They’re Breaking the System — Pay Attention to What Comes Next

The only thing that's bipartisan is reckless spending. The Trump administration is a lot more socialist than what Momdani is proposing. Golden share in US Steel because Donald Trump so good at bankrupting casinos, he should run a steel company. Budgets and taxes are a reflection of our values. And our values right now state the following, that we think sweat is less noble than money. You know, I don't want to demonize billionaires. I want Elon Musk to make a trillion dollars. I want him to be taxed 60 or 70% on it because the bottom line is it's not going to make him any happier. I think effectively America's for sale for rich people. I feel like this is a literally a clown car running the nation [music] right now. It's a corrupt crime family. I think America is already locked in a cold civil war largely driven by economics. Mhm. What happened exactly to our economy that's made boomers so prosperous while leaving the young to struggle mightily? It's a multi-dimensional thing, but if you were to try and distill it down to one thing, it would be that old people vote and keep voting themselves more money. I mean, social security, there's a dogma or that if you would ever talk about social security in a negative light, that there's something wrong with you. Most arguably the most successful social program in history took seniors from 30% poverty to less than eight. It's been hugely successful. The other side of that coin is the wealthiest generation in the history of the planet receives $1.2 trillion each year transferred from working age people to them every year. Mhm. Uh 40% of our budget is allocated towards seniors. And we spend 4 and 1/2% on the Department of Education, 1.4% on SNAP, 40% of which goes to kids. In sum, kids don't vote. And whereas previous generations saw advantage in investing in education and technologies and infrastructure that had a longer-term payoff for young people, those investments are no longer being made, but the things we continue to invest in are things that benefit old people. And then, tax policy, two largest tax deductions, capital gains and mortgage interest. Who owns homes and stocks? People my age. Who rents and makes their money from salary? Young people. So, in sum, old people have figured out a way to transfer more and more money from young to old. A average 25-year-old is 24% less wealthy than the 25-year-old 40 years ago. The average 70-year-old is 72% wealthier than the average 72-year-old was 40 years ago. In sum, my generation is not paying it forward. And the last example I'll use is COVID. A million people dying would be bad, but what would be tragic is if my generation got less wealthy, so we flushed $7 trillion into the system, 85% of which was not spent. It was saved. So, where did that go? Went into the stock market and the housing market. Homes went from 290 to 420 in 2 years. Who owns homes? People my age. So, it was great for the incumbents. When you bail out the baby boomer owner of a restaurant, all you're doing is robbing opportunity from the 25-year-old recent graduate of a culinary academy who wants her shot. So, we've interrupted the natural economic cycle of boom and bust, which transfers money back from capital to labor or to young people, such that we could continue to make old people wealthier and wealthier. And the net result is for the first time in America's history, a 30-year-old isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. Okay, that is uh very clear and very bleak. So, one idea that I have thought about endlessly, but it's the one thing that I always hesitate to say out loud, but it uh it goes along with what you've just said, which is I believe for the economy to start moving in the right direction, we have to let some people fail. So, there has to be uh you're able to make a series of bad decisions, fall on your face, and yeah, either your family picks you up or the church picks you up, local institution, something, but someone somewhere has to be able to fail, otherwise we hit this really weird static position where once you get wealthy, you effectively don't fall back out. Uh and that calcification of the um class structure basically creates a caste system. And that's where it feels like we are right now. Am I close to the mark on that, or do you think that's crazy? Yeah, I I think there's a big overlap with what I believe, and that is before COVID, the CEOs of the three biggest airlines took $150 million in compensation out. And the way they did that was through stock appreciation, and they kept using all their capital to buy back shares to take the stock price up, which disproportionately elevated their compensation. And then when COVID happens, the airline industry collapses, they turn into socialists, and decide that we're all in this together, and they need a bailout. No, those businesses should have gone Chapter 11, and then someone else, and then all of their equity should have been wiped out, and someone else should have the opportunity to buy these um you know, buy these assets for pennies on the dollar. That's part of the natural cycle. Uh in capitalism, we believe in winners and losers. We believe in winners and losers for middle-class and lower-income homes, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, but for wealthy corporations and wealthy people, we're constantly talking about some form of bailout, or tax policy that shields them. And it even goes as far as the legal structure. I believe the top 1% are now protected by the law, but not bound by it, and the bottom 99% are bound by the law, but not protected by it. Oof. >> I I believe this, and that is I'm wealthy and I think with somewhere between if my son was incarcerated I believe that somewhere between three and ten million dollars with my connections and my capital for three to ten million I could figure out a way to wiggle myself into a crypto summit or a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago and somehow get a message to the president that I'm in for three million dollars on a Z swing renovation if my Oh, and by the way, my son my son deserves a review by the clemency board for a pardon. I think effectively America's for sale for rich people. And whether it's health care, whether it's getting your kid out for for a pardon, whether it's a bailout for your company, whether it's government contracts uh to your company that are uh not available to small and medium-sized companies. America's basically become when it's capitalism on the way up but socialism on the way down, it's cronyism. So, I feel like we've gone full cronyist. And what that means is eventually it this is economic history is repeats itself. In America, [clears throat] we've always tried to exit that path. But basically, what happens is a group of very talented, very lucky people get in the top 1% and inch by inch they weaponize government to ensure that they garner more and more economic power. And then at some point the bottom 99 goes, "The fastest way to double my or triple my wealth would be to kill the top 1% or to tell them they got 24 hours to pack a suitcase and get out and nationalize everything." That's basically the story of Central America for the last 200 years. And we have done a good job of trying to stay out of that by continually redistributing income back into the middle class. And let me use the word redistribution. Unless you tax people in the top 10% at a high rate and shuffle that money back into forward-leaning investments, eventually that 1% will garner more and more of the spoils, and at some point the bottom 99 do the math and go, "Okay, there's one guy worth more than, you know, or the 26 families are worth more than the bottom half." At some point the bottom half goes, "I know, let's take the 26 families' [ __ ] away." So, this we have we have tried to exit this cycle of economic history, but now it feels like we're kind of returning to the laws of history in the jungle. We will return to the show shortly, [music] but first, let's talk about why entrepreneurs waste years learning when they should be executing. In the age of AI, you do not need to become an e-commerce [music] expert. You don't need to learn copywriting or photography or even inventory management. You don't even need to learn international shipping regulations. You need to level expertise that already exists. [music] Shopify's AI does the expert work for you. No marketing degree is required. Beyond AI, you get world-class expertise built right into the platform. Choose from hundreds of ready-to-use templates that already convert. Plus, inventory management, international shipping, processing returns, all handled automatically by systems that process millions of transactions. Turn your big business idea into reality with Shopify on your side. [music] Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/impact. And now, let's get back to the show. Yeah, I try to get people to understand that money operates according to something akin to physics, and if you are uh either doing things like you're talking about regulatory capture, where you're making it once you get in, then you're never going to fall on your face and get bumped back out, or you just let debt run away, and people don't pay attention to what I think is the just absolute cataclysmic effect of debt. If I were going to put things down to one thing that I think has had the biggest impact, it's that. Uh debt obviously forces money printing, money printing forces people to try to escape, so they go into assets, asset prices skyrocket in addition to the other things that you were talking about. Um and the only asset that people understand intuitively is home prices, and so once home prices become unavailable and people can't get on the property ladder, they can't avoid the impact of inflation. And so you get this the what you're describing but not quite saying out loud is these two divergent economies. And so you've got the people in the top 1%, maybe the top 10% that are doing great. 