Episode 2047 Scott Adams: Bank Shenanigans, Hunter Finances Malarkey, Fauci Sketchiness, Climate
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
RFK Jr. talking about Dr. Fauci
Mass awakening to reality
Is the truth good for us?
Climate change is a religion
Rep. Jeff Jackson on SVB
Putin vs. Wagner Group
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If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.
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Good morning everybody and welcome to the highlight of civilization.
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If you'd like to enjoy it in the way that people like you enjoy things, all you need is a little extra.
And all that extra is a cup or mug or a glass of tankard, chalice or stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
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And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
And don't you wish I talked this fast for the rest of the podcast?
Because sometimes when I talk, some people say it's not fast enough.
But if I talk faster, it'd be like this.
Sip.
Yeah, that's good.
Well, we're going to start with the important stories first and then get to the nonsense.
Important story first.
A zebra attacked a man in Ohio, bit his arm.
Police were called and police put down the zebra.
You might think it's a race crime, but zebras are almost perfectly striped, white and black, so it's a little ambiguous whether that's a race crime or not.
So the zebra was killed by the police, and they speculated that the zebra was being aggressive, Because it was protecting some of the other female zebras.
And this raises a big question.
How many zebras are there in Ohio?
Because apparently it was at somebody's home.
How many zebras did that one person have?
Makes you wonder.
What is the maximum number of zebras you could have in Ohio?
And how many of the zebras died from toxic water from a train wreck?
These are many questions that are not answered in this story.
But in maybe related news, I don't know, this is on Fox News, a moose attacked a snowmobiler in Idaho.
The snowmobiler lived.
And I'm starting to think it's connected.
Do you think the animals are just pissed that they've had enough?
I feel like it's an uprising.
This feels like an insurrection, if I may use that word.
It's like January 6th all over again.
I think it's some kind of a takeover attempt.
Now, if the animals do organize, and here I'm assuming that they'll bring in their allies, the fish and the birds, the animals will have not only ground forces, but a navy and an air force.
Yeah, so I'm a little worried about the animals organizing.
With any luck, AI will form a robot army and destroy all the animals.
So, I mean, it might be a fair fight.
Let me suggest a following theme that you're going to see more of in the future.
Art that is supported by advertising is corrupt.
That's my statement.
Art, of any kind of art, whether it's writing or comics or even music, if you depend on advertisers, it's corrupt art.
And corrupt, by corrupt I mean it's not the artist's idea of what it should be.
It's the artist's best attempt to stay within the narrow lines.
So I believe that if you're watching advertiser-supported art of any kind, it's corrupt.
I mean, it might still be entertaining, but it's corrupt in the sense that it's not art.
It's just commerce.
Because it's got to paint between the narrow lines of what's available.
Now, art is supposed to challenge you.
Not always.
I mean, some art can be benign.
But one of the greatest values of art is shocking you, moving you to where you're not, stretching your ideas of things.
Nobody's going to do that in an advertiser-supported world, because you'll be cancelled.
But in the subscription world, People are there because they want to be there.
So Dilbert being moved from newspapers, which were advertiser supported mostly, to a world on the locals platform where I can do what I want.
I have to tell you the creative freedom that I'm feeling is the best feeling I've had Actually, ever, creatively.
Because even when I began, in the early days of the comic, I was always thinking, uh-oh, I can't go too far, because the comics have to be for everybody.
It's for children and adults and everything.
So I was always self-censoring.
And then, by the time I got canceled, they were censoring me.
But now on Locals, the only thing that censors me is my own sense of what people would want to enjoy as art.
That's my only limit.
I say to myself, would you enjoy this?
Does this look like something you'd laugh at?
And then it's good.
So I'm not going to go crazy and do a bunch of bathroom humor.
It's not going to be like that.
It's just that I can do it.
If something was unusually funny, I might say, well, I don't usually do that, but I can.
I can add a fourth panel, I can change... I can edit it after it's published.
I can publish it, and then edit it and change it.
I can do two comics.
The freedom is insane.
It's just the best feeling.
So thanks to anybody who signed up for this subscription site.
I appreciate it immensely.
Well, here's another important story.
I guess British jails have female guards for the male prisons.
Did you know that?
Do we do that in America?
