Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 870 Scott Adams： Simultaneous Swaddling and Good Thoughts Before Bed

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, come on in. It's time for the simultaneous swaddle. That's right. Swaddle

00:00:18.420 yourself in a soft blanket and you'll feel better. It's a tense, scary world out there sometimes,

00:00:25.080 but we'll get through and we'll get through in style because that's how we do it. Well,

00:00:33.000 the news is coming so fast and so furiously. I feel as if I can fill up two full one-hour

00:00:43.500 periscopes every day because half a day goes by and there's so much new stuff that it's just

00:00:49.560 mind-boggling. I will remind you that there is one statistic that will tell you everything that

00:00:56.920 needs to be known and that is the death rate in the next few days, the death rate of people who

00:01:06.880 are under 60 and otherwise healthy. Now, of course, you always have mysterious deaths. People drop

00:01:12.740 dead from all kinds of things and they could be young and you don't know why, so it's not always

00:01:18.040 going to be because the virus killed them. Sometimes we just won't know. But here's what

00:01:25.760 to look for. Look for the number of deaths to start capping out even as the number of infections

00:01:32.520 rises steeply. And if that happens, that means that they have some medical treatments that are

00:01:40.160 working. So look for that. Almost nothing else matters because the number of infections won't

00:01:49.200 matter that much if the number of deaths go down and that would tell you we're going back to work.

00:01:54.040 Now, you saw that

00:01:55.200 you saw that President Trump picked Easter for his projected sort of, you know, preliminary estimated

00:02:07.740 date to at least get some people back to work. Now, what are people saying about that?

00:02:15.880 Well, they're debating it. Some people are saying, well, maybe it should be longer. Some people are

00:02:21.180 saying, well, you know, maybe it's too long. But do you notice how much more comfortable everybody is?

00:02:29.520 They might not admit it. But having an actual date, even if it changes, even if it's just a stupid

00:02:38.640 guess and nobody knows, doesn't it make you feel better? So I was telling you that earlier today,

00:02:44.420 that the reason that you want a certain date, no matter how much of a guess it is,

00:02:49.080 is that people are happy when you give them guesses. This is something I learned when I was doing

00:02:55.480 financial analysis back in my corporate days. And the manager would come in, some high level manager,

00:03:01.980 I was a low level person at the time. And they'd say, you know, what's the estimate for the, you know,

00:03:08.280 Q1 capital expenditure or whatever. And I'd say, no idea. We don't have any data yet. Haven't even

00:03:14.480 started collecting it. It would just be a guess. And then the manager says, yeah, but what do you think?

00:03:20.120 And I'd say, well, it doesn't really matter what I think, because I have no data upon which to go on.

00:03:25.920 Don't even have an estimate from prior years. Don't have anything to go on. Wouldn't know.

00:03:32.760 And then the manager says, yeah, but I kind of need a number. So you say, 25 million. And the manager

00:03:38.800 says, thank you. And he walks out and he's happy. I don't know why. Because under that situation,

00:03:45.240 you shouldn't leave happy. Because you didn't get any information. I just made up a number.

00:03:52.140 But he would still leave happy. And I could replay this scene over and over and over again.

00:03:57.640 One of the most dependable psychological phenomena is that if you give somebody a number,

00:04:06.260 they're happier. Even if they know it's not accurate. We're just built that way.

00:04:10.920 So the president did just that. He gave us a number. And I think it was brilliant, honestly.

00:04:18.340 You know, I don't think you'll get credit for how smart that is. Because he could have said,

00:04:23.900 it depends, he could have said what Fauci said. So Fauci is up there acting like a good doctor

00:04:31.060 slash scientist. But he doesn't have the leadership gene, if you know what I mean. Meaning that when

00:04:39.080 he talks, you say, okay, that sounds credible. And you sound like you know what you're doing. And I

00:04:44.680 think you have our interests in mind. And you know, a lot of good stuff. But he's not a leader.

00:04:50.960 And it's not his job. I mean, I'm sure he's a leader on task. But he's not sort of a leader in the

00:04:59.980 way, you know, a president is, or a general or something like that. So Fauci was trying to give

00:05:07.480 us the, well, it depends, you know, highly variable, it could happen, blah, blah, blah. And Trump just

00:05:13.760 said, we're going to try to make it Easter. Might not make it, but we're going to try to make it Easter.

00:05:17.920 And then I think, I think Trump let us look behind the curtain a little too much. Not that we wouldn't

00:05:27.000 have figured this out. But that it's a little bit obvious that they had an approximate, you know,

00:05:34.180 zone. And the president, at some point, maybe somebody suggested it first. But at some point,

00:05:40.300 the president realized that Easter was in that general area. And then it was just over.

