Episode 1010 Scott Adams： Tell Me About the Riots in Your Town. Mine is Heating up Now. And More. Relax!
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Summary
In the wake of the mass shooting of four police officers in the streets of Ferguson, a new theory is emerging about the events that took place on the night of August 15th, 2019. What exactly happened? Why did it happen? And who is responsible for it?
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum
00:00:15.120
Well, there's craziness breaking down all over the place,
00:00:23.120
Make a note to myself so I don't forget to tell you why.
00:00:31.460
Well, I guess you don't get to make up your own nickname, so I'll take what I can get.
00:00:48.760
Now, I've told you before that it's always helpful to see the world through an energy filter.
00:00:56.180
In other words, don't look at the details of what people are doing.
00:01:04.280
Look at the energy, because the energy is very predictive.
00:01:07.940
When the energy is moving around, that's where the luck goes.
00:01:16.160
And if you take that theory, then we should see the protesters burning out in a few days.
00:01:24.820
Meaning that there was all this pent-up energy, just a ton of energy, largely because of the lockdowns.
00:01:36.720
So, all of that energy, it didn't just disappear.
00:01:40.580
It just was still there, and it was kind of pent-up, and now it's being released.
00:01:46.880
Now, the point of this is if you think this is the beginning of something that's going to build and build and build,
00:01:55.840
If there's one thing I'm willing to bet on, like a lot, that this has a peak, and then it peters out.
00:02:06.100
Now, that would be true of most protests in general.
00:02:08.760
But I think this one is especially easy to predict because of all that pent-up energy.
00:02:15.020
Now, the bad luck of it, and it was the worst luck, is that George Floyd was killed, and that became the trigger for all of this.
00:02:26.480
So, there probably would have been any trigger that would have done it, but man, that was a powerful trigger.
00:02:31.960
Now, the tragedy, of course, as we're all watching this, is, you know, first of all, there's a tragedy for George Floyd,
00:02:40.160
and there's a tragedy for the credibility of the police because one assumes that most police are perfectly good human beings
00:02:49.340
and doing their job, but certainly this group of four police officers did not make them all proud.
00:02:57.580
So, it was a bad day in all those many ways, but man, did it get worse.
00:03:05.180
Now, the one positive that could have come out of the tragic death, if you can even say it that way,
00:03:14.300
is that for a moment, the entire country was on the same side.
00:03:27.400
We don't know which one exactly, but it's obvious that there's something deeply wrong there.
00:03:32.080
And it could have been this big unifying breakthrough kind of thing.
00:03:39.040
And then Antifa came along and then the looters.
00:03:45.560
Whose fault is it that there was Antifa and there were looters?
00:03:51.100
Well, your first impression should be, well, duh, it's Antifa's fault.
00:03:55.960
And it's the looters' fault, and if you want to blame me, go further back, it's the cops' fault.
00:04:09.400
But I would suggest that in the year 2020, when you have an issue that is so unusual and powerful as this one,
00:04:17.800
unusual, and everybody agreed, the right way to play this was anything but a street protest.
00:04:25.780
The right way to play it was anything but protesting in the street.
00:04:31.900
Because protesting in the street is sort of guaranteed to give you exactly what you're getting,
00:04:38.060
especially with all that pent-up energy and the weather getting warmer,
00:04:42.560
and it was just everything that you don't want.
00:04:45.820
So I've got to say that Black Lives Matter, while I believe most of them are well-intentioned,
00:04:51.640
they used a strategy that kind of invited all this.
00:04:56.260
Now, once you've seen that your strategy doesn't work, what do you do?
00:05:01.780
Do you say to yourself, gosh, I hope the next time we do a nighttime protest,
00:05:07.000
I sure hope Antifa doesn't show up, that's not going to work.
00:05:13.120
You don't say to yourself, I hope nobody thinks of looting,
00:05:19.980
So what does Black Lives Matter, what do they do when they know they have a strategy
00:05:30.600
Well, apparently Black Lives Matter just repeats the same thing that made everything worse.
00:05:39.640
So at this point, I would say originally they're just victims.
