Episode 895 Scott Adams - Catch up on the Day and Learn Some Tricks for Relaxing

it's time to get your swaddle on get mine on if I could find the long side oh so much better oh my goodness Oh get yourself a warm blanket it's the best so let's catch you up on what's happening in the last 12 hours does all of this feel like Groundhog Day to you I don't know about you but there's a certain sameness to every day now because I feel like I feel like I wake up I do some cartooning and do a periscope and I talk about the same five things and then there's a press conference with the president and the task force and they babble the same meaningless stuff that doesn't mean anything and you can't you can't understand it in context you don't know if that's enough ventilators or not enough you really don't know anything but they sure talk a lot then it's this time of night then I do this again if then I'll be going to bed pretty soon and then I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna do exactly the same thing again it's starting to feel a little repetitive am i dead is this hell where I just wake up every day in the pandemic but it's it never gets worse and it never gets better it's just it's about the same yesterday do you remember yesterday today's like that but a little bit different anyway but there are some small differences we will talk about them so there's a website that lets you estimate your chances of getting the coronavirus and then if you get it your your odds of dying from it I'm I'm not proud to say then I thought oh I got to find out if I'm gonna die from the corona virus so I I just retweeted the site so if you want to find it for yourself go to my Twitter feed and it's near the top and what do you put in your particular you know your gender and age and some lifestyle stuff what your situation is and this is what it spit out for me and tell me if you think this sounds reasonable it says I have a fifty five percent chance of catching the virus now I putted that I literally am completely alone do I have a fifty five percent chance of catching it all alone in my house just because what I get mail you know I I ordered food that's pretty high so I'm not sure I believe I have a fifty five percent chance but the next thing is what are my odds of dying from it so again I put in my particulars and it said that if I get it my odds of dying from it or 2.6 percent the equivalent of one hundred thirty eight people so or if people are in betting odds there's no there's a thirty seven to one chance I won't die so if you want it if I get the coronavirus and you want to bet on me you know if you want to do a Dead Pool the the odds apparently are thirty seven to one that I would survive not bad not bad on the other hand is there anything else as that much of a chance of killing me by the end of the week probably not so it news from the simulation I think I think I'll make an ongoing segment that is just news from the simulation what I mean by that is the idea that we're a similar software simulation and if we are there might be some code reuse meaning you would see some patterns that recur that seemed like more than coincidence of course this is just for fun because they're just coincidences but I like to point them out because the alternative explanation that you live in the simulation and there's code reuse is just way more fun here's the example according to the news a tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York City has tested positive for corona virus in what may be the first confirmed case of an animal being infected now do you know what is scarier than a tiger you know assuming that you're in the same room with the tiger do you know what is scarier than that a tiger with corona virus that's sort of two ways to kill you it's like oh good news you know the the zookeeper pulled you away before you were mauled totally by the tiger you just got some flesh wounds well now the bad news you got a little bit of corona virus so what are the odds that we're all going to be watching the tiger King on Netflix it's like yeah it's all the news and social medias like tiger king tiger king tiger king and then the first animal they gets the corona virus there's a tiger now I don't have to tell you that there are many animals in the world you got your cats you got your dogs you got your birds I could go on but I think you see the point there are many animals but there's only one animal that's sort of all in the headlines at the moment well I guess you could say bat but you know bat would be the other one but I would be you know too on-the-nose it's like it comes from a bat and then a bat gets it yeah that's no good but if the only animal that gets at first is a tiger at the same time the Tigers are on Netflix okay maybe it's a coincidence or maybe we live in a simulation just maybe all right so yeah as I said the press conference was again very inadequate in my mind and Jake Tapper had a good piece today and seeing in which he was asking the president what the plan is and I thought yeah it's time to ask that question I think it wasn't time a little bit earlier so you know you have to allow that there's the fog of war there's collecting data and we're learning things and testing things so you don't always have to have a plan to that to the end state in the early days because you're just finding your footing but I think we're just about at the point especially because of the economic risk where we sort of has to ask for that don't we don't you think this is the time to start saying well just in broad strokes what's it sort of look like because I don't quite understand the part where we go back to work in whenever it is a month or two months or three months whatever it is I don't get that part because doesn't it just come roaring back I mean reasonable people have asked and it is the only thing we're trying to do to slow it down so it doesn't over overwhelm the hospitals that's it so we're just sort of waiting and then we'll send out some work any pigs to get it but that's the plan now it could be that we're you know just another week or so would really tell us a lot about the the hydroxide hydroxychloroquine in particular so there might be a good reason to wait but I think the public has a right to start demanding some answers and you know my big pet peeve once again another day goes by in which reporters are desperately trying to ask a question about the sufficiency of various supplies they're trying to ask the question in a way that they can get any kind of a useful answer and they really can't can they you're noticing that right so you're noticing that the reporters are saying okay but how many ventilators do you need and how many do you have you know they're getting pretty close to asking the right questions now and you're not getting anything like an indication of a shadow of a suggestion of an attempt to even answer the question I mean it doesn't matter who's standing up there nobody is taking a swing at that why is it because we don't know that we're you know we're ten percent of the way or ninety percent of the way we don't know we can't even put a range on it and say well we don't know for sure where he hope it's over 70 percent but you know we're not going to take a chance of working that if we have to go over a hundred percent and we're gonna do it and we're gonna try really hard I mean there are a million ways you could give a useful answer without precision but the fact that they can't even give a useful directional approximate we hope it's in this range kind of an answer they just spew out the same raw statistics four thousand ventilators or six thousand gloves took from a car and put it in a trunk maybe we asked some pretty we had somebody make some gowns you know there's 75 thousand gowns that maybe on a truck were possibly plain we don't know where they are but in separate news there are also 70,000 gowns oh wait I'm just giving you the same statistics I gave yesterday in raw numbers because you can't tell the difference it sounds like action but really it just means I don't know how many we have and how many we need so pretty pretty disappointing I gotta say now if there's some reason that we can't know that shouldn't no that can't be collected it's impossible to know really well you know take your best shot of explaining it but I don't think I'm gonna believe whatever you tell me there is very interesting hypothesis floating around it's brand-new do you like your brand new hypotheses that's why you come here for the brand new hypotheses you know you know what the old ones so I could I will not present this with confidence so there would be some things that you hear first my periscopes that might turn out to be kind of important but there might be other things you hear that turned out to be nothing later so in the with the understanding that it could go either way and I don't have an opinion on it I'm just going to pass it along because it's so darn interesting so there's a growing body of anecdotal information and I'll see if I can do my best to explain this that the mechanism for why this virus is killing people specifically the pneumonia lung part maybe we're looking at it all wrong meaning scientists and doctors and the argument for that is that the the way the lungs look to the doctors who handle these things is exactly like high altitude pulmonary edema and I don't know the details but it has something