{"id":23541,"date":"2006-05-03T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T06:25:37","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T06:25:37","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T06:25:37","slug":"it_s_big_dictator_not_big_oil_robber_barons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2006\/05\/03\/it_s_big_dictator_not_big_oil_robber_barons\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Big Dictator, Not Big Oil Robber Barons"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: The Democrats think they\u2019re on a roll. They\u2019re confident as they can be. Gas prices, the higher they go, they are convinced — just remember when Gephardt was happy when the stock market was plummeting? For every point drop or ten point drop in the stock market or every hundred point drop they picked up a seat or ten seats? They were ecstatic! I couldn\u2019t understand this. They\u2019re out there celebrating the plummeting stock market because they think it\u2019s going to vault them back to power. It has yet to do so. Late yesterday at a press conference on Capitol Hill, in front of a sign the Democrats erected that said, “Americans Deserve Relief at the Pump.” We have a montage here: Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.<\/line>SCHUMER: George Bush believes in his bones that what\u2019s good for ExxonMobil is good for America. That\u2019s how he was raised. That\u2019s how he was brought up.<\/line>REID: The little, tiny rebate they were suggesting for two tank fill-ups, basically what it amounts to is gone because the oil companies need to make more money.<\/line> PELOSI: What I have to say is that, sadly, we are living in a new era of robber barons. The American consumer is paying record prices, while oil companies make record profits and make record contributions to the Republicans.<\/line>RUSH: She\u2019s foolish. Robber barons? She has no understanding of history! Before I get into that, though, did you hear Dingy Harry? “This little tiny rebate they were suggesting for two tank fill-ups, basically what it amounts to is gone because the oil companies need to make more money.” That\u2019s the hundred-dollar rebates that the Republicans proposed, and Dingy Harry announces that the reason that the hundred-dollar rebates are going is because the oil company says they\u2019re too small. We\u2019ve gotta give people more money so they can continue to buy gasoline. <\/line>Folks, as to this robber baron business, I wouldn\u2019t worry about it because the way this country\u2019s education system has been going for a while I doubt very many Americans know what the robber barons were. How many of you know what the robber barons were? Who is she even talking about when she talks about the robber barons? Dawn, do you know? Dawn doesn\u2019t know. Brian, do you know? I\u2019m not trying to embarrass you. Brian doesn\u2019t know. Snerdley, do you know? Prove it to me, then. Who were they? (interruption) The monopolists, railroad guys, Big Steel, yeah, all this before they came along and busted up the trusts. All right. What to do with this robber barons?<\/line><\/p>\n

Folks, I want you to listen carefully on this because this is key. We all agree there\u2019s a problem. People think it\u2019s a problem. It\u2019s an economic problem, and when America has a problem, when America needs a solution, the last person in the world you should seek out is Nancy Pelosi or any Democrat. They don\u2019t want a solution. They want you feeling miserable; they want you feeling pessimistic because that makes them think you\u2019re going to vote for them. Now, this robber barons business, I\u2019ve been told that girls aren\u2019t supposed to be good at math, but for heaven\u2019s sake, this is simple arithmetic. <\/line>I\u2019m going to use a number here because I\u2019m sure it\u2019s applicable to somebody out there. Let\u2019s say a tank full of gasoline costs you $55. Here\u2019s the question. If Big Oil did not take one cent in profit, what would that $55 tank full of gas cost you? The profit is 9? per gallon. So if Big Oil didn\u2019t take 1? in profit, a $55 tank full of gas would cost you $50, twice what people want to pay at 25 bucks a fill-up. So if Big Oil, the robber barons, don\u2019t take any profit, a $55 fill-up is still going to cost you $50, and when there was no profit, if we were to pull this off, if there were no profit and a $55 tank full costs somebody 50, who would the liberals blame then? <\/line>I mean, the sheer stupidity of the robber baron shot weren\u2019t lame enough, the day she used it was even more revealing. It was yesterday, and what\u2019s so special about yesterday? Yesterday Bolivia seized control of the energy fields and threatened to nationalize them. Natural gas here in this case is what we\u2019re talking about is part of the same problem because where there\u2019s oil there\u2019s natural gas. Now, if Bolivia — and it\u2019s not yet a done