Episode 896 Scott Adams: My Coronavirus Ventriloquist Act is Not to be Missed

Date: 2020-04-06 | Duration: 51:04

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Coronavirus task force incentives are wrong Surge preparation and empty hospitals PPE supply chain issues and price gouging Some Loserthink takes on coronavirus

If you would like my channel to have a wider audience and higher production quality, please donate via my startup (Whenhub.com) at this link: https://interface.my/ScottAdamsSays

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## Transcript

[0:04]

[Music] [Applause] [Music]
hey everybody come on in it's time for the simultaneous sip it's good to see bill pulled a in the house bill are you wearing your mask be careful can't be too careful well today the simultaneous if will be extra special because it always is let's face it and all you need to participate in the simultaneous up is a cover of margaret glass a tanker chelators tying the kitty injector flask oh I think I aimed fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the oh okay there's Alyssa is it gonna be so easy if you're listening at home I'm wearing the face mask something's got to give I can either risk my life or not have coffee

[1:08]

either risk my life or not have coffee risk my life no I have coffee sip time go oh yeah you got to keep your priorities straight to people now back to safety now you might be saying to yourself Scott why are you selfishly wearing an n95 mask when everybody knows that they should be reserved for medical professionals well the story is I found this in a drawer I don't know how old it is
is I don't know why I originally ever had it but I sort of randomly found it in a drawer and it had been used so I don't think that the medical professionals wanted this one now I'm always looking for the the bright spot in the crisis and I think there's one bright spot that everybody is overlooking and that I feel

[2:09]

everybody is overlooking and that I feel is it's sort of it's down to me to point out the positive in this bad situation and the positive is ever since I was a little kid I wanted to be a ventriloquist but if you've ever tried being a ventriloquist it's really hard until today so I'd like to do my ventriloquist act I'm asking Dilbert to join me Dilbert has his face mask on and I give you now the ventriloquism in the age of coronavirus hey Dilbert how you doing today I'm doing pretty good pretty good do you are you worried about the coronavirus a little bit yeah a little bit
bit doing my social isolation how's that working out it's the social isolation that is well seriously when you're a single guy every day is Palm Sunday what

[3:12]

single guy every day is Palm Sunday what every day is Palm Sunday I don't get it that's okay well so Dilbert do you have a sense of smell hmm no do you have a sense of taste mm-hmm no did they recently go away hmm now that you mention it yeah sort of reason do you feel any fever a little bit a little bit warm you've gotta admit I don't know is it warm in here is it warm here I can't it seems a little warm in here do you have any chest pains or or a dry cough yeah now that you mention it a little bit of a dry cough and in my chest pains oh my chest pains yep yep chest pains a little bit yeah now that you mention it well I'm no doctor but you're a little bit

[4:17]

I'm no doctor but you're a little bit close to me right now really really yeah you're you're really close to me right now really really is cause I'm not touching you I'm not touching you no this isn't funny I'm not touching you I'm not touching you I'm not touching you don't touch this is not funny I know you think this is funny this is not funny I'm not touching you that's how you handle that so in the age of coronavirus we all could be ventriloquist's it's much easier all right yeah did you hear the news that Joe Biden has agreed that if he appears in public you'll wear a mask the face mask now

[5:19]

mask the face mask now I love my simulation and the simulation everyday delivers to us a little delicious nugget what is the one thing that II didn't necessarily think was true but you couldn't get it out of your head that Joe Biden when he's only appearing from his secret basement bunker on video he could be a deep fake I'm not saying he is but you can't rule it out because the technology could actually reproduce that but luckily we'll see him in person except that he'll be aware of a mask and probably as aviator sunglasses so what could be more perfect than a candidate for president who is unable to show proof of life I think that's just perfect an insightful comment from Twitter user a s Fuli pho ul le and he

[6:20]

