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March 22, 2020 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
01:23:28
Episode 865 Scott Adams: Good Morning, Shut-Ins. Let's Sip!

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Coronavirus Loserthink examples Suggestion: Better coronavirus graphics? Suggestion: Debit cards? Representative Tlaib Psychology of toilet paper panic Stop pretending Joe Biden is capable Temporary suspension of civil liberties --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scott-adams00/support

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Time Text
Good morning everybody.
Hey, how's it going everybody?
I'm a little bit behind.
Got lost in the time.
So I'm going to print out my notes here.
Enjoy the simultaneous sip with you because that's why you're here.
That's why you're here. It is.
And I know that your day will be better if you enjoy the simultaneous sip.
And all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass of tanker chalice or stein, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything, including the pandemic, better.
It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens now.
Go! Stay right there.
I'm going to grab my notes. Hold on.
Yeah, I know, it looks like I'm never prepared.
And the reason for that is, well, I'm never prepared.
Alright, we'll go to the whiteboard in a minute, but let's talk about some things, some things that are happening.
I'm taking it as my personal mission to remove loser think wherever I see it.
And loser think meaning unproductive thinking.
It doesn't mean the person saying it is a loser.
It's just about the thinking style.
And in this crisis, those faulty thinking styles could actually get us killed.
Literally, a little bit of bad thinking by the public could kill millions of people.
Literally. That's not even a little bit of hyperbole.
Let me give you an example.
Online, I continue to see people say, hey, that swine flu killed half a million people.
We didn't close down the entire world economy over that.
So why would we close down things for something that's only killed a few thousand when the entire swine flu only killed a half a million?
And we didn't close things for that.
So how does it make sense?
How do those numbers make sense?
Why are we overreacting now, say people?
To which I say, did you know that the atomic bomb doesn't kill people?
Did you know that? And I can prove it.
Because the first week that the atomic bomb was built, zero deaths.
Well, that's the end of the analysis, right?
The first week that the atomic, the very first atomic bomb was built, nobody died.
So that proves that atomic bombs don't kill people, right?
Oh wait. No.
That's crazy.
Because you know the bomb was going to be exploded over people and later a lot of people would die.
But you've got to count that, don't you?
Because I'm watching people say that the coronavirus has killed this relatively small number of people compared to the population of Earth.
In its infancy, because people are pretty sure that this is closer to the beginning than the end.
But the swine flu is already over.
And we knew about it that it had a different viral signature, if you will.
And scientists apparently knew that you could stop it because it wasn't as viral, etc.
This one is way more viral than And scientists don't believe it's going to be as easy to stop, so we took different measures.
Humanity and science both did.
But don't make the mistake of comparing the new thing that just started with the thing that we have full visibility about, which had a completely different nature in terms of its virality and its lethality.
I keep seeing people doing this, and this sort of dovetails into the...
There's an article a lot of you asked me about, and a lot of you forwarded to me, and I think I was smart enough not to tweet it.
I hope I was.
You might prove me wrong, because I've been retweeting with a little less filter than I normally would, because I'm just trying to Curate knowledge, and I might guess I'm wrong, but I think I held back, and it looks like some of the platforms are deplatforming that article.
It was a medium by a guy named Aaron Ginn, G-I-N-N. And if I understand it correctly, he was like a marketing guy who understood marketing virality and then sort of backwards used those skills to be an epidemiologist.
It doesn't really work.
That skill doesn't exactly translate.
And it was more of a don't be hysterical, this isn't so bad kind of an article, but apparently the experts shot so many holes in it that it was actually deplatformed.
And if I recall, I think it got torn down before I could remind myself what it said, but I think it was doing the same thing.
I think it was doing the analysis of the automobile is perfectly safe.
How do we know? It's easy.
Because the week that the Model T was invented, no one died.
No one. No one died.
In fact, the entire first year of the automobile, maybe only one person died.
Maybe they were going to die anyway, right?
So the automobile will never kill you, because the first week it didn't really kill many people.
So that's the analysis we're getting from people who are trying to inform our decisions and our policies.
If you see anybody comparing the front of something to the end of something, run away.
Now here's my problem with this.
I'm not seeing this being done by only dumb people.
I'm seeing this being done by people I can judge to be very smart.
So I don't know what's going on.
And I can't tell why they're doing it.
The people who have not been exposed to good thinking styles, there's no surprise that they don't know what to compare.
That's widespread. But people who do know how to compare things are also doing this, and I don't know what's going on.
I can't tell what's behind that.
I'm actually puzzled.
I don't even have a good hypothesis for why A smart person would compare the beginning of something to the end of a completely different thing.
I just don't get it. So if somebody does, please explain it to me on Twitter or something.
Yesterday I said if the press doesn't inform us today, which was yesterday, about the supply situation for the medical supplies in particular, we'd have to conclude that the press is broken.
Because it's sort of our most important question, right?
Is there anything that is more vital to understanding where we're at and where we could get to than having a real clear picture of the supply situation as it's coming in?
Because it's a moving picture, right?
So you'd have to capture the fluid nature of it and the fact that it might be small but growing.
And how do you communicate that?
If you watched the press conference yesterday, and I know a lot of you did, the president and his task force, you could see there was a major communication problem.
And I'm not going to say it's the fault of the people who were on the stage, the task force, because they're not really, they're not graphic artists.
And you sort of needed somebody who is a graphic artist and a data visualizer to tell the story because it's a little bit complicated, but it's vital.
So here's what doesn't work.
So here's me. I'm on stage and you ask me, Scott, you know, you're the head of the task force.
What's the situation with the supply of masks?
Just one supply.
We'll just keep it simple. What's the supply?
So here's how not to answer that question.
Well, we're hearing from lots of people.
We've got 5 million masks ordered, and we've got 6 million on the way, and people are building factories, and we're working with the public.
Do you know what that told me?
Nothing. Nothing.
There's no information there.
A raw number of masks is completely meaningless to the audience.
Let me give you a sense of this.
I saw a letter from a doctor.
Some doctor was associated with a big hospital.
And I think it was somebody involved with administration, so they knew the whole workings of the hospital.
And I saw a number of how many masks and gowns and protective stuff that they wear.
And if you didn't know it, they have to throw that stuff away.
After every use, every patient.
So a hospital could go through something like 40,000 masks in like a day or two.
So the size of the need is so enormous that our normal common sense brains, when we think of a hospital, if I picture a hospital, I go, okay, I'm picturing a big hospital.
How many people in that would be the medical people who need masks?
I don't know. A thousand.
So then my dumb medical, non-medical brain goes, okay, maybe 2,000 masks, so you got a backup, would give you all the masks you need for a hospital.
Nope. Nope.
The number of masks you need for just one hospital is probably in the hundreds of thousands for just this little period of time.
