Episode 3068 ChattingWSA 01/10/26

Summary

Real Coffee with Scott Adams

Episode 3068: ChattingWSA
Date: January 10, 2026
Host: Scott Adams
Guests/Co-hosts: Shelly Adams, Owen, numerous community regulars

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Overview

On this unusually interactive and heartfelt episode, Scott Adams is joined by his ex-wife and longtime friend, Shelly Adams, to introduce her future role as head of his estate and community facilitator. The show uses a group video call format where regulars and newcomers join to discuss current events—filtered through Scott’s signature persuasion lens—as well as to share gratitude, stories, and technical frustrations.

Besides news discussion—centered on Iran, Greenland, Venezuela, and economic/tech trends—the episode serves as an impromptu tribute to Scott’s impact on his audience over ten years. Technical hiccups and humorous moments around navigating the streaming platform are interspersed throughout, infusing the episode with warmth, authenticity, and community spirit.

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Main Themes

• Transition of Leadership & Community Stewardship

  • Shelly Adams formally introduces herself as Scott’s ex-wife and new head of his estate and outlines her commitment to safeguarding his legacy.
  • Scott highlights Shelly’s reliability and courage, expressing deep trust in her stewardship.
  • Community members express gratitude, discuss maintaining the show’s spirit, and address the daunting prospect of a future without Scott’s daily explanations.

• News Through a Persuasion Filter

  • Ongoing unrest in Iran and its political implications
  • Trump’s bold proposals involving Greenland and Venezuela
  • Tech and economic updates: mortgage rates, CES, new wifi rules
  • Reflections on media narratives, information reliability, and propaganda

• Technical Adventures (and Misadventures)

  • The group struggles—with comic frustration—to manage video call permissions, resulting in repeated attempts to get regulars on air.
  • Community helps each other navigate microphone/camera hurdles.

• Community Bonding and Appreciation

  • Longtime listeners share personal, often emotional stories of how Scott’s work has influenced their lives and careers.
  • Multiple participants express thanks for Scott’s authenticity and unique perspective through turbulent times.

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Detailed Discussion and Notable Moments

1. Intro & Shelly’s Role

[02:39] Shelly Adams:

"I'm going to need the help of all of you guys to do that [keep Scott's legacy alive]... I know you've supported him all these years and he loves you guys and I know you're going to support me to keep his legacy going."

[06:52] Scott Adams:

"She's the boss of all bosses. So I'm having increasing trouble talking and obviously I have no mobility... She is the person I trust the most in the entire world. One of the things I like about Shelly is that no matter how scary something is, she is undaunted."

2. Technical Shenanigans: Adding Participants

[11:38] The group repeatedly fumbles with accepting/rejecting invitees, offering an inside look at the difficulty of running interactive online shows.

[15:35] Scott Adams, on Grok’s bad instructions:

"Unfortunately, [Erica] was using instructions from Grok. Now, I don't know if you've ever tried to get instructions from Grok about anything, but it's impossible... They have very specific instructions, but it's about menus that don't exist..."

3. News: Iran’s Unrest

[13:43] Marcella:

"What [Khamenei]’s lost is support of the middle and upper class... yesterday he made a speech that basically, anybody could be shot on the spot and executed for protesting. But people are still going out doing it. And I think what pushes them is Trump, knowing that they have Trump there."

[26:40] Scott & Owen Discussion:

Scott: "It's pretty well understood at this point that it's not organic. Right. Or is it, is it organic?"

Owen: "I'm not sure I believe that any protests are organic anymore."

Scott: "Yeah, that's where I'm at. I don't believe any of these are real."

4. Trump’s Foreign/Macro Moves

Greenland Proposal [27:16 & 29:13]:

Owen: "Trump is certainly still saying he wants to go after Greenland and he's going to take it whether they like it or not... floating an idea of paying each citizen of Greenland $100,000..."

Shelly (regarding Iceland & Greenland) [29:56]: "Greenlanders, recently here or two years ago, they were told that if they didn’t follow what Denmark wanted, they would take away their free Medicare and free education ... it would be best for Greenland if the US took over..."

Venezuela Diplomacy [28:25]:

Owen: "I think there's certainly a lot of speculation that the motivation behind the [Venezuela] raid was to deprive Russia and China of oil."

5. Macro-Economic and Tech News

Trump’s 10% Credit Card Interest & Mortgage Bonds [33:52]:

Owen: "Trump made a bunch of interesting statements today. One is that he wants to limit credit card interest rates to 10%. ...he's going to buy something like $200 billion in mortgage bonds... meant to reduce interest rates."

Mortgage Bonds Explained [67:13]:

Mortgage Expert: "Once there's a demand [from government purchases of mortgage-backed securities], the rates go down... Only been done once before, and it was Obama in 2008 to keep the rates down... and it worked."

CES & Tech (Robots, WiFi) [35:09; 44:19]:

Scott: "I feel like it was the disappointing show of electronics once again. Somebody's got a robot that can do one thing, but if you had it, you'd be unhappy..."

Owen: "FCC is going to allow higher powered WiFi... I have my WiFi router in my basement and it doesn’t get into most of my house... Maybe it’ll cause cancer, but it might be worth it." [45:12]

6. Fentanyl Epidemic Declining [48:19]

Owen: “Fentanyl deaths have dropped in the US significantly. It was over a hundred thousand a year, and now it’s 81,000 in 2024.”

Scott: “It seems like it won’t take long to fix the distribution problem, but it’s a start.”

7. Listener Stories & Reflections

The “Unembarrassable” Superpower [85:22]:

Patty: “I said to [my grandson], ‘Would you like to have a superpower? ... You become unembarrassable.’... I told him where I got the idea was from Scott Adams... and he asked if he could have one of your books.”

Longtime Listener Tributes:

• Multiple accounts (from Anthony, Peter, Brian, Stephen, and others) of how Scott's "persuasion filter" and authenticity helped them navigate life, work, and cultural upheavals.
• A Venezuelan listener living in France (Harvard Kennedy School grad, [39:53]) provides unique perspective on US/Trump policies, Venezuela, and evolving European attitudes.

[76:17] Brian (MIT/Law):

“I really, I don't know how I would have gotten through the last 10 years without your filter, because I once I read your book and started listening to your podcasts on Periscope, everything made sense and has ever since.”

[51:32] Peter:

“I just, I couldn't, I couldn't quit you, Scott. I kept on coming back and listening to you pretty much every single day... I think I speak for a lot of people, that that's one of the things that has kept us coming back for the past 10 years is it always felt whether we agreed with you on everything or didn't agree with you on everything. I never had a doubt that you were saying your actual opinion pretty much all the time.”

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Memorable Quotes

• On Community & Legacy

  • “There’s something more than the news that has developed here... the ability to feel like you’re part of something.” — Scott Adams [53:23]

• On Technical Struggles

  • “There's nowhere on earth exists a set of instructions to do what I want… I swear to God. This is probably easy, but not to me.” — Scott Adams [53:23, 55:53]

• On Gratitude

  • “Thank you for everything. I just want to say appreciate you. Love you. ...Just thanks for making me part of your community and giving me a special place." — Owen [47:16]

• On Persuasion

  • “Free will is an illusion, and that's the most important thing, because now I know that everything around me is affecting my behavior all the time.” — Listener [52:00]

• On Being Unembarrassable

  • “If you could have anything happen to you in your life and you're unable to become embarrassed, you will have a superpower.” — Patty [85:22]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Shelly’s Introduction and Legacy Role: [02:39–06:52]
• Technical Fun & Adding Guests: [09:11–18:39]
• Iran Protests and Analysis: [13:43–26:45]
• Trump’s Greenland Proposal: [27:16–32:11]
• Mortgage Bonds/Economic Policy Explained: [67:13–71:06]
• Listener Tributes/Personal Stories: [38:26–47:43]; [51:32–53:23]; [76:17–80:06]
• Fentanyl News/Good News Segment: [48:19–49:17]
• Advice for Younger Generations (“Unembarrassable”): [85:07–86:44]
• Episode Wrap-up and Final Thanks: [88:13–End]

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Tone & Language

The episode is marked by a warm, intimate, sometimes chaotic tone. Listeners and Scott frequently joke about technical hiccups and express deep affection for the show and each other. Scott is candid about his health, the challenges of hosting in his current state, and his appreciation for his audience. The language is direct, sincere, and conversational, with moments of levity, vulnerability, and gratitude.