to do with damage to your lungs if you're at high altitude for too long so apparently doctors who know what that looks like and there's there's a whole checklist of okay that the lungs look like this does it you know just blah blah blah so there's a pretty long checklist to show that you have this high altitude pulmonary edema and at least on the internet if you can believe random things on the Internet Cove in nineteen meets all of the checklist so that doesn't mean that doesn't mean it is high altitude pulmonary edema it means it has the same checklist so that raises a question you know do we even understand what's going on here so the hypothesis goes like this and this is not mine I'm just passing along that the the damage from the virus is in the blood before the lungs so in other words the blood becomes damaged to the point where it can't hold oxygen and then it doesn't matter what your lungs are doing because your blood can hold the oxygen efficiently anymore so then the lungs go into some kind of bad state without the oxygen I guess so furthering this hypothesis is the fact that there's anecdotal but not yet clinically proven evidence that hydroxychloroquine malaria malaria drug might work and I'm told again I'm Way out of my depth here so just you should discount everything I say now you should forget you were even here yeah save him or you know if anybody asks you what you did recently just say nothing I took a nap I was not listening to a crazy hypothesis that that doesn't have sufficient credibility yet but I will tell you that I'm hearing this from smart really smart people and from doctors so this is a full crackpot theory so that at least two people with MD behind their names have been saying this in public hey it looks like this high-altitude thing and it would also explain why the malaria drug works because apparently malaria has that same quality if I understand it right I need a big fact check on this if anybody can help me that malaria affects the blood not so much the lungs and it might be exactly why the hydroxychloroquine appears to be working for the the cove at 19 because it might be doing something protective with the blood the same way it protects the blood from the malaria is the hypothesis now what are the odds I would put on this that I wish the only reason I would put the odds of this being this alternate explanation being fruitful is that there are an awful lot of experts looking at this thing so it would be weird to be and unexpected if we had gotten this far and somebody would have an aha moment of this magnitude not impossible do not rule it out whatsoever so I've seen nothing that would rule them down but I'm so unqualified that you know I can't rule them in or out but I would say it falls into the class of things which in general are unlikely and as the let's call it the Perry Mason moment for those of you old enough to remember an old TV show Perry Mason the Perry Mason moment is you know he's in the courtroom he's a he's a famous lawyer trying the case and he gets somebody who's in the audience to confess to the crime yeah that's the the Perry boys in the basement moment because it's the most unexpected outcome is that there's a defendant on trial and you're such a good lawyer that you get somebody in the audience to confess during the trial so it's like a Perry Mason thing that we would find out this late in the game and all of those experts would not have sniffed this out by now leads me to believe it's in the category of unlikely things but I got to tell you that the people talking about it are smart people so you're gonna have to weigh that really smart people talking about it really smart people but it's in that category of things there's quite often they're not true so I keep an eye on that let's see what else we got going on Boris Johnson apparently is pretty sick with the corona virus and that is terrible but it makes me ask this question and maybe in the comments you can tell me it has has there been any celebrity let's say famous person so not a celebrity just a famous person has there been the first famous person to die of the coronavirus and I'm not saying this for sensationalist reason there's going to be a an actual point to this because I believe there have been relatives of famous people am i right relatives of famous people and people who had some status but I've never heard of them in other words a somebody had been famous 90 years ago and stuff and here's the question how many how many famous people die every year of regular flu of which we now all know there could be you know fifty thousand a hundred thousand one hundred and fifty thousand so does the regular flu kill celebrities every year because that's a lot of people people are saying Joe Diffie and I think Oh Joe definitely the country singer does he die Bill Withers celebrity he died okay so now we still have the problem of if they had died of the regular flu would it be reported as they died of the flu probably not right and if they had died of something just because it was time to die but they also had a little corona virus in them they would be reported as dining of the corona virus so here's just a question I'm not even sure I can make a point out of this yet I see the name John Prine go by but I don't know that is Ellis yeah Marsalis yeah his father right so there were some some relatives and stuff but keep an eye on this if it's if it turns out that you keep hearing of celebrities dying from this but we never hear of celebrities dying from the regular flu even though we know that the regular flu if you were just compare the beginning of this one to a full flu that's going a full season the full flu would have a much higher body count in its in its fullness than we have seen in this early stage of this one so it's just something to keep an eye on all right apparently analysts at UBS to say that the the bookings for cruise is next year what do you what do you guess is the the booking rate for cruises next year so cruise ships of course are scarier because everybody's afraid to get in the coronavirus on a cruise ship but what do you think of the bookings look like for 2020 one way up or way down turns up they're up sharply they're up 9% compared to last year so cruise bookings are up now the story goes on to say it might be just the people who rebooked you know they're just optimist and like let's just give it a year we'll just push it out of here so you've probably got you know it could be only nine percent really had the original idea in theory is just mathematically speaking it couldn't be only nine percent new people and all the rest are just read books I doubt that's the case but you get the point so here's where I'm going with this when you're trying to figure out what will be the final economic outcome of this let me give you a little economic lesson and it's a it's a variety of things I've said before let's say you are the cruise industry and you just got done you just got creamed this year I don't want to say decimated because that only means 10% so you're the cruise industry you just got wiped out so all of 2020 is just nothing but you know hundreds of billions of dollars of losses but let's say it's six months from now or yeah let's say it's the end of the year and the problem is behind us sufficiently that people feel safe going on a cruise but your your industry has been you know just destroyed you've got all this debt then can you get a loan to reopen your business and the answer is if you've got if you've got bookings for the entire year you probably can the only thing that would prevent you from reopening is that you're all your customers went away if you're a good business before this before the problem if you are already a good business and the only thing that happened was you took on a whole bunch of new debt while the government might pay some of that depending on your situation but and and some companies might go bankrupt but the assets would still exist and another company could say well you guys ran up a lot of debt and you can't pay it back so sorry you're bankrupt but we'll buy your ships will buy your operation and we'll just start our own company and all the customers are still there so would the new the new cruise industry that bought all these assets for practically nothing the bank lost a lot of money but the cruise ship has all the bookings for next year and they've got a cheap boat lots of cheap ships I guess so it seems to be that if you have this critical thing which is that people have booked the business in advance you can open up so let's take this to its logical conclusion you've got restaurants that are just getting killed very difficult for a restaurant to get it credit or to get a loan but suppose you used something like open table or one of these online reservation systems and they might have to tweak the system so you can make a reservation a year in advance what if all of us decided to save the restaurant industry and you can only do so much now because you know you can you can do what I just did before I got on ordered some food for delivery you can get takeout that's not enough I mean you know you're lucky if they can limp to a point where where something is better but what if there was there was an online system and all of us could go online and just book like once a week or whatever is our normal normal amount of eating out and just book all your local restaurants