Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 946 Scott Adams： Biden Versus Trump, Food Psychology, Your Questions and More

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, come on in. It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams.

00:00:14.400 Here's a little thing I do with my pen, because I can.

00:00:21.240 Yes, I used to practice doing this, throwing my pen in the air and then catching it in a way I can still write.

00:00:27.120 Watch this. Ah, impressive.

00:00:30.560 If you're listening to this on audio, it's really boring.

00:00:34.420 Well, hello everybody. It's another amazing evening in one of the coolest weeks ever.

00:00:40.920 Yes, we feel bad about those who are suffering with coronavirus, their families and the victims.

00:00:49.260 But we don't necessarily have to dwell on it, do we? Not every hour.

00:00:54.860 We can pay our respects and then we can live our lives. How about that?

00:00:58.740 Who's with me? Let's find a way to enjoy at least part of this weird experience we're having.

00:01:06.620 So, did you all catch the President's press conference today?

00:01:13.040 Dana Prino beat me to it on Twitter while it was going on and she said that the President's answer about Biden was really good.

00:01:23.080 And I had to say, it was really good. We'll talk about that.

00:01:27.600 But in general, I thought maybe one of his best press conferences.

00:01:31.960 And let me tell you what he's getting right.

00:01:35.760 And man, is he good at it.

00:01:37.720 And you might not have noticed.

00:01:39.220 Well, you probably noticed, but maybe I'll add something to it.

00:01:42.660 Which is this.

00:01:45.120 When the President has a message, whether it's build the wall or whatever, he is the most disciplined repeater of messages, he will just hammer that simple message to death.

00:02:00.720 So, he's really good at hammering the message home.

00:02:04.980 And one of the things that he's been hammering, and maybe you haven't noticed it because he does it so well, is that no matter what the question is, what's the first thing he always answers with?

00:02:17.360 You probably know the answer at home.

00:02:22.020 No matter what the question is, because it's all at least roughly about the coronavirus or politics, he answers with, first, respecting the victims.

00:02:32.840 Have you noticed that?

00:02:34.020 He's been really, really disciplined about that.

00:02:36.980 And I thought by now he would have departed a little bit.

00:02:41.120 And, you know, of course, he gets heat whenever he talks about himself or gets off a message.

00:02:46.040 But he was really good at every question saying, well, you know, one death is too many, people have died.

00:02:54.160 And then he starts to answer the question.

00:02:56.560 But did you catch how he answered the question about the accusations about Biden?

00:03:02.560 I think it's the first time the President has, at least maybe in a press conference, answered this question.

00:03:10.440 And how does he answer it?

00:03:12.080 With one of the best answers you'll ever see a president give on any question.

00:03:19.540 Let me tell you what he did right.

00:03:21.280 The president, going completely against type when he's asked about it, he starts saying that it could be a false accusation.

00:03:29.600 And the false accusations are real.

00:03:32.240 And that he's been the victim of false accusations.

00:03:34.740 But he doesn't know what happened.

00:03:37.900 And certainly she should have her moment to talk.

00:03:40.860 And he should, you know, he should answer to it.

00:03:44.700 Now, by going first and saying it could be a false accusation, didn't you just fall under the chair?

00:03:52.580 Yeah, somebody's prompting me in the comments.

00:03:55.120 Thank you.

00:03:55.880 And by he seamlessly went from, it could be a false accusation.

00:04:00.480 It's happened to me.

00:04:02.100 And if he'd stayed with that, that would have been a mistake.

00:04:05.080 And when I was watching, I thought, oh, don't stay with that.

00:04:07.980 Don't bring the focus to things you've been blamed on, blamed for.

00:04:12.360 That's the worst place to take this.

00:04:14.480 But he goes through himself, says he recognizes the problem, admits that false accusations are a real thing.

00:04:21.940 And he doesn't limit it to Me Too stuff.

00:04:24.580 He's just saying false accusations.

00:04:26.520 But then he seamlessly goes into Kavanaugh.

00:04:29.580 The energy goes over to Kavanaugh, which we, at least his supporters, all agree was completely illegitimate.

00:04:37.140 So now he's basically giving Biden all the out an opponent could ever give you, because he's saying, could be a false accusation.

00:04:51.260 It's happened to me.

00:04:52.380 But my God, look what happened to this poor guy, Kavanaugh.

00:04:55.560 Now, Kavanaugh, of course, is a much better example, because people actually believe Kavanaugh was innocent, at least people on the right do.

00:05:05.360 Whereas the president, you say to yourself, well, maybe you have some false accusations.

00:05:10.660 But then again, maybe you have some actual just accusations.

00:05:14.260 So he very cleverly took it through him, all the way to Kavanaugh, and left clean this idea that he's open to the possibility that it's a false accusation.

00:05:27.000 Did you see that coming?

00:05:29.360 I did not see that coming.

00:05:31.660 And I'll tell you, it blew me away.

00:05:33.480 Because, first of all, it's a repetition of the pattern.

00:05:37.380 The pattern is, do you see the pattern yet?

00:05:39.800 The pattern is that no matter what the question is, the first thing he says is he recognizes the victim.

00:05:47.580 So he recognized that, you know, the woman has the story to tell.

00:05:51.140 We should listen.

00:05:52.200 But he also recognized that Biden is the subject of an accusation.

00:05:58.000 And, you know, if he were to be innocent, you know, I'm not giving you an opinion on that.

00:06:02.560 But if he were to be, he would be a victim, too.

00:06:05.260 And so the president quite deftly used his pattern that has worked so well before, which is, first, recognize the people who are getting it the worst.

00:06:16.700 Then, tell your story.

00:06:19.160 And, man, when he keeps to that pattern, he is powerful.

00:06:23.560 I mean, because that's when his charisma is highest.

00:06:28.440 Because, remember, charisma is power plus empathy.

00:06:32.720 He always has the power, and, of course, he's president, so, duh.

00:06:37.680 But he doesn't always show the empathy.

00:06:40.260 But, man, when he does the empathy first and then follows with power, wow, that is really a good package.

00:06:48.940 So I hope that he's doing this consciously, which would suggest, you know, he's found something that works and he'll just keep doing it.

00:06:56.880 There were a number of other things that he did well.

00:07:01.340 Oh, and let me just finish that point.

00:07:03.500 Now, the president can afford to be generous with Biden, partly because Biden is falling apart.

