Coffee with Scott Adams 2025-09-24
Checking your stocks. Stock market’s a little up, little down. Tesla’s up. Wow, Tesla’s really up. 2.7. Not bad. Come on in here while I get ready with my comments.
The Simultaneous Sip
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Delicious.
Health Studies and Observations
Well, look at what I’ve got. I’ve got a little cat friend to join me. Well, can you believe it? There’s a study that says eating chocolate might slow aging and help your heart. That would be the millionth time that we’ve seen this study. My suggestion is that if you’d like to save a little money on these studies about chocolate, next time just ask me. Yes, chocolate is good for you, but not that milk chocolate; there’s not enough chocolate in there. You want the good flavonoids.
There’s another study that says people feel happier when they’re doing ordinary everyday things with other people. That’s right. They did a study and showed that being lonely is not optimal. Can you believe it? I know, science is surprising us every day. Being lonely is not good; it doesn’t make you happy. Do things with other people if you have a choice.
Can you believe, according to SciPost, Eric Dolan is writing that even light alcohol drinking raises your dementia risk? I wonder if there’s anybody they could have asked to save all that time. Yes, they could have asked Scott because I knew that alcohol is bad for you, and I was pretty sure that included your brain because your brain is part of your body. Your body is your brain.
Left-Wing Violence and Brainwashing
Here’s a surprising situation. The publication called The Atlantic, which is the most anti-Trump publication you can ever imagine, believe it or not, has an article that says that left-wing violence is on the rise and that there have been more terror attacks from left-wing ideologues than right in recent years. Now, you know how big a debate that was. All the people on the left said, “No, it’s obvious that the people on the right are doing all the terrorism.” And the people on the right said, “No, it’s obvious that the people on the left are doing more terrorism.” Well, The Atlantic, which is left, has now conclusively decided based on their own research that the left is a little bit more terrorist and murdery. Once again, you’re right again.
By the way, there will be a minor theme to today’s show, which is that everybody who is a critic of Trump is having a bad time. All of his critics are having a bad week for different reasons, but it’s a weird coincidence. According to the Washington Examiner, Paul Bedard is writing about a Rasmussen poll that showed that over half of liberals call the Kirk assassination “understandable.” Understandable meaning that they believe that he spoke hate speech, and people who speak hate speech—I guess half of the people said—“Well, you gotta expect there’s going to be some blowback for that.” That’s what the liberals think.
To me, this is a perfect example of the power of brainwashing because you’d have to brainwash people to think that Charlie Kirk was speaking hate about anybody even once. Never happened even once about anybody. But it is widely believed. How powerful is brainwashing? It convinced half of the country that a good man is a bad man. It convinced half of that half that it probably is understandable that somebody would get violent with him. All of that is complete brainwashing. There’s not one bit of that that comes from people looking at real stuff and coming up with their own opinion. These are assigned opinions. Do you have any more questions about how powerful brainwashing is? This is the cleanest example you’ve ever seen. What makes it extra clean is that Charlie Kirk didn’t always exist, meaning that he’s a relatively new phenomenon—the last 10 years, I guess, he rose. It’s not like people have always thought this about that for all through history. Nobody had any opinion about him at all until it was assigned to them. Pure brainwashing.
Legal and Public Figures
In other news that Trump might enjoy: Peter Strzok. Do you remember him from the old lawfaring days trying to get Trump? Allegedly, his messages suggested that he was part of a plot to overthrow the government, some say. He’s never been convicted of anything like that. But he was suing over his firing because I guess he claimed that he had freedom of speech in his messages to his girlfriend. Since he got fired for something he said in his personal speech, he thought that his free speech had been violated and he shouldn’t have been fired. If you ask me, that’s a pretty bad argument. He lost, so that case is over. Peter Strzok loses. That’s sort of like Trump winning because he would like to know that Peter Strzok lost. Remember, Trump says he hates his enemies, so he hates Strzok.
