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Jan. 21, 2026 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
01:00:03
Episode 3077 - The Scott Adams School 01/21/26

The Scott Adams School hosted by Owen, Erica, Marcela, Sergio, and special guest Bob to share a reframe with us.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Liberal Mental Health Crisis, Time-Energy Management, Trump Davos, Trump Energy Policy, President Trump, President Macron, Credit Card Rate Limit, Investor Single-Family Home Purchases, Mortgage Rates, Housing Availability, Nuclear Development Red Tape, Europe's Energy Policy

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Time Text
Getting Ready To Talk 00:02:23
Logging in, we're logging in.
Welcome in, you guys.
Oh, there you guys all are.
I see you.
I have all four of you.
You guys, come on in.
We see you.
We see locals and YouTube, the X people.
Come on, X, come on in.
Rumble Studio.
Maybe some people are on Spotify.
I'm not sure.
But the YouTubers, come on in.
And the beloveds.
So you guys, we're getting ready, just letting you guys pile on in.
We're going to talk about it later, but I'm feeling a little extra tingly today after hearing Donald Trump speaking in Davos this morning.
That's all I'm going to say about that.
But how are you guys doing, Marcela, Sergio?
Oh, you guys.
Wait.
Hello.
What kind of a hostess am I?
We have a guest with us today from our local subscriber family.
It's Bob Lawler.
There he is.
He's going to talk to us after.
Yeah.
He's going to talk to us after the simultaneous sip.
Okay, guys, let's get ready.
I hope we gave you guys enough time to pop in.
We're going to play another clip from Scott.
And guess what?
Tomorrow, we're going to have his clip posted right on the screen like professionals.
So this will be the last day with the iPad.
I know you're sorry to hear that.
Okay, let me just make this darker.
All right, guys, I hope you can hear it.
Just give me a thumbs up and let me know it's okay.
Ready?
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the highlight of human civilization.
It's called coffee with Scott Adams, and it's the best thing that's ever happened.
If you'd like to take it up to the levels that only the psychics could imagine, well, all you need is a cup of bugger glass, a tanker Charles Stein, a canteen joker flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dope to me at the end of the day.
The thing that makes everything better is called simultaneous sip.
White Liberals and Mental Health 00:05:56
And it happens now.
Go.
Double sip, double sip.
I'm calling double zip.
Everybody.
Double zip.
Go.
Double off.
Double off.
So good.
I just thought you needed a little extra.
Didn't you?
Didn't you need a little extra?
Yeah, I think you did.
Yeah, this is a show that gives you a little extra.
Well, I saw a tweet from a Twitter account called The Rabbit Hole.
They showed that white liberals have the worst mental health, at least as judged by people who went to try to get help.
Now, why do you suppose that would be?
Well, what do you think would cause that?
What would possibly cause the white liberals to have the worst mental health?
What would there be some possible hypotheses?
I don't know.
I can't think of anything.
Can you?
Can't think of a thing.
Well, let's speculate, though.
Here are some differences.
Liberal whites believe the news.
Would you agree?
Liberal whites are most likely to believe the news.
Imagine how chilling that would be.
I assume my live stream, you know not to believe the news.
Is there anybody here who is willing to say they believe the news?
Go.
Anybody?
Just one person.
We got a yes.
Somebody said yes.
And believe the news over on YouTube.
Well, I wouldn't admit it.
I mean, it's fine to believe whatever you want, but just my advice, I wouldn't admit that you believe the news.
In 2023, that's not really a good look.
So, imagine if you believe the news.
You think that the climate is going to fry you, white supremacists are behind the furniture.
There was a coup attempt recently, you would believe, and that Trump is a Putin sluffer.
Trump is Putin's fluffer, if you believe the news.
But conservatives are less likely to believe the news.
They tend to believe in stuff like hard work and family and obeying laws.
And if all of that goes wrong, if you're conservative and you do everything right, you obey the laws, stay off drugs, stay in school, you get married to a good mate and have kids.
If you do everything right and it still doesn't work out, you still got a backup.
Heaven.
Well, at least it'll be better later.
It might be terrible now, but wait till later.
Wow.
I did everything right, so I'm going to heaven.
So you got one group of people who think they're going to, you know, rot in the earth immediately after the climate fries them and the white supremacists murder them.
And the coup takes over the United States and turns this into whatever.
And one group thinks that they have a perfectly good plan for happiness in this world.
But if that didn't work out, they've got a second perfectly good plan for an eternity of happiness.
What would you expect?
What would you expect would be the mental health outcome of those two systems?
Design is destiny.
You have two systems, and they're designed for exactly the outcome that they delivered.
The conservatives designed a system that delivers happiness most of the time.
And the left has designed a system that almost can't.
Almost can't.
I saw.
Okay.
I felt like that was just a great one for today and where we are.
And I just want to welcome everyone in.
Again, I'm Erica.
We have Marcella, beautiful Marcella, our sexy Sergio in the house, our special guest, Bob Lawler, today, and the voice of Owen Gregorian.
So I'll let you guys say hi and take it away.
You guys want to say hello to everybody?
Hi, everyone.
Hello, everybody.
Are you going to say something a little bit?