Twitter user a s Fuli pho ul le and he says this he says the task force has no incentive to give an all-clear in other words to tell us we can go back to work they have the same problem the FDA has when approving new drugs and that they'll get criticized if someone ties their decision to a death any death trade-offs go out the window you are correct you are correct yes Fuli fool even though your name sounds like fool it's a very wise thing to say I'm probably pronouncing it wrong and I would agree that the incentives are wrong because the leaders their primary incentive is to avoid killing somebody whereas you and I if we were to make the decision we'd say well you know maybe it's better to get the economy running and a few people could die you know that's a tough world you got to make choices so I don't think that our leaders are in a position to make the

[7:22]

leaders are in a position to make the decision that is the most important decision in other words we have a system which handcuffs the decision-makers and they really can't make an independent decision that would be good for the country because what's good for the country could be the very opposite of what's good for the decision-makers so that's a bad system a good system is where let's say there's transparency and democracy and everybody can see what the leader is doing then you say oh okay well that decision it might be good for the leader too but it's so transparent we can see that it's also good for us so as long as the leaders interests and our interests are the same it doesn't matter too much if a decision is also good for the leader well cuz it's good for us too you know if something's good for the economy it would be good for the Trump business but I don't rule it out because of that I just say well isn't it good that we have the same incentives but as was just pointed out we the public do

[8:23]

was just pointed out we the public do not have the same incentives as our leader at this moment and that could kill a lot of people it actually could kill people that that system imbalance so what would it take to fix the system so that the people who are making the decisions could could make a decision that would get people killed and still would be okay with the decision makers who possibly could make those kinds of decisions somebody says a I I hadn't thought about that but that would be an interesting alternative if we had that technology here's my answer the public we have a situation in which we cannot depend on our leaders to make the right decision because what's good for them is actually not what's good for us because they're more about not being blamed for killing somebody totally understandable humans or humans right if you were in that position you'd be a little reluctant to kill

[9:23]

you'd be a little reluctant to kill people and have that on your permanent record you know but if the economy takes a big hit well you're a famous doctor or you're the president you're not personally gonna take much of a hit you know your life will be similar but you don't want to be blamed for murder so the one way to solve this that I can see is for the public to take control of the decision not yet I think you still have to give them a little bit room to operate there's still information being collected etc but my personal timeline goes like this if at the end of this week our leaders are not doing the minimum level of competent behavior which is they have something like the plan I don't care if it gets revised but there should be something like an initial plan and something like telling us how many supplies we have for the hospitals and how many we need just really basic stuff if they can do that

[10:25]

really basic stuff if they can do that by the end of the week and it's pretty easy you know there's there's nothing difficult about any of that then I would say okay let let the government keep running with the ball because they've shown they can get get yardage to use a sports analogy and so as long as they're gaining ground let them keep going but if it looks like at the end of this week we don't have something that looks like a plan even a preliminary one and we don't have something that looks like good information so that we the public can make some decisions on our own or participate or show our support for something or put more money behind you no pushing to get more suppliers of this kind or that knowing knowing how big the risk is so we can buy into the government's decision or not buy into it because we've been fully informed so if we get to the end of the week we just have to take matters into our own hands has that ever worked before have you ever seen it or the situation recently in which the

[11:27]

or the situation recently in which the public made the decision and then just force the government to do it yeah yeah you saw it this week who forced the government and our experts to finally admit that tent that facemasks work that didn't come from the government that didn't come from the experts that came from us that came from the public the public basically just overruled the experts right that's what I saw I saw the public say it's obvious that you're lying to us about that so you're gonna change that now yeah you're gonna go change that now what did the public do or what did the the leaders do they went and changed it they went and changed it because their bosses the public said you know we're okay giving you a lot of freedom to be flexible because we don't have all the information but wouldn't

