Episode 352 Scott Adams: The Fence-Wall, Reid Hoffman, Visiting the Troops, Stock Market

Date: 2018-12-27 | Duration: 54:45

Topics

President Trump has identified reason for opposition to the wall The wall would be a win for the President Midterm false flag online operation to influence Alabama results Now confirmed: Dem operatives pretend to be Russians Credible speculation this isn’t the first time POTUS and FLOTUS visit the troops FOX reports tight security and no leaking of trip CNN reports everyone knew it was being planned Stock market historic drop the other day Stock market historic one day increase yesterday Attack of the Dales Did POTUS make a mistake by changing Fed Chief? It isn’t a one-variable world Hiring is just guessing, firing takes skill Vilified so badly by the press, limits willing candidates 2019 Prediction: NO impeachment in 2019, 2020 Mueller won’t produce anything impeachable Impeachment window will be first six months of 2019 2019 will be an up year for stocks North Korea progress will continue Win Bigly was most requested book on Amazon, Christmas week Special message for all the haters since 2015 Thanks for the loser advice! Taking calls yesterday on the WhenHub Interface app E-autographs from the whiteboard US pullout from Syria Everything happening is in some way squeezing Iran Time isn’t on Iran’s side The three superpowers are natural allies, not natural enemies We don’t share borders No possibility any of the three could win in a war All three countries have people whose job is to poke the others Why does Putin prefer to continue poking the US? Is it rational to be enemies with someone you can’t defeat? Wouldn’t it be better for Russia to have trade and prosperity? AOC is the real deal, just like President Trump but on the other side Why not try “universal healthcare” in one state, see how it goes? If no state wants to try it, should we stop talking about it? The Wall: Why are politicians making engineering decisions? Why are we talking about funding the entire structure? Establish a test budget, observe results, proceed accordingly

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> [!note] Rough Transcript
> 
> This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.

## Transcript

[0:06]

well let's try this we're gonna try it without a microphone and this is coming to you from my phone so neither of my iPads is working for reasons that are mysterious and neither of my microphones work so I've got two iPads and two different microphones and no combination of them work together so so so far my phone has worked most of the time so this'll at least tell us if the problem is the iPad or the or the service all right let's talk about a few things i since i'm expecting this periscope will not work i'll just jump into a few things and see how far we get before it before it fails you know i've been trying to popularize the word wence which is a combination of wall and fence

[1:06]

which is a combination of wall and fence but I've decided that whence is a little too clever it's not sticky enough and we could do better if what we're trying to do is come up with a name that will make everybody happy that you know the trick here is that the Republicans need to think they got a wall and the Democrats need to think it's a fence and the steel slat structure conveniently makes the case for both of those it's sort of a fence that looks like oh all sort of but I think the better name would be the fence wall fence - wall fence wall here's why correct me if I'm wrong but President Trump has correctly identified that the real problem is President Trump in other words it's personal so when the Democrats are rejecting his border structure they're not really

[2:09]

border structure they're not really rejecting border security that's the that's the impact of it the outcome is that it rejects border security but that's not the purpose Nancy Pelosi has made it very clear that the wall equals the president's penis I'm not even joking Nancy Pelosi has very clearly made it made it her her argument that the wall is the president's penis and she doesn't want to support the president's penis so it doesn't matter that she also wants border security she just can't support this president's penis because it's personal so the president quite rightly has tried to de personalize it and by the way let me give credit where credit is due Nancy Pelosi had a really good line that's consistent with her philosophy

[3:09]

that's consistent with her philosophy that this is about the president's penis she doesn't use those words but she was mocking him for backing down from a solid structure and she said the other day well the first he wanted this all concrete wall its concrete everywhere and now he wants to do some kind of a steel structure and what's next a beaded curtain all right now you have to say forget about the politics the technique was really good so that was Nancy Pelosi aligned that the president was backing down from a concrete structure to some kind of a steel wall and what's next a beaded curtain now what is what does beaded curtain have in common with her other attacks on the president she is basically trying to de masculine do you mask you know late emasculate him she's trying to evacuate him so she's turned

