and cons of both sides, so if you want me, by all means push, criticize. I'm here for it. This is an argument that needs to be had. We want to help the the climbing birth rates. Isn't this kind of something on the like we're trying side? Like this seems something to me that I was surprised how much push back it was.

Give it if if the number really is 6 million. If it's 50 million just like the rail thing and it blows up, I'll take everything back and I'll eat my crow. But on paper, $6 million, 16 cents a diaper, it seems like a the right incentive for people to have a baby, you know. Oh, thank you, California. Give me 400 diapers. Thank Like I think that there's at least something there that is at least directionally correct. I I really hope um that I'll distill my argument down.

I really hope that you're going to be like, "I'm totally on your page." So, anything that is pro-family, I love. So, if we're doing something to help people with kids, as as like a high-level 30,000-ft, I don't know what you want to do, but I'm just am I generally interested? I'm generally interested. interested. interested. Okay. Now, as we drill down, I'm saying, "Oh, cool. We want to do a program for diapers. You don't need any extra tax money?" No, we don't need any extra tax money.

Okay, rad. I'm liking this already. Uh how do you want to do it? The government is going to distribute funds to an NGO and the NGO is going to do it. [ __ ] you. Hard pass. Absolutely not. Uh the government is going to do it via tax break. Love it. Great. Government is going to send out um digital coupons ideally so that we don't lose some of the funds to just the paper of it all. Great. Love it. Um yeah. The wonderful, man. If you don't need new tax dollars and you're putting the power in the hands of the parents to make the decision of like what brand they're going to get and what they want to do and where they're going to shop and all Yeah, [ __ ] I think it's great.

It's the NGO managed administrative They will bleed the money dry. It will end up Look, NGOs have the world's worst reputation. I didn't realize this until whatever 8 months 10 months ago. So, I get if people still think of NGOs as like this beautiful, oh my god, these nonprofits are really helping. It isn't how it works. This is a part of the overproduction of elites that need somewhere to go and they end up just milking these NGOs for their worth, using them as political statements. And not necessarily not necessarily not working for the people.

Your default assumption about an NGO should not be oh, they're doing something beautiful for humanity. Your default assumption about an NGO, it won't always be right, but your default assumption about an NGO is this is a political apparatus that is trying to um basically fund the apparatus itself to make sure that the problem continues to exist so that they still have a job. Versus like, hey, let's this be the lightest uh burden from an administrative position as humanly possible. Little to no bureaucracy. no bureaucracy. no bureaucracy.

Either tax break or coupon, whatever, distributed directly to the parents and then them let them make the decision. I [ __ ] love that. But when you're putting it into an NGO, you are saying I want this money to bleed out. That's [ __ ] wild. Let me be very clear. I am I'm not interested in getting the diapers so that there can become a diaper industrial complex that like feeds NGOs. This is not about creating jobs. This is about helping parents. And if you're here to help parents and you're here to try to make sure that more people have kids, which is beautiful and wonderful and I love it and I want to see more of that.

And I did not do my part to have children and so I want to do my part to help make it easier for other people to have kids. So I love this. However, However, However, it has to be direct. Get it direct to the people. Like otherwise you're you're going to lose some percentage of the money to bureaucracy and that is a non-starter for me. So your thing is like if they would have done a tax break on your so every year on your tax return you can you can take off up to $1,000 on in diaper fees.

diaper fees. diaper fees. get crazy? Yeah. You have kids. Don't pay tax for the first 18 years. 18 years. 18 years. Period. Period. Period. No NGOs? No NGOs? No NGOs? No NGOs and a lot of babies. A lot I'm going to run out and have a kid. kid. kid. Baby, we got to get you on that that IVF stat. stat. stat. So yeah. So yeah. So yeah. Okay. Okay. Somebody's in in the chat so I like they should have did diaper stamps and then you could just get like food stamps diaper stamps.

It's better than sending it to an NGO. Where's my rim shot? Padoop pows. I tried guys. Um Here it is. G got me. Uh all right. Moving on. We have to talk. So all of these policies are bubbling up to this same kind of ecosystem. I wanted to save this conversation till the end after we talked the policy level cuz you said it a couple times it's hovering between empathy and envy I would say or jealousy and and compassion resentment and compassion. compassion. compassion. People in the chat were even talking like Thomas thinking that we're just jealous but we can't afford rent or Thomas thinking that we're just mad when I can't afford to pay my grocery bill stuff like that.

