All Episodes
Previous Next
Aug. 24, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:36
August 24, 2010, Tuesday, Hour #2
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
That is absolutely right, Johnny Donovan.
And it is Walter E. Williams sitting in for Rush, and Rush will be back tomorrow.
But right now, uh we have uh I'm pleased to introduce my good friend and colleague, uh longtime co-conspirator, uh Dr. Uh Thomas Sowell.
He is the uh Rose and Milton Friedman uh senior fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, California, and it's uh Hoover Institution is a very, very distinguished uh place uh in our country, and they have a lot of people who know a lot about economics and free market economics particularly.
Welcome to the show, Tom.
Uh good being with you.
Now, your book, Dismantling America, I I I think it's a fabulous read, and I I think everybody ought to go order it.
And it's uh it's available all over, isn't it?
Oh, yes.
Yes, yes.
Now okay, let's start at the beginning.
Now you say it was progressives of a hundred years ago under the Woodrow Wilson administration, others, who who thought we need to adjust the Constitution to keep up with the needs of the times.
Can you explain that?
Yes.
I mean, uh there there are many people who evaded the Constitution or violated it.
But Woodrow Wilson was the first president of the United States who actually came out and said uh that the Constitution ought to be uh uh superseded by what judges and others think are the needs of the times.
Uh and I think given his general view of the world, that is, of uh uh uh uh of elite people who ought to be taking decisions out of the hands of ordinary people, uh but this is perfectly consistent because the Constitution is what protects ordinary people.
Yes, but but however, the the the framers of the Constitution gave us Article Five as a means to amend the Constitution, and you're suggesting they they don't want the amended, they just want the courts just to say uh to uh to reconvene the Constitutional Convention in their chambers.
Oh, uh uh absolutely, because if you uh uh are trying to amend the Constitution, then you're gonna have to have ordinary people go along with you.
And when the whole point of uh people like the progressives is to supersede the ordinary people with the views that prevail among the elite.
Oh my god, yes.
And and th this is uh this is not a new idea.
Uh I I think it's been an idea that's been handed to us down through history.
Well, uh that that's true.
Uh but in the but in a specifically American context, uh it was the progressives who really opened up the notion that judges ought to be uh adjusting to the needs of the times rather than to the words of the Constitution.
Yes, yes.
And this is one of the questions that these guys are grilled on during confirmation uh hearings.
Uh that is the the senators want to know whether they're gonna be strict constructionists or or whether they're gonna adjust to the needs of the time.
They don't actually use that language, but that's that's what the that's what I perceive when I listen to the const the uh confirmation hearings.
Oh well that that's true.
Uh it's but i it's more true, of course, and the Democrats aren't in charge, because the Democrats really do want uh people there on the bench who will do will who will uh in effect enact the liberal agenda uh from the bench and spare them the political risk of trying to enact it in Congress.
Yes.
Now there's an there's another part of this dismantling America that and actually it's in part two of the of a series of of uh essays that you uh wrote.
And um you you say that one way of circumventing the people and circumventing the Constitution is to rush legislation through Congress so fast that nobody knows what's in it.
And I was rather surprised when you said that our health care bill contained a provision creating a tax on people who buy and sell gold coins.
Oh, yeah, I was surprised when I learned that too.
Uh that one of the financial bills uh also has a provision in it about uh quote inclusion, unquote, of of women in minorities.
Uh and of course as we we know from from experience, inclusion means quota uh in different words.
And again, this is something that was never discussed.
It was never uh put forth to the public as something they were doing as part of the financial uh reform act.
But uh all kinds of things can be sneaked through in these huge bills that nobody reads.
And and and this qualifies, I I I don't know whether I'm being unfair to Congressman uh or not, but it qualifies in my Book as congressional deceit and and and dishonesty to you know f uh in the case of the uh health care reform bill to put uh tax provisions in there.
