I'm gonna use Soundbite 30 before we get to Soundbite 4.
Greetings, my friends.
Great to have you here, Rush Limbaugh.
The most listened to radio talk show in America.
Audience.
Growing by leaps and bounds.
Great to have you here again.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882.
And the email address, L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
Let's go back.
In case you're just joining us, we jipped President Obama during the summit on small businesses when he had some scathing comments about the bonuses at uh at AIG.
This was uh roughly what, a half hour ago?
Yeah, maybe maybe 40, no, a half hour ago.
And uh here is now ABC News at the top of the hour, by the way, is reporting AIG.
It's 1984, it's Orwellian.
AIG has three hours to turn over a list of names of people who got bonuses to the New York Attorney General.
That's Andrew Kumo.
Now, this is this is not Geitner doing this is Andrew Cuomo out there acting as a loan gunslinger.
Andrew Cuomo as Elliot Spitzer Jr.
Minus the Call Girls.
AIG has three hours to turn over a list of names of people who got bonuses to the new turning tough gee whiz.
There are contracts.
There's nothing anybody can do about if they succeed in this.
They have a beeline to have an open line to any of your income that they think is uh ill gotten, that you shouldn't have.
They just they don't have need a law to raise your taxes to grab money that they think you shouldn't have.
Here is Obama at the small business summit.
In the last six months, AIG has received substantial sums from the U.S. Treasurer.
And I've asked Secretary Geitner to use that leverage and pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.
I want everybody to be clear that Secretary Geitner's been on the case.
He's working to resolve this matter with the new CEO, Edward Liddy, who, who, by the way, uh everybody needs to understand, came on board after the contracts that led to these bonuses were agreed to last year.
All right.
But I think Mr. Liddy and certainly everybody involved needs to understand this is not just a matter of dollars and cents.
It's about our fundamental values.
BS it is about dollars and cents.
Fundamental values.
Whose fundamental values?
The fundamental values being talked about here are government's fundamental values to go get money from people they don't like.
There were no strings attached to this money, folks.
This is the one thing nobody's got the guts to point out.
The TARP money, the Treasury Secretary was given sole authority.
Here it is once again.
Section two, emergency economic stabilization act of 2008, provides authority to the Treasury Secretary to restore liquidity and stability to the U.S. financial system to ensure the economic well-being of America.
There's nothing in the bill about how the money is to be used.
Nobody can say a word about it.
There was no accountability.
Our fundamental values are that we honor our contracts.
That's a fundamental value that Andrew Cuomo is apparently about to throw overboard.
Now maybe the problem, maybe the problem with AIG, is that they got a bailout.
Maybe that was the mistake.
Maybe when he says this isn't just a matter of dollars and cents, it's about our fundamental values.
All across the country, people who work hard and meet their responsibilities every single day without the benefit of government bailouts, or multi-million dollar bonuses.
Well, the fundamental values are you let failures fail.
The people who work hard and play by the rules Should be rewarded with tax cuts.
The people who are working hard paying taxes, playing by the rules, ought to be thanked.
They ought to be wined and dined, but they don't, and they aren't.
Obama bails out dysfunctional companies and complains that they're dysfunctional while giving the current CEO a pardon.
Obama's teleprompted to pardon the current AIG CEO, Edward Liddy.
He had nothing to do with this.
The current CEO just got a pardon.
Now, again, I realize that we have millions of new people listening to this program, thanks to the Obama administration, and I want to take some time here to explain to those of you what the audience, the regular audience of this program already knows because they've been listening for such a long time.
There is a foundational theme undergirding my comments today.
And as a conservative, the theme is that the real problem here is government.
If the government had not gotten involved in trying to tell these outfits who to lend money to in the first place and how to run their businesses in the first place, be it automobiles, be it banks, be it mortgage lending institutions, whoever, whatever, we wouldn't be in this mess to the degree that we are.
And one of the things that troubles me greatly to those of you who are new to the program is that the government and everybody in it gets to portray themselves as an innocent bystander, uh, a white knight, if you will, riding to the rescue after once again a bunch of greedy SOBs on Wall Street abuse, not their money but yours.
And so here comes the white knight on a big horse.
The federal government's gonna go in there along with Andrew Cuomo, and they're gonna get your money back.
So you think.
When in fact, nobody's talking about the outrage that is government excess.
Government expenditures that are way out of line, that can't be backed up, that are wasteful, that are inflationary.
It is outrageous what the government gets away with.
