RUSH: I got people… People who know that I am a tech aficionado are asking me, “Rush, what’s Alibaba, and do I need to be concerned about it?” Alibaba is the Chinese, the ChiCom Amazon, and it is going through its IPO today. It just became the world’s largest Internet business and close to the world’s largest business, period. It’s gonna end up being even bigger than Walmart today.
Jack Ma, you can see him. Drudge features a couple of pictures of Jack Ma. He founded Alibaba on the front page of the Drudge Report, Yahoo owns 23% of Alibaba. Jack Ma says one of the most influential things in his life was the movie Forrest Gump. I don’t know if he thinks it’s a real story or a novel. I’m not sure, but he was inspired by it. But can you look at the irony of this?
These are ChiComs, folks. These are communist Chinese. They’ve taken care of Wall Street. The communist Chinese are dazzling Wall Street. The communist Chinese have rendered Wall Street speechless today. Alibaba is about to pass the worth of Walmart. In some people’s view, this makes everything upside down. This is… I mean, it really is incredible. This guy, he’s a standard little, small entrepreneur start-up.
It’s amazing he got as far as he did in communist China, but it turns out that the ChiCom Regime is actually very proud of Jack Ma. It’s stunning, in fact, how different something like this is. Something like this could not be imagined years ago, just to show you how fast the world can change and acceptance of things can change. It’s stunning. It really is.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, I don’t want people to get confused about Alibaba. It’s not a substitute for Amazon. It’s not a substitute for Walmart. I was just offering you size comparisons. Alibaba is very handy if you need buy a thousand cheap lawn chairs made in China. Alibaba deals in bulk sales, and they sell to wholesalers. They’re not really a direct-to-retail operation.
There’s some stuff you can buy retail at Alibaba, but they’re basically the world’s largest online business-to-business trading platform for small businesses. (interruption) Well, you never know. The NFL might need a thousand lawn chairs from China. Who knows why? The Kennedy party. Kennedy might need a thousand lawn chairs — reclining lawn chairs — for the Kennedy party, from China and Alibaba.
But they’re basically business to business. They don’t do a whole lot of retail. (interruption) Well, I don’t have the exact number. I’d have to take a wild guess what this Jack Ma himself is worth, $50 billion? I don’t know. It’s huge. Whatever it is, it’s huge. He ranks right up there. But I erred a bit. It’s not correct to compare Alibaba to Amazon because that’s like comparing wholesale apples to retail oranges.
They deal in different markets. But they have become the biggest, in terms of online business. They own an online site called Taobao, and that is geared to consumers, and it is huge in China. Taobao is the equivalent… It’s the closest thing, I guess you could say, the ChiComs have to eBay. It’s like eBay. Taobao is like eBay. It’s consumer to consumer.
So they really don’t have, Alibaba doesn’t have anything that is direct retail consumer sales like Amazon, yet. You want to hear a little bit of this Jack Ma guy? You’re gonna be seeing him. He was on Squawk on the Street, CNBC this morning. Jim Cramer was talking to him and said, “This is a great American story, but it’s actually a Chinese story. Who were your heroes, Jack?” And here’s his answer.
MA: The hero I had is Forrest Gump. Fourteen years ago, when I watched the —
CRAMER: Box of chocolates?
MA: Yeah.
MAN: You know he’s a fictional character, though? You —
MA: I really like that guy! I’ve been watching that movie for about 10 times. Every time when I’m frustrated, I watch the movie, and I watch movie before I came here again —
MAN: For humility!
MA: Yeah, for coming to the New York, because I want — I watched the movie again, and telling me that no matter whatever changed, you are you. And I’m still the guy 15 years ago, you know, I only earn like $20 a month. And today I can do that much, you know. Owner.
RUSH: He earns more than $20 a month. He’s describing his rags-to-riches story. Folks, really what’s remarkable about this is — and it is a story straight out of communist China! There are no such things as rags-to-riches story in China. Communist China is the classic example. I have mental block on the term. (interruption) Crony capitalism, yeah. Crony socialism. It is the epitome of it.
If you’re big in real estate, if you’re big in anything in China, you have to have an in with the ChiCom Regime. It’s an approved business. Look, in communist China if you become a billionaire or very rich it’s because the government allowed you — which is what this government wants, the one that we have. That’s what socialists the world over seek, is permission, the power to determine winners and losers, based on whatever convoluted thinking. But in communist China, it’s actually true.
Jim Cramer said, “What does your IPO mean for the People’s Republic of China?”