00:05:48.320
turning what should have been a positive thing into a bad thing.
00:05:51.480
At this point, their strategy is deeply, deeply flawed.
00:05:55.360
And in fact, they're losing more ground every minute.
00:05:59.040
Would you not say that your empathy for their cause has dramatically decreased because of the riots?
00:06:08.260
And the answer is, if you're human, probably so.
00:06:11.140
Because it's hard to hold too many thoughts in your head without them influencing each other.
00:06:16.060
And at the moment, our biggest thought is, why are you doing this?
00:06:21.220
Why are you having even a peaceful protest that you know is guaranteed to destroy businesses?
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You know it's going to make Antifa behave badly.
00:06:40.180
So at this point, my empathy, which started out nailed at a 10, probably for most of you, right?
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You watched that video, and your first reaction was that your empathy, if you're normal and you're human and you're a good person at all,
00:06:58.060
your empathy just went to a 10 out of 10 and just pinned there.
00:07:03.480
Now that was the biggest opening in the world to get something done.
00:07:07.660
Name one thing that Black Lives Matter has suggested in terms of a policy change.
00:07:14.660
Name anything that you're aware of that Black Lives Matter has put together as a little suggestion of how things could be better.
00:07:29.660
So not only has Black Lives Matter squandered maybe the best opportunity they'll ever have to make real progress,
00:07:43.140
Not only did they lose that, but they never had any suggestions after all this, after all of this.
00:07:56.080
Something Congress could vote on, or more likely states could vote on, or municipalities.
00:08:03.640
Now, if they do have something, then I would say that our news sources are failing us terribly.
00:08:10.880
Because if Black Lives Matter has anything that looks like some suggestions, why don't we know it?
00:08:20.520
Now, so what empathy am I supposed to give to Black Lives Matter when I started as a 10 and they're implementing a strategy to lower my empathy for their cause?
00:08:37.300
And not only are they implementing the strategy, they're putting a lot of effort into it to lower my empathy for their cause.
00:08:44.140
They couldn't work any harder at lowering my empathy for their cause.
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Now, here's the thing that I think they get wrong that would be a good lesson for you because it's something that everybody gets wrong.
00:08:55.780
It's a really, really common thing to get wrong.
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In fact, I would say when you're talking about communication and persuasion, this might be the most common thing that people get wrong.
00:09:06.900
And they're so wrong on this, just terribly, terribly wrong.
00:09:14.700
Just as I could never fully understand what it's like to be a black man in the United States, of course I can't.
00:09:24.280
I can listen and I can observe and I can do what I can.
00:09:28.260
But there's nothing you could really do to make you really know what it's like to exist as another person.
00:09:38.660
There's no person who's different from me with a different life who really knows what it's like to be inside my body and my life and my mind and feel the way I feel.
00:09:49.080
So the first thing you need to know is that nobody really knows what's in other people's heads.
00:09:53.800
We just sort of sometimes think we do, but we're terrible at it.
00:10:00.900
People forget that they're persuading the other team.
00:10:04.780
People forget that their job is to persuade the other team.
00:10:10.580
And the way you know that they've forgotten that is that they communicate and they persuade in a way that's designed for their own team.
00:10:22.320
So when you see Black Lives Matter protesting in the street, protesting in the street, who are they talking to?
00:10:41.000
Because if they wanted to talk to white America, they would have seen the protesting in the street, led to violence, and they would have immediately stopped it.
00:11:02.540
When have you ever been in a situation where everybody would like to do something?
00:11:07.040
It's not even that you have to talk anybody into anything.
00:11:30.660
The protesters need to figure out a language that is the language of the people they wish to persuade.
00:11:40.680
They're speaking a language which is designed to persuade themselves.
00:11:49.920
And all they had to do was bank the game that they got by accident.
00:11:53.820
Because that video was so compelling that everybody just joined their side.
00:12:06.280
It's like they missed the biggest opening of all time.
00:12:13.860
The tragedy was far bigger than the death of even one person, no matter how tragic and horrible it was.
00:12:20.640
The death of one person, of course, was special because death is death.
