Episode 851 Scott Adams: WuFlu and Coffee
Date: 2020-03-15 | Duration: 1:01:25
Topics
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Two President Trump untruths…that became truth Three coronavirus treatments that seem promising UK strategy of herd immunity at 60% infected level BLOCK those saying “it’s just the flu” Tips for coronavirus anxiety
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## Transcript
[0:03]
bumbum bumbum bumbum [Applause]
everybody come on in here it's time for coffee with Scott Adams and although the world is a strange and confusing place at the moment we can still enjoy the best part of the day it's called the simultaneous hip and you don't need much to participate no you don't need coronavirus completely optional but if you have it your coffees couldn't taste extra good all you need is a coffee let me try that again all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass of tanker chalice or Stein a canteen jerker flask FSO of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine tune of the day the thing that makes everything better it's the simultaneous up go mmm that's a
[1:07]
it's the simultaneous up go mmm that's a crisis quality there everything tastes better wouldn't you know when you're worried about stuff alright let's talk about this there's nothing else going on right is it my imagination or did all of the other news either completely stop or or we don't care about it so there's there's a lot of stuff that's happening that I couldn't care less about but let's talk about what's interesting about this flu stuff here's the good news there are three different treatments as opposed to a vaccine vaccine apparently a vaccine is already going into rapid testing maybe we'll see that maybe we'll see that soon anyway well I'm gonna switch topics I think of the switch topics because it just occurred to me at the moment Trump has now said two things that are
[2:10]
Trump has now said two things that are unambiguously untrue this seemed to be coming true so the first thing that Trump said was that we developed this vaccine and it would be in record time and then the expert doctor foul she said well you know probably 18 months so not really you right away and then the president would get up and he'd say yep we're gonna have it in record time and then how she would get up again it's like well 18 months and then the president would say we're gonna get that vaccine in record time and then he read the news and I think it was Gilead put their vaccine into rapid testing and they said hey we've got an idea and I think I had this right I might have this wrong but and Gilead was saying why don't we do something we never did before which is start developing it because we're optimistic
[3:12]
developing it because we're optimistic developing meaning you know making it manufacturing it at the same time we're testing it because in the unlikely event that you know we hit it and then I guess they're pretty confident that they're at least in the neighborhood of the right vaccine they're saying we could be done with it and distribute it the same day and I said to myself was that included in the 18 months somebody says not really but you know it does the 18 months assume that we do this the way we normally do it because we're not doing things in a normal way at all so here's what I think I think we're going to be surprised in in the good direction about how quickly the the vaccine is developed so that so let me give you that prediction we will be surprised in the positive way it will be done before we think it should be done I don't think if
[4:14]
think it should be done I don't think if I were to bet you know who is closer you know Trump saying it's AIDS you know any minute now or xiaochi who's saying it's going to be 18 months probably somewhere in the middle maybe because what happens if the here's the here's the wild card what happens if the problem starts getting you know 10 times worse and only three months of going by and they vaccinated people and it's it apparently works but they can't tell if there's a side effect yet because you you need to wait longer to figure that out but they could kinda tell it works just they don't know if it's safe we're gonna have we're gonna have a decision like we've never seen before which is will you take this extra risk of semi tested vaccine that's similar enough to things we've done before or that we think it's safe you know the computer models the you know
[5:16]
know the computer models the you know the simulations they run I'm sure they do that they say it's safe but you can't ever really know until you do the long the long studies will we reach a point where the president will have the following decision mr. president we can get you a vaccine in five months the risk will be very high but the risk of not using it could be higher we need a decision I think we're good to see that second story is the president quite famously went out and said that Google was building some kind of a nationally available website - I think figure out if they should get to coronavirus medical care and then Google said no we're not we're not doing that nope and then he came out that it was a subsidiary of alphabet that really had been called Google until I don't know
[6:16]
been called Google until I don't know 2015 or something so it was sort of a a Google like company and then people said oh okay okay so it wasn't like a hundred percent wrong it was a Google like company within the Google universe and you could call that a Google company but technically it's as another name even though a Google company and then I came out that but but then people said yeah but it's not gonna be done soon and then the company says well you know we're gonna test it pretty soon and obviously if it worked out we could make it big pretty quickly it's a website how hard is it to take a website from small to big that's something we know how to do so but here's the funny part by by the end of I think the end of yesterday Google announced that they'd goggle we're going to build a national website that the president said they
[7:19]