Yesterday, I asked that we are internet orphans, and I just wanted to tell you that I love you all because we all lose our internet dad.
And just that's it.
So let's go with that news again.
Yeah.
I think we're a great community.
Mentioned that Shelly is going to have an announcement tomorrow.
So make sure you tune in for that.
That'll be coming tomorrow on the live stream.
So that'll be coming soon.
And I know you're going to ask too, just real quick.
That was from YouTube.
That was Scott's show number 2170.
Okay.
2170.
And we'll put it in the notes later, but in case you wanted to see that and make sure you have your books today.
Okay.
Did you want to say something?
Owen, I'm sorry I cut you off.
No, that's fine.
I think we can just transition over to Bob.
I think he's going to walk us through a reframe, right?
Managing Energy, Not Time 00:13:30
All right.
You guys have your books.
Bob's going to do it.
All right.
It's page 16 in the soft cover.
I was informed it's page 14 if you have the hardcover.
If you have the electronic edition, I can't help you.
But it's the reframe right after the one from yesterday.
This one's managing energy instead of time.
And speaking as Scott here, I've written approximately 11,000 comic strips since the beginning of my cartooning career in 1989.
Nearly every one of those comics was written before 9 a.m.
If I wrote a joke at 5 a.m., I usually like how it turns out.
If I try writing a joke at 3 p.m., I'll probably end up losing whatever I produce.
I think of this as managing energy, not time.
I have exactly the right kind of energy for coffee-fueled creative writing in the morning.
But a caffeine buzz is exactly the wrong kind of energy for drawing comics, as that requires a more relaxed vibe.
So I write in the morning when writing is easy, and I draw in the evening when drawing is easy.
That's managing energy, not time.
So the usual frame, manage your time.
The reframe, manage your energy.
In my experience, the energy I have for a task is more important to the outcome than the amount of time I have allocated to do it.
I can produce more in 15 minutes with the right energy than in four hours with the wrong energy.
Most creative people will tell you something similar.
There's a time of day that works best for creative work and other times do not work at all.
The same holds for exercise.
I have the right energy for exercise about noon each day.
So that's when I do it.
And I assume I get better outcomes compared to the exercising when I'm at low energy.
The secret to managing energy as opposed to time is to gain as much control as you can over your own schedule.
If you have a boss, you might not have options about when you do what.
If you have a spouse or family or pet or other obligation, those two can force you out of the more productive and happy energy management mode into time management mode.
That's why I say you should favor life choices that give you schedule flexibility.
For example, if you get two job offers that seem equivalent, but one gives you more schedule freedom, take the freedom.
Likewise with the relationships, if you are equally attracted to two people and need to choose, consider picking the one who gives you the most schedule freedom.
Freedom is a good tiebreaker for decisions with unpredictable outcomes.
The other good tiebreaker is how much you will learn in one situation versus the other.
When you manage energy instead of time, you might not get around to all the tasks you need to get done.
The solution to that, don't do those tasks.
At least not today.
If that sounds irresponsible, think of all the things that ever went wrong because you didn't get something done that was at the bottom 20% of your priorities.
I'll do that exercise too right now.
And if either of us thinks of even one example, I'll be amazed.
Okay, begin.
I'm done.
I got nothing.
Neither did you, I'm guessing.
The least important 20% of your tasks are unlikely to have made a difference in your life.
Let them go.
It's hard at first, but you get used to it.
There might be some blowback when certain tasks get postponed, but you can more than make up for that by being able to do your creative and important work when your energy is best.
The time versus energy trade-off is embedded in most of your decisions, but perhaps you never thought of it that way.
For example, your diet and fitness systems might take extra time out of your day, but you get that back in healthy energy.
Or perhaps you're lucky enough to have two potential romantic partners, and there's a difference in how much energy you feel with each.
Follow the energy.
That's a good signal.
If you're trying to decide between two career paths, you probably feel a distinct energy difference when you think of one versus the other.
Don't ignore that.
When you're buying a car, most of that decision is practical and focused on your needs.
But some car models give you a feeling that boosts your energy.
Some don't.
Sometimes that feeling hits you every time you get near the vehicle.
That's energy.
Take the car that provides it.
And so it goes with most decisions in life.
One path energizes you more than the other.
No matter how they stack up in other dimensions, energy isn't the only variable.
I don't want to leave that impression.
But after health and safety, it's near the top.
Treat it that way, and life will surprise you on the upside.
It's like the wanting and deciding, right?
Exactly.
And I think that's why he organized it that way.
I know I have struggled with that my whole life because I have automatically managed to my energy instead of my time and always felt guilty for doing that.
And when my time wasn't always my own, I got blowback, whether it was parents or a boss or someone else in my life.
But becoming self-employed and arguably an adult, I find I can manage to my energy.
And hearing that reframe, finally, thank you, Scott.
I got the permission I needed to do it.
And I have been far more productive and far more happy about what I've achieved ever since.
How about you?
What a great testimonial, Bob.
That's my favorite reframe, maybe, because time is very hard to focus on, right?
It's so distractive.
But energy, if you keep yourself pain-free, right?
You keep yourself strong, you can achieve anything all day.
There's no limit to how much it can be done.
So that's one of my favorite reframes.