00:07:10.380 You know, there's not much there to attack.

00:07:12.660 But partly because a tie goes to Trump.

00:07:15.340 If Biden is accused of Me Too-ing and the president has his own accusations, let's say it's a tie.

00:07:26.100 Because, you know, people are going to believe Biden or not, Trump or not, maybe more or not.

00:07:32.840 But it's going to look like a tie.

00:07:35.600 Anyway, Biden can't get elected if he's only as bad as Trump because the only thing he's offering is better character.

00:07:44.860 That's it.

00:07:45.920 The only thing he's offering is better character.

00:07:48.120 He's not really offering better judgment because I don't think anybody thinks that.

00:07:52.140 He's not really offering he's smarter.

00:07:55.720 I don't think anybody thinks that.

00:07:57.600 They might think he's as smart, but nobody thinks he's smarter.

00:08:00.460 So if you've got somebody who's, you know, done the job and performed for four years and he's got some accusations and you see it made no difference, didn't affect his performance at all, but you don't know about the other guy.

00:08:14.780 So a tie is going to go to Trump, in my opinion.

00:08:22.360 Yeah, now there's some more reporting that maybe Biden was not the angel that some people thought he was.

00:08:30.460 I am going to take some questions here in a little bit.

00:08:33.300 So if you have any, why don't you think of them?

00:08:36.860 Get ready.

00:08:38.440 But before that, I saw another video of Biden from his basement studio.

00:08:46.560 And can somebody do a fact check with me?

00:08:50.620 When was the last time he appeared without his wife sitting next to him?

00:08:55.720 Because are you starting to feel what I'm feeling?

00:09:01.980 That having the wife there is not just to add another personality and make it more interesting?

00:09:10.300 I don't think it's that.

00:09:12.540 Don't you get the sense that she's there for, let's say, health guardian purposes?

00:09:19.520 You get that, right?

00:09:20.640 Now, I don't think she was on camera when Biden was getting Hillary's endorsement, but that makes sense.

00:09:26.960 That really had to be a one-on-one.

00:09:28.960 But otherwise, how often are we going to see his wife sitting next to him clearly in a protective mode?

00:09:36.520 That's how you take it, right?

00:09:37.740 You take it as a caretaker mode, right?

00:09:39.840 You take it as protective.

00:09:41.600 Handler, caretaker.

00:09:43.560 I mean, how long can that go on?

00:09:46.080 I mean, really?

00:09:46.900 Are we the only ones that see that?

00:09:49.640 I don't think so.

00:09:51.740 I think everybody's seen it.

00:09:55.720 Here's an interesting thing.

00:10:00.740 I love it when people who I think are smart agree with me.

00:10:05.220 Because when that happens, I say,

00:10:07.220 that person I think is smart just agreed with me.

00:10:10.660 That might mean I'm smart, at least on this one topic.

00:10:14.420 Although I know many of you vehemently disagree on this following point.

00:10:22.200 I would simply like to note that it's a very smart person, even if you don't like him.

00:10:27.320 You will admit he's smart, even if you don't like him.

00:10:31.080 And he agrees with me.

00:10:33.120 And it was Bill Gates, who said today, I just saw, I think it was on CNN, 0.99

00:10:36.980 and that the testing for the coronavirus in the United States is just crap. 0.87

00:10:43.560 And that it doesn't come anywhere near the right way to do it or the right degree.

00:10:49.380 We're not doing it in the right priority.

00:10:51.440 It's nowhere near as good as Asia. 1.00

00:10:52.940 Now, if you were with me this morning, or was it last night,

00:10:59.180 I believe I told you directly,

00:11:03.200 you should just stop thinking testing is going to help you because it's a mess.

00:11:08.580 My sense of it was that the more we were unclear about the testing situation

00:11:15.080 and the more competing stories we would hear, like, yeah, they have plenty of tests.

00:11:21.160 No, we don't.

00:11:22.460 They have everything they need.

00:11:24.220 Well, that's the other kind of test.

00:11:26.640 We've got plenty of testing, let's see, test facilities, but what about the kits?

00:11:33.060 We've got lots of kits.

00:11:34.540 They don't have any cotton.

00:11:36.020 You know, I'm making some of those up.

00:11:37.760 But the point is, you kept hearing these confusing stories about all these different kinds of kits

00:11:44.160 with different places and people didn't know what to do.

00:11:47.660 But then you would hear from an actual human, as I have,

00:11:51.580 from somebody who got tested three weeks ago and doesn't have a result.

00:11:57.500 Did you hear that?

00:11:59.000 Someone who was tested three weeks ago and doesn't have a result at all.

00:12:04.260 At all.

00:12:04.660 Now, how much of that is going on around the country?

00:12:08.820 In my opinion, somebody says you're wrong.

00:12:14.100 You must be new here.

00:12:15.660 If I had more time, I would block you for that.

00:12:18.280 I block people for saying you're wrong.

00:12:21.360 That's an automatic block if you put no reasons in.

00:12:26.300 So I'm on the page of saying that testing is BS

00:12:30.360 and we just aren't doing it in a way that will get us there.

00:12:35.660 And I'm not saying that we couldn't ever get there.

00:12:38.940 I mean, eventually we could, I'm sure.

00:12:41.520 But we're nowhere near it and we're just so far from it

00:12:46.300 you could almost discount it when you're trying to figure out what's going to happen.

00:12:50.120 But I do think we'll have good therapeutics.

00:12:54.480 I wouldn't rule out that we have a vaccination faster than we've ever had one.

00:13:00.300 And I've said this on another Periscope, but it's blowing my mind.

00:13:05.020 And I've got to share it with you.

00:13:06.580 This is just blowing my mind.

00:13:08.360 And so I'll just repeat it again.

00:13:11.660 The top virologist guy in France, Dr. Didier Raoult or something,

00:13:19.700 says that all of these viruses peak and then they peter out.

00:13:26.180 And here's the mind-blowing part from the top virologist in France.

00:13:30.480 We don't know why it peters out.

00:13:32.920 We don't know why any virus stops being a virus.

00:13:36.980 Did you know that?

00:13:39.600 Did you know that the top experts in the world don't know why it goes away?

00:13:45.080 No.

00:13:45.600 If it were herd immunity, the top virologist in France probably would have mentioned it.

00:13:53.980 Just guess.

