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May 1, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:19
May 1, 2006, Monday, Hour #2
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Okay, folks, when we started the program an hour ago, all we were getting on television was B-roll of immigrant protests from the past.
But now they're starting to amass out there.
They must be late risers.
Must be sleeping in today because they're just now gathering in Chicago, gathering in Atlanta, and all over the place.
So it'll be fascinating to watch if the U.S. economy actually does shut down today, because we're told that the economy can't survive without this element of the labor force.
Greetings and welcome back.
Rush Limbaugh, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
Your host for life, not retiring until every American agrees with me, which will happen.
800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program email address, rush at EIBNet.com.
If you read carefully, you can learn what this is really all about, folks.
The Associated Press filed a story yesterday.
Millions of migrants flood into the U.S. every year across a border, cutting straight through what once was Mexico.
A touch of history that haunts the immigration debate 158 years after the land changed hands.
Yes, my friends, an evil war is responsible for this.
The territory to the north, half of Mexico at the time, was ripped away in 1848 after a U.S. invasion that ended with the capture of Mexico City, the halls of Montezuma, as the U.S. Marine hymn terms it.
Conflict was called the most unjust war ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.
That was said by Ulysses S. Grant, who took part and later gained fame as commander of the Union side in the Civil War.
He was also America's 18th president.
Mexican politician Lucas Alemann chose almost the same words for the war, calling it the most unjust of which history can give example.
The loss changed Mexico's destiny, still tears at the country's heart.
Primary school textbooks harp on it.
Intellectuals often refer to it.
Museums are dedicated to it.
To the north, some anti-immigration activists see migrants as a threat to U.S. land and culture, part of a Spanish-speaking invasion that'll reclaim the American Southwest.
Their concern is fed by occasional Mexican references to the booming immigrant population as a reconquista or reconquest, and by the Mexican government's efforts to reinforce the migrants' ties to their homelands.
So basically, they're just retaking it, the land that they lost, that was unjustly taken from them in that evil war.
It's amazing what an oppressor nation we are, folks.
We just destroy so many people's lives.
We've destroyed so many futures to so many countless people in the world, haven't we?
And this is just the latest example.
Also from Mexico City, a demonstration by thousands of Mexican workers Friday to promote union solidarity turned into a protest against America's vast influence on Mexico's economy.
Many protesters saying that they'll take part in a boycott of all things gringo next week.
Waving signs saying, don't buy gringo products, long live the boycott.
About 3,000 workers with Mexico's state-owned electrical utility blocked traffic on a major highway, then marched two miles to a colonial plaza in the city.
Hell, they're shutting down their own country, too.
They're not content to try to shut us down.
Anybody want to talk about self-inflicted wounds?
Just how seriously is this being taken, however?
Because, folks, look, we've been through this countless times.
You know that a bunch of communist and socialist organizations have co-opted this whole movement.
I mean, it's no accidents on May Day.
This is the day in history where the Soviets would march their missiles and tanks and soldiers by the Kremlin reviewing stand and one Soviet leader after another because they died so frequently.
You had Brezhnev, then you had Andropov, then you had, I've forgotten them all, but they just, that's why Reagan never met with them.
He said, either not there long enough, but they die.
Gorbachev's the first one that hung around long enough to have a meeting with.
But that's where they tried to intimidate and threaten the world.
They were a third world country with a first world military.
And so this is the day, the environmental movement, this movement is now populated by displaced communist sympathizers.
Answer is one of the groups that's taken over this whole march.
And there are some people trying to distance themselves from it.
Don't want any part of it because it really is taking on a multifaceted turn.
It's not strictly protesting the immigration legislation going on in Washington.
This is an opportunity for a bunch of malcontents, losers who fail to.
And I'm not talking about the illegals.
I'm talking about the organizers, the multicultural crown.
These are basically life's losers.
Their lives are meaningless.
They haven't cut it.
They haven't succeeded in this country.
They desperately want to have meaning in their lives.
We all want to matter.
And these people don't, and they know it.
And so here's a chance to get on television.
Here's a chance to be in the media.
