Hasan Piker x Tom Bilyeu: Why Gen Z Is Turning to Socialism - The Battle Over Banking, Inflation & the American Dream PT 2

In Part 2 of our electrifying conversation with Hasan Piker, Tom and Hasan move from the theoretical to the practical—zeroing in on public policy, the mechanics of innovation, and the often-contentious debate over what works, what doesn’t, and why. As they continue their deep dive, the discussion shifts to unionization, globalization, and the realities of economic mobility in America. The pair examine the legacy of government intervention, compare the merits of public vs. private sector innovation, and weigh historical examples from the United States, China, and Europe. At the heart of this half lies a contentious discussion about national debt, inflation, and global financial confidence—juxtaposed with the DSA’s (Democratic Socialists of America) current priorities, such as foreign policy, Medicare for All, and labor empowerment. Hasan offers his vision for a more just America, where wealth is abundant but more equitably shared, while Tom challenges the feasibility and consequences of such models. Whether it’s healthcare, infrastructure, or rent control, this part is packed with hard-hitting perspectives, sharp disagreements, and the mutual drive to find real-world solutions to America’s most urgent problems. SHOWNOTES 43:07 – DSA Goals, Policy Focus, and the “Abolish the Family” Myth 54:41 – The Real Drivers: Debt, Banking, and Asset Bubbles 1:06:39 – Democracy, Authoritarianism, and the Global Balance 1:17:44 – Domestic Priorities: Healthcare, Infrastructure, and Unionization 1:27:15 – Corporate Profits, Tariffs, and Taxation and Government’s Role Follow Hasan Piker: Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/hasanabi Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/hasanabi Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hasandpiker TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hasandpiker 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. SleepMe: Visit ⁠https://sleep.me/impact⁠ https://sleep.me/impact to get your Chilipad and save 20% with code IMPACT. 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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tom Bilyeu?

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• 0:45Tom Bilyeu?

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• 1:07Speaker 01

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• 1:52Speaker 01

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• 2:08Tom Bilyeu?

  I'm Tom Viliou and this is Impact Theory. Welcome back for part two of my conversation with Hasan Piker. If you have not already heard part one, you were gonna wanna go. Check that out right now. This is not one that you're gonna wanna walk into halfway through. Let's get right back into it. If you look at the timeline, this is a money printing problem. This is about debt and money printing and people get so confused about what caused the real problem. So you have debt, money printing and globalization. That's it. And if people just talk about those things, then all of a sudden, they're gonna be able to map to reality what happened. This is why people always ask the question, what happened in 1971? Because in 1971, that's when all hell breaks loose. And in 1971, we broke our last remaining thread. We were about 25% tied to the gold standard.

• 2:51Tom Bilyeu?

  And so when we finally let that go, then it became unhinged money printing. But for a long time, we actually didn't go that ham. And it wasn't really until 2008 that we just got unhinged. And if you look at the N2 money supply graph, it goes berserk.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  I don't disagree with you. It's just funny because like, I think that that is just another aspect of like, the way that the system has been designed. So we're just like basically unleashing the same forces because these are the, these are the exact same principles that, that create income and wealth inequality in general. So like, this is more of the same in terms of like the super wealthy making out far better than the average person.

• 3:32Tom Bilyeu?

  Yes, but what the reason that I harp on this is because to get the problem right and the solution wrong, or more importantly, to get the problem right, but the cause wrong, means that you will definitionally get the solution wrong because you don't know what's actually causing the problem. The story I always like to tell is, I woke up one day with a skin rash. And it got so bad that I would wake up in the middle of the night and I just wanted to cry because it just itched so badly, I couldn't sleep. It was an absolute nightmare. So of course I go see a skin specialist and they're like, hey, you've introduced some detergent or something. They're like, this happens all the time. You just don't realize that you're having an allergic reaction. So we're like changing everything, no scented, like all this, it's not working. And I'm like, if somebody came to me and said they had a skin condition, what advice would I give them? And I would say, it's something you're eating.

• 4:17Tom Bilyeu?

  And so I'm like, even though uh my diet is perfectly clean, there's clearly something I'm eating that's causing a problem. And so I completely cut out artificial sweeteners. Seventy-two hours later, it was gone. So I was like, oh my God, but everybody wants to give you a topical solution. And that was the first thing. They wanted me to put creams on it and the creams helped. And it alleviated. I was like, oh my God, thankfully. But that didn't address the underlying problem. And as soon as I actually got to the thing that was actually causing it, it went away and it went away forever. And so what I'm saying is, we all agree that the skin is itchy. We all agree that America has a skin rash. What we don't agree on is what's causing the skin rash. What's causing the skin rash? Nineteen thirteen Federal Reserve Act says we can print money.

• 5:01Tom Bilyeu?

  Nineteen seventy-one, our last like restraining thread gets broken. And then in the nineties, we go full globalization, most importantly, China. And so like, once you put that very small, very understandable bundle on the table, it's like, there are all your problems. But people focus on more, um, the rhetoric is all about animosity towards wealthy people, which is why people got mad at you when you bought your house. Instead of going, oh, wait a second, I actually understand the fundamental nature of the system. It's broken at the level of debt, money printing. And when I say debt, government debt's the right one to focus on, but there's personal debt, corporate debt and government debt.

• 5:46Tom Bilyeu?

  But we are, we are in such a dark place from a debt and money printing perspective. And I just cannot get people to focus on it because it, it doesn't feel.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Well, I think the difference in opinion stems from like, you're saying the artificial sweetener in this situation is the debt and globalization and money printing.

• 6:03Tom Bilyeu?

  Correct.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  And I'm saying that the, the artificial sweetener, which is like, the, the, like, we, we are identifying the symptoms. And I think that the debt and the money printing is, is yet another, uh, yet another factor in a, in an even broader, uh, in an even broader problem, in a broader systemic problem.

• 6:22Tom Bilyeu?

  But when you start looking at the actual impact of what drives it. Uh, I did the math on this once, but it was like, um, union negotiations is like 8% or something. So it's like, it's not that it's nothing, it's that when you look at the totality of the problem, it's not even 10%.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Oh, I, I don't, I'm not saying that unions are, first of all, I don't think unions are only, uh, the only impactful force here. I don't even think that unions are, uh, the, the only way to solve this problem. I think it's just one mechanism. It's, uh, kinda like you brought up rent control, right? Rent control in and of itself is not a solution. It's, it's barely a Band-Aid. It's a, it's a move, it's an initiative to, to, in the interim, to, to move in the direction of decommodifying housing. That's the reason why, uh, people utilize it. But I think without like adjusting the supply, without actually, uh, either introducing, uh, some kind of market force, like new interest in, in, uh, developing, uh, housing projects,

• 7:21Speaker 02

  or, uh, and, and readjusting the inventory that's readily available so that more people can, can live in homes. And then that actually depresses the existing, uh, the existing price, the average home price for the average person. And it, and it actually, uh, lowers rents as well because there's no, now new inventory available, even from a, a, a healthy market, uh, assessment.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  If a private industry is not going to do that, I say, let the government intervene. I have no issues with that.