And these poor schlubs that these companies had accepted the bail out money, they're now finding out what it's like.
But again, a large large number of these people are Democrats anyway.
The dirty little secret here is that this is just a closed little clique of wealthy Ivy League people, mostly Democrats, certainly all liberal, probably some Republicans in there in name only.
But this is a little clique that's bailing out itself, and the money is just traveling a circuitous route from Washington and campaign coffers back to these companies and then these uh employees and the CEOs and back and forth.
It's just a circle.
Uh, and it's uh it's reprehensible what uh what is happening here, but undergirding my comments and all this is that the one player in this, which is largely guilty, far guiltier than anybody else, is exempted.
And they, after passing all these laws with no strings, there were no folks, there were no strings, there was no accountability, none whatsoever on the TARP money.
AIG could use the money however they want.
Have you forgotten already that the original purpose here was to restore liquidity so that these institutions could start lending?
And that didn't happen.
And so Barney Frank and the boys raised holy hell toward the end of last year, sputtering, muttering about where's the new credit, how come it's not getting into the marketplace, and we found out the banks hoarded the money to buy other banks or to uh shore up their own investments or what have you, because there weren't any strings attached.
It was done in a crisis atmosphere at record speed, all for the purposes of giving people confidence that we're dealing with this so-called crisis.
But the elements of the crisis were not dealt with, and they still haven't been.
And we're still talking about how dangerous the precipice that we face is.
And it's just infuriating to me.
If you really want to solve a lot of these institutional systemic problems, you cannot exempt the government from any responsibility for it, and they are allowing that To happen.
We're allowing it to happen.
They set themselves up.
It burns me.
They're innocent bystanders.
They hand out all this money to AIG.
And then a smidgen small percentage of it gets used for bonuses, and they act shocked, shocked and outraged.
And how dare AIG do this?
How dare they subvert our values?
Our values are subverted when we bail out companies that are failing and ought to just be allowed to do so.
We'll be back.
Stay with us.
Let me share with you another dirty little seek.
It's a theory of mine.
But folks, I have warned you, I have begged you, I have asked you over the years, please don't doubt me.
Nevertheless, some people continue to doubt me.
David Broder has a piece today, or had a piece in the Washington Post Sunday, all about the honeymoon fading.
David Broder, the end of the honeymoon.
Among those who follow government closely, there has been an unmistakable change in tone in the past few weeks.
And these are not little Rush limbs, hoping that Obama fails.
They are politicians and journalists, measuring him with the same skeptical eye they apply to everyone else.
I think the shift began, writes Mr. Broder.
When Obama moved beyond the stimulus bill to his speech to the joint session of Congress and his budget message.
For the first time, the full extent of his ambitions for 2009 became clear, not just stopping and reversing the steep slide in the economy, but also launching highly controversial efforts in health care, energy, and education.
Now I realize I'm not going to get credit from the likes of David Broder.
But my whole point in saying I hoped Obama failed is rooted right here in these stories.
And there's another one at Bloomberg by, or I'm sorry, it's at the Hill.com by Alexander Bolton, Obama's honeymoon bliss fading.
Oh, right, he's taken on too much.
What?
He's being too liberal?
What?
He's trying to add up all these pro exactly what I warned everybody about, and now here come the deans of Inside the Beltway thinking, led by David Broder.
These are not little Rush limbos hoping that Obama fails.
By the way, he's not calling me little.
He's calling me big.
He's calling everybody that agrees with me little, since I'm the leader.
I am the proclaimed leader of the opposition.
Now I'm not, I folks, I don't care to get credit, but I warned you from the from before he was inaugurated.
I sounded the warning sirens on this.
And it wasn't hard because he's a liberal, and I know what liberals do.
I know who liberals are.
Plus, I've studied Obama.
I know who he is.
I know what his teleprompter is going to tell him to say.
And all of a sudden now people are just beginning to discover it.
So when I tell you this next, don't doubt me.
Barack Obama not only is not shocked about these AIG bonuses, he's not outraged.
Despite what he said today, he's not mad about it.
He's ecstatic.
As a community organizer liberal, Barack Obama has a chip on his shoulder about Wall Street wealth.
Now he's going to protect Democrat Wall Street Titans.
He's going to do what he can to keep them wealthy because they are the underwriters.
are the essence of the Democrat Party today.
That's why he pardoned the CEO of AIG while ripping the actions at that company.
With the CEO as the head honcho.
So this controversy over the bonus payments at AIG gives him more ammo to demonize corporations and capitalism.
