Welcome to today's edition of The Rush 24-7 Podcast.
So if you're sick at home in bed, if you're not feeling well today, I don't blame you.
We sit here and we watch the Daily Assault and potential destruction of the America you and I grew up with.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome.
It is the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, your host, the all-knowing, all caring, all sensing, all feeling, all concern, practically all everything Maha Rushy.
Here at 800-282-2882.
The email address is L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
Got a lot of emails today from people who are fed up watching these CEOs being grilled by the real culprits in this economic decline.
And folks, I feel compelled to tell you what's really going on here.
I know the CEO stuff is a bunch of BS.
I know there were no strings attached to the money they got.
There were no strings attached.
Go back to the original TARP legislation, and you will read, as I have shared with you countless times prior, the Treasury Secretary at the time, Paulson.
Today Geitner, and what a disgrace.
What an absolute disgraceful performance he made yesterday.
The markets, everybody looking for specificity to come out with a concept, not a plan.
Stock market down 400 points yesterday, the world markets are down, and I maintain all this is being done on purpose.
But regardless, this guy Geithner did not look like the only guy capable of doing this job, as they said that he was as a means of uh overlooking his tax cheatedness during his uh run-up to the confirmation.
There were no strings attached to the money.
I just watched something fascinating on one of the cable news networks.
You had the Canon Barbie cookie, uh cookie cutter anchors, so they're grilling amazingly now a financial reporter, business reporter from the Washington Posting.
I named uhlstein, I'm not sure how to pronounce it.
And this guy from the Washington Post, which stunned me, was actually talking sense about Wall Street bonuses and so forth, and these two anchors are so caught up in the hatred of capitalism, so caught up in the hatred of Wall Street, so caught up in spreading the Obama agendas, MSNBC, that it was just it was comical to watch.
These people on TV have been caught up just like many Americans have.
They want these people strung up and quartered.
They want these CEOs hanged.
They want these CEOs literally put in jail and punished.
And they haven't the slightest idea why, other than it's class envy, the rich get rich, the poor poor, it's the it's the stuff that Democrats have been promulgating for years.
And this this guy, uh the reporter from the Washington Post was trying to explain that it was not the CEOs who paid themselves bonuses.
They paid bonuses to employees down the line.
And he gave the following example.
Let's take your average Wall Street firm.
And overall, it may be losing money.
But in one department, the currency trading department, the people running that department are showing huge gains.
They're showing huge profits.
Their annual salary may be 50 grand a year.
They are incentivized with bonuses.
So they did get bonuses because their divisions, their departments did great guns, even though the overall company was down.
And these two anchors are going on and well, the company wouldn't even be existence if it weren't for taxpayer dollars.
There shouldn't be any bonuses paid with taxpayer dollars.
And this reporter was just, you can see how frustrated he was trying to explain basic common sense to these people, but they are such slavish devotees of Obama that they the common sense of it was just uh uh impossible for them to grasp.
You have to understand this CEO business up here, and it's just it makes it it breaks my heart to see these guys up there groveling.
They have to, these guys all voted for Obama.
They all voted Democrat, every damn one of these guys, practically, but now they're expendable.
These CEOs are nothing more than the latest enemies that the left needs.
The the the The Democrats in Congress have more responsibility for this economic crisis than these clowns on Wall Street do.
And I I have no brief for these clowns on Wall Street.
I mean, I don't misunderstand here.
You give me the private sector versus the government, and I'm gonna side with the private sector most of the time, and I'll deal with the excesses and let the private sector handle its frauds and its cheats and its excesses.
And uh with the court system, but government gets involved in this stuff, it never works right, it gets bloated, and the and and uh it is we're at it, we're at a dangerous point here.
What we are facing is a full scale assault on capitalism.
This money was given away with no strings attached.
It is not proper for members of Congress now to call these people up, what the hell you're doing with the money we gave you.
They're the ones that didn't have any oversight attached to it.
They're the ones in crisis mode who doled out the 350 billion here, save our economy.
Now, with no strings attached, and they still have to come up there and grovel like every other CEO is having automobile guys had to go up there and grobble.
It is painful to listen to the opening statements these Wall Street people are making.
Please forgive us.
We have lost touch with the American people.
We do know we have an image problem.
We're gonna be working really, really hard.
