All Episodes
Previous Next
June 1, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:16
June 1, 2015, Monday, Hour #1
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Welcome to today's edition of The Rush 24-7 podcast.
I don't know, folks.
I get there some days I think I'm losing touch.
And some days when I think I'm losing touch, I worry about it because I've always been in touch.
And in other times I don't worry when I think I'm losing touch because I think it's the way to go.
In this NSA business, does anybody really think that program's been put on the shelf, even for a couple of come on, folks?
You know the program's gonna be back, and Rand Paul's out their fundraising off of it, and McCain and the rest of the Republicans and others in the Senate are all ticked off at him, but it was predictable.
Every bit of this is predictable.
I would just tell you this.
If there's some call that you've been wanting to make for the last 10 years that you haven't been able to make because you've been afraid the NSA would overhear you, make that call.
If you are doing anything that you don't want anybody to know about, you've been afraid to talk about it, this is your day.
Go ahead and make the call, talk about it because the NSA's not listening, are they?
Intelligence agencies are not sweeping up dead metadata.
You're free for the next whatever number of days till they get this figured out to do every clandestine secret thing that you want nobody to know about.
You got days to do it.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome.
I mean I seriously.
Everybody's so exercise.
And by the way, Rand Paul did step over it here a bit here when he when he accused some people of wanting the United States to be attacked in in order to prove a point.
And he he he he walked that back.
But Rand Paul's not the big story.
Scott Walker's the story in Iowa.
Scott Walker and Bernie Sanders and what's his name, O'Malley, are the big story, the rally that Bernie Sanders had in Iowa's got everybody non-plus.
Nobody can figure it out.
I have.
I know exactly why the left is going nuts over Bernie Sanders.
For one thing, sex scandals are resume enhancements in the Democrat Party.
They always have been.
And Bernie's got a little bit of a sex scandal going with that memo that uh the his Fifty Shades of Gray impersonation that he did, you know, his ruminations about what men are doing when they're doing other things and what women secretly want when men are doing it to them.
Uh that kind of stuff enhances Democrats.
Look at Bill Clinton.
Doesn't get him in trouble.
But there's a more salient reason why.
I mean, Bernie Sanders, a full-fledged, acknowledged admitted socialist.
There's a reason why he's drawing flocks and flocks of people when he goes out.
The Martin O'Malley announcement right here at the Daily Beast, which is a left-wing website.
Martin O'Malley's embarrassing announcement.
The former governor of Maryland announced his candidacy for the Democrat nomination.
This is a couple of days ago amid protesters and a smattering of supporters.
They go on to talk about how embarrassing it was.
There's a reason why.
But there was still some interest in O'Malley.
And what it means is that there's interest in people in the Democrat side other than Hillary, and I can tell you why it is, and it's not just Bernie Sanders' sex scandal, if you can even say he's got one.
Uh there's some shocking, sad to me.
I mean, really sad news.
It's disappointing news about the American people in general, how they see themselves.
Vis-a-vis where they stand economically.
Middle class, upper middle class, lower middle class, upwardly mobile, downwardly mobile.
And it's somewhat fascinating.
There's also I I know a lot of people, not a lot.
I'm getting email from people.
Rush, could you leave the millennials at Ron?
You never talked about Gen X this much.
I think we did.
And you never talked about Gen White as much.
Oh, I think we did.
You never talked about the baby boomers.
Oh, I think we do.
Uh, but the latest on the millennials.
They don't want what mom and dad have in the house.
They don't care about antiques.
They don't care about heirlooms being passed down.
They don't want any of that.
They want nothing permanent.
They want nothing rooted to pass.
Everything they want is a throwaway.
They want to be able to rent something and be done with it in a year, a month, or what.
They don't want that picture frame that great grandma Emma had.
That Grandma Blanche had.
That Ma Baker had.
They don't want it.
They don't want the sofas.
They don't want any of the stuff that's been in the family for years.
They don't want to be burdened by it.
