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Content:
SVB vs. "transitory inflation"
Whiteboard: Competence Curve
"Uninvestable" states, CA, NY, NJ, MA
SVB, a government failure
Pete Buttigieg vs. appearance of empathy
Tools of success, for everyone
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the decline of civilization.
Apparently, everything's falling apart, but we'll put it back together again.
Your mental state will be so much better when I'm done with you today.
I know it's sort of a disturbing day, but we'll make it better.
That's what we do.
And if you'd like to make it better, all you need is a cup or mug or a glass of tankard, chalice or stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine, the day, the thing that makes everything better, including the banking system.
You don't believe me?
Watch this.
We're going to take a sip and everything will be better.
Go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Can you feel it?
I feel like deposits just went up.
Uh-huh.
And quality, credit quality improved a little bit.
It might not show up in the data, but I could feel it.
And my lived experience is far more important than your damn data, that's for sure.
Well, let's talk about the most important thing that's happening today.
If you've seen the news, you know that the Academy Awards happened last night.
Yeah, we'll talk about that banking thing, too.
We'll talk about the banking thing.
Gotta do that, sure.
But the most important thing was that there was a huge award show for People who made movies.
Now, I was not aware of this, but did you know that there had been any movies made recently?
Did you know that?
They're still making movies.
Has anybody watched a movie in the past year?
I mean, I remember Top Gun, but that's the only one I watched.
I didn't watch anything else this year.
I can't even name one.
I mean, I've heard some names.
Oh, there's some Avatar 2 or something.
Well, how about that?
But the important thing is that people of color won a lot of awards.
And that is far more important than any other theme.
And my favorite is that... Actually, my favorite actress on the entire planet won, I guess, the big Academy Award for Best Actress, Michelle Yeoh.
Am I the only one who has her way before she won this?
She has always been my number one favorite actress in the entire planet.
I just love anything she does.
She's just so good.
I'll watch anything she's in.
As soon as I hear she's in, it's like, alright, I'm in.
I'll watch that.
So I'm pretty happy that my favorite actress in the entire planet won.
So that's good.
And then what does the press do to Reduce, totally reduce her accomplishment?
They report that she is the first person who openly identifies as Asian to win.
She is the first one to openly identify as Asian to win.
Could there be anything more demeaning to her accomplishment?
She literally just ran the table of every actress on the planet Earth.
Right?
I mean, given that Hollywood is a global thing.
I mean, she just won against all the other actresses on the planet Earth.
And what do we say about her?
Oh, she's the second Asian.
I mean, the first one didn't openly identify, because in those days you couldn't.
But she's the first to openly identify, like, that's the headline?
Seriously, that's the headline?
I mean, to me, I would just be pissed.
If I won the greatest award you could win in my craft, And all they reported was my ethnicity, like that's the lead?
I would be pissed.
How about she was just the best one?
How about that?
How about she was just the best one?
Crazy.
All right.
Well, today, as I've been telling you, is the first day of the Dilbert Reborn series.
We'll get to banking next.
So Dilbert, as you know, got cancelled in the polite world.
And Disgraced Artist Scott Adams, that's what I call myself now.
My new name for myself is Disgraced Cartoonist Scott Adams.
So Disgraced Cartoonist Scott Adams, me, has moved to the Locals platform.
It's the only place you'll be able to see Dilbert, the new ones.
But the new ones will be called Dilbert Reborn and it will continue daily as it always did.
I'll just be self-publishing, self-syndicating through the Locals platform.
And if you went to Dilbert.com today, where it has always been running until now, you'll see a redirect to the Locals platform.
So just go to Dilbert.com and click the Locals button for, well, it'll say Dilbert Reborn.
Just follow that if you want to sign up.
It's a subscription service.
Now, I was worried a little bit that something might go wrong because I had two points of, you know, possible going wrong.
One was that the Dilbert.com site wouldn't show the redirect because we weren't sure that technically what we did would work on the first try.
And then I was worried that there might be too much traffic or there'd be a problem on the receiving side if the locals platform got overwhelmed.
But I'm happy to say we did not have a problem with one of those systems.
Both of them didn't work.
So Dilbert.com was not redirecting anywhere when I woke up.
And the local system was not taking new subscribers.
So the most important day of my life went completely wrong.
So nobody actually signed up for a little while.
But it looks like it's fixed.
So when people woke up, it was the waking up part that I had to wait for.
When people woke up on both sides, quickly fixed.
So now we've got both sides working and everything's back online.
But I want to talk about a larger theme when we get to it.
Let's talk about Silicon Valley Bank.
The first question you want to know, since I'm going to be talking about this bank, is, Scott, how much money did you have in that bank, Silicon Valley Bank?
And I would like to give you one definitive answer to that question.
I'm not the guy who puts any money in the 19th largest bank.
Any questions?
I have a degree in economics, an MBA, And I worked in banking for years.
I'm not going to put my money in the 19th biggest bank.
I'm sorry.
That was a mistake.
Every person who put their money in the 19th biggest bank in today's environment, they were taking on a little bit of a risk.
Seems to me.
Now, it looks like the depositors will be made whole.
And I'm happy about that, actually.
I think that was the right decision.
But no, I did not have any money in the 19th largest bank.
So you might ask yourself, who would?
Who would?
But part of the business model of that bank was I think they would offer, I don't know, discounts on your mortgage if you had your business there and also your personal there.
And sometimes the The venture capitalists would recommend it, because there was some kind of, you know, collective benefit from, you know, having all your business in one place.
So it was a combination of, you know, unique, special benefits that that one bank in that one situation had, and not something that is common.
But what is common, if I take the approach that apparently the... So here's one take on it.
So a number of people have different filters on this, or frames.
So each of these are true, but they're not the whole story.
So one of the frames that's true, but not part of the whole story, is that the Fed tried to convince people that interest rates were transitory, or inflation was transitory, and that inflation would be fine once we got past the transitory part.
Now if you believe that, And you thought, oh, OK.
Then you'd probably think interest rates wouldn't go up that much.
