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Oct. 20, 2019 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
48:57
Episode 699 Scott Adams: The End of “News”, Healthcare Math Puzzle, Kurds of Course and More
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Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum Hey, Georgia Hey, everybody.
Coffee 2020, you're always quick.
Good to see you. Kevin, good morning.
Well, you know what time it is?
Check your wrist.
Oh, yeah! It's coffee o'clock.
It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams and...
The famous simultaneous sip.
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If you have not enjoyed the simultaneous sip, what have you been doing with your life besides wasting it?
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All you need Shivers.
Shiver my timbers.
Some stuff that's happened.
Somebody sent me a message and I cannot verify that this is accurate.
But the general concept is accurate.
So I'm going to tell you this and just keep it as a general concept.
So I'm informed and please fact check this.
That there's something called a Belafonte nuclear power plant that was supposed to be built in northern Alabama, but they halted construction some years ago.
So they started to build a nuclear power plant, and then they halted construction.
And somebody on LinkedIn suggested that that would be a good place to put a Generation 4 nuclear plant, something like TerraPower.com.
Bill Gates' company that he invests in.
Maybe that would be a good place for them.
Now, in general, a place where a regular standard nuclear power plant already exists or used to exist are the perfect places to put a generation for more of a test site.
You know, it might take a while to refine that.
But I don't see a problem With finding locations.
It feels like it's the most solvable problem in the world.
And my understanding is that Rick Perry's energy department has actually done a lot to boost nuclear and to try to make it easier to get licenses.
So they're actually doing a lot behind the scenes.
It doesn't get a lot of attention.
But you might see nuclear power plants get approved more easily if there's some success in getting rid of the red tape.
All right. So there's an interesting video clip going around that shows a split screen and it shows some politicians such as Nancy Pelosi making some statements relative to the headlines.
And then showing that the news organizations just parrot the language so that you can see that the Democrats and at least some news organizations are working together.
It's obvious that they're getting the same memos, they have the same talking points, etc.
Now, I used to think, well, that doesn't mean much.
It just means... We're good to go.
But now it's getting a little bit more obvious that it's coordinated, meaning that whether or not there's an actual conversation about it, you can see that the news organizations adopt the language of preferred politicians, and they ignore language of less preferred politicians.
Let me give you an example of how language, the actual words you choose, can change reality.
All right? So here's an article in Reason.
So Reason, go to Reason.com to see them.
Reason is sort of a libertarian, free-thinking, neither left nor right organization where they're trying pretty hard.
To stick to facts and reasons.
So you would expect, in a publication called Reason, that you would get as close as you could get to some kind of an unbiased, you know, points of view.
So there's an article in here now, I guess it went in on October 14th, by Shika Dalmia, and here's what it says.
Kurds have been staunch allies in America's struggle against ISIS. Kurds have been staunch allies in America's struggle against ISIS. First of all, is that a true statement?
Yeah. That's a true statement.
The Kurds have been staunch allies in America's struggle against ISIS. So it's completely true.
But... Here's another way you could say the same thing.
Somebody else on Twitter said this.
How come most people are of the opinion that somehow the US adopted the Kurds, not just partner with them for a time against a common enemy?
Both statements stick to the facts.
You know, one is in question form, one is in statement form, but they're opposites.
They both use the same observed facts But they're pretty close to opposites.
That's a scary thing, isn't it?
Because the way you word it can be completely accurate and also opposite of reality at the same time.
So here's my take on it.
Whether you call the Kurds our staunch allies that have helped America in its struggle as if it's America's battle with ISIS and not the Kurds' shared battle, Is it not true that the Kurds had a bigger problem with ISIS than we did because neighbors?
If ISIS lived in your town, would you be more or less concerned about them than if they were on the other side of the world?
It seems to me that America helped the Kurds with their struggle against ISIS. It just happened to be something that was good for us too.
So It's just shocking that something called a reason could have an opening sentence that the Kurds have been helping America in its struggle against ISIS. I'm pretty sure everybody was against ISIS, except ISIS. Indeed, the entire world has a struggle against ISIS because ISIS wants to attack the entire world.
So I'm pretty sure that there was a shared Goal there.
And here's my question.