And one thing I want to add is also, I don't think he put in the book, but he talked about it later, is get rid of any energy vampires in your life.
Yes.
That's important.
And we've all had to do that at times, I think.
I certainly have.
And it's just not just people.
It can be an activity too or something, you know?
Sure, absolutely.
So yeah, that's all I got on that one.
Maricella?
Yeah, I think it's brilliant.
I think they, you know, there's a lot of things that come out of that that, you know, you can build on that with or other things that Scott has said along these lines.
Like he, you know, he does have his own routines, which is, you know, you might think, well, wait a second, doesn't he do everything at the same time?
So isn't he managing his time?
But I think it's all based on his energy, right?
It's based on when he knows himself well enough to know, okay, in the mornings I feel this way, in the afternoons, I feel that way.
And it's a pattern.
And I'm sure if there are exceptions to that, where he's like, you know what?
Today I feel different.
Like, I don't feel energetic in the morning, or I, you know, do feel energetic in the afternoon.
Then you can easily adapt and adjust and get different things done.
And he's talked also about how, like, sometimes it's just a crappy day.
And, you know, then he might actually tackle the tasks that are really crappy because he's like, well, let's just bunch them all up and get them all done today because it's not going to get better today.
So let's, you know, if I need to fire somebody or if I need to have a difficult conversation, then when he's in a bad mood, he kind of takes advantage of that.
And that's another example of taking advantage of his energy.
And I think I've certainly noticed that, you know, there's certain times a day where I have a lot more energy to do certain things.
And it helps if I can structure my day around those types of things and those activities and do the things that I have energy for.
It is a challenge sometimes.
I mean, I work for a company.
I have a boss a lot of the time and they might tell me to do a certain thing at a certain time.
But I have found that I do have a lot of control over that as well, where I can schedule meetings at a certain time or even block out my calendar at a certain time if I want to make sure I'm not going to have a meeting at that time because it's just not going to work out well.
And being able to set aside time for certain creative activities or doing deep work.
And that seems to work really well.
And I think most people are happier when you can deliver better results to them.
And so I think for the most part, it works out better for everybody when people do manage to their energy.
So I'd certainly encourage you to try it if you're not already doing it.
And just, you know, kind of watch yourself, you know, have that sense of how is my energy today?
And also, you know, part of this, I think, indirectly, he talks about it as like managing your environment too.
That if you have a bunch of clutter around, it might drain energy from you.
Whereas if you had a neat environment, you know, you clean your room, like Jordan Peterson says, you might just feel better and feel more energetic.
And sometimes you just might need to get out of your room that you're typically in working and go somewhere else.
And that may give you a different kind of energy.
And so I think there's a lot of different tips and techniques that Scott has given us over the years on how to manage energy.
And I think they're all very useful.
I agree.
And I like the flow of that too.
I was going to say the flow of like the one part, the one reframe into the next, because I think that if you, if you do the wanting and deciding first and going into like what's the most important thing, yeah, you can eliminate so much stuff to save your energy for the important stuff.
All right, sorry.
I'm just thinking out loud.
Go ahead, Marcela.
That's fine.
For me, this reframe made me feel no longer guilty for, you know, some of you know I'm an attorney, so I do a lot of writing and I do a lot of like, you know, depots, arguments, and all that.
And that's throughout the day.
I don't have a choice when the court has a hearing.
But what I, what I, what this, this reframe gave me is the idea that I should not feel guilty for at two o'clock, three o'clock, feeling like I don't have that energy to write a brief or something huge.
So I do most of my work in the very early morning or very late at night.
And I know my job gives me that flexibility to be able to do it.
But it took away the guilt.
And I think Bob talked about that, but it just definitely helps me realize that I was, you know, like I had the idea that energy was key, but Scott saying it confirmed it.
Yeah.
I also just want to say I saw Lyric Flower over here on locals said, I also like Scott's suggestion of writing in a busy environment where that is not typically how we would approach that sort of task.
And I love that because sometimes it's true, like do the thing you have to do, but do it somewhere different.
And maybe it gives you like a different energy or burst or creativity or whatever it is.
So I thanks for adding that, Lyric.
That's a great idea.
Yeah, I dabble in film from time to time, including screenwriting.
And what I know from other screenwriters is a lot of time they'll go to a coffee shop to write and it's to get out of their regular routine and change the scenery exactly like that.
But it's also to draw energy from the energy around you.
And the friends of mine who do it swear by it.
So that's another way to manage your energy is go get some.
It's like Scott talked about your luck.
Move to a place where there's a lot going on because that'll improve your luck.
The energy is there.
Get in amongst the energy and draw on it.
That's great advice.
I'm going to toss it over now because there's a lot going on in the news today.
Executive Order on Windmills 00:15:45
And as I was saying before, I'm feeling tingly because I was listening to President Trump speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
And he's saying a lot of stuff I like today.
So how about an interstitial sip?
And then I'm going to turn it over to Owen and Marcella and they will kick us off on the news.
And you guys chime in in the comments.
We're reading what you're saying.
Okay, go on.
All right.
Well, I posted a number of stories.
I don't think I did get the latest of what Trump is saying in Davos.
Maybe I just didn't quite get the latest updates on that.