[4:09]

trying to evacuate him so she's turned it into a manhood question oh you're gonna have a wall you're you know that's that's really just your manhood at stake here and then if you don't get you all you're getting a beaded curtain so she's basically mocking his man because this has never been about border security right nobody really thinks this is about border security anymore do they it's so clearly going beyond everybody agreeing that border security is important everybody's already agreed this some might be a little Wallisch and some might be a little fence ish and some might be drones or whatnot so there's no real point of disagreement except that they can't let President Trump win so here's my suggestion instead of calling it a fence or a wall call it a fence wall fence - wall you put a fence first and you put the actual word in there whence was cute but didn't really have the benefits of fence wall

[5:09]

really have the benefits of fence wall I'll bet you can't say fence wall without wanting to say it again defense wall fence wall it's pretty stinky all right there was an amusing story this used to be running only on Fox News let me make sure before I say that I might be wrong about this yes I don't see it on CNN so the biggest story on Fox News doesn't even exist on on CNN and it's about billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn Reed Hoffman apparently donated seven something million dollars to Democrats during the 2016 election and one of the organizations he donated to unbeknownst to him he didn't know exactly what everybody was doing because you know when you're doing any of that much money and you donate to a bunch of different organizations you don't really know everything those organizations are doing

[6:10]

everything those organizations are doing and one of those organizations quite awkwardly was trying to influence the Alabama race with Doug Jones and Roy Moore by they had a false flag online operation in which they were pretending to be Russians influencing the election so they were trying to make it look as if the Russian were behind the Republicans in the Alabama election now I don't know if there was enough influence to change the election but how awkward is it that Democrats ran a fake Russian online operation just at the time when Republicans are blaming Democrats for maybe making up this whole Russian collusion story so it turns out that making up Russia collusion stories is something Democrats do so here's the question you no longer have to wonder if it's true or is it not true do

[7:11]

it's true or is it not true do Democratic operatives pretend to be Russians yes yeah it's kind of awkward isn't it it's kind of awkward because before you thought to yourself well I'll tell you one thing that never happens you know at least one thing we know doesn't happen is that the Democrats are not just pretending to be Russians and pretending to collude that doesn't happen well well it happened now the question of whether it also happened during the presidential election we don't have any evidence of that right so I'm not aware of any evidence that would suggest Democrats were behind it but especially with the hacking stuff there there have been lots of I would say credible speculation credible speculation means doesn't mean it's true it just means it's quite believable based on what we know and there is

[8:12]

based on what we know and there is credible speculation that even the Russians hacking of the DNC might have been a false flag and wasn't Russian at all so just when the Democrats would not want you to believe there is any such thing as fake Russian collusion we have proof of fake Russian collusion in the Alabama race that doesn't mean it happened in the National race but is very awkward in terms of how it looks and the persuasion of it all now let's talk about the YouTube visit president Trump cleverly visited the troops the day after Christmas he was a big hit got lots of video clips of the troops cheering and enthusiastic and all those things which the anti-trump er say can't happen so it was from a PR perspective for the president it was a really really

[9:13]

for the president it was a really really good move here's the funny part on Fox News it was reported that the president can really keep a secret or his team can and that nobody knew nobody knew he was going to Iraq that's how it was so it was a big well-kept secret and there were no leaks so that's how it was reported on Fox News at the same time I was at Politico or a fox I forget one of the anti-trump news organizations they were they were reporting that it was the worst kept secret ever completely different completely opposite words and their argument was not not about the leaks I don't think they reported any leaks but that the there were so many clues that it was going to happen that people knew what was happening and apparently there are people around the world now amateurs who track playing tail numbers and they know if Air Force

[10:15]

tail numbers and they know if Air Force One the one that goes overseas they know whether that's an action they knew that the president stopped tweeting they they knew that he had said he what might go so apparently there were all these clues that made some some number of amateur sleuths know for sure he was on his way so completely about opposite news one well-kept secret the other high everybody knew he had left so many clues it was obvious even amateurs thinking to do there's YouTube movies on one screen let's talk about the stock market so the other day we had an historic drop in the market historic there's always a some kind of a record to be broken and so the stock market went down and tongue and everybody said oh my god and it's the end of the world what I said was might be a good time to buy stocks now I advise you never ever ever ever take