Here's my question about the whole Kurd, Turkey, Syria situation.
Who can tell me, or what news has reported, what we officially, meaning the United States or anybody acting as a proxy for the government, so that could include a general, You know, somebody in the military who was operating over there.
What official promises has the United States ever made to the Kurds in terms of long-term alliance or protection?
Has anybody ever reported that?
Because it would make a big difference to me if, let's say, there was a general who said, look, Kurds, we're going to work together with this, and we promise you, on the honor of the United States, that if you help us with this, we'll stay here forever, or we'll protect you, or we'll do this or that, whatever it is.
What was it? Because if we didn't promise them anything...
They just made an assumption that because we helped them in one situation, that we were there for them for all future situations.
That would feel different than if we had made them a direct promise and then changed our mind.
Because a lot of people are talking about the honor of America and our credibility.
But doesn't that matter what we promised?
Is there a written agreement?
Was there a verbal agreement?
I would say we should honor a verbal agreement if there's some evidence that such a thing was made.
So without that reporting, how can you have a good opinion about whether we're selling out the Kurds?
If you have a strong opinion about whether we're selling them out or we're just pursuing our national self-interest and it shouldn't surprise them at all, if you have a strong opinion on that, you shouldn't.
Because there's a piece of information missing.
Nobody ever told you what we promised them, or who it was that made the promise.
Have you ever seen that reporting?
I haven't.
So I would say if you have a strong opinion that we should honor our promise, but you don't know if we ever made a promise, maybe you should dial back your certainty of your opinion.
So Kamala Harris was talking to CNN's Anderson Cooper, and there's a video clip going around semi-virally, in which Anderson Cooper asked her what laws Rudy Giuliani in which Anderson Cooper asked her what laws Rudy Giuliani had broken specifically, because Kamala mentioned the many laws that he's broken.
them.
So Anderson Cooper says, what laws are you talking about specifically?
And Kamala Harris responded, and I quote, well, I, I, I don't know.
This is after she had stated as fact that Rudy Giuliani had broken a bunch of laws.
Which laws? I don't know.
Now, she did go on to add some context that turned breaking laws into something more like behavior I wish hadn't happened, but not exactly broken laws.
So, we've reached a point where the Democrats are making claims of fact that are so wildly not in evidence Is there anything you can't say anymore?
I think we've reached the point where you could literally say anything about anyone.
I mean, half of the news is somebody being accused of being a pedophile because they knew a guy who was one.
And it seems like guilt by association is the new standard of justice here.
So there's a new report that Rudy Giuliani made half a million dollars in fees from some Ukrainian guy who got arrested.
Because their company is in trouble for some reason.
Now that's reported as if that's a problem for Rudy Giuliani.
Like that means that he's somehow broken law.
But there's nothing like that in evidence.
The only evidence is that he once got paid, or at least once, got paid by somebody who broke a law.
That describes just about half of the lawyers in the United States.
No, probably 75%.
Don't 75% of all lawyers, at some point in their career, take money from somebody who committed terrible crimes?
Because half of them are defending people who were guilty and they're taking money for doing that.
And then at least half of the other half are dealing with corporations and rich clients who probably also are breaking a few laws.
They just haven't been caught.
So lawyers taking money from people who are criminals is normal.
It's the most normal thing in our system.
But somehow it's turned into a crime because it's Rudy and it's political season and all that.
I'm not saying that anybody else in the world has never committed a crime.
I'm just saying that if guilt by association is the new standard, we're in bad shape.
How many times have you seen somebody accused of something just because they spend time with somebody?
Yeah, Epstein is the perfect example.
Here's an example for you, so you can add this to your list.
I once had a neighbor that, you know, I went over to the house, we spent time with him, you know, my ex-wife and I were friends.
Turns out he was the biggest pedophile in my town, and he went to jail for 15 years.
But for several years, he was my neighbor.
He would come over to parties.
We'd hang out with him and see him on the street.
We even had family connections, etc.
He just happened to be the biggest pedophile in the town.
I didn't know that. I didn't know that at the time.
And his son was one of my, you know, one of the guys I hung out with a lot, played ping pong with him.
He was a teenager, but he was really good at ping pong and it was hard for me to find anybody that good.