Now, I'm playing loose with the numbers, so I'm just trying to give you a sizing.
If you come back to me and say, Scott, Scott, it's not hundreds of thousands, it might be 80,000 for a hospital.
Okay, okay. It's sort of the same point.
They're gigantic numbers for just one hospital.
So when your pros are standing on stage and they say, yeah, we got 10 million masks coming, I say, how long is that going to take?
How many hospitals does that service?
How many hospitals do we have?
So you see how it immediately becomes complicated and the story can't be transmitted from whatever they know to whatever we the public would like to know.
So I would like to offer the way past that.
This is just one suggestion, and it's a way to visualize data.
So it's a data visualization.
I'm not using any real data here.
These are just, you know, formats, so you can see.
So I, as a public, would like to see the information this way.
And this is very important, this next point.
It doesn't matter if it's accurate.
Now, if you've ever worked with data and explaining things to management and That sort of thing.
And that used to mean by job for years.
I was sort of a finance guy, and I would put together PowerPoint slides like this and explain where the budget was going and where our investment in technology was heading and was a lease better than a purchase and that stuff.
So it was my job to take a complicated situation and try to figure out the easiest way you could put it on one page so that an executive who didn't know all the details could still get the lay of the land.
Now, getting back to my point, it doesn't matter if it's accurate.
It doesn't matter if it's accurate.
It doesn't matter. What we, the public, need to know is that the people in charge have a handle on this.
And that, in a general sense, are we looking at next week before we get stuff?
Are we looking at three weeks?
Now, if they tell you it's three weeks and it turns out to be five weeks, it's wrong.
But at least you're in the ballpark.
You're giving me some sense that you've got some control, and by three weeks from now, I would have expected you to adjust your numbers every day as things come in.
So the three weeks from now, when I find out it was really five weeks, I'm not surprised, because you've been adjusting it the whole time.
So here's how I would do it.
I would take each item, let's say pills or ventilators or masks, and I would say what's the peak number that you need to get through what you imagine will be the worst part of the crisis.
Now what you imagine as the peak will also change every day.
So every day you can adjust this up or down, but just tell us, keep it simple, the next three weeks, which are the critical ones, tell us how many of each of this item we have now, Tell us what that's going to look like in one week, two weeks, and then three. Now these are just example sizes, but I would imagine that the first week you can't get your production up that fast, but maybe by the second week you're really cooking, and then by the third week maybe you're just topping it off.
So it looks something roughly like this.
Now if you show me this by category, do you feel more comfortable that your That your leaders can understand the data and they have some sense of how to communicate it in a way that you'll get.
Now again, if they give you this number and they change it tomorrow, I still have confidence in them.
Because I'm watching the entire chain of, oh, we learned something, we adjusted our numbers, now we're showing it to you.
And I would feel that change in sort of real time, because they're doing updates every day.
So, as long as they were honest with us and they said, look, we've got a lot of balls in the air.
I can't really tell you what that looks like.
But, you know, I'm an expert.
I've been talking to a lot of people.
I'm going to put a number on it because the public needs a number.
I think it's 3 million by next week.
Turns out it's 5 million.
Are you less happy?
Are you unhappy because your expert guessed 3 million but you got 5 million?
No. No, you're happier.
If you guess it's 3 million, but it's 2 million, well, you've got some questions to ask, and then you want to look at the next week's number.
But anyway, the point is, data visualization is a specific skill.
It is unlikely that anybody on the stage has that kind of talent set.
It's a weird talent.
But the government needs to get that person.
So guess somebody on the team who can make a frickin' slide that will show the public what we're talking about, And again, it doesn't have to be that accurate.
Just give us a sense.
Is this a one-week problem?
Or is this a three-month problem to get enough mass?
I have no idea. I have no idea.
But I'd like to. All right.
Enough about that. By the way, this is just one more example of a remarkable phenomenon you're seeing everywhere.
And, you know, everybody's saying, you know, we'll never be the same after this.
People are saying, you know, life will never be the same.
Well, I think it'll be mostly the same in terms of the material, you know, stuff of life and going back to work.
I do believe that we'll go back to something that's pretty close to normal, same way we did after 9-11.
You could argue that 9-11 changed everything, but the fact is, if you weren't waiting in line at the airport...
It looked about the same.
You know, a few years later, life looked kind of similar.
You just waited longer at the airport for the most part.
And I think that's where we're headed with this.
Things will be largely the same.
But one thing that won't ever be the same will be that the people who lived through this have an experience.
And that experience becomes part of you.
So we're all being rewired by the experience to the extent that we're old enough to really know what's going on.
And I don't think that's bad.
If you noticed today, did you notice that Al Sharpton tweeted that he had said in public that the president needs to do something about the homeless and people in prison?
Because they're especially at risk of the spread of the disease.
And Al Sharpton tweeted that, I guess to his surprise, the president called him and had a long conversation about those concerns.
And Al Sharpton tweeted out and he said, if the president can call a critic like Al Sharpton and work with him, then the rest of you can too.
It's a big deal.
It's a big deal. So, Al Sharpton, you know, who's a bigger critic of President Trump than Al Sharpton?
But today, Al Sharpton and President Trump are the same person.
Today. Today, you're the same person as I am.
You know, our differences have just melted away.
You know, even when you see...
You're still seeing people talk about politics, right?
You're seeing people...
Talk about politics and, you know, ah, president should have done this.
You know, and I do it too.
But doesn't it feel hollow?
Don't the conversations about, you know, politics, they just feel empty?
You know, they have a little bit of entertainment value, but they're just empty calories right now because you and I and Al Sharpton and Representative Tlaib, who I'm going to mention in a moment, are all on the same team.
At the moment. Now, anybody who doesn't live through this will not have experienced this.
And I have to say, as tragic as this is, I certainly wouldn't hope for any kind of a crisis like this ever.
But you can't deny that this is doing something to us.
I mean, it's almost like we're going to evolve differently or something.
I mean, it's that, to me anyway, it's that critical to the way we think.
Now it's possible we just snap back to politics as usual, you know, the day we feel like we're past it.
But we will always have this.
We will always have this.
There will never be a day, let me put it this way, if Al Sharpton goes back to being, you know, old Al Sharpton, and he's just, you know, we're past the crisis, and he just goes back to politics as usual, I'm still going to love Al Sharpton.
I'm still going to love Al Sharpton because of this.
Because of this day.
Because he can't take that away.
That actually happened. And that's who he is.
So you're learning who Al Sharpton is.
At the same time, you're learning who the president is.
At the same time, you're learning who you are.
So I will never think of him the same.
I'll still disagree with his policies, but I'll never think of him the same.
Because at the moment, Al Sharpton is me.
There's no difference.
Speaking of dogs and cats laying down together, so I tweeted yesterday, I don't think I've ever had fewer retweets for a tweet.