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Summary

Episode 3068 stands out as a crossroads: an informal but important handoff of legacy to Shelly Adams; a demonstration of how a community can rally around both content and each other; and an open, lively discussion of world events, sometimes through the haze of technical and health obstacles. For longtime listeners, the episode feels like a reunion—a testament to ten years of advice, companionship, and learning filtered through Scott Adams’ unique worldview.

Recommended listening for anyone interested in:

• Community-driven media
• News and geopolitics through the persuasion lens
• Honest creator-to-audience conversation about transition, legacy, and gratitude

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Transcript

[Scott Adams]

Live. And if any of you can see me, that would be amazing. So I can see some of you. The trick here is if you all.

[Owen]

And.

[Scott Adams]

Pretends you're all in my living room. So this is Shelly Adams, for those of you who have not yet met her. And now I know how early I have to get up. There does seem to be no way that I can figure out how to get all the right people up here. So let's see how many people we can get. This will be an adventure. Shelly, say something so we know they can hear you.

[Shelly Adams]

Can you hear me?

[Scott Adams]

Looks like it might work. The problem will be getting extra people up here. So that would be the problem. Let's see. How about we make it. Excuse me. Loud and clear. Well, if you can hear me loud and clear, you can probably hear her. Just run the same microphone and same camera. So I would like to start out with Happy birthday, Mike Burt. So we're trying to get everything together. It's a birthday for a Regular Mike Bert, 50 years old today. We couldn't let that go by. All right, so in case you didn't know the importance of Shelley, she will be the head of the estate and the boss of everything. And I think she had a few words to give you about what her role will be going forward. Ready for that?

[Shelly Adams]

Good morning, everybody. Yes, I'm Shelley. I don't know if Scott wants to introduce me as, but I am his ex.

[Scott Adams]

1St X.

[Shelly Adams]

1St X. I just want to tell you a little bit about myself, and I'm going to start by. First of all, I want to just start by saying, this is not my world. Social media is not my world.

[Scott Adams]

Had to be my world. Yeah.

[Shelly Adams]

All right, so this I want to, first of all, thank Nicole yesterday, the shy one with the glasses that Scott kept pointing out, because that's probably me times two. So thank you, Nicole, for giving me the courage to get on here this morning. Just a little bit about myself. Before Scott, I worked in the corporate office in Foster City as a retirement specialist before having kids. I started working for Scott in 2003. My main job, I would say, would be to gather all his Dilbert subscribers email ideas of their crazy workplace stories. They would send in all these great stories to give him inspiration for the comic strip. I kind of pulled them all together, tried to weed out the really good ones, put them together for him, and so that he could quickly just look at them and get his idea for the day. So that was my main job and a lot of other jobs I did get my real Estate license after we split up and I pursued that real estate and property management and that was very successful. But I continued to be in Scott's life the entire time. We were, we're, we're best friends so that, that continued. I have a beautiful daughter, Savannah who when Scott and I met she was only five years old. He helped raise her and she just got married last year. She got married to Jacob and they are. I now have a son in law and hoping someday had to have grandchildren. They're the perfect together. I'm married, remarried and I been with my husband for going on 12 years. We waited until 10 year anniversary and we decided to have a big backyard wedding. So it was beautiful. He came with two bonus sons. So I have two more sons and I just want to give a shout out to him, to my husband Pat for understanding and being so supportive of my relationship with Scott through all the years and through going through this with him. But I have the biggest job ahead of me which is now to keep Scott's legacy alive. And I'm going to need the help of all of you guys to do that. And I know you've supported him all these years and he loves you guys and I know you're going to support me to keep his legacy going. And that's, I think that's all I wanted to say.

[Scott Adams]

The short version of that is that she's the new or. Well, she's. She had the job that Owen has making sure that, you know, things run smoothly on this end and only in the sense that she was picking out good stories for me. And now Owen is the picker. So Shelly is the boss of all bosses. So I'm having increasing trouble talking and obviously I have no mobility. So when I was Shelly, this operation would come to a halt and she is the person I trust the most in the entire world. Now one of the things I like about Shelly is that no matter how scary something is, she is undaunted. So that's one of the most impressive things about her that we don't know what we're doing right now, but that never stops her. So we'll work through this one way or another. Now what I was hoping to do, as most of you know, is convert from coffee with Scott Adams to more of a we'll figure it out as we go. But we're moving toward a situation where, wow, I have to tell you, I've never been on this many drugs before in my life. I had a tough time with the cough last night and so I'm Just absolutely loaded up with meds, all legal. Every bit of it is illegal. So the hardest thing I was trying to do is get other people invited up. So I'm going to see if I can do that. But as soon as people can talk, you can just go ahead and talk. So if there's something to ask, something to add, and you could talk about the news, or you could talk about this, or you could have.

[Shelly Adams]

If we just accept them, we can accept.

[Scott Adams]

All right.

[Shelly Adams]

We'll just accept a few for now.

[Scott Adams]

Well, I should make sure we're accepting Owen and Erica and maybe Marcella. So if we get a few friendlies up here, it'll be a different experience. And I still don't see.

[Shelly Adams]

Is that Owen up there? Let me see. No.

[Scott Adams]

So we're looking through a list of known people. All right, here we go. We've got invitations. Why is nobody. Well, so far, nobody's accepted. That's why.

[Shelly Adams]

Well, I think we have to accept them, don't we? First to accept them in.

[Scott Adams]

Yeah, but how do you know which ones to accept?

[Shelly Adams]

You just look at their names. Except right here.

[Scott Adams]

I would say one we know.

[Shelly Adams]

And then.

[Scott Adams]

Wait, it didn't work. Didn't work.

[Shelly Adams]

Didn't work.

[Scott Adams]

You did not accept. All right, Sergio. Joshua. Yeah, hold on, hold on. Joshua. So right now I'm accepting known people. We got two. And who else?

[Shelly Adams]

Marcella.

[Scott Adams]

No, that's malcolm. Okay. All right. Eric. Burch. We got mike burch. Marcella. Here we go. All right, now that I've. Owen or haven't seen Owen yet, so we'll go with this. Let's see. View all. What do I want to view all when I've accepted only some. Oh, so difficult to figure out.

[Shelly Adams]

All right, do we have to turn that on?

[Scott Adams]

I think that's where she turns on auto. In theory. There's Marcella. There's Joshua. So any of you. Joshua? Marcella? If you turn on your microphones, we should be able to see you. Yeah. Here you are. Can any of you talk right now?

[Brian]

Good morning, Scott.

[Scott Adams]

Hey, Joshua. Why am I so pathetic? Turning on microphones. You're the one who has to turn it on, right?

[Owen]

Yeah, we have to.

[Brian]

We have to manually turn on our own.

[Owen]

Turn on our own microphones here.

[Scott Adams]

Yeah. We got company.

[Owen]

Hey, Summer, you want to say hi to Scott?

[Scott Adams]

You want to say hi?

[Venezuelan Guest]

This is Scott and Shelly.

[Shelly Adams]

Hey, this is Summer.

[Scott Adams]

Did you happen to check the news this morning?

[Venezuelan Guest]

Did you happen to check the news this morning, honey?

[Owen]

Yeah. Oh.

[Patty]

Kid.

[Scott Adams]

Getting a hold of the phone.

[Owen]

Reading Little cameo From Summer. Thank you.

[Brian]

It's a pleasure to meet you, Shelly. Thank you for joining.

[Owen]

That was a heartfelt introduction. We're so glad to have you as the. As the protector of this community and the guide for us all. Thank you.

[Scott Adams]

So did anybody happen to catch any news? Has Iran fallen yet?

[Owen]

No, rock still standing. And they're being defiant. They're threatening to fight back really hard right now.

[Scott Adams]

No, I can't hear. Marcella, is that because you have your mic off or. I do. Turn on your mic.

[Shelly Adams]

Sorry, I didn't see the. The mute button. Good morning. Good morning, Shelly. Thank you for being here. You're. You're amazing. No, it will fall, and I'll tell you why. The main reason is that in the previous protest, it was just the youth that were protesting women. But what he's lost, Kamini has lost support of the middle and upper class, the star class. And that is what keeps him going with. And the money. So yesterday we made a speech to the nation to tell them that whatever they were doing was against the law and against God. And basically, that means that anybody could be shot on the spot and executed for protesting. But people are still going out doing it. It's been 46 years. They are tired. They just want to do it. And I think what pushes them is Trump, you know, knowing that they have Trump there. But I'll let everybody else speak.