deal, but if Bolivia — violates all the contracts and pulls a Castro and nationalizes everything, seizes all energy supplies, it would leave ExxonMobil, “the robber barons,” screwed of about $3 billion in investments. It would leave the Brazilian “robber barons” screwed out of about $3.5 billion. <\/line> There\u2019s a 1-1\/2 billion in natural gas and a $2 billion pipeline everybody is talking about. It would leave the Spanish robber barons, which is the Spanish oil companies, out of $1 billion. ExxonMobil\u2019s put $3 billion in there. The Brazilian oil companies put $3.5 billion. The Spanish oil companies have put one billion. If these fields over there are indeed nationalized, Nancy Pelosi\u2019s robber barons lose multiple billions. Let me tell you something. As an American, I am embarrassed that someone so inept could rise so high in the minority party. Let me give you some more information on this, because I tell you, everybody thinks that we\u2019ve got Big Oil and they\u2019re raping everybody. <\/line>It\u2019s Big Dictator time, folks. “Of the top 14 oil exporters, only one is a well-established liberal democracy – Norway. Two others have recently made a transition to democracy – Mexico and Nigeria. Iraq is trying to follow in their footsteps. That\u2019s it. Every other major oil exporter is a dictatorship – and the run-up in oil prices has been a tremendous boon to them,” as I keep pointing out the case of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Max Boot<\/a> writes in the Los Angeles Times today: “My associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, Ian Cornwall, calculates that if oil averages $71 a barrel this year, 10 autocracies (or dictatorships) stand to make about $500 billion more than in 2003, when oil was at $27. <\/line><\/p>\n

“This windfall helps to squelch liberal forces and entrench noxious dictators in such oil producers as Russia (which stands to make $115 billion more this year than in 2003) and Venezuela ($36 billion). Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez can buy off their publics with generous subsidies and ignore Western pressure while sabotaging democratic developments from Central America to Central Asia.” This is what Max Boot calls “the dictatorship dividend.” It “also subsidizes Sudan\u2019s ethnic cleansing ([Sudan] stands to earn $4.7 billion more this year than in 2003), Iran\u2019s development of nuclear weapons ($45 billion) and Saudi Arabia\u2019s proselytization for Wahhabi fundamentalism ($149 billion). Even in such close American allies as Kuwait ($35 billion) and the United Arab Emirates ($36 billion)” more. <\/line>That\u2019s Dubai. A-hem.<\/line>“[O]dds are that some of the extra lucre will find its way into the pockets of terrorists.” Now, if we seize the Saudi and Iranian oil fields and ran the pumps full speed, oil prices would plummet; dictators would be broke, and poor nations would benefit from cheap energy. But we\u2019d be called imperialist oppressors if we did that. So I want to go through these numbers again because you think it\u2019s ExxonMobil scoring big and you think it\u2019s ConocoPhillips and all that, when you look at who\u2019s really benefiting from all this, and then when you look at these numbers. These ten autocracies stand to make about $500 billion more today than they did in 2003, then you ask yourself where are we in this list? <\/line>Well, we can\u2019t drill for oil because environmentalist wackos and the wacko left is concerned that this is a horrible commodity. It pollutes. It\u2019s filthy. It\u2019s causing global warming. We can\u2019t get any more of it, can\u2019t go to ANWR. We can\u2019t fulfill our own energy needs by expanding our operations, exploring for more crude. No, no! We can\u2019t do it! So all these other autocracies and dictatorships score huge, ways to fund terrorism. We don\u2019t get to participate in this much because we can\u2019t drill for any more oil. There is no motive for any of these dictatorships and autocracies to participate in any problem, or plan, rather, that would reduce prices. <\/line>In fact, one of the Saudi oil ministers said, you guys, you politicians, you keep jawing the price up yourself, you keep panicking everybody. If you\u2019d shut up about it, the oil price would fall $15 a barrel. The Saudi oil minister and the OPEC guy are out there saying, “You can\u2019t affect the price. I don\u2019t care what you do. Everything is too global here and there\u2019s nothing anybody can do about it. It\u2019s going to be what it\u2019s going to be,” and we see all Mahmoud has to do is start rattling the chains about war, we\u2019re back up to $75 a barrel, and he profits as do all these other dictatorships. So when you really want to talk about Big Oil, Ms. Pelosi, and robber barons, your friendly dictators that you have a tough time condemning, they\u2019re the ones raping everybody, scoring big time. They\u2019re the ones getting all the benefits, and she says that on a day that Bolivia threatens to nationalize all those fields. She\u2019s just an idiot, folks. It\u2019s just striking how such an uneducated, uninformed idiot can rise to such levels of power in the Democratic Party. Well, I guess it\u2019s not strange.