Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 2799 CWSA 04⧸04⧸25

00:00:00.000 good morning everybody and welcome to the highlight of human civilization it's called

00:00:10.900 coffee with scott adams and you've never had a better day but if you'd like to take your

00:00:16.260 experience up to levels that nobody can even understand with their tiny shiny human brains

00:00:22.100 all you need is a cup or mug or a glass of tank or chalice of stein a canteen jug or flask a vessel

00:00:28.140 of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid i like coffee and now for the unparalleled pleasure

00:00:35.320 of the dopamine at the end of the day the thing that makes everything better it's called

00:00:39.460 that's right the simultaneous sip and it happens now

00:00:44.180 so good

00:00:50.980 well

00:00:53.260 i guess it's going to be up to me to explain tariffs and everything else because it's all

00:01:01.040 terribly complicated but first let's see if there's any science that didn't need to be done

00:01:07.360 oh here we go according to petapixel which sounds like a weird name matt grokut how could that be a

00:01:19.320 real name grokut

00:01:21.300 poor guy matt grokut anyway uh there's a study and the study finds that if you smile in your profile

00:01:33.360 picture more people will want to do business with you and you'll make more money now that's quite a

00:01:40.260 surprise isn't it do you know what they could have done instead of this study they could have just asked

00:01:47.460 me scott is it good if people smile in their profile picture yes yes it is well we were thinking

00:01:56.460 of doing a big expensive study don't bother people like it when you smile in your profile picture

00:02:02.360 but will they be more willing to do work with you and you know maybe buy things from you yes

00:02:09.720 yes smiling can do all of that for you so next time just talk to scott i can save you a lot of time

00:02:19.280 well the trump administration is freezing 510 million dollars um from brown university

00:02:27.420 according to the daily caller reagan reese is writing and uh it's because brown university has

00:02:34.800 been accused of not doing enough about anti-semitism and uh their dei program is a little problematic as

00:02:44.760 well uh but more than that i think they need to change the name of their university to something

00:02:52.140 more inclusive i mean the name of the college is brown university i mean seriously you're gonna

00:03:00.980 have to change the name i think something like rainbow university or all the colors university

00:03:09.620 or be they black be they white be they any other color university but you just can't call it brown

00:03:19.800 university if dei is your problem change that name okay it's certainly named after a person named brown but

00:03:29.240 that doesn't matter to the joke

00:03:33.000 well there's yet another day this was the millionth day in a row in which somebody has breathlessly posted on

00:03:41.800 that some new ai app can create people who are doing what you want them to do so if you dance it makes

00:03:51.800 it look like a celebrity that you selected as dancing and you can make them do all kinds of things you can

00:03:57.800 make a maryland monroe and does it matter which app it is no because nobody's ever going to do anything

00:04:04.600 useful with that how many times have you seen an ai app that promises to make oh my god with this kind of

00:04:15.240 tool i could make my own full-length movie has anybody made a full-length ai movie nope is anybody close

00:04:26.040 to making a full-length ai movie nope because i've tried a little bit um you know image generation stuff

00:04:35.240 just to see what's going on i think i use brox and maybe chat gpt's and

00:04:41.880 so i thought to myself okay i'm i'm already a visual artist kind of and so i'll tell the ai to make

00:04:50.600 and then if it's not exactly what i want how great will this be because i can just tell to change it

00:04:56.360 i can say change the color of that shirt and put it in a tropical setting and pretty soon with very

00:05:03.880 little effort i'm going to have like a piece of art it took me about 10 minutes of messing around

00:05:12.200 to say to myself i have no interest in doing this whatsoever and it never got close to what i wanted

00:05:18.120 because it turns out that the thing in my mind uh just couldn't be reproduced by ai it was just

00:05:26.840 always something that wasn't close and i think all of these image generation things where you think

00:05:34.200 ah we must be five minutes away from hollywood being able to make a full-length movie with this

00:05:39.000 technology nope nope you're not even close uh you would not get anywhere close um i'm going to double

00:05:48.600 down and i'm predicting or triple down or quadruple down because i keep saying it that art pretty much

00:05:56.360 all our forms are only attractive to us as consumers if we know that it was made by a human 0.59

00:06:04.360 and it's not because we're anti-ai or something it's because it's related to our mating instinct

00:06:12.440 so when you see an artist who does something that you can't do you say to yourself you know maybe you

00:06:18.920 don't say it consciously but your instinct is to want to mate with the artist because the artist has

00:06:26.360 some kind of genetic thing you don't have if you see somebody who can play the piano like beethoven

00:06:32.760 and even write write the music like beethoven you are automatically triggered to say really if i

00:06:40.680 mated with that maybe i'd have a child who is super skilled all right bring it on so i don't think ai

00:06:48.680 will ever produce any art that anybody cares about that's what i think uh but it might be the end of

00:06:57.480 drawing i was doing some drawing yesterday uh for you know my job and i realized that a child born today

00:07:07.320 will never even learn to draw because it wouldn't have any utility they'll just they'll just learn to

00:07:13.240 use ai to make images why would you learn to draw if you were a child born today no real reason i'm

00:07:24.200 almost wondering if children born today will learn to write

00:07:31.080 because you could just talk to the computer and write it perfectly for you at what point is it just

00:07:36.600 useless to learn how to do it yourself i don't know we're getting close all right uh apparently according

00:07:44.440 to zero hedge republicans the trump administration uh are looking at raising a new well creating a new

00:07:53.000 tax bracket for those over earning over a million dollars a year uh does that sound like something that

00:08:00.600 trump would be okay with it doesn't to me um you know i i suppose it would be popular or help him sell the tax

00:08:12.280 package if he does it but uh not a big fan not a big fan of that if you had any idea what the tax burden is

