Episode 471 a Scott Adams - Healthcare, Socialism, Biden, Smollett, Climate Change, Venezuela

hey everybody come on in gather around grab a chair we still have a few seats left in the front those of you who like to sit up front make sure that you've uh filled your coffee mug oh it doesn't have to be a mug it could be a glass or a Stein or a chalice could be a thermos or a tankard but what matters is the simultaneity of it all so join me please for what I call the simultaneous zp ah so there's a whole bunch of interesting things happening let me jump Jump Right In there's some something going on with q that I'm hearing about but I don't know know exactly somehow I'm involved I don't know exactly what's going on but uh there's there's something something happening in the world of Q and some thought that I might be a target of something but I'm not too worried about it it's just out there let's talk about Jesse smallet because I know you want to talk about that now I tweeted uh a very I think I tweeted it controversial opinion I'm going to repeat it but unlike a lot of things I say I am not going to try to change your mind so I'm going to give you an opinion this time free of persuasion so I'll just take the persuasion off because when you disagree with me and I know you will I'm going to say that's fine I think your disagreement is well supported okay so uh I'm okay with a light penalty for Jesse smallet now I'm going to I'm going to make the argument for why the light penalty is the right one and remember I told you that if your argument is that it should be a harder penalty I'm not going to disagree with you I'll just make the case and then you can decide for yourself so we don't need to disagree on this you're you're welcome to your opinion and I will respect it in this case especially here's the first consideration nobody got hurt secondly now indirectly you could say there were cases that didn't get solved but I'm not sure that you can directly find the problem there I think it would be true of everybody every case that the police work on works on takes resources away from more important cases so the fact that the resources were wasted if you could say that on the smaller case is not that different than any other low priority case where they use resources so yes there's a problem there he did use resources but he's also forfeiting some amount of money that at least would go partially toward that so I'd say the the resources argument is not the strongest one but it's real there were real resources now there was a real crime right he it just happens that smalla himself might allegedly according to the police is the one who committed the crime but there was a real crime so when the police investigate a real crime are they wasting their time because the only way that the the police could determine this mullet was the problem and not the accuser the accused attackers the only way they could get to the bot of that is by putting resources toward it and investigating the fake story until they knew the real crime so I ask you this did Chicago Police waste their resources I say it depends how you look at it because what did they do they investigated a real crime and they found the perpetrator if the police investigate a real crime in this case the real crime is J's hoax they they didn't know they were investigating it but that's that's how it turned out so in a way the investigation was productive because it found an actual crime and it it tried to prosecute it but the judge had a different idea all right so the argument about the wasted resources is not as clean as you think it is right there you could argue there're some wasted resources but not so wasted that that they wouldn't have otherwise you know made a difference and there was a real crime and they really used those resources against it the next issue is that smallet is not like regular people in in a number of ways but the important way that I'm going to talk about is that he's famous now the way we most people are talking about that is wait a minute he's getting special treatment because he's famous it appears clear that that's happening so I'm certainly not going to argue that that somebody didn't put their finger on the scale I'm not going to argue that somebody powerful didn't get to the judge it seems obvious that that there's something sketchy going on right so let me completely agree with you that we probably got to this this verdict in a way that doesn't feel comfortable to any of us watching it so that part is real probably we may never know but probably there's something there so I don't want to Discount that but um I would say that one difference that he has is that he's a public figure now if somebody who is not famous perpetrated a hoax and let's say they got a they a light sentence all right so let's say nobody got hurt police wasted a little bit of time perpetrator pays a fine which at least partially covers the the work of the police and then there's penalty but it's not very high but let's say it's an unknown person and let's say the unknown person is completely clear the way it looks like Jesse small it will be cleared in the sense of technically having a criminal record what would be the ongoing effect to that unknown non-f famous person if that person got the same non-penalty as Jesse smallet they would have no criminal record and when they went to apply for a job nobody would ever know what happened right so a nonf famous person if if that nonf famous person got the same non prosecution a Smet it would just completely wipe the record clean it would be like it never happened it wouldn't affect them for the rest of their life but Smet is famous he can have his technical criminal record expunged and yet every place he goes from now on they're all going to know his alleged criminal activity so by by virtue of his Fame