• 7:50Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, but the-

• 7:51Speaker 02

  But it's just one aspect of a, of a much larger issue is what I mean. Like labor unions are not the end-all.

• 7:57Tom Bilyeu?

  Underlying read of the situation that I think is incorrect. And if I'm painting you wrong, I consider you at least sympathetic to socialism.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  Oh, for sure. I am, I, I am, uh, I say I'm a leftist because like, I'm, I'm big tent in terms of, of, uh, all the way from, you know, revolutionary socialists or even communists, uh, to, to, uh, people who want to implement modest social democratic reforms in the interim. I believe in, in harm reduction. And I think the best possible way to achieve that is, uh, especially with, uh, the way, the appetite that Americans have in general for these sorts of ideologies that they either completely don't know, or have been, uh, propagandizing, being fearful of.

• 8:44Tom Bilyeu?

  But so that's where I'll say it's not propaganda. Like there is, I mean, but let's dig into it because there are mechanistic reasons to be fearful of socialism or communism. And we can literally take them one by one, but there are some things work in the like messiness of reality and other things don't work in the messiness of reality. And I think the reason that people are going so ham into socialism right now is that it feels right, but it's not actually going to yield the right outcomes. So it feels right because people have been propagandized that what you're actually up against is an evil capitalistic system where people are trying to take advantage of you. And they've come up in a system that is extraordinary.

• 9:29Tom Bilyeu?

  They've come up in the West and things are stable. People are relatively safe. Until recently, it was like most people could get on the property ladder. It was like, yeah. So people have lost sight of what drives tax dollars. The very thing that gives people the money that they want to spend on these systems is the entrepreneurial class builds a thing, a company that outputs something more valuable than the inputs. It is excruciatingly difficult to do. And when you see only negativity in that system and think that somehow the money is still going to be there, even if you are punitive towards that class, which I think is what most people that are on that bandwagon want.

• 10:14Tom Bilyeu?

  And now you end up breaking the very goose that lays the golden egg.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  See, this is where we fundamentally disagree because I don't think innovation is immediately tied back to profits. I don't think that, and I don't think it's even a historically how it's been. Like I like the joke and say like, you know, people didn't invent the tire because they thought, you know, I can commodify this and sell it and make money. I think that there are many achievements that we take for granted throughout history, all the way from primitive accumulation down to the, the current existence of society, the current economic formation that we exist under, where plenty of People have actually advanced humanity, not on the basis that they'll make a lot of money, but on on advancing humanity alone, like other factors that contribute to it.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  Uh, whether it be improving people's welfare, or whether it be because you have a a human first approach. Um, and beyond that, I think even still.

• 11:14Tom Bilyeu?

  And you think that's gone now?

• 11:16Speaker 02

  No, I think it still exists, but we are we're tampering with it at the for the sake of greed. Because I think capitalism inevitably creates a system where people are focusing on short term profits. And when you focus on short term profits, you end up throwing aside all of these like technological leaps that we have made, uh, in times when there was a lot more government funding, a lot more public funding, a lot more public investment, both, uh, in other countries, even ones that we have declared foreign adversaries, even ones that had their own personal systemic failures, mind you, I'm not saying the USSR was like, uh, amazing. But, um, there were issues there as well.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  But ultimately, uh, we've lost sight of of why, uh, people innovate, why people develop, uh, new things. And it's not necessarily just because they want to make money. I mean, there's so many.

• 12:10Tom Bilyeu?

  I would say China has proven it's because people want to make money.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  Wait, really?

• 12:14Tom Bilyeu?

  A thousand percent.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  I was about to say China is the exact counter argument.

• 12:18Tom Bilyeu?

  China tried to kill everybody and to get them to fit in line, they killed forty five million people in a pretty short stretch. Like, that one's wild to me that people brush that one off.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  I think I think there were, uh, USSR had a similar, uh, problem as well with like crop mismanagement and famines. But, um, since that, uh, since since that happened, there has, uh, there has never been another, uh, instance of famine in China.

• 12:43Tom Bilyeu?

  But China literally came to the West and said, okay, what do we do? And they said, how many banks do you have? And China said, we only have one bank. And America said, that's crazy. We have thirty thousand banks. And let me tell you how we do this. You push the decision making down to the regional control element. You let them all be profit incentivized, and then they will loan out to the people that are actually going to be successful. What is the thing? That drives somebody to take that tremendous risk when something like ninety percent of all companies fail to make a million dollars. Ninety four percent fail to make ten million dollars. So the that six percent of companies make more than ten million dollars. That means ninety four percent of people effectively fail. So it's like you have this insane failure rate that still manages to give you America, the West largely.

• 13:27Tom Bilyeu?

  So the capitalist system ends up with problems and you have to be careful because left unchecked, it metastasizes. I like to say there's pathology on both sides. But China literally goes, okay, I'm tired of Deng Xiaoping comes into power and he's like, well, we're not going to keep doing what Mao was doing and starve people to death. So he comes up with the two phrases, doesn't matter if the cat is black or white, which was something ish that you said earlier. Just matters if it catches mice. So it doesn't matter if it's black or white, only matters if it catches mice. And then the second thing that he said was getting rich is glorious.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  Well, that was attributed to him. I say it all the time as well. Socialism is not socialism is not about poverty or the glorification of poverty. To be rich is to be glorious is falsely attributed to Deng Xiaoping. He never corrected it though, so people assume that it's actually something that he said. And it makes sense. I mean, I think it's an attitude that that reflects in modern Chinese society as well. But Deng in and of himself is is seen by, I guess, some hardline Maoists as a as a liberal or a a reformist. But I think like there's a reason why even Xi Jinping considers like in China, they consider this as like socialism with Chinese characteristics.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Because it is evolved in accordance to the material conditions and the and the global marketplace. Where capitalism is, looking at some of the even failures of the USSR in terms of global trade. And trying to have a trade first approach to make themselves an undeniable force in the global marketplace. So that there is not a lot of tremendous foreign intervention in the way that. And in the way that allows them to develop in the ways that they want to. But I think Chinese development isn't this profoundly impactful force around the globe now because of foreign capital just coming in, simply on the basis of foreign capital coming in.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  But I think it's what they've done with that foreign capital that has made China into this powerful hegemonic force that can even counter American influence around the world now.

