Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 3077 - The Scott Adams School 01⧸21⧸26

00:00:00.000 logging in we're logging in welcome in you guys up there you guys all are i see you i have all

00:00:06.960 four of you you guys come on in we see you we see locals and youtube the x people come on x come on

00:00:17.580 in rumble studio maybe some people are on spotify i'm not sure but the youtubers come on in and the

00:00:25.840 beloveds so you guys uh we're getting ready just letting you guys pile on in um we're going to talk

00:00:33.120 about it later but i'm feeling a little extra tingly today after hearing donald trump speaking

00:00:38.460 in davos this morning that's all i'm gonna say about that but how are you guys doing marcella

00:00:43.680 sergio oh you guys wait hello what kind of a hostess am i we have a guest with us today

00:00:49.800 from our local subscriber family it's bob lawler there he is he's gonna talk to us after yeah

00:00:59.360 he's gonna talk to us after the simultaneous sip okay guys let's get ready uh i hope we gave you

00:01:07.040 guys enough time to pop in um we're gonna play another clip from scott and guess what tomorrow

00:01:15.380 we're gonna have his clip posted right on the screen like professionals so it'll this will be

00:01:21.680 the last day with the ipad i know you're sorry to hear that okay let me just make this darker

00:01:26.840 all right guys i hope you can hear it just give me a thumbs up and let me know it's okay ready

00:01:31.040 oh good morning everybody and welcome to the highlight of human civilization

00:01:40.700 it's called coffee with scott ems and it's the best thing that's ever had act if you'd like to take

00:01:47.000 it up to the levels that only the psychics could imagine well all you need is a cup of mugger glass

00:01:53.880 so take your chelsea style a cantine jug or flask of desolate and a guy fill it with your favorite

00:01:59.360 liquid i like coffee and join me now parallel pleasure to the dope media the thing that makes

00:02:06.760 everything better is called simulatia sip and it happens now go

00:02:12.060 double sip double sip i'm calling double sip everybody

00:02:19.980 double sip go

00:02:23.500 double off double off so good i just thought you needed a little extra didn't you didn't you need a

00:02:35.620 little extra yeah i think you did yeah this is a little that gives you a little extra

00:02:41.340 well i saw a tweet from a twitter account called the rabbit hole uh that showed that white liberals

00:02:49.360 have the worst mental health at least as judged by people who went to try to get help now what do

00:02:57.000 you suppose that would be well what do you think would cause that what would possibly cause the white

00:03:02.760 liberals to have the worst mental health what would it what what would there be some possible

00:03:10.120 hypothetical hypotheses i don't know i can't think of anything can you

00:03:16.500 can't think of a thing well let's uh speculate though

00:03:22.440 um here are some differences uh liberal whites uh believe the news

00:03:28.440 would you agree liberal whites are most likely to believe the news

00:03:34.780 imagine how chilling that would be

00:03:37.820 i assume it's my live stream you know not to believe the news

00:03:45.420 is there anybody here who is willing to say they believe the news go

00:03:50.920 anybody just one person okay we got a yes somebody said yes they believe the news over on youtube

00:04:00.600 well i wouldn't admit it i mean it's fine to believe whatever you want but just my advice

00:04:07.400 i wouldn't admit that you believe the news in 2023 that's not really a good look

00:04:13.240 um so imagine if you believe the news you think that the climate is going to fry you waste

00:04:19.000 supremacists or behind the furniture uh there was a coup attempt recently you would believe

00:04:24.280 and uh that trump is a putin's fluffer trump is putin's fluffer if you believe the news

00:04:33.400 um but conservatives are less likely to believe the news they tend to believe in stuff like

00:04:39.640 hard work and family and obeying laws and and if and if all of that goes wrong

00:04:45.240 um if you're conservative and you do everything right you obey the laws stay off drugs stay in

00:04:52.520 school you don't get married to a good mate and have kids if you do everything right and it still

00:04:59.400 doesn't work out you still got a backup heaven well at least it'll be better later right it might be

00:05:09.160 terrible now but wait till later wow yeah i did everything right so i'm going to heaven so you

00:05:15.880 got one group of people who think they're gonna you know rotten the earth uh immediately after the

00:05:22.440 climate fries them and the white supremacists murder them and the coup takes over the united states and

00:05:28.120 turns this into whatever and one group thinks that they have a perfectly good plan for happiness in this

00:05:34.840 world but if that didn't work out they've got a second perfectly good plan for an eternity of happiness

00:05:43.960 what would you expect what would you expect would be the mental health outcome of those two systems

00:05:53.000 design is destiny you have two systems and they're designed for exactly the outcome that they delivered

00:06:00.040 the conservatives design the system that delivers happiness most of the time and the left has designed

00:06:08.840 the system that almost can't almost can't i saw that okay i felt like that was just a great one for

00:06:19.160 today and where we are and um i just want to welcome everyone in again i'm erica we have marcella beautiful

00:06:29.000 marcella our sexy sergio in the house our special guest bob lawler today and the voice of owen gregorian

00:06:39.400 so i'll let you guys say hi and take it away you guys want to say hello to everybody

00:06:44.440 hi hi hi hi everybody hello everybody i just want to say something a little bit uh um uh yesterday i i

00:06:54.840 asked that we are internet orphans and um and i just wanted to to to tell you that i love you all because

00:07:03.320 uh we all lost our internet that and uh and just that's it so let's go that's right yeah i think we're

00:07:11.960 a great community yeah mention that uh chile is going to have an announcement tomorrow so make sure

00:07:17.720 you tune in for that um that'll be coming tomorrow on the on the live stream so um that'll be coming

00:07:23.960 soon and i know you're going to ask too just real quick that was from youtube um that was scott's show

00:07:30.760 number 2170 okay 2170 and we'll put it in the notes later but in case you wanted to see that and

00:07:39.480 make sure you have your books today okay um did you want to say something oh and i'm sorry i cut you off

00:07:44.920 no that's fine um i i think we can just transition over to bob i think he's gonna yeah walk us through

