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Nov. 28, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:17
November 28, 2006, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Thank you and welcome back to the Rush Limbaugh program.
Roger Hedgecock here from KOGO Radio in San Diego and appreciate the opportunity to take over for the master himself who will 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 in Bentonville and all that, you know, you know the story, I guess, uh, from the beginning, trying to uh produce a uh 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 Exxon Mobil, General Motors, General Electric.
Uh Walmart sold, uh just absorb this, two hundred and forty-four and a half billion dollars 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.
Uh it does more business, Walmart does than Target Sears, Kmart, J. C. Penny, Safeway, and Kroger put together.
Put together.
Now, obviously, when you get that big, you become the target of everybody.
This is now they may just walk around with a bullseye on them from every part of the political spectrum and the uh the the community spectrum.
Uh and they've uh in fact it's an industry now to oppose uh Walmart with uh well-known activists and groups and bloggers and websites and unions and and the 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 good?
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 I 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 supercenter-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.
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.
Uh you don't like cheaper food prices?
Okay, that's fine.
Uh 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.
So 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, as 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 a local private retailer called Walmart.
It's absolutely stunning.
What if this and by the way, they just announced they've uh taken this on from uh 30 some states up to 40 49 states?
This is the uh 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 uh marked marked down to four bucks for a while, but apparently this is the day on their rolling out to 49 states.
I said, what 49, aren't there fifty?
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 uh San Diego, prescription drugs, 30-day supply, generics, 331 of them, uh basically the list uh from uh Medicare that uh so concerns many of our seniors getting proper medication, that is available now for four dollars.
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 you could possibly imagine.
Uh there's a huge uh employment discrimination class action suit, the largest in American history, uh Dukes versus Walmart.
There's uh everywhere in the country what we're experiencing here in San Diego, local uh boards of supervisors, commission county commissioners, uh city council members, state legislatures that are going after Walmart uh 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 they do pay and they do have health care uh programs and they do have a 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 2828 eight two after this welcome back to the Rush program Roger Hedgecock sitting in for uh Rush Paul W. Smith to tomorrow rush back on Thursday.
Here's Jay in Park Rapids uh 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 twelve 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 that 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 and uh buy for next year before they close down all the 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 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 by the way but 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 uh 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 dittohead and I can't believe I'm calling to uh discuss your love of you and Rush, your love affair with Walmart is a couple of points I'd like to make.
Nine months ago, Rush talked about illegal immigrants working the fields in California, and he said the issue was people were concerned that if they're 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, it 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.
and he's exactly right.
Okay.
So McMesky in Maryland and by the way I'm I'm a capitalist but since even through the 60s and 70s when nobody was and I was a young man then but McCroskey and Maryland the the issue with Roma was they would 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 gonna manipulate the laws and its employees to satisfaction and let them go get health care in in off of uh 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 the 60, 70 percent of our murders are committed uh in in Los Angeles by illegal aliens, etc.
etc.
There's a whole cascade of adverse effects that I think color that and don't make it an apples to apples comparison.
The other point I want to make is Well what before you leave that though, let me let me just ask you this question.
Do you think that Walmart employees, even if they're kept as a you give this Maryland thing and I don't know, they're all full time around here, but if they're kept at a at a lower hours to keep them off the uh health care, health benefits and force them on to uh I I don't know.
Do you have any statistics or any 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 and the health care is from the other person that's working.
Well, it it could be m uh question made a point of it, but then again, she didn't sign any numbers, so I agree with you.
Not the other one.
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 uh 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, uh, you know what?
We paid you too much.
Accept this or else.
And the RS is you'll never sell your product in their store again.
That is not the American way.
And of course I can't.
But they're well, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, Joe.
I mean, let's let's look at it from their point of view.
They're trying to force suppliers to efficiencies to lower their cost, uh, they're demanding of their suppliers that they come up with cheaper products so they can pass along that savings.
I mean, their overall they 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 at Walmart, right?
That's right.
No, they don't.
But no, but that but but wait, wait, wait.
There's a huge 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.
And the thing about dropping well.
I don't know about that.
I I know I I don't know about that because in California and I was a practicing attorney uh once, uh, I'm recovering from that now, but I was a practicing attorney once.
And 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, they'll pay you, but you're done.
Well, that's what I mean.
Then you w then you walk and you sell someplace else, which plenty of people I guess do.
Yeah, yeah, but that's uh you've never done that to anybody in your life.
Joe we're we're los I'm sorry, we're losing your c your uh cell phone there.
I'm sorry.
It's cheap cell phones, probably from Walmart.
Here's Britt in uh Thomasville, North Carolina.
Britt, uh welcome to the Rush program.
Hi, Roger.
Um, 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 um 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.
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 happy 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 d 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 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 filled in for Rush Limbaugh at California Healthline.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 of 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 drug stores 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 gotta 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 uh way the uh drive by media describes uh public education in this country.
The K-12 system, which in San Diego, I know about you, but uh dropout rate is about 40 percent.
Now, if you had a 40 percent failure rate at a retail level, uh 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 percent 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 uh Walmart.
Um here's this story.
This this kills me.
Quote consumer advocates and health care economists say that Walmart's program and similar discount programs launched by other retailers, including Target, by the way, uh Target, if you live in a certain area, might benefit some people without prescription drug coverage.
