ave it.

Jim Cramer of CNBC — you all know Jim Cramer, Mad Money — and I guess he's gonna have a guest on his show or if unless it already happened, Michael Mina, who is the biggest name talking about these rapid cheap coronavirus tests. The part that the public and maybe the government fails to understand is how less sensitive tests or less specific tests could get you a better result than more accurate tests. And the reason that people can't understand it is that people are not good with statistics and probability and risk management, right? We're just not good at it.

So if I say to you why don't we introduce these tests, they're less accurate than the other tests we already have, you're kind of done with the conversation aren't you? We have good tests and you're saying you'd like to introduce some tests that would be widespread and not accurate. Isn't that the worst of everything? It's widespread and not accurate. I mean what could be worse than that? And the answer is you don't understand risk management or statistics or decision making if that's your view.

Because here's the real reason that the less sensitive tests are the way to go. You could test yourself every day. If it misses it once it picks it up the next day. You spent five dollars instead of two dollars and fifty cents. People who wanted to test could do as much as they want. Eighty percent of the time they'd get the right result. Although I've heard some rapid tests that might be in the high 90s accuracy. Don't know about that yet. And the point is if you have enough inaccurate tests it's way better than having not enough, wait three days for your response accurate tests.

Now why is it — and this is the mystery that I've been wondering — why is it that the administration has not — they of course know about the idea because I can vouch for the fact that the idea has reached the administration. I guarantee that. So they've heard the idea. What they haven't done is said we don't like the idea because of X. Apparently the FDA has some problem with these tests that I don't quite understand. Maybe has something to do with reporting requirements, etc. Not a good reason. But if the government knows about these tests, what are the two possible reasons that they are not implementing them?

Number one, that this Harvard-trained expert and all the people he's talked to are wrong about their thinking. That would be one reason not to do it, right? That Michael Mina is just wrong. He's thought of it wrong. He did the risk management wrong. He's not wrong about how accurate the tests are or how much they would cost. But one reason not to do it is he got something wrong. What is it that we haven't even seen a counter-argument? There has never been a counter-argument to my understanding. There are simply people who don't understand it.

Now here's the powerful part of this. Jim Cramer is not normal people. The reason he has this gigantically successful show is that Jim Cramer has a special skill that he brings to the show, which is risk management, statistical understanding on top of lots of financial and TV things. He's got an amazing talent stack. But a big part of the talent stack is that he can look at a complicated situation with lots of risks and possibilities and he can analyze that better than you can. That's why you watch him for his stock picks.

And I think he's probably the exact right person on the exact right topic. Becaus