{"id":31558,"date":"2009-01-29T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:50:09","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T02:50:09","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:50:09","slug":"callers_on_debt_and_responsibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2009\/01\/29\/callers_on_debt_and_responsibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Callers on Debt and Responsibility"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: Bismarck, North Dakota. Boy, it\u2019s been a long time since we had a call from North Dakota! It\u2019s good to know that they haven\u2019t all moved out of there. Mike, it\u2019s nice to have you on the EIB Network.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Thank you.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I know you say you don\u2019t get mad, and I gotta tell you, I\u2019m mad, I\u2019m disappointed, and I\u2019m frustrated. This coming from a 37-year-old man with a 35-year-old wife, middle class family, I would say. I\u2019ve been working for 14 years since college. On average we probably make about $42,000 a year. We have four kids, one on the way in April. Yes, we\u2019re going to have a kid during the New Great Depression, and I guess I\u2019ve always been told that the American dream is working hard and making good choices.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Now we have no mortgage. We have no debt. We live, I think, pretty comfortably because we\u2019ve managed our money and lived well within our means.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Hang on a minute. You\u2019ve lost people. People need to hear what you\u2019re doing here. Did I hear you correctly that you and your wife on average make $42,000?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah, on average over the last 14 years, yeah.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Last 14 years, since college.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes, sir.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Do you have a home, a house?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah, I have about a $165,000 home.<\/p>\n

RUSH: And you don\u2019t have a mortgage?<\/p>\n

CALLER: I have no mortgage.<\/p>\n

RUSH: You have no debt on that house?<\/p>\n

CALLER: I have no debt at all.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, this is fabulous. Don\u2019t misunderstand here, but people are going to wonder how in the hell you did that.<\/p>\n

CALLER: We lived way beneath our means.<\/p>\n

RUSH: You\u2019ve got $165,000 house. You paid cash for it, or you paid it off?<\/p>\n

CALLER: We e paid it off.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Oh, you did have a mortgage. You just paid it off?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, I haven\u2019t had a mortgage for over two years.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay. All right, and all of this on $42,000 a year for the last 14 years?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yep.<\/p>\n

RUSH: On average. All right. So the reason that\u2019s important is… I know you\u2019re in North Dakota, and things are, you know, they cost less there that in other states, but still, that\u2019s amazing that you can do that.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, just back up a little bit. We moved from the state of Michigan out to North Dakota in 2006. So we did this while living in the state of Michigan, too.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Damn! I don\u2019t understand that. No, I guarantee you there are people asking, ‘How does he do that?\u2019 This is a combined income for you and your wife, 42 grand a year, in Michigan?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n

RUSH: And you paid off your mortgage on your $165,000 house two years ago.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Whew!<\/p>\n

CALLER: My question is —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Wait, the house in Michigan or the house in North Dakota?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, we pretty much had the house in Michigan paid off. When we moved down here it cost me some money to move out here and housing wasn\u2019t as cheap out here as we had anticipated, because housing out here is going —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay. I get it. All right. I\u2019m sorry for interrupting you, but I\u2019m sure people were curious about that. So you, you\u2019re 42,000, you have four kids, did you say?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Four, and one on the way, yep.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Four and one on the way, and you started to say you\u2019ve worked hard, you\u2019ve done the American dream, you followed the rules, but you\u2019re mad?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah, \u2019cause I… You know, I\u2019m confused. I\u2019m extremely confused. I thought I was educated and I thought I was doing things right, and no one\u2019s talking about me and my wife doing a good job and recognizing us, but we\u2019re recognizing everyone now everybody else who\u2019s made poor decisions and we\u2019re going to help those folks out because we feel bad for them. I know that\u2019s a little bit sarcastic, but I\u2019m confused.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, I understand your confusion. Well, actually no. What are you confused about? Why are you confused that we have a government of majority Democrats who want to make as many people victims as possible and prop \u2019em up? Why does that surprise you? That\u2019s been going on for a lot of years.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I mean, it doesn\u2019t surprise me. It just frustrates me that when you do things the right way and you try to live the American dream, there\u2019s really no kudos to you for doing the right thing.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, to certain people, that\u2019s right. To many liberals, you playing by the rules and prospering, that\u2019s not fair, because there\u2019s so many people who haven\u2019t. This bailout, this stimulus — whatever you want to call the porkulus bill — it\u2019s from people like you that money is going to be taken to pay the people who have failed, the businesses propped up which have failed and so forth. You\u2019re not alone in your anger here. How about the guy still paying his mortgage and he\u2019s barely making the payment, and yet people who can\u2019t pay are being told, ‘The house can\u2019t be foreclosed on; they\u2019ve gotta stay there.\u2019 How do you think those people feel, while the value of their home has plummeted at the same time!<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, again, you gotta make good choices. Maybe they\u2019ve made bad choices and maybe they move out.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, no, assuming they made the right choices other than maybe who they voted for, is the point. There\u2019s some people who want to change the rules you play by in the middle of the game. But the notion of propping up… Dick Gephardt said it: ‘People who won life\u2019s lottery,\u2019 meaning success like yours is just good luck, and that\u2019s not fair, because some people have had bad luck. They want to pick the winners and losers. You know, I\u2019m frustrated, too. The thing that frustrates me is that what\u2019s right in front of everybody\u2019s eyes — the destructive nature of liberalism — somehow isn\u2019t seen. And it\u2019s really nothing more than public relations. Liberalism wins the PR battle, as compassionate and caring and so forth; and conservatism is seen as mean-spirited, cold-hearted, cruel. That kind of thing is partially why we\u2019re where we are now, everything being 180 degrees out of phase. It\u2019ll change around, but it\u2019s still, ladies and gentlemen, going to have a profound impact before they overreach and get thrown out and replaced. So batten down the hatches. <\/p>\n

