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March 4, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:00
March 4, 2011, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
So, Rush, why is the market down?
95 points.
With all this great unemployment news, why is the market down almost 100 points?
The unemployment rate finally at 8.9%.
Well, oh my gosh, now it's down 113.
Rush, how can this be happening?
Well, you've asked the right guy.
Hi, folks.
It's Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday!
Open Line Friday.
It could be great.
It could be a bomb.
It was a bomb a couple of months ago.
There haven't been too many bombs, and this bomb was big.
I mean, it was from start to finish.
Meaning every call.
It's fortunate that we're lucky even after that day.
We had a show on Monday.
I mean, it was.
It was a talk radio crater.
And that's what happens when you open up the content of the program to rank amateurs and an ever-increasing pool of saboteurs out there.
Well, I was good.
Yes.
I mean, that's a given.
But, well, yeah, Johnny Carson with a bad joke, still fun to watch.
But, I mean, in Open Line Friday, we take a lot more calls than we do any other day of the week.
And it was, it's a challenge.
See, Monday through Thursday, we only talk about things I care about.
But today, if there's something you want to discuss that I don't care about, I'll gladly engage you in it.
Even if I have to fake it.
Here's telephone number 800-282-2882 and the email address ilrushbow at eibnet.com.
I'm having a slight relapse here.
I don't know if you can hear it in my voice, but I'm having a slight, yeah, slight relapse here.
Just ticks me off that they took that Zeitm stuff off the market.
It just ticks the heck out of me.
And I'm already here in sort of a rotten mood anyway.
By the way, the computer monitor showing the transcription is dark.
It's black.
There's nothing on it in here, but I've got a green power light that's on.
So I got zero nuta.
That doesn't affect you people.
It just means when we take calls, I'll not be able to know what you're saying if I can't understand you.
All right.
Why is the market down?
What is it now?
Let me wait here.
It's down 111.
Why is the stock market now?
We finally have unemployment under 9%.
Remember, now the magic number is 8.
In terms of Obama re-election, the magic number, unemployment is 8%.
Well, yeah, let's assume they're not bogus.
The number is, since everything in politics is perception, you get 8.9% unemployment.
That's, by the way, the number of jobs, 192,000.
Now, we would have to create 192,000 a month from now until the election to get it down to 8%.
But the reason, the numbers are bogus because the only way you can get to 8.9% from 9.1, the only way you can get from 9.4 to 9.1% is by reducing the total number of jobs available, the entire pool.
And the regime has just done that in the past three months.
They have just systematically decided on a whim to say, yeah, well, unemployment is pretty bad out there, but there are also not that many jobs to be found as there used to be in the total number of jobs available.
And they don't count that as any kind of an economic failure.
It just happens to be the latest statistic.
So if you have a smaller number, a smaller total number of possible jobs to have in the country, to acquire, then of course, the number of people looking for work, coupled with those who've given up, who don't get counted, then you're obviously going to be able to report a smaller unemployment number.
If the number of available jobs to be had, and it's been cut by a significant number, 20%, if that hadn't happened, unemployment would still be in the mid-90s.
In fact, the mid-90s, maybe close to 10, Gallup is saying unemployment has gone up.
Gallup is saying their unemployment number is 10.3%.
But aside from all that, there are real economic reasons why the market, which is composed of people with skin in the game, are not rejoicing here.
And there are two primary factors.
One is that with the unemployment going down, more people working, there's the automatic fear of inflation.
Remember, this started during the Clinton years.
I started, I scratched my head, every time there was good economic news, the experts were scared to death because it was all going to lead to inflation.
And inflation was the number one bogeyman they were trying to keep in check.
And it still is.
There also is the fear that more demand with more people working is going to cause the oil price to go even higher.
More on that in a moment.
And this is all going to lead to interest rates rising as they attempt to keep a lid on inflation.
Now, if you are in the financial services game, money has been free.
You've been able to get money from your bank, interchangeable, free money.
That's why it hasn't been lent.
It's not that people don't trust the people that want to borrow the money.
Well, not entirely.
It's that the people who are borrowing, if you can get money for practically free and then invest in your bank or a financial institution, you invest that money in your own growth opportunity, why lend it?