And then you would make a huge purchase of fixed rate government instruments that paid very little interest.
But that's all you needed at the time.
The only thing that would get you in trouble is if the rest of the world raised its interest rates while you were locked in at this tiny, tiny little one point something rate.
And then you'd be underwater.
So that's what happened.
But there's some notion that there might be a lot of other banks that did the same thing.
That doesn't mean everything else about the other banks is similar, so they might not have the same structural problems in terms of how many...
What percentage of their deposits are over $250,000 and therefore uninsured, that sort of thing.
So there are all kinds of other differences.
But there is a general problem that there might be a bunch of banks that locked into low interest rate stuff because they believe the Fed.
So apparently, listening to Janet Yellen would crush your back if you just believed what she said.
Now, I think that's just one frame.
I don't think that's the one I would prefer.
I don't think that's the window I'm going to be looking through exactly.
To me it looks like a combination of complexity, meaning there was something about their bank that was different than others, and there were other dynamics.
There was the general flow of capital, etc.
But also there seemed to be some incompetence.
Would you agree?
It seems to be the, there is an incompetence problem.
And have you noticed that there's a general incompetence problem just everywhere?
Have you tried to get customer service help since the pandemic?
Something changed.
Something changed.
You know, before the pandemic, you know, we always complained about customer service, but at least the person on the other end knew their job.
You know, you just complain about one thing or another.
But now it's really different.
If you get customer service, they don't even know their jobs.
They don't even know the basics, the most, you know, top five things that you do in that job.
The competence level is just crazy now.
And I think there's a reason.
And it looks like this.
Here is a controversial, it looks like a bell curve, but I'm going to call it competence.
Don't get caught up on IQ.
Competence is whether you can do the thing that's your job.
So it's not about how smart you are, it's whether you have all the capability to do your job.
You don't need to be a rocket scientist, you just need to be capable in your job.
And I would say that for most of history, you had some people who basically couldn't do anything.
They were just the lowest capability, for whatever reason.
They might be not smart.
They might be on drugs.
For whatever reason, they just were not capable.
Maybe mental insanity.
And most people were in this big, normal phase.
Everybody could sort of do their own job.
Everybody could figure out how to get a mortgage if they needed it.
You could figure out the basics of life.
How to buy a car.
Everybody could get that stuff.
And then there were some freaks who were doing things that none of us could do.
They're doing quantum physics and shit.
So they could do everything, but there aren't many of them.
Here's what's changed.
Of course, technology has spread the number of people who are incompetent, because it's just harder to do stuff now.
Would you agree?
When I go to sign into an app, do you know what I used to do?
Here's what I used to do.
Password.
User name.
Good.
Now if I sign into an app, it's more like cracking it.
I'm more like a safe cracker.
I'm like...
We'll try the password first.
All right, all right, password.
Password, okay, it's requiring authentication.
It requires me to download an Authenticator app, okay.
But my Authenticator app I had is out of date, so it's not working.
But dammit, I've got two things that are apps that are called Authenticator.
I can't remember, did I use the old Authenticator or the new one?
Have I updated the Authenticator?
So then I use it, but for some reason the Authenticator number isn't working, and then I try the other Authenticator, but that seems to be the wrong app.
So I go back, and I try it again, and I try it again, and I try it again, and on the fourth try, it works.
That's just opening an app.
Just opening an app.
It's like I have to plan the afternoon.
You know, if somebody says to me, hey Scott, can you check something on, let's say, your payroll system or something like that, do you know what I first think?
How in the world will I find enough time to hack into that account?
Hack into it.
That's actually what I call it now.
I don't call it signing up.
I don't call it signing in.
I call it hacking it.
Because you've got to be, you're on Google, figuring out what other people have done.
But of course, Google is just full of helpful advice for many choices that you don't have.
Right?
So anyway, just the pace of technology makes everything more complicated.
So you figure that there are just fewer and fewer people who can do the basics of life.
And then, because there are more apps and more possibilities, there are just more possibilities in life, right?
Right now, if I said to you, hey, send me some money, In the old days, you'd say, all right, I'll write a check and put it in this envelope.
But now I'm like, OK, do I use Venmo?
No, Venmo's got a limit on it, but it's connected to the wrong account.
But I can use Google Pay, or I can use Zelle.
What is Zelle anyway?
Remind me what Zelle is.
I know what it is, I'm just pretending.
And now you're like, okay, should I just send Bitcoin?
And what's happening with my Coinbase?
And like, everything is just insane now.
The level of complexity to do the simplest frickin' thing is just through the roof.
So some of it is just, we've got new and better stuff.
It's not so much that it's a technology problem.
It's just more stuff.
So everything you do is just more.
More regulations.
More rules, more security problems, more updates, more patches.
Everything's more.
So suddenly the number of people who can just sort of survive in the world is just way less, way less.
But what happens if you're a business and you have to layer on something like ESG?
So now you're not looking at just profits.
You're not looking at just profits.
You've got to reduce your carbon footprint.
You've got to increase your diversity.
At the same time, you're working on profits.
Do you think those will always be compatible?
They can be.
Ideally, yes.
In a perfect world, yes, they could all be compatible.
In the real world, do you think they are?
In the real world, they could be compatible.
But it causes extra complexity.
Oh, I found somebody who would be perfect for this job.
Are they?
Are they perfect?
Or maybe if you hire that perfect person, you might be working against your ESG goals, right?
So, which is more important?
Do you need your diversity, or this person had just the right experience?
Well, now it's a little complicated.
And if you do that, is it going to increase or decrease your carbon footprint?
So, as soon as you add all the extra complexities, in theory, Your average company should become far less capable, not because they're hiring, you know, minorities.
That's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying that when you add a whole new set of requirements, be they government requirements or be they World Economic Forum recommendations, it doesn't matter where it comes from.
You can make it up yourself.
But if you add a whole layer of other priorities to fight with your current priorities, you should expect Far less capability.
Right?
Now that doesn't mean that's what's... I'm not suggesting that's what happened to the Silicon Valley Bank.