But Erica, if you want to let me know what he said or Marcella, I don't know if you're up to date on that.
Maybe we could start there.
I can have, so I have some of the stuff that he said.
He said a lot of things that I love.
I mean, I voted for this.
But anyways, he eviscerated the globalists in their face in Davos, World Economic Forum.
Even Gavin Newsom was in the crowd.
But the best thing about it is that there was a standing ovation for him when he came in.
And that's, you know, it talks volumes about how the leaders of Europe are against him in a way.
But at the same time, the people there are not the citizens of Europe understand what he's saying and it's working.
So I'm going to cover a few things that he said.
Do not get mad at me for not covering everything because he talked for quite a while and I think he may be still talking.
I don't know.
I'll let you cover it, but did Gavin Newsom really say I should have brought Neve hats?
He was thinking that.
No, I think he actually said that.
He did.
I think he was complaining about how everyone was deferring to Trump.
Oh my gosh.
Maybe the locals can find out.
They're saying yes.
I think.
Yeah.
I think they're saying yes to this.
There is a delay.
He did.
He did.
I think he posted that on X.
I don't remember if I posted the story about it, but I'm sure we could find it.
I'll look for it.
Go ahead.
Let's go through what Trump said.
So I'll cover some of the things he said.
He said, frankly, many parts of our world are being destroyed and the leaders don't even understand what's happening.
And the ones that do understand won't do anything to stop it.
There's runaway inflation.
We have proven them wrong.
Many Western governments foolishly turn their backs on everything that makes a nation rich, powerful, and strong.
He actually made me laugh because he talked about windmills.
And whenever I hear windmills, I think Don Quixote and like this ideal of green energy being the key to everything.
And it's basically a hoax in a way, as I would think of it.
But the beauty of it is that he uses visual language, as Scott would say, to bring your mind to the windmills.
And he says, you don't see China having windmills.
You see Europe having windmills.
And that has not gotten them anywhere.
Nuclear is the answer he talks about.
And he talks about the oil production in America being historic high.
Of course, I would have to say that all numbers, you know, you can't really, what would Scott say if you want to put it in your chat?
But I would think like not all numbers are fake.
What was it that he would say about numbers and figures that government would come up with?
Usually it was about you need to have both the absolute numbers and the percentages, otherwise it's meaningless or it's deceptive.
Yeah, so I mean, Trump is trying to sell the idea that oil, natural gas, and nuclear are the key to energy.
He talks about oil production being historic high in America, 730,000 barrels a day.
And last week they picked up 50 million, he said, of barrels from Venezuela alone.
So he uses this to basically set up the difference between the winners and the losers.
But what made me laugh is Macron yesterday.
I think he spoke, I think it was at the World Economic Forum.
He comes in with sunglasses.
And some people say Trump talked about it today.
And he was something about like, I don't know what's going on with him, but what's happening?
Like some people were claiming that his, you know, allegedly his wife may have hit him or something else he was covering up.
But it was hilarious to see him.
I think he also talked about Macron, about Macron being weak.
And this was at his speech today.
One of the things he said, oh my God, President Trump just talked about the line that embarrassed French President Emmanuel Macron while he's in the room and it's pure gold.
This is from Eric Dorothy on X.
And then he quotes Trump saying, I said, here's the story, Emmanuel.
You're going to do it.
You're going to do it fast.
If you don't, I put 25% tariff on you and 100% on your wines and champagnes.
No, no, no, Donald, I will do it.
Took me three minutes.
No, no, no, Donald.
I will not do it.
You're asking me to double, I said.
Emmanuel, you took advantage of the U.S. for 30 years.
You will do it.
In fact, I'm 100% sure that you will do it.
No, He is the, he is the best.
So that's one of the things he talked about.
He talked about Canada and he talked about Carney.
For all the Canadians watching me, Mike, we're one of them.
Canada lives because of us, he said.
Mark, remember that before you make those speeches.
So he's notifying them that he's strong, he takes a strong position, and that he obliterates them with the tariff, which goes to the point that the United States Supreme Court was supposed to come out with the opinion on the tariffs.
I don't know if you recall, but it's been litigated into going up to the Supreme Court where they needed to decide whether Trump is constitutionally allowed to set these tariffs or whether he needs congressional approval.
And basically the U.S. Supreme Court, not sure exactly why yesterday did not release that opinion, meaning that they didn't possibly either they're not having a full decision yet realized or they didn't want to be political in them releasing the opinion.
So they made that move yesterday.
I'm not sure what that says.
They will eventually come out with the decision, which will in fact either confirm Trump's power or not.
So that's one of the things that happened.
Trump went on to talk about the credit card issue in America.
In the Davos speech, he talked about passing an executive order of having credit cards only charge 10%.
Part of this is the idea that people, the general public, they need the middle class, the lower class, everybody and everything needs money in order to buy property, in order to buy a house.
And he was talking about the idea that most credit card companies will charge 28% or more to their customers.
But by passing this executive order, he's asking the credit card companies to only charge 10%.
For one year, for one year.
For one year.
Now, legally, I can't go into it, but I'm sure there's going to be lawsuits to not, you know, to not enforce this executive order.
And I don't know your thoughts on that.