Why lend it out to somebody who is a risk at whatever percentage when you got zero cost on the money?
So now these people now fear interest rates going up, which is going to, when you've been playing around at zero cost of money and all of a sudden going to start costing something, that's a big shock.
So those are the three primary reasons why the market is not reacting as common sense would tell us it should be.
Oh, wow.
What would the common sense reaction be?
Oh, wow.
Cool.
Finally, jobs coming back.
This is what we've been looking for ever since the Porcubus Bill.
You would think universal happiness.
Uh-uh.
It just isn't the case out there.
Now, since January, and here's what I was referring to earlier, since January, the Department of Labor has been saying that there are fewer people in the country.
They have reduced the size of the labor market.
So in addition to there being fewer jobs overall, there are fewer people Seeking that number of jobs, which means a lower unemployment rate or a higher employment rate, depending on how you wish to look at it.
So they reduced the size of the workforce.
They kept the same number of jobs, makes the rate of employment go up.
Now, that's what snurdly meant.
He didn't know why, but he instinctively knew numbers are bogus.
That's why they're arguing with the universe numbers.
They're arbitrarily changing them on their own whim.
So I have a friend who lives in Malibu, got a note.
Hey, Rush, you were talking yesterday about gasoline prices.
In Malibu, 10 o'clock Thursday morning, $3.99 for regular.
At 3 in the afternoon, it was $4.09 for regular.
At 11 o'clock Thursday, it was $4.11.
So it had gone in less 24 hours from $3.99 up to $4.11.
The gasoline price is skyrocketing.
Now, at what point, and by the way, the drive-bys are just excited.
You could have predicted the drive-bys are with unmitigated glee over the jobs news.
And over here is the gas price.
They're ignoring the gasoline price increase.
And we pointed this out yesterday and the day before.
If this were Bush, I mean, can you imagine when Bush was president, the unemployment rate at 4.75%?
Do you ever remember the giddiness about that that there is today over 8.9%?
No.
Likewise, they are ignoring the rise in gasoline prices.
As we pointed out yesterday, 15 stories, negative stories blaming Bush for the gasoline price rise 2007, 2008.
One story on Obama for every 15 Bush stories.
So the question becomes: will the media, ignoring the rise in gas prices, be able to keep that from becoming a major factor in people's minds over the economy and Obama's role in it?
Remember now, everything focused on the re-election.
2012, the regime is looking at 8% unemployment.
That's what they're going to get.
If they can get there by manipulation, they will.
But that 8% unemployment number is the number they think takes the economy as a negative out of play.
Either makes it neutral or a positive.
But on the other side, you've got these rising gas prices.
They know their buddies in the media are not going to harp on that.
But rising gas prices are real, nevertheless, whether the media is telling us every day how high it's going and whether the media does stories on the pain and suffering.
Remember during the Bush years, we got all kinds of stories about the pain and suffering and people couldn't go visit family and single parents couldn't see their kids, divorced parents, because of the high price of gasoline, all the ancillary effects of the leisure industry, all of the destruction brought about by rising gas prices.
We're not going to get that with Obama in the White House.
But will it matter?
Because the public's going to feel it.
And no way you can tell them it's not happening.
You can ignore that it's happening if you're the media, but there's no way you can tell people it isn't happening.
And there really isn't a way because $4 was the tipping point.
$4 a gallon.
And people went, and by the way, in order to get $4 a gallon, the oil price was around $147 a barrel.
We're nowhere near that price now.
And we're still over $4 in parts of the country, such as in Malibu.
Now, in other parts of the country, I mean, the average, I think, here is that the gas price, gasoline price went up, national average, a nickel a gallon in the past 24 hours.
Now, at this rate, if it continues, the national average price for regular unleaded gasoline will be $4 a gallon in 11 days.
And I wonder if this rate of increase pleases the president.
Remember, the president's on record is saying he didn't mind $4 a gallon.
He just was a little disturbed about how quickly it got there.
But for the regime, four bucks or higher, that's exactly what they want.
They hate oil.
They hate anything to do with it.