00:12:24.960
But what this lost opportunity could have meant for civilization, I mean, it was a really, really big loss for the black community especially, but for really everybody.
00:12:39.540
But there are some signs of, well, maybe a trend.
00:12:56.320
And it comes in the form of multiple anecdotes.
00:13:00.920
I've been following, if you're not following Ian Miles Chung, he's got the best feed on all the various videos from the protests.
00:13:08.700
So I'm looking at one now in which there was obviously some Antifa protester guy who started to break up with a hammer, tried to break up some concrete curb to make bricks that people could throw at things, you know, to get projectiles.
00:13:25.240
And the peaceful protesters tackled him and handed him over to the police.
00:13:29.060
Now, some of the protesters, most of them, I think, the peaceful ones were white, and they tackled what I'm guessing was a white guy.
00:13:37.400
He had a lot of masks on, but that's my best guess.
00:13:40.220
And, you know, there was at least one black guy helping to wrestle him down, et cetera.
00:13:44.920
So at least in one place, the peaceful protesters literally took physical action against Antifa, physical action.
00:13:55.660
They tackled him and they dragged him to the police.
00:14:02.600
Do you know, if you follow sports, you may know a basketball player named J.R. Smith.
00:14:07.940
Apparently, he was in L.A., and I think it was a protester of some sort, messed with his vehicle.
00:14:15.780
Now, if you want to have a bad day, mess with a vehicle of somebody who doesn't look that big until they get out of their vehicle.
00:14:24.940
So there's a video of J.R. Smith, who, did I mention he plays in the NBA?
00:14:32.900
I don't know his height, but he plays in the NBA.
00:14:39.420
And he's just beating the piss out of this guy who's about half his size.
00:14:45.120
He was not happy about this guy messing with his car.
00:14:48.060
Now, was the guy he beat up Antifa or Black Lives Matter?
00:14:53.660
He was getting beaten so badly you couldn't even tell anything about him.
00:14:57.940
But, you know, it's that sort of story where you see the, let's say, the peaceful segment of the protesters,
00:15:08.680
the peaceful segment of Black Lives Matter, the peaceful people who are supporting them, are going to turn on Antifa.
00:15:16.580
I've seen now maybe four or five videos in which the Black Lives Matter people, the peaceful activists,
00:15:24.280
are shouting down the Antifa people who are not Black and saying, hey, you're getting us in trouble.
00:15:31.740
So it looked like two young females who may have been Asian, I couldn't tell, it matters to the story,
00:15:38.500
were graffitiing something and writing Black Lives Matter, and they weren't even Black.
00:15:43.900
And the Black woman who was presumably with Black Lives Matter, or at least, you know, marching with him,
00:15:52.720
So she's yelling at him, who do you think is going to get blamed for spray painting Black Lives Matter on public property?
00:16:04.240
So I don't know if these were outside agitators.
00:16:10.560
Susan Rice now says that she suspects Russia is behind this.
00:16:23.520
But I would expect that in the next maybe day or so, and I predicted this yesterday,
00:16:29.060
I said it would take about 48 hours for Black Lives Matter to turn on Antifa.
00:16:41.060
If Black Lives Matter wants to turn on Antifa, they're going to have a lot of friends.
00:16:54.720
I told you that if you want to communicate and persuade,
00:16:57.500
you have to speak in the language of the people you're trying to persuade.
00:17:01.840
If you imagine that the people you're trying to persuade are, say, conservatives.
00:17:06.820
Because if you could persuade conservatives, well, you've already got a lot of people on the left,
00:17:15.760
So if Black Lives Matter wants to persuade conservatives,
00:17:21.900
the best way to do it is to just shut down Antifa.
00:17:31.920
It wouldn't be easy, but you know you can do it.
00:17:34.460
If you want conservatives to love you, shut down Antifa.
00:17:39.040
If you want conservatives to care less and less about you every day,
00:17:44.200
keep protesting in the street while we have video of hardworking business owners,
00:17:50.580
many of the minorities, having their lives destroyed by your careless and ridiculous strategy
00:17:56.520
of protesting in the street during a pandemic, which, of course, invites looters and Antifa.
