Trump Just Triggered the Collapse of the IRS – No One’s Ready for What’s Next

Welcome back to Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu! In today’s episode, Tom Bilyeu and his co-host Drew dive headfirst into some of the most pressing issues shaping our future. From the volatility of today’s markets and the AI boom, to the complexities of wealth, government spending, and the evolution of education, this episode is a masterclass in first-principles thinking matched with real-world urgency. You’ll hear Tom Bilyeu dissect the hype and reality behind AI advancements and market bubbles, breaking down how future profits and technological bets are shaping everything from Tesla’s stock price to global alliances with Nvidia, Microsoft, and Anthropic. On the education front, Drew and Tom Bilyeu debate the effectiveness of the Department of Education, why simply throwing money at societal problems doesn’t work, and how AI could radically reshape how we learn—if we’re willing to measure what truly matters. Of course, no episode is complete without a tough look at wealth inequality, the myth of the “billionaire quick fix,” and what it actually takes to build a lasting, thriving society. Expect strong opinions, grounded wisdom, and plenty of laughs as Tom Bilyeu and Drew challenge conventional thinking and explore what it means to thrive in an era of exponential change. Let’s jump in! 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: 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 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: https://tombilyeu.com/call Get my battle-tested strategies and insights delivered weekly to your inbox:sign up here. https://tombilyeu.com/: 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. ********************************************************************** FOLLOW TOM: Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/ Tik Tok:https://www.tiktok.com/@tombilyeu?lang=en Twitter:https://twitter.com/tombilyeu YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeu Linkedin: Post your job free at https://linkedin.com/impacttheory HomeServe: Help protect your home systems – and your wallet – with HomeServe against covered repairs. Plans start at just $4.99 a month at https://homeserve.com True Classic: Upgrade your wardrobe at https://trueclassic.com/impact Incogni: Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code IMPACT at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/impact CashApp: Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/v6nymgjl #CashAppPod Business Wars: Follow Business Wars on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://shopify.com/impact AirDoctor: Up to $300 off with code IMPACT at https://airdoctorpro.com 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?

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• 0:45Tom Bilyeu?

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• 1:07Speaker 01

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• 1:38Tom Bilyeu?

  IRS enforcement staffing has fallen by 34% even as the tax code ballooned to more than 4 million words. Over 25,000 IRS employees have been eliminated in the last few years. It's the largest collapse of US tax enforcement in modern history. The IRS now audits less than 0.2% of taxpayers, the lowest audit rate in a century. Audits for millionaires have dropped by over Over 70% and audits for billion-dollar corporations have dropped by more than half. It's all actually happening.

• 2:18Tom Bilyeu?

  Trump's long-promised plan to collapse the IRS is no longer just talk. With IRS layoffs, the one big, beautiful bill tax reform, and record-breaking tariff revenue, we are witnessing the most radical shift in American taxation in 100 years. The question is why? What's Trump's vision? Replace the IRS with a streamlined system funded by foreign tariffs? Instead of punishing hard-working Americans? Maybe, but here's the problem. The government is still spending $7 trillion a year while collecting only $5 trillion. And that gap will sink us. This isn't just about taxes.

• 3:03Tom Bilyeu?

  It's about power, control, and whether you get crushed or come out ahead. When I started my research, I actually wasn't sure why things were headed this direction, because a tax system doesn't just quietly dismantle itself. Not while the national debt is exploding faster than at any other point in our history. Someone wants this, but why now? Why gut the only institution responsible for collecting the revenue that keeps the country running? Why disarm your tax enforcers right when you need tax dollars the most? Today, we're going to explore why the IRS had to die, who killed it, and most importantly,

• 3:45Tom Bilyeu?

  what exactly is changing and how to use the new system to your advantage. Fail to understand that and you will be part of the 90-plus percent that end up left holding the bag. Now, Parts 1 and 2 are about getting beyond the bullshit PR of what's happening right now so you can actually see the true nature of the problem. And Part 3 is the path forward. So, welcome to Part 1: Why the IRS Had to Die.