Keith Olbermann, as you know, is my mascot. He apologized for threatening the other mascot, Scott Jennings. There are only two of us, by the way—just me and Scott Jennings. No other Scotts. Apparently, there was an FBI referral. Scott Jennings or somebody made an FBI referral because what Olbermann said on social media was, “You’re next, mother-f’er,” and then “Keep mugging for the camera.” In the context of the Charlie Kirk tragedy, saying that somebody’s next when we’re still in that environment of still talking about and thinking about Charlie Kirk was taken as a physical threat. Keith Olbermann, who’s not as dumb as he acts—he couldn’t be, it wouldn’t be possible—decided he’d better apologize and clarify that. He was like, “No, no, it was not about hurting Scott Jennings; it was about his career. His career would be next.” Do you believe that? Do you believe that in the shadow of the Charlie Kirk situation, when somebody says “you’re next,” that obviously just means their job? I don’t know. I can’t read his mind. So that happened. That’s awkward for another anti-Trumper.
AI and Hollywood
How about Hollywood? How much does Hollywood like Trump? Not so much. But Hollywood is really in trouble now because the AI examples that we’re seeing today show two different apps using AI that could substitute any celebrity’s face and body for anything else. You could make your own movie with yourself as the actor—or let’s say yourself as the main actor—and then just replace it when you’re done. It won’t look like AI; it’ll look exactly like Brad Pitt was in your actual movie. That’s coming. I don’t see how Hollywood as an industry can survive because it looks like that’ll all turn into people who know how to use AI. Hollywood’s got a tough time. Trump might enjoy watching Hollywood go down.
Brigitte Macron Case
Brigitte Macron, as you know, is in a lawsuit with Candace Owens over the issue of whether or not she was born a man. I will say again: I do not believe Brigitte Macron was born a man. However, if you’ve heard the long argument from Candace with all the evidence that she believes proves that she is, it’s very persuasive. Now, I’m not persuaded, but not because it’s not persuasive. I just find it hard for me to believe it. Brigitte Macron has the easiest job in the world; she simply has to prove that she was born a woman. Could anything be easier than that? She submitted some what she called photographic evidence, but we have no details on what was photographed and how that proved the case. Apparently, that’s been challenged in court. Whatever that photographic evidence was didn’t convince everybody.
I’m wondering: how can you convince anybody with a photograph? It’s 2025. I just got done telling you that you can make anybody look like Brad Pitt or Taylor Swift and you can’t tell the difference. In the age of AI, you don’t think that a state actor—the government of France—couldn’t put together a fake photograph that you thought was real? I don’t know how you’d ever believe a photograph. What would the photograph be of? If they had a photograph of Brigitte Macron very young looking female, that wouldn’t really tell you, would it? If they had a picture of her looking pregnant, would that convince you she was a woman? Or would you say to yourself, “Wait a minute, that’s when they were trying to sell the idea that she was a female, so she probably just put some rags under her dress to pretend to be pregnant or something like that.” My point is, I don’t know how photographic evidence could ever work. You would need the other team’s doctor to stand in the room and examine her, wouldn’t you? Seems to me. So, I don’t know where that goes.
Turning Point USA Growth
Apparently, the interest in Turning Point USA after Charlie Kirk’s death has skyrocketed. Now, the current number is there have been 120,000 requests for information on starting a chapter. 120,000 requests. Wow. That’s a lot. Breitbart News is reporting on that.
Ryan Routh Trial
One of the attempted Trump assassins, Ryan Routh, who was defending himself, did not do a good job. He was found guilty and it looks like he’ll go away for life. As soon as the verdict was read, he grabbed a pen and tried to murder himself by stabbing himself in the neck with the pen, but they stopped him before he could succeed. I have one thing to say about Ryan Routh: he is not good at killing anything. Not good at killing anything. He tried to kill people in Ukraine; I don’t think he got that together. Tried to kill Trump; didn’t work. Tried to kill himself; didn’t work. I think he should just take a hint. Ryan, you’re not good at killing anything. Stop it.
Border and Foreign Policy
The Department of Homeland Security is all happy they’ve reached the 2 million illegals leaving the country since January. 2 million. Now, the vast majority of them were self-deporting because they didn’t want to get deported the hard way. But wow, 2 million in six months? I find that an impressive number. I’m most impressed that they figured out a way to do it without having to ship every one of them—that the ones leaving voluntarily turned out to be the big number. That’s pretty impressive.