Here's a chance for 15 minutes of notoriety and fame and to take out all that anger on America as the reason these people are losers.
And so that really is what this has become.
As a result, Antonio Villaragosa, the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles in the modern era, will skip the huge pro-immigration rallies planned for today.
And you know why?
Mayor Villaragosa plans to meet with NFL officials in Dallas, leaving organizers feeling like a ship without a captain.
Oscar Sanchez, organizer of the Great American Boycott in Los Angeles, said the mayor's office previously told a group that he would speak at a downtown Los Angeles rally today, and then he backed out.
Instead, the mayor's going to be in Dallas speaking with NFL officials about the possibility of bringing a team back to Los Angeles.
In fact, they're talking about $700 or $800 million to refurbish the Coliseum act.
And San Diego Chargers are having trouble with the lease.
San Diego's out of money, the city.
There could be that there's some movement there, and Mayor Villaragosa has had to weigh the scales of importance here.
I mean, you've got on the one hand, a bunch of people taking a day off, going out there parching, marching and expressing their anger, contributing nothing to the economic impact today on Los Angeles, versus the possibility of getting an NFL team in your town.
And the mayor has not bull.
The mayor has just said football.
Football.
He says he wants no, that's exactly wants no campaign pictures because he knows who's co-opted the rally.
He doesn't want to be photographed at the rally.
He knows that this is not about what it's supposedly about.
But on the other hand, you think this trip to Dallas is just incidental?
L.A., that's not, snurdly, you don't know football from soccer, so don't say it.
He's there serious.
LA wants a team.
The fans of L.A. don't, but the mayor does.
The fans don't.
No, the fans get better games on TV without a team there.
There's no home team telecast rule.
Been there, done that.
So, Heathway, he just decamped.
Not only is he not showing up, he is out of town.
And the organizers feel betrayed at predicting 2 million to 3 million people going to flood the streets of Los Angeles alone.
Oscar Sanchez says, and he's the organizer of the LA event, he says, it has been advertised everywhere, and he is the mayor of the second largest city of the country where a boycott's going to happen.
It would feel like a ship without a captain if Villarigosa is not here.
A Villarigosa spokesman said the mayor had never promised to be present at the immigration rally today and said that his Dallas trip had been in the works for a long time.
Now, Antonio Villarigosa, the son of a Mexican immigrant, long championed immigrant rights, but he has urged restraint in the May Day event, asking protesters to be lawful and respectful and for children to stay in school.
Speaking of that, from Carpentersville, Illinois, pumping homemade signs, chanting and cheering about 800 Lakewood school pupils.
And these are fifth graders we're talking about, fourth and fifth graders.
What do you call that now?
I mean, junior high is now middle school.
Is it still elementary school?
Still called elementary school?
Good.
Haven't screwed up that term.
These little fifth and fourth, third graders Friday morning were marching and cheering and protesting, and they were shouting, what do you want?
Recess.
When do you want it?
Now.
Responding to the Lakewood principal's decision last week to cut the pupils' extra 15-minute recess and the cafeteria snack line, the fifth and sixth graders filed out of classes at 8.45 last week on Friday and marched around the school's perimeter with their teachers.
Standing cross-armed outside the screw, the principal, Tim Laversky, watched the snaking line of children, said he'll reconsider his decisions aimed at increasing learning time and promoting healthy eating if he is persuaded by the pupils' arguments.
Young people in particular need to learn that they have the ability to make a change in a democracy, Laversky said.
One stick breaks, but you can't break a bundle of sticks.
They're becoming a bundle.
All right, so we're going to let the inmates run the asylum.
I know the teachers put them up to it, but the kids are still out there doing it.
So you've got a bunch of fifth and sixth graders, and now it's going to be used as a learning exercise.
It's just like what was it?
It's France.
You pass a new work law and the people of France say, work, screw that, and march by the millions in protest.
You know, the saying in France is, it is not the duty of the employee to show up and work.
It's the duty of the employer to pay.
And so the French government caved.
That's it for de Ville Pen.
And Chirok's in big trouble, too.
Nobody, they're not popular, but they caved, and they also caved on their anti-smoking law.