They don't want the responsibility preserving it.
They don't care about it.
Give them an orange crate from IKEA, and they're happy.
So they got that story coming up.
The um uh I'm not through with Jermaine Greer being upset at the fact that men are listing themselves as mothers on their children's birth certificates.
Stop and think of that for a second.
Men are listing themselves as mothers on their children's adoptive, obviously uh birth certificates.
We've got news out of Cuba, things Cubans can't do that Cuban visitors can do, or tourists Cuba can do.
Bob Schiefer, you know, I had this Friday, and I I just didn't get to it.
I had a whole lot of sound on Friday, I just didn't get to.
And it was not by design, it's just go with the flow here.
And uh every broadcast segment here has its has its own identity, really, and it it just it just depends on my feel for things.
But the soundbites we had from Schiefer, now everybody's been using it over the weekend, and and he's added to it with his final show on Sunday.
And again, it kind of ticks me off at myself that I didn't use the stuff on Friday.
But but what what we had on Friday was Schiefer saying that the news business isn't what it was anymore.
It has forever been changed.
There's too many people doing news, and nobody knows what's reliable, and nobody knows what's good and bad or anything anymore.
It all started, he says about in 1988.
It it all something happened in 19 late 80s, he said he just can't figure it out, but whatever.
Now everybody does news, and therefore nobody does news, and it's not good.
It's just his way of saying we've lost or we did lose our monopoly.
And uh now we don't own it, and we have to compete, but we don't like competing.
And so I'm retiring.
You know, I'm I'm quitting, I'm heading back to Texas.
Uh I want to go to a state that doesn't have a drought.
I don't have to worry about this kind of stuff.
So I'm I'm going back now.
He's added some things to it that he admitted they didn't vet Obama well enough.
The drive-by's didn't vet Obama well enough in 2008, but then he said that that's not our problem, really, because it's up to the people to figure out what they want.
And it's up to the Republicans to tell people who Obama is.
Well, he's got a point on that.
He really does.
Now I know what Republicans say, well, we we we we we wouldn't be listening.
No, Republicans on this, you never had the guts to go after Obama, and you still don't.
So Schaefer's got a point.
Okay, if the drive-by's are not vetting, we did.
We vetted Obama.
You know, a lot of a lot of conservative media vetted Obama, but the Republican Party didn't.
And they still not.
The Washington Post has a story today wondering why in the world people are so down on the economy.
They can't figure it out at the Washington Post.
Why people are so down on the economy?
The economy, you know, it's roaring.
It's like they they didn't, they're not aware of the revised first quarter growth rate of minus 0.7%.
They talk about wages kicking up and jobs kicking up and productivity kicking up.
They're seeing things nobody else sees, and then they're wondering why nobody sees it.
And then they conclude, well, it must be psychological.
I have a question.
When the news came out last week that the first quarter GDP growth rate was minus 0.7%, why didn't the president suggest a new stimulus package?
I mean, if the first stimulus led to burgeoning economic growth, and if the first stimulus was exactly what was called for six years ago, why doesn't he do it again?
No, no, no.
I'm not I'm not trying to make a point of being serious.
Why didn't he do it again?
Everybody thinks the economy's stagnant.
Perception is reality in politics.
And if the American people economy's in the tank, and it is, but even if they think it is and it isn't, they still think it is.
That's going to win the day attitudes, why not do another stimulus?
Well, he knows it didn't work because the first stimulus was not a stimulus.
The first stimulus was not about boosting the economy, and the and the the the truth of that is proof here.
I mean, if if the stimulus in 2000 and the pork of us bill, 2009 was the answer, we wouldn't be where we are today.
But the first pork of this bill was just that.
It was not an economic stimulus plan.
It was far more than that.
Had nothing to do with economic growth.
Uh what else we have here?
Let's see.
Yeah, why don't Americans feel better about the economy?
And the NSA business.
You know, I'll tell you uh on this, why don't Americans feel better about the economy and why Bernie Sanders is drawing a lot of people?