You know, that's sort of a right-leaning... I would say that's more of a political attack.
But take the politics out of it.
You cannot argue with the fact that as soon as you add goals on top of your existing goals, That you have a new level of complexity that will paralyze people who are not that smart.
Now, if you're really smart, does any of this matter?
Well, if you're really, really capable, you could probably make all of it work.
You probably could.
Somebody like Google, for example.
You have Apple.
Highly capable companies.
They can get the best engineers of every demographic group.
People want to work there.
Yeah, if you work at Apple, you could probably manage all of this complexity.
But not everybody can.
So, in my opinion, and then you imagine that you've got The Biden administration, which is adding another burden on business.
So remember, did you see Kevin O'Leary talking about some states are uninvestable?
Do you remember there was an interview in which he said, he said on CNN, and they didn't like it at all, he said, I got to tell you, I'm paraphrasing, but New York and California and Massachusetts but New York and California and Massachusetts are uninvestable.
Uninvestable.
He will not open a business there because the business climate, because of Democrat policies basically, makes the taxes too high and the regulations impossible and it doesn't make sense.
There are actually states in the United States you can't invest in if you're paying attention.
Amazing!
How did we get there?
Now, I'm sure that that's, you know, the regulations.
Regulations, taxes.
So what it feels like is when I watch these shows, I watch these old shows about how the pyramids were built and nobody can figure it out.
Because the current residents of Egypt definitely do not know how to build a pyramid without using modern tools.
And so I think to myself, how was it that a society once knew how to do something impressive, and then they lost that ability?
Isn't that weird?
But then I see us doing it.
Like it feels like we're moving toward absolute stupidity.
Like we won't be able to do normal things.
Like we're losing the ability to do normal things.
The complexity is just crazy.
Yes.
All right, well more about Silicon Valley Bank.
So it immediately broke out along political lines.
People who wanted to establish their conservative credentials said, don't save that bank full of left-leaning Democrats and a bunch of rich people and VCs, and what about middle America, and don't save them.
And then other people said, but wait a minute.
It's not about politics.
It's not so much about politics this time.
Hold on, hold on.
Let's take the politics out and see what it looks like.
Now, if you take the politics out, some would say, right?
I'll round out the opinions, so if I'm leaving one out, just wait for it.
So some would say, no, no, it's more about if people see this one bank fail, it might cause a run on the other banks.
So it's really not even about this bank.
If you're focusing on what's happening on this bank, you're missing the bigger picture.
But then other people say, who's telling us that?
The people who have deposits in that bank?
Seems like a coincidence that the people you would imagine are most likely to have money in that bank are also in favor of saving it.
Huh.
Venture capitalists.
So you have to watch out for, you know, Self-interest, right?
Which is why I start by saying I did not have any money in that bank, so at least that part of my bias will not show.
Bill Ackman, I think, was more of a system focus.
Let's save the system.
Now it appears, and I predicted, do you remember I predicted over the weekend, that the most likely outcome Is that because the government could stop a run on banks just by saying, we'll guarantee you whatever we need to guarantee, and they needed to, and they could, that it would happen.
And here we are.
So they could do it, they needed to do it, and then they did it.
So it wasn't my hardest prediction, but I suppose it could have gone the other way.
So some are calling it a bailout, and others are saying it is not.
Now the argument that it's not a bailout says that the bondholders and the investors in the bank lost everything and there's no compensation for that.
So it's not a bailout of the people who made the mistakes.
That's important, right?
The people who made the mistakes are wiped out.
The people who are innocent customers will be made whole.
Even though you could argue they should have known better, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But you know what my argument is against should have known better?
Well, maybe they should have known that the regulators were watching the banks.
This was a government failure, in my opinion.
To me, they looked under-regulated, wouldn't you say?
It looked under-regulated.
Because somebody should have seen this coming from a mile away.
So the government fucked up, and they're paying for it.
I'm okay with that.
The government messed up, and now the government is saying, we'll at least guarantee it.
Now remember, guaranteeing it doesn't mean they pay anything.
Guaranteeing, if you guarantee it, it means you won't pay anything.
You know, because there won't be a run on the banks.
The general banks.
Now, if the real problem is not just that this specific bank had unique special circumstances, which they did, Then we'll see if it spreads anywhere else.
But in my opinion, the government going in strong and guaranteeing at least that the depositors will be made whole was exactly the right decision.
Now does that mean that I agree with government intervention?
No.
I believe the proper role of the government is the country's insurance policy.
I've always thought of the government that way.
The government's your insurance policy.
If you have to use it, you have to use it.
But you don't want to.
Your first choice is that the government has nothing to do with your life at all.
Right?
At least negative.
And then if something bigger than you happens, then they can come in like an insurance policy.
Now that's just my view of it.
I'm not selling that view to anybody else.
But my personal view is that government as insurance policy is not a bad idea.
Not a bad idea.
So we certainly want them when there's a natural disaster, right?
So what's the difference?
If there's a natural disaster, we say, send that government in and go fix that.
Those are Americans suffering.
You know, we're not being political.
We don't get political in a hurricane, do we?
I guess we do.
Because we suck.
But we don't get as political when there's a natural disaster.
At least most of us can turn that off for about 10 minutes.
Maybe the politicians can't.
But the citizens can.
I mean, when there's a hurricane, no citizens I've ever heard said, don't help them because they're Democrats or Republicans.
I've never heard that.
Not from citizens.
Yeah.
And even in East Palestine, I don't think there were good people of any political stripe who didn't want those people helped.
That's what I think.
Anyway, more about this Silicon Valley Bank.
Do you think that some of what's going on is just that Republicans and conservatives are mad at Democrats, and it looks like a Democrat bank with a bunch of Democrat depositors.
Now that, of course, is not true.
Every bank would have a mix of all kinds of people.
They'd have a mix of ethnicities and a mix of political, but probably the way people think of Silicon Valley is a bunch of Democrats.
I would be a little embarrassed, a little embarrassed for my country if any of that is seeping into this decision.