As you said, it's it's the uh the you we can debate whether the tax on selling gold coins is a good or bad idea, but the it should be debated at least as opposed to uh slipped into a bill uh and nobody talks about it.
Yeah, well, of course, uh uh if you took all the the the deceit and hypocrisy out of politics, it wouldn't be a lot left.
That's absolutely right.
And I love the the uh the paragraph that you added, and you said not since the Norman conquerors of England published a laws in French for English speaking nation has there been so much contempt for people's right to know the laws that are being imposed on them.
That that's right.
Uh the they don't have to speak a different language, they just have to uh make make the uh bill so big that we can't possibly have time to read it all anyway.
I know.
Now now now later on in this uh in in part two of your uh dismantling America uh you you point out that um that uh actually in Obama President Obama uh said that their taxes weren't going to be raised on people making less than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year.
Uh but but you seem to think that taxes will be raised.
Well, the the people making less than two hundred thousand dollars fifty thousand dollars a year uh may not be paying their own taxes, but they'll be paying other people's taxes.
That is, they'll be paying the taxes that the Obama administration is loading on to electric utility companies, unless of course the people making under $250,000 a year can do without electricity.
Uh they'll be paying the taxes that the Obama administration is loading on to all kinds of other businesses who obviously are going to pass those taxes along.
So it's true that they those people will not be paying any taxes of their own, but they'll be paying other people's taxes.
Yeah.
And and and this is one of the things one I think one of the shortcomings of the economics uh profession is this whole incidence of taxation that is uh th you know with uh eco economists need to teach the American people that that corporations or businesses, they are legal fictions and as such don't pay taxes.
Only people pay taxes, and if you impose a tax on a corporation, the corporation is going to either do one of three things, it's g or some combination, it's gonna raise the price of the product, it's gonna lower the dividends or lay off workers.
And so it shifts the whole ta the burden of the tax forward to to other people.
And if if Americans could see if Americans could see this, then they recognize that taxes on utilities were really the tax on them.
That's true.
That's that's one of uh uh many things of the economics profession uh does not bother to explain to the public.
Uh because I think there's really no payoff for it.
If you're if you're uh as you well know, if you're an academic economist, uh you get no brownie points when time comes for your contract to be renewed or when you're up for tenure, uh, because you uh wrote a lot of stuff that explains to the public uh uh w what elementary economics is about.
You're absolutely right.
You're absolutely right.
That and that's that's tragic.
And and so much of economics is simple and uh but it's just not uh out there for people to understand.
There's no question, if if if I if I had written uh uh an economics textbook before I got tenure, I might not have gotten tenure.
And and by the way, ladies and gentlemen, an excellent uh book uh that Tom Sowell has written as uh basic economics and applied economics, and you you're revising them, aren't you, or have you?
Oh yes, yes.
But uh uh I've uh there's a second edition of applied economics, and right now I'm finishing up the fourth edition of basic economics, which will be out in January.
Oh my goodness, my goodness.
How many equations do you have in them?
None.
No grant, no equations.
Uh frankly, when I first started to write it, I didn't believe a book like that could be written in economics.
Uh-huh.
Uh, but it's uh uh it t it took ten years for for this stuff to accumulate.
And eventually I realized I had enough for a book and I wrote it.
Absolutely.
And and excellent uh books, both of them.
Now in part two of dismantling America, you also say, well, and and and people unless they're unless they're the the uh unless they're our age, they don't really uh uh they can't appreciate this.
But there was at a time, you say that when most Americans resented the suggestion that they wanted someone else to pay for their bills.
Yes, one of the things is he that has eroded is a sense of personal pride, personal responsibility.
You know, there was a time when a man who slipped the floor in a factory went home every night with a sense of pride because he was considered to be a good provider for his family.
And now uh the government will is per perfectly willing to provide for his family and he's regarded as someone doing a menial job for chump change.
Yeah right yeah and and the values I I know you and I are roughly the same age I say roughly because I I have you by a few years.
Well well I I thought I had you by a few No I'm going the other direction.