00:07:50.440 a reframe right all right you guys have your books bob's gonna do it all right it's page 16 in

00:07:57.240 the soft cover i was informed it's page 14 if you have the hard cover if you have the electronic

00:08:03.560 edition i can't help you but it's the reframe right after the one from yesterday this one's

00:08:09.240 managing energy instead of time and speaking as scott here i've written approximately 11 000 comic strips

00:08:18.760 since the beginning of my cartooning career in 1989 nearly every one of those comics was written before

00:08:24.520 9 a.m if i wrote a joke at 5 a.m i usually like how it turns out if i try writing a joke at 3 p.m i'll

00:08:33.960 probably end up losing whatever i produce i think of this as managing energy not time i have exactly the

00:08:43.320 right kind of energy for coffee fueled creative writing in the morning but a caffeine buzz is exactly the

00:08:51.560 wrong kind of energy for drawing comics as that requires a more relaxed vibe so i write in the

00:08:59.240 morning when writing is easy and i draw in the evening and drawing is easy that's managing energy

00:09:06.760 not time so the usual frame manage your time the reframe manage your energy in my experience the energy i

00:09:16.760 have for a task is more important to the outcome than the amount of time i have allocated to do it

00:09:22.600 i can produce more in 15 minutes with the right energy than in four hours with the wrong energy

00:09:29.400 most creative people will tell you something similar there's a time of day that works best for creative

00:09:34.840 work and other times do not work at all the same holds for exercise i have the right energy for

00:09:41.080 exercise about noon each day so that's when i do it and i assume i get a i get better outcomes compared

00:09:49.480 to the exercising when i'm at low energy the secret to managing energy as opposed to time is to gain as

00:09:56.360 much control as you can over your own schedule if you have a boss you might not have options about when you

00:10:05.880 do what if you have a spouse or family or pet or other obligation those two can force you out of the

00:10:13.960 more productive and happy energy management mode into time management mode that's why i say you should

00:10:20.520 favor life choices that give you schedule flexibility for example if you get two job offers that seem

00:10:28.040 equivalent but one gives you more schedule freedom take the freedom likewise with relationships if you are

00:10:34.840 equally attracted to two people and need to choose consider picking the one who gives you the most

00:10:39.960 schedule freedom freedom is a good tiebreaker for decisions with unpredictable outcomes the other

00:10:46.760 good tiebreaker is how much you will learn in one situation versus the other when you manage

00:10:53.400 energy instead of time you might not get around to all the tasks you need to get done

00:10:57.560 the solution to that don't do those tasks at least not today if that sounds irresponsible think of all

00:11:08.040 the things that ever went wrong because you didn't get something done that was at the bottom 20 of your

00:11:13.240 priorities i'll do that exercise too right now and if either of us thinks of even one example i'll be

00:11:21.400 amazed okay begin i'm done i got nothing neither did you i'm guessing the least important 20 of your

00:11:32.440 tasks are unlikely to have made a difference in your life let them go it's hard at first but you get used

00:11:39.560 to it there might be some blowback when certain tasks get postponed but you can more than make up for

00:11:45.800 that by being able to do your creative and important work when your energy is best the time versus energy

00:11:51.960 trade-off is embedded in most of your decisions but perhaps you never thought of it that way for

00:11:57.640 example your diet and fitness systems might take extra time out of your day but you get that back in

00:12:04.600 healthy energy or perhaps you're lucky enough to have two potential romantic partners and there's a

00:12:10.360 difference in how much energy you feel with each follow the energy that's a good signal if you're

00:12:17.240 trying to decide between two career paths you probably feel a distinct energy difference when

00:12:21.800 you think of one versus the other don't ignore that when you're buying a car most of that decision

00:12:28.360 is practical and focused on your needs but some car models give you a feeling that boosts your energy

00:12:34.120 some don't sometimes that feeling hits you every time you get near the vehicle that's energy take

00:12:42.760 the car that provides it and so it goes with most decisions in life one path energizes you more than

00:12:49.000 the other no matter how they stack up in other dimensions energy isn't the only variable i don't

00:12:55.320 want to leave that impression but after health and safety it's near the top treat it that way and

00:13:01.880 life will surprise you on the upside it's like the wanting and deciding right exactly and i think

00:13:10.520 that's why he organized it that way i know i have struggled with that my whole life because i have

00:13:18.520 automatically managed my energy instead of my time and always felt guilty for doing that and when my time

00:13:29.640 wasn't always my own i got blowback whether it was parents or a boss or or someone else in my life

00:13:41.080 but becoming self-employed and arguably an adult i find i can manage to my energy and hearing that

00:13:50.200 reframe finally thank you scott i got the permission i needed to do it and i had been far more productive

00:13:59.480 and far more happy about what i've achieved ever since how about you

00:14:11.720 what a great testimonial bob um that's my my favorite uh reframe maybe because uh time is very hard to

00:14:21.480 focus on right it's so destructive but energy if you keep yourself um a pain free right if you keep

00:14:32.840 yourself um strong uh you can achieve anything all day it is there's no limit to how much it can be done

00:14:40.600 so that's one of my favorite uh reframes and my one thing i want to add is also i don't think he put in

00:14:47.240 the book but he talked about it later is um get rid of any uh energy vampires in your life yes that's

00:14:54.760 important and we've all had to do that at times i think i certainly have and it's just not just people

00:15:01.560 it can be um uh an activity too or something you know sure absolutely so yeah that's all i got on that

00:15:09.880 one maricela yeah i i think it's brilliant i think um they you know there's a lot of things that come

00:15:17.080 out of that that you know you can build on that with or other things that scott has said along these

00:15:21.960 lines like he you know he does have his own routines which is you know you might think well wait a second

00:15:26.600 doesn't he do everything at the same time so isn't he managing his time but i think it's all based on

00:15:31.880 his energy right it's based on when he knows himself well enough to know okay in the mornings i feel this

