RUSH: This Frank in Del Mar, California. Hey, Frank, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush, thank you. Actually, with all your enthusiasm that’s a tough act to follow. I just want you to know our grandkids love reading your books and learning about history. I have a different slant on the debate last night. I think last night’s debate, Carly really went to the Rush school, and here’s why. When the moderators would ask Carly questions, like you always tell us, she would basically restate the question and explain the question such that we, the listeners, understand and understood her perspective. Whether we really liked it or not, my wife, you know, we were standing up clapping, finally we got a Rush Babe here as part of the debate.
RUSH: My guess is you really loved her answer on crony capitalism?
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: Yeah, CNBC says Carly speaks at a seventh grade level. How far did you get in school?
CALLER: Well, my wife and I graduated from Indiana University.
RUSH: Oh, well, then you should have had no trouble. No wonder. Carly’s an idiot seventh grader, and then you’re a college graduate, so no doubt that you understood what she was saying, according to CNBC. No, you’re right. I’m not trying to distract you. I’m trying to be flippant and funny, but you’re right, she did, she had an awesome definition of crony capitalism. And she does. She has the ability to explain these things — and those questions of her, they’re designed to trip her up. What do they think she is? They think she’s a phony CEO, a failed CEO. She was a failure, she was a goofball, she was unqualified, and they thought it was gonna be easy to trip her up. They think it’s gonna be easy to trip all of them up. And she did have a great answer on what crony capitalism is, almost as good as mine.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Well, let’s do a little test. Do you remember what she said, just in summary? I mean, you liked it. Do you remember what she said about it?
CALLER: I knew I was gonna get this test question, and I got so irritated during the debate at what MSNBC was doing to them that I can’t quote it exactly, but I can picture her up there poised and prepared to answer and well-schooled and brilliant. You don’t become the CEO at Hewlett Packard without the ability to stand on your feet and debate the likes of MSNBC.
RUSH: Well, as you know, it’s an interesting point because the people, the moderators last night were trying to establish that, yes, you can. You can become CEO of Hewlett Packard without any qualifications at all, and she’s living proof. That was their point in trying to take her out.
CALLER: It didn’t work.
RUSH: They did everything they could to say she was a totally failed and maybe corrupt CEO and had no business being there.
CALLER: Well, it’s a sad day and, you know, God bless you and your show for keeping us grounded. It’s hard to keep our blood pressure at 120 over 50.
RUSH: Look, I appreciate that. The truth is — and this is what they all miss — you don’t need me to tell you what to think. The reason you’re happy I’m here is because at least there’s some place in the media that you hear what you think reflected. They’ve never, the critics of this show have never understood why you in the audience like it and what draws you to it. They always assumed you’re idiots ’til I came along and now you’re brainwashed.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I’m gonna tell you what Carly Fiorina said. I’m gonna read the transcript of what she said about crony capitalism because a lot of people have referenced it as a great explanation. There are many different ways you can describe it. Here’s what she said.
“Crony capitalism is what happens when government gets so big and so powerful that only the big and the powerful can handle it,” and deal with it. “So why are the pharmaceutical companies consolidating? Why are there five even bigger Wall Street banks now, instead of the ten we used to have on Wall Street? Because when government gets big and powerful, the big feel like they need to get even bigger to deal with all that power, and meanwhile, the small and the powerless — in this case, 1,590 community banks — go out of business. You see, folks, this is how socialism starts. Government causes a problem, and then government steps in to solve the problem. This is why, fundamentally, we have to take our government back.”
And that’s also the point. Every problem we have in this country, 90% is created by government and then they step in and say there’s a problem, we’ve gotta fix it. They are the people that break things. But the one thing we’ve never been able to crack, and I doubt that we ever will, is the faith in government that the people in general have. The government is where fairness is. The government is where you go to get grievances addressed. The government is where you go. The government is just considered to be the end-all to everything, solution to every problem. Social Security, you name it, whatever problem we’ve got, it’s a government creation. And it’s brilliant. They create the problem, and then they run around and complain about it like somebody else created it, and they have to come in and fix it and the problem gets worse and gets bigger.
Crony capitalism, another way of explaining it. Big Business decide that it’s easier to sidle up to government and support, in this case the president, in exchange for favorable treatment from government that competitors are not getting. And that removes the need to beat your competitors in the market, because you have the government on your side, and nobody is bigger than the government. So if you are the ABC Widget Company, and you can make a deal with the government, say it’s Obamacare, ABC Widget Company is an early signatory to Obamacare, signs on, agrees with everything about it, they get some waivers as a favor returned. So the full cost they don’t have to bear because they’ve sidled up to Obama, but their competitors don’t get any such waivers at all, and so their competitors go out of business.
It’s much easier to make an arrangement with a crony president and crony Senate and crony House than it is to compete in the market with your competitors. Either definition works and suffices. It used to not be nearly as prevalent as it is. Modern era, can trace back to Bill Clinton starting it. Obama has milked it. And yet everybody thinks Big Business is Republican and small business and little guys is Democrat. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Democrat Party is the party of the rich today. The Democrat Party is the party of major global conglomerates. The Democrat Party’s the best friend Wall Street has ever had. And yet people think that all these big Wall Street banks, trading houses, they’re all a bunch of Republicans screwing the little guy every chance they get. The little guy is getting screwed by virtue of crony capitalism.