But but I remember my mother telling us we were poor living in the in the Richard Allen projects in Northia and she used to always say something like well you you know we have uh we have we have a beer pocket book but champagne tastes.
Yes.
And and and that's an expression you just don't hear anymore.
And and then the idea the values that that if you were into a lot of debt there's something morally wrong with you.
Oh no question about it.
And and and and nowadays uh well uh you so what?
You let some and then their advertisements that you see on television where where they're they advertise to you if you have credit card debt of twenty thousand they use twenty thousand dollars or or ten thousand dollars or so we can show you how to cut it in half.
Yes.
And and I listen that that's just amazing that is just plain dishonesty and immoral.
Yes but but but again this is one of the one of the many erosions of values uh as the thing is from the deliberate dismantling uh of the values and institutions conducted by the current administration but the erosions had to take place first to set the stage for the time when politicians can deliberately start dismantling.
And it's only about about the beer the beer taste and the the champagne taste via budget.
Today it's gonna be up to the po up to the taxpayers to make sure you can get the champagne that's right we we're learning to live at the expense of other people someone once said that uh democracy can last only until the point is reached where fifty one percent of the people believe that they can live off the other forty nine percent.
And and and we're nearing that point in our country because according to the the tax foundation I believe that they say that it forty nine percent of the American population has no federal income tax liability.
Oh, that's a really bad situation to create.
I remember many years ago when I was a young man, and I was making $25 a week, and they took out $2.50 for taxes.
I mean, when I heard about government waste, I think they're down there wasting my $2.50.
I mean, I was madder than any millionaire.
Right.
Hey, Tom, can you hang on?
We have to go make some money, and we'll be back with your calls after this.
we're
back at so Walter Williams filling in for Rush who will be back tomorrow and you can be on with us by calling eight hundred two eight two two eight eight two and right now we have uh Dr. Thomas Sowell with us uh discussing his new book Dismantling America Tom now in uh in this part four of uh dismantling America uh you say that constitutional government does not depend on the Constitution but us.
Can you explain that a little bit yes uh well the Constitution by itself is a piece of paper.
It's only when the rest of us believe in it enough that we will not allow people to circumvent it uh by throwing out a lot of uh high sounding rhetoric uh but we'll turn people out of office who do stuff like that.
We won't elect people who talk about uh you know s wanting judges with empathy because empathy is just a nice rhetorical word uh uh for bias.
Uh but uh but but you know when when the Constitution was passed there was some lady who was uh asked uh Ben Franklin as he came out of the Constitutional Convention what have you created and he said a republic madam if you can keep it other words he understood that it would be up to us to to to maintain it.
It wouldn't maintain itself otherwise that's right and you and you make a point of saying that that is it's just it's not just evil people who would dismantle America.
Oh, absolutely.
There are many people out there who are who who who have started you know, unintentionally eroding all the values.
I think the public schools are a major uh offender in this.
And I think many of the teachers who are doing things like what used to be called values clarification, but which continues on under other names, uh had had no idea that they were out there trying to destroy the country.
They were just doing something, quote, new and exciting, you know.
But they're but there are uh organized groups uh uh uh in the country who are promoting these these kinds of programs in the schools that undermine the values that kids have been taught in their homes in order to substitute other values.
And they understand clearly what they're doing, even if the teachers don't.
Yeah, right.
And well, even even government programs, uh this uh uh let's say so far as education is concerned, no child left behind that came under the Bush administration and or the prescription drug bill.
The all these things, you know, they they reduce the uh or they increase the power of government and and increase the centralization of government, which is something that our Constitution sought to uh avoid.
Oh, uh absolutely well, you know, they they had to amend the Constitution just in order to have an income tax.
Yeah.
People who wrote the Constitution understood that once uh you you let the federal government have an income tax, it is Katie Bar the door.
Yeah, absolutely.
And and and uh also uh uh regardless of what uh one would say about the wisdom of the um of prohibition, at least the people at that time said, Well, gee, we just can't uh get a majority vote in Congress.
