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Dec. 14, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:06
December 14, 2006, Thursday, Hour #3
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Well, we just now went outside there, ladies and gentlemen.
We have a flash flood watch happening here where we are at the EIB Southern Command.
There's already one car stalled out there, and uh the water is nearing the level of tailpipes of those monstrous global warming causing SUVs.
Uh standard little putt putt automobiles are getting flooded out down there.
But even these monster SUVs, uh the water's approaching tailpipe level of those in the uh parking lots and the streets around here.
We and we we may be in here a couple days, you guys.
Um uh so we'll just have to party.
I got all the stuff.
Well, we don't have all the stuff we need, but I have a way of getting it.
Greetings and welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network and the Limboy Institute for advanced conservative studies.
It's great to uh to have you with us on the program today.
All right.
Um let's let's just look at this immigration and then and the and the uh uh minimum wage news because it's it's obvious that there is a drive-by media agenda on both today as we went through the wire services.
First, this story from the Associated Press.
Uh construction worker charged with murdering that actress in her Manhattan apartment now says he attacked her because he was worried about immigration officials.
Uh this, according to court papers uh that prosecutors filed yesterday.
Uh his name is Diego Pilco, a 19-year-old Ecuadorian illegal immigrant.
I I lost control and I kept cursing as she was insulting me.
I thought she was going to call the police when she went upstairs.
I was afraid of immigration.
So see, the actress would be alive today if it weren't for the fact that zealots in this country are trying to send the illegals home or at least secure the borders.
Get this, a Southern California fence building company, and two of its executives will be charged amid a long-running criminal investigation into whether the company knowingly hired illegal immigrants to build its fences.
Golden State Fence Company was scheduled to be arraigned on criminal charges Thursday in San Diego, said uh Christine Friedman, a clerk for U.S. District Judge uh Barry Ted Moskowitz.
Uh also being arraigned were Melvin Kay, Golden State's president and founder, and Michael McLaughlin, another company executive.
Golden State currently employs about 750 people, saw sales soar from 60 million in 98 to 150 million dollars in 2004.
Get this.
This is the company that's building a border fence.
They're building.
They're building uh part of a 14-mile border fence in San Diego.
They did it in the late 1990s.
The border fence was built by illegals.
They hired it's not funny.
Yes, it is.
No, it's not.
Yes.
I can't.
It's serious.
Russian.
It's funny, folks.
It's serious.
Also in San Diego, the city of Escondito said that it will not enforce a law that punishes landlords for renting to illegal immigrants, killing a measure that many communities nationwide also have considered in an effort to crack down on undocumented workers.
Law, we don't need no stinking law.
So they won't enforce the law that punishes landlords for renting to illegal immigrants.
Uh let's see, Mitt Romney, Governor Mitt Romney in uh Massachusetts signed an agreement Wednesday.
All these immigration stories.
It's just over the top uh signed an agreement Wednesday with federal authorities that allows Massachusetts state cops to detain suspected illegal immigrants.
Initially 30 troopers will get federally funded training, then be allowed to question and detain suspected illegals, charge them with a violation of immigration law, and place them in removal proceedings.
Romney said that the scope of our nation's illegal immigration problems require us to pursue and implement new solutions wherever possible.
Uh it is expected uh that uh this will somehow not hold up.
Uh when it is the incoming governor Deval Patrick doesn't like it, and uh this guy wants to put City Hall up for sale, by the way.
Uh it is sort of an eyesore.
All right, minimum wage.
This is a new one.
I've not seen this this uh this method of comparison before.
Uh in fact, this it even says this is part of a package.
This is Reuters.
This is part of a package of stories on the upcoming debate in Congress on the U.S. minimum wage.
There isn't going to be much of a debate.
The Republicans are going to cave on this.
They don't have the votes to stop it anyway.
Bush is gonna sign it.
Uh it's this is a done deal.
This this is just uh agenda-driven pressure here on the part of the drive-by's.
The following table, and I have the table here right here.