00:18:11.540
So all you have to do is be anti-Antifa, and you've got a lot of friends suddenly.
00:18:19.400
All right, let's see what else is going on here in crazy town.
00:18:28.100
So it seems to me this week that thanks to Antifa primarily,
00:18:36.800
Democrats have lost every argument they've ever made.
00:18:42.840
That because of Antifa this week, Democrats just lost all the arguments they've ever made.
00:18:49.400
For example, how do you feel about the Second Amendment this week?
00:18:57.120
You can forget about gun control because the visuals are so pro-gun ownership
00:19:05.800
that you couldn't do anything more powerful for convincing people to buy extra guns.
00:19:14.260
My guess is that gun sales are through the roof right now.
00:19:17.580
And if they're not, I don't know why, all right?
00:19:21.000
So on gun control, they're losing badly because they just made the best commercial you'll ever see for gun ownership.
00:19:39.080
Do you know how much I care about income inequality when the people who are complaining
00:19:44.100
are burning their own small businesses, people within their community who do not have a lot of money,
00:19:51.640
their small businesses, how much empathy do I have for income inequality
00:19:58.820
when Antifa and Black Lives Matter are actively destroying, at least through their actions anyway,
00:20:05.760
actively destroying business of low-income people?
00:20:11.020
I have no empathy for it because of the way it's being handled.
00:20:13.900
I have empathy for it if they hadn't done that, but their actions so discredit the entire argument.
00:20:25.840
Well, I wouldn't bring up reparations this week.
00:20:28.560
I don't think that would be a winning argument this week.
00:20:35.320
How about, let's see, what other arguments have they lost this week?
00:20:40.060
They haven't lost abortion because you see that many people running around acting poorly
00:20:46.660
and you don't think to yourself, we need more people.
00:21:00.680
The entire left has discredited itself to the point where it's ridiculous.
00:21:07.540
Did you see the video of the woman who was running away with a cheesecake?
00:21:17.520
If you haven't seen the cheesecake video, you have to see my Twitter feed.
00:21:24.380
I think it's several tweets down now, but it happened today.
00:21:28.240
And there's an Antifa-looking person, a woman it looks like, in a raincoat,
00:21:34.540
And the article is a local news story that says that the cheesecake factory was looted
00:21:39.720
and then there's a woman walking out with just a full cheesecake.
00:21:52.000
But if I'm being honest, their cheesecake is exceptional.
00:22:00.960
Now let me ask you, what is it that Antifa wants?
00:22:21.740
I think some of them are in it for the lifestyle.
00:22:24.040
We know that because people who have been in Antifa have said that directly,
00:22:27.940
that they were in it for sort of the lifestyle and the thrill.
00:22:31.200
Some of them might think it's going to help in some weird way.
00:22:35.260
But what do they want other than to destroy black lives?
00:22:42.240
So I think Antifa is working directly to destroy black lives and everybody else's life, it looks like.
00:22:51.060
So if black America wants to team up with white America, we've got a common enemy called Antifa.
00:23:11.960
The local shopping mall may or may not go up in flames today.
00:23:20.160
But I think when you attack the suburbs, there's a little extra risk.
00:23:28.360
Now, it could turn out to be a peaceful protest.
00:23:33.880
But I don't think you plan a peaceful protest at the mall.
00:23:42.440
So I would expect that in my little East Bay town in Northern California,
00:23:47.020
there will be something like at least attempts at looting.
00:23:51.640
One of the things that people don't quite appreciate about the suburbs is how heavily armed we are.
00:23:58.360
I saw one of the organizers saying it would be safe because there are so few MAGA people around here.
00:24:18.740
Just the MAGA people that I know personally in my town have enough armory to have their own National Guard.
00:24:31.600
Now, I don't know that it's going to make any difference.
00:24:34.640
But if you're going to tell me where is there most likely to be a lethal event,
00:24:43.460
I think my town is pretty close to the top of the list because you're not going to get lost in the crowd that easily.
00:24:50.360
And the odds of running into somebody armed in my town is pretty good.
00:24:55.180
And the number of people in my town who have a firearm in their car, it's pretty high.