00:08:22.360 for people who would make over a million dollars a year and let's say they don't have any fancy ways to

00:08:28.360 hide it they're not they're not in real estate or they don't own a you know gigantic company with lots

00:08:33.240 of ways to hide your taxable income if you're just making a lot of money because you're a surgeon or

00:08:40.440 something the tax burden is insane it's insane and then when you die the government takes 40 of what's left

00:08:49.080 left there's a there's really no hope let me put it in another way if you made a if you were so good at your

00:08:59.160 job that you made a million dollars a year every year that you worked and then you retired you would not be

00:09:07.640 leaving your children much of anything at all because what it would cost you to live would be about the same your taxes

00:09:14.440 would take most of it and then your estate tax would take 40 of what's left and then if you had three

00:09:19.960 kids and you divided by three not much left so uh really the the government in its current form has made

00:09:31.080 it kind of impossible to build wealth in a realistic way you know unless you're just killing it and then

00:09:38.360 you can do it but but you'd have to get so lucky but people who are making a million dollars a year

00:09:45.240 just like clearing a million dollars a year they're not they're not creating a dynasty that's just that's

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00:10:54.200 casino.com for details please play responsibly well meanwhile klaus schwab is stepping down for the world

00:11:01.480 economic forum we knew this was coming but is it my imagination or did the people who were quite

00:11:09.480 worried that the world economic forum was going to be like a shadow government and you really running

00:11:15.160 the whole world and all that did we just stop thinking and talking about it because i never bought

00:11:21.000 into that you know i was just sort of observing it from the outside but to me it just looked like

00:11:27.240 what elon musk said once a rich people club and they had some preferences you know they wanted some

00:11:35.400 climate change and maybe they wanted you to eat bugs and not own as many things and you know rent them

00:11:40.840 instead but did any of it make any difference i don't know it it doesn't seem like it really did and now

00:11:50.440 that claus is gone you wonder if all the clout the claus clout will be gone so uh but i also wonder

00:12:00.520 did we think that the wef world economic forum was the shadow government until doge discovered that usa

00:12:08.680 id was a shadow government at least for the united states and and for a lot of countries that affect it

00:12:14.520 uh so maybe we just like having the idea there's a shadow government but as soon as you see that uh

00:12:24.200 as soon as you see that what usa id was doing that looks like the real one and then the world

00:12:30.440 economic forum again just looks like a rich person's club so claus is uh stepping down

00:12:38.440 uh trump called the uh situation in france where marine le pen who was the front runner for the

00:12:44.360 presidency uh got taken out by lawfare or at least that's what it looks like from you know this this

00:12:51.480 part of the world and uh trump called it a witch hunt and so it was the same playbook that was used

00:12:58.680 against trump to take him out now do you buy that do you buy that it it wasn't a legitimate prosecution

00:13:08.600 maybe it wouldn't have happened to anybody else and that it was completely political and it was for the

00:13:13.720 purpose of taking around the election i do i do now could be wrong maybe but we live in a world where

00:13:22.920 unfortunately that would be the most obvious and routine thing that would happen because we're

00:13:27.960 seeing in other places you know it seems to me that remember when the first time you learned that

00:13:35.480 george soros had figured out that the best way to control the country is to control the prosecutors and

00:13:42.760 maybe some judges because if you get the attorney generals and the prosecutors on your side

00:13:50.120 you can kind of control the legal system and if you control the legal system you are the government

00:13:58.680 because you can take out a candidate if you can take out a candidate like trump or you can take out

00:14:05.080 marine le pen you're kind of the government and remember how clever that seemed we thought man this

00:14:12.280 soros guy is so clever he figured out the least expensive way to control a country then he was 1.00

00:14:19.320 you know controlling the united states it felt like and then we learned that usa id has been doing exactly

00:14:27.880 that to other countries massively and for decades so apparently one of the first things we do when we

00:14:34.600 want to control another country is we look to control their courts we try to get a try to get a judge and

00:14:43.640 you know prosecutors that we can control or bribe or you know somehow have some influence over so it does

00:14:52.040 seem that all governments that you would call part of the democratic world they all seem fake

00:15:00.840 because i believe that if you're if your court system has been corrupted and that certainly is the

00:15:07.720 case in the united states seems to be the case in france probably the case in every country that usa id was

00:15:15.800 working in i'm not sure any of the democracies are real i think that they might all be pretend and that the

00:15:24.840 real government is whoever put in the corrupt judges you know remember joe biden and the uh the prosecutor he

00:15:33.640 said well we won't release your billion dollars to ukraine unless you get rid of that prosecutor

00:15:39.720 that was just this it looks like it was just another case where we couldn't control ukraine

00:15:48.200 unless we could control you know their judges and prosecutors so it looks like that's what he was

00:15:54.360 doing so once you learn that the governments all look fake they all look fake if you look at let's say

00:16:03.320 an election in the united states do you think it will be determined by the candidates and the voters or

00:16:09.640 will be determined by whatever corrupt judges decide is going to be legal today i think the judges can

00:16:19.880 change the rules they'll decide what's in do you need voter id are you going to reapportion the district

00:16:26.680 so that you get you know more representatives i think the courts kind of control democracy

00:16:35.880 and so to me everything looks fake as long as the courts and the judges don't look credible and they

00:16:44.920 don't look credible at this point so there's that so laura loomer made some news by apparently she had

00:16:52.840 identified some uh what glenn greenwald three pro-war members of the national security council and she

00:17:02.840 talked to trump and trump fired them immediately now how do you interpret that if you're

00:17:12.760 an anti-trumper you say to yourself what this laura loomer conspiracy theory lady

00:17:20.200 um is is so powerful she's she's causing policy to happen in the white house is that what's happening 1.00