So. Yeah. Well, why we should have talked about it. I love it when people heckle. We We can certainly go into it. Yeah. Uh so, I'll say something fast on that cuz I know you're going somewhere else, but the fast statement on that is um I understand why you're mad as hell and you're not going to take it anymore. What I really want people to understand though, if you're making the decision emotionally, ask what the emotional uh the emotion is. If the emotion is anger, that's exactly what I'm saying.

People are coming from a place of anger, they want to see somebody else punished. And if you're coming from that perspective, the odds that you pick a winning strategy are virtually zero. Now, if you're not one of the people that's doing this from a place of resentment, that's amazing. I'm not saying there's never a time where everybody thinks the same way. However, if your argument is that people with left-leaning policies, that in that mix, not that it's each and every one of them, but if you're saying that the left when pathological does not go resentful, then you are completely blind to history.

So, it is a bet that I'm willing to make absolutely blindly that people banging pots and pans for left-leaning policies, you're going to find a lot of resentment in there. I guarantee it. And you don't have to go very far to see the language. A CEO was shot and killed, and people were celebrating that. So, it's there's so much evidence on my side. So again, I'm not saying you individually, you are the person that is leading with resentment, but I'm saying in the um um um the the right word is milieu, but that's way too fancy.

So, in that group of people and the uh ideas that they put forward, it is clearly going to have a massive amount of resentment. of resentment. of resentment. Period. Period. Period. There it is. So, now we're going to this Pokimane clip. For transparency, this is about a year old, but it just got resurfaced with this new wave of socialist policies and things like that. So, uh we'll I'm just acknowledging that this is does say 2025. Yeah, I'm good. Do you think someday we'll have a revolution like that in America?

Right? It's getting there, right? We already have one. Another one. What's going on? The wealth disparity is getting bad. The wage gap, I hate that [ __ ] No, wealth disparity. Wealth disparity. Wage gap like between men and women. Men and women, we love each other. That's That's That's And we hate the rich, anyway. anyway. anyway. Pause it. Too much. Aren't you the rich? No. Aren't you rich? Like the ultra rich, the ultra giga rich, the unnecessary They're going to clip that and it's going to make you look bad.

Yes, they're going to clip it because people are estimating her net worth at like north of six. Some people have it all the way to 20 million. So, you've got a multi-multi-millionaire basically saying the rich are bad, but I'm not rich. This is exactly how I feel seeing this when I see Bernie go from millionaires and billionaires are a problem and now he only talks about billionaires. Why? Because he's a multi-millionaire. So, it's like it this is all um very silly, but it's queuing off of something very real and I worry that what ends up happening is we spend all of our time on the part that is silly and we ignore the part that's extraordinarily real, which is that right now you have a K-shaped economy by design.

It's very knowable what's causing the K-shaped economy. We keep doing the thing that's causing the K-shaped economy and we wonder why people are getting so frustrated, why it's so hard for them to make ends meet and we really could be doing things to reverse that. We're not. They're going to accelerate and because the conversation conversation conversation is populist and emotional, you first of all get dumbass statements like this where somebody who's wealthy is saying that we hate the wealthy. That's just [ __ ] stupid. Um and we will fail to help the people that actually need to be helped.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It It seems that this is both Some people are looking at it cyclically and saying, you know, every couple years this happens. I know you bring up the French Revolution example a lot. It is if they mean every couple of years that they're that they're that they're uh I'm not sure what they're keying off. It just isn't true. You you can look at our economy. It is a massive K. So, and it wasn't a massive K. It began in in in like 2000 basically as we started money printing.

Although, people don't often refer to that, but that really is for me when um the virus escaped the lab and we started doing I don't know if they were calling it QE back then, but same idea. Just massive money printing, buying assets, assets, assets, uh and then obviously 2008 it just goes ballistic. ballistic. ballistic. going to say 2000 to 2008 to 2020 and then that kind of gets us to the present now. now. now. And then just $2 trillion a year in deficits every year and growing.

And with it now looking like but I know you talked about this earlier with Thomas Massie with it now looking like like like Trump is increasing the deficit. Um it was 1.7, it's now two. If that if all of his official policies that he wants to roll out, the increase uh military budget, increase ice spending, stuff like that goes Excuse me, goes through, it seems like the deficit is only going to be growing versus shrinking. So, it where how do we get up cuz it seems like a wave is hitting us on this side and a shark is chasing us on that side.

