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March 15, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:25
March 15, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Time Text
I have just I've just figured it out.
It's another drive-by media hit, folks, on this gasoline price panic out there.
I have it here right in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.
We're back.
Third hour of today's excursion into broadcast excellence is underway.
All right.
You ought to be on the program today.
Hi, my name is Rush Limbaugh, by the way.
I'm America's anchorman, America's Truth Detector, and the general all-around good guy here from my own institute.
I have an institute.
It's the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882.
Email address, rush at EIB EIBnet.com.
All right, here's a culprit.
Average gas price at highest level since last November.
AAA reports.
Gasoline prices are at their highest level since last November 9th with the current nationwide average price of self-serve regular at $2.36 per gallon.
This is according to the AAA's online fuel gauge report.
AAA, the nation's largest organization for motorists, said the high prices are partly due to oil prices near $64 per barrel, as well as seasonal maintenance being performed at gasoline refineries, which temporarily limits gasoline production.
AAA said current prices are somewhat puzzling, however, since domestic gasoline inventories are near year ago levels when a gallon of self-serve was just $2.03 a gallon, or 33 cents less expensive than today.
Hawaii has the highest price in the nation, $2.72 per gallon.
California, New York have the next highest average prices at $257 and $247, respectively.
So there's also another factor in this.
Apparently, the barrel price has come down, but the pump price, the barrel price for oil has come down.
The pump price hasn't.
So I know this, I knew something was up yesterday, even without knowing.
When I left here yesterday to go home, I have never seen so much traffic on the road.
I mean, the line to get across the bridge had to be a mile long.
I don't know what was going on.
But even I wasn't trying to cross the bridge, but I could see it as I was going the other way.
But I mean, it was, there was a 75-year-old lady with bottled blonde hair driving a Corvette convertible in front of me, barely doing 15 miles an hour, holding everybody behind his back.
But traffic was all over the place.
Do you have to understand where I live?
We search for the highest prices, and we pay them so that we can brag about it.
And that explains, I knew the gas price was up yesterday, so people went out and filled up at the highest price they could find, and they were driving around.
Now, this is clear what this is.
They're just trying to stir people up about this, and then we had these hearings yesterday and so forth and so on.
I got an email.
This always happens.
Dear Rush, gas where I am in Delaware was $1.49 pre-Katrina, then rose to over $3 a gallon.
I'm still waiting for it to come down to pre-Katrina levels.
One of these days, there's going to be a whistleblower when it happens.
You're going to eat crow.
Love you anyway.
Lots of laughs.
Irene thinks it's going to be a whistleblower that will somehow divulge the truth behind the gouging going on.
Now, here's my question for you.
Here's my question.
Now, be honest.
I'm not asking you to call and answer this.
I want you to be honest with yourself.
How many of you, honestly, honestly, I know there are going to be some, but how many of you actually note the daily price of gasoline when you go in to get some?
I know if it's going to spike to three bucks after Katrina and so forth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But if it goes up a couple cents or five cents, you really know it?
Or does it take a drive-by media report to tell you that you're being ripped off and gouged and you don't even know it because you don't even think you are I'm just curious.
I want you to answer that question yourself because I want you to ask yourself if you are a dupe, an unwitting dupe of the drive-by media and the AAA just trying to get people all revved up here.
Because this is exactly what I mean by drive-by media.
They drive in and they lob their little bullet points.
They lob their little mortar fire and they get everything all stirred up and everything's out of whack.
And then they head back to the convertible, head back down the road, ready to fire into some other crowd a few minutes later with some other story.
That's why I just want you to ask yourself, because I'm trying to wean you people off of the drive-by media.
It can ruin your attitude.
It can ruin your – and I – if you're waiting for prices to go down to pre-Katrina levels, you're going to be waiting a while because that just isn't going to happen for a whole host of reasons.
I'm not going to waste your time.
I've got something else that I want to talk to you about.
I was reading a Drudge Report today.
I don't know how to tell you people this, but Africa is literally splitting apart.