I tweeted a suggestion from Representative Tlaib.
Who, you know, probably most of you know.
I've been critical of her.
She's critical of the president.
You know, I'm not a big fan of her politics.
It goes with what I'm saying.
But she had an idea, and I don't know if it's a great idea or if it's not a great idea, but I liked it enough that in the spirit of the crisis, I tweeted it out.
And the idea was this. That, since we're looking at, it looks like there definitely will be some kind of cash transfer to people who need to pay their bills.
So given that it looks like that's going to happen, the question is how best to do it.
And I'd set around the idea that we should just send out money to people and then rich people can have it clawed back on their taxes, you know, because the government wouldn't know it gave it to you, and then it would send you your taxes and say, we know you got it, so give it back, you know, when it's tax time, but only for the rich people who didn't deserve it.
And that would just be a sort of a clean and easy way to get some money out there without the bureaucracy.
Now, Representative Tlaib had an idea that was in that field, which is instead of checks...
Sending out a debit card.
And here's the advantage of the debit card.
Well, a few advantages. One is that if you've got a debit card and you're going to the store, I think it would reduce the number of things you touch.
You wouldn't be handing it to a human.
You'd be putting it in a machine.
If you use a glove or something to push your buttons, you've got that going for you.
So that's better than a check, probably.
And having to go to a store where not everybody has a phone they can deposit it.
But the other advantage, and I thought this was a big one, is that if you need to do a second round, they already have the card, and they just fill the card.
So the card would be, you know, a prepaid debit card.
Once you've spent it, if the crisis is not over, the government could just say, push a button, refill the cards, and you don't have to wait for your check.
It's just already there.
Now, there might be some downsides of that, and that's really not the point of what I'm saying.
So I put it out there so people can wrestle with it.
I don't know if it's a good idea or a bad idea.
There might be a hidden downside that's not obvious to me.
But here's the point.
Under any normal situation, I'm not going to be seeing an idea from Representative Tlaib that I say, huh, looks like a pretty good idea.
I'm going to forward this.
Because today, you know, I am Al Sharpton.
I am you. I am Representative Tlaib.
I am President Trump.
And we are fighting this virus.
And at the moment, we're all on the same side.
This may never happen again.
You know, maybe in my lifetime.
Could happen in your lifetime. But I don't know I'll ever live through this again, where absolutely everybody's on the same team.
Period. That's it. I hate it when people say period, but sometimes it slips out.
And by the way, the same graph that I was using for medical supplies, wouldn't you like to see that for toilet paper?
You know you would, right?
It's weird because when you're the task force and you're managing a crisis, you're probably not worried about the toilet paper supply, right?
Right? You don't think that's the top priority.
It's like, well, save the toilet paper.
All people on deck.
Let the hospitals fend for themselves, but we've got to solve this toilet paper problem.
They're not thinking that.
But I would like to suggest that although the task force probably shouldn't be doing anything about toilet paper, meaning the private industry is probably doing everything that needs to be done, I would imagine that That the people who make this stuff are cranking it down, chipping it, and it's just being absorbed quickly.
But fairly soon we'll get to the point where the hoarders have done their thing and then we stop hoarding.
But wouldn't you like to know, is that next week or is it in three weeks?
Because I don't know about you, but some people are starting to count their rolls, if you know what I mean.
Now... Why do I even bring this up in the middle of an emergency?
Isn't it the least important thing?
Nope. No.
It is not the least important thing.
Certainly, people can figure out their workarounds and inconvenience, etc.
But psychologically, this toilet paper thing has a much larger hold on our imagination than Then common sense says it should.
Because we're not virologists.
We're not medical people.
We just need our toilet paper.
We're citizens. And if you tell me that I can't get another role for, I don't know, give me a number.
If you tell me I can't have a role for a week, a new role, I'll say, okay, a week.
I think things are under control.
If I can get those on the store shelf in a week, I'm not even going to think it was ever a problem.
But if you tell me it's three weeks, I've got to start rationing.
You don't, because you're all hoarded.
But some of us might need to start rationing a little bit.
And then I'm going to start thinking about it.
And then it's going to be in my head.
And then somebody's going to send me a picture of an empty shelf...
And I'm going to think it's the whole store.
It's not. It's just the toilet paper shelf.
How many of you have seen the so-called empty shelves pictures?
Well, they take a picture of the toilet paper shelf that's empty, and then they go to the cleaning supplies, and maybe the rice, and those are empty, and then you think, my God, we're going to run out of food, when the rest of the store has broccoli and pretty much everything you want.
So, message to the task force.
You don't need to be working on toilet paper.
Private industry's got that.
We don't need any presidential decrees on toilet paper.
But just tell us the timing.
You kind of need to do that for our mental health.
It's a mental health question.
When do you think the toilet paper will be back on the shelves?
Even more than the rice, because probably most of you have not dipped into your rice supply, you know, your beans or whatever you got in your cans and whatever.
You probably haven't dipped into those, because there's still food in the stores.
But I'll bet you dipped into your toilet paper supply, didn't you?
Bet you did. Bet that supply a little down.
So, directionally, your government should tell you that, even though on the surface you think it would be the least important thing.
It just has a big hold on our brain, so let's do something about that.
I... Oh, here's some more good news.
Elon Musk, as well as Tim Cook for Apple, they're making ventilators.
So it was confirmed that Elon Musk is not just tweeting and talking about ventilators.
They're making ventilators.
And Apple's making them too, and quite a few.
Now, I don't know how many we need, but...
They're cranking them out. Other people are cranking them out.
You've seen do-it-yourself directions for making your own ventilator with parts you find.
So the opposite of the toilet paper story where there was a trivial thing that had a big hold on my psychology, this is the positive, the other side of that, which is when you hear that Elon Musk is making ventilators, Don't you just feel better?
Seriously. Arguably, between Tim Cook and Elon Musk, you have the two most capable manufacturers of physical items in the country, in the world, I don't know.
I mean, don't you feel better knowing that they're fully engaged in this?
I sure do. But it does raise one question which I'm seeing over and over again.
I should tell you I have two lives that are sort of operating simultaneously during this crisis.
There's the public part that you see and all the stuff I tell you.
But the moment I get off of this periscope, I'm going to be working for hours curating questions and, you know, can you connect me with this person and Can you introduce me?
I've got a thing. So there's a whole bunch of stuff that's operating below the public visibility, and that's a lot.
Let me tell you, it's a full-time job.
As soon as I turn this off, it's all I'm going to be doing until the next time you see me on Periscope, and I'm probably going to fall asleep in my bed tonight like last night, connecting people and tweeting and stuff.
So there's a lot going on, but one of the trends which I find alarming but fixable is that when people are saying, you know, I have a source, For this or that supply, if it has to be built or manufactured, the source is always in another country.
