{"id":30404,"date":"2008-09-15T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T03:20:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T03:20:24","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T03:20:24","slug":"capitalism_isn_t_the_problem_government_caused_this_crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2008\/09\/15\/capitalism_isn_t_the_problem_government_caused_this_crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitalism Isn\u2019t the Problem: Government Caused This Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
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RUSH: Let\u2019s go to this market business. Let me just tell you one thing about this Lehman Brothers business. If you have, for example, a 401(k) and it\u2019s being handled by Lehman Brothers (they filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy today) if you have a 401(k) being handled by Lehman Brothers, it\u2019s fine. You own the asset. Lehman Brothers does not. Just because they go south doesn\u2019t mean that your 401(k) goes south with them. To me this is really not complicated at all, but it\u2019s sad in the sense that the correct lessons here are not going to be learned. Have you noticed that it is government-regulated enterprises and government institutions themselves that are struggling and dragging down big chunks of the economy, and I would include the Drive-By Media with that as an ancillary, but it\u2019s Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and they are government owned and operated, and they went south. Guess what happened? All of these government-regulated enterprises, like the home mortgage business and the financial business, every one of these institutions is being regulated by government. There is no pure free market operating here. <\/p>\n

The housing market was fine, folks. The market was chugging along until Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac decided to prime the pump for the last several years. Prime it they did, they encouraged all kinds of mortgages that required little or nothing down, resulted in people buying the homes that they could never afford, driving home prices beyond what was realistic. What we have now here is not a crash in the home price business, the home value business. We have a correction going on because the free market was tampered with here in a gross and obvious way. Look, I\u2019m not making this up. The new standards that the government has now imposed on loans for homes is that the people getting loans have to show some ability to pay it back. Prior to that, there wasn\u2019t. This was the American dream. This was about getting minorities and poor people who couldn\u2019t afford a house into a house. It was Washington politicians, primarily liberals who run Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, buying votes, as it always is, using the public till to advance their own careers and to enlarge their back pockets. The market responds to this kind of government behavior. The president and the Congress, they both did this, insisted that more mortgages be made to poorer and poorer people which meant that people with few assets and an inability to pay should the economy begin to sour, get loans, and that\u2019s exactly what happened. <\/p>\n

The dollar itself has been hurt by the government\u2019s massive debt, entitlements, all of these massive unfunded obligations, government guarantees of pension plans and savings accounts and all the rest. When General Motors can\u2019t make the pension plan work, when Delta Airlines can\u2019t afford it anymore, there\u2019s a government agency that picks it up. Who do you think is paying for all this? You are. Except they are borrowing money because the taxes they raise from us are not enough to cover everything that they\u2019re doing here to try to manipulate just the social concerns that they all have for the people who live in the country. So you have massive, massive unfunded obligations. Think Social Security and Medicare, just to name two. All of this encourages irresponsible risk taking and distorts normal market conditions because everybody involved in these institutions at some point thinks the government will bail them out if it all goes wrong, and in the recent past, we\u2019ve seen that that is the case. So the people that are in charge of these things are not being punished, their names are not in klieg lights or marquee lights like Ken Lay\u2019s was. I mean, how come the people responsible for this are not being tarred and feathered like Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers at WorldCom and so forth? <\/p>\n

Nobody is going to jail here, and I\u2019ll tell you why, \u2019cause they\u2019re all liberal Democrats, they\u2019re all appointed by liberal Democrats. Chris Dodd, why is his name not mentioned? He was very much involved in the Countrywide mortgage business, sweetheart loans and interest rates, we can\u2019t have that, we can\u2019t have Chris Dodd\u2019s name mentioned, no, no, no. But we can tar Ken Lay all we want and Bernie Ebbers. Not that they shouldn\u2019t have been, but what\u2019s good for the goose is good for the gander. So easier credit, more and more money pumped into the system by the Treasury Department increasing the financial obligations of the taxpayer with all of these out-of-control entitlements, and yet they\u2019re now trying to lay the blame on the free market. And how are they doing that? Snerdley, tell me. You tell me. How are they trying to lay the blame on the free market? I\u2019m going to give you the code language for this. No, it\u2019s very simple. When they talk about needing more regulation, ‘We need to regulate this more,\u2019 they\u2019re telling you that the free market has screwed this up. They\u2019re telling you that capitalism is responsible for this. So we need more regulation. <\/p>\n