• 4:14Tom Bilyeu?

  Between 1980 and today, the US national debt has grown by 3,000%, while tax enforcement capacity has gone in the exact opposite direction. In 2023 alone, interest payments grew by 38%, outpacing every major government program, including social security. Federal spending is now so lopsided that 70 cents of every tax dollar goes to just three things: social security, Medicare, and interest on the national debt. In the last 50 years, Congress has passed a balanced budget exactly four times, and none of those times happened in the last two decades.

• 4:59Tom Bilyeu?

  Since 2001, Washington has increased annual spending by nearly 90%, while median household income has only risen by 18%. The US Treasury has to issue billions of dollars in new debt instruments every day to cover its shortfalls, a pace never seen in American history. We're in that moment in the movie Titanic, where the ship seems fine, but it is a mathematical certainty that it is going to sink. Everyone's still calm, but it's just a question of how many people are going to drown and freeze to death.

• 5:39Tom Bilyeu?

  Many countries have been here before us, and all of them have fallen. How did we all end up in this same exact position time and again throughout history? Well, every empire that has ever existed learns the self-destructive power of debt and money printing the same way. Debt allows you to grow because business is the act of creating a system that outputs something more valuable than its inputs. Take some protein powder, liquid fiber, mix it together with some other stuff, and you've got a protein bar. Do it right, and people will pay more for the finished bar than what the ingredients and labor cost you. That's business.

• 6:21Tom Bilyeu?

  But getting started is often very expensive, and that's why debt, borrowing money, comes in so handy, and governments do it on an industrial scale. The problem is, and the reason it brings down empires... Is they get addicted to borrowing money. And every empire that has ever existed has ended up borrowing more money than they could ever possibly pay back unless they counterfeit their own money. This is known as money printing, quantitative easing, debasing the currency, whatever euphemism you want to use, but it is legalized counterfeiting. And regardless of being legalized, it's still counterfeiting.

• 7:05Tom Bilyeu?

  And counterfeiting money has the counterintuitive effect of making each dollar less valuable. Now, if you owe a lot of money, that's actually a good thing. That's what you want. You want the dollars to be worth less over time so they become easier to pay off. The catch is that some people understand how this game works and they know there's a way to hide from the government sanctioned fraud of legalized counterfeiting. And that's to own assets. Things like houses, gold, stocks, bonds, and crypto. The bad news is that the vast majority of people in any given country don't understand

• 7:47Tom Bilyeu?

  how assets protect you from the ravages of legalized counterfeiting, which is often referred to as inflation. And that's why 10% of Americans own 93% of all the assets. The other 90% of Americans are made poorer by the day, literally by this counterfeiting, by debasing the currency. And so this small number of people races away in wealth from everybody else. In the short run, this makes the wealthy happy because they get even wealthier compared to everyone else. But they become so convinced that they're clever for escaping the effects of inflation that they lose sight of the age-old truth.

• 8:31Tom Bilyeu?

  Too much wealth inequality, as these two groups race away from each other, causes revolution and the collapse of a once wealthy nation. It's happened over and over throughout history. Before the revolution happens, the wealth inequality manifests as what's known as populism, which is what you're living through right now. Populism is where people's economic insecurity is turned into anger. That anger then manifests as tribal thinking and a desire to secure more government money for one's own side. No one wants to compromise, no one wants to cut spending. People in fact, want more spending and they want that money to go to them and their team.

• 9:14Tom Bilyeu?

  This causes politicians to promise a bunch of free stuff because it's in a populist moment and that's what people need to hear to be motivated to vote for a politician. And politicians will literally say and do whatever they need to to get elected. And one of those sayings that they say to get elected is that they'll cut the IRS and reduce taxes. Another is that they'll make healthcare more affordable. Another is we'll fund this war effort and that war effort. No one is thinking about where the money is actually going to come from. They just know they themselves don't want to pay for it and they want as much of the benefit to go to them as humanly possible.

