Episode 912 Scott Adams: Watch me Fact-Check the Fact Checkers While Sipping Coffee With You

Date: 2020-04-14 | Duration: 52:07

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Mike Cernovich, NYT and accusations about Biden Betting on Amazon and political outcomes Mark Cuban’s interesting tweet on FOX, CNN MSNBC Geoff Pilkington: Elevator quantity and coronavirus severity WHO supports China keeping wet markets open President Trump’s authority over states A U.S. issued cryptocurrency with an end date?

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

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

## Transcript

[0:14]

hey everybody come on out it's time for a coffee with Scott Adams there will be a simultaneous up don't worry don't worry there will be it's coming up and you don't need much know all you need to participate in the simultaneous sip hey DJ doctor funk juice good to see you all you need is a couple more a mug or a glass of tanker chalasis night in the canteen Jagger flasks a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid the you know I like coffee enjoyed me though for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine hit of the day the thing that makes everything including the pandemic better it's called the simultaneous up it happens now go well I just woke up so I'm a little bit groggy and we gotta say I'm not exactly top of the ball right now but would I ever miss our time

[1:15]

now but would I ever miss our time together no I would not one of the things I'm doing during the coronavirus is I guess I was doing this before is I don't set my alarm clock so rather than getting up at a certain time sometimes you're tired sometimes you're not I have taken the decision that during the coronavirus if my body wants to sleep I'll sleep and if it wants to get up I get up so sometimes I get up at 2:00 in the morning which is not unusual actually maybe about thirty percent of the time I'm up around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning cuz that's what my body wakes up today woke up at 6:10 so there's about a four hour difference it in terms of where my body naturally wakes up on any given day so I just go with it anyway if you joined me last night for the simultaneous swaddle the evening version of this you saw be cutting bionaire those of you who missed that well that

[2:16]

those of you who missed that well that was quite an exciting moment yeah looks pretty good doesn't it I'm not showing you the back because I cut it myself I don't know what's going on back there but it's not good I'm sure all right let's talk about some stuff the New York Times finally did their story about Joe Biden but of course they they tried to put a positive spin on it so here he is accused of this fairly serious thought fairly serious it's pretty serious sexual crime in the 90s and the New York Times it covers it up basically they're trying to soft-pedal it that's my opinion by saying well you know there weren't any other complaints other than you know kissing and hugging and touching too much and then they got rid of that part because everybody said wait a minute those are bad things to all

[3:17]

a minute those are bad things to all that unwanted touching hugging him and kissing so it gets even better so they New York Times agreed to an interview with repentance Smith - and they were asked like why did it take so long to even cover the story and and I rated the story and it said that there people on the Internet were pointing out that the New York Times have not covered the story that said anything about it for days after the story broke and it was just kind of noticeable so I'm reading I'm reading the story about the story and the story about the story says that people on the Internet just people you know generic people the internet were asking and noticing that the New York Times have not mentioned anything about it for days and days and I'm reading the story I go ok this is the part this is the part of the story where you say the mic sort of itch noticed on

[4:18]

you say the mic sort of itch noticed on the Internet and Mike sort of edge had been tweeting a lot of people had retweeted Mike Serna Mitch but correct me if I'm wrong it wasn't people on the internet it was Mike certamen and I think this is just there's somebody laughs to fact-check me on this but am i right that this is yet another case where mike Serna vich makes national news and the national news writes the story without him in it it's getting kind of noticeable isn't it champion checked me on that right but I think I only saw it from Mike and I remember retweeting it but I don't remember any other major player who was talking about it other than retweeting Mike so did they were just rewrite write him out of the story again did that happen I think it did so today the stock market is up I think I told you publicly

[5:19]

market is up I think I told you publicly I wouldn't I wouldn't say this except I had already told you publicly that when the stock market hit the bottom I took all the cash I had and put it into amazon.com now I didn't have a lot of cash sitting around I was mostly invested so it wasn't it's not a big deal in terms of percentage but anything I could get my hands on I just dumped today Amazon stock and the Amazon stock just hit an all-time high and there's only one other time that I was sure about what to do with my money it was in two thousand eight or nine whatever that downturn was and when the entire market went down and it looked like maybe the entire economy of the world would just disappear I don't know if you remember how scary that was but in 2009 it looked like maybe the entire economy of Earth would just disappear for a while and so of course the stock mark is sank on that that fear and I said to myself then Scott wait a