So I would play, you know, his son all the time in ping pong.
And that didn't turn me into a pedophile, turns out.
You can associate with people who themselves have committed crimes Without actually acquiring their crime.
It doesn't work like that.
All right. So, let me talk about something else.
Let's talk about the wall.
CNN has an article, an opinion article, and this is the important part.
It's on CNN. All right?
I'm just looking at your comment.
You're commenting on exactly what I'm going to talk about.
So CNN has an opinion article that says the wall is working and Mexico is paying for it.
And do you know why CNN has an opinion article that says the wall is working and Mexico is paying for it?
It's because the wall is working and Mexico is paying for it.
Now, the way they're paying for it is by, they have 27,000 Mexican troops amassed at their own southern border to keep the caravans from coming across Mexico, which has the effect of keeping them from getting to the United States.
So, indeed, Mexico is spending a tremendous amount of money to protect their border, which has the effect of protecting our border, and we ask them to do it.
So, I think CNN is accurately stating that the way they put it is some say Mexico already built Trump's wall.
But they're not really debunking it, which is the important thing here.
They're not saying some say Mexico is paying for the wall, but we say that's not true.
That part's missing.
They just sort of say, looks like Mexico is paying for the wall, some say, and they let that stand as a fact and evidence.
But apparently the actual wall is also being built and they're putting it in the places that it matters most.
So some people are going to say, ha ha ha, Mr.
President, you only built, I don't know, 5% or 10% of that wall you promised us.
Well, here's the thing.
How much benefit do you get from the first 5 or 10%?
Depends where you put it, right?
If we put the first 5 or 10% of the wall in the places that we know with complete certainty it's needed the most, does 10% of a wall only help you reduce 10% of the problem?
No, it's probably a lot more.
Probably if you get the most important crossing points, Maybe you get half of it.
Maybe 10% of a wall gets you a 50% reduction in crossing.
Now, I'm not claiming that as a fact.
I'm saying that if we're working on the most important places first, we should get a lot of bang for the buck.
And I would say it's objectively true that Trump kept his promise on the border wall, number one, by never giving up on it.
Trump never gave up on the wall.
He tried pushing every door, every legal challenge, every budget trick, and some of them seemed to be working.
So he's actually building a wall.
And it's now passed into the realm of fact.
Because here's a little trick for you.
I write about this in my book.
In my book, LoserThink, which is available for pre-order, and you really should get it before they're all sold out.
Well, we're not going to sell them all.
We'll make more. The point is, people are already talking about this.
Talk about a book that's in the perfect time.
Have you noticed that almost everybody is talking about people being in news silos and trapped in their own interpretation?
And this is the only book That teaches you how to get out.
How about that? Loser think.
So get your copy and you will learn how to get yourself out of your bubble if you're in one.
And how to get other people out of their bubble if they're in one.
So here's one of the tricks in the book.
If a fact is reported the same on the left-leaning news and the right-leaning news, it's probably a fact.
If something is reported as a fact on only one side, only the left or only the right, and I like to use CNN and Fox News as my two standards, you could use Breitbart and MSNBC. It's going to look similar for this point.
If they both agree on a fact, it's probably a fact.
So now CNN... He ran this opinion piece and says, yeah, it looks like this wall is working, immigration or illegal crossings down, Mexico is paying a lot to help us protect the border.
Looks like Trump's winning.
I would call that a fact, because that's now being reported essentially the same on Fox and CNN. That's a fact.
Name some things that are reported on only one network as fact and the other one says it's not.
Well, how about Russia collusion?
Russia collusion is reported or was reported as basically fact on the left and reported as not a fact on the right.
We waited, we waited, we waited.
Mueller weighed in.
And because, and the rule is holding here, so only one side reported it as fact, and it wasn't a fact.
Sure enough. So, you can use that rule to predict the future.
If you see only half of the country, half of the news reporting it as fact, probably it's not going to be a fact in the long run.
It's a good standard for predicting the future.
All right. Let's talk about...
I'm trying to figure out how to make this interesting.
It's the healthcare cost question.
And the part... I'm not trying to solve healthcare here.
It's too big a topic.
I'm going to drill down on one fact that, if we all understood it, would change how you think about what we should do.
