All Episodes
Previous Next
Nov. 26, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:06
November 26, 2008, Wednesday, Hour #3
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
The views expressed by the host on this program make more sense than anything anybody else out there happens to be saying, because the views expressed by the host on this program are the result of a daily relentless and unstoppable pursuit of the truth.
We're great to have you with us, folks.
Telephone number 800-282-2882, the email address El Rushbo at EIBnet.com.
It's open line Friday on Wednesday.
Basically, call and talk about whatever you want, not just the things that I am throwing out there for discussion.
And also in this hour, we will have the annual reading from my book on the Reidal Story of Thanksgiving.
A couple of things here, ladies and gentlemen.
First off, Wall Street bonuses.
I went back and did some research here during the break because Obama's out there saying that corporate CEOs need to park their corporate jets and they need to stop taking bonuses because there are too many people hurting out there.
And they just have to stop taking their bonuses because they got to find out what it's like out there.
It's just not good when these people have tens of millions of dollars already and quote unquote have more than enough, as defined by Obama.
They don't need to take the bonuses.
They need to find out what real people live like.
Back in 2006, in December, there was an AP story about Wall Street bonuses because they were huge at the end of that year.
And the headline of the story was, Wall Street bonuses flood New York City's economy.
And let me just give you some detail here.
When Michael Aaron learned that Wall Street investment banks were going to be shelling out record bonuses this holiday season, the savvy wine merchant uncorked his own plan to make Sirius Dough.
He paid for a double-page advertisement in the New York Times boasting a rare bottle of 1995 Dom Perignon, the price tag $14,950.
We thought we'd put that temptation out there, said Aaron, who's the chairman of Sherry Lehman Wine Store on Madison Avenue.
The $15,000 bottle of champagne is just one example of how record Wall Street bonuses this year can trickle through New York City's economy.
People are buying multi-million dollar apartments.
They're driving $40,000 BMWs out of the showroom.
A report released Tuesday, number remember this is December 19, 2006.
A report released Tuesday by the state controller said that Wall Street's expected to pay out $23.9 billion in bonuses, shattering last year's record by 17%.
The impact of such bonuses on the New York economy is profound.
Bonuses are expected to generate $1.6 billion in tax revenue for the state, another $500 million for New York City.
For every job created on Wall Street, three other jobs are created in the city and the suburbs.
Ken Blewis, the deputy controller of New York, said Wall Street jobs create jobs.
Why?
Because they're pumping money into the economy.
They're going out to restaurants.
They're purchasing all kinds of consumer goods.
And they go on to describe the largest bonuses which are doled out by Goldman Sachs.
The chairman and chief executive who's still the guy today, Lloyd Blankfein, got a record $54 million bonus in 2006, including a cash bonus of $27.3 million.
It was compensation was $54 million, the bonus $27.3 million of that.
And the top 25 execs at Goldman Sachs got $25 million each.
It goes on to describe what Bear Stearns paid out.
Bear Stern's company now defunct.
But the point is, once again, this basic economics.
New York State and the city are in dire budget consequence straits right now.
They're in horrible shape, and they're going to be even worse because tax revenue is going to be down because Obama's urging these executives to forego their bonuses.
Now, Obama says we need to have people trickle up.
We need to rebuild this economy from the bottom, bubbling up, right?
Well, if that's the case when he does these press conferences, why didn't he bring out some homeless people?
And why didn't he bring out some newly unemployed people and tell us how it is that they are going to cause an economic recovery?
How are we going to bubble up from the bottom?
How does this work?
How does people who are broke or have very little money cause economic growth?
How do unemployed people contribute to economic growth?
Well, they don't.
All this is, is pitting rich versus poor, upper class versus middle class.
This is creating wars between groups of Americans to foment resentment and anger, to keep people in a crisis mode and unhappy over irrelevant things while avoiding taking the steps that anybody who's had the slightest education in economics know would be the steps necessary to bring about the recovery that we all want.
Speaking of economics here, and I don't often do this, but there's a story in the New York Times today.