website that the president said they were building so I think in two occasions you just watched the president bend reality in a way that only he can and that's where - god there's nobody else who could have done this and I'm not even saying it's a it's a bug or a feature I'm just saying it is yeah you can decide whether you like it whether it's an accident whether it's lock whether it's randomness you I don't even know what to call this I mean seriously what do you call this the guy who reads who who tells us I mean he's told us this many times they uses the power of positive thinking to bend reality and you hear that sort of thing you go yeah yeah New Age crap you can't bend reality you know you can't you can't bend reality that's not a thing so go read your power of positive thinking books because reality isn't something you just bend by your positive thinking and then then the president
[8:20]
thinking and then then the president gets up there and says two ridiculously false the things about this about this crisis and I think both of them are gonna happen weirdly I mean one of them already happened so I'm 50% right already because somebody says I'll a Steve Jobs right the reality distortion field I think this president makes things happen happen by wanting them you know obviously the the country is primed to respond and and you know every citizen is doing their thing to make things better it's kind of remarkable I don't know what to make of that but here's some other good news there are three
treatments for people who have already gotten the corona virus so not a vaccine that seemed promising and I'm hearing lots of chatter about them being promising meaning that they're using them and they're working so some number of you know this is just anecdotal they
[9:21]
of you know this is just anecdotal they haven't done controlled studies but anecdotally we're getting a lot of reports that this drug called REM des aveer helps people recover faster and here's the better one yet I think there's some complication with Ramdev severe being widely available I don't know the details of that there's that there's some red tape or something else about that that may limit the availability but the other one is a cheap malaria drug so a drug that already exists and is widely available called clora chloroquine chlorine I don't know C HL o r o qu ine chloroquine chloroquine something like that and also a steroid called methyl pret methyl prednisone that sounds good
[10:21]
methyl prednisone that sounds good I think that's what I was on I was on prednisone recently so through trial and error and massive APD testing the medical community is getting faster smarter so um I I hate to watch this like it's a speculator sport but consider this the the presumed path of this virus is that it will be exponential so it's going to be like bad bad bad bad bad and then if it's allowed to that we're doing everything to prevent this but if it's allowed to that curve is just going to go you know sharply up and and we will be overwhelmed in our health care
but that's not the only thing that's that is exponential there's something else happening right now that we take for granted that is also exponential which is that our ability to learn so we
[11:22]
which is that our ability to learn so we have you know literally thousands if not millions of a be test going on there are doctors all over the world saying well try this try this try that try this and then the reports are starting to come back now once enough stuff has been tried and then probably retried because you know one one experience would be enough the the rate at which the humanity is going to get smarter is going to be exponential we are gonna get smarter really fast and we're not quite at the inflection point but if the the best-case scenario is that now that we have the smartest you know most capable people in the world the whole the whole planet this has never been the case because we're so well connected by the internet that the entire world can be involved and at least there's some chance that they can all have the same information or eventually have it I
[12:24]
information or eventually have it I would the best-case scenario is that human ingenuity is cranking along like a mofo and you know that's happening right you could be confident that the smartest people are putting all of their smarts into this there's a lot of smart a--to going on and as they learn in the experiment there's going to be an inflection point where we suddenly seem really smart so I wouldn't straight-line human ability any more than I would straight line the virus because we have a way of being dumb until we need to be smart and then we get smarter really fast and we're not there yet but we're heading that way
I'm hearing reports today that are completely not credible so there are things that people are saying on the Internet anecdotal reports coming in from various places I'm going to say
[13:27]
from various places I'm going to say that this is not credible at this point but the reports are that there are lots of younger people who are having serious problems and dying from the from the virus now that's different than everything we've heard up to this point which is that the younger you are the better and there's just no exception to that but anecdotally we're hearing stories of younger people we're having a real tough time with it maybe some dying and I don't know what to make of that some of it could be they have underlying conditions they didn't know about that's possible and if if you know hundreds of thousands of people are involved somebody's going to have a weak immune system at any given time and maybe not know about it so yeah and there's the mutation question we're watching that but yeah has it mutated to be more deadly because that's usually the opposite direction my understanding is that viruses typically if not always
[14:28]
that viruses typically if not always become weaker over time partly because humans get used to them maybe that's the only reason I don't know so the British government has this strategy of letting the virus spread to 60% of Brits so they can reach some kind of herd immunity but on the internet people keep telling me he's got some expert or another says that you can get it more than once so there's no such thing as herd immunity because you could get it more than once to which I say those are not necessarily incompatible facts it could be the getting that gives you immunity at the same time that some people could get it again so those could both be true and there still could be good enough to eventually slow down the virus if enough people have been exposed what I don't think is true and I haven't seen any experts say is that in general