I have not yet identified an actual American company that's stepping up to manufacture.
There are a lot of American companies that have connections overseas or their factories overseas.
So there are American companies who are using foreign assembly and manufacturing.
But it does seem as if this country doesn't know how to make things.
We know how to engineer.
We know how to order things. We've got good lawyers.
We've got good insurance. But if you need somebody to slap together a factory and start assembling parts, it looks like we kind of don't know how to do that anymore.
So we're going to have to look at that.
I'm sure that at this point the supply chain is coming home.
So we'll see that happen.
Let's talk about Joe Biden because we have to.
I'm watching other people so it's not just me.
Other smart people are saying, where is Joe Biden?
Where is Joe Biden?
And here's my problem.
I think that President Trump will coast to re-election unless we're surprised.
Unless there's something new that comes up.
I think he'll coast to re-election.
Even with the crisis, even with everything else.
We're hearing enough of these Al Sharpton stories, we're hearing Governor Cuomo, Governor Newsom, saying that the President's doing the right stuff, and we're going to watch some progress.
I think the crisis will turn into a positive for the President, because he's a strong leader.
And you want a strong leader when you're in a war.
And I don't think people want to get out of the canoe and change canoes in the middle of a war.
So my estimation is that while the crisis can work both ways, people will find something to complain about.
You should have done it this way.
But I think the public is going to say, you know, he made some tough decisions.
Closing the airports and stuff, and it was all hands on deck.
He didn't hold back anything once he was engaged.
I think he's going to get a push from this, a bonus.
So unless it gets a lot worse and there's some way you can tie it to the government's actions in a way that even the public would say, why'd you do that?
Which could happen. I think he's going to be re-elected.
But here's my point. One of the benefits of our system is that you always have a backup small spare tire.
So if you get a flat tire, you get a backup.
Now, in the course of the regular governing, if your president is taken off the field for whatever reason, you get a vice president.
So that's a good backup.
You know, a vice president is a good backup for a president.
But there's another way in which we need a backup, which is the election itself.
So you want to have two candidates, ideally, where if one of them didn't win, the other one wouldn't wreck the country.
It may not be the policies you like.
Maybe your taxes go up a little bit, down a little bit.
Maybe you don't like that second candidate, but they're not going to break anything.
They're at least capable of doing the job, right?
We don't have that.
President Trump is going to be running against I don't know what.
I mean, Joe Biden is not even capable enough, and I think we can just say that as a fact.
I think we're beyond the speculating part.
If Joe Biden were capable of speaking spontaneously on camera to the country in this time of crisis, if he were capable, of course we'd see it.
Of course we'd see it.
There's no explanation during a presidential campaign, and especially during a crisis, there's no explanation for why we don't see him.
We see Bernie, right?
We've seen Pelosi.
We've seen everybody.
And they have some kind of BS excuse about their, I don't know, they're doing construction at his house to turn it into a studio or something.
But he's got an iPad, right?
I'm talking to the world.
If I were running for president, and this were the production quality, and I got a couple lights over there and I just closed the shades, and I turned on my iPad, it's pretty good, right?
I mean, at least I'm not doing the thing with my phone where I'm recording myself in portrait.
At least I was clever enough to turn it sideways.
And this is pretty good. If I were running for president, I would just do this.
I'd get a little iPad on my desk, face it, and turn it on a couple times a day and say, I'm running for president.
My name is Joe Biden. The president's doing some great things.
I'd like to see him do some other things here.
And by the way, if I were president, you'd have better health care or something like that.
It's kind of easy.
The hurdle that Joe Biden is not able to get over...
is so low that a child could do it, meaning just aim your iPad at yourself and turn it on.
A child could turn on an iPod and aim it at their face and broadcast to the world.
How do I know that? Go to YouTube.
On YouTube, there are infinite, seems like it, infinite children who have figured out how to do this.
They put the camera down, point it at themselves, turn it on, and you're live to YouTube.
And Joe Biden can't figure that out.
We should stop pretending.
Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, remember, these are strange times, you know, I'm Al Sharpton today, but I'm also Donald Trump today.
So it's strange times.
And I'm actually a little uncomfortable having the emergency backup plan being no spare tire.
Because, you know, I'll just throw out some names to make my point.
If John, let's say somebody else, let's say...
I don't want to put a name on it.
Just pick a boring governor that you think is doing a good job and is a Democrat.
If the Democrats were running a boring governor who just does a good job, I would say to myself, I still prefer President Trump.
Very clear preference. But at least we've got an emergency spare.
It's a little tire. It only goes 50 miles.
But it's not nothing. It's not nothing.
And Joe Biden is...
I don't know how to say it more clearly.
It is nothing. Joe Biden doesn't have the capability of doing any job at this point.
He couldn't work at 7-Eleven.
And that's literally true.
I don't think he could handle a job at 7-Eleven at this point.
Otherwise, you'd see him on camera.
So, Democrats, I feel like you need to make the adult decision.
And I mean this in a nonpartisan way.
I think whoever you run is going to lose.
But Do the country a solid and run somebody who could run the country, and that's almost anybody.
Now, if you run Bernie, for example, I don't think he has a chance of getting elected, so you might want to think of your own strategy there, but there are plenty of moderate people who are still functional.
Give us the emergency backup spare.
Trump's still going to win. But, you know, we're in an uncertain time.
Anything can happen. Give us the backup.
Alright. I asked people to tweet me questions again today.
I did that yesterday, and that worked out pretty well.
So let's see if you've got any questions for me.
Bear with me, as my internet is very slow today.
Alright, so it looks like I've got 181 questions.
Some of these are going to be good. Ian says, can you speak about the trade-offs between the response to coronavirus and the removal of civil liberties?
Okay. And then he goes on about analogies, but I can answer this question.
Can you speak about the trade-offs between the response to coronavirus and the removal of civil liberties?
Well, here's why you need adults in charge.
You need somebody to make hard decisions.
Fortunately, we do have a president who can make a hard decision.
Imagine if you had a President Biden and the experts told him to close the southern border.
Could he do it? Don't know if he could.
Suppose you're the experts and you say to President Trump, you know, you ought to be thinking about closing air traffic from Europe.
Could he do it? Yeah, by the time you finish the sentence.
By the time they finish the sentence, he's on his phone saying, close air traffic from Europe.
So you have an adult in charge.
People are appreciating that without saying they're appreciating it.
We've got the guy in charge who's going to make hard decisions all day long, and you can trust that he will, because you've seen it.
He has such a long track record of doing things that, well, it's a tough decision, but I'm the adult in the room.
I'm going to do it, and I'm going to take the heat.
Could Biden do that?
Could he? It's a real question.
I don't know if he could make adult decisions right now.
Alright, so Ian asks the trade-off between civil liberties and the response to the coronavirus.