[6:22]

and I said to myself then Scott wait a minute what if I took all of my money you know anything I could scrape together and booked Wells Fargo Bank stock and here was the thinking Wells Fargo is one of the strongest banks and if the strongest bank failed well everything's fail right you know it's it's not like the bank fills by itself if the banks fail everything's done you know that is the the end of the economy so I said to myself I can't I can't guess you know if Nike will do well or you know this company or that I can't guess that but I could certainly guess that if any of them do well the banks are gonna come raging back so I didn't make that bet because I said to myself you know I don't think I can bet a hundred percent of what I have everything I've learned in my life I can't bet at all of this one bat but if I did I had I would have traveled by net worth because there was logical there was a name downside there

[7:24]

logical there was a name downside there wasn't any way to be wrong about betting for the big banks because if you were wrong about them all the other companies would be out of business at the same time and if you were right it would be the one that would roar back most reliably so when this latest unpleasant unpleasantness unpleasantness happened I thought about that strategy again and it probably wouldn't work again because banks are in reasonably good shape but I thought you know amazon.com has become almost the equivalent of a big bank if you think about it now not in terms of doing banking business but in terms of the size of it in any world in which amazon.com goes out of business especially in a world where people are moving toward delivery and not away from it any world in which Amazon went out of business everything's gone you know what I mean by the time the Amazon can't survive everything's gone so I said to myself well I won't put all

[8:25]

so I said to myself well I won't put all of my money there but I'll I'll do what I can so that turned out to be a good bet now here's the larger the larger point it's very rare very rare but every now and then will be this little situation that's unique in history where you can't make the wrong back and this was one of them in 2009 was the other way it wasn't possible it was possible to lose your money so let me be clear about that because if the whole economy had gone down well you would gone down with it but it's a bet that the whole economy won't go down because if it does nothing matters it doesn't matter what you bet and if it doesn't well you better the right thing so it's one of those few few cases where you can know for sure no doubt about it that you made a financial investment that is a hundred percent the right decision even even if things don't work out it's still the right decision it's very rare let me tell you some of my other bets so this is just full

[9:28]

my other bets so this is just full disclosure I realized that what I was going to tell you that I should tell you what I'm betting in the betting markets because you don't want to hear it about it after the fact right you know you don't want to after the election I say oh I had a bet on that you want to hear now so you know that I really put money on these things now this is small money so there's nothing I'm gonna talk about here that's any kind of money that changes my life these are these are just fund amounts so I'll give you the mouth the amounts but they're in the thousands not the millions just so you got a sizing for it so here are my bets some good and some bad okay so these are all bets that I made a while ago so none of these are fresh no I say none of them are fresh I don't think there's any of these bets that aren't months old several months and some older all right one bad eye I had was just an order who will be the 2020 Democratic nominee as you know I had a bet on calm low but later as things started shaping up I put

[10:29]

later as things started shaping up I put separate bats and Pete Budaj edge and Joe Biden obviously the Joe Biden bet is in the money the other two are not and so I've got a loss of that one about half of it half about half a loss but you know since I picked Biden also I've got a little bit of a game on just that all right 2028 presidential winner I bet on Trump you know a long time ago you know I don't know many months ago a year ago nine months ago or something I bet on Trump his odds now are good so I'm I'm well in the money on Trump the market expects him to naked the 2020 Democratic nominee I'm not money on that one because that was calm law but I think I might still actually be sort of right with Carmel Harris if she's the vice president nominee it's kind of like she's the president likewise I had a bet and again this is from last year that the 2020 Democratic nominee would be a

[11:32]

the 2020 Democratic nominee would be a woman now of course I've lost that bat or the bat is not in the money we don't have a final on that but it looks like it would be Biden not a woman but if he picks Kamala Harris I would argue that although I will lose my money on the bat because I won't technically be right I would argue that I'm right on my bet that a woman is the nominee because it will be comely Harris as vice president maybe or an elite at least be a woman right because Biden said he's going to pick a woman and don't we all agree that the vice president is really the candidate in this special case so even though my bets are wrong I think my bets are right you know in a non-technical sense I think they're right so I also had a bet that the 2020 Democratic nominee would be over 70 years old and and so that one's in the money so the ones that are in the money