It's like I don't even know where to go anymore in this ocean. Okay, so to keep it tied to the Pokeman thing. So, first of all, we've really got to break out of the emotional this is all a class conversation and uh if you're in one class, you're good. If you're in the other class, you're bad. That that just isn't true. So, there is a noble reason why the people who got rich got rich on mass. Of course, there are going to be exceptions, but that noble reason is right now you're living through economic times where if you buy assets, your asset prices are going to go up steadily over time.

Uh and so that if you're not buying assets, you're going to get steadily poorer over time because the government via banking regulations and uh a refusal to balance the budget is running a strategy of rob from everybody and give to asset owners. And so if you do that long enough, asset owners just become the wealthy. And so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Plus people end up getting so good at doing that transfer that it accelerates. And so we think that regulatory things are good and the reality is they just keep feeding the K-shaped economy because they make it harder to displace the people that are already there.

The government just gets bigger and bigger. It consumes more taxes partly because of all those regulations. And that then means that you're going to have to deficit spend more which then fuels the K-shaped economy. So you have this like no escape from the K-shaped economy because the people who that are most being abused by the K-shape, the very thing that they reach for is the thing that makes the problem worse. Okay? So this is quite literally somebody adrift at sea, they're dying of thirst, and the only solution they have is to scoop out cupfuls of sea water and drink it.

But because the sea water contains salt, they're going to die that much faster. That is the current position of people in the working and middle class. The very things that they're calling for are going to speed up the decline, not slow it, and certainly not reverse it. Man, Man, Man, this is from Swan Marcus. Swan Marcus. Swan Marcus. His this is the retweet in conjunction with the Pokimane clips. I think what pissed me off most about the clip of Pokimane saying rich people like her okay, but the ultra rich are bad is that there is absolutely no universe where Pokimane deserves her money more than Jeff Bezos deserves his.

This is incredibly obvious. The reason I brought this up is this goes back to AOC saying like billionaires haven't earned their money. And there was just a bunch of retweets like well, how did Taylor Swift get her money? And how did LeBron get his money? And all these and things like that. So there is this sort of this person is a good rich person, this person is a bad rich person, and that line seems to be arbitrary a lot of the times. For me, this guy's statement is just as dumb as as it coming from the other side.

What does he mean that she deserves her money more than Jeff Bezos? People have said that she provides enough value to me when she's live streaming that I want to support her. Uh brands have said, "Hey, we want to be associated with her cuz it helps us move more units." So, um I guess this guy values Jeff Bezos' um infrastructure and the company that he built more, and fair enough, everybody's going to feel differently. But, the people buying the product said, "This is exactly how much we want to support her, and she made that money." Now, she Jeff Bezos makes more while he sneezes than Pokimane is worth, full stop.

So, the market has already said, "We agree that Jeff Bezos has certainly brought more value, but saying that she doesn't deserve the money that she has is just dumb." She did not steal her money. As far as I know, there's no fraud. This is everybody just going, "Yeah, this is exactly how much we value it." This guy might be traumatized that people value that kind of entertainment as much as they do, but it's like, "Mate, the market decided." All right. I want to jump to AI next, but there's one more question I want to get out here.

So, um Pedro Pre said, "How is a balanced budget going to bring home prices down and stop investors from buying most of a new home project to rent though?" Well, he's conflating two different things. So, you have to balance the budget to stop the inflation problem. So, inflation is going to keep making houses more and more expensive in the that way, in that the value of your dollar is going down. Um Um Um so, I hope that answers that question. But, when I'm talking about housing, I'm typically talking about you want them to be able to make more housing so that there's more supply in the market, the cost is going to be a function of supply, demand, and um inflation.

And so, if we can solve at least the supply and demand problem, as we have seen in the areas the areas the areas uh like Austin, like I think it is not Dallas, what's the other one? Houston. They've done a phenomenal job of leveraging supply to drive the cost down. So, that's typically what I'm talking about there, but they do both matter, but um yeah, when I'm talking about balancing the budget, that's just a blanket. That's going to impact the cost of literally everything. Then there was one more.

