It's Open Line Friday on Thursday, Rushlin Boss serving humanity.
And as usual, utilizing talent on loan from God.
The reason we're doing Open Line Friday on Thursday is I have another wedding I have to go to.
Not mine this time.
It's a good friend of mine's daughter is getting married somewhere in the hidden climes of the great Northwest.
And it's happening part of the rehearsal dinner and so forth.
Duggar Bansky be in here tomorrow.
And then folks, Monday, get back.
And it's a full schedule, five days, as far as the eye can see.
800-282-2882.
If you want to be with us on the program here, our telephone number and the email address is lrushbow at EIBnet.com.
Now, I have been promising all week, well, since Tuesday, to share with you a column Art Laffer wrote, published June 7th in the Wall Street Journal.
And I'm going to start this hour with the column, because this is really, if there's one thing that you want to bone up on as the future is prepared to unfold before your very eyes, it would be the information here in Art Laffer's piece.
The headline is tax hikes and the coming 2011 economic collapse.
Today's corporate profits reflect an income shift into 2010.
These profits will tumble next year, preceded most likely by the stock market.
People can change the volume, the location, and the composition of their income, and they can do so in response to changes in government policies.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that the nine states without an income tax are growing far faster and attracting more people than are the nine states with the highest income tax rates.
People and businesses change the location of income based on incentives.
Likewise, who is gobsmacked when they are told that the two wealthiest Americans, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, hold the bulk of their wealth in non-taxed form of unrealized capital gains?
Let me repeat this.
Who is gobsmacked when they are told that the two wealthiest Americans, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, hold the bulk of their wealth in non-taxed forms of unrealized capital gains?
The composition of wealth also responds to incentives.
And it's also simple enough for most people to understand that if the government taxes people who work and pays people who do not work, fewer people will work.
Incentives do matter.
Let me intercede here and simply use myself as an example.
I pulled a plug and left New York in 1997.
I moved out of there because I discovered that there's no state income tax in Florida.
Have you ever wondered why so many athletes claim Florida as their residence when they may live and work all over the country, plying their trade?
It's because there's no income tax here.
There's no income tax in Florida.
And people say, well, yeah, but they really nail you on the property tax.
Well, they do.
The property tax is higher here.
But I've run the numbers.
The no income tax combined with the property tax here doesn't even get close to what I was paying income tax state and city and unincorporated business tax in New York.
Now, I've left New York in 1997.
I have been audited every year since I left.
I have to prove where I am 14 different ways for every day of each year.
And I still get audited, and they still accuse me of lying to them about where I am on every day.
Have not done this program in New York in a year and a half.
Mr. Laffer is exactly right.
And folks, in this case, you know, should I tell them what my tax rate per day is when I work in New York?
I don't think I should do that.
It's not the money, it's the principle of the thing.
Well, it's ridiculously high, but that's not the, it's the principle.
If New York wants to drive people out of the state, I will lead the way.
And that's the way I've looked at it since 1997.
The point is here that Laffer is exactly right.
And his point about Gates and Buffett is look at them.
The bulk of their wealth is in the non-taxed form of unrealized capital gains.
They're not paying taxes on their wealth, contrary to what they, everybody else want you to believe.
And now Gates and Buffett met in some diner in Omaha recently and came up with a plan.
They want every billionaire to give away half of his or her wealth, either now or at their death, give it away to charity.
Now, I don't care what anybody does with their money.
Gates and Buffett can do whatever they want with their money, but I draw the line at them telling everybody else what they should do with theirs.
If they have a lot of guilt over having amassed multiple billions of dollars, fine and do with it whatever they want.
But don't take that guilt and try to spread it to everybody else.
Because once you start saying that billionaires ought to give away half of their wealth, well, then maybe everybody ought to give away half of their wealth up to, what is the magic number, $250,000 a year.
You know, you live your life the way you want to, but leave me out of it.
It goes for money.
It goes for what I use to brush my teeth, what kind of car I drive, to what kind of television set I buy, to whether or not I'm going to smoke a cigar or not, whether you're around or not.
So the point is here that Laffer incentives work.
I'm going to tell you something else.
With these massive tax increases coming starting in 2011, that's why, told you yesterday, the airline industry reported a $2.5 billion profit this year because they want to pay low tax rates on that profit this year, not next year.
I don't care how they got the profit.
I don't care if they got it charging for carry-ons or for bags or what have you.
And there are a lot of corporations and industries that are going to go ahead and report profit this year in order to pay tax on it this year rather than defer it.