[12:33]

money so the ones that are in the money are the ones that I bet on Trump and I bet on the nominee being over 20 or I'm sorry over 70 and I had a bat on the oh I haven't been on the 2020 Democratic VP nominee so I'd forgotten that I had been on cobble F to be the vice presidential choice probably better than that about the time she dropped out of the race I'm guessing and so I'm weighing the money on that so I'd make a I'd make a ton if she gets the VP nomination and what I say I'd make a ton none of these dollar amounts are enough to change how I act in public you know none of this none of this is like I made well I'll give you I'll give you a size of it there's no thing that I could win there would be above $5,000 because I want to tell you that I'm not gaming the system to you know take home a big paycheck all right so another year will change my life but I wanted to be transparent about what

[13:36]

I wanted to be transparent about what stuff I'm betting on all right
Mark Cuban had an interesting tweet which I think I agree with completely and I missed this but you so you'll have to tell me if this really happened why I assume it really happened because why would he tweet this otherwise so Mark Cuban's tweets at Fox News CNN and MSNBC calls them out of this tweet and he says WTF question the White House press conference tonight finally in capitals finally presents real data in capital finally presents real data on the distribution of pp and all of you caught away did you see that I couldn't watch it also I didn't see that but Mark Cuban is saying that when the press conference finally was going to give the public real data the one thing we wanted what have I been complaining about for months

[14:36]

have I been complaining about for months I think months give us some data in context not just raw numbers to tell me anything and apparently they were getting ready to do that and all three networks kind of way and then Cubans says one of the most important devices of topics facing our first responders and you think it's not important and the he bookends his comments with with WTFs of both sides WTF to start WTF to end and I I have to add my own WTF WTF what are you kidding me well that this is what Mark Cuban says and he was watching it so I assume that I assume he switched between channels to see it and couldn't find it so the part that I'm not sure of is how well they were going to cover it because in the past they've covered the the PP numbers but not in a useful way they were just throw out numbers out of context so if they were gonna do better than that I

[15:37]

they were gonna do better than that I got a real question what's up with that here's an interesting tidbit this room from jeff Pilkington on Twitter made this observation and I don't know if this came from any other source or this is his own observation but it goes like this here are some some countries that have an unusual or unusually large number of elevators they raise this so these places have are known to have a lot of elevators what is Italy what is Spain what is China and in other places New York City what do any of these places have in common Italy China Spain and New York City yeah yeah lots of coronavirus wouldn't you imagine that an airborne virus which is especially bad as if you spend close

[16:39]

especially bad as if you spend close time next to somebody and it's worse if there's more than one person who's breathing off the you know the air somebody says dr. Joo has been talking about elevators yeah we always thought that elevators were a factor in New York City because when we talked about New York City you think elevators right lots of big buildings so we'd always had a little suspicion that maybe that's why New York City was worse than the rest of the United States but did you know that Italy has the highest number of elevators where did that come from right Italy would not invent on my top 20 guesses of most elevators so Wow we might be a really healthy country in a few months if everybody stops taking the elevator and it makes perfect sense that the elevators would be the worst place doesn't it if it's good to open your windows in your house it's good to be outdoors because the air is gonna you

[17:40]

outdoors because the air is gonna you know clean away anything any of your droplets that are near you'd have to think that an elevator would be the worst place you could be so we'll see if that bears out all right let me know fact-check Oh apparently Australia's Prime Minister is blasting the World Health Organization Tuesday over its stance on wet markets so China's decided to keep its wet markets open despite them being a source for pandemics and the Australia's Prime Minister called a quote unfathomable that the UN agency supports them opening because I guess the world health organization supports China and keeping the wet markets open may I borrow a technique from Mark Cuban WTF question mark the W the world health organization supports keeping the wet markets open WTF question mark again