00:05:47.920 You know, what were the odds that this president would not have picked Easter, as long as it was

00:05:55.420 somewhere in the range of, you know, a reasonable guess? No, he was going to pick Easter. It's Easter

00:06:03.000 all day long. And you have to admit, it's free money. It's just free money again. Because he ties his

00:06:12.400 brand to Jesus. You know, he, and he's not saying it. You know, Trump is not saying, he's certainly not

00:06:20.240 saying anything like this. He's not saying, you know, compare me to Jesus, because I'm going to

00:06:25.100 resurrect the economy of the world on Easter. Now, the beauty is, he doesn't have to say it,

00:06:36.160 because it's just sort of there. And you can't not see it. And it's hilarious. At the same time,

00:06:43.940 it's effective, because you don't want it to work, right? If you say to yourself, I get it,

00:06:49.320 I see what he's doing. You know, he's trying to make me think of Jesus. At the same time,

00:06:54.280 I'm thinking of him, because they're both, you know, something got resurrected in both cases.

00:06:58.200 And you're going to say, I, I resist that association. It doesn't matter. It doesn't

00:07:03.960 matter a bit, because the association is the association. Once you see it, you can't unsee

00:07:09.240 it. It just, it becomes part of your code. It's so freaking funny. And of course, the president

00:07:17.360 is making sure we know it's Easter. You know, that it's a beautiful timeline, as he's speaking

00:07:24.020 also, a beautiful timeline. And it is beautiful, unless you're trying to run against him for

00:07:30.380 president, in which case, it's devastating. It's just devastating, because it's just so

00:07:36.080 perfectly chosen. So was it Dr. Birx, if I'm saying her name correctly? She also emphasized

00:07:44.760 a point I made this morning, which is that the, another hardcore rule of management,

00:07:52.660 management. And, and management is important, because we're trying to manage this virus and

00:07:57.820 manage the country and manage the economy. So, so knowing how to manage stuff is pretty

00:08:02.640 important. And Dr. Birx demonstrated that she has a deeper talent stack than maybe you

00:08:09.540 guessed. I don't know what her background is. But when you hear somebody, she's a medical

00:08:14.840 doctor, right? But when you, scientist, doctor, which was she's, but here's the part that was

00:08:21.740 impressive. So when she was explaining the deadline, she said a management truism, that people respond

00:08:30.580 to deadlines. It's, it's a way of focusing things. People will meet a deadline, even if it's a random

00:08:36.480 deadline. We're just built that way. You give us a deadline and we're going to work twice as hard

00:08:41.160 and get that done. And she pointed out that that was just, you know, sort of a, a reasonable,

00:08:48.060 smart thing to do because people work to deadlines. Now that's not the sort of thing you hear doctors

00:08:53.860 say normally, which without checking, maybe somebody can check while I'm on here. I have a suspicion

00:09:00.700 that she has a deeper background than medical science, because that's very managerish. You know,

00:09:09.300 it's something you just wouldn't hear from a medical person so much. So picking the date is

00:09:15.140 brilliant because it focuses us. It makes us feel comfortable, even if it's wrong, and it will focus

00:09:20.800 attention. And I think it couldn't have been done better, honestly. I don't think the president could

00:09:27.540 have handled this part better, you know, coming up with that timeline. All right. Poor Joe Biden.

00:09:39.300 I think most of you have seen the videos now where he's trying to do his little video studio thing.

00:09:48.620 And it's just very sad because he seems confused. And at one point he said a sentence that didn't make

00:09:55.800 any sense. And, you know, he's obviously just struggling up there for whatever reason. You know,

00:10:03.240 maybe there's some production problems we don't know about. Maybe there's something going on.

00:10:07.260 But he's failing hard. I just saw something that said he he canceled his press conference for

00:10:13.640 Tuesday. But that doesn't make sense. Maybe it meant Thursday, because it was a current tweet. I

00:10:20.340 don't know why he would cancel yesterday's press conference. So here's the thing.

00:10:27.680 It's pretty obvious at this point, isn't it? That everybody knows, meaning that the Democrats,

00:10:38.960 even the ones who support Joe Biden, even the ones who love him, they can see it now, right?

00:10:45.620 I don't think I'm going too far out on the limb. You know, I always talked about the two movies,

00:10:50.500 you know, you can only see your own movie. But I don't think that's the case here. I don't think

00:10:56.700 so. It looks like they're seeing the same movie. And just sort of, there might be a little wishful

00:11:02.860 thinking that it's not as bad as we think, or maybe he's just having a bad day. So I think the

00:11:09.040 Democrats are, are pretty steeped in wishful thinking, because I know they see it. I think

00:11:16.780 they're just wishing it goes away or fixes itself or something. So I don't know what they're going

00:11:23.460 to do about that, honestly. But, you know, Trump's approval rating for just, I guess, the coronavirus

00:11:32.000 stuff was at 60%. Trump is at 60%. And we're not anywhere near the end of it. What happens if it's

00:11:43.580 November? And we reopened the economy wisely? Maybe there were some missteps, because of

00:11:52.300 course there will be. It's a big complicated thing full of guesses. There are going to be

00:11:55.760 missteps. But let's say we get, you know, we right the ship every time we get off. And it's

00:12:00.340 November. And we're not back to where we were, but we're heading that way hard. And people are

00:12:07.160 going to say, you know, President Trump, it looks like you, you got us through it. But more

00:12:12.660 importantly, we also got to watch Biden not be able to do, you know, any kind of live streaming

00:12:21.560 video thing. And it was kind of pathetic. So I think he took, what, a week to put up his studio.