We have to amend the Constitution because there's no authority for us to uh prohibit the selling of booze.
Yeah.
And the other thing is that again w uh when you have the pe the the public at large involved, once they discover the real price of prohibition, uh they then repeal that amendment.
Yes, right.
And and matter of fact, it's uh uh some of my colleagues in the public choice, uh they point out something interesting about prohibition.
They said uh people have been warning prohibition since the late 1800s with um uh what's the carry nation uh and she was pushing for and but Congress did not did not call want prohibition because liquor sales were the major source of uh finance for the federal government.
And and it wasn't until the uh the sixteenth Amendment when they got another source of funding that they could go and and and uh and repeal the I'm sorry, uh they could they could support prohibition.
And uh something interesting is say, well, when did prohibition uh get repealed?
Well, it was in nineteen thirty-three or nineteen thirty-two.
Well well, what was happening in nineteen thirty-three or nineteen thirty-two?
Well, we were in a depression and revenues to the uh federal government were diminishing.
Well, in other words, they'd have had made a better deal if if they had not passed the income tax uh amendment and and and then and and also not pass prohibition.
That's absolutely right.
Oh boy.
Now now now so so are are are you optimistic or pessimistic uh pessimistic and uh I'm fighting off becoming despairing.
Well well well, you know, uh but you know there as I said earlier in the show in the first hour, if one can say anything good about this administration and the Democrat control of the of the House of Representatives and the Senate, is that they've been so brazen that Americans once again, for the first time in my life are talking and debating about the Constitution.
They're uh the uh they're forming Tea Party organizations, they're they're uh and some of the top shows are the uh radio and television shows are shows that debate the Constitution.
Uh like uh Judge Napole Napolitano's uh Freedom Watch, you know, can you that that show would not have been on ten years ago.
That that's true.
So that's a that's a little bit of optimism that Americans are are learning that well, government's getting too big.
Well, i i uh you you're right.
If if we manage to survive this administration, and I mean survive in terms of the economy, but also uh keep uh Iran from becoming a nuclear power, uh then I think we will be better off with this because we will have seen what happens when you disregard the Constitution and they will see what where the trends that have been existing in this country for a long time, where those trends lead.
Yeah, yeah.
Tom, can you stay for a few minutes of the next hour after break?
Okay.
Now uh ladies and gentlemen, we're on with Dr. Thomas Sowell.
You can be on asked to ask them some questions.
Uh the number is 800 28282.
We are discussing this excellent book Dismantling America and it is available in stores I guess uh just about everywhere.
Is that right Tom?
Yeah it was published on the on the on August 10th.
Oh, August 10th you get it folks.
We'll be back.
We're back and it's Walter Williams sitting in for Rush Limbaugh who will be back tomorrow and we're talking to Dr. Thomas Sowell and we're discussing Dismantling America, his uh new book that's available in all the bookstores.
Tom I want to talk about some of the things you raised in um in part three of this dismantling America about uh uh Barack Obama's uh disregard for national defense.
Oh yes oh there are so many of those I mean uh uh uh i it's fascinating that this man who has been spending hundreds of billions of dollars from coast to coast on all kinds of projects some of them laughably frivolous is cut is cutting a hundred billion dollars out of the defense budget.
Uh-huh uh and and then then you said under his administration I believe that they're releasing uh illegal aliens who are from terrorist countries.
Yes.
Uh recently in the uh uh uh investors business daily they said that uh there were literally hundreds of these uh people who were caught trying to cross the border uh from uh Mexico which is not restricted to Mexicans obviously uh uh and they're from countries which are on the list of terrorist countries and yet uh when when they're caught they are then released on their own recognizance inside the United States.
That that that is truly amazing and and i if if I were a member of the Obama administration no I would be terrified by something like that because gee if uh if there's a a dirty bomb goes off in one of our cities or some kind of a terrorist attack p uh the the opposition would surely say well gee you know you're you're you're letting these your administration is letting these terrorists in the country and it's your fault.