The people that destroyed the mortgage industry and plummeted the value of homes now run it 100%. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been totally 100% taken over, for example. (interruption) What would happen if these companies crash? What do you call Lehman Brothers? They\u2019re going Chapter 11. I don\u2019t know if you\u2019d call it an absolute crash. This is another thing. Too much of the financial community and the Drive-By financial media department, they\u2019re looking for a crash, they\u2019re hoping for one. I\u2019m channel surfing around these investment business networks and they\u2019re hoping for one. The market opened down 300, rebounded minus 60, now it\u2019s down 300, it\u2019s not crashing. What we have are sell offs, profit taking and so forth. It ain\u2019t crashing. The market is not crashing. Look, everybody has a lot of nervousness about all this when these financial institutions start going this way, we gotta bail them out, that\u2019s how they rely on continued support from the government being more and more involved. What people have to understand is that it\u2019s government regulation and government involvement that\u2019s caused all this. It may be too late here in these particular instances to do anything about it, and it may be too late, period, for a while. It\u2019s going to keep happening. This is not over. <\/p>\n

Wait \u2019til the same thing happens to Social Security. Wait \u2019til the same thing happens to Medicare. It\u2019s coming and everybody knows it, but this current bunch in Washington is trying to pass that off and pad it so that it happens under somebody else\u2019s watch down the road, but it\u2019s coming, the same kind of thing. At some point, folks, both of those programs are gonna reach the point where they\u2019re going to be bankrupt. Either that or the American people are all going to face a 78% income tax rate. And of course that won\u2019t fly because people will simply stop working. The dirty little secret is this is not a purely free market anymore, and the free market is not responsible for this. Capitalism is not responsible for this. Now, we do have, and I will admit this, I think that the temptation to keep up with the Joneses on Wall Street among CEOs and some of these people we\u2019re paying gazillion dollar bonuses when the company did not report profits and this sort of thing, this whole northeastern culture, I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s liberal, I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s the financial markets or whatever, but they\u2019re all trying to keep up with each other buying houses in the Hamptons. They\u2019re all trying to keep up on material possessions and bragging about how big their bonus was or what their total financial package is, the golden parachute and so forth, and there have been a lot of people playing with money that\u2019s not theirs, because they knew the government would step in if it reached a crisis. But which came first? <\/p>\n

It\u2019s sort of like campaign finance reform. Remember when all the advocates of campaign finance reform said we need this because the system is corrupting good people, right? We have a system here, too much money in politics corrupting good people. No. The system was fine. Corrupt people, corrupt a system. A system, by the way, designed by these very people who claimed the system corrupted them. So when you have the federal government involved, which is the point I\u2019m trying to make, when you have the federal government involved in regulation and bailouts and so forth, it eliminates the whole notion of risk, and it is risk that causes responsibility. So there hasn\u2019t been any responsibility in any of this, because the risk in these people\u2019s minds hasn\u2019t really existed. Capitalism is full of risk. The government isn\u2019t. When does the government ever report a down business cycle? The government always grows, does it not? In fact, the government is not allowed to report a down business cycle. <\/p>\n