00:12:29.580 Let me, let me give you an example of someone who's not a thousand years old, solving the problem

00:12:35.460 that Joe Biden took a week and his team took a week to solve. I will do it in the character of AOC.

00:12:44.360 So I will be AOC. And I just realized that I'm going to be, you know, can't leave the house and I

00:12:51.500 have to talk to the public. How will I solve that? Oh, that's right. It's in my hand.

00:12:58.780 Beep, beep, beep, beep. Hey, everybody, I'm AOC. Would you like to watch me eat some popcorn while

00:13:04.420 I talk about your health care? 65 million views. Now you watch Joe Biden, you couldn't even get that

00:13:12.900 that much together. Now I'm exaggerating. There's a little bit more to what he's trying to do in his

00:13:18.300 studio, but not much. And he didn't have to wait. I mean, he could have just held up his phone and

00:13:23.260 started talking. It works for everybody else. Don't worry. That's not coronavirus.

00:13:32.440 So as we watch Joe decomposing and looking helpless, I would say helpless would be the word I would use

00:13:40.960 for what we've seen so far. He seems kind of helpless, wouldn't you say? While you're watching

00:13:45.740 the president doing these, you know, tour de force press conferences every single day, you know,

00:13:51.400 working on this problem, moving heaven and earth, you know, the whole world is coordinating. And

00:13:58.780 we're going to compare that in our minds to that weak little helpless Joe Biden. And I came up with

00:14:06.100 a kill shot for Joe Biden. And it's not even fair because, you know, the wind would be a kill shot at

00:14:13.940 this point. But I think this would be the tagline I would give him if I were running against him for

00:14:20.240 president. Joe Biden, he's not good at things. Right? Didn't that feel right? Joe Biden, he's not

00:14:33.460 good at things. Because we watched him do try to do this, you know, home studio thing. And he's

00:14:38.460 clearly just not good at things. There's nothing we've seen him do that you would say he's good at.

00:14:43.880 I mean, he kind of sort of held his own in a debate. But nobody would say he was good at it.

00:14:52.220 Right? They just he didn't fall apart. That was the standard he had for the debates. Name something

00:14:57.420 he's good at. He's actually not good at things. And when the first time you hear it, you probably laughed.

00:15:06.860 Some of you probably laughed because Joe Biden, he's not good at things. It's kind of sticky, isn't it?

00:15:13.880 Right. So at this point, you know, things will change between now and election day. But if they

00:15:21.500 didn't, Trump would win 50 states. I mean, at the at this moment, you know, and again, you can't you

00:15:28.400 can't straight line your projection because so much will change between now and election day. But

00:15:32.440 if you could, he'd win, you know, like 48, 50 states, something like that. All right,

00:15:40.080 I am still unhappy with the visibility of our supply chain for critical stuff, especially

00:15:49.880 the PPE and the hospital stuff and the ventilators and stuff. And again, I don't know if it's because

00:15:56.380 our government doesn't have a good handle on it. Or is it because they're not good at explaining

00:16:02.420 it? Now, I showed you the other day, a graphic treatment, so we can see how much is needed,

00:16:08.620 you know, would be needed at peak of each piece of equipment. And then, you know, how much we have

00:16:13.200 this week and what we expect, etc. Now, again, these don't have to be accurate numbers. They just have

00:16:19.640 to be the government's best understanding so that we're at least at least as up to date as the

00:16:25.920 government. Because if you feel like the government knows stuff and you don't, you're wondering,

00:16:30.740 what's the point of those two-hour press conferences? You know, the press conference

00:16:35.220 starts, and I have one question usually. Tell us about the supply line. Okay, that's a data. You

00:16:42.060 know, you gave me some data. We got, you know, X number of masks coming. Compared to what? By when?