Might, 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 have get away from pharmaceutical ownership, you know, patent uh ownership of uh the uh 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 gonna have a significant impact because it doesn't cover brand name drugs.
I mean, you can't you can't win when you're Walmart.
You cannot win.
Now let's get back to this small business business because Walmart drives out small business.
Now, and we almost know that for a fact, even though of course it's not true.
There are Walmarts all over San Diego.
I don't know.
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 this in the San Diego metropolitan area, and it's probably the same in your area.
Um 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 they can they have uh 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 gonna 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 uh pay people and blah, blah, blah.
But a lot of businesses are right here in 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, uh, don't appreciate.
I don't want to go into a place that's as large as Dubuque, uh, you know, under roof and uh and shop, I just don't.
Uh I'd rather go to a small store.
Maybe I'm paying a little bit more.
I'm 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 will 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 the stuff and 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 got a cart full of groceries, and they bank on the fact that you're gonna 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 they have uh 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 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.
I just where do you get that?
Name a business that's been driven out of business by 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, uh a small business has really taken a shot.
And and the small business owners, I mean, she's right, they cannot compete with Walmart because I hate 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?
Um, how about service merchandise?
What's service merchandise?
That was that is a chain also that offers several items as Walmart does, and they went out of business.
I know uh in several of the cities that we live, the service merchandise went out of business.
I think they went out of business business nationally.
Maybe they didn't, but I know uh where we lived before that that was put out of business.
By Walmart?
Um most likely.
Well mostly something.
Okay, I guess.
You come to this with your prejudices and there's no facts.
Well, well, well, no, wait a minute, wait a minute.
My husband it works for a company that supplies meat for Walmart.
And I do, and I we have seen firsthand the business practices that Walmart uses.
And the lat the 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 gonna uh 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 m 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 then they send the packers home.
You know, they close down the packing plant.
So they have to uh it's a catch twenty-few.
They have to sell to Walmart to keep their businesses open.
Oh, you mean they are you mean they are selling to Walmart?
What's the percentage of your husband's business that is uh sold by Walmart?
The percentage that's sold by Walmart, I don't know.
I I don't know that.
And is the has the business grown over the time that it has sold to Walmart?
Um no, actually, um 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 a 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'll always be somebody who has to provide the meat.
It doesn't just come by magic to the Walmart.
Somebody does it.
Well, and that and and your point would be valid if Walmart played on a on a level playing field that 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 keeping it.
The last time I bought to 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 nothing that you have to do this and you have to do that.
If this company doesn't like selling to Walmart, package their beef, call you know, 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 you you're in right now.
If you if 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 wine.
I'm Roger Hedgecock in for rush, back with another whining call after this.
Welcome back to the Rush Program.
Roger Hitchcock filling in for rush.
Now look, uh 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 uh sixty years ago, fifty-five years ago, after World War II, the supermarkets started to come into neighborhoods.
It was a new concept.
The the small mom and pop um neighborhood food store where you went and there was a limited number of of items, uh but you got fresh veggies and fresh fruit, and uh, you know, New Yorkers know this, a little the little shop down below uh with maybe a couple hundred feet at most, uh had all this uh food.
That's where you shop.
Now this the now the supermarket comes in, and you know, they've got uh a couple thousand feet, and uh whether it's called Safeway out here or so or something 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 gonna 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, uh we have uh 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 uh 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 forties and fifties, because they would drive out the mom and pop businesses and they would drive you know, 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, you know, 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, you uh thanks for taking my call.
You're your your understanding of uh 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%.
You when you buy something for dollar, 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 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 and he did well, and the supermarkets came in.
I grew up in the 60s as a kid.
I worked in a store.
But I want to tell you a recent recent thing that happened with me with Walmart.
I I made some mistakes in my life, and I I changed jobs, and I I was without health insurance for a little while.
And I said, Well, 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 they were gonna I went to the drug store and they said they're gonna be like two hundred and something dollars.
I went to Walmart and got three prescriptions for twelve dollars.
And I said, Don't you have to have insurance to get this for 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 is when that pharmacist told me that I could buy these prescriptions for twelve dollars versus two hundred, that statement just rang through 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 hollering about Walmart doesn't pay.
They pay the same thing as the other grocery stores do.
They sell for less.
They you 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 uh their program, and this one's matching their program, and this one's so they create the competitive thing, and that's exactly what you're talking about here.
And I just I just wanted to say ditto you.
Yep, amen.
Tony, you're absolutely right.
All right, we're gonna 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?
Okay, thanks for taking my call.
Uh, 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 uh anyway, about the thing with Walmart, I was kind of cracking up a little bit about.
Um 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 gonna be like them, but I'm gonna beat them and I'm gonna 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 buy something that wears out quicker than it would any place else.
So focus in on something like that and say, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna sell something that lasts longer.
Comes with a warranty, comes with whatever.
Now there you go.
See, that 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 uh some other people at 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.
Uh but I tell you what, I I uh and let me just use an example of what I'm talking about.
Oklahoma.
You think of Oklahoma, pretty squared-away common sense place.
Uh-uh.
Oklahoma has an unfair sales act in which the state law defines what is uh 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 uh 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 Hedgecock.
Paul W. Smith tomorrow.
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