WEBVTT - Clay welcomes back Avik Roy 0:00:02.080 --> 0:00:05.760 This is Wins and Losses with Clay Trevis, play talks 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:09.879 with the most entertaining people in sports, entertainment and business. 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:15.320 Now here's Clay Trevis. Welcome in Wins and Lost his podcast. 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:17.439 I appreciate all of you hanging out with us. I 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.319 believe we're coming up right on forty of these long 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.439 form conversations that we have had, and the feedback on 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:25.960 them has been phenomenal. If this is the first one 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:27.960 that you're listening to, i'd encourage you to go check 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:32.280 them out from the world of sports, media, politics, business 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.199 and also some focus on COVID, which is what we're 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:40.120 gonna do again Part two with oh Vic Roy. And 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.080 before I bring him in, I gotta say it's rare 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:45.320 I get praise for anything that I do for my 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:48.199 wife in any part of my life at all. But 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:51.600 after our first conversation, which we had back in August, 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.160 she said, I wish everybody in the country could hear 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:58.840 him and could hear that conversation because it cut through 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:01.360 so much of the north Ways and got to the 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:05.480 essence of COVID our response how to balance out going 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:08.840 back to school. From the perspective of August, it now 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:12.120 has been whatever. It is nearly six months since we 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.160 last talked. We still are in the throes of much 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:18.640 of the COVID related hysteria I would call it. And 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:22.440 certainly we're now changing administrations because we're recording, uh the 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:27.920 day after the Biden inauguration, and so Ovic again, you're 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:31.280 coming at my wife's request for part two of this discussion. 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:35.880 So there's high there's high potential here, but also high 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:38.640 danger because I know for sure that she'll be listening, 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:40.880 and she even sent me a couple of questions that 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:42.640 she wanted me to ask. So first of all, thanks 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:45.039 for coming with us again. Thanks for being so great 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:48.640 in August. If you haven't heard that August conversation, I 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:51.800 would encourage you, maybe if you're starting this one, to pause, 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:56.240 go back into the podcast listen to that August conversation first, 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:59.000 because a lot of the background. I'm not necessarily going 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:00.880 to go back over again in because many of you 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.000 have already heard it and I want to kind of 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:05.400 get an update on your thoughts. So thanks for coming 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:08.640 on again. People loved our conversation last time, and I 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:10.560 hope we can help out a lot of people here 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:12.680 and they will enjoy this one. And get informed just 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.440 as well as they did back in August. Bakeley, what's 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:20.200 your wife's name, Laura l A R A And just 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:23.960 like you. Uh, she is from Oakland County, so she 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.440 went to lass Or High School. She grew up in Bloomfield. 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:29.799 So I went to the University of Michigan from there 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.640 and then we met in law school. So so Laura, 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:35.440 my wife is definitely listening right now. And uh, and 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:40.560 you guys are both fellow Michiganders at least in your youth. Yeah, 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.320 it's a drive by laws Er High to Detroit Country 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.200 Day every morning on my way because we talked about 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:48.560 we talked about that last time where Chris Webber had 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:51.680 gone to Detroit Country Day in Birmingham, Michigan, which is 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:54.840 where my wife and I got married back back in 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:59.640 the day back in two thousand four. Right, Yeah, well, uh, 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:03.000 thank for me, Thank you Laura for for those kind words, 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:04.760 and I hope I can live up to it this time. 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:07.760 All right, quick background again, I would encourage you if 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:10.200 you want a longer form background of how Ovic ended 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:13.400 up doing what he does, go listen to our August 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:15.919 twenty one conversation. But I just want to reset the 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.919 table because some people won't do that. You grew up, 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:21.359 like you just said, playing basketball with Chris Wheb at 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.919 h AT in Birmingham, Michigan. Uh. You then went to 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.800 m I T. And then you went to Yale for 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.360 medical school. Do you want to give people like a 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:33.360 two minute synopsis of what you do in your professional 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:36.440 life and have done in your professional life since leaving 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:41.040 and finishing your schooling. Yeah? So my my undergraduate major 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:46.080 was effectively molecular biology. So the genetics DNA and genetics worked, 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.160 and how how all that plays into how cells aren't work, 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.280 how our organs work, our bodies work, how diseases work. 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.120 And I went to med school, and then after med school, 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:58.320 I didn't practice medicine. I ended up joining an investment 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:00.840 firm called Being Capital to help them figure out the 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.920 biotech industry. So I spent a dozen years on Wall 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:06.720 Street in Boston and New York, so not not not 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.240 always in the physical Wall Street, but working as an 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:13.640 investor investing in biotech companies, including vaccine companies and companies 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:16.880 that developed treatments for various diseases, cancer, things like that, 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:21.240 And along the way I got really interested in healthcare policy. 