[12:27]

have all the information but wouldn't you lie to us that aggressively and that blatantly about the face masks not working you don't get to make the decisions anymore the public took that decision away from them is it am i over interpreting that would you say that that was an accurate description of what we just witnessed did you not witness the public simply took the decision away from the leaders and the experts because it was obvious they weren't getting it done it was obvious they were lying to us well likewise although maybe we don't know the right answers for when to go back to work and how to do it we do know the difference between having a plan and not having a plan we can tell the difference and we don't have a plan and if we don't get one I think we have to take that control back so we the public need to do exactly what we did with face masks we need to take the decision-making back if we have a system where the incentives of our leaders and our experts render them

[13:30]

leaders and our experts render them unable to act or at least unable to act in a way that we think is in the best interest for the public so at the end of the week if we don't have something that looks like the government actually being able to function you know in a good way that's good for the public then I'm gonna start putting together a plan and if I can get enough public support for it I think we should exert civil disobedience and just implement the plan now here's the thing you need to know if three people break the law well they go to jail you know because there's lots of police and if only three people are breaking the law and they get caught well they go to jail but if a hundred billion people break the law or break the guidelines in this case it's more of guidelines and laws if a hundred billion people break the guidelines the police break them too and they say oh I guess we're doing this nail the police don't send a hundred million people home they

[14:31]

send a hundred million people home they can't so we should watch our government and we should have very clear criteria for what it means for them to succeed and to fail and here's my clear criteria at the end of the week we should have something like the bare bones of a plan to get back to work you know at least an outline the beginning of something the shows you know there's thought and intention there the seems in the right direction doesn't have to be perfect doesn't even have to be one that I personally agree with because I'm no expert but something the shows are doing the job that would be enough and also something that shows they're at least trying to give us useful numbers about the PPE and ventilators and all that stuff so those are very objective they either gave us some context of how much we have and how much we need or they didn't doesn't even have to be accurate because they can update it as they go so that's where I'm at it seems to me

[15:34]

so that's where I'm at it seems to me that CNN is in a bad spot because I need this I hydroxychloroquine did not work because a lot of what they need to believe and they need for their business model and they need for the public to find out is that the president is not serving them well you know he's being unscientific about his optimism and it's starting to bug me because here's what I'm watching the press doing and I don't know if the press could be more worthless than this if you like the press is trying to get ouchy and Trump to act like the other in other words they're trying to get Trump to talk the way a doctor would talk and they're trying to give pouchy to talk the way a non doctor would talk about exactly the same topic you know whether it's worth the risk of the hydroxyl chloroquine but they don't disagree it's only the way they talk that's different I don't need Trump to talk like a doctor

[16:35]

I don't need Trump to talk like a doctor I don't need the doctor to talk like a layperson I'm perfectly happy if the doctor says this is not going through clinical trials that's what would tell us that it's the safest that's what would be required for me personally as a doctor to say go do this but as a doctor I can also say that individual doctors might make the choice that it might be a reasonable one to to give the drug under certain circumstances what does President Trump say same thing President Trump says the same thing he just uses layperson language so if I have to sit through another press conference where the press is trying to get Trump to talk like a doctor or trying to get a doctor to talk like Trump could anything be less useful than that anything is there anything that the press could do to make themselves more discredited more useless than trying to

[17:35]

discredited more useless than trying to get to different professions to use the same language even when we know they're talking about exactly the same thing in the same way I mean content-wise it's the same thing could not be more useless
apparently if you watched the last conference Trump referred to or baby was the one before he referred to a study that said that people who were take who were taking hydroxychloroquine for lupus word not getting covin 19 and the suggestion is that that shows that the the drug works to prevent Hydra different prevent crime virus the problem with that is that that never happened there is no study of that type there is anecdotal evidence from China I think that they said that they noticed that correlation so is something they noticed but it's not a study so the