[18:42]

markets open WTF question mark again book NZ what now it's one thing to know that the w-h-o is corrupt and that you know they're in China's pocket but can't they even pretend a little bit can't they pretend a little bit your coffee is getting cold you missed you missed the sip you keep it late you you you are allowed to sip now but if it'll help you I'll give you a bonus simultaneous sip for anybody who wants a double here it comes go no I needed that I needed that like blood itself so here's what here's how I generally think we should treat we the United States should treat China and the wet markets rather than complaining about it say I think the wrong persuasion is to complain about it and say do you know that the wet markets caused these problems and do you know that we don't like these problems and do

[19:43]

that we don't like these problems and do you know that we think you're being irresponsible and watch me get all emotional about it hmm you're wet markets closed you're wet markets because of all my reasons wrong approach here is the correct the correct way to handle the wet work it goes like this we shall keep our will keep travel between China and the United States closed as long as the wet markets are closed or open don't give a reason don't tell don't tell China it's because they're science don't tell them we're mad at them don't tell them we're disappointed don't tell them we don't believe the World Health Organization don't tell them that we'd like to do studies of it don't tell them that we want to talk about it don't tell them that as part of a negotiation don't wrap it into the trade talks don't wrap it into anything don't talk about it don't negotiate it just tell them what you're gonna do it's not a negotiation it's not we're not asking

[20:45]

negotiation it's not we're not asking them to do something with us it would be nice if they did something on their own close the web markets but if they don't do that thing on their own it's not personal why make your personal why act emotional why act like there's any vagueness to our actions at all just say all right here's the policy as long as the web mark markets are open there won't be any China won't be any travel ever between China and the United States you don't even have to ever talk about it again I would never even bring it up again I wouldn't even talk about it when China says yeah hey let's get together and talk about it we should say why why would we talk about it I don't even understand the question we should say this is the negotiation I don't even understand why you would think so no we're simply saying that that's a risk that's too much for us and we've decided to manage our risk what you do China is completely up to you do whatever you

[21:47]

completely up to you do whatever you want you know we'll obviously we'll be encouraging every other country in the world to also stop their travel and we might have to stop travel with any country that still has traveled with which ina I mean we'll look at that - but it's not a negotiation why would you negotiate over it's not a complaint why would we complain about it we should just do what we do get away from it that's it end of the story did you know this is a little consumer tip for you because I'm here to help you in so many ways did you know that in some stores like Walmart for example and it depends on the store but Walmart has this feature that if you go to buy something and it's an end of stock and not every time but sometimes if it's something that's in short supply it it's out of stock that there'll be a little notice on the shelf where you can sign up for an alert so you can get a text alert on your phone when Walmart

[22:49]

text alert on your phone when Walmart replenishes that specific shelf of the item that you were looking for that's pretty good isn't it right that's pretty good I have to say that's pretty good there's a little speaking of shopping there's some concern that there might be food shortage because some of the meat processing plants in particular at least one of them a big one closed because of too many employees having crota fires and I don't know how we're out worried we are then looking into the meat itself but just the employees themselves being unavailable it's a big deal now and so the news is starting to scare us a little bit about you know maybe there might be a shortage but the news is also careful to say that as long as we don't try to horn it probably no problem and are we smart enough now meaning we the grocery stores that they would stop people from hoarding if it

[23:51]

would stop people from hoarding if it looked like the hoarders were getting worried about you know hoarding meat I guess would the would the big stores do that I think they would right and I think it's automatic because if you wanted to hoard let's say I wanted to hoard some meat and I wanted to go to my Safeway and just like buy a bunch of meat and put it in my freezer I would have to go stand in the line outside six feet away from the closest person before me and F to me and in the context of hoarding you assume about other people are hoarding too I would have a line that would be maybe several miles long because that 6-foot distance and the fact that you can't even get into the store until somebody leaves so the process of shopping is so inefficient now by design to keep people away from each other it's so inefficient that if you tried to hoard meat you would just run at a time you'd just be standing in here you know standing in line all afternoon and when you got up there the store would say okay you're allowed to

[24:51]

store would say okay you're allowed to have two steaks so you could wait line all day long for two steaks then you could have bought under any other condition anyway so I i'm not totally worried about well let me say this as clearly as possible I have zero concern about food in general you'll have plenty of food we'll make that work that's that's one thing I'm not worried about whether specific foods let's say specific steaks or porks or whatever are also available that's questionable I would expect that fish will probably be fine because you know a fishing boat as doesn't have that many people on and you could probably replace them if you had to with one sick for a while so I'm guessing we'll have some individual shortages but you're not gonna run out of food is my my guess when I say guess I feel very confident about that all right here's the funnest story of the day Trump claimed during the press