for the entire 2021 so that when the restaurant goes to their bank and says we got killed this year but I can I've got a really good idea that we're gonna have strong business next year and if you want to know why we les I'm actually booked for every night in 2021 every night with real people with real names now I can't guarantee every one of them shows up but you know the system will prompt them I think they'll still be in a mood to want to save the local restaurants maybe you should give me a loan because what's what's better than this this is better than my regular business I never had this much business I've never been booked every day so there may be a way because I keep telling you that that all of economics is always a psychology experiment and part of the psychology is to get people to guarantee your business in pretty far future because if you can credibly be you know guaranteed some future business you can get a loan and you're back in business so there are a lot of things that are really different about this situation and starting back the economy that I think we've never seen before and and everything that I feel about it suggests it's going to be way better than you know even even good estimates are so I call me a call me a super bowl on human innovation and ingenuity when we when it's time to crank back the economy yeah you saw all the the ingenuity that's going into dealing with the medical aspect of the coronavirus I mean amazing amount of energy nobody just tremendous we're gonna have that same amount of ingenuity on the financial tinkering on the economics of the business models you know if you if it's not your thing and you're not a business business person it may be scarier and look like there's not as much flexibility to do things but I think I could speak for most experienced business people and entrepreneurs you should check this by the way you know I I can't really speak for everybody but I have a feeling that that people who know the most about how to create a business you know what a business model looks like what are the requirements how do you get credit you know the basics of business I think the people who know that most about that are probably going to be among the most optimistic about how quickly we can give back and that has to do with the fact that the people with experience have greater visibility about where all the buttons and levers are so I could you know say you know sometimes if you're experienced in something you can smell the solution before you before you know what it is you know say you're an experienced mechanic or engineer or even artist anything often you just you know where the solution is you can just smell it but you can't describe why it's just something about your experience that says yeah there's something here I don't know what it is but there's definitely something here and so my contention is that those of us with lots of business experience see this economy as having every potential still the moment it opens up we're gonna have to re-engineer on the fly you get really clever get really creative work really hard be really disappointed get back up make it work again but it happens to be also the thing we do best you know what what do what Americans do better then figure it out right if there was one thing you could say that defines Americans and I know I'm talking to an international audience but maybe you would agree - yeah this could be just a you know that American thing I don't know but if you had if you said all right tell me one thing that defines an American you know I'm not counting about you know loving the country in the Constitution stuff let's say let's say that's all the given but what makes the the character of an American what's the most defining feature we can figure stuff out that's our most defining feature give us a problem we'll figure it out go to the moon we'll figure it out cure a cancer we're getting there you know it's not done but we're getting there build an electric car you know you name it you got a problem humans are really really good at solving problems even ones we've never seen so I think you're going to be really surprised in the positive way when the things open back up that we will have a better recovery than 90% of the world believes so I'm gonna put me in the 10% we're super optimists because I'm gonna bet on people and I'm gonna bet on the best of us so I'm not even betting on average people because average people you know if you can find your way back to your old job that's probably good enough but so so most of us don't need to do anything heroic we just need to show up but like everything else there are going to be those you know that 1% that 2% maybe it's 10% but the best of us are going to figure out how to do it differently because that's the whole thing right you can't just go back to work like nothing happened you got some problems to solve but they're well within the solvable range for the most clever among us who have the right intentions and everybody's really sort of got the same you know direction so all good news I was asked to give you some tips on how to relax which I'm going to do right now this is the portion in which I tell you how to enjoy your your social isolation and how to bring down your your feelings of anxiety should any arise it's tense times I know number one you're gonna have to take breaks from social media and the news you just have to very important you don't have to take the whole afternoon off because there's so much happening it really probably pays to dip in every now and then just in case something important happens but you can take an hour off yeah you could take two hours off so build that into every day make sure you get a little a little alone time without the news of any kind likewise if you're trying if your goal is removing tension and relaxing and it should be a goal and by the way you should be your full-time job when I think what my job is you know for my life in terms of the the selfish part of what I do not the things I might do for other people but in terms of taking care of myself I see my job as we removing my stress that's like the main job and there are a hundred ways to do it and many things I would do to get that done including you know maybe completing my work on time but everything is really about my energy and my stress energy and stress being related if you have too much stress it hurts your energy etc so you want to avoid anything that puts you in the wrong frame of mind so don't do tense movies do do companies don't do music that you know is headbanger music even if you even if it's your favorite music just take a break from any music any music that's provocative or is trying to work you into some kind of emotional state that's not the one you want all right now if you're gonna listen to classical music you know that's probably fine but anything they'll put you in the wrong frame of mind or even anything that reminds you of you know that past boyfriend or girlfriend anything like that just avoid it because that's all just polluting your mind at a time when it's hard enough to to keep it keep it straight the thing you should do is obviously avoid caffeine yeah after a certain part of the day everybody's different so by now you probably know your reaction but more than ever if it's your habit to have a cup of coffee late in the afternoon maybe rethink that just for now you know go for decaf yeah it's easy to get into habits and that and then not realize that your habit is no longer suited to the current situation so if your habit was I drink coffee you know five o'clock at night never bothered me before but maybe today it does so just give a thought that you might want to change some of your habits to optimize for this situation so definitely get enough sleep that's the main thing if you get enough sleep everything's easier and you can solve problems easier things don't bother you you feel better so your stress will just naturally be better if you get more sleep so that's that's just an obviously I cannot emphasize enough the importance of light daily exercise as in making sure that you literally get exercise every day there's such a difference in what that does to your stress level and again emphasis on the light if the reason you don't exercise is because you just don't like you know beating yourself up and you know you're not really that no pain no gain kind of person I'm not even talking about that I'm literally just talking about taking a nice leisurely walk as far as you want to go you know whatever your body tells you is right it's so emphasis on the light part just for stress reduction this is not about building muscles not about losing weight at the moment your top priority is just chilling out so optimize your exercise for that objective to chill amped light exercise walks a great next I usually make it a point to take my lunch as as me time and I've always done this this is this is a longtime habit so a lot of people will say I have so much to do I'm going to eat and at the same time I'm going to be doing some work so I'll multitask I get that sometimes we have to do that but man you should try as hard as you can not to give yourself that 45 minutes whatever it is that's just you your food your beverage and maybe something on your phone that's not reminding you of anything tense you know you're not doing emails necessarily you're texting a friend watching a You.

