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Nov. 28, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:16
November 28, 2006, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Thank you and welcome back to the Rush Limbaugh Program.
Roger Hedgecock here from KO Geo Radio in San Diego and appreciate the opportunity to take over for the master himself.
He'll be back.
Somewhat mysterious absence today and tomorrow.
Paul W. Smith here tomorrow.
On Thursday, I guess Rush will tell us what that lifetime opportunity was that he was taking advantage of for these two days.
I'm kind of in the dark.
You know, I'm not in the dark about Walmart, though.
I want you to know, you know, coming out of a guy, you know, old Sam with the pickup truck and Bentonville and all that, you know, you know the story, I guess, from the beginning, trying to produce an organization that could deliver higher quality, lower prices, and more choice for the average consumer.
Walmart has been, as again, you probably know, spectacularly successful.
It is not just the world's largest retailer.
It's the world's largest company of any kind.
Bigger than ExxonMobil, General Motors, General Electric.
Walmart sold, I just absorbed this, $244.5 billion worth of goods last year.
That number means that in three months, Walmart sold more than the number two retailer sells in a year.
In just three months, Walmart sold more than Home Depot, the number two retailer, sold in a year.
It does more business, Walmart does, than Target, Sears, Kmart, JCPenney, Safeway, and Kroger put together put together.
Now, obviously, when you get that big, you become the target of everybody.
They may just walk around with a bullseye on them from every part of the political spectrum and the community spectrum.
And in fact, it's an industry now to oppose Walmart with well-known activists and groups and bloggers and websites and unions and commentators and columnists.
And there's an army of people that do nothing every day but attack Walmart.
My opinion, because in their lives, envy is the biggest emotion, the most strongly held, the most strongly felt emotion among these folks is envy.
You know what?
If you don't like Walmart, don't shop there.
Why do they sell that many goods?
Do you think that they force people into those stores to work or force them into the stores to buy this stuff?
Now, I can say all this because I'm not a Walmart shop.
I think I've been, because I started talking about this a couple of years ago, I actually went to a Walmart for the first time just to experience what it was.
I have no idea.
And we have plenty of Walmarts here in San Diego.
They're not the big super centers.
In fact, that subject of whether we're going to get cheaper food in the new super center-style Walmart is the subject of a San Diego City Council meeting today, in which it looks like a majority of our San Diego City Council down here want to ban lower food prices for their constituents.
They want to stop Walmart from building a super center.
Now, you know what happens?
I mean, this is so crazy.
Just on a practical level.
Okay, you don't like Walmart?
That's fine.
You don't like cheaper food prices?
Okay, that's fine.
You never shop.
Okay, that's fine.
But why as a city councilman would you not put a sales tax generating employer in your community?
Because if you don't, if you bar them, they'll just locate across the city line in a neighboring community where all your constituents will drive over and get the cheaper food anyway.
What have you accomplished other than to bend over for your labor union masters?
Which is what's happening here in San Diego.
Let's get back to why I think Walmart ought to be supported and why the liberals are going to fight Walmart to the death.
Let's just take one example.
How often have you heard in the drive-by media the concern over the cost of pharmaceutical drugs, of prescription drugs, a concern that our seniors are not getting the medications they need?
They have to choose between medications and food.
This is a constant refrain of the liberal left and, of course, has a kernel of truth among a lot of Americans who find the rising cost of pharmaceutical products absolutely outrageous.
Outrageous.
Now, the socialists peddle the idea that if only the government could buy all pharmaceuticals, it would force pharmaceutical companies to sell those drugs at a lower price, and the government would deliver a lower-priced medication to you because that's what government can do is to restrict the evil impulse of private business to overcharge.
Well, there is another explanation that dates back quite a ways, as we mentioned last week, possibly to the pilgrims.
And that is that if you allow free people in a free market to react to higher prices, the prices will come down.
If there's a significant consumer group that says, you know what, paying this much for Medication X is just too much, I'm required to take it, it's too high, I'm going to look for alternatives.
So people looked for alternatives.
The so-called generic drugs came into being not because of government mandate, but because of the free enterprise system.
Generic drugs debuted at much less than the initial branded drugs.
And now absorb this one.
Walmart is offering from the Medicare list over 300 medications from the Medicare list at $4.
$4.
