Makers vs. Takers: How Civilizations Collapse — The One Signal That Destroys Progress | Tom Deep Dive

Tom Bilyeu takes us on a deep dive into the cautionary tale of Argentina—a country that once stood shoulder to shoulder with the world’s wealthiest nations, only to crumble under the weight of hyperinflation, runaway debt, and political promises of “free stuff.” Drawing powerful parallels between Argentina’s century-long decline and the current economic landscape in America, Tom unpacks the dangerous cycle created by debt-fueled policies, unchecked populism, and a culture that rewards taking over making. As the US inches closer to a tipping point with soaring debt and increasing political polarization, Tom explores the recurring patterns that have led countries astray and asks: Are we doomed to repeat Argentina’s mistakes? Along the way, he introduces us to the key players and ideas shaping America’s future—from Ayn Rand's philosophy of "makers vs. takers," to the rise of socialist policies in major cities, and the dramatic reforms in Argentina under Javier Milei. With a blend of historical insight, economic analysis, and actionable advice, this episode offers a roadmap for individuals, families, and policymakers on how to avoid economic disaster and reignite the spirit of innovation and prosperity. So buckle up for an episode that doesn’t just diagnose the problem—but challenges you to be part of the solution. SHOWNOTES 00:00 "Economic Decline, Social Turmoil" 06:33 "Left's Shift to Extremes?" 09:23 The "Free Stuff" Illusion 12:10 Inflation: Widening Wealth Gap 17:08 Argentina's Economic Crisis 20:32 Argentina's Economic Warning to U. S. 23:24 America's Economic and Political Crisis 24:26 Mamdani's Economic Disaster Playbook 28:26 Argentina's Economic Overhaul 31:57 Innovation vs. Stagnation 35:50 Revitalize Growth, Reform Debt, Housing 37:41 "Choices Define America's Future" CHECK OUT OUR SPONSORS Vital Proteins: Get 20% off by going to ⁠https://www.vitalproteins.com⁠ https://www.vitalproteins.com and entering promo code IMPACT at check out Allio Capital: Macro investing for people who want to understand the big picture. Download their app in the App Store or at Google Play, or text my name “TOM” to 511511. iTrust Capital: Use code IMPACTGO when you sign up and fund your account to get a $100 bonus at ⁠https://www.itrustcapital.com/tombilyeu⁠ https://www.itrustcapital.com/tombilyeu SleepMe: Visit ⁠https://sleep.me/impact⁠ https://sleep.me/impact to get your Chilipad and save 20% with code IMPACT. Try it risk-free with their 30-night sleep trial and free shipping. ButcherBox: Ready to level up your meals? Go to ⁠https://butcherbox.com/impact⁠ https://butcherbox.com/impact to get $20 off your first box and FREE bacon for life with the Bilyeu Box! Jerry: Stop needlessly overpaying for car insurance - download the Jerry app or head to ⁠https://jerry.ai/impact⁠ https://jerry.ai/impact Netsuite: Download the new e-book Navigating Global Trade: 3 Insights for Leaders at ⁠http://NetSuite.com/Theory⁠ http://netsuite.com/Theory What's up, everybody? It's Tom Bilyeu here: If you want my help... STARTING a business:⁠ join me here at ZERO TO FOUNDER⁠ https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20show SCALING a business:⁠ see if you qualify here.⁠ https://tombilyeu.com/call Get my battle-tested strategies and insights delivered weekly to your inbox:⁠ sign up here.⁠ https://tombilyeu.com/ ********************************************************************** If you're serious about leveling up your life, I urge you to check out my new podcast,⁠ Tom Bilyeu’s Mindset Playbook⁠ https://open.spotify.com/show/47VE90Cittmo6TGGFqg2xf —a goldmine of my most impactful episodes on mindset, business, and health. Trust me, your future self will thank you. ********************************************************************** Join me live on my⁠ Twitch stream⁠ https://impacttheory.co/4fitmnJ. I'm live daily from 6:30 to 8:30 am PT at⁠ www.twitch.tv/tombilyeu⁠ https://impacttheory.co/4fitmnJ ********************************************************************** LISTEN TO IMPACT THEORY AD FREE + BONUS EPISODES on APPLE PODCASTS:⁠ apple.co/impacttheory⁠ http://apple.co/impacttheory ********************************************************************** FOLLOW TOM: Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/⁠ https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/ Tik Tok:⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@tombilyeu?lang=en⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@tombilyeu?lang=en Twitter:⁠ https://twitter.com/tombilyeu⁠ https://twitter.com/tombilyeu YouTube:⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeu https://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tom Bilyeu?

  Let's talk about the moment your side hustle becomes a real business. Now, I see way too many founders stay stuck running their business like it's a hobby, and then they wonder why nothing ever feels real. It doesn't feel real because it's not. I've helped thousands of entrepreneurs build real businesses through Impact Theory University, and the first step in the path to building a legit business is registering it. And Taylor Brands will help you do just that in a few clicks. An LLC, a limited liability company, is an official business structure. It's inexpensive to form and very simple to maintain. It's how you open a business bank account. It's how customers know they're dealing with a real company. And Taylor Brands doesn't stop at the filing.