So while people are allowing themselves to be outraged Over this red herring of AIG bonus money.
The real outrage is the government sinking its tentacles into private businesses and telling them how to run their business.
Escaping their own accountability for their own culpability and creating these problems.
The government gets to act as an innocent bystander.
Obama is not outraged by these bonuses at all, these bonuses.
I mean, even Bill Kristol said today, and a lot of it, by the way, I'm probably a lone wolf on this, but even Bill Crystal said today, we pro capitals have a problem because when there's excesses, uh, when capitalists do excessive things like award themselves all these kind of bonuses, well, we got a problem, we've got to speak up against it.
And I I know what Bill Crystal means.
Every system has its bad actors, and every system has its excesses.
Obama's gonna play right off this.
This is the stereotype.
Except don't forget he pardoned the CEO.
The teleprompter told him to pardon Edward Liddy, who's the CEO of AIG.
Now, normally, when something like this happens, doesn't the guy at the top get the uh get isn't he the target?
But not now.
Not now.
And now Andrew Kumol, the attorney general of New York says AIG's got three hours to produce the names of the people who got the bonuses, not the names of the people who paid them.
Not the executives who wrote the contracts awarding these merit bonuses.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
The government of New York is going after the people who received the bonuses.
AIG has until sundown, three hours to come up with a list of names.
Meanwhile, David Broder has proclaimed the end of the honeymoon for Barack Obama, saying it's not just me, it's other people who are not little limbs.
I told you, I warned you, don't doubt me.
Now let me tell you the real thing going on with AIG.
It ain't the bonuses.
Look at me, folks.
By the way, speaking of look at me, that makes me think, okay, a lot of you are driving.
And when I say look at me, you're gonna look at the radio dial rather than at the road.
I saw the most ridiculous hilarious thing.
Actually, I heard this last week, but I just saw it reported on Fox News.
Traffic, traffic, can lead you to being three times more likely to have a heart attack.
Traffic, traffic, being in it, being stopped in traffic raises your risk of heart attack by three times.
What a bunch of wusses.
Don't I am not out of touch with traffic.
I'm in traffic all the time.
When I go to New York, I understand traffic.
Don't look here again.
You see, I know everything is relative, but when I hear about this, what I think about is the Donner Party.
Do you remember the Donner Party?
Do you know who the Donner Party was?
Dawn, you don't know who the Donner Party was?
You really don't.
Brian?
You do.
Okay, what are they known for?
What's famous about the Donner Party?
Mm-hmm.
No.
All right, this is a teachable moment.
Teachable moment.
The Donner Party was a family, the Donners, and their and their friends and neighbors in the old covered wagons, and they were heading west over the Sierra Nevada mountain range around Truckee, north of Lake Tahoe.
They were hoping to find bliss on the other side of the mountains.
They happened to cross the mountains in the wintertime.
As their journals, which were found later, said it was a particularly tough winter.
It was so bad the Donner Party resorted to cannibalism to survive.
They did Not kill members of their party, but when their party died, they ate members of the traveling party to survive.
Now that is stress.
That's something that could lead you to a heart attack.
But I'm sorry.
Sitting in a fine, fine automobile made somewhere in this world with air conditioning and massive amounts of entertainment available on the radio in your podcast.
Three times increased risk of heart attack in traffic.
If this is true, we are a nation of wusses.
We have had to invent our traumas.
People of this generation have had to invent our traumas and give them initials.
ADD, ABB, SHH.
All of whatever.
I mean, you know, restless leg syndrome, all of these things to convince ourselves we have it tough.
Now I understand.
Stress is real when you feel it.
Even if it's manufactured by yourself, even if you create your own stress, I am understand that.
And I'm not saying that life's uh bowl of cherries, piece of cake and all that.
But I think a little perspective might be called for when you're stuck in traffic.
Realizing how about John Adams and George Washington, founding fathers.
Taking a couple days to go from downtown Manhattan to Harlem.
Think they had some traffic?
How about the slope?
How about these?
We've got it so easy compared to heart attack in traffic.
There's a rigmarole about uh the heart attack rate uh be susceptible three times more susceptible to a heart attack in traffic.
I need to commission my own study and find out just how small the risk of heart attack is if you're stuck in traffic listening to me and this program.
Because I'll bet you that the heart attack risk that's ostensibly three times higher when you're in traffic is not that high if it if it's raised at all when listening to the EIB network.
Now I'm gonna put this AIG thing in perspective.