00:16:50.500 How many more do we need? How many more are in the pipeline? Are they all good? Is there anything

00:16:56.280 wrong with the pipeline? So, all of the pipeline questions for each of the items from masks to

00:17:01.800 gloves to gowns to ventilators, I get raw numbers, but they don't make me feel good. Because I don't

00:17:09.900 know, you know, so New York City got 4,000 ventilators. Now, to my mind, I say, well, that

00:17:17.640 sounds pretty good, right? I mean, 4,000, that seems pretty good. But how many do you think

00:17:24.340 they'll need? And because all of those ventilators went to the hot spot, they're not available for

00:17:29.960 the rest of the country. So, I would say the task force is doing a, just a flat failing job

00:17:37.380 on communicating clearly in a way that the public understands the supply chain. Now, it's possible

00:17:45.640 that they don't want to communicate clearly. You know, you always have to hold out the possibility

00:17:52.040 that the government maybe don't want you to know too many of the details because maybe it's

00:17:57.340 not working as well as we want. Maybe there's some reason we shouldn't know. But I don't think

00:18:03.620 there's a reason. And we could probably help if there's some part of that supply chain that

00:18:09.140 needs a little push. So, that's the biggest need, I think, for the task force is to improve

00:18:16.200 that specific communication about the supply chain for the PPE. Interestingly, when Trump

00:18:25.840 was asked about Congress, dicking around on the bill and not getting it done, wouldn't

00:18:33.260 you have expected Trump to just unload on Pelosi and Schumer? Now, I think he did before, but

00:18:41.060 today, he didn't. Do you notice that? It was kind of conspicuous that it seemed like he had

00:18:50.560 decided that being bipartisan, at least today, he had decided that being bipartisan was the

00:18:56.940 stronger play. Completely right, I believe. I think he can rely on other members of Congress

00:19:03.460 and social media to put a lot of pressure on the people who are not getting it done. By the

00:19:09.760 way, did you see Mark Cuban's tweet? I retweeted it. And he basically just screamed in caps,

00:19:18.500 you know, do your effing jobs. You know, he tweeted something showing that Congress wasn't getting

00:19:23.920 it done. And, you know, I boosted that signal as well. Because this is not bipartisan. I mean,

00:19:34.240 sorry, it's not even just a partisan problem. It's just rank incompetence and not caring about

00:19:41.540 the public. This is a whole different level of, you know, you've got to fire people if

00:19:46.000 they keep acting that way. So there was some indication, you know, by the end of the day,

00:19:52.620 the markets liked it. There's some indication that maybe something good will happen. We shall

00:19:58.620 see. So, you know, the stock market had a good day. If anybody, if anybody wasn't already in the

00:20:08.020 stock market, I'll bet you wish you were today. All right. What else we got going on? I always

00:20:16.420 wondered if you could have a social distancing app that would sense somebody by Wi-Fi, their

00:20:21.760 distance and just beep when you're too close to somebody. I wonder if that could ever be a thing.

00:20:27.180 All right. I'm going to look at your questions because I asked questions. Erica says, how about

00:20:32.900 a Periscope wedding? Well, you know, I guess we'll have to see how things go. It's not my first

00:20:40.440 choice. It's a fun idea, but it is sort of a private thing. So probably won't be live streaming

00:20:47.640 that. David says, how's your friend who is recovering from the COVID-19 virus? The answer is 100%.

00:20:57.100 As of today, just several days after being treated with the good stuff, he's 100%. And he was in

00:21:07.260 pretty bad shape before that. He wasn't hospitalized, but he was, you know, he was sort of getting close

00:21:14.540 to that borderline where maybe hospitalization would be in the conversation, but didn't get there.

00:21:19.760 Who has the most power in the USA? Citizens, the media, or the government as a whole? Interesting. And I think

00:21:33.680 it depends. It depends. You know, the government has the power when the people don't care. So anything that

00:21:40.920 the people don't especially care about, you know, the details of government, the government has all the power

00:21:45.740 because we're don't care. But if the citizens care, then they are stronger than the media and

00:21:53.960 they're stronger than the government. But most of the days, the media is probably wagging the government

00:22:01.340 and wagging the citizens too. But in a, let's say a situation like this. This is a perfect example.

00:22:09.140 When the Democrats threw all that pork in the bill and the Republicans said, nope,

00:22:14.840 I think it's the public that made that change. Don't you? I feel the public had the power and just

00:22:24.740 twisted the arms of the government and said, you know, this isn't, this isn't normal sausage making.

00:22:30.820 This is an emergency. Not this time. And do you think airlines shutting down domestic flights

00:22:40.140 will be good for fighting the outbreak? I don't know why it wouldn't be. I mean,

00:22:44.940 I wouldn't put a percentage on it. But yeah, of course, anything that reduces travel should reduce the spread.

00:22:54.420 What do we know about other treatments? I don't don't know too much about those.

00:23:01.460 Should we be doing a national scale plan for temperature checks on public transportation?

00:23:06.620 You know, I would, I would defer to the experts on that because I heard, I thought I heard Fauci say

00:23:13.460 that it's sort of a weak process, meaning that there are so many people who are not symptomatic

00:23:21.160 and they wouldn't necessarily even have a fever that you're hardly ever going to catch anybody who

00:23:27.860 has it, who didn't know about it. You know, it's sort of like if you have a fever, you're probably not

00:23:33.960 going out because you know what the score is at this point. And if you don't have the fever,

00:23:38.380 it's not going to catch it. So there'd just be this weird little range where your fever just started,

00:23:43.660 but maybe you weren't quite aware of it. And yeah, and it was because of the COVID. So you're not

00:23:49.720 catching much. But I'd have to listen to the experts to see if it's even worthwhile at all.