So here you have people with their emotions running raw, after 50 years of FDR-led attitudes about the benevolence of government, most people, ‘I don\u2019t care about the theory, Rush, I don\u2019t care what you\u2019re saying, you may be right, but you can\u2019t afford to go bankrupt along with all these other people. If the government is going to bail it out, thank God for the government \u2019cause if the government is going to save me, then thank God for the government.\u2019 That\u2019s the attitude that people have here. What you don\u2019t understand is that this is going to keep happening, and a genuine, genuine crash at some point is gonna happen someday, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be in our lifetimes, but certainly in your kids or grandkids\u2019 lifetimes, is not going to be averted unless somebody gets a handle on this. Oil is down to 96 bucks a barrel today. The Dow Jones opened up at minus 173, it rebounded a little bit so it\u2019s coming up from where it was 10 or 15 minutes ago. The dollar is now surging against the euro and a number of other currencies. Wall Street firms are failing because they took on bad mortgages given to deadbeats who didn\u2019t deserve them, not because of Bush policies. And who made them do this? It was an act of Congress. Too many of these people in Washington want to pander, and that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happening now. The thing that really distresses me is at the end of the day on all this, people are going to end up with a conclusion that capitalism doesn\u2019t work, that capitalism is what\u2019s flawed here and it\u2019s not. When they start talking about regulation as Senator McCain did in Jacksonville, ‘We need more regulation.\u2019 No, Senator, with all due respect, we need some accountability for a change. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Senator McCain in Jacksonville, Florida, said, ‘Wall Street turmoil underscores the need to overhaul ‘the outdated and ineffective patchwork quilt of regulatory oversight in Washington.\u2019 In a statement issued in advance of market openings, the Arizona senator said he agreed there should be no taxpayer-financed bailout of Lehman Brothers even as the investment banking giant faced the specter of liquidation. Meanwhile, Merrill Lynch was selling itself to Bank of America for less than half of the iconic brokerage firm\u2019s recent value.\u2019 You know who\u2019s keeping a sharp eye on all this? Abu Dhabi, Dubai. You can\u2019t blame them. They\u2019re looking at opportunities here. Senator McCain again, with all due respect, accountability is what\u2019s needed here, accountability by those in the government who are largely responsible for the policies and the corruption that did this. It breaks my heart. Folks, it breaks my heart to see capitalism get the blame here even by people on our side running around talking about ‘We need more regulation.\u2019 That\u2019s code language for the free market can\u2019t handle itself. Accountability and regulations are not the same thing. People want accountability. I don\u2019t think they care much about all these regulations. <\/p>\n

This stuff is serious. Where is the special prosecutor? Where\u2019s Eliot Ness when you need him? This is a monumental failure of government and government regulation and Congress, and they are passing this off as a monumental failure of the private sector. To say that we need more government, more regulations, is to say nothing at all useful. What we need is accountability. Real reform, I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m sick and tired of hearing about the word reform from every politician on the sump in this campaign because the word ‘reform\u2019 is a code word for more government. Staring us right in the face is the failure of government to deal with these kind of things by micromanaging it, by regulating it, by politicizing all these institutions. Why is it we know Ken Lay\u2019s name but not the names of all of those people involved in this scandal? I\u2019ll tell you why. Because the names of people involved in this scandal are names like Dodd, Chris Dodd, Connecticut, Franklin Raines, currently on the Obama economic team, had to leave Fannie Mae in embarrassment over fraud charges. Jim Johnson, currently on the Obama campaign as an economic advisor with Frank Raines, he, too, used to work at Fannie Mae. <\/p>\n

For all the trashing of Halliburton — stop and think of this — for five years we heard nothing but Halliburton\u2019s rotten this, Halliburton\u2019s rotten, Halliburton is stealing, this Halliburton-Cheney and so forth, the political class and the Drive-Bys, the liberals have trashed Halliburton, but Halliburton never did anything like this. Halliburton\u2019s big crime was to provide support for our troops. Why not the same treatment toward Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? And again, I\u2019ll tell you why, because they are what they are and did what they did because of liberal politicians in Washington. Republicans, you should know this, Republicans are not good at telling their own story. Republicans have called for reform for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae for years. They were beaten back by lobbyists for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, who worked the Chris Dodds and the Barney Franks who oversaw them. It was Barney Frank and Chris Dodd who oversaw the banking committee guys. These are government-backed entities. They didn\u2019t have to keep the same amount of core cash on hand to cover the loans they had out as free market banks were required to keep on hand. You got banks in trouble, sure, but Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were on the floor, and no one calls Dodd to explain what he was doing protecting these people. These outfits were making political contributions, over a million dollars in one instance to the Reverend Jackson and his Monochrome Coalition, for crying out loud. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: I\u2019m holding here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers a piece from September the 10th. This is five days ago. I have been saving this piece. It\u2019s a blog post by a man named Robert Higgs at the UK Independent.com. I just told the trustworthy, very loyal and marginally helpful staff here, ladies and gentlemen, I doubt what I\u2019m saying is mollifying anybody, which is quite a shame, because it doesn\u2019t get to the real world circumstances that people fear right now, but we do talk about the future on this program a lot, and that\u2019s what this piece is about. ‘The failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, setting in motion the biggest government bailout\/takeover in US history, brings a grim sense of fulfillment to competent economists. After all, what did people expect, that water would flow uphill forever? This financial mega-mess is the same sort of event as the collapse of the USSR\u2019s centrally planned economy, another economically unworkable Rube Goldberg apparatus that was kept going, more or less badly, for decades before it fell apart completely. Along the way, of course, famous (yet actually unsound) economists assured the world that everything was working out splendidly. As late as 1989, when the pillars were crumbling on all sides of the temple, Nobel Prize winner Paul A. Samuelson informed readers of his widely used textbook, ‘The Soviet economy is proof that … a socialist command economy can function and even thrive,” and to this day this kind of garbage is being taught. This is one year before the Berlin Wall came down. A highly respected economist talking about how the Soviet socialist command economy can function and even thrive.<\/p>\n