The bonus money is just a cover.
You gotta hear me on this.
Everybody being outraged about the hundred sixty-five million dollars in bonuses, just a cover, ladies and gentlemen, for what AIG really did.
Goldman Sachs Group and a parade of European banks received ninety-three billion dollars in payments from AIG.
More than half of the U.S. taxpayer money spent to rescue AIG.
The revelation yesterday by AIG was another potential PR nightmare coming on the same weekend that the Obama administration expressed outrage over AIG's plan to pay these bonuses.
The size of the payments, payments, illustrates how seriously a potential collapse of AIG was viewed by the regulatory authorities.
Ben Bernanke said on 60 Minutes last night the failure of AIG would have brought down the financial system.
AIG has received federal bailouts totaling 173 billion dollars.
They're paying bonuses of 165 million, but they paid, they gave 93 billion dollars to Goldman Sachs and other banks.
And this is being covered up by the news on these bonuses, which are a smidgen.
$165 million is a smidgen compared to $93 billion.
So you could say that a lot of banks were bailed out with money that was not given directly to them.
AIG was used as a clearinghouse.
The government gives AIG 173 billion, and bam, a total of 93 billion of that ends up at a bunch of European banks and Goldman Sachs.
Now, where's the outrage over that?
There isn't any outrage over that because that's not being reported.
Everybody's got their underwear in a wad over the 165 million dollars To employees.
The employees get, I mean, 165 million is a lot of money, don't misunderstand.
But out of the 173 billion that AIG got, it's a smidgen.
Over half of what AIG got went to other banks in Europe.
And Goldman Sachs.
I didn't hear Obama address that.
I didn't hear Geithner address that.
I well, I haven't heard Andrew Kumo address that.
No, Andrew Kumo's demanding a list of citizens.
Andrew Kumo isn't is demanding a list of employees at AIG who got these bonuses by four o'clock this afternoon.
And if his four o'clock deadline's not met, he says he's going to issue subpoenas and seek court enforcement for that list of names.
Meanwhile, $93 billion from AIG to Goldman Sachs and European banks.
$165 million to employees of AIG.
Folks, don't fall for this.
It's too late.
I know every I mean, I'm just, I'm Paul Revere here, shouting to British are coming.
The difference is nobody believes me.
All right, let's uh let's let's go to the phones.
Carol in Buffalo, I'm glad you called.
New home of Terrell Owens, by the way, number 81.
Great to have you here.
Hi.
Thank you.
Uh thank you for taking my call.
Yes, ma'am.
I'm uh second generation of four generations listening to you.
But um I was talking, I was talking about uh the bailout and the fact that the money was borrowed.
Yes, ma'am.
So even the money that they're giving to these executives, it's gonna be given back hopefully sooner or later.
So they're making this big thing, like you said, to cover up what's really going on, which they've been doing all along.
Well, it is a you you your argument here is that these are loans that these uh companies are getting, right?
Well, that's what they they let us to believe, isn't it?
Yeah, but remember now, everything Obama's teleprompts him to say has an expiration date.
Barney Frank's out there bragging.
We own 80% of the company, we're gonna start firing people.
We own 80% of the company.
I you know, once the government gets its hands in something, I'm not aware of the government giving it back or taking its hands away.
This is too exciting a prospect for people like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and Nancy Pelosi, the other liberal Democrats up there.
Carol, thanks much.
Here is Joe in Miami.
Nice to have you, sir.
Hello.
Yeah, Rush.
Uh if they want to find out who's responsible for them getting the bonuses, isn't it done if they let them go uh bankrupt?
The concepts would have been null and void, and they wouldn't be uh up for those bonuses.
Um that's true, but you heard Bernanke say on 60 minutes last night the financial system would have collapsed if they let AIG collapse.
Yeah, but doesn't AIG have any competitors?
And if they do, aren't those competitors getting a little angry about every time they think that uh yeah, but see there's they have competitors, but AIG does more than sell insurance.
I mean they're they're they're a large insurance underwriter, there's no question, American International Group, but they bought into derivatives.
They bought a whole bunch of worthless paper in the subprime mortgage.
They did there are reports, I have been unable to confirm this.
I I feel a little remiss even mentioning this.
But uh there are reports out there that this is one of these things that if it's really true, uh, I'm gonna shoot myself for not really believing it.
But apparently much of you can't find anything about it, Mr. Sterling.
Yeah, I can't we can't find a source for this, but it's all over the place that AIG is the home of much of the pension plan retirement plans or members of Congress.