[18:37]

noticed but it's not a study so the president was just you know dead wrong that it's a study because that would that would sort of lis inflate the credibility of what we do have which is just anecdotal reports that China and ominous there was a correlation here's an update from my local medical situation in Northern California at least for Kaiser Permanente and I can't speak for other hospitals if you have all of the symptoms for coronavirus I mean just the classic ones it's just obvious you have it you know the shorter breath the tightness the dry cough you know that you've had for several weeks contact with people who but yeah everything if you have all of the symptoms but you're not you're not hospital ready you can't get a test can't get a test and you can't get the hydroxychloroquine or anything else you're literally told to walk it off so

[19:39]

you're literally told to walk it off so the medical the medical profession where I live is already non-existent I I can't go there for something else because they're sort of reserving with the hospitals for the important stuff so I can't use it for what I want to use it for
for nor can I use it for the thing it's designed for which is coronavirus so you can't use it if you don't have coronavirus but you also can't use it if you have coronavirus those are the two conditions now if you have coronavirus and you're ready for hospitalization then apparently they'll start getting flexible when it's too late right because the hydroxyl chloroquine almost certainly has more impact if you get it early so and at the same time I can confirm from one person in my my personal circle who isn't it a hospital employee who is sent home because they don't have anything to do now is there

[20:39]

don't have anything to do now is there any conflict between the predictions that the hospitals will be slammed and the fact that ninety percent of the hospitals or something like that are so not busy they're sending people home because there's nothing to do there's no conflict between those two things the reason ninety percent of the hospitals are empty is because they're anticipating a surge and the anticipated surge is not today at least not today everywhere it's like a week from now so the fact that they're ready and maybe they got ready too soon I don't think that's a knock against them and it certainly doesn't say that they're doing anything wrong just based on that so here's the two movies that have taken form I don't and this is going to bug you for years but there are two movies or two interpretations of what we're seeing and they can never be sorted out meaning that there's no way in the future we'll ever know who was right so

[21:40]

future we'll ever know who was right so these two movies we'll just go forever the two movies of this movie one infections are lower than predicted because the mitigation works so we're seeing less than predicted deaths and infections exactly because social isolation works and maybe also the hydro hydroxychloroquine is working for the few people who can get it so that would be movie one that we're doing all the right things and it's working here's movie two infections are lower than predicted and that's proof that the entire thing was a giant hoax and we should have gone to work the whole time you'll never be able to sort those out a hundred years from now we still won't know if infections were low because we did a good job and there will be people who argue it and they'll have statistics and arguments or if it was never that big a problem in the first place and we just had a mass hysteria about it because you know there

[22:42]

hysteria about it because you know there are going to be experts in scientists and data to make that point as well those two worlds will go forward forever and never have to bump there they're just two completely different realities that have now been created and we will live you got a pick one you're gonna live in one of those realities or the other so that's not good if you didn't hear me last night there's a website that I tweeted yesterday so if you look in my yesterday tweets you'll see that you can calculate your own risk of dying from coronavirus and I calculated my and put in my particulars and it gave me a 2.6 percent chance of dying if I get it and and about a 50% chance of getting it so you know cut that in half right so 1.3 percent chance of me dying of coronavirus according to one website I

[23:43]

coronavirus according to one website I mentioned last night but if some of you didn't hear it and some smart people are noticing that there's this freakishly good correlation between what happens to people when they've got clove in nineteen and what happens to people with a completely different problem called high-altitude pulmonary edema now the theory is that with a high altitude pulmonary edema then it's not the lungs necessarily well yeah I think that I think the issue is that if you look at the lungs of the two different patients with these two different problems and you do the checklist of symptoms they're identical now the fact that the symptoms are identical doesn't mean that there's only one problem and you know we should figure out which it is it means that these two have something in common that might be useful to know in other words it might be a key to finding out something important and the hypothesis is that just maybe unlike

[24:45]

the hypothesis is that just maybe unlike the current view of the consensus view is that the virus gets in your lungs and destroys them that by what might be happening unconfirmed because some doctors are speculating that what might be happening is that the blood might begin to get degraded so it can't carry the oxygen to the lungs and then the damage you see in the lungs is simply the result of the blood being damaged and not being able to provide enough oxygen so so and that would also suggest that there's a reason the hydroxychloroquine works because I'm told and you know I can't verify this myself but I'm told that malaria has that same quality which is that it affects the blood so if the hydroxychloroquine is known to fix something in the blood and this might also be a problem that's happening in the blood and and they're very similar protective mechanisms going on there's