The other thing I just wanted to quickly say was when he was talking to Macron about the tariffs on their imports, that was because he's working on the drug prices coming down because we're paying, you know, like 3,000% more than the other nations.
So he's saying like you either raise your prices so ours come down.
Like if all of all of your countries each take it a little bit, then it'll kind of balance out.
And that's what he was saying.
No, no, no, we're not going to do it.
And then also so we can have favored nation status.
He worked on that.
So we would pay in America the lowest price of all the, so whatever the lowest price is for any country, that's what we would also pay.
So that would be a, because we pay out the wazoo for drugs here.
So yeah, go ahead.
So he, I don't know what, if he talked about other points, the credit card point was excellent.
The other thing that happened recently is that yesterday, I believe he passed an executive order to put some kind of stop to companies purchasing homes.
It's the first step laying out the Wall Street home purchases.
Now, I have to say, and I know I won't be popular out there, I'm not in agreement with that, given that that is basically corporations are people in my mind.
If I have a corporation and I want to buy a home, I should be allowed.
So to me, I don't think the idea economically to just force corporations not allowed to purchase homes will not make the home cheaper.
In my mind, I think that the government should stay away from economics.
And I'm a lazy freight capitalist.
So as you can, as some of you would know, but I'm sure that there are people that want this relief fast.
And I think Trump understands that.
And I think what he's trying to do is bring relief as soon as possible.
And I think life deferred capitalism would take a while to work.
I am a millennial and I have lots of friends that are just renters.
And today in Davos, he talked about, I don't want a nation of renters.
I want a nation to own homes because part of owning a home is not really the ownership, but it brings you stability to have a family, to have kids, to be able to have stability in personal life versus, you know, less divorces, less issues.
And it's an affordable home because the issue is that you end up paying so much of your money to your house that there is not much money left.
So I don't know if you have thoughts on that.
I personally disagree with the executive order, but I can see why he's doing it.
Yeah, I feel similarly.
I mean, I think I can understand why he's doing some of these things because he's trying to make things more affordable.
And even if it's just a temporary thing, if it has a positive impact on affordability, then that, you know, has not just the economic benefit for people in the short term, but also it might have a significant impact on the midterms.
And so politically, I think it's probably a very smart move to say, I'm doing everything I possibly can, pulling out all the stops, doing things I might not normally do to try and just make life more affordable for people.
It's a real issue and it's what people care about.
So I think he's trying to read the room and say, I'm going to do everything I can to take away some of the cost of this.
But at the same time, I do share a lot of your beliefs about government getting involved with the free market and having it maybe backfire.
And I'm worried about that because, for example, with credit cards, you know, if we go back to the financial crisis, what we saw was when they put in more controls around that, what happened was people just stopped lending.
Banks stopped lending to people.
And I agree that it was an abuse before that that led to the financial crisis.
So I'm not saying we should have just let everybody do like no document loans like they were doing and all these essentially fraudulent types of things.
I don't think that's the right answer.
But at the same time, what happened was banks just said, you know what, I don't want to do this anymore.
Like I'm just going to pull back.
And even when the government encouraged them and tried to get them to say, no, we really want you to issue loans to the people who are qualified for them, they still wouldn't do it.
And for many years, it was like getting really hard for people to get a loan approved because the banks were so gun-shy to take on any risk or to make those loans.
And if you limit the credit card interest to 10%, what I would expect to happen from an economic standpoint is that you'd probably see a lot of credit lines getting cut where people won't be able to put anything more on their credit card.
And you might even see some of their cards being canceled where they're going to say, we're not even going to allow you to have a credit card anymore because you're not worth the risk.
If you're the type of person that was carrying a credit card balance and not really paying it back or keeping up with your payments, that the credit card companies might say, it's not going to be profitable for me to do this because that's, I think, one of the reasons why you have these 20% interest rates is that they need to charge that much in order for the whole portfolio of customers to make sense.
Corporations Buying Real Estate 00:15:59
You have a whole bunch of people like me that pay off their bill every month and they never get any interest.
They get a whole bunch of other stuff like the transaction fees and stuff from me, but they, you know, they don't get interest.
But then you have some people who carry a balance, but they make their minimum payments.
And then you have other people who struggle to make their minimum payments and they never pay it back.
And they have to look at that as a whole portfolio and say, okay, what do I need to charge for people who aren't paying their full balance every month so that even if some people never pay it back, I still get more than I loaned out to people.
And so my concern would be that this would have a retraction sort of effect on the economy where credit card companies would say, well, if I can't charge any more than 10%, then I'm only going to charge, I'm only going to allow credit for the highest credit rating people that I know are going to pay me back.
And I'm going to cut it off for everybody else.
And that may end up hurting the very people that Trump is trying to help.
And I think, you know, some of that might be true with some of this housing market stuff too, that if you, you know, if you, if you restrict things and say you're not allowed to do certain things, then that may just have an effect of pulling back on the market.
You won't have as many buyers.
You won't have as many sellers.
And there may just not be as many transactions.
Now, I think, you know, on the housing front, in terms of not letting big corporations buy houses, to me, that might be a little bit of a red herring sort of thing.
Like, I don't know that there really were that many big corporations that were snapping up houses.