this non penalty is actually a pretty big freaking penalty he's he has a real life penalty outside of the legal penalty but his real life penalty is going to be pretty big now some of you are saying you know he'll still get work and he will he'll still have probably an above average life but this is going to sort of hang with him forever all right it's never going to go away so here's the point you can't compare a smallet to a non-famous person cuz the nonf famous person would have no lasting problem from this he does now we don't know if those problems will be greater than the benefits he gets from being famous who knows but definitely there's some lasting problems um and then here's I'm going to make you my most nonobvious uh statement the United States is definitely at least in the political realm we seem to be at each each other's you know at each other's necks and you know the left and the right seem to be hating on each other people are talking about you know violent revolutions I think there's no chance of that I wouldn't worry about that at all but people are talking about it if you want to bring down the tensions somebody kind of has to go first somebody has to go first in other words if everybody just keeps ratcheting up it's like you did this I have to do this I have to match you it doesn't get better so maybe this is a case where Trump supporters can say look the story itself is is all we need right just just knowing that this was a hoax is a big benefit to Trump supporters you don't really need to put your boot on this one person's neck and just keep it there forever you don't really need to because you got everything out of this that you need so I do not argue this Smet should get a lesser penalty than other people I do argue that this particular crime since there was no violence oh and here's the other Factor one of the reasons that you punish people is that you don't want them to repeat the crime but the weird part about this crime is it's unre repeatable it's an unrepeatable crime at least by small it and I don't think anybody could look at this situation and say well smallet uh really had had a a good result so I think I'll do a hoax too nobody can look at that and say it worked so if you're worrying about dis discouraging other people from trying a similar hoax I would say that the smallest story already does that it didn't work he just embarrassed himself Etc so it probably has the effect of diminishing future crime there's no chance in the world this mullet would do this same crime again and here's the even harder part just think about this I haven't heard anybody say this if someday in the future a real crime happened to Jesse smallet and I hope that doesn't happen I want I want to be very clear I'm not suggesting it I'm not I'm not trying to incite it I'm just making a point someday small it may be in a case where he needs the police to believe him there might actually be a real crime that he is committed that he is a victim of I mean aren't most people the victims of crime eventually you know most of us are victims of one crime or another um I think most of you have had to call the police at one time in your life who the hell is going to believe anything that Jesse smallet tells the police so the next time he he needs the police that might not go so well for him I don't know if they're even going to believe it anyway so that's the argument why I'm personally not bothered by a light sentence I think it might be better for the country if we say look what you did looks pretty bad to us nobody got hurt you got embarrassed I hope everybody learned their lesson let's let's not make this worse than it needs to be let's let's be you know understanding about whatever it was that caused that um is hard to understand here's the next here's my last point would Jesse Smet have done anything things any of the things he did without the influence of the illegitimate media if somebody is hypnotized or brainwashed into doing the thing they do does the legal system treat them exactly the same as if they came up with the idea on their own uh look at the Patty Hurst story Patty Hurst was kidnapped and allegedly brainwashed into becoming a a uh bank robber by The sanese Liberation Army and I believe she got off because the argument was that she had literally been brainwashed has Jesse Smet literally been brainwashed by the media undoubtably there there isn't the slightest case there's not the slightest chance that he was not literally brainwashed by the media now that's not a full defense but it should have an impact on how much you penalize somebody anyway um those of you who say let me be very clear those of you who say the law is the law and it looks like it wasn't followed in this case you should have a significant penalty for that I respect that opinion so you don't need to argue with me because I'm already saying that is a solid opinion that he should be punished harder than he was I'm not going to disagree with you I'm just going to explain the the counterargument that's all do with it while you will um I was quite amused to watch how CNN is dealing with the fact that the Russia collusion thing fell apart and um I've told you before that the way you can tell what the editorial you know the high level editorial direction is for CNN is you look at the stories that are on the top left because that those are the important ones so at the highest level apparently I mean I don't know this for sure but it's it seems evident that there's some kind of larger Direction because for example today every I think every story on CNN on the top left is about Healthcare let me check and see see if that's still the case all right so in order these are the headlines on the top left of CNN ending Obamacare would be a headache for Trump uh something about the support the the court and healthc care Obama.