• 0:45Tom Bilyeu?

  Their dashboard tracks what comes next based on what your business actually needs. So EIN number, registered agent, licenses and permits, bookkeeping, business banking. I tell every founder the same thing. Just make it official. Click the link in the show notes to check out Taylor Brands and get started on your business today. This is a paid advertisement. In 1913, Argentina was a global superpower, on par with the United States and England. It was wealthier per capita than Germany, France, and Japan combined. These days, though, it is a cautionary tale. 5,000% hyperinflation made cash worthless overnight. Unemployment figures at times reaching towards 50%,

• 1:29Tom Bilyeu?

  and the government has defaulted on its debt not once, not twice, but nine times. And while people think that debt defaults are something that only hurt the bad guys, it's often the average citizen of a country that holds the country's debt. So when Argentina defaulted, not only did they guarantee wealthy people and foreign investors would stay as far away as possible, they performed daylight robbery on their own citizens, condemning the country to a never-ending cycle of poverty. So how does this happen? ¿Cómo se vuelve un país de ser más rico que Canadá a regresar a ser una nación en desarrollo? ¿Cómo se desplaza una nación que antes era una nación muy prospera en casi 100 años de caos?

• 2:11Tom Bilyeu?

  ¿Y cómo es que América ahora está corriendo hacia el mismo cliff obvio? Desafortunadamente, es muy simple y es un patrón que vemos una y otra vez en todo el mundo. Y no tienes que mirar más allá de la tabla de equilibrio de la mayoría de los países occidentales para ver que las probabilidades de que nos desplanteamos hacia atrás son muy altas ahora mismo. ¿No me crees? Considera estos dos hechos. Uno, el 98% de todos los países con un ratio de deuda a la PIB del 130% o más han terminado en guerra civil o revolución en corto plazo. El ratio de deuda a la PIB de América ahora es el 122% y subiendo. El segundo, un candidato socialista abiertamente ganó la nominación demócrata para el alcalde de Nueva York y cuanto más joven eres, más probable es que hayas votado por él.

• 2:55Tom Bilyeu?

  Esta es una tendencia muy familiar que lleva a la guerra cultural entre los fabricantes y los que toman en la sociedad. Quién gana la guerra, sin embargo, nunca es seguro, pero en tiempos de estrés económico, la batalla es garantizada. Hoy vamos a explorar el campo de batalla y ver si podemos aportar al mundo hacia un resultado hermoso. Esta es mi tesis. Las políticas de deuda, el populismo desapegado y una cultura que recompensa el tomar sobre el hacer han puesto a los Estados Unidos en un punto de inflexión peligroso. Las fallas pasadas de Argentina son nuestras advertencias actuales. Hay una manera de detener este debacle o al menos ponerlo en cámara lenta para que tengamos tiempo suficiente para reaccionar. Pero para hacerlo, vamos a tener que tomar algunas opciones sorprendentes. Así que, apártate.

• 3:37Tom Bilyeu?

  Este es un juego de caja cultural donde Rand, Millay y un nuevo combatidor, Mumdani, batallan por el alma del Occidente. Ahora, si no sabes quiénes son esos tres, no te preocupes. Al final de esto, lo harás. Y al final de estos cinco partes fáciles, sabrás exactamente qué hacer para evitar la calamidad, incluso si solo para ti y tu familia. Solo asegúrate de no saltar al cuarto. Allí es donde está todo el acción. Pero no tendrá sentido si no entiendes las partes que llevan hasta allí. Así que bienvenido al primer cuarto, dónde estamos y qué Argentina nos dice sobre nuestro futuro propio. Argentina was attracting more immigrants than America. People were literally choosing Buenos Aires over New York City for opportunity. Today, more than half of Argentina's children live below the poverty line.

• 4:21Tom Bilyeu?

  How does a country that once lured dreamers away from the land of opportunity end up with over 50% of its kids growing up waiting in breadlines? That's where socialists like Mamdani come in. Let me walk you through the tragedy step by step. Debt and money printing caused countries to weaken their own economy, leaving them vulnerable to crisis. And when that crisis hits, the country tears itself apart from within. The Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, just to name a recent few, all fell apart due to economic reasons. But instead, what we read about in history is the violent clash between the two sides. There is just so much hatred in a country. By the time they fall, history often misses that the hatred was born out of the economy.

• 5:05Tom Bilyeu?

  The economy is the thing to watch. By the time polarization is set in, the system is already in big trouble. Here's how it plays out. The cause and effect that leads to the battle between capitalism and socialism. The overaccumulation of debt causes inequality. People think it's billionaires hoarding money. But that's not how the economy actually works. Billionaires are the result of three factors: debt, money printing, and owning assets. Roughly 70% of all millionaires and billionaires in America are self-made. But in a world where people, companies, and countries take on too much debt, the government eventually has to print money to cover the inevitable shortfall. And when they do, asset prices go up and the dollar goes down.