2025 has been wonderful to me as an asset holder. And then you've got another economy that's just doing absolutely terrible. Uh and to your point, they they do eventually go, "Oh yeah, uh I can separate you from your head, and uh I can do whatever I want." And so getting people to understand the reason that this loops in history is because humans only behave in a certain number of ways, money only behaves in a certain number of ways, and so you put those together and you get these moments that occur over and over and over. So, when I hear you talk, I my impulse is, "Oh, let's get back to a non-crony style of capitalism." But what I see happening among the group that most in my opinion needs capitalism, I see a rise of socialism. So, when you look at, say, Momdani, uh and the I I don't know if you consider that the future of the Democratic Party, I certainly do. But when you look at that, what what does that tell you about what's happening right now? Young people basically are saying, "Whatever the current system is, it's not working. And so I'm going to embrace different systems." And young people who lean conservative, David Frum had this statement that really struck me. He said that if progressives won't enforce the border, fascists will. And what I find is young people are saying, "This isn't working for me. And I don't want incremental change. I want chaos and radical disruption. You know, if I lean conservative, I'm willing to take a strong man and nationalism and start blaming other people and conflate masculinity with coarseness and cruelty or leadership with coarseness and cruelty. And then if I'm on the left, I think that it's socialism. And uh quite frankly, these words are These words are perverted. Socialism is the the means of production is controlled by the state. Communism is central planning. Capitalism is meant to say that that the means of production are controlled by private sector individuals. And we all engage in a certain level of socialism. You know, social security is socialism. Food stamps are socialism. It's just where on the scale you want to be. Um so, what I think young people forget is what Margaret Thatcher said that the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money. You do need incentives that motivate people to take risks and garner. And capitalism has winners and losers. My father, who was a Scottish immigrant, said something when I was young that I remember. He said, "America's a terrible place to be stupid." But I think he was saying is America's a terrible space to be unfortunate. And we have voted for that. We are willing to have a lower safety net than other countries. I would argue the safety net is now the ground, a cement floor, in exchange for un- un- precedented upside. That creates a series of incentives that have been very productive for the US economy and probably resulted in more growth and a larger tax base to tax from to hopefully raise the net. But it's a proportion in the extreme that's gotten out of control. Where now people are worth more than the GDP of Costa Rica and the safety net is, "Oh, your wife has lung cancer? That probably means you're going bankrupt. The gag reflex of young people to socialism is understandable. Uh it's it's ill-advised. Capitalism has brought more people out of poverty than anything in history. It's just what you mean by socialism. I'm for I mean Mondavi says, "I want to raise taxes on billionaires." I'm actually okay with that as long as someone shows me that we're not going to end up with less tax revenue because billionaires will decide this is the final straw and they'll move to Florida or Texas. I get it. You Uh I've lived in the highest tax states in the world uh or in the union, California and New York. And the reason I decided to live there was it was worth it. At some point, people decide it's no longer worth it. Now, I don't know if what he's proposing is that final straw. And it doesn't appear to me that anyone wants to do the economic analysis. I'm living in London. They passed something called the non-dom tax reform. Where basically, if you moved here from Hong Kong, Tony Blair passed a bunch of private property laws that attracted wealthy people from all over the world. So if you were living in Hong Kong, you got to bring your tax status, which basically was you paid no tax. There are a lot of people living in London paying zero tax. Now, they pay consumption taxes, property taxes, start businesses, etc. They passed this non-dom that said, "No, if If you've been here a certain amount of time, you now have to you're benefiting from UK infrastructure, you have to pay the same taxes as UK citizens." Philosophically, that's totally on point for me. I get it. The problem is in the last 6 months, 10,000 millionaires have left, and the Treasury's going to collect less money this year than it did last year. So there's there's a difference between and one of the things I don't like about my party on the far left is they're more concerned with being right than being effective. So I get it philosophically that the wealthy should pay a little bit I I get it. I want a more progressive tax structure. But you you the top 1% pay 40% of the taxes in New York. And also, it's a bit of a false argument, Tom, because first off, he's not going to get it through. He He would have to Any tax increase has to go through the New York State Legislature. He's not going to be able to do it. And then he goes to rent freeze. Oh, okay, great. We need more I get it. Young people can't afford to live in the city. Housing is out of control. Freeze the rent. Every economic study says the same thing. When you're trying to implement rent control, you discourage construction and development, and rents go up in cost. If you were serious about lowering costs, you would figure out a way to raise revenues through some sort of tax, maybe it's on the wealthy, maybe it's on corporations, and you would create tax incentive for developers to build more, and you would have legislation getting rid of NIMBYism. And you would unlock The private sector's building is much better at building housing than the than I'm sorry, the private sector is much better at building housing than the public sector. When public sector builds housing, it usually ends up concentrating poverty and creating a [snorts] crime-ridden areas. When you encourage builders to build a lot of housing, you end up with This is a supply problem. It's not a demand problem. We need more houses. Nationally, I think a decent plan for the Democrats would have been the thing One of the things I really don't like about my party, they're so fond I just went to this Master of the Universe conference, and everyone running for president was there, including the governors of Pennsylvania and Utah, who I think are great. And they just want to cosplay Obama and talk about all this goddamn rhetorical flourish. Like, all right, at some point are you going to get to an actual [ __ ] idea? Here's an idea. 8 million new homes in 10 years. This is how you're going to do it. Manufacturing homes which cost 50% less than homes on site, tax incentives, anti- NIMBYism laws like they've done in Austin or Minneapolis, and we're going to build 8 million new homes in 10 years. That will materially lower the cost, maybe government subsidized mortgages that bring down the interest. We are going to try and figure out a way to reduce the cost of a home such that the average income household has a shot at it. And then raise minimum wage to 25 bucks an hour. As opposed to freezing rents, it doesn't work. So, anyway, I'm I've gone off script here. When when America isn't working for people, they typically don't want policy incremental changes. The The reality of structural change around affordability is going to take years if not decades. You need antitrust, you need more competition, you need a massive investment in housing, you need to ensure that there aren't three chicken companies controlling the entire poultry market, you need 10. You need to break up big tech, you need minimum wage to go to 25 bucks an hour, which would hurt the stock prices of McDonald's and Walmart, and it would be worth it. You need to put more money in the pockets of spenders, low and middle-income homes. You need an actual progressive tax structure, not the one that's progressive progressive till the 99th, and then once you make the jump to light speed it crashes. And essentially put more money in the pockets of young people who spend it, multiplier effect grows the economy, and massive um programs that increase this full body contact violence of competition where they are forced to offer a competitive product at a low price. Every year big tech has increased its margins because they're monopolies and they're able to charge higher and higher rents, pharma, big ag, big big chicken, big beef. All of these industries are able to rise their raise their but my industry is totally corrupt. We have essentially a cartel, and we do something I'm going to go out really off line here. >> universities? Universities. I'm going through this right now. Do you have kids, Tom? I do not. Okay, I have a 17-year-old and 18-year-old applying to college. There's something called early decision, and what they do is they say, "If you apply early decision here, we take the acceptance rates from 8% to at the school of your choice. And you sign something saying, "If I get in, all my applications are automatically withdrawn from every other school." Okay, fair trade. It's so they maintain total pricing pressure. Because Syracuse finds out that they're not going to be able to fill their class. So, they go out and they start offering financial aid to people. Hey, "Hey kid, you got in. If you pick us, we're going to give you 10, 20, 30 thousand dollars in financial aid next year." And then the kids who got in early decision who committed called and said, "We want this financial aid." And they said, "Sorry, you're [ __ ] U N E D. You have to come here." So, this is a means of basically reducing the economic power of applicants. And also, and you you'll learn this is if you have kids, every university happens to raise its prices almost in near exact lockstep. We're all charging pretty much the same. How did that happen? Well, we all communicate with each other and wouldn't you know it, when Columbia goes to 71,300, we go to 71,308. Do you do you think that just happened? So, it's all a giant rigged system through pricing, through financial aid, through cheap debt, through artificial scarcity, limiting supply such that we can raise prices faster than inflation such that we can soak the middle class and transfer money to corporations and even to my industry, to the faculty and endowments of universities who whose alumni, once they have degrees, love scarcity. "Oh my god, you rejected 90% of the applicants." Standing ovation, which in my view is tantamount to a the head of a homeless shelter bragging he or she turned away nine in 10 applicants last night. America needs to reject this exclusionary rejectionist LV MH-like strategy that benefits the incumbents at the cost of the entrance, but it is it is a virus that has infected every component of our society cuz the people in charge already have assets. So, they want to see a scarcity mindset, increase the value of their assets, and then they wonder why their daughters are obese and anxious and single at the age of 30. That was a rant. Uh yeah, well, it was a fantastic rant that I think is really on the mark in terms of the economics. Okay, so, looking at this, I think you and I draw every word out of your mouth is a banger for me. Uh but, we draw I think different conclusions about what you do next. So, when I hear all of that, I think, "Okay, we need to shrink the size of government." Um as a history buff, looking at what America did at its founding, it was far more like, "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere." because we don't have all the social safety nets that we have uh today, not by a long shot. When you look at just how much more the government spends now since COVID than it did in 2019, huge. And so, I just go, "Yeah, I get the impulse to tax." and I don't I am very much a believer in Ray Dalio's beautiful deleveraging. So, there's going to absolutely be higher taxes, there's going to be um wealth redistribution, but they have to be done so specifically to understand both the economic and the psychological impact. That's the part that I don't think people are talking about. Ultimately, I think the goal should be to reduce the size of government for the reason that you said, when the public sector does things, they