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Oct. 1, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
29:36
October 1, 2013, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Hi.
How are you?
Great to have you, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
I am Rush Limbaugh, America's real anchor man, and a doctor of democracy.
And America's truth detector.
A general all-round good guy, harmless, lovable little fuzzball.
And I am also the arbitrator of what is right.
Great to have you here, folks.
A telephone number if you want to be on the program 800 282-2882.
I hope you will indulge me.
I want to do an economics lesson.
It's not related to anything to do with the shutdown or with Obamacare or with the exchanges or any of that.
And it comes, once again, from my hobby, perusing tech media, tech blogs.
But it hit a button.
I think one of the reasons why I like accessing these blogs is because they push my buttons.
Who are these people?
It's very important, I think.
I for some reason I think it's it's you know, as we are all concerned with the future of the country, uh the youths and young people, the attitudes they have, the values they uh they have, it it it all matters in terms of what the country's going to be.
And I don't mean to say that these tech bloggers are representative of the body politic or of the young population at large, you don't know that.
I'm not uh even assuming it, but this little exercise.
I love learning about economics.
Basic economics 101.
It's the most complicated, simple subject there is.
And that you know, our good sponsor, Hillsdale has their uh their online course, Economics 101, so we're talking about that.
But this started, was reading a blog, and it's some young blogger all upset at Verizon.
Now, one of the things that I have encountered, and I don't know why this matters to me.
Well, I do know why it matters to me.
I think it's totally unrealistic.
And it's as as I read these tech bloggers, there's a there are a number of things that are thematic to them that you can typecast about them.
Now these are media people, they're journalists, to one degree or another.
Keep that in mind.
Many of them are non-ideological and even apolitical.
But I'm amazed at the number of them who expect things to be given to them, and who will literally criticize companies for not making things available free.
Now we all like free, don't misunderstand, but it's not realistic to expect that everything should be free.
And oftentimes companies, tech or otherwise, get ripped to shreds by these people when things aren't free.
When they more expensive or whatever.
Now, this case, this involved one of these young bloggers, and this is gonna have mass appeal, so stick with me on this.
Because it's it's econ 101.
This guy writes a blog post about how he's so mad at Verizon.
He is spending $20 a month for a Verizon LTE plan on his phone that gives him two gigabytes of usage for $20 a month.
And he's angry, he's so angry at what Verizon is doing to him that the whole point of his blog post was how he is doing everything he can to avoid using it.
He's going anywhere he can find Wi-Fi.
Because he doesn't, He hates, he's very angry at Verizon for overcharging his two gigabytes a month of wireless data over the LTE network at $20.
Because one of the things, if he goes over that, if you use more than you pay for, they do soak you.
Now, the fact of the matter is that pricing structure by Verizon is working exactly as Verizon intends it.
And that's what I want to try to listen.
This little guy is livid that they should charge him $20 a month for two gigabytes.
And it's so little that if he goes over it, it's going to be so much more expensive.
He tries not to use it.
And he thinks Verizon needs to be castigated for this.
And this I have found is a recurring theme in the tech world.
The cellular carriers are carriers are evil, mean spirited capitalists who are damned because they're trying to make money.
Yet the Googles of the world are angels because they are trying to save the world.
Google gives all of their stuff away.
But they don't.
But the appearance is that Google does.
Now, never mind the fact that the Google guys are multiple billionaires.
That's okay because Google is giving their stuff away, and these CADs at Verizon have the audacity to charge this little guy 20 bucks a month for his precious little two gigs.
So what did Verizon do?
Along with ATT, everybody, Verizon puts in this LTE network, which cost a lot of money to build.
They invested a lot of money in an expensive network, and they did this because of market demand.
There are people who want to be able to have those kinds of download speeds for data on their phones so that they can watch video or whatever and they are willing to pay for it.
People like it.
LTE, 4G, whatever you want to call it, exists because people are willing to pay for it.
Except this little guy isn't, and that's Verizon's fault as far as he's concerned.
People like it so much, in fact, and this is where the lesson begins.
People like it so much that Verizon has to do something to ration access to their network.
ATT does too.
I'm not just using Verizon because he wrote his piece about them.
These networks have to do something to ration access.
Otherwise, if everybody were accessing it, the high speed aspect would go away because the network would be clogged.
And so how do they ration it?
They do it with price.
And what they do, they they price charging you for the data you consume.
Now, in other contexts, this is thought to be fair and equitable, and nobody has a problem with it.
In cable TV, the scream there is that the carriers force you to pay for all the stuff you don't watch, and that the government should force the cable companies and satellite providers to price not on a fixed bundle basis, but a la carte.
You can't make these people happy no matter what, because they're always looking for something for nothing.