As you might imagine, now that the Trump administration has said that Tylenol might be a bad idea if you’re pregnant—but talk to your doctor because there might be some cases where it’s necessary or worth the risk—this caused people on TikTok, people on the left, to pointedly take Tylenol while they’re pregnant to show you how wrong Trump is about everything. But here’s a funny thing about this: if it’s true—and I don’t know that it is—but if it’s true that taking Tylenol while you’re pregnant can cause your child to be autistic, I’m wondering how many of the autistic kids end up being Trump supporters or at least conservative by the time they’re old enough. Are people on the spectrum easily fooled by brainwashing? Or are they a little more analytical in some cases? I’m just wondering if they’re taking Tylenol and turning their children into conservatives. I don’t know. Maybe some of them.
George Stephanopoulos is trying to push the idea that the cuts in USAID are causing the mass deaths of people in other countries that would otherwise be saved by that spending. But Marco Rubio had a pretty good response to that. Stephanopoulos said to him on a show yesterday, “You’re saying no one’s died because of the aid cuts?” Now, of course, people probably have died because there are things that we gave money to that we stopped giving money to, and they were probably pretty important things. But Rubio has the right frame. He says no one has died because the US has cut aid; people have died because gangs steal the aid. People have died because other countries have not stepped up. The US has saved more lives than any other country in the world. Probably he could do a little bit better on that answer, but the basic answer is: why is only US spending the one that’s being measured for inadequacy? Wouldn’t it be true that every single country in the world could spend more to save more people in other countries? Why are you only looking at us? Why does that even make sense? There are a million things we could be doing that we’re not. Does that mean we’re killing people by not doing it? Well, in some theoretical way, I suppose, but it’s not a reasonable attack. The reasonable attack is the US can’t do everything for everybody, and we’re going to do a little less. Yeah, more people will die. But there’s nothing that would stop every other country in the world from stepping up and filling the gap. So if no one else in the world is willing to help, why is all the pressure on the United States? It’s a good question.
John Bolton and Classified Documents
In John Bolton news, we’re now learning that the FBI had found some secret or confidential or whatever classified documents in his office. We already knew that they went through his home; we’re not sure what they found. But in his office, there were some classified materials. And so I went to Grok and I said, “Did John Bolton ever mock Trump for his classified documents at Mar-a-Lago?” And the answer is: yes, he did. So while John Bolton had his own classified documents at both his office and I believe at his home, he was criticizing Trump for having classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. That takes a little bit of guts, doesn’t it? Remember my theme for today: everybody who is an anti-Trumper seems to be having a bad week. John Bolton’s on that list, having a bad week.
Kamala Harris on The View
Kamala Harris, I think she’s having a bad week too. She went on The View yesterday selling her new book, 107 Days. You should hear her on The View, and here’s why you should listen to it: because she’s not drunk. If you wondered if she’s drunk in those other appearances, listen to her on The View. Now, that’s a morning show, so the odds of her being drunk were lower just in general. But when you hear her obviously not drunk, she’s still bad at talking. She’s bad at talking, but there’s no indication of drunk. Her speaking tone is perfect and normal and all that. So if you want to wonder, “Is she drunk in those other videos?” just watch The View. When you see her not drunk, you go, “Oh, okay, that’s what not drunk looks like.” Yeah, there’s something going on there.
YouTube Censorship Admission
YouTube has now admitted—Google owns YouTube—so Google has admitted that YouTube was in fact censoring people during the COVID pandemic and for political reasons. They’ve offered terminated creators the opportunity to rejoin the platform. Does it feel to you as if everything you suspected was true several years ago was all true? Like every single thing you thought, “Wait a minute, I think the platforms are discriminating against certain kinds of people.” Turns out they were. Yep, it was exactly what you thought. “Wait a minute, I don’t think these vaccines are tested as much as I would like.” Turns out you’re right. So just about everything you suspected is true. I suspected that the intelligence people were behind the Russia collusion hoax. Well, looks like they were. I suspected that climate change was not going to pan out in terms of the predictions and that someday we would realize it was a hoax. Well, I don’t know if we’re totally there yet, but we’re getting really close. Everything you suspected. You thought the news might have been intentionally fake. It was intentionally fake. Almost everything you suspected. The one that we haven’t, let’s say, that’s not validated yet is that the 2020 election was rigged. Now let me ask you this: look at all the things that you suspected and how many of them turned out to be true. Almost all of them. There might be some exceptions, but I think almost all of them. Now, in that context, what are the odds that so many people suspect the 2020 election was rigged? What are the odds that we will not someday find out it was rigged? I feel like everything is pointing in that direction. Now to be clear, I do not personally have any evidence of any rigging in 2020. I don’t. But I’ll tell you, the people who’ve been right about everything—right, right, right, right—they think it was rigged. So are you going to ignore the people who were right about everything at your peril?