Mike in Foxborough, Massachusetts. It\u2019s great to have you here, sir. Hello.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Good afternoon, Rush. It\u2019s a pleasure.<\/p>\n

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

CALLER: I guess it\u2019s thermal underwear-wearing dittos here from chilly Foxboro, Massachusetts —<\/p>\n

RUSH: (laughing)<\/p>\n

CALLER: — home of the New England Patriots, and go Steelers!<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah, my sentiments are with you, pal.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Okay, well, look, on the side, I started… I\u2019m looking for my 20-year chevron on here for listening to you, a former employer of mine had turned me on to you. You were on an obscure western Massachusetts station, back in I think I was like \u201988 — \u201987 or \u201988.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I remember that obscure western Massachusetts station. It was near Amherst. I went up there and did a Rush to Excellence Tour at some point. I forget what the station was.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Oh, excellent. That\u2019s correct.<\/p>\n

RUSH: It might even still be on that station. With me on it, it is no longer obscure.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Oh, boy, I\u2019ll tell you it took a lot to pull it in. (laughs)<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, of course you\u2019re in Foxboro. You\u2019re all the across the state. It was a low power radio station. I think it was thousand watts, or maybe 5,000. But at least you made the effort, see. That\u2019s what Coach Dungy was talking about. You reached up from common status and you became uncommon by doing what you could to pull in that signal from the obscure station in the western part of the state.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Oh, God love you. (laughing) Well, look, as I spoke with Bo, which was also an honor; I want to talk about the great economic news that we received today, which I read this morning in the Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah?<\/p>\n

CALLER: And that is that China is not going to buy our paper and that —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Just a second, Mike. You have to remember that there are Obama voters listening here, and they had no clue what you mean, ‘The Chinese aren\u2019t going to buy our paper.\u2019 What paper? What he means, folks, is that the Chinese are no longer going to buy our Treasury bills and invest in our national debt. <\/p>\n

CALLER: Right.<\/p>\n

RUSH: These Obama people might think you\u2019re talking about the New York Times, and that would upset them.<\/p>\n

CALLER: (laughing) Oh, you got me there. Well, as an update, everybody should read that the Chinese are taking a hard look, they\u2019ve made a lot of investments in this country — and also it\u2019s time to reexamine Alan Greenspan\u2019s statements to Congress about ‘irrational exuberance\u2019 and in that same time frame, he did talk about the amount of debt that the Chinese were buying from the United States.<\/p>\n

RUSH: A lot of people have been concerned about the ChiComs and the level of our debt that they hold because if they decided to call it, we\u2019re up a creek. Now, they won\u2019t. They wouldn\u2019t do it because they\u2019re too dependent on this economy thriving. We are a consumer of Chinese goods. Cheap, expensive, lead-filled or not, we are a consumer of Chinese goods, cars and televisions. They\u2019re getting into all kinds of things: computer parts, computers, many iPhones made in China. Milk products. Milk, eggs. There are a lot of high-end shoes and so forth are made in China. I wouldn\u2019t worry, Mike, because nobody, nobody is buying all of this debt. We are printing some of this debt! There\u2019s nobody buying all this, except some of the debt\u2019s being purchased, of course. But the ChiComs have gotten out of the game. We\u2019re printing this, and I\u2019m amazed that inflation hasn\u2019t ticked up yet with all this. It has to at some point. It has to, and when that happens, whew! They gotta somehow do what they can to tame that, because that\u2019s the biggest wealth killer that comes down the pike and that\u2019s another one of the ancillary effects of this, all this spending, that you don\u2019t even want to contemplate. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Bismarck, North Dakota. Boy, it\u2019s been a long time since we had a call from North Dakota! It\u2019s good to know that they haven\u2019t all moved out of there. Mike, it\u2019s nice to have you on the EIB Network. CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush. RUSH: Thank you. 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