The problem is Tom's solution to this problem no longer works. The average person in America will fall further behind no matter how hard they work. What does he think my solution? The balancing the budget always works, always and forever. It is the only solution. So, solution. So, solution. So, um I don't understand what he thinks won't work. It'd be great if he dropped in and in and in and he's saying he doesn't think that politicians would balance the budget. Well, that's a very different question. And so, politicians will do whatever we vote for.

And if we continue to act like people in a populist moment, and we say, "I'm on a team. I just need my team to win. Therefore, I'm going to vote for whoever slaps the other guy around." Um and whoever gets me more free stuff, then yes, we're doomed in that we will just keep going down that path unless something miraculous happens like uh we get a Margaret Thatcher who comes in and is like, "Oh, no, we are doing austerity." Uh austerity." Uh austerity." Uh and or AI grows our way out of this.

Those are your two options right now. Got you. Got you. Got you. All right. Um this is from Polymarket. A A new A new analysis reveals that female-dominated corporate roles are more vulnerable to AI automation than male roles. male roles. male roles. Um I don't necessarily understand what they mean by this, but I'll let you give us the breakdown of Oh, let's go into it. This is becoming rapidly one of the most fascinating areas to think about. Women are bearing the first wave of AI job losses, and I for one think a regulatory war is going to be the result.

86% of Americans most AI vulnerable workers are women. Three new reports just confirmed the pattern. The January 2026 study from the Brookings Institute and the Center for the Governance of AI identified 6.1 million US workers who face the highest AI exposure and the lowest ability to find new work, 86% are women. are women. are women. Clerical jobs, admin jobs, office support, roles overwhelmingly held by women. Now, to be clear, it's not that these are the only roles held by women, which many people are going to spin this as AI is just going after women.

So, you can completely ignore anybody who uses this data to say, "Ah, listen, women don't do useful work. They're just going to get replaced so easily by the economy." That's [ __ ] That is not what this data shows. Uh women obviously do incredibly valuable work in the economy, but the roles that are most exposed AI happen to be the roles that as a category are dominated by women. So, women tend to be abnormally attracted to the things that AI is going to be able to do very quickly.

On March 5th, the International Labor Organization confirmed, by the way, that this pattern is global. Female-dominated occupations are nearly twice as likely to be exposed to generative AI as male-dominated ones. So, it's 29% versus 16%. At the highest automation risk, the gap widens to 16% versus 3% across 88% of the countries that the ILO studied, job categories dominated by women face more exposure than categories dominated by men. Then, on April 28th, the National Partnership for Women and Families made this all even harder to ignore. Women make up 47% of the US workforce.

They make up 83% of workers in the 15 most AI vulnerable jobs. Given that policies in the West right now are largely driven by the female approach to compassion, however misguided, any sense of fairness over effectiveness, here's what I think is going to happen next. When a technology produces this kind of statistically obvious outcome that is disparate between the sexes, US regulators are going to lean on a 60-year-old playbook, doing things like Title VII, EEOC enforcement, state AGs that obviously are looking to push this agenda.

Class action firms are going to jump in on this. So, you're going to get disparate impact lawsuits, uh where by the way, you don't even have to prove intent. They just require proving that the pattern exists. And the pattern is already very well documented. So, I think that we can expect a regulatory battle to begin to unfold. I don't think anybody's going to be confused that I think letting this play out in regulatory is a terrible idea. This is going to be regulatory capture in the extreme.

We will try to do something that is top-down to hold on to making sure that women continue to make up roughly 50% of the workforce as AI comes in, but that just doesn't make any sense. You want to make sure that the most qualified person is the one that's getting employed. And if for whatever reason, uh AI overlaps with the things that women have a tendency towards, uh you can't change that. That doesn't make any sense and start saying, "Okay, we're just going to make sure that women can keep having those roles." You've got to say, "Hey, women that want to be in the workforce, here are the things that aren't being disrupted by AI.

Go after them if you care about being in the workforce." Period. Period. It seems like we're dunking on women a lot today. lot today. lot today. Is it Is it Is it Here's the thing, I tried to be very clear in that that this is not about women women women like being able to add to the workforce. All we're saying is the jobs that AI overlaps with tend to be the jobs that women are drawn towards. I am very sorry for all of us that AI is disrupting so much of the world.