tend to create more problems than they solve. So, when I look at this and I see, "Okay, you've got the rise of socialism over here on the left." Um you've got all kinds of cronyism going everywhere that's creating all of these different problems. I don't see that adding more government is going to be the solve. It's how do we dissolve some of these areas that have their grips on things in a way that does not benefit the middle class. Um why does that take seem out of step with the direction you want to go? I don't think it is. I just think there's some nuances. There's there's been overlap where we agree and probably where we disagree. So, when you talk about government, size of government, there's two things. There's employment, size of government, and then there's spending. So, if you look at state and local government, I think employment is actually flat to down over the last 30 or 40 years. So, it's not like it's not like the payroll the pay the payrolls of state and local government has has surged. If you look at spending, it's gone ape [ __ ] And both Democrats and Republicans, the only thing that's bipartisan is reckless spending. You know, it's like, okay, Republicans want more in defense and and tax cuts, and Democrats want more social programs. And they all got together and say, I know, let's do both. And absolutely hamstring and inhibit uh future generations with just unsustainable, irresponsible levels of debt. Now, the question is, all right, how do you close the gap? If we're a household, if the US was a household that makes 50,000 a year in tax receipts, it spends 70, and it has household debt of 370,000, of which when the parents die after going to Cabo every weekend on their kids' credit card, the kid get gets to inherit the debt. The debt doesn't die with the parents. And there's a lot of issues here. One, um Washington is a cross between the Golden Girls and the Land of the Dead. If two-thirds of Congress is going to be dead in 25 years, do they really care about the deficit or climate change? Do they Do they really want to build a high-speed train network that they're going to be in a wheelchair to cut the ribbon on? So, we need younger people who think more long-term. In addition, we have an obsession with I think we should means test and raise All roads lead to the same place, and that is entitlements. If you want to have a serious conversation around reducing government spending, we can Dodge tried to cut what was it they were going to cut a trillion dollars? It ends up that almost everyone they fired, they've decided they need to hire back. Like it ends up that you need people to land your planes. It ends up that the people actually you know, protecting parks. The government I think government is the most underestimated group of professionals in history. I I I mean I work a lot with the government officials. These are the brightest people I've ever met making $180,000. They could be working in meta at a million, but instead decide to focus on cybersecurity defense for our nation. Uh so I think generally speaking Americans don't have an appreciation for how talented our government is until we put village idiots in charge as we're doing right now. Two, it's not the tax tax rates, it's the tax code. And that is there's $760 billion a year that is owed but not collected. And the biggest tax cut in history wasn't capital gains or the tax cut of 2017, it was neutering the IRS. Because as someone who has a very complicated tax uh filing, I can tell you that the general incentives are don't don't hide capital, don't do anything illegal, but be as aggressive as possible because they don't have the staffing to come after you and audit you. They do have the staffing to audit someone making $60,000 a year. Their audit can be done by AI and it's pretty it's pretty straightforward when they're lying. But if you're somebody who has limited partnerships, properties all over the world, different sources of income, different shell companies, they do not have when you neuter the budget of the IRS, the people, the manpower to come after you. $760 billion a year in uncollected taxes that are owed. I'm not talking about intimidating people. I'm talking about the taxes that are owed and need to be collected. Two, all roads lead to the same place and that is healthcare. We You $13,000 a year per capita for health care. The rest of the G7 pay 6,500. In exchange for paying double, we die sooner, we're more obese, and we're more anxious. If you're in the top 10%, you have the best health care in the world. If you're in the bottom 90, it means if your wife is diagnosed with lung cancer, it also probably means you're going bankrupt. 40% of US households have medical debt. I believe that we need to take Medicare, which actually people are pretty satisfied with, and delivers at a decently economic basis, a pretty a pretty efficient basis, lower it by 2 years a year for 10 years till it's 45 and up, which is about 3/4 of all health care. It's 55 cents 45 cents on the dollar of health insurance goes to profits and administration, and we need to get that $13,000 down to 10,000, then down to nine, and then ideally with our scale and our innovation, back to where the other G6 nations are. If we can produce every single product for the same or less money than the other G6, why are not we producing health care at the same rate? If you take 350 million people times $6,500 per capita in savings over the next 10 or 20 years, which America doesn't like to think cuz we all want to get reelected every 24 months, boom, you have your $2 trillion in savings. We need the tax code to be enforced, and we need to really go after health care, and we need to stop transferring money from young to old. We're obsessed with tax codes, we're obsessed with demonizing billionaires. You know, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren want to lambast billionaires. They're each worth tens of millions of dollars. I get it. The tax code should have an alternative minimum tax on anyone who making over $10 million, but that's not the problem. The problem is enforcing the tax code and attacking health care if we get really serious about fiscal responsibility. But the notion that we continue to pay seven we continue to spend $7 trillion a year on $5 trillion in receipts is so morally bankrupt. I'm in the club doing champagne and cocaine, and the closest my kids get is they get to throw their credit card in so I can swipe it again. So I can now do rails Academy. What is going on here is entirely morally corrupt and my generation needs to pay more taxes. I'm not saying you know, I don't want to demonize billionaires. I want Elon Musk to make a trillion dollars. I want him to be taxed 60 or 70% on it because the bottom line is it's not going to make him any happier if he makes 800 billion versus 400 billion. I want the estate tax exemption lowered from 30 million to 1 million. If your kid inherits 7 million versus 9 million, no happier and my understanding is once you're dead, you don't really sense whether you're happy or not happier. There are common sense solves to our fiscal problems. We just have DC that has been washed over by money. There's regulatory capture and we have old people voting themselves more money who don't want to think long-term about the fiscal health of future generations. We'll get right back to the show in a second, but first let's talk about what's hiding in your closet. Most guys [music] own 30 shirts but rotate through the same five. That's certainly familiar. The reason [music] is very simple. 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So, uh you've got to get serious about talking about the spending problem. Spending problem is entirely entitlements. Uh then, you've got to find an efficient way to get more tax revenue um by taxing the wealthy. I don't I didn't hear anything what you just said about going in a Nordic style where we just tax the hell out of everybody. Um is that one-two punch obviously a gross oversimplification, but it'll give us a jumping-off point. I I think yeah. I think that's strong and just some nuance around the taxation. I bet you're where you live in LA? Yeah. I'm going to assume you make a very good living. You know who gets most screwed in our tax code? We like the populist argument of the the poor paying too much in taxes, and the middle class and the rich aren't paying any taxes. [ __ ] The rich are paying a disproportionate The top 10% pay 80% of federal income taxes. The people who get most screwed in our tax system are what I call the workhorses. I don't know much about you, but I'm going to I'm going to stereotype you as being in the workhorse. A workhorse, uh a couple played by the rules, got great certification, worked their asses off. Mom's a baller at a law firm. She makes $1.2 million as a partner. Dad is a podcaster making 600 grand a year. They make $1.8 million. They live in a blue state, which is probably where you need to live to have these types of professions, this type of income. They are probably paying 50% in tax rates. Now, if dad starts a podcast network and pours all of his money and can afford to reinvest in the company, and then he incorporates the company and it gets bought by Sirius or Wondery or Time Warner, and he gets a $30 million cash hit, his tax rate drops dramatically. Right? So, what workhorses, the people making hundreds of thousands, pay too much taxes. When I was When I was in my 30s and 40s making hundreds of thousands of dollars, I was paying 30-something, 40-something percent tax rate. Now that I'm making millions, some years tens of millions, my tax rate and the fact that I'm mobile now cuz I have the money and I relocated to Florida, my tax rate has plummeted to kind of the high teens. That makes no sense. So, when people hear the rich are not paying their fair share, no, actually, the rich are probably paying more than their fair share if we enforce the tax code. It's the super rich that are getting away with murder. We've decided if you get the gold medal, you get the bronze and the silver. The 26 wealthiest families in America pay an average tax rate of 6% a year. Corporations are paying their lowest tax rate since 1939, right? And it's not made them any more productive. So, I think there's common sense strategies. Let's go back to the tax era of that great socialist Ronald Reagan, have the same tax rate on current income as capital gains, take corporate tax rates back up, AMT of say 40% if you make more than 100 million in profits. If you're making more than $10 million in current income, uh alternative minimum tax of 40%. The tax code's gone from 400 pages to 4,000. Those incremental 3,600 pages are basically there to screw the middle class. There are so many goodies for people in my income class. I start a company, I sell it. Something called 1202. First 10 million is tax-free. What? Does that make any sense? Oh, but we need productive people to start businesses. I've started nine businesses. If you held a gun to my head, I couldn't tell you what the taxes were when I started the business. That's not why you start a business, cuz of tax advantages. But oh, we want VCs and institutional investors to get this giant loophole where if I invest two or three million dollars in one of my startups and it sells for its 20 or 30 million 10 times the