I think the best answer to that is that it has to be adult decisions.
And if those adult decisions come down and they say, Scott, I'm going to remove your civil liberties for a week, just tell me why.
Just tell me why.
Because remember, You know, this week I am Al Sharpton, but this week I am also President Trump.
And if either of those people who are the same person at the moment says there's a good reason why you should temporarily suspend my civil liberties, do it.
Do it. You have my absolute and complete support.
Do it. Because the adults got to make the decisions, and if we trust them, and I think Trump working with the experts is a very, very safe combination, I say just do it.
Because here's the thing I would trust.
The thing that this country and lots of countries do it well is we brainwash our youth And in my case, I used to be a youth.
The brainwashing, and I'm going to use this in a positive term, the brainwashing that this country does to design the adults that get to run the country is really, really good.
And one of the things that we're all deeply wired, I'll say wired instead of brainwashed, one of the things we're deeply wired by our system to appreciate is freedom.
So if this were some other country, let's say a third world country, and the dictator said, just for a week, I'm going to take away your civil liberties, would you trust that?
No. No, you wouldn't trust that.
Because you think, oh, this is just the first step before we lose all our civil liberties, and maybe it would be.
But in the United States, we've got 370 million people Wired, coded, brainwashed, designed, whatever word you want to put on it, human brains that aren't going to put up with that kind of crap.
So if you take our civil liberties away for a week with a good reason, you'll get pretty good compliance.
Two months from now, if the reason went away and we still don't have that civil liberty back, We're going to change things.
We're going to change our government.
So there is no risk in the United States because the citizens are so well designed.
I mean, it's actually designed.
It's brain design, if you want to put it that way.
So we are so well designed in this country that our government couldn't take our, at least an important civil liberty away What's your estimate of the mortality rate?
You know, the experts are lowering it all the time.
I'm not going to give any kind of a dumb estimate that's like, you know, cartoonist overrules scientists or anything like that.
So I will defer to the scientists.
Do Greg Gutfeld and I have an understanding about And the answer is, we're friends, and we think alike, and we talk about a lot of this stuff offline.
I use some of his ideas, he uses some of mine.
So yes, it is a fully friendly and ongoing situation.
I was using Greg's examples yesterday, for example.
So that's far more a case of two people who have very similar thinking styles.
We're both from Berkeley, both California.
I mean, if you lined up our opinions, they're going to be pretty close, probably 90% overlap.
What do you do when your DoorDash comes?
Do you wipe down the containers?
It's a good question. I'm not an expert on any of these, so take anything I say with a grain of salt.
The scientists say this.
They say very clearly that the virus lives on surfaces.
They also say very clearly that that means you could get it from surfaces.
And it lasts quite a while on surfaces.
But the scientists also say they haven't confirmed any case where somebody just got it from a surface.
Apparently the cases that they can track down, there's always a person.
They find a person. Now that person may have given it to them by putting it on the surface and then you touch the surface.
But the person is always identified as being in the area for a while.
In other words, I got it from my spouse.
You don't need to ask, did he get it off his surface or did it come from their mouth or something.
You know the source was the person and that's about as far as we can go.
We don't know if it's because that kiss.
We don't know if it's because they shared a glass.
We don't know. But what we don't have Maybe we will.
What we don't have is somebody who's been isolated for two weeks, and the only thing they touched was to take care of food in a bag, and then they got the coronavirus.
I'm not saying it hasn't happened.
I'm saying we wouldn't know.
But science is not saying that's identified yet.
So here's my answer.
You can't take risks down to zero.
That's not an option. And you've got to eat.
I'm taking the trade-off that if I can keep my local restaurants and food businesses in operation, that's good for them.
I'm taking the risk that it's better than going to the store myself.
I'm taking the risk that even if I hired somebody to shop for me, which I literally did yesterday, a younger person with a good immune system, And I gave a list that was sort of in and out, small basket, minimize the time in the store and all that.
So we're doing risk management.
We're not eliminating risk.
So the first thing you should say to yourself is you don't live in a world where risk could be zero on the coronavirus or anything else.
But you can certainly take the choices that are available to you that are the lower risk.
So to answer your question, I pick up my bag from my front step.
I have no human contact.
I pick it up from the bottom because I presume they probably carried it from the top.
I get inside.
I cut the exterior bag off it carefully.
And then I wash my hands with soap.
Now, of course, the interior stuff could also have a problem.
It's a non-zero risk, but I find that an acceptable risk, given that science is just not finding this direct path from objects to people.
We just know it could be, so stay away from it.
Minimize it if you could.
But I do what I can do, and then I don't do what I can't do, which is I can't know...
What's on the interior contents.
And so I take that risk because it's better than the other risks.
So I hope that's the answer.
Should the shelter in place be applied countrywide or only locally?
I would say locally at first and then watch it.
Oh, somebody's saying thank you for the recommendation to watch the movie Ford vs.
Ferrari. Yeah, a few people have gotten back to me on this and said the same thing.
If you're just looking for a good, non-stressful, feel-good about America, America can do, you know, if you're American and that's the vibe that you want to feel, that movie really delivers.
It's one of the best movies I've watched in a long time because it never made me feel bad.
It's hard to watch a movie that doesn't intentionally make you feel bad and feel bad for the characters and stuff before they rescue the characters.
I don't like to go through the part where you feel bad before you get to the good news.
I just don't want to watch that movie.
But this one, because it's based on real stuff, and even though, you know, I won't give anything away, but, you know, it's not all good news all the way through.
Let me just say that. But it doesn't make you feel bad at any point.
It's just a well-made movie.
So if you need, you know, a couple hours to get into a different mindset to relax, that's a really good choice.
Where can we find data on how the hospitals are holding up?
Well, apparently not from the task force.
So that would be another thing that the data visualizers should be doing on behalf of the task force.
There should be a one-pager that says, here are some of our metro hotels.
Here are some of our metro hospitals.
Here's normal capacity.
Here's the maximum theoretical flexing capacity.
Maybe just for ventilators, maybe just for ICUs.
You might need to break it down a little bit.
And then change things as you know what's happening.
So we don't know that.
I don't know if anybody knows that.
And I doubt if we saw the data, it would be presented in a way you could make much of it.
So how to persuade others that Fauci is on the solution side And the disease is far more serious than the flu.
Well, that's what I'm working on.
And the people who still think it's only the flu have to explain why we already see hospitals being pushed past capacity.
If it were the flu, hospitals would not be pushed past capacity.
If you notice anybody who's arguing it, Just force them to think about that.
That Italy was miscounting the number of people who were dying from coronavirus, and the way they counted it made it seem like there were too many.
So therefore, maybe we're panicking by looking at Italy, because the way they're counting things is making it look like it's worse than it is.
To which I say, what the hell is wrong with you?