00:23:55.280 You know, I firmly believe that at least some of the steps the government does are for the

00:24:01.540 psychology and the comfort of the people. You know, I can't believe that spraying the streets in Wuhan

00:24:07.140 made a difference because the germ doesn't live too well outside in the first place relative to other

00:24:14.920 places. Did you see Joe Biden sneezing into his hand on his video press conference and Jake Tapper

00:24:30.160 busted him on it? He's like, you know, you should have, you tell us to, you know, sneeze into your

00:24:37.300 elbow, but you just sneezed into your hand. And Joe did not have an answer for that. It was so sad.

00:24:48.100 Let's see.

00:24:51.340 Feeling so down and keep crying today. Oh, so Cindy says that you need this. Well, I hope you hear Cindy.

00:24:59.520 Are you swaddling? Get your warm blanket. Looks like in your profile picture, you've got a guy there.

00:25:06.840 Get your guy, get a blanket, do some serious spooning. I'm here to tell you that we got this.

00:25:16.800 I believe this week will be the weirdest week because we'll have horrendous news about new people who

00:25:24.580 are having health problems of one sort or another or even dying. We're going to hear a lot of it this

00:25:29.700 week. And you're going to hear horror stories about the the economy, etc. But we do have a plan now

00:25:38.360 subject to change. But the the Easter date is a gigantic thing. And I think the stock market

00:25:45.300 is responding quite rationally in this case, the stock market is not always rational, but today was

00:25:51.580 very rational. I think you're going to have good news about treatments. And I think you're going to

00:25:59.760 have good news about tests availability. And I think you're going to have good news about some people

00:26:07.060 getting back to work. So Cindy, relax. We got this. There's actually nothing that can go terribly wrong

00:26:16.340 at this point. So let me let me round that up by saying, I don't think the risk of the entire economy

00:26:24.980 falling apart is even a little bit high. If I'm being honest, you know, I got a degree in economics,

00:26:33.200 and I've been around for a while. And I've been through a lot of cycles of we're all doomed,

00:26:38.900 only to find out nothing of the sort, right? So if you've been through enough cycles, and Cindy,

00:26:44.520 you look young, so you haven't been through enough of these. This is very familiar territory

00:26:49.440 for a lot of us, different situations, but the same feeling of general alarm. But this one is the

00:26:58.020 least alarming of them all. You know, after 9-11, I have to admit, it was scary, because you didn't

00:27:03.420 know if it was going to happen again, and where, and all that. But this one has more of a defined

00:27:10.260 beginning and end. And there isn't any chance that the whole economy is going to fall apart into

00:27:17.600 depression before we get back to work. I don't think there's any chance, because we're really clever.

00:27:22.540 All the assets are there. We just have to re-inhabit them. When the time has come, we'll find clever

00:27:28.340 ways to do things outdoors, and with the windows open, and with masks. And we're going to be good.

00:27:39.280 Is capitalism dead? Well, you know, we're definitely going to be trying some socialism. So that will

00:27:48.080 be interesting in how it changes the way people think about it. Yeah, there's a locust plague

00:27:57.400 in Africa right now, and somebody's saying that, you know, a reasonably small effort would

00:28:04.780 be a big deal. I'm sure that's true, but I just don't know anything that's going to get

00:28:12.360 any oxygen except this, for now, unfortunately. Since mortgage payments are being suspended,

00:28:20.120 shouldn't rent payments be? I don't know the details of that. Are mortgage payments being

00:28:23.900 suspended? But I would agree with you. They should be. What can we simultaneously sip with you?

00:28:32.980 No, you can simultaneously swaddle. There's no sipping today. Will the U.S. end up penalizing

00:28:40.020 American companies for continuing to do business in China, or reward those who move their business

00:28:45.840 back? Well, I guess it depends what you mean by penalize. There's going to be a lot of pressure.

00:28:51.900 The government can put a lot of pressure on you in a lot of different ways. I wouldn't

00:28:55.600 be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised if there ends to be some kind of maybe tax pressure or

00:29:02.040 something to make it harder to do business outside of the United States. Could happen.

00:29:07.700 Top tips for staying positive and what skills to build when quarantined. Number one. Oh,

00:29:14.980 hi, Donovan. It's Donovan. Hey, Donovan. In South Korea. So tips for staying positive. Well,

00:29:23.720 you know, I've said them often, and they're worth repeating. And by the way, are you noticing that a

00:29:29.200 lot of your actual professionals and people who know what they're talking about are saying what I've

00:29:34.900 been saying from the start, which is take a nice long walk and don't exhaust yourself because it's

00:29:40.900 good for your mental health, but also good for your immune system. So you don't want to exercise

00:29:46.460 too much, but you want to get your good walk in every day. Get some air, make you feel good. So

00:29:52.280 that's number one. I've tried it both ways. I've tried it, taking a walk and not taking a walk.