[Scott Adams]

So we don't know how to add Owen yet. In theory. Let me get back to that. In theory, if we add Owen but he doesn't turn on his camera, he can be anonymous. That true? Still have to figure out how to add him. I told Owen that he could wear a mask.

[Shelly Adams]

Oh, my God. That's Sergio.

[Mortgage Expert]

That's me.

[Scott Adams]

Hey, Scott. Hi. Hi. My bird, Josh.

[Owen]

Hey, sir.

[Scott Adams]

Awesome. Oh, Sergio we're talking to. Right? Yes, that's me right now. So I was telling Owen Tahiku, wear a mask, like the Mask Avenger or something, you know? Well, I spent like an hour last night talking to Erica trying to figure out how to add a person, and unfortunately, she was using instructions from Grok. Now, I don't know if you've ever tried to get instructions from Grok about anything about anything, but it's impossible. And it has very specific instructions, but it's about menus that don't exist. Have you had that same experience? It starts out with, all right, use the main community button, and I'll go to the place. There'll be no main community button, and you could look all day for the main community button. And it won't be there. And then somebody says yes, but Grox says it's there. But it's never there. It's never there. So I have to figure that out. The one only way I could get instructions on doing that is if somebody else who knows how to do it goes page by page and takes a screenshot. And then eventually you hit that. That person does not have the most current version. So there is nowhere on earth exists a set of instructions to do what I want. And then with that good luck, we discover it. But it's in a completely odd, weird place that you could never find anything. So we got Sergio. But how do I get. Let's see if I can get Owen on my phone. He might already be there. You look amazing. Well, you're too nice. Well, we look as stupid because we can't do that. Something. But you can't. It's hard to get advice because nobody else looks like the host.

[Shelly Adams]

So is my birthday on here?

[Scott Adams]

What about it?

[Shelly Adams]

Happy birthday.

[Brian]

Happy birthday.

[Scott Adams]

My birth.

[Stephen]

Hey, guys.

[Scott Adams]

How's it going? Who is this? Mocha's here too.

[Owen]

Happy birthday.

[Scott Adams]

It's my birth.

[Shelly Adams]

It's his birthday on.

[Scott Adams]

Wait. So that's Mike Brush?

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Scott Adams]

Oh, okay. Good to see you. This is very much like hanging out in your own home. And you don't know what to do. What do I do now?

[Owen]

Pardon me.

[Scott Adams]

I'm going to drop out so that.

[Owen]

Other people can join and I'm going.

[Scott Adams]

To focus on my kids here.

[Owen]

It's a pleasure again to hear from you this morning. She. Shelly.

[Scott Adams]

Thank you so much.

[Stephen]

Scott.

[Owen]

Thank you. I love you. And all three of my kids have grown up hearing your voice. You're like kind of the Internet uncle, so to speak. That your voice is familiar to all of them even before they were born.

[Scott Adams]

And they'll be hearing you for the.

[Brian]

Rest of their lives in one way or another.

[Scott Adams]

Scott, thank you. Very well. All right, bye. Thank you. All right, who is. So Owen is waiting for host approval, but.

[Shelly Adams]

Hey, Scott, this is Sarah. Sarah B.

[Venezuelan Guest]

88 is my local's name, but I.

[Shelly Adams]

Discovered yesterday that my rumble name is separate and I can't change it. So that's why probably nobody knows who I am anyway, so I'm gonna go ahead and drop out. But I just want to say hey and so glad to see you today and hope you're. Hope you're doing better and we're all thinking about you and praying for you.

[Scott Adams]

See, my problem is I'm too popular because I have to find the name in A list of a thousand and then specifically approve it. And there's no search function. So how about this? How about everybody drop al except for Owen, See if that works. There's a waiting room.

[Shelly Adams]

Yeah, but I don't think we can.

[Scott Adams]

So there's only two places that could. People could be waiting room and participants. If I go to the waiting room. Sorry, you have to put up this. Is there anybody who. Sound is still on, who can tell us something about the news? Has Trump done anything interesting? No, nothing interesting. Can you see me? Can you hear me? I can see and hear you in the waiting room. Okay, but we don't see Owen, who we're sure is here. Boy, if you can put up with this, you can put up with anything. Required approvals, don't require approval. So there's a problem with the waiting room. There's just too many people. Is that what's going on? I feel like I could approve. Oh, and if I could find him in a gigantic list. Come on, baby. Now I know why Dave Rubin uses two people to do this. Wow.

[Shelly Adams]

Do you want him just to call us and we can include him? His voice?

[Scott Adams]

We can try that. So, Owen, Owen, why don't you just call me on my text number? You will not be seen, but you will be heard. How hard is it to tell somebody where a button is? But it's hard whether there's a third. A thousand people. Owen must not be here. All right, well, something's coming in. Oh, really? He called. It went to voicemail.

[Shelly Adams]

Why don't we try calling him?

[Scott Adams]

All right, here we go.

[Owen]

Good morning, Scott. Good morning, Shelly.

[Shelly Adams]

Good morning.

[Scott Adams]

Good morning, Owen. Can everybody hear you?

[Owen]

I hope so.

[Scott Adams]

All right, we're going to go back to the show view and give us a sign. Wait a minute.

[Owen]

Oh, everyone can hear me.

[Scott Adams]

So we're not. We're not looking at.

[Shelly Adams]

We're just listening to.

[Scott Adams]

Yeah, we're just listening so we can.

[Shelly Adams]

Bring more people back up on the screen, Right?

[Scott Adams]

You are correct. So we're going to view all. We're gonna. All right, so once he's there, participants Sergio and Mike Bird are invisible.

[Patty]

And.

[Scott Adams]

All right, Owen, since you're going to be on the whole time, at least your voice will be. Maybe you could lead us off in. Oh, there's Marcella. If there was a way to see her. So, Owen, did you make some notes of the news today?

[Stephen]

I did.

[Owen]

Let me pull them up. We want to start with the simultaneous sip.

[Scott Adams]

Yes.

[Owen]

Did you already do that?

[Scott Adams]

Yes, we do.

[Shelly Adams]

We would like to do that.

[Scott Adams]

But you're going to lead us.

[Owen]

Okay. Well, all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass tank or chalice or stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better. Simultaneous sip.

[Mortgage Expert]

Go.

[Scott Adams]

Go. Boy, that was a struggle. So in no particular order, is there some stories or stories you want to cue us up on?

[Owen]

There's plenty. I, I think as far as Iran goes, I think it was correct that they're still having their protests. The Crown Prince has issued a bunch of messages on X, sort of a rallying cry. So he's definitely claiming he wants to return and wants people to keep protesting. I think the Ayatollah and the regime is threatening execution and saying that protesters are ruining the streets. But please, Trump, that's what the Khomeini is saying. He's warning of a crackdown.

[Scott Adams]

So they have, they have no public bathrooms and gigantic crowds. I always wonder what happens to those situations.

[Owen]

Yeah, I don't know.

[Stephen]

It's.

[Owen]

It seems like it's spreading across the country, but it's hard to know what's real and what's propaganda. I don't know if you have a view on that, but it does seem to me, as I think you pointed out before, that there's, you know, what you hear when there's something like a color revolution going on and it's all one sided and it's all painting a narrative. But what's actually happening in the country, especially when the Internet's cut off and there's not a lot of information below, is highly in question, I think.

[Scott Adams]

Wow. It's pretty well understood at this point that it's not organic. Right. Or is it, Is it organic?

[Owen]

I'm not sure I believe that any protests are organic anymore.

[Scott Adams]

Yeah, that's where I'm at. I don't believe any of these are real.

[Owen]

Yeah. And for other international news, Trump is certainly still saying he wants to go after Greenland and he's going to take it whether they like it or not. And he made a statement that he'll either do it the easy way or the hard way. He's floating an idea of paying each citizen of Greenland a hundred thousand dollars to essentially buy the country.

[Scott Adams]

Really? So. So every single citizen would get a hundred thousand dollars if.

[Owen]

Yeah, there aren't that many of them.

[Scott Adams]

30,000, I think.

[Owen]

Something like that, yeah.

[Scott Adams]

Wow.

[Owen]

Denmark is not budging so far, they're claiming they won't give it up even if the US Nukes them. That's the statement they made.

[Mortgage Expert]

So they jumped right to nuclear war.

[Scott Adams]

What?