The other thing we're clearly seeing in Italy is that their hospitals can't handle the load.
That doesn't happen with the flu.
The only thing you should talk about when somebody says it's just the flu, they're going to try to take you to numbers.
Say, hey, they killed this, killed that, didn't close for the swine flu.
They're going to try to take you in that direction.
Don't do it. Stand firm and never leave this point.
Hospitals are already overloaded and we expect ten times as much traffic based on the best experts' estimates of how this thing will evolve.
Some hospitals are already at capacity from this, and it will be 10 times bigger probably in a month.
That's what the experts say.
Don't leave that point.
The moment you leave that point, you're vulnerable to lose your think, and people are going to be like, well, you know, it's different.
Now, if they say, hey, stop talking about Italy, there's just a weird thing going on there, Say, China had to build new hospitals.
Tell me one other time China had to build a new hospital in a week.
Never. And we also have American hospitals.
New York City is getting close to capacity already, and we're at the beginning, folks.
We're at the beginning, and hospitals are nearing capacity.
So the people who say it's just the flu, don't leave that point.
Hospital capacity, hospital capacity, hospital capacity.
Already numerous data points from Iran, New York City, Italy, China, South Korea.
Numerous data points.
Don't leave that point.
That's how you kill it. Kill the rumor that it's just the flu.
Alright, let's see what else we got.
Is this the new normal for novel virus response?
Well, maybe. But again, there's a gigantic wildcard here.
Two gigantic wildcards.
One is how quickly can we make test kits and labs that can evaluate the test kits.
How quickly can we build an emergency system for testing that's both product and system for getting it tested and getting back to you.
How quickly can we build that But once it's built, will we always have that as our emergency plan?
Because the next time we have a flu, in theory, what we've learned from this one will allow us to just pull the lever and say, all right, in three days we're going to have a billion test kits, or whatever is the right number.
So I think the new normal is that we'll be ready for this war.
They always say you're always ready to fight the last war.
And that's what bit us in the butt this time, I think.
But if you're saying, will we not be ready for the next coronavirus?
Well, we're going to know a lot about these anti-malarial drugs that seem promising.
We'll know about the erythromycin cocktail.
We'll know about the 10 other things in the pipeline.
We'll know about the vaccines.
So my guess is, if I had to put money on it, it's the last coronavirus pandemic.
If I had to bet money. Now, if I put odds on it, I'd say 80%.
I would say there's an 80% chance you'll never see this again with this form of the virus or something in its family, because I think we will learn how to get it with tests and with meds and with vaccinations.
A year from now, we'll be in good shape, but we'll be recovered financially, at least somewhat well before then.
Next question. That's a funny question.
I'll skip that one. Realignments from high-density urban areas to more rural.
I was kind of wondering about this.
Just the pure practicality of it.
Let's say you said, hey, New York City...
The only way we're going to get to the other end of this is just hypothetical.
I'm just brainstorming here.
Maybe somebody will have a good idea that's different from mine that is suggested.
Suppose you said to New York City, hey people, if you have the capability to get out of the city, get out of the city.
You don't have to, but if you can find a place to pitch a tent, you can find somebody in Nebraska and you've been tested and I suppose that would spread the disease.
Never mind. It's probably too late to do social distancing in terms of the city you live in, temporarily going to the country for a few weeks, because that probably would just spread it at this point.
I would need an expert to weigh those options.
Justin Hart asked this question.
The death rate and disasters sold to us as a justification for the shutdown are quickly collapsing.
Does that matter?
Justin, I've got to check your...
Okay, you're in marketing and sales.
I don't want to be unkind, because I know you're a follower, because you follow me on Twitter.
So Justin, and I'm going to try not to be a jerk about this, I don't have anything against you, Justin.
He shows the graph of, I guess, what is it, the deaths?
The fatality rate going down and down and down.
So he's saying, since the predictions didn't pan out, what are we making of that?
Justin, the predictions didn't pan out yet, and it's because we're flattening the curve.
If we had treated this as business as usual, Things would be very much worse.
So here's my recommendation to anybody who does not have, I don't know, some kind of a background in the decision-making sciences.
So if you don't have a background in science, engineering, economics perhaps, and you could think of several others, look to people who do.
So, Justin, find somebody who you know, just somebody personally, who's gone through one of those fields.
And then show them your graph and say, what does that tell me?
I think they're going to tell you what I told you, which is that's the way it goes if we do everything right.
And that's the reason we're panicking, is to get everybody to do something right.
So the fact that we're getting some kind of control on this shouldn't tell you that we shouldn't have done it.
That doesn't make any sense.
I'm trying to be kind about that, but the people who did not have experience in decision-making, you really need to rely on people who literally learned those skills.
Let's see.
Can Biden name his COVID-19 videos that he's not in as his VP if they identify as female?
Okay, that's just a joke.
And by the way, I don't know if you saw that a Biden campaign video was an expert talking about the coronavirus instead of Joe Biden.
He didn't even introduce him.
That tells you everything you know about where Joe is.
Whatever's happening is not good for Joe, and I think they just need to make the adult decision and find a real candidate there.
How much overcapacity in supplies and equipment is the right amount for future pandemics?
Well, unfortunately, nobody knows that question.
But I think the smarter approach is to have a pipeline that can be quickly converted.
So all of these factories that quickly converted into making masks and stuff, they kind of have a template now, so there must be some kind of public information about how to make these masks, etc.
So I think the important thing is to know how to turn the pipeline on quickly, not just having some in the emergency supply.
Somebody said I've heard three months.
That sounds about right. Have we slowed down the spread by how much?
I can't answer that. Is there any truth to this?
That the coronavirus is an intentional move to destroy the American economy and usher in a single government new world order and a digital currency.
Is there any truth to this?
No. No.
There's none. There's none.
Let me say with complete certainty, there's no government that would have done this intentionally.
It could have escaped accidentally from some government facility, China, but there's no way that a rational person, and I think all the leaders of the countries who could do this would be rational, there's no way anybody rationally did this as a strategy.
There are too many unknowns. The strategy is something you say, if I do this, it's going to lead to this, this, and this.
But this doesn't have that nature.
This is just chaos.
And you can tell yourself, oh, maybe it's some anarchist who just wants to destroy the world or something.
But even then, they'd be taking credit.
So there's literally zero, zero, zero evidence of anything but Why is our government saying masks don't work?
When it's obvious that they do, basically, just paraphrasing the question.
And I think it's the same reason that Fauci is saying that hydroxychloroquine, I don't know the difference, but I think it's the same reason the government is saying that the meds are unknown in usefulness.
They're not really unknown.
And nobody really thought the mask didn't work.
So remember, there are two things in this.
There's the medical side and dealing with the emergency, but they're also dealing with our psychology.
