Dec. 3, 2018 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
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| Hey everybody! | |
| Hey Martin. Hey other people whose names I don't see yet. | |
| Sharona, always here early. | |
| Duncan. It's good to see all of you. | |
| Really good to see you. | |
| So good that it makes me want to have a simultaneous sip with you all. | |
| Yes, it's time to raise your mug, your cup, your glass, your stein, your chalice, your container with your favorite beverage. | |
| I like coffee. | |
| And it's time to bring it to your lips and enjoy the simultaneous sip. | |
| Oh yeah, that's good simultaneous sipping. | |
| Some of the best this morning so far. | |
| So, you may have noticed that the news gets kind of boring toward the end of the year. | |
| And so there's not as much happening. | |
| But I'll tell you what is happening. | |
| One of the things that strikes me when I'm watching all the coverage about George H.W. Bush's passing... | |
| Is the story about him being shot down in World War II. And there's this scene caught on video, if you haven't seen it, it's just sort of amazing, that young George Bush, he was a pilot, his plane gets shot down, he bails out until he ends up in the ocean, and he's rescued by a submarine. | |
| Now, I don't know, did he have a tracker on him of some kind? | |
| Or was he just so lucky that he came down in the only place that there was a submarine, an American submarine, to catch him, to rescue him? | |
| Now, I also think about Bob Dole. | |
| Bob Dole, a great senator, ran for president, and had also been shot down in World War II, I think. | |
| And, you know, had a bad injury on his arm, etc. | |
| And then John McCain, who also almost became president, or at least ran for president, and he had also been shot down. | |
| Now what's interesting is you saw that President Trump was not so friendly to... | |
| Not too friendly to... | |
| Why did I just blank on his name? | |
| So he liked George H.W. Bush... | |
| But he wasn't friendly to McCain. | |
| Now, both of them were pilots and both of them got shot down. | |
| Both of them were military heroes. | |
| But do you remember what Trump said about McCain when he was joking about him? | |
| He said, I prefer people who don't get caught. | |
| And then sure enough, he didn't go to his funeral. | |
| And now people are saying, well, you know, at least President Trump is going to go to the funeral of George H.W. Bush. | |
| To which I say, well, at least he's being consistent. | |
| George H.W. Bush was a war hero who didn't get caught. | |
| So, I might be the only person who's classless enough to mention that, but at least he's being consistent. | |
| Now, one of the things that I really love about the George H.W. Bush situation, right, of course nobody's happy that he passed, But if you reach age 96 and you've been president and you've been head of the CIA, | |
| you've been a war hero, you've been in Congress, you've been ambassador to China and made a big difference in China, if you've done all of those things, what a life you've had, a life of service in particular. | |
| But the coolest part of the story Doesn't it seem like we needed him to do one last mission? | |
| I think people are talking about it this way, but it feels like George H.W. Bush had one more mission, to try to bring the country together for a minute. | |
| So his death has this weirdly unexpected quality to it. | |
| That he created such a powerful legacy of being a decent guy. | |
| Forget about what he did as president, all of his other accomplishments, which are, of course, worthy of respect. | |
| But if you think about, forget about all of that, what do people talk about when they talk about him? | |
| It's very interesting how they talk about him. | |
| They talk about him As being such a great guy. | |
| Like just the highest level of character and honor and service and all those things. | |
| And he was a one-term president, but I don't think people hold that against him so much. | |
| And it feels like... | |
| It feels like he's just got this one last mission to bring the country together at the end of the year here. | |
| So there's something poetic about it that's hard to miss. | |
| Let's talk about the China deal. | |
| Now, you probably saw that the United States and the White House said that President Xi had agreed to make all the classes of fentanyl. | |
| There are a bunch of varieties of them. | |
| All of them classified at the highest level of illegal drug in China. | |
| So that they can crack down on them. | |
| And cracking down on them in this context means the death penalty because that's the maximum penalty and that's what they allegedly had agreed to do. | |
| Now, that's what we announced. | |
| What China announced in terms of what they had or had not agreed to about fentanyl is more of a we'll look into it kind of a situation. | |
| Now this should not surprise you because it feels like whenever two big powers make an agreement, they present it differently. | |
| China probably wants to maintain some options, you know, keep it on the negotiating leverage part of the equation so that they haven't given anything away. | |
| And they're like, yeah, yeah, we agreed to do that, but only if you do this other stuff. | |
| So here's what you should expect. | |
| You should expect China to not do what the United States announced. | |