• 5:50Tom Bilyeu?

  So asset holders, AKA the people that build successful companies and the people that own equity in a successful company, get richer and the people who don't own assets get poorer. It's that simple. And this happens in runaway fashion, pushing ordinary middle-class people either up into being wealthy if they own assets or down into being poor if they don't. That is how inequality sets in. But what happens next is the real kicker. Inequality leads To populism and populism, which is just a fancy way of saying inequality makes people really mad. It leads to people voting emotionally instead of rationally. And once people start voting emotionally, things spiral fast.

• 6:32Tom Bilyeu?

  Debt goes up because politicians get elected by promising free stuff. And sadly, there is no such thing as free stuff. Government deficits come out of your pocket via inflation. I know if you don't know how this all works, that sounds crazy, but it is actually true. Populist politicians also promise to punch the enemy right in the kisser. And the enemy is always the other guy. So the left promises to punch the right and the right promises to punch the left. This drives everyone into tribes because you need a team to protect you when it's all going down. If you're in the middle, you're going to get clobbered from both sides. So very few people stay in the middle. And when they do, they are the first killed in the revolution. And I don't mean that figuratively. That is a true story.

• 7:16Tom Bilyeu?

  So people pick teams and they fight. Ethics go out the window because everyone believes in a populist moment that they are fighting for survival. And the political candidates that get elected in a populist moment are the strong men who don't mind fighting. That's because everyone wants to elect a tough guy who will fight for them and get them a bigger piece of the money printing pie. So money printer go brr and rage skyrockets. So what does this have to do with Mhamdani? I'm glad you asked. The right already has a tough guy, Trump. But the left is still trying to find their new identity post the 2024 defeat. The question everyone has been asking is, will the left go towards the middle or towards the extreme?

• 7:56Tom Bilyeu?

  Mhamdani's rapid rise to popularity indicates we're going to be following in history's footsteps here and choose the extremes. With that thought bubble hovering over my head, enter Zoran Mhamdani, the self proclaimed socialist who wants to make New York City more affordable. He was just elected as the Democratic mayoral candidate for the Global Financial Center, New York City. The problem is, like Argentina before him, he has not learned the lessons that even the Chinese Communist Party has learned. Namely, that if you want to pull people out of poverty and make things affordable, The only proven tool is capitalism. You have to orient towards private citizens getting rich off their innovations. Remember, the problem is debt, not capitalism.

• 8:40Tom Bilyeu?

  More on that coming up, but for now, I'll just say this. Maldani and reality agree on one thing. The inequality in America has become intolerable. And if it is not addressed, America will tear itself apart. Where Maldani and reality diverge, however, is on the causes of the intolerable inequality. So, welcome to part two, the physics of money. In 1905, a 26-year-old patent clerk named Albert Einstein did something that seemed impossible. He proved Isaac Newton, one of history's greatest minds, wrong. Newton discovered gravity, invented calculus, and architected all of classical physics. But he was just wrong enough that civilization was trapped until Einstein saw he had mapped

• 9:24Tom Bilyeu?

  the cause and effect of the universe wrong. By rejecting what everyone knew to be true and rethinking physics from first principles, Einstein effectively made the 21st century possible. Lasers, GPS, smartphones, digital cameras, solar energy, and even the modern space movement. That's the power of getting physics right. And just like the universe has physics, economies and money itself have physics. There is a string of cause and effect that, once understood, allows you to intentionally produce some startlingly wonderful results. Much like understanding the laws that govern our universe allowed us to unleash the power of the atom and usher in the modern world, understanding how the economy works made America the wealthiest nation the world has ever seen.

• 10:08Tom Bilyeu?

  Thinking about that and thinking about the astonishing number of people that capitalism has pulled out of poverty in the last 100 years, I'm reminded of the Thomas Sowell quote, "The more I study the history of intellectuals, the more they seem like a wrecking crew, dismantling civilization bit by bit, replacing what works with what sounds good." That's what happens in moments like these. Inequality makes people so angry, and suddenly charismatic politicians show up telling you greedy billionaires are keeping you poor, not paying their fair share. Driving prices up. They talk about freezing rents, subsidizing city-run grocery stores with tax dollars, promising free transportation, and providing free childcare, whether the parents work or not. But that's like saying you can walk out of a 10-story window and not fall to your death.

• 10:53Tom Bilyeu?