Now, I don't know that that's true, but it's all over the place out there.
And it's you know, you you look at something like this, none of this makes any sense.
None of it makes any sense whatsoever when you look at it using our common values.
If you look at it using values of people in government, it could make total sense.
But the bottom line here is of course they have competitors.
AIG is an insurer.
And I I have uh the vast majority of my insurance policies are with AIG.
Which, I mean, is why, ladies and gentlemen, I frankly uh fair is fair.
I'm happy that American taxpayers are bailing out the company.
That's where my insurance is.
If I'm gonna be paying people's mortgages, if I'm gonna pay for people who can't afford their mortgages, if I'm gonna be paying for who knows whatever else, it's only right that somebody else pay, keep my insurance company afloat.
But if they went south, if they went bankrupt, if they were, you know, to have to get with the brokers and sit down and start all over again with uh with competitors.
There are all kinds of competitors out there.
One of the great things about AIG is they'll write policies that some of their police uh companies won't.
I mean, there's a reason that people chose AIG.
There's a reason people do business with them.
It's because their products, their insurance products were pretty good.
Uh, as compared to uh as compared to some others.
For example, where I live, you know, hurricane wind insurance is a big deal.
Uh, in in a lot of companies' case now, I used to have, I'm not going to mention any names here, but they priced it such they really didn't want to sell it.
I mean, try a $2 million deductible and a $500,000 annual premium.
I mean, what is the point?
They're saying we don't want to sell this to you.
Uh, so the market, you know, AIG came up with wind insurance that made far more sense.
Bunch of different alternatives.
So, yes, there are competitors out there, but there's something else about AIG beyond insurance that uh is uh causing the government to look at it as something that is too big to fail.
I have brief timeout.
Thanks, Joe, for the phone call.
Quick timeout, coming back after this.
Stay with us.
Okay, I just I just had it confirmed.
I knew this was the case.
Congressional pensions are not held at AIG.
That has nothing to do with why the money's going on here.
You know, but I'm looking at this.
Uh I got a New York Times blog entry here today on Andrew Cuomo.
Andrew Cuomo has sent a letter to Ed Liddy, who was pardoned today of Obama's uh teleprompter.
Uh, pardoned Edward Liddy, the current CEO of AIG.
Because uh the prompter told Obama to say that the Liddy had nothing to do with the bonuses.
But apparently Cuomo's not on board with that.
Cuomo said he's investigated the insurance company's compensation plan since last fall.
He has sent the letter to um the government.
Liddy's the government appointed CEO, by the way.
He's the government appointed.
What?
You know, I'm gonna get a letter.
I'll bet you money.
I got a letter from AIG or my broker tomorrow saying I have been my policies have been canceled.
No reason given.
We just you're too you're too great a risk, even though I've never filed a claim.
Anyway, Cuomo is demanding the contracts, guaranteeing these bonuses, and the names of the individuals who developed and negotiated the contracts.
So he wants the names of the execs who negotiated the contracts and the contracts, and he wants the names of the people getting the bonuses.
Is he working out of the Reichstag or what?
Have they it is does Albany have a Reichstag building in it?
Or maybe there's a Kremlin in it.
This is the New York Attorney General.
Obama doesn't have to lift a hand.
He just has to have Andrew Kumo go out and do his dirty work.
Just want to say have you seen the news of the Tea Party in Cincinnati over the weekend, thousands of people showed up.
These tea parties are blossoming and growing all over the fruited plain.
People fed up, and I'll tell you what, it's not about bonuses to AIG people.
That's not why these tea parties are taking place.
These tea parties, God love you people doing them.
These tea parties are taking place because people are tired of paying the freight for people who refuse to work.
They're tired of paying mortgages for people who are making no effort to pay them.
They are tired of bailing out failed companies.
They are tired of things like unions and card check being forced on small business.
These tea parties are a direct result Of an outrage at this administration for trying to wipe out the fundamental building blocks of this nation's founding.
That's what's under assault.
Capitalism and this nation's founding.
And that's what these tea parties are all about.
These tea parties, they're not happening because of bonuses to people at work at AIG.
150 tea parties have either taken place or are planned across the fruited plain to um North Alexander, uh Pennsylvania.
Nathan, you're next.
Great to have you here on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hey, how are you doing, guys?
I'm fine, thank you.
Yeah, I just wanted to say my brother's gonna be real jealous.
