”It’s very disappointing to have this leading indicator of economic conditions jump higher,’ John Lonski, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com.’ Now, remember it was just last week when these jobless claims were down and everybody was all excited about it. Now, of course, the Reuters’ version of the story says: ‘A Labor Department official said there were no special factors affecting the numbers, but noted the Independence Day holiday in the prior week could have caused a backlog in processing applications.’ Right. There’s never been a Fourth of July holiday before. This is the first time ever that a Fourth of July holiday actually affected unemployment numbers.
‘The jump in jobless claims signals more coming in the way of a slack labor market that will curb the growth of wages and employment income, and thereby consumer spending.’ Oh, and, folks, there’s a couple stories out there, one’s in the Wall Street Journal, one’s in TheHill.com today about all of the Democrats now who want to extend the Bush tax cuts. It’s not a whole lot of them, but there’s a significant number of Democrats who don’t want the Bush tax cuts to sunset in January for everybody, including for the rich. Now, what’s interesting about this is, do they mean it, or are they just articulating this for their campaigns, their reelection coming up this fall? Let’s assume hypothetically for the moment here that they mean it. What does it tell us? It means they know and they’ve known all along the real value of tax cuts. They’re saying we don’t need tax increases right now. We don’t have an economic recovery going on and we’re going to forestall a recovery if we increase taxes. They are admitting, these Democrats are, that raising taxes slows the economy. We’ll keep happy sharp eye on this. It’s in the Wall Street Journal and TheHill.com.
General Motors, Government Motors ‘will acquire auto finance company AmeriCredit Corp. in a $3.5 billion dollar deal aimed at increasing the availability of auto loans and leases. The deal gives [Government Motors] an in-house lender for the first time since it sold control of GMAC.’ Now, Government Motors has purchased a private sector lender. What this essentially means is that the Obama administration has taken over a private sector lender because the Obama regime owns General Motors. So another creative means of moving assets from the private sector to the regime. While everybody, ‘Oh, wow, look at this, General Motors is growing. Look, they have so much money they can go buy a finance company.’ Whose money is it? This is Dingy Harry yesterday morning on the Senate floor speaking about all of this.
REID: Isn’t it a good thing today in America we have an automobile manufacturing sector? If it had been up to them, General Motors would be gone. If it were up to them, Ford Motor Company would probably be gone. Chrysler would definitely be gone.
RUSH: Harry Reid is saying that the auto bailout saved Ford, when Ford didn’t get any bailout money. This is desperation. Nothing is working. No liberal idea is working the way some of them thought their ideas were gonna work, and now they’ve taken over another private sector lender under the guise, ‘Look at this, look what we did, our takeover of Government Motors has been so successful, we’re able to go out there and buy and extend the auto company by having our own lender.’ Yeah, the government.
‘Weekly Claims Turn Higher, Keeping Jobs Outlook Fragile.’ Congress has an approval rating of 11%. That’s the news today, 11% approval. Obama has orchestrated all this pain, he’s delivered the pain. Obama enjoys what he sees. From TheHill.com: ‘What is absolutely clear is that we are headed in the right direction — and that the surest way out of these storms we’ve been in is to keep moving forward, not back.’ That’s the president, prepared remarks set for delivery at Smith Electric Vehicles in Kansas City next week. Clinton said, ‘I feel your pain.’ And Clinton pretended to be hurt by the pain we were having, that he was feeling. Well Obama is delivering the pain. Obama delivers the pain on a silver platter, and he really, really likes it. He golfs; he parties with $100-per-pound Wagyu beef; he celebrates what he sees across the fruited plain. He’s out there talking about we’re back from the brink. Whatever he’s looking at, he’s happy. He sees all this and he sees economic recovery: more job destruction; less disposable income in the pipeline; a regulation nightmare for fossil fuel energy companies is next.
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RUSH: This morning in Washington, DC, the leader of the regime signed another piece of legislation, the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act. Now, what does this sound like to you? The Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act. That make any sense? What the hell is this? I have no idea what this is! The Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act? So we’re going to eliminate ‘improper payments.’ Whose improper payments? And what recovery? Anyway, here’s Obama explaining why this is all wonderful.
RUSH: Jeez!
OBAMA: — that means our kids and our grandkids may wind up saddled with debt that they’ll never be able to repay.