00:13:55.360 If it were because of vaccinations plus herd immunity,

00:14:00.540 the top virologist in France would have said,

00:14:03.560 yeah, it's probably some combination of those things.

00:14:06.980 If it were those things plus the virus mutates, let's say,

00:14:11.840 the top virologist in France would know that.

00:14:15.260 He would know that it mutates.

00:14:16.760 He would know what the vaccinations are doing.

00:14:18.580 He would know what herd immunity does.

00:14:20.380 So when he says nobody knows why these viruses stop,

00:14:26.720 isn't that mind-blowing?

00:14:28.460 I mean, doesn't that just blow your freaking mind?

00:14:33.160 First of all, that we're finding this out now.

00:14:37.080 Because I'm not sure that Fauci's ever said that directly.

00:14:40.660 I would love for somebody to ask him that question and say,

00:14:44.000 do we really know why any virus peters out?

00:14:47.740 Why doesn't it just go to, you know, if you assume the planet always has a winter somewhere

00:14:53.400 and everybody's traveling everywhere, from everywhere to everywhere,

00:14:58.080 if you only had 60% herd immunity so that 40% had never been exposed,

00:15:05.700 there's a winter somewhere, people are traveling,

00:15:09.340 how in the world does a virus ever go away?

00:15:11.720 Now, somebody says viruses get weaker,

00:15:16.080 but again, the top virologist in France said he doesn't know why they peter out.

00:15:25.000 Now, it could be that they get weaker.

00:15:27.420 We don't know why.

00:15:28.400 Maybe he meant that, but it's a big mystery.

00:15:31.340 All right.

00:15:32.380 The Sweden story just keeps getting more interesting,

00:15:35.640 and it's not interesting because we can tell anything useful by looking at Sweden.

00:15:39.660 Let me say this as clearly as I can.

00:15:42.380 We can't tell anything useful by looking at Sweden.

00:15:45.620 So what do we do?

00:15:47.280 It's basically become a national sport to make bad comparisons to Sweden that don't mean anything

00:15:53.180 because there are way, way, way, way too many variables to know anything.

00:16:02.060 So, but that doesn't seem to be stopping anybody from making these comparisons,

00:16:07.600 both good and bad.

00:16:08.880 The president apparently is taking the position that things are not going well in Sweden,

00:16:13.840 which is interesting because that allows the president to say that the United States is doing better than Sweden

00:16:21.000 because we used a different approach.

00:16:23.440 Now, I'm not so sure that I'm going to agree with the president on this,

00:16:29.100 but here's what was impressive.

00:16:31.080 When the president was talking about it, he did talk about the differences in Sweden,

00:16:36.100 and there was one thing in particular he noted about their lifestyle.

00:16:43.860 I forget what it was, but it was pretty insightful,

00:16:46.480 and I didn't realize that he had looked into it that deeply.

00:16:50.660 So apparently he was very curious about Sweden because so many people were holding it up as a model,

00:16:56.240 but he's decided that things are not going well there.

00:16:59.000 But I ask you this, what does it mean to say that things are not going well in Sweden?

00:17:05.000 Because if their hospitals are not crushed, aren't they doing better?

00:17:12.020 And suppose it never gets to the point where the Swedish hospitals are ever overloaded.

00:17:16.920 Wouldn't we then say that they did better even though they had more deaths per capita than we did?

00:17:27.320 Wouldn't we say that was a victory?

00:17:29.300 Because they would have kept their economy going somewhat.

00:17:32.760 Oh, here's the thing that the president said,

00:17:34.400 And I'd only seen one other place that somebody said this besides me,

00:17:40.320 and I copied it from that person,

00:17:42.680 which is that although in Sweden they did not have a very rigorous lockdown,

00:17:50.240 so many people were afraid of getting it in Sweden

00:17:53.020 that they were sort of voluntarily not doing as much in public.

00:17:56.600 So the president rightly pointed out,

00:17:59.400 you're not looking at a model where they're free to do anything

00:18:02.680 versus one where they're not.

00:18:04.940 That's not what you're seeing.

00:18:06.380 You're seeing two models where they're not doing all the things they could do.

00:18:10.620 One's just a little bit more strict than the other.

00:18:12.780 So it's not quite the good apple to apple that you want.

00:18:20.380 All right.

00:18:21.660 I've decided that what I'm going to do on the locals.com platform,

00:18:26.600 I told you I'm moving some of my content there.

00:18:29.240 I'll still do the periscopes.

00:18:30.660 You'll still see them in the same place, places that you always did.

00:18:34.200 But in addition, I'll have some extra stuff on the locals platform.

00:18:40.480 And I put a lesson on writing humor there.

00:18:43.960 So I'm going to put some very small micro lessons on that platform

00:18:48.360 because it's a subscription service and people will want to get a little extra.

00:18:52.980 So I'll try to do at least one lesson a week so that over the course of a year

00:18:59.160 you would learn 52 skills, you know, micro skills, things like writing humor,

00:19:05.400 how to start a conversation, how to sleep, that sort of thing.

00:19:09.700 All right.

00:19:10.420 So that will be there.

00:19:14.220 One is Locals.

00:19:15.420 Locals is a new platform.

00:19:16.680 Go to Locals.com in which creators, Dave Rubin started it

00:19:22.080 and creators are moving there to not be guided by the algorithm.

00:19:28.560 So if I put my content on, say, Twitter and YouTube,

00:19:35.860 Twitter and YouTube get to decide what you see.

00:19:39.040 So I can only grow as much as those entities want me to.

00:19:43.860 But if I put it on a subscription service, nobody sees it except the ones

00:19:48.760 who want to have a subscription and it's all there.

00:19:54.060 You don't have to go looking for it.

00:19:56.120 So all the white content will be in one place. 0.77

00:19:58.480 So that's that.

00:20:01.880 Somebody says Dave Rubin's on Fox right now.

00:20:04.640 So he's got a book.

00:20:05.540 I'm going to be talking to him tomorrow.

00:20:08.180 I think we'll do that live.

00:20:09.900 Yeah, we'll probably do that live.

00:20:11.000 I'm talking about his new book called Don't Burn This Book.

00:20:16.080 All right.

00:20:17.140 I'm going to take some.

00:20:19.740 So I thought I answered this question.

00:20:22.840 Somebody says, so no more periscopes.

00:20:25.500 Incorrect.

00:20:26.460 The periscopes will be exactly as before.

00:20:29.640 When the coronavirus is done, I probably won't do an evening one,

00:20:34.200 at least as often.