[15:30]
seen any experts say is that in general people could get it twice as in other words if the same virus popped up in three years would it would it be just as bad as every other as the first time and I don't think anybody thinks that I feel as though the experts are cautiously cautiously certain that there would be sufficient immunity built up by exposure that even if some people did get it twice you'd still have enough immunity
if you do the math on the British plan of letting people get it that would lead to two hundred and seventy seven thousand deaths from the virus but you know it should be noted that all 277 thousand of those people who could potentially die then we're gonna die anyway and if it's if it affects mostly people over 80 it probably wasn't going
[16:31]
people over 80 it probably wasn't going to be that long so well there's nothing there's no good news and saying that somebody who might have lived to 85 might only live to 82 its context yeah it's part of the story so you could make your own judgments about how much of a holocaust that is or is not that's the wrong word I'm just using it figuratively so but but here's the problem the British model guarantees that the rest of the world gets infected right because if the Brits all get a good dose of it there's not really any chance that you know no Brits take it somewhere else later I mean if you're gonna let 60% of your population get this thing it's going to travel there's no way around it so it seems like the Brits are gonna get a lot of pressure from other countries to do what they're doing and I don't exactly understand what they're doing it they're they're acting like they're trying to stop it
[17:33]
acting like they're trying to stop it versus build up some herd immunity but I'm that was a little uncertain at this point I would recommend for your mental health that you block the people on the internet who are screaming it's just the flu and any variant on that now could they be right is there any scenario in which the people are saying who are saying we're overreacting and I would be in that category of an overreactor according to other people is there anything to that yeah what's the best argument you can make on the stop worrying about its side now part of what this stop worrying about it people are trying to do is not crash the economy that's that's a word of the goal but here's what they need to answer which is why other hospitals are being overrun if you can answer that then maybe you have
[18:35]
you can answer that then maybe you have a point because the regular flu does not overrun hospitals the hospitals are built to handle annual flu they do it every year and you never even hear about it apparently they do it well but the Italian hospitals are overrun that's a you know a huge tragedy going on there I'm pretty sure the Chinese hospitals were over on they had to build temporary hospitals in two weeks why would it be different here what would be the argument that our health care system would not be similarly overrun I don't think there's an argument for that right and now we have better resources we have more time to prepare so we have some advantages that there may be Italy didn't have but and maybe China because they got you know caught off guard there maybe they didn't have so we have advantages there is a nonzero chance we can get through this without crashing our hospitals well I think it's a low
[19:36]
our hospitals well I think it's a low chance the most likely scenario is that that at least some hospitals are going to be turning away people who are dying I would say that's likely
I don't think all hospitals are gonna be turning away people were dying but you're not you're not going to be able to you know move to the the empty bed and three states away too easily so I think in some hospitals they're gonna get over on maybe in the metropolitan areas but we'll we'll certainly do I think a heroic job of doing what we can in a makeshift way because we've had enough time fortunately we've bought enough time with the airport closings that we might be able to scramble and minimize the problem but it's going to get ugly and so I I recommend just blocking and just not listening to the people who're arguing uh it's just like the flu few people die why do you care it's like
[20:37]
people die why do you care it's like like normal just take them out of your life get rid of them
President Trump took took a test to see if he had the coronavirus that he's negative he says now of course all the skeptics say would he tell us if he worked and the answer is he'd have to he'd have to I don't think there's any question that if the President had been had been infected that you I don't think there's any chance you would lie about it because it would be obvious because the the medical community would not allow him to interact with the rest of the government right if you see if you see Trump and pence standing together as in yesterday it's because neither of them think they have it and I think Pence is getting tested and the president was tested so if you don't see
[21:39]
president was tested so if you don't see the president being removed from other officials and the government he doesn't have it all right he doesn't have it there's no way the medical community would let this president get away with that and by the way if the you know in the unlikely event that the White House doctor got co-opted to give I don't know just a reckless stupid lie and say oh he doesn't have it when he does do we do we appoint White House doctors that week I don't think so do we be can you imagine a White House doctor presumably should be a pretty serious qualified person I can't imagine that person saying yeah just I'll just lie and say the president doesn't have it let him infect the entire government by going a little it just there's just no way so I would say you should completely discount any chance that he took a test
[22:39]