It's like they're up there talking to a firing squad.
And as far as they're concerned, they probably think they are, because now they're totally in the tank.
You know, they've they put their hand out, they took this money, and so guys like Barney Frank and the rest of them get to tell them how to run their business and tell them what a bunch of low rent slime balls they are in the process, which is what's happening.
But this, ladies and gentlemen, is not about the destruction of the reputations of these CEOs.
The CEOs are simple fodder.
This is a full-scale assault on the capitalist system.
You destroy the reputation not of the executives, but of the entire system.
These CEOs are simply there as symbols of capitalism, and they have put themselves in this situation where they have they may talk about bending over forwards and grabbing the ankles.
This is what they are doing today, that's what they've done.
They represent, as far as the Democrats and the media are concerned, the failure, the excess, and the immorality of the entire U.S. capitalist system.
This show today is designed to convince as many Americans as possible that the capitalist system produces nothing but cheats and frauds like these CEOs are being portrayed.
They are constantly, the left is constantly in need of a demon.
They need an enemy to go point out what it is they oppose.
They never explain their own plans, they never explain like Geithner didn't yesterday.
Obama doesn't get specific.
They're trying to hide the specifics of the stimulus bill, a porculus bill.
They never get specific in what they believe in, because they can't win that argument.
So they have to demonize virtually everybody they find in opposition.
They need enemies.
And the Wall Street guys are enemies, and they all donated to the Democrat Party.
They all voted, or the vast majority of them voted for Obama.
And look what they got them.
They are now expendable because it's not Obama conducting the hearings.
He can talk to them and say, hey, I can't tell Barney Frank what to do.
I can't tell Nancy Pelosi what to do.
So now they're expendable.
I got an email.
Dear Rush, this is from Susan in Virginia Beach.
Dear Rush, you are my professor.
I am indebted to you for the knowledge that you have given me.
You've always told us that you would tell us when it was time to panic.
I'm starting to wonder how we are going to get our country back from these revolutionaries.
Is it time to panic?
No.
Because panic doesn't accomplish anything.
But when we Come back from the break.
I'm going to tell you how to get the country break back.
I'm going to tell you how it'll happen.
And I'm going to suggest what we might do when we get it back, because we will, because these people are going to overreach.
They are not going to win every election from here on out unless they end elections.
Which I wouldn't rule out their dreaming about doing.
So when we come back for the break, I'll tell you how we're going to get our country back, and I'll tell you what we're going to do when we get our country back.
And I'll give you a little hint.
We're going to treat them the same way they have been treating us for years.
We're going to subject them to the same things they have subjected us to, and we are going to have a big and strong and powerful government to wield against them because they're in the process of building it.
And we're going to win it back one day.
And when we win this country back and this government back, we are going to deploy government against them the way they have been deploying it against us.
And let them find out what it's like, and they're not going to be able to stop it because they will not have a power base anywhere that will let them stop it.
I'll explain in great detail when we come back.
Sit tight.
Is it time to panic?
No, my friends, it's not time to panic because nothing gets done in a panic.
What we have to realize is this.
The left, the Democrat Party, will not control the government forever.
Just will not happen.
They are going to overreach.
They're going to overreach pretty quickly.
Polling data already shows that they're in a generic race for Congress.
It's tied, Republican, Democrat.
Only when you put the names in.
Nobody can believe this.
56% of the American people now are in opposition to the stimulus in total or in part.
By the way, about the negotiations.
They're trying to ram this through just like amnesty.
They're trying to ram this through just and they're using the same tactics that they use with global warming.
It's a fear crisis.
We can't wait.
We've got to do it now.
The conference negotiations are going on with not one Republican being permitted to participate.
Did you know that?
Not one Republican from the House, not one Republican Senate senator is involved in the conference between the House and the Senate to come up with a bill that both support.
Not one Republican in this new era of responsibility, not one Republican in this new era of bipartisanship.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have shut the Republicans out.
This from Mike Pence, Congressman from Indiana.
So let them go ahead with these tactics.
We can't stop them anyway.
We lost the election, but they're going to lose.
Down the road.
They will not control government forever.
And when our turn comes, we are going to turn the power of government against the left.
We are going to investigate them.
We are going to hold public hearings.
We are going to humiliate them.
We're going to nationalize their unions.
We're going to fund our groups for a change.
