Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 828 Scott Adams： Blago - The Poor Man's Roger Stone, Russia Putin its Nose in Our Election, Robot Socialists

00:00:00.000 Hey, JRPSTAR! First day on Periscope, I see. Glad to have you with us.

00:00:13.000 This is the place where we gather, once a day, at the same time, for that amazing celebration.

00:00:21.000 The thing that makes, well, everything better. You know it does.

00:00:26.000 It's called the Simultaneous Sip, and you don't need much to participate.

00:00:31.000 Now, the requirements? Very low.

00:00:35.000 All you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice or a stein,

00:00:39.000 a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind, fill it with your favorite liquid.

00:00:43.000 I like coffee.

00:00:45.000 And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine hit of the day,

00:00:49.000 the thing that makes everything better, the Simultaneous Sip.

00:00:54.000 Now, aren't you glad you hurried to get your beverage, get in here on time, and enjoy it in the most simultaneous way possible?

00:01:10.000 Yeah, I think you can feel your white blood cell count increasing.

00:01:16.000 I think you all look a little bit younger.

00:01:20.000 I can tell you're happier, more productive, smarter for sure.

00:01:25.000 And all of that? All of that, because of the Simultaneous Sip.

00:01:30.000 Yeah, you'd like to take some credit yourself, but I don't think that's appropriate.

00:01:34.000 I think it was the Sip that did it all. 0.99

00:01:37.000 All right.

00:01:39.000 Yeah, somebody is reminding me in the comments here.

00:01:42.000 So Bloomberg did a post which he wrote in Russian.

00:01:46.000 So it was just a Russian tweet that if you hit the translate button in Twitter, it said,

00:01:54.000 Feel Bern, as in Bernie's slogan.

00:01:58.000 So, of course, it makes you think about why would he write it in Russian?

00:02:04.000 And it's because the headlines are that Russia may be helping Bernie as much as they're helping Trump or they're helping one of them or something.

00:02:11.000 And so Bloomberg at least has not been accused of being helped by Russia yet.

00:02:18.000 So that was pretty funny tweet.

00:02:22.000 So I'm hearing I haven't seen many Bloomberg commercials.

00:02:27.000 I guess I don't I don't consume anything that has commercials on it, but I hear they're good.

00:02:33.000 So people are saying that the quality of his his ads are quite good.

00:02:38.000 So here's a prediction for you.

00:02:41.000 You know, Mark Twain famously said that we humans can't tell the difference between good news and bad news.

00:02:49.000 And here's one of those examples.

00:02:52.000 So here's something that is widely considered bad news.

00:02:56.000 But I think historians are going to look at it and say, you know, that was actually really good news.

00:03:03.000 It didn't seem like it at the time, but it was good news.

00:03:08.000 And here it is.

00:03:10.000 True or false.

00:03:11.000 I think this is true that President Trump has obliterated the credibility of the press,

00:03:18.000 with, you know, fake news, etc.

00:03:21.000 True.

00:03:22.000 He's obliterated the credibility of the press.

00:03:24.000 He's obliterated the credibility of her own intelligence services.

00:03:29.000 True.

00:03:30.000 All right.

00:03:31.000 Now, you could argue that the press did it to themselves.

00:03:34.000 You could say the intelligence agencies brought it upon themselves.

00:03:37.000 But it really sort of took Trump to bring it home, didn't it?

00:03:43.000 Then, of course, the credibility of Congress, you know, pushing the fake the fake Mueller report, the fake impeachment.

00:03:51.000 And so I think historians are going to say that although all three of those entities, you know, may have already had some credibility problems.

00:04:02.000 Didn't most people, let's say most citizens, didn't most citizens think that most of the time, anyway, they were, you know, you could sort of trust them.

00:04:15.000 You know, sure, some politicians are crooked and sometimes they do a little self-dealing, but you thought, you know, basically they're just doing their job.

00:04:25.000 Well, you probably don't think that anymore.

00:04:28.000 After watching the impeachment saga, you probably think, well, they don't even look like they're trying to do their job.

00:04:34.000 That doesn't even look like a good attempt.

00:04:37.000 It doesn't even look, it's not even in the approximate universe of honestly trying to do your job.

00:04:44.000 How about the press?

00:04:47.000 Does anybody honestly think that the press is independent and reporting the facts as they see them?

00:04:55.000 Well, I used to think so.

00:04:58.000 You know, during the Obama administration, I would say, oh, Fox News is a little out there, at least with the opinion people.

00:05:07.000 And, you know, but that didn't seem anything like what we're seeing now.

00:05:13.000 What we're seeing now feels like a whole different level of lack of credibility of the press.

00:05:20.000 And then, of course, our intelligence services, we've never seen lower credibility.

00:05:26.000 You know, of course, the whole weapons of mass destruction thing was a big blow to the credibility of our government and intelligence services.

00:05:36.000 But I think, at least this is my own opinion, it was still sort of easy to put that off as a one-time situation.

00:05:45.000 You know, sure, it was a gigantic miss, you know, thinking that there were weapons of mass destruction,

00:05:52.000 caused a war, untold, you know, consequences, ripple effect, horrible, horrible stuff.

00:05:59.000 But I have to admit, it kind of felt like just a one-off mistake.

00:06:06.000 But now that we've watched something that looks like a continuous march of incompetence, I think they've lost pretty much all credibility.

00:06:16.000 Now, of course, we're watching this play out in what only looks like a joke.

00:06:23.000 The fact that the New York Times reports that our intelligence services believed that the Russians were trying to help Trump.

00:06:34.000 And a month ago, apparently the Washington Post reports that Bernie Sanders' campaign was told by the intelligence services that the Russians were trying to help him.