discount any chance that he took a test and it was anything but what he said which is negative that's good news and we're watching here a president who is responding to the public it was the public you know led by the media of course but it was the public who needed him to get tested you know I treated that the other day and I said that essentially that he said you know mr. president the public needs you to get tested because I wanted to put it in that terms I didn't want to say usually get tested You Know Who am I I didn't want to say doctors say you should get tested because again it's up to the doctors to tell him not me but it was unambiguously true that the country needed it we needed to check that box and say okay that's one thing we don't worry about because we got plenty to worry about there's plenty so the country needed it and I tweeted that out and man did I get pushback the the sort of automatic Trump
[23:39]
pushback the the sort of automatic Trump supporters who will just you know back him nobody what he said poured in and said you know it looking a test if he needs to his doctor said he didn't need it you know what are you trying to start here Scott and of course he he decided to get the test so I think his good news when the public cries out for something and then the president does it and it makes sense there's nothing broken there that's good news all right so I here are some tips for managing your coronavirus anxiety in my opinion the odds of the United States losing its basic services such as you know water and electricity and food transportation I don't think we're gonna lose our basics I think it is funny that
[24:42]
lose our basics I think it is funny that we'll probably will have shortages of you know prepper stuff all the emergency sized canisters and stuff will probably have some shortages of those but only because people are stocking up it's not as if the factories stopped making that stuff so the one thing I think that is safest to assume is that you'll have regular food you know even if the stock market is in the toilet farmers are still gonna grow food even if some of the people making it have the virus it's pretty low chance that it gets into your food I mean it's possible but it could it's a low chance I think the the food agricultural system and delivery are going to work well enough so I wouldn't worry about that if your company you know is at risk and there's a financial problem I wouldn't worry about that but you probably want to starve I would recommend also taking
[25:44]
starve I would recommend also taking some serious hours off of social media I've been trying to do that but it's really hard so I I'm recommending it without being able to do it and but I'm gonna work harder on it because the more you focus on it you know the more worked up you're gonna get and the more anxiety so you really just need to remove yourself from it every now and then don't don't ignore it because it's important but remove yourself from it a little bit every day I've been trying trying to occupy myself with you know other entertainments and some kind of locked in the house and my other recommendation is do not watch stressful media do not watch movies or TV shows where people are dying and there's tension and stress just don't do it because you're real your real life has all that all that you need watch comedies watch you know YouTube or a
[26:46]
comedies watch you know YouTube or a content that just doesn't have any scary you stressful stuff so and watching me of course watching these is excellent and and I would say again that I've never felt healthier than I do right now like literally just everything everything about me is working pretty well at the moment and it feels really good I got to say that you know I got I got my health to the point where I can just sit in a chair quietly and just feel good I mentally I'd feel good because my body feels so it's operating at such a an efficient level right now so as others have said it's good to do something so even though I feel confident we won't run out of food you can't be confident that that will be true on every town everywhere so you know do it do a little reasonable planning and pull your stuff together and you know have a few weeks of extra
[27:49]
and you know have a few weeks of extra well you know I think the odds of being a super big problem a really really really really really small how many of you have had this problem you say to you the teenager living into your house a teenager I don't know if you've been following the news but schools are closed and you're just gonna have to stay in the house for a month or maybe three months and not not see your friends do you know any teenager or child who is going to accept the following proposition hey Kevin I would like you to have a horrible time for the next three months I'm just socially it's going to be a desert you're just you're just not going to see your friends you're not gonna have any fun your your brain is gonna want to explode but you will save the lives potentially not necessarily you
[28:51]
lives potentially not necessarily you particularly but if everybody does this you will save the lives of 80 year-old strangers
good luck good luck you're gonna have a lot of fights so here's what I had but I would advise make sure the kids in your house know that this one isn't a conversation if you're like most families you know there there's some parents who have really you know got the parental thing down and kids won't question them because they know that's a problem but for most of you your knitting with kids well I can't do that can I do this but suppose I only did it for a little while what if we went outside and played but we were together so the kids are gonna start negotiating with you and I would recommend the following persuasion and and I've already done this and it goes
[29:53]
and I've already done this and it goes like this in the context of a crisis which we're in kids opinions don't matter they will be ignored I'll listen to them if you have some information that'd be great I'll incorporate it but your opinions will be 100% ignored until this crisis is over this is adults only there's no negotiating adults only kids don't get to participate in any decision-making during a crisis period period now of course that's the way it should always be right but in the real world you know there is negotiation and I'm I would say that you should shut down anything that looks like negotiation just say up up oh don't only now the the fake because we'll work in almost every situation and that is give a reason even if it's a bad one and the reason could be the government said got to do this you know you could