Disruption is thrilling because there will be a world on the other side of this that will be better, but it's always very difficult to live through the disruption. We've seen it time and time again. So, what I'm saying is you don't go and handicap AI because you will lose to the countries, namely China, that don't handicap AI. handicap AI. handicap AI. And what we should be doing is saying, "Women, look, these are the things that the world is going to value on the other side of this.

So, don't be a lamplighter. Don't be a knocker-upper. Like, go and be somebody who's doing the thing that the modern economy is going to want. Make that obvious to people. Give them that opportunity to adjust what they're going to pursue because you will weaken the country. You'll make things more expensive. It just ends up being a nightmare on a whole host of dimensions if you try to say, "No matter what, we're going to make sure that women can have whatever job they want and they're going to be protected." That doesn't make sense.

They should have equal opportunity to qualify for the jobs that the world says "AI is not ready for this." 100% but you don't just go, "Oh, yeah, they want those jobs, so we're going to make sure that they can have those jobs." It would be just as absurd if you flipped the script and say, "Oh, uh this is like everyone was like, "Oh my god, this is going to take over trucking. Trucking is largely male. Therefore, we've got to defend the men and make sure that they have these jobs." No.

Like, if it takes over trucking, it takes over trucking. The world is saying this is a better technology. We don't want to live in the past. We want to live in the future. And so, yeah, it's going to disrupt a generation of men who that's what they have optimized their lives for. It just is what it is, man. Like, trying to stop the tide of technology to me is absurd. Like, it's never worked in the past. It is not going to work in the future. And if this one happens to be impacting women, I can see that people are going to make that argument that you're making that this is somehow like targeted at women.

That just isn't true. And if we end up having the debate at that level as if this is something that is specifically being used to hurt women somehow or the one that I worry about, which is that people are going to be like, "Haha, I told you women aren't adding value to the workforce." which is patently absurd. And so both of those are false. And the thing that we need to be looking at is this is where the job market is going and let's make sure that women can compete meaningfully for those jobs.

So there's no hurdles for them just because they are a woman. They either can do the job or they can't. But if they can't do the job or don't want to do the job, there's no holding jobs for them just because they want them. That's absurd. That's that top-down [ __ ] that creates all the madness that we're seeing. It's interesting though because I know that that that in this grand [clears throat] future we're going to have UBI, right? Pipe dream, pipe dream, pipe dream. But in the near term though That won't solve problems just for your right.

Yeah, and then I I don't believe it either. In the near term though it seems that we're breaking left and right already. Maybe there's better term. There's a majority of Americans who feel like they can't get on the property ladder, who feel like the economy is leaving them behind, who feel like that in order to benefit they have to go more to the left in their policies. More socialism, more communism. Yep. And that's going to make the world world fairer and better for me. me. me.

We thought that we were going to have to kind of quell that uprising before we had to worry about the AI revolution. It seems like these two things are now happening at the same time where AI isn't disrupting enough jobs that everybody's massive homeless and we haven't done this big review. I haven't touched this cycle on the photo. Oh, thanks. Um but on the flip side though it seems that we're still like people are already at the stage one of this AI revolution and we're already breaking communist and socialism.

What happens when we get to stage seven of that revolution? You know what I mean? So Yeah, I think that we would have been fine if we weren't dealing with the K-shaped economy. K-shaped economy. K-shaped economy. Um Um Um but yeah, having these two things happening at the same time is wildly exacerbating the problem. Uh so that's going to shorten our timelines to figure out a solution here, which is bad because we're getting um how much of this is PR around like hey, we made all these cuts because of AI, but in reality some percentage of that is just we over hired or the economy's turned or whatever.

Um but some of it is certainly AI productivity. I don't think there's any doubt about that. So uh it'll be interesting to see if we feel the economic uplift from and and when I say that, I do not mean that stocks are becoming more valuable. That is not going to help solve the problem. It's got to be felt in wages, more jobs, higher-paying jobs. Like that is the only way that this that we're going to get out of this um because and it sounds like you and I both agree that UBI, even if there's a lot of it, um isn't going to help.

And what ends up happening is we're up against a psychological problem. We're not actually up against people starving to death. People act like we're up against people starving to death. We are not. And so um what we are up against is people see other people have more than them, and that is a psychological problem that humans are not good at getting past, and UBI won't stop that. stop that. stop that. Well said. And then last story. This is very interesting, right? Cuz we're seeing all these robots and the dexterity increase and people moving around and stuff like that.

