All Episodes
Previous Next
Nov. 20, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:46
November 20, 2008, Thursday, Hour #2
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
From Hayatop, the EIB building in Midtown Manhattan, Rush Limbaugh and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
And your phone calls at 800-282-2882.
I am your highly trained broadcast specialist, meeting and surpassing all audience expectations on a daily basis.
Looking forward to chatting with you.
I want to continue one more time.
Just one little thing on this theme of where is Obama.
And Rahm Emmanuel on Tuesday night saying, hey, it's a shame to let a crisis go to waste.
Meaning this crisis is just exactly what they want.
It's what they've ordered.
This crisis and the worse it gets, which is why Obama is doing nothing, why he's saying nothing.
They want it to get worse because the worse it gets, the more they think people will clamor for government miracles to fix it.
This is exactly, and when he does start speaking about it, he'll do so with his air of confidence and assuredness.
And this will comfort the masses.
And they will be led to believe that Obama does indeed have all the answers.
And those answers will be to nationalize as much of the United States economy as they can, healthcare, the banks, automobile companies, you name it.
And I mentioned last hour that a lot of people think that the New Deal was actually a factor in worsening the Great Depression.
In fact, back in, I guess this is August of 2004, UCLA posted a story relative to two of their economists who had done a study.
And basically, they concluded, well, they figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years.
And these two UCLA economists blame Franklin Delano Roosevelt after they scrutinized his record for four years.
The two professors, the economists are Harold Cole and Lee Ohanian.
They concluded in a study that the New Deal policy signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven years.
And now that's exactly what Obama has planned.
And he has bragged of setting up his administration as a new FDR type administration.
And FDR did so.
He spoke with confidence.
He assured people, same way Obama does.
And, you know, you can look at elements of the New Deal and ask yourself, are they successful?
Social Security, Medicare.
Are these things successful?
Obama wants to take them even further.
He's a radical leftist.
I mean, there's no question.
But his people have no clue that's what he's going to do.
His voters, they have no idea.
And, you know, a lot of people on our side have been running around saying, well, we've got to bide our time.
We have to wait to see what Obama is actually going to do.
It probably will govern from the center.
If he's very smart, he'll govern from the center.
He'll try to govern from the center because that's how you get things done.
What a bunch of dunderheads.
You know, I can understand a bunch of neophyte leftists, you know, coming out with that garb.
But the idea of the people on our side, oh, yeah, he's going to be a centrist.
He knows he can't alienate the country.
There's a lot of things done.
You do that from the center.
You do nothing from the center.
If people operate from the center, they get run over.
If you're in the middle of the road, you get hit with a car.
He is going to operate from the far left, and he's going to get as much done from that perspective as he possibly can.
It is not a mystery.
By the way, there's some rankling.
I should say wrangling going on.
It's all not sweetness and light.
Wrangling going on over the nomination of Hillary Clinton to be the Secretary of State.
New York Daily News today, President-elect Barack Obama's camp, well practiced in keeping secrets, is increasingly frustrated by a steady stream of leaks that insiders suspect come from confidants of Hillary Clinton, the Daily News has learned.
Just as ex-President Clinton pledged yesterday to prove that there are no new skeletons in his closet that could keep his wife from becoming Secretary of State, top Obama sources suggested loose-lipped Clintonistas abide by their rules.
If caught leaking, you will pay the price.
The Obama team is blaming Clinton's side for initially disclosing last week's secret Hillary trip to Chicago to meet with Obama and a more recent report that the negotiations were going well.
Well, if this is true, if the Clintons are leaking against Obama, then it's tit-for-tat.
Because these Obama people have been leaking left and right after a private meeting with the president in the Oval Office.
So you've got two camps both leaking against each other, and they're a little bit miffed.
And by the way, there's no love lost between these two.
Somebody asked me yesterday, I have a question for you.
Let's assume here that Hillary Clinton is Secretary of State.
What's your reaction to it?