All right? Just one fact.
And here's the fact, or the fact in question, it's not a fact, it's a fact in question, that there's no way that we can afford to cover everybody with health insurance.
Does that sound right?
Does it sound to you, you know, just common sense, do the sniff test, that we can't afford it because it will cost trillions of dollars extra for And that there's not enough money.
Even if you tap rich people through the roof, you still don't have enough money.
So most of you consume news on, I would say, the right-leaning media.
That's a fair guess for most of the audience here on this Periscope.
Most of you are consuming right-leaning media.
And you would consider it a fact, because the right-leaning media tells you this all the time, It's a fact that covering everyone would be too expensive.
There's just no way anybody can make the math work, right?
That's what the right says.
What does the left say?
Well, they kind of say the same thing.
Even CNN asks, you know, Warren and Sanders, how the hell are you going to pay for this?
And they don't get good answers.
Let me drill down a little bit here.
So I think Warren and Bernie both say That their health care plans, which would cover everybody with no deductibles, would cost about $3.5 trillion a year.
So over 10 years, let's say $35 trillion.
You've heard that number before, right?
About $3.5 trillion a year, $35 trillion over 10 years.
Obviously, we can't afford that.
That's what you've heard, right?
Do you know what we currently pay for healthcare in the United States?
We currently pay $3.5 trillion a year.
And over 10 years, we currently, if nothing changes, we'll pay $35 trillion a year.
So let me break that down for you.
Our current costs are $3.5 trillion a year.
Bernie and Elizabeth Warren, because she buys into his plan, are saying, if everybody's covered, it'll cost you $3.5 trillion a year.
Which is true? Is it true that the right-leaning publications say, we can't afford to pay $3.5 trillion a year, or is it true we're already...
Well, Google it for yourself.
We're already paying that.
So, is it true when Bernie says, I can get you universal health care costs at basically the same price as we're already paying collectively, if you count everybody paying everything?
Is that true? Let's drill down.
So I said yesterday that I remembered something like 18% of the public did not have health care insurance.
I looked at that again, and I think partly because of the strong economy, maybe Obamacare had something to do with this.
The current updated number of Americans who do not have health care is closer to 9%.
So 9% of Americans do not have health care.
So Bernie is saying that to cover the extra 9%, he can basically get you there for free.
Is that reasonable?
How do you cover that extra 9% for free?
Where's that money come from?
Where's it go? Well, let's drill down just a little bit.
How much of the 9% who don't have health care insurance, keep in mind that they do have Healthcare, meaning that if they have a serious problem, such as a heart attack or cancer, they get it, and I think the hospital pays for it because they don't have insurance and they can't afford it.
So of the 9%, that's not 9% who don't have any healthcare, that's 9% which is largely already being paid by the system.
So the $3.5 trillion already includes Paying most of the big healthcare, the hospital stuff, for the people who don't have insurance.
So that 9% isn't real.
If you shrunk it down for the amount that we're already paying, they just don't have healthcare insurance, but they do get the healthcare, that 9% is probably closer to 5%.
So could we reduce overall healthcare expenses by 5% If we have the government doing the negotiating, if we remove some market constraints for free market stuff, if we could get our pharmaceuticals from Canada, if we could allow people to compete across the lines, I don't know if that's the thing.
But the point is, If you have a $3.5 trillion budget for healthcare, you can always find 5% savings.
How often can you find a 5% savings in something that costs $3.5 trillion?
100% of the time.
Probably every time.
All you'd have to do is say, hey, everybody, we're going to cut you by 5%.
The healthcare field is so profitable that most entities could take a 5% haircut and they'd still be wildly profitable.
Now, I'm not saying that any of this is practical.
So there are real practical problems because if, let's say, the hospital is already footing the bill for people who don't have insurance, If suddenly there's universal insurance, what are you going to do with the hospital that used to be paying part of that bill?
Do they just get to keep it and it's just profit?
Or do they then lower their costs and everybody wins because they don't have to pay for the uninsured anymore so they can lower their total costs to all the other people who have insurance?
Maybe. Here's my take on it.
Given current numbers that I understand, and this might blow your mind, But the people we're talking about, we can afford universal coverage, appear to be the same ones.