00:20:35.260 But I will do the morning ones just as always.

00:20:38.400 They'll still be on YouTube.

00:20:39.440 They'll still be on iTunes.

00:20:40.960 You'll just have one extra place you can watch them.

00:20:43.520 And then you can watch them at double speed.

00:20:46.160 There will be other advantages.

00:20:48.500 You can send me messages and stuff.

00:20:50.740 All right.

00:20:51.600 So I'm going to take some questions.

00:20:56.440 Questions.

00:20:57.540 Who's got a question?

00:20:58.580 I think Amy has a question.

00:21:06.820 Amy Banta, do you have a question for me?

00:21:09.800 Amy, do you have a question?

00:21:10.720 If you're periscoping as part of some grand master plan of pacing

00:21:19.840 and then leading conservatives to some of your left of Bernie worldviews,

00:21:25.240 such as universal health care and?

00:21:29.340 Well, certainly not in terms of a grand plan,

00:21:34.940 which I put together to conquer the world.

00:21:37.320 But in general, as I've said before, people who know persuasion don't turn it off.

00:21:43.540 It simply becomes the way you talk because everybody wants to persuade.

00:21:48.100 So if you know how to do it well, why would you do it less well than you know how to do it?

00:21:53.560 So I'm always persuading, which means that in any situation, I will be pacing

00:21:58.440 because that's pretty basic.

00:22:00.420 And I'm always looking for a reason that I could lead

00:22:04.060 because that's why people want to get paced in the first place.

00:22:07.680 They want to get a little extra.

00:22:08.680 They don't want to just know what they already know.

00:22:11.460 So, but I would say it's very unlikely that I would move conservatives.

00:22:18.900 Far more likely they would find out that there's something in the middle,

00:22:22.700 which is, for example, there's no conservative who's opposed to everybody having health care.

00:22:30.040 They just don't like the way it's proposed that it happens.

00:22:34.260 I would propose that everybody has health care too,

00:22:37.300 but that we could almost certainly get there through capitalist ways

00:22:41.020 without, you know, taxing somebody to pay for somebody else's health care.

00:22:45.080 You know, there's some people you're going to have to pay for.

00:22:47.140 But it feels to me that we could just be more clever and get there.

00:22:52.740 So I wouldn't say that would be moving conservatives to left of Bernie or vice versa.

00:22:58.200 Rather, it would be acknowledging that there's a solution that both could be happy.

00:23:02.140 Take another example.

00:23:03.640 I would not be trying to, for example, lead conservatives to think

00:23:08.960 that climate change is what AOC and Bernie think it is

00:23:13.120 because I don't think that.

00:23:15.160 But I would try to point out that both the left and the right on climate change

00:23:20.480 have a solution that's the same solution, which is nuclear power.

00:23:24.960 The left is a little behind in understanding it.

00:23:28.800 If they were up to speed about Generation 4, how safe that is and can be,

00:23:33.940 they would have a different opinion.

00:23:35.580 The right is a little more up-to-date because they care about nuclear,

00:23:39.020 so they tend to pay attention to that stuff.

00:23:40.580 So that's not a case of moving anybody anywhere except recognizing that there's an obvious solution

00:23:47.980 that works for everybody.

00:23:49.620 And I think that there might be a number of cases like that.

00:23:53.240 So I'm more about the solution.

00:23:55.420 I would call myself a pragmatist.

00:23:57.620 When I say I'm left at Bernie, it's just so I don't get put in a box.

00:24:02.820 Part of the reason I say that is that nobody knows what it means,

00:24:05.540 so that's part of the value of it.

00:24:07.600 People go, I don't even know what that means.

00:24:09.220 I guess I'll have to ask you.

00:24:11.120 So as you did, basically, and others have, like, I don't get that.

00:24:14.840 Who are you?

00:24:15.600 That's the preferred situation so that I can be pragmatic.

00:24:20.180 Maybe somebody on the left has a great idea.

00:24:23.340 Maybe somebody on the right has a great idea.

00:24:25.260 It wasn't long ago that AOC had some very good idea that was neither left nor right,

00:24:33.400 and I tweeted it right away.

00:24:36.020 So I'm not really about the left or the right.

00:24:38.860 I'm about pragmatism.

00:24:40.660 Thanks for the question.

00:24:41.800 Yeah, well, you've definitely been persuading me.

00:24:45.060 Were you on the left or the right?

00:24:47.960 Oh, definitely on the right.

00:24:50.180 I was a ever-Trumper until you started Trumpsplaining for me.

00:24:54.400 Well, I'm glad I could be of service.

00:24:57.880 All right, thank you, Amy.

00:25:01.880 All right.

00:25:03.400 That was a good call.

00:25:05.380 Let's have more good questions like that.

00:25:08.320 I'm going to go with Mike Winn-Bigley, who was smart enough to put the title of my book in his name.

00:25:14.580 Mike Winn-Bigley, you got a question for me?

00:25:19.040 Yeah.

00:25:21.140 Further to her question, we can't afford health care. 0.97

00:25:25.260 We can't afford universal health care.

00:25:27.520 We can't afford free college.

00:25:29.020 But we seem to be able to print money whenever we need it.

00:25:33.360 So I don't understand.

00:25:34.920 If we can print money, why we can't afford these other things?

00:25:38.360 I'm not for it or against it.

00:25:41.260 I'm just saying we can't be able to afford whatever we want.

00:25:43.800 You're asking a tremendous question.

00:25:48.020 Yeah.

00:25:48.420 And to the best of my understanding, nobody knows the answer.

00:25:53.080 And this is fascinating.

00:25:54.960 Because I've been asking a version of this question.

00:25:58.480 Let me try to frame it a little bit for you.

00:26:02.080 So I've got a degree in economics and an MBA, but I can't answer this question.

00:26:06.800 And I don't know if anybody can.

00:26:09.100 And here's why it's so weird.

00:26:12.000 In a normal situation, if you print money, that means you've got more money in the system,

00:26:18.760 but there's the same amount of goods in the short run.

00:26:21.060 So that would cause inflation.

00:26:23.840 But we're in the most special of special cases in which we have all this production facility,

00:26:31.120 but we don't have enough demand because even if we're pumping tons of money in,

00:26:35.740 there are so many consumers who got whacked, they're not going to be buying any extra.