The continent of Africa is coming apart.
Normally, new rivers, new oceans, new mountains are born in slow motion.
But the AFAR triangle near the Horn of Africa is another story.
A new ocean is forming there with staggering speed, at least by geological standards.
Africa will eventually lose its horn.
Now, this AFAR-FR triangle, this is near Ethiopia, that borders on the Red Sea.
And it's just right across the little body of water there from Yemen.
And it's a story from the German magazine Spiegel, Der Spiegel.
It's the English language version.
And they've got nine pictures that will show you exactly what's happening.
A team went out there.
They had only just stepped out of their helicopter onto the desert plains of central Ethiopia when the ground began to shake under their feet.
The pilot shouted for the scientists to get back to the helicopter.
Then it happened.
The earth split open.
Crevices began racing toward the researchers like a zipper opening up.
After a few seconds, the ground stopped moving.
And after they had recovered from their shock, Ayalu and his colleagues realized that they had just witnessed history.
For the first time, ever human beings were able to witness the first stages in the birth of an ocean.
It's a pretty long story, but it describes what's happening.
Apparently, this is what they term the Earth's biggest construction project, where three tectonic plates are coming together here in the Afar triangle of Africa.
Recent months have seen hundreds of crevices splitting the desert floor, and the ground has slumped by as much as 100 meters, 328 feet.
At the same time, scientists have observed magma rising from deep below as it begins to form what will eventually become a basalt ocean floor.
Geologically speaking, it won't be long until the Red Sea floods the region.
The ocean that will be born will split Africa apart.
The FR triangle, which cuts across Ethiopia, is the largest construction site on the planet.
Three tectonic plates meet there with the African and Arabic plates drifting apart along two separate fault lines by one centimeter a year.
A team of scientists working with Christopher Vignet of the Paris Laboratory of Geology reported on the phenomenon in a 2006 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research.
While the two plates move apart, the ground sinks to make room for the Red Sea in the Gulf of Aden.
And so, as I say, it's pretty fascinating.
A chain of volcanoes that runs along the roughly 3,700-mile-long East African rift system offers further testimony to the breaking apart of the continent.
In some areas around the outer edges of the rift system, the Earth's crust is already cracked open, making room for the magma below.
From the Red Sea to Mozambique to the south, dozens of volcanoes have formed, best known being Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Niragungo.
These fiery mountains, too, will one day sink into the sea.
Now, they've calculated 10 million years, the East African rift system will be as large as the Red Sea.
And when that happens, Africa will lose its horn.
10 million years, that's how we're not talking about tomorrow.
Well, yes, we have time to fix this.
But you know, when I read this story, it's just typical.
This would have to be happening in Africa.
They're already leading the world in disease and poverty, and they just can't catch a break.
Just can't.
We got Bono trying to help out.
We got Bob Geldof trying to help out.
We got President Bush trying to help out.
And Ethiopia.
I mean, Ethiopia is already a desert anyway.
There's a famine going on in Ethiopia.
A communist government doesn't feed its people trying to wipe them out.
Now, now Africa said to hell with it, it's splitting apart.
Why couldn't this happen here?
Why couldn't this happen in the United States?
We're the ones that deserve this kind of tumult and chaos.
But the people who are going to be hardest hit by this, as always, are the poor.
Even Mother Nature spares them nothing, folks.
It's just a shame.
Hey, here's another contribution to yesterday's drive-by media panic on gasoline prices.
Actually, this is what it's this.
Pat Leahy cited this yesterday.
This is a story from 2004, USA Today, but Leahy cited this.
You heard in the soundbite we played that mergers always lead to price increases.
You want to hear how much?
The General Accounting Office tallied 2,600 petroleum company mergers from 1991 to 2000, 13% of them involving refining and marketing.
Researchers found that six of eight mergers studied led to gas prices averaging two cents a gallon higher than otherwise.
Two cents.
Gasoline price went up two cents after six of eight mergers.
Two mergers led to declines of about one cent a gallon.
Okay, gas prices go up.