So now you kind of said it, I forgot the Jetsons house house house Rosie. Rosie. Rosie. Rosie. Uh so this would be, you know, Rosie in 2026. Uh This is so crazy, man. I was like, Drew, you and I are really about to get that bot for the show. I'm right here. I'm going for it. is going to be wild. Now, I need to get to the point where I'm convinced that's not going to do attack us. I've seen far too many Unitree uh clips where the bot is having a stroke and he's just flailing arms everywhere.

Uh so, yeah, I still think that we we may have more to go, but I love that it threw the frisbee at them like a dog. I was like, "Fetch." Yeah, and I also don't know why it has clothes on. Am I being weird about that? Like, does it need the apron? Uh it probably doesn't need the apron, but it lets you know, "Don't worry, you don't have to be afraid of this. This is a house helper. They're for you. Yay." Uh so, yeah, they're trying to send out all the signals that they can.

It's subservient. It's not going to take over. over. over. Come on, Nick. And then on the other side of that, we have our first uh robot fight club, uh uh uh which was just it was a pain to watch. Like, this isn't what I want to This told me I'm like, "Oh, we we still got some time, boys. We're good. We got a few months still before the bots are really going to be able to take us out." But, there were some kicks that it threw that I was like, "Oh, snap.

Like, that's a good kick." Like, it maintains balance. Yeah, if it does connect, if it can pay attention, and attacking the right straight line. man, I I'm telling you, you've got What do you have here? 2 years until these bots are just beating the life out of each other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh yeah, BattleBots. That's cool. That's wild, man. This is really going to be a thing because BattleBots already exist, right? They're just not in the humanoid form. And so, seeing them now come in actual humanoid form and seeing everybody form the like little circle around them as they fight, there just really is something to us we want to see this kind of thing.

Now, I don't think this just like Magnus Carlsen can be demolished in chess by his phone, uh we still want to see him compete against other humans. I don't think human fighting goes anywhere, but robot leagues really will become a thing. It's pretty interesting. And then, obviously, warfare becomes far more terrifying when these guys are like roaming the battlefield. battlefield. battlefield. front lines, yeah. Yikes. Wild. All right, we got some more super chats. Yes, we do. First up, Steven Funderburk 8909 didn't say anything but gave $20.

Thank you. you, Steven. That's very generous. And then $100 from Big Daddy Foresight. Hey, let's go, Big Daddy. Oh, Big Daddy's in here. Yeah. [cheering] Yeah. [cheering] Yeah. [cheering] Shout out to Big Daddy. No joke. I love that if if his avatar can be believed, he's, you know, he's in the silver years, years, years, but he's calling himself Big Daddy. I got respect for that. it? And he's a Texan. I respect that. He's got a sugar baby somewhere around. We we see you, Big Daddy. I see it.

I just want to say thank you to Team IT. We need to we need to have a place to exchange ideas, especially with those who may disagree with. This chat and channel allows this type of exchange, which I'm grateful for. No, man, I appreciate that. And when it comes with a $100 price tag, I know that you really mean it. Um yeah, that is very important to me that we become that and that we keep pushing out to a broader and broader audience so that I think we're doing something quite different than what most people are.

Um so, thank you, man. Love that you appreciate it. Lol420 says, "From your perspective, what predicts whether someone is in the 2%? IQ or big five personality traits?" Um I would say the only honest answer to that is I look at it from my experience with them. It's definitely going to be uh partly IQ for sure, but it really is like how trapped by their frame of reference are they? Um and I just watch to see if they can onboard new information, if they can onboard information and then do something about it.

They've got the discipline to see something through. Um if they take the rough approach in their life that my life is a reflection of my choices, and so yes, bad things befall me that I did not do anything uh to, you know, uh deserve, quote unquote, that, but I'm not going to get hung up on deserve. This thing did happen. Now I've got to deal with it. Like those kind of people are going to be just fine. Um also, you can't be trapped by other people's opinions of you.

That's another place that people get stuck. It really is a de minimus number of people. Adults, kids, totally different story. But adults, man, it it it's a small number. People will squabble with me over this a lot. I never know how to how hard to push because I almost don't want to convince them. It's one of the few ideas where I hope [clears throat] that somebody one day proves me wrong. And I just haven't been able to find the right sequence of words. That that would be incredible, by the way.