Do we have female prison guards in all-male?
We do?
Does that sound like the worst idea in the world?
Alright, here's what's happening in Great Britain.
Now this is correlated to my theory that over time the only people who will be shoe salesmen are men with a foot fetish.
Because the free market should Make it so that people who are getting an extra benefit from working that job would take a lower salary to do it, because they get the extra benefit of the excitement.
So I always think that if you wait long enough, all shoe salesmen will have foot fetishes, because they're the ones who would work for the least amount of money and still do the best job.
But apparently if you hire women for an all-male jail, it turns out that at least in Great Britain, They're not all there for the right reason.
So apparently the female guards have been banging the prisoners like crazy.
And since 2019, a total of 31 women across England and Wales have been fired from jails for intimate relationships with inmates.
Now that's the ones who got caught.
That's just the ones who got caught.
Now, how many female guards are there in Great Britain and Wales?
I mean, I don't know what the total population is, but this is just the ones who got caught.
I would think that over time, the only female guards you would have working in prisons are ones that are there because they want to bang the prisoners.
Like, have a boyfriend who can't... You want a boyfriend who probably won't cheat on you?
But they probably do too.
So, anyway, I don't know, I don't think anybody got hurt by any of these so-called crimes.
Sounds like they all had a good time, but you don't want those prisoners to be too happy.
Then, you know, they'll be doing crimes just to get into jail.
Imagine being a prisoner and you're dating your guard.
I mean, I don't know if you've ever had that fantasy, but It's probably somebody's fantasy.
Alright, let's talk about UFOs.
Yet another military pilot is yet again saying that he and his other pilot friends have seen unidentified objects He encourages us not to think of them as necessarily alien, but unexplained.
And he says, two aircraft from my squadron, this is on Fox News sites, two aircraft from my squadron were flying side by side, and one of these objects went right between their aircraft, he added.
It looked like a dark cube inside of a plastic bubble or a clear sphere.
What do you say?
It looked like a dark grey or black cube inside a clear sphere.
Do you think the unexplained object was engineered and designed such that it's a dark grey or black cube inside a clear sphere?
What are the odds that even an alien or advanced civilization created it to look like some kind of a cube inside a clear sphere.
Does any of this sound real to you?
Now, I don't know what is happening, especially when there are multiple witnesses.
I don't know what's happening, but I don't think that they're seeing advanced alien crafts, or advanced crafts.
I don't know what it is, but it seems like the least likely explanation is advanced technology.
That feels like the least likely explanation.
How about you?
Would you say that these sightings would suggest, not that they're UFOs or aliens, not that they're aliens, but it could be some Earth-made technology that we're not aware of?
Does anybody think it's real?
As in there's a real thing up there that we need to know about?
Yeah, I don't think it's real.
It has all the tells for not being real.
Really, all of them.
It has every tell for not being real.
The part that's convincing is that there are credible people, more than one, in many cases, more than one, seeing the same phenomenon and describing it the same.
What would that tell you about the credibility?
So it's on instruments.
It's on instruments, so they know there's something there.
And humans see it too.
That isn't even a little bit convincing to me.
In the real world, that isn't even a little bit convincing.
I don't rule it out.
So if we find out there's something up there in the future, I'll say, well, let's say I didn't think it was true, but I wouldn't rule it out.
I'd put it in the 10% range.
Maybe 10%.
Likely there's something up there that's real, that we care about.
All right, did anybody see RFK Jr.
talking about Dr. Fauci?
And I saw some accusations that I've not seen in the regular news.
But it's the most disturbing thing I've ever seen in my life.
Have you heard the latest, RFK?
Now, I'm not sure I have all the details, but it's something like, roughly speaking, but don't hold me to the details, roughly speaking,
Fauci took a, sometime in the past, took a huge raise to help the military develop some kind of gain-of-function viruses, and that he had several places he was funding in the United States to do it, bioweapons I guess, and that when the heat was put on him, he moved some of it to Wuhan to get it out of the US.
Is that even possible?
Is there a clear signal that he took a gigantic raise, made a lot of money, did something in the United States that we had to chase out of the country, and then he kept doing it in Wuhan, and then when he got caught, and then when he got caught, he said none of it happened?
Did that really happen?
Because here's what's wrong.