00:15:38.440 way in the afternoons i feel that way and it's a pattern and i'm sure if there are exceptions to

00:15:42.920 that where he's like you know what today i feel different like i don't feel energetic in the

00:15:46.680 morning or i you know do feel energetic in the afternoon then you can easily adapt and adjust and

00:15:52.120 get different things done and he's talked also about how like sometimes it's just a crappy day and

00:15:58.440 you know then he might actually tackle the tasks that are really crappy because he's like well

00:16:03.800 let's just bunch them all up and get them all done today because it's not going to get better

00:16:07.960 today so let's you know if i need to fire somebody or if i need to have a difficult conversation then

00:16:14.360 when he's in a bad mood he kind of takes advantage of that and that's another example of taking

00:16:18.760 advantage of his energy um and i think i've certainly noticed that you know there's certain times a day

00:16:25.000 where i have a lot more energy to do certain things um and it helps if i can structure my day around

00:16:31.960 those types of things and those activities and do the things that i have energy for

00:16:36.280 um it is a challenge sometimes i mean i work for a company i have a boss a lot of the time and they

00:16:40.920 might tell me to do a certain thing at a certain time but i i have found that i do have a lot of

00:16:45.560 control over that as well where i can schedule meetings at a certain time or even block out my

00:16:51.320 calendar at a certain time if i want to make sure i'm not going to have a meeting at that time because

00:16:55.240 it's just not going to work out well um and being able to set aside time for certain creative

00:17:01.960 activities or doing deep work and that seems to work really well and i think most people are happier

00:17:07.720 when you can deliver better results to them and so i think for the most part it works out better for

00:17:13.000 everybody when people do manage to their energy so i'd certainly encourage you to try it if you're not

00:17:17.560 already doing it um and just you know kind of watch yourself you know have that sense of how is my

00:17:24.920 energy today um and also you know part of this i think indirectly he talks about it as like managing

00:17:31.400 your environment too that if you have a bunch of clutter around it might drain energy from you

00:17:37.080 whereas if you had a neat environment you know you clean your room like jordan peterson says you might

00:17:41.560 just feel better and feel more energetic and sometimes you just might need to get out of your

00:17:47.560 room that you're typically in working and go somewhere else and that may give you a different

00:17:52.200 kind of energy and so i think there's a lot of different tips and techniques that scott has given

00:17:56.280 us over the years on how to manage energy and i think they're all very useful i agree and i like the flow of

00:18:03.800 that too the the um i was just gonna say the flow of like the one part the one reframe into the next

00:18:11.400 because i think that if you if you do the wanting and deciding first and going into like what's the

00:18:19.320 most important thing yeah you can eliminate so much stuff to save your energy for the important stuff

00:18:24.600 all right sorry i'm just thinking out loud go ahead marcella that's fine for me this this reframe

00:18:30.840 um made me feel no longer guilty for you know um some of you know i'm an attorney so i do a lot of

00:18:40.760 writing and i do a lot of like you know depots arguments and all that and that's throughout the day

00:18:47.240 i i don't have a choice when the court has a hearing but what i when i what this this reframe gave me is

00:18:54.360 the idea that i should not feel guilty for at two o'clock three o'clock feeling like i don't have that

00:19:01.640 energy to write a brief or something huge so i do most my work in the very early morning or very late

00:19:10.840 at night um and i know my job gives me that flexibility to be able to do it um but it it took

00:19:19.960 away the guilt and i think bob talked about that but it it just definitely um helps me realize that

00:19:27.400 i was you know like i had the idea that energy was key but scott saying it confirmed it yeah

00:19:41.320 i also just want to say i saw lyric flower over here on locals said i also like scott's suggestion

00:19:47.960 of writing in a busy environment where that is not typically how we would approach that sort of task

00:19:54.040 and i love that because sometimes it's true like do the thing you have to do but do it somewhere

00:19:59.720 different and maybe it gives you like a different energy or burst or or creativity or whatever it is

00:20:05.800 so i thanks for adding that lyric that's a a great idea yeah i dabble in film from time to time

00:20:14.120 including screenwriting and what i know from other screenwriters is a lot of time

00:20:20.520 they'll go to a coffee shop to write and it's to get out of their regular routine and change the

00:20:27.800 scenery exactly like that but it's also to draw energy from the energy around you and the friends

00:20:35.560 of mine who do it swear by it so that's another way to manage your energy is go get some

00:20:44.120 it's like scott talked about your luck move to a place where there's a lot going on because that'll

00:20:50.200 improve your luck the energy is there get get in amongst the energy and draw on it that's great

00:20:58.520 advice um i'm gonna toss it over now because there's a lot going on in the news today and as i was saying

00:21:07.080 before i'm feeling tingly because i was listening to uh president trump speaking um at the world economic

00:21:13.800 forum in davos and he's saying a lot of stuff i like today so how about an interstitial sip and then

00:21:20.840 i'm going to turn it over to owen and marcella and they will kick us off on the news and you guys

00:21:26.760 chime in in the comments we're reading what you're saying okay go on

00:21:29.960 all right well i posted a number of stories um i don't think i did get the latest what trump is

00:21:43.560 saying in davos maybe i just didn't quite get the latest um updates on that but erica if you

00:21:48.680 want to let me know what he said or marcella i don't know if you're up to date on that maybe we

00:21:51.960 could start there i can have um so i i i have some of the stuff that he said he said a lot of things

00:21:59.160 that i love i mean i voted for this um but anyways uh he he eviscerated the globalists in their face

00:22:07.320 in davos uh world economic forum even gavin newsom was in the crowd but the best thing about it is that

00:22:15.960 that there was a standing ovation for him when he came in and that's you know it it talks volumes

00:22:24.920 of how how the leaders of europe are against him in a way but at the same time the the the people there

00:22:34.520 are not uh the the the citizens of of europe understand what he's saying and it's working so

00:22:43.480 i'm gonna cover a few things that he said do not get mad at me for not covering everything because

00:22:48.920 he talked for quite a while and i think he may be still talking i don't know um