‘In the future, we will see a similar breakdown of the US government\u2019s Social Security system, with its ill-fated pension system and its even more inauspicious Medicare system of financing health care for the elderly. These government schemes are fighting a losing battle against demographic realities, the laws of economics, and the rules of arithmetic. The question is not whether they will fail, but when — and then how the government that can no longer sustain them in their previous Ponzi-scheme form will alter them to salvage what little can be salvaged with minimal damage to the government itself.\u2019 And isn\u2019t that what\u2019s happened here? Essentially Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac go south. What happened, the government takes them over to make sure there\u2019s no damage to them. Government will do whatever it takes to see to it that there is little damage to it. Damage defined as having to do with a little less money next year than they did this year, as one example. <\/p>\n

‘Our political economy is rife with such catastrophes in waiting, yet the public always seems startled, and outraged, when the day of reckoning can no longer be deferred, and another apartment collapses in the state\u2019s Hotel of Impossible Promises.\u2019 What a great way to put it, the hotel of impossible promises and an apartment now and then will collapse, ‘loading onto the taxpayers more visibly the burden of sheltering the previous occupants. Each of these time bombs has at least one element in common–‘ meaning Social Security, Medicare, pension reform, whatever, ‘–it promises current benefits, often seemingly without cost; but if it must acknowledge a substantial cost, it places that burden somewhere in the distant future, where it will be borne by somebody else. … Call it democracy in action or utterly corrupt governance; they are the same thing.\u2019 By democracy in action what he means is mob rule. He\u2019s not talking about a representative republic. <\/p>\n

‘The architecture of the Hotel of Impossible Promises is not arcane. All competent economists understand these things. Ludwig von Mises explained as early as 1920 why a centrally planned economy could not work as a rational system of allocating resources,\u2019 and yet today, ladies and gentlemen, the Democrat Party\u2019s presidential team is campaigning on the age-old liberal Democrat Party theme that only they can allocate resources fairly, that capitalism is unfair, inherently, that wrong people end up with too much, and that good people end up getting screwed and have much less than the corrupt, big rich people. They\u2019re going to change that because they\u2019re going to get hold of the government and they\u2019re going to reallocate resources so that everybody\u2019s treated more fairly. Throughout history, when this has been tried to varying degrees, it has always failed. And yet that history doesn\u2019t seem to make an impression on very many people. <\/p>\n

‘The reasons why Social Security, especially its Medicare component, and many other such government programs contain the seeds of their own destruction have been explained time and again. Are the politicians who construct these structures really such idiots that they cannot understand the logic of what they are doing? Not at all. But they are not striving to create economically viable institutions that serve the general public interest,\u2019 and that is the dirty little secret. Everybody thinks that all these social problems, all these entitlements are born of benevolence, that they are born of good-heartedness, big-heartedness, compassion, politicians who care for the downtrodden, who want to make sure the downtrodden don\u2019t get too trodden down by the big, rich people, who are inherently unfair and mean-spirited and extremist, except when they\u2019re Democrats by the name of Chris Dodd and otherwise. And yet, they know full well that what they\u2019re doing is a scheme, it is a Ponzi scheme, and it doesn\u2019t work. Despite all of these programs, who\u2019s getting rich off of them, other than the people who design them and the people who lobby for them? Who\u2019s getting rich off these programs? <\/p>\n