I'm surprised she took it.
I can't believe she would take it.
I don't know how she undermines Obama from the State Department.
You know, these people work.
She's used to working for herself.
When you're in the Senate, you work for yourself.
I can't imagine her over at the State Department having to implement Obama's policies unless she tries to renegade, run a renegade operation and do it herself.
But even more than that, how does she run for president from the State Department in 2012 as a member of the Obama team?
Because you know the next presidential race is practically underway already.
On the Republican side, the jostling has already begun.
Everybody's got the long knives out for Sarah Palin.
The long knives are out for Romney.
You know, Huckabee's out there making his moves on television, speeches and books and so forth.
He desperately wants to be back in the mix.
So on our side, it's already begun.
On the Democrat side, whoever, if anybody wants to run against Obama in 2012, they're going to have to start around 210.
How do you do that from the Secretary of State position?
How do you run for president against the guy that put you in?
I know they are their own government over there, but that the State Department is true.
But I mean, I just, I look at this as keep your enemies, your friends close, your enemies closer.
I mean, I think if she takes this gig, you know, how much money does it cost her husband?
He can't go out and legally make speeches from foreign entities because of a conflict.
Yeah, she's in huge debt.
She still has, what, $11 million of debt?
Yeah.
Right.
Oh, that's right.
She got $8 million outstanding, and she loaned herself $12 million.
Well, Bill can go get that back a couple speeches here before she becomes whatever she's going to become.
Well, they have to work fast, but they're used to working.
Clintons know how to earn money now.
Didn't take them long to amass massive wealth once they left the White House with the silver.
And remember some of the other stuff they got caught nabbing and the W keys off all the computer keyboards the staff took out of there.
And all is not well with the anti-war left.
The anti-war left fears that Obama may create a hawkish foreign policy cabinet.
They don't like the fact that Hillary is going to be over there.
You know, she voted for the Gulf War.
She never apologized for it.
She voted to call the Iranian terrorists terrorists.
Robert Gates will hang on as Secretary of Defense for a while for continuity.
So Code Pink and the anti-war groups, other liberal activists increasingly concerned at signs that Obama's national security team will be dominated by appointees who favored the Iraq invasion and hold hawkish views on other important foreign policy issues.
So it's all, it's not a lot of that smoothness and light out there, sweetness and light, but it's I think all this is just hoi polloy.
I think the doesn't none of this matters, all this reporting about this stuff now, because when Obama gets in there, it's going to be the way he wants it to be, and he's going to rule with an authoritarian hand on this stuff.
He's got a definite agenda of things he wants to accomplish, and he will set out to do so.
A little funny sound bite here.
This was, I guess, last night, Showtime has taken over the show inside the NFL.
HBO dropped it.
Showtime, which I think is owned by CBS, picked it up.
And Warren Sapp, who's one of my all-time NFL players, did a great nose-tackle for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Oakland Raiders.
He just recently hung it up.
He just recently retired.
And this is what he said about Donovan McNabb.
This will follow you the rest of your career.
Your legacy in this league, Donald.
Rush Limbaugh, and now, I didn't know there were ties in the NFL.
Warren Sapp on Donovan McNabb.
Your legacy.
Play it again.
Your legacy in this league.
This will follow you the rest of your career.
Rush Limbaugh, and now, I didn't know there were ties in the NFL.
Warren Sapp.
What a legacy.
Hey, Warren Sapp said it.
Not I, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm just playing the audio.
I got an email yesterday from Brian Kilmead of Fox News.
He does the Fox and Friends show in the morning, and he was in Los Angeles.
He was going to go interview Governor Schwarzenegger.
And he said that he had a, he said one of the things that Schwarzenegger said was that the Republican Party is going to have to get rid of its conservatism if it is to ever have a chance to win again.
And he wanted to know, Killmee and wanted to know if he could come by here this morning or sometime today on his way back from L.A. to get my reaction to what Schwarzenegger said.