I mean, they protest and the government surrenders.
Traditional French behavior.
But now it looks like the principal here in Carpentersville, Illinois, depending on what kind of persuasion the fifth and sixth graders can offer him, might rescind his policy.
So it's, I guess it's the month, the day, the week of protests.
We've got, what do we have out there just to chronicle all these?
Saturday, big protest for the anti-war crowd.
You had Cindy Sheehan out there.
I wonder if anybody pays attention to who dresses her because it's getting bad.
Who else?
Susan Sarandon.
You had, oh, the Reverend Sharp still, still not at Duke, because Malik Zulu Shabazz is down at Duke today, and they've issued eight demands.
I have the eight demands that Shabazz has demanded.
The new Black Panther Party.
Well, the media was there.
What was funny, what was funny was that the Shabazz and the new Black Panthers, they dress themselves like green berets, except all in black, and they march armed.
You know, they did leave the guns.
Okay, so they're marching and they're demanding whatever they're demanding and nobody can hear it because a news helicopter is drowning them out.
So anyway, we have Malik Zulu Shabazz.
We have the school kids in Carpentersville protesting.
We had the Washington turnout for the Darfur protest.
That's George Clooney's big deal.
And we've got the illegal immigrant rights protest here going throughout the country.
So anyway, there's something in the air or something in the water.
And basically, it's a bunch of people that are unhappy and trying to find meaning in their lives and know that they're losing their grip on the control of the country.
Quick timeout.
We'll be back and resume right after this.
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.
El Rushball, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all-feeling, all concerned, all everything, maha-rushy.
I don't believe this.
Fox has their chat show on now, their 1 o'clock Eastern chat show.
And the other debate topic is: does America have the right to protect its own borders?
Does America have the right to protect its own borders?
They've obviously got somebody who says no, and they're trying to do interesting television, but crying out loud, if you don't have borders, you don't have a country.
Here are the eight demands from Malik Zulu-Shabazz of the new Black Panther Party.
We demand, one, a vigorous prosecution and full investigation of the Duke rape case and other assaults on campus.
We demand an end to all hostile attacks on the assault victim.
We demand an end to private meetings with college presidents and the police and the mayor.
We demand the defendants be tried and convicted of rape in Durham County.
We demand the indicted students and other students in the incident be expelled immediately.
We demand an end to irresponsible racist media reporting a victim and her family.
We demand that the crime scene be converted to a rape crisis center.
You know, in the old days, they would have wanted to burn it down, so this is progress.
And we demand an end to sexual abuse and rape in general.
300 to 400 people were there assembled.
So that's Malik Zulu Shabazz.
By the way, one of the two defendants, Reed Seligman's lawyers, file a motion today demanding that the DA, this Nifwong guy, be pulled off the case because they cite irresponsibility and incompetence based solely on the fact that he's up for re-election.
That election is tomorrow, by the way.
The primary is up, election is tomorrow.
You probably heard about this.
The lineup, they did a photo lineup for the victim to choose her assailants, and they didn't show her anybody except lacrosse team members.
It was impossible for her, in other words, to not pick somebody from the lacrosse team.
I mean, that's just, it's more than absurd.
I mean, that's not even accidental.
That has to be something done purposefully.
All right, let's go to the audio soundbites.
Now, folks, we spent a lot of time on Friday on gasoline prices, and I've got some things on it today, not nearly as much.
And I don't want anybody to think that we're overdoing this, but there's a reason.
I want to spend some time on it.
There's a reason why we do everything in this program.
I don't care what satire or parody or a serious discussion of the issues.
There's always a point to be made with everything that we do.
And in this case, this gasoline price business is highlighted by the worst pandering and demagoguery from elected officials in an election year than I can recall.
I mean, this is outdoing even the tsunami of hysteria that accompanied the Dubai ports deal.
And the circumstances here are different than they've ever been.
And the suggestions that we're getting from politicians on how to deal with this problem need to be dealt with because they are not solutions.
These are people, as I said at the opening of the program, are demanding a 60-minute solution to a 30-year problem.
Where have they been for 30 years on drilling for new oil?