Epstein Files and UN Incidents
Democrats won some special election in Arizona, which allegedly will give the Democrats enough votes—I assume that means they get some Republican votes of course because Republicans still have the majority—but with this one extra vote, they will have enough votes to force the release or at least have a vote on releasing all the Epstein files. Which means everybody’s going to have to be on record as saying that they will or will not be in favor of releasing them. I think if you put everybody on record, doesn’t that make it a little more likely that people won’t resist because it looks too sketchy if they do? So maybe we’re inching closer to seeing some of that Epstein stuff. I don’t know.
You’ve probably already heard that Trump spoke at the UN and he had two technical difficulties. One was the escalator stopped as soon as he and Melania got a few feet into it. The UN has now investigated and they say it was just a mistake; it was just an accident. Some videographer may have triggered some kind of safety thing that made it stop. Does that sound real to you? Well, I would look at the context, which included reporting that said that UN staff had been joking before Trump got there that they should turn off the elevator and the escalator and claim they don’t have enough money to run them. So what are the odds that they were joking about doing this exact thing and then by accident—by total accident—the thing that’s never happened to any president at the UN ever, by total accident, it just happened? It just happened. So believe it, people. Believe it. That’s just a coincidence. Sorry, but we’re not really in the mood to accept that coincidence. It might be a coincidence; it’s not like it’s impossible. You know how sometimes if you think too much about a thing happening, it happens? Maybe a lot of people were thinking about it happening. That’s how I think the simulation works with affirmation, etc. If a lot of people are thinking a thing could happen, I just feel like it’s more likely it’s going to happen. However, that would be a lot of a coincidence to accept. A really, really big one. So I don’t think we’re in the mood to accept that.
Then the teleprompter doesn’t work when Trump goes to give his speech. Another coincidence probably. Just a coincidence. I guess the UN got their funding cut; I guess the guy who does all the technical stuff must be on vacation or he got fired or something. Anyway, so all that looks really sketchy.
Trump’s UN Speech
But Trump did a Trumpian great job with his speech. He criticized globalism. He said climate change was a big old hoax. He said open borders were a giant mistake and the other countries were committing national suicide. And he says that the entire globalist concept—this is what Trump said—“the entire globalist concept of asking successful industrialized nations to inflict pain on themselves and radically disrupt their entire societies must be rejected completely and totally.” Yeah. How about you stop telling countries like ours to do all the worst things that we could do.
And then he really put the hammer down. Trump said, “Any system that results in the mass trafficking of children is inherently evil, yet that is exactly what the globalist migration agenda has done.” I don’t think they intentionally did that, but maybe some of them did. You never know. And then he accused China, India, and some NATO countries of funding Russia’s war by buying all their oil when they don’t have to. And he said that the US is having a golden age and that everything’s going great over here.
I was trying to imagine: what would it be like if you were one of the leaders who had been or maybe still are really pro-climate change as real, we got to do something? What would it feel like to have the most important leader in the world, who’s been right about a lot? We’re not talking about an ordinary president; we’re talking about the president who is famous for being right when things don’t look like he might be. He’s famous for that. This is probably his greatest challenge, to get people to believe that climate change was sort of exaggerated and overdone. But imagine sitting there in the UN and the most important leader of, in my opinion, the most important country is saying that their biggest, the biggest thing they’ve been working on for years is a complete hoax and a waste of time. What would that feel like? In theory, it should trigger cognitive dissonance massively. Remember, cognitive dissonance gets triggered when you believe you’re a certain kind of person—smart, educated, well-informed about science—and then none of the predictions that you were buying into seem to be coming true. And then Trump, who has been right about a lot, a lot, comes in and says the whole thing was a hoax. It was all BS.