It's not in the news.
It's not in the regular news.
Even on Fox News, is it?
So why is it not even on Fox News?
Because RFK Jr.
is pretty credible at this point, wouldn't you say?
I don't think he makes stuff up.
So what's going on here?
I don't know what's going on.
This is like two things that can't be true at the same time.
It can't be true that RFK Jr.
is making that up.
But it can't be true that it's true.
Because it would be in the regular news.
It would be like the biggest story.
So what's going on?
Does anybody have any idea?
It's in his book?
So that's in his book, which means it's probably documented and researched, and it's just not in the news?
What's going on?
I don't know.
I guess I'm just going to leave it as I have no idea what is happening here.
I don't know if the news has gathered around suppressing the story.
Or maybe the way the story is told has got an element in it that the regular news doesn't think is quite true.
I can't tell.
All right, well that's disturbing.
Here's a story you were waiting for.
Hunter's financial transactions are going to be looked at.
Apparently the House Oversight Committee has been trying to get Hunter Biden's finance banking records, because there's stuff in the laptop that suggests some sketchy transactions.
And I guess whoever it was in the Biden administration was stalling, of course.
But it looks like they're finally going to get it.
They turned up the heat and said they were going to bring in the people who were stalling and question them under oath, which freed it up.
So now we're going to see something about the allegations.
That Biden Associates received a $3 million wire from a Chinese energy company two months after Joe Biden left the vice presidency.
Blah, blah, blah.
Soon after, hundreds of thousands of dollars in payouts went to members of the Biden family.
So that's an accusation.
And, you know, it's an allegation.
So let's just say that's an allegation and not a fact yet.
I mean, it's not an established fact, but it might be.
But it's an allegation.
And I think we're going to actually find out.
What do you think?
Do you think we're actually going to find out what Hunter Biden actually did before the next presidential election?
It doesn't feel like it, does it?
It feels like it's going to be more of nothing, even though every part of it looks like it should be something and something big.
So here's the funniest part of the story.
I don't know if it's still there, but the way Fox News covered this, I'm talking about Fox's coverage, of course it's not on CNN.
In case you wondered.
Yeah, it's not covered on CNN.
A gigantic potential story.
I don't even think it's mentioned.
You can check for yourself, but I think it's not mentioned.
This seems like really, really big.
But here's the best part of the story.
The best part of the story is that whoever does the headlines for Fox News, they caption the story, the walls are closing in.
Now that's funny.
That is funny.
Whoever does the little captions that are over the stories, obviously tongue-in-cheek.
And I believe that they're making reference to the walls are always closing in on Trump.
But Hunter Biden is the right's Trump.
Like, the left are like, oh, we got Trump now, we got his taxes.
What?
There's nothing in the taxes?
All right, well, I'm sure we have him with Stormy Daniels.
What?
It's such a small crime that nobody even cares?
What?
Let's try something else.
And, you know, they're just waiting for Trump to go down.
The walls are closing in.
But I feel like that's exactly what the right is feeling about Hunter.
Oh, we got his laptop.
He's going down now.
Okay, he didn't go down because of the laptop, but once we get these financial records, once we get these, the walls are closing in.
I feel like I would bet against it.
Wouldn't you?
Now, I'm not saying that Hunter did nothing sketchy.
I'm saying that whether he did something completely illegally or not, or anything in the gray area, that nothing's going to change.
I don't know why, other than political connections, but there'll be some reason why it doesn't matter.
Am I wrong?
You could predict it so easily.
That's why that comment, the walls are closing in, I just thought that was hilarious.
So kudos to whoever is the editor who put that on that page.
That was funny.
Alright, as I saw in the comments, we're talking about a mass awakening People are becoming more aware of the actual world they live in, in a way that we've never experienced before.
And boy, is that going to accelerate.
You think you've seen some stuff now?
The stuff that's right ahead of us is going to really be disturbing.
Maybe in a good way, I don't know.
We're going to wake up to the reality.
But just take a stroll through some of the things that have changed lately.
In my opinion, the introduction of simulation theory, the idea that we're a simulation, and even having somebody like Elon Musk endorse it as a legitimate view, and I certainly do, it's my preferred view of reality, that's sort of a big mind-effer, isn't it?
