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Aug. 6, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:37
August 6, 2013, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Welcome back ladies and gentlemen.
Happy to have you here.
This is the most listened to radio talk show in America.
Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day.
It's great to have you here.
A telephone number is 800-282-2882.
And the email address, El Rushbo at EIBNet.com.
That last caller, I really do believe was confused.
And I want to try to he may, he may have meant what he said about why he was choosing Amazon for growth over Apple.
But I think he's confused in comparing Apple as a closed system to Amazon as an open system.
What he meant, well, maybe he meant what he said and he just meant to say that.
But in the open versus closed argument, it's not, that's not an argument about stock price or position on Wall Street.
That is an argument over operating system preference.
And right in this country, the two competing mobile operating systems are Apple's iOS and Android.
Those are the two.
Now there's well, that's basically it.
Apple is the only one that uses theirs.
But all the others use Android.
Samsung uses Android.
Sony uses Android.
Who?
Well, Windows, yeah, they've got their own Windows phone, but you have to look at a magnifying glass to find them.
BlackBerry had their own operating system too, and they're barely visible.
And Samsung is trying to come out with their own so that they're not a prisoner to Android.
Theirs is called Turzon or Tuzen or something, I believe.
They're not ready for it yet.
Now, anyway, again, this is really esoteric.
Some of you are going to already know this.
I mentioned the reason I like the Apple Mac because it is closed.
Here's why.
I had a BlackBerry, when I had my Macs and all that, I had a BlackBerry, and it was the most difficult thing in the world to sync up the address book and the calendar on my computer with the BlackBerry.
There was a program that did it, but it never worked.
It was a pain in the rear.
When the iPhone came along, the beauty for me for productivity and workflow is that every iPhone I've got, every iPad, every computer, the same stuff is on it, and it syncs automatically.
Doesn't matter what it is.
Emails, address book, calendar, even the instant message program syncs up exactly no matter what device I'm using.
Websites on my browser, they're all, if they're different from one place to another, I can go get the websites.
I've used my iPhone.
I can easily get the websites that are on my home computer if I want to.
I don't have to wait till I get home to get a website.
It's just, for me, it is Nirvana.
Now, the Android people are different.
Android is open, meaning that anybody can customize it however they want, which means that hackers can get in and make messes and all kinds of things.
But the way it manifests itself, this gets really esoteric.
Speak to those of you who have iPhones.
The Android people are basically Google acolytes.
They prefer Google Chrome to the Sony, to the Apple Safari web browser.
They prefer Google Maps to Apple Maps.
But if you, for example, are reading an email on your iPhone and the email contains a web link, if you click on it, it will open Apple's browser by default.
Apple will not allow you to have it automatically open the Google browser.
The Google people, the Android aficionados, don't like that.
They wish Apple would open it up and let them select the browser they want to use so that if there is a link in an email to a website, they click on it, it would go to the Google browser.
Apple doesn't permit that.
That's what's closed.
It's the same with Maps.
If there is an address in an email on your iPhone and you click on it, it's going to open Apple Maps.
The Google people think that Google Maps is better, and they don't want to go to the trouble of copying and cutting and pasting that address and then opening the Google Maps and pasting it in.
They wish clicking on the link would open the Google Maps app, but Apple doesn't permit that because Apple, I think, wants to maintain the integrity of their operating system.
And whatever that operating system promises to users, it will deliver.
And they just don't want any monkeying around with it.
Apple, I think, understands that most people don't even really care about this.
Apple just, they realize their shotgun approach to the audience is most people don't care about this.
They click on the link.
They want the website to open and that's it.
They just try to make it as easy as they can for people, as easy and intuitive as they can.
The people who like open systems are people that like to play around with it and customize it and so forth.
And the argument is that Apple is killing itself by keeping its system closed, whereas they would attract many more customers if they had opened it up and let their users customize things and so forth.
And Apple simply won't bend on this.
So the anti-Apple crowd is out essentially saying, well, they're closed system.
That's what this guy was talking.
He's shorting Apple because they're closed, meaning restricted.
If you're using Apple, that's what you're going to use.
Now, you can get the Google apps.