[30:56]
said got to do this you know you could argue against anything but it sounds like a reason and say adults are capable of making these decisions children or not you're not part of it do what I tell you that's it and that and that sounds like a reason to because adults are smarter than kids so so say that directly yeah that the the adults are in charge during the crisis that's the end of the story yeah how do you tell a five-year-old well with a five-year-old you just tell them that's the way it is and they cry and they they scream and then they just cry and scream but you know you might have to it's not like the kid is gonna go steal your car keys and take your car or something if you tell them now I mean unless you drive them someplace they're not going to get too far so let them cry that's that's all you got how about the senile well you know that's every case will be its own case I
[31:57]
that's every case will be its own case I guess my understanding is that this weekend the bars were full with young people who believe that they're not personally at great risk and apparently don't care if they kill you know a million old people by going to a bar and I think it's because it's there's there are too many levels of abstraction between a young person who goes to a bar and you know your grandmother on the other side of the country who might end up dying because of it and you know statistically people are gonna say well but it's not because I went to the bar it's because people went to the bar and I'm not people I'm just me I didn't kill your grandmother I just went out a drink and by the way I didn't even get infected so don't blame me so I think the Millennials have they you know a mental dodge to say well you know it's somebody else's problem
[32:58]
you know it's somebody else's problem and by the way they did rape the planet and leave nothing for us and the cost of living is way higher than when when these old people were young and well maybe it's our turn we could use a few a few fewer old people so the weird thing about this one is I was thinking hey we're all in this together you know all the country is all the government's be they Democrats be they Republicans this will be the one time that we can all join together because there's a common problem and I thought and that even said this that it was kind of beautiful because you don't see everybody on the same page for ever really I've never seen it it's the first time and then I realized that it doesn't apply to the young we're very much not in the same page people over 40 just picking a random number here people over 40 are trying to stay alive the people under 40 are trying to have fun and based on this
[34:02]
are trying to have fun and based on this weekend they don't care if you live or die if you're over if you're over a certain age so we have unintentionally caused a war between the old and the young in order for the old to survive at the at the rate they would like to survive percentage-wise we're gonna have to crush the young I [Laughter] don't see your way around the young and I mean 20s and 30s are gonna have to get crushed and by crushed I mean we'll probably have to send the police out to send them home probably have to close the bars and probably have to you know you know mace anybody who gathers was more than four people in a in public so what I say crush I don't mean hurt them I mean there there's some serious pain coming that the people who went to a bar this weekend don't know is coming or maybe they do and they figured well one more weekend I'll go to the bar oh yeah
[35:05]
more weekend I'll go to the bar oh yeah I didn't hear about the hash tag boomer that's what they're calling the virus the young people who would just be delighted if the old people died by liberal sister blames Trump no matter what of course all right so I'll just look at some of your comments here I would normally I would just end this but I'm thinking about adding a second periscope in the afternoon or early evening or something what would you think of if I were to add a second periscope just for the period of the crisis because you know one of the benefits of of what I do is it doesn't have commercials yet if you watch the replay here on periscope and or if you watch in life and wouldn't the world be
[36:05]
watch in life and wouldn't the world be a little bit better with more content to consume because you need to run through your Netflix list pretty quickly
also somebody's saying in the comments that the the no la Louisiana police cleared Bourbon Street that's interesting you hope I don't lose too much credibility hmm somebody says why no seatback outbreak that was 16 days ago
ago has there been none I don't know the details there but you're right now it could be that the the one known infected person just wasn't shedding that much that's possible now it could be that the one known infected person as he pack washed his or her hands a lot because I think we're still pretending we don't know who it is right how many of you
[37:06]
know who it is right how many of you know who it is I'm just curious how many in the comments how many of you have seen the name and add photo of the person who is accused of being the accused is wrong but the person we believe it was the infected person there okay I'm seeing less people they the comments are a little delayed but it looks like people are willing to see the second periscope now it probably wouldn't be like the first one so I don't know exactly what that content would be but I'm sure I can find some take some questions or something so here are the things I'm doing lots of exercise lots of fresh air take a walk you would be amazed how much better you feel if you take a walk for an hour just uh just a nice walk outdoors and you know if the weather's bad bundle up if it's raining bring an umbrella but get your walk in don't tell yourself tomorrow because you need to do
[38:08]
yourself tomorrow because you need to do something and it makes a difference you can build up your immunity I would guess that my immunity is really humming along right now because I've been getting the sleep eating the food doing all the right stuff all right
