All Episodes
Previous Next
Dec. 30, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:50
December 30, 2011, Friday, Hour #1
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
That's right, Johnny Donovan, Walter E. Williams sitting in for the vacationing rush.
And by the way, Rush will be back January 3rd.
And you can be on with us if you call 800-282-2882.
And we have a real treat for the second hour, so you have to tell all your friends, get them all by the radio, because I'm going to have my very good friend, longtime colleague, Dr. Thomas Soule.
He's the senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
And we're going to talk about his most recent book, The Thomas Soul Reader.
And I believe, folks, that that might be the 46th book that he's written.
The guy writes with both hands, and he's a delight to have on.
There are a couple things I want.
Matter of fact, you can let's see how we're going to run the show.
It's kind of like Open Line Friday.
And so that means that if you heard me say something on the television or some radio program and you don't think it's right or you think it's wonderful, call in.
Or if you read my syndicated column, you say, hey, Walter, you know, I think this is wrong, but that's right.
Call in again.
Now, speaking of syndicated column, my next week's syndicated column is called Greed.
And I'm kind of motivated by a very, very interesting article in the American Thinker by a fellow, Michael Bargo Jr.
And he starts off, his first paragraph.
As the country continues to suffer from joblessness, excessive federal deficit spending, the Occupy Wall Street people, they just talk about corporate greed.
It's a simple cause of all our problems.
It's greed.
Well, look, folks, I'll tell you, and I believe Rush might have said it about a month ago or several weeks ago.
I, well, let me not speak for Rush, but let me speak for Walter Williams.
I love greed.
I think greed is wonderful.
Now, when I say greed, I'm not talking about stealing, cheating, going to government, getting handouts or special privileges.
What I'm talking about is people trying to get as much as they can for themselves.
And I think that this process of people trying to get as much as they can for themselves, it results in wonderful things.
For example, you're going to have Texas cattle ranchers out this winter getting up in the middle of the night, maybe during blizzards, running down stray cows to take care of them.
The cows might even kick them.
And they're making this huge personal sacrifice so that New Yorkers can have beef on their shelves.
You had Idaho potato farmers this winter, no means this summer rather, getting up in the morning, doing backbreaking work, sun beating down on them, bugs biting them, making this personal sacrifice so that New Yorkers also have potatoes.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, why do you think they're doing that?
Do you think they're doing that because they love New Yorkers?
They may hate New Yorkers.
I'm not that wild about New Yorkers myself.
But they make sure that beef and potatoes gets in New York every single day of the week.
Why?
Because they love themselves.
They're trying to get more for themselves.
And that's what gets wonderful things done.
Now, here's the next question, folks.
How much beef and potatoes do you think New Yorkers would have on their shelves if it all depended on human love and kindness?
I'd be worried about New Yorkers.
I'd be seriously worried about how much beef and potatoes they would have if it all depended on human love and kindness.
And so this is what Adam Smith was talking about in The Wealth of Nations.
Matter of fact, The Wealth of Nations is, Adam Smith is considered to be one of the founders of economics and the Wealth of Nations, which is a very, very important book, came out in 1776, the same time our ancestors declared independence.
But he said, and I'm just paraphrasing, phrasing, he said that we get our bread and our milk and our candles not from the benevolence of the baker and the candlestick maker.
We get it because of their concern for themselves.
And so when you hear people talking about greed, you have to ask them, you have to ask them, well, what's that, you know, what other motivation is going to get wonderful things done?
It's not going to be charity, although charity is a wonderful idea.
Anyway, think about that when people talk about greed.
Now, again, let me be perfectly clear.
I'm not talking about people going to Washington and getting special favors from government, crony capitalism, product misrepresentation, theft, burglary.
I'm not talking about that because I think those are despicable forms of human behavior.
I'm talking about human greed.
Now, there's another issue on the table as well.
And this is going to be, it's probably going to bother some people out there.