00:06:48.000 Now, here's something interesting.

00:06:51.000 The New York Times and the Washington Post, aren't they usually on the same side?

00:06:58.000 Right?

00:06:59.000 Right?

00:07:00.000 You feel like they would be pushing both stories that would be anti-Trump, but one of them is pushing sort of an anti-Bernie story.

00:07:08.000 It's the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post.

00:07:13.000 Now, let me ask you this.

00:07:15.000 Would Jeff Bezos be happy to have a President Bernie?

00:07:21.000 Well, if I had the biggest corporation in the world and I wasn't paying my share of taxes according to Bernie, I would be pushing pretty hard to not have a President Bernie even if I were a Democrat and even if I hated President Trump.

00:07:38.000 I still wouldn't want a President Bernie if I'm the biggest capitalist on the planet.

00:07:46.000 That's right.

00:07:47.000 That's right.

00:07:48.000 Jeff Bezos is the biggest capitalist on the planet.

00:07:53.000 Maybe.

00:07:54.000 So, is it a coincidence that the Washington Post goes after Bernie or at least, you know, creates a story that associates him with Russia?

00:08:08.000 I don't know.

00:08:09.000 Could be.

00:08:10.000 Could be a coincidence.

00:08:11.000 But you can't trust coincidences of that nature anymore.

00:08:16.000 As somebody said on Twitter, and I wish I wrote it down because I didn't know I was going to talk about it when I first saw it.

00:08:22.000 But somebody said, is it a coincidence that Russia is always helping the candidate that is the most, you know, the biggest problem to the Democrat elite?

00:08:34.000 What a coincidence.

00:08:35.000 What a coincidence.

00:08:36.000 What a coincidence.

00:08:37.000 Bernie is shaking up the established power structure on the Democrats. 0.94

00:08:41.000 Well, he must be a Russian puppet. 0.88

00:08:44.000 Trump tries to get power. 0.99

00:08:46.000 Well, he must be a Russian puppet. 0.95

00:08:48.000 Is that a coincidence? 0.81

00:08:49.000 Well, it could be.

00:08:51.000 It could be a coincidence.

00:08:53.000 But it's another one of those that you can't really trust to be a coincidence.

00:08:57.000 All right.

00:09:00.000 I love the way Trump summed it up in a tweet.

00:09:04.000 So he tweeted this.

00:09:06.000 The reason for this is that the do nothing Democrats using disinformation hoax number seven.

00:09:12.000 Now, where did he get the idea to number the hoaxes?

00:09:18.000 Well, I don't know what specific person, but it's a social media thing, right?

00:09:23.000 On Twitter, are you not seeing people number the hoaxes?

00:09:27.000 Now, I know I did it a long time ago, and I've seen other people do it.

00:09:32.000 But this is in the category of, you know, if you write humor for a living, you sort of recognize a category that you know other people had the same idea independently.

00:09:44.000 So you really can't tell who's the first person to number the hoaxes because it's a little bit too obvious that it would be, you know, a good thing to do to make a point.

00:09:55.000 So I love that the president has numbered at number seven.

00:09:59.000 And it makes you say, well, seven.

00:10:03.000 What were the other six?

00:10:04.000 Okay.

00:10:05.000 Let's see.

00:10:06.000 There's, you know, the Ukraine thing.

00:10:08.000 There's the Mueller thing.

00:10:09.000 Were there really that many other ones?

00:10:12.000 Were there four others?

00:10:13.000 There are four others that I'm not remembering.

00:10:15.000 And it's kind of brilliant because it makes you count them up.

00:10:20.000 And you might even argue.

00:10:22.000 It's like, it's not seven.

00:10:24.000 At most, it's three hoaxes.

00:10:26.000 But you're still thinking in the way he wants you to think that it's hoax after hoax.

00:10:31.000 All right.

00:10:32.000 So the rest of his tweet is that using disinformation, hoax number seven, don't want Bernie Sanders to get the Democrat nomination.

00:10:40.000 So in other words, he's supporting Bernie in this tweet.

00:10:43.000 In the field of entertainment, what could entertain you more than President Trump?

00:10:53.000 The greatest, I'd say, funniest political prankster, if you can call it that, who really knows how to combine work and pleasure like nobody else ever did.

00:11:09.000 I mean, he can golf and work.

00:11:11.000 He can tell jokes and campaign.

00:11:13.000 He combines pleasure and work all the time.

00:11:17.000 And he's doing it again because there could be nothing funnier than Trump destroying the Democrat Party by supporting their preferred candidate.

00:11:28.000 That's what he's doing.

00:11:30.000 You know, when I say their preferred candidate, I mean the one who has the most votes so far.

00:11:35.000 It's still a plurality, not a majority.

00:11:37.000 But he does have the most votes.

00:11:40.000 So isn't this a noble thing that President Trump is doing, supporting Bernie Sanders against the evil, evil, fake news that's trying to take him down?

00:11:53.000 Now, of course, the whole play here is that Sanders would destroy the entire Democrat Party if he gets the nomination.

00:12:00.000 And they know it.

00:12:02.000 They know it.

00:12:05.000 And they know what he's doing.

00:12:07.000 Because, you know, the funny part about it is that it's obvious.

00:12:11.000 It wouldn't be nearly as funny if it wasn't 100% obvious to Democrats and Republicans that the president is just boosting Bernie to absolutely destroy the Democrat Party.

00:12:23.000 So here, and Newt Gingrich, who kind of, you know, Newt Gingrich comes on to bayonet the survivors.

00:12:32.000 And he's, Fox News asked him on yesterday, talking about how the real problem is that with Bernie as the candidate, they're going to lose the House.

00:12:43.000 So Newt is coming on to make you think past the sale.

