Obama Was Only President To Never Sustain 3% Economic Growth

In my article, "Obama: The Abysmal Statistics," I shared with you the following economic statistic: 

"First president not to see a single year of 3% economic (GDP) growth. This makes Obama the forth worst on record. This is sad, because "The rate of real economic growth is the single greatest determinate of both America’s strength as a nation and the well-being of the American people."

So, every U.S. President from George Washington all the way to George W. Bush saw an economic growth of 3%. Obama kept telling people how many jobs he created. He kept telling people how well the economy was doing. And people accepted this.

Think of it this way. People with jobs who are under the age of 30 have never had a job in a booming economy. So, to them, it was easy to accept what Obama said. Because, to most people, history starts the day they are born. So, when you tell these people the economy is doing great, even when it isn't, they don't know any better. So they accept what they are told.

People who lived through the 1980's saw real economic growth and prosperity. Even people who lived through the 1990's and through the Bush tax cuts in 2000 saw it. And many of these folks tend to accept Obama's statistics: they are told that this is the new normal.

We are told this is the way it is in a progressive world. That in a world where you have to fight global warming with high taxes and regulations, this is the new normal. That is a world where you have to create needy people and solve their problems so that you can be seen as loving and caring so you can get re-elected, this is the new normal.

Trump came along and said it doesn't have to be this way. His economic plan is to get the economy running at the 3% clip again. This is not to say that GNP needs to increase, it's saying that economic growth should be running at a 3% clip, at least once in a while.

When this happens -- when we get to 3%, it will mean that the economy increases by 100%. When this happens, every person living in the U.S. will see it. Businessmen and entrepreneurs will have an incentive to take risks, because there will be a good chance at getting a return on their investment. You will see businesses expanding, you will see new businesses going up. You will see jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs galore.

You will also see wage and salary hikes. During the Obama years, much like the economy, wages were stuck in stagnation. They did not increase. In fact, they didn't even increase to keep up with inflation. So this meant that the value of the dollar decreased. For instance, a dollar could have been used to buy one loaf of bread in 2000, but now a dollar will only buy you a half of a loaf. I'm not saying those were the actual prices, I'm just giving you an example to explain the value of the dollar.

This would explain why our grandparents and parents were able to get by on just my dad working, or just my grandpa working. They also lived in huge houses. Today, I have to work and my wife has to work just to afford to live in a small run down house.

You can't just blame this all on Obama, but there were quite a few people in Washington, both republicans and democrats, who let him get away with it. There were no efforts by republicans to fight Obama's budget increases. I mean, they said they would do it when they ran for office, and they were voted in because they said they would do it. But once they got into office they never did anything.

And this is why Trump was elected.

There are no budget cuts in Trump's proposed budget

So, I have friends emailing me left and right, or texting me, or Facebooking me, telling me how they are going to lose their jobs, or how we will lose libraries, or how the environment will become polluted, if Trump's tax cuts go through. Here is my response to all of them.

You know (so and so), the media kind of blows this out of proportion. Trump's budget doesn't cut anything. There are no budget cuts. It's just cuts in the rate of growth. The way the government is run, budgets increase every year (unlike how businesses are run, where the rate is determined by income). So, labor might get an increase of 2% as opposed to 6%. And, by the way, that's the cutest baby I ever saw.

I don't tell people this, but my friends who tell me they are afraid they are going to lose their jobs. What I want to say it, "Millions of people sacrificed their lives for our country." But, in our politically correct world, in a world full of snowflakes, I'm not sure they would be able to handle that.

But it's true. My grandma, my mom's mom, could have collected Social Security if she wanted to. In fact, she earned it if anyone did. And I asked her about this once, and she said, "I put my country before myself."

We don't seem to have people like that anymore.

I get tired of the media blowing things out of proportion. I think they hate Trump so much they that they have gotten lazy in their reporting. They have gotten emotional. Seriously. Even Fox.