And there's their Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf, all these electric cars, but nobody's, by the way, got the numbers in on that.
And even Dale Earnhardt Jr. has now joined the crusade bashing the technology of the Chevy Volt.
Yeah, Dale Earnhardt Jr.
He said it nicely, but he still said it.
He said technology still isn't there.
No, the number 8% is important unemployment because no president has ever been re-elected with the unemployment rate over 8% except FDR.
He's the one exception.
So we know what the magic number is, the unemployment rate.
We need to find out what the magic number is for the gasoline price and the re-election tipping point there.
And remember, as we got the sales figures on the Volt, and it's like in the 200s.
And the Lisson Neef, Nissan Leaf, while that's going on, even with these rising gasoline prices, SUVs and truck sales are still going through the roof.
People want their SUVs in their trucks for whatever standard traditional American reasons.
Before we go to the break, before we go to the break, got to hear this.
This is a Wolf Blitzer.
Last night on CNN's The Situation Room talking with Nicholas Al-Christoff of the New York Times.
They're discussing Al-Christoph's column yesterday about why Muammar Gaddafi is nuts.
They want to know why.
Wolf is, he thinks here that Christoph needs another Pulitzer, that he's brilliant.
He wrote that Gaddafi is nuts, and Wolf wants to know why.
He wrote a great column today.
Your bottom line conclusion, almost your lead, is that Gaddafi is, in your word, nuts.
Tell our viewers here in the United States and around the world, including some viewers who are probably watching in Libya, why you think Gaddafi is nuts.
Okay, so there's the setup.
Wolf Blitzer, he's ecstatic.
He has read the piece.
Al-Christoff's a genius.
He is angling here.
Should be given a second Pulitzer Prize.
Why is Gaddafi nuts?
Here is the answer.
He invited five prominent female international journalists in for interviews.
And then after those interviews, one by one invited them into his bedroom and on the record propositioned them.
And, you know, that just to me underscored the degree to which he is delusional.
So on that basis, on that basis, on that basis, Gaddafi's nuts.
He's got these five international female journalists.
And he invites them each into his bedroom.
On the record, propositions them.
That makes him nuts.
That makes him Bill Clinton.
Doesn't make it nuts.
Of all the things that Gaddafi's doing, this makes him nuts.
Bill Clinton wouldn't even mess with the proposition.
Hey, babe.
Hey, follow me.
Hey, you might want to put some ice on that lip.
It's interesting, folks.
For the record, YouTube Google seems to have scrubbed that clip of Obama saying he doesn't mind gas prices going up to four bucks.
He just doesn't want them to go up too quickly.
You can't find that.
However, I think I've got a link for it here at CNBC.
I'll have to send this up to the cookie and see if that's what this link actually is.
It was a question from John Harwood at CNBC.
So could the high oil price help us?
And Obama said, well, I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment, a gradual increase.
So his preference, whether you can find it on YouTube, Google or not, his preference for higher oil prices has come to pass.
Don't doubt me on this, folks.
He has wanted this.
And if you doubt me, if you do, we know here there's evidence, galore, in recent months, that this program's audience is populated with an increasing number of Democrats and leftists.
And if you're going to doubt me simply because you've been told, you know, you're listening here for the first or second time and you've already got me figured out.
You've been told that everything here's a lie and it's all made up and all that.
If you're going to doubt me when I claim that Obama is very happy with rising oil and energy prices, then simply examine what he said.
What is it that he wants?
What is his nirvana?
Green energy.
He hates the coal business.
He's told people in the coal-fired electrical plant business, electricity generation plant, go ahead and do it, but I'm going to put you out of business.
You're not going to be able to afford the taxes I'm going to charge you.
You can do it.
I'm not going to shut down the business, but you're going to go broke doing it.
He knows.
He can look at sales figures.
The number of volts sold to date, 281.
The number of Nissan Leafs sold, 67.
His dream is a million.
And he's only going to be able to do that by subsidizing the sale.
He's going to be paying people, essentially, to buy these cars.
Means what?
Means they don't want them.
But that doesn't matter to him.
Obama doesn't care whether you want one of these cars or not.