RUSH: The guy’s a joke. He’s an ever-loving joke. The problem is he’s president of the United States, and he’s destroying us. ‘When government doesn’t work like it should, it has a real effect on people’s lives.’ As though the only thing important in your life is government and when government doesn’t work, you get the shaft. And it is just the opposite. When government doesn’t work, an example: ‘on small business owners who need loans.’ What does the government have to do with small business loans? And if it has anything to do with them, it shouldn’t. Small business people look to government and say, ‘What do I have to do to escape these people?’ Small business owners look to government, ‘Okay, what kind of obstacles are they going to put in my way?’
Small business people look at government and go, ‘Oh-ho, no.’ Small business owners look at government and curse — and here is this, the most inexperienced boob in any room he happens to occupy, saying, ‘When government doesn’t work like it should it has a real effect on people’s lives, on small business owners who need loans, on young people who want to go to college.’ Why should government have anything at all to do with whether you want to go to college or whether you do go to college or what happens to you when you’re at college? Why…? Why should government have any involvement? ‘[O]n the men and women and serve this country and trying to get the benefits that they’ve earned.’ You know, there’s a word in the American lexicon that by itself is destroying us, and that word is ‘benefits.’
Virtually everything in life is now portrayed as a ‘benefit’ from the government, and it’s something that people ought to aim for. ‘Make sure you get your benefits!’ I hate the word ‘benefits.’ I utterly despise it I despise it for what it means and the way it’s used, the current context. I despise the word for what it creates in people, in terms of a thought process or goal or an objective. ‘Yeah, I’m out to get my benefits.’ Let me tell you: In my life, and I’m not that uncommon, I have never once been focused on benefits. Not once. Even when I was applying for jobs, the benefits… I wasn’t focused on sick days or vacation time or health care or any of that. I just wanted to know, ‘What am I gonna get paid? How can I get paid more? What do I have to do to get paid more? What do I have to do to get the job and keep the job?’
What is this benefits garbage? Now we got the Democrat Party and the left, and all they do is talk about benefits. ‘When government isn’t working people don’t get their benefits. Unemployment compensation benefits.’ It’s a welfare program! It’s a new entitlement! Benefits? And, of course, ‘benefits’ and ‘entitlements’ go together. We are entitled to our benefits. ‘[T]he men and women who serve this country trying to get the benefits they’ve earned…’ ‘When government doesn’t work…’ Whose fault is it when government doesn’t work? ‘[A]nd when we continue to spend as if deficits don’t matter…’ Who is ‘spending as if deficits don’t matter,’ Mr. President? Who? Who is ‘spending as if deficits don’t matter’? None other than you! None other than your party. ‘[T]hat means our kids and our grandkids may wind up saddled with debts they’ll never be able to repay’?
They already are, thanks exclusively to you! Maddening. Then, of course, our buddies from the Ministry of Truth. How about that as a name for the media? ‘The Ministry of Truth.’ From the regime, the regime’s Ministry of Truth. To replace media. I’m gonna come up with something, because there is no media, and what they do isn’t real — and we have to sit here and we have to have our intelligence and everything else we have insulted every day by this little manchild who has no more business being in the White House… (sigh) I’m really starting to get steamed in here. I hear sound bites like this… Play this damn sound bite again. I can’t… Folks, what the hell did you people that voted for this guy do? What have you done? Do you have any regrets whatsoever? When are you people that voted for this doofus going to apologize? We are owed an apology.
Look at what’s happening. The most racial president we’ve ever had. He’s come to divide. All anybody’s talking about is race. This is the one-year anniversary of Obama calling the Cambridge cop stupid, and now we’ve got Shirley Sherrod who wants to talk to Obama ’cause he not down for the struggle. She doesn’t think he understands what it’s like to have grown up the way she did, and yet at the same time people are telling us, ‘She’s not about race, Rush. This woman’s about rich versus poor. This woman’s about equality.’ No, no, no. She was at the NAALCP, which equals racism. Forget calling them the NAACP. They are now the R-A-C-I-S-M. NAACP = RACISM. And they’re all applauding her when she’s talking about racism. We have a president who’s inspiring this. We have a president who is encouraging this — and saying absolutely stupid, ridiculous, insulting things like this. Audio sound bite 28 again…
OBAMA: When government doesn’t work like it should, it has a real effect on people’s lives. On small business owners who need loans, on young people who want to go to college, on the men and women who serve this country and are trying to get the benefits that they’ve earned.