It's almost as though one person says something and everyone else repeats it without doing any fact checking. I quit watching the news because I started thinking: "If everyone is saying the same thing, then no one is thinking."

If I wrote the same thing as everyone else on my blogs, no one would have an incentive to read my stuff. I want to be different. I want it to be factual, but unique. I think this is why media ratings are so low. If I said the same thing you did on my blog, no one would go there either.

One of my friends sent me a picture of his baby. He did this as if to show me that it's my fault her daddy might be out of a job; to make me feel guilty. If these people truly want to be mad at someone, they should be mad at the people who created the spending problem (democrats) and the people who did nothing to stop it (republicans).

Trump is trying to fix the problems of the previous administrations. And, of course, someone is going to have to lose a job. I'm sorry, but that's the way it has to be. It's no different than if you are running a business. If you are operating under the red line, you have to make cuts. 

Tax cuts for the wealthy? Busting The Myth

You hear a lot from democrats about how unfair it is to give tax cuts for the wealthy.  One thing that is interesting about this is that most wealthy people do not even pay taxes. You have men like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet chiming that they don't think tax cuts for the wealthy do anything to stimulate an economy. Yet they don't pay taxes, so they don't care if taxes stay high.

Isn't that interesting? And this entire premise that tax cuts are for the wealthy is poppycock to begin with, considering you cannot tax wealth.

Let's use Buffet and Gates as our examples. They do not have jobs, per se. They have their money invested in various places, such as the stock market. That's where they make their money. They do not receive pay checks. In this way, they do not make income. Therefore, they do not pay taxes.

What they do is they collect capital gains. They are affected by the capital gains tax. But they are in no way affected by the income tax.

So, you see, the wealthy, like Buffet and Gates, got wealthy because they made good investments. They did not get wealthy because they were paid a huge salary or wage. So, you can raise the income tax to 90% on the top income bracket -- which is where it was before the John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan tax cuts --, and it will have no effect on the truly wealthy.

So, given our economics 101 lesson here, you can see clearly that there is no such thing as tax cuts for the wealthy. Wealth cannot be taxed. They might make some income, but the majority of it is accumulated wealth which cannot be taxed.

So, people that are wealthy, like the Kennedy's, like Warren Buffet, like Bill Gates, they champion for higher taxes, or at the very least don't argue against them, because they don't have to pay taxes anyway. They believe in social justice, where you solve problems by spending other people's money, not their own.

Interestingly, say Donald Trump gets his tax cuts through Congress. It won't be a tax cut for the wealthy. It won't even be a tax cut. What it will be is a tax rate cut. Anyone who pays taxes will see a cut. We discussed how tax cuts increase revenue to the government, they do not decrease revenues in my last post.

If Trump cut taxes, it would not be on the wealthy, unless you consider the 48% of people in this country who actually pay taxes to be wealthy (and, by the way, that's not even possible).

Further Reading:

• Articulating Ideas: What is Trickle Down Economics, a.k.a. Austrian Economics?
• Articulating Ideas: Trickle Down Economics (a.k.a. Reaganomics)
• Articulating Ideas: Who Pays All The Taxes?
• Rush Limbaugh: Why Rich Guys Like Gates Say Their Against Tax Cuts

Tax Cuts Do Not Cause Reductions In Federal Income -- They Increase Revenue

In order to put people back to work, Donald Trump has proposed legislation that would drastically cut taxes for both individuals and businesses. But democrats, and some republicans too, say this might backfire as it will also reduce income to the Federal government. Where did this rumor that increasing taxes increases Federal revenue come from anyway? It's a fallacy.

Rush Limbaugh gives a perfect example of how lowering taxes generates more government revenue thatn tax increases. He said,

"If it’s hard to understand lowering tax rates and increasing revenue, let me ask you this. Have you ever seen a store put things on sale? Obviously you have. Why do they do it? Why do they lower the cost of certain things to entice you to come in and buy them? Well, because they’ll sell more of it. The lower the price of an item, the more likely people are to buy it, and the more people that buy it, the more are sold, by lowering the price. When airlines are feeling the heat of competition, what do they do? They lower fares. If one airline lowers ’em, they all have to on the same routes. Or they’ll throw you off, right, or kill your rabbit, but don’t confuse me here.