If this is political, we suck, right?
This is just a, it's a disaster.
It's just like, you know, it's not just like.
But in some ways, in terms of the country needs to save some part of something, it is like a natural disaster to me.
The people, most of the people involved had nothing to do with it.
We're just completely innocent victims.
So I think the right decision is for the government to come in strong and protect depositors, but not owners of banks.
And I'm happy with how that turned out.
But let's check the stock market.
I think the stock market will give you the best idea of what's going on.
So let's look at SPY.
So that would be the Fortune 500.
So it's down half a point, which would be a normal day move.
Oh, it's up?
Is my app on?
Let's see if I refresh.
My app's like 15 minutes late.
But even... Do you have different...
Mine says down.
Do you have a delay on your app or do I have a delay on my app?
Anyway, the point is, whether it's up or down, it's not up or down much.
It's not really more than an ordinary day.
If the stock market is not moving more than an ordinary day, I think we're going to be okay.
I think we're going to be okay.
I'm looking at less than half a point move on something that should have been scary.
So it looks like the stock market, the collective wisdom of the crowds, is that we'll be okay.
Now, if the collective wisdom of stock people says we'll be okay, that probably matches the public.
They're a little more sophisticated than the public in general, but it's also the people who have money.
The people who don't have money, it doesn't matter if they try to withdraw their money they don't have or not.
But if you're in the stock market, you're probably exactly the same people who are putting money in banks because you have money.
So those people seem to be fairly calm.
Yeah, the market is still assessing, but that I don't worry about.
I don't worry about a careful assessment.
I worry about a panic.
It looks like the government acted to stop the panic.
Now, remember I always tell you that the internet dads are really keeping everything together?
I don't think everybody realizes this yet, how true this is.
Now when I say the internet dads, I don't mean just men, and it's not gender specific.
I'm using it as sort of a dad vibe.
You know, somebody just taking control, that sort of thing.
What I watched, at least play out in public, is the smartest people in America realizing that they had to get involved.
Now, smart people get involved in lots of stuff, but I think the smartest among us, I don't include myself in this topic, I think the smartest among us said, all right, this is my job.
I'm not going to delegate this one.
You don't want to delegate that.
And I saw the smartest people just become more visible.
And they weighed in with their specific opinions.
And I believe that we got a result that would be compatible with, I'd say, most of the smart dads.
I know Vivek Ramaswamy was more, you know, let him fall.
So he was sort of outside the mainstream dad mode.
But I think dad mode just saves the country.
And again, I don't mean just male.
I'm using it generically.
I think dad mode, because those smartest people, well let me say, I'll be very specific.
I tuned into a Spaces, you know the audio thing on Twitter, and I was listening to famous investor Bill Ackman.
Talking about where things were, where they're going to go.
Now, because he's someone whose opinion on this topic I would trust, because he's right in the center of this business, and he was thinking that we could get through it, that made me think so too.
So I thought, well, okay, if this internet dad is happy.
And then I look at people like David Sachs, who was arguing with Vivek, they were disagreeing quite a bit on this.
But I felt as though I discounted anybody who was running for office.
So I've told you I'm supporting Vivek for president, primarily on one topic.
He's just tough on fentanyl in Mexico.
And I disagreed with his take on this.
I disagreed with his take.
But he's also in a political realm.
And I think on this decision, I didn't care about anybody in politics.
Don't show me a Democrat running for office.
Don't show me a Republican running for office.
I discount those opinions completely.
I don't discount the smartest people in Silicon Valley.
I don't discount that at all.
Even though I know they have a personal stake in some cases, a personal stake, I still think they're closer to what makes sense than what's political.
Yeah, so I always discount politicians for a technical analysis like this.
Lots of banks probably have the same problem, so we'll see how this plays out.
So far, I trust that we're going to work our way through it, because I think the smartest people are just asserting themselves right now, because they have to.
I saw a tweet, I guess this was from Fox Business, had a headline that said, B of A and Lowe's sponsoring CRT training that, quote, urges whites to cede power to people of color.
Now, I'm sure that's taken out of context, but of course you ask yourself, what possible context could make that okay?
How much imagination would you have to wrap around that to say, well, in this one context, that might actually make sense?
No, not really.
Nope.
Now, if B and A and Lowes are teaching people to put, let's say, race over capability, Would you buy stock in B of A or lows knowing that they have publicly signaled they're no longer valuing competence as their highest standard?
Their highest standard now is who has the power.
Says so.
It's from their own training.
Who would invest in that?
Now if it sounds to you like I'm saying, oh I don't want People of color to have opportunity?
No.
No.
I'm just saying that if the way you get it is by making your companies no longer capable of running, then maybe that wasn't the best path.
That's all.
Maybe there's a better way.
All right.
All right, so a tweet from Representative Jamie Raskin.
I'm just going to read you the tweet.
I feel like sometimes there's no commentary needed.
I remember he's a notable Democrat who has pushed a number of hoaxes and he says, America must reject the GOP's dangerous nihilism about the impossibility of separating truth from lies.
A derangement brought on by Donald Trump, but now infecting their whole party.
Our system of democratic governance rests on truth and facts, not lies and conspiracy theories.
So I retweeted with a comment and attached the now over 20 lists of the hoaxes that Democrats, including representative Jamie Raskin, have played on the country over the past five years.
There are over 20 major hoaxes, some not so major, that his party played on the world.
And they still do, to this day.
And he's complaining about truth.
Now, if there's one thing I could tell you, truth would destroy the country.
You don't want truth.
You don't.
The banking problem is a perfect example.
If everybody involved in the banking just told you the cold, hard facts, there would be a run on banks.
There would.
There would be a run on banks if nobody told you everything would be fine.
Does anybody think that anybody knows for sure that everything will be fine?
Nobody knows that.
Now, I think it's true.
That's my honest opinion that it will be fine.
But nobody knows.
So I'm giving you an optimistic view of the future because it's more functional.
If I can infect you with some optimism, it will stop a bank run.
It will stop the run.