But that's just one thing.
There's a bunch of things happening.
Let me take you a little tour through them.
I think that we're more aware than we ever have been That reality is a subjective experience.
Would you agree?
It's never been more obvious.
And I think the bubbles and the news that's different on the left and the right just make that so clear in a way that maybe 20 years ago was less clear.
20 years ago, if somebody said reality was subjective, you'd laugh at them.
You would.
You'd say, well, come on.
Reality is reality.
But...
Let me turn off my phone.
so So, I think in today's world people see that the news is creating our realities.
Wouldn't you say that that's obvious and true now in a way that 20 years ago it was not?
Because if 20 years ago the news was all sort of the same generic news, I think people thought it was generally just true news.
But now that you see our opinions are entirely assigned to us by the news, it's hard to miss.
So not everybody sees it yet, but you can see people waking up to it.
Then we've got AI.
GPT-4 will be coming online.
And GPT-4, I don't want to say it's going to change everything, but it sure looks like it.
Whatever you think GPT-3 was, forget it.
I'm pretty sure that GPT-4 is not going to look like GPT-3.
It's going to be just a leap, I think, based on early descriptions.
So that's going to make you even question the specialness of consciousness.
Consciousness and the special human identity, it's all in play now.
The whole idea that we have this special thing called consciousness is going to go right out the window as soon as the machine has one.
I would argue that it has a proto-consciousness.
So it's not there yet.
But maybe GPT-4.
And if it's not 4, maybe 5.
But we're going to see it.
It's going to be in your lifetime for sure.
So what happens when machines do have something that the experts say is consciousness?
It's going to change your whole belief about reality.
Or it could, for some people.
How about the fact that we have learned, we as a society have learned, that all of our experts are empty.
That all of our data is manipulated.
That all of our news is narrative.
That our polls can be depended on sometimes, but we don't know when.
Sometimes they're right on, but we don't know when.
And if they disagree, we don't know which ones are the good ones.
So our whole sense of what you could know and be confident about is completely in play right now.
It looks like nothing is believable.
We don't believe experts, data, anything.
And maybe that's more accurate.
Remember, it was not too long ago when You would quote Ben Shapiro saying that facts don't care about your feelings?
How does that sit with you today?
The facts don't care about your feelings?
Sorry, it's your feelings don't care about your facts.
There's nothing in the news or even science at the moment that would suggest facts even matter.
It's like facts don't even matter.
The feelings are the only thing that matters and it's not the other side.
The moment you think, oh, the other side is using feelings, but we're using our facts.
Yeah, we're using facts, but they're using their feelings.
Do you know what the other side says about you?
Exactly the same thing.
Oh, we're using our facts, but they're using their feelings and their racism or whatever they're using.
Once you realize it's both, it's both sides, you're a little bit closer to the truth.
There's not one side has the facts and one side has feelings.
Nothing like that has ever existed.
It's all feelings all the way down and always has been.
But more people are realizing that.
How about, do you remember when we thought we could predict the future?
With our climate models and our economic models.
We can't predict the future.
We can't predict tomorrow.
We can basically predict nothing.
We're very, very bad at predicting.
And we're coming to that realization that your financial expert doesn't know where the market is going.
Your pandemic experts don't know what the hell is going to happen with the pandemic.
Or at least you can't tell which ones do and which ones don't.
And climate models are probably ridiculous.
They're useful.
Models can be useful even when they're ridiculous.
So they're not empty of utility, they're just not really predicting the future.
Alright, so in that vein, do you think the truth is even good for us?
Do you think if humans could just see the truth?
Here's all the truth.
No.
We would be totally effed if we saw the truth all the time.
Imagination and optimism and hallucinations are what hold us together.
If it were not for the shared hallucinations and feelings that hold us together, everything would fall apart.
Now, some of that shared hallucination is under attack because we're having our ideas of what was real and what wasn't You know, being challenged, which makes people retreat to maybe a different set of hallucinations, not to the truth.
We don't retreat to the truth.
We're not that kind of creature.
We retreat to a different hallucination.
Well, the different hallucinations keep society together.
Because the feelings that we've had about, let's say, being an American, for decades and decades, the feeling that you got about being American was not reality.
It was a feeling.
And we had been brainwashed in a good way to have positive feelings.