00:25:03.860
So I think those who maybe don't own firearms and are on the left probably operate in a world where they don't know anybody who wants a gun.
00:25:12.380
You know, in the suburbs, they might not even know anybody.
00:25:31.280
It looks like Antifa, if I had to guess, I mean, the odds of a mass casualty event are pretty high.
00:25:39.880
But I think most of the people who will be in that event will be Antifa, if you know what I mean.
00:25:46.600
So I think there will be a mass casualty event, but it won't be Antifa causing it.
00:25:51.840
I think it will be, you know, if there is one, there will be in the direction of fewer Antifa protesters, if you know what I mean.
00:26:04.400
I'm just saying it's about a 50% chance at this point, I'd say, 50%.
00:26:15.600
Yeah, yeah, Pleasanton is bristling with assault rifles.
00:26:22.680
And the people who think that it's not, they better keep their protest kind of peaceful because it's a pretty heavily armed place here.
00:26:37.920
Is there anybody having any protest where they are?
00:26:59.340
When I catch people off guard, they're not ready to talk.
00:27:06.000
Let's pick somebody who just signed on because they're almost certainly going to be ready.
00:27:18.760
Do you have a question for me or do you have a report?
00:27:20.640
No, I don't have a report, but I do have a question I've been meaning to ask you for quite some time.
00:27:26.440
Do you think that USA slash Trump should buy Taiwan at, say, 10,000 an acre?
00:27:35.960
Taiwan has the Hong Kong problem, which is that the geography just doesn't work.
00:27:47.260
It might be in 100 years, but I think China just has infinite patience when it comes to that topic.
00:27:53.460
And I just don't know there's any other way it can go.
00:27:56.260
Now, it might be that in 100 years, China will be a democracy, and then Taiwan says, well, why not?
00:28:05.140
But, no, I don't see there's any – there's no way we could get away with that without causing way more problems than it solves.
00:28:17.660
Well, it would be cheap, but not in terms of what it would cost us in the long run.
00:28:44.500
Do you have a question or a riot report from your town?
00:28:51.180
So, I'm in Salt Lake, and we had had a little bit of rioting.
00:28:57.300
We went on – what is that called where they shut you down at night?
00:29:05.220
I think a car got put on fire, and that was, like, it.
00:29:13.080
But we still have protesting, but the news is reporting that rioting has been quelled, and the police are doing a fantastic job.
00:29:23.740
You know, what are the odds that we would come from a COVID lockdown immediately into a riot curfew?
00:29:30.780
Like, you know, the rioters ruined the only thing that we had going for us, which is, oh, finally, we can go outside a little bit.
00:29:37.820
And then, the next thing you know, bullets and bricks are flying, and mostly bricks.
00:29:46.820
Well, I think the rioters didn't realize that they came from out of state to come to basically Mormon Switzerland.
00:29:53.740
I mean, we are – I mean, we are also ridiculously armed.
00:30:06.120
We're supposed to fit in and a little bit suspicious of a government, so we are always well armed.
00:30:12.680
Well, that's where I'm going to go during the end times.
00:30:40.480
Was that even close to the right pronunciation of your name?
00:30:57.260
And they ran out of all the names even where I come from.
00:31:01.020
And even from where I am, it's not a usual name.
00:31:08.560
I feel like they were sitting around and they were like, all right, oh, I lost the connection, but I have to finish this thought.
00:31:14.120
I feel like his parents were sitting around based on his story and saying, all right, we've got eight kids.
00:31:23.020
How about, how about, have we done, how about, I did, and then they just sort of triangulate on one.
00:31:32.480
I'm not making fun of your name, just having fun.
00:31:58.760
You know, I've been locked down in my little apartment in midtown Manhattan here for more than three, four months now.
00:32:06.220
And I was so excited watching the news that all these things are going on all over Americans, big cities.
00:32:23.260
Well, let me take somebody else and let's see if Michael's connection is good.
00:32:41.860
I'm not exactly sure why there are so many that don't work.
00:33:00.540
So the governor's daughter in Minnesota and the Blasio's daughter have both been arrested.
