Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 987 Scott Adams： Queen of Dragons McEnany, Manufactured News, Trump's Performance, Hydroxychloroquine, Flynn

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, come on in. It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams, without the coffee, with a twist.

00:00:16.060 This time it's Scott Adams, without the coffee, with the coffee.

00:00:21.840 Didn't see that coming, did you? No, you gotta be quick.

00:00:25.280 Sorry, I jumped the gun on the simultaneous sip, but we'll catch you in the morning.

00:00:32.200 Well, we've got all kinds of good stuff happening.

00:00:36.500 From now on, I determine that we will only be having good news.

00:00:43.340 Sure, you could have some bad news between now and Election Day.

00:00:49.700 But mostly, let's have good news.

00:00:53.320 And let's talk about all the good news.

00:00:55.980 We'll talk about that in a moment.

00:00:57.540 But we're going to work through some of the best stories.

00:01:01.000 Number one, there's a prediction outfit.

00:01:03.680 Must be in England. I don't know where they are.

00:01:06.220 But they're called Oxford Economics.

00:01:09.120 And they have run a model. Yes, a prediction model.

00:01:12.080 Now, I don't have to tell you that prediction models are pretty darn accurate, aren't they?

00:01:19.120 I guess we've learned that.

00:01:20.860 So they've got a prediction model that says Joe Biden is going to beat Trump in the election by, quote, historic margins.

00:01:30.540 And it's all owing to the fact that their model shows that when the economy is bad, and obviously it's taken a hit, that's bad for the incumbent.

00:01:41.860 And so their model spits out an historic win by Biden.

00:01:46.120 This might raise some questions in your mind.

00:01:53.240 You might say to yourself, a model, you say.

00:01:56.540 Is it an elegant and rational model built by geniuses with all the right intentions?

00:02:04.060 Could be. It could be.

00:02:07.000 Or is it possible that this model has a few small flaws?

00:02:14.420 One flaw would be, I don't know which field you input that the candidate's brain has turned to sawdust.

00:02:24.640 Is that a box you check before you run the model?

00:02:28.460 Say, brain of the challenger, still functional, excellent, rotting into sawdust while he decomposes in his basement.

00:02:41.000 I'll bet that's not even an option on the model.

00:02:45.760 I mean, I'm guessing.

00:02:49.220 Likewise, I wonder if their model that shows economic hardships takes into account the rarest of situations where you're pretty sure it's temporary and it wasn't anybody's fault.

00:03:02.180 Do you think that any historical model of what people thought about the economy under normal times and what they thought about the leadership under normal times, do you think any of that's going to apply to this situation?

00:03:18.240 I don't even think Democrats really think Trump is to blame for the bad economy.

00:03:24.380 Are they that dumb?

00:03:26.900 I'd like to think Democrats are not that dumb, right?

00:03:29.640 They can see with their own eyes and stuff that the entire world just got crushed about equally.

00:03:41.100 So you could, you know, you could quibble about, you know, this or that.

00:03:44.360 The president should have done more with testing or whatever.

00:03:47.240 But the plain fact is all the countries are doing about the same.

00:03:50.660 It doesn't matter.

00:03:52.160 It seems to not matter what you do.

00:03:53.580 All right.

00:03:55.700 So that was a very valuable prediction model there.

00:04:01.420 I don't know how long it'll be before people just laugh when they hear there's a prediction model.

00:04:07.820 You know, if somebody says, I got a model and it's predicting, you should just stop them.

00:04:11.980 Stop.

00:04:13.200 Stop.

00:04:14.580 Don't finish the sentence.

00:04:16.440 You're just embarrassing yourself.

00:04:18.040 Because as soon as you said, I have a prediction model, I didn't really need to hear the end of the sentence.

00:04:25.020 Because we've been down that road a little bit.

00:04:29.900 Many of you asked me to look into Peter Schiff's opinion about all the printing and money and borrowing and such.

00:04:39.220 Because I made the provocative statement that there don't seem to be any economists who are saying it's a bad idea just to print yourself a few trillion dollars.

00:04:49.820 And in fact, I can't think of any reason you shouldn't.

00:04:52.980 So I'm not even criticizing.

00:04:54.560 I'm saying, I feel like there should be a problem with this.

00:04:58.980 Right?

00:04:59.460 You know, don't you pay for it later somehow because prices, inflation, debt, something, something?

00:05:11.060 How do you just manufacture trillions of dollars and then go about your day and say, well, that worked out pretty well.

00:05:18.220 I'm glad there was no bounce back from that.

00:05:21.800 So Peter Schiff seems to be maybe the most prominent voice arguing that we're all doomed by doing exactly this.

00:05:32.820 You know, manufacturing money out of nothing, creating debt, etc.

00:05:37.540 But you click on his profile.

00:05:41.480 And one of his URLs is something about gold.

00:05:45.660 So he's a gold guy.

00:05:48.180 And he's got, I think, a book.