Radio's revenue falls even as audience grows.
Listeners are diverted by iPods and internet and satellite radio.
Companies are loaded with debt.
Advertisers are heading to television or the web.
No, they're not.
Advertisers, television's in trouble too.
It isn't just radio.
Television's in trouble with prime-time advertising.
The fact of the matter, and they even get this right here, although audience for broadcast radio is actually growing, stations can't seem to increase their revenue.
Some stations, I don't normally talk about this, but I'm going to do this because I suspect that this story in the New York Times will have a ripple effect.
The AP will do their version of it.
And sometime in the next three or four days, the American people and news-consuming public is going to be left with the impression that radio is in its last days.
And that we're in our final, final moments, and it's just horrible.
It's in bad shape out there.
Sorry for the bars for you, Ditto Cam people.
I just remembered it.
Too much going on here.
At any rate, some stations are in trouble.
Some ownership groups are in trouble, as a lot of industries are.
But I just want to say that here at the EIB network in our wholly contained little operation, we aren't.
We have just completed our 20th year.
Every year of those 20 years has been an increase in gross revenue from the year before.
For 2009, we are busy selling advertising and engaging in other of our various forms of revenue generation.
For 2009, we are already ahead of not just the pace of 2008 this year, but we're close to being ahead gross already for next year.
And while there is problem, I mean, there are solutions to these problems.
It's basically called content content content.
It really comes down, if you're a programmer, it's content, content, content.
And if you put something out that people want to listen to and you attract a large enough audience that's loyal and sophisticated enough to understand how all this works, then lo and behold, the advertisers in that program will have success and bamboo, you're off and running.
So we can also say that those advertising on this program are not in a recession either.
I want to mention this to you.
As you know, I very seldom talk about the business side of this because my purpose is not to gloat and it's not to do anything other than to reassure you that the story that you're going to read about how radios and horrible, even though the audience is growing, there's no advertising, it isn't true where your favorite radio program is concerned.
And this is the thing.
It's Thanksgiving.
And the reason that the stories about falling revenue from the radio business in general do not apply to the EIB network, rushlimbaugh.com, or the Limbaugh Letter, is because of you.
And see, this is what I have always understood.
Well, not always.
It took me a while.
When I first got into radio, I got into it for, you know, just the young reason, wanted to be on the radio, play records, and have a good old time, to the ego aspect of it.
But eventually I learned that it's a business, first and foremost.
And if those requirements are not met, then all the rest is academic.
And so first and foremost, we focus on this as a business.
And in that vein, therefore, the most important focus is the audience.
The show is the thing, and you are the show.
Because without you here, there's no show.
All the rest is academic.
And so the real testament to the success of this program is you and your loyalty and your constant, never-ending support.
Audience numbers, and the vagaries of ratings are such that we're on 600-plus stations, and their ratings come out every month now, but they used to come out every four times a year.
And some markets should be up, some markets should be down, but aggregately, we're always up when you total the national numbers.
And the national numbers that are associated with this show, 14 million, they're also not correct.
They're put together by people that don't have access to all the numbers.
So they admit that they're guessing and guesstimating.
And the drive-bys used the lower number to negatively report on the so-called success or influence impact of this program.
Our revenue is not falling short.
Our revenue is growing.
And by the way, we're not doing this.
We haven't added commercial minutes.
We haven't skyrocketed prices.
This is just a result of demand.
It works.
Everything here works.
And it works because of you.
This is just a roundabout way of once again, I get sentimental and I get nostalgic this time of year.
You know, we're not far from going into the Mannheim steamroller Christmas bump rotation, which I just love.
But the holiday season is upon us in my favorite time of the year and it's when I get the most feeling of gratitude about the absolute unbelievable good fortune that has befallen me because of you.
And I can't thank you enough.
And you have, you know, you all have been here through all kinds of thick and thin, not just various things happening in the news and various other opportunities for you to go elsewhere, because there are a whole lot of new listening options from when we started in 1988.