00:33:07.360
What kind of repercussions are going to happen?
00:33:11.040
The Blasio's daughter was arrested for – she's out with the protesters.
00:33:18.020
Yeah, I think all of the protesters will probably get off with just warnings or, I don't know, tickets or whatever it is.
00:33:26.100
I don't think the society cares too much about punishing some protesters to get a little bit out of hand.
00:33:32.720
You know, it's more about crowd control, I think, than really punishing them.
00:33:37.680
Well, I'm not really asking about the protesters, but the optics of the governor and of de Blasio.
00:33:45.360
Well, actually, the optics are fine because aren't they left-leaning?
00:33:50.140
And if the protesters were protesting against police brutality and they were with Black Lives Matter, I think it's all good for the left.
00:34:26.540
What I would like to address is the fact that President Trump actually designated the Antifa as a terrorist group.
00:34:45.520
The experts have weighed in and they've said that if you're not a foreign group, it doesn't mean anything to designate you as a terrorist group because there's no formal anything that goes with that.
00:35:00.400
But if they were foreign, there would be a whole set of things you would do because of it.
00:35:05.800
But domestically, I don't know that it means anything.
00:35:09.340
So I guess the president is going to have to figure out what it means.
00:35:13.400
I think the president will have to figure out what it means and maybe they need some new legislation or something.
00:35:20.060
I mean, I think we could make it more of a thing than it is.
00:35:24.080
So I think it's a good step that he gets the, you know, he's directionally correct on this.
00:35:30.160
So being directionally correct is the first step.
00:35:41.240
But let's talk to Ken because he has a nice dog icon.
00:35:55.460
There's something about talking to me that makes people disconnect.
00:36:22.080
I haven't been there since, like, the sun's gone down.
00:36:25.260
But it was very well populated when I was there.
00:36:43.280
I think that people who are not on Wi-Fi lose the connection.
00:36:48.200
So, if you're not on Wi-Fi, you should probably not try to join as a guest.
00:36:53.180
Because I think that's, I think it's the regular cell connection that's causing everybody to fall apart.
00:36:59.400
Let's see if Mark's got a Wi-Fi connection here.
00:37:32.760
Oh, Jim, do you have a question and or anti-fire report?
00:37:39.780
Just like Nicole right ahead of me, I, too, am in Boston.
00:37:43.920
And over the last hour, it's starting to get a little more.
00:37:46.900
The last couple of nights have been quiet, but it's starting to get a little more out of control now.
00:37:51.100
The most I've seen is burning a police cruiser, but the crowds are getting pretty heavy right about now.
00:38:01.300
I got into listening to you over the last two months because I was home due to COVID.
00:38:08.340
But do you think it would be good if the president addressed the nation at some point, maybe to help things out?
00:38:15.700
Well, you know, I've been thinking a lot about that question because I've seen a lot of his supporters almost begging for it late last night.
00:38:24.540
I'm not sure he needed to do it in the middle of the night last night.
00:38:35.080
It's the one thing that I'm going to say unambiguously.
00:38:38.340
He's bad at this, which is saying just the right words without the illegitimate press finding the one thing they can take out of context and make it turn it into a racist dog whistle.
00:38:50.120
So he may have calculated, as his advisors may have as well, that saying anything at all would make it worse.
00:38:59.400
And he might be right about that because when he sends a tweet, he can say unambiguously, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're, let's say you're looting is ruining the, the memory of George Floyd.
00:39:12.800
And that's nice and clean and easy to understand.
00:39:16.560
But the moment he starts freestyling and, you know, he would freestyle, it opens up that possibility.
00:39:27.840
You know, he, he, he does the, what was the thing that caused offense?
00:39:32.360
The, when the looting starts, the shooting starts, which I, which I doubt he was thinking of in racial terms, but any of these things allow them to find something to grab onto.
00:39:44.320
So I don't know if that's why he's not doing it because it's still his job.
00:39:49.720
He shouldn't, I would have thought we would have heard something by now.
00:39:54.320
And I don't know if it's, I don't consider it good enough.