Tube that's funnier that sort of thing but just just leave the world behind for a little while now I've given you lots of sleep tips about make sure that you use the bed just for sleeping and adult behavior but you also want to get your oxytocin up oxytocin is the drug or the chemical that your body produces when you have close personal relationships that are good so if you're you know making love with something you love or you're you're hugging somebody you're just you know canoodling with somebody in a close intimate way so if there's somebody like that in your life somebody that you can spoon spoon it up so you should spoon for medicinal reasons you if you're gonna watch a TV show watch a comedy get in spooning position on the couch now if your partner is not watching this right now you should go to them and say baby I know we usually set in different chairs and I know usually that's fine but this is like getting getting lost this snowstorm you might have to you know use your body warmth but it's not a body once you need it's the oxytocin it's that feeling of being close to somebody so your assignment tonight be it in bed or be it into your couch this is spooning it up spoon it and watch how you feel and watch your stress just melt away so those are your tips I might think of some more tips later but don't think too much about the bad news think about the best possible outcomes fill your mental shelf space with good thoughts so that the bad ones don't have room just think of it as the shelf has to be filled because you can't think of nothing you could try but it doesn't work so if there's going to be something on your mental shelf space you be the author put stuff on it until it's all full keeps the bad thoughts out that's your trick for tonight now we'll talk to you in the morning 10:00 a.m.