Where have they been on new fuels?
Where have they been for 30 years on building refineries?
There hasn't been one serious measure accepted in this country to expand our energy supply.
We're a growing economy.
Conservation is important, but it's not going to solve the problem.
We have to continue our growth.
We will by default.
And we're only penalizing ourselves and placing ourselves at greater jeopardy by being so dependent on other countries for this source as the source of oil because it is the fuel of the engine of freedom, whether you like it or not.
I mean, the same people who say, we shouldn't go to war for oil.
We shouldn't have done it in 91.
That's all Iraq is about.
No, no blood for oil.
The same people complaining and whining and moaning that the gas price is going so high.
And so politicians are getting in gear and are discussing it 60 minutes yesterday on the Meet the Press show.
And that's what we have some sound bites from.
Let's start here with Jim Kramer.
This is during the roundtable.
He had Secretary of the Energy Department, Samuel Bodman, President of the American Petroleum Institute, Red Cavaney, Jim Kramer from CNBC, and Senator Turbin.
And Tim Russert says to Jim Kramer, do you believe the oil companies have been adding on a little bit extra profit here?
I think if they could drill, they would drill.
If they could refine more, they would.
These are companies that are run for the shareholders, but they're run to be able to produce as much oil as we can possibly use.
They want to do that.
Lee Raymond, he generated $67 billion in profits for his shareholders.
I think that that's a reasonable return, $144,000 a day.
Katie Corrick makes $85,000 a day.
What value has she created versus $67 billion by Lee Raymond?
Ooh, and CNBC is part of the NBC family, a little dig there.
But that's true.
The CEO of ExxonMobil has produced profits, produced a successful business for the shareholders, and has produced product, has made sure that there is gasoline at the pump, that there's jet fuel at the airports, that there is whatever else is needed fuel-wise.
Well, we did have to depend on Hugo Chavez for heating oil in Massachusetts.
But aside from that, American oil companies, if you ask me, ought to be the ones doing the hearings.
You ought to bring in people like Senator Kennedy and Senator Durbin and Senator Schumer and say, why are you standing in the way of our business growing?
Why are you putting up all these regulations and obstacles that are stopping us from increasing this nation's supply of oil?
You're the ones that have the explaining to do, not us.
We don't set the oil price per barrel.
That happens in the world market.
We don't have anything to do with that.
We have enough trouble getting it out of the ground without the trouble you put us through in trying to do so.
Back after this.
Don't go away, folks.
Much more straight ahead.
Talent on loan from God.
You have to say God.
You say talent on loan from God.
It just doesn't penetrate.
Ackworth, Georgia, back to the phones we go.
This is Ed.
Hello, sir.
Glad you called.
Rush, what an honor to speak to you.
Thanks for taking my call.
Anytime, sir.
Thank you.
Yesterday, I tell you what, I watched Meet the Press and sat down and tried to stomach Dick Durbin, and I wanted to back my gas-guzzling SUV right over the TV after listening to him.
The things he says and he gets away with just make me sick.
Talking about in his new buzzwords now are profit.
Wait a second.
Wait a second.
Who says he gets away with it?
Look at, you caught it.
We got the sound bites coming up.
He's not going to get away with it.
He's a glittering jewel of colossal ignorance.
He puts it on display every day.
Well, I know that.
But I mean, the fact that he gets up there and spouts this stuff, and he says that the oil companies are now profit-taking, which is just ridiculous for him to sit up there and say that it makes it sound like they're going out there and reaching into my pocket and taking money out of it to increase their own profits.
You know who the guy is.
The guy is a liberal Democrat.
He is a quasi-socialist.
You also know what he's doing.
He's trying to rally his side.
This is fabulous.
This is all good stuff.
This is letting America know who these people are.
You have to understand, folks, up until about 18 years ago, there was a media monopoly in this country.
And Dick Durbin would be able to say what he said yesterday, and it would be the law of the land.
It would be the opinion or the punditry of the land.
Nobody on the show would reject him, and there wouldn't be anybody else to replay what he said and challenge it.
It would just stand.
They haven't learned that that's not the case anymore.