Care it's the next one the real reason Trump wants to get rid of Obamacare okay they're all they're basically all health care now when was the last time that CNN was so concerned about Healthcare now it's of course it's driven by a story that a court has over apparently says Obamacare is um non constitutional or whatever they're saying I I don't care about the details but the point is Obamacare is under uh you know under risk of Disappearing at the same time the GOP has just nothing they they have nothing that looks like a plan so this is one of those be careful while you wish for things because if Obamacare disappeared tomorrow uh Trump could not get elected reelected right so if Obamacare really just went away and it really just took you know however many millions of people off of Health Care it wouldn't matter what else went right it just wouldn't matter what else went right that would be enough to deny him reelection so President should be careful of what he wishes for if he doesn't have a replace placement the last thing you want is for the Obamacare to go away right away because that's a bad look let me suggest what a republican plan for Health Care should look like in a general sense um I've said before that the best approach against the Democrats at least the green New Deal part of the democratic party is the statement that capitalism can deliver what socialism promises capitalism can deliver what socialism promises but it doesn't work the other way around and the the second thing that you uh that should be said about the green New Deal and full socialism is that it's risky because we have a system that has problems but it's working we have a solid economy um I think there maybe something like 16% or 18% don't have healthcare insurance that's not that's not as big a problem as it's been in the past it's a big problem and we should solve it but it's hard to get people to make a big risky change to A system that could doom doom the planet to Annihilation I mean if you get capitalism wrong you could ruin the whole planet so um a big socialist experiment would be by far the riskiest thing that that the world has ever experienced probably riskier than maybe literally everything I don't know if anything would be a bigger risk than that the by the way the bad arguments against socialism go like this here are the bad arguments we don't want to become Venezuela well it's true we don't want to become Venezuela but I don't think anybody on the left fears that I think people look at Venezuela and they go well that's not us you know whatever happened there it's unlikely that that exact stuff is going to happen to us we don't have a dictator blah blah blah so I don't think it's convincing it might be true that that we could end up like Venezuela I mean I'm not sure exactly how that would look but it's just not persuasive to the other team um the other thing that's not persuasive is that socialism has Ked killed hundreds of million people in the past and led to dictatorships and misery Beyond Compare it's true but it's not persuasive and the reason is that I've never heard anybody yet make any kind of a connective argument it's like okay well socialism ruins everything and I know it's happened in the past but they're all different cases like explain to me why socialism ruins everything that's supp part nobody really does a good job of explaining and it goes like I and I'm not even sure I know the argument so I'll tell you what I think the argument is and maybe somebody can correct me and I need correction on this I think the argument goes like this that when you um centralize control either of the entire government or if you start with let's say Healthcare and that becomes centralized in the government that whenever you centralize control abuse happens because there there are too few people in charge of something big and those few people can become corrupt too easily too much power not enough control but does that happen every time and is there some situation that causes that abuse to happen and some situation that causes it not to happen I don't really know so the argument is is too conceptual um so arguing that uh socialist policies about well let me let me say how how it sounds to the left when you argue that socialism leads to hundreds of millions of death and centralization and abuse of power and all that that could be completely true here's what the left hears you're telling me that if my health care improves it's the end of the world do you see how stupid the argument from the right looks okay explain to me genius how having 16% more Health Care you know that's how many people are uncovered um or something like that it's in that range uh explain to me how that leads to dictatorship because that just sounds crazy now it might be true but it's completely unpr unpr persuasive so the argument that is persuasive is that any radical changes to a system that's at least working even if it has problems is the riskiest thing you can do and nobody likes risk when they don't need it the only time you should introduce risk is when you're sort of in a bad situation and you don't have much to lose um overstating the case but you know the more desperate your situation the more risk you should be willing to take on to fix it and if things are going well the less risk you should introduce to the systems that's that's the better argument everybody understands risk all right so what here's what the Republicans should do they should package up the things that they're already doing right and the things that they plan to do right the the capitalism um can deliver what socialism promises when you're talking about Healthcare you could say all right capitalism is what got 75% of you health care so we we got that part capitalism is what makes sure that even the people who don't have health care insurance still get health care because they do they might have to go to an emergency room it might be a waste of resources might be the worst way to do it but they still get health care and capitalism delivered that now how do you make it better um a a market-based Republican approach would first of all look at the regulation cutting and the streamlining of uh let's say competition and that would include things that they're actually doing but for reasons that that Bogle my mind they don't talk about enough so the the weirdest part about the Republicans in healthc care is that they're doing actually good stuff that they put out a press release from you know whoever puts out those press releases and then you don't really hear about it one of those things is uh pushing to make it easier to Fast.