And look, that's a relative number.
I mean, um they're not overflow crowds, but the drive-bys are surprised because in their mind, see the drive-bys in their mind think everybody thinks like they do.
And that would mean every Democrat is all in for Hillary.
And so when they see Bernie Sanders literally from Jurassic Park, drawing droves of people, they can't understand.
They don't believe it.
And then they see O'Malley out there, and they expected O'Malley to do better than he did.
You know, because O'Malley has abs.
O'Malley goes out, he flexes like Putin.
They figured that's all it would take to get a lot of votes, particularly women.
And it's looking like it's going to be a tougher rot for O'Malley than people thought.
But they think everybody's all in for Hillary.
But the reasons why people are showing up has everything to do, and this is sad, as I said, it has everything to do with people's perception of where they are economically in this country.
It can be traced back.
There was some old German economist at the turn of the 20th century, the early 1900s, who was famous for asking, why hasn't America gone socialist?
Because it was seemed, it was thought to be the natural thing for countries, populations, governments to do.
Just like everybody by then in Europe had gone socialist.
Socialism, communism has been the way most people have been forced to live in uh in the human condition.
Now, communism existed long before it was called that, but I mean people living in tyranny.
People who were not uh allowed freedom.
So this famous German economist can't remember his name, so why why hadn't America gone socialist yet?
And there was a substantive answer to that, and it was called We the People in the preamble of declaration, we the people, the First Amendment, freedom, liberty, and so forth.
Uh and the uh government was not uh of primary import in our founding documents, Constitution and so forth, but in addition to that, there was no economic need for social for socialism to be attractive, what do you need?
Just a little pop quiz here.
For socialism to be attractive to people, what needs to exist.
Well, yeah, unrest and chaos.
Speaking of which, you know, you just remind there's there's the we've got some statistics on crime in Baltimore that will blow your mind.
Do you know that 300,000 people have moved out of Baltimore since 1972?
300,000 people.
And it's not all because Nancy Pelosi was there.
Three hundredth is the crime rate.
Now, the the thing that needs to exist, or one of the many things that needs to exist for socialism to be accepted by men by acceptable, I mean by the people.
Every government in the world would love to be socialist, including ours.
It's power.
The thing that you need, the thing that needs to be in place, the thing that needs to happen for socialism to be attractive is for people to think they have no more chance at upward mobility.
When people think their chance at moving from the middle class to the upper middle class is over, or really, really hard and more than anything else just a crapshoot, not guaranteed by hard work, not the usual formulas to get there when they're burnout.
When people think that where they are economically is as good as it's going to get for their whole life, socialism looks really, really good.
And that's the answer.
That's why Bernie Sanders has drawn a lot of people.
Because the Democrats who are depressed and angry and dispirited every day, they have no hope of life getting better.
Why would they?
I mean, everything they believe in doesn't work, and they're Living in the midst of it.
Speaking of Elon Musk.
I don't know if you know who Elon Musk is, but for those of you who don't, he's a hero to millennials.
He's a hero to the high tech crowd.
He's the guy who started Tesla, the electric car company, and SpaceX.
And he's a billionaire.
But he's a hero.
He is a he because he's considered to be the next Steve Jobs plus some.
He's considered to be genius, brilliant, risk taking, fearless.
It turns out that if it weren't for almost 85% government underwriting, Elon Musk wouldn't have what he has.
In other words, Elon Musk is the product, and his companies are the product of 4.9 billion dollars in government subsidies.
Take that away from Elon Musk, and he's no different than anybody else, struggling to achieve.
Now, this is not to criticize Elon Musk.
I don't know him.
It's not to criticize him personally, it's to stay on topic about why socialism and big government ends up being attractive to people.
When big government, when government, when your position in life says your hard work is not going to matter to you, then where are you going to turn for sustenance?
Where are you going to you're going to turn to a place where all the money is, and that's government.
And that's what's happening today.