And they expect businesses to price themselves that way.
And you can't do that.
And the reason why this matters to me is because these are young people.
If they don't understand this, and if they don't learn it, we are in big trouble down there.
When these people become adults and the shock of reality hits them...
Now, you know, the cable companies, they they provide they bundle all this stuff and they charge you for it in wireless.
The cell carriers are just the opposite.
They have gone from one price serves all to pay for what you use.
So you can buy this many gigs for this amount of money per month, or you can buy unlimited, you can whatever you want to pay for, you can get.
But for those who are paying the least, Verizon is happy if they don't use the network.
That is the point.
They have to ration usage, otherwise their network isn't going to provide the service people are demanding.
High speed.
The bigger load you put on it, the better.
So Verizon here is faced with servicing its customers.
Now, which customers are it going is it going to consider to be the most valuable?
The people who use it.
The people who use it and pay for it.
Now, this guy who pushed my buttons, he finds that he doesn't have to use it.
He can go Wi-Fi.
And he can screw Verizon.
Yeah.
And that's good.
Verizon should be screwed.
So he's either a cheapskate or or what have you.
But he'll just, he'll just wait.
He won't use.
His whole piece is based on how he tries to avoid using it simply because Verizon is raping him at 20 bucks a month for two gigabytes of data.
However, now we add to it, this guy happens to be a pundit.
And he thinks that he's making an important social comment.
So he has to tell the reader how silly it is for the wireless carrier to make him not use their network.
In fact, and this again is the lesson, it is efficient, and it is completely straightforward for the carrier to price usage such that the highest valued customers and users get access, uncluttered and unimpeded by low-valued users who can wait until they get access via Wi-Fi.
Why should Verizon care as much about somebody who doesn't even want to use the data so little that he's not even willing to pay for it?
And yet this guy's getting all ticked off because he thinks he's getting ripped off.
He thinks Verizon is targeting him and people like him to rip him off when the exact opposite is happening.
They're making it available at a price that he can afford, but it isn't enough.
He wants more for nothing.
In the meanwhile, Verizon has people willing to pay for it, are paying for it, and they have expectations that that high speed's going to be high speed.
And the only way they can do that is to make sure their network isn't clogged, and they do that with price.
It's amazing how price works.
Price is one of the greatest rationers there is.
This all makes perfect economic sense.
And there's no animosity in it.
It's strictly business.
It is unfettered, full-fledged capitalism.
And this guy finds a problem with it because they don't care about the little guy.
And so he wants everybody to do what he's doing.
Screw it.
Not use them.
And frankly, that'd be fine.
Because while he bumps out of the network, that leaves more data for everybody else at high speed.
And the claims that Verizon makes about speed delivery and all that on their LTE network will be borne out.
So it all works.
In the meantime, this guy's not being denied anything.
He's the one denying himself by being all haughty and John Kerry-like.
Now, the thing about this that...
Well, cable is all different, as I said.
Cable being fixed price rather than a la carte, it makes sense, too.
And the difference is consumption.
The consumption of the cable networks does not exclude other consumption.
The programs are public goods.
If you watch ESPN, it doesn't lessen the amount of ESPN.
In other words, the more people watching ESPN doesn't affect your quality of ESPN.
The more people using a data network, the more deterioration there's going to be in the network.
And the provider doesn't want that deterioration, so he Rations it with price.
But it's this expectation that companies give it away that troubles me.
And this desire, and I understand it's nothing new, and it's I'm probably making a mistake by making too big a deal out of this.
But I have one of my pet peeves is people who want something for nothing and expect something for nothing.
People who do not accept the notion that they should pay for what they to me it's a personal responsibility issue.
And the notion that corporations or businesses are charities, and that they're there to provide health care or jobs for the community is it's it's asinine, and it's it's it's not at all and yet this is how economics is taught.
This is how liberals teach young people what what a corporation is.
If a corporation doesn't do what a liberal thinks and they come in for high criticism and they're ripped to shreds, and they end up on the Democrat Party enemies list.
And it just all adds up to an ignorant, and I mean ignorant, no-nothing, not stupid, uh bunch of people who have unrealistic expectations of something for nothing.
And then when you have a political party that comes along and is willing to provide that, then you get real trouble, and that's where we are.
But in this instance, uh this guy's attitude is exactly what should happen based on what the carrier here is seeking to do.
They're making their service available.
Here's the price for what you get, and it just isn't enough for this little guy.
I'm just not gonna use them.
And that's Verizon's fault.
Carrier's fault, as far as he's concerned.
And he doesn't understand what's going on.
But see, the market comes through.
He doesn't have to use them when he gets mad.