[Owen]

And they're saying it would threaten NATO. And so Denmark is certainly unhappy about the situation. I know there's some meeting coming up. It might be happening now with Marco Rubio meeting with Denmark. So there is some kind of guest discussion or negotiation that's queued up to happen. But Trump doesn't seem to want to back down. And I don't really see him backing down.

[Scott Adams]

Do you, at this point? No. What is China threatening? Nothing, right?

[Owen]

I don't think so. China's mostly been sitting this stuff out. I think they're probably still upset about Venezuela. I don't remember. I don't know if you remember. They literally had a bunch of diplomats in Venezuela when the raid happened, and they were making. They were there to make some kind of oil deal or something. And I think there's certainly a lot of speculation that the motivation behind the raid was to deprive Russia and China of oil.

[Scott Adams]

Oh, well, that's not too scary. How much, how much oil were they going to get from Denmark anyway?

[Owen]

Well, Russia and China have been making deals to get oil from Venezuela, so I'm kind of switching topics, but.

[Scott Adams]

Oh, okay.

[Owen]

But I think the direction now seems to be that Trump is sending a bunch of tankers to go get the oil and he's claiming that we're going to get something like 30 to 50 million barrels of oil. There was a story I posted today that it could be that we could refill our entire strategic petroleum reserve of oil just from Venezuela.

[Scott Adams]

Really? So, Marcella, turn on your microphone.

[Shelly Adams]

Yes.

[Scott Adams]

You're a local expert on Iceland.

[Shelly Adams]

Yes.

[Scott Adams]

So what will be the impact on Iceland if Greenland goes America?

[Shelly Adams]

No, I've been to Greenland as well. I think it's, it's a big deal for them because the fisheries and the oil that is in the ocean in that area. So Iceland's always been a friendly country to America. They used to have a, like a military base there since, like, I think they moved it in 2006. But anyways, I think what Trump is doing is negotiating. You know, he puts the first offer, which is, I'm going to take Greenland and no matter what. But I think that they're probably negotiating something with Denmark. I can see that happening. Basically, it would be the best for Greenland for the US to take over for them. They have a lot of issues and Denmark has never really supported them. They Even say that they've always been threatened by Denmark. The Greenlanders, recently here or two years ago, they were told that if they didn't follow what Greenland or what Denmark wanted, that they would take away their free Medicare and free education. So that's the main thing that they want to keep. I think if Trump would offer that to them or some kind of money offer, I think that they would be willing to take it. It would be best for Greenland. Greenland has issues with alcoholism, suicide, and they're basically stagnant. There's no industries, mostly tourism and, you know, now and again. But it, it, you know, Trump is like the hero in my mind, you know, with Venezuela, with Iran and now with Greenland, Greenlanders just aren't aware. You know, I think that he needs to. The propaganda is. European propaganda is very strong.

[Scott Adams]

I didn't know European propaganda was strong at all. I thought they had been weak.

[Owen]

What I don't understand is that it seems like Greenland is just a big money sink. Like, as I understand it, there's a bunch of money that Denmark pays to Greenland every year just to maintain the infrastructure and to protect it. And they don't even really do much protection. So it seems like it's just a big expense on their budget every year. And I don't know what benefit they get from it. And strategically, it spread certainly has value to America, but I don't know what value it has to Denmark.

[Scott Adams]

Well, then I think we should talk about something else. How about we let, albeit we let in as many people as we can.

[Brian]

And.

[Scott Adams]

Since Owen has an open line all the time, you can either introduce some technology stuff or, or not. Mike, what is the, what is the most interesting tech thing that's happening today? It's still ces, right? What, what.

[Shelly Adams]

Owen, I think Scott wanted to ask you a question.

[Scott Adams]

Yeah. Oh, and what, what's happening? That's not, not about international affairs necessarily, but just something interesting that you found in the news today.

[Owen]

Well, Trump made a bunch of interesting statements today. One is that he wants to limit credit card interest rates to 10%. Another recent announcement made was that he wants. I forget which agency, but he. They're going to buy something like $200 billion in mortgage bonds. And I think that was meant to reduce interest rates. So he's taking a pretty heavy debt towards trying to push down mortgage rates to make them more affordable.

[Scott Adams]

Do you think that'll work?

[Owen]

I think, I mean, the story I read certainly said that it would have an impact. It would be likely to have an impact by buying all these Mortgage bonds, because you'd be, you know.

[Scott Adams]

How many people understand buying mortgage bonds?

[Owen]

Probably very few.

[Scott Adams]

Is CES over consumer electronics show?

[Owen]

I think it might still be going on, although it might be wrapping up. I'm not sure really tracking when it ends.

[Scott Adams]

I feel like it was the disappointing show of electronics once again. Somebody's got a robot that can do one thing, but if you had it, you'd be unhappy because your robot only does one thing.

[Owen]

Yeah, there certainly was. I think from the stories I saw from there, there was a lot of robots, There was a lot of AI. I think a lot of the AI was kind of disappointing or, you know, not ideal use cases for AI. So it seems like they. That was a bit of a letdown. There certainly was a lot of hype around the robots. So your robot butler idea, your prediction may or may not come true. You know, I'm interested, like you said earlier, about whether the LG robot will live up to the hype, but it does seem like there's like maybe even half a dozen humanoid robots that are at least being shown as something that might go on sale this year.

[Shelly Adams]

If you want to let more people in, we can. We can go view them or go.

[Scott Adams]

View some more people.

[Shelly Adams]

You can accept anybody you want.

[Scott Adams]

Whoops.

[Shelly Adams]

Whoops.

[Scott Adams]

I think everybody's accepted now and there's an auto mode. So in theory, if you all.

[Shelly Adams]

I think if we just accept some of these.

[Scott Adams]

It'S very. It's hard to know if they're already accepted. All right, we're going to let in a bunch of people, see what happens, Invite participants. Well, in theory. In theory, there are new people being invited right now as we speak.

[Shelly Adams]

They just have to turn on their camera.

[Scott Adams]

What?

[Shelly Adams]

They have to turn on their camera. Okay. If anybody wants to join and turn on the camera. There we go.

[Scott Adams]

Oh, who we got here?

[Shelly Adams]

Hi, Scott.

[Brian]

My name is Anthony.

[Scott Adams]

Hey, Alice, what's up?

[Brian]

Not much. Man, I love you so much. I've been listening to you for like.

[Shelly Adams]

10 years when I was like 21 or something.

[Brian]

You've helped me so much. Job promotions.

[Shelly Adams]

Now I'm engaged to a fiance. Just your reframes. All those things, man.

[Scott Adams]

All those little lessons.

[Shelly Adams]

Talent stack. I can't thank you enough.

[Scott Adams]

Sorry. I want to hear.

[Venezuelan Guest]

Here, calling in from France.

[Scott Adams]

Calling in from France.

[Venezuelan Guest]

You said calling in from France. Yes. Listening to you for the 10 years east. What an honor. How. What an emotional moment. I am also Venezuelan by birth, legal naturalized US citizen. So I do have an interesting perspective about what's going on in Venezuela at the moment.

[Scott Adams]

Give us your perspective.

[Venezuelan Guest]

Well, a lot of people, a lot of Venezuelans have always been, it's probably 50, 50 pro TRUMP and very much against. And the against have been calling us the Magaz in a pejorative way. And they are all now coming around to being very grateful to President Trump for what he has done for the country. Of course, the first reaction was that everyone wanted Maria Corina in and everyone was like, wtf? Why is she not the president as she should be rightfully? But more and more of the thinkers of the country have been coming around and actually commenting very publicly that Trump is doing exactly the right thing, because Maria Corina would not have not even remotely the possibility of commanding the military or any kind of the remaining institutions of the country to bring order back into the country. So from the Venezuelan perspective, everyone is extremely happy and grateful to the United States and in particular to President Trump.

[Scott Adams]

Wow. So how long has it been that people were pro Trump?

[Venezuelan Guest]

Well, a lot. It's a little bit like the Cubans. Venezuelans have been suffering. Socialism has been suffering at the hands of leftist ideology. So most people are not buying any of the nonsense of the left. Having said that, you do get a little bit of what traditionally Latin America has a little bit of a leftist heart. So there's that conflict. However, Venezuelans have experienced in their own flesh what it is to be under the boot of communism. So automatically you are on the right.

[Scott Adams]

Well, what's your take on Europe in general and backing yourself?

[Patty]

Right.