basis or is it No, it's 10 times the basis or now it's 15 million are totally tax-free. What you want in an increase in taxes is the least taxing taxes possible. And there's a lot one of my intellectual role models is an Israeli-American psychologist named Daniel Kahneman. Ton of studies on happiness. Money can't buy you happiness. [ __ ] Absolutely correlation between money and happiness. Middle income people happier than lower, upper income happier than middle. But, once you hit a certain income level no incremental happiness. Billionaires are no happier than millionaires. There's a myth that they're less happy. That's not true either. Once you get above a certain number, no incremental happiness. Which says to me we should have an alternative minimum tax of 40 or 50% on anyone say over $10 million. Corporations can pay a higher tax rate now. We haven't seen a burst in productivity. We have seen an increase in stock prices because of more earnings, which again accrues to, wait for it, the top 10% who own 80% of stocks. So, one uh alternative minimum tax above a big number, and two lower the We're about to see a transfer of wealth of 120 120 trillion dollars, I think, in the next 30 years of wealth. Lower the estate exemption from 30 million to 1 million. If your kids inherit 7 million instead of 9, not going to change their life or their happiness. And as far as I know, you're going to be dead, so you're not going to care. But, the notion that we build need to build dynastic wealth without a control tax exemptions and estate tax, that's anti-American. We're not supposed to be dynasties here. So, alternative minimum tax for corporations and exceptionally wealthy people reduce reduce the um estate tax exemption from 30 million to 1 million, and means and age gate. Raise the age on social security and means test Social Security and also above a certain point you pay for your own health care full stop and that turns those people into consumers who actually say how much is this MRI costing and they shop around. I think all of these things are common sense solutions to bring fiscal sanity back into the system. Okay, so I certainly have an allergic reaction to the idea of um taxing more. You've said a lot of very true and very uh valuable things about. I did a a whole deep dive on who actually pays taxes in America. You've covered it very well. Um so you have the wealthy paying a very disproportionate amount. Um there is a psychological impact though when you start so I uh in my best years am north of 50% in my tax bracket. Yep. Uh it there's something about that psychologically that is very difficult to swallow um and if and I think you said something about I know you said this before I don't I can't remember if you said it today or not but the idea that if I knew that the money was being spent efficiently I would have a lot less problem being taxed. Like if I'm living somewhere and I feel like oh it's worth it. My tax dollars are being used incredibly well. This is wonderful. Um you have a much easier time stroking the check but when and this is me mapping my own beliefs not trying to put these words in your mouth but when I look at the the making a distinction between number of people working in the government and the amount that they spend to me does not change the dynamic of the more money that they have and are spending we're getting a worse and worse result. So perfectly willing to buy that the people in the government are amazing but there's something about the way that the policies are enacted that end up not um yielding the result that we would see from that fiendish competition that you talked about in the private market. So that's my bias. So I'm I am opposed to raising taxes long-term unless we can see that the government itself can become efficient. For me, I will peg that at the ability to balance the budget. And the one immutable truth that you put your finger on is that both the Republicans and the Democrats are just hell-bent to spend, spend, spend. Because in a popular Well, in any moment, that's how you get elected, but it gets way worse in a populist moment. So, what do you see as the mechanism that pulls us back out of this? Because I don't see the government getting any more efficient. There is a psychological break that people will have. So, the more they raise taxes, people are going to move, even if they have to leave America. I think that there is a point where the taxes become so onerous that people will move. And so, when I look out at it, and and hopefully you can back me off of this black pill ledge here, when I look out at it, I'm like, "Oh, the only thing that's going to make us actually change the direction." Which, again, I peg as a debt and deficit problem. The only thing that will move us off of that, that I believe is the thing that's hollowing out the middle class, is to have so much pain that we will finally be forced to backtrack. Do you see any other way other than economic collapse, a a true hot civil war, revolution, something like that, that will actually begin moving us in the other direction? So, a lot there. So, So, first off, um I think my tax Not this year, but last year, uh my tax rate was 17%. Yours was 52. Does that seem fair to you? Um It it depends. It No, we'll take the short answer. Um I made, you know, I was accused of bragging about my wealth, and it's true, cuz I've been secure, but I My guess is I don't know what you made. I made an exceptional amount of money last year and my tax rate was 17%. It sounds like yours was 52. Tell me how that's in any way fair. Well, the quick breakdown would be the year that I made the most money, my tax rate was much lower and I am perfectly willing to make the exchange for long-term capital gains. So, capital gains not being a tax um I certainly do not know the taxes well as I know some other basic economic principles. But, I will say that when I was building the company and taking insane risks with my entire livelihood, everything that we owned, uh that felt like a good Okay, well, if I can get it across the finish line, at least I'm not going to be paying that same 50-plus percent tax rate. That would have been a bitter pill to swallow when you risk so much. Um So, yeah, anyway, to me, there is nuance there where I've lived both. I've had a much lower tax rate. I don't know if I've ever been in the teens, but I've certainly been in the 20s. Um and I was like, cool. Yes, this was worth all the sacrifice, all the risk. On a more mainstream year, where I'm just making by average person standards, I'm making a ton of money, um I accept that I'm going to be paying ordinary income and it is what it is. I would just get So, budgets and taxes are a reflection of our values. And our values right now uh state the following, that we think sweat is less noble than money. That when money makes money, when when you make money from buying a house, selling stocks, that that money is more noble and we should tax it a lower rate than when someone shows up to a car wash or someone works really hard as a podcaster. I think we should go back to Reagan. I think there should be one tax rate. And I think if you enforce the tax code and didn't have all of these loopholes, right? Buy a plane, you get to write it all off in the first year. You don't even have to capitalize. When you buy office furniture for your podcast studio, you have to capitalize and expense it over 7 years. But someone who buys a Gulfstream gets to write off the entire thing in year one. That to me is nothing but capture by the wealthiest point 1%. So, I would like I think you could lower taxes as long as everyone paid them and you got rid of all these loopholes. That's why I like the AMT. Going after Going after specific loopholes, there's too many There are more lobbyists, full-time lobbyists working for Amazon, full-time, living in DC than there are sitting US senators. And whoever raises the most money, 93% of the time wins the election. So, the game is rigged for whoever's willing to throw most money to maintain their their their private equity tax loophole where for some reason private equity investments are taxed at long-term capital gains even though it's just a commission. If I sell a Subaru as a car salesman, the commission is taxed at a higher rate than if I find an investment and use other people's capital to make the investment and I get a commission as a private equity general general partner and then for some reason I get long-term capital gains on that. That is a loophole sponsored by the lobbyists hired in Washington by the private equity industry and then they get Kyrsten Sinema to basically hold up the infrastructure bill unless they strip that you know, maintain that tax. So, I'm for I think you could lower taxes and I don't see any reason why capital gains taxes should be lowered or more honorable than the money that sweat makes. I want people to work. I'm worried about young men not feeling the incentive to actually work. The The notion of state and that's federal. I actually believe federal taxes for the most part are pretty good deal. I do believe we're spending too much money on our seniors, which is again the third rail. I'm a terrible person. This is the wealthiest generation in history. Nana and Paw Paw, if you can't upgrade from Carnival to Crystal Cruises, I'm okay with that. I don't see why young people are continuing to transfer money, this much money to old people. Do we eliminate social security? No, but a third You and I should not get social security. I I just I don't I don't see any reason why we should get it. So, go after entitlements, uh lower taxes, but enforce them. And then with respect to states, I like competition. I like the idea that at some point Tom may say, "You know what? I've had it. I'm moving to Texas and I'm going to build my podcast studio in Austin." And the fact that most states have to balance their budget, they're enforced state There's a certain level of fiscal responsibility enforced on them. They can't rack up enormous deficits. Uh at least not directly. And they can peace out. I left New York. Now, the reason I left New York is cuz my kid didn't get into preschool, but at some point I might have left because of the taxes. I think it's good that states compete with one another. Yeah, agreed. Uh so, I think some of this gets solved. I think you're right. I think we should I think governments should be forced to compete and, you know, offer a good service. I come at government from a little bit of a different place than you because I got a I grew up in California. I grew up in Los Angeles for you all now. I got assisted lunch. I got Pell Grants. I got into UCLA cuz it had a 74% admissions rate cuz the government spent a lot of money Ed Pat Brown spent a ton of money of taxpayer money's on building a lot of seats in this amazing institution called the University of California. So, I feel a certain gratitude and affinity and feel like I've gotten a great deal from the federal government. I think some states, I think California is, you know, I think it's good that Texas is saying to Californians, "Come here. You don't have to pay any state tax." cuz I think it forces the governor and the people there to take on unions, take on out of control spending. I think at some point if enough people leave New York, they're going to figure out