And I said, I promised Barbara Walters I wouldn't do any on-camera interviews before December 4th.
But here's what I would, here's what you ought to ask Arnold.
I said, here's what you ought to say to Arnold.
Well, wait a minute now.
Let me play the sound bite because he teases this.
I'll then tell you what I told Kilmead.
This was this morning, and he's the sports guy, Brian Kilmead, but they sent him out there to talk to Schwarzenegger.
Here's the thing.
Where should the Republican Party go from here?
Here's what he says.
They should move away from some of their core principles, those conservative principles, and start spending on programs America's want.
How does that sit with where Rush Limbaugh, where Tim Polenti?
So he wants the Conservative Party to not be so conservative.
And I got Rush Limbaugh to comment on that.
I commented on it in an email, and he's going to reveal that tomorrow.
I don't know if I should reveal it here.
But how can I not?
This is just, this is absurd.
It is clear that Schwarzenegger is reading David Brooks and some of the other conservative pseudo-intelligentsia on our side, conservative principles, and start spending on programs Americans want.
Governor Schwarzenegger, would you look at how much spending went up during the Bush years?
We got a new entitlement.
We were spending money left and right during the bull and we were doing it trying to get votes of people.
I told Killmead, you tell Schwarzenegger we just ran the campaign he thinks we ought to be running.
And then you ask him what the hell happened.
We just ran a campaign with no conservative principles.
We just ran a campaign where we ditched our core beliefs.
We just ran a campaign where we're reaching out.
We, our candidate, promised to buy up every failing mortgage.
If that's not spending money on what people want, I don't know what is.
And we didn't get any.
We didn't get any advantage to this.
You tell Schwarzenegger that we already tried his campaign.
Lordy, this is worse than I thought.
I thought it was bad last week.
It is worse than the battle we have to screw Obama.
We know what that's going to do to us.
The big question we have is what the hell are we going to do to ourselves on our side with this kind of stupid, idiotic, ignorant thinking?
Advocate the very thing that failed big time right in front of our eyes as the way we win down the road.
On the same planet, he's on the same planet.
Plus, he's gone nuts in this green stuff.
And I think I know why.
He starred in a movie once where he saved Mars from an ecological disaster.
Remember that?
He saved Mars single-handedly.
I think he's Total Recall.
That's right.
Total Recall was the name of that movie.
Now, Killmead did play one of his clips with Schwarzenegger this morning on Fox and Friends.
The question, could you see yourself working for Obama when your term in California is done, going to Washington, working for the White House?
Before I make any move, the next move that I make, I'm going to go and say to Maria, Maria, you tell me what to do.
Now, I didn't see it, so I don't know if he's smiling when he says this.
I don't know if there's a little stereotypical humor.
I suspect, God forgive me, but I suspect this happened a long time ago.
I suspect he's had to clear moves with her for I don't know how long, because there's no way.
I mean, he's done such a 180 from the days that he got elected in the recall election out there.
I'm going to go ask Maria.
I'm going to go ask Maria anything I do.
I'm going to go to Maria and say, till you tell me what to do.
This is, yeah, at least when Goldwater went south, it was because of senibility.
And I don't know what Schwarzenegger's excuse is here.
Well, now this is getting comical.
A Chinese fishing at Chikom, a Chikom fishing vessel has been hijacked by Somali pirates.
Who are these guys?
Doesn't anybody on one of these tankers have a gun?
You would think a Chikom fishing vessel would have a gun and maybe a couple of other armaments.
Maybe they were hungry.
By the way, Arnold Schwarzenegger, I can't get over this.
We need to drop our core principles and beliefs and we need to start spending money on government programs and things people want.
If his sense of governing works, why the hell is California in so much debt and also asking for a federal bailout?
Spending on programs that people want, that's what California is.
And they are bankrupt continually.
And speaking of states and cities, Mayor Bloomberg, right here in the Big Apple, they're still arguing over these $400 property tax rebates.