But now we're being sort of accidentally brainwashed, or not, to have less good feelings about the country.
Will that cause the country to disintegrate?
It could.
But keep in mind the facts will always be a secondary consideration to how we feel about stuff.
The economy is entirely about how you feel.
A bank run, whether it happens or doesn't happen, is about how you feel.
It's not about the facts.
So we're kind of slowly getting to the point where the only thing that matters is your subjective opinion, even though there is a base of something like fact that science and finance can find if it looks hard enough.
But I think we're being a little more, let's say, aware of our irrational nature that doesn't change.
Here's an example.
Rasmussen had a poll and asked, I guess Vivek Ramaswamy has been speaking of climate change as a religion.
Sort of a narrative point he's making.
But I was surprised how many people agreed with that.
So according to Rasmussen, 60% of likely U.S.
voters, so that would include, you know, all the parties, including 47% who strongly agree with Vivek Ramaswamy's recent statement that climate change has become a religion.
Now, no surprise, it's 79% of Republicans and 45% of Democrats.
What?
and 45% of Democrats.
What?
What?
45% of Democrats agree with a Republican who says that climate change is a religion? 45% 45%?
Well, then I guess the tiebreaker would be the independents, right?
So what do the independents say?
60% of unaffiliated voters agree with it. 60%?
You've got a solid American majority who thinks that climate change is bullshit.
I didn't know it was that strong.
I thought it was going to line up a little bit more directly by party.
I had no idea that Democrats were on board.
And I think, here's my guess, I think the way the green people treated nuclear power was the tell, that it wasn't real.
And I think that 45% of Democrats are the smart ones.
If I may say.
The smart ones always knew that there was something wrong with the discussion of nuclear power.
Because they knew that France had nuclear energy and it was working fine.
Right?
45% of Democrats were smart enough to know that nuclear energy was solving the problem in other countries.
And that we just weren't doing it for political reasons mostly.
That's pretty good.
Actually, I find that encouraging, because we're not actually that far apart on a question of major importance.
So you could argue, well, that's why we have a republic.
It's a good thing we have a republic, so that these smart politicians we elect can do things that maybe the public would not have known to do.
Maybe the public is too backwards to do the things it needs to do.
That's why you have a republic.
Except, we no longer believe that we live in that world where well-meaning people do things just for us.
Wow, it's a good thing we elected those well-meaning politicians to act on our behalf.
Nobody thinks that.
That's like an old illusion.
Everybody thinks the politicians are serving their party, serving re-election, getting money.
It's all those things.
So, I have to compliment the Democrats.
45% of them saw through the propaganda.
That's pretty good.
If you could get 45% of any population to see through intense non-stop propaganda, that's pretty good on your part.
I'm going to say that's a compliment to the Democrats.
Somebody says I'm wrong.
What is it for the... Oh, I'm not saying that...
I'm saying that the Rasmussen Poll says 45% of Democrats agree that climate change is a religion.
Meaning that there's some irrational components driving it.
All right.
More to that point, there's an article in The Atlantic by Shadi Hamid that the truth can make you sick.
And that, as he says in a tweet, knowledge and information aren't necessarily good.
So if you have more knowledge and more information about reality, it makes you feel bad and can make you depressed and sad and presumably unhealthy.
Because the truth is not good for you.
Now sometimes it's the only thing that'll save your life, right?
So it's not like it's all bad for you.
So of course you need to know the truth for things that are critical to your life as best you can.
But if you focus on what's true, just because it's true, it's bad for your health.
Did you know that?
Does that surprise you?
Does it surprise you that looking at the ugly truth is bad for your mental health?
That's pretty straightforward, isn't it?
Kind of obvious?
Now, would you extend that to say that anybody who's looking at slavery in the past and the legacy of discrimination, if that's where they're focusing, That that would make them unhealthy and unsuccessful and unproductive.
Obviously.
Obviously.
A hundred percent of people who understand the tools of success will tell you that you should be focusing on the truth.
The truth?
Will people who are, let's say, experts at the tools of success, what you should do to be successful, would they tell you to focus on the truth?
No.
No, they wouldn't.
Absolutely not.
You know what they tell you to focus on?
Let's say your optimism for the future.
Is that the truth?