[25:48]

protective mechanisms going on there's some smart people who say maybe that's the reason it's working so so you got that going on so there are two completely different theories of what the problem is whether the infection is hurting the lungs directly or the the blood directly and then the blood hurts the lungs but in both of those cases the anecdotal evidence suggests that the hydroxychloroquine is still a good bat two completely different potential explanations and it's the same treatment and the treatment doesn't have a big downside in terms of side effects it's just getting painfully obvious that you know the the supply of this the drug is important now of course the the Lupus people and the arthritis people and the malaria people are justifiably quite concerned that their supply will be taken away and they could die you know if you've got untreated lupus or

[26:49]

know if you've got untreated lupus or something you could just die so they are justifiably panicked about their supply situation but here again since the task force does not give us useful information about how much we have and how much we need and and I've been asked this question which is a fair question people say does it really matter if the public knows the data as long as we're trying as hard as we can to make as much as we can and I would say under normal world you know you could see why it wouldn't matter as long as we're trying as hard as we can to make as much as we can well that's all you can do you know and it's not a problem if you make too much that's not the worst problem in the world but here's the problem let's take hydroxychloroquine do you know as a citizen do you know if the reason that you can't get it is because of supply or because of incompetence in in leadership or specifically a specific

[27:52]

in leadership or specifically a specific kind of incompetence which is the leaders don't want to risk of killing somebody even if it means saving a million can you tell as a citizen if the real problem here is the supply you can't because our government has not given us supply information in context today for example FEMA tweeted out this completely useless information this is from Pete Gaynor at FEMA now this is nothing against Pete Gaynor nothing against FEMA but he tweets out that the project the air bridge where we're flying in stuff from other countries brought in 2.8 five million surgical masks 18,000 guy owns 170,000 respirators 11 million gloves is that a lot do you know is that a lot plane came in with 170,000 and 95 respirators how many hospitals does that supply well and for how many

[28:53]

does that supply well and for how many days there's that three hospitals does it does that give us one percent of our capacity there's no context why don't why do I care how much was on the plane I don't I only care that we have enough I care that we have ten percent or ninety percent so here's a concrete answer to your question why does the public and need to know here's why I need to know if the reason I can't get the meds that that I personally think would be a good risk reward trade-off you know the hydroxychloroquine if the reason I can't get it is because the supply can't be fixed then I'm gonna be patient and I'm gonna say okay okay let's let the lupus people get their supply let's you know let's not do anything crazy until our supply is under control but I don't know that our president just said we got twenty nine million pills is that a lot is that not a lot there's no context I have no idea

[29:56]

a lot there's no context I have no idea so I as a citizen can't get involved I can't push anybody I can't force anybody to resign I can't put pressure on anybody because I don't know what to pressure or why I might just be flying blind but if you told me that we have enough pills and I'm still not getting them let's say I had a reason to get them if we have enough and I'm not getting them I know who to push right I'm going to push my government I'm gonna push kouchi I'm gonna you know rob a pharmacy I'm gonna do something but so the the long answer the question is in the situation where we can't trust our government to do the right thing because their incentives are wrong their incentives is to not kill anybody and have that on the resume your incentive as a citizen is to do what's better for the greater good and for yourself of course but you have a different

[30:57]

course but you have a different incentive so you need the public to be able to be the boss and to push our leaders to do what they need to do as we did with the face masks now with the face mask we didn't need to be told too much extra information because it was just obvious that they were lying but with the hydroxychloroquine it's not obvious to me what's a lie and what's and what's just a genuine shortage and managing hoarding and all that stuff so without that information that we don't know how to be the boss and unfortunately we have to be the boss because the people who got the job of the boss can't do it under these conditions they can't operate they don't have the right incentive and I don't see that changing so you're gonna have to take control probably here's some good news the this whole situation of trying to get these supplies is proving to us that competition and price transparency is