[Venezuelan Guest]

A little bit more about me. I'm actually a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and I think I am the only one of my classmates that is actually a registered Republican and has voted for Trump three times. I have constant battles with my friends from that time and everyone is of course in the academic elite where they have this democrat superiority. In terms of Europe, My husband's German and I have been living in Germany for several years now. It's difficult because on the one hand, Europeans mostly see what's happening in terms of the problems with immigration and the decline in the culture. However, there is, at least in Germany where I live, there is this knee jerk reaction against a party like the AfD because of course of Germany's past. It's difficult to say. I have friends in different, different levels, in different, of the, of the levels of society and, and, and the people, the, the, the handyman, the, the people you talk on the street, they have no qualms in saying they vote AfD and, and it's, it's nonsense. What the elites are doing to, to the people of Germany as a country. You still have, of course, the elites saying, oh my God, the AfD, no way, it's fascism and we cannot go that way again. And so I don't know. I think Europe needs to sink a little bit deeper before it really realizes and it may be too late. I hope not.

[Scott Adams]

Do you think that France will become an Islamic country?

[Venezuelan Guest]

Difficult. We also lived in France. I'm vacationing in France at the moment with my family. It is so difficult. I don't know what to say. I really hope not. Europe has changed. Whether they will make a U turn and pull the handbrake in time, who knows? I'm glad to be an American. That's all I can say.

[Scott Adams]

Well, we're glad to have you.

[Venezuelan Guest]

It's so wonderful to be able to be a part of this. It's such an honor. So, Scott, I love you. Thank you, Shelley, by the way, for being there. It's a wow. It was a very emotional simultaneous sip this morning. Thank you, Owen, for that.

[Scott Adams]

Yeah, thanks, Owen.

[Shelly Adams]

Thank you, Owen.

[Owen]

Glad to do it.

[Scott Adams]

Let's bring you back in, Owen. Is there any new tech news or anything we wouldn't be watching? While we're being distracted by all this international stuff.

[Owen]

Let me look through my tech stories.

[Scott Adams]

I think that.

[Mortgage Expert]

I don't know how.

[Owen]

Interesting it is, but there's change in the fcc. They're going to allow higher powered WI fi.

[Scott Adams]

Really?

[Owen]

It's going to be able to operate outdoors at higher power.

[Scott Adams]

How much of a difference is that going to make?

[Owen]

Saying it's, I mean, it's this new 6 GHz band that they're going to allow and I think it's supposed to support things like AR&VR, short range hotspots, automation and indoor navigation. It doesn't really quantify how much stronger it is, but I know there have been restrictions on that and some people complain about that certainly inside their homes. I have that problem where, you know, I have my WI fi router in my basement and it doesn't get into most of my house, so I have to add more WI fi spots. And even then it's, it's spotty in places. So I'm kind of looking forward to this, to being able to put a really high powered WI fi in my house. Maybe it'll cause cancer, but it might be worth it.

[Scott Adams]

Maybe that's what got me. You never know.

[Owen]

I hope not. Yeah.

[Scott Adams]

You know, one of the things when you get cancer, you go around Thinking, what do I do? What do I do? But then I remind myself that for men, the type I have is the. The most common one. So if I got the most common one, it's hard to complain that it was because of some special case.

[Owen]

Yeah, I mean, I've heard a lot about prostate cancer. I know it is very common in men. I certainly hope to avoid it. But from what I've heard, a lot of the cases are. I don't want to call them benign, but they're kind of contained within the prostate, and you don't even really need to treat it. But I know. I've heard that almost every man that reaches a certain age will probably have some level of prostate cancer. So it certainly is a very common condition. I think he just got really unlucky. The aggressive kind.

[Scott Adams]

Marcel, you have a very good book behind you over your left shoulder. What is that book?

[Shelly Adams]

Wonder who wrote it.

[Scott Adams]

I felt almost everything is so big.

[Shelly Adams]

Can you see my cat? He's down there. Oh, yes, I can see he's shy. He's named after Diego Armando Maradona, the soccer player, because he likes to fight. All right, do we have any else that would like to come in?

[Scott Adams]

I believe.

[Shelly Adams]

It'S his birthday.

[Scott Adams]

Hey, guys.

[Owen]

It's good to be here. Thank you for having me on, Scott, it's been a long time, and thank you for everything. I just want to say appreciate you. Love you. It's been crazy 10 years and. Yeah, just thanks for making me part of your community and giving me a special place, and.

[Scott Adams]

And I did my best to fulfill.

[Owen]

The mission, and I'm gonna keep going here. Whoever is going to tolerate me, I'll keep doing it.

[Scott Adams]

So here I am.

[Owen]

So here's to you, Scott. Thank you very much for everything.

[Shelly Adams]

It's your birthday today. Is that what you said?

[Owen]

Yeah, 50 today.

[Shelly Adams]

Happy birthday. That's a big one.

[Owen]

Yeah, it is a big one.

[Brian]

So.

[Owen]

Thanks having me on.

[Brian]

I'm gonna sign off now.

[Scott Adams]

I just wanted to say my piece.

[Brian]

And keep on watching and posting some memes.

[Owen]

Now, it's been weird that I haven't been wondering, what do my thumbs right now. And I listen to you and.

[Shelly Adams]

And here we are.

[Brian]

So I'm gonna sign off.

[Owen]

So thank you.

[Scott Adams]

I'll talk to everyone later.

[Mortgage Expert]

I would.

[Owen]

I would interject a story that I posted today that I think is good news, might be a little sensitive for the two of you, Scott and Shelley, but fentanyl deaths have dropped in the US Significantly. It was over a hundred thousand a year, and now it's 81,000 in 2024.

[Scott Adams]

And.

[Owen]

They'Re crediting Biden era, as far as you know, it happened during his term. But I think a lot of that had to do with Trump in terms of putting pressure on China. And it looks like they're chalking it up to a supply disruption during the pandemic, that the supply of the precursor chemicals got disrupted somehow, and that may have caused a lot less supply to come into the US And I certainly think Trump had a lot to do with that. And I think you had a lot to do with that. So, so I think you deserve some credit for putting pressure on the administration and putting pressure on China.

[Scott Adams]

Good. It seems like it won't take long to fix the distribution problem, but it's a start. And who do we have down here? They appear.

[Owen]

Yes, this is Peter. I just wanted to say thank you for all the years I'm here managing two kids and the dog right now as they build train tracks. But I've been listening to you for pretty much all 10 years. Or the odd camera angles as I try to keep my kids faces off camera. But I'll go off camera, but I'll finish this audio I've been listening to for 10 years, pretty much every single day. And there's a, there's a point at which I, I tried to stop listening to you because I thought, you know, I need to, I need to diversify who I'm listening to, you know, listen to different podcasts, et cetera, et cetera. And I just, I couldn't, I couldn't quit you, Scott. I kept on coming back and listening to you pretty much every single day. I, I, every, every Spotify. Your year wrapped was sort of boring because it was, I was always in the top 0.1% of listeners to the Scott Adams podcast. And it's been, it's been amazing to be with you over the past 10 years. And I just wanted to, you know, thank you for always being true to yourself, not allowing yourself to be bought by any, any interest or any sponsor or any, any media company. And I think, I think I speak for a lot of people, that that's one of the things that has kept us coming back for the past 10 years is it always felt whether we agreed with you on everything or didn't agree with you on everything. I never had a doubt that you were saying your actual opinion pretty much all the time. So I very much appreciate that and I'm very appreciative of, yeah, just your commitment and consistency and, and your Virtual friendship over the past 10 years. And with that, I'm going to get back to the kids building choo choo trains.

[Scott Adams]

Well, you got your priorities straight. I like that. Let's see. Could we go wide here? I wonder how long it would take me to learn this.

[Shelly Adams]

Do we have anybody else that would like to come on.

[Scott Adams]

I still want to say something, but I don't know if it's a good time or not. Go ahead. Okay. Well, thank you, Scott, for. I'm getting to talk to you right now. I always thought that I was going to get to see you someday in person, but I'm. I'm doing it through this and I'm very happy. And I'm so happy to meet Shelley. And that's an amazing testament of your awesomeness that your ex is there for you right now. I love that because not anybody can develop that relationship afterwards. And that's amazing that you did that. So thank you very much. And, yeah, you taught me that free will is an illusion, and that's the most important thing, because now I know that everything around me is affecting my behavior all the time. So I need to watch out for my surroundings. And that's why you are half of my five people, basically. And I don't know what I'm gonna do without you because I. I'm like a lot of you right now. And I'm going to learn to be more like, like. Like everybody else, too. So thank you very much and. Hey, is that Gary?