In fact, those are the circumstances that are that's what the transformation of America is all about.
Is transforming us to socialism and is an added bonus because that's what the American people want, theoretically, and are willing to vote for.
So that's somewhat of a table setter.
There are other things that I have to get into today, too, in addition to all that.
Take a brief time out, come back, get started with all of it after this.
Did you see Maureen Dowd had a column in the Sunday New York Times?
Let me see if you've heard this before.
Maureen Dowd had a column in the New York Times asking if Hollywood was really going to get behind an aging woman running for the presidency.
Is this something Hollywood money would actually get behind and be sustained?
It was a it was a variation of a question I once asked, by the way, not in a negative motion.
I was being sensitive.
I was trying to be helpful to Mrs. Clinton.
She was coming under assault from a number of places.
And I asked if the American culture was so mean spirited and so shallow that it would vote or not vote for a candidate on the basis of not wishing to see that candidate age before their eyes while in office, particularly a female.
I asked that question.
And now more and more people are starting.
I asked that question years ago.
I mean, back in 2008, and now here comes Modo yesterday and a number of other media types, pockmarked and scattered throughout, starting to ask the same question.
You hear about John Kerry.
You know how old John Kerry is?
It's tough, you know.
You can't, you can't tell a horse's age when you look at it.
And since Kerry looks like a horse, it's tough, but he's 71 years old.
Now would somebody tell me something.
What is a 71-year-old man, Secretary of State, doing riding a bicycle?
Or alternatively, wind surfing off Nantucket.
Why is somebody riding a bicycle while in the midst of sensitive negotiations and attempting to secure nuclear weapons for Iran?
Exercise.
BS, he's doing that for the photo op, trying to look hip with the young generation that thinks life is all about exercise and fitness and so forth.
It's a photo op.
That's why he's out there riding a bike, same thing with the windsurfing.
It's embarrassing to me.
You, I mean, you'd have never seen Dean Rusk on a bicycle out there.
You'd have never seen Dean Atcheson out there, Dulles.
You'd have never seen any great Colin Powell.
You'd have never seen him out there on a bicycle heading on to a meeting at the UN.
This is embarrassing.
But that's not the point.
The point is an old Lurch.
Did you see remember the picture when he when he put on a costume to make himself look like a sperm?
Uh crawling through tubes at NASA.
You remember that?
We'll post that picture at Rush Limbaugh.com.
I mean, it's the most, it was it was when he was running for president, 2000 uh, what would that have been?
2004.
He looked like a sperm.
You know, up there swimming for an egg.
So he's got a history of looking odd.
Well, he had on one of those weird-looking pointed bicycle delivery guy helmets.
Anyway.
Somehow Lurch didn't properly negotiate curb and broke his femur.
Quick, what's the femur?
Yeah, it's the thigh bone, and it's a it's a serious it as opposed to the tibia, the femur is a people of real Linda would not know this.
It was the thigh bone, just consider it the thigh bone.
Supports a lot of weight.
They had to take Lurch to the hospital, and it's so bad now that he's being flown back to Boston because he might need surgery.
And I just, you know, I remember what Obama said.
That there's a lot of doctors out there do unnecessary surgery just for the extra quick bucks like amputations and so forth.
You know, unnecessary.
So I just hope Kerry does not get one of those doctors Obama was talking about and ends up with his leg amputated here just for the quick extra buck.
Ha!
Where are you?
It's the Rush Limbaugh program, most listened to radio talk show in America.
Telephone number 800-282-2882, if you want to appear.
Legendary Bob Schiefer called it a career yesterday as he hosted his final edition of Slay the Nation.
And it says here, this is a CBS news story.
Schiefer noted that Washington has changed dramatically.
When Schiefer began covering a nation's capital, uh Schiefer was on CBS this morning on Friday, and uh said that the revolution in communications has turned Washington upside down.
We now don't know where people get their news.
But what we do know is they're bombarded with information twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and most of the information is wrong, and some of it is wrong on purpose.