Well, there's leaky Leahy adding to the drive-by.
These mergers are raising prices.
You're living in nicer homes as a result.
Blah, blah, blah.
Now, I want to go back.
I use an analogy now and then, and every time I do, some of you send me caustic, rude emails upbraiding me for making a false analogy, and that is the water industry.
Do you know what water is per gallon?
If you go buy bottled water per gallon, go out there, it's 12 bucks, something like that, maybe even higher.
And you know, there's not a whole lot of exploration to do.
There's not a whole lot of refining.
We'll have a whole lot of environmental regulations.
The water, you know, big water guys don't get called up before the Senate to explain their gouging or any of this.
And people always say, but Rush, I don't buy water by the gallon, and I don't use water by the gallon, and I don't need water to get to and from work.
No, you only need it to live.
But you'd be surprised how much water you use.
Now, not all of it's priced at the same level of bottled water.
I mean, you cook, you take a shower, and so forth.
You're using every bit as much water as you're using gasoline.
It's close to it.
If the price of, you know, if the public works guys, you know, from the town water supply ever decide to get in on a bottled water craze themselves, look out.
And they're a government operation.
I mean, it's at some point anything can happen.
We're back to this again.
Maybe your doctor should write up a grocery list to help lower your cholesterol, suggest a small study that showed a rigid diet seemed as effective as cholesterol-lowering pills.
The upshot of this is, oh, damn, I almost threw it on the floor.
The upshot of this is tofu and oatmeal lower cholesterol.
Folks, I don't know about you.
I'm not playing this time.
The last time this oat thing came up, it was oat bran.
And oat bran was supposed to clean us all out and make us healthier, and it didn't.
They had to announce some years later it was worthless.
Now, tofu and oatmeal will reduce cholesterol.
If you want to jump on this never-ending health bandwagon, go right ahead.
But I'm not.
The first purge of city voters in Milwaukee, the first purge of city voter rolls since at least 2001, resulted in about 105,000 names being dropped, mostly because they were listed at old addresses that were no longer correct.
The number amounted to about 23% of the names that were on the voter rolls in Milwaukee.
Officials had said they weren't sure if the rolls were purged after the 2000 election.
Neil Ulbrecht, the assistant director of the City Election Commission, said the names purged were primarily those of people who had moved.
23% of the voters moved in five years?
23% moved?
If this keeps up, these blue states aren't going to stay blue.
That's the point here.
Well, maybe they will.
That means 105,000 people voted that may not have been around.
Never know.
Okay, people have been patiently waiting.
We go to the phones.
Willis in Denver, I'm glad you called.
Welcome.
Greetings, old wise one.
Thank you, sir.
Hey, I got a question for our kids in D.C. If they're so bloody concerned about big oil making money, why aren't they going after the Goldman Sachs?
Why aren't they going after J.P. Morgan, the trading houses?
Oh, yeah.
Do you see that?
They're the ones.
The profits and the bonuses those people are paying out?
Oh, yeah.
But they're the ones that drive the market.
They're the funds.
Them and the new hedge funds that are in there.
That's right.
That's exactly right.
It is not big oil.
Big oil is a seller of commodity.
Exactly right.
If you're long the commodity, which oil is, you don't buy, you sell.
Exactly, exactly.
The same with unleaded gasoline and heating oil.
I mean, to blame the rise on the New York Mercantile Exchange in crude oil and natural gas on the producing community shows the colossal ignorance of our representatives.
They do not know how much it's worth.
No, It doesn't show that at all.
It doesn't show that at all.
John Corzon, the governor of New Jersey, former CEO and grand poo-bah at Goldman Sachs.
These guys all know that all they're doing, it's no different than the port deal.
The AAA comes out with this drive-by media report that gasoline prices are up a nickel or so.
Blame it on oil.
Huh?
Blame it on oil.
Well, no, but they know that the American people are going to feel like they're being gouged and used and abused.
And so all they're doing is pandering.
So they bring these oil guys up there and they bring, and then they go out to the cameras.