it's very difficult to know if there was a spread at CPAC that's true why did we have the freedom of assembly again you know somebody says they'd like to hear me and dr. drew on the air will probably do that dr. drew if you're if you're watching this we should probably do that your place or mine is less important but we should probably do that more Duvall yeah you know there's there's a really interesting thing happening it's
[39:09]
interesting thing happening it's happening on social media but you're seeing you're seeing a lot of people who very quickly you know entered the breach and you're seeing people we're trying very hard to be positive influences I'm trying as hard as I can I had to do something productive doing this and evolves another one one maybe the most productive thinker of our time so having him fully engaged makes me feel a lot better if you're not watching following the Balaji suite of Awesome you should by far he has the most insightful comments about this whole this whole situation from the from the social the economic the the medical so a Balaji is one of these full stack people who I don't know if there's a category of knowledge he doesn't know about but he he seems to know every category of knowledge so if you listen to his stuff you'll get smarter Scott do you disagree
[40:11]
you'll get smarter Scott do you disagree with dr. Shiva I don't know so I don't I assume you're asking about the you're referring to this situation but I don't know what he says and why I would disagree oh good somebody says they started walking after reading one of my books had a fail I'm gonna get rid of that obnoxious comment dr. drew will tell you to stop spreading panic well it's a it's a fine balance and let me say this I think reasonable people can disagree about the exact right amount of preparation worried concerned slash panic that is productive and how much is unproductive and I would say that if
[41:12]
unproductive and I would say that if you're in a situation where 10% of the public is panicking but you had to do that to get 60% of the public to do what they need to do in other words you know if you if you get the middle of the country let's say the the most typical people in the country deeply concerned which is what you want so they'll act differently and they have to to get through this if 60% of them are deeply concerned there's still going to be just go throw a number at it you know ten percent who are over concerned and panicking I don't think you can avoid that I don't think there's any such thing as getting all the people to respond the same to the same message because we all respond differently the same message so there's plenty of room for dr. Joe and I to be you know off by a off by a degree on what's the ultimate most productive level of panic but we would both agree
[42:13]
level of panic but we would both agree that you could go too far and we both agree that the panic could be worse than the worse than the disease so I think we're on the same page if there's a difference it's maybe in a little bit of language one degree of difference but both of us would be guessing frankly because nobody knows the exact amount of ideally productive worry but you need some worry you know you don't want to get rid of it because it's the worry that's causing anybody to do the right thing looking at your comments dr. Shiva says we're overreacting well how do you measure such a thing you know I still see people saying that people are panicking but I've not detected anything that I would call panic even the people buying toilet paper I don't know that
[43:14]
buying toilet paper I don't know that they're panicking are they it just feels like you know you see the people with I saw pictures of people with carts piled high with massive toilet paper I thought to myself well you don't know what the story is there are those people panicking or are they buying for the nursing home right because if you're the if you're the you know if you work at the nursing home maybe you need a lot of toilet paper and you're stocking up so you might be stocking up for the whole nursing home so if I can I just look at somebody and say well you got a lot of toilet paper there therefore you're panicking you know you saw the story of somebody who bought up all the hand sanitizers in his area and then tried to sell them at at you know horribly high prices and both eBay and Amazon shut him down and said yeah we can't even be on our platform which pretty much put him out of business even that guy wasn't panicking he was buying up all the and
[44:15]
panicking he was buying up all the and sanitizer just to make it money he was doing the opposite of the panicking so I've not seen anything in the public let's say I've not seen any of our professionals do anything even remotely like panic have you is there anybody you would say oh I watched I know the view and saw somebody panicking not really not really I'd have to say that I'd be pretty proud of you know the United States for the way its handling it attitude wise I think we're we're doing a good job really now I think some people are using the word panic to describe a set of decisions that the government and maybe individuals are making about what business is to stay open and how far away we should stay from each other and you know the selling your stocks and stuff like that but I don't know that that's panic either it feels like people doing the best job they can of trying to anticipate the
[45:15]
they can of trying to anticipate the odds you know what are the odds and you know what kind of a country do we want to be you know how protective should we be of our seniors I think people are just making decisions I just don't see panic but correct me if I'm wrong all it would take is one example and I'd say okay that's there's a panic but anissina take the stock markets I read an article that like 5 trillion dollars or whatever it was was removed from the stock market maybe it was bigger it was a big number and I said to myself and there's actually not even any point to that yeah 5 trillion of imaginary money disappeared do you know what happens when we get on the other side of this this thing we're all primed every asset is already in place no decisions no risks we just go back to work and the stock market says thank you and adds