Not $40, not $80, not the kind of numbers you've been hearing and been unfortunately been paying.
331 generic prescriptions are available for up to a 30-day supply at commonly prescribed dosages for $4.
The first institution to deliver to you, other than if you've been going to Tijuana or coming out of Canada and some of those websites, the first institution to deliver to you in your neighborhood generic drugs that they're standing behind that have high quality that their whole company is committed to is a local private retailer called Walmart.
It's absolutely stunning.
What if this, and by the way, they just announced they've taken this on from 30-some states up to 49 states.
This is the national day of rolling this whole thing out, so this may not have hit you yet in your area.
Some places have had these generic drugs marked down to $4 for a while, but apparently this is the day on their rolling out to 49 states.
I said, 49, aren't there 50?
North Dakota apparently is not eligible because Walmart, for some reason, doesn't operate pharmacies in North Dakota.
But otherwise, wherever they have a pharmacy in the Walmart, and we have a number of them in San Diego, prescription drugs, 30-day supply, generics, 331 of them, basically the list from Medicare that so concerns many of our seniors getting proper medication, that is available now for $4.
What is Hillary going to talk about in this presidential campaign if pharmaceuticals are at ⁇ what is Bush going to talk about with that crazy prescription drug program that he had?
If you just allow private enterprise to produce the product that people want at the price that they can afford to pay, guess what?
It happens.
It absolutely happens.
I mean, I'm reminded every day, I just bought some electronic equipment.
And Walmart has slashed prices on all this stuff.
They're actually going to maybe get me in the store because they keep this up.
They've slashed prices on the biggest inflation fighter in this country, the institution that is giving the working people of this country a break, is Walmart.
But they're the target of every vicious attack and then some that you could possibly imagine.
There's a huge employment discrimination class action suit, the largest in American history, Dukes versus Walmart.
There's everywhere in the country what we're experiencing here in San Diego, local boards of supervisors, county commissioners, city council members, state legislatures that are going after Walmart for various procedures.
The whole thing, it seems to me, is a repudiation of what makes America great.
Because you don't have to shop at Walmart.
It's just that they want to offer you, in a free society, they want to offer you the opportunity to get stuff for a lower price.
How can that possibly be other than good?
How can that possibly be other than good?
And this whole business about employment discrimination and they don't pay and they don't, they do pay, and they do have health care programs, and they do have retirement programs.
And, you know, last I checked, they were not forcing people to work at Walmart.
As a matter of fact, when they opened some up here in San Diego County, there was a line out the door of people wanting to work there.
Do you really think it's liberal, my friends on the left?
Do you really think it's, quote, liberal to deny those people the opportunity to work, to deny the consumer the right, the working-class consumer, the right to lower prices?
Do you really think that's, quote, liberal?
I don't.
I'm Roger Hedgecock.
We'll get your calls and questions on this topic at 1-800-282-2882 after this.
Welcome back to the Rush program.
Roger Hedgecock's sitting in for Rush Paul W. Smith tomorrow, rush back on Thursday.
Here's Jay in Park Rapids, Minnesota, I believe.
Hi, Jay.
Hi, Roger.
How are you?
Good.
What's up?
I just wanted to comment on that leadoff story you did today about the 12 days of Christmas and how much the 364 gifts cost.
Yep, they're up.
Didn't cost me that much because I bought the goods at Walmart and I had the services done by illegal immigrants.
So you cut your costs.
You bet, but I think because of the new Congress, you know, I better go back and buy for next year before they close down all the Walmarts and the leaping lords are going to be unionized, I suppose.
Well, and not only that, you better check those Social Security numbers, too.
All right.
Jay, thanks for the call.
See, there you go.
I mean, is it really the position of the union activists that in the name of union work, for whatever benefit to the Walmart folks who don't want to be unionized?
By the way, let me interrupt myself.
If the union really wanted to compete, instead of using political power, they would go into the workplace under the well-known rules of the federal and state governments with regard to organizing employees and force an election of Walmart employees with regard to representation.
That's the way unions should compete.
They don't do that, do they?
Why do you think they don't want an election by Walmart employees?
Why do you think they're going after the corporation with naked political power plays?
Why?
Because they would lose that election.
That's why.
Joe in Atlanta, next on the Rush program.
Joe, welcome.