And they are the law.
And Bloomberg said yesterday, to hell with the law.
You passed a law that makes me give out these $400 rebate checks to hell with it.
I'm still not sending them out.
This is a guy who said, to hell with the term limit thing, I'm running for a third term.
I'm not even running.
I'm just going to appoint myself mayor for the third term.
Screw it.
New York is a place that spends money on programs people want.
And they can't find enough activity to tax now to pay for it.
Three days in here, and I'm out.
I am out of here tomorrow before I get laughed before they close this place down and prevent departures.
All right, Bob in Livonia, Michigan.
You're next here on the EIB network, sir.
Nice to have you with us.
Hello.
Finally get the hodia.
Say, I'm one of those retirees from Ford coming up on two years in December.
Yeah.
And I was watching some of the hearings there in Washington, and nothing's changed.
I saw the same arrogance that I saw when I worked there.
Management of arrogance.
Management.
And union.
And union.
Look, you know, I hired in in 1975 at $4.42 an hour.
And you remember in 1980 what happened.
I was laid off for four years.
Okay.
We had subpay back then, but it ran out very quickly, like in four months, and so did the unemployment at six months, you know, 26 weeks.
My health care, I think that stayed for about a year, but the dental went right away within that first month at the end of the month.
And look, Rush, I had to go out and get two $5 an hour jobs.
Okay.
My wife had to work.
So, you know, and look, you're looking at 15 or 13.5% unemployment rate.
You're looking at a prime rate at what, 21.5%.
This country was really screwed up.
No, that was during the Carter years.
Now, you said you hired on 7.50 to 84.
You said you hired on in 75.
What was your hourly?
$4.42 an hour.
$4.42 an hour.
Yeah, and $68 when I hired the first time was $2.82.
$2.82.
Okay.
Yeah, then I went into service.
But see, wages went up over the years.
And I made a good wage.
But look, I went out and I spent my money wisely.
The only thing I owe right now at 58 years old is four years left on my mortgage.
I don't owe a dime to anybody.
Okay.
I put three kids through college.
I spent almost like $10,000 in Hawaii on a vacation.
Another $10,000 in Alaska.
Been to California.
Been to Disney World three times, been on cruises.
My money has gone into the economy to help jobs for other services in this economy.
It's not that it just went away.
Yeah, that's what the old days we call it trickle down.
Mambo number five, Lubega.
And we're back, Rush Limbo.
I want to continue here with Bob from Livonia, Michigan.
Bob, you're still there, right?
Yeah, I'm still here.
What you were describing here was trickle down.
You're running around spending the money that you've earned, and therefore you're helping other people stay employed.
You're spending money in Hawaii and Disney World and so forth.
So you're facilitating other businesses operating.
So you've got a good handle on it.
But look at strip all that away for a second.
You're retired.
You gave us the circumstances of your retirement.
Are you still depending on you said you worked at Ford?
Yeah.
Yeah, the last year that I worked there, I was placed in that jobs bank, and I was unhappy with it.
I just wanted to specify for it.
Are you still being paid a pension?
I get my pension.
I get my pension.
Yeah, right.
You know, $3,000 a month, whatever it is, with the survivors' benefits, all that stuff.
And healthcare?
Yeah, I get the healthcare, too.
So when you watch all this, when you watch all this take place and you hear that some people think, look, we just need to let them go bankrupt and redo these union contracts that just can't be honored.
You can't continue to pay people that do not produce anything that kind of money.
What do you think when you watch people say this?
Well, the retirement's one thing, but the jobs bank's the other thing.
See, Rush, back in the 80s, I went to Minnesota after four years.
Ford called me up one day and said, hey, we got a job for you.
But guess what?
It's in Minnesota.
And I had to make the gut-wrenching decision to move up my family and go.
The way it is now, you could sit in this job bank and you could turn down an offer for another state.
You don't have to go.
To me, Rush, they got socialism mixed up with capitalism, with the business.