But it's an article by Robert J. Samuelson, and he writes fairly reasonable stuff in economics.
And the article came out in July, but I think it's in the Washington Post, but I think it's important that we pay attention to this.
And the title of the article is, Why Are We in This Debt Fix?
Question mark.
It's the elderly, stupid.
Now that's the title of his article carried in the Washington Post.
And he points out some things here.
And he says that in 1960, national defense was the government's main job.
Matter of fact, national defense is in the Constitution.
It's one of those things enumerated in Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.
And he says, national defense was the government's main job, and it constituted 52% of the federal budget.
In the year 2011, Even with two wars, national defense is 20% of the federal budget and falling.
Now, where's the big bite out of the federal budget?
Well, it's Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other retiree programs that constitutes roughly half of the federal budget.
I think it's slightly over 50% of the federal budget.
So that is the major problem, financial problem facing our country.
That is the huge expenditures made on senior citizens.
Now, where does the government get the money to spend on the elderly?
Now, by the way, folks, I'm not picking on elderly because Walter Williams has been living one-third of the time our country has been in existence.
So that means I've been living quite a while.
Now, where does the government get the money to give to the elderly and all these elderly programs?
Well, it doesn't get it from the tooth ferry.
It doesn't get it from Santa Claus.
Where does it get it?
The only way the government can give one American citizen $1 is to first take it from another American.
Now, there's kind of a perverse income redistribution.
That is, the elderly in our country, they have the highest net worth.
I believe close to 70% of the elderly own their homes outright.
There's no other age group that can fit the category of owning their homes outright.
Now, is it a kind of perverse income redistribution to take from young people who are struggling, 20 years, 30 years old, tax the heck out of them, and give it to people who are much better off than they are?
I used to, when Mrs. Williams has now departed after 48 years of marriage, but I used to, I used to argue with her because she used to accept senior citizen discounts when she went on the train to visit my daughter in Richmond.
And she would take senior citizen discounts.
I refuse senior citizen discounts because, and I would ask her, I said, now here you have a young couple on the train, they have two or three children, they're paying full fare, and here you are, you're married to a man who's in the top 1% or 2% of the American people so far as income, and you're taking a senior citizen discount.
I mean, that seems to be perverse.
But anyway, the point is, is that the kind of programs that we have for the elderly, I think they're bankrupting our nation.
Now, I know some of you are going to call, you're going to call in and say, hey, Walter, I've worked my whole life paying into Social Security, and I'm owed this money.
Well, yeah, you owe somebody, you owe somebody.
Snerdlies tell me you got it already.
Okay, but the point is, is that somebody owes you it, but is it a 25-year-old?
Is it a 35-year-old that owes you the Social Security payments?
I'd say the congressman owes you Social Security payments.
Now, here's what I did.
I wrote a column, oh, I guess early this year.
If I had my way, I would write to every senior citizen on Social Security.
If I hated Congress, I'd say, look, we have about 650 million acres of land that's owned by the government.
If you will refuse any future Social Security payments, we will give you 100 acres of land to do with as you please.
Take it or leave it.
That's how I would solve the Social Security problem.
We'll be back with some of your calls after this.
Walter Williams sitting in for Russia, pushing back the frontiers of ignorance and trying to sell my fellow American on the moral superiority of personal liberty.
And its main ingredient is limited government.
And you can be on to talk with us about this just by calling 800-282-2882.
And let's go to Grand Rapids, Iowa, and talk to, is it Jerry?
Welcome to the show, Jerry.
Well, thank you very much, Walter.
This is a pleasure to speak with you.
I have been trying to get into call in for some time.
I'm getting so tired of people lumping Social Security in with entitlements such as food stamps, aid to children, and all the others that we have.
Social Security was paid into by the people.
And had the government not rated the war chest, there would be plenty of money in that account.
And now in the last, it seems like the last couple of years, the radio hosts and the pundits have all joined the bandwagon in calling Social Security an entitlement.
Well, let's look at this a bit.