00:17:30.040 let me give you my frame on this um i've i've said this a number of times about trump one of his

00:17:36.600 superpowers one of one of his strengths is that he's really good at listening to everybody

00:17:43.320 you'll you'll listen to bill maher he'll listen to me when i visited he'll listen to uh kid rock

00:17:52.040 he'll listen to laura loomer but he will also listen to scott besant and you know all the top

00:17:58.920 economists and uh you'll listen to other world leaders and he's really good at scanning the room and

00:18:06.760 listening now the other thing i teach you is that the person with the best ideas

00:18:12.120 is always in charge so laura loomer must have done some research or had some information that 1.00

00:18:20.600 trump was not aware of and she had credibility from other interactions so he was willing to

00:18:27.160 you know give her a listen she described these people and why she thinks that they were dangerous 0.96

00:18:33.480 to keep on because they're kind of pro-war you know maybe not as pro-trump as they could be

00:18:38.920 okay and uh he decided because he's the decider uh that's a good point i didn't know about that

00:18:46.280 they're gone i don't have any problem with that at all to me that all looks positive positive part

00:18:53.560 is that trump is always scanning uh his his base to find out what they think and and listening to

00:19:03.000 suggestions i i can't tell you how many times i've heard that somebody made a suggestion to the trump

00:19:09.720 white house and then when it got to trump he said huh pretty good idea let's do that it's very common

00:19:17.640 and i don't think any other president has has had the confidence or or just the vision to see what

00:19:25.320 everybody wants and to be able to decide i like that one i don't like this one i like this one i don't like that one

00:19:30.920 so i love the fact that loomer could come in with some some information of value because otherwise

00:19:40.360 trump wouldn't have acted if it had no value and uh he acted on it so i i don't think that story is

00:19:47.720 about loomer uh but she's she's doing a hell of a job of of making herself relevant in the entire 1.00

00:19:56.040 political process so hats off to that um but this is a trump story and trump doing the thing i like

00:20:05.720 best about him listening taking people seriously and then acting you know without any hesitation um

00:20:17.880 so sorry uh there's a going around on x there's a video of chuck schumer in 1996

00:20:25.240 and he's uh chuck schumer is basically sounding exactly like elon musk talking about immigration

00:20:32.520 and uh schumer in 1996 he's arguing in the congress and he says the number one reason

00:20:39.000 that illegals come to the u.s is so they can defraud programs like social security does that sound 1.00

00:20:46.600 familiar it's 1996 and it's chuck schumer now today he would say exactly the opposite oh stop accusing

00:20:57.480 those illegals uh there's nothing going on completely opposite now that's not the only person who's on video

00:21:07.400 doing things that look sort of opposite based today according to the wall street apes account uh in 1996

00:21:17.480 pelosi was encouraging um congress to back reciprocal tariffs do you think she's doing it today

00:21:26.600 probably not in 2008 bernie sanders wanted tariffs uh because he says jobs are going overseas

00:21:33.320 uh actually bernie might be consistent i think he might uh i'll have to check on that but i think

00:21:40.600 bernie might be consistent because i think he agreed with trump on some tariff stuff

00:21:45.400 and in 2018 barack obama obama uh called for reciprocal tariffs do you think he's doing it today

00:21:55.960 so here's my take on republicans versus democrats

00:22:01.080 my my observation having spent a lot of time with you know both is that republicans have core beliefs

00:22:09.080 beliefs now i know that sounds funny because you think everybody has core beliefs but i don't think

00:22:16.440 so i think republicans have core beliefs and they don't really change um and democrats have performances

00:22:27.160 so one has core beliefs and you could predict if you found a video of republican talking 20 years ago

00:22:36.840 would it look that different from a republican talking today i feel like it would look essentially

00:22:43.240 the same whereas the democrats you can always go back and find them having the opposite opinion

00:22:50.280 the indication to me is that one group is performing and one group is acting on their actual core beliefs

00:22:58.920 and once you see it you can't unsee it but let me give you another example here

00:23:02.680 um according to rasmussen polling uh steven a smith you know you know uh would you call him uh

00:23:13.880 entertainer or espn commentator let's call him steven a smith that if you throw him in the mix for

00:23:22.200 potential candidates to be president of the democrats he actually scores pretty well

00:23:28.520 um so let's see uh 33 of likely u.s voters view him favorably and in a hypothetical matchup

00:23:40.360 um 31 would vote for newsom but 28 for for steven a smith and he would do about the same against aoc so he's

00:23:51.080 not the leading person but he's also not running at all i mean i think he's been pretty clear that even

00:23:58.840 being considered for a presidential candidate is less about him i like the way he says this by the way

00:24:06.200 it's less about him and more about the complete lack of uh good candidates he's totally right about that

00:24:14.280 but here's the thing steven a smith is a performer now he's a commentator but what makes him like extra

00:24:25.400 good at his job is that he performs like he's he goes big when he comments and that makes him hard to

00:24:34.440 look away i find him totally engaging and very skilled at doing what he does which is get your attention

00:24:42.440 hold your attention uh my experience is if i come across a a clip of steven a smith it's hard to stop

00:24:50.680 watching it because he's just so high energy and you know he makes sense most of the time

00:24:59.400 um but he's a performer so that makes sense in the democrat world find a performer because it's all

00:25:08.280 performance well there's a study by uh well cy post is writing about it um it was published in the

00:25:17.240 personality and social psychology bulletin that says that liberals show less empathy to political

00:25:24.360 opponents than conservatives do so liberals would care less if conservatives had something bad happen to

00:25:34.760 them whereas conservatives might you know deeply disagree with the liberals but wouldn't find