• 15:31Tom Bilyeu?

  I don't even think that it's necessarily, sure, in the early days, getting foreign capital in was huge, very transformational, and I'm sure they would love it if it happened again, but they're not going to change their strategy. But what they did learn was American capitalistic principles. They learned how to VC the way that we VC, which is massive. They learned how to bank the way that we bank, which was massive. And so, taking those characteristics, they're basically saying, we're the state, you're going to do what we tell you, but we recognize that by letting you get rich, as long as you don't get uppity, letting you get rich is exactly how we convince people to take all these risks, to regionalize things, so that we can move forward. Because it's just the way that human incentives work.

• 16:13Tom Bilyeu?

  Now, what I would, obviously, Xi Jinping is not going to agree with my assessment here. But I look at that and I go, hey, I'm Xi Jinping, you guys can keep doing this version of capitalism, what I call red light, green light capitalism, as long as you don't fuck with my agenda. And as long as you understand that I'm going to negotiate in the world globally with you as one big block. And so, everyone here is going to be in lockstep behind what I want to do. And then, within that framework, you guys can do whatever you want.

• 16:42Tom Bilyeu?

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• 17:25Tom Bilyeu?

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• 18:55Tom Bilyeu?

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• 19:02Tom Bilyeu?

  Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  I know, but their their economy is is built around central planning still where they like

• 19:11Tom Bilyeu?

  Hard pass, no way, false.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Oh, OK, well, then we definitely disagree on this because like I use ghost cities as an example, right, like where there is for years and years, we look to China and we were like, why are they developing these like fake cities? Oh, it's to just probably try to get people to work like to try to get like fake work so that

• 19:31Tom Bilyeu?

  It's modern monetary theory.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:33Tom Bilyeu?

  Money printing.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  So, but what we found out, at least now, is that all of those ghost cities have been populated. There are still other cities where they're like still building. They're rapidly expanding. There's rapid urban development. But like, the reason why those cities were built was because they had a 15 year plan in mind of like inevitably moving people from rural areas into more urban tier one cities and tier two cities. And there are still issues with the structure as well. There's a HUKO system that I think needs tremendous reform. This like almost interior passport structure that they have in China. But that

• 20:10Speaker 02

  actually was was a process in which, you know, 800 million people were were able to to escape extreme poverty in China. That was a direct consequence of good government initiatives that did not put the the speculative interests of the market first, but instead put the interests of citizens first.

• 20:34Tom Bilyeu?

  I would say it's the exact opposite. So what they wanted to do

• 20:38Speaker 02

  So you're saying China was doing capitalism better than America? And that's why they're at the place that they're at?

• 20:43Tom Bilyeu?

  They did capitalism with communist elements, and they have pulled more people out of poverty faster than anybody else in history. It is absolutely insane. And anybody that sort of brushes that off and says that's not a functioning system, I think is a fool.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 21:01Tom Bilyeu?

  So you look at that and go, OK, what kind of system do you want to be in?

• 21:03Speaker 02

  There was one other historic example as well. It was the USSR.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  Again, tremendous pain in that process.

• 21:12Tom Bilyeu?

  So that one's probably not great. They used to joke that we'll pretend to work and they'll pretend to pay us. So again, going back to what is it that gets people to innovate? You have to let people get wealthy. In the 90s, what happens? The government collapses. They let people get wealthy. They rush into the modern economy. Then a strong man comes in and takes over again and is now, uh, you've got capitalism with Russian characteristics, which is basically, again, you can get as rich as you want, as long as you don't get uppity. If you ever challenge me, I'm going to re-educate the shit out of you until you're either dead or, uh, until you're back in line.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  I think social repression is, is, uh, a major issue in, uh, virtually every system, but certainly in these, uh, in these structures as well. We also do tend to highlight, uh, some of the inequities while simultaneously refusing to see our version of that as well.

• 22:01Tom Bilyeu?

  Do you think I'm doing that?

• 22:03Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I'm not. I'm not saying that you're doing that. I'm just, in general, I'm saying like broadly, we look at like, um, like, uh, the example I always use is like, uh, like, America has slave labor built into its, uh, built into a structure, right? We, slavery as a mechanism of punishment is still very much legal in the 13th amendment, which was supposed to abolish slavery, right? Um, and we look to other countries and we say, oh, they have Gulags, right? Like, we technically have them as well. We have a, we have a structure, uh, we have a, a similar, very violent carceral state here, uh, where we house 25% of the entire world's incarcerated population, despite making up only 4% of the overall population of this country.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  This isn't to say that like the systems are similar. I'm simply stating that like sometimes we end up having blindsides to our own inequities while simultaneously highlighting the, the inequities and the forms of repression that other people do. This isn't to excuse their forms of repression. I think they're inexcusable.

• 22:59Tom Bilyeu?

  Are they worse?

• 23:01Speaker 02

  I, I think in some instances, yes, certainly, especially historic examples.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  And in certain instances is like it can even be sometimes overblown like the social credit system that they have in China where people will be like, oh, they have a mass surveillance and like a social credit system, but we have a, we actually do have a credit system that is, I think, far more consequential for the lives of American citizens as opposed to like what we assume the Chinese social credit function looks like.

• 23:31Tom Bilyeu?

  Do you want a world where people have, where the government has that kind of control over your life because you don't put the ability to track how much meat somebody buys into your system unless at some point you plan to control how much meat somebody buys? Do you like that level of control or do you fear that level of control?

• 23:50Speaker 02

  There is a healthy fear to have under that kind of structure because you assume that it could be used for, understandably, used for evil, especially when you have so much power in the hands of so few people. And I think the solution to that is like an unlimited transparent democratic process that is constantly measuring the efficiency of, of the representatives. And there is a very swift mechanism of replacement when people fall short of the expectations or the demands that people are making, a democratic process. The Chinese style of governance, I think, we assume is like super top down.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  There is a constant feedback that comes from the, the party system. It's not technically one party, even though there is one governing party, obviously, but that governing party is still beholden very much to like every single locality and what, what their local representatives are saying, what the demands are from the population there. I don't know if it's the best possible system, but I do know that we here as an American citizen have a tremendous amount of inequality and with no real way of addressing said issues, which is why the organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America try to work within the existing duopoly to try to push the Democratic Party to hear the demand. Of

• 25:17Tom Bilyeu?

  So what do they want to see from a policy perspective? What does the DSA want to see actually happen?

• 25:23Speaker 02

  So, um, again, I'm not even a, I am a big booster of the Democratic Socialists of America. I'm not technically a card carrying member, but

• 25:31Tom Bilyeu?

  If you know their policies,

• 25:32Speaker 02

  But I do know, yeah.