MA: I think we were giving lot of people inspiration. We want to encouraging a lot of people. Say, yes. Because one of the things I want to do — 15 years ago I told my people in my apartment that if Jack Ma and people like us can be successful, 80% of the people in China can be successful, and 80% of the young people in the world can be successful. We do not have the rich daddy, powerful uncle. We do from nothing. So that’s what we want to do for China.
RUSH: This is totally, totally upside down from the way things operate in the ChiComs. Totally! This is an American kind of story. Rags to riches? Sitting around in his apartment inventing a website and having it grow to be the biggest online business concern in the world? Listen to the way this guy talks, from communist China!
“You can do it, I can do it, you can do it. If people like us can be successful, 80% of the people in China can be successful, 80% of young people in the world.” We don’t even have Americans talking this way anymore, which is one of the things I had in mind yesterday when I was going through my little dissertation on the current state of the Republican Party.
We have people acknowledging not there any economic growth. We have people that are trying to tell us, in the United States of America, that the new normal is this lackluster, lifeless economy. That’s the kind of leadership we’re getting, from everybody, not just Republicans. I mean everybody. Federal Reserve, Export/Import Bank, I don’t care who talks, they’re all trying to get us to lower our expectations.
“This is it. The days where you did better than your parents are over. That’s the past. That isn’t gonna happen.” It’s obscene! It’s totally unnecessary, and it literally is absurd that we don’t have one person. If there is, I don’t know who it is. Now, I’m not trying to impugn people. I know that in politics there are some people that we have. Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Rubio. You go down the list. Trey Gowdy.
I don’t mean to be indicting everybody, but in terms of a national message from somebody who is an acknowledged national leader or representative of a national party, we don’t have anybody talking like this Jack Ma guy is talking. It’s just the exact opposite. Everybody’s trying to lower our expectations. Everybody’s trying to make us think that, you know, what happened last generation and a generation before that actually was an aberration.
“You know what? This is the real America,” and it is obscene. It’s not true. It need not be true. This used to be the place where genuine, acknowledged, legitimate optimism was a way of life. Not today. Not today. We don’t have anybody in leadership talking this way, about our country, about our future. It’s just the exact opposite. It’s no better illustrated than the arguments we’re getting on amnesty.
“Hey, you know, we got jobs and Americans won’t do ’em. We need to get these people in here. We need work to be done here. The American people won’t do it. Why should they? They can get welfare and all this. They can eat, they can drink, they can smoke, they can have their TVs, whatever. We need people to do work.” For peanuts. One more here. Carl Quintanilla, says to Jack Ma, “You are now worth, Jack, more than the entire GDP of Estonia. What are you gonna do with all of your money, Jack?”
MA: Fourteen years ago I asked my wife, “Do you want you husband to be a rich man or a respected business guy?” She said, “Of course a respected businessperson,” because she never thought I would be rich person.
QUINTANILLA: (chortling)
MA: ‘Cause we were — we were having fun. So today I think… And then later I said, “When I’m — before I’m 50 years old, my job is making money, helping other people making money. After I’m a 50 years old, which is today 50 years old, I will spending money trying to making sure more people get rich,” ’cause you cannot spend all the money, right? So my job is spending money, helping others.
RUSH: This is unreal! We have a ChiCom guy talking about the benefits, the fun, the happiness, the worthwhile of getting rich — and in this country, what’s going on? The rich are hated and despised. Well, except for Zuckerberg and Buffett and Gates, and the Kennedys. Everywhere else the rich are despised. They’re suspects. They’re accused offing be criminals. And here’s this guy, Jack Ma, talking about Reaganomics!
Jack Ma is explaining, in his own words, trickle-down. He’s gonna help everybody get rich — and he’s not gonna give anybody any money. I guarantee you, when he says help people get rich, he doesn’t mean welfare. When he says he gonna spend money to make people rich, it means he’s gonna hire them, and he’s gonna build up businesses where they work so that their productivity will lead to raises and maybe good careers.
But the fact that this kind of talk is coming out of the ChiComs, and the exact opposite kind of talk is occurring in this country? Wake up. Well, you people are awake. But I mean we’ve got gazillions of people in a daze, just asleep. Maybe in a way you can’t blame ’em. They’re pounded every day. They’re literally hit over the head every day about how rotten it is in this country and how there is no future.
“It’s hopeless. The best days are behind us because the rich have taken all the money, and they don’t give it to anybody.”
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