If they can give Acorn 4.1 billion, then we can start paying our groups with federal money.
We're going to do exactly to them what they have done to us.
And we're going to build and use the big government that they have built and turn it right against them.
We are going to turn the power of government against the left and against Democrats in ways they cannot imagine.
They will not know what hit them.
They are using the law.
They are using government to advance a cause that is un-American.
Yes, they are using law.
They are using government to advance a cause that is un-American.
We are going to use the power that the left is centralizing in the federal government to punish them, to break them up, and to make them pay for this.
It's time for tit for tat.
Nice guy playing by the rules when they don't is over.
It's time they got a taste of their own medicine, and it's going to happen, folks, because they're not going to hold power forever.
The left, you people, you Democrats, you are creating a monster that you will not be able to control forever.
You will ultimately regret what you were doing just like the media will ultimately regret its sacrifice of reason, its abandonment of its primary purpose.
The day is coming when the media will actually investigate a Democrat and find some some problems, and nobody's going to believe them because they've lost all credibility.
Nobody believes what the mainstream media says now anyway.
Except the uneducated, the illiterate, and the uninformed, which sadly is a fairly large number, but we'll deal with that.
We are taking names.
We are taking names now.
We are monitoring who on the left is going to deserve payback, and it's gonna be hell.
This much I promise you.
This is just getting out of hand.
We're gonna come after, we're gonna come after the left's favorite corporations.
We're gonna come after your favorite political constituents.
We're gonna come after your favor, your your favorite media outlets.
You want to try the fairness doctrine?
Fine, we'll impose it on network television.
We'll impose it on newspapers.
You want to try censorship?
Fine.
We will censor you when we get the control of the government back.
We will reapportion districts using the census to help conservatives.
We're gonna turn the power of government against the Democrats and the left and weaken you and break you into little pieces.
Because, my friends, the day has passed when we can become passive and be passive about what they are doing.
We will use the political and legal system as they have and are, and we will use it to promote our party and to diminish theirs.
We will use the power of government and the legal system to promote our movement and our agenda just as they are.
If they are going to bastardize the American system, if they are gonna make this government large and powerful and intrusive, someday they're gonna lose it, but they're gonna lose it after having amassed all this power.
We will control it, and we're gonna turn it right back against them.
We will build a massive army of patriots to counter acorn.
We will defund acorn, we will defund the labor unions, and we will fund our own people to go out and zap acorn, and we will do everything we can to enhance anti-union employment.
We will make sure that when companies lose money, that the people that get canned are union people.
We're gonna use the power of government just like the left is using the power of government.
We're gonna use the Justice Department.
We're gonna go after big unions with the Justice Department.
We're gonna find all of the criminal activity.
We are going to find all the lack of ethics, we are going to find every bit of corruption we can, and we're gonna sick the attorney general and the Justice Department and the U.S. attorneys on you people, just as you have been doing to the people of the right and the Republican Party for 50 years.
And then we're gonna find George Soros and other concentrations of left-wing power and wealth.
And we're gonna focus our attention on him so that the American people will finally learn just who the hell paid for the bastardization of the United States.
Just who the hell paid for the destruction of the American way of life.
We've learned from you leftists.
We have sat by, we have watched, and we've been too passive.
We have sat on the sidelines as impotent observers, and we have trusted in the goodness and the decency of the American people.
But you have even perverted them.
It was a disgrace what was on display in Fort Myers, Florida yesterday.
It was an absolute saddening, shocking, depressing disgrace.
And you have created that segment of America that has no faith in itself, no faith in this country, and thinks the only reason to talk to a president is to ask him for a kitchen.
To ask him for by the way, asking a president for a new car who hasn't even given his brother who lives in a hut a welcome home mat.
I don't think he's given his brother a pot, much less a pan.
His brother lives in a nine square foot hut in Nairobi.
And you're asking the president of the United States, God bless these people.
What has this government done to them?
What has the media in this country done to these people?
Depriving them of the very essence of humanity.
No sense of self, no pride.
This is what Democrats and the left do to people.
They rob people of their humanity of their goodness and their decency.
They rob them of confidence.
We are going to restore this.
We are going to use the power of the government to tell people how good they can be, how important they are, and how much happier they will be if they're not looking to our president for the next kitchen or the car or a job.