[25:51]

day Trump claimed during the press conference that I want to go to get his exact words he said that the authority of the president of United States having to do with the subject we're talking about his total and the subject you were talking about is the opening of the economy in every state so the question is does the president United States have the authority to tell the states the individual states to stay closed or to open up does he have that power or is that the state's power and so the president claimed that he had absolute power to make those decisions over the over the authority of the states CNN and Daniel Dale did a fact check and they fact checked this and they said fact-check Trump falsely claims that the president has quote total authority over coronavirus restrictions fact check false I'm gonna fact-check Daniel Dale's

[26:54]

false I'm gonna fact-check Daniel Dale's fact check I fact check his fact checked as false it's false the President of the United States does have total authority this is coming from me just so you're clear this is just coming out of my head the president again says does have total authority over the Coronas virus of restrictions let me give you my argument right somebody says he qualified it he didn't need to because I'm gonna I'm gonna make Mike's at my statement that he has total authority it goes like this yes thank you somebody's saying it's a national emergency now the conditions in which you can you can declare martial law martial law is when the military which means the commander-in-chief the military takes control over civilian life every element of it that matters under an emergency situation so in a natural disaster or in a war the president can declare martial law and

[27:55]

president can declare martial law and that gives him full authority to tell the states go back to work or don't go back to work can the president under this situation which is sort of a war with a virus but it's also sort of a national disaster it's somewhere in that middle ground under those conditions can the President of the United States should he decide to do it declare martial law yes of course he can yes of course he can't why not declaring Martial Law isn't even that controversial is simply a convenience to put the authority where it's needed for a temporary situation that requires it so yeah that was short of martial law does the president have a legal authority to do it the answer is no short of martial law probably not but does the president have practical authority to do it in other words if the President of the United States stood in for
for the country and said look here's the deal I know if you carefully read your

[28:57]

deal I know if you carefully read your Constitution you will not see that I have this power but as your commander-in-chief I tell you we are at war it's not a human enemy it is a virus but it's a war nonetheless requiring all of our dedication there will be massive loss of life we will we I as commander in chief will be sending troops if you can call it that to die the troops will be the first people go back to work troops meaning just individuals and and I as the commander of chief order you the troops in this case you're all you're all in the war there's nobody who's a spectator in the virus war nobody is a spectator there's no such thing as these are the troops that they go off to fight and these are the people who stay home that doesn't exist you're all the troops sure you haven't been drafted and you haven't joined the

[29:59]

drafted and you haven't joined the joined but you didn't need to because you're all in it that's just the way it works as your commander-in-chief I am ordering you the troops to stay home because this is how we beat the enemy I am I'm going to treat you like you're all in the service for a few weeks after this you know we go if we beat it we can go back to normal normal rules and everything's transparent you know exactly why I'm doing it you know how long I plan to do it until we get past this and you know we live in a country where we would have a violent revolution if a president tried to keep martial law forever so so he says you go to pass I don't know what you're talking about so I fact-check Daniel Dale to be wrong twice he's double wrong number one the president can just declare martial law and then he does absolutely has technical specific absolute power over

[31:01]

technical specific absolute power over telling people to go to work or not there's no doubt about that is there is there a lawyer who's going to argue with me then president can't declared martial law in this situation and that if he did it wouldn't cover telling people not to go to work I think they're pretty safe on that right by the way this is me overruling all the lawyers in the world yeah I've been accused of being uh what was I accused of having too big an ego or a narcissist or something by some people were mad at me online and I say to myself how do you not be a narcissist when you've just made you made public medical opinions contrary to the top medical experts in the United States and the world the CDC ouchy US Surgeon General World Health Organization all told you masks wouldn't help and I egotistic narcissistic cartoonist