00:22:55.240 he i'll let i'll let you cover it but did gavin newsom really say i should have brought knee pads

00:22:59.880 he was thinking that no i think he actually said that he did i didn't say like that i think he was

00:23:12.840 complaining about how everyone was deferring to trump oh my gosh maybe the locals can find out

00:23:18.280 they're they're saying yes i think yeah i think i think they're saying yes to this there is a delay

00:23:23.400 oh he did he did i think he posted that on x

00:23:29.480 i i i don't remember if i posted the story about it but i'm sure we could find it i'll look for it go

00:23:35.160 ahead let's go through what trump said um so i'll cover some of the things he said um he said frankly

00:23:41.480 many parts of our world are being destroyed and the leaders don't even understand what's happening

00:23:46.760 and the ones that do understand won't do anything to stop it um there's runaway inflation we have

00:23:54.760 proven them wrong um many western governments foolishly turn their backs on everything that

00:23:59.800 makes a nation rich powerful and strong he actually made me laugh because he talked about windmills

00:24:06.520 and whenever i hear windmills i think don quixote um and like this i this ideal

00:24:12.600 of green energy being the key to everything um and it's basically a hoax in a way as as i would think

00:24:24.040 of it uh but the beauty of it is that he uses visual visual language um as scott would say to bring you

00:24:34.520 your mind to the windmills and he says you don't see china having windmills you see europe having

00:24:46.280 windmills and that has not gotten them anywhere nuclear is the answer he talks about and he talks

00:24:54.440 about the oil production in america being historic high of course um i would have to say that all

00:25:06.600 all numbers you know you can't really what would scott say if you want to put it in the um in the in

00:25:14.120 your chat but i would think like not all numbers are fake what was it that he would say about numbers

00:25:20.760 and figures that government would come up with usually it was about you need to have both the

00:25:27.000 absolute numbers and the percentages otherwise it's meaningless or it's deceptive yeah so i mean trump

00:25:33.960 is trying to sell the idea that oil uh natural gas and nuclear are the key to energy he talks about oil

00:25:44.600 production being historic high in america uh 730 000 barrels a day and last week they picked up 50 million

00:25:52.520 he said of barrels from venezuela alone so he uses this to basically set up the difference between

00:26:03.400 the winners and the losers but what made me laugh is macron yesterday i think he spoke i think it was at

00:26:13.000 the world economic forum he comes in with sunglasses and some people say um trump talked about it today

00:26:23.320 and he was something um he said something about like i don't know what's going on with him but what's

00:26:32.360 happening uh like some people were claiming that his um you know allegedly his wife may have hit him

00:26:40.600 or something else he was covering up but it was hilarious to see him um i think he also talked

00:26:49.560 about macron about macron being um weak and this was at his speech today um one of the things he said

00:26:59.480 oh my god president trump just talked about the line that embarrassed french president emmanuel macron

00:27:04.600 while he's in the room and it's pure gold this is from eric dorothy on x um and then he quotes trump

00:27:13.640 saying i said here's the story emmanuel you're gonna do it you're gonna do it fast if you don't i put 25

00:27:23.240 tariff on you and 100 on your wines and champaines no no no donald i will do it took me three minutes

00:27:33.320 no no no donald i will not do it you're asking me to double i said emmanuel you took advantage of the

00:27:40.120 u.s for 30 years you will do it in fact i'm 100 sure that you will do it no no no no no he is the

00:27:52.600 he is the best so that's one of the things he talked about he talked about canada and he talked about

00:28:00.280 carney um for all the canadians watching me mike work one of them um canada lives because of us he said

00:28:09.960 mark remember that before you make those speeches so he's he's notifying them that he's strong he takes

00:28:23.400 the strong position and that he obliterates them with the tariff which goes to the point that the

00:28:30.680 united states supreme court was supposed to come out with the opinion on the tariffs um i i don't know

00:28:37.080 if you recall but they it's been litigated into going up to the supreme court where they needed to

00:28:46.040 decide whether trump is constitutionally allowed to set these tariffs or whether he needs congressional

00:28:54.680 uh you know approval uh you know approval and basically the u.s supreme court not sure exactly why

00:29:03.800 yesterday did not release that opinion meaning that they didn't possibly they didn't either they're not

00:29:12.840 having a full decision yet realized or they didn't want to be political in them releasing the opinion

00:29:20.920 um they made that move yesterday i'm not sure what that says they will eventually come out with the

00:29:28.600 decision which will in fact either confirm trump's power or not so that's one of the things that happened

00:29:38.840 um trump went on uh to talk about the credit card issue in america in the davos speech he talked about

00:29:46.760 passing an executive order of uh having credit cards only charge 10 percent um part of this is the idea

00:29:57.880 that people the general public they they need the middle class the lower class everybody and everything

00:30:06.920 needs money in order to buy property in order to buy a house and he was talking about the idea that

00:30:13.400 most credit card companies will charge 28 percent or more to their customers but by passing this

00:30:20.920 executive order he's asking the credit card companies to only charge 10 percent now for one year for one

00:30:27.480 year for one year now legally i i can't go into it but i'm sure there's going to be lawsuits to

00:30:33.960 not um you know to not enforce this executive order and i don't know your thoughts on that

00:30:41.000 the other thing i just wanted to quickly say was when he was talking to macron about the tariffs on

00:30:47.160 their imports that was because he's working on the drug prices coming down um because we're paying

00:30:54.520 you know like three thousand percent more than the other nations so he's saying like you either

00:31:00.440 raise your prices so ours come down like if all of all of your countries each take it a little bit

00:31:05.960 then it'll kind of balance out and that's what he was saying no no no we're not going to do it um

00:31:11.960 and then also so we can have favored nation status he worked on that so we would pay in america the

00:31:18.600 lowest price of all the so whatever the lowest price is for any country that's what we would also pay so

00:31:25.560 that would be because we pay out the wazoo for drugs here so yeah go ahead so he i don't know what uh if