  Free stuff only sounds good if you don't understand the physics of the economy and are totally blind to the lessons of history. To oversimplify it, but not by much, economies boil down to debt, inflation, interest rates, innovation, and confidence. That leaves out a few bits and bobs, but I think most people just hide behind nuance and complexity. People will argue with me in the comments, I know that, but those five items get you more than 80% of the way to understanding how the economy actually works. That is exactly why we see economic patterns repeat in history. All right, let's look in detail at the mechanics of the most important one of these patterns, the debt-to-inequality feedback loop. Countries start off by balancing their budgets. Sure, they tax people, but they don't spend more than they take in in taxes. And if they spend those tax dollars wisely

• 11:38Tom Bilyeu?

  and orient themselves towards infrastructure and unlocking innovation, the country rises economically. Productivity and optimism soar during this phase because debt is only used to fuel positive GDP growth. The revenue generated by the makers in society goes up, taxes collected therefore also go up, and everyone is happy, the economy is booming. But inevitably, the growth is going to slow down because innovation is very difficult. But instead of reducing spending to match the decline, governments always take on debt faster than the economy is growing. Debt becomes like a drug, and the government starts borrowing to chase the prosperity high. But if the borrowing doesn't result in growth via innovation,

• 12:23Tom Bilyeu?

  debt begins to outpace GDP growth, and that becomes a death spiral. The more a country borrows, the more interest they have to pay. The more interest they have to pay, the less they can spend on things that actually help the country grow. The debt burden becomes so bad that they turn on the money printers, and then the inequity flywheel begins to spin. Billionaires start becoming more and more common because Asset prices are pushed higher and higher as people realize owning assets is the only way to escape the destruction caused by inflation, which is caused by money printing. Worst of all, printing money only creates the illusion of more money. In reality, money printing is just a trick.

• 13:06Tom Bilyeu?

  The reality is that every dollar printed just lowers the value of all the other dollars that already exist. That's the physics of inflation. It is the very thing that makes prices go up. This is what happens every time a politician promises something for free. Unless the government brings in more in tax than they spend, they have to print money and create inflation to pay for it behind your back. To make matters worse, inflation doesn't hit everyone equally. It crushes the poor and middle class the most because that's who relies on wages, which are paid in dollars. And remember, the dollars are going down in value through inflation when the money printer goes on. And if they have any money saved at all,

• 13:48Tom Bilyeu?

  it is likely to be saved in dollars that are going down in value due to inflation. And as mentioned before, in a cruel twist of fate, assets like stocks, bonds, art, crypto, and houses go up in value automatically with the rise in inflation. That's why it is inevitable that when a government spends more than it brings in in taxes, the rich are going to get richer and the poor are going to get poorer. Mechanistically, ironically, the act of promising free things to poor people is exactly how you guarantee to keep them poor and guarantee that you will make more billionaires. Promising people free things, print billionaires. That is until you collapse the entire system, which is sadly what many people want to happen right now.

• 14:33Tom Bilyeu?

  Over the last 500 years, guess how many governments have done this debt dance so well that they didn't collapse their own system? Zero, none, nada. No one avoids this fate. On a long enough timeline, every country becomes Argentina, even America. And they do it by promising things for free. Politicians absolutely cannot help themselves because we, the voters, insist on it. 101 times out of 100, we will vote for the person that promises free stuff over the person that promises to balance the budget. Hold tight, we're going to take a quick break.

• 15:08Tom Bilyeu?

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• 15:53Tom Bilyeu?

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• 16:38Tom Bilyeu?

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• 17:24Tom Bilyeu?

  We're back. Let's dive right in.

• 17:28Tom Bilyeu?

  So, welcome to part three. Free stuff wrecks economies the way sugar wrecks your body. In its heyday, Argentina was an economic powerhouse. But the Great Depression caused global demand for their exports to collapse brutally. They lost nearly one-third their total value effectively overnight. It would be like America losing the economic output of California, Texas, and New York. Combined, just poof, gone. They went from being the Paris of South America and drawing ambitious immigrants from all over the world to drowning in debt in a heartbeat. Commodity prices collapsed. Terrible news for a country whose economy was so reliant on beef, wheat, and wool exports, because when commodity prices plummeted, Argentina's export revenues declined sharply.

• 18:11Tom Bilyeu?

  And that made the payments on the insane amount of debt that they had racked up trying to keep the good times rolling, made it increasingly difficult to keep up with. The global financial crisis led international lenders to withdraw credit, limiting Argentina's ability to refinance or service existing debts. That caused their financial crisis to accelerate, because the combination of high-debt burdens and collapsing revenues forced them to institute austerity measures. And people hate austerity measures, especially when they're used to deficit spending. So this triggered even deeper social and political instability, pushing people onto teams and ensuring emotional voting, where people clamor to get more stuff for free. Enter Juan Peron, Argentina's version of Mom Donnie.

• 18:53Tom Bilyeu?

  He came to power promising the moon delivering expansive social programs: free healthcare, pensions, welfare benefits. He promised anything he needed to to secure popular support. People loved it. But here's the catch: economies have physics, and Peron's government violated them. They spent money faster than the country could actually make it, requiring them to deficit spend and pile on debt year after year. Ever seen a turtle with so many barnacles that it drowns? That's what happens to socialist economies. Now, Peron didn't call it socialism, he called it "justicealism." But if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, here are the facts: Peron nationalized everything he could get his grubby little hands on, including... Major industries like railroads, funding it all with billions in foreign loans.