No, optimism is literally an imagination, which you try to make true.
If you're trying to be successful, you're not dealing with what's true, you're dealing with what you're going to make true.
Big difference.
It's not what is true.
It's what you personally are going to make true.
You're going to make yourself have somebody who has a talent stack.
Therefore, you're more hireable.
You're going to make yourself smarter.
You're going to make yourself kinder.
You're going to make yourself have more gratitude.
It's about you making the future.
But if you focus on the future that is, or the future that was, I'm sorry, the past that was, and you treat them like facts, and you say, oh, let's focus on the real history, the real facts, that's really bad for you.
It's necessary.
I don't think you should forget any of that stuff.
It's part of history.
It's necessary.
But if that's where you're focused in, good luck.
That's a path to failure.
So, that's more evidence of that theme.
Let's talk about Silicon Valley Bank.
You know, in the fog of war, it was kind of confusing, wasn't it?
Like, what's happening with Silicon Valley Bank?
But finally we know the truth.
I'll tell you the truth, but first I'd like to give a compliment to Megan Kelly.
And this is a compliment for something I am unaware of.
In other words, I haven't seen it.
But I understand she had a very good debate hosting Vivek Ramaswamy and David Sachs, who had very different opinions about what to do with Silicon Valley Bank.
Now, that is what I want to see.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You want somebody like Megyn Kelly, like she's sort of a perfect example, somebody who can moderate, somebody who's a strong host, who can really, no, you talk, you talk, let's get to this.
You want to have enough time, not a two minute TV hit, you want to have enough time, but more importantly, you want to have the right people.
They were exactly the right people for exactly that, at exactly that point.
That is a service to the country.
So Megyn Kelly's, you know, media that she's doing for, you know, everybody is making money and doing their thing.
So I'm not saying everything's, you know, For the good of humankind, there's always a financial aspect to it, and should be.
Good things should be monetized.
But, thank you.
I haven't even seen it, and I love it.
Now, how many of you saw it?
Did any of you see it?
Yeah, I'm seeing good comments, the people who saw it.
Look, can we have more of that?
Like an actual, honest, Well-moderated, timely, perfect people.
More of that, please.
Good job, Megyn Kelly.
All right, but let me tell you what we've learned.
I've researched it and what I found for sure.
is that the failure was Trump's fault for weakening the Dodd-Frank laws, or it was the Fed's fault for raising interest rates, possibly Biden's fault because of the election, but also bad management's fault and possibly the World Economic Forum for pushing ESG, which would be a distraction and some say may have caused a quality problem in management.
So it's either Trump's fault, the Fed's fault, management's fault, Biden's fault, or the World Economics Forum's fault.
But at least we've cleared that up.
Now, that's not the only question.
There was some concern whether it was a bailout or not a bailout, so we finally have clarity on that.
So it's totally a bailout, except it's not a bailout, because the public pays for it, which is a bailout, except not directly, because it's really the FDIC insurance that they've been collecting for banks for a long time.
So really, it's the FDIC and the bank's insurance which is paying.
But really, that's kind of the public, because if we ran out of that and the other banks fail, once that becomes empty, that deposit, that's the public.
So really, it's a bailout.
And the public's paying for it, except the public's not paying for it.
The banks are paying for it, except the public really is paying for it.
So, did that clear it up?
I think you did.
But then also, it's not the banks that would pay for it, and it's not the public that would pay for it.
Because when the Silicon Valley Bank assets are sold, the assets will go to reimburse whoever paid for it, which was either the public or the FDIC, depending on how you look at it.
But really, it's the SBC, SFB assets that are paying for it.
Unless there's not enough.
Because if there's not enough assets, then really it's the FDIC who is paying for it.
But that's not really the case.
Because if they run out of money, then it's the public that pays for it.
So it's the public that pays for it, not the FDIC.
Except it's really the assets, if there are enough.
And also, the good news is that by guaranteeing the assets, which is what the government did, they totally prevented a run on banks.
Except that's not why they did it.
It wasn't to prevent a run on banks, and we don't know if the run on banks would have happened anyway, and only the weak banks would have had a run on banks.
And the weak banks probably would have failed anyway, no matter what they did.