00:29:57.740 Big difference in my mental and physical state. The walk really, really helps. The other thing

00:30:05.140 you need to do is make sure you get enough sleep. Turn off the TV. Don't check your social media for

00:30:10.680 at least periods of a day. It doesn't have to be all day. Things are happening quickly, so I think

00:30:15.040 it's good to be tuned in. I don't like to go too much more than an hour without checking the news

00:30:20.720 at the moment. But here's my best advice. If you're watching this Periscope, it's probably because you've

00:30:30.680 been watching me for a while. Most of you are not new. You've been around a while. And you know that

00:30:35.960 I'm pretty good at predicting things. And you've watched it with this. I was literally, I think I was

00:30:42.860 the first person to say close the flights. I think Jack Posabek was talking about closing the borders

00:30:49.020 even before I did. But I was very, very early on that. I was also early calling that Donald Trump

00:30:57.160 would become president. And, you know, I was early saying that he would probably meet and have

00:31:02.860 something productive happen with North Korea. It's a long ways away still, but I would think you'd

00:31:07.780 agree that something good is there. And I thought the president would be good at negotiating trade

00:31:12.440 deals. And I told you that the trade war with China would end up okay. So if you were to look at my

00:31:20.160 entire body of predictions, you should have some comfort that if I tell you things are looking like

00:31:27.880 they're turning around pretty quickly, and that our economy will be back fully at some point, but I would

00:31:35.500 say the odds of something like a depression, zero. Just zero. Just none at all. Because we don't have

00:31:44.200 any of the elements that would make that a case. People will be back to work, you know, in a month.

00:31:49.760 In a month, you can put up with anything for a month. So, you should trust me that it looks like

00:32:01.720 we're in good shape. I will also tell you that I might know more than you do. Now, I'm not going

00:32:09.120 to say more about that. I'm just going to say, if you've ever believed me about anything, believe this.

00:32:18.920 Things are going to be pretty good. Now, it's going to be a tough week. It's not all roses. There will be

00:32:25.260 death. There will be pain. There will be lots of economic disruption, and some of that will affect

00:32:32.440 all of us, some more than others. That's all going to happen. But there is a time certain when things

00:32:39.840 turn the other way. We're getting ready to go on offense, and you can't judge the war before one team

00:32:47.740 started to fight. I mean, we're purely in a strategic retreat and divide and conquer all very smart

00:32:56.180 things. But while we're doing this, we're building weapons, test kits, processes, procedures. We're

00:33:04.000 getting smarter. We're building new supply lines for protective gear. We're testing meds faster than

00:33:11.680 we've ever tested them before. We're putting vaccines together. We're getting data. We'll

00:33:17.560 probably, I imagine at some point, we'll have serum therapy where you can get the blood of somebody

00:33:24.880 who's, or the serum from the blood of somebody who's recovered. This is all going to happen really

00:33:31.240 quickly, and then we're going to be on offense. So you're all going to be fine. All right.

00:33:38.960 Does Yang have a place on Trump's task force? Well, you know, I would say yes, as a consultant.

00:33:53.520 You know, it's hard to form teams of people that you don't, you're not comfortable with or on the

00:33:59.240 other team or something. But certainly as, you know, a smart, reliable person, I would want his

00:34:06.840 opinion to be part of anything of this nature. Yes. How best to encourage an elderly relative who

00:34:13.380 lives alone in another town? Well, contact, but video contact. The main thing I think your elderly

00:34:21.580 relative needs is lots of contact, especially if they can't leave the house. So, you know, if they do

00:34:28.520 stay in, they're pretty darn safe as long as they stay away from people.

00:34:36.020 Question, can high-quality hypoallergenic vacuum bags be repurposed as masks in an emergency?

00:34:43.680 Wouldn't they be better than a cotton bandana? I do not know, but among the questions I would ask

00:34:49.380 is, is there any kind of fiber on there that's going to jump off into your lungs?

00:34:54.960 I don't know, that would be the first thing I'd ask. But I have no idea. I don't imagine

00:35:00.840 that a vacuum bag would be engineered to those specs. I don't know.

00:35:11.000 Oh, somebody else says there's an Oxford study that implies yes, if you double up with an outer

00:35:16.700 wrap, such as a scarf. Okay. Somebody's asking about Justin Amash, but I don't know what his

00:35:27.300 proposals are. Why not continue the quarantine for the elderly and sick only? I think that's

00:35:34.520 what's going to happen. What do you like on your hot dog? I don't eat hot dogs. Why is the

00:35:43.260 left so heartless to businesses? That sounds like a joke. First industry to decouple should

00:35:52.280 be pharma, of course. Where's your rocking chair? All of you people watching, and only one

00:36:07.860 of you got the joke. So Steve LL, congratulations. You're the only one who got the joke.

00:36:21.680 Why would the governor of Nevada ban the malaria drugs? I don't know anything about that.