Now, the actual method or system to get there has lots of problems.
Because if you have, you know, government-only insurance, what does that do to competitiveness and innovation?
And, you know, does it stifle innovation?
You know, there are all kinds of problems that have to be worked out.
But the general proposition...
That we don't have the trillions of dollars needed to cover that extra 5% that would get everybody covered seems to not pass the smell test.
Does it to you?
Does it pass the sniff test?
That we can't find a 5% savings in all that healthcare if the government just said, look, the only way to get there to cover everybody is we're going to have to find some way to take 5% out of the expenses.
You don't think we could do that?
That actually feels like one of the easiest things anybody ever did.
My healthcare provider is Kaiser Permanente.
I always say good things about them because they are really leaders in trying to get costs down.
I do the vast majority of my medical stuff I do by email.
I just send an email to my doctor.
The assistant says, oh yeah, doctor says there's a prescription waiting for you at the pharmacy.
Or I can just have it mailed to me.
So How much cheaper is that than going to a doctor?
So imagine you said to...
Let me throw out another idea for you.
Suppose you said to the people who don't have health care that you could have health care, the government will pay for it.
I'm just brainstorming here.
Don't get too caught up on whether this is a good idea or a bad idea.
Suppose we said to the people who don't have health care, you can be covered entirely, but there's one trade-off.
You have to give up all of your medical privacy, not with your name attached.
We'll separate your name from it.
But all of your medical information, including anything we can glean from your lifestyle, will be put in a big database so that we can look at lots of people's treatments and lifestyle and outcome and figure out how to lower costs for everybody.
So if, for example, you had no medical privacy, but we are covering the names, so you're not giving up your name, that's hidden, but your data about your health outcomes is put in a big database, and then we look at it and say, oh, everybody who eats a certain food, they have this gene, maybe we take it, oh, let me go further.
Hello, let me fix this idea totally.
Ready? We say to the 9% who are uninsured, we'll give you free healthcare, the government will pay for it, but here's the trade-off.
You have to give us your DNA and your health outcomes from that day on.
We'll just connect to your database and we'll know what's happening, but we won't know you by name.
We'll know your DNA. We'll know the health outcomes.
If you knew everybody's DNA, could you lower health expenses for that one person, the person whose DNA and lifestyle you know?
Could you lower just their health care costs by 5%?
I'll bet you could.
I'll bet you could.
Because if you knew their DNA, you would know What they're likely to have a problem with and what they're likely not to.
And then you would gear their lifestyle changes to accommodate what risks they have individually.
Now, somebody asked me about illegals.
So everything I'm talking about so far applies to legal residents.
As soon as you throw in immigration, the system falls apart because you can't allow unlimited immigration and also free healthcare.
Those two things can't live together.
You have to pick one.
You can have limited immigration, but you can't give them all free healthcare.
Those can't live in the same country.
Somebody says your DNA automatically identifies you by name.
Yes, that's why I'm saying that you are giving up your privacy.
Because in theory, someday somebody could check your DNA, let's say you get arrested or go to the, I don't know.
They check your DNA, and if they had access to this database, then they could find out all of your other health outcomes.
So it is physically possible that somebody could find out who you are and find out your medical history.
So that's why I say that these people would be giving up their privacy.
In theory, nobody would ever see that information, but you can't guarantee that nobody can ever hack a database, nobody can ever figure out your name from your DNA. You can't guarantee that.
So, that would be the deal.
Give up your privacy, and giving up that privacy for DNA only, and for your health comes only, should be enough.
The healthcare costs for everybody enough That you would save enough money to cover everybody.
Boom! Alright.
Can somebody tell me where does the 5% come from?
The fact that if you had enough people, it doesn't have to be the whole population, but if you had enough people whose DNA you knew and the outcomes and the lifestyle and everything, you would have information and the information alone would lower healthcare costs because you would know to treat people in advance of their cancer.
You would know to give somebody a certain kind of preventive Lifestyle recommendation, etc.
So the 5% which has come from information, better information.
Alright, if somebody has a problem with anything I said, put it in the comments because I'm really interested.
For those of you who are new to my periscopes, let me give you some context.