00:26:40.800 So we're going to be entering a situation where, except for some minor things that people are trying to hoard

00:26:46.160 and there might be price gouging, you're not going to see anything like inflation

00:26:50.520 almost no matter how much they print because anybody who tried to raise the price just wouldn't work.

00:26:57.980 Nobody would pay more.

00:26:59.340 What if we go one step further and we say, was there inflation after 2008 when they printed $2 trillion

00:27:05.540 and they just printed $4 trillion?

00:27:08.720 They can print however much money they want.

00:27:11.060 It's not causing it.

00:27:12.360 Well, 2008, I think we borrowed, didn't we?

00:27:18.000 Maybe you can, I need somebody to, but there's a big difference between borrowing

00:27:25.520 where you absolutely have to pay it back, you know, sooner or later you've got to pay it back

00:27:29.980 unless you default and that's worse.

00:27:32.160 By the way, Trump answered the question about not paying China's debt really well.

00:27:38.040 Well, because he's worked with banks and he understands it's not about the moment.

00:27:44.260 It's about your credit worthiness.

00:27:46.640 So you don't want to win the moment and lose your credit worthiness.

00:27:49.640 That would be the worst play in the world.

00:27:51.060 So he understands that.

00:27:53.320 Thank you.

00:27:53.720 So here's the thing.

00:27:55.580 If we borrowed money, that would, you know, be interest payments and that would be real pain

00:28:01.440 and borrowing definitely has a limit.

00:28:04.400 Everything has a limit.

00:28:05.940 But when you're just printing it in this one strange situation where inflation is basically impossible

00:28:12.460 and that's the only risk, I have asked the question, what's the limit?

00:28:18.140 Because I think, I think if you look at the stock market, the smartest people in finance

00:28:24.400 just watched us print $4 trillion or whatever it was and they said, and they just said,

00:28:31.860 looks good to us.

00:28:33.160 Right.

00:28:35.780 And what is it that Trump wishes that he had gotten done in this last round?

00:28:41.100 He wishes that they'd thrown another trillion on it for infrastructure.

00:28:46.220 So is there any sense that we can, that there's a limit to how much of this money we can print?

00:28:55.120 Now, in theory there is, but do we know where that is?

00:28:59.840 And is there any Nobel Prize or Nobel Prize winner who can answer that?

00:29:07.040 I don't think anyone can answer it.

00:29:08.860 It's one part of territory.

00:29:10.700 And the smartest people in finance and all these sweater vest Republicans keep talking about,

00:29:17.920 we've got too much debt, you can't do all these things.

00:29:20.980 And then we just do it and nothing ever happens.

00:29:23.820 Yeah.

00:29:24.320 Just like climate change, the Republicans' predictions about financial ruin never come true.

00:29:30.900 And the country never come true.

00:29:33.180 So part of it is that we overstate the problem in the first place.

00:29:42.960 Secondly, we humans are amazingly good at figuring stuff out.

00:29:47.760 So even if we get into trouble, we can figure out how to weasel out of trouble if we have enough time

00:29:52.820 and enough people are working on it.

00:29:54.180 But I tell you, I spend a lot of time every day thinking about exactly your question,

00:30:00.340 which is what's the limit that you can just print under this special situation?

00:30:05.640 No idea.

00:30:06.180 The commenters don't like me.

00:30:07.380 Look at them.

00:30:08.000 They're like, put a lid on a cave, man.

00:30:12.720 All right.

00:30:13.620 All right.

00:30:14.000 Thanks, guys.

00:30:14.660 Okay, take care.

00:30:17.220 You got chased off by the commenters.

00:30:20.440 All right.

00:30:21.060 How about Gabriel?

00:30:26.380 I feel like I've talked to you before.

00:30:28.820 Gabriel?

00:30:29.500 Gabriel?

00:30:30.780 Gabriel?

00:30:31.780 Hey, Gabriel, do you have a question?

00:30:37.100 Deep diving on a super current event, but you can indulge my question or not.

00:30:43.900 You can ask it maybe.

00:30:44.680 You just have to be interesting.

00:30:46.800 That is the only burden.

00:30:47.600 Well, I was wondering how you and, say, your group of friends would approach helping one

00:30:56.000 of your best friends who might have been diagnosed with cancer.

00:31:01.280 Fatal?

00:31:02.560 Terminal?

00:31:04.280 We don't know precisely, but there was some very terrible news today, which does not carry

00:31:11.520 a good prognosis.

00:31:13.020 Well, I don't think there's any magic bullet.

00:31:16.800 I mean, other than, you know, adding your love and comfort and visiting and asking what

00:31:23.920 you can do and helping out.

00:31:26.160 There's no special formula.

00:31:28.900 There's no right way to do it, but certainly showing your concern and, you know, offering

00:31:34.760 to help.

00:31:36.040 That's all you can do.

00:31:37.180 I mean, unfortunately, it's an easy question to answer because there's no good answer to

00:31:41.300 that.

00:31:41.540 But are you worried how the person with cancer is going to feel about it, or are you worried

00:31:49.340 in terms of your own internal sense of whether you're doing the right stuff?

00:31:53.960 I think both.

00:31:55.360 I think we'd all like to think we can create, you know, I guess an environment of positivity

00:32:01.760 around the situation to help the person, but part of me wonders if even that effort's

00:32:08.520 futile.

00:32:08.900 Well, I don't think there's any case where some positivity isn't better.

00:32:15.580 So, if the person with cancer is going to give you all the negativity you need, the last

00:32:20.880 thing they need is more on top of that.

00:32:23.200 So, you probably do have an obligation to at least keep, you know, your contribution light

00:32:30.600 because it's the last thing they need.

00:32:32.920 So, yeah, I would say stay positive, and that probably is the best thing you can do.

00:32:38.780 All right.

00:32:39.100 All right.

00:32:39.380 Thanks for the question.

00:32:40.160 Appreciate it.

00:32:44.940 All right.

00:32:45.660 Let's see if Brian has a question.

00:32:53.560 Brian, do you have a question?

00:32:54.840 Hello, Brian.

00:32:57.400 Hi.

00:32:59.440 You're kind of light.

00:33:00.640 Can you speak up?

00:33:01.880 Okay.

00:33:02.140 Yeah.

00:33:03.220 Sorry about that.

00:33:03.860 Is that better?

00:33:04.700 That's better.

00:33:05.700 Okay.