00:31:35.800 he talked about other points the credit card point was excellent the the other thing that happened recently

00:31:41.720 is that yesterday i believe he passed an executive order um to put some kind of uh stop to companies

00:31:53.160 purchasing homes um it's the first step laying out the wall street home purchases now i have to say

00:32:02.040 and i know i won't be popular out there i'm not in agreement with that um given that that is basically

00:32:10.040 corporations are people in my mind um if i have a corporation then i want to buy a home i should be

00:32:17.960 allowed so to me i don't think the idea economically to just force corporations not allowed to purchase

00:32:28.440 homes it will not make the home cheaper um in my mind i think that the government should stay away from

00:32:36.760 economics and i'm a lazy freight capitalist so as you can as you some of you would know but um but i'm sure

00:32:45.160 that there are people that want this relief fast and i think trump understands that and i think what

00:32:51.160 he's trying to do is is bring relief as soon as possible and i think like different capitalism would

00:33:00.120 take a while to work uh i am a millennial and i have lots of friends that are just renters and he and

00:33:09.960 today in davos he talked about i don't want a nation of renters i want a nation to own homes

00:33:18.120 because part of owning a home is not really the ownership but it brings you stability to have a

00:33:25.400 family to have kids to be able to have stability in personal life versus you know less divorces less

00:33:36.760 issues you and it's affordable home because the issue is that you end up paying so much of your

00:33:43.640 money to your house that there is not much money left so i don't know if you have thoughts on that i

00:33:52.040 personally disagree with the executive order but i can see why he's doing it yeah i feel similarly i mean

00:34:01.240 i think i can understand why he's doing some of these things because he's trying to make things more

00:34:05.320 affordable and even if it's just a temporary thing if it has a positive impact on affordability

00:34:11.880 then that you know has not just the economic benefit for people in the short term but also it might

00:34:18.280 have a significant impact on the midterms and so politically i think it's probably a very smart move

00:34:24.600 to say i'm doing everything i possibly can pulling out all the stops doing things i might not normally do

00:34:29.320 to try and just make life more affordable for people it's a real issue and it's what people care

00:34:35.720 about so i think he's trying to read the room and say i'm going to do everything i can to take away some

00:34:42.200 of the cost of this but at the same time i do share a lot of your beliefs about government getting involved

00:34:49.640 with the free market and having it maybe backfire and i'm worried about that because for example with

00:34:55.800 credit cards you know if we go back to the financial crisis what we saw was when they

00:35:02.680 put in more controls around that what happened was people just stopped lending that banks stopped

00:35:07.640 lending to people you know and and i i agree that it was an abuse before that that led to the financial

00:35:15.080 crisis so i'm not saying we should have just let everybody do like no document loans like they were doing

00:35:20.040 and all these essentially fraudulent types of things i don't think that's the right answer but at the

00:35:24.680 same time what happened was banks just said you know what i i don't want i don't want to do this

00:35:30.120 anymore like i'm just going to pull back and even when the government encouraged them and tried to get

00:35:36.200 them to say no we really want you to issue loans to the people who are qualified for them they still

00:35:41.720 wouldn't do it and for many years it was like getting really hard for people to get a loan approved

00:35:48.760 because the banks were so gun shy to take on any risk or to make those loans and if you limit the

00:35:55.640 credit card interest to 10 percent what i would expect to happen from an economic standpoint is

00:36:01.080 that you'd probably see a lot of credit lines getting cut where people won't be able to put

00:36:05.880 anything more on their credit card and you might even see some of their cards being canceled where

00:36:10.280 they're going to say we're not even going to allow you to have a credit card anymore because you know

00:36:15.160 you're not worth the risk if you're the type of person that was carrying a credit card balance and

00:36:20.360 not really paying you back or make keeping up with your payments that the credit card companies might

00:36:25.080 say it's not going to be profitable for me to do this because that's i think one of the reasons why

00:36:30.040 you have these 20 interest rates is that they need to charge that much in order for the whole portfolio

00:36:37.080 of customers to make sense you have a whole bunch of people like me that pay off their bill every month

00:36:42.920 and they never get any interest um they get a whole bunch of other stuff like the transaction fees

00:36:48.280 and stuff for me but they you know they don't get interest but then you have some people who carry a

00:36:52.840 balance but they make their minimum payments and then you have other people who struggle to make their

00:36:56.280 minimum payments and they never pay it back and they have to look at that as a whole portfolio and

00:37:01.160 say okay what do i need to charge for people who aren't paying their full balance every month so that

00:37:06.520 even if some people never paid back i still get more than i lend it loaned out to people and so my

00:37:14.600 concern would be that this would have a retraction sort of effect on the economy where credit card

00:37:21.000 companies would say well if i can't charge any more than 10 percent then i'm only going to charge i'm

00:37:26.200 only going to allow credit for the highest credit rating people that i know are going to pay me back and

00:37:31.240 i'm going to cut it off for everybody else and that may end up hurting the very people that trump

00:37:35.160 is trying to help and i think um you know some of that might be true with some of this housing market

00:37:41.000 stuff too that if you um you know if you if you restrict things and say you're not allowed to do

00:37:48.040 certain things then that may just have a an effect of pulling back on the market you won't have as many

00:37:54.760 buyers you won't have as many sellers and there may just not be as many transactions now i i think

00:38:01.320 you know on the housing front in terms of not letting big corporations buy houses

00:38:06.120 um to me that might be a little bit of a red herring sort of thing like i don't know that there

00:38:10.200 really were that many big corporations that were snapping up houses i know there was a lot of news

00:38:14.920 about that and especially on the right but i remember seeing that that was kind of debunked

00:38:20.360 and that it really wasn't happening nearly at the scale that people were saying it was

00:38:23.880 um you know correct me if i'm wrong if you if you think there is a lot of that happening and it's a

00:38:30.280 big problem but i think you know to me if you restrict the free market and you say you know we're not going to

00:38:37.400 allow that anymore that's just going to take certain buyers off the market which means you know maybe