• 19:37Tom Bilyeu?

  The result: Argentina's debt continued to balloon, inflation soared to 40% by the 50s, and the very policies designed to secure prosperity via free stuff ended up setting the nation on a path to ruin. Because again, there is no free stuff. But that's what politicians do. They borrow from anyone they can, and when they can't borrow anymore, they tax, and when they can't tax anymore, they confiscate. They steal. But they don't call it that. They call it inflation. But if it walks like it, you know. By the 1970s, Argentina's economic machine was choking to death on debt. To keep up with the endless promises made, the government began printing money, literally pulling pesos out of thin air to cover its deficits.

• 20:20Tom Bilyeu?

  Inflation went up even more, reaching an unimaginable peak of 5,000% per year by 1989. Let that sink in. Prices doubled every few weeks. Imagine going to buy bread, and the loaf that cost you one peso in 1970 suddenly costs over a million pesos by 1989? People watched their life savings go up in smoke. Trust in the currency vanished, and investors wouldn't go anywhere near Argentina. The brutal reality is that money printing is economic poison. It destroys productivity, erodes trust, and widens inequality. The middle class, the backbone of any thriving economy, is the first to be decimated, turning

• 21:01Tom Bilyeu?

  productive citizens into resentful survivors who depend on government handouts. And once that happens, it's not long before the entire society begins to unravel. By 2001, Argentina was staring into an abyss. They had borrowed their way into a catastrophic debt hole, unable to make payments, setting the stage for the largest sovereign debt default the world had ever seen. And when a government defaults, chaos isn't far behind. Bank runs erupted as panicked citizens rushed to withdraw their money, only to find the government had already frozen their accounts under the infamous "Corelito" policy. Unemployment exploded, businesses shuttered at pace, and poverty rates soared past 40%.

• 21:45Tom Bilyeu?

  People watched helplessly as their lives collapsed because politicians had prioritized short-term vote-buying over long-term economic reality.

• 21:55Tom Bilyeu?

  This stage of the debt cycle is inevitable. Once debt exceeds productivity, the system is going to break. It's just a matter of time. Inflation spirals out of control, defaults wipe out trust, and economic stability just vanishes. Political unrest and anger bubble to the surface, and one more society tears itself apart from the inside. After the catastrophic default of 2001, Argentina didn't bounce back. Instead, it entered what economists now call "the lost decades", a long, grim period of economic stagnation and institutional rot that lasted well into the 2010s. Populist leaders, particularly the decersioners, double down on the same disastrous playbook: massive subsidies, sweeping nationalizations,

• 22:38Tom Bilyeu?

  and social programs funded with borrowed money. On paper, this sounds compassionate until you realize that every new subsidy has to be financed with debt, the thing that drives inequality. The plan, of course, is to raise taxes and balance the budget, but that's not how taxes work. There's an entirely predictable mechanism that stops raising taxes from working in a linear fashion. The principle is called the Laffer curve. It shows that beyond a certain point, increasing tax rates actually decreases overall tax revenue. Now, how is that possible? It's possible because onerous taxation discourages economic activity, investment, and even compliance, leading to people who work less, invest less, flee, or just outright evade taxes.

• 23:23Tom Bilyeu?

  Simply put, when the government takes people's money, they stop working. There was a joke in the former Soviet Union: "We pretend to work, and the government pretends to pay us." That's why even authoritarian policies to confiscate people's wealth or physically stop them from leaving the high-tax area under threat of violence doesn't work, because additional revenue requires a miracle. Innovation. Innovation must occur, and innovation requires an insane amount of dedication. There's no way to force people to get inspired and create something new. It's just too hard. You have to create an environment where they want to dedicate their lives to discovering something new, to building something that didn't exist.

• 24:05Tom Bilyeu?

  And you do that by allowing people to capture the majority of the upside of their labor. Argentina, however, was unwilling to walk that path. They failed to understand the physics of how the economy works and thus trapped themselves in a destructive cycle. During the last decades, Argentina's political and economic institutions just fell apart. Corruption surged, the rule of law weakened, and repeated IMF bailouts only deepened their dependency on the government, pushing Argentina's GDP per capita, a clear measure of prosperity, from around $8,000 in 1998 down to just $4,500, deflated by 2002. Argentina's story is a crystal-clear warning of what happens when a country lets populist

• 24:48Tom Bilyeu?

  promises and debt-driven policies steer the ship. And Argentina's past is a warning about America's future. Here's what we all have to understand. When a country piles up debt to pay for political promises, the end result is always resentment and inequality. And this resentment and inequality drive people to vote for more policies that promise more free stuff, and that only drives up resentment and inequality. It is the economic equivalent of drinking to cure a hangover. And that brings us to part four. America has a debt hangover, but Maldani isn't the answer. Right now, the US government pays roughly $2.5 billion every single day.

• 25:32Tom Bilyeu?