You can open Google Maps on your iPhone and you can open the Google browser on your iPhone, but it won't automatically do it.
You have to actively choose it.
So it's not all that closed when you get right down to it.
There's a lot of Google stuff that's now available on the iPhone.
So I think it's a, in many ways, it's a really esoteric nerd argument.
Open versus closed.
And there's no answer to who's right and wrong on it because it's all personal preference.
It's what you like.
In my case, I like the closed system because I know what I'm going to get.
I just do.
But I have all that Google stuff, and if I feel like using it, I do.
But anyway, I want to get back to this millennials story on this open-close thing doesn't apply to Amazon.
Amazon, they're – There is no Amazon competitor that's closed.
Walmart's open to everything.
Target's open to everything.
What would be closed about Amazon in the sense that Apple's closed versus Android?
And the caller was saying that he's shorting Apple because in my comparison, Apple is a closed system and Amazon is.
Amazon's a website selling stuff to you.
Well, Apple is too, but Amazon, aside from the Kindle, you don't use anything of theirs.
The third-party seller.
Anyway, I have this piece by Alex Smith.
And it's a column and daily caller.
He's the national chairman of College Republicans.
And as such, he is in the millennial generation.
Tizen is the name of the Samsung operating system, snerdly.
Because Samsung doesn't like being a prisoner to Google.
Here's another thing.
One more thing.
If you buy a Samsung Galaxy phone at AT ⁇ T, they're going to put their layer on top of Google with their special apps.
And to even get to the Google operating systems, you've got to drill down.
If you buy a Galaxy S4 from Verizon, they're going to put their specific apps on.
Apple doesn't permit that.
You buy an iPhone, and no matter where you buy it, it's identical to an iPhone bought anywhere else.
That's open versus closed.
Alex Smith.
Here's a pull quote.
And he's a millennial, and he's discussing millennials and what they think.
I do not believe, he writes, that the president and the Democrats want to see my generation fail, but I do believe they've taken advantage of us.
They used us to fund a costly healthcare plan by demanding higher premiums of us and by monopolizing the student loan industry.
They mortgaged away our future to spend more now while adding to our share of the national debt.
They also have failed to address broken entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, which are kept afloat by contributions from younger generations but will be insolvent by the time we reach retirement age.
That's a pull quote.
The title of Alex Smith's piece is Democrats have taken advantage of millennials.
Alex is female.
Okay, sorry.
HR just told me Alex is female.
Thank you for that.
Did I say he?
Okay.
Well, not that I'm disagreeing, but how do you know that Alex is female?
Do you know her?
Oh, okay.
There was a.
So here I am.
I'm talking about Alex Smith.
And I might have said he.
So Keith from the website staff apparently ran down the hall to HR.
Alex is a female.
Tell Rush Alex a female.
Anyway, I'm happy to be corrected.
Don't want to be wrong.
Forgive me for the correct assumption, incorrect assumption.
So it must be Alexandra Alexis, one of my all-time top 10 favorite female names, by the way.
Okay, here's what she writes.
This is the opening of the piece.
Today, one in three of my fellow millennials will wake up in their parents' home.
Some of them have a job, but the vast majority are either unemployed or have dropped out of the labor force altogether.
Most graduated from hassruel and spent some time in college.
A few even have advanced degrees, but of those who took out student loans, they owe an average of $26,000.
That is where the lost generation, as some have dubbed us, stands in 2013.
In the past two presidential elections, my generation delivered victories for Democrats in the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.
With hopeful and stirring rhetoric, they promised us a brighter tomorrow.
See?
See, that's a brighter tomorrow.
Indeed, President Obama, whose own story embodies the American dream.
No, it doesn't.
Alex, sorry.
But I digress.
Indeed, President Obama, whose own story embodies the American dream, told graduates at the University of Michigan in 2010 that the ability to shape our own destiny is what sets us apart as Americans.
Casting nearly 5 million more votes for President Obama over Governor Romney this past election, my generation undoubtedly delivered for Democrats.
Have they delivered for us?
According to the latest Pew Research report, the number of millennials living at home with their parents soared to 21.6 million.
That's up from 18.5 million in 2007.
Last month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced student loan debt surpassed the $1 trillion mark.