I often say things with confidence as just part of the presentation without actually knowing what I'm talking about.
So if you think that's happening right now, you might be right.
Incentives are all wrong.
Extra increase in overhead for processing, right?
The group is not representative.
Many are mentally ill.
That's a good point.
So somebody's saying that the people who don't have health care might be expensive ones because they might have mental conditions.
I think the mental health issue has to be treated as almost a separate issue from health care.
It's obviously, it is healthcare, but it feels like we ought to wall that off and say mental health is something we got to fix.
Somebody says we also need to know their gut, the...
I think they're talking about the bacteria in your body.
That's a good point. We probably should know about somebody's bacteria situation.
Do they have the right bacteria or the wrong bacteria?
Don't assume it's a static group.
I don't. Costs are not transparent until after service.
Yeah, so if we simply made all costs more transparent, people would shop for bargains and that would probably save you 5%.
Somebody says drug costs are increasing far faster than 5%.
Yeah, so healthcare costs in general are going up more than 5% a year, historically.
So, under the situation where healthcare costs go up 5% a year no matter what, do you still believe that if you're only adding 5% to the cost of the system to cover everybody, do you think we can't afford that?
It doesn't make sense that it would only take 5% for expense to cover everybody.
Costs go up 5% every year anyway, and people still keep their insurance.
So... Somebody says, will my tax be increased?
That's all I need to know.
That's not all you need to know.
You need to know, will your taxes go up and by how much?
But you also need to know, will your health care costs for you personally go up or down and by how much?
One of the lessons in LoserThink is you have to include the costs and the benefits or else you haven't done an analysis.
If the only thing you've done is look at the costs, Than anything.
You also have to look at the savings and the benefits.
Just looking at all your comments, most of them seem to be supportive of what I've said.
I don't know if I've seen anything yet.
That seems to be contrary to what I've said.
So let me ask you this question.
Given the way I just explained it, 9% don't have insurance, but we're already paying a lot of that, so maybe it's only 5% everybody would have to absorb to pay for all the rest of the people who don't have insurance.
And we could probably squeeze 5% out of the system just by having better transparency on prices, more ability to buy cheap things and shop around and stuff.
Do any of you think we could not achieve universal healthcare with something that looks close to a market system?
In other words, you wouldn't have to be super socialist to get there, because it would cost about the same and end up maybe even the outcome would be similar.
Somebody just says, stop.
Somebody says I would prefer private Medicare for all.
I don't know what that means. Somebody says my girlfriend is pretty hot.
You are correct.
And that is the best comment anybody's made about healthcare today.
Thank you. She keeps me young.
All right. She needs to work harder to keep me young.
I'm still getting older. I'm looking at your comments because I'm very interested to see if I've said something incredibly stupid, but I don't see anybody disagreeing.
So just think about what just happened.
Just let me back up and just raise out of the weeds for a moment.
All right, we're all talking about the details of healthcare.
Just come with me for a moment and just rise up above the weeds and look at, just for a moment, because it's fun, look at the big picture of what just happened in the last few minutes.
Most of you came to this periscope saying, well, there's no way you could cover everybody with healthcare.
There's not enough money in the entire planet.
Right? Didn't most of you come to this periscope believing there wasn't enough money on the planet To give everybody healthcare.
And did I not just convince you with numbers you can Google yourself?
I mean, just go to Google, you can find out everything I just said.
Did I not just explain to you that you're probably being lied to?
That there's...
We almost certainly could get there.
And it probably wouldn't cost more than it costs now.
Now, if you did it wrong, then you've done it wrong.
But in terms of how much money there is in the system, I think we could get there at the same cost.
I'm not seeing anybody disagree with me, and it's sort of blowing my mind.
I really expected a lot of disagreement.
Did I just change 2,000 people's minds?
Because that isn't a thing that can happen.
I don't see... Did something big just happen here?
It feels like something important just happened.
Do you see it?
Is it just me? Because I feel like I just convinced 2,000 people who were positive that healthcare couldn't be accomplished, any kind of universal coverage.
I feel like 2,000 people just said, oh, okay, I see it now.
You could do that. Somebody says, I still think that.