[32:00]

competition and price transparency is probably the only thing that's ever going to fix healthcare so when you see all the price gouging and and people just you can't even find the supply they don't know who's lying it's three levels of distributors and middlemen you can if you're talking to the Bayne company they don't even know where their supply is because it went out to the distributors so you can see from just the PPE situation that the healthcare market is just a complete blind spot there's nobody from any vantage point who can look at it and say oh we've got this much of this and it costs this much and this this person is selling a little at a little lower maybe that can lower the price so there's no visibility and and this is being brought home to us with this emergency but the good news is I think we could fix healthcare because if you if you could go directly at this lack of transparency and market competition I think there are a gigantic gains to be made I don't think I realize how bad it was until the emergency sort

[33:03]

how bad it was until the emergency sort of surfaced the inefficiencies there here are some of the worst things that people are saying about coronavirus so here's the loser think ish most loser think things you can say so the three of them the three worst takes now I'm not saying I have all the right answers but there are some times that you can tell what is irrational all right so your some of your rational points of view our government is only pretending to be incompetent and not giving us good information because the real plan is evil genius plan for softening us up for the coming dictatorship and that really this is also kind of a dress rehearsal and try and sort of testing to see if they can make the public do anything they walk just by lying to us or or telling us to stay home now if your alternative explanations for

[34:03]

if your alternative explanations for what you observe are incredibly clever of farsighted genius plan or incompetence which one's the likely one because incompetence is basically universal incredibly clever plan to take over the world that sees years in advance yeah not so common well sure I know a few people who are working on it but it's not very common so if you're gonna bet on it I wouldn't bet on that here's another bad take that China intentionally released a weapon of mass destruction in the middle of one of the most populated centers as their way to weaken the United States how exactly did that meeting go you know we're the Chinese sitting around and they're big you know the big leadership meeting and somebody said I got an idea if you really want to hurt America here's how you do it we'll create this this awful

[35:05]

you do it we'll create this this awful virus and then we'll release it in the middle of our population center in the middle of China and then one of the other leaders would say oh yeah can you connect the dots here because I'm not seeing how releasing a weapon of mass destruction in the middle of our own territory gets us to that good place you're talking about well let me explain we'll release a new HOD will yeah sure we might kill 300,000 people but we'll keep it secret and it will spread and then the United States will shut down its economy but we won't because we don't care about our people and we're not reporting on the deaths anyway and then it will keep growing while the United States destroys itself with their silliness do you think that conversation happened I don't think so I think that as soon as you as soon as someone in the meeting says hey I've got an idea will release a weapon of mass destruction in our own territory and

[36:06]

destruction in our own territory and we'll put it right in the middle you know we won't even put it in a at like a port and we'll put it right in the middle in the country a major scene as soon as somebody suggests that that's kind of the end of you at the meeting right don't you say thanks Bob you can go now here's the other bad take is that the hospitals are I think ninety percent the hospitals are just so empty they're sending people home and that therefore that proves that it was all a hoax that's a really bad take because the hospitals are empty in anticipation of an upcoming surge that isn't here yet of course they're getting ready for the surge of course they're empty the week before the surge because they don't know exactly what it's going to start and and they you know they don't want to get a bunch of elective surgeries and the pipeline where you have to follow up and you know make sure the stitches around

[37:07]

you know make sure the stitches around all that so if everything is working the way it should and people are getting ready for the surge ninety percent of the hospitals should have no work that's if you're doing everything right this week they should all be empty getting ready now if the surge doesn't come well there's your two movies because half of the country will say well it's because of our mitigation I guess we did a good job in half of the country we'll say I told you it was a hoax no surge all right
here are some things I've learned about why it's so hard to get masks so here are some things that I have some pretty good information on from good source who should remain anonymous so apparently what happened is that early on when smart people realized that masks were going to be in great demand these smart people bought them all now I'm talking