So people like Fauci are very aware that if they say the wrong thing, it's going to cause the wrong actions.
So there is going to be a disconnect, and I would expect more of it, not less.
I would expect more of this disconnect where the things they're telling you to do don't quite map We're the things you know with certainty to be true.
And it's probably because the message has more to do about getting compliance in a way that gets us to the end point best.
I think it's a greater good.
This is not one of those cases where I'd be nitpicking the government.
Hey, you're lying to us because I believe there are productive lies.
There are productive lies.
I've never told you that your government should tell you the truth.
All right? For many situations, it's the preferred situation that you want your government to tell you the truth.
For many, maybe 95% of the time.
But there's a solid 5% of the situations where the public would simply be worse off with a little bit more reality.
Sometimes, you might need to manage the psychology, the mass hysteria, and it might take a little bit of shading of the truth.
And maybe you circle back to the truth later when it's safe.
After this is done, I'm fairly certain that your experts will say, yeah, we knew that wearing a mask would help the public, but we didn't have enough masks.
And I think that you're going to hear someday the experts say, yeah, we were sure a lot earlier than we said about this medicine or that being effective, but we didn't want to cause a run on the supply.
I think that's what's going on.
Thoughts on Candace Owens' stance?
I don't know what it is about the coronavirus.
How do I choose a...
Okay, I don't want to answer that one.
Are there any doctors saying this is an overreaction?
Excellent question. Excellent question.
So for those who say it's an overreaction...
Find a doctor who's working in an infected area who agrees with you.
Just one. Just one doctor.
Just find one doctor working at a hospital that's already seeing a bit of volume in it, and let that doctor tell the world that it's not a problem.
I think you've seen zero of that.
Somebody in the comments, I'm seeing Dr.
Drew being mentioned, Correct me if I'm wrong, but Dr.
Drew has always been compatible with Fauci's recommendations.
That's the end of that story.
If you can find me a counter to that statement, I'm not aware of it.
But if you can't find a counter, just drop it.
Just drop it. If any doctor anywhere in the United States who was talking about the coronavirus and what they were saying was compatible at the time...
With what Fauci was saying.
And then it evolved with Fauci, because remember, Fauci didn't say we should close the flights from Europe on day one.
Right? I mean, it took a while.
He was evolving as information was coming.
So if any other doctor was evolving in the same way the number one expert in the country was evolving, everybody's on the same page, doctor-wise.
When do you think the recovery process begins in terms of economy and containment?
Well, it depends how you count it.
The stock market will recover as soon as we see that the trend is slowed or changing.
So as soon as the stock market notices that we're getting on top of it, it's a leading indicator.
So that will be first.
And I think that the stock market will have some big up days and some big down days no matter where it's going in general.
So I think that you're going to see maybe within two weeks, you're going to see another, we've already had a kind of a stock market bounce.
But in two weeks, if we get positive news about the meds, the stock market is going to bounce back all the way.
And when it bounces back, it won't stay there.
So you're going to see a wildly gyrating stock market that will respond to every bit of new trend, new news.
You should assume that in some country they're going to get it under control, and then it will flare back, and then the stock market will react.
But I think the stock market goes first.
You could see something of a beginning of a more up than down in two weeks when we have some visibility on that.
By the time we get test kits...
It's widely available.
I'm just going to use my common sense on this.
I don't see us having enough test kits for a month, even if we move heaven and earth.
Because that just seems harder.
But I think we'll have real knowledge about pills and availability in two weeks.
So I think it's a two-phased recovery.
Phase one is getting pills that work, and maybe in some cases young people, so long as they live where there's access to the pills, and it's an efficient system to get them to them.
I think they'll go back to work sooner.
So we'll have something like a half recovery or a three-quarters recovery Maybe in a month, because those people who went back to work will start getting things going.
At the end of the month, I think you're going to see the testing come online hard, to the point where you see the beginnings of these 60-plusers, you know, having a get-in-a-jail card that's starting to form.
And at that point, it's going to look like we have a clear path.
So those are two things.
The efficacy and safety and availability.
Availability is really high on the list, but I think we can solve that.
Of the pills, the different kinds that we know work, or I hope we know work.
And then the test kits.
So it's a two-phaser.
And I would say that you'll see people released from prison as soon as the pills are available for them and just young people.
Here's my guess. I think in two weeks we're going to get guidance about when we'll be released.
In two weeks, within two weeks, could be one week, we'll get guidance which could change.
But I think the government will start to get in a position where they say, Here's where our plan is forming.
And you can't fault the government for not having a solid plan, because we're still gathering information.
But if they say, we're looking at, you know, this is our back to work date, and we've got a plan to feed people until then, But as soon as the government starts saying, you know, we're going to aim for this date to get this many people back to work, you're going to feel like the momentum changed.
Because we've been in full retreat, right?
Every time there's an announcement, it's a retreat.
And as soon as that changes to, okay, here's a retreat over here, But we also made some progress over here, and then it's going to be more progress than retreat.
I think in a month, it's going to be basically non-stop good news about human ingenuity.
You know, you're going to have your Tesla ventilators, you're going to have your pills, you're going to have your test kits, etc.
So, month is the longest for the over-60s, I think.
Um... Somebody asked this question.
I don't know the answer, but it's an interesting question.
If you had two people, one is infected and one has symptoms, coughing, etc., and one does not, and they both go out in public, let's say to different parts of the public, which one would infect more people?
Someone who had no symptoms or someone who had obvious symptoms in public?
Interesting question. I think it would depend entirely upon the nature of that public gathering.
Is it a restaurant or is it just a crowd or whatever?
But you could easily imagine that the person with no symptoms would take fewer precautions and would be less easy to identify as someone to stay away from.
If you see somebody who's coughing, you're running hard in the other direction.
If you see somebody who's not coughing, well, maybe you think this is the one time you should shake hands.
So it could go either way.
It's a good question. What are the actual real changes needed for health care independence from China?
Mostly supply chain, I think.
I think it comes down to that.
Just making stuff here or making stuff...
I mean, I can imagine making it in Canada or Mexico gets you close to the same degree of comfort.
Now, you might say to yourself, I don't know, does Mexico give you comfort?
And the answer is yes. Because our military would just go in and take over those factories if anything funny happened.
So we can't do that with China.
If China said, we're going to withhold your meds, what are we going to do?
We're going to go without meds.
But if Mexico said, ha ha ha, United States, We're going to withhold your meds unless you do what we want.
Well, we'd have the military who would be marching across the border and surrounding that factory in about 10 minutes.
So you don't have to move it to the United States, but you need to move it into the neighborhood, if you know what I mean.
And Canada would be equally safe, not for military reasons, but because we know we would work productively with them.
That wouldn't be a risk. Do-do-do-do...
Can Congress make April and May rent and mortgage payments?