People who have the ability are going to move as much of their income to 2010 as they can.
Robert Iger, so I keep saying Michael Eisner, 1992 in December, or maybe it was 93, the month before the Clinton retroactive tax increases went into effect that took the rate to 39%.
Eisner sold $192 million worth of Disney stock, and he had voted for Clinton, of course, to escape the new tax increase.
And there are going to be a lot of people, people who have the ability to shift income, to take it early or whatever, they're going to do that to avoid these new taxes.
The point is the tax increases that are coming are not going to raise the revenue everybody thinks.
People are going to be running away from them as fast as they can.
All these profits are going to be reported and there's going to be an economic downturn as a result next year.
People can change the timing of when they earn and receive their income in response to government policies.
According to a 2004 Treasury report, high-income taxpayers accelerated the receipt of wages and year-end bonuses from 1993 to 1992 over $15 billion worth in order to avoid the effects of the anticipated increase in the top rate from 31 to 39.6% under Bill Clinton.
So Eisner's $192 million was part of that $15 billion.
At the end of 1993, taxpayers shifted wages and bonuses yet again to avoid the increase in Medicare taxes that went into effect beginning 1994.
And to give you a real-life example of how this works, our old friend, the Brecht girl, John Edwards, who was always running around talking about Depart and poverty and has two Americas.
John Edwards organized his business under subchapter S rules.
So he went sub-S.
Now, the Medicare tax at the time was, I think, 1.9% of everything.
Not like the Social Security tax, which has a ceiling.
I think the Medicare tax is now 3% of everything.
If you go sub-S, which is legal, don't misunderstand.
If you organize under subchapter S, you can pay, let's say your entire generated income in a year is, pick a number, 500 grand.
You can pay yourself a salary of $75,000 or $100,000 and pay Medicare and Social Security only on that and income tax and then take the other in bonus, which is exempt from the Medicare tax.
It's salaries and wages.
And Edwards did that.
And everybody says, how can you do that?
Well, I'm just taking advantage of it allow.
But I thought you wanted to pause people to get paid.
I thought you were Medicare patients and get treatment.
I do, but I don't want to pay thought.
Incentives matter.
Just remember what happened to automobile sales when the cash for clunkers program ended.
Or how about new housing sales when the $8,000 tax credit ended?
It isn't rocket surgery, as the Ivy League professor said.
On or about January 1st, 2011, federal, state, and local tax rates are scheduled to rise quite sharply.
President Bush's tax cuts expire on that date, meaning the highest federal personal rate will go to 39.6% from 35%.
The highest federal dividend rate pops up to 39.6% from 15%.
More than doubles.
The capital gains tax rate goes to 20% from 15%.
That's another thing.
You're going to have a lot of people.
Normally, you know, high wealth people will take appreciated stock and they will donate that to charity rather than sell it and pay the capital gains tax.
But a lot of people have been going ahead and selling stock and buying others and the capital gains at 15%.
So it's going to go to 20%.
So what's going to happen?
You're going to have a lot of people who will sell stock.
They will liquidate their positions in which they're holding a gain prior to the end of the year in order to pay a lower capital gains rate than what Obama's new rate is starting January 1.
All of this accelerated economic activity is going to make the end of the year look like boom time.
But at the same time, when January rolls around and first quarter and the second quarter hit, then of course, there's no economic activity because these tax increases are in full force.
And people are going to be less interested in even reporting income.
They're going to be looking for ways to shelter it or hide it so as to avoid paying these higher rates, the people that can.
And the people that can are the people that hire you.
So you had the capital gains rate is going to go 20% from 15%.
The estate tax right now is zero.
It's going to go back up to 55%.
So a lot of people are probably going to die this year.
They're going to move their death forward so that their families don't have to pay any estate tax, as opposed to next year when they would die, have to pay 55%.
Lots and lots of other changes will also occur as a result of the sunset provisions of the Bush tax cuts.
Tax rates have been and will be raised on income earned from offshore investments.
Payroll taxes are already scheduled to rise in 2013.
The alternative minimum tax will be digging deeper and deeper into middle-income taxpayers.
And there's always the celebrated tax increase on Cadillac healthcare plans.
State and local tax rates are also going up in 2011 as they did in 2010.
The bottom line is that tax rate increases next year are everywhere.
Now, if people know that tax rates are going to be higher next year than they are this year, what will those people do this year?
They will shift production and income out of next year into this year to the extent possible.