[38:08]

people bought them all now I'm talking about not just individuals but I'm talking about distributors you know would put in a big order and then maybe some rich people also buying from the distributors and in a bunch of foreign countries buying from them as well so if you're to look at the big makers of mass and say hey give us some face masks the big manufacturer of face max mess will say we don't do that because they don't they make it and then they provide it to people with placed orders or their distributors and then the distributors who are in other countries you know we don't control them then they apparently jack up the price to robbery levels that the United States will now pay so the basic problem is that the United States is saying we'll pay this much which is you know more than fair it's above market but we're not going to pay this much guess what the price is it's not this much it's this much guess

[39:11]

it's not this much it's this much guess what other countries are willing to pay it's not this much it's this much and they're not even close right there they're not in the same ballpark the the emergency pricing you know the price gouging price is something like triple what the United States is willing to pay now you might say to yourself well we should just pay it because the the price of not paying it would be greater than the price of paying it except we're such a big country that if we pay the inflated price what's going to happen those of you with economics degree is please fill in the blank if the United States doesn't hold firm at the lower price and we go up to the market price which is triple what happens the day we do that price goes up again because we would bid the price up we're a big enough buyer that we would change the market situation and then what happens to China does China then

[40:11]

what happens to China does China then say well I guess we can't buy any masks nope China comes in and says dammit I guess we got to pay the quadruple price and then what does the United States do say well we were only willing to play the triple but we're not willing to pay quadruple no because we don't get any masks so we have to go up to quadruple what happens the day you go up to quadruple goes up to five times so you can't pay for it and get to a good result because paying for it you know paying the high prices changes the market to in a bad way and you can't not pay for it because then you don't get them so what are your options if you can't pay for it and you can't not pay for it and those are your only options what do you do well you do what you do now which is you do the best you can you you you try pushing every button every lever every look under every rock you just you know you just do everything you can and that's sort of

[41:13]

everything you can and that's sort of what's happening there there's a whole you know Mad Max road warrior thing happening out there I hear quite reliably so there are plenty of frauds in the market there are plenty of price Gaucher's people in different countries shadowy people lots of middlemen so there's absolutely no visibility in the mask market between the buyer and the supply the buyer can never talk to the supplier they have no conversation the only way that a buyer and a supplier can have a conversation is through several middles levels of middle people often in other countries who are not credible and they're not they're not trying to make a good deal there they're just criminals basically so here's the situation you kind of can't get there from here in the short run so in the short run unless you went in with weapons and actually just stole them you actually couldn't get them I don't know the the

[42:15]

couldn't get them I don't know the the details of the there was some story about some masks were being delivered to Germany and the United States basically just stole them well if you hear that story out of context you'd say to yourself are you kidding me the United States just stole a shipment that there was already bought and designated for another country that's our ally did that really happen well I don't know if that really happened you know these stories you can't trust anything right now but I will tell you that that story describes the normal situation so let me tell you it seems that if any country has a chance to steal masks they're gonna do it because although all the rules are gone it's just the Wild West out there so yeah so Michael and Al is trying to make them in the United States but what do you think he's going to charge for them because the price to make them in the United States is not going to be anywhere near the price of making them overseas so

[43:15]

the price of making them overseas so Michael and L will probably create supply and it will probably be dedicated to the United States and that's great but it's not going to be cheap but still at least we can get it and and if if you buy it you know at his prices he's probably not going to call it you know create an auction or a price war so Michael and L is probably the you know at least part of the answer all right
what else we got going on here too - just looking at my notes what would you say to the odds of hydroxychloroquine working I would love to see your comments I'll give you my estimate in a minute so we're all aware of the hydroxychloroquine situation the situation is that there are not there are no highly reliable studies of the

