RUSH: To the phones. Patrick in Erie, Pennsylvania. I’m glad you called. You are on Open Line Friday. Hi.
CALLER: Hey, Rush buddy! This is a real privilege.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Thanks for taking my call.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.
CALLER: Hey, listen, I was listening to your show. I think it was this week you were talking about how your earlier days at the radio station in California you kept track of the income that you brought in to the radio station and so forth. I loved the point. It was a great point. I share your philosophy on that. I thought it tied in closely with what that caller — I think Katie — who called yesterday, and that is: Nobody really pays you. No employer pays you or hires you or contracts you or anything along those lines for what you do. But rather what you bring, what you’re able to procure — and, you know, as far as demand for yourself or your business — it’s a lesson that’s just totally lost on a lot of people; a lot of time good-meaning people, but particularly liberals. And I guess I’d like to maybe hear you expand on it a little more. Your show serves as an enlightening program for me and most of your listeners, and it’s a point that just does not get made. I just wonder if you could maybe expand on that point.
RUSH: Sure. I’d be happy to. It was an anniversary show that I did for my 25th anniversary on KFBK Sacramento. By the way, I have not announced that I’m leaving Sacramento, nor have I announced that I’m moving to cable on my 25th anniversary in Sacramento. (Just to differentiate myself from The Oprah.) This was my last shot at radio. I had been fired for cause one time, and the other six or seven times from the vagaries of the business. You know, format change to Chinese opera, and they were going to automate and didn’t need deejays, and I didn’t speak Chinese anyway. So stuff happens. So this is my last shot and it’s a talk show — and talk shows, as you know, feature endorsements and live commercials. I was talking to the business editor there, Tom Sullivan (who now runs the official auditing firm that audits my opinions) and I said, ‘Tom, I’ve gotten nailed by the vagaries of this business too many times. You can’t control ratings, where they put the diaries, how many people actually participate. Did they honestly report what they’re listening to? So I’ve gotta find a way to get myself in the revenue stream here. I’ve got to find a way to make sure I can point to X-number of dollars I am generating as insurance against this,’ and in the process of talking my way through this, it was a great learning experience because I then found out what my real purpose was.
A lot of people, as an employee, think the purpose of a company is to provide jobs and health care, and that’s not why people form businesses. They form businesses because they have a passion to provide a service or manufacture a product that they love, that they think would sell big time, and they can make a profit at it. Then if they get lucky, they sell it to some bigger corporation down the line and invest in something new or go sip pina coladas in the Virgin Islands while watching the Clintons dance with no music. So a lot of people just misunderstand the whole purpose of companies and what they’re for. They’re not there to help a community. They work hand in hand, but companies don’t form in order to make sure a community stays vibrant. They do contribute and donate to it, of course, but the purpose is the ongoing success of the company — and whatever you as an employee contribute to that ongoing success is how your value is going to be assessed, and how your compensation will be assessed. Now, of course, not everything is fair at every step of the game, but that’s the theory, and a proper understanding of that would be helpful so many people who don’t even get that much about it.