• 25:33Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  Um, I don't, I don't mind like broadly explaining, uh, some of their outlook, but like, uh, for example, Israel, Palestine, um, this is a, a major issue for many Americans, especially in the democratic base. Right now,

• 25:49Tom Bilyeu?

  Moral issue or a financial issue?

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Both. It's both a moral issue and it's also a financial issue because

• 25:55Tom Bilyeu?

  If you had to split the amount that they care, is it moral or financial?

• 25:59Speaker 02

  I don't know what the exact adjustment on that would be, but I certainly, but I, I think it's, it's negligible. It doesn't matter. I mean, it's, it's horrifying. It's immoral, but ultimately it's, um, it's also a policy decision that impacts Americans' lives, uh, and, and it's not, doesn't yield any benefits. If you want to make like a cold calculated adjustment there in terms of American foreign policy and our reliance on, on, uh, Israel being as violent as it wants to, uh, to, uh, a, a captive population of Palestinians, that doesn't actually return any significant benefits and it's seemingly a system in which, uh, we're just like giving, you know, billions and billions of dollars of weapons and financial aid

• 26:42Speaker 02

  to a country that actually does have free healthcare, ironically enough, uh, and they can do that because we handle all of their offensive and defensive weapons, 70% of it since October 7, 2023.

• 26:53Tom Bilyeu?

  And why do you think we do it?

• 26:55Speaker 02

  The reason why, uh, we do it here in America and historically have done so is because it's a settler colonial apparatus that, uh, is, is smacked at in the middle of a, uh, a, a region that has incredibly important choke points for trade, for global trade. Uh, and also it's a resource rich region, the resource that, uh, runs the global economy, oil.

• 27:19Tom Bilyeu?

  So an unsinkable aircraft carrier that we can operate on?

• 27:22Speaker 02

  That's part of it for sure. And that has given, uh, Israel a tremendous Amount of of freedom to operate within American politics in a way that no other ally has ever been able to exist under like there's no level of influence that Saudi Arabia has on US policy to the same degree that Israel has had because it was an invaluable Cold War ally at times when there was Pan-Arabic nationalism that was taking place and like a lot of these countries were beginning to to demand sovereignty and maybe we're finding themselves on the on the Soviet side in terms of like global trade or global partnerships,

• 28:02Speaker 02

  right? And America did not like this, so they used Israel. And because of that that profoundly important status that Israel had, it was able to develop a perverse network of of influence and and and create a system where basically any any kind of pushback against Israel or any kind of pushback against like the Israeli interests could be quickly squashed away.

• 28:30Tom Bilyeu?

  Is that because they gave us influence over the region or because they're spending money on individual politicians in America and those individual politicians want the money to keep flowing, so they don't mind sending taxpayer dollars? So they're basically accepting.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  It's both. Mershamer, there's two different minds on this. Noam Chomsky says it's an unsinkable aircraft carrier and therefore it's profoundly important to American foreign policy, which I agree with. Mershamer says it's the lobby, right? It's not just AIPAC, though. It's just like all of the different arms of of Israel's like incredibly incredibly sophisticated network of influence and network of of like mechanisms of control that it has over politicians in terms of like lobbying dollars and whatnot. I think it's a bit of both. I think it's it's it's not a chicken or the egg situation because it's like if it wasn't so profoundly important as a vassal or as a as a mechanism of American imperialism or Western imperialism in the region, it would not have been able to develop this sophisticated

• 29:29Speaker 02

  network of influence. But without that sophisticated network of influence, there would have been numerous points where America could just like. Pull the ripcord and say you're done. And as a matter of fact, there have been times when American presidents have said, have enforced their tremendous power over Israel and tremendous influence over Israel. And we see that less and less now, especially after Trump won. We, we, we saw that with George H W Bush in the past with settlement expansion. We saw that with Ronald Reagan with Lebanon. We saw that with Joe Biden in 2021, as a matter of fact, when Joe Biden said, made that one phone call, said, no, you're done. We're scaling this back and Israel, of course, followed up on those demands, but Donald Trump, unfortunately, is

• 30:12Speaker 02

  is a very malleable person. He's very persuadable and, and you can just buy his loyalty and, and Israel certainly was able to do that. And that's the reason why we're experiencing, that's the reason why we're seeing what we're seeing right now. It was a failure on Biden's part as well. Make no mistake, because on Trump won, we started the Abraham Accords. Biden did not actually scale back on that at all and did not actually put Palestinians at the forefront of this conversation in any way, shape or form, and only accelerated this, this same design that, that Trump had implemented initially, moving the embassy to, American embassy to Jerusalem, very impactful. Did, did not actually scale back on the, the recognition of annexed territory in Golan Heights, which is technically supposed to be

• 30:56Speaker 02

  some Syrian territory, some Lebanese territory. Donald Trump made that annexation, which is illegal, legal. He said, we recognize it.

• 31:06Speaker 02

  And Biden didn't scale back on any of this. And of course, this created the, the powder keg that unfolded in October 7.

• 31:14Tom Bilyeu?

  Now, bringing it back though to the DSA. So are they protectionist, isolationist? Like, how do they look at that? So they don't want to send money. They also see a moral injustice.

• 31:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 31:25Tom Bilyeu?

  But beyond the moral injustice, what like policy core principle is it that drives them to say, we gotta get out of this?

• 31:35Speaker 02

  I think many people in the DSA would be anti-imperialist in the sense that like, they don't want the system of dominance that America has created around the world that ends up having. Horrible consequences that we can see in real time like in Gaza to continue.

• 31:54Tom Bilyeu?

  So scale back America's influence on the international stage.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  Scale back America's violent influence on and its violent interventions around the globe is broadly the idea here. And like, one of the things they voted on in the national convention that just took place that I went to in Chicago was like, um, do we continue endorsing politicians? Cause they have a massive door knocking operation all around the country, right? Like, there are a lot of these guys are activists, they're at the forefront. Uh, and also they are ready to go. They're ready to go and, uh, and, and, uh, promote politicians, right? That's something that's like very impactful. We saw that with incredible

• 32:37Speaker 02

  success with Zohar Mumdani in New York. And, uh, the question is like, does the DSA continue endorsing candidates that have a wishy washy position on this like otherwise black and white thing genocide? And

• 32:52Tom Bilyeu?

  What's the biggest issue for the DSA? Is it Israel Palestine?

• 32:56Speaker 02

  Israel Palestine currently is one of the biggest issues, I would say, for sure.

• 32:59Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay. And that stems from, America should not be violent around the world.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  Um, America should not be engaging in violent intervention around the world. And America should not be supplying, uh, unlimited weapons to a country that is using those weapons on a captive civilian population.