00:05:49.760 So his entire brand is basically dedicated to his prediction that we're doomed.

00:06:00.320 So he's betting on his prediction, essentially, because presumably he has hedged himself with gold.

00:06:07.360 And, you know, he'll be the one who's right if it happens.

00:06:11.100 Now, suppose it doesn't happen.

00:06:13.280 Suppose we don't get that.

00:06:15.960 Well, Peter Schiff gets to live his good life.

00:06:18.540 He probably has a good income from whatever he's done before.

00:06:21.640 And he gets to enjoy the, you know, the good economy with everybody else if it goes that way.

00:06:27.200 But what if he's right?

00:06:28.940 Well, then he becomes one of the few people who wins if he's set himself upright to win when the market goes down.

00:06:35.760 And I imagine he's betting on his own prediction, right?

00:06:38.000 So here's the thing.

00:06:41.740 And I'll say this a million times until it's so ingrained in you that I don't have to say it every time.

00:06:50.020 Which is people can be credible and still wrong.

00:06:54.080 And they can be not credible at all, but they can still get lucky.

00:06:59.900 They can still be right.

00:07:01.400 Or they can just be right.

00:07:02.540 You just didn't know if they were right.

00:07:04.580 So when I talk about credibility, that's different from knowing if somebody is right or wrong.

00:07:09.760 Because that's unknowable.

00:07:11.360 Nobody knows the future.

00:07:14.160 Peter Schiff, I think you should view him as not credible.

00:07:17.720 Number one, obviously, you know, if lots of people were saying what he was saying, then that would add to his credibility.

00:07:26.000 So look for that.

00:07:27.600 You know, look for other people to be saying exactly what he's saying, except look for people who don't have any kind of game.

00:07:34.580 It's not their brand.

00:07:35.940 It's not, you know, their reputation.

00:07:37.440 They don't have a book.

00:07:38.320 They're not invested in gold in a big way.

00:07:40.720 Something like that.

00:07:41.360 So if other people joined him, joined him in the opinion, that would bolster his credibility.

00:07:47.760 But again, we don't know if he's right.

00:07:50.400 At the moment, I would say that the way he's positioned himself publicly.

00:07:54.440 So this is not based on any insight into his mind.

00:07:58.880 You know, I don't know what he's thinking or anything like that.

00:08:01.920 But based on how he's positioned himself, he should not be deemed as credible on this exact question.

00:08:08.960 Because he's got too much of a bet on it.

00:08:11.040 All right.

00:08:12.160 Which doesn't mean he's wrong.

00:08:13.980 It just means you shouldn't bet on him based on reputation.

00:08:19.540 So the White House Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, had another good day.

00:08:26.160 She makes highlight clips every day, it seems like.

00:08:29.180 Today was especially good because, of course, she was ready for the question.

00:08:33.380 You know, what about the president and hydroxychloroquine?

00:08:36.220 Now, of course, the whole point of the question is to create news out of nothing.

00:08:41.740 Because the whole hydroxychloroquine story is nothing.

00:08:45.720 It literally is nothing.

00:08:47.760 It's one patient talked to his doctor and got different advice than maybe you would have.

00:08:53.120 But it's pretty reasonable.

00:08:55.220 That's it.

00:08:56.300 That's the whole story.

00:08:57.340 Somebody talked to his doctor.

00:08:59.160 If somebody talked to his doctor, different advice than maybe you would have gotten, but it's also a different situation.

00:09:05.360 That's it.

00:09:05.760 That's the whole story.

00:09:08.000 So they have to try to manufacture that into something.

00:09:12.180 So if they can get the White House spokesperson to misspeak, to say something that's a little ambiguous, you can craft that into something.

00:09:21.820 Make a little news out of that.

00:09:23.080 But it turns out that Kayleigh McEnany was not having any of that.

00:09:29.400 So she started out with a just real solid answer that this drug has been used for other things and tested for years.

00:09:38.840 Doctors have been prescribing it, well-known safety profile.

00:09:43.540 Good, solid answer.

00:09:44.860 And then she said that you should only be done with your doctor.

00:09:52.440 And that was really good because she was emphasizing that the president did it in consultation with a doctor.

00:09:59.620 That's the only way to do it.

00:10:00.960 Don't be running out and trying to score your own aftermarket drugs or anything like that.

00:10:07.780 That's me saying that, not her.

00:10:09.280 But very responsible, solid, hit the important notes without too much extra detail.

00:10:17.920 And I thought she was done.

00:10:21.020 And I don't know if I'm remembering this the way I want to remember it.

00:10:25.320 But, you know, she's got this thing where she's got her notebook.

00:10:29.560 And when she turns a page, you know you're in trouble.

00:10:32.220 She looks down and it's like...

00:10:34.280 And then she gets that little smile.

00:10:37.040 And then you know you're in trouble.

00:10:40.320 I don't know if she did it this time.

00:10:41.700 I'd have to play it back.