And it's like a socialistic thing.
It just doesn't mix.
You can't do that.
Now, wait a second.
I just want to understand here.
You're in the job bank.
Are you being paid while you're in the job bank?
Yeah, we were paid in the job bank, but I got out of it.
Now, I just want to, you're not working.
You're in the job bank, but you're being paid.
Then they call you up and they say, here's a job for you, Minnesota.
Oh, no, there was no job back in the 80s.
There was no job back in the 80s.
Everything ran out.
No, I know.
I'm talking about now.
I'm trying to figure out how it operates now.
But my question is, do you get paid even when you're not working when you're in the job bank?
Yes.
And if today, when you're in the job bank and they called you and they say, we've got a job and it's not where you live, you can turn it down and still get paid.
Is that what you're saying?
Exactly.
That's the way it was set up.
And it's disgusting.
It's disgusting.
That's why I left.
I bought a franchise in Fixing Windshields.
I'm a franchisee, and that's what I've been doing for the last three years.
Well, here's what I see.
I hired six employees, and that's what I do.
Okay, good for you.
You finally got, you've entrepreneured it.
That's superb.
I love hearing things like that.
I love hearing stories like this.
Now, here's what's tough for me about this.
And I mentioned this earlier in the program.
I am all for everybody earning as much as they can.
I am not one of these that wants to sit here and place an arbitrary value on what someone's worth is.
I want the market to do that.
And interestingly, this is one of the not problems.
It's one of my observations about unions in the past.
They're fine if that's for you and if that's what you want to do.
But when you join a union, you have to realize that you're giving up your individuality and you're part of a giant unit and you're not going to earn any more than anybody else there does, regardless how well you do your job, unless you can finagle lots of overtime, things of that nature.
But at some point, when you're earning more than the market would otherwise say, there's going to become a day of reckoning.
Now I understand the, the auto companies.
They agreed to this deal in the collective bargaining sessions with the autoworkers, this job bank business where you get paid for not working.
I mean, if I, I mean if you just strip it all away, who wouldn't take that?
You mean you're going to pay me and give me a pension and health care minute for not working?
That's right, son.
Sign me up, and then you're going to tell me even if a job comes up, I don't have to take it, and I can still get paid.
That's right, son.
Who's not going to take that?
So these poor guys in the union, and I'm talking about the rank and file now, who wouldn't take this?
The auto companies negotiated these deals.
I don't know what kind of gun was at their head and so forth.
I have no, all I know is now that the day of reckoning has come.
And whatever these labor costs are, particularly the labor costs for people who are no longer working, which means they're not producing anything, that just can't go on indefinitely.
And the tipping point here has been reached.
Snirdly and the, why can't it go on forever like this?
Government does.
The market imposes itself eventually here.
These companies can't go print money, snurdly.
The government can.
The government can continually run a deficit.
That's why I said the other day, let's bail out the government.
Screw all of this and just bail out the government.
We don't need to raise taxes.
We don't need to just bail out government.
Just bail out the government.
If we're going to bail out everybody else, bail them out too.
Now, Rush, that doesn't make any sense.
That's right.
Exactly right.
Now you understand why no bailout works.
How do we bail out the government?
Well, we just bail them out.
But the government's who's bailing it.
That's right.
The government should bail itself out.
But Rush, I can't have it.
Right.
Exactly right.
Nobody can be bailed out.
All that does is forestall and delay the eventual day of reckoning.
As I mentioned earlier, labor costs are as much a factor in being competitive in any business as any other business, in the auto business, as any other business.
And it's quite, if one company making a product, in this case, cars, or if three companies making cars have labor costs that are twice as high as their competitors' labor costs, well, mathematics and human nature and behavior are quite common and they're predictable.
And it's very simple to see that the guy who makes the cars for half the labor cost of the other three companies is going to be able to sell his cheaper.
And guess what people are going to buy?