But they did it to prevent a run on banks, or possibly they did it because there's crony capitalism and the Democrats in Silicon Valley are what CNN calls the ATM for the Democrat Party.
So really it was just an insider thing with VCs covering their own backs and their good friends in Silicon Valley.
Had nothing to do with what's good for banks or it stopped a bank run and saved the country.
But at least we know the answer now.
And here's the good news.
That the actions that the government took totally worked.
Totally worked.
So the bank run is over, nothing to worry about, or possibly it's the first domino because there are a number of banks have been added to the watch list and the interest rates are still high and many people took the same kind of risk in a different way, so really it's just the beginning of the dominoes, or it's all over, or we're all good.
So I hope I cleared it up.
If you've been reading other unclear things, that's why you come to me.
Well, I saw something that impressed me and made me feel good about my country for like a minute and a half, and I liked it.
So, Representative Jeff Jackson gave a video in which he explained what the government was doing and why.
And I was impressed as hell.
Here's the most impressive thing about Representative Jeff Jackson.
I listened to his entire video and wow is he good at talking in public.
So good that I wondered what his background was.
It almost looked like... I don't know.
I don't even know how you get that good.
It was just a communication superstar thing.
Was he an actor?
I mean it looks like he has those skills.
But it was amazing.
But here's the part that impressed me most.
It wasn't amazing because he did a good job communicating.
When he was done, just think about this.
When he was done, I couldn't tell if he was a Democrat or a Republican.
Think about that.
I mean, just think about that.
That's how good he was.
He was so good, I couldn't tell if he was a Democrat or a Republican.
Couldn't tell.
Somebody said he's a Democrat.
I even looked at his profile, and on his profile, he doesn't list his party.
On his Twitter profile.
It's not listed.
Yeah.
And I think he said he's a dad and a military veteran.
He starts with dad, and then he does military veteran.
Is that a Democrat or Republican?
Starts with dad.
Yeah.
So, I'd keep an eye on that guy.
I think he's a Democrat, but I would keep an eye on him.
Like, that's some serious skill that guy's got.
And lastly, maybe lastly, here's a prediction that I made that you all scoffed at.
Maybe not.
But you can tell me.
See if anybody agreed with me when I made this prediction.
That no matter how the war in Ukraine goes, whether Putin wins, or Putin is a tie, he negotiates, or Putin loses.
In all situations, Putin still has to kill the head of the Wagner group.
And he has to diminish the Wagner Group's power.
Would you agree?
How many would agree that no matter how it goes, Putin's going to have to get rid of Purgosian, the head of the Wagner Group?
Now, that was my prediction.
And I predicted that it was actually happening.
That Putin was allowing the Wagner Group to just waste all their people and resources in sort of losing propositions.
And that's what the Wagner Group is saying now.
But I want to give you one quote here.
I kind of wrapped it up.
So this is in CNN.
So somebody named Kovalenko, I guess that's somebody who knows something about what's going on over there, said, quote, it is difficult to say whether this was a planned destruction of the Wagner PMC, but the fact is the Russian military command uses the Wagnerites as living meat.
It's difficult to say whether this was a planned destruction, planned by Putin.
So now this is an actual somebody who knows what they're talking about, as opposed to me.
Like, I don't really know what I'm talking about.
But it looked like it to me.
I mean, from a distance, it looked like, uh-oh, that Prigozhin guy's getting too much power within Russia.
He's got to be killed.
And the best way to do it would be for Putin to just send him and his forces out to get massacred.
So then, no matter what happens later, there are fewer of them.
They're less powerful.
So that looks like other people who know what they're talking about think that's entirely possible.
And I believe it's what's happening.
So how many of you would agree with my hypothesis that Russia or Putin wants to degrade the Wagner Group whether he wins in Ukraine or not?
Yeah, it looks like a lot of people agree.
So I'm going to count that as one of my best predictions, if it comes true.
I don't know if we'll ever be able to confirm it.
But I think I'm the first person, at least in the country, who proposed that.
Now, I don't know that it's true.
I'm not claiming it's true.
That would be premature.
I'm saying that people who know what they're talking about, which does not include me, are saying it's true.
You saw it on ISW.
I don't know what that is.
So, has anybody seen that hypothesis in other places?
Yet?
Besides CNN today?