• 9:53Tom Bilyeu?

  Hence, we're dismantling the IRS and giving tax breaks all while we radically increase government spending during a time when we are running historic deficits and racking up more crippling debt. It is not at all hyperbole to say that America is racing towards bankruptcy and that within roughly a decade, if nothing changes, America is going to default on its debt or inflate its own currency to a breaking point beyond which it will not be able to recover. Ray Dalio, the legendary investor who made his insane fortune by understanding how something he calls the big debt cycle drives the rise and fall of empires.

• 10:38Tom Bilyeu?

  He's documented how debt and money printing cause empires to follow a tragically predictable cycle. First, they bring on sensible debt, then outrageous debt, then they print money to keep up with the rising interest payments, then they collapse under the weight of their debt and have to debase the currency to try and keep up with the ever-increasing interest payments. In the end, debt is undefeated against empires. And we're in the middle of that cycle. The big debt cycle has six official stages. Stage six is total collapse. Phase five is the internal conflict phase. It's when societies fracture into warring tribes.

• 11:20Tom Bilyeu?

  When trust in institutions collapses, governments desperate to avoid short-term pain resort to the same three tactics over and over again. Borrow more, print more, and push the pain into the future.

• 11:35Tom Bilyeu?

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• 12:19Tom Bilyeu?

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• 13:04Tom Bilyeu?

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• 13:43Tom Bilyeu?

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• 14:02Tom Bilyeu?

  Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action. Dalio's framework is brutally simple. Empires rise when they borrow to invest in productive things. They peak when debt grows faster than productivity. They decline when money printing becomes the only way to delay the economic crisis. And they collapse when interest payments spiral so far out of control that the government can no longer meaningfully function. According to Dalio, America is now in late stage five of this process. Remember, stage six is total collapse. The deficit is just too large. The political system is too divided and the debt burden is compounding too fast

• 14:47Tom Bilyeu?

  for the old tools, namely interest rate cuts or interest rate increases, tax hikes and spending cuts to work without destroying the economy in one direction or the other. And that's why the IRS is being sacrificed. The system is past the point where traditional tax enforcement would solve the problem anyway. The math is just too gnarly. Plus, the political incentives are too warped and no one is going to vote for more taxes, unless of course it's just on the rich. More on that later. And so here we Despite Thomas Massey's heroic debt clock lapel pin, America is in stage five. We are buried under so much debt.

• 15:31Tom Bilyeu?

  We're stuck in a death loop known as fiscal dominance. I did a whole video about that, which you can watch here. For now, suffice it to say that we've burdened ourselves with massive deficits by voting for government to spend way more than we make every year in tax revenue. Those deficits have become so massive that the Fed, the organization created to guide the economy by adjusting interest rates and printing money, can no longer do either of those things without creating massive problems. If you raise interest rates, you force the government to hyperinflate the currency to make its interest payments, thus destroying the dollar and making everyone poor. If you lower interest rates, you flood the economy with cheap money,

• 16:17Tom Bilyeu?

  which creates 2000-style dot-com bubbles and 2008-style housing bubbles, but everywhere, and much worse. There are no good paths left. Well, except a balanced budget, but no one's going to vote for that. And for anyone who thinks that we can simply tax our way out of this, the rich or otherwise, know this: For every dollar of new tax revenue since 2019, our beloved government has added $1.58 in new spending. That is the populist doom loop. Tax more, we'll spend more. Tax less, still spend more. Technically, as the richest country on planet Earth, though, we don't have a revenue problem.

• 17:00Tom Bilyeu?