We're going to make sure that this gouging stops.
And so they know full well what's happening.
They know the market determines the price.
Well, Lundberg Index, whatever you want to say.
They're just pandering, just like the port deal.
That's all they're doing.
And that's why I'm a little agitated over this.
Folks, I can prove a point to you.
I have been suggesting to you for the last number of months, but really intensely this week and last week, if you want to improve your life, turn off the television news for just a week.
Try for three days.
Listen to this program, but just turn it off.
You will be amazed at how different your perspective on your day is and your perspective on your life.
I am living proof.
I didn't even know about this drive-by media hit from the AAA on gasoline price.
I had a great night last night.
I had a great morning.
I was on a roll with a great show, and then somebody starts calling, complaining to me about gasoline prices, and all of a sudden they started rolling in an email.
I said, what the hell happened?
I didn't even know because I don't watch the news at night.
I pay people to do it now.
I do my own research and I have other ways of getting the news, but I'm not going to watch these clowns on television.
It's just, it's dispiriting.
It's doom and gloom.
I don't waste my time with it anymore.
The only time television comes on is when 24 is on, when the Sopranos are on, or when I'm going to watch a movie.
Pure and simple.
I don't watch it anymore.
I can't stand it.
I don't learn anything from it.
And I generally get mad.
And I don't want to come in here the next day sounded mad all the time.
So I didn't know that this drive-by media hit from the AAA on gasoline, which I've already crumpled up and thrown away.
So I don't even know what the details of the price increase were, but that doesn't matter.
What got everybody all out of whack is they think the barrel price is coming down while a pump price is going up.
And it ought not be that way.
But this last caller nailed it.
There's so many people in the futures market on this, selling long, selling short, you know, long options, short options.
Some people are betting on the price to go up, some betting on it to go down.
That's long and short.
And that affects the futures market.
You've got existing stocks, all these factors, the refineries reduce capacity usually this time of year to gear up for the, you know, do some maintenance to gear up for the summer driving season.
I'll make you a prediction.
It won't be long before gasoline price is going to start creeping up again.
It'll just happen.
It happens every spring.
And then we'll get panic stories about summer driving season.
Will it impact vacations?
And the price will go down just as the summer starts.
Mark my words.
Make book on it right now.
Spreading good cheer, optimism, and the concept of enjoying life.
Each day here on the one and only Excellence in Broadcasting Network, 800-282-2882.
Somebody in the email said, Rush, these geologists are lying to everybody about Africa splitting apart.
There's nothing going on over there other than Halliburton is digging a giant subterranean pipeline so they can get oil that we're stealing from Iraq straight into where we want it to go without having to use all these tankers faster than having it be shipped on the oceans.
Now, Mr. Snerdley asked me during the break, he said, you know, You better be careful because when you say things like people where you live, people where I live, search for the highest price and then pay that so that they can brag about it.
He said, You better be careful.
They're going to believe you.
Well, you should.
It's true.
Bragging rights are big things here.
I do it.
So, yes, I don't actively seek the highest price.
I just don't care what the price is.
You know, when I go buy a car, I don't waste time bargaining.
And it's sort of like trying to pay cash at the doctor.
They don't know what to do.
Go out there, see the car you want.
I say, I want it.
Get it ready in five minutes.
I'm driving it out there.
You can't do that.
It's a dealer prep.
No, don't sell me anything else.
I don't want the undercarriage protection.
I don't want any of this stuff.
I know it.
Just give me the car.
I see the car.
I like it.
Here's the check.
I want to go.
Because I hate shopping.
And if you see what you want, the price is what it is.
Well, you're going to negotiate them down under $5,000,000, $7,000.
Pip, peep, peep, yahoo.
Oh, Snerdley's rolling his eyes now.
No, I'm serious.
It says buying a car is like buying anything else.
The process of buying it is a pain in the rear, but getting it is what's fun.
Getting out of the store is the second most enjoyable aspect of buying anything.
Going into the store is the worst aspect of it.