They say these things.
We amplify it, and more and more people are able to find out just exactly what people like Durbin and his party stand for today.
Let's go to the soundbite.
The question from Tim Russer.
Senator Turbin, do you believe the oil companies have been adding on extra profit?
Am I the only one of your guests here that think that profit-taking is a problem?
I mean, I understand the basic laws of supply and demand.
I understand that if the input costs have gone up, it's going to reduce your profitability.
But here we have the most enormous profits in the history of the United States of America in business, the equivalent of $1,000 per household in America for profits.
To suggest that Mr. Lee Raymond's retirement gift is an average gift of $400 million for his service to the company, that's $3 for every household in America.
So what?
All of that is irrelevant.
He doesn't tell you how many pension funds are invested in ExxonMobil.
He doesn't tell you how if they succeed in a windfall profits tax or somehow just taking some of these profits, speaking of that, away from the oil companies, how a bunch of average Americans whose 401ks and pension funds are invested in ExxonMobil and other big oil are going to be hurt.
The idea that the stockholders don't count the investors in the company, the retirement is not a gift.
It's part of the severance package or the going away package.
And it's a way the company is rewarding Mr. Raymond for his work.
Now, why are prices high?
Why are these, he says, we have the most enormous profits in the history of the U.S.
The word profit is evil to these people.
If you take a look at who is on their enemies list, who do they always go?
They're going after Walmart.
Why?
Well, Walmart doesn't have union employees, slave labor.
Yet the same people who are advocating for slave labor are the ones that won't do anything about illegal aliens coming in and working for slave labor.
They want to convert them to voters.
But you've got to put Walmart out of business.
Walmart, Republican donors.
Walmart is doing more for your average Democrat in this country, living on a fixed income than anything Dick Durbin's ever done for him.
And yet they target Walmart.
They target big pharmaceutical.
The companies that have created with a lot of R ⁇ D, some of the finest drugs in the world today that have prolonged people's lives, our life expectancy in this country is longer than ever.
They're on the hit list.
Big oil's always been on the hit list.
Who else is on the hit list?
Pretty soon.
Microsoft was on the hit list.
Well, that's because they weren't paying the extortion racket in the form of having a lobbyist in Washington for a while.
Oh, they go after the telecoms.
Exactly.
Go after telecoms.
Oh, yeah, I want to put big food, big fast food out of business.
Big Mac, Big Wendy's, all these are going to charge.
Oh, yeah, if we've destroyed big tobacco, we won't, we'll say all these horrible rotten things about tobacco.
It kills.
You're dead.
Yeah, after use it for 45 years.
That's that's, you know, take your first puff and you don't die.
You have to do this for 45 years.
That's that's, you know, you basically take the same risk for driving for 45 years.
So you have, they put big tobacco.
If you take a look at who their enemies are, it's always successful free market businesses.
But they never get concerned about the windfall profits they in government get from confiscatory taxes, such as on the whole pipeline of petroleum products from the time it leaves the ground to the time it goes into your car.
You talk about gouging.
I think the government right now is 22% of GDP, a little bit under 22%.
But the government's 22% of the gross domestic product.
I know, Rush, I know, but they build our roads and our sewers and they protect us from terrorist attacks.
Yeah, they've gone after, well, Mr. Snerdley says they go after big radio, but they have gone after big radio, and they're going to continue to go after big radio, especially since Friday.
I mean, they're so mad at this settlement, folks, they can't, they really, they had visions of an entirely different future for me, and they can't understand what happened.
At any rate, so here's Durbin, all worried about all this profit.
Profit is an evil word to these people.
It's just, it's just amazing.
And I think it's fine for people to learn it.
He says, well, one of the most enormous profits in the history of the United States of American business.
Yes, and the prices are higher in this business than they've ever been.
What would you expect?
The interesting thing, folks, is why are people not driving less?
We kept hearing that as these prices spiked and gasoline exceeded three bucks a gallon in many parts of the country, that people would have to park their cars, ride their bicycles, get on mass transit, but it's not happening.
Why is that?
Well, we addressed this last week, and it's appropriate to do so again.