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:23.320 Mitt Romney, as many people will know as the founder 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:25.880 of bank Capital, and I ended up working for his 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:28.720 presidential campaign in twelve. He and his team asked me 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.160 to help them design their health reform plan for the 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.039 twelve presidential race, and that led me down the rabbit 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:38.240 hole of Obamacare and health reform and public policy in general. 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:41.440 And now I run a think tank based in Austin, 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:45.000 Texas called the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity or 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:47.440 free opt dot org online f r e O p 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:51.760 P dot org, and we work on ways to expand 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:55.360 economic opportunity to those at least have it using free enterprise, 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.880 individual liberty, technological innovation, and plurals and in in other words, Uh, 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.680 people like me believe that free enterprise the thing that's 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:04.960 lifted people out of poverty all over the world, all 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:07.840 over the country, and we need to rededicate ourselves of 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:09.880 doing that for the people who are struggling to make 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.440 it in this incredibly challenging time that we live in now. Amen, 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:18.240 you're capitalist exactly, which is like it's like some people 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:22.640 are afraid to say they're actually capitalists nowadays. Uh. And so, uh, 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:25.400 the data and what I love about it. So I 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.240 talked about this back in August. But I became aware 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.800 of you because there was so much noise, uh in 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:35.440 this COVID coverage in the media. And I always say, 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.039 you know, I don't need people to tell me what 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:40.320 I should think. I would like to be able to 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:44.520 see the numbers myself and make rational decisions. And so 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.920 I first became aware of you because you were looking 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:52.159 at the stratification from an age range perspective of how 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:57.120 COVID was impacting different populations, right, because one of the 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:00.800 first flaws, I think, uh, the original ends as it were, 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:04.279 potentially of our response to COVID has been to treat 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:07.680 this as if it is an equal opportunity disease that 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.919 impacts everybody equally, much like because you hear this analogy 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.440 all the time the nineteen eighteen flew right, which had 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:19.800 a much more consistent impact across all age ranges, and 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:23.160 so the decision to shut down schools, for example, was 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:26.800 predicated on the idea, Oh, the places that did that 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:30.320 in nineteen eighteen had better success. But the problem is 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.839 that schools and school aged children, unlike in nineteen eighteen, 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.240 are not primary vectors for the spread of this disease. 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:40.520 So the positive impact in terms of lessening the spread 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:43.479 is not in any way. We're basically fighting the war 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:47.600 with the technology of the last war, when this new 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:50.240 war is entirely different, right, And that's what often happens 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.440 in wars. You try to take the lessons that you 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:54.960 learned from the last war. The problem is the situation 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:58.719 has changed and this isn't the same thing anymore. Yeah, 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:00.680 you know that that war with a hundred and three 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.880 years ago, and it's a completely different virus. I mean, 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.200 every virus is different. Influenza virus is the way they 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:10.000 behave are different than the way coronaviruses behave in your body, 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:12.640 the way they attack you, the kinds of people they attack. 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:17.520 We actually have known from from previous coronaviruses that coronaviruses 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:20.920 tend to attack older people, tend to be problematic at 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:24.200 nursing homes. So people who really looked at the science 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:28.600 quote unquote should have known that we really needed to 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:31.400 focus on protecting the elderly. But but that's not what 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.960 we did, and that was tragic. Okay, So I asked 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.200 you last time, what letter grade would you give our 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:40.920 I'm not trying to be partisan our political here I'm 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:44.360 just saying, as a policy perspective, what letter grade would 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:49.440 you give our response to COVID as a country. Oh boy, 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:51.239 that's a tough one. I mean, you know, I would 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.360 probably say, in fact, you know what here's all do 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:57.960 is we actually actually looked at all the advanced economic 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:00.680 countries in the world at free ap and be compared like, 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:04.080 how's everyone doing, both in terms of just desper capita, 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:07.880 in terms of like the actual policy responses, economic restrictions, 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.440 school closures. And you know, as time has gone on, 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:14.920 the grade that we would give the US as declined 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:18.640 because as time has gone on, we've been the country 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.280 that has actually the most lockdowns or some of the 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:24.880 most severe lockdowns. Not the most severe in the world 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:27.480 right now that goes to Australia New Zealand, but but 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:30.880 over the over the eleven month period, if you add 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.000 it all up, particularly because of California, New York, the 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.239 Blue or states where they've been much more aggressive on lockdowns, 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:41.080 we've had some of the most severe economic restrictions, and 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.800 yet California is seeing massive spike in cases the lockdowns 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:47.760 aren't doing anything right. So you put all that together, 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:51.280 the school closures, the lockdowns, and yet the spike in 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:55.080 cases and you have to say that that the US 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:57.920 is somewhere between a D and F, you know, overall 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.480 at this point. And it didn't have to be that way, 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:02.600 because we were going to have death due to COVID. 