He doesn't care whether you like petroleum-based energy production or not.
He doesn't, and that's it.
And for whatever policy or wacko-leftist reason, he wants to push this green stuff, and he knows he's not going to get it done if he waits around for you to want it.
The only way it's going to happen is if you are forced there, Ergo, rising gasoline prices, higher oil prices, all that.
Why made to order?
Necessity requiring somebody to go cheap is much better than wanting them to do something they don't want to do.
So it's all working out for him.
And we're back at Rush Limbaugh, Open Line Friday.
The all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all-feeling, all-concerned.
Maha Rushi.
Behind the golden EIB microphone.
Something else about this unemployment business and all these new jobs.
Just another contrast for you.
You remember during the Bush years when the unemployment rate was good, like 4.7%, which in our system is statistically full employment, 4.7 to 5% unemployment.
Remember all the stories about how most of those jobs are not any good?
They're hamburger flipper jobs and really weren't paying people health care benefits.
No matter what they, no matter what the news was, especially the better the overall news was, the more meaningless it had to be, according to the drive-by media.
It's all hamburger flipper jobs.
Now, we just had 192,000 jobs created.
That's the story in February.
Or not, yeah, February.
Are we reading anywhere that they're just hamburger flipper jobs?
No.
Apparently, every job that people are getting, fantastic, high-paying.
Not these low-effort, no-show jobs, not these hamburger-flipping jobs.
No, these Obama jobs, they really substantive meaningful jobs, apparently.
Again, just to chronicle for you the difference in the way the media reports all of this.
Remember yesterday when we were chronicling how Reuters was reporting the decision from Judge Vinson and how outraged I was at the way they were choosing to report what Judge Vinson had.
I've got the whole story now, and it's worse than I even thought.
The headline of their story, Judge refuses to halt new health care law.
Now, sitting here today, we know what the judge actually said.
The judge is ticked off.
The judge gave them seven days to expedite their appeal, or this, or the other 26 AGs who have filed suit can go ahead and stop implementing this thing.
The judge, in his ruling yesterday, made it plain he thought the regime would abide by his law, that he didn't need to put an injunction in there, that he thought they were going to abide by the law, him and his ruling being the law.
So I got hold of that Reuters story that finally cleared about 2 o'clock in the afternoon yesterday.
Listen to this.
A judge put on hold his ruling that Obama's sweeping health care law was unconstitutional pending appeal, allowing the White House to continue implementing the reforms aimed at lowering soaring health care costs.
That paragraph is just irresponsible.
If it were possible to be criminal in journalism, this would be it.
A judge put on hold his own ruling that Obama's health care law was unconstitutional.
He did no such thing.
The judge did not say, oops, I screwed up.
You know, last time I ruled on this, I told you it was unconstitutional.
Well, it wasn't.
It is, it's constitutional.
He did not say that.
Allowing the White House to continue implementing the reforms, he gave them seven days or hellfire erupts.
And then, of course, the obligatory, the reforms aimed at lowering soaring health care costs.
This is Tom Brown writing at Reuters.
Mr. Brown, nobody now thinks that health care costs are going to be lowered.
Even the regime has admitted it now.
Everybody, nobody.
I mean, this is the kind of thing.
Some days this stuff really makes me mad.
Some days it really ticks me up.
I got to be ticked off to begin with.
These guys alone can't destroy my mood.
But this is just, it's unconscionable.
But U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ordered the administration to seek within the next week and expedited a pellet review of his ruling, which favored arguments by 26 states that required Americans to buy health insurance starting in 2014 or pay a penalty.
It was unconstitutional.
The regime previously has said it would appeal the Florida judge's ruling and continue implementing the law, which includes provisions allowing young adults to remain on their parents' health care insurance, prevents insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing medical conditions.
While Vinson and a federal judge in Virginia have ruled against the law, a cornerstone of Obama's domestic agenda, judges in several other states have dismissed challenges.
Vinson, appointed by Ronald Reagan, is alone in having ruled at the time.
It doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter.
Once a federal judge says it's unconstitutional, that's it.
You don't cherry-pick the rulings from various judges.