And that's why we make this program available on podcasts to satisfy those of you who prefer it to be portable.
You can listen to it whenever you want to.
You know, we do our best to stay on the cutting edge on the delivery of the program, but it's still a content, content, content business.
And there's a lot of people don't quite get that, even in our business, or they get it 50 or 60 percent.
But regardless, radio has its challenges, as does every other business.
We work hard here every day to meet and surpass the audience expectations that you have and make the time investment you spend here worthwhile to you.
And so I just want to thank you because in the midst of what is said to be recessionary times and down revenues throughout much of broadcasting and a lot of media, I mean the newspapers are the ones that are in trouble.
Newspapers are laying people off left and right.
Some of the television network news divisions, they're having trouble as well, plus the primetime entertainment, but we're not.
And it's just very humbling to me.
It's stunning in a way.
Give you an example.
1988, when we started this program, it was just this program.
And the other media was the three networks, the big newspapers and magazines, and CNN was it.
And there were 125 radio stations doing talk.
And now here we are in 2008.
There are over 2,500 radio stations doing talk.
We've got, I don't know how many cable networks doing news and faux news and who knows what the hell else.
We're not far away from having the thimble channel on TV or on satellite radio for people that want to news about thimbles.
And that's how niche programming and audiences are becoming.
And yet throughout all of this expansion, the pie, the broadcast pie, radio cable news has grown.
People who've never advertised in this medium before are now advertising and they're enjoying phenomenal success in most instances.
And throughout all of this, you want something really stunning?
Throughout all of this, 1988, I'm it for four, three or four years, I'm it.
Then the boom began and all these other, we have not lost a single audience member in all of that.
These other programs have not cannibalized this one.
We not cannibalize each other.
The libs are having trouble.
They always do have trouble on a medium where you can't do something else while you're listening.
Who wants to listen to people angry and enraged all the time?
But regardless, it's just been phenomenal.
And when I see a story in the New York Times that I know is going to get picked up, radio's revenue falls.
And this is designed to create all kinds of concern.
And remember, the media would love for this program to go south.
The media would love the fairness doctrine to come back around.
The media would love for their monopoly, which they used to have up until 1988, to go south and come back.
And so they'll be eager to report anything that makes you think, well, salad days are over, and they're not.
We're just as strong as ever, stronger than ever.
And it's because you are out there and listening each and every day and have a sophisticated understanding of the model that makes a program like this work.
I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart here on Thanksgiving Eve because it means more to me than I would ever be able to express to you.
Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh Talent on loan from God.
And back to the phones, Open Line Friday and Wednesday, Alex in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Hello, sir.
Rush.
Yes.
Good afternoon.
Mega Dittos.
Thank you, sir.
First time caller and longtime listener.
I didn't think I was going to get on.
When I called, I talked to Snerdley.
I didn't think I was able to get a coaching question or issue out, and he summarized in like a minute.
Then I got put on hold, and I thought I was kind of logged in the circular file.
But here's my question.
I'd like to get your thoughts about Obama's experience.
And let me give you some background on kind of like, if I can, on the nature of my question.
I reluctantly voted for McCain, gave Obama a real good hard look, but eventually went with McCain.
Over lunch, I was talking with some colleagues, and we were talking about the recent events, and we said, okay, well, maybe Obama just may have the experience, okay, the lack of experience, but experience nevertheless to maybe bumble into the right solution.
And we were thinking over lunch, it was like, well, if you look at his history, he was able to manipulate the situation in kind of like Chicago as a community organizer.
He was able to overcome his environment and lead him prevail.
He got elected to the Senate.
He overcame that environment, led, prevailed, and led.
Wait a minute.
Overcame that environment?
He got elected to the state Senate and the United States Senate by making sure his opponents were thrown off the ballot.
But still, that's a win, do you not think?
Yeah, I guess that's change.
Run unopposed so that you have no choice but to win.
Look, I have to take a break here.
Alex, can you hang on?
We'll continue this after this bottom-of-the-hour timeout.
I sure can.
