that weird?

Do you remember when we were so smart that we had learned from the Carter administration what variables have to be in place to cause something called stagflation? So it's inflation at the same time you have low growth, which is the two worst things you could have. And we thought, okay, now we've seen this situation. We know that when these variables are in place, you'll get that worse situation. And then the variables fell into place again and then nothing like that happened. Because it turns out we're really bad at predicting the future. We think we know, okay, these variables produce this outcome. No, we don't. We really don't.

So what is pretty much every economist saying is going to happen next year? A recession, right? Is there any economist, even one in public, who is saying, you know, I think we're not going to have a recession? I haven't seen one. Have you seen any professional economist say that next year, you know, maybe not, maybe not a recession? I haven't. Kramer. Well, is Kramer a professional economist? I don't know. I guess he's close to it.

So I'm going to do, I guess this would be a public demonstration. I'm going to predict the opposite of what every smart person is predicting. So every smart person, and I admit they're smart, right? This is, I'm not mocking them with sarcasm over the smart people. No, they are actually smart. They're people who have PhDs in economics, done it all their life. They're smart. These are really smart people. No, there's no doubt about that. And every one of them says recession. So I'm going to predict the opposite. Do you know why? Why would I predict the opposite of every smart person? Why? Because nobody can predict the future. It's not a thing. It's just not a thing. It's probably a coin flip. Next year could be a coin flip. You just don't know. There are too many variables.

But here's the strategy. You've seen me do it before. Here's the strategy. I'll tell you while I'm doing it. What happens if I'm wrong? Because I didn't tweet it, nobody will ever remember, right? But if I'm right, I'll take this clip and pass it around and say, well, looks like I was right. So on a risk-reward basis, it makes sense for me to make this prediction. Because if I'm wrong, people will say, you predicted the opposite of every smart person in the world and he was wrong. That's interesting. Weird. There's probably something we missed about that story. You'll just forget it. But what if I get it right? If I get it right, you're never going to hear the end of it.

Now let me put this in context. Something like 20 years ago or something, I made a prediction that evolution would be debunked in scientific terms in my lifetime. Now that's ridiculous, right? That's about as close as you can get. Oh, and I also specified that it would not be debunked in religious terms, that it would be debunked within the realm of science and logic. Now that's a ridiculous prediction. If I'd been wrong, I would have just said, well, it hasn't happened yet but it will. So I'd always have an out. Yeah, well, it hasn't happened yet but any moment now. But then it happened. In my opinion, evolution has been completely debunked by the simulation theory. Now I'm not saying the simulation theory is definitely the right one, but if you do the math and the logic, it is maybe a trillion times more likely than evolution. Still, either one's possible, I suppose, but one is a trillion times more likely. I could go through the math but you've heard that too many times.

So that's the weirdest, probably the weirdest, dumbest prediction ever anybody ever made, that evolution doesn't exist. Because if we're a simulation, the past is only created when you need it. Otherwise you don't need it. So meaning that if we're a simulation, there's nothing below the ground until you see it. So if you dug a hole, the stuff that you were digging into would only start to exist as you got near it. It wouldn't exist until you were digging the hole and you were uncovering something nobody's seen before. So that's the theory. So there's no evolution because there's no history. It's all imaginary.

So that's my prediction. And I'll even give you a why, because if I don't give you why then it's even sketchier. So here's why. The why is there are too many variables that we communicate too well these days, meaning that whenever there's a problem, the internet tells you there's a problem and then people jump on it because problems need to be solved and the problem solvers and the problems are connected almost immediately. And so I'm going to say that because we communicate better than we've ever communicated before, that we will avoid a recession in the United States. In the United States. And I'm going to take credit if we only have a slight recession. Would you give me that? Would you give me if it's maybe a tactical recession but it's just like we just touch it and then come out of it? Well, you'd give me that, right? That would be sort of not a recession. You know, we just brush it and then bounce out of it. So that's my prediction. And it's based on the fact that we can recover and adjust faster than we've ever done before. We'll see.

Now if I'm wrong, I'll ask you to forget I ever said this as quickly as possible because it would be super embarrassing. No, I'm just kidding. I never get embarrassed. I can't remember the last time I was embarrassed. Like literally I can't even remember the last time I was embarrassed. It really is a superpower if you can learn to be free of embarrassment, which somehow I've managed to do. I mean, it took me decades to get to this point, but it is a wonderful existence. How many times do you say to yourself, oh, if I do this I'm going to look stupid or somebody will mock me or forever there'll be that photograph or whatever. I don't have any of those thoughts ever. I go through my entire day never thinking about what somebody's going to think about me later. It's wonderful.

Well, here's a small story that might be a big story. I've often said that although our billionaire class is often maligned, what would we do without them? It's an interesting question, right? Sure, there are billionaires doing things you don't like. Sure. But what about the ones who are doing things you like? They're really, really important. Here's an example. Mark Cuban has this online pharmacy, a startup. So they're selling pharmaceutical drugs but they're selling them for, I don't know how, but they're selling them for way, way, way less than you normally could get them. I'm not sure exactly what method he's using to lower the cost. Now they don't have all the drugs that you could have. They're starting with a set of popular ones, I guess, and they're expanding. I think Mark Cuban just said he expanded it. But he was responding today to a tweet from somebody who said that it saved his life because he could afford his anti, I forget what the fellow's problem was, but he tweeted that basically the cost of some anti-spasm or something drug. But anyway, he basically said it saved his life. So Mark Cuban starts a company that at least this gentleman said saved his life. Now who was going to do it if Mark Cuban didn't do it? Right? Maybe somebody would have, but I really think that we underestimate how much impact the billionaire class is having on our well-being. You just don't realize it. You just get mad because they've got their billions of dollars.

Now I'm going to give you one more defense for the billionaires. Maybe two. Billionaires don't spend much of their own money. You know that, right? If you have a billion dollars, like how much does Elon Musk consume personally just to get by? He probably spends a lot traveling because he's got businesses he has to go back and forth. That's sort of a business expense mostly. I don't know that Elon Musk even spends much money on himself because his health care is the same as everybody else's. His food is like everybody else. He doesn't seem to wear designer clothing. I don't know if he owns a car. Does Elon Musk go in a car? I mean, ironically he owns a car company, but do you think he actually owns a car? I'll bet he doesn't. I bet he doesn't own the car. Does he? I don't know. Maybe there's one in the company name and he drives it or something. But if you think about how much a billionaire consumes of their own money, it's nothing. It's eventually a small money amount that they use on themselves.

So he says, dude, seriously, you can do better than that. You could do better than dude seriously. That's not helping me at all. Give me a little bit more in the comments here. And so I say that about myself. I look at all the money I've ever made in my life and then I say what percentage of all the money I made am I going to spend personally like on my own well-being. And the answer is five. I've never calculated but just off the top of my head I think maybe five percent, something like that. The rest would go to family members, donations, trying to invest in companies that work or don't work. But basically it's being put to use for other people. Billionaires don't spend their own money. They can, but they hardly ever do. So basically a billionaire has made a billion dollars for you. I mean, you think of it the way things are organized it's for the billionaire, right? But the billionaire who makes a billion dollars is not making it to spend it. You don't make a billion dollars to spend a billion dollars. It wouldn't even make sense. You couldn't spend it if you wanted to on consumption. You could invest it. So when I see stuff like this, like Mark Cuban literally saving some guy's life, probably lots of people, by having lower cost pharmaceuticals, one of the biggest problems in the country, and so he goes right after it. He solves it. Now do you think that he would have gone into this business if he were not already a billionaire? Maybe. Maybe it was just a good business.