In fact, if you don't know the truth, the dealership brings cars to me and I pick from those.
I don't go to the dealership.
Well, they brought it right here.
I never went to the dealership to get my car, never stepped foot in there.
So I wasn't making it up.
Big C, I told you so here, folks.
Workers who lose their jobs and collect unemployment insurance stay out of work for 21 weeks on average, more than twice as long as those who don't collect the benefit.
It's just axiomatic.
I've said this each time we extend unemployment benefits.
Politicians do this to show their big heart, their compassion, blah, blah, blah.
Just promoting unemployment is just promoting it.
And I've gotten beat up on the phones.
People go, you don't understand how hard it is.
Yes, I do, but I also know that if you're going to sit there and live on unemployment, you're not even coming close to maximizing your potential.
The report obtained by the Associated Press, as though it's some big secret, said the finding is consistent with economists' assumptions that workers collecting unemployment benefits can search longer for a more desirable job.
That's the exact wrong way to look at this.
Anyway, the investigators could not explain some of their findings, such as why women appear to be more likely to get unemployment insurance than men, or why married workers tend to be more likely than unmarried workers to get benefits.
At any rate, unemployment compensation keeps people from getting a job.
If you have unemployment compensation, you'd be out of work on average 21 weeks.
If you don't have it, eight weeks.
It's just called common sense and necessities.
Senator John Kerry, who once served in Vietnam, Democratic presidential nominee 2004, possible candidate in 2008, says his party does have a message for the electorate: vote for change.
That's it.
Don't let anybody tell you the way Democrats don't know what we stand for.
We do.
Vote for change.
That's it.
In a nutshell.
Cindy in Marshall, Texas.
Welcome to the program.
Great to have you with us.
Hello.
I cannot believe I'm getting to talk to you first.
Oh, thank you so much.
It's very sweet of you.
My husband has worked for an oil company for some 25 years, and we remember the late 80s when the price of a barrel, a gallon, a barrel of oil, sunk to like $9 or so.
Yeah, I do too.
And we had people lost their jobs.
We had wells that had to be shut in and drilling rigs that sat idle.
Yeah, I know.
And I don't remember any congressional hearings about how they could help the oil industry out.
There wasn't.
There weren't any.
I remember those days.
I cite them on this program frequently.
The rest of the country was in a massive boom.
Well, we were coming out of the rig and tech.
We were in a massive economic boom.
We were growing through the roof, but the Louisiana and Texas oil business was floundering because they couldn't bring oil out of the ground at the price the worldwide barrel price was, and actually had to cap some wells forever.
And it's always been, I always use it to make the point that even in great economic times, there are certain people who get hurt when prices go down.
Like we've had low interest rates and low home mortgage rates, but people in the elderly population who live on interest from whatever, if the interest rate's 1% or 2%, they're not doing everybody loses at some point while all things are going great.
And even when times are bad, there are some people that score big.
Well, this ought to make the little twit from Rhode Island that called you earlier ought to make you mad.
Frankly, I don't care what the price of the calamity gas is.
That's off.
Now, wait a minute.
Wait a minute, Cindy.
That's awfully heartless of you to say about a fellow citizen, even if it is from Rhode Island.
Well, if you cannot afford it, you know, consider what kind of car you're driving.
The price of the gas and the maintenance cost.
No.
No, no, no.
I knew you would lost touch on this.
You have to understand gasoline is so important.
The oil companies shouldn't even be making a profit.
The price should be as low as possible at that point where no oil company or gasoline company makes profit.
Do it for the good of the country.
Oh, yes.
I'm sure that's what every Democrat would want me to do.
Let me tell you something, more than just Democrats.
There are a lot of people out there who don't, yes, who are even apolitical, who don't understand economics, who think that the last time I thought this was when I was six.
And my dad set me straight.
When I was six years old or 10, whatever, I was big in the space program.
I was fascinated by it.
I'll never forget the first cover of Time magazine that had Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom and who was it?
I forget the three original Redstone astronauts.
I'll never forget this.