As a result, income this year has already been inflated above where it would otherwise be, and next year, 2011 income will be lower than it otherwise should be.
Also, the prospect of rising prices, higher interest rates, and more regulations next year will further entice demand and supply to be shifted from 2011 to 2010.
In my view, writes Laffer, this shift of income and demand is a major reason the economy in 2010 has appeared to be as strong as it is, which ain't very strong, by the way.
When we pass the tax boundary of January 1, 2011, my best guess is the train goes off the tracks, we get our worst nightmare of a severe double-dip recession.
1981, Ronaldus Magnus, bipartisan support began the first phase in a series of tax cuts passed under the Economic Recovery Tax Act, the ERTA, it was called, whereby the bulk of the tax cuts didn't take effect until January 1 of 83.
Reagan's delayed tax cuts were the mirror image of Obama's delayed tax increases.
For 1981 and 82, people deferred so much economic activity that real GDP was basically flat.
It contributed to that recession because people didn't want to pay those high tax rates.
They wanted to wait around till 83 to report any income.
The unemployment rate rose to well over 10%.
But at the tax boundary of January 1, 1983, the economy took off like a rocket, average real growth reaching 7.5% in 83, 5.5% in 1984.
It has always amazed me how tax cuts don't work until they take effect.
Mr. Obama's experience with deferred tax rate increases will be the reverse.
The economy will collapse in 2011.
Consider corporate profits as a share of GDP.
Today, corporate profits as a share of GDP are way too high given the state of our economy.
These high profits reflect the shift in income to this year from next.
These profits are going to tumble in 2011, preceded most likely by the stock market.
In 2010, without any repayment or prepayment penalties, folks, this next is key.
This listen to me.
Look at me.
In 2010, without any prepayment penalties, people can cash in their IRAs, their Kyoto deferred income accounts, and 401k deferred income accounts without prepayment penalties.
After paying their taxes, these deferred income accounts can be rolled into Roth IRAs that provide after-tax income to their owners in the future.
Given what's going to happen to tax rates, this conversion seems like a no-brainer.
Anybody who has a decent accountant is going to be advised to do this.
It's further economic activity taken out of next year and put into this year.
The result is going to be a cash in tax receipts once the surge is passed.
If you thought deficits and unemployment have been bad lately, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Okay, everybody paying attention to the oil spill this week, and everybody should be.
No one in Washington is paying attention to anybody else unless you are a researcher at the Heritage Foundation, that is.
And then you're smart enough to know that watching the left and the left hand of the administration, just as important as watching their right-hand.
Down the street, From where the BP Chairman Tony Hayward's getting the drubbing of his lifetime, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had two days of hearings with the administration's chief negotiators on the deal they'd like to cut with the Russians.
Now, why should this even concern you?
Well, I'm going to tell you why.
Because one of the two chief negotiators appointed by the regime carries a belief that a comprehensive missile seal to protect America and its allies is just not practical.
And that President Reagan's aspirations for a multi-layered defense system start to finish is not an achievable outcome.
That's what the regime believes.
Name another researcher or another radio host for that matter that will research and report that our chief negotiators for our missile defense start their day believing that our 25-year thinking is just not practical and not achievable.
But that's who we've elected.
You can get all these details online at the Heritage Foundation's website.
If you are a member of Heritage, this is just another example of where your well-spent membership money goes.
Paying attention to what will affect you next with the notion that information is empowerment.
A bunch of people led by Senator Jim DeMint will be all over this.
And with the help of the Heritage Foundation's researchers, no doubt.
Now, I can give you 200 reasons why being a member of Heritage is both important and enlightening.
This is right there at the top of them, having like-minded people paying attention to all the details.
So while you invest your emotion into this oil spill and whatever the media tells us the lead story today is, go to askheritage.org, 25 bucks to join and find out what else this administration is doing under the cover of the media focusing on a crisis.
Ann in Houston, great to have you on the program.
Welcome.
A privilege to talk to you.
You, I'm sure, remember the old Charles Atlas ad.
Well, I think that Obama is skinny at the beach and you are kicking sand in his face.
But Bush, in Obama's speech, he said that the United States represents 2% of the world's population and has 20% of the world's resources.
And I think that drives him crazy.
I think he wants to redistribute not only in the United States, but to the world.
What's your comment?
I think you're exactly right.
I think you have nailed precisely who Obama is.
That stat, the left has been using that stat for as long as I've been able to hear.
I can still hear, even though I'm deaf.
They use it in describing images.