[11:15]

advise you never ever ever ever take financial advice from a cartoonist never ever ever ever do not take financial advice from cartoonists but I did tell you that I was a big buyer on the dip so I went in pretty heavy as a buyer and then the market went up a whole bunch yesterday you should expect that it should go down today not a lot but I'll probably you'll probably pull back a little from what I did yesterday that would all be normal now there are a few things you need to know about the end of the year the last quarter tends to get you know frothy as people are doing things for tax reasons etc but that final week the Christmas week is a special week because there aren't many people trading at all so I haven't seen the news on this but I would guess that the trading volume is low if you don't follow the market that doesn't mean anything to you but here's what it should mean when the trading market is

[12:17]

should mean when the trading market is low meaning there are just not many people trading because everybody's a way out of Christmas it doesn't take as many people to totally move the market because if let's say instead of millions of people are buying things I'll just simplify it you there were only five people left in town who even cared about the stocks so this is just a wild example so instead of tens of millions of people buying stocks every day is Christmas let's say there's just five people in the whole world who even care well if those five people have more buyers than may have sellers the price of the market will zoom up because there's so much more demand than there is supply nobody is around to sell any stocks so the people who want to buy it are gonna have to bid up the price to get some to sell it in an efficient market where there are millions of people things tend to be more stable but as soon as that big number becomes a small number you can get a it can get Wilder I believe that you would you if you fact check

[13:19]

that you would you if you fact check that I think that's right so the point of it is Christmas week you should naturally see lots of volatility if you also have headlines you probably also need some news events to drive things but let me ask you something what is different well you know in terms of big economic news what was different the day that the stock market went down a lot versus the day I went up a lot what was different what big economic change happened in two days well Trump said it was a good time to buy but so nigh there are two there are two people who said it was a good time to buy I'm one of them but do you think that's why it went up because I'll bet before the end of the week we'll have another down day do you think it'll go down further for any economic reason none of this stuff has

[14:20]

economic reason none of this stuff has anything to do with economics it's just bouncing around because people's people's psychology is bouncing around so it's smaller volume and people are a little bit crazier than normal so it's just completely normal that it's bouncing around it doesn't it doesn't mean anything about anything it's down 500 today means absolutely nothing well I'll tell you what it does mean when that when the market took a sharp obtain yesterday I said to myself oh crap because I was planning to buy some more and I thought man at least I get I got in toward the bottom but I was hoping you would stay low for a little longer I wanted to make some more decisions but now it's back it's back down again so I will almost certainly be a buyer again today after I get off of this but don't take my advice do not take my nice about this stuff the things to

[15:21]

nice about this stuff the things to watch in terms of wondering if the market is going to go down forever is unemployment that tends to be really the if you're gonna watch one thing you want to watch unemployment if you're gonna watch one thing for the stock market probably the Fed now online I'm getting I'm getting any question from you know one of my critics you know what one of the problems with being right as much as I am if you've been watching me for a while you know that I've been extraordinarily right about political predictions as etc maybe more than anybody has ever been right I don't know how to measure such a thing but I'd certainly be in the top 10 percent of people who have ever been right about political predictions and so when people think I might be wrong about something they pile into Twitter and they say they

[16:22]

they pile into Twitter and they say they say Dale like things oh I can't wait to say what Scoville says when he twists himself into a pretzel and tries to explain this Oh Scott explain this explain this now trying to explain this Nancy so the Dale's come after me and they tell me it's playing live now I don't you know if it's on Twitter I don't have time to give the full context but the full context looks like this I'm not the guy who needs to explain everything I didn't really sign up for the job of explaining everything I explained two things that are interesting and maybe I have a you know unique take on them it really isn't my job to explain absolutely everything so I don't accept that as my obligation but every now and then one of the Dale's

[17:24]

every now and then one of the Dale's will ask a perfectly good question I think it's accidental it's probably someone those random chance sort of things but today somebody did one and somebody said the president is criticizing the Fed chief but the President had the option of keeping Janet Yellen who was more dovish about interest rates wouldn't that have been a better decision so isn't it obviously true that the president made a mistake by replacing Janet Yellen who may have been more inclined to keep the interest rates low to which I say well that's a really good point in a world with one variable if the only variable in the world was that Janet Yellen was a little softer on interest rates and the guy he appointed was a little more hard to us on it if we even knew that I don't know I don't even