With the impending implementation of the president's health care plan, the number of part-time jobs has exploded at the expense of the growth of full-time jobs, and the young and healthy can expect to see our premiums rise.
The newest jobs report shows that UT unemployment remains nearly double the national average, and a recent Gallup survey found that only 43.5% of 18 to 29-year-olds are employed full-time.
As a result, millennials are deferring major life decisions like marriage and homeownership at record rates.
Now, rather than answering my earlier question with a resounding no, let me offer an alternative.
I don't think the president and the Democrats want to see my generation fail, but I do believe they've taken advantage of us.
They used us to fund a costly health care plan by demanding higher premiums of young adults and by monopolizing a student alone industry.
They mortgaged away our future to spend more now while adding to our share of the national debt.
They also have failed to address broken entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, which are kept afloat by contributions from younger generations but will be insolvent by the time we reach retirement age.
But the president and the Democrats have not failed us because they're Democrats.
Rather, their policies haven't worked for our generation because their ideas are old.
They rely on top-down, artificial policies from the industrial past rather than adapting the needs of a modern society with organic bottom-up solutions.
Calm down, Snerdly.
Snerdly – I don't know how old Alex is, but she's in her 20s, and you have to make some allowances.
Snerdley is about to have a fit here when he heard me read, but the president and Democrats have not failed us because they're Democrats.
Yes, they have, Alex.
And you just, in the paragraph above, listed why.
It is Democrats who have failed you.
Democrats stand for something.
Democrat policies are something.
They are specific and they are exactly what you described in a previous paragraph.
It's the Democrats who have failed you.
But I don't think the word has failed you.
I think they've screwed you.
I don't think fail you.
I think they've lied to you.
I think they've misrepresented themselves to you.
I think they've given you false hope.
They've made phony promises.
They've clearly taken advantage of your desire for a brighter future, a happier tomorrow.
They've clearly made you think they are the ones that can provide that.
When Alex, you're the only one who can.
You're the only one that can give yourself a better tomorrow.
Washington is not interested in you having a brighter future.
They say they are.
They're interested in you maintaining their power.
But I digress.
Let me get to the last paragraph.
The success stories from our generation have unquestionably followed the latter, meaning organic bottom-up solutions.
Success stories are bottom-up solutions.
Whether it's the grassroots efforts that have built massive social networks or by technological improvements that have allowed us to customize our lives like no other time in history, these sorts of innovations define our generation.
While one size fits all government has outlived its usefulness for the generation that is as diverse as the playlists on our iPods, true hope and change will come in the form of leaders and policies that embolden individuals to unleash natural growth.
That's not Democrats, Alex.
The Democrats are now not about unleashing anything individualistic.
They're about suppressing that.
I have to take a brief time out.
There is so much to say here, but I don't stand to gain anything by saying it.
Not a thing.
I'm only going to get hated even more.
And I'm going to have to really think about replying to this.
Otherwise, all I'm going to do is antagonize Alex.
And that is the last thing I want to do.
Believe me, I want to do the exact opposite.
But just one thing.
She describes the effort, the grassroots effort that have built massive social networks as grassroots bottom-up efforts, as though that's new.
Facebook, Zuckerberg, Harvard, the nerd kid gets in an argument of Winklevi, whatever happens there happens.
Facebook is born and he's the student, drops out.
And to Alex, that's an example of the bottom-up rather than top-down, which means Washington.
Now, all she's describing there, I think this is fairly important.
What she's describing is entrepreneurism.
Yet, I get the impression, and I could be wrong.
I get the impression that she thinks it's unique.
Most everything of substantial, innovative content comes from the bottom-up.
That's what entrepreneurism is.
But if you stop and think, she's probably in the neighborhood of 24.
Most of her adult life, you think she's heard much about entrepreneurism?
If she has, she's heard it impugned and maligned and ridiculed.
And yet, when she sees it, she recognizes it as great and filled with value.
And she thinks it's new.
I think Zuckerberg did something that nobody else has done.
That fascinates me.
As I say, folks, I'm going to think about the millennials piece before reacting or responding in greater detail.
It's all fascinating to me.
You know, somebody 24, what have they been taught?