[32:03]

egotistic narcissistic cartoonist with no medical training whatsoever stood in front of the world and multiple times said every one of those medical experts is lying to you listen to the cartoonist those masks have to help a little bit did I not just do that right in front of all of you I mean I'm not the only one who was saying it but I was pretty loud about it right pretty loud and pretty early and now I'm telling you that in front of the world as loudly as I possibly can that my legal opinion is superior to all the lawyers in the United States thank you very much I'm actually telling you that because I'm not going to hide it right now I could be wrong if it turns out tomorrow that you know one one of the respected lawyers if let's put it this way if if tomorrow Alan Dershowitz goes on to an interview show and they say hey can the president do this if he declares martial law can he do this and if Alan Dershowitz says no actually a

[33:06]

if Alan Dershowitz says no actually a lot of people think that's true but under this situation or something special case there's a precedent when Alan's done I'm just gonna change my opinion to hints right should that happen I'm gonna bet it doesn't happen I'm gonna bet that if alan dershowitz i just use him as my most credible you know legal opinion if alan dershowitz goes on TV in the next week and says yeah you know president can't do that even with martial law I'll just change my opinion to his alright and I don't have and here's my point I'm accused of having my ego and my narcissism involved but watch how easily I changed my opinion to I was completely 100 percent wrong and I sided with the guy who knows more than I do if they're sure which disagrees with me my my transition to his opinion will be instant I wouldn't even like it won't even pause to get the words out it'll just be it okay I'll take your opinion because

[34:07]

okay I'll take your opinion because you're smarter but at the moment I'm going to say because I'm not embarrassed about anything apparently I'm gonna say that my legal opinion is better than whatever Daniel Dale and CNN could come up with and on top of that I don't think he needs to declare martial law I think that under the context of commander-in-chief and in the context of a legitimate war against an enemy this case the virus I believe that the president could just deputize us all in effect all right I'm not in the second argument not the martial law argument the martial argument just says the law allows them to do it the other argument says in a practical sense the citizens of the United States like the idea we very much like the idea that the commander-in-chief has extra powers during a war I I don't know if anybody would disagree with that would they is there anybody no matter how liberal or anything else who would say that the commander-in-chief as a as a

[35:09]

that the commander-in-chief as a as a job function shouldn't exist the whole point of the commander in chief is that this person's could be operating to make quick decisions in the fog of war and it's not a committee thing you need you need your best person getting advice of course but you need your best person to just be in control you know if it's an emergency you don't want to be debating things so I don't think there's anybody America says no it'd be better if we had a committee you know the committee decides Congress takes a vote before we fire a bomb there's probably nobody who thinks that so on a practical level if your commander-in-chief says I declare this an actual war that's against the virus I declare that you're all in it and this is what you've got to do as a patriot as a temporary troop you know as part of the troops and the war I'm telling you to stay home if you're if you're if your governor tells you to go to work I'm the commander-in-chief

[36:09]

to work I'm the commander-in-chief governor does not overrule commander-in-chief ever if we had been attacked by an external enemy and your commander-in-chief said all right you know do this or that to defend and your local governor said no do it differently who's in charge is the governor in charge because it's their state well not if we're attacked in the homeland if there's a foreign entity over running Iowa the governor of Iowa is not in charge of the military the commander-in-chief is anyway I think I made my point fact-check done here's a here's a few questions for you just uh just the mull over all right somebody says states rights is suspended yes that's exactly what I'm saying I'm saying that in a war the states rights would be completely suspended in terms of who's in charge of the military for those people who still

[37:10]

the military for those people who still think that everybody is wrong about the coronavirus and that it's not any worse than the flu and that we should not have closed everything so that there's still an opinion it's a widespread opinion but for the people who think that it Lissie hoaxes too much of a strong word the people who think that we should not have closed everything let's just say that because it wasn't a super big problem more anymore than a regular flu so people who think that here are some questions for them why did every country as far as I know every every major country and do exactly what we didn't if we were the ones who are wrong and they explain all those independent countries with all of their independent experts and they're all with their independent opinions when they looked into it why did every one of them do what we did basically now even even Sweden if you look at the details of sweden even sweden the individuals made

[38:12]

sweden even sweden the individuals made a lot of changes that the government didn't require so even even some of the individuals now sweden has a high infection rate and yeah so let's talk about sweden i see your comments now different companies different countries handled it differently and sweden will be like a good little test case so you're right but sweden also has much higher infections and other places and they might have even more infections than that because they're not testing
all right so if you want to be pedantic about it you could probably find some countries that did something a little bit differently sweden being you're a good example but even even japan you're required masks so there wasn't anybody not true don't block me i'd never block you for arguing you never have to worry about being blocked for disagreeing if