  Technically, we have a spending problem. But when you have to promise tax breaks to get elected, you make the whole problem much worse. And even if politicians wanted to fix this the old-fashioned way, by beefing up the IRS and cracking down on enforcement, the sad truth is, as I said, the IRS model itself is no longer compatible with the world we live in. For starters, voters don't want the Nordic-style, high-across-the-board taxes that would be necessary to balance the budget without spending cuts. And even if you confiscated every single dollar in every billionaire's bank account,

• 17:43Tom Bilyeu?

  you'd only buy yourself roughly two years of extra runway. That's what happens when your national debt is $38 trillion and growing by a trillion more dollars every 100 days. Additionally, the US tax code has become hyper-complex by design. It's not a revenue system anymore. It's a 4 million-word labyrinth of carve-outs, incentives, political favors, industry protections, and decades-old patches stacked on top of patches. You don't enforce a tax code like that, you just try to survive it. Add to that the reality of globalized capital. Forty years ago, income was earned locally.

• 18:26Tom Bilyeu?

  Today, it flows across borders at the speed of light. A sophisticated individual or corporation can move money, assets, ownership structures, and tax liability across jurisdictions with a single keystroke. The old audit model, built for a paper-based economy, simply can't keep up. On top of that, you've got congressional loophole-making, which never seems to end. Every session adds new exceptions, new credits, new deductions, new industry favors, and new layers of complexity. The IRS does not just have to enforce one tax code, it's essentially got to enforce dozens of tax codes that have been stitched together into a giant Frankenstein's monster.

• 19:08Tom Bilyeu?

  And to top it all off, that enforcement has become customer-level, not corporate-level, not structural-level. Millions of individuals filing millions of increasingly complicated returns, all of which must be checked, verified, cross-referenced, and reconciled with other agencies. That would be hard enough, but when you add human overwhelm, the data complexity alone now exceeds what a human enforcement system could physically handle. Massive data sets, multi-layered financial reporting, endless forms, hybrid digital and paper trails, even a fully-funded, fully-staffed IRS would struggle to keep up. It gets hard to argue for a department, and it gets hard to argue for a department nobody wants

• 19:53Tom Bilyeu?

  to do an overwhelming job when, despite however many additional billions it manages to collect, it won't even make a dent in the trillions of dollars we add to the deficit every year. It's not an ideological problem, it's an architectural one. The enforcement model that worked in the 1950s simply cannot survive in a world where the financial system has been gerrymandered to allow politicians to make any promise they need to to get elected. Once you see that, you see the game that's actually being played. In a world where voters want big spending and low taxes, any politician who stands

• 20:35Tom Bilyeu?

  up and says, "I'm gonna raise taxes and beef up the IRS audits," is committing career suicide. So what's a girl to do? Well, if you're a Democrat, you promise free things, print money, and you tax the rich to please the base, even though it won't help in reality. If you're a Republican, you got the IRS and offer tax breaks to please the base, even though, in reality, it won't help. But, on the surface, it does three crucial things. First, it's invisible to most voters. Nobody gets a bill saying, "We just let your neighbor underpay by $50,000." The lost revenue just doesn't show up as a line item. It just silently widens the deficit.

• 21:19Tom Bilyeu?

  Second, it's emotionally popular. The IRS is consistently one of the least liked federal agencies. Roughly half of Americans view it unfavorably. "Cut the IRS and abolish the IRS are reliable," applause lines on the campaign trail. Third, and this one is big, it not only pleases the base, it pleases big donors. And we've got so much money in politics. Remember, when I said the politicians will do and say anything they need to to get elected? Well, when audit rates for millionaires and large corporations fall 50 to 70%, that makes campaign donations a little easier to secure. But then so do promises of free buses, free daycare, and freezing rent.

• 22:04Tom Bilyeu?

  That also buys votes. Rational politicians do what politicians do. They focus on gaining and retaining power. So Republicans starve the IRS, and Democrats expand social services. And both of them race us towards catastrophe. But optically, their choices check all of the boxes for getting elected. Voters love it, donors love it, and the inflation and/or lost revenue is simply invisible to virtually everyone. Sure, the actual budget math is a bloodbath, but in everyone's backpocket is a plan, however precarious, to grow revenues. For the Democrats, it was boosting GDP through new government jobs.