00:12:48.000 It's like, oh, yeah, you're definitely going to lose the presidency.

00:12:52.000 There's not much else to say about that.

00:12:54.000 So let's just take that as a given.

00:12:57.000 So you've already given up on the presidency.

00:12:59.000 So now we're just talking about how badly you're going to lose the House.

00:13:04.000 And if you lose the House, you've lost everything.

00:13:08.000 So Newt is just coming on.

00:13:12.000 I just love, you know, he's usually the smartest guy in the game.

00:13:16.000 You put Newt in the room with most people, and the smartest one in the room is going to be Newt.

00:13:22.000 So, you know, he's 76 years old.

00:13:24.000 I just read his age in the article.

00:13:27.000 And, you know, he's at that point in his career that presumably he's just enjoying the ride.

00:13:33.000 You know, he's done all the hard parts.

00:13:35.000 He's just sort of enjoying the ride at this point.

00:13:39.000 And he comes in on Fox News.

00:13:41.000 He's just bayoneting the survivors.

00:13:43.000 It's like, well, yep, looks like Trump won the battle, but there's still a few survivors.

00:13:49.000 Let's see.

00:13:50.000 Let's see if there's anybody over in the House that needs to be bayoneted.

00:13:54.000 Bayonet.

00:13:56.000 Bayoneting.

00:13:57.000 So, anyway, this whole thing is the funniest.

00:14:04.000 Now, I started this by saying that the intelligence services have the lowest credibility.

00:14:11.000 So if it's true that our press and our intelligence services have just served up that the Russians are promoting both Bernie and Trump,

00:14:22.000 and they're trying to keep both stories in the air at the same time, it's just so good.

00:14:28.000 It's just so delicious.

00:14:30.000 This could not be a better reality TV show.

00:14:34.000 I'm sorry.

00:14:35.000 I mean, this could not be better politics.

00:14:40.000 It's not politics.

00:14:41.000 It's some new hybrid that Trump has invented that is part entertainment, part government.

00:14:48.000 And I don't know.

00:14:50.000 I don't think I'm too much being.

00:14:54.000 I don't think this is a stretch to say that he's nailing both of them.

00:15:00.000 Right?

00:15:01.000 Is it just me?

00:15:02.000 I don't think it's just me.

00:15:03.000 It looks like he's nailing both of them.

00:15:05.000 All right.

00:15:07.000 Here's the other hilarious thing that Trump has done.

00:15:11.000 Again, look for ways that he combines humor with just getting stuff done.

00:15:19.000 He's literally a genius at doing this exact thing, humor and work in the same package.

00:15:26.000 So there's nothing funnier than the fact that we all know he's prepping to pardon or do something for Roger Stone, right?

00:15:35.000 We all know that's coming.

00:15:37.000 He's signaled it.

00:15:38.000 He's made it as clear as possible that he thinks Roger Stone has been treated unfairly.

00:15:44.000 And even with the new lowered sentence, everybody sort of expects the president to pardon him.

00:15:51.000 So that's the first thing that's great, because this president knows how to keep the suspense going.

00:15:57.000 Like this is one of those shows where you know something's coming.

00:16:01.000 You know the script has it coming.

00:16:03.000 It's coming.

00:16:04.000 It's going to happen in act three.

00:16:05.000 Oh, no.

00:16:06.000 So you know that's coming.

00:16:08.000 And this is how Trump preps us for it.

00:16:12.000 By, by, by, by, is it commuting or pardoning blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog.

00:16:23.000 I think the, the proper pronunciation is blog.

00:16:28.000 I think, I think I nailed that.

00:16:31.000 But you know, I'm talking about. 1.00

00:16:33.000 And so this guy bloggo, let's call him bloggo, goes on CNN and, and Anderson Cooper just tears into him for being the worst person in the world and a lying, hypocrite criminal. 1.00

00:16:46.000 Oh, my God. 1.00

00:16:48.000 It was just a bloodbath.

00:16:50.000 So Trump, and in my, my title to this periscope, I called bloggo the poor man's Roger Stone.

00:16:59.000 You see where I'm going with this, right?

00:17:03.000 In your mind, haven't you already paired blogovich and Roger Stone?

00:17:08.000 You have, you know, you have, because they're in the same conversation.

00:17:12.000 Now, what do you think of when you think of Roger Stone?

00:17:15.000 You see that, that way too much gray hair for a man his age, right?

00:17:20.000 Now, what do you see when you see blogovich?

00:17:23.000 You see a guy with way too much gray hair for a man his age.

00:17:28.000 Now, we're visual creatures.

00:17:30.000 We know they're different people, you know, intellectually, knowledge-wise, they're just different people.

00:17:36.000 And of course, if we're wise and reasonable people, we know that they should be treated individually.

00:17:42.000 Your opinion of one should not have anything to do with your opinion of the other.

00:17:47.000 They're just different situations.

00:17:49.000 But we are not reasonable people.

00:17:52.000 And you can't help it.

00:17:54.000 You're pairing those two in your mind, Roger Stone and the poor man's Roger Stone, bloggo.

00:18:03.000 Now, bloggo has gone out and done, I don't think that Trump asked him to do this.

00:18:10.000 I think it was just, I don't know, good luck, or I guess maybe you could expect it would have happened.

00:18:18.000 But blogovich goes out and makes such a bad case for himself that you start feeling sorry for Roger Stone.

00:18:25.000 You think, my God, this guy's terrible and he got a pardon.

00:18:29.000 Wait a minute.

00:18:30.000 Wait, he's a Democrat? 0.73

00:18:32.000 Are you telling me that this Trump dictator, he's a dictator, I tell you.

00:18:39.000 All he does is reward his friends and, wait, what?