Roger, I can't believe I'm a ditto head, and I can't believe I'm going to discuss your love.
You and Rush, your love affair with Walmart, because a couple of points I'd like to make.
Sure.
Nine months ago, Rush talked about illegal immigrants working in the fields in California, and he said the issue was people were concerned that if they were all legal, the wages would go up.
The price of vegetables would skyrocket.
And he said, guess what, guys?
There's no free lunch.
Because illegals, while you pay them less and keeps the price of vegetables down, you're paying higher taxes because those illegals need services.
So you're going to pay one way or the other.
Do you recall that show?
Do you recall his exactly right?
Okay.
So McCluskey in Maryland, and by the way, I'm a capitalist.
Even through the 60s and 70s when nobody was, and I was a young man then, but McCluskey in Maryland, the issue with Walmart was they would hire a lot of folks, but they would keep the hours back so that they were not eligible for the health care that you're talking about.
So therefore, they were then dependent on the services of the local community.
Well, guess what?
Same logic applies.
There's no free lunch.
If Walmart is going to manipulate the laws and its employees to satisfaction and let them go get health care off of social services, we're paying for it.
So we're not really not getting lower prices, are we?
Now, let me ask you this, though, Joe, because I know quite a lot about the illegal alien situation in California.
It's not just social services, it's the impact on the schools, it's the impact culturally in the streets, it's the gangs, it's the fact that 60, 70 percent of our murders are committed in Los Angeles by illegal aliens, et cetera, et cetera.
There's a whole cascade of adverse effects that I think color that and don't make it an apples-to-apples comparison.
But there was a point there.
The other point I want to make is before you leave that, though, let me just ask you this question.
Do you think that Walmart employees, even if they're kept, as you give this Maryland thing, and I don't know, they're all full-time around here, but if they're kept at lower hours to keep them off the health benefits and force them on to I don't know, do you have any statistics or any idea how many of those Walmart employees actually went to public services?
No, I don't.
No, I don't.
Because I'll tell you what I think happened.
What I think happened is a lot of these jobs at Walmart that are part-time jobs are second jobs in a household.
And the health care is from the other person that's working.
Well, it could be.
McCluskey made a point of it, but then again, she didn't cite any numbers, so I agree with you.
No, and she's just slogging for the unions, too.
Come on.
I agree.
But there's the other part, though, that really gets to me because I worked for a vendor that supplied Walmart with services and goods.
And I will tell you, you talk about the American way, capitalism.
I would doubt that you nor Rush, I know I never have.
Once I signed a contract with somebody and I shook their hand, that was binding.
And I will tell you that Walmart does not do business that way.
They will sign a deal, shake your hand, and after they get the services, they'll say, you know what?
We paid you too much.
Accept this or else.
And the or else is you'll never sell your product in their store again.
That is not the American way.
And of course, I can't do it.
But they're, wait a minute, Joe.
I mean, let's look at it from their point of view.
They're trying to force suppliers to efficiencies, to lower their costs.
They're demanding of their suppliers that they come up with cheaper products so they can pass along that savings.
I mean, they're overall, they wield this power for only one reason.
They want the cheapest prices in their stores for consumers.
So to the extent, and by the way, nobody has to sell, there's a ton of people that don't sell it at Walmart, right?
That's right.
No, they don't.
But wait, wait, wait.
You're free not to sell there.
But wait, wait.
There's a huge difference between us negotiating the rules up front and I say, I'm sorry, I don't accept them, then having you shake my hand, sign the contract, and then say, I can change my mind only because I can.
I don't know about that.
I don't know about that because in California, and I was a practicing attorney once, I'm recovering from that now, but I was a practicing attorney once.
And all I can tell you is if you have a signed contract and they're trying to change the terms of that contract and you don't want them to, you don't have to.
Oh, no, no, you're right.
No, no, that pay you, but you're done.
Well, that's what I mean.
Then you walk and you sell someplace else, which plenty of people, I guess, do.
Yeah, but that's you've never done that to anybody in your life.
Joe, I'm sorry, we're losing your cell phone there.
I'm sorry.
Cheap cell phones, probably from Walmart.
Here's Britt in Thomasville, North Carolina.
Britt, welcome to the Rush program.
Hi, Roger.
You know, the employees at Walmart shouldn't complain.