00:10:42.740 But I hope she did.

00:10:44.060 Like, I hope it becomes a trademark.

00:10:46.600 Like, I want to know that just before she pounces, 0.99

00:10:50.320 she always looks up at the person who asked the question.

00:10:53.980 And then without looking down at the page, just goes...

00:10:58.200 Because she already knows what page it's on.

00:11:01.060 See, it's better if she already knows what page it's on so she doesn't have to look down.

00:11:04.180 It's just...

00:11:06.180 And then...

00:11:08.180 So anyway, the second part of the question that she unloads on, she goes,

00:11:12.660 Just before I came in here, I just found out that Chris Cuomo had taken the dangerous version,

00:11:21.040 the predecessor of hydroxychloroquine, called quinine.

00:11:24.180 Which is, you know, so dangerous it's not even allowed, I guess.

00:11:28.880 It's like banned substance or something.

00:11:30.880 So it's like, you know, three generations more dangerous than hydroxychloroquine.

00:11:35.240 So much so that because hydroxychloroquine exists, quinine is not even, you know, allowed.

00:11:42.280 Now, I don't know if that's true.

00:11:45.920 I'd need a little bit more confirmation that we actually know that Chris Cuomo took quinine.

00:11:51.600 How would we even know that, right?

00:11:54.120 But, does it matter?

00:11:55.540 Okay, it doesn't matter.

00:11:56.940 Because the way she delivered it was just perfect.

00:12:02.560 She just said, I just found out that Chris Cuomo was doing the dangerous version of that.

00:12:07.500 And, you know, you're just looking at the screen and you're just saying,

00:12:10.620 Oh, really?

00:12:13.900 That's just perfect.

00:12:16.040 That's just perfect.

00:12:18.480 Quinine is in tonic water.

00:12:19.940 So, I think it's fair to say we may not know the whole story.

00:12:25.880 But in terms of a White House spokesperson response to that question, not bad.

00:12:34.660 I give that an A+.

00:12:35.860 So, have you done any thinking about what's going to replace the handshake?

00:12:39.840 I spend way too much time thinking about this because we've sort of evolved socially that the handshake is that exclamation at the, you know, it's the punctuation at the end of a meeting.

00:12:52.420 It's like, yeah, good to see you.

00:12:53.720 Have a good day.

00:12:54.720 So, you know you're done.

00:12:56.720 We really do need something to replace it.

00:12:59.180 I don't think we can just take out the handshake and just go about our life because everything will be awkward.

00:13:07.140 You need something that says, all right, you and I have both agreed that this is now the conclusion of our meeting.

00:13:15.220 So, shake hands and walk away, but it's not a handshake.

00:13:17.780 Now, I know you're going to say, you know, fist bumps and, you know, elbow hits and stuff like that, but I feel like we can do better.

00:13:26.840 No, not the high five, you know, because you don't want the touching.

00:13:29.940 So, how about the, you know, salute?

00:13:32.160 How about a bow?

00:13:36.380 Or, you know, you can get the little prayer hands, you know, like, ah, you know, that, the belly bump, the head nod, the kiss.

00:13:44.360 Now, the kiss would make you worse. 0.99

00:13:45.680 Somebody says they'll be doing the slight bow, the two-finger salute wave.

00:13:51.860 Yeah, the two-finger salute wave, that's funny.

00:13:56.720 A lot of people saying bowing and the head nod.

00:14:00.340 I don't know.

00:14:01.020 All of those things feel not final enough.

00:14:03.840 Like, a handshake is physical, so it's like, brr.

00:14:07.900 You know, like, you know that you've ended a meeting when you shake hands.

00:14:12.240 All right, well, work on that and get back to me.

00:14:14.000 What is up with Howard Stern?

00:14:18.100 I guess he's continuing to say that he hates Trump supporters.

00:14:23.080 You know, not just Trump, but he hates Trump supporters.

00:14:26.400 And, you know, obviously Howard Stern is smart enough to know, you know, what is just good for publicity and what is not and what is real and what is not.

00:14:36.900 So, I can't tell if he's just doing this to be provocative.

00:14:42.700 Can you tell?

00:14:44.540 Now, there might be some truth to it in the sense that there are, you know, a certain segment of Trump supporters that he actually doesn't like.

00:14:52.000 I mean, that wouldn't be unusual.

00:14:52.960 But I feel like he's just being provocative, so we shouldn't pay it too much heed.

00:15:02.780 So, let me give you an example of what good thinking looks like, and then I'll give you an example of what bad thinking looks like.

00:15:09.340 All right, the good thinking comes from Nate Silver, who, once again, his Twitter feed is like solid gold.

00:15:17.260 If you're not following Nate Silver, you know, and if you have maybe some political, you know, thing, because he thought Hillary was going to win the election or something, you should release on all that stuff.

00:15:29.300 If you've got any, you know, bias against him for politics, you really ought to follow him.