But if I gave you a whole bunch of facts about the stability of the system, And you were unaware that people will be, you know, acting in various heroic ways to try to make sure that those risks don't, you know, become real.
So you're not going to see what people would do to fix something, right?
Because that's unknown.
So if all I did is tell you all the problems with the system, you would go and try to turn your money into gold immediately.
But we don't have a world that works on facts, and you don't want one.
You do not want a world that works on facts.
It has to work on bullshit.
Bullshit is the only thing that keeps us alive.
Now, too much of it, and the wrong kind, seems negative.
But you don't want to take away the operating system of society, which is lies.
Exaggerations, promises you can't keep, optimism that isn't Isn't accurate.
Downplaying the things that are really bad.
The moment you think that truth is your goal, you're lost.
Now we all prefer truth.
If you ask me, I'll say, oh yeah, I'd much rather have the truth.
But I'm also not an idiot.
I see that most of the world couldn't handle the truth, and it would just crash the system.
So no, the truth is terrible.
You don't want the truth.
But that doesn't mean that every piece of BS is good for you.
So I would agree with Jamie, Representative Raskin, that there's too much bullshit, but don't get rid of all of it.
It's sort of a necessary lubricant of society.
All right.
I finally figured out, and I guess this was not the biggest mystery in the world, exactly why TikTok has not already been banned by the government.
Can you guess why TikTok has not already been banned by the government?
Just take a guess.
Because it's good for Democrats.
Now, I didn't know that the Democrats were thinking in those terms, but it did seem to me that because of the demographic of TikTok users, young people tend to be Democrat, more likely, that it probably helped them to have that vehicle that they could reach those voters.
Now, did you know that 2022 was record turnout for young people of the TikTok using age?
Did you know that?
You think it's related?
I don't necessarily think it's related.
It might be related to abortion or something like that.
But I wonder, I wonder, did TikTok make people more likely to vote?
It can.
If you don't think it has the power to do that, you're completely wrong.
Yeah.
TikTok has the power to change how many people vote.
Did you know that?
Because it's persuasive and they can decide what you see and what you don't see.
So if they want you to vote, they can make sure that your feed is filled with more things that are political and would encourage you to vote and scare you so you have to vote, right?
Anyway, so the reason that The TikTok is not already banned when it's so obvious the right thing to do?
I mean, this is just easy question.
Am I wrong?
Banning TikTok is not a hard question.
The Chinese government can control what our kids see.
They have total control of what they see more of and less of.
Even the Chinese children can't use it.
They're not allowed.
It's too dangerous.
All right.
But it's because the Democrats are saying directly they don't think they can win races without it.
The Democrats, the consultants, etc., are saying it directly.
Yeah, without TikTok, we'd have a lot, we'd have trouble winning.
So there it is.
Your Democrats have literally, they've literally preferred China's well-being over yours.
That's not exaggeration.
Because to the extent that they know that China can influence TikTok, and of course they should know that, it's pretty obvious, and the fact that they want to not change that situation because it's good for them politically, they're not on your side.
Hey, nice picture.
They're not on your side at all.
Anybody who wants to keep TikTok to get elected has favored China's well-being over the United States.
I'm not wrong about that.
That's exactly what's happening.
They've literally favored China's well-being over the United States so they could get elected.
What would be a lower level of ethical behavior?
I can't think of one.
Can you think of anything that would be less ethical than that?
Literally allowing your most dangerous adversaries to have control of the minds of your own children so you can get elected.
You would delegate the raising of your children to the Chinese communists so you can get a few votes.
That's what the Democrats are doing.
I'm not making that up.
Let me ask you, is that framing too hyperbolic?
Was that hyperbole or is that a description of fact?
That a Democrat will leave the education, to a large degree, of their own children, their own children and grandkids.
They will risk their own children and grandchildren so they can get elected.
And it's not even, it's just like some votes, it's not like a lot of votes.
That's actually happening in the real world, right in front of you, with no, there's nobody hiding it.
Just think about the... Remember how I kept saying, why is there no argument for keeping TikTok?
You know, Fox News would have on this bipartisan, you know, two senators.
Oh, here's a Republican who says ban TikTok.
And here's a Democrat who says ban TikTok.
And then I say, OK, good.
Now, I'm very curious to see the opposite side of the argument.
So I can't wait until they have a Democrat on who wants to keep TikTok.
Have you ever seen one?
Anywhere?
CNN?
MSNBC?
Fox News?
No.
Have you seen an article?
Wall Street Journal?
Have you seen any Democrat say, I'd like to say that TikTok should remain legal?
Nope.
Do you know why?
They literally can't say it in public.
It's the policy of the United States.
It's not a state secret.
And they're so embarrassed, they can't even say it in public.
Do you think they should be embarrassed?
Yes.
Yes, they should be embarrassed.
If you can't even make your argument in public, and I'm not wrong, there is no Democrat who has made an argument for TikTok in public, because they can't.
It would be thoroughly unethical.
What they're doing instead is saying, oh, let's study it until the next election's over.
They're going to study it until the election's over.
And they're doing that right in front of your face.
Right in front of you.
Nothing's being hidden here.
This is right in front of you.
We would like China to be a big part of the next election.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
Yeah, let's have China be a big player in the next election.
And purposely.
Purposely.
Now, they're not purposely wanting China to do it, but they're purposely creating the situation which they know gives China tremendous control over the election.
Now, here's the question.
Do you think China prefers Democrats?
What do you think?
Do you think they prefer Democrats?
Well, you know, you could argue that they don't care.
There is an argument that Biden's been tough on them.
Biden has been tough on China.
And the Democrats, even Schumer, etc., are still kind of tough on China.
So it's not as clear to me that China wants Republicans to win.
But what is clear is if they wanted Republicans to win, they could make it happen.
That's clear.
They could make it happen.
Doesn't mean they will.
But your election is no longer in your hands.
It looks like China has full control of the next election.
And I say full control because anything that can move the electorate by 2% is going to determine who the next president is.
You don't think TikTok can move us by 2%?