[18:26]

even knew that I don't know I don't even know if we knew that but if that was the only variable in the world yeah that would that would be a bad hiring decision if there were no other variables but here's the other context the the first context is that we don't know what Janet Yellen would have done so if Janet Yellen had been in charge would she have raised interest rates don't know so we don't really have anything to compare it to because she would have been reacting to the same economic you know impact that Paola's the other thing we don't know or the years the other context as I often say and I've often said about this president hiring is mostly guessing firing is the skill when you hire somebody you're

[19:26]

skill when you hire somebody you're looking at somebody who has never done the job you're hiring for right Powell has never been the Fed chief and before that Janet Yellen had never been the the Fed chief until she was when you hire somebody for a job they have never done before you're guessing so the job of hiring for the government is almost entirely guessing from people who are qualified enough to be in the conversation but beyond that it's kind of guessing the skill is firing are you willing to fire somebody who is as popular as you know somebody like general mattis now mattis actually quit but I think he was kind of kind of forced out if you know what I mean I think Matt is knew that if he didn't quit maybe he was in trouble but the but the the point is firing takes skill because you have to know to do it quickly and efficiently you want to you

[20:27]

quickly and efficiently you want to you want to not wait around for things to change so the president is pretty good at firing is he also good at hiring we have no way to know because hiring is just guessing and and the president this particular president has a smaller pool of applicants than most presidents because he's been so vilified by the press and the other side they even you know even though zone team doesn't want to be on his team meaning the Republicans so he does have a natural disadvantage because he doesn't get to hire from the same pool as another president might so we're going into the new year did you notice that all of the legal risk for the president just sort of disappeared from the headlines for a week didn't really

[21:27]

the headlines for a week didn't really go away just it was boring and nobody wanted to talk about it and nothing was really happening so let me give you my prediction for 2019 my prediction is there will be no impeachment there will certainly be talk about it and maybe the house will you know dick around with a little bit but there will be no impeachment of the president in 2019 or 2020 there will be no impeachment that is my prediction what likewise I predict that the president will not be in any big legal jeopardy although it will sound like it if you listen to MSNBC and if you listen to CNN for most of this year and next they will be talking about how any minute Oh any minute now any minute now this president is going to be all obese but here's the thing if President Trump

[22:31]

here's the thing if President Trump doesn't get impeached in the first six months of 2019 is it going to be kind of too late because if you get into you know the end of 2019 and they haven't impeached him all the smart people are going to say he's only got a year left let's just beat him in the election so it's not going to make a ton of sense to impeach him for things that probably won't even be real let's say don't give a Pinocchio nose like your leaders and somebody says in all caps well I'm glad we got the dáil to come in and type in all caps and say Scott don't give a Pinocchio nose like your leader don't get a Pinocchio nose Thank You Dale for coming in and screaming at me in all caps something that makes no sense at all I appreciate you coming in for comic relief all right um Scott is still bald

[23:37]

relief all right um Scott is still bald though well thank you for pointing that out
out I appreciate that you come into my periscopes to point out my physical my physical disadvantages appreciate it thanks for stopping by Merry Christmas
yeah I think that Russian collusion will be a big disappointment to people you're not gonna get the Russian collusion that you're hoping for
well I hope all of you got my book by the way did you notice I tweeted out that my book wind begley the paperback version that's recently out so the paperback version was a way for this the most the most requested book on Amazon do you realize how big a deal that is was it most requested I think that was

[24:39]

was it most requested I think that was the title most most pre-ordered or most requested now imagine how many books there are on the Amazon do you have any idea how many books there are on Amazon a lot of books and there are a lot of new books as well so any given a week a ton of new books and mine was the most requested new book on all of Amazon for the week of Christmas thank you thank you thank you now I would like to give a shout out given that my book win big Lee is the most requested book on all of Amazon this past week I would like to give a special message to the haters and the losers who told me in 2015 and every day since then Scott and now I would like to ask Dale to come in to complete this sentence they said to me Scott