There's Wi-Fi out there, there's any other kind of option he can choose.
So he's not being screwed.
He just wants to go through life thinking he is.
And that just offends me.
I'm sorry, and I had to get that off my chest.
Back after this, folks, no going.
By the way, folks, there is another difference between Apple and a government.
When Apple screws up, they pay a price.
If they were to release a rotten to the core product, they'd pay a price.
Nobody would buy it, they'd pay a price.
When the government screws up, they never suffer.
They raise taxes.
The government screws up, we pay it.
When the government screws up, they raise taxes.
When Apple screws up, they don't raise prices.
They don't hire the IRS to go door to door demanding we buy whatever it is they've made.
I mean, the audacity, I understand they're they're targeting low information voters, but for Obama and Sibelius that try to compare themselves and their silly little health care plan here.
Well, a monstrous health care to Apple or any other successful American business enterprise is ludicrous.
Here's Dennis in Stewartstown, Pennsylvania.
Hi, Dennis.
I'm glad you waited.
Great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
Long time listener, first-time caller.
Happy to have you here, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Uh thanks for taking my call.
I'm calling about the new uh federal tax law, aka Obamacare.
Uh John Obama Roberts.
He rewrote the law.
Correct.
It's a U.S. federal tax law.
And Obama, Obama, he couldn't give a cockroach a waiver from paying federal taxes.
And I think you're the person that needs to put the chant out there to the other conservative talking heads to get the message out.
And what's the chant?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Uh for for uh John Boehner.
I'm a little uh little time, a little nervous right now, waiting for John Boehner to get in front of a federal judge demanding that this law take effect on January 1st for every person in the country.
Every taxpayer in the country.
And it needs to be done because like I said, Obama couldn't give a pardon to tax on federal taxes to anyone in this country.
Uh he can give them he can give them he can give them a pardon if they're convicted.
He can, you know, pardon the cockroach.
I'm lost.
I must I must admit it is the law of the land.
Boehner's not going to go to Supreme Court.
Well, I know Okay, so what he wants is for Boehner to go to the court saying, you Obama, you can't give these people waivers and you look at I don't know what to do about this.
Because there is genuine lawlessness.
Uh uh the opening story that I focused on when the program began today is they have just found a way for taxpayer-funded abortion via Obamacare.
It's against the law.
There are all kinds of lawless things happening.
Obama cannot just grant waivers here and there, but he's doing it.
I think I get what Dennis is upset about is that Obama is Congress isn't there.
I'm gonna do whatever I want to do for or against whoever I want to do it, and I don't care who's running Congress.
And the Democrats in Congress are perfectly fine for this to happen because the Republicans run the House, but there's lawlessness everywhere.
It's become so common that it's it's not even an outrage.
It's become so common that people I don't know, accept it, they just feel powerless to do anything about it.
So in that sense, uh, I understand what he's saying, you know, and what he wants there for somebody to go back to the Supreme Court and charge Obama or some court charge Obama with behaving in a lawless fashion in the administering and the and the implementation of the health care law, which clearly is happening.
Not just with not just with the health care law.
All these uh executive orders on things is uh that we we've got I don't know, dictatorship that's uh not gonna persuade anybody.
But we're close to uh statist, you know, banana republic kind of power being employed here.
And no opposition to it in the media, of course, because uh the only people objecting to it are hated by the media and the Democrats, and that would be uh Republicans and conservatives.
Who's next?
Todd in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Thanks, Rush.
This is kind of like a combination of Christmas and my birthday, but rolled into one.
But uh trying to get through for a long time.
One cut quick comment on the Verizon blogger guy.
Just imagine what he's gonna feel like when he realizes he can't opt out and go to another provider of insurance like uh what's gonna be under Obama.
Well, that's that's that's uh a great, great point.
That is a great point.
All of these uh these young people have a massive educational awakening ahead of them.
I would just like to kind of dovetail that into my wife's got MS and she currently has good insurance.
It continues to go up, and she has to have it, obviously.
We looked when they floated a trial balloon about what the pre the affordable in quotation uh pre-existing condition stuff's gonna be.
And right now our premium is around six hundred plus.
You know, you got deductibles, but I believe at that time in Oklahoma it was gonna be in the like nine hundred and eighty dollars a month.
And then we looked at a list, if you know anything about the VA system on the drugs that are covered, they don't cover any of her treatments or drugs that she's gonna need.
So we'll get to pay a lot more to get basically nothing in return if and when private health insurance is driven out of business, which is the design of this law.
What do you think?
Uh well, I'm having trouble hearing you because you're on the cell phone, it's not your problems, mine.
Did you say something about pre-existing condition in there?
Yes.