00:33:06.800 The question I had for you was, now, you know, I don't want to sound too biased against

00:33:12.440 Biden, but I really can't comprehend how people keep endorsing him when so clearly something's

00:33:19.900 not right there.

00:33:21.400 Well, you know, I have the same curiosity, but I would give you this thought experiment.

00:33:28.260 When Trump was running the first time, the Democrats were saying, my God, can you Republicans

00:33:35.880 not see what we see? 1.00

00:33:38.020 He's obviously crazy. 1.00

00:33:39.640 He's obviously mentally challenged. 0.99

00:33:44.120 So, I think that a lot of the Democrats honestly saw that. 0.95

00:33:49.280 In other words, that was their honest, intelligent, adult opinion that Trump was dysfunctional mentally.

00:33:56.900 Now, in fact, they still say that.

00:33:59.380 But, do you see it?

00:34:01.860 Because, you know, we all have our own criticisms, right?

00:34:04.720 He's not above criticism, but I don't see the crazy part.

00:34:08.020 Like, I just don't see it.

00:34:09.340 I've heard you say this before, and, you know, I try to – I felt like before Biden

00:34:15.940 got the nomination and before he keeps – even while he keeps gathering all of these endorsements,

00:34:22.940 I felt really confident that I was beyond the two movies and one screen, and I could

00:34:27.780 see, okay, this is just the world they live in.

00:34:30.560 This is the world I live in.

00:34:31.680 I understand that they think he's crazy.

00:34:33.280 I don't see it.

00:34:34.000 I just – for Biden, I don't see how you don't see it, and maybe that's part of the process of it.

00:34:39.600 Well, okay, so here's the second part.

00:34:42.840 There may be some people who don't see it, but I'm totally with you that you can – it's

00:34:49.260 easier to imagine how people would see two versions of Trump, but it's impossible for

00:34:54.820 me to imagine how anybody would see a second version of Biden if they're paying attention,

00:34:59.980 and all the people who are endorsing him are paying attention.

00:35:02.420 So here's my best guess.

00:35:05.200 Number one, there's definitely something going on.

00:35:08.240 You know what I'm talking about, right?

00:35:09.680 There's something – there's a conversation happening behind the curtain.

00:35:13.740 There's maneuvering.

00:35:15.080 There's a power struggle.

00:35:17.140 Clearly, there are conversations –

00:35:18.980 It actually moves prior to the election.

00:35:20.760 Yeah.

00:35:21.380 Yeah, clearly, there's a conversation about what to do about this, and, indeed, I've talked

00:35:27.040 to at least one top Democrat who would know the answer to this, who says, we don't know

00:35:33.560 what we're going to do.

00:35:35.100 I mean, in those exact words, we don't know what we're going to do, meaning they know

00:35:39.180 that they don't have a candidate, but they don't know what they're going to do about

00:35:41.920 it.

00:35:42.260 Now, this was a while ago.

00:35:43.640 Maybe they know now.

00:35:44.980 My best guess is that they're playing for the vice presidency, and they got themselves

00:35:50.400 in this situation before they realized how bad it was, because I think it snuck up on

00:35:55.320 them.

00:35:55.460 Oh, by the way, I'd like to ask in the comments, from the very early on, when Biden was being

00:36:04.240 discussed as a candidate, was I the first person in the country to say that he was mentally

00:36:09.120 incompetent?

00:36:11.080 Because, you know, I think this might be a selective memory on my part, because, you

00:36:17.760 know, I like to remember when I get something right and immediately forget if I get something

00:36:21.620 wrong, like everybody.

00:36:22.540 But, oh, I'm seeing some people say no.

00:36:29.160 But I was saying it before it became part of the national conversation.

00:36:34.040 And I think it's worsened quite a bit.

00:36:36.300 So I would say that I was seeing the first flickers of it well before it got to where

00:36:42.640 it is now.

00:36:43.760 And I'd also predicted at the time that there was going to be a rate of decline that was

00:36:49.160 going to be really awkward for the Democrats if he got the nomination.

00:36:53.460 And that's exactly where we are.

00:36:54.940 So I think it's like a frog boiling in a pot of water type situation, or just snuck up

00:36:59.060 on him, and now he's able to figure out how to do it.

00:37:01.460 Yeah.

00:37:02.100 Because, in my opinion, I did not think it was obvious to everyone on day one.

00:37:08.420 Right.

00:37:08.600 So maybe it wasn't.

00:37:09.400 It wasn't to me.

00:37:10.200 Yeah.

00:37:10.880 So, and wouldn't you say he's gotten worse in the last six months?

00:37:14.820 It seems significantly worse.

00:37:16.680 Right.

00:37:17.020 It seems significantly worse.

00:37:18.140 So, and I don't know if anybody else had predicted, like I did, that however bad it

00:37:24.900 is now, I don't know if he's going to make it to the nomination.

00:37:27.460 I mean, I said that directly, and a long time ago, and, you know, nobody's ever made a more

00:37:33.140 accurate prediction that a candidate might not make it to the nomination.

00:37:37.540 I mean, I said it about Hillary, and she literally, like, passed out, and God knows what else

00:37:42.560 she did, and got dragged into a limousine. 1.00

00:37:44.380 I mean, and it's the only time I've ever said somebody doesn't look healthy who's running

00:37:48.100 for president.

00:37:48.960 I've only said it once, and, you know, there's video of her, like, passing out and being dragged

00:37:54.040 into a car.

00:37:55.120 So this is the second time I'm saying it, clearly on point.

00:38:00.040 I mean, everybody agrees with it now, but to your point, I believe the people who have

00:38:05.460 endorsed him do see it.

00:38:08.840 I think they just know they got trapped, and they don't have an out.

00:38:12.740 There's no good way to do it, and here's the weird part.

00:38:18.140 What if he wins?

00:38:20.140 Because I'm not going to rule that out, you know?

00:38:24.780 Yeah, if I'm updating the slaughter meter, it looks like there's no chance in the world

00:38:30.600 that Joe Biden could win, but I worry that I'm making the following analytical error.

00:38:36.740 I'm thinking of Joe Biden as a candidate, like as a person, one-on-one against candidate

00:38:43.260 Trump, and if you think of it that way, there's no chance.

00:38:46.160 I mean, there's not even a little chance that he could be candidate Trump, but I don't know

00:38:51.840 if that's how Democrats see it.

00:38:53.620 I think they see Trump and no Trump, yes-no.