On a government-run transportation system, what happens? When the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is in a crunch and it’s not collecting enough money, what do they do? They stupidly raise fares. They do not try to get more people riding; they rip off the people who still are by charging them more. Does it ever work? Why don’t they reduce fares? Why don’t they lower the price of going across a bridge or getting on the subway? They never do. Well, I can’t say never. But you know as well as I do that mostly those costs increase. When a business raises the price of an item that you’re used to paying X for, are you more likely to go out and buy it again, or less likely, maybe look for someplace else to get something like it, something close to it? 

Look, this is simple math. It’s not even arguable. The Democrats have so corrupted our understanding of economics and productivity that lowering tax rates is now considered to be some kind of sop to the rich. I mean, it’s just profound to me, the damage inflicted on this country by the Democrats in their pursuit of perpetual power.

So true.

References and further reading:

• Rush Limbaugh: Democrats Know That Tax Cuts Increase Revenue, So Why Do They Lie About the Facts?
• The Washington Post: White House unveils dramatic plan to overhaul tax code in major test for Trump

What is crony capitalism?

When most people think of the term "crony capitalism" they think republicans. They think it's republican business owners who are for unregulated free market where they're free to rip off and screw any customer they want. But that's all a misconception. That's what people on the left want you to think so you continue to support their big government, anti-capitalist agenda. But that's not what crony capitalism is.

You see, let's look at the 1920s as good example. The 1920 was one of the greatest periods of economic expansion in the history of the United States. It was a time where the rich got richer, the middle class got richer, and the poor got richer. It was a period of time when the unemployment rate was 4%, and most economists consider that no unemployment, because there will always be people in between jobs. So 4% is no employment.

So you had the Roaring 20s. Then the stock market crashed and the Great Depression started. So here is when you had prograssives in America who have a big government agenda, and this was the perfect time for them to convince the world that capitalism was bad. So they came up with this scheme where they would do just that. They claimed that unfettered capitalism during the 1920s is what caused the Great Depression.

They said it was caused because there was no regulation on the free market, and so business owners, republicans, were free to rip anyone off. They claimed all the problems that resulted in the depression were caused by unfettered capitalism.  That's how the left defines capitalism, as crony. They see unfettered capitalism as crony capitalism. And that's not true at all.

So they used this new found fear of capitalism to push forth their big government agenda. The first president to play into this fear was FDR.

Today, people think of large companies like Walmart as a perfect example of unfettered capitalism. They see it owned by republicans, supported by republicans, and a perfect example of what is wrong with capitalism. But Walmart is not a perfect example of what is wrong with capitalism, it is a perfect example of what is wrong with crony capitalism.

So, what is crony capitalism?  It's when government gets in bed with big business, and for the benefit of both the company and big government. So, Obama, for instance, wants to get Obamacare passed. Okay, it's very unpopular with the people, so without help he never would get it passed.

Walmart is typically a conservative company, and they do not want to sign on to Obamacare. They do not want to support it. But then Obama convinces them to sign on to is. He adds provisions into Obamacare that work to the benefit of Walmart. So, basically, the government is up for sale. Companies like Walmart salivate at opportunities like this. So they buy the government.

So Walmart supports Obamacare. It even pays into it. It does so because it knows it can afford the added regulations. Its competitors cannot afford these regulations, especially small business competitors. So they go out of business and Walmart benefits because it can afford the regulations. It can take the hit. That, my friends, is what crony capitalism is. It's not unfettered capitalism.