The intent, as they sell these programs, is that you\u2019re going to be okay, you\u2019re going to be fine, you\u2019re going to be taken care of, your lifestyle is going to go up, your lifestyle is going to be enhanced. Never happens, because it can\u2019t. It will not work. They\u2019re not working in the public interest, the people who design these programs. They are feathering their own electoral nests. FDR, Social Security, the whole point of Social Security with FDR was to ensure never-ending power for the Democrat Party by identifying it as the party that cares more about you and is going to make sure you never have to suffer at all at any time for any reason, even in your retirement. And people bought it. This then is how they ‘feather their own electoral nests in the only way they can in the context of our political institutions. As H. L. Mencken explained back in 1940, the politicians understand that ‘votes are collared under democracy, not by talking sense but by talking nonsense,” by pandering. And what are we getting today? We\u2019re getting nonsense, we\u2019re getting, ‘We need more regulation in these markets.\u2019 Regulation and involvement by the government in these markets is what\u2019s killed them. We\u2019re getting nonsense. <\/p>\n

But they\u2019re not dummies because they know that most people look at the government as the savior in this situation because most people see government as an unlimited stash of money. ‘If you think that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac\u2019s bust –‘ remember, this is five days ago. This is written before all this stuff with Lehman Brothers hit. ‘If you think that Fannie and Freddie\u2019s bust is a big deal, just wait until Medicare comes crashing down. Then, the wailing and gnashing of teeth will be truly unbearable,\u2019 because the beneficiaries of Medicare, Social Security, the elderly, they pay strict attention, they think that they\u2019re still to this day receiving in benefits what they paid in. You imagine the day when some new elderly come along and are told, ‘We don\u2019t have it anymore.\u2019 ‘What do you mean? I\u2019ve been paying for it all my life, just give me back what I paid.\u2019 ‘Sorry, we don\u2019t have it because we\u2019ve been doing other things with it. But we\u2019ll bail you out somehow, we\u2019ll raise taxes or we\u2019ll do something.\u2019 <\/p>\n

‘As that day rapidly approaches, however, you\u2019ll notice that the politicians are doing utterly nothing to forestall it.\u2019 There was an effort to reform Social Security, it lasted, what was it, six months? There is not one thing being done to fix any of this, folks, not one thing. They\u2019re still papering over the big problem, which is government regulation and no accountability. And of course right on cue, right on cue comes the community agitator and organizer, the Lord Messiah, Barack Obama, the Most Merciful, who today said that the upheaval on Wall Street was the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. He\u2019s copying that from Greenspan. He has yet to have an original thought, or he\u2019s copying it from the Clinton campaign of 1992, the worst economy of the last 50 years, he\u2019s blaming it on policies that he said Republican rival John McCain supports. Obama said the country can\u2019t afford another four years of this failed philosophy. <\/p>\n

Senator Obama, what the government can\u2019t afford is you. We simply cannot afford you in any way, shape, manner, or form, financial, cultural, political, structural, what have you; and we certainly can\u2019t afford people who believe that the solution to problems that they\u2019ve caused is to promote the people who caused the problem. Where is the accountability? Where are the heads rolling? Where are the investigations? Where\u2019s the US attorney\u2019s office? Where\u2019s the special prosecutor? Where are people looking into this like they do when it happens in the free market? Where are the heads rolling? Where are the people targeted for jail here? You don\u2019t see it happening because their names happen to be people who are associated for the most part with the working Washington political class, which will do anything it can to see to it that its institutions are not harmed. Only yours. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: I think it\u2019s safe to say here, ladies and gentlemen, that houses for people who cannot afford houses is a failed experiment, sort of like the Great Society is a failed experiment. I would say this. This whole housing business is one of the biggest liberal failures since the Great Society. The problem is the Great Society is not considered a failure in many people\u2019s minds. Lehman Brothers, Chapter 11 bankruptcy today. Obama has raised $395,574 from employees of Lehman Brothers, that\u2019s second only to Hillary Clinton. Chris Dodd and Chuck Schumer did quite nicely, too. McCain is seventh among the firm\u2019s favorite politicians, although he is Lehman\u2019s favorite Republican. McCain raised $145,100, but clearly Lehman Brothers gave big to Democrat candidates. And they are histoire. Sarah Palin today was in Golden, Colorado, on the stump, a campaign event. She had a couple things to say. One was the whole notion of bailing out Lehman Brothers.<\/p>\n