Well, they might.
They probably would.
The media, I think, would try their best to circle the wagons around Obama as they have in the past.
Oh, my God, yeah.
And they have indeed in the past, because I doubt whether any other person could have become president of the United States who attended a church over 20 years with a racist minister who had friends who hated America, the underground people and the people who bombed the Pentagon one time, I believe.
But what other president could have run successfully with that in his background?
No one who didn't have the media completely behind him.
And it couldn't have happened even with the media behind you.
If it hadn't been that we had generations of dumbed-down education, of people who are taught to respond to rhetoric, and who think that it's so important that we have, quote, the first black president.
I think, heaven forbid, there comes a time when there's an American city lying in radioactive ruins.
will care what the complexion of the president of the United States was or how he talked.
They'll wonder what the hell happened you know that the these people uh left us defenseless.
Yes yes yes can you take a few calls certainly let's go to um uh let's see who do we want uh uh Kit let's uh let's go to uh uh John John in Barrington Illinois welcome show John Good afternoon gentlemen uh I'm proud to say that uh I consider you two great Americans regardless of race and uh I think I've torn out more of uh Dr. Soule's uh Forbes articles than any other author and
put them on the side to save as being w just clear thinking and and things that you want to keep track of.
Well thank you.
What sh what's your question for Tom?
Uh I I actually wanted to mention uh my wife uh once attended the Oprah show and she gets emails from them once in a while and I snuck on they had a uh thing requesting people you wanted to see interviewed by Oprah in her final year.
And I got on there and submitted Dr. Soule's name 'cause I think uh that would be a very interesting exchange uh if if uh we could get Dr. Sol on there so I'm gonna let Tom I'm gonna let Tom uh uh uh respond to that or or do you want me to respond for you Tom Well I I'm not waiting by the telephone.
Well thanks a lot John.
Let's go to Frank in Chicago.
Welcome to the show Frank.
Thank you.
Um good evening uh good afternoon gentlemen.
Um I was just calling about social security uh my understanding was I know some people who work for the railroad and they don't pay into Social Security and I understand that uh back in the early sixties Lyndon Johnson tried to get uh the people in that work for the railroad into Social Security and Supreme Court ruled that the government couldn't do that.
But they also ruled that Social Security was constitutional because participation in it was voluntary.
Wow I I I don't believe that well FICA stands for Federal Insurance Contributions Act and contributions normally are deemed to be voluntary and uh um well I I I think also there's voluntary compliance with the tax code.
Is there really that's that's what the IRS says whether you want to go to jail or not.
That's right.
Uh thanks Frank let's go to Ray in Greenville, North Carolina.
Welcome to the show, Ray Thanks gentlemen um I just wanted to kind of uh play off what you guys were talking about earlier Charles the education system do you know of any effort or do you guys have any effort to try to get basic economics, what you've been talking about taught in high schools 'cause I know when I was in high school um you know a lot of what was taught was more pocketbook issues that you would deal with as far as you know buying insurance and balancing a checkbook but not like macroeconomic issues as they affect people knowing
that that's their money, not the government's money.
Well, that's something my publisher would have to do.
But there are high school economics textbooks and classes.
It so happens, however, that the tests that are given for AP economics do have graphs and equations and so forth.
And so my book wouldn't help students to pass those kinds of tests.
No, it wouldn't.
However, they know much more about economics, though.
of course the the uh the the kids who are thinking of going to college are much more interested in uh having those AP credits on their on their resume rather than uh knowing economic right let's go to um is it Bill Bill in Chicago welcome to show Bill.
Good afternoon gentlemen Dr. Sol, Dr. Williams speaking to both of you together is almost as good as talking to Rush.
Oh boy Thank you.
Uh I have a quick question.
I've heard Rush say many times that uh many economists say that the the New Deal did not get us out of the Great Depression, that it was World War II that got us out of the Great Depression.