Now, you tell me.
Now, it turns out that the person who retired in 1980 gets all that he ever put into Social Security in two and a half years.
The person who enters the labor force in 1980 will have to live until he's 92 years old to break even with Social Security.
That is, it's a Ponzi scheme on top of being a bad deal.
Now, the money that you receive, if you receive from Social Security, where does that money come from?
Does it come from the Social Security Trust Fund?
No, it's nothing in the Social Security Trust Fund but IOUs.
That's because our government leaders stole it.
I know, but the question is: who owes it to you?
Should the person who is 30 years old should he be taxed to take care of somebody who's 65 years old?
Well, there are other programs, other ways to handle retirement income.
Like how?
And as far as the person retiring in 1980 and he gets all of his money back in two and a half years, that's an awfully broad generalization.
No, no, no, it's factually true.
How much they make?
No, it's factually true.
How the market is doing, if the money is invested properly, all those things play into how much there would be in that Social Security account.
No, the government does, Congress does not invest the money.
Soon as a person, FICA money is sent to Washington, it's immediately spent.
No, they don't, yeah, they don't invest it in anything.
Well, you just said it's invested.
Pardon me?
You said it was invested.
But look, look, the point is, the point is, I think that American people ought to recognize that Social Security was a mistake.
It was not authorized by the United States Constitution, and we're living with the effects of that mistake.
It won't work.
It's going to blow up by at least 2030 or 2040, and it'll be nothing.
It'll be economic catastrophe for your grandchildren.
Let's go to next is who is this?
It's Steve?
Oh, Keith, welcome to the show, Keith.
It's an honor to talk to an economist.
That's what I love talking to.
And with Dr. Saul, I'm going to tell you what, you couldn't find a better commentary, and I'll follow the newspapers.
He's right on.
And here's my take on this.
Obama in this new bill, they're adding $1.2 trillion to the national debt from $15.1 trillion.
$16.3 is our GDP.
They're going to take 2% off of my Social Security, $20 a week.
I'm going to tell you what.
If that's a stimulus, it's a joke.
And also, if they can take unemployment to two years when it should be six months, that's a joke.
If he wants a $447 billion stimulus, why don't we do this?
I'm getting $5,600 in February for my sales total.
That's going to pay my girlfriend's blazer off.
It's going to put me a top runner back in my pickup.
It's going to spray the liner.
It's going to help on my credit cards.
It would help people on their mortgages.
Why don't they do what they should do?
Instead of the green energy and the wasted policies of his, let's give every family $7,500, every single taxpayer a $5,000 deal, and know the government and the senators, you're right.
They're going to come back and say they know how to spend it better than you do.
Well, I think the big problem we face, and I'll be talking about it off and on throughout the show, the big problem we face is that Congress has exceeded the authority granted to it by the United States Constitution.
You folks out there ought to read Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution that says what Congress should do.
And the big problems that we face as a nation are a direct result of Congress exceeding their authority.
They're doing things that's not authorized in the United States Constitution.
But the big problem is, and I'll come back to this, and I'll come back to this, is that any congressman who would obey the United States Constitution, the American people would run that congressman out of office because the American people want Congress to give them the right to live at the expense of other Americans.
And we're going to talk more about that when we come back.
We're back, and it's Walter Williams sitting in for Vacation and Rush, who will be here in front of the EIB microphone on January 3rd.
But in the meantime, it's Walter Williams trying to sell my fellow American on Morals Superior of Liberty, which is a hard job to do.
You know, there's another issue that's in the news as a result of these people that call themselves the Occupy Wall Street people.
And, well, it's been going on actually before they actually got into the scene.
But people are talking about income inequality.
And let me just spend a few minutes talking about income inequality.
Now, and let me just give you some case examples.
Now, there's this lady in London.
Yes, I'm in the 1% of that.
Bo Snerdle asked me whether I was in the One Percenters, and that is absolutely right.
But I have not always been in the One Percenters.