The following table gives a rough estimate of the earning power of low-income workers in thirteen countries around the world by calculating the time it would take for a starting worker at a McDonald's restaurant to earn enough money to actually buy a big Mac.
Based on an unscientific survey by Reuters reporters, low-income workers in Australia have the highest earning power of the thirteen countries, earning enough to buy a Big Mac every sixteen minutes.
The lowest earning power is in less developed countries where it takes up to five hours and fifteen minutes to earn the price of a Big Mac.
That is if they have a McDonald's there.
So here we go.
In Australia, minimum wage workers have to work sixteen minutes in order to be able to get a Big Mac.
In Japan, 22 minutes.
In Britain, 22 minutes, in France, 25 minutes, in the United States, the cold hearted, cruel, mean spirited home of hatred for the poor.
Minimum wage workers have to work 30 minutes in order to be able to buy a Big Mac.
In Chile, it's 43 minutes.
In Russia, it's 53 minutes.
In Argentina, it is one hour and forty minutes.
In Mexico, two hours and thirty-three minutes.
Egypt, five hours fifteen minutes.
Next story.
Economists and politicians may disagree about the economic impact of a looming increase of the minimum wage, but Ohio Restrator Dean Gregory already knows how much it'll cost him.
We've already figured out it's going to cost us between 125 grand and 150 grand a year.
I'll have to raise my prices definitely.
Perched above the Ohio River in downtown Cincinnati, Gregory's Montgomery Inn at the boathouse is the busiest independent restaurant in Ohio, serving hundreds of plates of its famous barbecued pork ribs a day.
Second generation family eatery is one of many small businesses in America braced for a higher minimum wage.
Now there's a little paragraph here entitled Nobody Works for Minimum Wage.
And uh what what it basically is uh is all about is that most people pay above the federal minimum wage anyway, already.
In Ohio, the wage is set to climb to six eighty-five from five fifteen on January first.
The minimum for workers who collect tips, a separate standard will increase to three dollars and forty-three cents from two dollars and thirteen cents.
Uh uh it it it it goes on and on and on.
One uh one of the uh uh entrepreneurs affected by this said I don't think consumers quite understand it at some point they're gonna have to pay for the increased cost of goods.
I don't think too many of them understand it either.
I I I think I think people this uh minimum wage business, oh, it's so compassionate.
We just must do it.
These people must be able to to to live a a at least a wholesome life.
We can't pay them slave wages so forth.
Well, fine and dandy, but you're just gonna be paying it yourself and the uh but there are many arguments against it, but they've been lost.
The arguments are technical.
Uh the arguments are are are really economic, and of course, they don't jibe, but the average Americans touchy feely passivity these days.
Uh and so the the uh We've we've talked about the minimum wage here and how it functions and what it actually does.
It actually loses jobs.
And we've also told you that the primary reason for Democrats supporting the minimum wage is because of pressure from unions.
Here's the way it works, folks, and this is this is what you all you have to know about the minimum wage.
This is uh in terms of why Democrats are all for it.
They cloak it in the fact that it's compassionate and that they love the poor and that they want to do everything they can.
Republicans are trying to keep these people down, but we're gonna bring them up.
We're gonna make sure that you poor people have at least two Big Macs, not just one.
The dirty little secret is that as the minimum wage goes up, the minimum wage a benchmark for union contracts.
What'll happen is that the next big union negotiation with whoever, any union, could be big or small, they'll go in there to the company with whom they're negotiating and say, Look, the minimum wage just went up from 515 to 615 or whatever it is.
They just got these unqualified schlubs just got a buck raise.
Well, we are qualified, we're the best American workers that there are out there, and we need a comparable raise in this contract, far more than just a buck an hour.
If you're gonna give incompetent boobs a bunch of slugs, a buck an hour for the sake of it.
We want to get paid on the basis of our quality, our competence, and uh want some more time off, by the way, too.
Uh, and that's this is the dirty little secret about the minimum wage, because it doesn't end up doing good things.