Anybody seen that?
So somebody says yes.
Yes, yes, some people seen it.
Isn't it mind-reading?
It's speculation.
No, it's not mind-reading.
It's based on the fact that that's what anybody would do.
So it doesn't require mind reading.
It's just how do people act in their best interest.
Now, those of you who are saying it's wrong, you could be right.
I wouldn't die on this hill.
It could be wrong.
Yeah, I agree.
But it has that look.
Now, if you think it's wrong, is that because you think Putin would feel safe if Pogrozhin won this war, and came home with a huge military that was loyal to him.
Do you think Putin would be okay with that?
If you think I'm wrong, you have to say that Putin would be okay with that.
Now remember, I'm a little bit of a student of how dictators stay in power, because I'm always curious.
It just seems like it'd be impossible.
And they tend to have this similar kind of approach.
One part of the dictator approach is they form their own private army, like in Iran, the Republican Guard or whatever it is.
So you need your own private loyal army that's got better weapons than the other army that might try to overthrow you.
So that's one thing they do.
But another thing that dictators do is they kill everybody who's against them, but also everyone who might be against them later.
If you're a dictator, you don't kill only the people who have directly moved against you lately.
You've got to get all the people who might have in any possible... in any scenario might have.
You've got to get all the maybes.
That's your basic dictator, brutal dictator technique, right?
You've got to get all the maybes.
You can't just get the ones who are definitely your enemies.
And at the very least, Purgosian is a maybe enemy.
You cannot doubt that he's a maybe-enemy, can you?
Can anybody here doubt that?
Would anybody doubt that Purgosian is a maybe-enemy of Putin?
No, you can't doubt that.
And there's no dictator like Putin who's going to let a maybe-enemy stay around for long.
Purgosian's going to be dead in one year or two.
There's no way he's going to survive this.
Unless he leaves the country.
Well, even then, they'd poison him, probably.
So, I don't think Prigozhin can survive Putin.
It'd be crazy.
Alright.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, Is the conclusion of the best live stream you're likely to see today.
And I remind you again, if you haven't, if you've been looking for Dilbert, Dilbert is cancelled worldwide but continues daily in the scottadams.locals.com subscription site.
Those who have asked, please can we have the free version?
The free version means I don't get to do this anymore.
So, everybody needs to pay the bills.
So, part of how I'm going to pay the bills is Dilbert will be in a subscription site.
But what I give you in return is way more than Dilbert.
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Share them with friends.
Just don't do it every day.
Don't go nuts with it.
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Yeah, I do have enough to pay the bills, you're right.
But I can do more and better things for the world if I'm protected.
So, let me check in with you.
Has anybody seen my reframe of race, where the alternative way to look at it is through the personal success frame?
Has anybody seen that get boosted online or anywhere else yet?
Because that's the test.
I'm seeing a number of yeses.
The test is whether it starts to take on a life of its own.
And I think that because it's a high ground reframe, Meaning that nobody can disagree with it.
It's actually impossible to disagree with.
And once you've seen it, you can't get it out of your head.
Right?
So that's what a good antiviral looks like.
Now, I call it an antiviral because there's a mind virus That the best way to deal with the current world is to look backwards at all the badness that happened and assign blame and then, you know, get restitution for it.
That model of the world is just inferior to a forward-looking model, no matter who you are.
It doesn't matter who you are.
Looking forward works, looking backwards doesn't work, and there's no conversation about that.
Looking backwards can work in the short run, but you're always going to come out worse than if you look forward.
What does Elon Musk say?
Oh, that's a joke.
Oh, not a joke.
All right.
You screenshot the whiteboard to share, okay?
Yeah, I saw people... So here's how you know if an idea is going to catch on.
If people do something with the idea, such as turn it into a poster, somebody said they screenshot it, to send it to somebody, those are actions.
When you see people act on what is a reframe, that means the reframe is working.
So this has all of the tells of something that will just continue expanding.
Because it's sort of an antivirus to the existing virus.
Yeah.
So I need an antiviral that's also viral that has to reproduce in order to reduce the effect of the virus.
All right.
Sell posters?
No, I wouldn't sell them.
I might make one that's a digital one.
All right.
So that Ladies and gentlemen, brings you to the end of the best live stream ever.