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:05.079 We were going to have people who are vulnerable who 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:07.160 were hit just like in every other country, every other 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.640 large country that's developed has had that problem. But where 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:14.280 we really have UM, what the beds, so to speak, 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.040 is that we did things that we're provably not working, 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.720 like keeping schools closed, like keeping the economy shut down 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:25.679 in certain states, instead of focusing on the real problem, 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:28.600 which was nursing homes and the elderly living in these 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.440 kind of dorm room like facilities where we need to 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:33.400 do more to protective. Finally we started to get the 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.760 message around that, but by the time we did, UH, 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:39.840 the virus had already spreads throughout those communities. All Right, 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.400 if the country gets somewhere between A D and F, 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.560 what does the American media get in the way that 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.760 they have covered uh COVID. In your mind, as a 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.240 guy who looks at the data, what grade would you 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:55.880 give the overall American media? Oh? I mean, f is 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:58.280 a generous grade, right, like you, you'd have to give 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.400 them worse than enough, because I mean the way that 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:06.280 media behaved was was almost a sabotage, uh, the way 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:10.520 we we responded to COVID. In fact, there's there's probably 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:13.839 no institution, if you can call the media an institution, 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:18.840 there's no institution that is more responsible for how bad 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:22.400 the US COVID response has been than the media. Just 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:25.920 to give some examples, So as you talked about Clay, 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.679 we know from the data that the overwhelming risk in 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:33.959 terms of severe illness, hospitalization death from from COVID nineteen 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:36.480 is in the elderly. And yet if you actually pull 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:39.400 average Americans and ask them, like, what's your what's my 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.800 perception of my risk from COVID, it's actually young people 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.480 who are the most scared of dieing of COVID because 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:48.240 the media has been telling them day in day out 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.520 for a year, for for months now that that they're 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:53.520 the ones who should be scared witless because they're the 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:55.880 ones not going to school, they're the ones on zoom 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.400 all the time with their teachers or whatever. So that's 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:03.400 just wanting example of the incredible malpractice that has gone 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:05.840 and you marry that with this part as an environment 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.520 where there's there's a there was has been such a 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:12.200 desire to blame Trump for everything that has gone wrong 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:18.000 that people haven't been willing to see or examine where 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.840 where things really have gone wrong. So the all the 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:24.960 things that the Governor Cuomo continues to do to mess 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:27.480 up the COVID response in New York for example, or 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:32.040 the restrictions in California that aren't working for example, or 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:35.480 the fact that you know schools if you you know, 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:39.400 have you seen Clay any articles about COVID breakouts and 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.320 schools for the last four months, and you know that 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:46.720 if there was one school in Kansas that had had 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.440 like people in the hospital because of COVID and because 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:51.320 they reopened the school, it would be on the front 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.400 page of the New York Times. So there's basically been 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:59.720 no incident of serious COVID problems from reopening schools. But 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:02.760 as anyone written any think pieces about wow, we've we've 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:05.080 kind of got the school thing wrong. No, it's been 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:07.480 this kind of people who moved on to the next 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.520 drive by thing to complain about. So yeah, I mean, look, 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.319 the media, the media has been terrible and you can 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:16.640 sort of shake your fist at the television or Twitter 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:18.360 or the New York Times or whatever you want to do. 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:21.840 But I try to think about it more in terms of, Okay, 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:25.240 the media has been terrible, what is the solution, right, 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:27.240 So if we ever have this kind of problem again, 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:31.839 how do we think about having a a better flow 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.800 of information to everyday people? And that's a harder thing 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:38.080 to think about. I mean, I I can't say that, Clay, 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:40.640 that I have the answer today because if you think 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:44.000 about the public health establishment, which which comes in alongside 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:46.960 the media for a lot of a lot of my criticism, 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:50.040 you know, you have the so called leading experts at 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:52.560 the leading universities saying the same things at the media, 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.120 saying that everyone needs to be terrified, hide in their 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.440 basements and uh and not go out. And that's the 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.200 only way to solve this problem. And that's ah, that's 