[44:16]

are no highly reliable studies of the type that would be the gold standard for studies there's only anecdotal and small studies that have problems if you were to put a percentage odds that the hydroxychloroquine works in in a way that's substantial it doesn't have to be like a miracle drug but just say it works in a way that's substantial and really really moves that moves the ball what percentage odds do you think that that's true give me your odds in the comments the odds that the hydroxyl chloroquine is a substantial and useful medicine for this give it to me as a percentage so I'm gonna read them off I see 65 95525 point

[45:38]

gonna read them off I see 65 95525 point 8 percent you know oh why you have that I'll let you have ninety-nine point eight but if you're saying 100 percent you should never talk in public again I think that stop well okay there's another 100 percent apparently I'm not influencing people or there's a time lag so I'm seeing a lot of 80 percents I if I had to just sort of mentally do an average just watching the numbers go by it looks like it's somewhere in the high 70s or 80 percent let me give you my estimate 60% so I'm the I'm on the low end compared to you so I get it was 60% and the reason that I'm lower than most of you is that I probably have spent more time looking at the unreliability of early studies something like half of all studies that get peer reviewed turn out not to be true they don't they don't hold up and over time so if you didn't know that you know if you said to

[46:39]

know that you know if you said to yourself well I think doctors are usually right when they see clear patterns like this they're usually right so I'm gonna say it's 80% chance to right I don't know that's true I think I think when you have this level of information that the odds of hydroxychloroquine working in a significant way and and again without terrible side effects I give us 60 percent solid 60 percent based on an anecdote and you know doctor opinion and all that but the odds of it not working at all solid forty percent in my in my opinion all right so I see you have many different opinions on that here's the other warning I was just reading about a test where somebody tested the hydroxychloroquine and didn't seem to have that much of an effect but then you look at the details and it seems that where it works reportedly but not in a

[47:43]

where it works reportedly but not in a clinically statistically convincing way where it's reported to work they're pairing it with zinc so that seems to be the magic comparison so when you're seeing the studies that purport to study the hydroxychloroquine make sure that they're also studying it in combination with the azithromycin or at least the think because if you're now seeing them study it as a as a group you probably aren't getting something useful so that's just a little warning there all right that's our situation today
it will help sixty percent or 60 percent chance it will work to clarify I'm saying that in my opinion based on what we see there's a 60 percent chance the drug is effective as opposed to who it would help individually I'm not talking about that I say there's a 60 percent chance that

[48:44]

I say there's a 60 percent chance that it would help most people somebody says I knew you'd say that you you know me well you know me well yeah the fact that doctors are taking it doesn't mean it's a hundred percent the fact that doctors are taking it would mean it could be third thirty percent chance of working twenty percent if you were taking a drug that didn't have much in the way of side effects and it gave you you know if you thought wow there's a 20 percent chance this could save my life you'd still take it a lot of people would so the the fact that doctors take it is this is not telling you the odds too much it just tells you they're greater than zero oh
that's true in the comments somebody says no one's complained about the audio cutting out in a long time yeah that's true it looks like the reliability of the audio on periscope has improved

[49:51]

hydroxychloroquine transport ins Inc passed the cell membrane that sounds right that sounds like something I read
yeah we haven't heard if Boris Johnson is taking the drug cocktail do you think there's any chance that Boris Johnson is not taking the drug and by the way the fact that Boris Johnson who was famous for saying you know go about your business at least in the early days he he was sort of well let's just toughen him and then he got it and he got it so bad that he's hospitalized I don't know how you could get reelected after that deal I mean I don't know much about you know Great Britain but do you think Boris Johnson could get reelected after taking a strong stand against the danger of something that put him in the hospital like a few weeks later that that looks so ridiculous I just don't know how you could get reelected after that happens but hey stranger things have happened

[50:52]

but hey stranger things have happened all right that's all I got for now and I will talk to you tonight 10:00 p.m. Eastern 7:00 p.m. Pacific see you then