Yes, they can.
Yes, they can.
It has exactly the kind of system that could move 2% of the public.
Completely.
Totally.
All right.
So I think it was last week I showed a clip that I just took off the news.
So I know it's not, I know it wasn't manipulated.
You know sometimes you see manipulated things where they slow down somebody's speech to make them look like they're drunk or something.
But I'm pretty sure the video of Kamala Harris appearing to be inebriated while she was speaking in public.
Now that's my opinion.
In my opinion she appeared to be inebriated.
And so I tweeted it to ask other people what they thought.
And there were some who thought no.
They said, oh, she's just like that.
But I think at least three quarters of people who responded said, oh yeah, obviously inebriated.
It's obvious.
Now, where's the pushback to that?
Where's the pushback?
So we've got this banking crisis.
And the confidence of the economy, the confidence of the country, depends on leadership more than anything else.
So we've got a leader who can't put two words together, and it's never clear if he's going to finish a sentence, and his backup, nobody's questioning the fact that she appears to be drunk in public on a regular basis.
Nobody's even questioning that that's true.
You know, I mean, 75% of you are perfectly willing to say that's what it looks like.
Now we don't know, right?
If I said I know she's inebriated, that would be too far.
I'm saying she acts exactly like somebody who's inebriated.
So it doesn't even matter if she's not.
Do you want a vice president who acts like a drunk when she's not?
That's not better.
That's not an upgrade.
So we have the weakest leaders we've ever had, if you look at them as a pair.
It's the weakest leadership we've ever had, in terms of confidence, at a time when we need confidence.
Now, is it my imagination, or has absolutely everything in the country gotten worse since Biden took over?
Am I imagining that?
So we're in a war, Inflation is through the roof.
Inflation would have been bad under Trump.
You know that, right?
We still would have had inflation because we spend a lot.
But I don't think it would have been as high.
Like, I think he would have been at least putting his foot on it a little bit harder.
I don't know if it would have made a difference.
But we can certainly say it hasn't gone well under Biden.
I think we have more racial division.
We didn't have bank scares under Trump.
I remember a time when movies and TV were watchable.
Do you remember when movies and TV were watchable?
And now they really aren't.
And then as Kevin O'Leary says that states, the blue states, have made business just uninvestable.
The states are uninvestable.
Those are really big things.
Those are really big things and I don't know that they would be worse under Trump.
What do you think?
Do you think a Trump government would have saved any of these problems?
Or maybe at least the Ukraine war?
I don't know.
He wouldn't change movies, but... I don't know.
So maybe... I feel like the country's an alcoholic, and it's been drinking the CRT and the ESG and the DEI juice, and now it's just drunk and incompetent.
Just drank all the social media juice.
All right, here's a little anecdote.
I want to see if anybody can back up this anecdote.
So yesterday I talked to a young person, 17-year-old family member.
And the family member said that she had deleted her social media accounts just to see if she'd feel better.
In one day of no social media, she reported an immense change in her mood and her enjoyment of life.
And she said, I was so productive today, did a whole bunch of things that she wanted to get taken care of, school and other things, and felt really good.
It was like, wow, so productive.
And those days normally would have been sitting in one place, Or maybe walking or something, but just scrolling.
Like that would be a normal weekend day, would just be scrolling.
And maybe you see some people.
And by getting rid of her social media, she couldn't stop talking about how happy her, like how free her brain was.
Now, has anybody done that?
Has anybody tried that?
I guess you wouldn't be here if you had.
But do you know anybody who's tried it?
Do you know any teens who have gone cold turkey on social media?
Because I'm wondering if that needs to start as a trend.
I don't know how you start a trend, because if it's not a trend that's on social media, they'll never see it, right?
But I feel as if, in the same way that the so-called purebloods were happy they didn't get vaccinated, I wonder if there's going to be a time when the non-social media users look like the best ones to date.
I wonder if you'll look more attractive if you're not using social media after a certain amount of time.
Imagine you're looking for, let's say you're a teenage girl, you're looking for a boyfriend.
You've got two choices and you like them both.
One boyfriend lives on social media.
The other one deleted all social media.
Which one's going to cheat on you?
Right?
Which one's going to cheat on you?
The one that has no social media?
The one that uses it constantly?
It's easy.
Yeah, all things being equal, the person with no social media is the star.
Now, suppose you think things might someday go wrong.
Might someday go wrong, and then the person you broke up with is still on social media.
What kind of BS do they post?
Well, it might not be good for you.
That's a downside.
But the person who has no social media is not going to post anything on social media.
Do you think if you're dating somebody and they see something on social media that maybe you should be doing?
How about that?
You know, all these girls on social media, I see they're doing XYZ and I really like that.
And then your girlfriend's like, uh, what?
Yeah, they're all doing this thing, a certain kind of makeup or whatever.
Yeah, you should do that.
That doesn't work.
That's not a good relationship sort of thing.
I saw something on social media, you should be more like that.
That actually happens.
But somebody who doesn't have social media is just gonna say, I like you.
I like you.
That's about it.
So, I do think that there's a possibility, because everything goes too far before it comes back, the social media may have reached a point where it's just obviously affecting your mental health, and that the smarter young people are just going to ditch it.
Or maybe take time off from it.
It might be like a social media diet.
Like, only look at it for an hour a day or something.
Because you can't really live without it in the modern world, it seems.
I don't think I could.
But I could figure out a way to not look at it.
You know, it's weird.
When my little scandal broke, I'm sure you're all aware of it.
When my scandal broke, all I had to do was not look at social media and I felt fine.
Did you know that?
If I just lived in my house, And didn't check my phone or didn't look at any articles about me.
It didn't bother me at all.
It didn't bother me at all.
But social media created this whole artificial world that if I had entered it, I probably would have felt bad.
Because there was this whole ugly bubble that started and I just said, well, I just won't get in there.
So there were a whole bunch of notable people who wrote nasty articles about me.
Didn't see them.
I mean, I saw some headlines sometimes.
Not interested.
So, that's where we're at.