Is it possible for any of the other brains in that room to say, “Huh, well, he does make a good case. There were many predictions; they seem to be off. It does sort of look like maybe people were just chasing money and it was a big old grift. Hmm, yes, I changed my mind. So after years of saying it was the most important thing in the world, I’m going to change my mind to: I was a f’ing idiot and I got bamboozled into wasting my country’s resources.” It’s not possible. Those particular people do not have the option of changing their mind. It would be too much of a cognitive load. It just can’t be done. So the only way that things will change is if there’s an entire new wave of younger, probably conservative leaders who didn’t believe it from the start. If that happens, then you can get governments not believing climate change. But you’re not going to change the minds of the ones who put their entire reputation and self-image on the line. You can’t change that. That’s how cognitive dissonance happens when you have that contrast between what you did and what makes sense.
Jimmy Kimmel’s “Apology”
Jimmy Kimmel was back on the air last night. I’m sure his ratings were big because people wanted to see what he had to say. He got standing ovations and he was tearful. He didn’t apologize exactly, but he sort of had a few words around what he did. He said, “I understand that to some, that felt either ill-timed or unclear or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you’re upset.” So it’s not an apology; he just says he understands why you’re upset.
And then he said, “I don’t think the murderer who shot Charlie Kirk represents anyone,” so he’s not going to say that’s a MAGA person. “This is a sick person who believes violence is a solution, and it isn’t.” And then he went for the kill shot. Now, I would hate to say that I may have suggested this. I didn’t suggest it to anybody on his team, but I said in public my own opinion was that Charlie Kirk would have wanted him to go back on the air because Charlie Kirk was very pro-free speech. It seemed to me he would have said, “Well, okay, your joke didn’t land, if it was a joke, but I don’t think you should be off the air.” That’s my opinion of what I think Charlie Kirk would have been all about if he could be here to give his opinion. And Kimmel did a version of that, but even a stronger version by referencing Erica, the wife of Charlie Kirk, who forgave the murderer. She actually forgave him in public.
That was a very impactful thing. It would be hard not to feel the impact of that. That was so strong. And Kimmel says she forgave him—talking about the shooter—she forgave him. “That is an example we should follow if you believe in the teachings of Jesus, as I do,” he said. There it was, that’s it—a selfless act of grace. I know you don’t want him to, but he nailed it. If you attach it to Erica’s incredible strength and her forgiveness and her grace—I think grace is the right word there—maybe it’s just time to let it go. Maybe we can be as worthy in some small way as Erica. And maybe we should have a little grace.
Now, I understand that we’re in a situation where it’s sort of a war between the left and the right and we should crush them as permanently as we can every opportunity we get. Maybe. But I do like free speech and I do like grace and I do like forgiveness when it’s just about words, if there’s really a question of what they meant and what their intention was. We should be able to forgive that. But it looks like that won’t get him out of the trouble because two affiliate groups—the Sinclair group and Nexstar, who collectively have dozens and dozens of local stations—have said that they will not carry his return. Now, I suspect they might change their mind; maybe a little time has to go by. But I do wonder if they’ll keep him on the air without those locals. They got a lot to talk about, so this is not done by any means. And it could be that ABC and Disney have decided that it’s easiest to keep him on until his contract runs out anyway, and then they can say, “Well, it’s not about what you said. Now it’s definitely about the fact that the affiliates are not running you; we don’t have a way to make money now.” Then they can do whatever they want.
Budget and Pay
Chuck Schumer, who at one point didn’t want to meet with President Trump about the budget they’re trying to get settled, he’s now saying he will meet with him anywhere he wants. On the golf course, you name it. So he says, “We’re ready to work with the President. We’re willing to sit down with him. We’ll even go to the golf course, wherever he wants to go.” So there might be some indication that the Democrats will be blamed if there’s a government shutdown. Now, I don’t know how that works. What is the logic of who gets blamed? Is there any way to predict that? Is it the party in charge? Do they always get blamed if they have the power? Or is there some reason that the Democrats would get blamed this time? I don’t know. But the argument is they want massively more spending for healthcare, but specifically I think that would include paying for trans surgeries for kids and healthcare for illegal aliens and more than that they would say.