They can work wherever they want.
But to me, that's not the big problem with Walmart.
The big problem is that small business is the backbone of this country.
And Walmart makes it too hard for us to compete.
My husband has a small business, one little store at a mall where he sells toys and hobby stuff models.
He can't buy stuff wholesale for what Walmart is selling it for.
That just doesn't seem right.
You know, when you get that big and you get into toys and then you get into clothes and then you get into food and medicine and tires and banking and everything else that they're doing, you're putting the other guys out of business.
Let me ask you a question.
Pretty soon we'll have to get everything at Walmart.
Let me ask you a question, Britt.
Do you buy products when you act as a consumer where they're more expensive or less expensive?
No, and my husband gets asked about this.
I shop at Walmart because I have to buy the cheapest thing because we can't make a lot of money.
Well, Britt, why do you expect the rest of us, how in the world do you expect the rest of us to go buy more expensive toys so you guys can stay in business?
Why should I do that?
Well, I'm just saying if Walmart continues in their direction, they are going to own the monopoly on everything.
And small business throughout the country is going to lose.
And then ultimately, the whole country will lose because nobody will be making the money to spend at Walmart.
All right, well, Britt, I appreciate what you're saying.
I've heard it a million times.
I don't believe it for a moment, and I'm going to tell you why it's wrong when we come back.
Roger in for Rush after this.
Welcome back to the Rush Show.
Roger Hedgecock filling in for Rush Limbaugh at CaliforniaHealthline.org.
I'm reading this now.
I mean, this is insane.
Across the nation, it says, some criticize Walmart discount drug program.
Here's the program.
In other words, it's never enough.
Here's a retailing giant that in 49 states has just lowered 331 generic drugs that seniors need and everybody else to $4 for a 30-day supply.
And you all know what you've been paying for the 30-day supply, whatever you're taking.
Here's the story.
Walmart's discount generic prescription drug program is, quote, causing a ripple effect in the big box retail industry, unquote.
Although, says the Boston Globe, it is drawing criticism from drugstores that say the discounts will not result in significant savings for most consumers.
Oh, my goodness.
It's never enough when private enterprise does it.
When private enterprise does it, then we've got to look at the people who aren't benefited.
We have to look at the negative side of it because we can never look at the positive side of anything private enterprise does.
Contrast that, by the way, with the, parenthetically, as I interrupt myself, with the way the Drive-By Media describes public education in this country, the K-12 system, which in San Diego, I don't know about you, but dropout rate is about 40%.
Now, if you had a 40% failure rate at a retail level, believe me, there would be investigations that'd be closed in a heartbeat.
But because it's in the public sector, you know what they talk about on the 40% dropout rate?
The need to spend more of your money to make sure that we give an equal opportunity to all of our students.
What a load.
Anyway, back to Walmart.
Here's this story.
This kills me.
Quote, consumer advocates and healthcare economists say that Walmart's program and similar discount programs launched by other retailers, including Target, by the way, Target if you live in a certain area, might benefit some people without prescription drug coverage.
It might benefit some people to get $4 prescription drugs, but it will not have a significant impact on the retail drug industry because it excludes brand-name drugs and many generics.
Wait a minute.
The whole idea of going to generics, which was pushed by the liberals, was to get away from pharmaceutical ownership, you know, patent ownership of the drugs where they could just jack up the price to whatever they wanted to.
You went to generics to lower the price.
So now it's not going to have a significant impact because it doesn't cover brand-name drugs.
I mean, you can't win when you're in Walmart.
You cannot win.
Now, let's get back to this small business business because Walmart drives out small business.
And we almost know that for a fact, even though, of course, it's not true.
There are Walmarts all over San Diego.
How many do we have?
Six or seven or eight?
I don't even know how many we have.
But there's more than a half dozen in the San Diego metropolitan area, and it's probably the same in your area.
We have more small business than we ever had before because they're anchoring at Walmart many of the new shopping center developments, which have allowed other retailers to also have these kinds of locations in highly trafficked areas where they become very successful.
Now, can they have a toy store that charges three times as much as the toys you can buy in Walmart?
No, that's not the way capitalism works.
You have to compete.
You have to serve the consumer.
You have to be there with something the consumer wants.