When it comes to gas prices, the media too often know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
If you flip open a paper or you turn on the television, you'll learn that the gas prices are rising again.
Stormy six weeks ahead, says CBS News.
They warn consumers to expect pain at the pump.
What's more interesting about these stories is what they don't tell you.
For example, AP reports that surveys indicate drivers won't be easing off on their mileage, using even more gasoline than a year ago.
Now, why is that?
If prices are rising, one would expect consumers would use less.
Well, the answer might be in some of the long-term trends that the short-term drive-by media is too cramped to see.
Energy prices may be rising, but energy itself is much less important to consumers and to the overall economy than it once was.
That's not really the best way to say that.
It's still important.
It's just not as much or as large a part of everybody's budget.
I know you probably don't believe this, but it's true.
According to the Bureau of Economic Affairs, American consumers, their spending on energy as a fraction of total personal consumption, has declined since 1980.
American consumer spending on energy as a fraction of total personal consumption has dropped considerably since 1980.
25 years ago, one in every 10 consumer dollars was spent on energy.
Today it's one of every 16.
In other words, what it takes to heat and cool our homes and drive to and from our jobs and vacation destinations is relatively less costly than it once was.
And this goes a long way to explaining why, even while gas prices rise this summer, and while they'll be higher than they were throughout the 90s, people will still be driving more.
It's much more of a value than it was a generation ago.
Now, I'm sure you're listening to this and you know, oh, this is absolutely crazy.
Rush, I can't believe you're signing on to this.
Well, I know that there's two things at play.
You're worried about the price, but as it said at the beginning of the piece, price and value are two different things.
So, yeah, the price spike is huge.
You're used to paying two, $225, $250, whatever it's been where you live, and all of a sudden it's up 50, 60 cents in a matter of a few short weeks.
That's huge.
When it used to cost you X to fill up, and it's now $30 more, $25 more.
Yeah, huge effect.
But in terms of the value, how much of your total personal consumption gasoline purchases are, it's not as high as it was 25 years ago.
It was much more of a strain with high prices 25 years ago than it is today.
Now, this is not to say that people aren't hurting, but it does explain why.
It only is common sense.
If these prices are this astronomical and this punitive, you would find a lot fewer people driving as much, or a lot more people driving less, but that's not the case at all.
And as, by the way, this is Nick Schultz who's writing this.
These trends are healthy ones for the economy.
And they also put the lie to President Bush's recent unwise rhetoric about America's oil addiction.
The nature of addiction typically is that it becomes all-consuming, eating up a greater share of one's life and livelihood.
But the long-term trends of American consumer spending reflect something different.
Energy is becoming less important over time to the overall economy.
Again, that's semantics.
It's not less important.
It's still the fuel that drives the engine of freedom here, but his word importance is relative to how big a portion of total consumption energy prices are, energy expenses.
Of course, nobody likes to pay higher prices at the pump, and our political class in a bipartisan tizzy is threatening to do something, raise taxes, cut taxes, more regulation, less regulation.
But the price mechanism, even when it acts in ways we don't like, is something we monkey with at our peril.
It serves a critical function by sending information signals throughout an energy market that's global and highly competitive.
And these signals help determine where best to allocate capital to increase supplies.
Unlike a generation or two ago, these increases will unlikely prompt the broader economic pain they once did.
And that's something to be happy about.
So now's a good time to take a deep breath and go for a long drive and think about how bad government policies contribute to what we're already paying at the pump.
And that's what I wish every one of you would do.
We have not made it easy for the people in the oil business to expand our supply domestically, and yet we sit around, we want to haul them up and treat them like criminals.
All for a political show trial, which is designed to show you how much your politicians and your congressmen and senators care about you.
And they're going to make sure that nothing happens.
Oh, yeah, these guys may fry.
These guys, they pay more Pratt taxes, but they're not going to produce another drop of oil while they're up there talking to Dick Durbin.
And they're not going to reduce the price of gasoline significantly in a genuine way because they can't while they're dragging these oil execs up.
It's just, it's embarrassing to see how stupid they all think that we are.