It loses jobs, it raises prices, and the the the myth that there's families of four out there living off minimum wage.
You know what nobody ever calculates here, folks?
It's like when we do the poverty numbers.
Now I'm gonna get these out here in just a second.
I've got it buried in the stack.
When we calculate poverty, we never calculate any kind of government programs that people in poverty get.
We simply calculate their wages.
And if their wages are below the poverty line, then they're said to be in poverty.
But we don't add in the food stamps and all the other assistance that people in poverty get in this country.
And that skews the whole it's like uh what what's the latest number?
Um uh sixteen percent of all wealth is controlled by ten percent or one percent of the population, whatever it is.
Those figures are absolutely worthless because the uh the the percentage of wealth that is calculated does not include the wealth, and it is wealth if you total it up, that people in poverty receive uh as the good graces of the American people who pay for these social programs.
So it's a it's a you know the the the let me get the numbers.
It'll be the best way to illustrate it for you and rework the uh the percentages.
Quick time out, we'll come back and do that to get to your phone calls as well again at 800-282-2882.
Back we are.
A cutting edge of societal evolution, Rush Limbaugh meeting and surpassing all audience expectations on a daily basis.
Now, before I get to this business of uh of calculating who has what percentage of the wealth, uh another in the package on minimum wage stories today from Reuters.
Minimum wage, even above five dollars and fifteen cents, workers struggle.
You see, folks, the country is just one big soup line, and most of the workers, which is a socialist term, by the way, most of the workers are just half a paycheck away from utter destruction and destitution.
Conyers, Georgia is the date line here.
Just because you earn a bit above minimum wage doesn't mean that you're not one step away from financial ruin, according to people on low wages in two states.
In interviews in Georgia and Alabama.
I wonder why they chose George and Alabama.
You suppose it's because the people at Reuters think they're a bunch of hayseed hicks anyway.
People whose wages hover above the federal minimum of 515 an hour said that they were unable to save any money, and they were vulnerable to the inevitable emergencies of life.
Their testimony speaks to a move by the U.S. Congress to raise the federal minimum wage when it returns under Democrat control in January.
Loss of work, a boiler breaking down in the home, a bereavement, a bad financial decision.
But above all, illness were some of the factors which could quickly lead to an individual from financial stability to the edge of homelessness.
Now wait a second.
I thought there wasn't any financial stability, even for people who earn a bit above the minimum wage.
The minimum wage is not designed to provide a savings account, financial stability, two cars in the garage, and health care.
That is not its purpose.
It never was its purpose.
Its purpose all along has been a political maneuver designed to show that government and certain people who work in government care.
How many times do I have to go through this?
We're going to raise it from 515 to 615, eh?
Well, if that's good, why not 715?
Why stop there?
Why not raise it at 10 bucks?
Wouldn't that be more fair than $6.15 an hour?
Of course it would.
And who are we kidding?
You think at $10 an hour they're going to be able to have a savings account, two cars in the garage and health care?
Ha!
They're going to need much more than $10.
Let's just make it $20.
Let's make it $20 an hour.
Do this with any minimum wage supporter, and you know, maybe go up in smaller increments.
It's okay, look, I I agree with you.
Minimum wage is not enough.
$6.15.
Why let's make it to $10.
Yes.
Yes, they will.
At some point you will get to a number.
Well, listen, well, you can't go that high.
At which point you have won the argument and you own them, if you know what to do.
Well, why?
Why why can't we pay them $20?
Well, I mean, this is not, it's not it's not what?
Well, it's too arbitrary, or it's just it's, you know, it's $20 an hour for me.
Well, if $20 is your limit, but $19 is okay, what's the difference?
Uh if if $20 an hour is too much, if any figure that you name, if a certain figure is is unacceptable, don't you think logically any figure is, if it's arbitrary, every one of these figures is arbitrary.
$515, $615, $725 an hour.
It's all arbitrary.
But at some point you're going to reach this number where people will say, no, no, no, no, I can't do that much.
Why?