I know there was a lot of news about that, and especially on the right, but I remember seeing that that was kind of debunked and that it really wasn't happening nearly at the scale that people were saying it was.
You know, correct me if I'm wrong, if you think there is a lot of that happening and it's a big problem.
But I think, you know, to me, if you restrict the free market and you say, you know, we're not going to allow that anymore, that's just going to take certain buyers off the market, which means, you know, maybe there will be some price pressure downward, but it also might just mean that not as many houses get sold.
I think it's a big problem, Owen.
I don't know.
I mean, I know, you know, entire neighborhoods are being bought up by corporations, forcing people to rent.
That's a problem.
And it is definitely a problem.
I don't know about other cities, but I can speak for Manhattan has a huge problem with this with, you know, corporations and corporations from other countries buying up, you know, buildings and, you know, entire entire buildings just buying it all.
It's empty.
No one's there.
But now they own all that real estate and it's a write-off for them.
It's an investment for them.
But at what cost to the cities in fact?
I would be much more supportive of saying we don't want China to buy up all our real estate, especially if they're going to leave it idle and not even rent it to anybody.
That's ridiculous.
And I think we shouldn't allow that.
So I'd be much more supportive of that type of policy, but I don't think that's what Trump was doing in this case.
He's talking about like your black rockstone, black, who is it?
Right.
But that's the story worth.
It might have been debunked.
But go ahead, Bob.
I'm going to come out in favor of this idea of preventing large corporations from buying up.
In the last few years, I've gotten more involved in my own neighborhood, and I'm not going to get into details about that.
But what I've discovered is we have one corporation alone that owns more than 5% of our neighborhood, one company alone.
And if I were to tell you the name and you Google that, the most common thing you would see pop up in your search results is that name associated with the term slumlord.
I've dealt individually with a bunch of the renters in our neighborhood who are renting from by and large large corporations that own thousands and thousands and thousands, tens, hundreds of thousands of properties, perhaps.
And when they have a problem, they have to fix it themselves.
They can't get the landlord company to do it.
They're having to do things that, you know, in the Neolithic era, when I was still a renter, things that were always the landlord's responsibility in terms of maintenance and lawn care and these kinds of things, that if you did have somebody that owned a bunch of properties, they had a maintenance crew that would come around.
And I've had to deal with these companies just shirking their responsibilities, leaving the properties literally creating hazards to other people in the neighborhood.
And we've had to take all kinds of action to get that resolved.
And my understanding is that, and Marcella, you may know more about this.
Owen, you may not more, may know more.
But my understanding is this wasn't an issue before the big financial crisis of 2008, when all of the mortgage-backed securities started getting bought up and companies decided, hey, I can go out and buy a lot of single.
You had corporations that owned apartment buildings and whatnot, but you didn't have them owning single family homes.
And at least from my anecdotal situation, I see it as a real issue.
I'm more in favor of that than I am limiting the credit card interest because I figured, you know, there are state usury laws already that should protect that to some degree.
And, you know, the consumer, at some point, the consumer has to be responsible for the contracts they sign.
And if paying excessive interest is a hard, I mean, I did it as a kid.
I got into credit card debt and had to learn the hard way how to deal with it and pay it off and get to the point like, oh, and, you know, I pay it off every month and don't pay a penny in interest.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm as much as a free market, hands-off, limited regulation guy as I am.
I'm with Trump on this one.
Okay.
That's good.
That's interesting.
Against it, to be honest.
I lived in a country before here.
I was born in El Salvador.
And I have to say, when you restrict ownership on corporations, there's many other things that can lead to this idea that the government controls how the economy works.
And I'm against it.
I understand the plight of everybody that's going through it.
I mean, I'm poor.
So I would know.
I mean, I'm middle class, poor, whatever.
But it's still, I understand the issue and why Trump is wanting to do it, but I don't think this is the way.
I think that corporations are owned by other people that risk their time, their effort, and they are basically just trying to do it.
In regards to slum owners, as you said, Bob, there is laws against it.
So if that comes up, this renters can sue the slum owners.
And it can be, there's other ways of approaching it.
And that's my take.
I understand.
But how many people who are renters are going to have the funds to do that?
How many renters do it now?
There is many legal aides that do it.
You can take them to court in small claims.
You don't.
But even taking them into court.
Yeah, most of these people that I see that are renters are living paycheck to paycheck and they can't afford to even take the time to research how do I do this?
You know, the law, someone has got to help them.
And so anyway, that's my response to that.
I mean, I think that, again, in the research I've done and the stories I've seen, I think there is some, I guess, what I would call misinformation about this.
Let me, I just asked Rock about this, and it was Blackstone that was the name of the place that was buying up some, but they own a total of about 62,000 homes in the whole country.
And that may sound like a lot, and there probably is a lot, but that's still a pretty small percentage.
It's a lot, though, if it's entire neighborhoods.
Well, and it may be a problem in certain neighborhoods, but here's what Grock tells me: large institutional investors, and they define that as those with over 100 homes, they own roughly 1% to 3% of the single-family housing stock.
So that's a total of 574,000 homes, which again is just 1% to 3% of the total market.
And that was as of 2022.
And it says it's gone down since then.