00:38:42.760 there will be some price pressure downward but it also might just mean that not as many houses get sold

00:38:47.720 i think it's a big problem owen i don't know i mean i i know um you know entire neighborhoods are

00:38:54.680 being bought up by corporations forcing people to rent that's a problem and it is definitely a

00:39:01.640 problem i don't know about other cities but i can speak for manhattan has a huge problem with this with

00:39:07.640 you know corporations and corporations from other countries buying up you know buildings and

00:39:14.520 you know entire entire buildings just buying it all it's empty no one's there but now they own all

00:39:21.640 that real estate and it's a write-off for them it's an investment for them um but at what cost to the

00:39:28.440 cities in bad shape i would be much more supportive of saying we don't want china to buy a ball of real

00:39:34.280 estate especially if they're going to leave it idle and not even rent it to anybody that's ridiculous and

00:39:38.440 i think we shouldn't allow that so i'd be much more supportive of that type of policy but i don't think

00:39:43.000 that's what trump was doing in this case he's talking about like your black rock stone black who 0.77

00:39:50.120 is it it's one of them right but that's the story where it might have been debunked but go ahead bob

00:39:57.720 i'm gonna come out in favor of this idea of preventing large corporations from buying up

00:40:07.480 in the last few years i've gotten more involved in my own neighborhood and i'm not going to get into

00:40:12.040 details about that but what i've discovered is we have one corporation alone that owns uh more than

00:40:21.080 five percent of our neighborhood one company alone and if i were to tell you the name and you google

00:40:29.640 that the most common thing you would see pop up in your search results is that name associated with the

00:40:36.680 term slumlord i've dealt individually with a bunch of the renters in our neighborhood who are renting

00:40:43.400 from by and large large corporations that own thousands and thousands and thousands tens hundreds

00:40:52.840 of thousands of properties perhaps and when they have a problem they have to fix it themselves they can't

00:40:59.960 get the landlord company to do it they're having to do things that you know in the neolithic area when

00:41:07.080 i was still a renter uh things that were always the the landlord's responsibility in terms of maintenance

00:41:16.600 and lawn care and these kinds of things that uh if you did have uh somebody uh that owned a bunch of

00:41:24.920 properties they had a maintenance crew that would come around and uh i've had to deal with

00:41:32.600 these companies just shirking their responsibilities leaving the properties literally uh creating hazards to

00:41:41.480 other people in the neighborhood and we've had to take all kinds of action to get that resolved

00:41:48.440 um and my understanding is that and marcella you may know more about this owen you may not more may know

00:41:57.560 more but my understanding is this wasn't an issue before the big financial crisis of 2008 when all of the

00:42:06.920 mortgage-backed securities started getting bought up and and companies decided hey i can go out and buy a

00:42:14.120 a lot of single you had corporations that owned apartment buildings and whatnot but you didn't have

00:42:20.040 them owning single family homes and at least from my anecdotal situation i see it as a real issue i'm

00:42:28.280 more in favor of that than i am limiting the credit card interest because i figured you know there's state

00:42:33.720 usury laws already that that should protect that to some degree and uh you know the consumer

00:42:42.120 at some point the consumer has to be responsible for the contracts they sign and and if paying

00:42:50.120 excessive interest is a hard i mean i did it as a kid i i got into credit card debt and and had to learn

00:42:58.200 the hard way out of how to deal with it and pay it off and get to the point like oh and you know

00:43:03.320 i i pay it off every month and don't pay a penny in interest but yeah yeah i'm as as much as a

00:43:11.800 free market hands-off limited regulation guy as i am i'm with trump on this one okay that's good

00:43:21.880 that's interesting to be honest i i lived in in in a country before here i'm i was born in el salvador

00:43:29.560 and i have to say when you restrict ownership on corporations there's many other things that can lead

00:43:36.680 to this idea that the government controls how the economy works and i'm against it i understand the

00:43:43.800 plight of everybody that's going through it i mean i'm poor uh so i would know um i'd be a middle class

00:43:51.960 poor whatever but it's still i understand the issue and why trump is wanting to do it but i don't think

00:43:58.040 this is the way um i think that corporations are owned by other people that risk their their their

00:44:05.320 their time their effort um and they are basically just trying to do it in regards to slum owners

00:44:13.400 um as you said bob there is loss against it so if there if that comes up this renters can sue the slum

00:44:23.400 owners and it can be there's other ways of of approaching it and that's my take um i understand

00:44:33.640 but how how many how many people who are renters are going to have the funds to do that

00:44:42.680 how many renters do it now um there is many legal aids that do it you can take the

00:44:48.520 them to court and small claims you don't even even taking them into court you know most of these

00:44:54.520 people that i see that are renters are living paycheck to paycheck and they can't afford to

00:45:00.680 even take the time to research how do i do this you know the law someone has got to to help them

00:45:09.240 and so anyway that's my response to that i mean i i i think that again i in the research i've done

00:45:16.920 in the stories i've seen there i think there is some i guess what i would call misinformation about

00:45:21.240 this let me i i just asked rock about this and it was blackstone that was the name of the place that

00:45:27.480 was buying up some but they own a total of about 62 000 homes in the whole country and that may sound

00:45:34.200 like a lot and it probably is a lot but that's still a pretty small percentage like it's a lot though

00:45:39.720 if it's entire neighborhoods well and it may be a problem in certain neighborhoods but here's here's

00:45:46.040 what grok tells me large institutional investors and they define that as those with over 100 homes

00:45:51.720 they own roughly one to three percent of the single family housing stock so that's a total of 574 000

00:46:00.200 homes which again is just one to three percent of the total market and that was as of 2022 and it says

00:46:06.360 it's gone down since then so it says their share of purchase has declined since peaks around 2022 and

00:46:12.920 they account for under two percent of home buys in many periods all investors including the small

00:46:18.280 mom and pop ones have bought higher shares sometimes 25 to 34 percent in 2025 quarters due to high

00:46:25.320 mortgage rates that are sidelining regular buyers and it does say in some specific metro areas areas