00:15:34.620 Because it's just the best written tweets with the most useful content about how to understand your world.

00:15:42.160 So, I had another one today.

00:15:43.100 So, he says, in general, critiques of governmental responses to coronavirus don't do enough to account for the fact that there are a lot of unknowns surrounding the virus.

00:15:54.540 And optimal policy is likely to be different when there are a lot of unknowns.

00:16:00.300 Do you know anybody else who said that?

00:16:02.520 I did.

00:16:03.820 So, some version of that.

00:16:04.980 But then he goes on.

00:16:05.640 He goes, that is, you probably want a policy that is nimble.

00:16:09.820 You need to collect data quickly and be ready to adapt to it, multifaceted.

00:16:15.400 There inevitably has to be some element of trial and error as you learn about what works and what doesn't.

00:16:21.980 Now, you may recognize this as being very similar, sort of like a shadow cousin of things I've been saying.

00:16:29.300 And my version of this goes like this.

00:16:31.620 That I agree in advance not to blame anybody for getting this wrong, so long as they're quickly adapting to mistakes.

00:16:43.060 So, it's a version of what he's saying, which is, this is not like a known problem, where if it were a known problem, you'd say, oh, did they use the known solution?

00:16:52.560 And then you could say yes or no, and then you'd know if somebody did a good job.

00:16:56.860 But with an unknown kind of a problem with lots of variables and, you know, there's more we don't know than we do, as Nate suggests, and as I have a number of times, the best you can do is do something.

00:17:11.300 That's it.

00:17:12.300 The best you can do is to do something.

00:17:13.960 And you hope that you've got enough people doing enough different things, and you're watching each other, that if somebody gets lucky and does the right thing, not because they were smart, but because people were just doing different things.

00:17:27.880 They didn't know what to do.

00:17:29.240 And then you quickly adapt and say, oh, oh, masks.

00:17:32.660 That looks like it works.

00:17:33.720 Oh, testing.

00:17:34.460 Let's test the way they're testing.

00:17:37.600 So, I will extend this to make good on a promise.

00:17:42.240 The promise I made you two months ago, maybe, and the promise was this, that I was going to hold blameless any of the leaders who made wrong decisions because it just wasn't a situation in which making a right decision was even an option except by luck.

00:18:02.180 You know, a few cases, maybe not.

00:18:04.420 And I'm going to prove that by telling you that I don't think that I'm going to – this is my personal view, right?

00:18:11.440 You will get to make up your own mind.

00:18:14.040 My personal view is I'm not going to hold Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, responsible, just my opinion.

00:18:22.960 This is just personal.

00:18:24.880 All right?

00:18:25.160 You can disagree.

00:18:28.200 I'm not going to fight you on it.

00:18:30.340 Just my personal view, just philosophically, morally, and ethically.

00:18:34.240 We're asking these leaders to make suicide political decisions on our behalf.

00:18:41.680 That's what we're asking them to do, right?

00:18:44.600 So, do I think that every decision that Governor Cuomo made, in hindsight, was the right one?

00:18:53.460 No, that's not how it works.

00:18:55.180 We don't get to do that.

00:18:56.440 Hindsight's not fair.

00:18:57.320 They're all making decisions.

00:18:59.500 They're doing their best.

00:19:01.020 You know, they're making suicide political decisions for you, right?

00:19:07.880 For you.

00:19:08.980 There's nothing in it for these guys.

00:19:11.860 These are really dangerous waters they're in, and they jumped right in, right?

00:19:16.620 No governor said, I quit, right?

00:19:19.400 Which governor walked away?

00:19:21.320 None.

00:19:22.460 None.

00:19:23.600 50 governors went right toward the fire, right?

00:19:27.440 So, you've got to give them a little bit of ethical flexibility, you know, from your own perspective, meaning.

00:19:37.880 That sometimes they're going to make the wrong decisions.

00:19:41.320 And I just don't think under the crisis situation where there was so much guessing that you should judge them for anything except the way they corrected.

00:19:50.340 That's it.

00:19:50.820 So, I'm going to hold Andrew Cuomo as blameless as I will hold all of the other leaders, including the president, including all the other governors, because nobody knew the right thing to do.

00:20:02.880 Period.

00:20:03.820 That's it.

00:20:05.180 All right.

00:20:05.460 So, Nate Silver represents what a smart person sounds like when they talk about judging the performance of the leaders.

00:20:13.680 Let's talk about somebody else's view on the same topic.

00:20:19.400 This is somebody named S.E.

00:20:21.020 Cupp over at CNN.

00:20:24.240 And let me read again Nate's sentence so that you have the contrast.

00:20:30.000 So, I'll reread Nate's smart sentence and then S.E.

00:20:33.620 Cupp's statement.

00:20:35.380 So, Nate said, in general, critiques of governmental responses to coronavirus don't do enough to account for the fact that there are lots of unknowns surrounding the virus.