Eastern 7:00 a.m.

Pacific and we'll solve this pandemic then I promise

it's time to get your swaddle on get

mine on if I could find the long side oh

so much better

oh my goodness Oh

get yourself a warm blanket it's the

best so let's catch you up on what's

happening in the last 12 hours does all

of this feel like Groundhog Day to you I

don't know about you but there's a

certain sameness to every day now

because I feel like I feel like I wake

up I do some cartooning and do a

periscope and I talk about the same five

things and then there's a press

conference with the president and the

task force and they babble the same

meaningless stuff that doesn't mean

anything and you can't you can't

understand it in context you don't know

if that's enough ventilators or not

enough you really don't know anything

but they sure talk a lot then it's this

time of night then I do this again if

then I'll be going to bed pretty soon

and then I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna

do exactly the same thing again it's

starting to feel a little repetitive am

i dead is this hell where I just wake up

every day in the pandemic but it's it

never gets worse and it never gets

better it's just it's about the same

yesterday do you remember yesterday

today's like that but a little bit

different anyway

but there are some small differences we

will talk about them so there's a

website that lets you estimate your

chances of getting the coronavirus and

then if you get it your your odds of

dying from it I'm I'm not proud to say

then I thought oh I got to find out if

I'm gonna die from the corona virus so I

I just retweeted the site so if you want

to find it for yourself go to my Twitter

feed and it's near the top and what do

you put in your particular you know your

gender and age and some lifestyle stuff

what your situation is and this is what

it spit out for me and tell me if you

think this sounds reasonable

it says I have a fifty five percent

chance of catching the virus now I

putted that I literally am completely

alone do I have a fifty five percent

chance of catching it all alone in my

house just because what I get mail you

know I I ordered food that's pretty high

so I'm not sure I believe I have a fifty

five percent chance but the next thing

is what are my odds of dying from it so

again I put in my particulars and it

said that if I get it my odds of dying

from it or 2.6 percent the equivalent of

one hundred thirty eight people so or if

people are in betting odds there's no

there's a thirty seven to one chance I

won't die so if you want it if I get the

coronavirus and you want to bet on me

you know if you want to do a Dead Pool

the the odds apparently are thirty seven

to one that I would survive not bad not

bad on the other hand is there anything

else as that much of a chance of killing

me by the end of the week

probably not so it news from the

simulation I think I think I'll make an

ongoing segment that is just news from

the simulation what I mean by that is

the idea that we're a similar software

simulation and if we are there might be

some code reuse meaning you would see

some patterns that recur that seemed

like more than coincidence of course

this is just for fun because they're

just coincidences but I like to point

them out because the alternative

explanation that you live in the

simulation and there's code reuse is

just way more fun here's the example

according to the news a tiger at the

Bronx Zoo in New York City has tested

positive for corona virus in what may be

the first confirmed case of an animal

being infected now do you know what is

scarier than a tiger you know assuming

that you're in the same room with the

tiger do you know what is scarier than

that a tiger with corona virus that's

sort of two ways to kill you it's like

oh good news you know the the zookeeper

pulled you away before you were mauled

totally by the tiger you just got some

flesh wounds

well now the bad news you got a little

bit of corona virus so what are the odds

that we're all going to be watching the

tiger King on Netflix it's like yeah

it's all the news and social medias like

tiger king tiger king tiger king and

then the first animal they gets the

corona virus there's a tiger now I don't

have to tell you that there are many

animals in the world you got your cats

you got your dogs you got your birds I

could go on but I think you see the

point there are many animals but there's

only one animal that's sort of all in

the headlines at the moment well I guess

you could say bat but you know bat would

be the other one but

I would be you know too on-the-nose it's

like it comes from a bat and then a bat

gets it yeah that's no good but if the

only animal that gets at first is a

tiger at the same time the Tigers are on

Netflix okay maybe it's a coincidence

or maybe we live in a simulation just

maybe all right so yeah as I said the

press conference was again very

inadequate in my mind and Jake Tapper

had a good piece today and seeing in

which he was asking the president what

the plan is and I thought yeah it's time

to ask that question I think it wasn't

time a little bit earlier so you know

you have to allow that there's the fog

of war there's collecting data and we're

learning things and testing things so

you don't always have to have a plan to

that to the end state in the early days

because you're just finding your footing

but I think we're just about at the

point especially because of the economic

risk where we sort of has to ask for

that don't we don't you think this is

the time to start saying well just in

broad strokes

what's it sort of look like because I

don't quite understand the part where we

go back to work in whenever it is a

month or two months or three months

whatever it is I don't get that part

because doesn't it just come roaring

back

I mean reasonable people have asked and

it is the only thing we're trying to do

to slow it down so it doesn't over

overwhelm the hospitals that's it

so we're just sort of waiting and then

we'll send out some work any pigs to get

it but that's the plan now it could be

that we're you know just another week or

so would really tell us a lot about the

the hydroxide hydroxychloroquine in

particular

so there might be a good reason to wait

but I think the public has a right to

start demanding some answers and you

know my big pet peeve once again another

day goes by in which reporters are

desperately trying to ask a question

about the sufficiency of various

supplies they're trying to ask the

question in a way that they can get any

kind of a useful answer and they really

can't can they you're noticing that

right so you're noticing that the

reporters are saying okay but how many

ventilators do you need and how many do

you have you know they're getting pretty

close to asking the right questions now

and you're not getting anything like an

indication of a shadow of a suggestion

of an attempt to even answer the

question I mean it doesn't matter who's

standing up there nobody is taking a

swing at that why is it because we don't

know that we're you know we're ten

percent of the way or ninety percent of

the way we don't know we can't even put

a range on it and say well we don't know

for sure where he hope it's over 70

percent but you know we're not going to

take a chance of working that if we have

to go over a hundred percent and we're

gonna do it and we're gonna try really

hard I mean there are a million ways you

could give a useful answer without

precision but the fact that they can't

even give a useful directional

approximate we hope it's in this range