a way not to spend a billion dollars a mile. Do you know we spend seven times more per mile on subways in New York than they spend in Paris, which isn't known as a very efficient economy. So, there is I think competition is is an answer and I think I I would like to think that before we get to the revolution part of the program, they voters will get their heads out of their asses and maybe vote for some people that are honest with them and say folks, do we need to raise taxes or lower government spending? The answer is yes. And I'm not going to give you quick solutions here. I'm not going to try and buy your votes. I'm going to have to means test and raise the age of eligibility for social security. I'm going to nationalize health care, which every the health care industrial complex is going to spend billions of dollars trying to convince you I'm a pedophile or addicting diet diet pills to try and make sure I don't get into Washington, but at some point I'd like to think the voters are ready for an adult conversation and say, "Okay, I am down with figuring out a way. We can't just pay off the deficit. We got to go back to a smaller deficit, lower it, have a few surplus years such that the economy continues to grow and at some point instead of it being 150% of our GDP, it goes down to 70 or 80, which is sustainable." I'd like to think at some point the populace and voters are ready for an adult conversation and will will vote those leaders in. Hasn't happened yet, but we used to vote those people in in the '50s, '60s, '70s. Bill Clinton had a budget surplus. You know, the voters that voted him in, I think there's still some of those out there. You know, a lot of Republicans had not a lot, but a few had budget deficits uh surpluses post World War II. Does it have to get to a point where I mean, you you could argue that when farmers are lining up at food banks who 80% of who voted for Trump they're probably going to vote differently in the next election. So, I don't know, you know, I'd like to think that the democracy our democracy works pretty well. The problem with our democracy is the pendulum like they say it's visually impossible to see a pendulum at the exact bottom like you can never actually frame it at its exact bottom. American politics seem incapable because of gerrymandering to ever be at a center point. It's either rent control and tax the rich and UBI or it's it's cut it's cut taxes and spend more and have massive deficits. And I I don't even know how you describe the Trump administration is a lot more socialist than what Mom Donny's proposing. Socialism is the means of controls is controlled by the state. A golden share in US Steel because Donald Trump so good at bankrupting casinos he should run a steel company. Taking an investment in Intel which will favor that one chip company over others. Deciding who should get to own TikTok and doling it out to his Republican friends. That is pure unadulterated socialism. So, you know, look who asked for this? Voters asked for this. You Politicians are always afraid to say get your head out of your ass. You voted for this. Oh, maybe you thought you were voting for you know, racism not tariffs farmers. But this is what you got. The D in democracy is working. Are you ready for an adult conversation? >> [snorts] >> Okay, I think uh ready for the adult conversation is a little optimistic of you, but let us say that that people are. >> You think the answer is squarely no. I dude, I really I I have run every mental scenario I know based on the way the architecture of the human mind, I just don't see it. History tells me that we run into the wall. Uh but nonetheless, I do think that it's worth talking through what that reversal would look like. So, um talk to me about Trump. Give me a report card. So, people may have thought they were voting for one thing. What have they actually gotten? I think many people, uh certainly people on the right, are going to be surprised to hear you say that Trump is more socialist than Momandani. Um so, give us the the litany of receipts there. What is Trump getting wrong, certainly, uh and then if you think that he's gotten anything right, I'll take that as well. Trump's instincts are often very strong. It's just his execution. I think he recognized before other people the uh asymmetric trade relationship with China. Uh I think you got to give him credit for that. I thought I think they were taking advantage of us stealing our IP and then selling back selling it back to us less expensive and gutting our manufacturing sector. I think he saw that. Uh I think that he saw immigration as uh big problem. You know, the vice president, her big thing was supposed to be enforcing the border. She didn't do a great job. When a quarter of a million people can come over in December of '23 by just raising their hand and saying asylum, you know, they had to say asylum and then boom, they were in. That's a problem. So, I think he recognized immigration. I think his messaging around affordability was the right message. Um I would argue that the level of corruption we have seen under the Trump administration is unprecedented in history in the West. You know, cramming launching a crypto coin, a meme coin the Friday before his inauguration under the cover of dark. So, that said, someone could put in 10 million bucks in that thing and then say, "Please stop shipping arms to Ukraine." And we would never know that that happened. I think overrunning co-equal branches of government, just basically ignoring Congress. Um you know, I could go sending in a mass secret police to terrorize cities and people who've been here for 20 or 30 years when he could just show up with a clipboard and say, "Hi, car wash. You have social security filings for these people. I need proof of their documentation or I'm going to find you $10,000 a day." Ooh, we have turned a blind eye to the immigration problem for 40 years cuz the sad truth of or the uncomfortable truth about immigration is that people say it's the secret sauce of America. Okay, that's nice. That's a Hallmark commercial and part of that is true. But the most profitable part of immigration is illegal immigration because they come across the border when our crops are coming due or grandma needs her ass wiped or we want cheap food at a restaurant. And then when the jobs dry up, they don't go on unemployment. They don't collect social security. They melt back to their countries. They usually don't stick around longer to cause to they they pay social security taxes, but they usually don't get them. They commit crimes at a lower rate than native-born citizens. They don't call 911 or use the police. So, we have turned a blind eye to illegal immigration for 40 years on purpose. Has it gotten out of control? Yes. Has it created real structural problems in the US? Yes. Should we have borders? Yes. He was good at leveraging that in people's frustration, especially in border states. And also a lot of young struggling men like to blame women for their romantic problems and immigrants for their economic problems. He tapped into that. He flew right into the manosphere. Genius political strategy focusing on affordability, the asymmetric trade relationship with China. The implementation it's as if you went to chat GPT and said, "I want to reduce the prosperity of America elegantly and consistently." And it would come back and say, "I know, tariffs. I know, scare the best and brightest PhD students from coming to the US. I know, reduce the greatest ROI investment in history, investing money through our great academic institutions that produce medical and technological breakthroughs. I know, make people feel bad about America by showing these horrific videos of people who are so ashamed of what they're doing. It's so their activity is so depraved and vile, they have to wear masks. And people say, "Well, they could be docked." Judges put mob bosses in prisons. They don't wear masks. So, some of his political instincts I think are correct. I think he's a great campaigner. I would argue that the economic policies of America right now putting drunks in charge of the Department of Defense putting conspiracy theorists who believe that vaccines cause autism in charge of our Health and Human Services. I mean, I feel like this is a literally a clown car running the nation right now. It's a corrupt crime family. All right? And the even worse news is Michael is running the grift. And Fredo's running the government. I wish they brought half the competence to their grift that they're bringing to the government. Trolling around the Gulf and and not going to the democracies Turkey and Israel cuz they know they can't give you a plane or a golf course or a building. Only going to the nations that are comfortable saying, "Hey, take this $400 million plane, wink wink." Oh, and then oh, what do you know, you're going to What? You're going to give us Article 5 NATO protection? For free? We basically just give Qatar NATO protection, a security guarantee. Oh, and he accepted a $400 million plane a few months before? I mean, that's just not That erodes the very fabric of what it means to be American. And it hurts us It hurts our reputation around the world. It makes us much weaker. Let's start bombing fishing boats that would take 20 stops to refuel and get to Miami in a nation where there's no evidence there is no fentanyl while we let Ukraine fall. I mean, the the poor decision-making here, the incompetence and the corruption are noxious. They're stifling. The optimism is that we have been in worse places than this before. Americans are narcissists and we always tend to think this is the worst thing ever. We were interning Japanese families in camps because they were Japanese. Slave owners used to be the most powerful political force in America. We opened fire on veterans marching in front of the White House after the Great Depression protesting economic conditions. We have been in worse places before and America has come back stronger and I believe we are going to come back stronger here. So, yeah, I do think Trump gets some stuff right. I think he has good instincts around certain things. I think he's an amazing campaigner. He is a stain on the American experience. Now, do you think this is a great man theory of history where he just brought these things randomly, got elected, or is he a symptom of something that the populace is going through? Well, okay. So, I want to acknowledge I'm a hammer and everything I see is a nail. I think the reason we elected an insurrectionist, I focus a lot on the struggles of young men. And young men are doing worse than have fallen further or faster than any cohort in American history. Four times as likely to kill themselves, three times as likely to be homeless and addicted. And what happened was he recognized this and he flew right into the manosphere. As Vice President Harris is going on MSNBC and CNN, he went on Rogan, Andrew Schulz, Theo Von, crypto, World Wrestling Federation, rockets. He went right into His campaign reeked of testosterone. Because if you look at the three groups that pivoted hardest from blue to red, 2020 to 2024 in order. One was Latinos. That says nothing. We should stop tracking them as a group. Mexican-Americans in Southern California have much different priorities than Cuban-Americans in Florida. It's stupid