My mom got me a Redstone rocket for Christmas, a little plastic model.
She even knitted me a sweater with mercury capsules on it.
I was so big in the space program.
And we were doing this, don't forget, to beat the Russians.
Sputnik was up there spying on us, who knows doing what, causing AIDS, and we didn't even know it.
And so Kennedy and Nathan, we've got to get to the moon before these Russians were going to do it.
And the whole national effort.
And I asked my dad about it.
And I also heard how expensive, and I'm listening to the news reports of it and how expensive it's going to be to do this.
And I asked him, expensive, why doesn't everybody donate their effort for the sake of the nation?
We're in a battle with the Russians to get up there first.
Why don't we just donate it?
Why should this cost anything?
And that's when I got my first economics lesson.
I know it's instinctive for people to think of that, especially if they get intertwined with patriotism.
Do it for the good of the country.
We're at war.
We've got run over there threatening the nukes.
These people ought to sacrifice.
And I think I never got in school.
I never got in school the lesson in economics my dad gave me when I was just in single digits about the space program.
And then the second stage of my, and I began to educate myself on it, which can be a risky thing to do, but all through high school, and I think I had to take economics in college, and I don't even remember.
And I know there wasn't much of it in high school.
But it wasn't until I moved to Sacramento in 1984 and became friends with an agricultural economic specialist.
And I've referenced him on this program countless times, Professor Hazlett, Thomas W. Hazlett, who has now gone on to become a specialist in telecommunications economics and so forth.
But that's when the next stage of my, he was professor.
That's when the next stage of my economics education began.
I can just tell you that gas price reaction and the port deal is a classic example of how it's just not taught, how people don't understand it.
And so when I hear people say, need to do it for the good of the country, I'm reminded that was my attitude when I was seven.
So some people theoretically still have an economics education that is nothing beyond, well, there's no education.
They just have the same instinctive emotional reaction to things that they had when they were seven years old or that I had when I was seven.
And that's just a fault of the education system because it's, you know, economics appears hard because the professional economists use language that is intimidating.
It's like legal ease.
Only economics ease.
They start talking about various macroeconomics, microeconomics.
I don't even know all the terms.
I didn't pay attention to them.
But the basics of it, which is all I'm talking about, just the basics, you know, beyond supply and demand, are really not hard.
They're very logical, in fact.
If you find somebody that's good at explaining them to them, like it's, you know, a good teacher is hard to find.
If you get a good teacher, you'll probably be able to learn anything if you apply yourself to it.
Quick time out.
We'll be back.
Stay with us.
Just remember this, folks.
Big oil delivers oil despite the unrest in the Middle East.
Despite all the obstacles that's put in their way, they deliver the oil.
It's not just about price, it's about supply and what it takes to get the supply distributed at a price.
What's big government deliver?
Big government delivers drive-by soundbites and photo ops.
All right, Tom, and Los Los, well, all right.
Los Alamitos, Rush.
Los Alamitos, yes.
It doesn't say Alamitos up here.
It said it's something I've never heard of, and I couldn't believe it.
Well, your call screener knew that Racetrack was here, so you might get together with him.
Anyway, listen, my premise is I'm a capitalist, but Rush, something is smelly, and I'm mad about the gas industry, big oil.
Listen, big pizza, big fast food, all these other companies, they're begging for my business.
I've got to go through tons of commercials.
I get my mail loaded with 50% off coupons.
How come the gas companies don't have to do that at all?
There's no competition.
None.
Remember difference from the one across the street.
There's something wrong.
They are not playing capitalism.
That's what I'm upset about.
Okay.
This is not your fault, but you were so impassioned there that you were distorted somewhat in my rudimentary hearing device known as a cochlear implant.
What I gather you said was that big pizza, I heard that, and big fast food are always offering 50% off coupons.
They're offering different products, competition, and so forth.
They're fighting for my business constantly.
Back away from the phone just a little bit.
You can keep yelling, but back away from the phone.
They're fighting for my business constantly.
My mailbox is piled high with jobs.