00:38:57.420 It's like a yes-no vote, and they'll figure out the rest later.

00:39:02.000 I don't know that they care.

00:39:03.920 I don't know if Joe Biden would still be in the race if there weren't a pandemic.

00:39:09.260 I feel the lack of exposure has really assisted him getting this far.

00:39:13.420 Yeah, absolutely, I would agree with that, and did you see the president's approval is

00:39:20.460 just jacking all over the place?

00:39:22.300 It's like way down, then it's way up.

00:39:24.440 I don't know what's going on with that, but what we can tell is that the coronavirus, we

00:39:33.580 don't know which impact it'll have on the race, because the public's saying, okay, good

00:39:38.960 week, bad week.

00:39:40.080 That means they don't know how it's going to turn out.

00:39:41.940 But if I had to guess today how it's going to look on election day, I think it's going

00:39:49.780 to look like the United States did a solid job, you know, minus, let's say, testing wasn't

00:39:56.040 good.

00:39:56.400 There are going to be things that we have to complain about, but I think in terms of turning

00:40:00.020 the economy back on at the right amount of death, et cetera, and getting back up and having

00:40:05.420 that V-shaped recovery that the president talks about optimistically, we might be looking

00:40:11.400 really good by November, or at least this is all it would take for Trump to win.

00:40:17.320 All it would take is that things have been moving in the right direction over the summer

00:40:21.580 and through November.

00:40:23.500 If it's moving in the right direction, people will put up with it being slower than they

00:40:28.720 wish, but it needs to be moving in the right direction, and I think it will be.

00:40:32.420 History matters more than the result of a given time.

00:40:35.140 Exactly.

00:40:35.980 As I often say.

00:40:37.160 All right.

00:40:37.420 Thanks for the question.

00:40:38.500 Thank you, Scott.

00:40:40.220 All right.

00:40:41.880 I think we've got time for another one, don't we?

00:40:45.720 Let's find somebody who would just be the best question asker of all time.

00:40:51.800 Well, we're going to have to pick Oregon History because, cleverly put my book in his profile.

00:41:02.280 Hi, do you have a question for me?

00:41:07.360 Service.

00:41:08.480 I would suggest that you're doing the greatest community service of anyone at the moment.

00:41:14.740 To me, in particular, because I'm on Twitter all day reading about lies and all this nonsense,

00:41:24.180 and then you come on and we hear you, and you talk some sense into us, especially the

00:41:31.660 way you labeled the disinfectant hoax.

00:41:33.940 I found that really, really helpful.

00:41:35.940 Just disinfectant hoax, you said.

00:41:38.120 That's so concise and so good.

00:41:40.220 Thank you.

00:41:40.740 The energy creature concept the other night, the four-dimensional energy creature concept,

00:41:46.760 just awesome.

00:41:47.840 So, thank you for that, too.

00:41:50.520 Thanks.

00:41:51.100 Do you have a question?

00:41:53.140 Yeah.

00:41:54.240 Well, do you have, I know what your answer is going to be.

00:41:56.900 You're going to say, don't argue with those people.

00:41:59.280 But during this time of being off, we have more time to argue with people on the Internet.

00:42:05.800 And I've come into arguments against some anti-Semites.

00:42:10.760 And I'm wondering, maybe, do you have a kill shot against general anti-Semitism or anything

00:42:16.580 in particular you can think of?

00:42:19.220 Well, I don't know that anybody has a kill shot, because somebody would have used that

00:42:22.920 by now, I think, if there was one.

00:42:25.120 If I had one, I would certainly unleash it on the world.

00:42:28.460 But my experience is that anti-Semites are coming at it from a point of an inferiority

00:42:35.920 complex.

00:42:37.420 Now, I can't say there's one explanation of everybody.

00:42:40.740 I'm not reading minds or anything.

00:42:42.360 It's just an observation that if you ask why, if somebody says, yes, they're anti-Semitic,

00:42:49.900 if you had a quiet moment with them, and you said, why?

00:42:55.400 Like, what's your answer?

00:42:57.160 Eventually, they're going to come around to the fact that they feel threatened, and that

00:43:02.900 they think that it's a group of people who just perform better, and just do better.

00:43:08.840 And therefore, anybody, you know, it's a...

00:43:11.640 If you feel that resources in the world are limited, then you get a bad feeling about anybody

00:43:18.460 who's good at acquiring resources, in your opinion.

00:43:22.060 So the anti-Semites are of the opinion that it's a group of people who are extra good at 0.88

00:43:27.640 success and acquiring things, and that means there'll be less for other people, according

00:43:34.660 to that point of view.

00:43:35.580 So, I don't have a kill shot, but if you were to quietly have a conversation, as opposed

00:43:42.740 to in public, with somebody, the question that I would ask is, what are you afraid of?

00:43:49.360 And I would try to figure out what it is, because obviously there's some kind of fear at the

00:43:56.240 bottom of it, because there's something special with anti-Semitism that doesn't seem to be

00:44:02.880 the same with anti-other people.

00:44:05.700 Anti-other people have all different reasons.

00:44:07.820 There's something special about anti-Semitism. 0.94

00:44:09.480 But I'd just ask them what they're afraid of, and see if you can get them to deal with

00:44:14.880 the fact that they're trying to externalize their own fears and insecurities.

00:44:21.620 And they can do that.

00:44:23.720 It's a free country, but it's not a good look.

00:44:27.260 All right.

00:44:27.560 That's the best I can do.

00:44:28.580 Sorry.

00:44:29.540 Well, I might have been arguing with Iranian Revolutionary Guard bots anyways, so they're 1.00

00:44:34.900 not going to be persuaded.

00:44:35.660 In which case, good luck.

00:44:38.840 All right.

00:44:39.380 All right.

00:44:39.680 Thanks for the question.

00:44:40.440 Thank you, Scott.

00:44:41.480 There you go.

00:44:42.720 All right.

00:44:42.940 We could do one more.

00:44:44.300 There's still a few people here.

00:44:46.140 Some people who haven't bailed out yet.

00:44:47.960 But, oh, let's see, Mike Burt, for adding a Burt into your name.

00:44:58.100 Oops.

00:44:58.580 Mike Burt is gone.

00:45:00.560 Let's try somebody else.

00:45:03.480 Let's try Stephanie.

00:45:09.500 Stephanie.

00:45:10.560 Hello, Stephanie.