00:25:41.960 pleasure in seeing something bad happen to them is that surprising nope because i'll tell you my my current

00:25:53.080 view on democrats besides the fact that they're performing as opposed to operating in core beliefs i think

00:26:00.040 democrats are motivated by jealousy and hate and that's why they perform imagine if your core belief

00:26:09.240 was non-existence but your your real motivation is a revengey jealousy hatred of people who are doing

00:26:19.080 better than you you would have to perform because you couldn't say the truth you couldn't say you know

00:26:26.920 honestly i'm just full of hate so i think i you know want want trump to lose uh not because he's doing a bad

00:26:37.320 job i'm just full of hate and uh doge even though it sounds like a good idea on paper musk is so rich and

00:26:45.560 having so many babies and i'm not having any babies and i'm not rich so i just like to see him fail you

00:26:52.680 you couldn't really do that you can think it but you can't say it out loud so you're gonna have to

00:26:59.240 put on a performance instead you're gonna have to pretend that you have normal views and that you're

00:27:04.680 a normal person but republicans seem motivated by um two things one is the ick factor now you've heard

00:27:15.880 this before that um conservatives seem to be more likely to be icked out by anything that's non-standard or

00:27:26.120 just icky and you know i i don't want to give you examples what that is because that because that

00:27:32.920 would cause problems but there's just some things that make conservatives go ugh ugh get that out of here i don't

00:27:40.040 want to be part of that at all but that's not the only factor i think republicans have a growth

00:27:45.800 mindset which is you know you can you can do well the country can do well we can we can create more

00:27:53.720 for everybody so if you have a growth mindset you don't really need to pretend when you're talking

00:28:02.280 about what you want i want to lower taxes i want to get rid of regulations it's just a growth mindset

00:28:09.640 and the democrats are just literally just putting on performances trying to cover up the fact that

00:28:15.240 their real motivation is just some kind of horrible hatred that's what it looks like to me well here's

00:28:23.080 something i didn't know uh according to the amuse account on x did you know that the person who at

00:28:31.160 one point had been tasked with determining whether or not dr fauci's gain of function research

00:28:37.160 was ethical or not was who do you think it was of all the people in the world who would be in charge of

00:28:46.280 determining that fauci's gain of function research in china was ethical well it turns out it was his wife

00:28:53.240 that's the first time i knew this so his wife who i guess just got fired by trump uh she was the head of

00:29:03.560 the nih office of bioethics so he was actually being evaluated by his wife

00:29:10.840 her wife for whether or not he was acting ethical or not what just happened did my light just go out hold on

00:29:19.800 well that's weird that's the uh second independent light in my uh studio that just went out on its own

00:29:33.640 while the other lights didn't go out i'm pretty sure i'm affecting my lights today

00:29:41.640 i do that sometimes well according to abc news um robert f kennedy has cut more jobs at the uh

00:29:51.560 health and human services than he wanted to so some people will be hired back

00:29:56.040 and those would have been called mistakes now how would you report this if you were abc news would 0.99

00:30:03.720 you report it as that dumb ass he should have used a scalpel instead of a hammer and now he's made this 0.99

00:30:14.520 terrible mistake and now he's going to have to correct it well let's hope he's smarter next time 0.99

00:30:21.000 well i would call that the low experience take uh here's what an experienced person would say about

00:30:30.040 that situation where big cuts were needed big cuts were made but then it went a little too far so they

00:30:36.440 have to back up and correct a few things um i would say that the the view that he should have done it

00:30:44.920 perfectly the first time is what very inexperienced people say about things you know um i i'm no expert

00:30:56.120 but uh i think you should do everything perfectly every time

00:31:02.120 what that that's what the democrats with not much experience say you know we've never been in business

00:31:10.360 never done anything important that's not a thing you can't do something of that size and scale and

00:31:16.600 do it perfectly on the first try nobody could do that so don't even imagine that if he tried harder

00:31:25.160 used his scalpel that he could have gotten it exactly right the first try and gotten it done on time

00:31:33.000 if you add infinite time you still couldn't do it because if you have infinite time then forces working

00:31:39.960 against you will have time to organize and thwart you and get in the way so the best way to do this

00:31:47.240 stuff is take your best cut at it make some mistakes and then correct them as you need to

00:31:54.760 that's a perfect job inexperienced people say well you had a choice of just doing it perfectly in the

00:32:02.520 first place why didn't you just measure twice or thrice before you cut i mean there there's a little

00:32:09.160 thing that even says says what you should do measure twice cut once have you never heard that

00:32:15.000 i mean if you've heard it then i guess you would never make any mistakes but it's a good thing that

00:32:20.120 i'm cleverly telling you now with all my lack of experience how things work in the real world yeah do it

00:32:26.600 without mistakes i'm going to add that to my other thing that only inexperienced people say which is you

00:32:36.280 should have done it sooner do you know what else you should have done sooner everything everything

00:32:45.000 that was worthwhile you should have done it sooner what about doge should have done it sooner what about

00:32:52.520 tariffs sooner what about tax cuts sooner everything should have been done sooner and perfectly it should 0.97

00:33:03.000 have been done sooner and perfectly that's what all the dumb people will tell you 0.96

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00:33:21.000 richer than you think anyway so i was looking at uh so pj media victoria taft is writing about this

00:33:28.600 that congresswoman Jayapal Pramila Jayapal and some harvard professor are behind the training of

00:33:42.680 people to resist um doge and and tesla so they're they're actually doing resistance training to get

00:33:52.520 more people on the streets resistance training now here's the fun part i happen to be watching

00:34:01.240 Jayapal getting interviewed live the other day and she said that this resistance training that

00:34:09.640 they were giving was part of capacity building now do you know where i'm going with this