00:18:43.000 He just pardoned a famous Democrat who's guilty as all hell?

00:18:49.000 What?

00:18:51.000 So that broadens your, it broadens your idea of what a presidential pardon can be.

00:18:59.000 And it makes it easy to put Roger Stone right in the middle of that because bloggo could sort of set the edges.

00:19:05.000 It's like, well, if you can pardon that guy.

00:19:08.000 I mean, what he did looked a lot worse than what Roger Stone did, right?

00:19:12.000 Selling a Senate seat.

00:19:13.000 I mean, it's not even close to being, I mean, and here's the other thing.

00:19:20.000 Roger Stone is literally famous for being a fabulist, as I think somebody said, meaning that he tells lies a lot and it's almost his identity or his brand is that he says things that aren't true in public.

00:19:39.000 And that's his brand and even apparently privately.

00:19:43.000 So you get that guy in a situation where lying will send you to jail.

00:19:48.000 But what the hell do you expect is going to happen?

00:19:50.000 Do you think that's the one time he's going to start telling the truth?

00:19:54.000 Well, maybe.

00:19:55.000 But after a lifetime of being a fabulist, you're probably going to be fabulous all the time, especially at that age.

00:20:03.000 You're not that nimble anymore.

00:20:05.000 So anyway, the bloggo thing was just brilliant because it makes the Roger Stone thing easy.

00:20:16.000 Did you see that Trump's reaction to the news that I think he might have said this even before the news came out about Bernie being warned about Russia trying to help him.

00:20:30.000 And the first news was that it was they were trying to help Trump again.

00:20:34.000 And there was some doubt about that because no details have been provided.

00:20:38.000 And of course, our intelligence services have no credibility whatsoever, which is good because we don't you know, I don't know if I finished that point, but it's good that we don't have credibility.

00:20:51.000 For the news or our intelligence services or Congress, that's the best possible situation, because if they're going to try to get us to do something, they're going to start with we don't believe you.

00:21:04.000 That is the best place to start from, because you're going to have to you're going to have to convince us this time.

00:21:10.000 So I think that's a great thing that Trump did, maybe not for great purposes.

00:21:16.000 I don't think he thought of it that way.

00:21:18.000 But I think that we're all way, way better served by losing all credibility in those institutions, so long as they stay intact.

00:21:29.000 And so long as we challenge them to prove their credibility.

00:21:34.000 And we're a little bit harder on them than we ever were.

00:21:37.000 I think that's all good.

00:21:40.000 All right.

00:21:41.000 You know, as long as the institutions remain intact.

00:21:44.000 All right.

00:21:46.000 Let's see what else we got going on.

00:21:51.000 You know, I always talk about the two movies on one screen.

00:21:56.000 And when I see great examples of it, it's still mind mind boggling when you see it starkly.

00:22:03.000 Here's another example.

00:22:04.000 This, you know, on Twitter, I end up looking at a lot of conservative tweets.

00:22:10.000 And every now and then I'll wander over into some tweet thread that has some Democrats in it and some anti-Trumpers.

00:22:19.000 And it'll be like entering another movie because the facts that they believe to be facts are so entirely different from the facts believed to be facts on the left.

00:22:29.000 The left and the right have different facts.

00:22:31.000 Here's the perfect example.

00:22:32.000 So the Democrats believe it is objectively true, and nobody could doubt this, that Trump is soft on Russia.

00:22:42.000 And of course, to every conservative observer, it is objectively true that Trump is the toughest on Russia.

00:22:51.000 Now, what would be the argument?

00:22:54.000 Most of you are going to say, what, are you kidding me?

00:22:56.000 I mean, it's not even close.

00:22:57.000 Look at the facts.

00:22:59.000 And some of the facts that you would say, for example, are that Trump gave deadly aid, these Javelin rockets, to Ukraine.

00:23:10.000 And that's more than Obama did.

00:23:12.000 So Trump is, you know, at least more badass than Obama was in terms of Russia.

00:23:18.000 And I go over to the Democrat part of Twitter, and the Democrats have a belief, and I don't know if this is true, by the way.

00:23:28.000 So here's the fun part.

00:23:29.000 It's a belief that they have that is a fact that I'd never heard before.

00:23:34.000 I don't know if it's a fact.

00:23:36.000 I don't know if it's not a fact.

00:23:38.000 I'll just give it to you.

00:23:39.000 They believe that, for reasons that weren't listed, that the Ukrainians were not allowed to use the Javelins.

00:23:48.000 What?

00:23:49.000 Now, I'm not saying that's not true.

00:23:52.000 I don't know what it means.

00:23:54.000 But then somebody else weighed in and said, yeah, they'd never tell you that.

00:23:58.000 And I thought, never tell you that?

00:24:00.000 What?

00:24:01.000 Why would we give them Javelin, these, you know, tank killer weapons, and then they're not allowed?

00:24:07.000 Meaning, who says they're not allowed?

00:24:09.000 Not allowed in what way?

00:24:11.000 Were they not actually delivered?

00:24:13.000 What is it?

00:24:14.000 What does any of this mean?

00:24:15.000 Now, I don't know the answer to it.

00:24:16.000 I wish I could have come to you and said, I looked into this, and I found out what the truth is.

00:24:21.000 Well, I don't know.

00:24:22.000 My point is, how different that movie is.

00:24:26.000 How different the movie is that one says we gave them deadly weapons to use against Russia, and the other says, no, you didn't.

00:24:35.000 It just didn't happen.

00:24:37.000 I don't know.

00:24:39.000 No idea which one of those is true.

00:24:42.000 All right.

00:24:47.000 Here's a stoner question for you.

00:24:51.000 Is history fiction or fact?