PALIN: I want to talk real quickly about the turmoil in our financial markets. This crisis is an issue of real concern not only for those in our financial markets, but for the people across this great country. It\u2019s taking a toll on our economy, and that means people\u2019s life savings, and I\u2019m glad to see that in this case the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have said ‘no\u2019 to using taxpayer money to bail out another one, this time Lehman Brothers.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Did you hear the cheers and applause? That\u2019s class envy speaking here and it\u2019s also understanding market economics. Lehman Brothers ought to go south, they ran the place on their own, don\u2019t bail \u2019em out, don\u2019t regulate them. Now, she has to stay on message and I told you McCain\u2019s in Jacksonville saying we need to reform the regulatory markets, so she\u2019s gotta go out there as the number two pick and basically say the same thing.<\/p>\n

PALIN: Our regulatory system is outdated and it needs a complete overhaul. Washington has ignored them. Washington has been asleep at the switch and ineffective and management on Wall Street has not run these institutions responsibly and has put companies and markets at risk. They\u2019ve placed their own interests first, instead of their employees and the shareholders who actually own these companies. So John McCain and I, we\u2019re going to put an end to the mismanagement and abuses in Washington and on Wall Street that have resulted in a financial crisis.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, given the tune she has to follow, it\u2019s not all bad. She did a little bit better than McCain did, instinctively. The regulatory system is outdated. Yeah, it is, but we don\u2019t need to add to it, it\u2019s not outdated because it\u2019s too big or too small, it\u2019s outdated \u2019cause it doesn\u2019t work. The regulatory system gave us the problem, Governor Palin. It needs a complete overhaul. Yeah, but not by the people who screwed it up in the first place. Where is Henry Waxman? He\u2019s head of government oversight. All these clown Democrats looking into impeaching Bush, going into war crimes for Bush, what the hell? There\u2019s plenty action to look at except they have to investigate each other. I\u2019m not advocating complete laissez-faire, but when you take the risk out of these markets, then you\u2019re taking away responsibility in running these markets, and when the government gets in there and basically starts bailing everybody out or promising to or even partially, then you\u2019re eliminating the risk. <\/p>\n

Look, they\u2019re letting Lehman Brothers go chapter 11, they\u2019re not bailing them out, that\u2019s a good sign, but the whole notion, like I\u2019ve been saying, we gotta regulate, reform regulation, makes it sound like the free market\u2019s what not working here, Snerdley. I\u2019ll guarantee you, laissez-faire free market would be much better than the government running it. Central planning does not work. Central planning gave us the Soviet Union. Central planning gave us North Korea. Central planning gives us Cuba. Tell me if you want to replicate that. Don\u2019t give me this laissez-faire business. Nobody is talking here about that. What we\u2019re talking about is eliminating central planning. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: People have been waiting patiently here for quite a while. Hi, Bob, nice to have you on the program, sir.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hi, Rush, super mega dittos from the land of the economically lost.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hey, first off, I want to tell you, you know how most people hate being put on hold? I love it, especially with your show, because those parodies I\u2019m hearing are far more entertaining than an entire Mitch Albom show. With that said, let me get to my point.<\/p>\n