They're going to go buy the cheaper cars, particularly if they think they look better or if they have, you know, whatever, but they're going to find the deal.
Everybody loves to tell you how they screwed the dealer, do they not?
Everybody loves to tell you how they went to the dealership and they jawboned them and they argued with them and they got it below sticker.
You say, well, how'd you do that?
And they tell you some cock and bull story about how, well, I offered cash.
You know, they'll take cash right off the barrel.
I bought most of my cars recently with cash.
It doesn't do a damn thing to the price.
All these myths.
Yet when people buy a house, they can't wait to tell you how expensive it was.
But when they buy the car, they tell you how cheaply they got it and how they really screwed the dealer.
They knew more about the business than the dealer knew.
They went to the website.
They found out what the wholesale cost was.
They knew where the lies on the sticker were, all that stuff.
So the point is people are oriented toward the cheapest price they can get in a car.
So these labor costs have come home to roost.
And It's a real tough thing for me because I am not anti-union and I am not opposed to anybody making a lot of money.
I want everybody to make as much as they can when they're working.
But there's no way we've proven it in Social Security.
We've proven it in Medicare.
There is no way even a society as large and as prosperous as ours, the most prosperous in history, human history.
There's no way a society can pay people enough money interminably, forever, to where their life is also prosperous when they're not working.
It just doesn't work.
At some point, and I fear that we have reached it, the golden goose, it's come home.
And I don't care who you want to blame.
At this point, that's pointless.
You blame the execs, and you can get all bent out of shape.
They're flying in for these sessions to beg for money on their corporate jets.
And it doesn't mean anything.
It just, it's bad PR for those guys, but they can't get in much worse PR shape.
So what does it matter?
You can get mad at the union leadership, the thugs out there who negotiated a deal, and you get mad at the rank and file.
All that's pointless now.
This is a situation only the market can repair.
And that would appear to be through bankruptcy, either chapter 11, chapter 7, or 7, going into 11, however it all works.
Bailout is this bailout.
I'll tell you something, you know what this really is?
And I mentioned this yesterday.
And this is even scarier.
And I think this is why Obama is happy for even more crisis to come down the road and more volatility, more instability.
Because Rahm Emanuel said, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
You don't want to waste a crisis.
Stop and think of that, folks.
You don't want to waste a crisis.
Meaning to these guys, this crisis is an opportunity.
It's not an opportunity for us.
It's an opportunity for them.
What they really want to do is use the panicked and crisis mode of the auto industry to set the guidelines by which they reorganize with bailout money.
This is what the Obama camp's going to do.
And these auto companies are going to have to promise to make all kinds of environmentally friendly cars as designed by environmentalist wacko lobbyists and activists both inside and outside the Obama administration.
This is where the greening of the U.S. auto industry is where this is headed.
But Rush, but Rush, how do you?
Because I know who Obama is, folks.
We all do.
We know where this guy's come from.
We know what inspires him, what's informed him, what motivates him.
He looks at every problem through the solution through the prism of socialism.
Collectivism, you know, whatever word offends you the least, government in charge of it all, whatever you want to call it.
And this is the greening of the auto industry.
That's what's coming.
And in addition to that, there will be limits on what executives can make.
The unions will stay intact.
Nothing will happen to them.
There'll be limits on the and Barney Frank.
I think we've got the sound bites.
Barney Frank said, hell, 25 billion is not near enough.
They're going to need a trillion.
Barney Frank's idea is that the U.S. government own 80% of the U.S. auto business, the big three that get the bailout.
Wants the government to own 80% of it.
And then there will, when that happens, no, no, I'm not making this up.
I read it in show prep today.
I've got some audio soundbites.
Oh, we'll take a break here, and I'll get to the Frank soundbites on this afterwards when we come back for the break.
But he wants, this is going to be loans, and until they pay it back, the government has an 80% stake.
When a government has an 80% stake, they write the rules by which the company operates.
That's where we're headed with the auto business and any other business that gets bailed out.