And if you want to charge a little bit more, then you've got to be there with something that gives people a little bit more, like service and warranties and guys coming out to the house and whatever the heck else you expect that Walmart isn't going to do.
I mean, come on.
This is a free enterprise system.
Because of Walmart's success, some businesses have been driven out.
Some businesses have gone overseas whining about how they can't pay people and blah, blah, blah.
But a lot of businesses are right here in the United States.
A lot of businesses have grown because of Walmart.
A lot of volume of sales for other businesses like Target have grown because of Walmart and this whole big box phenomenon, which I personally, as I said before, just speaking personally, don't appreciate.
I don't want to go into a place that's as large as Dubuque under roof and shop.
I just don't.
I'd rather go to a small store.
Maybe I'm paying a little bit more.
I'm getting some more personal contact.
I'm old-fashioned.
I'm old.
I'm sorry.
But look, why should I and my preferences be the veto power over obviously millions of people who want to shop in this huge place and save a lot of money?
Good grief.
I just don't understand any of this business with Walmart.
I really don't.
So help me.
1-800-282-2882.
Here's Jan in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Hi, Jan.
Hi, how are you doing, Roger?
Good.
How are you doing?
I'm doing great.
But you got me all worked up talking about Walmart.
All right, go ahead.
Well, I am opposed to Walmart for two reasons.
The first is they never put anything on sale, but they advertise that they'll match everyone else's sale price.
Well, with other companies, especially grocery companies, the item that they put on sale is called a lost leader item.
It means they don't make any money on it, but they have that advertised so they can get people in.
So, Walmart comes by and says, okay, we'll offer that same sale price, even though they themselves never put anything on sale.
So, it keeps people from going to these other grocers and they go to Walmart to buy this stuff and match the price.
But then, when you get into Walmart, most of the time they won't match it.
Unless you bring the sale ad, you have to jump through hoops for them to actually do that.
But they already have you in the store.
You've got a cart full of groceries, and they bank on the fact that you're going to go ahead and buy those groceries.
Now, Jan.
Jan, Jan, wait a minute.
I hate to point out the obvious.
You don't have to shop there if you don't like the way they do business.
But you know what?
They do have a monopoly.
They offer everything at their stores.
And everyone, well, not everyone.
I can't speak for everyone, but I, like most people, are in a huge hurry.
And I know if I go to Walmart, I can find the items there and be in and out faster than if I go to three or four other stores to get all the items I need.
All right.
So they're offering you value then that you find in your personal judgment for with your personal money has value to you.
Right?
Yes, but they're not offering that to give the country low prices.
What they're doing is their aim is to put every other business out of business, which they have been very successful in doing in many cases.
Jan, where do you get that?
Name a business that's been driven out of business by Walmart.
In your community.
In your community, what business has been driven out of business by Walmart?
Well, we haven't been here long, so I don't know anything in this community.
But one of your last callers, a small business, has really taken a shot.
And the small business owners, I mean, she's right.
They cannot compete with Walmart because they cannot have a buying house.
Jan, I hate to interrupt, but let me just ask you a simple question then.
You've been there a short time.
You've been in Fayetteville.
Can you name anybody who's been driven out of business by Walmart?
Well, how about service merchandise?
What's service merchandise?
That is a chain also that offers several items as Walmart does, and they went out of business.
I know in several of the cities that we live, the service merchandise went out of business.
I think they went out of business nationally.
Maybe they didn't.
But I know where we lived before that that was put out of business.
By Walmart?
Most likely.
Almost likely.
Well, let me tell you something now.
Okay, I guess.
You come to this with your prejudices, and there's no facts.
Well, no, wait a minute, wait a minute.
My husband works for a company that supplies meat for Walmart.
And I do, and we have seen firsthand the business practices that Walmart uses.
And the man who called and said that they break contracts, I mean, it's absolutely true.
Let me tell you one thing that they do.
If he sells a load of meat to Walmart and Walmart buys the meat, they put it on their shelves.
If it does not sell, they call my husband's company up and say, come back and get your meat.
They can't sell that meat to anybody else.
It's already thought out.
It's thought out.
It's been sitting on the shelves.
It's in Walmart packaging.
They can't sell it to anyone else.
So they have to take a loss on that meat.
And Walmart will not pay for it until it's sold.
That's different from any other company.
When he sells a load of meat to Kroger.