But like I said, there’s no chance they’re going to agree on a budget. They will kick the can down the road and show that they cannot do the basic work of the people. The most basic thing your government should do is allocate money. They will not do that. They should all be fired. If they can’t allocate money—can’t even take a shot at it, I’m not even saying doing it right—if they can’t even do it, the main thing that you’re supposed to do, you should all be fired. Every one of them should be let go. There should be some kind of law that says if you don’t pass a budget, you don’t get paid. At the very least, it should be if you don’t pass a budget, you don’t get paid. Because why do we pay them? To pass a budget. So is that fair? You don’t get paid if you don’t pass a budget. What if Trump did an executive order that says you don’t get paid if you don’t pass the budget? Would it stick? I don’t see how it would because then he’d be interfering in the other branch of government. But something’s got to change. We literally can’t survive having a Congress that can’t make a budget. That’s not survivable. We’ll just run the debt up to—maybe it’s already not survivable. But we have to stop acting like this is normal or that, “All right, well, we tried. Kick the can down the street a little bit. We’ll get it next time.” It’s not normal. Whatever we have to do to stop this, it has to be done right away. Whatever it takes.
Gavin Newsom and 2028
Speaking of hoaxes, Newsom was on Colbert’s show and he said that he believes Trump is trying to rig the midterms. He said, “I really mean, and I fear that he will not have an election in 2028. I really mean that in the core of my soul, unless we wake up to the code red of what’s happening in the country.” So this is the most surprising thing that I’ve heard in a long time. He says, “I mean this in the core of my soul.” My God, does Gavin Newsom have a soul? Am I just learning that he has a soul? Because he’s not doing anything that looks like you do if you had one, like starting a gigantic scare of my people, get them all worked up, cause them to violence.
If you actually said the guy in charge is going to cancel elections, that’s permission for violence. Would you disagree? If a politician was telling you, “I mean it in the core of my soul, he’s going to cancel elections,” that is an invitation to violence. Isn’t it? Do you see it differently? I don’t think the Democrats even understand what causes violence. It’s this. It’s exactly this. Because it wouldn’t be violence if you just thought you’d lose an election. But if you think there will never be one because the other team is turning dictator, that’s permission for violence. Now, I’m not giving you permission, but it sounds like he is. That’s so bad.
Well, this hoax needs a name—the hoax that elections will be canceled so that Trump can stay in office. It’s obviously a hoax. But given that there are two parts to it—there’s the 2026 hoax and then there’s the 2028 hoax that’s the same, that there won’t be an election—so it’s a little murky that way. But it needs a name. I don’t have one.
Vaccine Schedules and Drones
Also, Gavin Newsom has decided that California will make their own recommended vaccine schedule for kids. Really? To me, that just seems unbelievable. So he wants to make sure that they have a recommendation that’s based on real science, not that stuff that RFK Jr. is using. What do they think RFK Jr. is looking at? Do they think he’s looking at horoscopes? I don’t know. So we’ll see what they come up with.
Mike Pence was talking on X about a recording of some kind of Zoom call between executives of a group called Indivisible, which is described as George Soros’s main umbrella domestic street protest group. They were talking about what color to name their color revolution which they’re planning. So a color revolution, which is how a government is overthrown—that’s what it is, a color revolution. That’s when the Intel people and another country get involved in organizing a country to overthrow its government. So right out loud, this group is talking about a color revolution. And they’re leaning toward purple as their color because it’s neither red nor blue, they would say. And they’re one of these groups that’s part of that George Soros funding and the NGO networks and stuff like that.
But my question is this: does a color revolution work when you have all the names and all the receipts? Can you have a color revolution if the country you’re trying to take over is completely aware that it’s a color revolution? That should be enough to stop it, right? If everybody said, “Oh, that’s fake, that’s George Soros’s people. Let them do their thing in the street, they’re paid to do it, but nobody’s really serious about it.” You would think that making it public and letting everybody know what’s happening, you’d think that’d be enough to take all the energy out of it. But it looks like they’re just going to clomp ahead and maybe it doesn’t make any difference.
Ukraine and Russia
There’s an alleged shooter at a Texas ice facility that I heard separately had already been taken down, so I think he’s already dead. I don’t know the details of that, it just happened.