• 22:46Tom Bilyeu?

  And for the Republicans, it's replacing the Internal Revenue Service with tariffs and the External Revenue Service. The question is, part two. What are tariffs? And can they actually save us? From 1790 through the Civil War, over 90% of all federal revenue came from tariffs. During that period, the US government raised more money from tariffs than from all other taxes combined. By 1820, 87 cents of every dollar the government spent was earned from tariffs. One of the first acts of Congress was to ensure that the federal government was funded almost entirely through import duties,

• 23:31Tom Bilyeu?

  aka tariffs. Before the Civil War, the federal government spent less than 2% of GDP, and almost all of that was funded by taxes on foreign goods, not citizens' wages. The federal income tax didn't even exist for the first 124 years of American history. Once again, tariff revenues are on the rise. In fiscal year 2025, tariff revenues hit nearly $200 billion in a single year, an all-time high. The question is, is that enough to save us? As always, the answer is to look at history for clues. And as you just heard, tariffs are not new. In fact, they're as old as the country itself.

• 24:16Tom Bilyeu?

  But what is new is the way Trump has resurrected tariffs, not as a simple line item in the federal budget, but as a political weapon. If you understand anything about Trump, understand this. He likes tools that let him negotiate from a position of dominance. He likes leverage. He likes pressure. He likes yanking people in with that weird-ass handshake and saying, "Do XYZ thing that I don't like." I'm gonna hit you where it hurts. Tariffs give him that kind of leverage. But do they generate a meaningful amount of revenue? They let him posture on the world stage, I'll give him that. They let him reward allies and punish adversaries, I'll give him that. But do they generate a meaningful amount of revenue? And if not, why not? Because for the first half of the country's existence,

• 25:00Tom Bilyeu?

  they were effectively our only source of income. Now, the short answer, of course, is no. They no longer generate a meaningful amount of revenue. When you add a trillion dollars to your deficit every 100 days, and interest is compounding far faster than revenues are growing, 200 billion a year just ain't gonna get you there. This is part of the Kabuki theater of government that we're living in right now. They've got to message that they're going to tax someone, somewhere. Tax the rich, tax the foreigners selling his stuff, secretly tax everyone through inflation. Tax someone, somewhere, just not me. And that's tariffs' real superpower in this hyperdysfunctional political moment. They're a tax with a great cover story.

• 25:45Tom Bilyeu?

  But the harsh reality of tariffs is that they are a consumption tax. It's a tax that is typically shared between the exporter, the other guy, and the importer, the US company. And because this tax is typically shared by both parties via renegotiated terms, politicians can beat their chest and say that the other guy is paying. It's a simple slogan, it's very memorable, it's great for getting re-elected. It even feels patriotic. Finally, someone is gonna pay their fair share. There's just one problem. It's not economically viable, given the size and scale of our government. And most importantly, the fact that we have globalized the economy. We've got essential goods that we need that are manufactured outside of the country.

• 26:29Tom Bilyeu?

  Now, you can try and get clever and make carve-outs, but the reality is that revenue streams aren't just about how much you make. It's about how much you need to make. For the first half of America's life, the government was small. The government didn't carry so many people on its back. The government today is massive. It picks up everybody's tab. Everywhere making the idea of funding an entire quasi socialist empire through a consumption tax on non essential goods? Ludicrous. You either won't generate enough revenue to reduce your deficits meaningfully, or you end up causing prices on essential goods to rise.

• 27:12Tom Bilyeu?