00:20:43.100 And optimal policy is like to be different.

00:20:45.160 Well, look.

00:20:46.120 Here's what S.E.

00:20:46.900 Cupp says.

00:20:48.060 The president has, by any metric, bungled the coronavirus response.

00:20:51.920 By any metric, he's bungled it.

00:20:57.280 Any metric.

00:20:58.960 So, if I had a metric to suggest, S.E.

00:21:05.320 Cupp says, doesn't even matter what it is.

00:21:07.220 Any metric.

00:21:08.440 It's going to be a bungle.

00:21:10.400 So, let's run through a few.

00:21:12.400 Okay?

00:21:13.220 Let's run through a few metrics.

00:21:15.740 How did the president of the United States do compared to the leaders of other countries?

00:21:21.920 Don't know.

00:21:23.120 Doesn't look that different to me.

00:21:25.060 Because we don't know what's different about the United States, etc.

00:21:29.000 So, if you were to use the metric of comparing him to other leaders, is he better or worse?

00:21:37.160 Don't know.

00:21:38.260 So, there's a metric that you would not say he's doing unambiguously worse.

00:21:43.660 Has he, by any metric, bungled?

00:21:46.300 Well, if he has bungled, he's bungled about the same as every leader on Earth, because they're sort of all the same.

00:21:53.940 How about the economy?

00:21:57.240 Well, I would say that the stock market is the indicator that tells you the most about where you're going.

00:22:04.140 You know, we know where we are, and everybody's in bad shape where we are.

00:22:07.140 But the stock market is a forward indicator.

00:22:12.380 What does the stock market say about President Trump?

00:22:15.700 The stock market says President Trump is going to beat this thing all the way back to a good economy.

00:22:23.740 That's what it says.

00:22:24.920 It's priced for recovery.

00:22:27.060 So, if you were to divide the situation into two parts, there's the economic part and all that that implies, including life and death.

00:22:37.920 And then there's more purely medical part about, you know, do we have enough ventilators and real medical stuff.

00:22:43.500 On the economic part, I would say the metric that captures the most is the stock market.

00:22:52.980 Now, that doesn't mean everybody's in the stock market.

00:22:55.500 I'm not saying everybody, you know, benefits when the stock market goes up.

00:22:59.040 I'm just saying as a metric for measuring what the smartest people who have money think is going to happen with the economy, they're giving it an A, right?

00:23:11.240 I mean, this market is priced for near perfection.

00:23:16.320 That's sort of finance talk, meaning that it's an expensive market for how much the earnings are at the moment.

00:23:23.580 So, you're really expecting something really good to happen in the next year or else the stock market price doesn't make any sense.

00:23:33.460 So, half of all the things you could care about, the economy and all that it implies, is strong.

00:23:40.860 I would say that metric is about as strong as it could possibly be, given the circumstance.

00:23:49.280 Let's see, other metrics.

00:23:51.020 How about number of ventilators?

00:23:54.860 Pass-fail.

00:23:56.420 The number of ventilators is a pass-fail.

00:23:58.980 You either have enough or you don't and you fail.

00:24:02.980 That's a metric.

00:24:04.540 The president got them enough.

00:24:05.880 You know, on the PPE, you know, individual places had trouble, but in general, we got enough.

00:24:14.160 So, on the PPE, got enough.

00:24:17.400 How about people starving to death?

00:24:20.420 Has anybody starved to death in the United States?

00:24:23.480 None, right?

00:24:25.000 Zero.

00:24:26.280 Now, that probably has more to do with the states,

00:24:28.760 but, you know, the federal government backstops the states.

00:24:32.620 Pass-fail.

00:24:33.380 Well, zero people starved to death.

00:24:37.340 That's a pass.

00:24:38.880 You know, during a crisis this bad, that's a pretty big deal.

00:24:43.940 How about, let's see, how about flattening the curve?

00:24:48.740 Did the United States flatten the curve?

00:24:52.680 It looks like we did.

00:24:54.800 Yeah.

00:24:55.120 So, I don't know which, you know, I don't know what numbers SC Cup is looking at.

00:25:03.340 We probably agree on testing not being enough,

00:25:07.580 and the president's sort of overselling where we were on testing.

00:25:11.120 He sort of oversells everything, so I discounted that as being, you know,

00:25:15.080 necessarily an important anything, because, you know, he's always going to oversell everything.

00:25:19.240 But, and you know that, so it doesn't even seem dishonest,

00:25:24.500 because he'll tell you, I'm going to oversell everything.

00:25:27.660 I mean, if he asked him, he'd tell you directly, yeah, I'm overselling that.

00:25:31.080 That's what I do.

00:25:32.700 I think, or something like that.

00:25:34.140 Now, I saw a piece from Carlos Quintanilla, if I remember his name right.

00:25:44.020 And I don't, I didn't see a link to it, so I need a fact check on this.