<\/line>BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/line>RUSH: Okay. I have cleverly, artfully, brilliantly, intelligently and simply laid out for you what\u2019s really going on with the price of oil. I haven\u2019t included the commodities markets, but they obviously are the — in fact, you\u2019ll hear the ExxonMobil CEO claim that the commodities markets determine the price of oil. That\u2019s coming up in just a moment. Despite all this, it\u2019s an election year, and I\u2019ll tell you what. Our brave congressmen, folks, they feel our pain, and they aren\u2019t going to put up with it, and so…<\/line><\/p>\n

“Worried about the political heat from high gasoline prices, the House of Representatives is preparing to vote on a bill that would impose criminal and civil penalties on any energy company caught price gouging.” Exempt from this will be the dictators in these ten autocracies who are scoring huge profits, particularly Mahmoud in Iran for jawing the price per barrel up. “The legislation, authored by a Republican, Heather Wilson from New Mexico, calls for penalties of up to $150 million for refiners and other wholesalers and $2 million for retailers.” Okay, this is irrelevant. We just had an investigation by all these attorney generals and so forth in all these states.<\/line>They can\u2019t find any evidence of price gouging! They can\u2019t find it; they can\u2019t prove it, and of course that doesn\u2019t matter. Heather Wilson and the members of Congress want you to know that they\u2019re looking out for you. A little economics question here. We keep hearing about the windfall profits tax, which is an excess profits tax. I mean, that right there is bad enough. It\u2019s bad enough to call these captains of industry from the nineteenth century, the twentieth century robber barons. They were not robber barons. These were the people that set this country up for prosperity, people like Henry Ford and the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, John Jacob Astor.<\/line>They made huge contributions to the prosperity that we live for today and experience today. “Oh no, they were the robber barons.” Now we gotta go to the same people they called captains of industry robber barons. Now we\u2019re gonna have the excess profits tax. When you hear windfall, think excess. Somebody is going to sit there and determine what\u2019s too much. Who? Brilliant congressmen and senators who couldn\u2019t produce a drop of gasoline at the pump if their lives depended on it. So, you\u2019ve heard that previous attempts at windfall profits taxes have actually not worked and that they have reduced supplies. My simple question is, “How does that happen?” There\u2019s an economic reason for this, and it has nothing to do with duplicity or gouging or anything else. <\/line> If you are Big Oil, and you know that Congress is going to slap you with a windfall profits tax, but it\u2019s only going to be temporary, they can\u2019t keep it permanent, the history is it only goes on temporarily. If you have an asset to sell, in this case Big Oil, you sell refined products from oil, you know that its value is going to go higher. It always does in time. So do you sell that now with this penalty tax in place, or do you hold it for future sale at a higher price when the political punishment tax dies of failure? Because that\u2019s exactly what happens. It\u2019s supply and demand. You tax an activity, you get less of the activity. You tax a commodity, you get less of the commodity. You put a windfall profits tax on oil, and they\u2019re just going to withhold it from the market to avoid paying the tax. Ergo, we\u2019re going to have shortages. They\u2019ll release it when the price goes higher, when there is no windfall profits tax. It doesn\u2019t work; it can\u2019t work; it won\u2019t work; it never has worked; don\u2019t buy it.<\/line><\/p>\n

END TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: The Democrats think they\u2019re on a roll. They\u2019re confident as they can be. Gas prices, the higher they go, they are convinced — just remember when Gephardt was happy when the stock market was plummeting? For every point drop or ten point drop in the stock market or every hundred point drop they picked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nIt's Big Dictator, Not Big Oil Robber Barons - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2006\/05\/03\/it_s_big_dictator_not_big_oil_robber_barons\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"It's Big Dictator, Not Big Oil Robber Barons - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: The Democrats think they\u2019re on a roll. 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