  And given we're in the middle of an affordability crisis, that's a nonstarter if you want to get reelected. So while tariffs give Trump the perfect cover story, the actual mechanics are such that we'll make some money, raise prices at least a little here and there, and ultimately still be left hunting for a solution that actually resolves the fiscal crisis. So the big question becomes, can tariffs at least fill the hole left by a gutted IRS? Are they equivalent? The short answer is yes, but does it really matter? When the Biden admin decided to hyper fund the IRS by giving it 80 billion new dollars, it was estimated to bring in roughly 200 billion dollars over 10 years.

• 27:56Tom Bilyeu?

  Given tariffs have already done 200 billion in a single year, it's safe to say that tariffs are better than a hyper funded IRS. But we're still staring down a $2 trillion annual deficit. That's a 10x difference. Neither tariffs nor the IRS can supplement revenue enough to reverse our fortunes. Sure, they let politicians raise taxes without admitting they're raising taxes, but it's just not going to be enough. And for anyone who thinks that Trump just doesn't understand tariffs, it doesn't matter. Even if Trump doesn't fully understand the macro mechanics of anything he says, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessin does. Bessin is one of the most brilliant economic minds on planet Earth.

• 28:41Tom Bilyeu?

  He understands full well how tariffs work, and he's advising the president. But even still, tariffs and a hyper funded IRS are nothing more than Band-Aids of varying size on a severed artery. They buy a little time, but they don't heal the wound. These are both the tricks of a late stage empire clutching at straws. When you can't raise taxes, won't cut spending, and are forced to print money to avoid defaulting on your debt, you turn to the only tools you have left: financial repression, inflation, capital controls, and stealth taxation.

• 29:18Tom Bilyeu?

  Tariffs are all of that rolled into one. They are the perfect late-stage tool. They look patriotic while acting as a hidden tax. They look like punishment for China while quietly raising revenue at home. They look like strength while functioning as a pressure release valve for a collapsing fiscal system. But what they can't do is solve the real problem: the compounding interest on the ever-growing debt. Once the interest payments on your debt exceed your revenue, it's game over. And tariffs, despite their popularity and political utility, at least for Republicans, they cannot stop the math of what's coming. So that brings us to the only question that actually matters.

• 30:02Tom Bilyeu?

  If the IRS is dead, and tariffs can't save us, and the big debt cycle is accelerating, what the hell are we supposed to do? 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.

• 30:47Tom Bilyeu?

  So there's less admin and more selling. Switch to a CRM built by salespeople for salespeople and join the over 100,000 companies already using Pipe Drive. My link gets you an exclusive 30 days free instead of the usual 14-day trial. There's no credit card payment needed. Just head to pipedrive.com/impact to get started. Again, that's pipedrive.com/impact, and you can be up and running in minutes.

• 31:19Tom Bilyeu?

  Thanks for staying tuned. Now, let's get back to it.

• 31:23Tom Bilyeu?

  Welcome to Part 3, "The Wise Man's Path Forward in a Country That's Going Broke."

• 31:30Tom Bilyeu?

  In the 1950s, Venezuela had the 4th highest GDP per capita in the world. For decades, Venezuela had the world's highest growth rate, rising faster than South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. By 1960, Venezuela was richer than Spain, Greece, and Israel, and wealthier per capita than half of Western Europe. In the late 70s, the Venezuelan currency was considered one of the strongest currencies on Earth. In 1980, it was worth more than the dollar. Then, in 1976, Venezuela nationalized its entire oil industry.

• 32:08Tom Bilyeu?

  Between 1999 and 2017, Venezuela passed more than 1,000 price-control laws. Like what you're seeing in New York? Regulating everything, from food to medicine and household goods. Inflation exploded after the government printed money to cover spending gaps, increasing the money supply by over 10,000% between 2010 and 2020. Between 2014 and 2021, Venezuela's economy shrank by nearly 75%, erasing 3/4 of its GDP in just 7 years. That's what collapse looks like.

• 32:50Tom Bilyeu?