According to The Gateway Pundit, Argentina loosened up their supply of housing by reducing some ridiculous government regulations on housing, and it resulted in 88% growth in supply. Then the prices of housing went down by as much as 29%. So supply and demand works every time. Would you agree? How many of you would agree with that statement? That over time, supply and demand works every time. So all they did was change some regulations that increased the supply of housing, and prices went down 29%. Exactly the way that’s supposed to work. So we all agree, right? Supply and demand works every time.
I know I’m setting you up. I know I am. Next story: Brian Johnson, who you might know as the gentleman who’s trying to live forever, figuring out how to maximize human life, mentions in a post today that alcohol is the highest margin product that restaurants sell. According to his numbers, he said food has a 28 to 35% margin, beer 75 to 80%, wine 65 to 75%, and cocktails and spirits have an 80 to 90% margin. That would mean that supply and demand doesn’t work, right? I used to own a couple of restaurants and it was a competitive restaurant environment, meaning that if you wanted something like California cuisine and you wanted to sit where there was table service, there were quite a few choices in a five-mile radius. You had all kinds of choices. Do you think that the people who went to my bar were unaware of what our prices were compared to the alternatives? The answer is: people who go to bars and sit in a bar, if they’re doing it more than once, they absolutely know the cost of drinks at different bars. How do I know? Because they talked about it continuously. They would talk about it all the time. “Well, Scott, it seems that your drink is 7.55 and I don’t know why I’d pay 7.55.” I’m just making that up. But yeah, they were hyper-aware of the cost of drinks and beer and wine and stuff. So what do you think in that competitive environment, what do you think was the margin differences between food and alcohol? No real difference. The margin for food and the margin for alcohol in my restaurants were about the same. Because do you know why? Supply and demand is real. Supply and demand. The only way you could charge like a 90% markup on well drinks—like cocktails and spirits—is if the people had no idea what your competition was charging for the same thing. Because somebody would lower their price because you have all that room to lower your price. Somebody would have done it for competitive reasons. So one of the most basic things you’ve believed all your life is that you could charge a big margin on alcohol and that’s how you make the real money in a restaurant. The only way that could work is if supply and demand doesn’t work in this one place, but only this one place in all the world. In all the world, it’s the only place that supply and demand doesn’t work. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do not believe that supply and demand stopped working in one place, and it didn’t look like it to me.
New news on Ukraine: Trump says the Russian economy’s in big trouble. He said a lot about Ukraine yesterday. He thinks the Russian economy’s in big trouble and that there are gas lines. We don’t know how big the gas lines are. And he says that Ukraine, with our help, is in a position to win the war outright. Suddenly, the tone from Trump has changed from “we’re going to hang in there as long as possible and try to make a peace deal.” Apparently, that just makes you look weak and makes Putin say, “Oh, well, if the only thing you can do is hang in there and we can chew away at you, we’ll just keep chewing away because it doesn’t look like you have any offense.” Well, Trump is now saying that Ukraine is nearing a position—now remember, this is Trump hyperbole, so you have to put it in context—nearing a point where they could take back the territory that Russia has already gained. Nobody says that’s possible. Trump says it now. What does Trump know that you and I don’t know where he would change from the most reasonable position—which is, well, the front line isn’t really going to move—to “it looks like they might be able to take back all that territory”? But wait, because it’s Trump, he went further than that and maybe take some of Russia’s land. He went all the way to, “And they might get a little extra. They might take more than they lost while they’re at it.”
Of course, that’s the most provocative thing you can say. But he said, and then he said, Russia’s fighting three and a half years in a war that would have taken a “real military power” less than a week to win. Ouch. Is that helping? Does it help to mock Russia’s military prowess? I don’t know if that helps. It might. Trump has good instincts, so maybe it is the right play. I don’t know how, but maybe it is.