00:24:56.000 You probably see where I'm going with this right away.

00:24:59.000 Is history a matter of fact or a matter of fiction?

00:25:05.000 Now, of course, you're all immediately, the first thing that pops into your mind is that the history is written by the winners, right?

00:25:14.000 That's true.

00:25:15.000 But for every history, there are some winners and losers, and they get to write their own histories because they have different countries, and we have enough of freedom of speech that there are different versions of it, etc.

00:25:29.000 But wouldn't you say that the thing that we agree is history is just the consensus?

00:25:44.000 I'm not sure it's so much the winners as it is the consensus.

00:25:49.000 So I would say that history is a fictional consensus, meaning that it's not really even intended to be exactly the facts.

00:26:02.000 It's an interpretation that the majority feels comfortable with.

00:26:07.000 It's not even a question so much of winning and losing so long as all the entities still stay intact and they can make their own textbooks and tell their own stories.

00:26:15.000 It's not like one group is just dead or can't talk.

00:26:20.000 So just think about that.

00:26:22.000 Just think about the fact that history is a lot closer to fiction than it is to fact.

00:26:28.000 Now, that's not to say that there isn't an objective history.

00:26:31.000 I'm not even in that conversation.

00:26:33.000 I'm just saying that the way we live it and experience it is as a fiction that is hardened by consensus, not necessarily what happened, except for the big stuff.

00:26:45.000 You know, we get the dates and the explosions right.

00:26:48.000 All right.

00:26:49.000 I want to call your attention to something I tweeted.

00:26:52.000 It's near the top of my tweet feed today over on Twitter.

00:26:57.000 That's something that Matt Taibbi wrote for Rolling Stone.

00:27:02.000 Now, this is not the first, second or probably even third time I have recommended that you read an article by Matt Taibbi.

00:27:10.000 And it's always the same reason.

00:27:12.000 Good God, he's a good writer.

00:27:15.000 I mean, just you can just enjoy every sentence.

00:27:20.000 And that's so strange.

00:27:22.000 Most writing has a lot of filler in it.

00:27:24.000 You know, here's my background and I'll eventually get to the point.

00:27:28.000 And, you know, won't you be happy when I start stop blabbering and get to something interesting.

00:27:34.000 But you read a Matt Taibbi article and almost every sentence is a payoff because you like the sentence itself.

00:27:42.000 And so it's very rare.

00:27:44.000 So I recommend it.

00:27:45.000 But anyway, here's one of the sentences I pulled out.

00:27:50.000 I'm not going to say this is the best one.

00:27:52.000 It was just one I pulled out.

00:27:54.000 And he says that Bloomberg has been touted as a potential Democratic Party savior across the top ranks of politics and media.

00:28:03.000 There's an extraordinary indictment of that group of people.

00:28:09.000 I thought to myself, yeah, that is an extraordinary indictment.

00:28:14.000 So all the smartest people thought that Bloomberg, well, he's the guy.

00:28:20.000 I mean, once Bloomberg gets in, that's going to be it.

00:28:24.000 I mean, all his money and everything.

00:28:26.000 Once he gets in and then you see him in one debate and you say to yourself, wasn't there anybody who knew Bloomberg who could see this coming?

00:28:37.000 Was there nobody in the top echelons of the Democrat Party who said, yeah, he's coming, but it's going to be, you know, with a whimper, not an explosion?

00:28:49.000 Didn't anybody see this coming?

00:28:52.000 Now, I'm not sure if I did.

00:28:56.000 So maybe some of you can remind me anything I said about him before we knew he was as weak a candidate as apparently he is.

00:29:05.000 Now, maybe he'll get better in the next debate or something.

00:29:08.000 We'll all be surprised.

00:29:09.000 But I think he is a certain age.

00:29:11.000 I think he's lost a step.

00:29:13.000 I don't think, I just don't think we're going to see much better coming from him in terms of his connecting with the audience and his charisma and all that.

00:29:22.000 I don't see that changing too much.

00:29:25.000 But read the rest of Matt Taibbi's article in Rolling Stone.

00:29:30.000 All right.

00:29:32.000 The whole health care debate, which may turn out to be the big topic, or at least Bernie might try to make it the big topic if he's the candidate.

00:29:42.000 I've said this before, but I want to say it again because I think I've got like a better, cleaner way to say it.

00:29:49.000 When Bernie talks about everybody getting health care, he talks about trillions of dollars and just, you don't even have to be an economist.

00:29:56.000 You say, wait a minute, how big is our entire economy?

00:29:59.000 Wait, what's he want to do?

00:30:01.000 It just, none of it adds up even, even just, you know, the broad brush.

00:30:07.000 It just looks impossible.

00:30:09.000 So he's doing a terrible job of selling the idea that we could go from 89% have insurance now to 100%.

00:30:18.000 So that's 11%.

00:30:20.000 Now, I used to do budgets and, you know, business cases, meaning right up the financials and projections for decisions for corporations.

00:30:30.000 So that used to be my job for a while.

00:30:32.000 And I got to tell you, they need somebody to try to sell these plans, whether it's Trump, and I'll talk about that, or Bernie, who's better at this.

00:30:44.000 Because Bernie is terrible at selling.

00:30:48.000 Let me give you, let me tell you how I would sell, how to get to 100% coverage, and I'm going to give you the Republican version, all right?

00:30:57.000 So this will not be the Bernie socialist version where I guess he just raises taxes and costs trillions of dollars and it sounds very impractical.

00:31:06.000 So forget about that.

00:31:08.000 Here's how I would sell it if I were Trump.

00:31:10.000 Let's say 89% of people are insured.

00:31:14.000 That leaves 11% that we need to do something about.