What's their educational perspective?
What have they been taught about America?
What have they been taught about entrepreneurism?
What have they been taught about the Democrat Party clearly has shafted them?
Now, maybe she just doesn't want to write that.
Anyway, I'll do a little bit more with this after I have spent some serious time with them.
To the phones we go now.
Jeff Mansfield, Texas.
Glad you waited, sir.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hi.
Hi, Mechaditto's Rush, an honor and a privilege.
Thank you, sir, very much.
I used to listen to you in Sacramento, California in the 80s.
I believe you said your golf clubs were in various trees around the Chicago area.
That's, well, not just Chicago.
But I've been a listener ever since.
That's you're right.
You're right.
Listen, Rush, I'm a 58-year-old, semi-retired engineer, and I really don't need the health care insurance.
I've saved money through my career, and I would pay for any health care that I might need.
So for me, it's, you know, it's the fine or whatever.
Well, just for a couple years, and then you are going to have to have it.
Well, the fine forever, but the fine is cheaper than the policy for a couple years.
After a while, the fine's going to be dramatically more expensive.
That's right.
And I believe it starts off at $90 a month and goes up to like $500 and something by 2016.
Oh, no, much.
We're into the thousands.
Oh, there it is.
By 2018, 2019.
We're into the thousands.
Look, the point is, did I hear you right?
You're 58.
You're covered.
You don't need it.
I don't need it.
I can pay for my own medical expenses.
Right.
So is your point, why should you be forced to buy it?
That's a firm.
Well, now, what the central planners would say is that you have to buy it to help share the costs of insuring and treating those who don't have enough money to buy it.
But I did that when I was working and putting money away through my career.
So really, this health care plan needs to be redefined, redebated in Congress.
It needs to be redesigned completely.
You know what?
What if they ever had a plan that required everybody to own a gun?
And there was a plan, and everybody had to learn how to use it.
Do you think there'd be some objections to that on the left?
Absolutely not.
What?
Oh, yes, there would.
I mean, yes, if you're forced to go buy a gun?
Sure.
What if you had to pay into a plan called hotel room insurance to be able to help those who can't afford a hotel room when they need one to be able to?
You would protest, right?
Sure.
Here comes health care, and you don't want it.
You'd rather pay it as you go.
Have I got that right?
You need to go to the doctor, you pay for it.
You need an operation, you think you have the money to pay for it.
Why should I have it is cheaper, I've noticed, if you're paying by cash.
Oh, it's not even close cheaper.
I have discovered the same thing.
It's massively cheaper if you pay as you go and don't use insurance.
But forcing people to buy something is communism.
Well, that's what the Supreme Court decision was all about, and they found that communism is constitutional.
Well, if it's a tax, then where's the constitutional amendment?
I thought you had to do an amendment to add a tax.
Barack Obama is an extra-constitutional president.
If the Constitution doesn't say it, it should, and he's going to order things as though it does.
I'll tell you, I still, what we reported last week, that members of Congress, their staff primarily, were complaining that health care was too expensive, that they couldn't afford being required to go to the exchanges, and they complained about it.
And so Obama said, okay, we'll subsidize you from the Department of Personnel Management.
And so members of Congress and their staff are exempted from Obamacare.
Their subsidies are not going to come from qualifying at an exchange.
Their subsidies come because they're members of Congress.
And their subsidies are going to equal 75% of what it costs.
So ruling class, country class, elites versus rabble.
And members of Congress make anywhere from $70,000 to $174,000 a year.
And they said they couldn't afford it.
And they whined and moaned.
They wrote the bill.
Some staffers actually wrote the bill.
And so now Obama heard their complaints, and they're going to get subsidized.
And we told the story on Friday, and this is, to me, this is scandalous.
And it's a classic illustration of the chosen versus the unchosen and how people in the ruling class of Washington get to write rules for all of us that they exempt themselves from.
And when I reported this, Snurdle said, you watch, this is going to blow up.
There's going to be blowback on this.
People in the pitchforks are going to storm Washington.
I said, no, they won't because they're never going to hear about it.
And they haven't heard about it.
The mainstream media didn't pick this up.
It hasn't been talked about on television.