I would not be surprised if there are plenty of people who did not change their mind.
but what I'm not seeing is an objection with my point.
There's some people saying there's really not enough money if the government is running it because the government ruins everything.
And that's not a bad opinion.
You know, it certainly makes sense.
And that would support Buttigieg's view.
So Buttigieg has the view that you don't want to get rid of the private insurance because some people just prefer it.
But you can have at the same time a public option.
And then they would be competing a little bit.
And as the private insurance company spurs innovation, those innovations accrue to the benefit of people who get the public option as well.
Somebody says, you are so wrong.
So the people who say that, I just ignore as useless.
If you would like to be completely useless, just tell me I'm completely wrong and don't give me a reason.
But at least own it.
Just own it. I think I would be, hey, I'm going to make a comment.
It could be useful or it could be completely useless.
Which will I do?
Okay, okay. I think I'll be useless.
Scott, you are totally wrong.
Period. Send. Completely useless.
You didn't do anything today to make the world a better place.
But if you gave me a reason, even if it was a bad reason or anything, it would add to the conversation.
So give me a reason.
You can do it. Alright, that's all I got for today.
Did I miss any big topics that you care about?
But the government doesn't need to run it.
Yeah, I mean, even Pete Buttigieg says the government doesn't need to run healthcare.
Somebody says, I object to your point, but I like it.
Wow. Thoughts on Iran, somebody asked me.
Well, there's nothing new happening in Iran, is there?
It seems to me that Iran is sort of a wait and see.
The thing I don't understand about Iran is how can they afford all this supporting of other militias and supporting of war in Yemen and Hezbollah and supporting, I don't know, whatever they're doing in Syria and Iraq.
How in the world is Iran paying for all this stuff?
I would think by now they couldn't do anything.
So my guess is that we're in a temporary situation in which Iran is still acting as if they have money while they're effectively out of money.
So I think what you would see with Iran is that the sanctions will have no effect, no effect, no effect, no effect, no effect, no effect, no effect, no effect, completely effective.
So I think the sanctions are completely ineffective, Until the very moment, they're completely effective.
So you can't really judge because nothing's happening yet.
It doesn't tell you what's going to happen.
Oh, so yes, I had that on my list and for some reason missed it.
So the President has decided to not have the G7 at Doral, his own property.
So they're looking at Camp David.
Now what I said about Doral is that it was actually a brilliant decision because it put our president in his home field advantage in a way that would set the table and it would have an atmospheric beneficial effect in his negotiating and prestige to be at his own property and it's impressive.
You get a very similar It's not exactly the same, but very similar by going to Camp David or anything that the government owns that's big and impressive.
Now, I don't know if Camp David is impressive.
Does anybody know what Camp David looks like?
Because it's called a camp, which makes me think it can't be that opulent.
If presidents go there, it can't be bad, so it must be a little bit opulent.
Even if it's called a camp.
So I don't know what Camp David looks like.
If it's true that Doral was, you know, great, you know, physically, accommodations and everything, if Doral was a great place to stay, and the Camp David option, let's say we end up with that, is just an okay place to stay, I think we move backwards.
Because the comfort and happiness and The physical surrounding of all the attendees has an impact.
That stuff matters.
It matters how you feel.
It matters if you got a good night's sleep.
It matters if you're happy, optimistic, pessimistic.
Your environment makes a big difference.
So I think for political reasons, the president probably made the right choice to just take that off the table.
It was just one more thing that people were complaining about, and he didn't need it.
Scott, you were wrong.
I didn't predict that the event would continue at Doral.
I just said that if it did, it would have been a great decision in terms of the meeting itself.
It was not a great decision politically.
And politics matter.
Trump made probably the correct political decision.
I wouldn't question that.
So Camp David is more rustic, people are saying.
Also bugged all over.
Camp David is probably bugged like crazy.
But, you know, Doral would be too.
Everything's going to be bugged if there are world leaders there.
Mulvaney said Camp David was not liked by journalists because it's too remote.
uh Hello?
I'm sure there's pluses and minuses there.
Did I see Melania's redesign of the tennis courts at the White House?
I did not. Somehow I missed that important story.
But actually, I'm interested in that, so I think I'll look for that.
All right, well, that's all I got today.
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