| So my best prediction is that China will not, in any timely fashion, pursue making it a banned substance. | |
| It just won't happen. | |
| So regardless of what they agreed to in that meeting, I believe they will drag their feet and they'll keep dangling that out there. | |
| It's like, well, you could reach an agreement with us and that fentanyl certainly would decrease. | |
| There'd be a lot less fentanyl if you just made a deal with us on soybeans or whatever the hell they're talking about. | |
| So you should expect that China absolutely will not act on fentanyl in a timely basis. | |
| That's what I would expect. | |
| But probably there's good news ahead eventually when we get a trade deal. | |
| You should also expect, as I've told you lots of times before, that the good news we're hearing about a trade, what they call it, a truce, meaning that we've agreed to not raise tariffs on a bunch of stuff as long as we're productively engaging with them. | |
| You should expect that that won't work out. | |
| So the next 90 days, the odds of actually wrapping up a trade deal with China in 90 days, probably close to zero, is my guess. | |
| You know, anything's possible. | |
| But if I had to put odds on it, I'd say close to zero. | |
| And the reason is that the nature of this negotiation It's like many other negotiations I've been personally involved in and others that I've observed. | |
| Somebody said, why so pessimistic? | |
| I'm not pessimistic. | |
| I'm telling you that things are working in exactly the right direction. | |
| It's just that the speed with which you hope it will happen is probably not even close. | |
| So if you're thinking to yourself, ah, I think we're going to have something in three months, Probably zero chance of that. | |
| Six months? Six months maybe. | |
| I think maybe six months, possibly. | |
| But 90 days? | |
| Almost zero. And you should also expect that there will be times between now and the time we get an agreement when things will look much worse. | |
| It will look like we're never going to have an agreement. | |
| So you should expect that to happen. | |
| All of this should be expected in the process. | |
| It should be, oh, we got good news. | |
| Nope, it's impossible. | |
| Looks like we got a little good news. | |
| No, no, no, it's impossible. | |
| Wait, wait, I think we, no, it's impossible. | |
| And then, boop, you got a deal. | |
| So the normal arc of a deal like this is we should go through at least a few more phases where we're sure it can't get done. | |
| Or that it's just impossible in some way. | |
| But we will get it done. | |
| That's just the psychology of big deals. | |
| Now I thought it was interesting that China is sending us fentanyl and we're sending them soy. | |
| I'm just going to leave that there for a moment. | |
| You can write your own jokes in your head. | |
| Yes, China is sending us fentanyl, and we're sending them soy. | |
| Now, some people have suggested that they're really sending us all this fentanyl for sort of long-term, clever military reasons where they're weakening our country by getting us all addicted to these drugs. | |
| But what is soy doing to their military readiness? | |
| I ask you. Now my understanding of soy is that if you eat some of it, it's probably pretty good for you. | |
| Like most things, if you eat too much of it, Well, if you do too much of anything, you can get yourself into some trouble, right? | |
| And the reason the soy protects you from cancer is that it mimics or somehow works compatibly with estrogen. | |
| So the best way to avoid... | |
| To avoid cancer if you're a man is to chemically change yourself into a woman, I think. | |
| Your tumors will grow a lot slower if you don't have testosterone as a dominant chemistry. | |
| Now, somebody said opposite. | |
| I did a little looking online to see if I could find out. | |
| Somebody says, please do not spread soy myths. | |
| So that's what I'm going to talk about. | |
| So I can't tell by reading up online if soy is good or bad for me. | |
| It does seem That there's some amount of it that's probably more good than bad, and there's some larger amount of it where there's some question. | |
| So I don't think that's a myth, right? | |
| It's a true statement that people who know about science and nutrition would tell you, well, don't do too much. | |
| So WebMD put it that way. | |
| So I would consider WebMD One of the more reliable sources for this sort of stuff, for medical stuff. | |
| And their article on it said, yeah, you could eat it for dinner, but I'd be a little careful about eating it for three meals a day. | |
| Now, is there any other food like that that you can think of that people are telling you, I wouldn't eat it three meals a day, except for maybe something that makes you overweight? | |
| It's kind of unique that way. | |
| I can tell you that when I was eating lots of soybeans, because they're really tasty, I didn't feel right. | |
| I'll also tell you that I started looking at labels to try to figure out what things have soy in it so I could make sure I don't get too much, because I get plenty of protein from other sources. | |
| So I started looking at labels, and do you know what packaged products Have soy in them. | |
| Almost all of them. | |
| Soy is in just about everything that's got a package on it. | |
| It's in practically everything with a can that isn't just one ingredient. | |