• 33:19Tom Bilyeu?

  Taking a short break, but there's more Impact Theory after. Stay tuned. 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. Pipe Drive just launched meeting intelligence built right into the CRM. Before every call, it pulls deal history and past conversations into one brief. During the call, it records and takes notes. After it, it drafts your CRM updates to review and approve. So there's less admin and more selling.

• 33:57Tom Bilyeu?

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• 34:27Tom Bilyeu?

  Thanks for staying tuned. Now, let's get back to it. Okay, is there a sense of because not only is it wrong, but we want to allocate those dollars to social programs here in the US?

• 34:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 34:39Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay.

• 34:40Speaker 02

  Because every dollar spent, I think it was Eisenhower ironically said that, but like every dollar spent on bombs is a dollar that could be spent on books, a dollar that could be spent on the roads here, a dollar that could be spent on hardening our infrastructure. And yet, it's this endless greed that we have in one of the only impactful manufacturing bases that we have remaining in this country, which is weapons, that we have this steady flow of subsidies going to the military industrial complex. And then those weapons have to be sold somewhere. And you know, Israel is one of the clients that we sell those weapons to. And it's a, we're burning the candle on both ends. We're first subsidizing these companies. They're not even taking those

• 35:24Speaker 02

  subsidies and then like evenly distributing it to their workers. They're just usually keeping it at the top in the same way that most companies do. They do stock buybacks and other forms of manipulation, rather than, rather than just like get offer better benefits and better pay packages to their workers anyway. And then we send those weapons out to, and someone's got to use those weapons. It's endless war. War not meant to be won or lost, but war that is meant to continue basically, so that there is a consistent churn of weapons going somewhere.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  This and then our tax dollars also then go to aid packages to these countries that then buy the weapons that we initially subsidize the development of.

• 36:12Tom Bilyeu?

  I'm still not sure why that's their biggest and most bread and butter if it isn't the just staunch emotional reaction that they have, but what would be their next? Like economically, what do they want to see happen in the US?

• 36:23Speaker 02

  I think they, um, once again, I'm not a DSA spokesperson, so I think there's probably better people to speak on this than myself, but from what I'm-

• 36:30Tom Bilyeu?

  What prescription do you want to see?

• 36:32Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, I can speak for myself. Uh, I think like, um, there are certain inequities, uh, certain, uh, issues in American society that broadly harm all of the, the largest, uh, the, the largest group, working class Americans. Um, I would say that healthcare is another great example of this. We have a for-profit middleman that doesn't necessarily need to exist at all in the, in the form of, of healthcare, uh, private healthcare insurance companies. Um, that have been tremendous for the GDP overall, but have, have led to an incredibly costly system that doesn't

• 37:12Speaker 02

  actually heal people. Um, and, and ends up putting them under tremendous debt, tremendous financial pressure. That needs to go away. Uh, I think that, uh, workers need to have more control over their own lives, have more autonomy, have, uh, have more say in the process of labor.

• 37:30Tom Bilyeu?

  How do we get that? So-

• 37:32Speaker 02

  I think the first step is, is unionization. That's the first immediate solution to this problem, uh, is, is being able to, to have a say in the process. And I think that's the reason why, uh, capital earners have successfully combated the influence of labor unions in this country. And you can point to other countries like European social democracies where there's still the process of like sectoral bargaining, for example, that, that has allowed unions to still have some kind of power or some kind of say in the process that have protected or, uh, that have allowed these countries to have, uh, more worker protections.

• 38:10Tom Bilyeu?

  When I look at the two biggest economies in the world, the US and China.

• 38:16Tom Bilyeu?

  I see those as countries that have won through innovation. When you look at the countries that have run socialism, obviously you see innovation pull back. So innovate, there are graphs that will show this. I've shown one so many times, just the number of billion dollar companies that the US has created versus anybody else. Literally you can aggregate every other country.

• 38:38Speaker 02

  Oh, but I don't, I don't think that's like innovation. I don't consider it like a billion dollar company to be innovative in and of itself. Cause there's a lot of, there is, there are a lot of billion dollar companies now that are just, you know, they're, they're, I don't necessarily think their output is that innovative. Like Uber is a great example of this. Uber in and of itself is a disruptive force. It's very, I mean, it's, it's a billion dollar company.

• 39:01Tom Bilyeu?

  Not innovative?

• 39:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's, it was, it was innovative in the, not in the sense that like they were able to build out a new technology. It was innovative in the sense that it created a massive gig economy of, of.

• 39:15Tom Bilyeu?

  You may not like the output, but in terms of innovation, they, they saw that, oh, everybody now has a phone in their pocket, drivers and people alike. We can completely disrupt this system by putting these things together.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:28Tom Bilyeu?

  So from that perspective, it feels like you may not like the outcome, but to say there wasn't innovative feels very strange.

• 39:35Speaker 02

  So it's, it is innovative in the sense that like you said, it's disruptive, but it's actually taking a.

• 39:42Tom Bilyeu?

  But it made my life better.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it's taking, so there's, again, we go back to the multiple, numerous ways to skin a cat, black cat, white cat. As long as you're catching the mice, it doesn't matter, right? But there are differences here where like your life could be, have you lived in other countries in the past at all or no?

• 40:00Tom Bilyeu?

  Yes.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  Where, where have you lived? If you don't mind me asking.

• 40:02Tom Bilyeu?

  London.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  So you lived in London. London is not necessarily the best example of this, but like you lived in a system where there was public transit. You, I assume took public transit at that time.

• 40:12Tom Bilyeu?

  Privatized it.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Yes, I know, which is why it's, it's bad now. But there was a.

• 40:16Tom Bilyeu?

  By the numbers, it's better. So they do twice as many trips at roughly the same level of consistency as when it was privatized. Made public and that like if you look at across Europe, you see that over and over and over. So Sweden privatized or public makes public the telecom system only to reverse that realizing without the market forces, you just get a degradation of service. This is why we protect against monopolies in the US.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  I have the exact opposite. I have the exact opposite assessment of the situation where I think that privatization and at first looks like a better thing and it's sold as like innovative, but then inevitably leads to private companies, corner cutting and, and actually giving a, a worse service overall, whereas not being beholden to endless profit seeking allows some of these systems to thrive because ultimately it's not supposed to be for profit. It's supposed to make sure that people are transported. It's like the US Postal Service.

• 41:20Tom Bilyeu?

  Right. So not supposed to be for profit. I get why you say that, but when you're dealing with the realities of the human psyche, it's like you have to do something to incentivize people to work that hard, take those huge risks and that always becomes the part where I think people are not being honest about how hard it is to build and scale a company. And so there's this idea as my read of socialism goes something like this. The miracle is redistribution versus the miracle is being able to create a system that outputs something more valuable than its inputs. And I've spent the last 25 years of my life trying to do that, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, but it's always brutally difficult. And so the question becomes, why would I put myself through that?