Zelensky is saying something positive. He said that Trump possesses very important information regarding the situation at the front. Trump possesses it? What does Trump possess that the rest of us don’t possess? What does he know about the front? Because the way he’s talking suggests that Ukraine has some kind of military advantage we’re not aware of. Do you remember what I’ve been telling you? That this will very rapidly turn into an all-robot war. If you ask me, what could possibly be what Trump is referring to, it could be that some massively well-capable set of robots and drones is heading toward the front line and some of it’s already arrived. So it could be that you’re going to see a robot drone war really fast, and it’s going to be massive and it’s going to be on the front lines. So that’s what I was expecting. I didn’t know when, but I can’t imagine that there would be anything else that would change Trump’s position. Because nobody’s talking about sending boots on the ground, nobody’s talking about Russia running out of military stuff, right? The only thing that I can think of that’s a variable that could change that much that fast would be how many drones and robots we can deliver to the front line. And I’ve got a feeling there’s a big batch of that coming, so we’ll see.
Russian fuel exports are dropping and apparently 16 of Russia’s 38 refineries have been hit since the start of August. Now, that doesn’t mean that they’re offline, but they’re taking hits on the regular, including the biggest one. And so the strikes have disrupted more than a million barrels a day of Russia’s refining capacity. Again, I don’t know what percentage that is. And this is something Zelensky said: “Once the number of drones matches the Russians, they will feel the fuel shortage and losses. We already see this increasingly; more drones are reaching the targets.” Zelensky is talking about the number of drones they have. Maybe that’s it. It could be the world’s biggest drone force is coming online in Ukraine and we might not hear about it until after they attack. But I’ve got a feeling the size of the drone force will be bigger than anything we’ve ever seen.
Final Thoughts and Locals
There are 22 Republican Attorneys General from 22 states calling on Trump to fight the European Union’s DEI and ESG regulations. I almost forgot that DEI and ESG are still a thing because it dissipated so quickly in the United States. Nobody wants to talk about it because it puts a target on your back. But the Europeans apparently are still requiring it and the United States has to go hard at that. We have to do whatever it takes to disable that. If we’re required to do DEI and ESG just to do business with Europe, we should stop doing business with Europe. That is just a bar that we should not even try to cross. I don’t know how easily we could disengage from Europe, but if they really, really require us to do DEI—in other words, if they require us to be racist in order to do business with them—I say no. I say no. We’re not going to be racist just to do business with you f’ing racists. So back it up. Good luck. Sorry about NATO; we’re taking our funding away. I would take NATO funding away before I would agree to this ESG and DEI stuff. That’s way too far.
In other news, in Obama’s administration, they put $2.2 billion into a solar plant, but it wasn’t the regular solar panel kind. It was the kind that uses mirrors and reflects the light up to a super hot tower. They superheat the tower and I think that heats some steam that causes some electricity. But the problem is, it causes essentially a super hot beam of light to go from the mirror that’s on the ground to the tower in a bunch of different directions. If a bird flies through that invisible—I mean, you can’t see it, it’s just invisible—flies through it, it just fries immediately. Apparently, 6,000 birds are fried annually through that one thing. And I’m thinking, maybe they’re going to move that to the front line of Ukraine and say, “Oh no, it’s just—don’t worry about it, it’s just a power plant. No, no, it’s just green power.” And then all the Russian drones go tzzzzt as they fly through. No, that’s not going to happen. But that apparently failed and they’re just going to shut it down. Once again, Trump has a good week; they have a bad week.
ZeroHedge is reporting that the Trump administration wants to take a 10% equity stake in Lithium Americas, a lithium company. And there’s some reason for that—the government’s doing something that would be worth it to them to give up some equity. I’m completely in favor of this. And those of you who say, “But Scott, that’s what fascists do—the government and the big companies work as one”—to which I say, no, they don’t. No, they don’t. They don’t take 10% equity in companies. That’s not what fascists do. I mean, if they do, it’s certainly not the active ingredient of what a fascist is. It’s just a good idea. As a taxpayer, why should we give money away when we can get a little equity, don’t you think?
Wow, I nailed it. I was trying to shoot for 8:00 a.m. stop time, which would be 11 on the East Coast. Nailed it. Now, I do that without looking at a clock, so I hope you’re impressed. Nailed it. It’s exactly 8:00. I’m going to say a few words privately to the wonderful, beloved members of Locals. The rest of you, thanks for joining. We’ll talk to you again tomorrow, same time, same place. And Locals, I’ll be there privately in 30 seconds.