Walmart is not unfettered capitalism; Walmart is crony capitalism. It's when government gets in bed with big business, or big business gets in bed with government. You see, Obama benefits because he gets his agenda passed, and Walmart benefits because they get rid of competition. The people who lose in this relationship are citizens, who now have to buy healthcare against their will, have to pay higher taxes to support it, must pay higher prices against their will.

That's crony capitalism. Walmart might be owned by republicans. It might also be owned by democrats. The politicians who get in bed with them could be republicans, but they could also be democrats. You see, there is corruption in both parties. That's exactly why the Trump movement got started.

Crony capitalism is what allows companies like Walmart to prosper. They do not prosper because they have a better product. They do not have more products. They do not offer better quality. They do not have all of the typical stuff that drives customers to them and away from competitors. They become the choice of consumers because their competitors couldn't afford the regulations, and so they closed their doors. So the Walmart's of the world become bigger by default; through capital cronyism.

Here's another way of putting it. In the old days, when company A was in the same business as company B, company A would try to beat company B with a better product and better customer service, lower prices, better retail op, etc. The two companies competed in the marketplace, and company with the best service, or the best prices, or whatever, would lead the marketplace.

Today, thanks to Obama, all company A has to do to beat company B is co-opt the private sector and join forces with Obama. This allows company A to control the market place simply supporting a large government program. This is appealing to a lot of company CEOs. And so now company A does not compete with company B directly. Company A competes with company B by aligning with government, rendering company B helpless.

That is corporate cronyism, or crony capitalism. It's corporate socialism. It's a stepping stone between capitalism and socialism.

General Electric is the same way. Costco is the same way also. Costco supports minimum wage increases. They can afford to pay more. But their competitors can't. There is no business that support a minimum wage increase, unless they are in bed with big government and they get something out of it in return, like fewer competitors. So, Walmart and Costco get in bed with Obama so they can get some breaks.

Crony capitalism is when big business get in bed with big government to get an agenda passed and to knock out competition. That is not what republicans want. It is not what conservatives want. It really is not what democrats want, but they know that in order to get their radical left wing agenda passed, it's what they have to do.

Of course the democrats get something else out of it that we often over look. Their goal is to create a socialistic government, a big government system where experts in Washington control the people and every decision they make, mainly because they know what's best for everyone. So, if they create these crony capitalist deals that drive away small companies. All that's left is large companies. So, when they want to take over industries, like healthcare, it's easier to take over a few large companies than many smaller ones.

I think this is one of the reasons Obamacare made it so easy for hospitals to merge. Sure you had some hospital mergers before Obamcacare. But Obama care made it so difficult for smaller hospitals to stay afloat, mainly due to too many regulations. The larger hospitals supported Obamacare because they knew it would drive away competition, or they could absorb competition. Not because they offered better services or a better product, but because their competitors couldn't afford the regulations.

So, now you have a few large hospital conglomerates. Think of it. The ultimate goal of democrats is to create a universal healthcare system. It's now set up nicely. It will be a lot easier to take over a few large hospitals than many smaller ones. You see, this isn't even corporate capitalism, it's crony socialism. It's socialism. It's a baby step on the way to socialism. It's establishing monopolies, something Teddy Roosevelt worked so hard to break up.

But democrats won't tell you that's the agenda. Democrats won't tell you what crony capitalism really is. They want you to think it's unfettered capitalism. That's how they operate. The greatest enemy of socialism is an educated republic. They don't want you to be educated. That's why they created the department of education and created a public school system where they decide what kids are taught.

That's why they created common core, thus plucking parental choice out of education. They don't want parents decide what kids learn, they want kids to learn only what they want. They want to raise good socialist kids, not founding father loving kids. .

Crony government companies win simply because of their crony relationship with Washington rather than standard business practices: Better product or better service.

Further Reading:

• Redstate: Big Business is afraid of conservatives -- and they should be
• Rush Limbaugh: The IRS and the new crony capitalism

John F. Kennedy: The Last Conservative Democrat

John Fitzgerald Kennedy might possibly be the most written about President in modern history, and I do not wish to rehash it all. What I'd like to focus on is an aspect of his presidency that gets little attention: the fact he was the last in a long line of conservative democrats. Much evidence supports this claim.