Okay, because if you did, what people are discovering as they some of those who are getting through and being able to to set up their accounts at healthcare.gov, they're finding that the deductibles are like uh one example I saw $5,000 deductible and the premium to get enrolled with a pre existing condition was $13,000.
Now I forget what the I forget what the condition was, but my point a lot of people who are going to be accessing this, I am sure are expecting it to be either free or not cost them much at all.
That's what they mean by being insured for a pre-existing condition.
It's going to kind of it's unaffordable to go have a house burned down and then go buy insurance for the city.
Right.
It's like our little tech blogger.
It's like our little tech blogger who uh who thinks his uh his his wireless coverage ought to be practically free.
And and uh the way they have sold this pre-existing condition business, the way the Democrats in Obama have sold this, is that they have said to people who are who who can't be insured because the pre-existing condition that big insurance is shafting you.
And your example is right.
If you can go buy insurance while your house is burning, we're not talking insurance, we're talking welfare.
This isn't insurance.
This was simply a a sales gimmick that the regime used in order to appeal to people who think that they're being victimized by an evil capitalist insurance system.
And now they find out what it's gonna cost them to be able to be covered with their pre-existing condition is one of the biggest, maybe the mother of all October surprises, as you have encountered yourself.
It's um it's not a pretty picture.
I'm uh I appreciate the call.
I gotta take a break.
Thanks much.
Back after this, folks.
Don't go away.
So Todd in Lawton, Oklahoma, what he is basically saying was his wife has MS, and their rate is going through the roof, basically.
Um, and that was not expected, obviously.
Nobody's expecting what is going to happen.
Now, I w I want you to remember the regime ended enrollment for the pre-existing conditions program back in February.
Do you remember why?
They ran out of money for it.
It's called the high risk pool program.
High risk is is the is the legalese for preexisting conditions.
And they ended enrollment even before it gets implemented because they ran out of money.
They ran out long before they thought they would.
They thought they had funded the program for an adequate number of years, and they're already out of money.
They've ended enrollment.
If you didn't get in on it, you are up the creek.
Now just imagine what this is gonna do to the private sector insurance companies who cannot print money, which of course is the intention.
It's basically to shut them out.
And all of this is it's always be wise to bear in mind that the real purpose of all this is to simply deal a death blow to private sector insurance, so that your options there are so limited to non existent that you have to go eventually to the government.
Because the end of the day objective for Obama, the Democrats, and everybody who believes in this is single payer, government socialized medicine.
That is the dream.
And that's what they're on the road here to creating.
Here's Tony in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Hi, Tony, great to have you here.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
Honor to talk with you.
God bless you.
Thank you very much, sir.
I'm calling in regards to the gentleman who called from East Lansing about the young lady whose uh car insurance went up because she didn't have health insurance.
And we in the state of Michigan, because of our liberal and Compassionate state government has passed uh a no fault insurance type of uh car insurance.
The way our state is arranged is that if two or three people, four people get into an auto accident, one person has coverage and the others don't, all the other people can sue your auto company for their health benefits.
Uh-huh.
And there's an unlimited amount.
So, in other words, if you're applying for auto insurance and you don't have health insurance to go along with it, your rates are going to skyrocket, which now, because of Obamacare, obviously that's going to become more problematic.
Yeah, well, this is something I did.
I had not heard of this prior to today.
Now, I just want to uh you guys on the other side of glasses is news to you too, right?
See, I'm really sensitive to the out of touch charge.
But I'd not heard of this until today.
And I had not thought of it.
Now, the way you explain it makes total sense, obviously.
Yeah.
And it's probably true of many states, not just Michigan.
That's probably true.
We've been inundated with calls in Michigan today.
I don't know how that happened.
It just works out.
Glad it did for you.
But um I'm sure it's got it's gotta be something that that uh is true from state to state.
Now stop and think of let's but let's not presume that.
Let's just leave it in Michigan because that's what we know.
Look at all the people that are being downsized from part-time to full-time, because their companies can't stay in business and provide all the full-timers insurance.
So they have to convert some of them to part-time so as not to have to pay uh provide health insurance.
So they keep their job, reduced hours, lose their health care.
They still drive, still have auto insurance.
Look at the number of people who are waiting for their own October surprise to find out their auto insurance is gonna skyrocket because they lose their health insurance.
That's gonna be.
Okay, my friends, that's it for another exciting excursion into broadcast access tomorrow, already gonna be Wednesday.
That's just the fastest week in media.
No, I don't know this auto insurance business if this I've never heard of it.
I don't know if it's Michigan and Michigan only.
I don't know how it could be.
I'm sure we'll get the answer and have it by showtime tomorrow.
See you then, folks.
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