I started at the bottom.
And by the way, you folks who are interested, you can pick up my autobiography.
People have been after me to write this autobiography for years, and it's called Up From the Projects.
And it's an exciting autobiography.
It has photographs of me when, well, I hardly, I started to say when I was younger and more handsome, but I think as I'm getting older, I'm getting more handsome.
Anyway, includes, matter of fact, actually, it contains the records when I was court-martialed when I was in Fort Stewart, Georgia.
And people say, well, Walter, how come you got court-martialed?
You had so much trouble in the Army.
Well, I was drafted in the Army.
Actually, I don't call it a draft.
I like my labor services were confiscated in 1959.
And I was sent to Fort Stewart, Georgia, without a very good orientation on the Southern way of life.
And so I had some adjustment problems.
And I even have the records of my court-martial in there.
And I actually made a jackass out of the people who court-martialed me.
And I think the FBI was making inquiries about my wife.
And the CID, they were following me while I was under, and CID is criminal investigation division.
But if you're wondering about all this, I did get an honorable discharge.
And matter of fact, those people, even after I got an honorable discharge after two years, they wanted me to be in the reserves.
I had to spend two years in, well, I was supposed to spend two years in the reserves, only spent one year.
And it turned out that I was in the reserves in, let's see, where was it?
It's in San Fernando Valley, California.
And I was the only black guy in the reserves.
But I was going to Cal State LA and I was doing, you know, I was going to college.
And so I used to do my homework at the reserve meetings while the other guys were marching around and cleaning their rifles and doing all this kind of stuff.
And one time, a junior flip lieutenant came up to me while I had all my homework spread out.
He said, Soldier, what's your job?
So I looked at him.
I said, sir, and I always address these guys by sir.
That's the first thing out of my mouth.
I say, sir, my job is to integrate this unit.
And once I sign in, my job is done for the night.
And so he turned around, utter shock.
And he darn near walked into the flagpole.
Anyway, he went into the company commander's office, and I heard them talking.
And nobody ever said anything to me, but I would imagine that the company commander told him, Look, let sleeping dogs lie.
The guy's not bothering anybody.
He's not causing any disruption by doing his homework.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
That's what I think would happen.
Anyway, that's an exciting story.
It's called Up from the Projects.
And it's available at my webpage.
You can see it on my webpage.
You know how to get it from Amazon.com and Hoover.
And just go to walterewilliams.com.
And also, another benefit of my webpage is that there's a handsome photo of me there.
And so many people, so many women like to make that as their home page.
And you can feel free to do so.
But anyway, okay, here's a story about income inequality.
Actually, it's a column I wrote.
Now, you take somebody like Joanne Rowling, Rowland, she is the Harry Potter lady.
And she's a billionaire.
She's in that top 1%, although she's in Britain.
She's in that top 1%.
Now, how did Rawling become so wealthy and unequal to the rest of us?
Well, I think the entire blame for this social injustice lies at the feet of the world's children.
The children are responsible because her wealth is a direct result of more than 500 million Harry Potter book sales.
And if the children did not have their parents go buy them these Harry Potter book sales, she wouldn't be rich.
She wouldn't be in that top 1%.
Or you take my friend, actually, he's not a friend.
I just really like the way the guy plays, LeBron James.
He is an animal on the basketball court.
And this guy has $43 million a year.
And that's very unequal to the rest of us.
That's socially unjust.
Now, how does LeBron James get $43 million a year?
Well, again, it's the children.
It's the children getting their father, instead of children staying home doing homework and their fathers helping their wives out with the kitchen duties, they're going downtown to the sports arena and plunked down $100 to see LeBron James play basketball.
And then I think there's a form of gross discrimination with this as well, because I can play basketball too, but nobody's paying me $43 million.
As a matter of fact, Bo Snerdley can tell you I can play basketball because he's about half my age, but I did a job on him in the basketball court and I made him quit.
He just gave up.
And you know the job I did?