And sadly, some of us are.
Not in this audience, but you know who I'm talking about.
We'll be back.
Stay with us.
And just to rehash this, folks, and by the way, welcome back.
Great to have you.
Rush Limbaugh here, the EIB Network.
Consumer spending rises as incomes grow.
Data indicate the U.S. economy is doing well.
Consumers spent more freely in March as their incomes grew at the fastest pace in six months.
Another sign the economy has snapped out of its year-end funk.
It's been in a two-year growth cycle.
U.S. manufacturing activity powered ahead in April, but soaring energy and metal costs were making factory managers apprehensive.
See, that's good journalism.
Report the good news and then throw cold water on it.
That's called balance.
March construction spending climbs to record.
Home building outlays spur greater than expected rise.
Have you noticed in the last year or two, every time there's economic news, be it unemployment or employment numbers, housing starts, any economic news, it always turns out to be greater than expected by the experts.
And there's another Walmart sales and spending data lift stocks reports show better than forecast gains in income and spending.
Six years later, the Dow is back, propelled by the economy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is nearing its all-time high from 2000 of 11,723.
What is it, right?
Let me check.
See what it is today.
All this horrible news and these protests.
Yeah, look at that.
It's 11,408.52.
It's up 41 points today.
John and Eugene, Oregon, welcome to the program, sir.
Great to have you with us.
Thank you.
Did it.
You're welcome, sir.
You bet.
My point about these high fuel prices, and I'm in the auto industry for 22 years now, is the fact that American ingenuity is going to come up with alternative ways which we need to have begin development now in a strong way because not maybe my generation or my kids,
but the one after that, oil is a finite resource, and we've got to start developing alternative ways that we can make sense with, and American ingenuity is going to do that because higher fuel prices are causing people to be willing and able to look at other directions.
Made this point on Friday as well, almost exactly as you've said it here.
But I added one thing to it, and that is if I were the producers at OPEC, I would be concerned if these prices keep going high because it's going to do exactly what you suggest.
It's going to propel American ingenuity.
The Bill Gates of alternative fuels is already out there somewhere.
Well, he may still be a sperm, but he's somewhere.
Or it could be a she, sorry.
Could be a she, but this person or people are there.
And when the price, you know, necessity is the mother of invention.
And that is precisely what's going to happen.
And there's nowhere else in the world where this kind of ingenuity nor freedom exists for this type of success and invention to take place.
One more soundbite here before the break back to meet the press from yesterday.
Secretary Bodman, Energy Secretary.
Russert says, should the government have a windfall profits tax in the oil companies and target that money for exploration of alternative fuels?
There are certain things we know that don't work.
And windfall profits tax is one of them.
That was tried 30 years ago.
It did not work.
It resulted in reduced production.
We have prima facial evidence of that.
And to me, that proposal does not hold water.
And here's a final addition to this discussion by Senator Turbin.
The bottom line is this.
If you do not tax these corporations at this level, they will continue to run up the profits to sky heavens.
I don't know where it ends.
And they're saying as much.
This year may be better than last.
And it means that consumers will continue to be victimized unless they feel that ultimately they're going to have to pay some of this money back.
This is on, folks, you may as well be listening to Lenin or Marx when you listen to this guy.
He has just illustrated.
He has literally no clue whatsoever about economics.
Wants to go back to the same old liberal answers that don't work, and that is punish success.
We can't have it.
We're going to punish success and we're going to punish achievement.
And we're going to give that money back to the taxpayers.
Take a look at the oil company profit per gallon.
It's $0.09.
Take a look at the total federal tax take and the whole pipeline.
It dwarfs $0.09.
If there's gouging, if there's anybody that needs to be giving money back, it's Uncle Sam.
Back after this.
Stay with us.
It's the fastest three hours in media, the fastest week in media.
Because when you listen to this program, you're not even conscious of the time going, but it's over before you know it because we have more fun here than human beings should be allowed to have.
Lots more still to go in our remaining hour.
Again, the phone number is 800-282-2882.
A couple of interesting calls on hold two commenting on gasoline prices and the big May Day protest today.
Sit tight.
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