to make any reductive generalizations about the Latino community. Number two, hardest pivot, people under the age of 30. They're not doing well. When you're not doing well, you don't want to parse nuance, you just want different, even if it means chaos. And then the most interesting thing is the third group that pivoted hardest was 45-64 year old women. And my thesis, Thomas, that's their mothers. And that is if your son is in the basement playing video games and vaping, you don't give a [ __ ] about territorial sovereignty in Ukraine or transgender rights, you just want change. So, and also what we don't like to admit is there are a lot of women in America who will vote for who they perceive as being in the best interests of their husbands and sons. We talk about the patriarchy, men versus women. Women's rights were supposed to be the defining issue of this election. It did not show up. 54% of white women voted for Trump. So, my sense is if we want to stave off if we want things to be better in America, if I were to do anything, it would be economic programs that lift young people up. And just as the economic bludgeoning of young people in America has disproportionately hurt young men who are disproportionately evaluated on their economic viability, lifting young people up economically will have a disproportionately positive effect on young men. I get it to I just wrote a book called Notes on Being a Man. I get attacked by all these therapists. By the way, 80% of therapists are women. It's always work on yourself. Therapy is the answer for everything. And I want to be clear. If you struggle with mental illness or have mental illness in your family or you can afford it, have at it. I I believe it's hugely beneficial. But this dogma online if if therapy solves all problems, you know what would be the best therapy in America? 8 million homes in 10 years. $25 an hour minimum wage, universal child care, eliminate 40% of the medical debt on households. You know what makes you mentally [ __ ] stressed out? When you can't afford your 16-year-old's root canal. When you don't make enough money to pay your rent. So, while I'm a big fan of blood pressure medication and statins and diabetes medication, here's an idea. Get everyone working out first and see if we can avoid that. So, I think the mental health in America, I think the the stress young people feel feel, the anxiety they feel is nothing no amount of mental health or therapy is going to replace economic precarity. And mental I want to detonate a nuclear bomb of mental of therapy called minimum massive increase in minimum wage, tax holiday for people under the age of 30, massive explosion in new home construction, more third places, more mating opportunities for people to meet uh universal child care, dignity around lower the cost of education through competition and then the three per 10,000 people who are actually therapists won't need to go on TikTok and say that therapy is the only solve for our issues. I'm a little triggered by therapists right now as you can see. >> that. I I like it to be honest. I think that there is a lot of truth in that. Um I want to get explicit though about why exactly you consider those things therapy especially for young men. I feel like and this is one of the questions I wanted to ask you. I feel like you're dancing around. There's sort of an archetypal beneficial male path, not the only. I I do not think you think that and I'm not certainly not trying to put those words in your mouth, but that there is an archetypal path that I've never met the kid, never going to meet the kid, don't know anything about him, but if he were to follow this kind of path, we might be in better shape. One is that accurate and two, if so, what is that archetypal path? Yeah, look, so I want to be clear. I'm guilty of projecting what's worked for me. I got economically secure, I worked really hard, I got the skills, certification, took the risks. I also had an unfair advantage being born a white heterosexual male in the 60s. And then I found I've had great relationships, great friends. So, I feel like money and relationships are kind of the solve. And I think some legitimate feedback is Scott, winning capitalism and having a romantic partner sometimes isn't the end all be all for everybody. That some people do there's different paths for different people. I get it. So, I you know, I understand that and also we need to figure out a way to recognize more of the emotional labor that women have been expected to give around caregiving and start to recognize that a form of masculinity and surplus values when men do that. So, I think that society needs some what I'll call nuance and calibration and manicuring. And now let's talk about the world we live in. 75% of women say economic viability is important in a mate, only 25% of women. The likelihood of divorce does not increase when a woman gets fired or her income goes down. When the female in the relationship is not earns more man money than the man, the likelihood of divorce doubles and the use of of erectile dysfunction drugs triples. Beyoncé could work at McDonald's and marry Jay-Z, the opposite is not true. And I don't care how many subscriptions to the Atlantic and the New York Times you have, that's not going to change in a few years. And I get all I I'll give you an example that triggers a lot of people. I tell my sons, when you're in the company of a woman, you pay for everything. What? What? You You You You That's the patriarchy. You do not own women. You do not You should not have expectations from them. They are not your Of course they're not. Women aren't responsible for servicing men. Men's problems aren't women's fault. I Women entering the workforce probably won World War II for us. It's the only reason we're not a second-rate power to China. Women making a lot of money is wonderful. We should do nothing to get in the way of that. I had a single immigrant mother lived and died a secretary. It did not work out for her with my father other men. But the biggest strain in our life was she didn't have a lot of economic opportunity. If you're a woman without a college degree back in the '70s, you could be either a travel agent or a real estate broker. You couldn't even be a secretary. You couldn't even be a teacher. You had to have a college degree. That was the biggest strain in our lives. So, I'm all for the economic liberation of women. A lot of women are doing the math. Three-quarters of divorce filings are women cuz they wake up and go, "Okay, I'm ascending economically and boss, you're flatlining around domestic and emotional logistical contribution in the home. I'm out." I get it. I get it and I put a lot of pressure on young men who have more agency than they think to raise their game and then pressure on people our age to join Big Brothers. Three times as many women joining Big Sisters as Big Brothers. Men our age need to step up step up. We need more economic programs that put money in people's pockets. I genuinely believe that young people having more economic opportunity, more third places to meet and demonstrate excellence to each other and establish more friendships, more romantic relationships and then policies that regulate Big Tech such that they don't have an economic incentive to sequester young men from their relationships, from work, from school with their more dopa-hungry, immature brains would solve a lot of our problems. So, are there different ways to demonstrate masculinity and be happy? Should you be more supportive of your partner who happens to be better at that money thing than you? Absolutely. In the In the short and medium run before before we become a more evolved species, I'm here for it. I'm here for the world where the man is celebrating in those relationships where the man wants to stay home. Until then, we have to acknowledge the reality. And that is men are disproportionately evaluated based on their economic strength, women on their aesthetics. And an economically unviable man feels really bad about himself and generally speaking has very little currency in the mating market. So, where I start is how do we create structural changes that maintain the momentum of women, maintain it. I don't buy this Charlie Kirk [ __ ] of of women were sold a bag of goods and they were told if they just worked really hard and they end up being partners in law firms and then they're miserable and childless. So, what's the answer? Have them be broken alone? Of course, they should continue to kill it. That's great. Good for them. But at the same time, let's figure out ways that young men, one in seven young men, are NEETs, neither in employment, education, or training. That one in three of them aren't living at home under the age of 25. That one in five of them aren't living at home under the age of 30. What are the programs that do that? Male affirmative action? No, I don't want to go there. Programs that lift all young people up. Best thing for men, universal child care that takes an economic strain off of young families. More college freshman seats such that we can get more gay kids, more Republican white kids, more men, more women in college, which still is a fantastic upward lubricant. $25 an hour minimum wage. Give people incentive to work. And that would not hurt us. If productivity and minimum wage had kept pace with productivity and inflation, it'd be 23 bucks. Let's go crazy and raise it to 25. Let's more housing the archetype of of a man. I get it. Maybe what works for me doesn't work for young people. But we don't want to recognize the world we live in. Um marriage has become the new luxury item. One in four men in the lower quintile of income earning households get married. Three in four men in the upper quintile get married. And they think, "Well, marriage isn't the answer." Well, it's a pretty good answer for men. Men live four to seven years longer in a relationship. Women live longer two to four years. But what it ends up is that men benefit more from relationships than women. Which isn't to say women owe men anything. It's to say that men do really well in relationships. And there are a lot of women out there that would like more economically and emotionally viable men. So, let's lift Let's lift up young people. Let's Let's figure out a way Are you married? I am, yeah. Okay. Do you enjoy being married? Aggressively. I Look, I didn't want to get married. I didn't want to have kids. It has given me purpose and meaning in my life, which I did not have. So, I am projecting it on other people. And by the way, my first marriage didn't work out. 84% of people all this all these Tik Toks about marriage is a failed technology. Well, then why do 84% of people who did it once and it didn't work out get remarried within five years? So, you you Anyone listening to your podcast, Adam, is not going to be surprised by this. I struggle with depression and anger. So, I decided I'm going to write a book on happiness. I wrote a book called The Algebra of Happiness. I have read, I think, every peer-reviewed research study on happiness. it all comes down to the basic things. Number two, a basic level of economic sustainability. You don't have to be rich, you just have to be able to have some level of health care and education. But the number one number one source of happiness is the number of deep and meaningful relationships you have. And unfortunately for a man, his relationship with himself and his ability to have a primary relationship with a romantic partner is unfairly and absolutely inextricably linked to his economic viability. And until our species changes, that's not going to change. So, let's at least have an honest conversation around how we level up the mental health, the prosperity, and the purpose of our young people. Should it come at the cost of women? 