[46:17]
stock market says thank you and adds five trillion dollars back magic so should you panic that we lost five trillion dollars no no because the nature of the market is it goes up and down it's not really a loss unless you were dumb enough to sell all your stocks and you know when it hit the low that probably was a bad idea but don't be that I don't give financial advice I got rid of two assets before this happened so right around the time that China was saying hey we got something going on over here with the flu well before I thought I needed to care about it you know because in the early days I was like you know that's interesting I'll worry about that if they tell me to later but there are only two assets I sold one was my oil stocks I got rid of all those luckiest thing I ever did and and and by the way I didn't even sell it because I was smart I actually sold it
[47:19]
because I was smart I actually sold it to free up some cash for something else I was doing it wasn't even because I was smart it was just the one that didn't look like it was doing much lately so that's good I'll get rid of my oil stocks man that worked out and the only other thing I got rid of was my Bitcoin so I got rid of all of my Bitcoin holdings now I'm not recommending that you do it there are plenty of reasons to have Bitcoin plenty of reasons to think it'll be around for a while but I did not buy the argument that Bitcoin would be a a gold like store that would go up when everything else went down I didn't think it was impossible in other words I didn't I didn't rule it out I thought well it could happen you know everything goes bad maybe maybe Bitcoin goes up it'd be good to have some but I wasn't buying it I wasn't buying it and so I sold all my Bitcoin and it dropped by 50% I think since then now I'm not bragging
[48:20]
since then now I'm not bragging both of those were total Locke total luck you shouldn't try to time the market you shouldn't be buying individual stocks you shouldn't be listening to me for any advice but I got lucky as hell on those two yeah you know you have to balance that against all the times I've been unlucky the plenty of those so I think Bitcoin will be around awhile I'm sure it will recover eventually but I get out I you know I haven't checked the when recently but it's it's in tiny territory like most of the non Bitcoin stuff is do you get financial advice or act on my own good question when I was first making some serious money with this old Dilbert thing I do I I was offered by bankers at Wells Fargo they had a special rich person division that does some investing for rich people they said hey we could put you in our or
[49:22]
they said hey we could put you in our or special or rich person department and we'll do investing for you in the stock market and I felt I was you know reasonably qualified to do that I mean I have an MBA that degree in economics and you know I pay attention but I was busy and I thought you know I need somebody who's really paying attention because I'm not gonna be watching I just so I was working 18 hours a day then and I thought I'm not gonna be able to watch my investments it's better just have somebody else do it and hopefully they'll do so well it'll pay for itself they bought on my behalf stock in Enron have you heard of Enron that's right the smartest people I could hire to invest my money for me put my money in Enron not all of it you know a portion of it other money they put in world come you have heard a world come that used to be a company now if you tried really hard to invest in
[50:26]
if you tried really hard to invest in someone else's money in individual stocks and you're buying big companies do you think you would even be able to find two big companies that wouldn't exist in a year could you I mean we're in a weird economic time right now but in ordinary times if you're going to say oh I'll buy I'll buy 20 different stocks for your portfolio and then you know you'll have some diversification do you think if you picked 20 fortune 500 stocks do you think you could find two of them that would be an a business in a year it's kind of rare well my professionals did it and what they sold to me was that they had extra insight because they talked to management do you know what would happen if you talked to the management at Red Rock to get some insight well here's what the management of Enron would not tell my professional investors investing professionals they would not say oh you know I have to be honest with you and
[51:27]
know I have to be honest with you and runs just a whole pyramid scheme scam and none of it's real it's all going to fall apart do you think do you think that's the insight that my professionals got when they talk to the management because that was that's what they sold me they sold me we know them personally we're actually going to be in the room with them talking to him so you know we have much better you know vision than you do because we're in the room what the hell did that help them it didn't help them at all all right now the good news is I was just smart enough to only give them half of my money that was available for investing at the time because they were also charging a fee I forget what it was both but let's say the fee was one and a half percent and I didn't want to you know give away one and a half percent so I give them half of my money that was available and I took the other half and I just stuck it in a fortune 500 index
[52:28]
I just stuck it in a fortune 500 index fund how do you think I did with my half that I didn't manage I just threw it in an index fund of you know a bunch of American companies and they were picking stocks and talking to management who do you think one wasn't even close they lost a third of the money that I gave them to invest after I know several years they were down a third and mine I think you know fluttered around a little bit but and then took off and we're fine yeah so effectively I cut their fee in half but also I diversified because the risk I knew at the time that I had to diversify also against Wells Fargo so you don't diversify just among stocks you should also diversify who's you know who's in the mix if you've only got one person who's responsible for all of your investments you got a problem because if that one person goes bad you know your