  And, as always, it's triggered by political lunacy brought on by a populist that votes for free shit without understanding how the economy actually works. If you want to fix your society, you must fix what people vote for. Since politicians will do and say whatever they need to do to gain and maintain power, voters are what matters. So the first step in navigating, well, a country that's going broke, is to never vote for free buses, rent freezes, and expanded social programs. Money printing is how these things are always paid for. By nature, these things retard economic growth, which means you'll never be able to tax your way to cover the costs.

• 33:33Tom Bilyeu?

  Taxes can only support a massive government when the economy is growing rapidly. And ironically, over taxation and nationalizing your most lucrative industries is exactly how you slow the economy down.

• 33:48Tom Bilyeu?

  But despite that PSA, I don't expect the voting populace to master economic rationality. I really hate to be cynical, it does not suit my personality, but in reality, I just don't see it any other way. So here is the wisest path forward, given the reality we're in. Everyone would have to accept that the reality is that to collectively get out of the current problem, we would have to execute what Ray Dalio calls a beautiful deleveraging. And that's where you dramatically cut government spending, strategically print money to juice the economy to offset the reduction in spending, and restructure some debt,

• 34:28Tom Bilyeu?

  all while increasing taxes a bit and spreading the wealth around to reduce wealth inequality and avoid a revolution. In my most optimistic moments, I think if enough of us bang that drum, that maybe we could actually pull it off. But in my more sober moments, I accept that's the ideal, but the odds of us getting there as a collective are effectively zero. So it's better to have a plan that only requires us as individuals to act rationally. So strap in, that's what I'm gonna walk us through. The first step in navigating this well is to stop arguing with reality. We are in fiscal dominance, and therefore, our corrective measures are very limited. We can't just print money, we can't just lower rates, we can't just raise rates.

• 35:13Tom Bilyeu?

  Taxation alone will not get us there. A hyper-funded IRS isn't the answer. Tariffs are also insufficient. We must dramatically reduce spending, but no one gets elected with that campaign promise, so that option is out as well. Interest costs are exploding, and they will tank the economy, that is a given. We have no realistic brakes left on this runaway train. Based on the rate that we're accumulating debt, we're headed to default somewhere in roughly the next 10 years. I wish it wasn't true, but that's the math. Openly defaulting on our national debt would be brutal, but honest, but it's way too painful, so we're not gonna do it. It's kinda like the difference between jumping off a cliff versus being pushed off.

• 35:55Tom Bilyeu?

  Odds are, we're gonna wait to be pushed. Getting pushed is the equivalent, in this case, of what's known as a soft default. This is where we'll print money until the dollar no longer has any meaningful value, like Venezuela did. Now, I'm not qualified to give anyone financial advice, but I'm going to walk you through how I think about this moment for myself. Please keep in mind, this is for entertainment and educational purposes only. You really do need to understand this stuff yourself. Do not take anyone's word for it, not mine, not anybody's. Think through the problem. Any intelligent, forward-looking financial strategy will take massive money printing into consideration. Consider diversifying away from just the US, though currently it's still a very potent market.

• 36:37Tom Bilyeu?

  So think diversification, not extrication. Keep cash on hand to deal with any major disruption in the markets without the need to panic sell. Expect volatility, avoid binary all-or-nothing bets, and tilt your life towards robustness in the face of unpredictability. So get into uncorrelated asset classes. Assume you cannot see the future clearly and plan for surprise nested inside of predictable historical loops. Odds are, we are right now in an everything bubble, but you don't have to predict the exact week or month that the bubble's going to burst. You just have to be in a position where, when it does happen, you're not the one getting margin called,

• 37:21Tom Bilyeu?

  you're the one going shopping for opportunities. Time in the markets really does beat timing the markets. Despite the fact that it's a major cliche, it's true. The goal isn't to try and thread the needle with one perfect move. The goal is to create a portfolio, and a life, quite frankly, that can take several hits and allow you to keep standing. Put some money where you think it will grow, some money in cash and cash equivalents so you can fund your lifestyle even in times of major disruption, and take advantage of opportunities. And put some money in an inflation-resistant asset you trust, like gold, energy, or Bitcoin. And avoid the following mistakes. Do not try to short the market because it has to go down. Yes, the everything bubble will eventually correct.