| And you almost can't avoid it. | |
| Try to buy salad dressing. | |
| Just go to the store and go to the salad dressing section and just look at the labels in the salad dressing. | |
| There's soy in every one. | |
| Every one of them. Soy is everywhere. | |
| So, the recommendation is don't get too much soy. | |
| And, oh yes, sugar would be the same. | |
| Sugar would be in the same category that a little bit wouldn't hurt you, but a lot is bad for you. | |
| It's really hard to get a soy-free diet. | |
| So let me summarize before I get sued by the soy people. | |
| I'm not giving you any authoritative medical or other opinion on soy. | |
| I would not know if it's good or bad. | |
| I have no way of knowing. And therefore, I'm not going to tell you what you should or should not eat. | |
| I'm saying this as my statement to not get sued. | |
| But I can give you my opinion. | |
| My opinion is I stay away from it. | |
| So I wonder how much soy shipped to China would change their military readiness. | |
| Would they have less military readiness as some degree of soy consumption? | |
| Just a question. | |
| I'm not saying it's a problem, because I wouldn't know. | |
| I have no information. I just think it's funny that they're sending us fentanyl and we're sending them soy. | |
| The world's a funny place sometimes. | |
| Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but there isn't anything else interesting going on. | |
| So... | |
| Somebody says, you're being reckless, Scott. | |
| Is it reckless to say that I have no authoritative information that soil will hurt you, which is true, but that you can't get a clear answer by researching it? | |
| If you can't get a clear answer about whether something's good for you, what are you going to do? | |
| What is the smart thing to do if it's unclear whether it's good for you? | |
| Well, if you have alternatives that are completely clear, somebody said, did I get the flu shot? | |
| I did not, but I'm considering it. | |
| Let's talk about the wall. | |
| and Yeah. How many of you would be angry at the president? | |
| Let's say those of you who want a wall. | |
| So you're pro-wall. | |
| If the president gets $5 billion for the wall, and it's enough to start, would you be happy with it? | |
| How would you feel with $5 billion for the wall, as opposed to $25 billion, which would be the full amount? | |
| Do your research on flu shots. | |
| Well, my understanding of flu shots is that on any given year, the formula that they concoct may be close to useless, but gives you some protection. | |
| So it might be 10% protection on some year, it might be much greater on another year, because they can't quite predict which flu is going to be the big one. | |
| I think that's the problem. | |
| So they only prepare it for the flu they expect to come, not the flu that they don't expect to come. | |
| Yeah, something's better than nothing. | |
| So if it's true that it gives you 10% protection and the risk is mortal, like, you know, at my age, they tell you you could die from it. | |
| So that might be worth it. | |
| Uh-oh. Yeah, I'm just looking at your answers now about the five billion. | |
| So most of you seem to think five billion would at least satisfy you that the president was serious and effective in making something like a wall happen. | |
| So, yeah. Okay. | |
| So people seem to think five billion would get it done. | |
| Well, I would expect that we should be able to get five billion. | |
| This seems doable. | |
| Alright, well, I don't have anything to talk about because there's no news. | |
| All of this stuff with Michael Cohen and all of the legal stuff about Mueller, does it seem to you that we've been through this continuous cycle of, you know, now we've got him because this person is talking? | |
| Doesn't it feel like you've just been jacked around for 18 months with, ah, we got the president now, and it's nothing? | |
| All right, French riots. So I've been watching some of the footage of the French riots. | |
| They're pretty scary. There's a lot going on there. | |
| But I don't really get the importance of the French riots. | |
| Correct me if I'm wrong, aren't they? | |
| They're mad about a gas tax? | |
| So that's like the most boring thing in the world to be mad about. | |
| I don't think the government is going to be overthrown by people who don't want a gas tax. | |
| Maybe, but it feels like a lot of noise and smoke and cars burning up, but I don't know that any of it makes any difference in the long run. | |
| But maybe I'm missing something. | |
| Maybe there's something more happening in France than I understand, which is totally possible. | |
| So, how much does Cohen really know about the Trump Organization deals in Russia? | |
| I feel like Cohen feels like the guy who was always just slightly on the outside. | |
| Maybe I'm wrong here, but it feels like Cohen wasn't exactly on the inner circle. | |
| He was sort of on the outside of the inner circle, just doing some stuff that other people didn't want to do. | |
| I don't think he knows anything. | |
| How much would Michael Cohen actually know about what the actual decision makers in the Trump Organization, let's say Don Jr., probably more important to any decisions about new projects than anybody else. | |
| How much did Michael Cohen know about the real inner workings of the Trump Organization? | |
| I'm not sure it was that much. | |