Zero. Because the theory being that it's easier for the landlords and the banks to absorb the losses.
You know, I've thought about that.
But I'm not smart enough to connect all the chain of cause and effect.
So it's an appealing suggestion, and it would go like this.
If you're paying rent or you're paying mortgage, you just don't pay for two months.
Period. And then it just starts when things go back to normal.
That might actually be a good idea.
It's good enough that I'd like to have an economist wrestle with it and tell us, because, you know, you've got, and I know in my own life, I know people whose only income might be the several rental properties that they have.
So for the several rental properties, those people do not pay rent means that at least the one person It doesn't have an income that month.
So, I don't know, you'd have to do the math, but I wouldn't rule it out.
Look at how some of your questions are funny.
uh Why is San Francisco allowing Chinese airlines to resume flights to San Francisco?
What? What?
Is that true?
San Francisco is allowing Chinese airlines to resume flights to San Francisco?
Really? Now, I don't know about that story, but I'd have to assume that they have, of course, Consider the risk.
And of course, there must be maybe a quarantine or testing.
Maybe they're using some of their limited testing to test people right away before they send them into the public.
I don't know. So I don't know about that story, but it's worrisome.
Should they address or debunk the Medium article at the presser?
Yeah, so I mentioned it.
There was that Medium article that was going around that's being pulled off of platforms for being grossly damaging, I think, because it's just not good information.
It's not put together in a way that's helping the public.
Should the presser debunk it?
Maybe so. Maybe so.
I don't know that they need to mention it by name, but it got so much attention.
Maybe so. It could go either way, but I think maybe so.
Husband asks, why can't used masks be put in a paper bag, sit for a week until germs are dead, and be reused by the same person?
I don't know. I don't know.
Good question. I've heard that if you put the germs in Heat, or not the germs, the virus in heat, and I've heard numbers, who knows if this is right, but 133 degrees for 15 minutes, two days in a row, and it would kill just the second day just to do any mop-up in case there's some left.
But if you had a dry sauna, and you took your used and badly infected mask, and you just put it in your dry sauna, And just ran that thing for a day.
Would it kill it? Don't try this at home because you could end up getting yourself killed.
I'm not advising it, but I'm asking.
Somebody's saying a freezer.
Now I see in the comments debunked.
So let me give you the common sense answer because I can't answer you scientifically.
The common sense answer is There are a lot of doctors and scientists involved in this question.
I'm pretty sure they would have tried that.
I'm pretty sure that we would know that.
But just in case, just in case, let's float that question.
There must be enough people on this periscope That somebody has looked into that who has a scientific background and can tell us, no, no, no, Scott, you would either ruin the integrity of the mask, that's possible, or you don't want extreme temperatures because the integrity of the mask would change and then it just wouldn't be a mask.
Or maybe they've tested it and you just can't get rid of the virus.
I don't know. I mean, we've been told that a virus doesn't live more than how many days or how many hours, depending on the material.
So, your husband's question is really kind of excellent.
And just curiosity alone, I'd like to know the answer to that.
Somebody says Google it.
Can somebody do that?
Why don't you Google it for me and see if anybody's answered that question.
It's a really good question. But you have to think that with this many experts looking at a mask shortage, if it were that easy, I feel like we would have heard that by now.
But you never know, right?
You never know. Let's see.
Thoughts on the coronavirus affecting the cartel supply chain, including fentanyl.
Well, as many of you know, this is kind of personal to me because my stepson died from an overdose, including fentanyl.
And, you know, I blame China for creating it and sending it to Mexico and the Mexican cartels for selling it.
And, of course, I blame the Mexican government for being essentially owned by the cartels.
Now, interesting side note.
Felipe Calderon, who was president of Mexico, I don't know, 2006 to 2010, he actually follows me on Twitter.
So, I just noticed that the other day, because I think he liked something I did.
And I thought, I wonder if he follows me on Twitter.
So the ex-president of Mexico follows me on Twitter, and you'd probably ask yourself, well, will that control the things you're willing to say?
Well, watch me. The government of Mexico is clearly owned by the cartels.
So if you thought it would stop me, now you know.
And by the way, I'm not blaming Philippe Calderon personally.
I'm just saying that at the moment, it's so obvious that we don't need any confirmation.
Any reports on massive ramping up of U.S. testing gear and stuff?
No. No.
And that's exactly why we need a data visualizer to be part of this.
Looks like I'm running a little bit long, and I'm going to end it here.
Why don't we just freeze the stock market?
You'd have to ask somebody smarter.
I don't know the pluses and minuses to that.
What is the first industry that will decouple from China?
Well, the priority will be meds and pharmaceuticals.
I don't know if it will be first, but it will certainly be the priority.
When will we be able to open businesses?
I think we're talking a few weeks, as in a month, and maybe sooner for some selected businesses, but it will be phased.
I don't think there's even the slightest chance that you wait 18 months to open your business.
So if you're worried about that, no chance.
And I don't think there's the slightest chance things will be closed for a year.
I put both of those as zero because we're playing some brinksmanship.
We're not crazy.
Brinksmanship is that you take your economy right to the edge, but you don't break it.
You stress it as much as you think you can, but it's just to get on top of the virus.
But you don't break it.
If we're still doing a lockdown a year from now, we're broken.
So what you can trust is that everybody knows that.
That calculation is top of mind for every person involved here.
So this reminds me a little bit of an old Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk is asking Chief Engineer Scotty if you'll give him warp 9.
You know how that conversation goes?
You know, Scotty, you know, give me warp nine.
And then Scotty goes, I cannot give you a warp nine.
Captain, the ship is only built for warp eight.
We can't handle it.
It'll start, it'll come apart at the seams.
And the captain will say, give me warp nine.
And Scotty will say, aye, aye, aye, captain.
And then Scotty somehow makes it work.
So we're sort of trapped in a Star Trek episode in which...
The warp drives our economy.
And right now, that economy is sort of at warp 9 in terms of danger to the structure.
But we're not going to go to warp 10.
Because even Captain Kirk doesn't ask for warp 10.
But what you should expect is that on the economic stuff, However scared you are now, you're going to be way more scared.
Because doing the right thing and doing the wrong thing look exactly the same for a while.
So doing the right thing and the wrong thing will look like keeping the economy closed for a few more weeks.
The right thing and the wrong thing are the same for those two weeks.
It's what you do after that that's the difference between the right thing and the wrong thing.
So we are not doing...
The wrong thing now, for sure.
For sure. Because we're not going to break the government, or I'm not going to break the economy in a few weeks.
But if we're having this conversation in a month, then you're going to have to ask yourself, is Scotty or Captain Kirk on the right side?
But, you know, there are a lot of adults in the room making those decisions, and I think we'll be fine.
And I will talk to you again later today, not sure when, but before you go to bed.
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