Like if somebody was like, "No, no, no, Tom, you're just not good at it." Holy [ __ ] fantastic. Now, I'm going to go study with you. I'm going to learn how to get good at it. Um I just don't see anybody able to um pull some people out. Like it just Yeah. So anyway, uh may I be wrong. I certainly hope I am. Truth Evan says, "Trying to get a trainer uh trainer to master skill. What metrics do I use to pick a great trainer? Should I pick a trainer that is a practitioner or theorist or mix of both?

And how do I know he can get the results I want?" Yeah, so ideally you want to find somebody that has gotten the results you want. I always talk about this with bodybuilding. Um don't take advice from somebody about your physique that doesn't have a physique. Uh it just shows when they have a physique it shows that they've done it at least once. Now, you want to get a sense whether they did it with drugs or without. Either way is fine, but just know you're not going to get drug results without drugs.

Um so keep that in mind. Um same with business. Well, don't learn how to grow a business from somebody who's never grown a business. Uh so all [clears throat] of those things, find the person that's actually done the thing. Now, theory is incredibly useful for somebody that is like in the mix and doing the thing. And you can get theory from somebody else. I'm just going to be far more skeptical of somebody that's giving me theory cuz I'll say, "Okay, if this is you, you're not going to be able to give it to me anecdotally.

So now you're just accumulating knowledge that you've not tested." Which could be fine, especially if they're aggregating the um like the consensus. And so I take it on board as such. Like, "Okay, this person who's smart and maybe he's done a lot of research, they're telling me this is the thing. There's a guy in um game marketing, he's never had a successful game, but he's done a ton of audits on companies that have, and so I actually think his advice, though theoretical, is so backed by all of the data research that he's done, I take him very seriously.

Now, am I going to take him as seriously as I take somebody in the trenches who did the thing? No, but often times people that are in the trenches, they don't realize like they're one of one thing that they're quite blind to a lot of other things. Um so, despite the fact that I built multiple successful companies, I've actually learned a ton from helping other companies go cuz it just broadens my um my um my um out from you know, the small handful that I've been involved to to literally I mean, I mean, I mean, intimately I've worked with more than a hundred companies at this point.

So, uh and then as you broaden it out, it goes into the thousands. So, you really begin to get a much broader perspective. So, keep all that in mind um as you parse your way forward. Both are useful, um but there is definitely bonus weight to somebody who's done the thing, especially if they've done it multiple times. times. times. Kevin the house says, for regular people who feel like the world is changing faster than they can keep up, what is the deeper mindset shift they need to have to make so AI becomes a tool for freedom instead of another force that leaves them behind?

It's interesting. I I have an allergic reaction when people ask me for mindset, which is so ironic and nobody's more aware of that than I am. Uh I'm going to try to kill that part of my personality. Okay, so uh the mindset shift that you're looking for is one of utility and cause and effect. So, if you're always and um you have to understand desire. So, a big part of the problem is people don't often want the thing they're pursuing nearly enough, or they want it, but they don't believe in what I call the only belief that matters.

So, the only belief that matters is if I put time and energy into getting better, I'll actually get better. So, now imagine you have a goal, that goal requires you to get good at something. And you believe, "Oh, if I put time and energy into getting good at that thing, I'll actually get good." And by the way, I really want it. So, now it's like, "Fuck, I really want this thing." So, nobody has to convince me to get up early, stay up late, work on this, practice, grind, focus on skill acquisition, benchmark myself against actual cause-and-effect progress, because I really want to get to that place.

And I really believe that through skill acquisition, I can actually get to that place. And so, when you've got that sequence, it really doesn't take anything more than that. You have to get emotionally resilient, cuz you're going to fail a lot, you're going to feel stupid, people are going to mock you, make fun of you, whatever. And if you break in the middle of all that, then it's game over. But, if you stay emotionally centered, you're focused, and able to push forward, and you believe the things we just talked about, you'll get there.

It's just most people cannot get themselves to have that full cocktail. That's it for super chats. All right, that's all we got. Um shout out to Kelsi. If you guys want to make your own trades, use code impact to get $10 off. And if you just want to learn about where the world is, it is an extraordinary place to understand sentiment. All right, guys, thank you so much for being here, as always, and we will see you on Wednesday. Take care. Peace.