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:03.640 not a sustainable policy. As we're seeing, like why is 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.720 it the COVID is COVID case rising today. It's because 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:10.920 people cannot sit in their basements for a year. They 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.840 just can't. And and the public health profession understood that 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:18.880 before COVID, the consensus, the conventional wisdom. The excess expert 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.880 opinion then pre COVID was well, you can't lock down 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:26.760 the economy. That never works because people eventually stop listening 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:29.080 to you and just go about their business. So you 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:31.760 have to have a better strategy than that. That was 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:35.720 the conventional wisdom among experts a year ago, and it 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:39.720 isn't today. And that's a curious thing so much that 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:43.960 I want to unpack from that, and it is. It 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:46.680 is incredibly frustrating, I know to a lot of people 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:50.120 who are listening out there to see the data right 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.920 like you do, and to have your background and not 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:57.720 be able to convey it to everyone what the data says. 0:13:57.760 --> 0:13:59.960 And I always say, my wife says, I don't need 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:03.520 therapy because I get to say exactly what I think 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:06.960 every day, right for better or worse, uh, through my 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.240 radio show, through my television show. Like I'm fortunate in 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:13.240 many ways to be a member of the media, but 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:16.240 there are people out there who will come after me 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:20.520 on a regular basis because what I am sharing is 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:24.240 not the quote unquote conventional wisdom, right, or they'll say, well, 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:26.400 you're not a doctor, how in the world are you 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:29.840 able to have an opinion on the whether school should 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:33.000 be open or not. And my answer is, if you 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:37.320 are a reasonably intelligent person, being able to analyze data 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:42.480 is one of the most integral assets of any human anywhere. 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:47.840 Right risk analysis is arguably the most fundamental trait that 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:51.840 has allowed humans to exist and propagate as a species. 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:55.400 Right Like, that's innately what we all have to do. 0:14:56.200 --> 0:15:00.280 But it seems to me that in this social media age, uh, 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:02.560 you know, if you said what I've been saying and 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:06.080 what you've been saying four months, Hey, elderly people, people 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:09.960 with suppressed immune systems, people with major health related concerns 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:14.120 are who COVID is attacking. We need to protect those people, 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:17.479 but we need to maintain the rest of our economy 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:21.160 and let our society function. The immediate response was, Oh, 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:23.920 you don't care about Grandma's You want everybody to die. 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:27.200 It seems too in many ways have been a fundamentally 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:32.120 broken marketplace of ideas because the right ideas haven't won 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.840 and carried the day, either in media or public policy. 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:39.280 It seems to me, you know, Clay, there's a there's 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.000 an analogy or a comparison. We can make the sports 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:46.480 here because you think about the whole moneyball sports analytics thing. Right, 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:48.840 all these people who came in who are sort of 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.200 nerdy ivy leaguers or whatever, just people who are math nerds, 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:55.160 never had played the sport, and they were always clashing 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:59.280 with the scouts, who are veterans of the game, you know, 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:03.120 using their intuition, their feel for the athletes to have 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:05.280 that view of UH. And then they always looked down 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:07.000 on the nerds. They said, oh, you know, you don't 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:09.320 you don't get it because you've never played the game. 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:11.040 You you know, you know, you've never seen anything. But 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:17.040 the nerds ultimately have have one that that that debate there, right, 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.520 and and and and the differences in sports. The right 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.520 answer wins right, the right answer wins championships, and the 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:26.080 right answer puts the best team on the field or 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:29.320 on the court. And so you can be vindicated if 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:33.520 you if you apply those unconventional UH methods to sports. 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:38.360 The difference in public policy is the tenure professors at 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:41.760 Harvard and Stanford, who more at Harvard than Stanford, we 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.520 should say, but but the tenure professors who say we 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:47.280 should we should keep schools closed and UH and and 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.160 terrify all the teenagers and the children. They're still Harvard professors, 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:53.320 they're still in position, so there's already some of them 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:56.480 are joining the Biden administrations. So in that sense, that's 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.720 the one thing about public policy is it's not a meritocracy. 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:04.119 Wrong ideas, wrong policies can continue to be conveyed and 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.040 continue to be in force even if they've been proven wrong. 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.960 That's fascinating and that's well said, and it's true, and 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:14.480 that's why I've always argued that sports represents the ultimate 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:19.360 foundation of the meritocratic ideal, because everybody's goal is to win, 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.960 and whoever makes it more likely that you are going 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:26.479 to win gets employed, right whether I mean, you can 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:28.919 have Antonio Brown, who's got all sorts of different issues 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.480 off the field, but if the Tampa Bay Buccaneers decide 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:32.920 that he makes it more likely they're gonna win a 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:34.880 football game, and if they think Tom Brady can work 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.280 with him, they're gonna find a way to bring him in. Right. 