00:31:17.000 I agree with Bernie that we should try to get to 100%, but we should get there with a rational system that, you know, that the system can handle and takes into account people's incentives, etc.

00:31:31.000 So you got 11% you're dealing with.

00:31:33.000 So in theory, if you could, if you had 11% more money, everybody would be covered.

00:31:39.000 If you had 11% more that could be dedicated to that.

00:31:42.000 So how much is that?

00:31:44.000 Well, 11% more would cost us, I'm going to round up, another $400 billion per year.

00:31:50.000 Could the United States find $400 billion on top of what it already pays per year? 0.59

00:31:58.000 Now, suddenly you're talking hundreds of billions instead of trillions.

00:32:02.000 So the first thing I've done is I got you out of talking about trillions.

00:32:07.000 As soon as Bernie starts talking in trillions, we're all, uh, eh, trillions?

00:32:12.000 No.

00:32:13.000 No, I'm not going to sign up for a trillion anything.

00:32:15.000 A trillion is too much.

00:32:17.000 My taxes are going up.

00:32:18.000 That's all I hear when I hear trillion.

00:32:20.000 So the first thing you do is you take it down to, well, it's only 11% more, $400 billion.

00:32:25.000 And then you say, how am I going to take pieces out of that?

00:32:29.000 This is how a corporation would do it.

00:32:31.000 They'd say, all right, uh, the first thing we're going to do is cut drug costs quite a bit.

00:32:36.000 Now that, that would give you back a little bit of money so that, that, that amount is taken out of the system.

00:32:43.000 Let's say that's 1% of it.

00:32:45.000 We'll cut the paperwork.

00:32:46.000 We'll get rid of some insurance overhead.

00:32:48.000 We'll do things with competition and efficiency.

00:32:51.000 We'll have better prevention because we'll have more big data, you know, and we'll, we'll, uh, target key areas where there are big expenses.

00:32:57.000 Let's say, you know, buying an MRI machine is really expensive.

00:33:01.000 So we'll, we'll fund startups that are in that area.

00:33:04.000 They're trying to bring down the cost of MRIs, stuff like that.

00:33:07.000 So you say, look, it's 400 billion a year.

00:33:10.000 That's our national target.

00:33:12.000 If we can carve that out of healthcare expenses, we've got enough money with what we already spend to get everybody covered.

00:33:19.000 So let's, let's, you know, figure out how to, how to carve that up.

00:33:24.000 Now I think that story sounds doable, doesn't it?

00:33:27.000 Even if it's not doable, doesn't that sound doable?

00:33:30.000 Cause I just broke it down.

00:33:32.000 Well, it's only 11%.

00:33:33.000 Cause you say to yourself, if anything in my life increased in costs by 11%, I'd figure it out.

00:33:42.000 I mean, I'd hate it, but I'd, I'd figure out how to make it work.

00:33:46.000 So that sounds practical just by its nature.

00:33:49.000 That's the way they should sell this thing.

00:33:51.000 Anyway, um, okay.

00:33:58.000 Um, I can't get over this question.

00:34:02.000 Why does it make sense to be enemies with Russia and for Russia to be enemies with us?

00:34:07.000 I, I still need somebody to explain it to me because here's the thing.

00:34:13.000 Does Russia really have the belief that it would be to their best interest to remain sort of permanent enemies with us where we're doing stuff to them to weaken them.

00:34:25.000 And we're doing stuff.

00:34:26.000 They're doing stuff to us because here's the thing.

00:34:28.000 We are much stronger than them, our economy and et cetera.

00:34:33.000 If you're the weak one, do you want to be poking the strong one?

00:34:38.000 Like what?

00:34:39.000 I, I, I, I've never heard anybody explain the, the three dimensional chess that Putin is playing where any of this makes sense.

00:34:47.000 Because remember when Russia pokes us, it seems like we always figure it out. 1.00

00:34:53.000 And maybe that part's not real either, but it seems like we keep catching them.

00:34:57.000 Why would you poke somebody who catches you and they're bigger than you and they punish you for it?

00:35:06.000 What?

00:35:07.000 Explain the, the end game.

00:35:10.000 How does that work?

00:35:11.000 I just don't understand it.

00:35:13.000 And if it does work and there's something to it, why aren't all the other countries doing it?

00:35:20.000 Now we'll talk about China in a moment.

00:35:23.000 Maybe they are, but, but is every country doing this sort of thing?

00:35:27.000 And every other country because it's such a good idea.

00:35:31.000 I don't really understand why we think Russia is doing this.

00:35:36.000 And if they are doing this, let's, let's take it as a fact that it's happening.

00:35:40.000 That they're poking us in all these various cyber ways, et cetera.

00:35:43.000 And we're poking them back, I guess.

00:35:46.000 We couldn't talk each other out of that.

00:35:49.000 There, there's no way to have a conversation and say, look, I get it.

00:35:53.000 We poke you, you poke us. 0.60

00:35:55.000 As long as one of us is poking, we should not expect the other one not to poke back.

00:36:01.000 But are you getting anything out of this?

00:36:03.000 Because we don't see us getting anything out of this.

00:36:06.000 I, there's just nothing that we're getting out of it.

00:36:09.000 Are you?

00:36:10.000 Putin?

00:36:11.000 Did you get something out of this this year?

00:36:12.000 Is your, did your economy go up because you messed with us?

00:36:16.000 What happened exactly?

00:36:18.000 And let's put it this way.

00:36:20.000 How bad is the risk?

00:36:22.000 Most of our elections are close to 50, 50, right?

00:36:25.000 So our elections are sort of, you know, 49, 51% situations.

00:36:30.000 What difference would it make?

00:36:33.000 Really?

