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

Date: 2020-05-21 | Duration: 36:50

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Election model indicates Biden will win in landslide Peter Schiff’s economic credibility Kayleigh McEnany scorches Chris Cuomo Nate Silver’s Twitter is solid gold S.E. Cupp (CNN) and metrics Lots of calls = Russian collusion?

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## Transcript

[0:10]

hey everybody come on in it's time for coffee with Scott Adams without the coffee with a twist this time is Scott Adams without the coffee with the coffee didn't see that coming did you know you got to be quick sorry I jumped the gun and the simultaneous it but we'll catch you in the morning well we've got all kinds of good stuff happening from now on I determined that we will only be having good news sure you could have some bad news between now and Election Day but mostly let's have good news and let's talk about all the good news we'll talk about that in a moment but we're going to work through some of the best stories number one there's a prediction outfit must be in England I don't know where they are but they're called Oxford Economics and they have run the model yes a prediction

[1:11]

they have run the model yes a prediction model now I don't have to tell you that prediction models are pretty darn accurate aren't they I guess we've learned that so they've got a prediction model that says Joe Biden is going to beat Trump in the election by quote historic margins and it's all open to the fact that their model shows that when the economy is bad and obviously it's taking the hit that's bad for the incumbent and so their model spits out an historic wind by Biden this might raise some questions in your mind you might say to yourself a model you say is it an elegant and rational model built by geniuses with all the right intentions could be it could be or or is it possible that this model has

[2:12]

it possible that this model has few small flaws one flaw would be I don't know which field you input that the candidates brain has turned to sawdust is that it is that a box you check before you run the model so a brain of the of the Challenger still functional excellent rotting into sawdust while he while he decomposes in his basement I'll bet that's not even an option on the model I mean I'm guessing likewise I wonder if their model that shows economic hardships takes into account the rarest of situations where you're pretty sure it's temporary and it wasn't anybody's fault do you think that any historical model of what people thought about the economy under normal times and what they thought about the leadership

[3:13]

what they thought about the leadership under normal times do you think any of this could apply to this situation I don't even think Democrats really think Trump is to blame for the bad economy are they that dumb I like to think Democrats are not that dumb right they can see with their own eyes and stuff that the entire world just got crushed about equally and so you could you know you could quibble about you know this is that the president should have done more with testing or whatever but the plain fact is all the countries are doing about the same it does it doesn't matter seems to not matter what you do all right so that was a very valuable prediction model there I don't know how long it'll be before people just laugh when they hear there's a prediction model you know if somebody says I got a model and it's predicting you should just stop him say stop stop don't finish

[4:15]

just stop him say stop stop don't finish the sentence you're just embarrassing yourself because as soon as you said I have a prediction model I didn't really need to hear the end of the sentence because we've been down that month I wrote a little bit a lot of many of you asked asked me to look into Peters shifts opinion about all the printing and money and borrowing and such because I made the provocative statement that there don't seem to be any economists who are saying it's a bad idea just to print yourself a few trillion dollars and in fact I can't think of any reason you shouldn't so I'm not even criticizing I'm saying I feel like there should be a problem with this right you know don't you pay for it later somehow because prices inflation dad something something yeah how do you just manufacturer trillions of dollars and then go about your day and say well that

[5:16]

then go about your day and say well that worked out pretty well I'm glad there was no no no bounce back from that so Peter Schiff seems to be maybe the most prominent voice arguing that we're all doomed by doing exactly this you know manufacturing money out of nothin creating debt etc but you click on his profile and one on one of his URLs is something about gold so he's a gold guy and he's got I think a book so his entire brand is is basically dedicated to the prediction that were doomed so he's betting he's betting on his prediction essentially because presumably he has hedged himself with gold and you know he'll be the one who's right if it happens now suppose it doesn't happen suppose we don't get that we don't get that well Peter Schiff gets

[6:17]

we don't get that well Peter Schiff gets to live his good life he probably has a good income from whatever he's done before and he gets to enjoy the you know the good economy with everybody else if it goes that way but what if he's right well then he becomes one of the few people who wins if he's set himself up right to win when the market goes down and I imagine he's betting his own prediction right so here's the thing and I'll say this a million times until until it's so ingrained in you that I don't have to say it every time which is people can be credible and still wrong and they can be not credible at all but they just still get lucky there you still be right or they can just be right you just didn't know if they were right all right so what I talk about credibility that's different from knowing if somebody is right or wrong because that's unknowable nobody knows the future Peter Schiff I think you should view him as not credible number