All right.
And we are back.
Rush Limbaugh coming up the real story of Thanksgiving for my second bestseller, sold 2.5 million copies in hardcover.
C, I told you so.
Back now to our captivating conversation with Alex in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Okay, resume, sir.
Oh, Rush, what I was saying is about Obama's experience.
And I guess the point I'm trying to make is that, and I know he doesn't have any, so I'm not going to go there with you.
But Obama does what Obama needs to do to look good.
And I don't think his ideology is going to filter that.
And if the premise is saving the economy is going to make him look real good, I mean, do you not think that he's smart enough to understand what really would be good for the economy?
Like tax cuts, not raising taxes.
See, here's this.
I'm glad you asked this because this to me is fascinating, and it points out one of the real problems we have in this country.
By virtue of your question, you have just said to me that you see things entirely differently than I do.
Nothing good or bad, right or wrong about this, except how do we come together at some point?
Because you are willing to set aside everything you heard Obama say and continues to say about what he's going to do and instead are investing in something you have no idea can be true, the hope that he's not going to do what he says he's going to do.
And you didn't vote for him, which is a positive sign, but now you're getting sucked in because you think common sense should rule the day.
That, okay, we've got a bad economy and his future hinges on it.
He's got to fix it.
Well, there's so many ways to answer this.
I don't expect him to put aside what he said he's going to do.
I expect him to, as soon as he can, to raise taxes and kill off a recovery.
Right, but if he would do that, I mean, given everything that has happened these past two years and everything he said for two years.
Why do you want to do that?
Why do you want to ignore it?
Why do you want to get rid of it?
No, I don't.
I thought you just said, given, oh, you said given everything.
Given everything he said, and I'm not specifically focused on the taxes, he said a lot of things that, you know, when I voted for McCain, I had to take a really good hard look at Obama.
And maybe I'm vacillating on, you know, maybe I'm not a real conservative.
Maybe I need to see the doctor.
Maybe I need some medicine.
No, no, no.
You know, it really, it doesn't have anything to do with that.
Well, it does in the sense that if you're not conservative, by definition, you will become moderate or liberal.
Conservatism is a constant learning and intellectual application.
Liberalism is easy.
Just feel.
Look at what you're doing now.
You're hoping.
You're hoping he does the right thing.
Despite what he says, despite what he has said, given that he said it, and this is where you and I see the world different.
I'm not, you know, I don't, you know, hope to me is an excuse for not doing anything.
There is a, and I'm not talking about biblical hope.
Please do not ream me on this.
Sitting around and hoping for something is an excuse for doing nothing.
You can hope all you want, but if you don't take some action at some point, whatever you want to happen has no chance of happening unless it's just by, you know, blind druck law.
Blind lug draw.
But I'm waiting, too, to see what Obama actually does, but I'm not hoping that all of it.
And I just play the soundbite today illustrating exactly what he's going to do.
He wants to grow this government like it's never been grown.
He wants the government in charge of as much as possible.
This is who he is.
And he does have experience in telling us this.
His alliances, his friends, his books that he wrote, the things that he has said since he was elected that he wants to do.
It's all out there.
People did not want to pay attention to that because they were captivated by the personality, by the charisma, the fact that he sounds confident and in charge.
So people can forget about it now.
They elected him and they can go away because they feel confident he's going to do the right thing.
Well, people like me think he's not.
And somebody has to try and stop it if they take it off the rails.
And we stop it by informing as many Americans as possible.
So I'll tell you this, if he ends up doing right things, I'm going to be the first.
If he starts cutting people's taxes, and if he takes actions that actually grow this economy, put money in people's pockets that they earn and that they are keeping because taxes are cut, not because he's throwing money at them.
If he starts doing that, I'm going to be the biggest champion this guy's ever had.
I'm into truth.
We know what works and we know what doesn't work.
And I'm not going to make myself try to feel good that he believes in things that don't work, but he might change his mind.
There's, I mean, I've looked at his cabinet and I see people who raise taxes all over the place in his cabinet.