00:34:18.200 if those of you have listened to mike benz he talks about the cia and often working with usaid in the

00:34:29.960 past where they would do capacity building as part of the plot to overthrow other countries

00:34:38.440 now capacity building would be things like making sure that you had co-opted the media or or maybe

00:34:46.440 introduced a new form of media that was going to say the right things or you had uh trained people

00:34:54.360 to resist on the streets which is exactly what Jayapal is working on and i said to myself

00:35:03.720 what are the odds that she would use that phrase have you ever heard any just member of congress 0.53

00:35:10.760 talk about capacity building have you ever heard anybody anybody in any context use the phrase capacity

00:35:19.880 building the only place i've ever heard it is from mike benz and he didn't make it up he's training us

00:35:28.520 to understand that that's a cia phrase so do you think that Jayapal accidentally admitted that she's cia

00:35:38.920 influenced i do now i don't have proof but that was a pretty big signal that she's had some kind of training

00:35:53.640 that's either adjacent to or because of the cia and that would explain so much that i didn't understand

00:36:02.600 about her so much so i can't say for sure but if you see any anybody who's training people to resist on

00:36:11.560 the streets and they refer to their own work as capacity building

00:36:18.760 it's probably means exactly what you think it means and if i'd never heard mike benz talk about it at

00:36:25.320 length i wouldn't have caught it but that little by the way this is a it's a hypnotist thing hypnotists

00:36:32.760 will tell you that people tell you exactly what their hidden thoughts are they just don't know they're

00:36:38.040 doing it so i'm always looking for the hidden thoughts based on their choice of words this one

00:36:43.640 just jumped right out so that was interesting all right let me give you an update on tariffs

00:36:54.280 now as if you're brand new to my live stream uh you don't know that i've uh um completely disgusting 0.72

00:37:03.800 because i often mention that i have a degree in economics and um an mba from a top school

00:37:10.440 so a person like me should certainly understand tariffs i mean with all of my sophisticated

00:37:19.320 education background of course i understand everything about tariffs and i'm going to explain

00:37:25.400 it to you now in the simplest possible way and then you'll be as smart as i am about tariffs

00:37:31.560 wouldn't that be great don't you want to be as smart as i am um well no the the real story is

00:37:40.040 economics is not even real but we'll get to that so when you see people complaining that these stocks

00:37:50.760 went down and and they lost money that's not real nobody lost any money unless it stays down and never

00:37:59.880 goes back up which has never happened to the stock market in the history of the stock market there's

00:38:05.880 never been a time when it went down and just kept going down now if we ever do see that that will be

00:38:12.360 you know the end of the united states but in all likelihood there's a temporary uncertainty

00:38:19.880 and that you know things are likely to adjust so i was watching um i was watching somebody it doesn't

00:38:29.000 matter who just saying well you know and i lost all this money in the stock market no you didn't not

00:38:34.840 only did you not lose it but your percentage of ownership of the country stayed about the same

00:38:41.480 meaning that if you owned this you know tiny bit of stock you owned a tiny bit of the country

00:38:49.480 because the country is mostly you know corporate wealth and if everything went down you probably own

00:38:56.600 just about the same percentage of the country as you owned before so it's not as bad as as it could

00:39:03.240 be um i haven't sold any stocks you know i'm just gonna write it out i'm not not terribly worried uh

00:39:12.200 i don't know i don't have a estimate of when it will bounce back could be sudden uh could be any time

00:39:19.400 i don't know it could be months could be longer but uh what what do you think about the people in the news

00:39:27.160 business i think the people in the news business uh are not waiting for manufacturing jobs to come

00:39:34.600 back so they can get one but they definitely have some money in the stock market if you're in the news

00:39:40.440 business you're well paid and you probably got a 401k so the people in the news are going to obsess

00:39:47.080 about the stock market because that's what affects them they're not going to say well thank goodness

00:39:54.200 you know we have a plan in place to bring back those good manufacturing jobs so i can get one of

00:39:59.880 those and stop being on msnbc no they're only going to be worried about the stock because that's what

00:40:07.160 affects them and it's also what they understand what they think to do so first thing you need to know is

00:40:14.280 that jim kramer thinks these tariffs are a terrible idea now if you spend any time on the internet you

00:40:21.240 know that jim kramer is famous for being a contraindication of what's going to happen

00:40:28.280 so if he thinks it's a bad idea it might be the best idea ever we'll see apparently general

00:40:35.480 motors says they're going to dramatically increase car production in the u.s and that's directly because

00:40:41.720 of the tariffs because it'll make foreign cars more expensive so gm is thinking oh good we're going to sell

00:40:50.200 more uh likewise uh ford is not likewise but in addition ford is rolling out uh what they call

00:40:58.520 employee pricing so they're going to allow anybody to buy a ford for what would have been the same

00:41:06.360 price that their employees could get them i don't know how good a deal that is or not but it doesn't

00:41:11.800 doesn't count with some of their best cars uh doesn't count like the raptor or the mustang or the bronco

00:41:18.680 or the expedition or the navigator or the super duty trucks so it's not the best offer in the world

00:41:26.040 but it'd be great if you're looking for an ordinary ford car you just want a good price but i think the

00:41:33.560 low-hanging fruit here is u.s companies that will benefit from the tariff and already have facilities

00:41:40.920 so all they have to do is you know increase production at the existing facilities so when you see that

00:41:47.720 kicking in that's probably a good sign um here's a this is so predictable so republican uh chuck grassley

00:42:00.280 is working with a far left democrat uh maria can't well can't well that sounds like the the worst name 1.00

00:42:09.480 for somebody who's trying to get something done can you do this well can't well anyway uh the two of

00:42:18.280 them are working together in a bipartisan way to try to wrestle control from trump about tariff decisions