I wonder is that a confession.
Be nice if that was a confession.
I doubt that it is.
Here's a good point.
John Kerry should apply for another Purple Heart.
Yeah, another purple heart.
Well, it was an on-the-job injury, kind of.
Taking a break from sensitive negotiations with the Iranians, riding his stupid bicycle.
I mean, really, seriously, folks.
Anyway, we have the audio soundbite from Friday that I had that I didn't get to, and it is from Friday CBS this morning.
The co-host on the program was Vanita Newar.
She said, There have been so many wonderful things written and said about you at this point, Bob.
So many wonderful things written and said.
And one of my favorites, Bob, was simply, quote, "He's someone that never became Washington." Unquote.
But I'm curious, Bob, in that chair, how do you feel like Washington has changed from when you started to now?
It's been turned upside down.
I mean, it's everything because of this revolution in communications.
You know, we now don't know where people get their news.
Uh, but what we do know is they're bombarded with information 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Most of the information is wrong.
And some of it uh wrong on purpose.
It is our job, I think, in mainstream journalism to try to cut through this mall of information and tell people what we think is relevant and what they need to know about.
That is the job of the journalist, and I have to say it's harder and harder.
That is fascinating to me.
That is classic.
So obviously he's not confessing when he says that most of the information Is wrong and some of it wrong on purpose.
No, and I was just joking about him confessing I didn't expect that.
Now listen to this.
It is our job, I think, in mainstream journalism to try to cut through this mall of information.
Translation, we always decided what was news and what wasn't.
We were in charge of deciding what people got to know and what we hid from them, based on several things.
Do they need to know this?
No.
Do they need to know this because it'll help us?
Yes.
Do they need to know this because it'll help the Democrats?
Yes.
Do they need to know this because it might hurt the Democrats?
No.
That's the basis on which the news has always been edited.
And now that's the case more than ever.
Mainstream journalism is simply a branch office of the Democrat Party.
And it exists to advance the Democrat Party agenda.
It's not a generalization.
And it's not really an attempt at humor.
But he says, yeah, yeah, mainstream journalism, try to cut through all that mall of information, tell people what we think is relevant.
Well, look at how much happens every day.
I mean, theoretically, it's there's more happening that could ever be charted.
When do you think this is an interesting question here just to illustrate this?
When do you think it was in the history of the world that it was possible for somebody alive to know everything that was known?
Is that not an interesting question?
I mean, it's got to be centuries ago.
When was it this is a question that Mr. Buckley addressed often, and he I don't remember who, but he thinking he thinks he pinpointed the era when it was possible.
And it's eons ago.
I mean, it's even pre-public, I was way before printing press.
When was it possible for any one person to know everything that was known?
It's so far back.
The point is that it is impossible, even now, to chart, and by that I mean write or document, everything that's known.
And it's it's certainly impossible to learn it.
It is not possible for a single human being to know everything that's knowable or everything that is known.
Simply too much.
And in the course of an average day in the world, there is more that happens than anybody could ever categorize, quantify, and report.
So Schiefer comes along and says, our job to wade through all of that and to tell people what we think is relevant.
Well, right there, with that admission, right there, Bob Schaefer has just admitted how severely limited journalism is.
They're not even open to everything happening.
Their bias begins with determining that which is happening.
What of it is important?
Well, how are you going to decide that?
Important to who?
Well, he admits to them.
Well, we know what's important to them.
Therefore, he's admitting how limited mainstream journalism is, when in fact journalism ought to be open-ended.
Journalism, in fact, is probably what we're now getting more so than we ever have.
Like to people like Bob Schaeffer, Matt Drudge isn't a journalist.
To people like Bob Schiefer, I've done a journalist.
Of course, I don't want to be one.
But all of this news that's out there, only they have the qualifications and the intelligence characteristics to determine what of all the things happening out there is legitimate and what isn't.
And you sitting at home digesting as much as you can get your hands on.