They won't be able to give you a reason other than, well, it's it's not worth that much.
Well, it's worth eight, but not twenty.
Well, you're really compassionate.
Turn it right back around on them, folks, if you can remember this.
Uh, then you can say, look, 20 bucks, that's still going to be We need a living wage.
We need a minimum wage of 75,000 a year in this country.
And of course, I know most of you out there going, yes, you'd take it.
Somebody's somebody offered it.
Um at any rate, uh the the this business, I've got to give some assistance here to Alan Reynolds in the Wall Street Journal today.
We are told that the rich, the very rich, earn too large a share of total income all the time.
Uh, what's the figure?
The figure that's tossed around is the top one percent of uh of people make sixteen percent of all of the income.
The conclusion is then that the one percent who are making sixteen percent, make uh taking sixteen percent of all income is unfair.
And the only way to make it a fair is to raise their tax.
Yes, raise their tax.
But they don't spell out what they would like to accomplish.
Uh okay, let's do this.
Instead of the top one percent making sixteen percent of uh of total income or sixteen percent share of the total income, let's let's reduce it to ten percent.
Because liberals who love arbitrary numbers, as in the minimum wage, yes, that would be fair.
16% if unfair, ten percent, that would be fair.
Well, guess what?
Ladies and gentlemen, the calculation is wrong.
This whole 1%, 16% thing is wrong, the figures are wrong, the conclusion is wrong, and it's not new math or old math.
It's simple arithmetic.
They use the wrong total income.
They leave out social security.
They leave out transfer payments, tax-free income, income fudging income, and underground money income.
They leave out and the transfer benefits to people in the uh who are you know not in the top one percent uh uh changes the total income by almost 35%.
When you factor in the income that is not tabulated in this one percent get all get 16% of all, 35% of total income is not calculated.
And when you add 35%, the the the top one percent are not getting sixteen percent of all wealth.
It's much less because thirty-five percent of all wealth is not being counted.
Thank you, Alan Reynolds, Wall Street Journal today.
Back in just a second.
Now there's a point to this.
Folks, we got all these minimum wage stories out there, and the minimum wage is gonna, it's gonna go up and it's gonna it's it's it's a done deal.
It's it's gonna happen.
It's as done a deal as anything can be done without having been done yet.
But there are these constant assaults on capitalism and the unfairness of it all with these statistics that one percent score sixteen percent of all wealth in America.
Of course, they never tell you how what percentage of the taxes that one percent are paying, we do at RushlinBaught.com.
But the liberals would tell you if we could get that down, you know, one percent get 10%.
That would be fair if we did any kind of reduction.
Well, the one percent get sixteen percent of all is an is an incorrect uh calculation because the wrong total income is used.
Social security is income for a lot of people, and it costs a lot, and it's it's it's billions and trillions, and it's not counted.
Other transfer payments, you name it.
AFDC, food stamps, you know, all of those benefits, they are not calculated for this purpose, and it's on purpose as income.
Tax-free income, you move tax-free income.
Well, I never heard of that.
How do I get on that?
Municipal bonds.
Uh there are people that are clipping the coupons out there left and right.
They bought these tax-free munis.
They have income every year.
It's not counted.
Uh they use what's called earned income here.
And of course, there's income that is income-fudging income.
I mean, there's the cash economy.
And there are people cheating.
There are people not reporting all the income they make.
Then there's the underground economy, which is also cash.
Now, according to Wall Street Journal, all of this uncalculated income increases total income by almost 35%.
And what does that do?
Well, think of dividing one by six and then one by ten.
One into six is sixteen percent, one into ten is ten percent.
Um that thirty-five percent additional income not being calculated destroys this whole notion that one percent are scoring sixteen percent of all wealth.
Uh so why do we hear the dishonest one percent score sixteen percent of all wealth for the same reason that we hear that poverty hasn't been solved?
Do you remember that one?
Poverty's not been reduced in a land of plenty.
There are those with nothing.