Oh, okay.
I don't get anything from Chevron.
I don't get anything from mobile.
They don't have to.
You know, businesses who reduce the price or give it away or advertise it do that because they have to.
Rush, that's not true.
Come on.
Are you telling me that the pizza makers are going to be a little bit more powerful?
Wait a second.
For your analogy to hold, there would need to be an alternative fuel that big oil was competing with.
Big pizza is competing against big Colonel Sanders, against Big McDonald's, against the Taco.
No, no, no.
The Taco Bell guys who are trying to get people to think outside the bun, it's all food, but it's different cuisine.
But Rush, I want to see a gas company come out and say, are you tired of paying this price here?
We're going to pay a lower price to compete.
You don't see it.
Do you know that there is a federal regulation that limits the amount of that kind of pricing that can go on?
I think the oil companies are prevented from engaging in loss leadership, like selling below cost.
Okay.
The other companies you're talking about will do loss leader promotions now and then to try to increase business on the hopes that they keep their new arrivals.
It's really not the same.
Let me give you another analogy.
In New York, you have, I'm going to leave some, I can't help but leave these some out.
I'll just give you a list of my favorite places to go.
Patsy's, 21, Cafe Belude, Danielle, Le Cerque, Ben Benson's, none of them advertise.
And they're full every night.
They don't have to advertise.
They don't need to.
And you know how many restaurants there are in New York?
There are more restaurants in New York than there are people in Milwaukee.
And now some of the restaurants advertise.
The fast food guys do that you're mentioning.
But you don't, I mean, you just don't see it because they don't have to.
You think I don't know what I'm talking about, but big oil's got one product.
Rush, can I respond to that?
Yes, feel free.
Well, the reason why is because they have built a brand and they don't have to advertise.
I am actually in merchandise.
That's my business I own.
I have to hope my brand gets business based on quality that I've built over years.
Mobile doesn't do that.
Chevron doesn't do that.
I have to go there.
You know what?
They used to.
I can remember when I first started driving at age 16 and gasoline wasn't.
That's what they used to.
They don't now.
No, you had the standard gasoline or whatever it was.
Amoco was advertising at a better cleansing agent.
Mobile said, no, our gas is cleaner and more efficient.
You had that back then.
And maybe at some of the gas stations, you'll see some signage that says their gasoline's best.
But there is competition.
I just had a letter from a guy who lives two miles outside the Washington Beltway in a two-mile stretch.
The price of gasoline was at two miles, $2.19 up to $2.45.
There is competition in the price.
But they really don't have to advertise like the big pizza guys do.
Your audience right now.
Plus, big pizza doesn't have to refine the food.
Anybody can open a pizza parlor, but you and I can't start a big oil company.
Rush, your audience right now is waiting for a better answer than that.
I'm telling you right now, this is not, this is pathetic.
Are you telling me my audience and you have been let down?
I'm telling you that this is not economics.
I mean, we understand you when you talk about competition.
And here's another word, entrepreneurship.
There is none of that.
I couldn't start a gas company.
You know something, Tom?
You are not listening to me.
The only reason this, my answer was fairly brilliant, in fact.
The reason isn't penetrate.
The salient point that you missed is until there is an alternative fuel out there that is as readily available and is as good, serves the purpose, and is priced similarly to oil or gasoline, you're not going to get the kind of competition that you want.
It just isn't going to happen.
Plus, this is an industry, you know, everybody's income depends on this product.
Their jobs getting to and from kids to and from school.
That's why I say oil is the fuel of commerce and life on the planet.
As such, there's really you there, it's, I don't know, I've run out of time here, but you've really, you've hurt my feelings to tell me that my answer was pathetic.
That cuts to the quick.
I've never been told that before.
You know, oil is sold like any other commodity.
It's got very many uses.
Wheat and corn end up as things other than wheat and corn.
Oil is used for a whole lot of things besides gasoline and heating oil.
And it's just embarrassing how woefully uninformed some people are.
See you tomorrow, folks.
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