[7:19]

should view him as not credible number one obviously you know if lots of people were saying what he was saying then that would add to his credibility so look for that you know look for other people to be saying exactly what he's saying except look for people who don't have any kind of game it's not their brand it's not the other reputation they don't have a book they're not invested in gold in a big way something like that so if other people are joined to join him in the opinion that would bolster his credibility but again we don't know if he's right at the moment I would say that the way he's positioned himself publicly so this is not this is not based on any insight into his mind I you know I don't know what he's thinking or anything like that but based on how he's positioned himself he should not be deemed as credible on this exact question because he's got too much of a bad on all right which doesn't mean he's wrong just means you shouldn't bet on him based on reputation so the White

[8:20]

him based on reputation so the White House press secretary Kaley maconnais I had another good day she makes a highlight clips every day it seems like today was especially good because of course she was ready for the question you know what about the president and hydroxychloroquine now of course the whole point of the question is to create news and nothing because the whole hydroxychloroquine story is nothing it literally is nothing it's one patient talked to his doctor and got different advice than maybe you would have but it's pretty reasonable that's it that's the whole story somebody talked to his doctor different advice than maybe you would have gotten but it's also a different situation that's it that's that's the whole story so they have to try to manufacture that into something so if they can get that yeah the White House spokesperson to misspeak to say something that's a little ambiguous you could you can craft

[9:20]

little ambiguous you could you can craft that into something make a little news out of that but turns out that Kelley Makani was not having any of that so she gave she started out with a just real solid answer that this drug has been used for other things and tested for years doctors have been prescribing it you know well-known safety profile good solid answer and then you know you and then she said that you should only be done with your doctor and that was really good because you know she was emphasizing that the the president did it in consultation with a doctor that's the only way to do it you know don't be don't be running out and trying to score your own you know aftermarket drugs or anything like that that that's me saying that matter but very responsible solid hit hit the important notes without too much you know extra detail and I thought she was done and I don't know if I'm

[10:22]

she was done and I don't know if I'm remembering this the way I want to remember it but you know she's got this thing where she's got her notebook and and when she turns a page you know you're in trouble she looks down it's like and then she gets that little smile and then you know you're in trouble I don't know if she did it this time I'd have to play it back but I hope she did like I hope it becomes a trademark like I want to I want to know that just before she pounces she always she always looks up at the person who asked the question and then without looking down at the page just goes because she already knows what page it's off see it's better if she already knows what page it's on so she doesn't have to yeah it's just and then or so anyway the second part of the question there she unloads on she goes just before I came in here I just found out that Chris Cuomo had taken the dangerous version the predecessor of hydroxychloroquine

[11:23]

the predecessor of hydroxychloroquine called quinine which is you know so so dangerous it's not even allowed I guess is like banned substance or something so it's like you have three generations more dangerous than hydroxychloroquine so much so that because hydroxychloroquine exists quinine is not even you know allowed now I don't know if that's true I need a little bit more confirmation that we actually know that Chris Cuomo took quinine how would we even know that right but does it matter okay doesn't matter because the way she delivered it was just perfect she just said I just found out that Chris Cuomo was doing the dangerous version of that and you know you're just looking at the screen and you just saying oh really that's just perfect that's just perfect quinine is in tonic water so so I think it's fair to say we may not know the

[12:24]

it's fair to say we may not know the whole story but in terms of a White House spokesperson response to that kind of question not bad I'll give that an A+ so if you're not any thinking about what's going to replace the handshake I spend way too much time thinking about this because we've sort of evolved socially that the handshake is that exclamation at the Younce the it's the punctuation at the end of a meeting it's like a good see ya have a good day so you know you're done we really do need something to replace it I don't think we can just take out the handshake and just go about our life because everything will be awkward you need something that says all right you and I have both agreed that this is now the the conclusion of our meeting so shake hands and walk away but it's not a handshake now I know you can say you know fist bumps and you know elbow hits and stuff like that I feel like we

[13:25]

hits and stuff like that I feel like we can do better no not the high-five you know because you don't want the touching so how about the you know salute about a bow or yeah you get the little prayer hands you know like ah you know that the belly bump they had nob the kiss now the kiss would make it worse somebody says they'll be doing the slight bow the two finger salute wave yep the two figures salute wave that's funny a lot of people say bowing and they had God I don't know all of those things feel not final enough like a handshake is physical it sounds like a you know like you know that you've ended a meeting when you shake hands all right well work on that and get back to me what is up with Howard Stern I guess he's continuing to say that the he hates Trump supporters you know not just Trump but he hates Trump supporters and you know obviously Howard Stern is