Um we've just got all these stories today, talk about how they're just, you know, one page like away from utter financial ruin.
But as your truth detector, I and too few others point out that today's poor have a standard of living that equals that of the middle class in the 1960s.
That's in David Brooks's column in the New York Times today.
Now stop and think of that.
Today's poverty level people, people below the poverty line, are living the same lives that the middle class in the 1960s lived.
And yet, how many of you think things are going to hell in a handbasket?
How many of you think the economy's in the dregs?
Some people are doing well, but you're not, and so forth.
It's absurd.
But I don't blame you because you're bombarded every day of your life countless times with nothing but crisis-oriented drive-by news reports designed to make you feel panicked and insecure.
And this is why you need to develop some boundaries and let that stuff bounce off of you.
The problem is you cannot deal with real problems with fake statistics or fake politicians.
And so, just as this whole 1% score 16% of all wealth business is uh is uh is a ruse, so is the whole minimum wage thing in terms of what its purpose is.
Here's Rich in Waterloo, Iowa.
Hi, Rich, I'm glad you called.
Hey, thanks for taking my call.
And like uh a bundle of contradictions, so just take a puff on your cigar before you knock me out of the park.
Just give me a chance here.
First of all, you've made on here, wait, wait, wait just a second.
I uh I gotta light the cigar.
Hold your thought here just a second.
Right.
Hang on, just a sec.
That's the sound of the blazer torch lighting up the double lightero chisel from La Florida Minicana.
All right, go.
Okay, I am a conservative, probably on almost every issue.
One of them I'm not, though, is the minimum wage thing.
And you cited two arguments, you know, before you break, you're using all this complicated economic stuff that only an economist could refute you on.
You know, just me, average guy sitting out here, I can't refute you on what you're saying.
Maybe it's right, maybe it's not.
So I'll take two simple points.
You said that uh raising the minimum wage is gonna cost jobs, and you said it's uh basically it's a negotiating tool for the unions.
The first thing on on the jobs thing, it we almost have full employment in this country, and supposedly the only jobs we got left over are jobs for illegal immigrants.
So if we lose a few jobs, we're only one of the things.
What do they earn?
Huh?
What do they earn?
Who?
The illegal immigrants.
I don't know, but I would imagine it's uh minimum wage or less if they're just working in the fields.
You'd be wrong.
Okay, well, I'll be able to do that.
Some of them are making twenty, twenty-five bucks an hour.
Okay, I'll I'll take your word at that.
But if we lose jobs, it's probably gonna be jobs like their jobs that are going to be lost.
So, you know, that's not that big of a deal.
Here's here's the point.
The m the minimum wage, just I want you to try to understand it.
I mean, you you can disagree because this is America and you have your right to be wrong.
Uh, but the the uh uh minimum wage exists i i in at best as entry level pay.
Uh the minimum wage goes to inexperienced young people, some who do not have much education, and it is not designed to support a family of four or what have you.
Now, the the reason that we say it it it costs jobs is that most companies do not have a stash of unused money laying around, especially small businesses.
So they budget their costs, and most companies' uh number one expense is labor.
And it you should look at this no different than how you pay your utility bill.
You don't associate any compassion with your utility bill, but uh but but you do associate compassion with an employer paying an employee something.
So these people have their number one expense as labor, and they budget every year according to it.
Now, all of a sudden, next year or whenever they're gonna be told that every one of their employees has to make X in addition to uh X more.
As the restaurant guy in Cincinnati points out, it's gonna cost him a hundred and thirty to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year uh to handle the minimum wage increases.
That money is just not sitting somewhere unspent and unused.
He's either going to reduce his payroll and fire some people, or he's going to raise his prices on his menu, or he's gonna do both, a combination of the both.
Well, what about cutting costs?
You left that one out, and that seems to be a good thing.
Well, that's the number one cost is laborer.
This is what I'm trying to do.
Companies do not exist to create jobs for people.
That is not the purpose of a company.
A guy does not invest a million dollars starting a business to to have jobs in his community.