[Shelly Adams]

That's Roman.

[Scott Adams]

Roman. Hi, Roman. Well, that's it, Scott. Thank you very much. And. And any advice ever that you have for me or anything, let me know. Thank you. Socio. The best. You know, there's a half a dozen people who regularly participate, and when I don't see all of you, I get disappointed. And there's something more than the news that has developed here. And the part I didn't anticipate is the bonding and the ability to feel like you're part of something. And I think that worked. It wasn't a top priority or anything, but once it started being a thing, that's a part that seems to be the most powerful. So over time, we will put on more of a, you know, what did you learn? How did you learn it? And for the moment, it feels appropriate that we're still struggling along and that the struggle is about, you know, how do you make the technology work in a way that works for everybody. So I hope you see. I hope you can see the. All the work that gets put into just trying to make this work. I swear to God. This is probably easy, but not to me. And I'll say again that the amount of pharmaceutical drugs I had to put into me yesterday so that I could function, it's the most I've ever done. And just to give you an example, I've got a password that is very easy. You know, it's not any kind of weird, crazy password, but with the help of a nurse and about 25 attempts, I could tell her what I wanted. And the funny thing was I couldn't spell it. So my password has.

[Shelly Adams]

Let's not talk about your password.

[Scott Adams]

Yes, tell us your passwords right now, please.

[Shelly Adams]

Yeah, let's not talk about your password too much.

[Scott Adams]

That's why she's here. I'll just simplify it to say it should have been really, really easy, but it wasn't like, I'm making this up so you can't really use it. It'd be like something like I would say, all right, the first part is squirrel. And try to spell it. It'd be like pj Squirrel. A. Is there an A in squirrel? It was the damnedest thing. I've never been that hallucinogenic. That's awesome, Scott. You deserve the best. Military grade drugs. All right, go back. Okay, thank you very much. I'm going to log off now. I'm gonna let others jump in. Thank you, Scott, for everything. All right. I don't know what that means.

[Shelly Adams]

Just hit accept, see if anybody else.

[Scott Adams]

Wants to jump in.

[Shelly Adams]

Jump in.

[Scott Adams]

So let's check is, we got some new people.

[Venezuelan Guest]

Can I make one more comment? You've been explaining the world to me for the past 10 years, Scott, and I am quite intimidated at the prospect of not having those daily explanations. And I'm hoping that this community that you created will somehow step in when you're not there to. To help understand what's happening in the world. I mean, I hope you have trained all of us to. To continue to do that. What do you say, Shelly?

[Shelly Adams]

Oh, I think we did miss a little bit of your. The beginning of your. Some technical issues here. But, yes, we would. I would love to keep this going. And, you know, again, we're not tech savvy here. We hope that we can figure this all out and make this a little bit more smoother process. But I think he's got some great people community here that I think could lead this if we can figure out. If we can figure out the technology of it. Yeah, yeah.

[Venezuelan Guest]

The beginning of it was that Scott's been explaining the world to me for the past 10 years. And it is quite daunting to the prospect of not having those daily lessons of exactly what everything means and what's going on. And again, and I'm hoping that this community of people that you have trained over the past years will step in and I guess, selfishly continue to help me do that.

[Shelly Adams]

I hope so. I. I really, I really think, I think we could do it. Might take a little time, but I think we could do it for sure.

[Scott Adams]

All right, let's see if Stephen, with the headphones on, can turn off his microphone.

[Shelly Adams]

Hello, Stephen.

[Stephen]

Hello, Scott. My goodness. I'll add. Well, I don't think I can. I wouldn't be able to probably explain the incredible adventure that has been this entire time that I have had an opportunity to, to watch you and to learn from you. Now, I am included, I think, among the slightly older group, Gen Xter and so forth, and would have been one of those Rush Limbaugh babies that somehow migrated their way to, to your show. And of course, I. He was all through high school, basically, you know, lunch, I would walk home, run home in order to be able to catch a show in the middle of the day. And so, you know, he was, you know, he was an uncle type as I was growing up. Well, naturally, and without any hesitation at all, as soon as I stumbled across you and your show, I immediately realized, okay, this is going to be the next type of person to be able to do that. And you absolutely did. And so I admit that I took as much of your advice as I possibly could, that I've tried to get myself in trouble often and that I do have a thank you note for you that I made. And I suppose I could read it. I don't know how much inside stuff is in here. It was a long time ago that I wrote this, but I didn't want to be among the people who would somehow mysteriously find out where you lived and send you things, because I was already potentially beginning to garner reputation for the sort of person that would do that out of malice, which I never would. It was all. It was fun for me. And so I absolutely enjoyed trying to fail my way to wherever I am now. And I promise for those five years, it was the adventure. Well, it's the second adventure of my life. I've actually retired from the military I've been in for 24 years. So it was a long time. I've had basically a full career doing all of that stuff. And then I had a chance to bring whatever that experience was to. To you and to my life and my family here. So we go. Don't know how you'll be able to see to read it, but I. Thank you. Yep.

[Brian]

Okay.

[Scott Adams]

Nice.

[Shelly Adams]

Nice.

[Mortgage Expert]

All right.

[Stephen]

Oh, yes. Well, not the. Not the thank you part. No, I was using the card based. The card as the. The thank you foundation for everything. And then I would either draw or, you know, use emojis, whatever. So it just. Again, all I did was try to fail my way through trying to. Trying to copy you, which actually, you know, for most people, I think that the thing they're missing in their life is they don't have a good enough thing to try to copy. And you can do an awful lot just copying somebody else's really good advice or their behavior. So that's probably what I saw. You know, Rush, of course, was somebody who much, much more than the political person he became. But he proved to me what happens to someone who actually is an ordinary person who happens to become somewhat successful, and then they stumble into the political world, and all of a sudden they're either an angel or the devil. So I wrote you a little joke that's based on the experience that I had. I'll. I'll see. I mean, I can read it.

[Mortgage Expert]

It's.

[Stephen]

I don't know how much of it would be. Would be understandable, but I happened to write it on Sunday, 3rd of March, 2024 at 12:34pm because numbers mean something, apparently, to some people. And it's a cat, of course.

[Mortgage Expert]

This.

[Stephen]

It was in a little adventure that I had where there was a cat who was the woman who was always troubling me my entire life, whoever she was. And so she starts the conversation and she says, stephen, no woman wants a man to run around loving her with all his heart, no matter what.

[Patty]

And.

[Stephen]

Because I know that deep down, they don't really want that, although they'll swear up and down if you actually try that, they don't like it. It's true. Anyhow. Then the little character that I had sort of created is a copy. Again, most everything's a copy of maybe two or three things. But he's a little guy who would say, as you so famously did say, what? Because we know that doesn't make sense. They all want it. And then I include a cloud, which to me is a. It's the figure that's above us all, or it's the thing that's above us all. Many people would say it's God. To me, certainly it is. But to others, maybe not. So much doesn't matter. But if he were in the room, he would have said what to and so he would agree with you, as I would. So. Okay, everybody. That's the trick, I guess, if there is one. Do whatever you can to run around and love a woman with all your heart, no matter what, and just see what happens. It'll be the greatest thing that's ever happened. Thanks, Scott.

[Scott Adams]

Well, thank you for that.

[Shelly Adams]

Thank you. Thank you. Do we have anybody else that wants to come in?

[Scott Adams]

Raleigh, this is Crawley, one of our regulars, which we call the Beloveds.

[Shelly Adams]

Do we need to accept more or how do we.

[Scott Adams]

Well, if we're not bored, yes. It's a little lesser.

[Shelly Adams]

But you have to approve them. Oh, yeah, we have to go approve them. They want to come in. Let's go prove some more and accept some more. Okay, Just keep going scrolling down.

[Scott Adams]

There you go.

[Venezuelan Guest]

Just.

[Shelly Adams]

Just keep acceptance.

[Scott Adams]

And it looks like it hit his limit.

[Shelly Adams]

Okay.

[Scott Adams]

Okay, so now we have a bunch of people and the showing. I guess the way I can tell if you want to come up is if you show up on video, it's just to be so it looks like normal. That's a Norm.

[Shelly Adams]

I. I can't see from where. Way over here.

[Mortgage Expert]

Hi.