It hasn't been talked about outside of the conservative media.
So where you, Jeff, by force of law, have to go buy something you don't want in order to spread fairness.
Members of Congress are being subsidized when they buy it because they say they can't afford it.
You and I, I mean, there's subsidies for the American population at the exchanges, but you have to qualify for the subsidies.
But see, that's a dirty little trick, too, because at the outset, everybody's going to.
In fact, I just remembered, at the outset, they're in such a mess that there is no qualifying.
Everybody's just going to get the subsidy.
All you have to do is show up and say you qualify, and they'll rubber stamp it, and you get your subsidy.
Because Obama wants people enrolled, folks.
That's one of the reasons he's out selling this thing left and right, these campaign appearances.
Want as many people signing up for health care at these exchanges as they can get because that's the equivalent of the tentacles of this entitlement getting woven deeper and deeper into our society, making it harder and harder to untangle it and repeal it.
And that, my friends, is the objective.
And that's why everybody's going to qualify for subsidy at the outset.
No, no, no.
I'm going to talk about all this tomorrow.
This pessimism that so many people feel, many of them Obama voters, many of them young people, many of them young women, by the way.
We need to talk about it because the message of optimism sells if it's not rooted in phoniness.
But optimism is hard.
You don't need a book to learn how to fail because everybody does it.
Everybody knows how.
You don't need a book to learn how to be negative.
That seems to come naturally.
But people who have written effective books on how to think positively are millionaires because it apparently is not a natural inclination for most people.
But they want to, if they can be properly inspired.
That's what I mean.
Now is the best time in the world to contrast what we believe as conservatives with exactly what's happening.
We don't have to compare ourselves to a theory.
The theory is in place now, and it's a disaster.
The liberal theory is a disaster.
Anyway, so no, I'm not through with that.
Chris, Weston, Virginia.
Great to have you on the program.
It's Reston.
Hi, great to have you.
Hi.
Thank you.
I'm one of your very, very satisfied 2F5 tea drinkers.
Thank you very much.
And I wanted to call and tell you how much I appreciate your American product and also to tell your listeners something that we thought of recently, which has been received very well by our friends.
And that is when we go to someone's house to be their house guest, I always like to take something for a hostess gift.
And, you know, typically if you're going to someone's house for dinner or something, you might show up with something from the bakery or a bottle of wine or whatever.
But I find if you're traveling, it's not always that easy to come up with those things.
And so the last few times we have been someone's guests, before we leave home, I've always gotten on your website and arranged for a case of your tea to be at their door.
And by the time we get there, they're hugging our necks and saying, oh, thank you, thank you so much for the tea before they ever even have a chance to say, how are you?
It's so nice to see you again.
But on the little gift card, you have a chance to write something in about who it's from and so forth.
And so I've started putting in there, the conservatives are coming.
The conservatives are coming.
And they get such a kick out of that.
And I wanted to pass that idea on to your listeners if they're looking for a good gift to give to people who are going to be entertaining them while they're there.
And they just want something nice and fun and also a really good product that they're going to enjoy drinking.
Yeah, quite naturally.
That's a brilliant idea.
Okay.
And you would expect me to say that, but I'm being purely objective here.
It's a great idea.
So you're invited to dinner.
Normally you have a week's lead time.
Sometimes you don't.
But if you do, you simply send them a case of tea and the card says conservatives are coming.
Conservatives.
Right.
That's a great idea.
And even if your guests are your hosts are liberals.
Oh, that's even more reason to do it.
Absolutely.
You know, Chris, that's a this.
I wouldn't be surprised if your idea ended up on the 2fbyt.com website sometime.
Oh, good.
I wouldn't be surprised.
That's really proud.
I'll look for it.
Well, thank you very much.
I just love that.
People's thinking is always creativity, has always impressed me and amazed me.
That is a great idea.
And I know you're offering it, but we'll steal it anyway.
It is that good.
You know, I just realize I make an assumption that is really wrong.
I assume that a 24-year-old conservative is the same as a 60-year-old conservative.
And that's not true.
It needs to be constantly taught, which that's what we'll do.
We'll just keep doing it.
We'll be back tomorrow.
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