kind of an answer they just spew out the

same raw statistics four thousand

ventilators or six thousand gloves took

from a car and put it in a trunk

maybe we asked some pretty we had

somebody make some gowns

you know there's 75 thousand gowns that

maybe on a truck were possibly plain we

don't know where they are but in

separate news

there are also 70,000 gowns oh wait I'm

just giving you the same statistics I

gave yesterday in raw numbers because

you can't tell the difference it sounds

like action but really it just means I

don't know how many we have and how many

we need so pretty pretty disappointing I

gotta say

now if there's some reason that we can't

know that shouldn't no that can't be

collected it's impossible to know really

well you know take your best shot of

explaining it but I don't think I'm

gonna believe whatever you tell me there

is very interesting hypothesis floating

around it's brand-new do you like your

brand new hypotheses that's why you come

here for the brand new hypotheses you

know you know what the old ones so I

could I will not present this with

confidence so there would be some things

that you hear first my periscopes that

might turn out to be kind of important

but there might be other things you hear

that turned out to be nothing later so

in the with the understanding that it

could go either way and I don't have an

opinion on it I'm just going to pass it

along because it's so darn interesting

so there's a growing body of anecdotal

information and I'll see if I can do my

best to explain this that the mechanism

for why this virus is killing people

specifically the pneumonia lung part

maybe we're looking at it all wrong

meaning scientists and doctors and the

argument for that is that the the way

the lungs look to the doctors who handle

these things is exactly like high

altitude pulmonary edema and I don't

know the details but it has something to

do with damage to your lungs if you're

at high altitude for too long

so apparently doctors who know what that

looks like and there's there's a whole

checklist of okay that the lungs look

like this does it you know just blah

blah blah so there's a pretty long

checklist to show that you have this

high altitude pulmonary edema and at

least on the internet if you can believe

random things on the Internet Cove in

nineteen meets all of the checklist so

that doesn't mean that doesn't mean it

is

high altitude pulmonary edema it means

it has the same checklist so that raises

a question you know do we even

understand what's going on here so the

hypothesis goes like this and this is

not mine I'm just passing along that the

the damage from the virus is in the

blood before the lungs so in other words

the blood becomes damaged to the point

where it can't hold oxygen and then it

doesn't matter what your lungs are doing

because your blood can hold the oxygen

efficiently anymore so then the lungs go

into some kind of bad state without the

oxygen I guess so

furthering this hypothesis is the fact

that there's anecdotal but not yet

clinically proven evidence that

hydroxychloroquine malaria malaria drug

might work and I'm told

again I'm Way out of my depth here so

just you should discount everything I

say now you should forget you were even

here yeah save him or you know if

anybody asks you what you did recently

just say nothing I took a nap I was not

listening to a crazy hypothesis that

that doesn't have sufficient credibility

yet but I will tell you that I'm hearing

this from smart really smart people and

from doctors so this is a full crackpot

theory so that at least two people with

MD behind their names have been saying

this in public

hey it looks like this high-altitude

thing and it would also explain why the

malaria drug works because apparently

malaria has that same quality if I

understand it right I need a big fact

check on this if anybody can help me

that malaria affects the blood not so

much the lungs and it might be exactly

why the hydroxychloroquine appears to be

working for the the cove at 19 because

it might be doing something protective

with the blood the same way it protects

the blood from the malaria is the

hypothesis now

what are the odds I would put on this

that I wish the only reason I would put

the odds of this being this alternate

explanation being fruitful is that there

are an awful lot of experts looking at

this thing so it would be weird to be

and unexpected if we had gotten this far

and somebody would have an aha moment of

this magnitude not impossible do not

rule it out whatsoever so I've seen

nothing that would rule them down but

I'm so unqualified that you know I can't

rule them in or out but I would say it

falls into the class of things which in

general are unlikely and as the let's

call it the Perry Mason moment for those

of you old enough to remember an old TV

show Perry Mason the Perry Mason moment

is you know he's in the courtroom he's a

he's a famous lawyer trying the case and

he gets somebody who's in the audience

to confess to the crime yeah that's the

the Perry boys in the basement moment

because it's the most unexpected outcome

is that there's a defendant on trial and

you're such a good lawyer that you get

somebody in the audience to confess

during the trial so it's like a Perry

Mason thing that we would find out this

late in the game and all of those

experts would not have sniffed this out

by now leads me to believe it's in the

category of unlikely things but I got to

tell you that the people talking about

it are smart people so you're gonna have

to weigh that really smart people

talking about it really smart people but

it's in that category of things there's

quite often they're not true so I keep

an eye on that let's see what else we

got going on Boris Johnson apparently is

pretty sick with the corona virus and

that is terrible but it makes me ask

this question and maybe in the comments

you can tell me

it has has there been any celebrity

let's say famous person so not a

celebrity just a famous person has there

been the first famous person to die of

the coronavirus and I'm not saying this

for sensationalist reason there's going

to be a an actual point to this because

I believe there have been relatives of

famous people am i right

relatives of famous people and people

who had some status but I've never heard

of them in other words a somebody had

been famous 90 years ago and stuff and

here's the question how many how many

famous people die every year of regular

flu of which we now all know there could

be you know fifty thousand a hundred

thousand one hundred and fifty thousand

so does the regular flu kill celebrities

every year because that's a lot of

people people are saying Joe Diffie and

I think Oh Joe definitely the country

singer does he die Bill Withers

celebrity he died okay

so now we still have the problem of if

they had died of the regular flu would

it be reported as they died of the flu

probably not right and if they had died

of something just because it was time to

die but they also had a little corona

virus in them they would be reported as

dining of the corona virus so here's

just a question I'm not even sure I can

make a point out of this yet I see the

name John Prine go by but I don't know

that is Ellis yeah Marsalis yeah his

father right so there were some some

relatives and stuff but keep an eye on

this if it's if it turns out that you

keep hearing of celebrities dying

from this but we never hear of

celebrities dying from the regular flu

even though we know that the regular flu

if you were just compare the beginning

of this one to a full flu that's going a