Vinson's order, which basically stayed his January 31st ruling pending appeal, was prompted by a request filed by the Department of Justice.
At any rate, this Reuters story is just, well, it's wrong and it is purposefully wrong.
And we had it nailed yesterday exactly what this is.
Here, listen, there's another good review of this from our buds at the Heritage Foundation, Hans von Spakovsky.
The regime got a well-deserved rebuke today from Judge Vinson in the Florida lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare.
Judge Vinson issued a new order in response to a bizarre and obtuse motion to clarify at the Department of Justice filed on February 17th.
Vinson's original order on January 31st could not have been clearer.
He declared the whole law unconstitutional, specifically said that because he presumed officials of the executive branch would adhere to the law as declared by a court, his declaratory judgment striking the law down was the functional equivalent of an injunction.
Judge Vinson wrote then that he presumed the executive branch would follow his order, which any lawyer, including a lawyer president, would know requires them to cease implementing Obamacare with respect to the 26 states that are plaintiffs and the National Federation of Independent Business.
That turned out to be a faulty presumption the judge made because we're dealing with a bunch of lawless people in this administration.
After waiting more than two weeks, the regime filed an insulting motion that essentially said the federal government would not comply with the judgment unless Judge Vinson issued another order clarifying that he really meant what he said.
That the executive branch was enjoined from implementing this unconstitutional law.
Now, what's going on here is the regime trying to run out the clock.
The more of this that gets implemented, they know, the tougher it's going to be to extract it.
We know this too.
That's why repeal, repeal, repeal, screw replacing, repeal, repeal, repeal has been the argument of the day.
So they did.
Hans von Spakovsky is right.
The judge issued his ruling, vacate the law.
It's unconstitutional.
Two weeks later, the regime files a motion.
Did you really mean to say our law is unconstitutional?
Did you really mean to vacate it?
And that's when Vinson wrote what he wrote yesterday.
And it was clear that he was irritated in the process.
So the media, the regime are doing everything they can to thwart the rule of law in this country.
Everything they can.
Now, Mr. Van Spodakovsky concludes this is a serious strategic loss for the government.
Judge Vinson has challenged the federal government to speed up their appeals process, which would normally take much longer, forcing the hand of the regime, which would like to slow down the litigation through questionably legal tactics if it can get away with it so it can implement as much of Obamacare as possible before it goes to the Supreme Court.
And it also, a clever suggestion to the appellate courts that will next hear these claims, the regime's dilatory tactics should not trump the rule of law.
Judge Vinson correctly observed it's very important to everyone in this country that this case move forward as soon as practically possible.
Important to everybody but the regime.
So I just wanted to spend some time clarifying this because the ruling came out yesterday and the regime and the media have done everything they can to once again make it look like the judge didn't say what he said to keep running out the clock.
Here's a good way to put it.
What Judge Vinson is saying is that Obama's lawyers basically ran to Illinois.
They're basically saying they left the state.
The Justice Department basically ran across the border to Illinois in order to get away from dealing with the ruling that Judge Vinson came down with.
All right, I got to take a quick time out here, folks.
We got a full board.
We never know what we're going to get on Open Line Friday.
We'll find out right after this.
Here it is from June the 10th of 2008.
CNBC, your money, your vote.
The chief Washington shill, John Harwood.
Yes, I said shill.
This guy supposedly works in the media.
We're here to question.
He's interviewing Senator Barack Obama, as pronounced by Qadduffy.
And the Chief Washington Shill, CNBC John Herwood, says to Obama, could the high prices help us?
President Bush, could the low unemployment numbers help us?
What is this, Senator Obama?
Could the high prices, oil, gasoline, could the high prices help us?
The hell is that?
It's a shill.
And here's what Bamster had to say.
I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment.
The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing.
But if we take some steps right now to help people make the adjustment, first of all, by putting more money into their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more quickly, particularly U.S. automakers.
I would have preferred a gradual increase in prices.
I don't mind the high price, John.
I don't mind the high price at all.
I just think we've gotten a little bit too quickly.
But it actually could help us move into this worthless green technology area, which is nothing more than a slush fund money laundering operation for me.
All right, to the phones.