Yes, yes, we are but X percent of the world's population and we use 25% of the world's energy.
How guilty of us.
We're stealing from people around the world.
I think Obama really believes this.
We are 2% of the world's population and we are using 25% of the world's resources.
And of course, we're doing it in a criminal way, in his view.
We are robbing all the people around the world.
We don't do one damn thing for anybody that's good.
He doesn't see us that way.
I think, and you are right on the money and that aspect of his speech, I'm glad you picked up on that.
I'm glad you noticed it because that's what animates him.
That's how he's been raised.
It's how he's been educated.
That is what informs him.
That is why he thinks this country is unjust, unfair, and immoral.
And that's why it's time to cut us down to size.
You have nailed it head on.
Oh, is that right?
All right.
Well, that's going to grab next call as we go back to the phones.
It's John in Southern Illinois, which is not far from southeastern Missouri, where I was born and grew up.
John, welcome to the program.
Nice to have you here.
Simplified Ellis Dittos and happy marriage.
You may or may not remember me.
I called you in March of 2005 to thank you for 10 years of wedded bliss with my wife.
You were the catalyst that put us together.
And I hope you, we're going on 16 years now.
And I hope you and Catherine and Wellesley and Abby, the same kind of happiness that we have.
I do have one question for you.
Wait a minute now.
You need to explain something here.
There are a lot of people listening who love me, but are still going to be scratching their heads over how it could have been me behind a happy marriage for you.
Okay, I came home from the Marine Corps and I was a cocky devil dog hanging around around Carbondale.
And my wife did not care for my cockiness.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
What is a talking devil dog?
Cocky.
You know.
Oh, cocky.
Oh, yeah.
Women hate that.
Well.
Oh, yes.
Yeah, well, that's not true.
They say they hate it, but they actually don't.
Exactly.
And she found out that I was a ditto head because somehow or another the word feminazi came out of my marine lips.
That was the other F word that I used.
And she bought me a bottle of Snapple, and we have been going out ever since in August of 92.
So it was when she found out that you were a Russian ball listener because of the use of the word feminist and Snapple and so forth, and she didn't care that you were cocky.
No, she loved it.
Yeah.
Because I was cocky and right.
Now, I have a question for you.
Yeah.
Out of 16 years of marriage, we have not yet had a select comfort bed, and we're thinking about getting one when we move over into Missouri.
I have a question.
Which model do you have, and what is your number?
Well, what model do you think I have?
The best one they have.
That's exactly right.
Okay.
Top of the line is what I'd recommend.
But it's not necessary.
It depends.
I mean, I got a full boat king.
But the sleep number, now that's a personal choice.
It depends on the desired firmness that you desire and your wife desires.
It changes all the time.
Like, I have a sleep number.
Sometimes it's 75.
Sometimes I jack it up to 90.
You know, and I sometimes 50.
It depends what you want.
That's the great thing about it.
You can change it multiple times a night or once a week or whatever you want.
Well, that's awesome.
Well, my dad was a World War II veteran.
He turned me on to you.
We lost in Memorial Day 99, and he would be very proud that I was talking to someone he considered a great orator and a great American statesman.
And you, sir, it is an honor to speak to you.
And this is the third time I've been fortunate enough to get to, and we love you.
And we're praying for you and Catherine to have the same kind of happiness that we have.
Thank you very much.
I really appreciate that.
That's very kind.
And I, God bless your dad.
You know, my dad was a World War II veteran as well.
I'm reading your book right now, The Book About You Right Now, by Mr. Chavitz.
Mr. Chavez.
Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
I talked to Zeb via email the other day, and he's been blackballed from a lot of conservative television shows and networks.
He has been not invited.
He's gotten some invitations on liberal programs, but no conservative programs are taking him to interview him.
Which I said, Zeb, that should not surprise you.
It shouldn't surprise you at all.
And he's plugging away at it out there.
It is, you know, I participated with him in writing them.
It's a miniature biography.
It's actually a lot more than a biography called Rush Limbaugh, an Army of One.
I actually read it.
I read it on my iPad.
I downloaded it.
I think, where did I get it?
The iBookstore or Kindle?
I'm not sure which.
And I don't like reading things about me.
And I never have.
Just like I can't, I don't watch myself on television.
I don't listen to myself on the radio.
I don't need to.
I hear it firsthand as I perform it.
I'm there.
But I don't read things about me.
And I picked this up or downloaded it.
And I was going to read a sentence on this page and jump a couple pages and find a sentence there.
And I found myself about an hour, I was turning every page.