• 38:06Tom Bilyeu?

  Yes, valuations are likely to compress. But trying to time that perfectly with leverage is a game that has wiped out many who have come before you. Avoid debt. I most certainly understand the power of debt, but for the average person, it should be used only sparingly. Debt is how empires die, and it's exactly how individuals die financially. In a repricing event, leverage turns a paper loss into a permanent loss. Don't go for hero shorts, don't use leverage, no bets on precision timing. Those are the moves that might feel smart in this moment, but often end up being suicidal. We all need to recalibrate what winning even looks like. Most people think winning is about outsmarting everyone else,

• 38:50Tom Bilyeu?

  beating the market, getting the highest percentage return, calling the top or calling the bottom, being the genius who saw what nobody else did. In times as unstable as this, that's not the game. Read the book 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin to step inside the anatomy of a collapse so you can feel how it feels, see what the signs are to look out for, and how exactly they play out. In times of profound instability, like this one, the people who win are not the ones who get the flashiest returns. They're the ones who don't get wiped out when everything changes. The biggest risk right now is not missing the upside. The biggest risk is sitting in cash

• 39:33Tom Bilyeu?

  while inflation quietly steals your purchasing power, living entirely off of W2 income in a world where taxation, inflation, and job security are all moving targets at best. And the most dangerous of all, having no real assets when money printing is the only tool left in the government's arsenal. So the mindset shift is this. You're not trying to be the smartest macro trader in the room. You're trying not to be the guy holding only cash and a paycheck when the music stops. That's the real game. So let me make this simple. I'm going to speed run what I just walked you through. These are the seven things you should do. First, own productive assets. Second, avoid leverage. Third, build liquidity.

• 40:17Tom Bilyeu?

  Fourth, diversify your income streams. Fifth, position for structural inflation. That doesn't mean hyperinflation. It means a persistent bias towards price. Prices drifting higher as the money supply grows. Own things that generally benefit from that drift. Sixth, expect volatility. And seventh, think globally. I am very pro-American, but the forces at work right now are a loop that is almost impossible to pull people out of. And as I have said many times, every country except Japan has ended in internal conflict or outright revolution. If they spend any meaningful time over 130% debt to GDP.

• 40:58Tom Bilyeu?

  We're nearing 123% right now, and that number is climbing fast. Again, this is all my advice to myself. It's not meant to be a get-rich-quick plan. It's a don't-get-destroyed plan. It's a be-prepared-for-whatever-happens-plan. Now, to bring this full circle back to the IRS. The IRS did not get gutted because of some grand ideological victory. It was reduced because the American fiscal model has entered the part of the big debt cycle where the math just stops working and the system starts cannibalizing its own institutions just to survive one more election cycle. Tariffs also are not salvation. They're a symptom. Sure, they're clever, maybe politically convenient,

• 41:43Tom Bilyeu?

  and it allows you to raise money without admitting that you're raising taxes, but they're never going to fill the gap. They're just a stealth tax with an American flag wrapped around them. This moment will absolutely destroy anyone who insists on believing that the old rules still apply, that you can sit in cash, live paycheck to paycheck, and trust that the system is going to make it all work out for you. It is not. The goal is to be one of the few people who understands the economy right now is unstable. And instead of leveraging up and thinking you can get rich timing the market, you face this moment with humility and build out an all-weather strategy. That, my friends, is the wise man's path forward when living in a country that's going broke.

• 42:29Tom Bilyeu?

  All right. If you want to see me explore topics like this in real time, be sure to join me live Wednesdays and Fridays at 6:00 a.m. Pacific on YouTube, X, Twitch, or Kick. You can join the debate or just chill in the community. I hope to see you there. All right. 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.

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