[14:28]

and you know obviously Howard Stern is smart enough to know you know what is just good for publicity and and what is not and what is real what is not so I can't tell if he's just doing this to be provocative can you tell now a but there might be some truth to it in the sense that there are you know a certain segment of Trump supporters that he actually doesn't like I mean that wouldn't be unusual but I feel like he's just being provocative so we should pay it too much heed so let me give you an example of what good thinking looks like and then I'll give you an example of what bad thinking looks like all right the good thinking comes from Nate Silver who once again his Twitter feed is like solid gold if you're not if you're not following Nate Silver you know and if you have maybe some political you know thing because he thought Hillary it was going to win the election or something you should release on all that stuff

[15:29]

on all that stuff if you've got any you know bias against them for politics you really ought to follow up because it's just the the best written tweets with the most useful content about how to understand your world so we had another one today so he says in general critiques of governmental responses to coronavirus don't do enough to account for the fact that are a lot of unknowns surrounding the virus an optimal policy is likely to be different when there are a lot of unknowns do you know anybody else who said that I did so some version of that but then he goes off he goes that is you probably want a policy that is nimble you need to collect data quickly and be ready to adapt to it multifaceted there inevitably has to be some element of trial and error as you learn about what works and what doesn't now you may recognize this as being very similar sort of like a like a shadow cousin of things I've been saying and my

[16:30]

cousin of things I've been saying and my version of this goes like this that I I agree in advance not to blame anybody for getting this wrong so long as they're quickly adapting to mistakes so it's a version of what are you saying which is this is not like a known problem where if it were a known problem you'd say oh did they use the known solution and then you could say yes or no then you'd know if somebody did a good job but with an unknown kind of a problem with lots of variables and you know there's more we don't know than we do as Natan suggests and as I have a number of times the best you can do is do something that's it the best you can do is to do something and you hope that you've got enough people doing enough different things and you're watching each other that if somebody gets lucky and does the right thing not because they were smart but because people were just doing different things they didn't know what to do and and then you quickly adapt and say oh oh masks that looks

[17:33]

adapt and say oh oh masks that looks like it works out testing let's let's test the way they're testing so I will extend this to make a good a promise I made you two months ago maybe and the promise was this that I was gonna hold blameless any of the leaders who made wrong decisions because it just wasn't a situation in which making a right decision was even an option except by luck yeah a few cases maybe not and I'm gonna I'm gonna prove that by telling you that I don't think that I'm going to this is my personal view right you you will get to make up your own mind my personal view is I'm not gonna hold Andrew Cuomo governor of New York responsible just my opinion just this is just personal all right you can you can disagree not I'm not gonna fight you out just my personal view just philosophically morally and ethically

[18:34]

philosophically morally and ethically worried we're asking these leaders to make suicide political decisions on our behalf that's what we're asking them to do right so do I think that every decision that Governor Cuomo made in hindsight was the right one no that's not how it works we don't get to do that hindsight's not affair they're they're all making decisions they're doing their best you know they're made they're making suicide political decisions for you right for you there's nothing there's nothing in it for these guys these are really dangerous waters they're in and they jumped right in right no no governor said I quit right which governor walked away none none 50 governors went right toward the fire right so you got to give them a little bit of ethical flexibility you know from

[19:35]

bit of ethical flexibility you know from from your own perspective meaning that sometimes they're gonna make the wrong decisions and I just don't think under the the crisis situation where there was so much guessing that you should judge them for anything except the way they corrected that's it so I'm gonna hold the Andrew Cuomo as blameless as I will hold all of the other leaders including the president including all the other governors because nobody knew the right thing to do period that's it all right so Nate silver represents what a smart person sounds like when they talk about judging the performance of the leaders let's talk about somebody else's view on the same topic this is somebody named SE Cupp over at CNN and let me read again mates mates the sentence so that you have the contrast so I'll reread Nate's smarter sentence and then se Cups statement soand they

[20:35]

and then se Cups statement soand they said in general critiques of governments of responses to coronavirus don't do enough to account for the fact that there are lots of unknowns surrounding the virus and optimal policy is like to be different below here's what I see cup says the president has by any metric bungled the coronavirus response by any metric he's bungled it any metric so so if I had a metric to suggest the SE Cupp says doesn't even matter what it is any metric it's given be a bungle so let's run through a few okay let's run through a few metrics how did the President of the United States do compared to the leaders of other countries don't know doesn't look that different to me because we don't know what's different about the United States etc so it has if you were to use the metric of comparing him to other leaders is he better or