Track generic drugs because apparently the the rule is that when the third or is it the second generic hits the market uh it's more than one but I think when you need if as soon as you get that second generic or third that the price of the original drug Just plummets So the faster you can Fast.

Track the generics the lower the prices will be for the public so the the Administration has actually made changes to Fast.

Track that that's a really big deal I don't think they're selling that enough they've made a number of other changes that involve I know uh doing things across state lines uh Etc so there are probably a dozen or so rules changes to make things more Market based and competitive that could be packaged up and they say all right this is what we've done and this is what we plan to do more of here's some here's some more so we've already done these rules changes to make things more competitive and now we're going to do these these extra things also so that would be one part of the package but they should all be together and they should be presented as as here's what we've done here's what we're going to do the next thing would be to look at um States apparently some some states are looking at their own healthc care plans the the smartest thing the president could do is to back it just back it and say I love the fact that the states are experimenting why don't we watch it for a year see if it works and and pick the good parts if there are any good parts see what that does so and then the the last part would be spurring Innovation the part that the I think the administration is just missing an action on this even though they're probably doing it so I'm going to blame the the government for um the current Administration for not doing enough of something that they might actually be doing I just don't hear about it and maybe that's the problem which is stimulating the new new entrepreneurial Health Care businesses um you know making sure they get funding and attention making sure the government gives them whatever resources make sense for a government to help out with so if we could focus on and package up that even as a fund the you know could even be just an investment fund of specifically companies who are in the health care space but here's the key they're not just a new cool thing e and I see if that makes any difference no sound all right um well I'm going to turn it off and I'll be back I'll be back I'll be back okay

[Music]