We're going to become activists.
We'll take back our government.
It's going to be a bigger, more powerful, stronger government, and we're going to turn it against the left in ways they could have never imagined.
So Sue in Virginia Beach.
We can't do any of this if we panic.
I know some of you saying, Rush, all sounds great, but who's going to do this?
Well, folks, I admit that you look out on the horizon right now, and you don't see a single person in the political class willing to do this.
But before these people on the left get through, there is going to be so much anger and outrage among the people who made this country work, who are now being targeted as the enemies.
You who have jobs, you who have played by the rules, you who are not asking anybody for your next kitchen.
You're the enemy.
And after a while, it isn't going to be long before the people of this country get fed up enough that they're going to want to turn the tables on the people who are trying to destroy America as we have always known it.
Okay, just got another email here.
Dear Rush, do the Democrats, and this now this is this is a valid question.
Do the Democrats really understand that they are destroying the source of the wealth that they want to redistribute?
Yes.
Yes, these people are not uneducated and stupid.
They know full well what they are doing.
They are destroying the engine that creates wealth, the private sector, and they are turning it to the government.
And you say, but Rush, but Rush, where are they going to get the money that they want to redistribute if they destroy the where are they getting it now?
Do you think our taxes are covering all of this?
Where are they getting it now?
By mortgaging our future in debt to China and other countries and by printing it.
Damn straight they know what they're doing.
This is a full-fledged attack on capitalism, and the Democrats, the leftist Democrats, have been seeking this for the longest time.
That's why they can't stop themselves.
It's as Christmas morning every day for these people.
There's nobody that can stop them.
These are things, imagine, imagine yourself.
And you have had this passionate desire for whatever it is for years and finally you get it.
And it keeps giving to you every day.
You are going to, you're you're gonna overdose on it, which is which is what they're doing.
For example, let me illustrate.
It's not okay to have a corporate jet if you took TARP funds.
Yet jet purchases stimulate the economy.
Which is what President Obama, the Democrats claim this is all about, stimulating the economy in jobs, and yet it's not okay to decorate your office if you took TARP money.
And in this case, the office was decorated without TARP money.
But hiring contractors and decorators and buying furniture stimulates the economy.
But if you do that and you're a Wall Street titan, you're gonna be slapped down.
Terry Moran of Nightline actually asked Obama last night, why don't you just fire these CEOs at the banks?
Can you believe that?
A member of the mainstream media judge I got the audio coming up, I'll let you hear it in mere moments.
Why don't you just fire the CEOs at the banks?
With a compliant, uninformed, illiterate media like that, helping to advance the cause.
They are totally about ideology now.
They are activists.
You know, you have AIDS activists and you have gay activists and you have union activists, you have environmental activists.
The media today is a bunch of activists.
They're not reporters.
They're acting.
Why don't you just fire the CEOs?
And then Chuck Todd of NBC stands up at the press conference, the uh one on Monday night.
Well, don't you think it'd be better for you to tell the American people how to spend their money here rather than spending it over there?
This is obscene what is happening here.
It's not okay to give bonuses if you took TARP money.
But of course, bonuses lead to spending in New York City, which stimulates the economy.
New York state rivals California in budget problems.
The limitation on CEO salaries in New York City and throughout the state is going to cause a drastic reduction in revenue to the state.
The feds don't care.
The states have more of a concern about their budgets than the feds do because states cannot print money, but the federal government can.
These counts do not care.
They claim they want to stimulate the economy, and yet every action they are taking is harming private sector activity by design.
We had the story yesterday, General Motors.
They are forced to restructure and present a plan that Congress approves of by March if they are to hold on to their bailout money.
So what do they have to do?
General Motors says, well, look, we're gonna have to fire 10,000 people and uh slash the salaries of several others.
All white collar, all non-union.
I thought that what Obama and the Democrats were doing was about creating jobs.
It seems to me that virtually everybody involved here is losing jobs, is losing money, and is having the federal government come in and control more and more of their operation.
Now, Obama, Obama's out there bragging today that the CEO of Caterpillar has promised, and Obama's going to Peoria tomorrow for a big dog and pony show here.
That's where caterpillar is.
Obama says that the caterpillar CEO has said if this stimulus passes, I'm rehiring some workers.
Drudge has made it a siren headline on his page.