100% no. Are women responsible for fixing this? No. Are they responsible for this problem? No. First and foremost, young men need to level up. I hate the term incel. When I coach young man and he describes himself as an incel, I'm like, "No. I met you. You're not Brad Pitt, but you're not bad looking. You're you're you're not disabled. You're you're you you have you're physically fine. You're a little [ __ ] up in the head, but you're you wouldn't you wouldn't be described as clinically depressed. You are a v-cel. You are voluntarily celibate. Right? I wanted a girlfriend desperately when I was in high school. I wanted to have sex desperately. I could not find anyone to do that with me. Uh so, quote unquote, I was an incel. I worked on myself. I worked out. I tried to develop excellence. I went to college. I developed a sense of resilience. I started talking to women. And I entered into a series of skills such that I could develop the most important things that have given me purpose and meaning in my life. Friends, colleagues at work, and uh a wonderful mate I get to raise wonderful kids with. I want to create the infrastructure such that more and more young people have access to that. And if they decide they don't want it, have at it. Watch Netflix all day, do your own thing, go to Saint Tropez, be alone. But 60% of 30-year-olds used to have a child in the house, now it's 27%. Is that because they've all discovered that child children suck and they don't want children? No, it's because they're having trouble finding a viable mate and they have less money. So, I want to go to the world where men are celebrated on their character and their purp- and their self-worth. Call me when we get there. Yeah, hopefully we'll be getting back to that one very fast. I I have maybe I I can feel your scar tissue. As you talk about this, I can tell people have come after you. This is one of the things I think you you deliver such a potent message. You said at the end what I think is the archetypal run and I am very aggressive in my presentation of this and whatever people want to say, I honestly don't care. And that is because I think there's an evolutionary setup that has created a typical speed run of life for both men and women to be quite frank, but um the things you talked about okay, I want to get laid really badly. I'm not able to do that. So, I start working out. I get economically viable, whatever that takes. I start developing excellence. I think that part of what's breaking down right now is women give men a reason to be better and forgive me if this is more than you want to hear, but when I think about what sexual receptivity is, even just the physical position a that is crazy and is something that I think historically men have had to rise to a certain level to get a woman to be willing to take that risk. And because of that, the pursuit of a woman has created in men a drive to get better, be better, do better. And then, historically, I think men and women got together much younger, and women were likely to influence the man because they were like you, I very much want to see women completely unshackled and live whatever life they want economically or otherwise. But, historically, they couldn't. And so, there was a um being in a relationship was very protective. And so, they would be young, find somebody with potential, get in a relationship with that person with potential, and help them become a better version of themselves. And like you, I certainly project what my life has been, but I've said many times, so I've been married now for 23 years, with my wife for 25, and I was dead broke when I met my wife, and just cannot imagine. I don't even want to know who I would have become had I not met her. And she has helped me through incentivizing me to want to be better, and then also just being a very bright uh person that could see paths that I might otherwise miss, and encourage me to go down those paths. And that has been transformative in my life. Um obviously it's worked out incredibly well, and I got married when I was in my mid-20s, so by today's standards, ridiculously young. And I look at that and I go, "Okay, if I were You asked me to advise a young man, I don't get to meet him, I don't get to ask him any questions." I would say, uh work on yourself, find excellence, um realize what I call the only belief that matters. If you put time and attention into getting better at something, you will get better at it. So, go get good at something that matters, and develop the self-confidence you need to attract a woman, and then get with a woman that you feel you can help elevate her and she believes she can help elevate you and then together you guys will approach life as partners, whatever path that takes you down. If you want to be the greatest entrepreneur, my wife has been the biggest contributor to that. It's been incredible. If you want to be a parent, obviously. So, that idea has become very It's fallen completely out of favor, taking an evolutionary look at all of this and understanding why we are where we are tends to make um people very uncomfortable for reasons that I can articulate but I think are moronic. And so, um until people get in line with the fact that they are having a biological experience, there is a reason men and women have the dynamic that they have. You have articulated very well what men are prized for, what women are prized for. So, coming into all of this understanding that even if it's slightly different now for hundreds [snorts] of thousands of years, depending on how far back you want to track humans, longer. Um we've had evolutionary pressures to make us the way that we are and we're suddenly, because of modern technology, just completely decoupled from that. Yeah, I thought that was well said and so, going back to what you said about when I I didn't men I advised my sons to pay when they're out with the women and like that, that's so boomer and I said, "Look, every every mammal has a courtship process and this is a way that you try to demonstrate commitment, interest, and valor. And the reality is on a more logistical level, the downside of sex, and you referenced this, is much greater for women than it is for men. In addition, men benefit more from relationships than women. A woman's fertility window is much shorter than yours, meaning her time, quite frankly, is more valuable than yours. And one way you demonstrate that courtship, that valor, that commitment in recognition of the asymmetry in the benefits of relationships and sex to men is an easy way to say of service, not expectation, not control, but I'm of service. I'm really I appreciate your time. I'm here. I'm demonstrating some excellence and some commitment to the relationship and one easy way to do that is to pay. And it's so funny. I've been on so many podcasts talking about my book and I get a lot of pushback from men about this that that's the arc you know, that's boomer and and then I say to them and I'll ask you this question, who paid when you were first going out with your wife? And it's always the same thing. I did. And it's like okay, and what I told my son, he's so woke I like to upset him. I say just just keep in mind, like if you want to split the check fine, but keep in mind anyone you ever split the check with is never going to kiss you. And I stand by that. And like different strokes, different folks. If a woman asks you out and she wants to pay, great. I I get it. This isn't 100% but I still believe that there are certain masculine masculine energy and feminine energy is the greatest alliance in history and I have 7 and 1/2 billion points of life for that. And appreciating femininity and appreciating masculinity is a wonderful thing. And and recognize And by the way, that doesn't take any dignity or rights away from the 5% or non-binary. You know, I get it. Uh but I like the idea of trying to restore a code for young men that says lean into your masculine attributes. Want to be a protector, want to be a provider, want to be a procreator as long as it's channeled in healthy ways. Uh uh but yeah, I think this is a I I'd like to think it's a code for young men who are really struggling right now who have an absence of sort of a a code. And I always come back to the same thing and that is who wants What I have found is that the group that wants more economically and emotionally viable men is women. And that there's some consumer dissonance between what we try to articulate and what we think is the right virtue and then how we actually behave and what we respond to. And that doesn't mean we can't evolve and change, but at the same time how do we help young people find the most meaningful things for happiness and that is relationships, economic viability, relationships, a romantic partner, not necessarily in that order. And I find a lot of this a lot of the current dogma um dialogue pays absolutely no doesn't even nod to the reality of what young people are facing out there and how they actually discern and sort through mating or not. Mhm. No, I agree very much. Um what do you take away from the correlation, don't know that it's cause, but the correlation that the more a nation educates their women, the lower the birth rate? It's a real issue and I and even when you even when you look like a counter to my argument is even when you look at economic incentives around having more kids, often times they don't work. And I don't think I don't think you can tell people to have more kids if they don't want them. And also I think a lot of people who don't have kids are happy and I think that's their right. Uh that to me is where if you're going to have a pragmatic policy, you talk about immigration. And that is all right, if we can't if young if young people are deciding not to have kids because they're more educated and they want more money for themselves and they want more freedom, you know, you don't want to get in the way of that. Like in Korea supposedly I think one out of 27 people's going to have a a grandkid. Woah. Yeah. That's wow. I knew it was bad, but hearing it like that, that's pretty startling. You know, only I think it's like 60% will get married. A third of them won't have kids, and you go one generation more, and it ends up one in 27 will have a grandkid. But we're actually doing okay. It we're not we're demographically we look actually okay. Some of that is there's certain sects of our society that are having a lot of kids. Uh my podcast co-host always reminds me it's gay women having all the kids. And then Is that really true? Obviously a little tongue in cheek, but Well, they're having more kids. You never you know, I mean, this is one of the wonderful things about our society is that my podcast co-host has had four kids and lives a real in my opinion lives a pretty good life mostly free from discrimination. Just when I was in college you wouldn't