[39:12]

about being blocked for disagreeing if you give a reason so somebody gave a reason they say it's sweden don't block me I would never block you for giving a reason even if I disagree with the reason I like that I like reasons you're on my good side I'm putting you on my good list check you're on the good list you had a reason we don't know what better hand-washing is social distancing would have accomplished on its own that's true I guess we'll find out because we're going to be going into that mode eventually so that's my first question you can say that Sweden is an exception and I would say it's an exception that proves the rule because Sweden did not follow the restrictions of other countries and their outcome was far more infections so doesn't that prove the rule they didn't do these stuff and they got more infections now here's my question for the people who say it is I'll reverse the questions watch this for the people who say it is exactly as big a problem

[40:13]

who say it is exactly as big a problem as we said why aren't the hospitals in Sweden overrun why are the I see yous in Sweden not the national story if Sweden has high infection rate which they do apparently and they're not doing anything special on mitigation why are their hospitals not crushed what's going on here now I did I was speculating that there was some kind of maybe genetic thing that might be helping some countries because there I did notice there's some correlation in some of the so-called Germanic countries you know Austria Germany Denmark and I think Sweden Sweden the some of the countries that have a genetic background that's similar seem to have less infection I don't know if that's going to prove out or if that's just a fake confirmation bias thing that could be part of the story all right here's another question for you if the

[41:15]

here's another question for you if the corona virus is really just sort of a normal flu at least in terms of how bad it is why can't we find any doctors who say that when do you think there'd be some doctors on the other side especially the doctors who handle it as far as I know and you can you can fact check this for me somebody's speculating that maybe these other countries are using vitamin D or something and maybe that makes the difference I know maybe is there any doctor who has worked in an ER or ICU area in a hospital handling coronavirus patients can you find any doctor who has worked in that environment who will tell you that this is a normal flu and you shouldn't be especially afraid of it I don't think so right as far as I know as far as I know a hundred percent of every ER doctor who was Hey coronavirus says across the board oh

[42:15]

coronavirus says across the board oh this one's bad right because wouldn't you find some doctors who say you know I've been I've been working this for two months and I gotta tell you I don't see anything different it just looks like the flu to me yeah a lot of people are dying but a lot of people die of the flu looks the same to me have you seen even one doctor say that I haven't so look for that if you see it let me know all right usually here's another question just for a thought experiment I don't know the answer this question so it's not a I'm not challenging you on it because I know the answer I don't know the incidence it goes like this suppose we had no international borders or let me put it this way let's suppose we closed our borders to all trade and people so that we were just a country as an island I'm not suggesting this is just a thought experiment and let's say that we had nothing to do with the rest of the world just nothing to do with

[43:15]

of the world just nothing to do with them we don't even talk to them we would grow everything we need we build everything we need it's a big enough country we manufacture everything we need we're just completely independent and and we'll never have to trade with anybody for anything under that condition which I don't think it actually exists but under that condition could you just print money whenever you wanted to and just make everybody rich so that that's your takeaway I'm I don't know if I need to wrestle with it here but whenever we talk about hey you know we should just print more money and give it to people which is literally exactly what we're going to do with this coronavirus relief stuff is just print more money and hand out to people and I ask the question well why can't you do that all the time or just to just to understand how everything fits together the first question is why can't you do that all the time if it works now why can't we just always print money and give it to people then everybody would have money right and the answer is that at least part of the

[44:17]

answer is that at least part of the answer and I guess I'm looking for the full answer is that if you're training with other countries you quickly get into imbalances with currency so you wouldn't be able to buy and sell things across borders if your own money kept changing value because then you'd have an unbalanced situation or you would devalue your money because you've created so much of it then it's not worth anything and then you can't buy anything from other people because your dollar used to be worth a dollar but now it's only worth a penny so you can't buy that stuff from other countries because they don't want your penny they want your dollar that's that's the quick and dirty explanation so if you if the entire world were just one country with one currency could the leader print money now it wouldn't work it would you're you're getting out of me a little bit the problem of course internally if there was only one country in the world with one currency if you printed money anytime you wanted to you would have inflation you'd have inflation right but in our current