00:36:27.100 Does it seem that people care more about re-election than the best solution of the country? Yes, some

00:36:41.000 of them. Tips on lowering the stress or anxiety of family and friends during this time? Well,

00:36:47.500 the main tip for lowering somebody else's anxiety is the one I'm modeling right now.

00:36:52.840 If you can't get yourself calm, you're not going to calm anybody else down. So job number one,

00:37:01.040 and this is the Caesar, the dog whisperer method. The way you train your dog is to train yourself

00:37:09.120 because your dog is influenced by your attitude. When I'm angry, every once in a while I'll get mad

00:37:15.500 at something in the office, some trivial thing, and my dog will actually leave the house.

00:37:22.840 My dog Snickers actually won't be in the house with me when I'm in a bad mood. She'll actually

00:37:27.740 leave the house. And it's not like I beat my dog or anything. She just can't be around

00:37:32.400 a negative attitude. She just won't have it. So she just leaves the house and sits in the

00:37:38.660 backyard for a while. She's got her own little door there. So if you want to get your relatives

00:37:44.640 to calm down, it starts with you. And you're going to have to come with a real calm attitude,

00:37:49.360 and you're going to have to show some knowledge. Because if you don't know more than they do,

00:37:54.680 you're not going to be able to calm them down. So you've got to be smarter and more well-informed.

00:37:58.720 You've got to be relaxed. You've got to keep them informed and remind them. The main things I would

00:38:03.940 remind people is that the economy is not broken. I mean, it's really not. It literally just took some

00:38:11.180 time off. All the assets are still there. We'll just repopulate them as soon as we can.

00:38:15.880 So the economy is going to be fine relative to a depression. There will be some kind of mild

00:38:23.400 recession that won't last that long. And then in terms of health, as long as they're staying away

00:38:31.620 from social contact, they should be fine. But I've said before that watch the death rate in the next

00:38:37.280 two days. And the reason I say that is I think that hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin and zinc

00:38:45.240 combo is being tested. But probably people are already using it. So if you look at New York City

00:38:52.180 and you see the death rate just start plummeting, it means they're starting to use the drug and it's

00:38:58.100 working. If it doesn't, if the death rate in New York doesn't start going down pretty quickly,

00:39:04.180 you know, no matter what the rate of infection is, well, then I'd be worried. But until that happens,

00:39:09.700 I'm not worried. All right.

00:39:16.480 Nevada signed a measure to protect the malaria drug from hoarding. That makes more sense.

00:39:21.520 It makes more sense that they were protecting a scarce resource.

00:39:32.780 My sister is raging at my uncle and cousin for violating quarantine rules. Who do we persuade?

00:39:41.580 Well, I don't know if anybody can persuade elderly people. You know, you reach a certain age and just

00:39:50.180 nobody can persuade you of anything. So if they're not afraid, what are you going to do?

00:39:57.460 Because fear is the only thing that would make people stop it. And people have different reactions

00:40:02.460 to scary things. So if they're just not afraid, what's going to stop them? Now, the way I would go

00:40:09.600 is to say, you know, you're not a patriot. So you probably want to find out what your relative's

00:40:16.920 hot button is, because everybody's different. So let's say you knew your relatives were very

00:40:22.040 patriotic. That's the path I'd take. I'd say, you know, I know you don't think you're going to get

00:40:29.420 it. And I know you don't even care if you die. But you are just not being a patriot. Because the

00:40:34.880 whole point is you don't want to get out there and get it and give it to somebody else. You know,

00:40:38.960 do you know how many people you could kill personally? Do the math. If your mom, dad,

00:40:46.400 if you get it, you're probably going to give it to some family members. And let's say they're fine.

00:40:51.640 In most cases, they'll just recover and they'll be fine. But statistically speaking, because it's

00:40:57.080 spreading so fast, you're going to give it to two and a half people and each of them is going to give

00:41:01.620 it to two and a half people and each of them. Chances are, any one person who violates the quarantine

00:41:08.700 and actually gets infected, just that one person could kill dozens. Right? Unless, you know,

00:41:19.380 the wild card is if we get some meds, they can really stop it in his tracks. But at this point,

00:41:25.720 one person violating a curfew is taking an expected value chance of killing people more than one person.