OBAMA: And when we continue to spend as if deficits don’t matter that means our kids and our grandkids may wind up saddled with debt that they’ll never be able to repay.
RUSH: (tapping on desk) ‘[W]hen we continue to spend as if deficits don’t matter that means our kids and our grandkids may wind up saddled with debt that they’ll never be able to repay.’ Meanwhile, let’s go sound bites five and six. Here’s the second most unqualified guy in any room he walks into: This diminutive, tiny, little egghead elitist Treasury secretary, tax cheat. We were told we had to forgive his tax cheatedness because he’s the only guy qualified to administer the TARP bailouts. This is last night on the Ministry of Truth’s Charlie Rose Show. The question: Did it drive a wedge between the president and the administration on one hand, and Wall Street and the business community on the other?’
GEITHNER: There’s nothing remarkable in this — is that businesses would like to be able to operate with less regulation, fewer constraints, and of course lower taxes.
ROSE: Rates.
GEITHNER: As you’d expect, they want as much leverage as they can — power, influence as they can — to make sure that they can operate with lower taxes, lower regulation in the future. Our job, though, again —
ROSE: Right.
GEITHNER: — is to try to do what we think is best for the broader public interests for the economy as a whole, and I think in this bill, you saw that broader public interest prevail.
RUSH: You hear that? That’s regime-speak. That’s elitist-speak. This is ruling class-speak. This is, ‘I’m smarter than you.’ This is, ‘I’m better than you.’ When someone says, ‘Well, of course businesses want lower taxes. Of course. You expect them to try to get as much leverage so they can, power, influence, as they can to make sure they can operate with lower taxes, lower regulation but screw them! We’re gonna make sure none of that happens because we’re working for the benefit of the American people, and the benefit of the American people as to make sure they aren’t shafted these people that want lower taxes and less regulation. We’re going to make sure there aren’t any businesses to hire anybody. We’re gonna get even for the American people because we’re smarter than anybody else. We!
‘I’m Tim Geithner and I’m smarter than you are. I got an egghead-shaped head, and that means there’s a bigger brain in there, and I got more brain cells and I’m smarter that you are, and these people want lower taxes and they want lower regulation, but SCREW THEM!’ He wasn’t through. Ranking member of the Ministry of Truth, Charlie Rose: ‘Some people rather the recovery has stalled, Mr. Geithner, that job creation’s not where it ought to be. Look at the housing market. Are we getting worse; are we getting better?’
GEITHNER: It’s not getting better as fast as we would like — and a lot of that is simply because, again, you know, this is a crisis in part becau– caused by the fact people were living down their means for a long period of time. And so inevitably we were going to go through a very difficult transition as people save more, reduce their debt burdens. And the crisis, you know, caused stunning damage to basic confidence among businesses.
RUSH: So, ‘uh, uh, uh,’ Geithner here has blamed the financial crisis ultimately on the American people living beyond their means. ‘It’s not getting better as fast as we would like — and a lot of that is simply because, again, you know, this is a crisis in part caused by the fact people were living down their means for a long period of time (like me. I wasn’t paying my taxes), and so inevitably we were gonna go through a very difficult transition as people save more, reduce their debt burdens, a crisis, you know, is stunning damage, basic confidence among businesses.’ What the hell is he talking about? It’s all gobbledygook. It’s the kind of cocktail party jingo you get from people don’t have the faintest idea that they’re talking about.
This is the kind of theory you get in the faculty lounge, where everything’s abstract. There aren’t really people. There aren’t businesses and there aren’t jobs. It’s just abstract theory that only the smart people can maneuver the chess pieces to make it all work. Geithner’s the guy who told us that capitalism would be different under Obama. Back in March of 2009 he appeared, once again, with the Ministry of Truth’s Charlie Rose, and toward the end of the interview he said, ‘American capitalism, uh, is going to be different under Obama. Financial system, too, it’s going to be… Uh, it’s going to be different under Obama. Everybody wants lower taxes, lower regulation. The remarkable thing is they want going to lower taxes. We’ll try to manipulate that, future and so forth. Our job, though, is to screw ’em to make sure that doesn’t happen.’