Jan, Jan.
If I was the meat owner, if I was the meat company owner, I would then say to myself, let's have a little debate here about whether we want to sell anything to Walmart if they're going to treat us that way.
This is a free country.
No one has to sell their meat to Walmart.
That's right.
But why are they still selling it to Walmart?
If you don't have Walmart as one of your customers for suppliers, they have a very difficult time staying in business because he has to have enough business to keep the workers at the packing plant to kill the cows and to process that meat.
And if they don't have that business, then they send the packers home.
You know, they closed down the packing plant.
So they have it's a catch-22.
They have to sell to Walmart to keep their businesses open.
Oh, you mean they are selling to Walmart?
What's the percentage of your husband's business that is sold by Walmart?
The percentage that sold by Walmart, I don't know.
I don't know that.
And has the business grown over the time that it has sold to Walmart?
No, actually, the last couple of years of business has shown a loss.
Okay, well, then maybe it doesn't deserve to be in business.
You see, Jan, there are other people who are providing meat to Walmart who are making a profit.
Some people won't make a profit because they're not as good as business people.
Those people should, in the capitalist system, go out of business.
Your husband will get a job with a successful company because there will always be somebody who has to provide the meat.
It doesn't just come by magic to the Walmart.
Somebody does it.
Well, and your point would be valid if Walmart played on a level playing field, but they do not.
They write their own rules.
And companies know that they have to sell to Walmart to stay in business, to have enough business to stay in business.
But very few people, very few suppliers can make money selling to Walmart.
That is key to the business.
You can keep their employees working.
The last time I bought beef, I bought on the Internet.
I can buy beef anywhere in the world.
Everyone is going to come to that.
There's not that you have to do this and you have to do that.
If this company doesn't like selling to Walmart, package their beef, get only Kobe or only whatever you want to do in terms of making your niche market.
Get on the Internet and start competing.
Start making the life you want to live and stop whining about the one that you're in right now.
If it's not good for you as a meat company, then try something else.
Well, I don't agree.
No, because you want to whine.
I'm Roger Hedgecock, In for Rush, back with another whining call after this.
Welcome back to the Rush program.
Roger Hedgecock filling in for Rush.
Now, look, here's, ladies and gentlemen, this whole debate about Walmart has happened before.
And every one of these objections has been stated before, a long time ago now, I understand, maybe 60 years ago, 55 years ago, after World War II, the supermarkets started to come into neighborhoods.
It was a new concept.
The small mom-and-pop neighborhood food store where you went, there was a limited number of items, but you got fresh veggies and fresh fruit.
And, you know, New Yorkers know this.
The little shop down below with maybe a couple hundred feet at most had all this food.
That's where you shop.
Now, the supermarket comes in, and they've got a couple thousand feet, and whether it's called Safeway Out here or something else, back in the 40s, early 50s, these were very disruptive.
The idea that you'd have under one roof all of this kind of food available to you at a lower price is going to drive these mom-and-pops out of business.
Well, initially, that was the impact.
But for all of you who live anywhere in the United States, no, we have so-called convenience stores now with very high prices, but they sell convenience because they're in your neighborhood.
You don't have to drive to this place that has a giant store full of all kinds of stuff at cheaper prices.
You can shop in your neighborhood.
So what do we have today after all of this fight against supermarkets back in the 40s and 50s because they would drive out the mom-and-pop businesses and they would all this stuff?
The fact is, of course, the consumers voted with their dollars.
They wanted the supermarkets.
Then the little mom-and-pop stores either went out of business or had to compete.
So they competed.
7-Eleven and others, the Southland Corporation, are people who said, look, I bet consumers would pay more for that same item if it was in a couple hundred yards of their house or a mile of their house instead of four or five miles.
And they're right.
And they built a whole business on it, a national business.
So come on.
Capitalism is capitalism.
Tony and Marietta, Georgia, next on the Rush program.
Hey, Roger, thanks for taking my call.
Your understanding of all the issues is fantastic, but your understanding of capitalism and how you articulate it is just phenomenal.
And this whole Walmart argument just makes my blood boil.
You know, when Sam Walton started his business years and years ago, they told Sam Walton that you have to charge 45%.
When you buy something for $1, you have to sell it for $1.45.
And he said, no, I don't.