Accepting that premise, can the argument be made that the spending that was done for World War II was just a massive stimulus package?
A good question.
And in fact, that argument has been made by the people who are supporting the Obama administration's stimulus.
Uh FDR himself offered a somewhat different of uh of you which I in this case I think it's correct he said uh uh Dr. New Deal was replaced by Doctor win the war.
In other words a lot of the new dealers who were chomping at the bit to uh uh uh criticize and uh regulate business were quietly replaced by people from the business world in order to get uh uh businesses to make their maximum contribution to the war and what the what that means to me is that when they stopped the new deal the the economy recovered on its own as the economies had recovered on their own well over a hundred and fifty years before the nineteen twenty nine stock market crash.
Uh i if you look at the the data on it unemployment, it it seems very clear to me.
After the stock market crash, unemployment never reached double digits in any of the twelve months that followed that crash.
It peaked at nine percent two months after the stock market crash started drifting downward.
It was all the way down to six point three percent by June 1930.
That's when there was the first federal intervention.
After that intervention unemployment then shut up to double digits within six months and it never came out of double digits in any month for the remainder of the entire decade.
So it was really not the stock market crash that that that caused the massive unemployment.
It was the as in so many cases it was the solution that was worse than the problem.
That's right.
And I think you make a very good point, Tom.
That is, we went from 1787 until 1920, and we had economic downturns for one year, up to seven years.
Sometimes they used to call them panics.
And nobody thought that the federal government ought to be involved with the economy.
It was not until 1930 that people thought the government should be involved.
And by the way, Roosevelt's own Secretary of Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, he said...
said quote we've tried he put in his diary we tried spending money we try we spent more money than we've ever spent before we haven't we we've never lived up to any of our promises and I say after eight years this administration we have just as much unemployment as we had when we started and an enormous debt to boot.
We can say almost uh same thing about this administration, the Obama administration that that uh that uh Henry Morgenthal said about the Roosevelt administration.
Oh yeah and uh unfortunately the media will not say it but I think if he gets a second term I mean it's i I there's no limit to how long he can keep this recession going.
Thanks.
We'll be back with your calls and uh calls to uh Dr. Thomas Sowell after this we're back and we're talking with Dr. Thomas Sowell about his new book Dismantling America that's available everywhere.
And, Tom, while we're talking about the issue that you raised that the constitutional government does not depend on the Constitution but on us, I thought – I really forgot to bring it up.
But as late as the 1950s, there was still kind of general respect for the Constitution because when we built – when President Eisenhower, when he called for building the interstate highway across our country, he knew that there's no constitutional authority for it.
interstate highway the they even called the National Defense Highway Act.
Yeah they tied it in with national defense.
But now uh these people don't try don't don't try to make any connection with the Constitution and I think as you correctly say that a lot of it has to do with the American people.
We've been dumbed down.
And then people have their own agenda.
Oh, absolutely.
Right now, people judge judges according to whether the judges validate these policies that the people believe in.
You know, there's no thought that the judge's job is to decide whether the law that was passed fits the Constitution, whether or not the judge likes the law or not.
But now we talk about liberal judges and conservative judges and so on.
And really, the real question is whether this is a judge who thinks his job is to enforce the law the law that exists, or whether he thinks it's his job to, quote, interpret, unquote, the law in such a way as to come out with the results that he wants.
Yes, that's absolutely right.
And I don't know, as you said, that the people who have the greatest stake in the Constitution are the so-called little people, the average America.
That's the only thing that's protecting them.
The rich people and the elite, they can always find protection for themselves, but it's the little person that the Constitution protects.
Oh, absolutely.
And that's nowhere more true than the case of property rights.
Liberal judges and...
liberal law professors have tried to present property rights as something that's of interest only the people who uh own a lot of property.
But as you well know, uh uh when property rights are disregarded, uh things like urban renewal come through and they t they destroy low income neighborhoods, and when and in most cases uh minority late neigh neighborhoods, uh they don't come through Beverly Hills and destroying all kinds of property in order to build a highway.