[21:35]

him to other leaders is he better or worse don't know so there's a metric that you would not say he's doing unambiguously the worse has he by any metric bungled well if he has bungled he's bungled about the same as every leader on earth because there's sort of all the same how about the economy well I would say that the stock market is the the indicator that tells you the most about where you're going you know we know where we are and everybody's in bad shape where we are but the stock market is a forward forward indicator what is the stock market say about President Trump the stock market says President Trump is going to beat this thing all the way back to a good economy that's what it says it's priced for recovery so if you were to divide the situation into two parts there's the economic part and and all that that implies including life

[22:37]

and all that that implies including life and death and then there's more purely medical part about you know do we have enough ventilators and real medical stuff on the economic part the I would say the metric that captures the most is the stock market now that doesn't mean everybody's in the stock market I'm not saying everybody you know benefits when the stock market goes up I'm just saying as a metric for for measuring what peep the smartest people who have money think is going to happen with the economy they're giving it an A all right I mean this market is priced for near perfection that's sort of Finance Talk meaning that it's an expensive market for how much the earnings are at the moment so you're really expecting something really good to happen in the next year or else the stock market price doesn't make any sense so half of all the things you could care about the

[23:37]

the things you could care about the economy and all that implies is strong I would say that metric is about as strong as it could possibly be given the circumstance let's see other metrics how about number of ventilators pass/fail the number of ventilators is a pass/fail you either have enough or you don't and you fail that's a metric president got him enough you know I'm the PPE that you know individual places had trouble but in general we got enough so on the PPE got enough how about people starving to death as anybody starved to death in the United States none right zero now that's more as probably has more to do with the states but you know the federal government back stops the states pass-fail zero zero people starve to death that's the path you know during a

[24:39]

death that's the path you know during a crisis that's bad that's a pretty big deal how about let's see how about flattening the curve did the United States flatten the curve it looks like we did yeah so I don't know which you know I don't know what numbers SE Cupp is looking at we probably agree on testing not being enough and the president sort of overselling where we were on testing he sort of over sells everything so i discounted that as being you know necessarily an important anything because you know he's always gonna over sell everything but do you know that so it doesn't even it doesn't even seem dishonest cuz he'll tell you I'm gonna oversell everything I mean if he asked if he'd tell you directly yeah I'm over selling that that's what I do I think or something like that now I saw a piece from Carlos continue if I remember his

[25:42]

from Carlos continue if I remember his name right they and I don't I didn't see a link to it so I need a fact check in this but apparently JP Morgan has quote a devastating piece arguing that infection rates have declined not increased in states where lock downs have ended even even when they allow for the fact that there's a time lag apparently even allowing for that things are going opposite of what you would expect now I'm not so sure this is true but it's provocative it also reminds us that every time we think we can count with something accurately we can't count anything accurately so those of you are getting happy in the comments I can see that you're celebrating the news I don't know that this is true I would be a little suspicious in this because it doesn't quite match with you know my expectations for what that's worth all right here's a fun little fact now keep

[26:45]

right here's a fun little fact now keep in mind that in the age of the coronavirus literally every story you hear from every source lacks credibility can we agree on that there's no such thing as a study that you can trust the report you could trust an anecdotal story you can trust there's nothing you can trust so in the spirit of knowing there's absolutely no story you can trust let me tell you this story apparently over in India 10,000 Mumbai policemen were offered hydroxychloroquine to take to prophylactically to prevent them from giving problems of the ten thousand about forty five hundred of them did a good job of taking it and the rest of them refused so they've got it they had forty five hundred police officers and many of them were apparently around enough coronavirus that that there were in fact infections and here's the result

[27:45]

in fact infections and here's the result of the group that took the hydroxychloroquine there were zero deaths zero on the group that decided not to take the hydroxychloroquine nine deaths and those who who got the virus in the group that had the hydroxychloroquine had quote mild attacks now this is of course an anecdotal report and also not necessarily a source that you should say is a hundred percent credible somebody's asking about zinc and it was not mentioned so I don't know if the fact that it's not mentioned means they didn't use it so that's an open question but I wouldn't expect good results without it and again even that's not credible so we don't know if the think really makes a difference I know I ordered some I know I got my zinc

[28:47]

ordered some I know I got my zinc supplements coming in the mail but that doesn't mean it works so here's what I love about this I don't know that this is true and if it is true it's not a scientific study I suppose you could say still the odds of it the odds of the hydroxyl chloroquine not making a difference if all they did is count the numbers right if all they did was have a good idea who actually took the hydroxychloroquine and they also counted the number of infections and deaths correctly probably statistically it's pretty darn on luck unlikely that all the deaths would be in one group nine of them nine to zero what you know could somebody do the odds on that here do the odds of us or somebody here who's good at it so so you had two groups one of them is 4,500 people and they had zero deaths and the other group and that was the group that took the hydroxyl chloroquine the other group was 5,500 so it's a larger group and they had nine