And then, then, once the government owns 80%, don't be surprised if somebody like Frank comes along and says, you know what would be really fair?
Let's the government, let's us and the government, let's just gift this 80% stake to the unions.
And we'll have the unions own the auto companies.
The unions will own 80% of the oil, and they'll get to operate it.
And we'll finally get even with management.
After all these, you watch, folks.
Don't be surprised if down the road, this is exactly what happens.
Well, I finished wrapping up Thanksgiving plans for the family last night.
I love doing these logistical things, you know, making sure when he gets in at the right time, what day they're...
Yeah, but I'm having some.
I'm not doing the whole group this year.
Decided to give the whole group a break and let them, you know, so it's not 65 or 70, 15, 15 or 20 coming.
Still, it's a logistical effort.
I had to, you got to, what day they're all coming and assign rooms and get to call a hotel and make sure everything's set up and blah, And then I had to make sure that Augusto, the chef, made sure all the Allen brothers was ordered because, I mean, I can't serve it a lot.
Getting a turkey from Allen Brothers, a prime rib from Allen Brothers for Thanksgiving Day.
And on Saturday, I always do hamburgers and hot dogs.
And so, oh, yeah, well, Allen Brothers for, well, no, because some arriving on Monday.
See, that's the whole thing.
Some of these free loaders are showing up on Monday.
Some are showing up on Wednesday.
So I know, this is what I was doing.
What I was making sure we had all the Allen Brothers, and I was thinking of all of you out there in the Thanksgiving and holiday time coming on.
I know that these economic times are everybody's just concerned about stability and lack of knowledge what's going to happen in the future.
And if you're really getting the mood, even in these down times, to treat yourself, Allen Brothers would be one of the ways to do it, especially for family at holiday time.
Just trust me, it's that special.
It's that unique.
It's not stuff that you can find in a grocery store.
And at least go to the website and take a look at what they have, AB Stakes, AB's for Allen Brothers, ABsteaks.com.
And it'll, if nothing else, if nothing else, your mouth will water and you'll have things for your wish list once things get put back together here in about four to eight years.
All right.
Barney Frank.
He was on NPR's morning edition today.
Steve Inskeep was the presenter.
And he said to Barney Frank, I want to ask you about something mentioned in that report from economists from the University of Maryland.
What makes you think that $25 billion for the big three would even be enough?
We don't think it would be enough.
The way we have this structured, they will get $25 billion for the bill passes with a lot of conditions.
If on March 31st, the president does not believe that this is going to get them to viability with energy efficiency cars, they have to repay the loan and they get no more money.
If they can show by March 31st a plausible way to go forward, then we would consider giving more money under, again, equally stringent conditions.
Are you hearing this?
Give them the 25 bill.
They've got till March 31st to move forward on energy-efficient cars as designed by Barney Frank and the government.
They can't retool that fast.
But then they've got to give the money back.
But if they can show posibility to the president, then they'll get more money.
Now, here's more.
The guy said, 25 is not enough.
How much are you going to need?
AIG, which I don't think anyone would think was as important to the American economy as the auto industry.
I've got $40 billion just now to make it up over $100 billion.
To some extent, let's not have a white-collar, blue-collar bias in our public policy.
And, you know, those who say, hey, go bankrupt so you can cut back on what the unions have won.
The unions have already made some concessions.
But, you know, we've had enough anti-union activity and enough increase in income inequality in this country.
I don't want to set a precedent that bankruptcy now is a way in which you undo what gains unions have been able to hold on to.
So you can see the way this is shaping up.
We don't want to have any blue-collar, white-collar bias in our bailout.
So this is, and this is the chairman of the House committee now.
$100 billion.
That may not even be enough.
And he wants an 80% stake in the company for that.
He didn't say that.
Mayor Bloomberg in New York has opened his mouth again, this time at City Workers.
I'll tell you what he has told them when we come back.
▲
Export Selection