I can sell it for $1.28, and I can sell thousands more, and I can make more money than you, and I can build more stores.
Exactly.
And that's how capitalism works.
And these people calling in with these arguments, they just don't watch.
And you know, you're just talking now about the mom and pop store.
My father had one of those.
And he did well.
And the supermarkets came in.
I grew up in the 60s as a kid.
I worked in his store.
But I want to tell you a recent thing that happened with me with Walmart.
I made some mistakes in my life, and I changed jobs, and I was without health insurance for a little while.
And I said, wow, I've got money in the bank.
I can pay for my medicine.
But I was just by the Walmart pharmacy one day, and I had heard all this stuff about the prescription stuff going on.
And I got a couple of generic medicines.
And I went to the drugstore, and they said they're going to be like $200 and something dollars.
I went to Walmart and got three prescriptions for $12.
And I said, don't you have to have insurance to get this for it?
No, you don't have to.
And, you know, Rush made the statement.
He said, Walmart's done more than any other federal program could possibly do for this economy.
And, you know, that is the most profound statement because it's so true.
And when that pharmacist told me that I could buy these prescriptions for $12 versus $200, that statement just rang true to me.
I said, you know, they have done more.
These people are great.
And I think, you know, I've been in the grocery business in my lifetime, and I hear these people holler about Walmart doesn't pay.
They pay the same thing as the other grocery stores do.
They sell for less.
When you go and you get a cart full of groceries in Walmart, you get it for less.
And yeah, everybody has problems.
But you know what?
Target matched their program, and this one's matching their program, and this one's mine.
So they create the competitive thing, and that's exactly what you're talking about here.
And I just wanted to say dittos to you.
Yep, amen.
Tony, you're absolutely right.
All right, we're going to take a short break.
Be right back.
I'm Roger in for Rush.
Your call next.
It's the Rush Limbaugh Program.
Roger Hedgecock in for Rush today, Paul W. Smith tomorrow.
Rush back on Thursday.
Here's Bob in Salisbury, Maryland.
Hello, Bob.
Welcome to the Rush program.
Hey, how are you doing?
Thanks for taking my call.
First of all, I wanted to say I listen to Rush all the time, and he's educational and thought-provoking, educational, and he gives me the information accurately so that I can think, so that I can use my own thought processes to, you know.
Sure.
But anyway, about the thing with Walmart, I was kind of cracking up a little bit about.
People are presenting this as though the thing to do is compete against Walmart according to, to be like Walmart, to compete against Walmart.
Sam Walton, when he started Walmart, did not look at Kmart, didn't look at Montgomery Wards and say, I'm going to be like them, but I'm going to beat them and I'm going to be the best out there.
He came up with a whole new concept.
That's the way to beat Walmart is to come up with a concept.
Look at what Walmart doesn't have.
Not what they do have.
Look at what they don't have.
They've kind of got a reputation now for selling inexpensive and cheap things.
Sometimes you go there and buy something that wears out quicker than it would any place else.
So focus in on something like that and say, okay, I'm going to sell something that lasts longer.
Comes with a warranty, comes with whatever.
Now, there you go.
See, no, that's exactly right, Bob.
Thanks for the call.
That's exactly right.
In other words, compete.
Walmart isn't everything to all people.
Of course not.
There are opportunities in and around what they do.
And, of course, Target has taken them on directly and some other people, big box stores.
We have Costco out here.
There's not just one chain of big box stores.
But then again, like I said, I personally don't go to big box stores.
I don't need to be in a place with 40,000 shoppers.
I just don't.
I don't like it.
I don't enjoy it.
I don't do it.
But I'll tell you what.
Let me just use an example of what I'm talking about.
Oklahoma.
You think of Oklahoma?
Pretty squaredaway common sense place.
Uh-uh.
Oklahoma has an unfair sales act in which the state law defines what is the below cost for retailers and prohibits people from selling below cost.
By the way, this law may impact Walmart's ability to give the seniors in Oklahoma the generic drugs they need for a price they can afford to pay.
So, ladies and gentlemen, Walmart, American Capitalism, American Patriotism, and the Rush Limbaugh Program.
It's been a pleasure to fill in.
It's been a privilege to do it.
Rush, thanks very much.
I'm Roger Hitchcock.
Paul W. Smith tomorrow.
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