00:25:48.460 But apparently J.P. Morgan has, quote,

00:25:51.480 a devastating piece arguing that infection rates have declined, not increased,

00:25:57.220 in states where lockdowns have ended.

00:25:59.120 Even when they allow for the fact that there's a time lag,

00:26:04.060 apparently even allowing for that,

00:26:06.460 things are going opposite of what you would expect.

00:26:09.760 Now, I'm not so sure this is true,

00:26:13.300 but it's provocative.

00:26:15.380 It also reminds us that every time we think we can count something accurately,

00:26:20.280 we can't count anything accurately.

00:26:24.700 So, those of you who are getting happy in the comments,

00:26:27.980 I can see that you're celebrating the news.

00:26:30.500 I don't know that this is true.

00:26:34.080 I would be a little suspicious of this,

00:26:36.240 because it doesn't quite match with, you know,

00:26:39.100 my expectations for what that's worth.

00:26:41.960 All right, here's a fun little fact.

00:26:44.940 Now, keep in mind that in the age of the coronavirus,

00:26:47.940 literally every story you hear from every source lacks credibility.

00:26:54.160 Can we agree on that?

00:26:55.120 There's no such thing as a study that you can trust,

00:26:59.460 a report you can trust, an anecdotal story you can trust.

00:27:01.900 There's nothing you can trust.

00:27:03.900 So, in the spirit of knowing there's absolutely no story you can trust,

00:27:09.240 let me tell you this story.

00:27:10.640 Apparently, over in India,

00:27:14.980 10,000 Mumbai policemen were offered hydroxychloroquine

00:27:20.300 to take prophylactically to prevent them from getting problems.

00:27:26.620 Of the 10,000, about 4,500 of them did a good job of taking it,

00:27:32.560 and the rest of them refused.

00:27:34.340 So, they had 4,500 police officers,

00:27:38.540 and many of them were apparently around enough coronavirus

00:27:42.200 that there were, in fact, infections.

00:27:44.660 And here's the result.

00:27:46.340 Of the group that took the hydroxychloroquine,

00:27:49.620 there were zero deaths.

00:27:53.160 Zero.

00:27:53.700 On the group that decided not to take the hydroxychloroquine,

00:27:59.980 nine deaths.

00:28:02.120 And those who got the virus in the group that had the hydroxychloroquine

00:28:06.960 had, quote, mild attacks.

00:28:09.080 Now, this is, of course, an anecdotal report,

00:28:16.860 and also not necessarily a source that you should say is 100% credible.

00:28:23.680 Somebody's asking about zinc, and it was not mentioned.

00:28:27.840 So, I don't know if the fact that it's not mentioned

00:28:30.680 means they didn't use it.

00:28:32.860 So, that's an open question.

00:28:34.080 But I wouldn't expect good results without it.

00:28:39.560 And again, even that's not credible.

00:28:41.380 So, we don't know if the zinc really makes a difference.

00:28:43.780 I know I ordered some.

00:28:45.720 I know I got my zinc supplements coming in the mail.

00:28:48.980 But that doesn't mean it works.

00:28:52.600 So, here's what I love about this.

00:28:54.640 I don't know that this is true.

00:28:56.720 And if it is true, it's not a scientific study.

00:28:59.080 Study, I suppose you could say still the odds of it,

00:29:03.960 the odds of the hydroxychloroquine not making a difference.

00:29:07.680 If all they did is count the numbers right,

00:29:10.920 if all they did was have a good idea who actually took the hydroxychloroquine,

00:29:15.080 and they also counted the number of infections and deaths correctly,

00:29:19.220 probably statistically, it's pretty darn unlikely

00:29:23.500 that all of the deaths would be in one group.

00:29:25.800 Nine of them?

00:29:26.560 Nine to zero?

00:29:27.220 So, can somebody do the odds on that?

00:29:31.200 Here, do the odds on this.

00:29:32.180 There's somebody here who's good at it.

00:29:34.260 So, you had two groups.

00:29:35.720 One of them is 4,500 people,

00:29:37.980 and they had zero deaths.

00:29:40.240 And the other group,

00:29:41.140 and that was the group that took the hydroxychloroquine.

00:29:43.360 The other group was 5,500,

00:29:45.480 so it's a larger group,

00:29:46.840 and they had nine deaths.

00:29:48.940 So, in the comments,

00:29:50.040 let's see how fast you can do the statistics on that.

00:29:53.100 What are the odds that that would just,

00:29:55.380 if it's true?

00:29:56.040 You know, who knows if it even happened.

00:29:58.540 But, what would be the odds of it coming out nine to zero,

00:30:04.580 just randomly?

00:30:06.500 If anybody can do that, I'll be watching the comments.

00:30:09.960 All right, here's a comment that came in to me from Timothy Piper.

00:30:15.400 And it's a really good observation,

00:30:19.520 and it's going to make you wonder why you didn't already see it on TV.

00:30:22.860 Somebody says 0.01.

00:30:27.160 Are you sure about that?