00:42:25.800 and make sure it's in the uh it's in the congress so they want to make some new legislation that basically

00:42:35.720 you know codifies the fact that congress is the one who can raise taxes

00:42:41.560 and decide on tariffs so this would be game over now now i don't know what the odds are that this

00:42:48.200 gets passed i think low probably pretty low odds that it gets passed but this would be terrible

00:42:56.520 it would be basically neutering trump's ability to negotiate to do anything useful with tariffs but uh

00:43:03.560 there we are chuck grassley trying to take control of that for the congress which as you know is worthless

00:43:11.560 according to the economist magazine all right here we go now the economist magazine

00:43:19.480 would be written by people who really understand economics so whatever their take on this would be the

00:43:26.200 the smart take right so they put out a magazine uh oh and did i mention that they're called the

00:43:34.680 economist and they think that magazines are still a good business model

00:43:40.920 that's sort of disqualifying for being an economist uh what's your business model well we've got a

00:43:51.240 magazine okay but what they say is that uh uh this is right on the cover of their new magazine that

00:44:00.440 donald trump has committed the most profound harmful and unnecessary economic error in the modern

00:44:06.440 era almost everything he said on history economics and the technicalities of trade was utterly deluded

00:44:16.200 but if you want to hear the counter to that uh

00:44:20.040 uh olin pod and uh entrepreneur jamoth the pella hapatia um commented on that and he called them a

00:44:29.800 mouthpiece of globalist rhetoric that is literally always wrong

00:44:33.800 so jamoth was uh kind of commenting that the more the economist hates it

00:44:44.040 the more likely it's a good idea i don't think he's wrong

00:44:47.720 you may have heard that trump's getting some pushback because russia and north korea and cuba and belarus

00:44:58.760 are not on the tariff list you might say to yourself wait a minute is it because he's

00:45:04.920 putin's secret lover that he doesn't want to put him on there but anyway the white house clarified

00:45:12.440 that those countries in russia in particular are so uh they're already so uh restricted so they've got

00:45:21.400 high tariffs already and all kinds of sanctions and so there's not any meaningful trade with those

00:45:27.400 countries i think there are some things like potash or something that we trade with russia but nothing

00:45:33.880 meaningful that uh would be worthy of derailing any peace talks so makes sense they left them off

00:45:42.280 when i found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from winners i started wondering is

00:45:48.120 every fabulous item i see from winners like that woman over there with the designer jeans are those 1.00

00:45:54.120 from winners ooh or those beautiful gold earrings did she pay full price or that leather tote or that 1.00

00:46:00.120 cashmere sweater or those knee-high boots that dress that jacket those shoes is anyone paying full

00:46:06.520 price for anything stop wondering start winning winners find fabulous for less uh china has responded to the

00:46:15.400 tariffs on them with a reciprocal tariff so they matched it with a 34 percent tariff uh on imports of all

00:46:23.560 u.s products beginning april 10th so that matches the the u.s um is that the beginning of

00:46:33.320 negotiations maybe we'll see um new york post is saying that uh your iphone could get a lot more

00:46:43.240 expensive because of the tariffs if they stayed in place especially the china stuff because it would make

00:46:49.800 your your iphone be over two thousand dollars they think would it i don't know and if it were

00:47:01.240 maybe apple would work hard to bring into the united states i don't know if they could make it cheap

00:47:06.040 enough in the united states but maybe that'll happen then the new york post is talking about the cost of

00:47:11.880 your buying your your air jordans um shoes that are made in vietnam which is also getting a big tariff

00:47:21.720 and that your air jordans and used to cost 180 dollars might cost 18 more

00:47:31.000 you know the the a lot of things that are optional purchases i'm not terribly worried about an optional

00:47:37.960 purchase expensive sneaker seems like you could live without one

00:47:45.480 the other thing trump said which was interesting you remember i told you that china is unlikely to

00:47:52.760 agree to a tick tock sale because i think they'd want to see trump fail and it would be worth a few

00:47:58.600 billion dollars to do it um trump hinted that uh without actually committing to it he just said it was an

00:48:07.320 example but he was clearly hinting that china might want to negotiate a better tariff situation

00:48:16.360 in return for saying yes to a sale of tick tock to a you know u.s buyer or a buyer a team of buyers

00:48:24.440 so clearly trump knows that china is saying yes to any kind of a tick tock sale is going to be a hard sell

00:48:33.480 and that if you didn't bring in a completely unrelated piece of business which is the tariffs you probably

00:48:40.120 couldn't get it done so i think he he understands that china is probably a hard no even if they lose

00:48:47.560 billions of dollars i think that they would let that go i think they'd spend billions to embarrass trump and

00:48:53.880 make sure he didn't get their crown jewel social lab um we'll see but it's interesting that trump did

00:49:03.400 set that up as a bargaining chip kind of situation

00:49:09.400 well i saw one theory that trump's real play with the tariffs is the lower interest rates and the way that

00:49:19.160 would go is that the the tariffs would scare the stock market and then people who took their money

00:49:25.400 out of the stock market wouldn't want it to be idle so they would put it in bonds and if a lot of people

00:49:31.880 buy bonds that would lower the interest rate on bonds because supply and demand and then if interest

00:49:39.160 rates come down then the fed might lower interest rates and then suddenly when we go to

00:49:46.360 um go to get our debt refinanced we would be doing a much friendlier interest rate which could be

00:49:55.640 tremendously useful to the country i don't know that that's the plan it's just something that might

00:50:02.680 happen so the reason that no economist knows what's going to go on is there are way too many moving parts

00:50:10.840 so you got your interest rates and you got well here's other stuff uh the wall street journal yeah

00:50:17.000 the wall street journal is talking about the impact on the value of the dollar right so you got the