RUSH: (laughing) You know, during our commercial breaks here when people are on hold, we feed them the net audio, we feed during our advertising holds when the stations are running local commercials, we feed just a constant rotation of the many parodies we\u2019ve had over the years, and they are funny.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah, I mean I\u2019m hoping that I can keep my thoughts straight because I was laughing so hard at some of these, and not only that when you were on I was yelling at my radio going, ‘Right on, he\u2019s saying exactly everything I\u2019ve been saying\u2019 about this whole thing about community organizer and all that. Jesus Christ was a teacher first and a carpenter. You can\u2019t apply 21st century political correctness terms. <\/p>\n

RUSH: I talked about this. This whole community organizer business, that\u2019s offensive, too.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n

RUSH: John Gotti is a community organizer. Al Sharpton is a community organizer. The American people are not idiots. Here\u2019s where these people do not get it, from Tom Brokaw to Donna Brazile to whoever, the people that they are offending think Jesus Christ is one thing: Truth. Jesus Christ is the truth. And the Pope on his visit here, he was in New York talking in one of his appearances and he said that Jesus Christ is truth. If you have any doubts, Jesus Christ is truth. This community organizer business is an effort to elevate — this is something that\u2019s so offensive. Here you have this little man-child with no experience worth talking about, lying about his resume, and they dare to criticize the work Jesus Christ did. I mean, folks, you do not know what a gaffe this continues to be. They certainly don\u2019t, either. Trust me on this.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Exactly. Hey, my main point for calling because I don\u2019t want to upset Snerdley is, I was listening to the first hour of your segment and you were talking about Lehman Brothers and the —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac —<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n

RUSH: — government screw-ups.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019m thinking, and maybe I\u2019m way off on this, I\u2019m thinking this is a calculated event on the Democrats\u2019 part. Look, if they screw everything up, which they can\u2019t be that stupid to know they\u2019re not screwing everything up, they\u2019ve got a great scapegoat in George Bush. I mean, they\u2019re so dumb that they even pushed up the thought that Katrina was Bush\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Let me ask you a question. I need to ask you specifics. What part of this, are you talking about the mortgage business or are you talking about Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae specifically, Lehman Brothers, what of this are you saying is a calculated move by the Democrats to create panic in people\u2019s minds and blame it on Bush?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, I think when you were talking about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in particular because they knew they were giving out lousy loans, it was lousy legislation, they knew they were padding their pockets, and the added bonus is, they had all their sock puppets out there in the media, and they\u2019re already ready to pass it off on Bush, you know, just like Katrina, you know, nobody bothered questioning what happened to the money that Bush allocated for the levees, where it was spent, plus anybody who took a civics class knows that the first responders to emergencies are state and local governments, not FEMA.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Look, I understand your thinking about this conspiracy. You\u2019ve got Franklin Raines, who was forced out of Fannie Mae, who is now an economic advisor to Obama. You have Jim Johnson who worked at Fannie Mae, he\u2019s now a Barack economic advisor. You think that they engineered the timing of the mortgage mess so that it would happen toward the end of the Bush administration and the campaign?<\/p>\n