[Shelly Adams]

Hi. What's your name?

[Mortgage Expert]

Norm.

[Shelly Adams]

Norm.

[Scott Adams]

Hey, Norm.

[Mortgage Expert]

Hey, Scott. Hey, Shelly. How you doing? Nice to meet you.

[Shelly Adams]

Nice to meet.

[Mortgage Expert]

Finally get on here.

[Scott Adams]

Hey, somebody else been.

[Mortgage Expert]

Been a huge follower, Norm.

[Scott Adams]

Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. Every candle behind you. What are you behind?

[Brian]

Oh.

[Mortgage Expert]

Holy.

[Scott Adams]

Yeah.

[Shelly Adams]

Surprise, surprise. What's your name?

[Mortgage Expert]

I keep hearing myself over and over again.

[Scott Adams]

All right, well, it looks like Norm and Ryan around here. Oh, hey, Brian.

[Mortgage Expert]

Maybe that's better. I think I did it.

[Shelly Adams]

Yeah. So who would like to talk?

[Mortgage Expert]

Well, I heard you talking about mortgage bonds and I'm in the mortgage business, so I figured I'd jump on because I'm pretty pumped about Trump's buying the mortgage backed securities. And I'll definitely pump the rates down.

[Scott Adams]

Now. Explain to us like we're done, how that will help.

[Mortgage Expert]

Okay, so the last time that the government bought mortgage backed securities, which is the bonds they're talking about, was after the 2008 housing crisis. So what happens is the. These bonds are available for like, think of it like a mutual fund or a stock, but they're not very attractive because they don't give high, high rates of returns like the stock market and other mutual funds. So no one really buys them. So if no one buys them, there's not a demand for them. So the only way to get A demand is the rates go up to the. Make it appealing to an investor. You know, they want 7, 8% return on their money at least.

[Scott Adams]

Right.

[Mortgage Expert]

So because there's no demand for them, the rates will go up. But once there's a demand, meaning when the country starts buying in that amounts, it pushes the rates down because now they're being bought by someone, in this case the government. So it's the government's way of manipulating the rates to go down when the Fed doesn't want to lower them. So because he's going back and forth with Powell and Power won't lower the rates, the way the government can do that is actually by the bonds itself, in large quantities like it is. And as long as he keeps buying them, the rates will go down and go down and go down because someone, because now he's created an interest, so to speak, by manipulating the system. Only been done once before and it was Obama did it a lot in 2008 to keep the rates down when the Fed didn't want to lower it. And that's when rates were like 3, 4%.

[Scott Adams]

Did it work?

[Mortgage Expert]

Yeah, oh yeah, it worked. It was the, one of the biggest mortgage booms, you know, in history besides the one we just recently had with COVID Covid was the, you know, the largest rate reduction when there was 2 to 3%. But yeah, I mean, rates went down to 3 or 4. I've been in mortgages for 35 years and been watching. Been reading your column for about the same amount of time and totally can understand, you know, the whole corporate culture. It made me want to open my own business, so I didn't have to answer to anyone.

[Scott Adams]

Nice.

[Mortgage Expert]

But yeah, it worked and it will work.

[Shelly Adams]

Thank you for sharing that.

[Mortgage Expert]

Yeah. And look forward to your future streams. But I don't want to take everyone's turn.

[Scott Adams]

But isn't so a prediction that will have a 5.4 GDP?

[Mortgage Expert]

I'm not familiar with the, the gross domestic domestic product, but I know the numbers came out recently, yesterday. The unemployment is going down, which always helps. I mean, at the end of the day all the, all the numbers are in line for lower rates. But it became a political thing with Powell and Trump where Powell just won't lower the rates or if he does lower them, he, in his, in his comments that he does to the people he'll put something like this doesn't guarantee they'll be cut the next time. So he does all the right wording just to keep the rates high.

[Scott Adams]

Wow.

[Stephen]

Correct.

[Owen]

Scott, you're correct. The Atlanta Fed nearly doubled their Q4 growth estimate to 5.4% from 2.9% for GDP.

[Scott Adams]

Wow.

[Owen]

Geiger Capital described it as a massive expansion largely attributable to the narrowing trade deficit. And that was another story that the trade deficit has been slashed to, like, as low as it's been since 2009. So the trade deficit is way down. And the quote from Geiger Capital is, we're running it hot. Get on board.

[Scott Adams]

I don't think I've ever seen them lifetime, have I? 5.4 GDP?

[Owen]

I don't think so. That's incredibly high. I could ask Rock to see if it can tell me when. We've had that before, but I don't recall that ever in my lifetime.

[Scott Adams]

Oh, do that. Ask Rock 0 second.

[Owen]

It'll take a minute.

[Shelly Adams]

Who do. Who do we have on the screen? Who's the other person on the screen here?

[Brian]

Oh, hi, I'm Brian. I'm not sure if you could hear me.

[Shelly Adams]

We can hear you.

[Brian]

Oh, good. Hi, Scott. Hi, Shelley. And I thought that a week ago. Well, gosh, never met or chatted with Scott directly. Hope to see you on the other side, but now, I hope that's a long time from now. But anyway, been a Dilbert fan since the early 90s when I was in engineering school and at least I don't know when the book came out, what Would Wally Do? But in the early 90s, you know, when we were working on a lab might set something on fire, we had an inflection point and so, well, what Would Wally Do? And that became the catchphrase, at least for my senior year in college. And. And then, you know, I, of course, read your books and, you know, got busy with a family for 20 years. And then, you know, 2015 rolled around with Trump and things got weird. And I'd always voted Republican except for when I voted for Perot, so you can blame Bill Clinton on me. And. But then I was really confused. I don't have an engineering background, legal background, you know, analyze things for a living, and I really was not understanding what I was seeing. And I paid more and more attention, and I lived in Connecticut at the time, and in 2016, I guess we moved to Minnesota, which is great freaking timing to move to Minnesota after it had started its decline. But 2016 rolls around and I really don't understand what I'm seeing. And all I could think of was, well, I was trying to get attention or something. I don't think any of this is real. And I was confused until I Saw the, the, the COVID of the Win Bigley book with, you know, dog break with the Trump hair. Didn't understand what it was about, but I said I need to own that. And that was eye opening for me. Must have been 2016. And read Cialdini's books after that and actually reached out to Cialdini with a poster of my daughter. I took the teachings and put it on a big poster board of complete BS of persuasion to help her sell Girl Scout cookies. Pictures of this, which is funny. Cialini writes back and said that made me laugh out loud and told him I liked his books and I was able to mail them to him. Influence and persuasion. He signed them and sent them back. So those are two of my more cherished possessions. But I really, I don't know how I would have gotten through the last 10 years without your filter because I once I read your book and started listening to your podcasts on Periscope, everything made sense and has ever since. So thank you for that. And then the last thing I would like to thank you for is I think during one of your streams where you were drawing Dilbert's a few years ago, I had you laughing pretty good at some of my suggestions because of the asinine life I experienced at many law firms, but in particular the one I was at at that time that I have since left. And I'm proud to say that a couple of my suggestions made it into one or two panels to have a couple of Dilbert strips that appeared not long after that. So those are two, two of my most prized possessions. I keep those, you know, printed out on, you know, at the office. Anybody asks, I'm like, well, this is how this came to be, you know, and then they call me, you know, a racist and I say thank you and you know, but, but thank you for everything.

[Scott Adams]

Are you the same?

[Shelly Adams]

Are you at a gym or is that your.

[Brian]

Oh, no, this is my man cave. I have, my wife lets me use a part, the part of the basement of our house that's on the other side of a garage. And I have packed my entire life into this room and weight equipment in the garage as well, along with radio control cars and, you know, college banners and proud MIT graduate. And that's me.

[Scott Adams]

I probably could have guessed you were an MIT graduate, But you're the first one I've seen who doesn't wear glasses.

[Brian]

I use glasses for driving. I'll probably need them for reading and not very long. Yeah, but for now, you know, but for now I don't need them. MIT was an amazing experience and law school after that was kind of like a vacation. I just went to Boston College Law school in the late 90s and our class was 55% women. I just kind of kicked back and had fun before spending the last years getting ground through nine or 10 different law firms.

[Scott Adams]

You're telling me the mic was 55% women?

[Brian]

Boston College Law School, MIT was a sword fight, kind of leave it there, but, but it was a great, both were a great experience, but for different reasons. I, I did nuclear fusion at mit and then there were no jobs in fusion back then, which should not be a surprise. And then I went to, to law school after that. Wow.