| I guess I would be surprised If Cohen knew anything. | |
| Wouldn't you? Do you think Michael Cohen knows anything? | |
| And then there's the Jerome Corsi stuff. | |
| Apparently he's now, Jerome Corsi is suing Mueller and Mueller's team for trying to force him to give false testimony. | |
| I didn't even know that was a thing. | |
| You can sue somebody for anything. | |
| There's no limit to how many things you can sue somebody for. | |
| And I looked at that and I thought to myself, well, I don't think he has the greatest chance of prevailing. | |
| But I do love the fact... | |
| The way he's fighting it. | |
| I kind of love the fact that he's going right at their weakness, and their weakness is that the public thinks that they've turned into nothing but a perjury trap. | |
| So I think the president has done a good job of turning at least a third of the country, the people who are likely to be on his side. | |
| I think the president's done a good job of convincing people that the witch hunt is completely illegitimate at this point. | |
| So of course he's going after them. | |
| Does a great job in terms of adding confirmation bias to that, if not confirmation. | |
| So the fact that you're even talking about Jerome Corsi suing Mueller for creating a perjury trap and trying to force him to lie could not be better for President Trump. | |
| It's exactly the story that President Trump wants on the front page every day. | |
| And so I ask myself this, Who is paying for Corsi's lawyers? | |
| Because he may be getting a little help with his lawyers because it doesn't seem like a total coincidence that what he's doing is so positive for Republicans and for the pro-Trump side. | |
| So I've got a feeling that Corsi is becoming a productive part of the persuasion here. | |
| Laura Loomer. Can somebody tell me what Laura Loomer even got in trouble for? | |
| One of the things I do every time somebody gets kicked off of Twitter or gets in trouble, the first thing I do is I say, okay, what did they say? | |
| Or what did they do? | |
| And then I wait for the news to tell me. | |
| Because you would think that if the story is, hey, person X got kicked off of Twitter, What is it that they said? | |
| And then I think, well clearly every time I read the headline about it, or somebody talks about it, or there's a piece on the internet, it will quote what she did wrong, according to Twitter, and then there will be some opinion on it, and then I'll form an opinion. | |
| I have not seen anything. | |
| Is there some reason that everybody keeps asking me, give me your opinion of Laura Loomer, without telling me why I should even have one? | |
| Can anybody give me... | |
| She talked about Sharia. | |
| Everybody talks about Sharia. | |
| What did she say exactly that got her kicked off? | |
| Wasn't she talking about a person? | |
| She was probably talking about a person, right? | |
| Somebody she's opposed to who is pro-Sharia. | |
| Was that it? She criticized a Muslim politician whose name went by. | |
| She criticized a pro-Sharia senator. | |
| Did she kick off For criticizing her or for being incorrect in her criticism? | |
| Was Ilan Omar? | |
| So did she criticize the person? | |
| Or the practice. | |
| So she said somebody was anti-Semitic and called out. | |
| And she called out Farrakhan as anti-Semitic. | |
| So she was kicked off of Twitter for being politically correct. | |
| But she was criticizing somebody else, and so she was politically incorrect in being politically correct. | |
| So she did her political correctness wrong. | |
| So she criticized somebody for being a racist, which normally is considered good behavior, but she did it wrong so she got kicked off. | |
| Yeah. | |
| She had a contrasting tweet between her and Farrakhan. | |
| Yeah. Okay. So... | |
| Yeah. | |
| Here's the thing. | |
| So it sounds to me like what she was accused of was going after somebody's religion. | |
| Is that it? Is it the way she did it which made people say, you're really going after this politician's religion? | |
| You're not going after her for being anti-Semitic. | |
| You're just going after her for her religion. | |
| Is that how they interpreted it? | |
| Yeah. | |
| She complained about the wrong side. - Good. | |
| Yeah, you know, the facts here are all squishy. | |
| Yeah, it's hard to get any purchase on this. | |
| So, I've told you before that I'm largely going to sideline myself on the questions of who's getting kicked off of social media, because I just don't like to associate myself with other people's opinions at that level. | |
| It's a double standard. | |
| Well, we live in a world of double standards. | |
| Trump had a tweet today about ending the arms race. | |
| That sounds boring. | |
| Let me check the president's tweet today about ending the arms race, as somebody just said. | |
| Oops, there he is. | |
| Um... I'm certain that at some time in the future, President Xi and I, this is President Trump tweeting, together with President Putin of Russia will start talking about a meaningful halt to what has become a major and uncontrollable arms race. | |
| The US spent $716 billion this year. | |
| Crazy. You know, doesn't it seem to you I don't think I've ever said this in public before, but I'll say it now. | |
| You know, countries like to make lots of military alliances to stay safe. | |
| It's a very normal thing. | |
| Countries make military alliances. | |