I guess I was maybe about half court.
Not half court, but almost half court.
Almost half court.
And I did a behind the back shot and it went clean in just plain net, no bouncing, whatever.
And he just said, I give up.
I was beating him already.
But anyway, I don't get the kind of money that LeBron James gets.
So it's not only inequality, it's discrimination.
But anyway, let's do we have time to take, yeah, let's take one more call.
Let's take Barbara from, what is it, Appleton, Wisconsin.
You have to move this monitor up for me because my eyes, you know, I'm getting, you know, I've been living one-third of the time our country has been in existence, and your eyes wear out as a result of that.
But welcome to the show, Barbara.
Good afternoon, sir.
I just wanted to just point out something.
You know, President Obama and all the people in Congress like to give everybody Christmas presents.
They love to extend the unemployment compensation from, you know, what are we at?
Two years now.
They want to continue to extend it.
And I just want to say, you know, I know that the people out there on unemployment really appreciate that, but as a small business owner, I just received a New Year's present in the mail from our federal government.
I had received one.
I'd received one in July from our state government because our state had to borrow a couple of million dollars from our federal government to continue the unemployment compensation.
And that gift was a $5,000 bill.
And I just received another $5,000 bill from the federal government saying, hey, you know what?
We extended that unemployment compensation and we need you to pay.
We need you to pay in above and beyond what you already pay into unemployment.
That's your evidence of what I've said.
The money does not come from the tooth furry or the Santa Claus.
It comes from some other human being.
And by the way, the duration of unemployment has increased since 1948.
A colleague of mine has done studies of it, and he shows that when the unemployment compensation was only for five or six months, then the duration of unemployment was far less than it is now.
Right now, people can say, well, they can be picky and choose.
They'll say, oh, well, I'd rather draw unemployment.
I'd rather sit on my butts, watch Oprah, and rather than take this $10 an hour job.
And so a lot of businessmen, business people like yourself, they're competing not only against other businesses, they're competing against government that forces them to drive up the wages that they have to pay in order to get people to take their jobs.
And I think that's very unfortunate.
We'll be back with your calls after this.
Well, it's Walter Williams and Rush will be back next week.
I think Monday is best of, right?
Monday is best of, and Tuesday, Rush will be back.
Rested.
Okay, let's go back to the phones and let's go to Annette from St. Louis.
Welcome to the show.
Hi, Walter.
Thanks for taking my call.
Yes.
And I'm not calling to create controversy.
Last time I called, I created controversy for Rush.
So I'm calling.
Oh, don't worry.
No, I thrive on controversy.
Well, I said that Republican women didn't like Sarah Palin because she was hot and they were jealous.
And so they got a lot of controversy from women because of that.
But today is my birthday, and I'm on a road trip.
And before the show started, I told my husband, I hope it's Walter Williams because that would make my birthday dreams come true.
And it's you.
Well, happy birthday to you.
Well, thanks.
And it's a three-hour road trip.
And I get to listen to you the whole time.
And if Rush isn't here, well, sometimes even when Rush is there, I think, wow, I wish it was Walter today.
I'll pass on that programming note to Rush.
Yeah.
So thank you so much for taking my call.
And thank you for coming in today.
And thank you very much.
And I hope you have a very happy birthday and many more of them.
And I'm not going to ask you how old you are.
Oh, no.
I told my sons, I said, never ask a woman two things, how old they are and how much they weigh.
And how much money they need.
Exactly.
Well, that I would say.
Well, happy birthday, Jeanette.
Well, thank you, and happy new year to you.
And thank you.
Thank you.
Let's go to Andrew and Stevens Point.
Welcome to the show, Andrew.
How are you doing?
Okay.
I was just commenting on an issue that I really think is probably being overshadowed.
You know, it's like the parallel tax holiday.
I think they were putting it in the bill.
It was to do with Keystone XL.