have found that. Mhm. You just wouldn't have found it. They would have been discouraged It would have just been hard for them to have kids both in terms of economic success. Anyways, that's a wonderful thing, but if you You want to pragmatic economic policy around. You need population growth. We were worried there was going to be a population bomb that would overrun the planet in the '70s. The bomb's gone off, but it's imploded not detonated. We need more kids. Um because what happens in a society if you have too few young people supporting unproductive seniors, the society collapses. You end up where America is spending too much money on seniors and not enough in foreign leaning investments. So, one way you do that, I think it's with economic incentives to put more money in the pocket of young people. I think it will help, but the studies in northern Europe show it doesn't solve the problem. I think you should supplant that with a thoughtful immigration policy. >> [snorts] >> Well, so speaking of immigration, what does a thoughtful immigration policy look like? I'm guessing Trump is not your answer to that. Uh so, what should it look like? Well, so I I don't want to pretend to be a domain expert here. I'm I'm I'm I suffer from Dunning-Kruger in that is because I've got some That's the some reason I think I'm an expert on everything. Um look, I I think that the we can never seem to have a middle ground. If you've been here 20 or 30 years, working your ass off, good kids, taxpayer, no no contact with the law, path to citizenship. Let's just Yeah, okay, you're right. It's a bummer for the people who waited in line or didn't come in. I get it. Path to citizenship. But at the same time, if we're really serious about immigration, we'd use biometrics and we'd go after the supply side and start finding the employers. You show up to a fast food restaurant and say, "Unless you show proof of citizenship for these people who are filing social security and the you're paying and you have bank accounts for or or automatic transfers, we're going to find you $1,000 a day." Uh problem solved. But instead, we want to demonize the immigrants. So, I I think there are And then all I think we should have a thoughtful immigration policy around what are our needs. We need low-skilled labor willing to come work their asses off and pick our lettuce. We need them unless we want lettuce prices to triple. We need semi-skilled labor to roof our house. So, I just renovated a house. No domestic workers will work outside in Florida. You just can't find them. The only people right born and raised in America who work on a home renovation are plumbers and electricians. That's it, full stop. And they say, "Well, okay, if we didn't have these legal immigrants, you have to pay roofers more." No. Th- These construction sites shut down. And then going to the top of the stack, 20% of the NASDAQ by market capitalization is not only immigrants, it's immigrants from India. Yeah. I teach at a world-class business school. The PhD students are the best and brightest from the four corners of the earth. It's as if the the Los Angeles Rams it's as if the Rams said we said to the Rams, "You can have the number one draft choice every year, all the number ones, and we said, "No. Turn them away." That's what America is right now. We get the number one draft choice from everywhere in the world, and right now we're saying, "No. Turn them away." Should we have open borders? No, but we should absolutely have more HP-1 visas. We should absolutely have more flexible uh immigration policy around low-wage labor. Who the Who the hell do you think's going to take care of your parents when they're 90? You going to give up work? I mean, we need immigrants. We also need them for population growth. They add to our culture. But, it should be digital. It should be organized. It should be planned. So, I say it has to be legal immigration, but you absolutely open up the throttle dramatically and just have a very systemic These are our needs for agricultural workers. These are our needs for people who will be in the construction and the housing sector. This is our need for PhD students. And the need is big. But, but demonizing them, scaring them. Do you know how much money we make at univer- It's hilarious at at NYU and every other leading institution we brag about 30, 40% of our students are internationals, and then we claim it's for diversity. What [ __ ] It's for money. They pay full freight. They pay $68,000 tuition at NYU, 95% of gross margin, $272,000 over 4 years. Name a product that has 94.5% of gross margin at $272,000. These are the most the We export tens of billions of dollars of high-margin revenue to adults overseas who think the ultimate luxury item is to send their kids to an elite school. And then what do they do? They go back, and they love America, and they don't want to help terrorist cells form against us. They want to do trade with us. Sometimes they come back here. Sometimes they end up in government cuz it's usually the richest kid in the nation that ends up in undergrad. And then on the flip side, on the PhD side, best and brightest, some ridiculously [ __ ] smart kid out of Cambodia who somehow understands liquid propulsion dynamics and lives for it and ends up at MIT and figures out a way to send our satellites into space for less money than anywhere else in the world. Oh, but we're going to turn that away. We want them to go to China or France. So, our immigration policy right now, it needs to be enforced. It needs to be rational. But, it can help with population growth and absolutely the greatest investment in US history is not only financial capital coming in, which raises our stocks and lowers our access or cheapens makes our capital cheaper. But, the inflow of human capital, oh my gosh. I mean, the the best and brightest in the world used to have one thing in common and that is they all wanted to come to America and we've decided to discourage that. I mean, again, I just think his instincts, again, going back to Trump, instincts were right. We should not have open borders. But, should we be really scaring away the best and brightest in the world who want to come here and and put our rockets into space and figure out different chemotherapy for our cancer victims and figure out a way to start crazy tech companies that create millions of jobs? It just doesn't make any sense to me. All politicians do is say whatever they need to say to gain and retain power. So, that's what the populace wants to hear. I very much think Trump is a a symptom, he's not a cause. I mean, he certainly exacerbates, but I don't think he is in and of himself a cause. Um, there's one thing that you said in all of that that I want to push on, which is uh it's great for our culture to have immigration. What do you think about assimilation? So, from you're in the UK right now, obviously, the UK is um having a reckoning of sorts with um I'll say the assimilation side of immigration. Uh do you think that matters or um much ado about nothing? I I I do think I think fair point. You're dancing I mean, there are just certain cultures where when we let people come in, they don't tend to be productive citizens and assimilate well. Northern Europe has a huge gangland problem from immigration from certain But to me, this is just like it's it's not rocket science. I think you discriminate. If you've got If you've got a degree in mechanical engineering and you went to IIT in India, come on in. If you're a hard-working kid who's willing to work in agriculture and manufacturing and you want to sign up for for a training or vocational program in areas where we don't have those people, come on in. If you're coming from a profile or a demographic that tends to uh not be productive, end up on social services, or has a very large proportion of population that is unproductive or becomes violent, sorry, boss. We I don't think America can feed the world. I don't think everyone has an I don't think we have an obligation to let everyone immigrate here. And it's totally contrary to Bring us your tired A billion people would like to immigrate to the US right now. If we said open borders, let us know, a billion people and we'll give you preloaded phone cards and Harris Harris-Biden hats, a billion people would raise their hand. We can't do it. So, to me, these are there's just common sense solutions. You know, I don't know if it's fair. I think you want to be fair. I think you want to be equitable. But I agree, it should be based on what is best for America's economy. Um but a huge huge mistakes around the far left thinking that all immigrants are saints and are going to come in. And what happens, there's an overcorrection and they start demonizing them and there's violence. So, again, it doesn't appear we can ever get the pendulum at the middle at the bottom. Yeah, on that one, uh just again, it goes back to me to psychological problems in terms of when people are economically insecure, that insecurity feels very bad, feels like anxiety. It's going to be transmuted into anger, which is a far more intoxicating um thing. There was a very small study, but still utterly fascinating because of the extremity of it. When a patient has their skull opened and the doctors are using an electrode to stimulate emotional centers in their brain, they'll stimulate all the different emotional centers and then say, "Okay, of all of those, which one do you want me to stimulate again?" And they invariably say anger. And I think the reason that people like that is there's so much certainty. There's so much clarity. There's so much forward momentum. You know exactly what to do. And so, I this is now my uh to a hammer every problem is a nail. To me, just everything comes back to the economy. And so, when I look at people that are economically insecure, I know that they are going to transit history tells me so. They are going to translate that into anger. They are then going to need somebody to blame. And then, hey, nice and easy to point at either an immigrant population or historically the Jews have uh been the stand-in for that, somebody who's considered an outsider that I can blame for all of my woes. And then we go on the attack. The problem is, to um bring in what you were saying, is there are realities to be faced here. You can do immigration well, you can do immigration very very [snorts] poorly. And so, when you have all this economic stress being transmuted into anger at the same time that you have this wild immigration policy, then you end up where we're at now, which is full disaster from where I'm sitting. Scott, this has been wonderful. Where can people connect with you? Uh thank you. I So, I to resist this futile. I'm overexposed. I'm like AOL in the '90s. If you stick your hand in a cereal box, you're going to find me. Um but, I'm at Prof Galloway uh on all social media. My newsletter is no mercy, no malice. My book out is called Notes on Being a Man. My man, Scott, again, thank you so much. Everybody, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. If you like this conversation, check out this episode to learn more. We just had a socialist elected to the be mayor of the biggest financial city in the world. Um what do you take away from that? Do you think that that's going to make New York City better? Is this a good direction for