hey

everybody come on in gather

around grab a chair we still have a few

seats left in the front those of you who

like to sit up front make sure that

you've uh filled your coffee mug oh it

doesn't have to be a mug it could be a

glass or a Stein or a chalice could be a

thermos or a tankard but what matters is

the simultaneity of it all so join me

please for what I call the simultaneous

zp

ah so there's a whole bunch of

interesting things happening let me jump

Jump Right In there's some something

going on with

q that I'm hearing

about but I don't know know exactly

somehow I'm

involved I don't know exactly what's

going

on but uh there's there's something

something happening in the world of Q

and some thought that I might be a

target of something but I'm not too

worried about it it's just out there

let's talk about Jesse smallet because I

know you want to talk about that now I

tweeted uh a very I think I tweeted it

controversial

opinion I'm going to repeat it but

unlike a lot of things I say I am not

going to try to change your

mind so I'm going to give you an

opinion this time free of persuasion so

I'll just take the persuasion off

because when you disagree with me and I

know you

will I'm going to say that's fine I

think your

disagreement is well supported

okay so

uh I'm okay with a light penalty for

Jesse

smallet now I'm going to I'm going to

make the argument for why the light

penalty is the right one and remember I

told you that if your argument is that

it should be a harder penalty I'm not

going to disagree with you I'll just

make the case and then you can decide

for yourself so we don't need to

disagree on this you're you're welcome

to your opinion and I will respect it in

this case

especially here's the first

consideration nobody got hurt secondly

now indirectly you could say there were

cases that didn't get solved but I'm not

sure that you can directly find the

problem there I think it would be true

of everybody every case that the police

work on works on takes resources away

from more important cases so the fact

that the resources were wasted if you

could say that on the smaller case is

not that different than any other low

priority case where they use resources

so yes there's a problem there he did

use resources but he's also forfeiting

some amount of money that at least would

go partially toward that so I'd say the

the resources argument is not the

strongest one but it's real there were

real resources

now there was a real

crime right he it just happens that

smalla himself might allegedly according

to the police is the one who committed

the crime but there was a real crime so

when the police investigate a real crime

are they wasting their time because the

only way that the the police could

determine this mullet was the problem

and not the accuser the accused

attackers the only way they could get to

the bot of that is by putting resources

toward it and investigating the fake

story until they knew the real crime so

I ask you

this did Chicago Police waste their

resources I say it depends how you look

at it because what did they do they

investigated a real crime and they found

the

perpetrator if the police investigate a

real crime in this case the real crime

is J's

hoax they they didn't know they were

investigating it but that's that's how

it turned out so in a way the

investigation was productive because it

found an actual crime and it it tried to

prosecute it but the judge had a

different idea all right so the argument

about the wasted resources is not as

clean as you think it is

right there you could argue there're

some wasted resources but not so wasted

that that they wouldn't have otherwise

you know made a difference and there was

a real crime and they really used those

resources against it the next issue is

that smallet is not like regular people

in in a number of ways but the important

way that I'm going to talk about is that

he's

famous now the way we most people are

talking about that is wait a minute he's

getting special treatment because he's

famous it appears clear that that's

happening so I'm certainly not going to

argue that that somebody didn't put

their finger on the scale I'm not going

to argue that somebody powerful didn't

get to the judge it seems obvious that

that there's something sketchy going on

right so let me completely agree with

you that we probably got to this this

verdict in a way that doesn't feel

comfortable to any of us watching it so

that part is real probably we may never

know but probably there's something

there so I don't want to Discount that

but um I would say that one difference

that he has is that he's a public

figure now if somebody who is not famous

perpetrated a

hoax and let's say they got a they a

light sentence all right so let's say

nobody got

hurt police wasted a little bit of time

perpetrator pays a fine which at least

partially covers the the work of the

police and then there's penalty but it's

not very high but let's say it's an

unknown

person and let's say the unknown person

is completely clear the way it looks

like Jesse small it will be cleared in

the sense of technically having a

criminal

record what would be the ongoing effect

to that unknown non-f famous person if

that person got the same non-penalty as

Jesse smallet they would have no

criminal record and when they went to

apply for a job nobody would ever know

what

happened right so a nonf famous person

if if that nonf famous person got the

same non prosecution a Smet it would

just completely wipe the record clean it

would be like it never happened it

wouldn't affect them for the rest of

their life but Smet is

famous he can have his technical

criminal record expunged and yet every

place he goes from now on they're all

going to know

his alleged criminal

activity so by by virtue of his

Fame this non penalty is actually a

pretty big freaking penalty he's he has

a real life penalty outside of the legal

penalty but his real life

penalty is going to be pretty big now

some of you are saying you know he'll

still get work and he will he'll still

have probably an above average

life but this is going to sort of hang

with him forever all right it's never

going to go away so here's the point you

can't compare a smallet to a non-famous

person cuz the nonf famous person would

have no lasting problem from this he

does now we don't know if those problems

will be greater than the benefits he

gets from being famous who knows but

definitely there's some lasting

problems um and then here's I'm going to

make you my most nonobvious

uh

statement the United States is

definitely at least in the political

realm we seem to be at each each other's

you know at each other's

necks and you know the left and the

right seem to be hating on each other

people are talking about you know

violent revolutions I think there's no

chance of that I wouldn't worry about

that at all but people are talking about

it if you want to bring down the