full season the full flu would have a

much higher body count in its in its

fullness than we have seen in this early

stage of this one so it's just something

to keep an eye on all right

apparently analysts at UBS to say that

the the bookings for cruise is next year

what do you what do you guess is the the

booking rate for cruises next year so

cruise ships of course are scarier

because everybody's afraid to get in the

coronavirus on a cruise ship but what do

you think of the bookings look like for

2020 one way up or way down turns up

they're up sharply they're up 9%

compared to last year so cruise bookings

are up now the story goes on to say it

might be just the people who rebooked

you know they're just optimist and like

let's just give it a year we'll just

push it out of here so you've probably

got you know it could be only nine

percent really had the original idea in

theory is just mathematically speaking

it couldn't be only nine percent new

people and all the rest are just read

books I doubt that's the case but you

get the point so here's where I'm going

with this when you're trying to figure

out what will be the final economic

outcome of this let me give you a little

economic lesson and it's a it's a

variety of things I've said before let's

say you are the cruise industry and you

just got done you just got creamed this

year I don't want to say decimated

because that only means 10% so you're

the cruise industry you just got wiped

out so all of 2020 is just nothing but

you know hundreds of billions of dollars

of losses but let's say it's six months

from now or yeah let's say it's the end

of the year

and the problem is behind us

sufficiently that people feel safe going

on a cruise but your your industry has

been you know just destroyed you've got

all this debt then can you get a loan to

reopen your business and the answer is

if you've got if you've got bookings for

the entire year you probably can the

only thing that would prevent you from

reopening is that you're all your

customers went away if you're a good

business before this before the problem

if you are already a good business and

the only thing that happened was you

took on a whole bunch of new debt while

the government might pay some of that

depending on your situation but and and

some companies might go bankrupt but the

assets would still exist and another

company could say well you guys ran up a

lot of debt and you can't pay it back so

sorry you're bankrupt but we'll buy your

ships will buy your operation and we'll

just start our own company and all the

customers are still there so would the

new the new cruise industry that bought

all these assets for practically nothing

the bank lost a lot of money but the

cruise ship has all the bookings for

next year and they've got a cheap boat

lots of cheap ships I guess so it seems

to be that if you have this critical

thing which is that people have booked

the business in advance you can open up

so let's take this to its logical

conclusion

you've got restaurants that are just

getting killed very difficult for a

restaurant to get it credit or to get a

loan but suppose you used something like

open table or one of these online

reservation systems and they might have

to tweak the system so you can make a

reservation a year in advance what if

all of us decided to save the restaurant

industry and you can only do so much now

because you know you can you can do what

I just did before I got on ordered some

food for

delivery you can get takeout that's not

enough I mean you know you're lucky if

they can limp to a point where where

something is better but what if there

was there was an online system and all

of us could go online and just book like

once a week or whatever is our normal

normal amount of eating out and just

book all your local restaurants for the

entire 2021 so that when the restaurant

goes to their bank and says we got

killed this year but I can I've got a

really good idea that we're gonna have

strong business next year and if you

want to know why we les I'm actually

booked for every night in 2021 every

night with real people with real names

now I can't guarantee every one of them

shows up but you know the system will

prompt them I think they'll still be in

a mood to want to save the local

restaurants maybe you should give me a

loan because what's what's better than

this this is better than my regular

business I never had this much business

I've never been booked every day so

there may be a way because I keep

telling you that that all of economics

is always a psychology experiment and

part of the psychology is to get people

to guarantee your business in pretty far

future because if you can credibly be

you know guaranteed some future business

you can get a loan and you're back in

business

so there are a lot of things that are

really different about this situation

and starting back the economy that I

think we've never seen before and and

everything that I feel about it suggests

it's going to be way better than you

know even even good estimates are so I

call me a call me a super bowl on human

innovation and ingenuity when we when

it's time to crank back the economy yeah

you saw all the the ingenuity that's

going into dealing with the medical

aspect of the coronavirus I mean amazing

amount of energy

nobody just tremendous we're gonna have

that same amount of ingenuity on the

financial tinkering on the economics of

the business models you know if you if

it's not your thing

and you're not a business business

person it may be scarier and look like

there's not as much flexibility to do

things but I think I could speak for

most experienced business people and

entrepreneurs you should check this by

the way you know I I can't really speak

for everybody but I have a feeling that

that people who know the most about how

to create a business you know what a

business model looks like what are the

requirements how do you get credit you

know the basics of business I think the

people who know that most about that are

probably going to be among the most

optimistic about how quickly we can give

back and that has to do with the fact

that the people with experience have

greater visibility about where all the

buttons and levers are so I could you

know say you know sometimes if you're

experienced in something you can smell

the solution before you before you know

what it is you know say you're an

experienced mechanic or engineer or even

artist anything often you just you know

where the solution is you can just smell

it but you can't describe why it's just

something about your experience that

says yeah there's something here I don't

know what it is but there's definitely

something here

and so my contention is that those of us

with lots of business experience see

this economy as having every potential

still the moment it opens up we're gonna

have to re-engineer on the fly you get

really clever get really creative work

really hard be really disappointed get

back up make it work again but it

happens to be also the thing we do best

you know what what do what Americans do

better then figure it out right if there

was one thing you could say that defines

Americans and I know I'm talking to an

international audience but maybe you

would agree - yeah this could be just a

you know

that American thing I don't know but if

you had if you said all right tell me

one thing that defines an American you

know I'm not counting about you know

loving the country in the Constitution

stuff let's say let's say that's all the

given but what makes the the character

of an American what's the most defining