Now, how stupid do we think they are?
Do they think we are?
They laid off 22,000 people at Caterpillar.
How many exactly will be rehired?
There is an abject fear in corporate America of Washington, D.C. and the federal government.
The Caterpillar CEO, the Intel CEO, they all can see what's being done to the Wall Street bankers today.
They don't want to be called up there.
They don't want to have their industries targeted.
This is fear, it is extortion.
Of course, Caterpillar, you see, a lot of people think that, well, if the stimulus package happens, hey, it's roads, it's bridges, hey, you need heavy equipment to build that stuff.
Why, that could result in sales for caterpillar.
Well, yeah, but how much of this stimulus actually goes to infrastructure and shovel-ready jobs from what we've been able to learn?
4% in the next two years.
Do you know why the money is not going to be spent for the next two years?
It's going to start being spent in 2010.
That happens to be at the end of 2000.
That happens to be an election year, ladies and gentlemen.
This porculus bill is as much about patronage and putting Democrats in bureaucratic positions of power throughout the federal government, throughout the state governments as is possible.
Imagine if Washington was Chicago and Illinois politics.
This is what the Democrats want to accomplish in San Francisco.
Well, they've already done it in San Francisco, but they want to accomplish it in every major public uh city in this country.
Imagine every city totally run and controlled by Democrats as it is the case In Chicago.
A lot of them already are, and you can see the state and the status that they're in.
Why this makes an impression on people or doesn't is beyond me, but at some point it has to.
So Obama says caterpillar CEO has told him the company will rehire some laid off workers if the stimulus bill passes.
Another thing this tells me is that Obama needs to go out.
He needs the private sector to sell this stupid thing.
And with the assault on capitalism that's taking place, believe me, you run one of these major corporations.
You do not want the government coming after you.
Your first responsibility is to keep your company going, not to fight ideological and political battles in Washington.
And so the caterpillar CEO, he can see what's happening, promises to hire some workers back, gets a lot of great PR, probably gets some stimulus money here for new equipment sales to do all this road building and bridge building and whatever other myths there are in this stimulus bill.
So let's review.
Question being, don't the Democrats realize that they're destroying the chief means of production of welfare of revenue that they want to redistribute?
Yes, they know exactly what they're doing.
They don't care if they print money and run huge deficits.
Power.
Power is what this is about.
Never ending entrenched power.
So it's not okay to have a corporate jet if you took TARP money.
But buying jets stimulates the economy.
Can't have a jet.
Too many people don't understand it.
It's it's it's an excessive thing to have.
People have no clue.
The support systems, businesses that are necessary to keep these damn things in the air.
Let's not even talk about building them.
Do you know how many people work at factories that build these things?
Their jobs is just as decent as anybody else.
They may be producing a very expensive product, but they have jobs and they're being paid, and they're union people.
Okay, so the airplane's built.
Then it has to be completed.
You have to do the interior.
That brings in design specials, the private sector stimulus.
Then it's got to be inspected all the time.
The federal government comes in and the FAA is going to inspect the airplane all the time to make sure it's airworthy.
But you don't just put fuel in these things and go.
You have to have a place to put fuel.
They're called fixed-based operations.
They're just gas stations for jets.
That's where the corporate jets go, and they pay jet fuel and they buy jet fuel, and that helps the people selling it.
And there are line personnel that have to empty the toilets and service it and tow it.
The number of people it takes to put a jet in the air are is an incredible number.
Then you've got the catering businesses that service these jets, and this is all money that's being all private sector money.
But because it's a corporate jet, somehow it's stigmatized, and the the contributions made to private sector stimulus in the process of flying, buying flying, and servicing one of these jets is totally missed by people.
Just like these two idiot anchors on MSNBC today who could not be made to understand in plain logic how the bonus system works as an incentive to do well on Wall Street.
So, no jet.
No redecorating your office.
Not okay to give bonuses.
However, it is perfectly fine to give money to Congress if you took TARP money.
In fact, it's probably required under the table.
If you've taken TARP money, you're probably required to give money to members of Congress.
Every single company whose CEO is at this hearing, has given campaign money to members of Congress, including the Senate.
Is that stimulus?
Well, you might say it is.
These people have to buy posters and signs and hire people to run their re-election campaign.
But look at what is not prohibited.