00:46:31.400 like atlanta charlotte or jacksonville institutional ownership overall reaches 15 to 25 percent of single

00:46:38.360 family rentals which makes it feel more like an issue but nationally it's not really that big of an issue

00:46:45.960 and so i mean again all real estate is local and if you're in atlanta and it's hard to find a home to

00:46:53.000 buy and everybody all the institutions are buying them yeah that's a big deal and maybe this will help with that

00:46:57.720 but i think as a overall national issue i just don't know that it's really going to make much difference

00:47:03.320 um because it's not really happening as much as the media is saying it is and can't those same people

00:47:09.640 just make another corporation and just keep buying and buying and buying it's just under a different

00:47:15.560 court i would be worried i would be worried about that too because i i mean i i haven't done any real

00:47:19.320 estate investing but i have research doing it and typically what i hear recommended is that for every

00:47:26.280 property you buy you make another llc for that property because it helps you to separate it

00:47:32.040 legally so that if you get sued because let's say something bad happens like somebody slips and falls

00:47:36.360 on one of your properties you don't want it to mean that you could be sued for all your property yeah

00:47:41.160 right so so typically i always hear if you're a real estate owner and you're doing rentals you want

00:47:47.080 to have a separate company for every single property and i would imagine that if these large corporations

00:47:52.520 are somehow barred from buying properties that's probably what they would do right they would just

00:47:56.120 make a whole bunch of separate companies and i don't know maybe there will be something that

00:47:59.880 prevents that too that says you can't all be owned by the same owner and maybe that'll still work but

00:48:06.360 still i would expect that if a big company doesn't buy it then maybe a small company will buy it and

00:48:11.880 i don't know how much difference it'll make to the average person who's trying to rent to buy a house

00:48:17.240 because i think to me that's more having to do with the mortgage rates and the value of the house and

00:48:21.720 i think right now we're still in a mode where real estate prices are probably inflated you know

00:48:27.320 it's probably just too high because i think a lot of the prices have been up since the real estate

00:48:33.640 mortgage rates were very low which tends to drive up the price because again it comes down to what can

00:48:39.160 i actually afford and so when the when the real when the mortgage rates go up the value of the house

00:48:44.520 typically would go down but it really hasn't and i think that's because that real estate market tends to

00:48:48.440 be kind of inelastic sellers don't like to drop their prices right so they might just hold on to

00:48:54.200 the property or keep living there until they can get the price that they want and so right now i think

00:48:59.640 we're in this kind of mode where values of properties probably should come down to make

00:49:05.480 them attractive to people to buy but the sellers don't want to do that and so a lot of people feel

00:49:11.240 like they're just stuck in their home until they can find a buyer at the price that they think they want

00:49:14.920 to get but i think mortgage rates going down as they have gone down significantly under trump

00:49:21.160 i think that will help and probably more than this other rule because if you can make it more

00:49:25.880 affordable where people really can't afford the mortgage and can't afford to buy the house that

00:49:30.200 might really make a difference for a lot of people well trump did oh sorry go ahead wasn't there a story

00:49:36.120 that somebody pointed out right now that scott would say don't trust data don't trust the data

00:49:41.800 um other thing is that there was um immigration um people being um deported is causing um lower rents

00:49:52.600 in certain cities and allowing i don't know if there there were a lot of home owners that were

00:49:59.800 illegal here but i'm assuming it it's causing um the market to stabilize and lower price it's probably

00:50:09.240 freeing up real estate and rentals it has to be right i mean we have millions of people that have

00:50:14.840 left the country and all of them lived somewhere so i think that is a huge factor and i think it

00:50:19.240 probably is going to have an impact especially on rental prices because that's i think more elastic

00:50:23.480 where if you can't find someone that's willing to pay the higher price you're going to lower your

00:50:27.480 price until you get that apartment rented or that house rented and so it is going to cause prices

00:50:33.480 to come down on the rental market much more quickly i think than on the buying market

00:50:39.240 right um you guys we have about nine minutes left why don't we switch to a different topic

00:50:44.920 and um you and uh marcella and owen you know what what else do we want to know about we we wanted to

00:50:50.680 talk about energy because as you know the the the key today is energy bob talked about managing energy

00:50:58.120 what the reframe was somebody mentioned that scott would be in the same side and trump would be at

00:51:04.280 the same side one of the things that um our friend mark would love is that japan restarted

00:51:11.800 a nuclear plant today it's been 30 years since they have done that and uh 15 years since hukushima

00:51:19.880 and they started that and one of the things that trump talked about today is that china he he basically

00:51:28.200 gave them um he told them that china is doing really great on energy that he read in the wall street 0.60

00:51:34.840 journal they're doing so great and i like them you know and so the key to china is that they are building

00:51:44.680 nuclear faster than anyone right now and what trump talked about is letting companies here in america be

00:51:53.560 able to build their own nuclear and be able to not have the red tape of government to allow them to

00:52:02.680 build um germany killed nuclear and i think they're trying to bring it back um which is one of the reasons

00:52:11.320 why in germany the elections um are causing the the populace to go to worse the right because their prices

00:52:21.480 are increasingly unaffordable we think today like our energy prices are affordable are unaffordable

00:52:29.240 here in america and germany is way worse in other countries it's always worse so that's one of the

00:52:34.840 things that came up the other uh thing that's coming up today is that the supreme court today is hearing

00:52:42.360 arguments in regards to president trump's authority to remove members of the federal reserve to go back to

00:52:49.480 the economy um he wanted uh as you recall he fired lisa cook which was part of the reserve board of

00:52:59.480 governors and basically when he fired lisa cook lisa cook said no i'm not fired you don't have

00:53:07.080 constitutional right to fire me so i'm staying here and then the supreme court is today hearing that

00:53:13.480 um the opinion will come out later but that that would be interesting um i don't know when if you

00:53:19.960 wanted to add to that i would just throw in another story i posted today it's a study they did in new