feature we can figure stuff out that's

our most defining feature give us a

problem we'll figure it out go to the

moon we'll figure it out

cure a cancer we're getting there you

know it's not done but we're getting

there build an electric car you know you

name it you got a problem humans are

really really good at solving problems

even ones we've never seen so I think

you're going to be really surprised in

the positive way when the things open

back up that we will have a better

recovery than 90% of the world believes

so I'm gonna put me in the 10% we're

super optimists because I'm gonna bet on

people and I'm gonna bet on the best of

us so I'm not even betting on average

people because average people you know

if you can find your way back to your

old job that's probably good enough but

so so most of us don't need to do

anything heroic we just need to show up

but like everything else there are going

to be those you know that 1% that 2%

maybe it's 10% but the best of us are

going to figure out how to do it

differently because that's the whole

thing right you can't just go back to

work like nothing happened you got some

problems to solve but they're well

within the solvable range for the most

clever among us who have the right

intentions and everybody's really sort

of got the same you know direction so

all good news I was asked to give you

some tips on how to relax which I'm

going to do right now this is the

portion in which I tell you how to enjoy

your your social isolation and how to

bring down your

your feelings of anxiety should any

arise it's tense times I know number one

you're gonna have to take breaks from

social media and the news you just have

to very important you don't have to take

the whole afternoon off because there's

so much happening it really probably

pays to dip in every now and then just

in case something important happens but

you can take an hour off yeah you could

take two hours off so build that into

every day make sure you get a little a

little alone time without the news of

any kind likewise if you're trying if

your goal is removing tension and

relaxing and it should be a goal and by

the way you should be your full-time job

when I think what my job is you know for

my life in terms of the the selfish part

of what I do not the things I might do

for other people but in terms of taking

care of myself I see my job as we

removing my stress that's like the main

job and there are a hundred ways to do

it and many things I would do to get

that done including you know maybe

completing my work on time but

everything is really about my energy and

my stress energy and stress being

related if you have too much stress it

hurts your energy etc so you want to

avoid anything that puts you in the

wrong frame of mind so don't do tense

movies do do companies don't do music

that you know is headbanger music even

if you even if it's your favorite music

just take a break from any music any

music that's provocative or is trying to

work you into some kind of emotional

state that's not the one you want all

right now if you're gonna listen to

classical music you know that's probably

fine but anything they'll put you in the

wrong frame of mind or even anything

that reminds you of you know that past

boyfriend or girlfriend anything like

that just avoid it because that's all

just polluting your mind at a time when

it's hard enough to to keep it keep it

straight

the thing you should do is obviously

avoid caffeine yeah after a certain part

of the day everybody's different so by

now you probably know your reaction but

more than ever if it's your habit to

have a cup of coffee late in the

afternoon maybe rethink that just for

now you know go for decaf yeah it's easy

to get into habits and that and then not

realize that your habit is no longer

suited to the current situation so if

your habit was I drink coffee you know

five o'clock at night never bothered me

before but maybe today it does so just

give a thought that you might want to

change some of your habits to optimize

for this situation so definitely get

enough sleep that's the main thing if

you get enough sleep everything's easier

and you can solve problems easier things

don't bother you you feel better so your

stress will just naturally be better if

you get more sleep so that's that's just

an obviously I cannot emphasize enough

the importance of light daily exercise

as in making sure that you literally get

exercise every day there's such a

difference in what that does to your

stress level and again emphasis on the

light if the reason you don't exercise

is because you just don't like you know

beating yourself up and you know you're

not really that no pain no gain kind of

person I'm not even talking about that

I'm literally just talking about taking

a nice leisurely walk as far as you want

to go you know whatever your body tells

you is right it's so emphasis on the

light part just for stress reduction

this is not about building muscles not

about losing weight at the moment your

top priority is just chilling out

so optimize your exercise for that

objective to chill amped light exercise

walks a great

next I usually make it a point to take

my lunch as as me time and I've always

done this this is this is a longtime

habit so a lot of people will say I have

so much to do I'm going to eat and at

the same time I'm going to be doing some

work so I'll multitask I get that

sometimes we have to do that

but man you should try as hard as you

can not to give yourself that 45 minutes

whatever it is that's just you your food

your beverage and maybe something on

your phone that's not reminding you of

anything tense you know you're not doing

emails necessarily you're texting a

friend watching a YouTube that's funnier

that sort of thing but just just leave

the world behind for a little while now

I've given you lots of sleep tips about

make sure that you use the bed just for

sleeping and adult behavior but you also

want to get your oxytocin up oxytocin is

the drug or the chemical that your body

produces when you have close personal

relationships that are good so if you're

you know making love with something you

love or you're you're hugging somebody

you're just you know canoodling with

somebody in a close intimate way so if

there's somebody like that in your life

somebody that you can spoon spoon it up

so you should spoon for medicinal

reasons you if you're gonna watch a TV

show watch a comedy get in spooning

position on the couch now if your

partner is not watching this right now

you should go to them and say baby I

know we usually set in different chairs

and I know usually that's fine but this

is like getting getting lost this

snowstorm you might have to you know use

your body warmth but it's not a body

once you need it's the oxytocin it's

that feeling of being close to somebody

so your assignment tonight

be it in bed or be it into your couch

this is spooning it up spoon it and

watch how you feel and watch your stress

just melt away so those are your tips I

might think of some more tips later but

don't think too much about the bad news

think about the best possible outcomes

fill your mental shelf space with good

thoughts so that the bad ones don't have

room just think of it as the shelf has

to be filled because you can't think of

nothing you could try but it doesn't

work so if there's going to be something

on your mental shelf space you be the

author put stuff on it

until it's all full keeps the bad

thoughts out that's your trick for

tonight now we'll talk to you in the

morning 10:00 a.m. Eastern 7:00 a.m.

Pacific and we'll solve this pandemic

then I promise