Friday, January 30, 2009
Limbaugh knows not of which he speaks
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Robert E. Dixon
Dixon is retired and lives in Bedford.
Rush Limbaugh's latest gaffe about the current state of the economy is over the top. Here is a man with absolutely no credentials in anything. He is not an economist, CEO or a scientist. He did go part way through the first semester of junior college before dropping out. And like Al Bundy, he played high school football. This does not stop him from making pronouncements on weighty matters. Instead of looking at all sides of an issue, he draws a conclusion and then finds an "expert" who agrees with him to prove his point.
His comments of several years ago that there is plenty of oil in the world is an example of this thinking. At another time he stated that all of America's population could be jammed into a few counties in Texas in high rises, etc., leaving us with the rest of the country to expand. He forgot to tell us that it takes 10 to 14 acres of farmland to provide the food for every person in the world, leaving us all short in the calorie department. In his denial of global warming, he also forgot to mention that more than 90 percent of the world's scientists believe there is a real problem, and we are part of the problem. Further, he neglected to mention that more than 2,500 meteorologists and climatologists met in Brussels, Belgium, early in 2008 and concluded overwhelmingly that this might be the greatest threat to mankind to date.
In his latest pronouncement, Limbaugh states that he hopes the government bailout will fail. He forgot to mention that it was a lack of government intervention from 1929 to 1932 that got us into the Great Depression. It was only when Franklin Roosevelt took charge that we started to come out of the tailspin. It is easy for him to condemn the latest government plan, because if it fails he will never stand in a bread line like the rest of us. He has made a very good living with his rigid, unbending, lopsided views that he presents on the radio every day. For example, in 1996 he made $9 million. Some 30 million or so Americans listen to him, but 300 million Americans don't hang on his every word. For many of his listeners this is their main source of "news" and they take it as the gospel truth. Yes, he has First Amendment rights but so do the rest of us. For my part I watch and listen to CNBC, where they have real experts giving both sides of the issue.
Currently many believe we are going into another depression. We have an economy that is based 70 percent up consumption of goods, many of which are not produced here in the U.S. Right after 9/11, President Bush admonished the American people to not stay home but go out and spend. At the same time our government and industries, starting with President Clinton's signing of the NAFTA bill in 1994, have done their level best to ship every job they can to Mexico and then to China. At the same time, they started to tear down the paid medical and pension plans for the average worker. So now the average worker is expected to set aside $500,000 in investments if he wants to collect a maximum of $25,000 per year when he retires. He is expected to consume an ever greater amount just to keep our economy going as more and more jobs go overseas. He is expected to spend several thousands of dollars each year for medical insurance that, in many cases, only pays part of their bills. All the while we are encouraged to spend, spend, spend. Max out the plastic and buy houses that you can't afford, etc. Then we get cussed out by "experts" for doing it.
The current buzzword is "green." Develop green technology and we will create jobs in America. In the early 2000s we had a plant in Roanoke employing 500 people making motor controllers for wind-driven generators. They were then shipped as prototypes to India where a plant was scheduled to mass-produce them. Some 5,000 Virginians could have been hired to do the job right here in Roanoke. Don't expect that the factories for this green environment will be built here in the U.S. They will all go overseas with the rest of our jobs.
Yes, I understand that businesses need to turn a profit. And sadly, after watching CNBC, I wonder if the bailout package will work any better than letting our economy go belly-up like it did from 1929-1932. I would only hope that Limbaugh would make sure his brain is engaged before he puts his mouth in gear. It is the thinking of people like him that has thrown the Republican Party into disarray and has caused people like me to abandon that party in disgust.