00:45:11.460 Do you have a question?

00:45:14.220 I can.

00:45:15.420 Good.

00:45:15.680 So, you know how Germany is suing China for this coronavirus?

00:45:22.400 Yes.

00:45:23.120 And I'm very doubtful if anything will come of that, meaning I don't think China's going

00:45:29.460 to pay up because they're going to be paying the whole world.

00:45:32.020 But isn't it true that China holds most of our debt?

00:45:36.680 Well, if you're saying, why don't we just not pay them back?

00:45:41.600 The president answered that question at the press conference, and I loved his answer.

00:45:45.240 Yeah, I heard that, too.

00:45:47.200 Yeah.

00:45:47.440 So, basically, if you go back on a debt, you don't get a second chance.

00:45:55.000 That's kind of the end of your currency, the end of your credit.

00:45:58.000 But if we were to default on something that big, it's just too big, too disruptive.

00:46:05.140 It would hurt us as much as them.

00:46:07.140 Yeah, no, it wouldn't work.

00:46:08.600 It would be a empiric victory, as they say.

00:46:11.340 You could win, but you'd be so wounded by the wind that you wish you hadn't won.

00:46:15.860 Yes.

00:46:17.320 Took it a step further and said, well, we're not really going to default, but we're not

00:46:21.460 paying interest on it, and just paid them back the money they borrowed, but not...

00:46:25.900 Well, who's them?

00:46:27.380 Yeah, who's them?

00:46:28.340 It's individual...

00:46:29.660 Yeah, I'm thinking Chinese nationals, or... 0.93

00:46:32.760 I mean, I'm not even sure.

00:46:34.260 I didn't look into that.

00:46:35.100 Like, who owns it?

00:46:36.420 Yeah.

00:46:36.700 Yeah, if it's just, you know, well-off Chinese citizens, that feels a little rough, because 1.00

00:46:42.940 it's...

00:46:45.020 Yeah, I understand what you're saying, but we probably, as the President said, we have

00:46:51.900 other levers, other tools, so I think I'd rather use trade and, you know, maybe having

00:46:59.580 good allies and, you know, maybe we have military agreements with people they don't like it.

00:47:05.020 There's just lots of ways we can put pressure on this.

00:47:07.160 Yeah, I was also happy when he said, maybe we won't have any students here in our STEM

00:47:13.700 programs, because that's gotten a little out of control, I think.

00:47:18.740 I mean, I think there's, you know...

00:47:20.520 Yeah, you know, I don't want to conflate what's happening with China with what would

00:47:27.440 happen with any other country, because we definitely do need as much high-end, you know,

00:47:33.660 scientific, technical talent as we can get, you know, if we can get it from India, we can

00:47:39.280 get it from England, we can get it from wherever, but China is kind of a special case, because

00:47:44.660 even though the scholars and the people coming over are, you know, incredible...

00:47:49.800 I know, I know, I guess what I'm saying is if I have two STEM kids in college, and it's

00:48:01.800 like they're the only white kids, I mean, it's not like it's so terrible to say, but where 0.53

00:48:09.320 are the Americans, where are the natives?

00:48:10.960 It's a lot of foreigners, and they're not here taking our gender studies and our, you 1.00

00:48:17.340 know, here to become lawyers.

00:48:18.860 Yeah, some of it is because they pay full price, and of course the colleges want people who pay

00:48:24.420 full price, but some of it is just math, because, you know, if the United States has X number

00:48:31.740 of universities, but it has to service not just our population, but the smartest people

00:48:37.140 from the biggest countries that are way bigger than the United States, there would have to

00:48:41.520 be way more foreign people who would be willing to pay full price than there ever will be, 0.96

00:48:47.360 you know, enough in the United States.

00:48:50.080 So it's kind of built into the system.

00:48:52.400 I would rather just not let countries that are rivals be part of that at all, and get as

00:48:59.380 much as we can from countries that we don't think are a risk, because I don't think there's

00:49:04.440 any limit to how many technical and scientific people you can bring into a country, because

00:49:10.400 they tend to add more than they use.

00:49:12.800 So you could probably add unlimited high-end technical people, and it just improves the

00:49:17.760 economy forever.

00:49:19.780 All right, and I have to thank you for your cartoon.

00:49:23.080 I think right when I was out of college is when you started that, and we would sit around

00:49:27.100 with, you know, my recent grad co-workers, and we would just laugh hysterically, and each

00:49:31.740 of your characters, we knew which boss that was.

00:49:34.840 It was great.

00:49:36.300 Well, good.

00:49:37.020 I'm glad you enjoyed it.

00:49:38.040 Very enjoyable.

00:49:38.960 All right, thanks for the question.

00:49:40.160 Thank you.

00:49:42.020 All right, this brings me to the conclusion of tonight's broadcast.

00:49:46.900 I hope all of you are feeling better.

00:49:48.760 I think the direction of the country is finally moving where we want it to go.

00:49:55.460 It was a rough psychological, financial, and physical haul as we were going up the mountain,

00:50:02.560 but it feels like we just crested the mountain, and that I would imagine that every day from

00:50:09.380 here on, it's far more likely to be good news than bad.

00:50:13.620 I would expect by maybe a two-to-one ratio that from now to election day, if we're talking

00:50:21.060 about the coronavirus and we're talking about the economy, we probably have two pieces of

00:50:25.980 good news for every piece of bad news from now until we get to the other end of this.

00:50:31.820 So we're in a much better place, and psychologically, oh my goodness, it's better, because we're

00:50:39.140 moving in the right direction.

00:50:40.740 We have tools now.

00:50:42.440 We didn't have tools.

00:50:43.780 We have more understanding.

00:50:45.120 It was kind of an information problem.

00:50:46.720 We have a lot more information, but we're getting there, and I absolutely buy into President

00:50:53.560 Trump's optimism.

00:50:55.780 I absolutely buy into it, meaning that I don't even think he's exaggerating.

00:51:01.160 I think that once the economy gets a foothold, I don't know when that'll start.

00:51:07.660 He's saying fourth quarter.

00:51:09.360 That's a good guess, I think, but man, when it comes back, it's going to come back hard.

00:51:14.980 All right, that's your happy thought for tonight, and I will talk to you in the morning.

00:51:20.940 You know where.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - May 01, 2020

Episode 946 Scott Adams： Biden Versus Trump, Food Psychology, Your Questions and More

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