Where are we starting?
Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
Greg, welcome to the EIB Network and your first on Open Line Friday.
Hi.
Thank you, Rush.
Major Dittos and the beautiful shores of Lake Michigan.
Thank you, sir.
As you know, you know what's going on here.
And my question to you is, couldn't our state senate just deem the bill passed and send it to the governor?
Well, it'd be fun to threaten to do that, you know, just to ram it up some bodily orifices of the Democrats.
It happened in the House.
It happened in the House.
They were going to just deem it to be passed.
They eventually didn't.
They eventually remembered they just, who was it?
The Nostrilitis waxman eventually, you know, an adult had to step in there and say, look, we're not going to deem anything to have passed.
They threatened it, though.
That was one of their technologies.
They would have done it if they had to to get it done.
Sure.
So, yeah, I like the idea.
Okay, you guys are out of town.
You have fled.
You have run away from your job.
We're just going to deem it to have passed.
Because, I mean, it's going to pass once you guys get back here.
So we just deem it to have passed.
And then watched, have you seen the cost of cleaning up the marble and the Capitol?
$7.5 million.
$7.5 million to clean up the mess.
Yes.
Yeah.
The anti-walker forces are genuine slobs.
$7.5 million.
That's just no respect whatsoever.
Thomas in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Your turn.
Welcome to the program.
Hello, sir.
Thank you very much for taking my call.
Great honor to be talking to you.
Thank you.
I wanted to clarify something.
I think it was last week, maybe two weeks ago, you had a gentleman who called in.
He was talking about sacrifices, and the rich don't make sacrifices, and you don't make sacrifices.
And I wanted to set the record straight that they do.
And their sacrifices, even though it might not be giving more money to welfare for people to just get money for doing nothing, they can't afford to hire as many people as they want to.
So now you have three people doing the job of the four, or they can't afford to go on the road trips to go out to these job fairs and set up their stands.
There's all kinds of sacrifices being made.
Just because it's not being made to the government is where some people are having issues because they're not getting their free hand-meow.
Well, that's good thinking.
I think I remember what you're talking about.
There was some really agitated leftist that called last Friday, a week ago today, and really, really got on my case for not making any sacrifices.
What was the stir to me?
What was the context of the discussion?
What was he sacrificing about?
Was he talking about what's going on in Wisconsin?
Was it the unions of pensions and so forth?
And the rich aren't.
Yeah, okay.
Rich don't make sacrifices.
And I remember I said to him that I don't even think that way.
I don't believe in making sacrifices.
I refuse to accept almost every premise the left puts forth.
And whenever they talk about sacrificing, and I know what they mean, they want the rich to give money away.
They want the rich to admit that it's unfair that they are rich and just give their wealth away.
They want the rich to make themselves poor or average or middle class.
Until that happens, they're just a bunch of greedy SOBs.
And that was at part, I got an email after the segment.
Guy said, you know, Rush, and I made the point that I'm way too much class to say this to the guy, that I probably pay more in taxes in one year than he will earn in his entire worthless life.
But he will not look at that as sacrifice.
He looks at that as, well, you wouldn't be giving it away if they weren't making and give it away.
If they weren't taking it from you, you wouldn't give it.
And you are damn right.
When you're talking about the government and all that wasteful stuff they do with it, but in fact, I probably give more to charity than that guy who called last week will make in his entire life.
Not just paying taxes.
But that really wasn't the point.
The whole point was this notion of sacrifice.
And that whole idea as it's come to be defined is something that I reject.
It's because it's all about feeling pain.
I like what Walter Williams says about this.
He says, what's Bill Gates got to give anything back for?
How many people has he made millionaires already?
How many jobs has he created?
Bill Gates have to give anything back.
Nobody's got to give anything back except the people who've stolen from us.
They need to give it back.
And I totally wholeheartedly concur.
And I would include among the thieves several who've written the tax code.
New York Times has this wacko editorial, I think, today about the need for the rich to sacrifice.
And Michael Moore says that the wealth of the rich is not even theirs.
That country's not broke.
You just need the rich to sacrifice and give away their money, and everything would be fine and dandy.
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