00:53:26.840 england and they said that new england rate payers could save up to 700 billion dollars by swapping

00:53:32.600 renewables for gas and it's sort of a combination of nuclear and natural gas that they were looking at but

00:53:39.800 they're basically saying there might be a lot of blackouts if they don't do this and that um

00:53:46.040 again if you just run the numbers if you use natural gas and nuclear or some mix of the two it

00:53:53.000 could save people who pay for electricity there in new england up to 700 billion dollars so that's a big

00:53:59.480 number um you know and um i think it certainly makes a strong argument that you don't want to put all your

00:54:07.480 money into wind and solar and batteries and all these other things because it's going to be

00:54:11.800 tremendously more expensive um to try and do this net zero stuff and that we are going to need a lot

00:54:19.240 more electricity with or without ai and we we need to find a way to provide all this energy and the

00:54:26.040 cheaper it is the cheaper everything is because everything depends on transportation and other you know

00:54:31.240 you know has to have heating and cooling and all sorts of things so it really drives the economy

00:54:37.480 when you have cheaper energy so i i think this is something that hopefully new england will pay

00:54:42.120 attention to and we'll try and drive their nuclear and natural gas infrastructure to try and get that

00:54:47.800 cost down because i think new england probably is one of the worst areas in terms of electricity costs i

00:54:52.920 don't know if you can comment on that erica but yeah new jersey is brutal

00:54:56.840 mm-hmm yeah no it's got to come we have a new governor now as of yesterday so we'll see how that goes

00:55:05.800 um do you mind me go ahead so the somebody mentioned on here i forget her name here but it talked about 0.71

00:55:15.800 nuclear um people are scared because of three mile island and fukushima and uh other other situations

00:55:25.160 um um and trump talked about today that he was actually scared of oh there you are eric

00:55:34.440 like i'm scared we like to shuffle um

00:55:38.600 so trump was saying that he himself as a person was scared of nuclear at first but now he sees it

00:55:46.760 so one of the things that that scott always talked about is having the flexibility of of pivoting and

00:55:54.440 being able to say hey i was wrong once now i'm correct again you know i'm i was wrong and i

00:56:01.720 changed my mind and being able to change your mind is like a superpower and he did it in front of everybody

00:56:07.400 he admitted it and that was great um and i don't know in regards to the the affordability in newland i

00:56:17.000 wouldn't know but i live in california it's quite unaffordable for everybody here um yeah

00:56:23.720 so yeah i mean i do think that it's hopefully gonna turn a corner with nuclear i think we are

00:56:30.120 making a lot of strides but i do think it's a longer term solution no matter how you cut it because

00:56:35.880 you know i think we made it so hard to build a nuclear plant that it was basically impossible and it

00:56:40.520 was just so costly and it would take 30 years literally 30 years to build a nuclear plant um

00:56:46.360 and i think we're we're definitely getting that down but i think you know what does that mean does

00:56:51.640 that mean five years 10 years 15 years you know it's not going to be next year that all of a sudden

00:56:55.880 we're going to have a bunch of nuclear plants so i think in the meantime we need to look at things

00:56:59.960 like natural gas and other things that are a lot easier to roll out maybe even coal which is what

00:57:05.880 you know trump's trying to do is to keep the coal plants going but um it sounds like that has its

00:57:11.000 own issues in terms of keeping it going and natural gas is a lot cleaner and a lot cheaper than these

00:57:17.000 renewables for sure and i think it is probably the best solution in the short term is to ramp up on the

00:57:22.040 natural gas and that probably also ties into just the the you know increased drilling and drill baby

00:57:29.080 drill and all the rest because i think trump has made a lot of strides in terms of that getting people to

00:57:35.000 produce more oil more natural gas but we need to use it you know we can't just let it pile up we

00:57:41.160 need to actually put it to work so to me that that's probably the best short-term solution yeah i agree um

00:57:48.440 all right you guys you know me the timer nazi oh am i allowed to say that anyway wrapping up i i want

00:57:55.640 to just real quickly i haven't heard anybody talk about the winter weather that's coming through parts

00:58:01.560 of the country and how bad it's predicted to be i did like scott did a couple years ago and i ordered

00:58:07.640 extra batteries and solar generator and things and if you're in the path of this thing do the same

00:58:16.520 follow scott's lead on that just i'm in the path i'm miserable about it oh i mean i said i wanted snow

00:58:24.440 snow but not like snowmageddon not all of it snow but not at all yeah erica i don't know i think we

00:58:33.800 might have lost her but um yeah i i started seeing stories about that how it's like dangerous to be

00:58:39.720 outside and it's going to be really really cold so definitely bundle up do whatever you need to to

00:58:45.080 prepare for that um can you guys hear me by the way yeah we can hear you okay all right i don't know

00:58:50.920 what i just also wanted to say congratulations to um jd vance and his wife usha they're expecting a

00:58:57.880 baby boy which is so nice um you guys tomorrow shelley's gonna have an announcement for us in

00:59:05.800 the morning and we have a special guest tomorrow we'll keep it a secret i just think it'll be a fun

00:59:11.400 guest for us and i think tomorrow we're doing news stories so that's gonna be fun um you guys we

00:59:19.720 so appreciate you i go back and read the comments on locals later and um you guys are so sweet like

00:59:27.560 we're we're trying our best um and uh we'll be back again tomorrow any closing words from you sergio

00:59:35.400 bless your soul we just had you all quiet over there today didn't we we love you um okay all right you

00:59:43.320 guys so we'll see you tomorrow it's 11 o'clock go be useful touch some grass make some plans do some

00:59:51.400 wanting and uh deciding and eliminating things manage your energy all the good stuff and a final

00:59:58.280 sip to scott as always we love you scott to scott we love you guys see you tomorrow

01:00:13.320 good luck

01:00:25.400 well

01:00:27.080 yeah

01:00:32.440 yeah

01:00:35.000 yeah

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - January 21, 2026

Episode 3077 - The Scott Adams School 01⧸21⧸26

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