And matter of fact, they used to call it not urban renewal, they used to call it Negro removal.
Oh, absolutely.
That that that's what it was.
And it's uh it's also a way in which politicians can increase the uh amount of taxes they can collect by getting rid of uh m moderate income people in a given uh neighborhood, uh destroying the the the that neighborhood and then allowing uh you know something like hotels and casinos to to be built there, because th this will bring in more tax money, which the politicians can then use to get themselves re-elected.
Yeah, that's uh that's tragic.
And and uh and sometimes I I I I'm almost as pessimistic as you are, but I think that I think one of the things that we Americans have to recognize, there's an awesome responsibility that we have, and that is if liberty is lost in the in America, I believe that it's loss all times in all places in the world.
I'm uh absolutely and because the amount of liberty that exists in the world is because of United States.
The that that's true, and I uh but I think someone like Obama sees his role is that of putting us in line with uh the other welfare states of Europe, uh because right now, as long as there's the United States, people who don't like what's done in their own country, whether it's uh the health care or whatever, uh they can come to the United States.
People who are in business can uh invest in the United States.
But if if the United States gets uh goes the same way, then they sealed off all those avenues.
That's right.
And matter of fact, in response to some of the columns I've written on on health care, I've gotten letters from Canadians saying please preserve a free mar a relatively free market in health care in the United States, or else where will we Canadians go?
Yeah, uh if they if they destroy the the health system of the United States, as it's been destroyed elsewhere, uh we can't just go to Mexico when we get sick.
It doesn't work that way.
Hey, Tom, it it has been a delight uh uh talking to you, and I'm very, very sure the uh Rush audience feel the same way.
And uh once again, your book is available dismantling America, and you're coming out with a revision to uh basic economics in January.
Yes.
Very good.
That's very worthwhile.
And and you have all kinds of new material put in it.
Oh, uh it if it's it's it's getting it's getting bigger over over time.
I'm hoping that the weight that it puts on will all be fat, unlike that that I'm putting on.
Well, thanks a lot, Tom.
Take care.
We'll be back with your calls after this.
We're back, uh Walter Williams sitting in for Russia, and that was Dr. Thomas Sowell talking about uh dismantling America, his uh new book that's available everywhere.
And and I I have a pretty good book too, uh uh Liberty versus the Tyranny of Socialism.
You can check that out too.
It's also available everywhere.
Let's uh let's take the last call for the hour.
Uh Jim in Kingwood, Texas.
Welcome to the show, okay.
Uh welcome.
I'm sorry, Dr. Sowell signed off because I was hoping to talk to uh two of the three of my favorite living economists and pose this question.
Uh and I enjoyed both of your books, by the way.
Is there any constraints whatsoever to the money supply?
Uh you hear the gold ads talking about the government printing money and so forth and uh borrowing money, and I know that most of our money is not printed currency.
Um what are the limits to how much money the government can quote print?
Well, it's uh it's literally none.
I mean, you if you go to Zimbabwe, where you can buy uh I think at one time a cup of coffee, their inflation rate, uh a cup of coffee uh was uh something like mil like a million Zimbabwe dollars.
So and Germany uh had a rapid inflation uh hungry and and so the and and uh inflation is always a result of printing money.
Actually, I call it counterfeiting.
So there are no constraints whatsoever, either economic or legal no, no, uh there's just no constraints.
If they have the authority to print money, they can just print money.
And matter of fact, I've Often recommended to people that if they ever find themselves in front of a judge charged with counterfeiting, they just tell the judge, I was engaging in monetary policy because that's what these people are doing.
They're printing money, thereby lowering the value of every dollar out there.
And so what we have to do, and you know, there is a constraint.
If we had a gold standard, there would be a constraint.
But um we no longer have a gold standard, and those who want to run our lives make sure that we won't have a gold standard.
▲
Export Selection