RUSH: From today’s Washington Post: ‘Rattled by Economy’s Ills, Consumers Forgo Life’s Little Luxuries.’ By the way, remember this? We had this a couple weeks ago. Life’s affluent are cutting back, too — and when the affluent cut back, they don’t rent as many limousines and a limo driver doesn’t get hired or get a tip. In fact, it was an AP story that actually admitted the trickle-down effect. So we hate the rich for being rich. Now we hate ’em because they’re not spending. Because they, too, are buying into all this silly notion of a recession. ‘Charlene Hennessy cooked dinner one Sunday night at her Germantown home, in another act of downsizing her life. Six months ago, [Hennessy] and her husband relied a lot more on restaurants, buying takeout a few times a week. Now she is wary of every little splurge. On her weekend trips to the grocery store, she is on the lookout for sales; for the first time, she clips coupons.
”I’m very much more cautious,’ Hennessy said. ‘Very.’ It is not that Hennessy, 48, faces any personal financial crisis. Rather, [Hennessy] is reacting to what she sees around her: rising gas and food prices, a housing market in decline, whispers of recession. At some point, she said, it all became too unsettling, warning signs that it was time to conserve. This mood of uncertainty and budget-tightening has touched families across the Washington region, where many in a large and relatively prosperous middle class say they are rethinking how and where they spend their money. The changes — a vacation postponed, a lawn-care service stopped, a switch to $1 movie rentals or a discount hair salon — might not alter the bottom line much. But experts say these measures offer a sense of control and comfort in a faltering economy.’ What drivel! What absolute bilge! Guess what happens when Charlene Hennessy, 48, postpones her vacation? Somebody at the other end of the vacation — the resort, the hotel, the airline — doesn’t get revenue. Guess what happens when you hire or fire the lawn-care service? They might have to get rid of some of the illegals working for them, because they don’t have enough work.
If you fire the lawn care service, the lawn care service is going to — especially when you don’t have to; when you’re only doing it because you’ve got this angst. You’re chewing your fingernails down to the quick because the Drive-Bys tell you a recession is coming. (screech) ‘Oh!’ After going out to eat four times a week, you start clipping coupons? One-dollar movie rentals? What does that mean? What does that mean, Blockbuster is out? What are you doing? Is that Netflix? What are one-dollar movie rentals? Discount hair salon? Discount hair salon! Let me tell you something. If you were really serious… This paragraph is not specific to Charlene Hennessy, but whoever you are out there in the Washington middle class, going to a discount hair salon: If you’re really serious, you’d cancel the hair salon and you’d do it at home. If you’re going to start clipping coupons, go all the way: Cancel the hair salon! See, but when it comes to personal aggrandizement and so forth, all of this ‘a sense of control,’ you know, it’s this kind of psychology that is making the global warming scare work. All this green garbage and so forth, this is exactly how it works. This is the Drive-By Media succeeding in creating a self-fulfilling, prophetic mood of doom and gloom and disaster, and people think they can stave it off — when they’re not even affected by it — by cutting back.
This from the New York Sun: ‘The mayor of New York City, rumored by many,’ hoped by many, I should say, ‘that he, too, will enter the presidential sweepstakes,’ Mayor Michael Bloomberg, ‘went to the United Nations, and while he acknowledged that scientists are unable to predict its consequences, while he acknowledged scientists are unable,’ that means they can’t, for those of you in Rio Linda, ‘predict the consequences…’ Translation: Even though scientists admit they have no idea, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday ‘compared the scourge of global warming to the threat of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. ‘Although it’s a long-term fight,’ the mayor said, ‘reducing gas emissions may save the life of everybody on the planet the same way the fight in terrorism and its proliferation saves lives in shorter terms.” Okay. Now, Bloomberg is, unlike Romney, a respected businessman — and he’s got kabillions compared to Romney’s mamillions. Yet somehow, his word is taken as gospel. This is insane! This is literally kooky. But he’s got a lot of respect. He admits scientists have no clue what this means, don’t even know what the consequence are. But it’s worse than terrorism. It’s worse than weapons of mass destruction. This is what gives us the Charlene Hennessys of the world: When respected people make these outrageous, indefensible statements. I mean, Ron Paul wouldn’t even say this. Lyndon LaRouche wouldn’t even say this! L. Ron Hubbard wouldn’t say this! The mayor of New York says it, and everybody (panting) — liberals fall for this stuff. Folks, this is serious stuff. It sounds funny, but to me this is dreadfully serious, because all of this adds up to one thing: an attack on the American way of life by virtue of blaming the American way of life — for something that scientists acknowledge they can’t even predict and don’t have the slightest clue.