And the one thing I just want to say about it, because I mean, I don't want to say that I'm a complete expert on it, but I do have inside, you know, I have a couple of relatives that work for Trans Canada.
And just an insider perspective is that, yeah, we do have millions of miles of pipeline that run through this country every single day.
What a lot of people don't realize is that there is a lot of salt there, too.
I mean, like, a lot of these are going unmanned, you know, not being maintained like they should be.
Like, for example, in the division that they have in central Wisconsin, they went from, I think, about 20 people that were manning around the state, and now they're doing the work, or four people are doing the work of 20 people.
Well, maybe technology allows them to get away with it, but I think that many of our environmental concerns are overstated.
And I think that they're overstated in an effort to get government to have greater control over our lives.
People have been trying to get us worried about everything, and it turns out that everything is getting better.
Yeah.
And I do agree with that.
And I can't be completely selfish on the Keystone XL thinking, you know, because I do consider myself, you know, environmentalists.
I like to try to look out as much as I can.
But you also can't be selfish by saying, you know, you can't put this pipeline in because we do depend on oil.
I mean, everyone drives cars every single day.
So if you say that you don't depend on oil and you drive a car, you're a liar.
Well, you depend on oil for your shopping bags.
Many, many, many things that we use oil for.
But the point is, is that if Keystone does damage, then there are liability laws that can take care of that that should address those issues as opposed to regulating them out of business.
But the main thing that I just want to point out is when it comes to rerouting, a good idea, because otherwise, because they've had other oil pipelines up in Canada that have had many leaks for years.
So to put this under the America's Law Freshwater Aquifer.
I'll tell you what to do.
Wait a minute, Andrew.
I'll tell you what to do.
As soon as you hear of a leak, call this show and we'll take care of it.
We'll be back with your calls after this.
Headed back to the phones.
And by the way, stay tuned for the next hour because my colleague and friend Thomas Sowell will be on to talk about his new book, The Thomas Sowell Reader.
But right now, let's go to Nathan in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
You've got to be fast, Nathan.
We're up against the clock.
I'm going to try my best, Dr. Williams.
An honor, pleasure to talk to you.
And besides getting my first sugar in my license, I rank this meeting with you right up there.
Well, thank you.
Hey, I told Snurdly when I called in, I said, what do you think?
I was going to get your personal opinion of what went on with Herman Cain.
Well, I think the leftists and the media and the Democrats had to sink him because Clinton did some things that were very, very similar if Herman Cain indeed actually did those things he's accused of.
But they had to get him because if Herman Cain were running for the presidency and if he could just pull 25% of the black vote, that would be the end of the Democratic Party forever.
Yes, sir.
Because the Democratic Party gets 95% of the black vote.
And if they just lost 25 or 30% of it, they would be out of the running for a very, very long time.
So they had to get Herman Cain.
Yes, sir.
Well, Dr. Williams, I drive a taxi here, and I'm presently putting you on cassette tape because when people get in their car, and especially black people, they go, Who is this?
I say, oh, he's a black economist.
He's been around forever.
So with you, sir, we're going to push back all the frontiers of economics.
Well, thank you.
Thank you very much for calling in.
And by the way, if you were driving a taxi cab in New York City, you'd have to buy a license that would cost a million dollars.
Did you know that?
And matter of fact, I talk about those kind of things in my book.
And Tom, so what?
Yeah, I started driving the cab, but this is back in 1957.
And I did not own the cab, so I did not have to get a license.
The Yellow Cab Company had the license.
I just worked for them.
But in New York City, the license sold two months ago for a million dollars each.
And that restricts the entry.
And I talk about many of these things in my book, Race and Economics.
That's the other one I wrote that came out in April.
A brilliant book, I think.
But it's Race and Economics.
And it talks about all these restrictions that handicap people, not only blacks, but people at the bottom rungs of economic ladder trying to get access to upward mobility.
And it's the ins versus the outs.
And this is the kind of thing that ought to be looked at by the people who want to help.
▲
Export Selection