That's not that's not the purpose.
Okay, well, that's fine.
You you're still neglecting the fact that you know businesses have more ways to cut costs than the two you mentioned.
Have you ever run a business?
No.
You don't know what you're talking about then.
And I say that I say that not not insultingly, but you don't know what you if you if you haven't run one, you can't sit around and say they have infinite numbers of ways.
You have been poisoned with class envy, even as a conservative.
Oh, no, uh everybody hates the boss, everybody hates business.
Everybody thinks business is cheating everybody.
Back to the cigar for a second.
Okay.
Now, I work for a Fortune 500 company, and they have never laid off anyone ever in their history.
And they pride themselves on that.
And I'll tell you what, ever since nine eleven, they've panicked and they went into this cost cutting mode, and they're not getting rid of anybody.
And yet if if I were to tell you who they were and you look at their numbers, they make money every year.
They make more money every year.
Well, look at is everybody at this Fortune 500 company and by the Fortune 500 companies are different than small businesses and 75% of employment in this country for small business.
Is everybody at this Fortune 500 company getting the same raise they always got?
That's hard to say.
We get raises, but uh it's probably not as much as it used to be.
Well, okay.
They're cutting costs and they're doing it with labor.
They haven't fired anybody, but you're not getting raises.
You're not getting raises as much as you used to.
I think that's I bet they don't have a whole lot of minimum wage people working at the Fortune 500 company.
No, we don't.
That's one thing.
It's it's all good wages.
Everybody makes a decent wage.
Well, let me let me.
Well, I'm happy for you.
I'm I'm happy for you.
But the you what's the other thing about unions you wanted to dispute with me?
Well, here's here's just a different way to look at this.
You know, I like I said, I'm just an average guy in Iowa, you know, trying to scrape by making a living, and I make I make a decent living.
But I think You're scraping by working at a Fortune 500 company that just you just got through paying saying pays decent wages, and now you're just scraping by.
Well, so I'm I'm just agreeing with you know all the complainers that you so salt uh so-called site and say that you know they can barely make it on what they're making.
I'm just an average guy, I'm barely making it.
But here's my point about unions.
Would you mind telling me, and uh do not misunderstand me as being argumentative or confrontational.
Many people do that, end up being intimidated, my mean when I'm a harmless lovable little fuzzball.
Would you mind giving me an approximation of what you earn?
I make fifty thousand.
Fifty thousand.
Five oh, is that what you said?
Yeah, and you're and you're and you're scraping by.
All right.
Um the odds are that if in a couple years you make it to 75,000.
You may you married, you have kids?
Yeah, three kids.
Okay.
The odds are that if if you if you uh earn uh next couple years, let's say you somehow get up to 75.
For the first year or two after you earn the seventy-five, it will make a huge difference.
That's a large percentage increase.
But after a while, you'd be barely scraping by on the 75.
No way, man.
Well, yes.
Yes, trust me on this.
I've been there, dude.
I have been it's it's human nature.
Here's the deal.
I've learned my lessons.
If I can get out of the situation I'm in right now, I will never go back.
If I made $75,000 a year, I would be a king in Iowa.
So anyways, let me go back to my I've been there.
I've I I'm telling you, I've got to be.
I know you I know that's what you think.
How old are you?
I'm 40.
40?
Well, okay, I'm a little bit more mature than you are.
I'm fifty-five.
And and by the way, they don't let anybody really make money in this country until they're forty, so your big days are ahead of you.
If your company, you know, if your company would just lay off a few hundred workers, you could be making a hundred thousand by now.
Let me make my point about the union.
Yes, give it a shot.
All right.
You've said, I've heard you say this forever, that that Democrats are essentially a coalition of minorities.
And I I look at this issue, this minimum wage issue that I'm telling you it's gonna appeal to everybody.
I know that.
I've already I agree with you we've lost the argument.
I've t I'm not I'm just doing this because of the fun of it, but we've lost the argument with the American people.
Because they the American people see it like you do.