[29:47]

it's a larger group and they had nine deaths so in the comments we'll see how fast you can do the statistics on that what are the odds that that would just if it's true you know who knows if it even happened but what would be the odds of it coming out 9 to 0 just just randomly if anybody can do that I'll be watching the comments all right here's a comment that came in to me from Timothy Piper and it's a really good observation and it's gonna make you wonder why you didn't already see it on TV somebody says point o1 you sure about that and here's the observation that the reason the Flynn was tagged as maybe working with Russia too much as they he had too much communication with Keyes lyac as somebody else is saying 17% looks like it looks like most of you are bad as statistics or I can't tell if

[30:52]

are bad as statistics or I can't tell if you're just guessing your numbers are all over the place so he says one in 20 it's not 1 in 20 I don't know what it is but it's definitely but it's a lot more than 1 in 20 or not a lot less than that alright it looks like looks like nobody here can do statistics so well we'll put that on hold so here was the idea if lemon was talking to his li act more than normal does that mean he's a Russian spy now of course that was the suspicion that Comey allegedly had allegedly he was concerned that there was too much talking with the Russians but what Tim Piper pointed out is that this was an unusual administration normally in an administration incoming is a bunch of people who've been around forever and the Russians would know them so yeah means the Russians work in Washington DC quite a bit so anybody who's a standard politician on either party they've been around a while well the Russians already

[31:53]

around a while well the Russians already know them but suppose the Trump administration comes in and they basically know one guy flip but they they need to get up to speed but they only know one guy they just know the one guy because all the Trump people are just like you know came from Mars so the Russians didn't already know him so would it surprise you if the Russians being of course concerned about your relationships and all the different dealings of the United States would it surprise you since they only knew one guy that they might talk to him a lot yeah when you as soon as you hear that you say to yourself well that makes sense yeah the Trump administration didn't have you know they just didn't have much knowledge of them so if they could find one guy who take a phone call he probably got a lot of calls this is that the most routine obvious explanation for what probably

[32:53]

obvious explanation for what probably happened I mean we weren't there but that's the most likely explanation is that they just didn't know a lot of people so they called them a lot all right what about manna fort what about him
I see you're all still we're trying to work out the math on that I guess I was harder than I thought it was I don't know why you're asking about Manafort because that's just sort of a different situation did you hear that michael cohen will be serving the rest of his time at home so basically michael cohen gets convicted and sentenced to jail but because of the corona virus his jail sentence turned into the exactly the same jail sentence that you and I have which is you got to stay home that's it so basically basically I'm being penalized the same as Michael

[33:54]

being penalized the same as Michael Cohen somebody says you hypnotize us every day it's crazy it is crazy it's totally crazy somebody says I don't think you framed the math question well well I wasn't framing it I was just telling you the only numbers I have two groups of people nine died none died in the other that's all I know so if you if that's enough to work with it go nuts all right
so I think it's gonna be all good news from now on we're getting to hear about the therapies and therapeutics and you can hear about curves getting bent you could hear about people going back to work and you're gonna be hearing a lot of good stuff and I told you that the home prices where I live didn't go down at all so the real estate prices where I live no change the houses are selling

[34:55]

live no change the houses are selling above asking still yeah as of this week they're selling above asking price amazing and apparently it's just easier for the real estate agents because they don't have to show houses now yeah they could just say look at this video because I'm not going to show it to you till you're really serious so the the real estate brokers are working less and making more money I think at least in some cases that you're also seeing I think California said it might do something a little faster there's that and you heard about you heard about the cruise ships are already being overbooked so of all things if you were going to pick one indicator that made you feel optimistic this is the one cruise ships for 2021 are overbooked cruise ships cruise ships are overbooked everybody who's betting against this economy coming back quickly I think you're really on a risky bet because

[35:57]

you're really on a risky bet because people are ready to ready to rumble and look at the stock market the stock market is basically I mean it's it's close enough to where it was when things were good that I think people will act like they still have money because they do as long as the stock market stays up you have to disprove the null hypothesis well that seems like a general statement but I'll take that advice I have to do that all right that's all I got for now and yeah most of the cruise ship stuff is rebooking people who didn't want to I don't give away their ticket forever or something but still but still alright that's all for now and I will talk to you in the morning you know where