You don't have the ability to determine what's legit, what's illegitimate, what's true, what's Not true, what's relevant, what's not, you need them.
Well, what what endows them?
Journalism school.
Where do you go to become a Bob Schiefer to learn how to weed out 99% of what's happening?
I'll give you a recent example here that is probably not the best I could come up with, but it's happening right now.
Do you know that ever since this Denny Hastert scandal erupted, that you can't find any news on the Clinton foundation scandals anymore?
Because people like Bob Schaefer have decided, oh, this Denny Hashard, this is far more relevant and far more important American people and and and what they think about it and what was going on with the Clintons.
Really, something in Denny Haster's has done whatever it 35 years ago has now totally occupied all of mainstream media.
And they have eagerly and happily left the Clinton Foundation scale, they've even left the FIFA scandal aside to go after Denny Haster.
35 years ago, whatever it is that happened.
Classic example.
Maybe not the best I could offer you, but it's one that's happening right now.
So we try to cut through this mall of information.
We tell people what we think is relevant and what they need to know about.
So you are just idiots.
You may be nice idiots, you may be engaging idiots, but you're uninformed boobs.
And this is the conceit and the arrogance that drive-by journalism brings to its task each and every day.
And I would I would venture to say that the people that pay only attention to the news as delivered by people like Bob Schaeffer are probably the least informed people in our country.
I think people like you who listen to this program, because you know what you'll get here that you won't get on Face the Nation.
You know what you'll get here, you won't get a meet the press.
You know what you'll get here that you won't get in the New York Times or the Washington Post or any of the others, CBS ABC and B. You know what you'll get here?
Both sides.
In explaining why conservatism is superior, I also explain liberalism.
Openly and honestly.
The liberals in the country today will not even be honest about who they are and what they want, what they believe and what their agenda is.
Nobody would support it.
They were honest.
But we are, the people in this audience, I think are more informed, have a much more solid foundation in which to absorb new events and put them in context than anybody watching CBS News or ABC.
And frankly, I don't think that's any there's any question about it.
I'm very proud of it.
Cover everything here.
Well, I mean, I don't cover things I'm not interested in, but I don't have the hubris to tell you that if you um you know you only need to listen to this program.
But if that's all you do, you'll still still be more informed than if all you do is watch CBS or ABC or NBC or anything else.
So Bob now says it's um it's the job of the journalist to weed through all that crap and figure out what people need to know.
And it's harder and harder.
Why is it harder and harder?
Why is it harder and harder?
There's more news than ever today.
There's more access to why is it harder?
So that's not what he means.
What you know what he means by it's harder?
It's harder to ignore the stuff they used to ignore.
It's harder to promote the stuff that they always have promoted and only want to promote.
That's what's harder.
It's harder to cover up what they don't want you to know because there are other people out there telling you what they don't want you to know, or don't think you should know, or don't think you're capable of knowing.
That is what he means.
L. Rushball behind the golden EIB microphone.
Here is Matthew in Denton, Texas.
I'm glad you called Matthew.
Welcome to the program.
Testing one.
Matthew, are you there?
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
Can you hear me?
Yeah, I do hear you now.
Thank you.
Great to have you here.
Thank you for taking my call, sir.
I appreciate it.
You bet.
All right, Russ.
So I heard you talk about Elon Musk and how much government support he has received.
And I don't disagree with you with you know your point regarding, you know, socialism and government subsidies and all that.
But you know, at one point Tesla needed a government loan for I think it was 428 million dollars.
Um, they pay that back, you know, well in advance and with interest.
Now, um, I did kind of exaggerate a little bit to Mr. Surdley.
I said they paid all of the billions of dollars that they received so far, but I know it's my bad.
I'm, you know, me being a rank amateur and not a professional such as yourself.
You know, I thought he had paid all of it, but upon for the research law on hold, you know, I say I found that it was quite a bit less, but still, you know, Elon's running a fairly profitable, you know, satellite business from what I can tell.
Right.