It's nothing nothing more than compassion.
Raising the minimum wage and supporting it makes you feel good about yourself, whether it means anything or not.
And it doesn't.
You you it it's it's it's it's from five fifteen an hour to six fifteen an hour, chump change.
It's an actual insult, if you ask me.
So they give me a dollar an hour raise and I quit on them.
Well, you know, go uh going off track of the union thing, but back to your point.
Um, you know, uh I I go into poor neighborhoods all the time.
That's part of my job.
And you know, I got no problem with somebody making more money.
I can't believe what I see in poor neighborhoods, you know, like three generations of people living in a tiny little thousand square foot house.
I say let them have double, let them, you know, make more money and let the businesses sort it out how they're gonna survive.
You you cannot possibly be.
You cannot with what you just said, and you're a nice guy, and I understand you've got a big beating heart, and you're the got the greatest intention, but you cannot possibly be a conservative having you think he can be a conservative?
Well, okay, that the snerdly's disagreeing, says that you can be a conservative saying what you just said to me, and that there are there are way too many people like you who are conservatives who do think that way.
You just said it's up to business to take care of poverty.
You've just said it, and there's that that's so fundamentally flawed.
I'm over time in this segment anyway.
I haven't got time to go into that is so fundamentally flawed that it would take me at least two segments to walk you through this.
And I wish I had the time, but sadly I don't.
You know, ladies and gentlemen, throughout my Sterling star-studded uh notorious uh broadcast career.
I have repeatedly said over and over again, I am not a journalist, and don't ever call me one, primarily because I laugh and um I smile and and I I enjoy life.
And I'm not looking for chaos and crisis, nor do I try to destroy anybody or ruin their lives or any of that.
But there's another reason why I should never ever let anybody call me or refer to me as a journalist.
Gallup has just completed its annual ethics and honesty survey.
Journalists again bring it up at the bottom of the list.
For the eighth straight year, nurses top the list.
84% of the public giving them very high or high marks for ethics.
Nurses.
See, I told you nurses, he had nothing to worry about with the heart attack grill thing going on.
It was in fact it's gonna be a net plus.
The next four finishers, uh scoring from 73 to 62 percent positive, are also in the medical field, pharmacists, vets, doctors, and dentists, followed closely by engineers, college teachers, clergy, and policemen.
This is the annual Ethics and Honesty survey from Gallup.
Now, how can this be when everybody thinks they're being ripped off in the health care industry?
At the other end, only 7% rate the ethics of car salesmen highly.
Advertising salesmen score 11%, believe me, that's high.
HMO managers 12%, uh insurance salesmen 13%, and congressmen 14%.
Senators are at uh 15%.
Uh just twenty-six percent of the American people give journalists high or very high marks for ethics.
Forty-eight percent say that they are average, 25% say low or very low.
Democrats rate the honesty of media workers more highly than Republicans by a 36 to 17% margin.
I wonder why.
Democrats also give college teachers high marks, 71%, compared to only 48% from Republicans, uh, which makes total sense.
Because Republicans and conservatives know that college teachers are not teachers, they're indoctrination experts.
They're not teaching anything.
They are indoctrinating.
They're taking these young skulls full of mush and basically poisoning them out there.
And uh Republican parents who had what they thought were nice, normal, pretty good future ahead of them kids, after one year home from the university, don't recognize them, and he may as well come from Area 51.
New York Times has the most amazing story today.
Headline Deep Roots of Denial for Iran's true believer.
It's about Mahmood Ahmadineizad and his Holocaust Never Happened convention, starring David Duke earlier this week.
And the uh the deep analysis here, deep drive by analysis, and the guy that writes the story, Michael Slackman, actually concludes that my God, Mr. Ahmad Didijad actually seems to believe this.
Like all this wiping Israel off the map has just been rhetoric.
But now, my gosh, he actually might believe this stuff.
Well, thank goodness the New York Times is finally on the case.
Open line Friday tomorrow, folks.
We'll see you then.
Look forward to it.
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