Let's talk about Pete Buttigieg.
Rasmussen Poll says, what percent?
Half of the country or something doesn't want him.
Thinks he should resign because of the East Palestine situation.
Here's my problem with Pete Buttigieg.
I've always liked him for being smart and for having a consultant background because it means he can at least understand, you know, complicated stuff and can figure out solutions, maybe.
But the East Palestine situation really showed his biggest weakness.
His biggest weakness is he doesn't seem like he has a heart.
Of course he does.
But in terms of a leadership vibe, Trump showed that he cared and people believed it.
Would you agree?
Trump showed empathy by showing up.
Showing up is, as you know, in relationships and in work, showing up can be 80% of the solution.
Or 80% of the message.
The message.
So showing up is big.
But Pete has this problem.
He's a little academic and intellectual and a little bit too much of a consultant.
I never once felt that Pete Buttigieg cared too much.
Did you?
Like, I just didn't feel like he cared.
And when he said, you have to understand that there are all kinds of train derailments all the time, then I really didn't think he cared.
But he does, right?
So I'm not mind reading.
I'm saying that a leader needs to project empathy, not just have it.
He probably has it.
I'm not saying he's like a heartless robot, but not everybody can project it.
And this was one of those situations where the people needed to know that the people in charge cared.
Biden didn't show up.
It looks like he didn't care.
Buttigieg talked about it like a consultant, which makes you think he doesn't care.
Trump showed up totally unambiguous.
What Trump did left no doubt about what he was trying to communicate.
We don't, again, we don't know what's in his heart or his mind, but what he communicated was crystal clear.
Crystal clear.
I'm going to put my time into this and my money too.
So yeah, you don't usually think the secretary of transportation needs to be a leader more than, you know, More than a wonk.
But there may be more and more situations, especially with any kind of transportation by air or self-driving cars.
We have a whole bunch of transportation-related things in the pipeline, the self-driving cars being the biggest one, I think, that you're really going to need some leadership from the transportation area.
So I do think he's the wrong person.
I don't know if you should resign, but I think we actually need a leader who can convey the emotions and empathy of leadership, and I don't think he has that gear.
I think he's a smart guy.
Probably, I think he cares.
I assume so.
He just doesn't project leadership, and I don't think we can do without it.
I don't think we can do without leadership from his department.
And maybe before we could.
Maybe before we could.
I do say some things twice sometimes.
Somebody pointed that out recently.
I didn't notice until somebody pointed it out.
Well, I'll be talking to Larry Elder.
I think on Thursday I'm going to talk to him and maybe it airs the next day.
It'll be recorded.
And he retweeted my video.
In which I reframed race relations, or the race, let's say, topic.
I'll give you the quick view if you want to find the video, it's in my Twitter feed.
And it's a quick little micro lesson in which I compared the concepts of race that we're most focusing on, from CRT to reparations to grievances, etc.
And then I compared that to all the best practices in self-development or success.
And you find out that focusing on the race frame is in direct conflict with all the things that are best practices for your own best life.
Best example is that people who teach success tell you that you should have gratitude about whatever is working out.
And that gratitude will inspire you and lift you to work harder for the future.
So it turns out that gratitude, about the current situation at least, gives you extra energy for doing stuff in the future.
Whereas I pointed out that if you're studying slavery in the past and discrimination in the past, how could you possibly have any gratitude for that?
It's impossible.
And so one of the main tools of success is being removed from black Americans through a system that tells them they should be focused on the grievances of the past, which are real and should not be forgotten and should be taught.
But if everything stayed the way it is, black America should fall behind farther.
Does that make sense?
We've developed a system where we're training black Americans to do all the wrong things for personal success.
Focus on the past.
Work on your grievances.
Get your reparations.
Don't do things for other people.
They owe you.
Why should you do anything for them?
They owe you.
And how about teaching black people that being openly racist is fine?
Do you realize we did that?
That not we, but the culture.
The culture taught black Americans they can be openly racist against white people and anybody else, and they get a free pass.
Now, I don't mind that they have feelings, but if you're doing it openly, you're working against your own success strategy.
You've probably seen on social media, you know, there are way too many of them, some video that went viral of some black American complaining about white people.
Now, suppose the complaint is completely accurate.
That's not my point.
My point is, I would never hire that person.
Would you?
It has nothing to do with anything except having the wrong mindset for success.
I would definitely hire somebody who said, all the problems of the past are exactly what they look like.
That would just be an accurate, objective view.
But if that's what you're leading with, Like today, you're leading with your grievance.
If your grievance is what you're tweeting, I don't want to work with you.
It has nothing to do with your race.
It has to do with being infected with a loser philosophy.
The only people who win with this backwards-looking ESG, CRT stuff is the people who are signaling their awesomeness.
You know, hey, I'm signaling my awesomeness.
And the people who make money selling those courses.
That's it.
Everybody else is just bullshit.
And nobody wants it.
That's an exaggeration.
I'm sure there are people who want it.
So, when I talked to Larry, given that he tweeted that video, he must have at least some compatible thoughts with it.
We'll find out how compatible.
And the good news is, maybe we could We can at least get the message to some people, in black America and everywhere else, that if you're working on your personal success, the tools of personal success are very accessible, right?
It doesn't take, you don't have to take a college course to learn that if you act with more gratitude, You'll have better results.
That doesn't require college.
If I tell you, have a good, positive, optimistic frame of what is going to happen, you don't have to go to college to understand that.
It's all just available to everybody.
If I told you that continuously adding talents to your existing talents is absolutely going to help you in life, do you need to be college educated to understand that?
No.
Everybody can learn stuff.
Everybody can understand that some kinds of skills work well together to make you more valuable.
So the thing that bugs me the most is that the basic tools for success, everybody who succeeded used the same tools.
And it's not being taught to black Americans.
Instead, they're being taught anti-success.
How to not be successful.
It's not presented that way, but it's very cleanly and clearly a way to keep them second-class citizens.
Because they just won't be doing the stuff that works.