00:30:29.960 And here's the observation.

00:30:31.860 That the reason that Flynn was tagged as maybe working with Russia too much

00:30:36.700 is that he had too much communication with Kislyak.

00:30:40.060 Somebody else is saying 17%.

00:30:43.880 It looks like most of you are bad at statistics,

00:30:48.380 or...

00:30:49.980 I can't tell if you're just guessing.

00:30:53.360 Your numbers are all over the place.

00:30:55.200 Somebody says 1 in 20.

00:30:56.820 It's not 1 in 20.

00:30:58.860 I don't know what it is,

00:30:59.780 but it's definitely a lot more than 1 in 20,

00:31:02.520 or a lot less than that.

00:31:04.060 All right, it looks like nobody here can do statistics,

00:31:08.040 so we'll put that on hold.

00:31:11.960 So here was the idea.

00:31:13.420 If Flynn was talking to Kislyak more than normal,

00:31:17.160 does that mean he's a Russian spy?

00:31:19.020 Now, of course, that was the suspicion that Comey allegedly had.

00:31:24.000 Allegedly, he was concerned that there was too much talking with the Russians.

00:31:27.780 But what Tim Piper pointed out

00:31:30.160 is that this was an unusual administration.

00:31:35.140 Normally, an administration incoming

00:31:37.260 is a bunch of people who've been around forever,

00:31:39.800 and the Russians would know them.

00:31:42.560 So, you know what I mean?

00:31:43.260 The Russians work in Washington, D.C. quite a bit.

00:31:46.660 So anybody who's a standard politician on either party,

00:31:50.420 they've been around a while,

00:31:52.320 well, the Russians already know them.

00:31:54.820 But suppose the Trump administration comes in,

00:31:58.260 and they basically know one guy.

00:32:00.600 Flynn.

00:32:02.060 But they need to get up to speed,

00:32:04.300 but they only know one guy.

00:32:07.000 That's it.

00:32:08.020 They just know the one guy.

00:32:10.020 Because all the Trump people are just like,

00:32:12.380 you know, came from Mars,

00:32:14.460 so the Russians didn't already know them.

00:32:17.520 So would it surprise you

00:32:19.560 if the Russians being, of course, 0.95

00:32:22.420 concerned about, you know, relationships

00:32:24.340 and all the different dealings of the United States,

00:32:27.060 would it surprise you,

00:32:28.040 since they only knew one guy,

00:32:29.360 that they might talk to him a lot?

00:32:33.060 You know, as soon as you hear that,

00:32:34.680 you say to yourself,

00:32:35.740 well, that makes sense.

00:32:37.720 Yeah, the Trump administration

00:32:39.240 didn't have, you know,

00:32:41.740 they just didn't have much knowledge about them.

00:32:43.660 So if they could find one guy

00:32:45.880 who'd take a phone call,

00:32:46.880 he'd probably get a lot of calls.

00:32:48.840 Isn't that the most routine,

00:32:50.580 obvious explanation

00:32:52.340 for what probably happened?

00:32:54.480 I mean, we weren't there,

00:32:55.560 but that's the most likely explanation,

00:32:57.940 is that they just didn't know a lot of people.

00:32:59.880 So they called them a lot.

00:33:00.820 All right.

00:33:04.940 What about Manafort?

00:33:06.320 What about him?

00:33:10.280 I see you're all still trying to work out the math on that.

00:33:16.300 I guess that was harder than I thought it was.

00:33:18.260 I don't know why you're asking about Manafort,

00:33:25.440 because that's just sort of a different situation.

00:33:28.680 Did you hear that Michael Cohen

00:33:30.500 will be serving the rest of his time at home?

00:33:33.580 So basically,

00:33:34.920 Michael Cohen gets convicted

00:33:37.000 and sentenced to jail,

00:33:39.880 but because of the coronavirus,

00:33:43.260 his jail sentence

00:33:44.260 turned into exactly the same jail sentence

00:33:46.540 that you and I have,

00:33:47.520 which is,

00:33:47.920 you've got to stay home.

00:33:49.680 That's it.

00:33:50.840 So basically,

00:33:51.960 basically,

00:33:52.760 I'm being penalized the same as Michael Cohen.

00:33:58.680 Somebody says,

00:33:59.540 you hypnotize us every day.

00:34:00.840 It's crazy.

00:34:03.420 It is crazy.

00:34:04.920 It's totally crazy.

00:34:07.060 Somebody says,

00:34:07.820 I don't think you framed

00:34:08.900 the math question well.

00:34:11.260 Well,

00:34:11.860 I wasn't framing it.

00:34:12.920 I was just telling you

00:34:13.540 the only numbers I have.

00:34:15.260 Two groups of people.

00:34:17.240 Nine died.

00:34:18.740 None died in the other.

00:34:19.780 That's all I know.

00:34:21.380 So,

00:34:22.000 if that's enough to work with it,

00:34:25.440 go nuts.