[25:40]

this sentence they said to me Scott stick to Jordan comics stick to drawing comics you don't know what you're talking about stick to drawing comics and see stick to drawing comics the most looser ish advice that anybody ever gave courtesy of Dale because you know what do you know where my life would be if I took looser advice stick to your day job well I wouldn't be talking to you now I wouldn't be a cartoonist I would not have best-selling books I would not have been one of the highest paid speaker in the world not at the moment but I'm off the speaking circuit at the moment well almost everything I've ever done fell into the category of I shouldn't be doing it because some loser told me I shouldn't I should stick to my day job so I'll tell you it's one thing let me

[26:43]

so I'll tell you it's one thing let me let me put this in context if a person is thinking about themselves and they say to themselves hey maybe I should stick to my day job and not try this new thing well that would be a loser philosophy wouldn't you say it's a loser philosophy to not try but if you take that loser philosophy that you've applied to your own life and then you go online and you seek out somebody who has a track record of leaving his box of succeeding and you tell that third party that you don't even know personally that they should get in their box and that they should not try because you're such a loser that you're not trying that my friends is double losing that is loser squared it's one thing to be a loser with your own philosophy and it only affects you but if you if you decide that not only are you such a loser that you're not going to get out of your box yourself but you want to go stop other

[27:43]

yourself but you want to go stop other people from getting outside of their box by mocking them back into it you sir are a double loser loser times 2 or losers squared if we want to take it up a level yeah my book gods debris if you haven't seen that one it was 2001 book God's debris is one of the most impactful books that people have ever read I mean one of the most most common comments I got it I get about that book it's fiction by the way is that it blew people away is the best book they've ever read what I have written a book religious philosophy if if I had stayed in my box and kept my day job and there's almost nothing I've done in my adult life that would that would have been good if I'd stayed in my box it's such bad a bad bad bad bad philosophy of

[28:46]

such bad a bad bad bad bad philosophy of life all right you can try to get a wife all men need a wife somebody says here on comments well thank you for that advice
I'm just looking at your comments all right yesterday I was taking calls on the interface by a win hub app if you're not familiar with that that's my start up as an app in which you can be an expert or or call an expert for an immediate video call or you can schedule it so we've added scheduling to the app so you can schedule a call with any of the experts on it and the scheduling tool is making a big difference so we're getting a lot more signups because the scheduling a lot more connected calls so that's all working well but yesterday I was taking calls as an expert and I was giving people virtual autographs I don't

[29:49]

giving people virtual autographs I don't know if you caught that but people were calling me yesterday on the app and I was using my whiteboard which I'll show you get ready
so can't see it too clearly but I had some artwork there you know autograph and I was just filling in people's names
so that they could take a screenshot so everybody who took a screenshot got a an autograph that was customized to them and and so those those conversations just happened within the app so that was on the interface by one hub app so if you know anybody who is a celebrity and wants to connect with fans they can either charge or not charge the app lets you do as much or as little charging as you want to but it was really fun too I got to meet a number of people that I

[30:51]

got to meet a number of people that I only interact with on Twitter so it was actually a really it was like this weird virtual reunion of people that I had known a long time but I've never met so the people I've been interacting with for three years on Twitter suddenly showed up live on the video through the app and and it was it was very cool yeah it's it's interface by when hub is the name of the app and we will be adding some doctors pretty soon and I talked to a lawyer yesterday who's going on for some family practice stuff and lots of experts going on for all kinds of stuff if you go on there the my advice to you would be the more specific your expertise probably the better your chances the the general experts that say I'm a marketing expert or engineering it's probably a little too generic

[31:52]

it's probably a little too generic so you want to say something pretty specific to get people were they different than you imagined the experts I don't know that I have a specific idea for that
all right so just looking at your comments can you discuss two shogi and the Washington Post is there something new about Chu shogi and the Washington Post because we've talked about him quite a bit let's talk let's talk about Israel and Syria so if the United States pulls out of Syria there's some there's some conversation that it might give Israel more of a more of a free punch sorry against Hezbollah so in other