And the stuff that works is denied to them by people who may... I don't think anybody intends it, but that's the way it's worked out.
Boomer, somebody says.
How does that make sense?
What does a boomer have to do with it?
Does Khan Academy deny them?
See, the thing with Khan Academy is you would have to know that's a good idea.
And you'd have to know it exists.
But there are not many people who can self-learn on their own from a video.
It's pretty hard to do.
As much as I love Khan Academy, I feel it's better for people who already have some kind of education and are trying to fill in some spots, or they're trying to augment their schooling.
What's the incentive if the government is giving you things?
Well, does that question make sense?
What's the incentive if the government is giving you things?
The government would give me things if I were poor.
Do you think that I would prefer that over success?
Who in the world prefers getting stuff free from the government versus being rich or being well-off?
You think some do?
I think some do.
I mean, it's a big world, so there's always somebody who does anything.
But I've got a feeling that that has more to do with knowing what's possible.
Suppose you took just an average person, doesn't matter what ethnicity, you say to this person, here's the deal, if you don't work, we'll give you some social services, you can live in squalor, but you won't have to work.
At least you don't have to work.
Some people would take that.
But if the alternative is, look, you can live in squalor, but here's some set of tools and techniques that if you did these things, pretty much guaranteed to get out of this squalor.
Now do you do it?
Now suppose I say to you, the government will take care of you, but you have to live in squalor.
The alternative is to try to make it the way white people do.
I'm speaking the worst possible way.
And it's not available to you because of systemic racism.
So you have a choice of the free stuff, and you don't have to work, but you live in squalor.
Or you could work really hard, but the system is just so biased against you, it won't help you at all.
Right.
So, I get, you know, I agree with the point that some people can't be helped.
But I don't believe that describes an entire class of people.
That would be crazy.
You know, everything's about more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff.
There are no absolutes.
But there's no way in the world that black America would fall behind if they used the tools for individual success.
It would be just a huge difference in how everything is turning out.
Like I said before, if I sniff, if I meet a new person and I get even a whiff that they're living in the racism frame, where CRT and that stuff are their main concern, I wouldn't hire anybody like that.
It doesn't matter the race.
I wouldn't hire a white person who said, you know, I only want to work for a company that has ESG.
I wouldn't hire a white person who said that.
Because they're not focused on what I want, which is profitability.
Now, of course, I also want not to pollute.
I want to not add any CO2 that I don't have to.
And I want to have access to the entire diverse workforce.
But I'm not going to hire somebody with the wrong mindset.
So we're talking about mindset, not ethnicity.
And if we started talking about mindset, everything would be fixed.
Right?
Do you think, when I said my hyperbole, do you think I said, I sure would like to avoid contact with black people who have a success mindset?
Can you imagine that I would ever think that?
No.
Anybody who has a success mindset, I want to be your friends with, that I want to be your friend.
Nothing else matters.
Nothing else matters.
I don't care, you know, if you're differently abled, different color, different gender, I don't care about any of that.
You come to me with a success mindset, best friend.
And the trouble is that we've denied one group of Americans, black Americans, somehow the common useful knowledge that everybody else has, and they've been biased toward a frame on life that guarantees less success.
Guarantees less success.
As F. Pencil says, but I'm still a jerk.
Did I ever deny that?
Did you ever hear me say, well, the one thing I want you to believe is my character is unassailable.
I would never say that.
I'm pretty self-aware.
But you should be self-aware that my public persona does not match my personal persona.
How many of you knew that?
I think the locals people know that.
But on YouTube, I'm just asking you, how many of you understand that my public persona is a sort of a heightened character?
Like my actual me?
Pretty different.
Now, I'm not lying in public, right?
So the things I say are all the things I really believe.
I can't think of any exception.
But the things I say in public are my actual beliefs.
It's just that I ramp them up a little bit to get the entertainment value and also to make a message.
And when people got mad that I insulted a group of Americans and they asked me to apologize, and I thought, no, I insulted them to get their attention so that all of us would be better off.
Now, the fact that 98% of all the people watching my story don't believe that... Well, that's what got me cancelled.
And I haven't complained about it yet.
I don't expect to.
So, I feel like I'm right where I need to be.
And right where I need to be is I'm going to draw a line that says, for something this important, The complete destruction of black American minds by teaching them anti-success tools and ignoring the very available success tools that make anybody successful of any type.
That's too far.
It's too far.
And if I have to, like, give up my career to say, like, you're just destroying the whole frickin' country, that would be worth it.
I have to admit that my overall feeling is that although I've not penetrated the other bubble, I'm going to keep tapping on it.
And, you know, I never give up, so if you don't know anything else about me, I never give up.
To my dying breath, I'm going to make this work, one way or another.
Now, I don't think I can change the world, but I think I can maybe create a subset of people Who know that personal success tools are their way out.
And then maybe that idea can spread.
Other people will see it.
Because the thing I can't influence is peer influence.
You somehow have to create some peers if you can.
Any kind of a foothold.
So that then they can influence their peers.
But short of that... Until I get one million followers.
How many neighbors have I nudged to be rich?
Well, I live in a high-end neighborhood now, so they're all doing fine.
Elon does not seem anti-CCP enough.
Well, he's got a business to run.
If Musk had no business in China, I think we could be confident his opinion would sound different.
But at the moment, he doesn't have options.
And I don't think it's the right move to Put him out of business.
So in the long run, I would hope that he's looking for alternatives.
In the short run, it's just a tough situation to be in.
Hang on like a bum with a bologna sandwich.
Hasn't your YouTube channel increased?
Yeah, something like that.
But you know, the YouTube channel doesn't... It's not like a big money maker.
It's sort of like doubling five dollars.
At the level that it earns money, a 30% chance doesn't have any impact on my life.
Just none.
All right.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is everything I want to say this morning.
I'm going to talk to the locals people a little bit more.
Has anything happened?
Jared Taylor, I don't know who that is.
If you're new to me on YouTube, And you'd like to hear more ideas for improving the world?
You should hit that like and subscribe button on YouTube.