[45:20]

inflation right but in our current situation where inflation is basically impossible because nobody can raise the prices because the demand is so low under this unique situation could we not just print as much money as we wanted not as much as we wanted but a lot with no repercussions somebody says Venezuela but that is well that does not have this situation to where they don't have any international trade so if that as well is the opposite because they you know they depend in oil so I just put that out there this question secondly yeah here's another question could the United States this is just a technical question to see if I can understand it let's say the United States just for kicks issued a crypto currency or just accepted an existing crypto currency and they just well it's probably better if they print one so let's take this example let's say the United States issues its own crypto currency but it has a special a special

[46:20]

currency but it has a special a special quality which is that the crypto currency is temporary meaning that if they give you you know hundred dollars worth of crypto you have to spend it before we all go back to work so let's say that the date is given that I'll just pick a date August 1st the cryptocurrency will go to zero value because that'll be the last day that the government recognizes it as valid money the rest of you could still trade it if you want to but on but on that date August 1st the United States who hypothetically created this cryptocurrency just to give money to people to temporarily spend that on August 1st the United States would say we will no longer we the United States accept it in payment and will also close down the exchange because you know you can imagine the government would also set up a website to exchange so if you got some crypto yeah you could change it for some dollars if nobody would accept your crypto but somebody says it just

[47:23]

your crypto but somebody says it just inflates later but doesn't if you put a timer on the crypto so that the only time you could use the cryptocurrency is for a few months and at the end of the free three months it became worthless at the end of the three months when everybody went back to work and demand is still too low to raise prices and yet you still have the same amount of dollars in the system because all the crypto just went away just by magic what do you have inflation now you know as I say too often I have a degree in economics but I don't know the answer to this question because this is way out of anybody's experience right sounds like the plot to mr. robot I'm looking at your comments and I don't think any of you have a good read on this in terms of nobody's I don't see anybody who has what I would call an expert opinion in this yeah it looks like you don't know

[48:24]

this yeah it looks like you don't know and there's nothing wrong with that I don't know if you should know the answer that question right somebody says Libya did it did they I'm I'm very skeptical than Libya created a crypto currency with a timeout feature it's the timeout feature that's a special part if you're just looking at as a crypto that's not the idea the the magic part of the idea is that it has to become worthless by design on a date certain that's the whole value of it so people will just spend their crypto and and you got to switch it back but so let's say that I spent my crypto the store has the crypto and I've got a loaf of bread and that August first the crypto that the store has become zero but they could have just traded it so they've converted it to dollars at the exchange but then it's the government that owns and at that point so did I just create a complicated

[49:27]

point so did I just create a complicated way to print US dollars I think I think maybe my idea falls apart there if I think through I don't know I'll just put it out there maybe somebody has an idea
and I think those were the main things that I wanted to talk about yes they were yeah so he says those accepting crypto would need to be able to change it to dollars yeah so in this scenario the government would have to issue the crypto but also create the only exchange for turning them into dollars so that the US government could on that date that it broadcasts in advance they could say all right here's the date we closing exchange so maybe the crypto lifts forever just because it you know the block team goes on forever but that you wouldn't ever be able to trade it for money so it would somebody says script in World War two expired

[50:28]

says script in World War two expired World War two script military script let me Google that so some of you know more than I do on this topic there's something called military script I've heard of it but I do not know the details let's look at what wikipedia says what is more fun than watching other people look for things on their phone nothing all right what is military script there's a form of scrip paper money used for temporary use so if you like to crypto right used to pay US military and civilian personnel and to conduct other stuff blah blah that's weird so I guess there's some history of it yeah I guess I'd have to look deeper into it but it looks like yeah the rush to exchange drops value that's true but if military

[51:28]

drops value that's true but if military script once existed I know Oh somebody says debit cards that expired 30 days Eric balling the plan yeah why not why not I mean printing the physical cards gives you a problem because you can lose the card and stuff I guess you can lose a password so maybe it's all the same okay so maybe that's a bad idea I just want to put that out there all right um that's all I got for today I will see you not today but I'll I'll see you later today the usual time you're doing to find me yeah let's have a great day today