I hear him today say, well, his job is to provide the vision, the vision, and his group out there, his various groups are the ones that are going to be implementing what he sees.
Well, I mean, this is, I can't relive the campaign, but we know who his alliances are.
We know who he is.
We know, we know, we just do.
His chief of staff, Alex, is talking about what a great opportunity this crisis is.
And when they talk, they're talking about the opportunity for themselves to implement their agenda, not the opportunity to make things better for you.
They think things will get better for you the more you depend on them.
Anyway, I have to run here.
I'm getting backed up and I've got the real story of Thanksgiving coming up that I must squeeze in here.
And I also, folks, we're just about back together now on our website.
When we lost everything, just human error, one clunkhead out in Los Angeles hit the wrong button and we lost the ability to display the most recent data and some of the old stuff at rushlimbaugh.com.
And I am thankful it was saved.
That's what I'm saying.
It was saved because we backed it up.
We backed it up.
It took a while to restore it.
And it was also, there's so many elements to this great website.
We just now finished finally putting back together the entire essential stack of stuff, which is our encyclopedia at rushlimbaugh.com.
Now, I shudder to think where we would be if we hadn't backed this up.
And this happens to individuals at home, especially new computer users.
And sometimes they're advised to go out and, well, just get an external hard drive.
Well, you still have to hook the external hard drive up and you still have to do the manual backup.
And it's fine and it works if you do it.
But then what happens if that craps out on you?
Your hard drive is going to go on you at some point.
Carbonite, though, is an online backup.
Stores your data somewhere online securely.
Nobody else can get it.
And every time you're online, it's backing up.
You don't have to tell it to do it.
It's constantly backing up so that when your hard drive blows or when somebody comes in, throws your computer on the floor and smashes on it because they're mad at you or the economic circumstances.
It's a simple matter of retrieving it.
Go on to carbonite.com.
It's the best $50 insurance policy you will ever, ever buy.
Carbonite.com.
Mac version coming next year.
Time now, ladies and gentlemen, for the real story of Thanksgiving as written by I, by me, in my second book, See I Told You So, page 70 in the hardcover version.
On August 1st, 1620, the Mayflower set sail.
It carried a total of 102 passengers, including 40 pilgrims led by William Bradford.
On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established just and equal laws for all members of their new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs.
Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from?
Okay, for the Bible.
The Pilgrims were people completely steeped in the Old and New Testaments.
They looked to the ancient Israelites for their example.
And because of biblical precedents set forth in scripture, they never doubted that their experiment would work.
Now, you know the usual story of Thanksgiving.
They landed.
They had no clue where they were, no idea how to feed themselves.
The Indians came out, showed them how to pop popcorn, fed them turkey, saved them, basically.
And then white European settlers after that basically wiped out the Indian population.
It's a horrible example.
Not only is that not true, here's the part that's been omitted from what is still today taught as the traditional Thanksgiving story in many schools.
The original contract that the pilgrims had entered into with their merchant sponsors in London before the trip called for everything they produced to go into a common store when they got here.
And each member of the community was entitled to one common share.
All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belonged to the community as well.
William Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as their first harsh winter was, which had taken so many lives.
And he decided to take bold action.
Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage.
And this turned loose the power of the marketplace.
Long before Karl Marx was ever born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism, and it had failed miserably because when everybody put things in the common store, some people didn't have to put things in for there to be.
People didn't produce anything, were taking things out, and it caused resentment, just as it does today.
So Bradford had to change it.
What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anybody else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation.
While most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over 100 years, trying to refine it, perfect it, reinvent it, the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently.
What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every history lesson in school.
If it were, we might prevent much of the needless suffering that happens today and will happen in the future.
Here's what he wrote.
The experience that was had in this common course and condition tried sundry years that by taking away property and bringing community into a common wealth would make them happy and flourishing as if they were wiser than God.
For this community, so far as it was, was found to breed much confusion and discontent, retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.
For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without being paid.
That was thought injustice.