[32:54]

sorry against Hezbollah so in other words Israel might go hard militarily against any Iranian supported troops that are still in Syria and it could be that our our engagement there is actually keeping from Israel from doing all that they would might want to do so I think what you're going to see is that the US will step out and that the only thing that could protect the Iranian backed forces in Syria are if Russia wanted the Iranians to have more control in Syria because if Israel and Russia and Turkey and Saudi Arabia and anybody else who's got forces if all of them are against the Iranian backed forces or at least not helping them it's gonna be tough for Iran to keep any kind of a footprint there so it seems to me that everything that you're seeing in the Middle East is either directly or

[33:55]

Middle East is either directly or indirectly related to squeezing Iran and that's probably the way to look at it look at every event that's happened recently and every event that you think might happen and say how does that squeeze Iran and if it does then everything makes sense in context there's only one game over there right now which is squeeze Iran until they fold and the beauty is you can squeeze as long as you want you know because time is on time is not honor and side all right
yeah Israel and Russia seem to get along so I've got a feeling that Syria being in Russian hands is not going to be the problem for for Israel so apparently Putin Putin is all happy

[34:57]

so apparently Putin Putin is all happy because Russia tested some kind of super super sonic or some kind of a space missile that they can shoot up into space and then it's impossible to intercept so now Russia has an impossible to intercept nuclear deterrent hypersonic missile and thinking to myself I don't know if that really changes anything they seem to indicate that it's a response to the missile defense that we helped put in close to their borders I don't know if that's true but I'm gonna say something I've said before I'll say again the three countries there should be allies are the United States Russia and China at least militarily because those three countries will never attack each other and all we're gonna have is these endless little proxy wars that just don't help anybody all this cyber stuff we do against each

[35:59]

all this cyber stuff we do against each other all of the little poking and prodding and dirty tricks why why we are not natural enemies let me tell you what a natural enemy looks like in the Middle East there are people with radically different religions and some of those religions say that they should kill the other religion and they share a border and they have disputed territory now you put all of that together and then there's economics on top of that and bad history everything those people have a reason to be enemies now you could argue they shouldn't have a reason they ought to change it etc but the fact is that in the Middle East there are natural enemies that that they have differences that are real but if you look at the United States and Russia and China even we don't really have real natural enemy reasons we don't share a border with

[37:01]

reasons we don't share a border with Russia or China there is no there's no possibility that anybody could win in a war and we have a common enemy which is radical Islam right now China might look at it a little differently but we don't really have a reason to be enemies it's some kind of weird historical psychological evolution that got us to where we are that we just don't need to be there and I'd I don't know if the problem is that nobody can go first because if you imagine let's say the United States said hey we've just decided that yeah you know us poking Russia and Russia poking us back doesn't help us so we'll just stop doing it it probably wouldn't stop Russia if we just if we just stopped doing every aggressive cyber thing if we just stopped spying if we just stopped poking

[38:02]

stopped spying if we just stopped poking them in all the ways we could poke them if we just stopped with the sanctions it probably wouldn't change anything they would probably just keep doing everything to us because they've got they have their own deep stage right I don't think Putin has the total control that people say because any big organization there are lots of complexities so I think Russia would just keep poking us because that's their job there are people whose job it is to poke the United States so unless they were all simultaneously fired which wouldn't happen that we couldn't even stop it on our end and how that that would stop it on their end and I think it would work the same way if tomorrow if tomorrow Russia just stopped every aggressive cyber thing every bad thing that they do the United States if they just stopped it all we wouldn't stop poking them wouldn't we because we've got this big built up machine you know that's sort of embedded

[39:04]

machine you know that's sort of embedded into our government whose jobs it is to poke Russia so I don't know how you stop because we're both sort of committed to this inertia that is now completely divorced from reasons let me put it this way do you think that Putin believes that continually screwing the United States and our allies is the best thing that he could be doing compared to trading with the allies and and having full security and his economy zooming you know which of those two worlds would Putin prefer I think it's obvious Putin would take better security and a better economy if it were available but it's not because we're poking them they're poking us and nobody can stop first and if somebody did stop first it wouldn't stop the other one because we're both on we both building machinery that will go