00:50:23.480 interest rate issue that's hard to predict and on top of that there's the value of the dollar that's

00:50:30.840 hard to predict and there's not even an agreement about whether a strong dollar is good for the country

00:50:37.400 or a weak dollar is good for the country so economists can't even decide do we like a strong dollar or a weak dollar

00:50:47.880 but it is likely that the dollar will weaken if the tariffs stay in place and it continues to rile the market

00:50:55.960 so that's another thing um then i saw a according to spectator index on x the price of oil went down four percent

00:51:12.120 also probably because the tariffs but i'm not sure so if oil goes down that should trickle into all the

00:51:21.560 other costs so you've got the uncertainty of whether a strong or weak dollar is good or bad

00:51:29.400 you've got the interest rate effect that's unpredictable you've got the energy cost

00:51:36.760 that should lower prices but would it be enough to compensate for the rise in prices you've got the

00:51:43.320 question of who's going to absorb various tariffs will it always be the the importing company or in

00:51:51.800 some cases will the exporter absorb some of it then you've got the how long will it take

00:52:00.360 how long will it take to get manufacturing coming back to the united states how many how many adjustments

00:52:08.680 can industry make quickly we don't really know so the number of unknowns involved in this are just through

00:52:16.120 the roof um but one thing's for sure the people who know the least about economics are very certain

00:52:24.280 that they know a lot about economics i think the more you know about economics the less confidence you

00:52:33.880 would have on which way things are going to go because if it turns out that it's just a good negotiation

00:52:40.680 that's going to be great you would just get better deals if it turns out

00:52:47.560 you know it's going to go some way that nobody could predict well anything could happen we'll see

00:52:53.960 but here's what you need to know economics is more art than science

00:52:59.240 all right you you think economics is more it feels like you it feels like it's some kind of a hard 0.99

00:53:06.760 science it's not it's more of an art the second thing you need to know is that art is bullshit 0.99

00:53:14.920 so let's see if you can follow this economics is more art than science and art is bullshit economics is 0.98

00:53:24.520 largely bullshit yeah nobody really knows in a situation like this what's going to happen we just 0.96

00:53:32.120 really don't know um but we'll act like we do so here's here's something that uh i saw some of the 0.96

00:53:42.520 non-economists talking about um i saw somebody saying that the reason they're mad at uh at uh musk

00:53:52.840 is that that he and trump don't pay federal income taxes what do you think of that 0.96

00:54:00.520 that musk and trump don't pay federal income taxes therefore they're they're sort of parasites on the 0.86

00:54:06.840 system well here's what you need to know first of all i think it's not true i think musk has actually 0.83

00:54:15.240 paid more federal income taxes than any living human it's just that it depends on the year

00:54:22.120 so he's had one or two years or he had enormous payments because of the financial situation

00:54:29.400 and then some years where it was zero uh trump of course as as we all know has found ways to avoid

00:54:36.920 taxes wherever he can because he's in the building you know construction real estate business

00:54:42.600 and the tax law is sort of designed to encourage that kind of a business so here's what i would say

00:54:52.600 the reason that anybody can avoid taxes be it musk in some cases and trump in some cases is that the

00:55:02.280 government wants this situation they would rather promote the growth and the success of a gigantic

00:55:10.760 business then they need specific taxes from that business as it's young now think about all of the

00:55:20.840 the federal income taxes that are created by having a gigantic company with lots of employees

00:55:27.160 all the employees are paying federal taxes the the businesses themselves probably have enormous

00:55:33.880 uh property tax burden on them which is a state state tax but still it's part of you know the productive

00:55:42.440 taxation of the citizens um they create things that have sales tax associated again it's not federal but

00:55:50.280 it's you know adding to the system and if you add together all the all the sales tax property tax employee

00:55:58.520 taxes and then the employment itself and the fact that if people are employed the government doesn't have

00:56:05.480 to take care of them the benefit that anybody with a large business that's successful is adding to the

00:56:13.480 country is so great that the government is okay with you not paying federal income tax every single year

00:56:22.680 if you're investing money into your company and that's that's why you're not paying taxes so

00:56:29.480 the people who know the least just say oh they're not paying federal income tax so that's unfair

00:56:36.760 the billionaires are taking their money that's not really what's happening

00:56:42.040 all right so here's my big worry about the tariffs

00:56:44.680 do we have enough of a runway that we'll know if they're working before midterms because if the

00:56:56.520 economy is still roiled the way it is

00:57:01.080 the republicans are going to get wiped out in the midterms and there's not really much time between

00:57:08.840 now in the midterms for tariffs to do their magic you know not a lot of people are going to be

00:57:14.840 reshoring their manufacturing so i feel like trump is is risky at all

00:57:25.880 now i think he had to because the current situation was on you know was untenable so it's the right thing

00:57:34.680 for the country that he's taking this risk i think um you know we don't know how it's going to turn

00:57:41.400 out but i think it's the right kind of risk at exactly the right time to do it but if it doesn't

00:57:49.000 make the public think it's working by the midterms republicans are going to get destroyed

00:57:55.720 and then it's all gone you're going to lose everything uh politically you lose everything

00:58:01.560 and then it could get worse because if this was the only thing that was going to allow us to

00:58:08.120 balance the budget and have some kind of a you know strong economy going forward and the democrats

00:58:14.200 take it away which they will because they're not going to just let it ride um

00:58:22.040 this is a really big this is a really big risk

00:58:26.760 but again i would rather that he takes the real risk to really help the country

00:58:34.440 than to do something that would be purely political which is you know paper over it and

00:58:39.320 pretend it's not a problem that things aren't going right anyway

00:58:46.760 so worry about the midterms claudia was leaving for her pickleball tournament i've been visualizing my