[Scott Adams]

What was the coolest thing you invented that we don't know about?

[Brian]

Oh, I don't know if it's. I didn't end up on the patent, but because I didn't understand how patents worked back then. But I worked on a microwave emissions metals monitor in grad school and the idea was, it was similar to the idea if you go to an analytical lab these days and you want to find out how many parts per million of, you know, sees, you know, some metal or in a solution, they'll nebulize it and run it through this little thing called a, an adaptively coupled plasma. And they can get very accurate readings down to like, you know, parts per million. You know, whether you go to like a polymers lab or whatever, you want to find out how much metals in a plastic, that's how you do it. But we were trying to use a more robust version of a, like a tabletop plasma that was a microwave induced plasma, which is like a big rectangular waveguide with a hole through the end. And you shoot air through the end, turn on the microwaves and you have something that looks like a little torch. And then what we would do is we would take effluent from an exhaust stream, run it through the plasma, and then we would have fiber optics that would be view the light that was emitted from the plasma. What, what would happen is if you had a metal particle flying through the gas, it would get, the electrons in the outer shells would get excited and then when they came back down within fraction of a millisecond, it would give off light at a certain frequency and wavelength and you would detect that so you could figure out in real time what was going through the gas stream. The problem was we can never really quantify it. To say that, oh, you know, there's this much, you know, going that went through my master's Thesis concerned that topic. And, you know, we did the best we could. It was very sensitive, so you could tell if something was going through it and when, but that was about it. And so there was a patent for that, and I made a couple of minor contributions to it, but didn't end up on the patents. But that's okay because it never got commercial. Commercialized.

[Scott Adams]

So did anybody notice me falling asleep?

[Brian]

Yeah, I was very. I'm sure you're very excited by that, and I apologize.

[Scott Adams]

Oh, not because of your story.

[Shelly Adams]

It's definitely not because of your story.

[Scott Adams]

Okay, so it looks like we have. What is your name? Michael. Michael, Turn off your microphone.

[Shelly Adams]

Turn on.

[Scott Adams]

You mean, turn on your microphone.

[Shelly Adams]

Oh, can't hear you.

[Scott Adams]

Not yet.

[Shelly Adams]

Not yet.

[Scott Adams]

Turn on your microphone. Whoops. Disappeared.

[Shelly Adams]

All right, who do we have here? I can't see the name. Can you see your name?

[Scott Adams]

How about Patty?

[Shelly Adams]

Patty? Is this Patty?

[Patty]

Hello? Can you hear me?

[Shelly Adams]

Yes. Yes, I can hear you.

[Patty]

I am so excited to talk to you. Good morning.

[Scott Adams]

Good morning.

[Patty]

I said yesterday, after which I couldn't participate in yesterday, I was at work, and as the live stream closed, I said, tomorrow, I'm going to talk to Scott Adams. And I've spent the last hour trying to figure out how to get the link, and I finally figured it out, and I've had so many interruptions in my home, and I was like, I am determined. I'm going to talk to Scott today.

[Shelly Adams]

Well, here's your chance.

[Scott Adams]

Yeah, I.

[Patty]

You said something on your show the other day I wanted to address, and I don't expect a response because this is a private thing for you, but I do want to comment. People were suggesting titles for your book, I Believe, and one of them was Escape from Prisoner Island. And you said, I didn't escape. And I thought, if you convert to Christianity, you escape. Jesus said he came to set the captives free. And I just wanted to tell you that because the minute you said it, I thought, no, no, no, you did.

[Scott Adams]

Escape, and we'll find out what escape means.

[Patty]

Well, yeah, that is true. So you have just been a joy for all of us. I. I followed Dilbert from the very beginning. I used to think, I wonder what kind of person writes this, because.

[Venezuelan Guest]

He.

[Patty]

Makes me laugh every day. I have two Dilbert comics on my wall at work. My boss comes in and laughs about him, and he doesn't realize that they're about him. I'm sure you hear that a lot.

[Shelly Adams]

Yep.

[Patty]

And you are the highlight of my morning every morning. Thank you for that. Well, thank you for noticing you've changed my life.

[Scott Adams]

Now, how does a comic change your life?

[Patty]

Well, it's not because you're a comic. It's I think, because you're a sage.

[Scott Adams]

Oh, thank you.

[Shelly Adams]

Did we figure out how to get our mic on there?

[Scott Adams]

I'm talking to Michael.

[Shelly Adams]

Oh, he's. No, we still can't hear you.

[Scott Adams]

So, Michael, there is a microphone on your side that must be activated and you can talk at the same time as Patty. It won't cut you off. So, Patty, was there anything else you'd like to add? Well, Michael is looking for his microphone.

[Patty]

Oh, I hope Michael finds his microphone.

[Shelly Adams]

It's down at the bottom, Michael.

[Patty]

It is at the bottom on the left.

[Shelly Adams]

You have to press it a few times.

[Mortgage Expert]

Just jump in with a follow up.

[Owen]

By askrock about the GDP rate. There actually have been several times when it's been higher than 5.4%, but it's always been during an economic, economic recovery. So if you remember the early 80s and the late 90s when we were really hot in the economy, of course, the late 90s was right before the dot com bust. But those are the only times it's been that way. The only other really exceptional one is in the pandemic recovery. It got really high, even 34%, one quarter. But that's kind of a anomaly.

[Scott Adams]

All right, so, Michael, you might be dyslexic because you could. Because you're confusing microphone with video. So one of them should be off.

[Patty]

I thought of something else I'd love to tell you, Scott.

[Scott Adams]

Yeah, go ahead, Penny.

[Patty]

I have a. A teenage grandson that is. He's very insecure.

[Shelly Adams]

He.

[Patty]

He just has a lot of issues going on. And he was with me recently and I, you know, teenagers are. They love anime and Marvel comics and all of the superhero movies. And I said, I said to him, hey, would you like to have a superpower? And of course he was like, yeah, of course. We all want to have a superpower. And I said, well, here's a superpower that you can have. You become unembarrassable. And I said, think about it, Brenner, if. I'm sorry, I wasn't going to use his name, but I said, think about it. If, if you could have anything happen to you in your life and you do not you. You are. It's in impossible for you to become embarrassed. You will have a superpower. And he started thinking about that and we talked about it a lot and he really loved the idea. And I told him where I got the idea was from Scott Adams and the creator of it of a very famous comic called Dilbert. And he. I said that you'd written several books, and so he asked if he could have one of your books. And I'm going to give. What would you suggest for a teenager? How to fail at anything.

[Scott Adams]

Yes. So from age of 14 on, had to fail with almost everything. So big.

[Patty]

Okay. He's 13, so on his 14th birthday, I'll give him that book. And thank you for that.

[Scott Adams]

That would be kind of a tie between win bigly and reframe your brain.

[Patty]

I love reframe your brain. You know, I've done reframing since I was a kid. A teacher read some books to us about a character named Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.

[Shelly Adams]

I don't know if you've ever heard of her.

[Scott Adams]

I'm not.

[Patty]

And I used those kind of as an inspiration when I was a kid that I would create a reframe situation where I was. My mom would tell me to go clean my room. And I didn't want to clean my room, but I would pretend that if I didn't get it done in a certain amount of time, that a wicked witch was going to come in and cast a spell on me. And I would get it done and I would have fun doing it, because I know there was no wicked witch coming. But it was a fun pretend game, and I did that with all kinds of areas in my life. And so when the reframe book came out, it just made so much sense to me, and I really love it. I read it frequently and I just pick it up for a daily tip of the day. I really like it. Thank you for that.

[Scott Adams]

Good. That's the order I like to hear them being read in. So we should probably close down, but not before we give Michael one more chance.

[Shelly Adams]

Yeah. Where's Michael? Where are you?

[Scott Adams]

Michael. Looks like he has something else to do. Sean. Corey. All right, I think we've done all we can do today. I apologize again for falling asleep on camera, but I warned you. I warned you. This is the most medicated I've ever been in my life. It was a wild trip. So thanks for sticking in there, and I will soon figure out how to train you to have more interesting dreams. All right, everybody, say goodbye to Shelly.

[Mortgage Expert]

Bye, Shelly. Thank you. Nice to meet you.

[Brian]

Thank you.

[Mortgage Expert]

See you all tomorrow.

[Scott Adams]

Thanks for your.