| What would be the most intelligent military alliance for the United States to make? | |
| It makes me wonder if the best military alliance wouldn't be the US, China, and Russia. | |
| And then NATO. I guess throw NATO in there. | |
| Shouldn't the big military powers be on the same side? | |
| Because here's the situation. | |
| The big military powers are really not going to ever attack each other. | |
| It's just not going to happen. | |
| But all of the military risk for the big powers are coming from smaller countries. | |
| They get a nuke, they have terrorists, that sort of thing. | |
| It feels to me like the most natural military alliance would be the biggest military powers just saying, hey, why are we on opposite teams when there's no chance we'll fight each other? | |
| Why would you spend $760 billion, much of that, to oppose the only countries you're not ever going to get in a fight with? | |
| You're not ever going to have a major war with Russia, unless you're just suicidal. | |
| You're not ever going to have a major war with China, and they with us. | |
| Why don't we just say, well look, the three of us are never going to attack each other. | |
| Why don't we stop wasting money acting like we are, and at least militarily, Make sure that we're making sure other countries don't get nukes and come after one of us. | |
| Now, I realize how simplistic and unrealistic that is, but it's one of those questions that every once in a while you have to stop and ask yourself why we're on the other team. | |
| Because if you can't beat each other, And that's the situation, right? | |
| We can't beat China. | |
| China can't beat us. We can't beat Russia without being destroyed. | |
| If you can't beat them, what are you supposed to do? | |
| Join them, right? If you can't beat them, join them. | |
| There's a reason that's an old saying, because it's the only rational thing to do. | |
| Why would you fight with somebody you can't beat? | |
| That's the most irrational thing you could possibly do. | |
| Now, in the old days, before there were nuclear weapons, etc., in the old days, Two countries could be at each other because they both think they could win or they think the other one could win and they don't want to be beaten. | |
| So it seems like the whole idea of having an enemy depends on the notion that one of you could win a war. | |
| If you take away the notion that either of you could ever win, Why would you ever be militarily against each other? | |
| To what end would you do that other than theater? | |
| It's just complete theater. | |
| And so it seems to me that you could almost imagine a grand deal that changes civilization forever, in which you say, hey you big countries who have nukes, let's agree that all the countries with the big power are on the same team. | |
| Let's just be on the same team. | |
| Let's figure what each other wants. | |
| And let's at least stop using cyber stuff against each other. | |
| Because there's just no good that comes out of it. | |
| It seems to me that if China knew that it could have a good future without worrying about us, that would be a good deal. | |
| I don't know. When we talk about China becoming a major power in 20-whatever, and that China wants to dominate the world, why do you think China wants to dominate the world? | |
| It's probably a little bit defensive, isn't it? | |
| Do you think that China wants, for no reason whatsoever, to dominate the oceans everywhere in their neighborhood? | |
| Do you think they care about dominating the ocean because we dominate an ocean? | |
| Look at us, how awesome we are to dominate an ocean. | |
| Do you think they care about the ocean? | |
| I don't think so. | |
| I think they care about military defensive position, what that does for things. | |
| So I think we're just all oriented in an unproductive way because we're sort of caught in the past. | |
| It feels like There's some new thinking that needs to come around where we just acknowledge that the big countries just aren't going to attack each other. | |
| China should want the United States to be filling its boats in the South China Sea because it probably means we're doing trade and the world is safer because the big powers are not at each other's neck and they can defend against other risks. | |
| So, is it my imagination, or is at least half of our $760 billion spent for psychological reasons alone? | |
| It's not really, it's not even for defense. | |
| How do China and Russia feel about Israel? | |
| I believe China and Russia are both, I don't want to say pro-Israel, but they're not anti-Israel. | |
| My understanding is that Russia and Israel have a fine relationship, and I don't even know what China and Israel are all about. | |
| I think China, because they're not a religious country, I think they either can work with you or they can't, and that's as far as it goes. | |
| And I would imagine that China and Israel probably do business, right? | |
| I don't know much about that part of the world, but I assume they do business, and I'll bet it's not much of a problem. | |
| Somebody... Who is anti-Israel and pro-Hamas? | |
| You're saying China is or Russia is? | |
| Russia supports Israel, yes. | |
| China is not pro-Hamas, is it? | |
| That doesn't make sense. | |
| Um... Yeah. | |
| So... Alright. | |
| I've got nothing else to say, so I'm going to say goodbye for today. |
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