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:41.480 A talent ultimately trumps everything. Almost there is a limit 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:45.040 where your problems can exceed your talents, but that's relatively rare, 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:49.080 and there's a way too immediately vindicated and frankly in 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:52.720 the world that you're coming from which is the capitalistic environment, 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:57.199 a market based economy over time rewards in theory, the 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:00.600 best business so long as they're certain, you know, as 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:02.520 long as there's not a monopoly involved, as long as 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:05.720 there's not some sort of untoward practice taking place. But 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:09.560 that's why capitalism ultimately works so well. Right as you do, 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:12.639 much like in sports, get a verdict on whether or 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:16.240 not your business made sense totally, I mean, and that's 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:18.840 you know, that's uh. You know, there are economists who 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:20.159 say it's like, look, you know, if you if you're 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.720 a business, you don't have your incentive is to be 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:26.080 as inclusive as possible, cause you want every customer, you 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.919 want the employees working for you. And now, obviously it 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.920 hasn't always worked that way historically, but that's not because 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.400 the previous system was a free market system. It wasn't 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:38.480 because there was the prejudice, there was the segregation, there 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:40.040 was a gym crow, there was the stuff going on 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:43.720 that really prevented people from taking advantage of the talent 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.879 that was all around them. And uh, and companies obviously 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.680 work hard to try to change that. How frustrating is 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:51.480 it to you as someone who has been sharing the 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:53.920 data from the from the moment this all started. Why 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:57.199 school should be open, the stratification of age, range of 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:01.640 death and how that can govern our decisions for that 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:06.159 not to have been inculcated fully into public policy, and 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:09.119 to see us here as we are now into a 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:13.880 new administration, not able to for instance, get kids back 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:17.000 in school. Because what drives me crazy Ovic and we're 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:18.919 talking to O vic Roy. I encourage you to go 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.760 follow him at ovic a v I K at a 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:25.320 v I K on Twitter. Be sure to catch live 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:28.520 editions of Outkicked. The coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:32.680 six am Eastern three am Pacific is. People who claim 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:37.480 that they care about equity the most are propounding now 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:42.800 the most inequitable outcome of our lives for the most part, 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:46.360 in requiring kids in public schools, very often in cities 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:48.720 who don't have WiFi at home, who may not have 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:52.679 parents at home, and who don't have access to outside 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:55.680 of school education, to be outside of school for a year. 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:57.960 I mean, it makes me want to pull my hair 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.440 out as a kid who went to public school K 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.600 through twelve and now is fortunate enough to live in 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:05.320 a district where my kids are in school, and I 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:07.880 got a kid in private school as well. But if 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:10.840 you have advantages, which I do, you can take advantage 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:14.080 of those opportunities and give your kids those advantages. But 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:17.440 most kids don't have that in this country. It's infuriating 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:22.600 to me, you know, totally. I mean the most. I 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.359 tend not to get frustrated play and just because, like, 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:28.600 if you do what I do for a living, which 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:31.480 is trying to persuade people of your ideas and things 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:33.520 like that, if you're gonna get frustrated when people don't 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:35.800 listen to you, this isn't a job for you, right 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:38.200 Like you have to be you have to be willing 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:40.080 to accept that not everyone's gonna agree with you, and 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.080 that it's hard work. If you've got a contrarian or 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:44.879 dissenting opinion about the way the world should be, or 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:46.639 the way policy should be, or the way the law 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:49.560 should be, it's your It's up to you to persuade 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:51.800 everyone else that you're right, and that's gonna mean talking 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:53.360 a lot of people who disagree with you. So that's 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:56.560 if you don't have that sort of temperament, then you 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:58.199 know you can't really do this kind of thing. So 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:00.720 in that sense, I'm I'm a most really fine, but 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:04.480 I will say that the one, the one moment or 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:07.439 or period of time where I was most my blood 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.560 pressure was really arising, admittedly was a selfish one where 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:13.199 there was a point in time in the in the 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:15.359 spring or summer, I can't remember exactly what it was 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:19.359 now when the Austin the Travis County, which is the 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:22.080 county that contains Austin, Texas, where I live, there was 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:27.400 this unelected Travis County Interim Health Authority that basically said 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:29.879 all the private schools that have to stay closed along 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:32.760 with the public schools. And that was like, you know, 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:34.399 for me, because I, like you, I can afford to 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:36.359 send my kids to private school, which again is you know, 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:38.479