And even though I knew everything that was in it, well, he has some opinions in it about me that I didn't know.
That's why Army of One is the title.
But I had forgotten a lot of the things that he found out by trolling around Cape Girardeau and talking to people.
And I'm reading these things.
I've forgotten all of them.
I mean, junior high school stuff.
So I found myself turning the pages and reading, and I thought it was interesting.
Which it's, I know it's amazing how fast it's, oh, yeah, all those e-books, they download blinkety split.
Exactly.
I got the Barnes ⁇ Noble e-reader, Kindle, iBooks on the iPad, which is coming to the iPhone.
So, yeah, it's fascinating to have all that content on one device carrying around all the hardcover softcovers.
But anyway, I was frankly kind of surprised that I enjoyed it and I was reading it.
I kind of lost myself turning the pages.
And I looked at it.
It had been an hour.
And I didn't run across it anything.
Gee, I wish he hadn't said that.
I mean, maybe there were a couple things, but my maturity is such that that's a pointless attitude to have since I'm reading it.
Just stare and say, gee, I wish it weren't there is kind of stupid.
But it is what it is.
Rush Limbaugh and Army of One.
Zev Chappet's the author, blackballed.
What?
No, well, Snurdy asked me if I was reading things I'd forgotten that surprised me.
Some, I'd say a lot of it's, oh yeah, I actually did do that.
It's like I was proud of it.
It's the things I'd forgot.
Oh, yeah.
I've forgotten that.
I did it.
Well, the volume of output, 15 hours a week, 25 years, got to throw Sacramento in there.
It's impossible to remember everything you've done or said.
And so it all came flying back at me.
And I said, damn, that was good.
That was clever.
That was hilarious.
Yeah.
Yeah, I was surprised.
I was surprised how fast I was turning the pages.
You know why I was surprised?
Because I knew what was coming.
I mean, it's about me.
I wasn't reading something about somebody I didn't know anything about.
Yet I was turning the pages pretty fast.
So I'm glad he's reading it.
Who's next?
Jeremy.
Jeremy in Redding, Pennsylvania.
Welcome to EIB Network, sir.
Great to have you here.
Yes, Megan DeRoza Rush.
Hey, I just wanted to make a quick connection.
I always hear everybody talk about George Orwell 1984, but another book he wrote that nobody makes the connection to is Animal Farm.
Yes.
Where the animals take over the farm and write their own rules, but slowly the pigs start changing the rules.
And the connection is the Democrats are like the pigs who slowly start changing the rules.
Case in point with the whole Kennedy Senator Kennedy election, how when he got appointed, they changed the rules from the governor can appoint somebody to a special election.
But then when he died, they didn't want a special election.
They wanted the governor to be able to appoint somebody.
And that even goes into the whole oil spill and everything, because during Katrina, it took Bush like nine days or so to react, and that wasn't quick enough.
But it's taken them some two months to really react, but it's okay for them.
Yeah.
Excellent point.
Excellent, excellent point.
You got Snerdley, you found some great, great callers out there for Open Line Friday on Thursdays.
Jeremy, thanks very much.
Say, folks, the Carbonite plaudits keep coming.
This was posted on Carbonite's Facebook page by somebody obviously very intelligent because he said he heard about carbonite from me.
He wrote, my computer crashed the other day.
No beating my head on the desk.
No worries.
I have carbonite.
It was all backed up.
Thank you, Carbonite.
That is a relief.
I don't know.
Have you ever lost a lot of data, thought you've lost a lot of data on your computer?
You know how, I mean, that's Panic City.
And then when you find out you've got it back or you didn't lose it, you know how relieved you are.
That's what Carbonite is.
I mean, you back it up.
It backs up off-site every time you're online.
It happens in the background.
You don't even see it.
And you probably forget about it until that day comes, and it will when your computer peters out.
And you have to go get a replacement computer, replacement hard drive.
You reformat it and back it up, and you haven't lost anything.
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So a congressman, I don't know who it was, is being asked, or Hayward is being asked, this BP CEO, Tony Hayward, being asked by a congressman if he thought that he was shaken down by the White House yesterday for the 20 billion.
He answered twice and never said no.
He did not say no.
He didn't come out and say, yeah, it really shook us down in there, but he didn't deny it.
Here's Mike in the Woodlands, Texas.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello, sir.
Hi, Rush.
It's a great honor to speak with you.
I can officially cross one item off of my bucket list.
I appreciate the time to get on and speak with you.