Members of Congress say you cannot use TARP money to make contributions to us.
That's perfectly fine.
They give out the money and some of it comes back to perfectly fine.
And speaking of excess, how about all these junkets these people take?
On our money, places they could not afford to go on their salaries, hotels they could not afford to stay at on their salaries, and we pay for it.
Charlie Wrangle to the Dominican Republic.
All these other junkets these people take, under the guise of official business, while they're staying in five-star resorts, and nobody cares.
Nobody seems to be upset about that at all.
As though members of Congress and the Senate are our royalty.
People that don't produce a damn thing.
People that do zip zero not a work that makes this economy go.
All they do is get in the way of it.
Do you realize theoretically, we'll never have the chance to prove it, an economy will never go into recession by itself.
The whole point of people engaging in commerce is growth.
Everybody wants to sell their product for more.
Everybody wants to earn more.
Everybody wants a better life.
If people are just left alone, a recession cannot happen.
In and of itself, a recession is caused by something.
And in this case, these poor schlubs that the CEOs of the banks did not cause it.
Government spending, irresponsible orders from government to banks telling them they had to lend to people who had no business borrowing money.
The banks then, in order to cover what was worthless paper, came up with new inventions to try to give the paper value, and that didn't work out.
It became a self-repeating cycle.
But if Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd had never gotten involved in seeing to it that affordable housing meant that anybody who wants a house can have it, whether they can pay for it or not, we wouldn't be where we are today.
Recessions are caused by intervention, obstruction, you name it.
If left alone, economies do not go into recession.
We've got a brief time out.
We'll take it and be back.
Next segment's gonna be real short, because I did not want to interrupt this brilliant monologue for commercial break.
On Tuesday, when I came to the golden EIB microphone, by the way, I, even though you know this, I am Rush Limbaugh, and this is the EIB network.
When I came to the golden microphone on Tuesday following the Obama press conference, I made the observation.
I thought at times during that press conference, I was listening to Fidel Castro, who is known for making four-hour speeches and saying nothing.
I thought this press conference was Castro-like.
First answer went 12 minutes.
We take you now to PBS.
The Tavis Smiley Show last night.
He interviewed Cuban activist Carlos Moore.
Tavis Smiley said, How did you do this dance as it were with Castro?
You see him as an authentic social reformer, but he let you down on this particular issue of racism.
Castro was larger than life to us.
We had faith in this leader.
And we felt that the fact that he had confronted imperialism, confronted the United States, and had had the courage to do what he did, because Castro is a very courageous man.
He's a nationalist, he's a Nanti imperialist, and he's a man who is committed to social reform.
There is no question about this.
Now there's a Cuban intellectual.
Now Castro's destroyed the country.
And so you you see you have a savior complex.
You have a messianic complex.
He he cares about social reform.
How can anybody with a brain say this?
How can anybody who thinks say this?
This prompted the following reply from Tavis Smiley.
I heard as interesting parallels between your experience back in the day and the experience that many young African Americans, 17, like you were at one point, are having today, 17, 18, and beyond.
And that is one, this notion of feeling that now that we have a guy named Obama in the White House, we have President Obama now.
There are many young people who are as ecstatic and as excited and as enthused about President Obama as you were about your new president Fidel Castro.
For crying out loud, I make a joke about it, and here comes PBS, actually comparing Obama to Castro, Tabas Smiley, and he's happy about it.
He compliments Obama.
We've got our own Castro.
God help us.
Latest Ransomus and numbers here, 56% of the American people oppose any more government help for the banks.
While the Obama administration is pledging up to two and a half trillion dollars in support for the troubled U.S. financial system, 56% of Americans oppose giving bankers any additional government money or any guarantees backed by the uh by the government.
Now, you know, 56% oppose giving bankers and any additional government money or any guarantees backed by the government.
56%.
You can read this any number of ways.
You can you can read this and say, well, the American people finally starting to get this.
Or more likely, I hope number one is right, but there is a number two.
Screw them to hell with these bankers.
Let them go under.
Hell, they're rich.
I mean, they got their health.
Let them go to hell with them.
Not gonna give them any more help.
I mean, there's that sentiment too.
By the way, everybody says we need to get the banks money so they can start lending it.
Yeah, but what if nobody wants to borrow it?
Which haven't we seen evidence of this the past six months?