00:58:51.480 match all week she was so focused on visualizing that she didn't see the column behind her car

00:58:56.760 on her backhand side good thing claudia's with intact the insurer with the largest network of 1.00

00:59:02.680 auto service centers in the country everything was taken care of under one roof and she was on her

00:59:07.320 way in a rental car in no time i made it to my tournament and lost in the first round but you

00:59:13.160 got there on time intact insurance your auto service ace certain conditions apply matt taibbi journalist

00:59:20.120 matt taibbi is suing a democratic lawmaker for 10 million dollars um because she made the mistake

00:59:29.560 of saying something on social media that she had said in the context of her job if she said something

00:59:36.040 in the context of her job apparently you can't sue her but she made the mistake of putting it on social

00:59:42.920 media and i guess that opened the door for him to sue and she made allegations

00:59:50.280 that apparently are thoroughly debunked i'm not even going to mention them because you know i don't

00:59:55.400 want to put it in your head but go taibbi yeah i mean he he was unfairly accused of something that

01:00:03.560 didn't pan out whatsoever and in the past and this uh democratic californian representative sydney kim 0.92

01:00:11.400 legger dove uh just decided to you know empty the barrel is that a thing um and just totally trash

01:00:22.680 him in in a public way including on social media so yes she needs to be completely put out of business 0.99

01:00:30.040 i hope he succeeds uh i saw in a mario an awful recap of the news that the hoodies have shot down

01:00:38.120 a number of drones now and our drones cost 30 million dollars apiece the good ones the reaper drones

01:00:44.840 and they've shot down three of them uh two recently just this week so we've lost 17 of them over time

01:00:53.160 and each one cost 30 million dollars so they've managed to cost us 500 million dollars worth of

01:01:02.600 just drones they shot down in the last six months now here's my question what kind of technology do

01:01:09.960 the hoodies have that they can so successfully shoot down our drones i mean you know maybe they

01:01:16.840 miss nine at a time times i don't know but they must have some pretty serious equipment over there

01:01:23.160 that they can spot it and then get to it so i don't know how long it's going to take for us to

01:01:29.960 suppress the hoodies but it looks like it could be a while all right i'm going to claim um i'm going to

01:01:37.560 claim the best predictor of what's happening in gaza now those of you who've been watching me for a while

01:01:45.800 you have to either back me or disagree with me on this i'll tell you the current news and then you tell me

01:01:53.240 was i the best predictor of what would happen with israel and gaza now if you're new to me

01:02:01.640 uh i need to clarify that i do not support israel i observe it and i observe that they seem to have

01:02:10.120 the power and they're using it if the if the other side had the power they would be using it

01:02:15.960 so i'm not putting an ethical or moral label on any of this and i'm not saying what they should

01:02:24.280 do or what they shouldn't do i'm just telling you what they're doing and one of the things i

01:02:29.880 predicted was they were never going to let the um gazans move back into gaza and that they would 1.00

01:02:36.920 have to depopulate it and just move people somewhere else or keep them in camps or something

01:02:44.360 and it looks like that's exactly what's happening so the biggest mass displacement of the war so far

01:02:50.680 israel is calling it creating security zones but one assumes the security zones will you know grow to

01:02:57.080 the entire thing and they plan to be more aggressive for a year but hamas apparently has offered to

01:03:03.640 release all the remaining hostages in exchange for a permanent ceasefire which suggests that hamas knows

01:03:12.600 that israel's real aim is to depopulate the area kill every member of hamas even if it costs them their 0.99

01:03:20.840 hostages now i don't think that israel is going to stop just because they have a chance to get the

01:03:27.640 hostages back they might keep negotiating but they're done with hamas hamas will be trapped and

01:03:36.200 destroyed in their tunnels and i don't think there's any way around it and eventually gaza will be just 0.92

01:03:43.480 you know owned and owned and operated by israel and i believe i'm the only person who told you that from

01:03:51.080 the jump can you confirm or deny that that's true i saw no other commentator say from from the very first

01:04:01.640 the palestinians are not going to be living in gaza when this is done now part of it is that israel

01:04:07.320 used the term total victory and you know they said things like uh it would never be the same

01:04:16.200 now when you hear total victory and here it will never be the same there what did you think was

01:04:23.400 going to happen because if all they did was fight for a while and then say all right let's try living

01:04:31.160 together again would that be total victory no no that wouldn't even be anything um if

01:04:38.840 yeah if they had uh negotiated for the hostages and then said all right we we promised we'd get

01:04:47.240 our hostages back so now you can keep on living and hamas you can keep on running gaza that's not

01:04:54.600 really total victory is it it's not even close it's more like losing so yes there's really no chance

01:05:02.920 that the palestinians will be going back to gaza and living there now again if you knew i'm not saying

01:05:09.960 that's good or bad or moral or ethical or not that's up to you make up your own decisions i'm just

01:05:16.360 predicting and i'm saying that if you were in that situation what would you do if the situation were

01:05:24.360 reversed what would hamas do this they would do this everybody in this situation would end up

01:05:32.680 defaulting to this because everything else doesn't make sense at all and uh you know the united

01:05:39.000 states is kind of distracted at the moment so if we had an impulse to try to stop israel from doing

01:05:44.760 what it's doing i don't think this would be the time we'd use it so that looks like what's going

01:05:51.400 to happen and that ladies and gentlemen are my comments for today i'm going to make a few comments

01:05:59.080 privately to the locals subscribers but for the rest of you uh thanks for joining on youtube and x and

01:06:09.000 rumble and i'll see you again tomorrow same time same place and locals coming at you

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - April 04, 2025

Episode 2799 CWSA 04⧸04⧸25

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