[40:05]

we both building machinery that will go on to poke each other independent of if there's ever a reason if there could be one enormous gigantic improvement in the world it would look like this the US Russia and China making a military alliance maybe not like a traditional military alliance where you agree to fight each other's wars or something like that but something where we just acknowledge that the three countries have gone beyond the level where it's rational to be enemies it is not rational to be an enemy with somebody who can kick your ass it is rational to have enemies that you could potentially defeat if there's somebody stronger than you or strong enough to destroy you in a nuclear flash those are the people you should be trying hard to be friends with because there's no the alternative is

[41:07]

because there's no the alternative is irrational but like everybody else in the world it's easy to say this stuff there's I just don't have to get there except to say that it's probably a psychological problem and not a physical one because we are not natural enemies now if I had to suggest one way to get to a better place with Russia and China it would be that framing so I would start framing it that way you could say there are natural enemies in the world people who share borders people who have wildly different religions that are in conflict they're natural enemies we don't share a border with Russia or China and we don't have an ideology that's really counter to theirs and vice versa there's nothing that the Russians need in the future or China needs in the future that requires the United States to be destroyed so if we could figure

[42:09]

to be destroyed so if we could figure out how the three of us could thrive and and team up against any less a smaller terrorist kind of movements that would be the ideal the ideal Golden Age scenario but I think you have to start talking about it that way before it can become real so it's probably going to take twenty years of saying by the way we're natural friends not natural enemies which is true we are natural friends which I know and at Russia we're just not acting like it all right I'm just looking at your comments yeah I understand all of the little Magnitsky and Browder problems and all that stuff there are lots and lots of little that we have with both countries but none of them should get in the way because nobody is really benefiting from any of these problems the new

[43:13]

any of these problems the new triumvirate yeah watch Oliver Stone's Ukraine on fire actually I will I will look for that now I don't doubt that Putin has ambitions to dominate his neighbors but you have to ask yourself how much of that is reaction to our missiles and our offensive posture how much of that is because he needs I don't know how much of what he does is because he needs pipelines and warm weather ports and stuff like that can an unlimited number of people live on earth well we're probably nowhere near the limit of people we can put on the earth but when people become economically prosperous they stop having as many children we have learned and so in all likelihood if you improve the the economics of the poorest people they

[44:13]

economics of the poorest people they will have fewer children not more so it's sort of a self-correcting problem
leaders benefit from having enemies yes but we could have common enemies what are you thoughts on the Kevin Spacey video I tried to watch it but it was too creepy and I only got five seconds into it and I just didn't want to have anything to do with Kevin Spacey any more predictions for 2019 well prediction that the Muller thing will not produce any impeachment what else would you like predicted for 2019 is there anything else you want to know
oh I would say the odds let's see what are the odds well I don't want to make a prediction about Ruth Bader Ginsburg because that depends on her health so I'm gonna be silent on Ruth Bader Ginsburg because I don't want to be betting against anybody's health yeah so

[45:18]

betting against anybody's health yeah so nothing on RGB stocks will end of the year higher so 2019 will be an up year for stocks I don't know how much but it'll be up North Korea will make significant progress now North Korea remember that this is a long-term process if it takes 20 years for North Korea to work out the nukes and to you know get some degree of reunification that's fine because we're already not a target and we're heading in the right direction so as long as your progress is in the right direction you don't really have to hurry Bitcoin is thoroughly unpredictable there's no way didn't know anything about Bitcoin so Alexandria

[46:18]

anything about Bitcoin so Alexandria Octavia Cortes I think people have figured out that she is the real deal at this point and buy the real deal I mean that she has persuasion game like Trump just on the other side so even the people who would understand their policies are not let's say refined or even coherent would also recognize that that might not matter and she would not be the first person whose policies were not a plus who did just fine anyway so I still want an answer to my question of why we can't try one state as the test for free education and free free health care if it doesn't work in one state could we hope that it would ever work nationally because I know that there would be some economies of scale and stuff but if it's a state I mean the state is a big enough entity isn't it