  Not on education, healthcare, or defense, on the interest for our existing debt. Think about that. Every 24 hours, America burns through $2.5 billion on interest just to avoid defaulting on the money we borrow to give people free stuff. That's like setting fire to a stack of $100 bills 10 times taller than the Empire State Building. It's 1.7 miles of cash.

• 26:01Tom Bilyeu?

  Burned every day. America has a debt hangover from decades of monetary partying. But socialism isn't the cure. That would be like getting blackout drunk to cure your headache. We have a cultural problem. We have saddled millennials and Gen Z with an obscene amount of college debt and credit card debt, made it impossible to discharge the call it debt through bankruptcy, something history is never going to forgive us for, and taught them to hate themselves and their country. We have made it impossible for them to get on the property ladder, which is the only asset that people have an intuitive understanding for, so they just keep getting financially demolished by inflation. A foreign adversary controls their favorite algorithm and feeds them a nonstop barrage

• 26:46Tom Bilyeu?

  of divisive content. And the message they get is that hard work is for suckers. We've created multiple generations of takers who think making is toxic grind culture. For every one person in their cohort that buys gold or crypto as an inflation-resistant store of wealth, there's 50 that yellowed into a shitcoin hoping to get rich quick. Instead of playing the long game in the stock market, they weaponize it to punish the hedge fund managers they think are hoarding the money and keeping them poor. Unless we figure out a way to get them on the property ladder, stop stealing their future through debt, and get them to embrace the miracle that is innovation and not redistribution, we are racing full speed toward the socialist cliff of much and infinite despair that has

• 27:31Tom Bilyeu?

  held back Argentina for nearly 100 years. America's political divide is getting dangerous, and without intervention, it will tear us apart. Partisan hostility has reached levels we haven't seen since the 60s. Trust in institutions is plummeting, and the sense that the other side isn't just wrong but evil is now mainstream. Politicians on both sides are promising voters endless handouts, benefits, and favors funded by money we simply don't have. The more divided we get, the more politicians promise to buy our votes with things that sound compassionate but are financially disastrous. Instead of inspiring young people to build and create, we're teaching them To stand in line with their handout. And that brings us back to Zorin Maldani. His promising free transit,

• 28:17Tom Bilyeu?

  frozen housing prices, universal childcare, and wealth taxes so extreme the billionaire makers of New York are guaranteed to flee. As history shows us time and time again that they will do. His policies are straight from the Argentinian playbook, used under Juan Peron. Promise massive welfare programs, nationalize industries like grocery stores, and fund it all through mountains of debt. This won't lead to prosperity. But somehow, each generation seems hell-bent to learn this lesson the hard way. Prominent economists, including Larry Summers, have explicitly warned that Maldani's policies will devastate New York City's economy, driving businesses and wealthy individuals to pack up and leave. Every country that tries socialist policies, including Argentina,

• 29:01Tom Bilyeu?

  ends up hollowing out their own economy from within, leading to decades of runaway inflation, poverty, and institutional collapse. Now, we've danced around the ideas of makers and takers several times so far, but now it's time to pin it down. Author and economic philosopher Ayn Rand famously argued that every society inevitably divides itself into two groups: makers and takers. Makers are the entrepreneurs, innovators, and builders, the people who create real tangible value and drive society forward. They generate the tax revenue. Takers, on the other hand, are those who rely on extracting the value created by others, often through government handouts, subsidies, and political favors without contributing anything productive themselves. Rand's essential warning is simple but powerful. When a culture shifts too heavily

• 29:46Tom Bilyeu?

  towards rewarding takers instead of makers, it begins a spiral of moral and economic decay. Prosperity doesn't come from redistribution. It comes from innovation, entrepreneurship, and personal responsibility. Argentina's tragic story clearly illustrates that that's true. Initially, Argentina was a nation of makers, entrepreneurs, innovators, and productive citizens who built real wealth through creativity, hard work, and enterprise. They turned Argentina into a global jewel that drew enterprising young people from all over the world. But over time, debt shifted Argentina dramatically towards a taker culture. Politicians promised endless government handouts, subsidies and welfare programs, and citizens became increasingly dependent on the state rather than their own productivity.

• 30:29Tom Bilyeu?

  The incentive to innovate, to take risks and to produce real value evaporated, replaced with the impulse to tax and print money. The result was an economic and cultural crisis that crippled the nation for generations. Today, America is displaying many of the same troubling signs. Historically, America's success was driven by makers, entrepreneurs, innovators, risk-takers, all who created unprecedented prosperity. But increasingly, our culture is shifting towards entitlement. People expect the government to provide solutions for every problem, from free healthcare and universal basic income to widespread student debt forgiveness. The idea of personal responsibility has become cringe. Support for broad-based government entitlement programs has surged dramatically, marking a clear shift towards a taker mindset.

• 31:14Tom Bilyeu?