00:39:57.840
That he's just tweeted and said he'd do a few things.
00:40:02.980
Something needs to be said, but I guarantee it will make it worse.
00:40:07.160
It's sort of a bad situation where he has to do it, but it's going to make it worse.
00:40:14.360
So it might, the other possibility is there's something else brewing, something that's really taking a lot of his time.
00:40:25.040
And I don't think, I don't think it's COVID and I don't think it's the riots.
00:40:29.540
It very well could be there's something international brewing that's really, really big.
00:40:35.740
And he, he, he, he just might be absorbed by that, but still I would be with the critics who say it's still his job.
00:40:50.100
So at the moment he seems to be missing in action.
00:40:59.380
I've been wondering about that when the president's going to make some kind of an address, but it just isn't what, it's just not what he's optimized for.
00:41:07.980
He's so good at other things, but that's just not that.
00:41:32.660
I just was wondering if you could speak a little bit about how you think the direction of the economy is heading.
00:41:40.560
Because I've been seeing a lot of material about hyperinflation in the near future within the next 10 years.
00:41:49.300
And I was wondering if it was going to happen even sooner since all this has happened the past week.
00:41:56.320
Well, I've got a degree in economics and an MBA, and I'll tell you everything I know about that question.
00:42:07.460
The people who are predicting anything 10 years from now, you could discount that entirely.
00:42:12.660
Because nobody can do a 10-year economic prediction, even on one variable, such as inflation.
00:42:24.940
So I would never worry about a 10-year economic prediction.
00:42:28.360
Too many adjustments and changes will happen before any of that happens.
00:42:32.040
That said, we printed, digitally anyway, trillions of dollars.
00:42:38.960
Under normal circumstances, that would immediately cause inflation.
00:42:43.020
Because people would have more money, but they're the same amount of goods.
00:42:47.020
So we would bid the price up, and people could raise the prices, and they could get it.
00:42:51.900
But in this rare situation where there's no demand because of the COVID situation, you can actually print trillions of dollars, and it won't immediately, emphasis on immediately, it won't immediately cause inflation.
00:43:09.740
They're lucky if they get any customers when times are struggling right now.
00:43:14.460
So nobody knows how long it would take to get demand up to the point where we have too much money for the amount of demand or products, whatever.
00:43:29.760
And then, of course, we don't have to print any more money between now and then because we'd have enough money in the system, presumably.
00:43:37.080
So there's at least some possibility that this will all work out.
00:43:41.080
And I'd love to give this example, which is everybody smart in economics and finance, everybody, 100% of experts would have told you that you can't have strong growth and inflation basically disappearing.
00:44:02.860
Now, I'm not saying he did it personally, but he was the president when it happened.
00:44:06.480
And it's not supposed to even be physically, mathematically, the physics of the economics just don't make any sense.
00:44:15.360
So with something that basic, I mean, that is incredibly basic.
00:44:21.180
And the experts said it couldn't be done and it was.
00:44:25.240
What about the most basic question of can we pay back our debt?
00:44:34.100
We don't know how big it could get and we'd still be fine.
00:44:41.520
So people have opinions, but definitely nobody knows.
00:44:46.660
But what I would say is we probably have lots of flexibility to tweak things and engineer things and patch things up as we go.
00:44:55.260
Yeah, I think my sources were saying that we're printing a lot of money now to help with the unemployment.
00:45:12.120
And then when the insurance rates go up, then they'll have to somehow print more money.
00:45:18.480
And then that's going to cause the hyperinflation.
00:45:21.900
So that's just – yeah, that's what I was looking at.
00:45:25.260
Well, as long as the economy is crippled, meaning that demand is low, you can sort of print a lot of money, trillions and trillions.
00:45:36.480
But it certainly – so your friend's point is well in the category of things you should consider.
00:45:42.480
But probably not something you need to worry about right away.
00:45:56.600
I think it's a terribly tragic day for the black community in this country.
00:46:01.940
And if they – I'll make the offer, and I've been making it for several years, actually, the same offer.
00:46:09.300
If there are any specific changes to laws or policies that they can suggest that would make this situation better, let me help.