Yeah, and that's well, I think I think you may be and look, all I've got here on this, I didn't know any of this until I started doing show prep for today's program, by the way.
I I have no animus against Mr. Musk.
I just want you to understand uh up front.
Uh I I'm one way or the other.
I'm I'm I admire him.
He's obviously brilliant, a genius, creative, uh, forward-thinking, and all that.
So I I got no problem with him.
I but but you know, I've got a lot of stories today.
One one of them is society's lottery winner.
We got Obama running around ripping into the successful in this country by calling them successful lottery winners.
Now, we've always referred to the rich as winners in life's society.
But all of a sudden, well, actually, all of a sudden, Dick Gephardt started talking about them back in the in the in the 90s as um the winners of life's lottery.
And here comes Obama now, calling him lottery winners.
Uh, Elon Musk is not a lottery winner, and neither is Gates or Steve Jobs or Paul Allen or any of these people, Warren But they're not, they didn't just go buy a scratch-off card.
They busted their rear ends.
So the the mischaracterization of success is something that the modern Democrat Party does that really ticks me off because it's it's well, hey, it's it's morally wrong and it's factually wrong.
But if as far as Musk is concerned, you mentioned a hundred and twenty what, eight or twenty-nine million dollars, you think in loans?
It was four hundred and twenty-eight, something like that.
But yeah, it was uh Tesla.
I think it was one of their first loans that they had taken out.
Um they repaid it back well ahead of time and with more interest.
What would you what what would you think if you were to learn that it's not four hundred and twenty-eight million or five hundred and twenty million, but five billion in subsidies that Elon Musk has received.
Well, you know, considering I've you know, I'm I'm a really big fan of his, so you know, my my you know, I might be a little bit biased here, but I think what he what he does with that five billion is really what what matters and what he's been doing with the with the tests that he's been doing with the recent satellite launches of you know building going towards reusable rockets.
That's um is fascinating.
To you, what he does with it is the biggest determining factor of whether or not it's legit.
Right?
Correct.
Well, let me share with you some of the details of this LA Times story.
The the headline of this story, Elon Musk's growing empire is fueled by four point nine billion dollars in government subsidies.
Elon Musk, first line of the story, has built a multi-billion dollar fortune running companies that make electric cars, sell solar panels, and launch rockets into space, and he has not even come close to showing a profit in any of these divisions ever.
He has built these companies with the help of billions in government subsidies.
Tesla Motors, Solar City Corp.
SpaceX together have benefited from an estimated 4.9 billion dollars in government support, according to data compiled by the LA Times.
Dan Dolev, analyst at some Wall Street firms, yep, he definitely goes where there is government money.
That's a great strategy, but the government might cut you off someday.
Right.
Now I'm not sure.
But wait, here's the point though.
Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute now, Matthew.
Here's this is my point.
What this proves is that none of what Elon Musk Is doing is sustainable without some entity willing to give him five billion dollars.
Well, you give me five billion, let me do something with it, and I'll guarantee you I can make a lot of people think I'm a genius, too.
I mean, he's doing things that are not making a profit.
I'm not being critical here.
I'm this is to me is fundamentally important about the value of money, the use of money, the source of the money.
He couldn't get a bank to give him this kind of money, not with the performance his companies are showing.
But the government cares, the government wants to subsidize all this new age stuff, solar and electric, because Obama's a big climate change guy and is trying to convince as many people as possible, let the government run their lives to save the planet.
Now, Matthew, I'm up on time here.
I gotta take a break.
If you can hang on through the break, we'll continue this the top of the next hour.
If not, give us your phone number, we'll call you back sometime when you have time.
Right out.
Matthew, hold on.
Okay, so we will continue with him.
He's a millennial.
Elon Musk.
It's important here.
Government subsidies, how they're used, how they're supported.
It will be interesting.
So we'll get back to Matthew as soon as we get back after our brief obscene pro this program does show a profit.
Never have a subsidy from anybody anywhere, no funding.
▲
Export Selection