  If Ayn Rand's warning holds true, and history clearly suggests that it does, the very productivity and innovation that built America's wealth will rapidly dissipate as millennials take control. America's middle class, once the envy of the world, will be gone. Maybe not forever, but 100 years is a long time. So what can we learn from Argentina, which now, after roughly a century, actually shows signs of getting back on track? We'll be back in a moment. You're probably paying two salespeople to do one salesperson's job. That's where today's sponsor, Pipe Drive, comes in. An intelligent, AI-powered sales CRM loved by growing sales teams.

• 31:58Tom Bilyeu?

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• 32:40Tom Bilyeu?

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• 32:48Tom Bilyeu?

  All right, let's pick up where we left off. Welcome to Part 5, The Return of the Makers: Argentina's Potential Recovery. I want you to imagine this: A chainsaw-wielding, former rock star, turned economist, turned politician, gets elected president by promising to slash spending, eliminate entire departments of the government, and finally balance the budget. That's not an acid trip. That actually happened. Political outsider Javier Millay was elected to turn things around in Argentina and swing the country from a taker hellscape to being a pro-maker nation. Millay slashed over 35,000 public-sector jobs, repealed decades of suffocating regulations, and eliminated 10 of 18 federal ministries.

• 33:33Tom Bilyeu?

  In less than two years, his actions have brought inflation down from a devastating 211% annual rate to a monthly rate of just 1.5%. Known for passionately quoting free-market economists and openly celebrating Ayn Rand's ideas, Millay represents a fierce rejection of Argentina's taker-friendly culture. And under his watch, the central bank reserves, once sitting at a negative $3 billion, have surged to nearly $30 billion to the positive. Housing availability in Buenos Aires tripled, and rents plunged by roughly 50% after Millay abolished strict rent controls. He also secured a landmark $20 billion financing deal with the IMF,

• 34:16Tom Bilyeu?

  a clear sign that his policies have already begun to improve investor confidence in Argentina's economy. Millay's core philosophy is simple: shrink government, unleash private enterprise, and empower individuals rather than politicians. He cut government spending by 30%, eliminated half of Argentina's bloated ministries, and his fierce commitment to fiscal discipline even delivered Argentina's first budget surplus in 16 years, showing what's possible when you align with the physics of money. Millet's radical approach might sound extreme, but it's working. And it represents the flip side of the Mamdani socialist coin in America. While Mamdani threatens to freeze rents in New York, which will limit housing supply and future investments,

• 35:00Tom Bilyeu?

  Millet completely removed housing regulations in Buenos Aires, increasing supply, increasing investments, and lowering rents dramatically. New construction jobs skyrocketed and urban development surged once again as investors flooded back into Argentina's markets. It's clear that in moments of high inequality, people hate the idea of creating opportunities for other people to win. But the reality is, that's what you have to do to drive prosperity. That's what even China does. That's why Millet's Argentina is headed in the right direction. Millet's policies are rapidly returning Argentina to being a place where entrepreneurs, businesses, and individuals are empowered to build, innovate, and thrive, lifting the country out of decades of decay and decline. Meanwhile, in New York City,

• 35:45Tom Bilyeu?

  Zoran Mamdani wants to steer New York City in the exact opposite direction. Mamdani's entire platform is built on promises that sound kind, but have proven, time and time again throughout history, to lead directly to disaster. Mamdani's heavy-handed rent controls alone are projected to slash New York's housing supply by nearly 20%. Historical data clearly shows that rent control policies do not expand affordable housing. Instead, they scare off developers, dry up investments, and cause both businesses and wealthy individuals to flee the city, taking valuable tax dollars with them. It's just not how you're going to tackle America's growing problem of inequality. Think of it this way: Millet's spending cuts were like trimming the fat off an athlete.

• 36:29Tom Bilyeu?

  And taming inflation is like no longer feeding that athlete a steady diet of sugar. And deregulating and encouraging innovation is like getting that athlete back in the gym. And now, back in fighting shape, Argentina has a shot at the title once again. It required a lot of hard work. But in the end, an economy built on innovation and productivity is the thing that leads to growth. It's the very thing that is required if you want to prosper. Now, contrast that with what's happening in America. Despite massive government spending and soaring deficits, real wages for the American middle class remain flat, and in the last five years have actually been wildly outpaced by inflation. So Americans that don't own assets are getting worse off by the day

• 37:11Tom Bilyeu?

  in a taker-oriented economic model where government spending outpaces real economic growth, productivity stalls, and ordinary citizens get absolutely demolished, which has the paradoxical effect of causing them to vote for the very thing that's creating their problem. So now what? Where do we go from here? Welcome to the conclusion, the thrilling path forward. The following is true. There is a single country that has been so successful that it accounts for more than 25% of the entire globe's GDP. Its economic output is bigger than China, Japan, and Germany combined. I did not misspeak. You can look it up. It has attracted so many innovators

• 37:53Tom Bilyeu?

