RUSH: ‘Minorities Worry More About the Housing Slump.’ Really? Can we count on the Drive-By Media to constantly tell us on any economic story where the news is bad, that women and minorities are hardest hit? As usual, ‘African-Americans and Hispanics are far more worried than whites about declining U.S. house prices, and are three times more likely to say it is getting tougher to obtain a home loan, a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday shows… The nationwide telephone survey of 1,020 likely voters was conducted August 9-11, when concerns about tightening credit terms sparked a global stock market slide. Some 60 percent of African-Americans said they were very concerned about declining home prices, compared with just 19 percent of whites. A third of Hispanics said they were very concerned. Zogby said the findings reflect growing economic uncertainty and a feeling of declining hope among minorities, even as consumer confidence surveys show Americans overall feeling generally upbeat. Zogby said, ‘It’s a bifurcated country.”
Now, the purpose of this story is class envy. We’re not equal, folks. We don’t have equality of outcomes. This is an injustice. It’s always women and minorities and the poor who are hardest hit by downturns in the economy. Maybe, my friends, the answer would be to stop whining about it and look to why this is the difference, or why there is a difference. Instead of denigrating whites because they’re successful and optimistic, why don’t people go out and try to emulate ’em? The thing about this that’s always amazed me with liberalism and the Drive-By Media is when you have economic disparities (and you’re always going to have them), liberals seek to fix them by lowering those at the top. Punish them, tax them, make it tougher on them, rather than elevate people at the bottom, which is more Conservatism 101. We want to try to elevate those at the bottom, motivate them, inspire them, and give them confidence.
Most people have no clue how good they can be. They have no idea what’s inside them because they haven’t had anybody around them that had high expectations of them, and if they’ve been around liberals and Democrats all their lives they’re going to be told that they have no prayer; that America is unjust and it’s unfair, and you don’t have a chance; the deck is stacked against you; the establishment’s going to keep stepping on you. Of course they grow to believe this and they end up feeling victimized and disadvantaged and then Democrats come along and say, ‘Don’t worry about it, we’ll punish those people at the top. We’ll raise their taxes.’ The poor and the minorities go, ‘Yeah, yeah, soak ’em.’ Their lives don’t improve as a result, and we can demonstrate that the lives of the wards of the state, wherever the state is, do not improve. There’s an implied hint here in this story that racism is keeping people worried and scared, and to the extent that it’s true, it’s a thought that’s put into their heads by Democrats and the Drive-Bys.
Now, a companion story. You just knew this one had to follow. Both of these are Reuters stories, by the way. ‘Democratic White House Hopefuls Seize on Housing Woes.’ (Laughing) So here we have the obligatory story, women and minorities hardest hit, have no chance, there’s racism in America, and here comes the next story: ‘Democratic White House Hopefuls Seize on Housing Woes — Democratic presidential hopefuls have seized on the deepening U.S. mortgage crisis and gyrating financial markets as signs they would be better stewards of the economy.’ But the interesting thing, I don’t know how this made it into the story, but I want you to listen to the last paragraph, which is a shocker coming from Reuters.
”I think if the election were to happen today, the Democrats would have trouble getting traction,’ said Kenneth Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard University who has advised Republican Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign. ‘It’s very hard to say what you want to change without coming off as if you don’t believe in the miracle of the American economy,’ he said.’ So he says, ‘Okay, you Democrats, you want to change things, what you are going to change?’ A lot of people who look at consumer confidence surveys are feeling pretty optimistic. I’m surprised that made it into the story.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, along with the stories we had from Reuters on the housing slump being hard on minorities and women, and so is the obligatory narrative of the Drive-By Media, remember that quote from Reuters they put in from this Harvard economist who has worked on McCain’s campaign? He said that’s a tough thing — if the Democrats run for the presidency on change in the economy, it’s going to be pretty risky because what is it about the miracle of the US economy you want to change? He’s exactly right. We know what they want to change. They want to raise taxes. They want to slow economic activity down. Well, they may not want to do that but that’s what will happen. They want control over people’s lives. Along those lines, ‘A surprising 94 percent of Americans say they are satisfied with their lives – although far fewer in New York and other Eastern states think they’re better off than they were five years ago, according to a new survey. The Harris Poll of more than 1,000 people reported the overall ‘satisfaction’ level, defined as people who said they were either very or somewhat satisfied with their lot, was up 4 percentage points, from 90 percent two years ago. But only 42 percent of people in the Eastern U.S. said things had improved since 2002. By contrast, 60 percent of Southerners and 62 percent of Westerners said their lives had improved.’
So consumer confidence is also high, and it’s going to be tricky for the Democrats to run around and say they want to change all of this, because the Democrats… (sigh) I shouldn’t say this. I’m reminded of the 1960 campaign, Kennedy. Things were really good. We’d had the burgeoning Fifties, we were coming out of the recovery of World War II, and we were just in all kinds of boom cycles, and JFK — I guess I’m safe in saying this because no Democrat’s going to take advice from me. JFK said, ‘Yeah, things are going good, but we can do even better.’ Now, today’s Democrats are not capable of that kind of optimism. Today’s liberals are not capable of that type of upbeat and cheerful, rosy outlook. Everything is doom and gloom. Everything is a crisis. We’re one paycheck away from homelessness. It’s soup line America. They’re sitting there with this notion of inevitability about their chances in ’08, and the big issue that is going to launch them to the White House is already falling apart on them, and that’s the nature of the Iraq war.