So it says their share of purchase has declined since peaks around 2022, and they account for under 2% of home buys in many periods.
All investors, including the small mom and pop ones, have bought higher shares, sometimes 25 to 34% in 2025 quarters due to high mortgage rates that are sidelining regular buyers.
And it does say in some specific metro areas, areas like Atlanta, Charlotte, or Jacksonville, institutional ownership overall reaches 15 to 25% of single-family rentals, which makes it feel more like an issue.
But nationally, it's not really that big of an issue.
And so, I mean, again, all real estate is local.
And if you're in Atlanta and it's hard to find a home to buy and everybody, all the institutions are buying them, yeah, that's a big deal.
And maybe this will help with that.
But I think as an overall national issue, I just don't know that it's really going to make much difference because it's not really happening as much as the media is saying it is.
But can't those same people just make another corporation and just keep buying and buying and buying just under a different corporation?
I would be worried.
I would be worried about that too, because I mean, I haven't done any real estate investing, but I have researched doing it.
And typically what I hear recommended is that for every property you buy, you make another LLC for that property because it helps you to separate it legally so that if you get sued, because let's say something bad happens, like somebody slips and falls on one of your properties, you don't want it to mean that you could be sued for all your properties.
Yeah.
So typically I always hear if you're a real estate owner and you're doing rentals, you want to have a separate company for every single property.
And I would imagine that if these large corporations are somehow barred from buying properties, that's probably what they would do, right?
They would just make a whole bunch of separate companies.
And I don't know, maybe there will be something that prevents that too, that says you can't all be owned by the same owner.
And maybe that'll still work.
But still, I would expect that if a big company doesn't buy it, then maybe a small company will buy it.
And I don't know how much difference it'll make to the average person who's trying to rent to buy a house.
Because I think to me, that's more having to do with the mortgage rates and the value of the house.
And I think right now we're still in a mode where real estate prices are probably inflated.
You know, it's probably just too high because I think a lot of the prices have been up since the real estate mortgage rates were very low, which tends to drive up the price because, again, it comes down to what can I actually afford.
And so when the mortgage rates go up, the value of the house typically would go down, but it really hasn't.
And I think that's because that real estate market tends to be kind of inelastic.
Sellers don't like to drop their prices, right?
So they might just hold on to the property or keep living there until they can get the price that they want.
And so right now, I think we're in this kind of mode where values of properties probably should come down to make them attractive to people to buy, but the sellers don't want to do that.
And so a lot of people feel like they're just stuck in their home until they can find a buyer at the price that they think they want to get.
But I think mortgage rates going down as they have gone down significantly under Trump, I think that will help and probably more than this other rule.
Because if you can make it more affordable where people really can afford the mortgage and can afford to buy the house, that might really make a difference for a lot of people.
Wasn't there a story?
Well, Trump did.
Oh, sorry, go ahead.
Wasn't there a story that somebody pointed out right now that Scott would say, don't trust data, don't trust the data.
The other thing is that there was immigration, people being deported is causing lower rents in certain cities and allowing, I don't know if there were a lot of homeowners that were illegal here, but I'm assuming it's causing the market to stabilize and lower price.
It's probably freeing up real estate and rentals.
It has to be, right?
I mean, we have millions of people that have left the country and all of them lived somewhere.
So I think that is a huge factor.
And I think it probably is going to have an impact, especially on rental prices, because that's, I think, more elastic, where if you can't find someone that's willing to pay the higher price, you're going to lower your price until you get that apartment rented or that house rented.
And so it is going to cause prices to come down on the rental market much more quickly, I think, than on the buying market.
Right.
You guys, we have about nine minutes left.
Why don't we switch to a different topic?
And you and Marcella and Owen, what else do we want to know about?
We wanted to talk about energy because, you know, the key today is energy.
Bob talked about managing energy, what the reframe was.
Somebody mentioned that Scott would be in the same side and Trump would be at the same site.
One of the things that our friend Mark would love is that Japan restarted a nuclear plant today.
It's been 30 years since they have done that and 15 years since Fukushima and they started that.
And one of the things that Trump talked about today is that China, he basically gave them, he told them that China is doing really great on energy that he read in the Wall Street Journal, they're doing so great and I like them, you know.
And so the key to China is that they are building nuclear faster than anyone right now.
And what Trump talked about is letting companies here in America be able to build their own nuclear and be able to not have the red tape of government to allow them to build.
Germany killed nuclear, and I think they're trying to bring it back, which is one of the reasons why in Germany the elections are causing the populace to go towards the right because their prices are increasingly unaffordable.
New England's Energy Dilemma 00:06:27
We think today, like our energy prices are affordable, are unaffordable here in America and Germany is way worse.
In other countries, it's way worse.
So that's one of the things that came up.
The other thing that's coming up today is that the Supreme Court today is hearing arguments in regards to President Trump's authority to remove members of the Federal Reserve to go back to the economy.
He wanted, as you recall, he fired Lisa Cook, which was part of the Reserve Board of Governors.
And basically when he fired Lisa Cook, Lisa Cook said, no, I'm not fired.
You don't have constitutional right to fire me.
So I'm staying here.
And then the Supreme Court is today hearing that.
The opinion will come out later, but that would be interesting.