  that it's home to more billion-dollar companies, over 600 unicorn startups, than every other country on Earth added together. It leads the world in Nobel Prizes, technological innovation, and university rankings. Its economic influence is unmatched in human history. Now, I imagine it's not hard to guess that I'm talking about America. But despite all of the incredible accomplishments, America is at a tipping point. The next decade will decide our future because there is a shocking flip side to America's accomplishments: America's social mobility. It was once the envy of the world, but now has plunged to 27th place globally. The majority of young Americans now believe their living standards

• 38:35Tom Bilyeu?

  will be worse than their parents for the first time ever. Life expectancy is falling for the first time since World War I. ASCE gave our infrastructure a barely passing C-minus grade, and half the nation now has less than $400 saved for emergencies. This is the stark crossroads America stands at right now. We have everything to lose and everything to gain. Whether we re-embrace capitalism and innovation, or we lean into socialism and a well-intentioned death loop of poverty will determine our future. Will we renew America's position as a global beacon of prosperity? Or march down Argentina's dark and chaotic path? I know what I want to happen,

• 39:18Tom Bilyeu?

  but it's hard to tell what will happen. Hopefully, I've convinced you that debt and money printing create inequality, and that politicians promising free stuff is exactly what leads to debt and money printing, and therefore, inequality. Assuming I have, here is how we pull back from the brink and get America back on track. Our number-one priority has to be to reduce inequality by ending reckless deficit spending and getting out from under the onerous burden of our current debt. That's not going to be easy, but we cannot move forward until we solve that problem and stop money printing as a way of life. We cannot continue to burn $2.5 billion a day. And to pull all of that off, you're going to have to carefully execute

• 40:01Tom Bilyeu?

  what Ray Dalio calls "a beautiful deleveraging." This requires the use of a hyper-strategic and temporary blend of the following four things. One, austerity. Two, limited wealth distribution. Three, selective debt cancellation. And four, limited money printing. Yes, this combination might sound counterintuitive, given how hard I've railed against wealth redistribution and money printing, but the reality is there's no way to get out from under $36 trillion in debt without some pain. By blending these four levers as strategically as humanly possible and getting back to growth and innovation as rapidly as possible,

• 40:43Tom Bilyeu?

  we'll give ourselves the best chance of riding the ship. Now, if you want to go much, much deeper on this topic, I did a whole deep dive on it that you can watch here. The second thing we have to do to get America back on track is we must fundamentally reform our broken college debt system. Instead of saddling young people with impossible loans for degrees that are never going to pay off, or giving people loans and then just forgiving them, we need to get the government out of the loan guarantee business. We also need to allow people to discharge their college debt via bankruptcy. That one move will force discipline on the lenders. The third thing we need to do is remove regulations from the housing industry to

• 41:23Tom Bilyeu?

  increase supply and naturally lower costs and ensure young people see a path to home ownership. Affordable housing must be a priority because it's the only inflation-resistant asset that everyone understands intuitively. Fourth, and perhaps most critically, we have to swing the cultural pendulum back towards makers. America must, again, become a culture that inspires young people to build, innovate, create, and solve problems rather than to passively wait for government handouts. The only way to continue to win is to relearn how to be a nation of people that actually strive for greatness. And finally, we must teach Americans, especially millennials and Gen Z, the power of asset ownership.

• 42:05Tom Bilyeu?

  If nothing else, they must understand how owning assets—stocks, real estate, gold, crypto, homes, etc—can help them avoid the devastating impacts of inflation. Even if we can't get the government to change, individuals can still protect themselves and their families from financial ruin through wise investing in economic education. We are now standing at the most pivotal moment since World War II. The choices we make today between the taker-friendly path of socialism, dependency, and decline, represented by M'Ghannani, or the maker-friendly road of innovation, accountability, and prosperity, represented by Millet's New Argentina, will determine America's fate for the foreseeable future. Here's the truth: History is filled with cautionary tales of once-great nations who

• 42:49Tom Bilyeu?

  lost their way, but it's also filled with powerful examples of countries that found the courage, clarity, and determination to rebuild, renew, and face the challenges ahead logically instead of emotionally. It often comes after tremendous pain, though, and my hope is that we can avoid that. This is our moment. We get to decide which story we're going to write. So ask yourself now: What kind of America do you want to live in? One that follows a tragic path of debt and decay, or one that reignites our spirit of innovation, freedom, and prosperity? I know which one I will choose. And I hope you'll choose it with me and we can build something wonderful together, united on one team. Now, if you want to watch me explore ideas like this live,

• 43:32Tom Bilyeu?

  make sure you join me live on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6:00 a.m. Pacific time. And until then, my friends, be legendary. Take care, peace. Let's talk about a pattern that is guaranteed to be killing your progress. You know what you need to do. You need consistent nutrition. We all do. You need vitamins, probiotics, greens. We all know that we should be doing more of it. When your morning gets chaotic, you skip it. When you travel, you skip it. When your routine breaks, everything tends to break. And that inconsistency compounds against you every single day. AG1 is designed to solve the execution problem. One scoop, eight ounces of water, and you're done. You're getting 75-plus ingredients, vitamins and minerals, pre and probiotics,

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