• 42:03Tom Bilyeu?

  And the reason that you put yourself through it is you're playing a game where it's like, ah, I can win, like I can really make something that the world loves that people are like, man, you've made my life better and that feels awesome. I've been able to maximize my talent and intelligence in a way that matters. So meaning and purpose means a lot to me. I control my own destiny, so I have autonomy.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, you have autonomy. You're, you, that's the reason why you want people to become entrepreneurs, so they have autonomy. I have autonomy in my life as well, because I, I, I guess technically own and operate and I'm the sole laborer of my own business. Right? And I want people to have that.

• 42:38Tom Bilyeu?

  Editors are gonna be hurt to hear you say you're the sole laborer. Your editors will be hurt to hear you say you're the sole laborer.

• 42:43Speaker 02

  That's true, but I'm like the key man and if I wasn't actually streaming, like there is not another person out there who is working that I'm paying so that they can stream and then we ship off that footage to the editors, right? Like if I were to stop streaming, then my editors would also not be able to make any money in the process because the business would not generate any sort of revenue. You're right, though. You're absolutely right. I do have editors. I also have a cooperative owner, cooperative owned podcast as well. But the point I'm trying to make is that if I stopped streaming or if I stopped podcasting, like these businesses will fall apart in and of itself.

• 43:24Speaker 02

  But I want everyone, just like my editors have, to be able to have autonomy and to have a say in the process of making things. And I think that actually helps with the efficiency or helps build better, more innovative products down the line in ways that we can't immediately foresee.

• 43:47Tom Bilyeu?

  I agree, but why is the government the right way to make sure that happens?

• 43:51Speaker 02

  Well, the government simply acts as a regulatory mechanism here. This isn't to say that like everything should be state owned enterprises, but I think that even if you have a private structure, for example, like in many European social democracies, as long as you don't allow the profit-seeking aspect to take complete control over whatever the services you're providing or whatever the goods that you're creating, then the government should implement certain regulatory checks to ensure that there is still this balance where workers do have fair wages, better benefits packages, and that the market is heavily regulated because it's already heavily incentivized through the form of subsidies,

• 44:34Speaker 02

  but we demand nothing in return in Western liberal democracies for said subsidies in most circumstances. We just kind of give people money. We give companies money and we're like, do whatever you want. With it, we trust you to make the right decision with this. I think when we do this subsidy process, there should be certain demands that the government is making. You have to ensure that all of your workers have a living wage. You have to ensure that you're not like employing children, you know what I mean? You have to ensure that they they get paid time off, paid family leave. I think these are perfectly reasonable demands that the government should make.

• 45:09Tom Bilyeu?

  And what what happens when take minimum wage, right? Where you want to increase it as much as possible, you want to quote unquote, living wage. But when you do it, you get adverse from where I'm sitting. Consequences like it increases the rate at which people automate. That people have a harder time getting entry level jobs. Because as an entrepreneur, if you're making me pay somebody, you know, twice what I would otherwise pay them for the entry level position, it's not an entry level position anymore. So now I'm going to look for somebody that's worth that amount of money.

• 45:41Speaker 02

  This is where labor unions come in. Labor unions are supposed to ensure that even in the process of automation, you don't actually end up firing people. That automation is not used as a as a mechanism to displace the existing labor forces. We talked about already, but instead it's to lower the burden of the existing labor force. So that

• 46:02Tom Bilyeu?

  How do you reconcile, though, that the average consumer wants everything as cheaply as possible? They seem completely blind to the fact that they, as a worker, are the reason things aren't cheaper. So it's like, I want cheap goods, but I also want a much higher minimum wage. And that tension, which I honestly think the vast majority of the public is unaware of where that problem comes from, like, how do we reconcile that?

• 46:23Speaker 02

  I think in a weird way, we're kind of seeing a version of that with Donald Trump right now, who's like bullying companies to ensure that they eat the cost of the tariffs. Not sure exactly where this is going to go, but like

• 46:35Tom Bilyeu?

  Do you like that or dislike that?

• 46:37Speaker 02

  I dislike Donald Trump heavily, but that is one aspect of his administration that I was like genuinely shocked by. That like companies are openly admitting that they're currently eating as much as the tariffs as they possibly can, which means that there was room, there was some movement to to to shed

• 46:55Speaker 02

  Away some of their profit rates in an effort to even improve workplace conditions and improve the benefit structures or the compensation that they are offering their regular workers. They just had never done so because there was no intimidation coming from the executive. Whereas right now, there is intimidation coming from the executive. So they're basically just eating away as much as that, as much as the profit as possible. And then in return, they're giving that in the form of tariffs, the entry tax back to this administration. God knows what they're going to do with that money. I don't think they're going to actually use it for anything good. And that's a totally separate problem. But on

• 47:38Speaker 02

  principle, it seems like there is more money to move around in a lot of these companies than we actually previously thought. And they're showing that reality right now.

• 47:50Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, so is this a black cat, white cat thing for you where you don't mind the executive intimidating companies as long as it's yielding an outcome you think is more

• 48:00Speaker 02

  Oh, for sure. I actually, well, I wouldn't say this about Donald Trump because like I said, who knows what, like, there's a better way to do this because it's not technically a redistributive policy if you don't redistribute the wealth at all. It is taxes, though, right? Like Donald Trump has implemented this broad sales tax, which is a regressive tax. I'm not in favor of it for that reason. But he has been able to implement this. And it hasn't even turned into a broad regressive sales tax yet because companies are seemingly not actually increasing the costs in the ways that we thought they would. I think it's still going to happen down the line. It's impossible for them not to. But the very fact that they haven't done so in the interim implies that they did have room for

• 48:46Speaker 02

  They did have more room to to lower their profit rates without taking too significant of a hit. And I think in the best in the best regulatory system, the same intimidation would exist by the state, but in the direction of of taking instead of giving it, you know, as an entry tax, taking some of that money and telling the companies to to give it back to their workers so that they have more.

• 49:12Tom Bilyeu?

  What would you want to see Trump spend the tax, the additional tax revenue on?

• 49:17Speaker 02

  Oof, so many things, but he's just not going to do that. But I mean,

• 49:21Tom Bilyeu?