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We’re going to go to Rockford, Illinois. Jane you’re first, it’s great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I love you.
RUSH: Thank you.
RUSH: Now, wait a minute, that’s what Obama says, he says that’s where government needs to fix things —
CALLER: I know.
RUSH: — when government isn’t working you can’t get a loan.
CALLER: Right, right.
RUSH: No, wait, so you’re agreeing with Obama?
CALLER: Oh, no, I think he is the reason that we can’t get the loan.
RUSH: Ah.
CALLER: He’s done all these things, and put all these regulations, all the financial reform gobbledygook as you would call it, into place, and we can’t find financing. We’ve exhausted almost every bank in Rockford. We’re on our last straw right now. We went another bank that we have no affiliation with, we’re just grasping at straws. And the thing is, Rush, we’re not a brand-new startup business. My husband has been in this business for over 30 years, we started our first expansion right before 9/11 hit. We spent eight years digging ourselves out of that hole because the business really dropped and —
RUSH: Let me ask you a quick question. Why do you want to expand now?
CALLER: Well, the location that we’re in right now we just don’t have the retail traffic. It used to be a mall, and without giving away too much stuff —
RUSH: Let me rephrase it, let me rephrase it. Why do you want to take on more debt?
CALLER: Well, no, we’re looking to make more money for ourselves, actually. We struggle, you know, we pay our bills on time and all that but we just can’t grow the business. We’re just kind of at a standstill stagnant point, and we know we can make it, we’ve been successful, we spent eight years digging out after 9/11, but we know we can make it and you can’t find the financing. It’s so frustrating, it’s just unbelievable. I’m tired of this guy giving the impression to the American people that he is behind the small businessman, who does he think is doing this to us? I mean it’s him, it’s his tax policies, it’s this health care bill, it’s everything. And I guess the last point I would like to make is, as for an apology from the idiots who voted for this guy, I’m not waiting for that, I’m not even going to hold my breath. Instead of an apology Rush, how about a vote for Republicans or conservatives in November instead of an apology?
RUSH: All right, thanks very much, Jane. I appreciate it. Every time I take a call here I just can’t get past the anger and the desperation that’s out there. I don’t care if it’s a farmer, a small businessperson, they want to grow, they want to expand, and they can’t. And we all know why. It’s frustrating itself to hear all of this.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Doug in central South Carolina, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, dittos. You’re on fire and on target as always.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: I have a theory about how the regime plans to steal the midterms from us, and I’m kind of hoping you’ll help me out with it. As you have said the trashing of this economy is on purpose, and I believe the unemployment extension is connected to it.
RUSH: Yep.
CALLER: The regime plans on killing the economy and cooking the numbers at the same time. They want to create as many unemployed Americans as possible, while reporting the lowest number they can get away with. And if you accept the 10% unemployment number — I don’t — but if you do, the Democrats are looking at having a 15 million American voting bloc of unemployed people that depend on the government for their very existence. The recent extension of unemployment runs out in October. Then they’ll be pushing for another extension and they’ll be painting the Republicans as the party of no.
RUSH: That’s exactly right.
CALLER: They’ll mobilize ACORN and the SEIU to scare the unemployed.
RUSH: That is exactly right. That’s why I said yesterday, it’s just a new welfare program. Unemployment compensation benefits and their extension is just a new welfare program. It’s a new entitlement.
CALLER: Well, what I’m worried about is if they hold even one chamber, America’s lost, we’re done, and I’m just hoping that you could tell me that even with the 15 to 20 million people that they’re going to be able to scare to the polls, just like they did with the elderly and Social Security, ‘If you vote Republican, they’re gonna take your unemployment away,’ that we’re not gonna lose the momentum we have going into November.
RUSH: I think your fear is legitimate, but I’m here to tell you that that 15 million would not be the difference. The energy that exists on the Republican side is such we are going to dwarf in turnout the Democrats, and not all those 15 million want to be unemployed. A lot of people have no desire to be in the circumstance they are. A lot of people are out of work with, they’re still looking for jobs, they’re frustrated all to hell they can’t find them. A lot of the unemployed — I’m going to hold out hope, I’m going to have faith it’s a majority here — a majority of them do not want to be welfare cases. Anyway, I wouldn’t have any fear about this. It’s a legitimate concern but I don’t think that all 15 million of these unemployed are gonna sit there and want to be.