He listens to you like all the time, and I don't think he's ever gotten on the show.
Uh but anyway, uh, what's your what's your what what's your brother's name?
My brother, Jason.
He lives in Jacksonville, Florida.
Oh, Jason, and he lives in Jacksonville.
All right.
Hi, Jason.
Well his time is coming.
Yeah, there you go.
There you go.
But uh, the one thing about this, I do agree with uh Obama trying to get these uh bonuses back from the AIG uh execs because I mean that's that's our money.
That's the taxpayers' money.
I don't think their bonuses should be funded with taxpayers' money.
Well, let me ask you a question.
No, no, wait, wait, wait a second.
Wait a second.
Now I'm very serious about this, Nathan.
I'm very serious.
You have a company.
Well let's take AIG out of this because they're so emotionally charged.
Let's say that uh the company being bailed out is the XYZ widget company.
Right.
We've determined we need to bail out XYZ widget.
Uh XYZ widget has people who work there.
Mm-hmm.
Uh we're gonna bail XYZ widget out because we need XYZ bit uh widget to continue operating as an ongoing business.
Okay.
We need them to manufacture widgets and sell widgets and so forth.
So why in the world, or how do you get to the point where you're gonna bail out the company, but you don't want the employees to get paid.
Well, have the employees get paid, yeah, but I mean that's who this is.
This is this is not this is not just executives, but executives are employees too.
And in that many of these firms, Nathan, their salaries are pretty small.
They work on bonuses via contract based on merit.
Now, if you'll tell you what, I would love to have their salaries.
You you we'll switch salaries, I guarantee you.
They would not be happy with my salary.
Uh well, now that's can I talk about that with you two?
Okay, go ahead.
Go ahead.
What's stopping you?
What's stopping me from what from having the kind of money that uh that these people make in your mind?
What's stopping you from making it?
Um basically, uh uh I haven't gone back to school for it yet, to tell you the truth.
And um, I haven't really been in that uh that type of business for very long.
Well, the the main thing.
How old are you?
How old am I?
I'm 31 years old.
31.
Your whole life's ahead of you.
You can go back to school.
If you want to earn what do you want to what would you love to earn per year?
Forget the bonus and forget anybody else.
What would you like to earn?
Um, honestly, it really wouldn't matter how much I earn as long as I live comfortably.
No, it matters because you're upset that some of these people earn this.
You just said you'd love to have their salaries, even though you don't know what they are.
So the there's don't don't be embarrassed to give me a number.
There's nothing Oh, I I would love to earn about 200, 250,000 a year.
That would be perfect.
You want to earn 200,000.
Yeah, that's 250 a year.
Well, no, you want to earn 249,999 so you don't get the tax increase.
So you you but but you what you want to earn two fifty.
All right, do you know what?
And I mean this in the bottom of my heart, Nathan.
The only person stopping you is you.
There's two hundred and fifty He hung up.
Damn it, he hung up.
Right.
Nathan, if you're there's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars out there for you, Nathan.
If you really want it, you really want to earn that kind of money.
It's out there.
Now, it's going to and don't not be insulting, it's going to take hard work.
I've got a story here in the stack of the Wall Street Journal.
Uh there's there's a great book out there called Outliers.
Yeah, and it it talks about success and hard work and the talks about do people really are they born special or just have special talents or they why are they so successful?
Found out it takes 10,000 hours, ten years of concentrated hard work.
It doesn't just happen, even in the case of athletes.
But the point is, Nathan, find out what you wanted.
There's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars out there for you if you want it.
This is the United States of America.
There still is that chance.
It hasn't been destroyed yet.
And Nathan, I tell you this from the bottom of my heart, you're only putting obstacles in your own way when you're worried about what other people are making.
Because I guarantee you, whatever amount of bonus money these people at AIG are getting, your share is probably less than a penny.
So whatever they're making, they're not taking from you.
There's a whole bunch of millions of taxpayers.
If you want to divide how much money taxpayers into 165 million, don't get sidetracked by what other people are making.
You want to make $250,000?
You live in the United States of America.
It's there for you.
You target what you love, target what you want to do, go do it better than anybody else.
Work hard for it, and it's there.
It's there for a lot of other people.
Why not you?
The only person holding you back, Nathan, is you.
And that's true for everybody.
I don't mean that in a personal sense.
Back in just a sec.
Somebody better call the mayor, Michael Bloomberg, and have him tell Andrew Cuomo to stop it.
$165 billion is just about ready to circulate in the New York economy.