  Surely there's a mechanistic thing.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  I mean, healthcare, infrastructure, education, there are so many areas of need. I'm not even going to say improvement at this point, like areas in dire need of of resources that they're not getting. Rural hospital networks are completely eviscerated at this point, and it's only slated to get worse with the new triple B bill that he passed through with $800 billion of Medicaid cuts that are going to come after the midterms that is going to rip apart the the existing network of like rural hospitals, hospitals that rely on Medicaid to to serve their their patients are no longer going to have this

• 50:03Speaker 02

  financial, they're no longer going to have patients that are able to pay for their hospital bills at all. So it's going to destroy what remains of rural hospital networks in this country. And that's devastating. And I think we should be moving in the opposite direction on that, abolishing the interest of profit from healthcare in its entirety because it's an inelastic, it's an inelastic demand good. So either you need heavy market intervention from the government, or no, no market intervention whatsoever, no market whatsoever in that process.

• 50:37Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, so what about debt? So if I have made any headway, which I'm fearing I have made no headway, if I made any headway, some of that money, or in my universe, virtually all of it, would go to paying down the debt.

• 50:53Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 50:54Tom Bilyeu?

  Good allocation, bad allocation?

• 50:56Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't necessarily care about that at all, because I think that the the international

• 51:04Speaker 02

  The international financial markets are just dictated by the confidence that people have in American might, in the American economy in general. I don't think it's like tied to anything tangible. Like you said, it's not tied to like any sort of commodity. It's not tied to gold, right? So it's just-

• 51:20Tom Bilyeu?

  And you don't think the debt can break that confidence?

• 51:23Speaker 02

  I think it is virtually impossible for the debt to break that confidence because in the same way that I was just talking about the stock market, which is like no longer as associated with like a, like the real market fundamentals that we think of, or like an innovative product that we're talking about. And it's more so just like the overwhelming confidence, or the overwhelming need for, to have endless unlimited growth. The same goes for the international design that we have, where people are just like, we can't break this apart, even when Trump is forcibly trying to break it apart. Look at the design that we have around global trade, right? We built it. We built it in a way where we just give IOUs to other countries,

• 52:07Speaker 02

  and, and we could then have them build the products. And then we could just say like, okay, you know, the, the dollar is the, is the currency that trade is, is being conducted on. We have complete control over it. And we'll just give you IOU, and then we'll buy these cheap goods that you are creating over there. So then our consumer base can, you know, enjoy endless treats. Donald Trump is trying to break that apart, or at least by his own admission, he was like actively attempting to disrupt the system for no discernible reason whatsoever. He claims it's because he wants to build a robust manufacturing base and do trade protectionism, but you have to build that base first, instead of just like deciding

• 52:52Speaker 02

  that all of these other vassal states are supposed to pay additional tithing to the American lordship in the way that he has done so far, where he goes to countries and says, you have to buy our chicken, you have to buy our F-150s, and you have to make up for this trade surplus. And, and in the process, you're supposed to pay us-

• 53:11Tom Bilyeu?

  If he can actually free up enough dollars to- Start paying down the debt. Great. It would actually be wildly advantageous for the very people that you want to help. But the hard reality is that everybody at this stage in the debt cycle thinks that it goes on forever. And this is when you're literally a small handful of years, I'm going to pay it at roughly 10 years away from mechanistically, it just can't go on. You're adding a trillion dollars in debt every 100 days. And already you spend more in interest on that debt than you spend on national defense. So it's like, it eventually becomes bigger than all of your healthcare programs. Then it becomes bigger than all of your healthcare programs put together. Uh, and it happens very, very fast. There is no country, that's not true.

• 53:55Tom Bilyeu?

  98% of every country that's spent any significant amount of time with a debt to GDP ratio of over 130 has ended up in civil war or revolution. So Japan is the only country that has avoided that. Now Japan has cultural reasons why I think they'd be fine. I'm not even sure we have to go all the way to 130 before we start pulling ourselves apart at the seams. So it's like debt is the thing where I am like banging pots and pans and screaming, trying to get people to hear me. But because it's not emotionally sexy, it doesn't feel like punishing the rich. I cannot get people to wake up to the fact. There's one thing driving your problem. It is debt and money printing.

• 54:28Speaker 02

  Well, the reason why I just, like I said, the reason why I don't think it's um, as consequential or as significant is, is precisely because. There's this, um, it's almost like the red button, right? Once America collapses, the entire system collapses and therefore even when.

• 54:47Tom Bilyeu?

  China will be like, peace.

• 54:48Speaker 02

  No, I, I understand that.

• 54:49Tom Bilyeu?

  Empires fall all the time.

• 54:51Speaker 02

  I know.

• 54:51Tom Bilyeu?

  When England fell, America.

• 54:53Speaker 02

  I think the American empire is slated to fall as well, but my point is.

• 54:57Tom Bilyeu?

  Don't you want to stop that?

• 54:59Speaker 02

  I want the, I want America to be a force for good. It's currently not. I wish it was, but it's, it's just a force for endless, unlimited greed and death and destruction.

• 55:09Tom Bilyeu?

  For good. Is that an international comment or?

• 55:12Speaker 02

  Both international and also domestic.

• 55:14Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay. And so we talked about the external part, internally domestic. How do we economically become a force for good? Like mechanistically though? I want to know like what are the policies.

• 55:25Speaker 02

  We have unlimited wealth in this country. We have.

• 55:28Tom Bilyeu?

  Explain that.

• 55:29Speaker 02

  I mean, we have tremendous wealth in this country. It's the wealthiest country on the planet in the in the history of mankind.

• 55:34Tom Bilyeu?

  Yes, leverage to the gills with debt.

• 55:36Speaker 02

  For sure, but ultimately, we have so much technological innovation. If we were and we have a we have an incredible infrastructure that we're relying on that we that we made gains on in the new deal that we're still basically eating off of. And we haven't necessarily improved it in ways that we could have for a very long time due to that same. You know, private public partnership structure that we've designed that makes it so that these companies get the benefits, get the subsidies, get the tax cuts and don't actually deliver anything in return. And the regulatory agencies that are supposed to enforce these companies to follow through. Give you the example of like ISPs in the 90s. They got like billions of dollars of tax cuts because they weren't.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  They were supposed to create broadband that was easily accessible. They were supposed to move in the direction of fiber optic cables. I live in West Hollywood. I still don't have fiber. I have worse internet than like Chattanooga, Tennessee. The reason why Chattanooga, Tennessee has better internet than me, living in fucking West Hollywood and, you know, and paying 50 plus percent in taxes overall year over year is just pure income. Is because they had a local government take control over the situation and said, no, we're going to deliver this unconditionally. I don't think that we should leave it up to, you know, private industry and.

• 56:54Tom Bilyeu?

  But you don't look at what Elon is doing and go, oh, like this is pretty interesting.

• 56:59Speaker 02

  In terms of what Starlink?

• 57:00Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, Starlink is going to bring high broadband, low latency internet to everybody.