I don't know when if you wanted to add to that.
I would just throw out another story I posted today.
It's a study they did in New England, and they said that New England ratepayers could save up to $700 billion by swapping renewables for gas.
And it's sort of a combination of nuclear and natural gas that they were looking at, but they're basically saying there might be a lot of blackouts if they don't do this.
And that, again, if you just run the numbers, if you use natural gas and nuclear or some mix of the two, it could save people who pay for electricity there in New England up to $700 billion.
So that's a big number.
And I think it certainly makes a strong argument that you don't want to put all your money into wind and solar and batteries and all these other things because it's going to be tremendously more expensive to try and do this net zero stuff.
And that we are going to need a lot more electricity with or without AI.
And we need to find a way to provide all this energy.
And the cheaper it is, the cheaper everything is because everything depends on transportation and other, you know, has to have heating and cooling and all sorts of things.
So it really drives the economy when you have cheaper energy.
So I think this is something that hopefully New England will pay attention to and will try and drive their nuclear and natural gas infrastructure to try and get that cost down.
Because I think New England probably is one of the worst areas in terms of electricity costs.
I don't know if you can comment on that, Erica.
Yeah, New Jersey is brutal.
Yeah, no, it's got to come.
We have a new governor now as of yesterday.
So we'll see how that goes.
Do you mind me?
Go ahead.
So somebody mentioned on here, I forget their name here, but it talked about nuclear.
People are scared because of Three Mile Island and Fukushima and other situations.
And Trump talked about today that he was actually scared of, oh, there you are, Erica.
Like, I'm scared.
We like to shuffle.
So, Trump was saying that he himself, as a person, was scared of nuclear at first, but now he sees it.
So, one of the things that Scott always talked about is having the flexibility of pivoting and being able to say, Hey, I was wrong once.
Now I'm correct again.
You know, I was wrong and I changed my mind.
And being able to change your mind is like a superpower.
And he did it in front of everybody.
He admitted it, and that was great.
And I don't know in regards to the affordability in New Zealand, I wouldn't know, but I live in California.
It's quite unaffordable for everybody here to live.
Yeah, I mean, I do think that it's hopefully going to turn a corner with nuclear.
I think we are making a lot of strides, but I do think it's a longer-term solution, no matter how you cut it.
Because, you know, I think we made it so hard to build a nuclear plant that it was basically impossible.
And it was just so costly.
And it would take 30 years, literally 30 years to build a nuclear plant.
And I think we're definitely getting that down.
But I think, you know, what does that mean?
Does that mean five years, 10 years, 15 years?
You know, it's not going to be next year that all of a sudden we're going to have a bunch of nuclear plants.
So I think in the meantime, we need to look at things like natural gas and other things that are a lot easier to roll out, maybe even coal, which is what Trump's trying to do is to keep the coal plants going.
But it sounds like that has its own issues in terms of keeping it going.
And natural gas is a lot cleaner and a lot cheaper than these renewables for sure.
And I think it is probably the best solution in the short term is to ramp up on the natural gas.
And that probably also ties into just the, you know, increased drilling and drill, baby, drill and all the rest, because I think Trump has made a lot of strides in terms of that, getting people to produce more oil, more natural gas.
But we need to use it.
You know, we can't just let it pile up.
We need to actually put it to work.
So to me, that's probably the best short-term solution.
Yeah, I agree.
All right, you guys, you know me, the timer Nazi.
Oh, am I allowed to say that?
Anyway, wrapping up, I want to just real quickly, I haven't heard anybody talk about the winter weather that's coming through parts of the country and how bad it's predicted to be.
I did like Scott did a couple years ago, and I ordered extra batteries and solar generator and things.
And if you're in the path of this thing, do the same.
Follow Scott's lead on that.
Just I'm in the past.
I'm miserable about it.
Oh, I mean, I said I wanted snow, but not like snowmaged.
Not all of it.
Snow, but not at all.
Erica.
Special Guest Announcement 00:01:29
I don't know.
I think we might have lost her.
But yeah, I started seeing stories about that, how it's like dangerous to be outside and it's going to be really, really cold.
So definitely bundle up, do whatever you need to to prepare for that.
Can you guys hear me, by the way?
Yeah, we can hear you.
Okay.
All right.
I don't know where I went.
I just also wanted to say congratulations to JD Vance and his wife, Usha.
They're expecting a baby boy, which is so nice.
You guys, tomorrow, Shelly's going to have an announcement for us in the morning.
And we have a special guest tomorrow.
We'll keep it a secret.
I just think it'll be a fun guest for us.
And I think tomorrow we're doing news stories.
So that's going to be fun.
You guys, we so appreciate you.
I go back and read the comments on locals later.
And you guys are so sweet.
Like we're trying our best.
And we'll be back again tomorrow.
Any closing words from you?
Sergio, bless your soul.
We just had you all quiet over there today, didn't we?
We love you.
Okay.
All right, you guys.
So we'll see you tomorrow.
It's 11 o'clock.
Go be useful, touch some grass, make some plans, do some wanting and deciding and eliminating things.
Manage your energy, all the good stuff.
And a final sip to Scott, as always.
We love you, Scott.
To Scott.
We love you guys.
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