00:41:35.500 because of the number of people who could be affected just by one infection. So, so depending

00:41:42.300 on the person, you either want to go for patriotism, you want to go for fear, but it sounds like they

00:41:47.400 don't have fear, but maybe you can give them more information until they did. Oh, here it is. Do you

00:41:54.280 want to scare, scare people into staying home? Find an article from nurses who are dealing with people

00:42:02.400 as they die from this. I'm not going to give you details. But let, just let me say that of all the ways

00:42:09.600 you could die, I don't know I've heard of a, a worse one except maybe being on fire. Right? Of all the ways

00:42:18.580 you could die, being on fire would be pretty bad. But dying from this is pretty bad too. So if you want to

00:42:26.640 scare somebody, just because I'm not even going to give you the details, but it's the, the last

00:42:30.960 hours are pretty darn ugly. So stay away from, stay away from people. All right. Um, what does your

00:42:42.400 economics degree say about unlimited quantitative easing? It says there's nothing unlimited. So

00:42:48.640 everything's limited. Uh, did I talk about Nevada? Yeah, I just don't know too much about that, except

00:42:57.040 they're probably protecting it from hoarding. Uh, all right. So you could have 56,000 people infected

00:43:07.360 through one infection. Well, it's more than that because every person on earth who's infected

00:43:13.280 came from one person. Think about that. Everybody on earth who's infected started

00:43:20.560 with one person. So if you're asking yourself, how many people could you personally kill if

00:43:27.280 you get it and spread it? I don't know how many people have died so far. What's the total worldwide

00:43:35.040 death count? Tens of thousands. So you could actually be responsible for killing tens of thousands

00:43:41.660 of people. That's not even a joke. That's just math. Um, yeah, I'm looking at your comments. Pretty,

00:43:55.260 pretty ugly stuff. Will you ever leave your house again? Well, let me tell you a little story. So just

00:44:05.900 before I got on Periscope, I decided to check my mailbox. So I walked down the hill to my mailbox,

00:44:11.340 and it had been raining all day. Now, this is important to the story that it had been raining

00:44:16.220 all day. So as I'm walking around to the mailbox, I see under a bush, uh, a package, a cardboard box

00:44:25.420 that apparently my shipping company, whoever, whoever delivered it, instead of taking it to my door,

00:44:31.220 which would be standard, they threw it under a bush in my lawn.

00:44:35.180 It's a cardboard box that has been sitting in the rain all day. But I thought to myself, well, you know,

00:44:45.820 there's probably some canned goods in there or something in a plastic, you know, it's not like,

00:44:50.700 it's not like whatever's in there is going to be necessarily hurt, because there's always a package

00:44:54.620 within the, within the box, right? But as I approach it, I can see that the construction of the box has

00:45:01.500 really taken a hit from the rain, and it's starting to break down. And I looked through a corner of it,

00:45:06.860 and it's paper goods. And I thought, I think it's toilet paper. Because I think Christina, you know,

00:45:13.820 just before you couldn't get anything, she got it in order. And it was like, you know, two weeks to

00:45:18.780 deliver, and this was it. And I can see it through the corner. I'm like, no!

00:45:24.700 So time stood still as I ran to the bush. And I tried to scoop up the melting, wet box that had

00:45:36.940 paper towels in it, as it turns out, not, not toilet tissues. But they weren't wrapped in anything.

00:45:42.860 They were just in the cardboard box. And I pick it up. And I'm trying to hold the box together as it's,

00:45:49.740 it's melting in my hands. It's almost liquid. And I, if I drop any of these precious rolls of paper

00:45:55.660 towels, I don't know if I'll ever see another paper towel. And if it hits the ground, it's going to be

00:46:00.700 ruined, because it's been raining all day. And I'm trying, and I'm running up my driveway,

00:46:06.140 trying to, trying to plug the holes as it's falling apart, and the, and the integrity of the box is

00:46:11.340 falling. And I'm like, oh, this is going to be a nightmare. And I, I go running into my garage,

00:46:16.300 into the dry garage floor, and the whole box just disintegrated. It actually, it actually fell

00:46:24.300 apart in just component parts, and just fell on the ground. And, and the, and the, the towels inside,

00:46:31.260 you know, fell on the ground, mostly dry. A little bit wet, a little bit on the corners, but mostly dry.

00:46:40.620 And so I saved my beloved paper towels. But there's a punchline to it. I told you that Christina ordered

00:46:47.580 them when almost everything was already sold out. So I got my paper towels. But I don't know what

00:46:54.460 country these were created in. Because my normal paper towel has some kind of a soft papery feel to it.

00:47:05.420 Whoever made these paper towels did not spend much time converting it from tree to paper towel roll.

00:47:14.300 It was still pretty close to a tree. I don't know if I could even unwrap the sheets. They're,

00:47:20.060 they're like little plywood wrapped around a core. So it's not your highest quality paper goods is what

00:47:27.340 I'm saying. Anyway, I talked to somebody in Southern California who went to a Costco down there.

00:47:35.820 And they had paper towels. And they had, you know, water. I think they had toilet paper.

00:47:43.340 But you were limited by quantity. So as soon as the big stores learn to limit by quantity,

00:47:49.820 you know, to per customer or whatever, that should be the end of the shortage. So I think

00:47:54.620 that's going to come to the end in maybe one week. That's my best guess. All right.

00:47:59.020 All right. That's all for now. And I will see you in the morning. Bye for now.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - March 25, 2020

Episode 870 Scott Adams： Simultaneous Swaddling and Good Thoughts Before Bed

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