tensions somebody kind of has to go

first somebody has to go first in other

words if everybody just keeps ratcheting

up it's like you did this I have to do

this I have to match you it doesn't get

better so maybe this is a case where

Trump supporters can say look the story

itself is is all we need right just just

knowing that this was a

hoax is a big benefit to Trump

supporters you don't really need to put

your boot on this one person's neck and

just keep it there forever you don't

really need to because you got

everything out of this that you need

so I do not argue this Smet should get a

lesser penalty than other people I do

argue that this particular crime since

there was no

violence oh and here's the other

Factor one of the reasons that you

punish people is that you don't want

them to repeat the crime but the weird

part about this crime is it's unre

repeatable it's an unrepeatable crime at

least by small it and I don't think

anybody could look at this situation and

say well

smallet uh really had had a a good

result so I think I'll do a hoax too

nobody can look at that and say it

worked so if you're worrying about dis

discouraging other people from trying a

similar hoax I would say that the

smallest story already does that it

didn't work he just embarrassed himself

Etc so it probably has the effect of

diminishing future crime there's no

chance in the world this mullet would do

this same crime again and here's the

even harder part just think about this I

haven't heard anybody say

this if someday in the future a real

crime happened to Jesse smallet and I

hope that doesn't happen I want I want

to be very

clear I'm not suggesting it I'm not I'm

not trying to incite it I'm just making

a point

someday small it may be in a case where

he needs the police to believe him

there might actually be a real crime

that he is committed that he is a victim

of I mean aren't most people the victims

of crime eventually you know most of us

are victims of one crime or another um I

think most of you have had to call the

police at one time in your life who the

hell is going to believe anything that

Jesse smallet tells the

police so the next time he he needs the

police that might not go so well for him

I don't know if they're even going to

believe it anyway

so that's the argument why I'm

personally not bothered by a light

sentence I think it might be better for

the country if we say look what you did

looks pretty bad to us nobody got hurt

you got embarrassed I hope everybody

learned their lesson let's let's not

make this worse than it needs to be

let's let's be you know understanding

about whatever it was that caused that

um is hard to understand here's the next

here's my last

point would Jesse Smet have done

anything things any of the things he did

without the influence of the

illegitimate

media if somebody is hypnotized or

brainwashed into doing the thing they do

does the legal system treat them exactly

the same as if they came up with the

idea on their own uh look at the Patty

Hurst story Patty Hurst

was kidnapped and allegedly brainwashed

into becoming a a uh bank

robber by The sanese Liberation Army and

I believe she got off because the

argument was that she had literally been

brainwashed has Jesse Smet literally

been brainwashed by the

media undoubtably there there isn't the

slightest case there's not the slightest

chance that he was not

literally brainwashed by the media now

that's not a full defense but it should

have an impact on how much you penalize

somebody anyway um those of you who say

let me be very clear those of you who

say the law is the law and it looks like

it wasn't followed in this case you

should have a significant penalty for

that I respect that opinion so you don't

need to argue with me because I'm

already saying that is a solid opinion

that he should be punished harder than

he was I'm not going to disagree with

you I'm just going to explain the the

counterargument that's all do with it

while you will um I

was quite amused to watch how CNN is

dealing with the fact that the Russia

collusion thing fell

apart and um I've told you before that

the way you can tell what the editorial

you know the high level editorial

direction is for CNN is you look at the

stories that are on the top left because

that those are the important ones so at

the highest level apparently I mean I

don't know this for sure but it's it

seems evident that there's some kind of

larger Direction because for example

today every I think every story on CNN

on the top left is about

Healthcare let me check and see see if

that's still the case all right so in

order these are the headlines on the top

left of CNN ending Obamacare would be a

headache for

Trump uh something about the support the

the court and healthc care ObamaCare

it's the next one the real reason Trump

wants to get rid of Obamacare okay

they're

all they're basically all health care

now when was the last time that CNN was

so concerned about Healthcare now it's

of course it's driven by a story that a

court has over apparently says Obamacare

is um non constitutional or whatever

they're saying I I don't care about the

details but the point is Obamacare is

under uh you know under risk of

Disappearing at the same time the GOP

has just nothing they they have nothing

that looks like a plan so this is one of

those be careful while you wish for

things because if Obamacare disappeared

tomorrow uh Trump could not get elected

reelected right so if Obamacare really

just went away and it really just took

you know however many millions of people

off of Health Care it wouldn't matter

what else went

right it just wouldn't matter what else

went right that would be enough to deny

him reelection so President should be

careful of what he wishes for if he

doesn't have a replace placement the

last thing you want is for the Obamacare

to go away right away because that's a

bad

look let me

suggest what a republican plan for

Health Care should look like in a

general sense um I've said before that

the best approach against the Democrats

at least the green New Deal part of the

democratic party is the statement that

capitalism can deliver what socialism

promises

capitalism can

deliver what socialism

promises but it doesn't work the other

way around and the the second thing that

you uh that should be said about the

green New Deal and full socialism is

that it's

risky because we have a system that has

problems but it's working we have a

solid economy um I think there maybe

something like 16% or 18% don't have

healthcare insurance that's

not that's not as big a problem as it's

been in the past it's a big problem and

we should solve it but it's hard to get

people to make a big risky change to A

system that could doom doom the planet

to Annihilation I mean if you get

capitalism

wrong you could ruin the whole planet so

um a big socialist experiment would be

by far the riskiest thing that that the

world has ever experienced probably

riskier than maybe literally everything