• 57:05Speaker 02

  No, I think I think there are things that Elon Musk companies are doing that are are a direct consequence of the brilliant people that work there. And Elon is simply sitting on top of all of these.

• 57:18Tom Bilyeu?

  I don't need you to cheer for Elon. I'm just saying.

• 57:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, all of this innovation.

• 57:21Tom Bilyeu?

  Privatization. That's how you get engineers to get behind you.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Oh, well, what I was gonna say is, what I was gonna say is like, it doesn't have to be that, because it's all still. It's heavily reliant on. Previous technology that was publicly funded, it's like, it's like sitting on top of a lot of, a lot of like NASA's JPL engineers, for example, like there, it would not exist without NASA.

• 57:46Tom Bilyeu?

  Elon or Starling. The government, like if they're going to spend our dollars on things that the private industry isn't going to tackle, but could yield something advantageous, I love that. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants. The question just becomes what yields the most innovation? And if you look at SOEs, you can literally, so state owned enterprises, you can literally compare them to privatization and on mass. Not that there won't be examples here and there where SOEs somehow pull something off, but on mass privatization just always becomes more efficient, more innovative, because humans don't want to work for free. And so they need that incentive. It's like, when I talk to people that lean socialist, it's like they really get the need for workers to have dignity

• 58:28Tom Bilyeu?

  and to make enough money that they can exist in the economy and that they can make the promise to themselves and to their kids. My kids' lives will be better than mine, but my life next year is going to be better than my life today. Like, that's so important and we have to facilitate that. But I'm saying they get that, but then when they translate it to what system yields that? And it's letting those people go. For instance, Elon Musk is a moron. I want to spin off my own company. I want to do this myself. I'm an Alice Martin, I'm going to show the world. And enough people do that, that they end up creating something extraordinary.

• 59:00Speaker 02

  Well, like you said, there's also natural barriers of entry into, you know, space travel and airline, commercial airline industries as well. So there, then there is that problem in terms of industries that tend to monopolize. I mean, every single industry wants to do that.

• 59:19Tom Bilyeu?

  Breaking monopolies very much.

• 59:22Speaker 02

  And, and that's another regulatory function of the, of the state as well. It's just, it seems like it's a matter of like how much state intervention we want in this process.

• 59:32Tom Bilyeu?

  How much state intervention works? This is the thing, like watching you, you're a big supporter of Mam Dami.

• 59:38Speaker 02

  Mam Dami, yeah.

• 59:40Tom Bilyeu?

  And bro, like, I'm like, hey. He really seems like he has a good heart and he wants to do something rad. And I'm just like, go look at what happened in the Bronx when they tried rent control before.

• 59:53Speaker 02

  Well, he's not even doing, he's not even proposing rent control. He's saying rent freezes on rent stabilized units. Because that is an independent commission that is like appointed by the mayor.

• 1:00:02Tom Bilyeu?

  Literally all part of what happened in the Bronx.

• 1:00:04Speaker 02

  No, I know, but I'm saying that that has actually happened in the past on numerous occasions and it hasn't led to.

• 1:00:10Tom Bilyeu?

  Catastrophe.

• 1:00:12Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't.

• 1:00:13Tom Bilyeu?

  Literal catastrophe. You have to like, go do like a breakdown of what happened in the seventies and eighties in the Bronx. It's wild.

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  Well, I think rent, uh, rent stabilized housing, having rent freezes, rent freeze means like increase in rent. Uh, has been successfully implemented even during COVID and whatnot as well. So let's take it's not.

• 1:00:32Tom Bilyeu?

  Maybe in like the world's most hyper, like right in this moment for 18 months or something. But the costs of maintaining the building are going to go up. This is inflation. This is why I'm saying. Once people stop understanding inflation, they, they fuck themselves six ways to Sunday. Because all the plumbing is going to go up at the rate of inflation, right? So if I'm a building owner and I've got to deal with plumbing issues and I know since 2020, we've gone up by 25% conservative estimates. That's from trueflation. So you've got an increase in 25%, but if I'm the landlord, I can't up my rents. So that's just one of the many things that could go wrong. And so now all of a sudden you're putting the business owner in a position and the building is a business and I get why you don't like that, but it's like.

• 1:01:12Tom Bilyeu?

  Hey, I took all the capital risk and all that to build this business. I have to keep the ongoing stuff. This is why now people will actually advise people, don't own. Cause there's so many costs with owning. But the landlord has to like upkeep that building. Now, as you force them into leaner and leaner margins through freezing rent. What you end up doing is changing their cost structure and now they're like, okay, well then I have to cut back on servicing the building. And then it got so bad.

• 1:01:38Speaker 02

  I think, I think in many instances, these, these buildings are not being properly serviced to begin with. Uh, and, and regardless, rent still keeps going up.

• 1:01:46Tom Bilyeu?

  Greed.

• 1:01:47Speaker 02

  I think it's greed for sure. Uh, 100%.

• 1:01:49Tom Bilyeu?

  Can we agree that deregulating and letting people build more housing is at a minimum part of the solution, even if it's not the whole solution?

• 1:01:57Speaker 02

  I think building more housing is definitely part of the solution.

• 1:02:01Tom Bilyeu?

  But you want the government to be in control of that.

• 1:02:03Speaker 02

  I want, um.

• 1:02:06Speaker 02

  In my estimation, and what I have seen is is methods that are successful. I think the government already has tremendous power in this country and in all countries. And using that power for good in terms of even like eminent domain and like expansive public infrastructure projects, which include like public housing, would be a necessary intervention in the in the the market that is currently dominated by endless greed. And every every type of regulation is actually used as a loophole for for people to continue protecting their their speculative assets, housing.

• 1:02:48Tom Bilyeu?

  All right, brother, I know I have to get you out of here, because you need to go live. Yeah, I thank you so much for your time, man. Where can people follow along with you?

• 1:02:54Speaker 02

  I'm live every day at twitch.tv slash Hasan Abi. And I'm on Twitter at Hasan Khan and on TikTok and Instagram at Hasan D. Piker.

• 1:03:03Tom Bilyeu?

  And when he says every day, he means every day is wild. All right, everybody, if you have not already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. Let's talk about a pattern that is guaranteed to be killing your progress. You know what you need to do. You need consistent nutrition. We all do. You need vitamins, probiotics, greens. We all know that we should be doing more of it. When your morning gets chaotic, you skip it. When you travel, you skip it. When your routine breaks, everything tends to break, and that inconsistency compounds against you every single day. AG1 is designed to solve the execution problem. One scoop, eight ounces of water, and you're done. You're getting 75 plus ingredients, vitamins and minerals, pre and probiotics, nutrient dense

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