And what he was saying here, the Pilgrims found that people couldn't be expected to do their best without some incentive.
So what did Bradford's community try next?
Well, they unharnessed the power of good old free enterprise by invoking the undergirding capitalistic principle of private property.
What happened next was that Bradford assigned every family its own plot of land to work and permitted the family to market its own crops and products.
And what was the result?
Here's what Bradford wrote, the governor of the Mayflower Colony.
Well, this had very good success, wrote Bradford, for it made all hands industrious.
So as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been needed.
Bradford doesn't sound like much of a Clintonite here, does he?
Or an Obamaite, if I can update it.
It's possible here supply-side economics could have existed before the 1980s.
Anyway, the pilgrims found in no time flat that they had more food than they could eat themselves.
So they set up trading posts.
They exchanged goods with the Indians, and the prophets allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London.
The success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted even more Europeans and began what came to be known as the Great Puritan migration.
And very few people have heard this story.
It's a very, well, they've had it taught to them.
And the thanks was to God for showing them the way.
And you go in later parts of the chapter, I quote John Adams and George Washington on their reminisces and their thoughts on the first Thanksgiving and the notion it was thanks to God.
It's an entirely different story than is being taught in the schools.
It's been muddied down, watered down all these years, and now it's been hijacked by the multicultural community to the point that the story of Thanksgiving is the pilgrims were a bunch of incompetence and were saved only by the goodness of the Indians who then were wiped out.
And that's what kids are being taught today.
Because, of course, you can't mention a Bible in school.
And that's fundamental to the real story of Thanksgiving.
One call here before we have to skate out.
Katie, somewhere in parts unknown on the East Coast.
Hello.
Hi, Rish.
How are you?
Fine, thank you.
I'm a newspaper reporter.
I'm also a conservative.
I work for a daily newspaper.
It's a middle-sized paper.
It's not super large and not super small.
And I had something I just wanted to say, just especially regarding the last election.
There was just so much stuff that was just my opinion in general.
Okay, just opinion belongs on the op-ed page, and news belongs on the news page.
And there is so much slandered writing going on.
And I mean, even when Dan Rather notices, you know, it's bad.
I wanted to, I'm speaking to a few other people I know, and we wanted to start some kind of an organization to try and pull journalism back to where it belongs.
God bless you.
Something needs to happen because even though Dan Rather notices that he's not interested in fixing it.
Oh, well, you know, but they think they're fixing the problem by doing these post-mortems.
Mark Halperin went out to California somewhere.
Time magazine.
This was the most biased, the most embarrassing behavior by mainstream media I've ever seen.
But they knew it.
They knew it when it was happening.
Of course, they knew it.
I'm not going to change it.
I know.
They knew it when it was happening.
So, I mean, there's nothing that you can possibly say about it.
I just wanted to give my email address for anyone who might be listening who's you don't have to be conservative.
You don't want to do that.
You don't try.
You don't want to.
I'm going to put you on hold, let you talk with Snirdly, but we'll figure out a way to do this.
That's an important project that you've got, but I'm not going to let you put your email address or phone number out on the air.
I would not do that to you.
I would not do that.
You'd get so sick, not even Zycam would save you.
I could give you a lifetime supply of Zycam.
You could swab you.
Well, it prevents colds.
Well, it doesn't prevent them.
But it really retards them if you use it as soon as you think you're coming down.
Not even Zycam would help you, Katie.
But this is a project that needs to happen.
And now this, she works in a middle-sized paper, right?
We would call bubbling up.
This is called change from the bottom in the newspaper business.
But she's right.
They're all doing these post-mortems.
We've never seen a more biased press.
They knew it at the time.
They don't care now.
Obama's too big to fail.
They think they're clear in the decks and apologizing by admitting how biased they were.
Ain't gonna matter.
Back in a sec.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
We'll have four days here of respite with family and others, and then we'll be back to normalcy on Monday.
Look forward to it then.
Best of shows, I think, tomorrow and Friday.
They're always good.
▲
Export Selection