CALLER: I don\u2019t know if they specifically got that specific with it, but I\u2019ve been noticing the whole eight years of the Bush presidency, I feel sorry for the man because it\u2019s damned if he does, damned if he doesn\u2019t, just like the war on terror. If nobody attacks us, he exaggerated the threat, a la Algore. If somebody does attack us, he didn\u2019t do enough to protect us. 9\/11 hasn\u2019t changed anything, our security is still inept, so I feel sorry for the man, and this is exactly what they\u2019re going to do, because I see it in the ads for change. Blame Bush, more of the same, you know.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah, but I think what you need to do is go back to the first hour and listen again to what I said, because this is a genuine problem. This is not contrived. This happened because these people, whether they wanted it to hurt Bush or not, they\u2019ve hurt themselves. If it weren\u2019t for this bailout, there would be a lot of them in the gutter. This is about the government, the Washington political class saving itself in the guise of saving you. Their first and foremost is to save themselves, not blame it on Bush. It\u2019s something that\u2019s been foretold by events. You cannot make never-ending loans to people who can\u2019t pay \u2019em back, because when those people can\u2019t pay \u2019em back they\u2019re not going to pay \u2019em back. And when they don\u2019t pay \u2019em back somebody\u2019s going to get stuck with worthless paper, and they\u2019re not getting stuck with worthless paper on purpose, just so they can harm Bush. They got into this because liberals run Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as nothing more than little instruments of their own political advancement and survival, they dole out campaign contributions to Democrats, candidates and so forth. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s two entities that are involved in the mortgage business,and they\u2019re giving Jesse Jackson a million and a half dollars in grants? There\u2019s far more involved in this than you know. But the thing to recall here, the thing to never let go of is that the very cure for this is the problem. The people who destroyed the home mortgage business are now totally in charge of it, while blaming the free market and capitalism. This is not about blaming Bush. This is socialists at war with capitalism doing what they can to tar and feather capitalism so that more and more people will accept more and more government in charge of more and more free enterprise, because that equals their power. Plus, they\u2019re not idiots. They know that this can\u2019t be sustained forever. Just as long as it can be sustained while they\u2019re alive, so that they have power while they\u2019re alive and that they can enjoy life when they\u2019re alive, but they know the bill is going to come due at some point. They\u2019re just going to make sure it doesn\u2019t come due when they\u2019re around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Let\u2019s go to this market business. Let me just tell you one thing about this Lehman Brothers business. If you have, for example, a 401(k) and it\u2019s being handled by Lehman Brothers (they filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy today) if you have a 401(k) being handled by Lehman Brothers, it\u2019s fine. You own the […]<\/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":"\nCapitalism Isn't the Problem: Government Caused This Crisis - 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:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/daily\/2008\/09\/15\/capitalism_isn_t_the_problem_government_caused_this_crisis\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Capitalism Isn't the Problem: Government Caused This Crisis - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Let\u2019s go to this market business. Let me just tell you one thing about this Lehman Brothers business. If you have, for example, a 401(k) and it\u2019s being handled by Lehman Brothers (they filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy today) if you have a 401(k) being handled by Lehman Brothers, it\u2019s fine. You own the […]\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/01125107.Par.89380.ImageFile.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"30 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/\",\"name\":\"The Rush Limbaugh Show\",\"description\":\"Excellence In Broadcasting\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/daily\/2008\/09\/15\/capitalism_isn_t_the_problem_government_caused_this_crisis\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/01125107.Par.89380.ImageFile.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/01125107.Par.89380.ImageFile.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/daily\/2008\/09\/15\/capitalism_isn_t_the_problem_government_caused_this_crisis\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/daily\/2008\/09\/15\/capitalism_isn_t_the_problem_government_caused_this_crisis\/\",\"name\":\"Capitalism Isn't the Problem: Government Caused This Crisis - The Rush Limbaugh Show\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/daily\/2008\/09\/15\/capitalism_isn_t_the_problem_government_caused_this_crisis\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-05-19T03:20:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-05-19T03:20:24+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/#\/schema\/person\/911066e449df26406b107ca78cbbde0b\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/daily\/2008\/09\/15\/capitalism_isn_t_the_problem_government_caused_this_crisis\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/daily\/2008\/09\/15\/capitalism_isn_t_the_problem_government_caused_this_crisis\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/daily\/2008\/09\/15\/capitalism_isn_t_the_problem_government_caused_this_crisis\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Capitalism Isn\\u2019t the Problem: Government Caused This Crisis\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/#\/schema\/person\/911066e449df26406b107ca78cbbde0b\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f18195e0073013fa0e16b040686c2924?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f18195e0073013fa0e16b040686c2924?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"admin\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/author\/admin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Capitalism Isn't the Problem: Government Caused This Crisis - The Rush Limbaugh Show","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/daily\/2008\/09\/15\/capitalism_isn_t_the_problem_government_caused_this_crisis\/","twitter_card":"summary","twitter_title":"Capitalism Isn't the Problem: Government Caused This Crisis - The Rush Limbaugh Show","twitter_description":"RUSH: Let\u2019s go to this market business. Let me just tell you one thing about this Lehman Brothers business. If you have, for example, a 401(k) and it\u2019s being handled by Lehman Brothers (they filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy today) if you have a 401(k) being handled by Lehman Brothers, it\u2019s fine. 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