00:34:27.960 All right.

00:34:32.880 So I think it's going to be

00:34:34.120 all good news from now on.

00:34:35.580 We're going to hear about

00:34:36.280 therapies and therapeutics

00:34:38.380 and you're going to hear

00:34:39.880 about curves getting bent.

00:34:41.400 You're going to hear about

00:34:41.940 people going back to work

00:34:43.120 and you're going to be hearing

00:34:44.480 a lot of good stuff.

00:34:46.680 And I told you that the

00:34:47.480 home prices where I live

00:34:49.020 didn't go down at all.

00:34:50.900 So the real estate prices

00:34:52.160 where I live,

00:34:53.000 no change.

00:34:54.460 The houses are selling

00:34:55.340 above asking price.

00:34:57.020 Still,

00:34:57.960 you know,

00:34:58.160 as of this week,

00:34:59.060 they're selling above asking price.

00:35:01.000 Amazing.

00:35:01.940 And apparently it's just easier

00:35:02.980 for the real estate agents

00:35:04.020 because they don't have to

00:35:04.700 show houses now.

00:35:06.200 You know,

00:35:06.420 they can just say,

00:35:07.020 look at this video

00:35:07.760 because I'm not going to

00:35:08.920 show it to you

00:35:09.360 until you're really serious.

00:35:12.140 So the real estate brokers

00:35:13.860 are working less

00:35:14.600 and making more money,

00:35:15.460 I think.

00:35:17.060 At least in some cases.

00:35:19.320 Then you're also seeing,

00:35:20.380 I think California said

00:35:22.620 it might do something

00:35:23.320 a little faster.

00:35:25.380 There's that.

00:35:26.360 And you heard about

00:35:26.960 the cruise ships

00:35:28.880 are already being overbooked.

00:35:31.420 So of all things,

00:35:33.000 if you were going to pick

00:35:33.780 one indicator

00:35:35.380 that made you feel optimistic,

00:35:38.540 this is the one.

00:35:40.500 Cruise ships for 2021

00:35:43.340 are overbooked.

00:35:46.000 Cruise ships.

00:35:47.580 Cruise ships are overbooked.

00:35:49.120 Anybody who's betting

00:35:51.680 against this economy

00:35:52.860 coming back quickly,

00:35:54.640 I think you're really

00:35:55.580 at a risky bet

00:35:56.520 because people are ready

00:35:58.340 to rumble.

00:36:00.840 And look at the stock market.

00:36:02.480 The stock market is basically,

00:36:04.740 I mean,

00:36:05.340 it's close enough

00:36:06.400 to where it was

00:36:07.580 when things were good

00:36:09.040 that I think people

00:36:11.280 will act like

00:36:11.940 they still have money

00:36:12.780 because they do

00:36:15.480 as long as the stock market

00:36:16.440 stays up.

00:36:16.940 You have to disprove

00:36:20.660 the null hypothesis.

00:36:22.860 Well, that seems

00:36:24.060 like a general statement.

00:36:27.620 But I'll take that advice.

00:36:29.120 I have to do that.

00:36:31.180 All right.

00:36:31.780 That's all I got for now.

00:36:33.180 And yeah,

00:36:34.040 most of the cruise ship stuff

00:36:35.360 is rebooking.

00:36:36.260 People who didn't want to,

00:36:37.600 I don't know,

00:36:38.280 give away their ticket

00:36:39.460 forever or something.

00:36:41.200 But still.

00:36:42.780 But still.

00:36:44.000 All right.

00:36:44.560 That's all for now.

00:36:45.760 And I will talk to you

00:36:46.840 in the morning.

00:36:48.220 You know where.

00:36:48.760 Three,

00:36:49.360 four.

00:36:49.840 Yeah.

00:36:52.380 Four.

00:36:53.220 One.

00:36:53.600 Four.

00:36:53.640 One.

00:36:54.660 One.

00:36:56.280 Two.

00:36:57.280 Three.

00:36:59.300 Four.

00:36:59.420 Three.

00:37:01.640 Two.

00:37:02.000 Three.

00:37:06.080 Correct.

00:37:06.620 Three.

00:37:07.200 Five.

00:37:07.980 Four.

00:37:08.100 Four.

00:37:08.620 Four.

00:37:09.540 Four.

00:37:10.000 One.

00:37:10.600 Two.

00:37:10.680 Five.

00:37:10.900 Four.

00:37:11.380 Two.

00:37:11.600 Four.

00:37:13.880 One.

00:37:14.440 Two.

00:37:14.940 Ahouse.

00:37:14.980 Four.

00:37:15.300 Four.

00:37:15.440 Five.

00:37:15.980 Four.

00:37:16.940 Four.

00:37:17.600 Four.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - May 21, 2020

Episode 987 Scott Adams： Queen of Dragons McEnany, Manufactured News, Trump's Performance, Hydroxychloroquine, Flynn

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