I don't know if anything would be a

bigger risk than

that the by the way the bad arguments

against socialism go like this here are

the bad

arguments we don't want to become

Venezuela well it's true we don't want

to become Venezuela but I don't think

anybody on the left fears that I think

people look at Venezuela and they go

well that's not us you know whatever

happened there it's unlikely that that

exact stuff is going to happen to us we

don't have a dictator blah blah blah so

I don't think it's convincing it might

be

true that that we could end up like

Venezuela I mean I'm not sure exactly

how that would look but it's just not

persuasive to the other

team um the other thing that's not

persuasive is that socialism has Ked

killed hundreds of million people in the

past and led to dictatorships and misery

Beyond

Compare it's

true but it's not persuasive and the

reason is that I've never heard anybody

yet make any kind of a connective

argument it's like okay well socialism

ruins everything and I know it's

happened in the past but they're all

different cases like explain to me why

socialism ruins everything that's supp

part nobody really does a good job of

explaining and it goes like I and I'm

not even sure I know the argument so

I'll tell you what I think the argument

is and maybe somebody can correct me and

I need correction on this I think the

argument goes like this that when you um

centralize

control either of the entire government

or if you start with let's say

Healthcare and that becomes centralized

in the government

that whenever you centralize

control abuse happens because there

there are too few people in charge of

something big and those few people can

become corrupt too easily too much power

not enough control but does that happen

every time and is there some situation

that causes that abuse to happen and

some situation that causes it not to

happen I don't really

know so the argument is is too

conceptual um so arguing that uh

socialist policies about well let me let

me say how how it sounds to the left

when you argue that socialism leads to

hundreds of millions of death and

centralization and abuse of power and

all that that could be completely true

here's what the left hears you're

telling me that if my health care

improves it's the end of the world

do you see how

stupid the argument from the right

looks okay explain to me

genius how having 16% more Health Care

you know that's how many people are

uncovered um or something like that it's

in that range uh explain to me how that

leads to

dictatorship because that just sounds

crazy now it might be true but it's

completely unpr unpr persuasive so the

argument that is persuasive is that any

radical changes to a system that's at

least working even if it has problems is

the riskiest thing you can do and nobody

likes risk when they don't need it the

only time you should introduce risk is

when you're sort of in a bad situation

and you don't have much to lose um

overstating the case but you know the

more desperate your situation the more

risk you should be willing to take on to

fix it and if things are going well the

less risk you should introduce to the

systems that's that's the better

argument everybody understands

risk all right so what here's what the

Republicans should do they should

package up the things that they're

already doing right and the things that

they plan to do right the the capitalism

um can deliver what socialism promises

when you're talking about Healthcare

you could say all right capitalism is

what got 75% of you health care so we we

got that part capitalism is what makes

sure that even the people who don't have

health care insurance still get health

care because they do they might have to

go to an emergency room it might be a

waste of resources might be the worst

way to do it but they still get health

care and capitalism delivered that now

how do you make it

better um a a market-based

Republican approach would first of all

look at the regulation cutting and the

streamlining of uh let's say competition

and that would include things that

they're actually doing but for reasons

that that Bogle my mind they don't talk

about enough so the the weirdest part

about the Republicans in healthc care is

that they're doing actually good stuff

that they put out a press release from

you know whoever puts out those press

releases and then you don't really hear

about it one of those things is uh

pushing to make it easier to FastTrack

generic drugs because apparently the the

rule is that when the third or is it the

second generic hits the market uh it's

more than one but I think when you need

if as soon as you get that second

generic or third that the price of the

original drug Just plummets So the

faster you can FastTrack the generics

the lower the prices will be for the

public so the the Administration has

actually made changes to FastTrack that

that's a really big deal I don't think

they're selling that enough they've made

a number of other changes that involve I

know uh doing things across state lines

uh Etc so there are probably a dozen or

so rules changes to make things more

Market based and competitive that could

be packaged up and they say all right

this is what we've done and this is what

we plan to do more of here's some here's

some more so we've already done these

rules changes to make things more

competitive and now we're going to do

these these extra things also so that

would be one part of the package but

they should all be together and they

should be presented as as here's what

we've done here's what we're going to do

the next thing would be to look at um

States apparently some some states are

looking at their own healthc care plans

the the smartest thing the president

could do is to back it just back it and

say I love the fact that the states are

experimenting why don't we watch it for

a year see if it works and and pick the

good parts if there are any good parts

see what that

does so and then the the last part would

be spurring Innovation the part that the

I think the administration is just

missing an action on this even though

they're probably doing it so I'm going

to blame the the government for um the

current Administration for not doing

enough of something that they might

actually be doing I just don't hear

about it and maybe that's the problem

which is stimulating the new new

entrepreneurial Health Care businesses

um you know making sure they get funding

and attention making sure the government

gives them whatever resources make sense

for a government to help out with so if

we could focus on and package up that

even as a fund the you know could even

be just an investment fund of

specifically companies who are in the

health care space but here's the key

they're not just a new cool

[Laughter]

thing e

and I see if that makes any

difference no

[Music]

sound all right um

well I'm going to turn it off and I'll

be back I'll be back I'll be back okay