00:36:34.000 If, you know, the person with 49% of the vote became president, would that really be, you

00:36:42.000 know, given that most people are voting randomly and just vote for their party and don't even

00:36:45.000 know what the policies are.

00:36:47.000 Are we really going to get a worse result?

00:36:50.000 Well, the people who lost would say, yes, hey, it's unfair, but I don't even think there's

00:36:56.000 a risk, at least in terms of our democratic system.

00:37:01.000 If all that happened is the person with 49% won instead of the person with 51, we just,

00:37:07.000 we just survived an election in which the person with the most popular votes didn't become

00:37:12.000 president.

00:37:13.000 That didn't break the system.

00:37:15.000 So the most that the Russians could do is tweak it from the 51% to the 49%. 0.54

00:37:22.000 Now, in the case of Sanders, I think it would make a big deal, but, you know, he's not going

00:37:27.000 to get within striking distance if he runs.

00:37:30.000 So even that won't make any difference because even Russia couldn't put him over the top.

00:37:34.000 So I just don't get it.

00:37:36.000 Somebody needs to explain it to me.

00:37:38.000 Here's another question that was asked on Twitter.

00:37:41.000 I think it was Adam.

00:37:45.000 Yeah, I think it was Adam who said this.

00:37:47.000 Why isn't China being implicated in meddling in our elections? 0.95

00:37:51.000 Are you telling me that our intelligence agencies briefed Congress, members of Congress,

00:37:58.000 about election interference and that China wasn't on the agenda?

00:38:05.000 What?

00:38:06.000 I mean, is that real?

00:38:08.000 Is it real that we have evidence of China trying to hack us, but no evidence of China?

00:38:15.000 Or do we have that as well, but that's still being held as, you know, non leaked?

00:38:21.000 You know, is there no leakage because of the China stuff?

00:38:26.000 So how do we explain this?

00:38:28.000 Again, it goes to the credibility of our, both our government and the intelligence services,

00:38:35.000 because this doesn't make any sense.

00:38:37.000 There's no world that I live in where it makes sense that Russia would be doing all this meddling

00:38:42.000 and getting caught so easily.

00:38:44.000 And China doesn't think that works? 0.99

00:38:48.000 Or they decided not to do it this time?

00:38:52.000 Maybe because of the trade deal?

00:38:54.000 I mean, isn't there a gigantic part of the story that's missing?

00:38:58.000 Like, where's China?

00:38:59.000 All right. 0.99

00:39:04.000 Here's some Bernie Sanders kill shots.

00:39:06.000 I'll just get these ready in anticipation of him maybe being the nominee.

00:39:12.000 I still think there's a really good chance that the people in power won't want to destroy their party with Sanders as the candidate,

00:39:21.000 but might take their chance of destroying the party by having some kind of a brokered convention where they put a moderate in charge.

00:39:29.000 So I think that's still at least a 50-50.

00:39:33.000 If I had to put odds on it, I'd say 50% at Sanders and 50% they steal it from him and give it to some moderate.

00:39:44.000 Which, by the way, could be quite defensible, I think.

00:39:49.000 I think they could defend that easily because the total of the moderates put together is a lot of people.

00:39:55.000 It's a very defensible position.

00:39:57.000 But in case it's Bernie, here are some kill shots. 0.60

00:40:02.000 Imagine saying some version of this.

00:40:05.000 You imagine this comes from the president or somebody in that position.

00:40:09.000 Bernie's heart is in the right place, but he doesn't understand economics and human psychology.

00:40:16.000 Because one of the best things you can do for persuasion is to agree with somebody on an important point.

00:40:23.000 And one of the things that you can say about Bernie that his supporters would never be talked out of,

00:40:29.000 and would be consistent with what the president said up to this point about Bernie, is that he's got a big heart.

00:40:38.000 And I think you should just say that, yeah.

00:40:40.000 And by the way, yes, so you're already on me.

00:40:45.000 Bringing up Bernie's heart, but in the context of a compliment, meaning figuratively he has a big heart,

00:40:55.000 sounds like you're just giving him a compliment.

00:40:57.000 But what do you think about?

00:41:00.000 You think about his heart.

00:41:02.000 You think about his recent heart event, and you wonder about his age, and you wonder if there's another one of those.

00:41:08.000 So that would be the first part, is that you're not only acknowledging that he does have empathy, he has a big heart.

00:41:17.000 And I think that the president would do well to recognize that that's a real thing, worthy of respect.

00:41:24.000 Having empathy and having a big heart for people, good so far.

00:41:29.000 But he doesn't understand economics and human psychology.

00:41:33.000 In other words, he doesn't have to get there.

00:41:35.000 That he's just impractical.

00:41:37.000 And I think everybody would, it would be an easy sale to say that his heart is in the right place,

00:41:42.000 and also you, his followers, your heart's in the right place too.

00:41:46.000 So, you know, you don't want to start insulting the Bernie followers,

00:41:52.000 because there could be a lot of crossover votes there.

00:41:56.000 Just say, you know, every one of you Bernie supporters, your hearts are in the right place too.

00:42:01.000 But here's how human psychology and incentives work.

00:42:06.000 And here's what we know works, and here's what we know doesn't.

00:42:09.000 And we just want to do the things that have always worked, instead of the things which have always failed.

00:42:15.000 Now you could argue whether that's accurate, but that's the message.

00:42:19.000 Here's another one.

00:42:22.000 And of course you all know this one.

00:42:25.000 Explain how we can have open borders and also free health care.

00:42:29.000 Because I think that's the ultimate kill shot.

00:42:33.000 Because I don't think Sanders can retreat from either of those positions.

00:42:37.000 He's not going to say, he's not going to suddenly say we don't want open borders.