Thank you much, sir.
I appreciate that.
One of Touch Bay, she had a caller last hour about why gas prices are not going up or question why they weren't.
And the reason is a simple supply and demand principle.
The well that was being drilled was not a productive well, so the oil that was coming up from the test spot was not being included and did not go onto the commodity exchange board.
Well, that's all well and good.
So the supply of this well never existed as far as speculators are concerned.
That's correct.
But Obama slept on this moratorium.
We're not producing a single barrel of oil in any of our 33 offshore rigs.
Well, you believe anything he says anyway?
Oh, you think we are producing?
Oh, they didn't shut anything down yet.
They haven't shut anything down yet.
That doesn't mean they won't, but we're still producing.
And if they don't produce it here, like you say, they'll just go to Venezuela or.
I know.
They'll go somewhere else.
They haven't shut down those 33 rigs yet.
No.
Are you in the all business?
No, but I have a buddy of mine that is.
So, you know, I'm just going on what I'm being told from there.
You know, I'm not actually out on the well or the rig, so I don't know for sure, but that's what my opinion is.
They're still pumping.
Hmm.
I wonder if the wacko left knows this.
Appreciate that.
Mike, yeah, thank you.
Thanks very much.
You know, at the end of the day, folks, all these show trials and these moratoriums are about Obama, the Democrats, embargoing our own oil until we invent some alternative energy sources.
That's really what this is about.
It's a lot like holding your breath until you get what you want, which the only people that do that are adolescents.
And of course, that never works, right?
Because your will to live will make you breathe.
The horrible way to commit suicide is hold your breath.
You can't do it.
Have you ever tried?
Try it now.
No, don't.
Don't.
But you can't do it.
But that's what these children in the White House are doing.
We're going to hold our breath until we get what we want.
That's in effect what's happening.
Livonia, Michigan.
Always love people that call from Livonia, Michigan.
We've never had a dud yet.
This is Leonard.
Don't be the first.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Thank you, Rush, for taking my call.
My question is, everybody seems to be wanting to beat up on BP, but like you said, in the third or fourth day, the Netherlands offered help, and all Obama did was said, no, this could have been put off at least, maybe not prevented, but put off with the skimmers from the Netherlands, the booms out of Maine, the skimmers out of Texas.
This could have been at least maybe half.
They could have been picking up oil.
Let's just say a million gallons a day are coming out of this as well.
And if the skimmers are picking up half of it, it's going to take twice as long to get to land.
Well, the fact of the matter is that Obama wants the crisis.
He doesn't want it cleaned up fast is obvious by his lack of attention to it.
The second thing about the Netherlands and the foreign assistance it was offered is called the Jones Act.
The Jones Act requires that everybody working on an American emergency of this kind, I'm paraphrasing the act, has to be a member of a union.
And it's been routine that presidents have waived the Jones Act in its entirety in previous occasions to accept such help.
Obama refused as a loyalty expression to members of his support group, the union.
So a lot of factors here.
But it's not, I know it sounds outrageous, but it's not outrageous to say that they like the disaster.
It furthers their agenda.
There's no question about it.
Ginger in Slide L, Louisiana.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Russ.
Mega Dittos.
Thank you.
I live about 30 miles off the coast, and we're inundated by the news every day.
We heard this morning that General Fad Allen has shut down all of the skimmers for inspection.
We were just concerned and curious what your thought was on that.
General Fad Allen, Admiral, has shut down.
I'm sorry.
You're right.
He shut down the skimmers for inspection.
Yes, sir.
He has shut down all of the skimmers for inspection.
They are no longer skimming the oil out in the Gulf.
Well, the first I've heard of this, and Generally, I try not to render an opinion on things I don't know about, even though I'm usually right about it.
I'm usually right about most everything, even though I don't know about it.
But I've not seen anything about this.
I don't know.
I've been on the radio station all day, and they have been slamming him.
Wow.
Billy Nungether, the president of Plattman's Parish, who we're all together not pleased with because he was very friendly.
Yeah, yeah, I can understand why.
Well, look, we'll try to find that out because that would be news.
Thanks so much for the call.
Back after this.
We haven't been able to find anything in the news on these skimmers being pulled out of service for inspection.
Now, we're not denying that it's happening.
We just can't find anything on it.
And until such time as that, it would be pointless to comment on it.
Remember Doug Gurbansky will be in here tomorrow, and I'll be back on Monday to bring me back to normal.
Another wedding in a great Northwest friend of mine's daughter is getting married.