[47:19]

state is a big enough entity isn't it you know couldn't you test it everything you needed to test in one state so instead of saying yes or no on universal health care why not say this if one state wants to try it and they want to absorb the risk of you know whatever running up of their deficit etc if one state wants to try it the federal government should approve it or at least you know support it's not a question of approving it but if I were President Trump I would say hey if you think that's a good idea try it in one state now let's see what happens see you see if you can wall it off and make it not infect in the other state and then let's just run it for two years see how it goes do I review comments after the periscope ends generally not but in some cases yes which state should try well the beauty is that's up to the

[48:21]

try well the beauty is that's up to the states if if you're the federal government let's say you're President Trump you don't need to argue whether socialized medicine is good or bad you should instead argue that something like that could be tested and unless there's at least one state given given that there are lots of blue states if you can't get one state to test it and to keep it within the state so it doesn't affect you know other taxpayers why should the federal government be serious about something that no state even wants to do so I there may be some context and some facts that I'm not aware of that makes that a bad idea Venezuela already tested that idea now they didn't you know any comparison to Venezuela is just silly that because there there's only one Venezuela you can't take too much of a lesson out of what's happening there

[49:24]

test in one city yeah a city you might not be big enough because you need to be at least a large enough entity that you can negotiate for prices if you have some some buying power so I don't know how big that needs to be maybe some economists can tell us because it could be that a big city is enough if it's New York City of course it would be enough
Massachusetts maybe I don't know how close they are to that kind of situation already will we get a wall we will get a fence wall so in 2019 there will be serious construction on a fence wall all they need to do to settle this funding for the fence wall is is the following to say we want to give it a budget a starter budget whether that's 3 billion or 5 billion I wouldn't know and you say let's turn it over the engineers will let the engineers decide you know what

[50:27]

let the engineers decide you know what it looks like we're and then we'll reassess after we build it for a year so imagine if President Trump said all right here's the deal we're gonna we need our five billion let's say they might negotiate it down to you know three point five or something just to act like they did something well we'll say let's get our starter budget we'll turn it over to the engineers we'll let the engineers decide what they're putting where we are within our specifications so part of the specifications might be that you need to be able to see through it which kind of gets rid of concrete you know it's harder to build a concrete structure that you can see through than it is the the steel slat thing so you should take Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and President Trump out of the engineering decisions the first one of the three who says that is the winner because that's the high ground once you get the high ground the conversations over so if you

[51:29]

ground the conversations over so if you plop me into that conversation I say why are politicians making engineering decisions let's approve a starter budget let's turn it over the engineers let's have them build something for a year and let's reassess we should reassess this every year why are we even talking about funding the entire structure we should reassess it every year let's see what the engineers can do let's see if what they do makes a difference let's test is small all right you say that and the conversation is over and if you call it a fence wall then you've given the Democrats enough of an ego come down that they might accept it because remember the the Democrats don't want good policy you know I realize I do realize how partisan this sounds but I don't think this is an exaggeration at this point the Democrats are not concerned with policy or budget when it

[52:30]

concerned with policy or budget when it comes to the fence wall they are concerned about revenge or making the president look bad or something personal so the president has stepped down from the ego the ego position the ego position is it's going to be a trump wall and it's going to be the you know the huge wall in you know much of the border all right that's the ego position Trump has stepped down from the ego position he's now at you could call it a fence you could call it a wall we want border security call it whatever you like so he's already gone out of the position that they couldn't stand it's sort of up to them there is one word that he needs to utter to finish this off tell me what is the one word literally one word the President Trump can say in a tweet or out loud that

[53:32]

can say in a tweet or out loud that would end that would end the fence wall fence wall no I mean that would be a helpful one by yes to say it's personal close so maybe there are three things that are important one is to call it a fence wall and he's sort of already there so I'd say that part's essentially done the others to say don't make your personal he's also said that in him you know work engineer somebody got it the one word the ends the fence wall funding problem is the word engineer the moment you say politicians should not be making the detailed decision were about the budget and the specifications let's turn it over to the engineers if you say engineer you got your funding that is my

[54:34]

engineer you got your funding that is my prediction and so I will leave it there and I think we've done enough for today please enjoy your day talk to you later