00:42:42.000 And I don't think he's going to back off from giving free health care to anybody who comes in.

00:42:47.000 And there's nobody, nobody who can explain why that could possibly work, letting everybody in and giving them free health care.

00:42:57.000 So I think that's all you have to point out, and that is sort of the end of the game.

00:43:01.000 I mean, that would be it.

00:43:03.000 Let me ask you this.

00:43:05.000 In the age of robots, let's say someday in the future, when robots are doing all the menial labor.

00:43:15.000 I wonder if we're reaching a point where socialism is the better system.

00:43:22.000 Now, you still want to keep your republic and your democratic principles.

00:43:27.000 You want to keep that stuff.

00:43:28.000 You don't want to change the form of government.

00:43:30.000 But, do you need as much human incentive when the robots are providing all the basic living goods and they're doing the work?

00:43:41.000 You just might not need, I'll just put this idea out here, right?

00:43:45.000 So, before you go nuts, because I know this is a trigger word for you, I'm not recommending it.

00:43:52.000 I'm not recommending it.

00:43:54.000 I'm just asking this question because I think it's interesting.

00:43:57.000 If the whole reason that socialism doesn't work is because it doesn't match human incentives, meaning people won't work hard unless they can get a little extra gain compared to their fellow citizens.

00:44:10.000 So if you don't have that kind of a system, it's all going to fall apart.

00:44:13.000 But suppose the robots are doing all the hard stuff.

00:44:16.000 Yeah.

00:44:17.000 Yeah, I think, you know, Yang was already there.

00:44:20.000 Somebody says Naval disagrees, which probably means I'm wrong.

00:44:24.000 You never want to hear that.

00:44:26.000 If you ever want to be talking in public and then have somebody write on the comments, you know what you're saying, Scott?

00:44:31.000 The smartest person in the world disagrees. 0.99

00:44:33.000 I'm like, oh, crap. 0.99

00:44:35.000 Oh, crap. 0.99

00:44:36.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:44:37.000 If you don't know Naval Ravikant, if he has an opinion and you have an opinion and they're different, just give up on your opinions.

00:44:46.000 Just adopt his opinion.

00:44:48.000 You know, play the odds.

00:44:50.000 He's smarter than you.

00:44:51.000 So just go with whatever he says.

00:44:54.000 So if he disagrees with what I said, I don't know that that's true.

00:44:57.000 He may disagree in some minor part of it or more.

00:45:01.000 But I think when we have the age of robots, we may have to reassess what kind of a political or not political, well, maybe political, too, but economic system we need.

00:45:12.000 So that's a long way away.

00:45:13.000 I'm not going to worry about that.

00:45:15.000 All right.

00:45:16.000 Here's a tip.

00:45:17.000 I saw this on one of the websites.

00:45:20.000 I think it was on CNN that murderers are using the following alibi.

00:45:26.000 If you can call it that, maybe excuse.

00:45:29.000 They're saying that they didn't kill their spouses or girlfriends or boyfriends intentionally.

00:45:35.000 It happened during rough, let's shall we say intimate situations.

00:45:43.000 And so people are trying to get away with murder by saying, no, it wasn't intentional.

00:45:48.000 We were making love and we just, you know, we like it a little rough and that's the way it is.

00:45:54.000 And we just went a little too far.

00:45:56.000 Now, here's my recommendation to you.

00:45:59.000 You should, you should tell at least one friend today that you and your partner doesn't matter male or female, irrelevant to this point.

00:46:11.000 Tell one friend privately, you know, I got to tell you, you know, my partner and I, she or he really likes it rough, really likes it rough.

00:46:23.000 So you just want to put that out there because someday you may be accused of murder and you can say, look, I got a witness.

00:46:32.000 You call up Bob and you say, what did I tell you five years ago?

00:46:36.000 Yeah.

00:46:37.000 You said, you said you guys like it rough.

00:46:40.000 Alibi.

00:46:41.000 Bam.

00:46:44.000 Somebody says, no, no, Scott, don't give people ideas.

00:46:47.000 I'm not serious.

00:46:50.000 Lighten up.

00:46:53.000 You'll, you'll have to figure out how to get away with murder on your own.

00:46:56.000 Don't listen to me.

00:46:58.000 All right.

00:46:59.000 That's all I got for now.

00:47:00.000 And I will.

00:47:03.000 Oh, somebody else in the comments says, also mentioned how clumsy they are.

00:47:12.000 That's funny.

00:47:13.000 Yeah.

00:47:14.000 My husband or wife, every time he goes up on that ladder, it just looks so wobbly.

00:47:21.000 I, I'm afraid one day he's going to go up on that ladder and he's just going to lose his

00:47:26.000 balance and fall off that ladder. 0.96

00:47:28.000 It could happen.

00:47:29.000 Yeah.

00:47:30.000 That's a good one.

00:47:31.000 All right.

00:47:32.000 Enough about that.

00:47:33.000 Have a great day.

00:47:34.000 I'll talk to you later.

00:47:35.000 I'll talk to you later.

00:47:36.000 Bye.

00:47:37.000 Bye.

00:47:38.000 Bye.

00:47:39.000 Bye.

00:47:40.000 Bye.

00:47:41.000 Bye.

00:47:42.000 Bye.

00:47:43.000 Bye.

00:47:44.000 Bye.

00:47:45.000 Bye.

00:47:46.000 Bye.

00:47:48.000 Bye.

00:47:49.000 Bye.

00:47:53.000 Bye.

00:47:55.000 Bye.

00:47:57.000 Bye.

00:47:59.000 Bye.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - February 22, 2020

Episode 828 Scott Adams： Blago - The Poor Man's Roger Stone, Russia Putin its Nose in Our Election, Robot Socialists

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