[53:30]
that one person goes bad you know your whole portfolio is at risk so I spread the risk of human beings that they have any influence over my money and make sure that none of them have too much influence that's my that's my advice all right
just looking at your comments here did I invest in fairness I did not yeah the index funds will be 90 percent of financial managers that is correct always have always will in my in my opinion what year this was a long time ago this was 90s a Scott actively got it in turmoil which is an anti index decision so I still have oil stocks within my larger
[54:30]
still have oil stocks within my larger index fund because you can't you can't pick and choose you just take the whole the whole box but separately I don't know 20 years ago or something I had bought an index fund of oil stocks so the only exception to having a broad index that makes sense is if you have a sub index of some industry you think is going to do extra well so at the time I thought okay two industries that I think will always do well as energy wrong and biotech so I have an index of biotech the stocks and had an index of oil stocks oil stocks I basically I got out and about the same place I put it in but it was after years so it was effectively a loss but the the BIOS next so the stock is up 400% at the same time now I only put smaller amounts in the sub indexes so I still have eighty percent in the broad index but I add a few kickers a few kicker funds that you know
[55:33]
kickers a few kicker funds that you know in just in case oil or or bio stocks did well I could get the upside alright oil will come back Mark Cuban just invested in Twitter stock smart bastard Mark Cuban if you're listening to this that was a smart move because there's no way in hell Twitter is gonna stay at the the price it is if I had not already put all of my you know the cash that was on the sidelines into the market I'm fully invested in financial assets so I only have real estate and stocks that's all I own right now a little a little bit of some notes but and some investments in companies but I was looking at the at the stocks they got whacked the hardest and I thought some of these are just a no-brainer who is going to use less Twitter during the you know any economic downturn there nah
[56:35]
know any economic downturn there nah they're gonna use more Twitter and Twitter was one of the few stocks that I was also looking at to to make a major shift into that was looking at some other things but don't take any financial advice for me but if you see Mark Cuban making a big move on a company like that maybe you can take his advice I already own some Twitter stock what if Trump loses well I think that's now an option I think Trump losing the election went from unfathomable before coronavirus to closer to a 50/50 so I'm going to readjust the slaughter meter down to more like a 50/50 proposition right now now the the biggest thing do you know who gets the blame how bad how bad is it it takes away Trump's ability to brag about the economy even if it's only temporarily in a lull it's just the
[57:35]
temporarily in a lull it's just the wrong timing so his biggest assets have been taken from him and even even Trump's biggest supporters would say that he's had missed steps with his crony virus stuff you know they're not getting tested you know the the wrong information etc but it's harder to argue that the United States is making the wrong decisions the communication part was really shaky and I criticized it like crazy but the decisions you know when to close these airports what to do look pretty solid so I don't know if he'll get credit for the solid decisions as much as he'll be criticized for the some of the words and the communication were were faulty at best but he does seem to be learning on the job if he will in other words Trump's capability to do this stuff if you look at it today versus even two weeks ago I don't think
[58:38]
versus even two weeks ago I don't think it's the same you know he's not he's now brain dead he's figuring out what works and adjusting so you see him adjusting in real time as long as he can adjust as long as the feedback is getting to him and I know it is you know he is listening to social media he's listening to the public he's listening to the media and it's probably one of his greatest assets I would say is that he does respond to the public in real-time I mean he he changes in real-time so I don't think you'll see him perform as poorly as he did I I would expect you know big improvements actually but it's fair to say that you need a different personality for different challenges and I don't think is perfectly fit this didn't perfectly fit in the way of perfectly fits all the things like running for president he was kind of perfect for that that's why he's doing a massive stimulus you know all of these
[59:38]
massive stimulus you know all of these stimulus stuff you know tax cuts etc I think those are mostly psychological but that's good because the economy is a psychology engine so the president might be the very poor well let me put this way as as ill-suited as I think the president's personality is for this specific kind of disaster but not as decision-making I think his decision-making this been good but his personality it doesn't fit this at all when we get over it and it's time to crank the knob and get back to work that's the personality he has you know once it's time to you know what's his go time and it's time to crank up the economy again and get past this show the world show the world who America is basically that's what he's good at so you're gonna see the fastest I think that I think this disaster if you can call it that the crisis it's plenty bad probably will
[1:00:42]
the crisis it's plenty bad probably will get worse before it gets better but the recovery whenever that starts is going to be amazing I think it's gonna be amazing and that's what Trump is just perfect for all right somebody says they're giving themselves a massive stimulus right now good for you I hear it's good for your immune system andrew yang ubi meant under Biden's influence I don't know that he actually said that [Music]
all right that's all I got for now I will maybe you talk to you again this afternoon we'll see bye for now