Kennedy was inaugurated on January 20, 1961.  This was a time when the top marginal tax rate was at 91 percent, and the capital gains tax was at 25 percent. Hoover was the first to suggest raising taxes in order to pay for programs he thought were necessary to spur the economy. FDR put taxes on steroids.

After the Great Depression, and after WWII, there was no place for the economy to go but North, so Harry S. Truman essentially rode the wave caused by the post war boom.  He was more concerned with worldly matters, such as receiving the unconditional surrender of Germany, and figuring out how he was going to get Japan to surrender (he ultimately decided to drop Fat Man and Little Boy), and then reconstruction of Europe.

This boom produced eight years of economic growth and prosperity during the Eisenhower years. Nearly every indicator of economic health -- GNP, capital investments, personal savings, and income, showed substantial upswings. So neither Truman nor Eisenhower needed to stimulate the economy by reducing the tax burden.

This changed as John F. Kennedy came into office.  By 1960 the high tax rates started to catch up with the economy, and a recession ensued.  Kennedy understood that lowering taxes would encourage people to save and invest. He also understood the single best means of stimulating an economy was to lower capital gains taxes.  So he proposed lowering the top marginal tax rate to 65 percent, and the capital gains taxes to 19.5 percent.

Sounding much like a modern day conservative, Kennedy explained his economic plan on December 14, 1962, in a speech to the Economic Club of New York:

This administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes to be enacted and become effective in 1963. I am not talking about a quickie or a temporary tax cut which would be more appropriate if a recession were imminent. Nor am I talking about giving the economy a mere shot in the arm to ease some temporary complaint. The federal government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities of private expenditures...

When consumers purchase more goods, plants use more of their capacity, men are hired instead of laid off, investment increases, and profits are high. Corporate tax rates must also be cut to increase incentives and the availability of investment capital. The government has already taken major steps this year to reduce business tax liability and to stimulate the modernization, replacement, and expansion of our productive plant and equipment...

Our true choice is not between tax reduction on the one hand and the avoidance of large federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget, just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. Surely the lesson of the last decade is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders, but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions, and any new recession would break all deficit records. In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low. And the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.

Liberal democrats, such as Al Gore Sr. and John Kenneth Galbraith, championed against Kennedy's economic plan.  They proposed raising taxes and increasing government spending. They said Kennedy's plan would only result in less government revenue, and not grow the economy.   Kennedy essentially called Gore a "son of a bitch" and told Galbraith to "shut up!"

Even republicans opposed the Kennedy tax cuts, claiming they were reckless.  During the Kennedy-Nixon debates, it was Kennedy who championed for tax cuts and not the republican.  In fact, when Nixon was later elected as president, he would end up being more liberal than Kennedy.  This is yet another example that it's not the party, but the candidate we should be concerned about.

After his death, Congress agreed to cut the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent, but failed to cut capital gains taxes.  Still, despite liberal democrats and moderate republicans claiming it wouldn't work, government revenue doubled (or nearly doubled when adjusted for inflation). In 1961, tax revenue was $94 billion. This climbed to $153 billion in 1968, an increase of 62 percent (33 percent after adjusted for inflation).

The tax cuts were so successful that Lyndon Baines Johnson presided over a country in economic prosperity.  GNP rose 10 percent in the first year after the tax, and economic growth averages a rate of 4.5 percent from 1961 to 1968.  Disposable personal income rose 15 percent in 1966 alone. These are pretty substantial numbers showing the benefits of responsible economic programs.

Along with tax cuts, he was also an ardent supporter of having a limited government, meaning he was not a big spender. In fact, his annual budgets were always less than the 1959 Eisenhower budget.

However, when it came to the military he was a big spender (much like Reagan did 20 years later). He increased the budget by 20 percent, and increased the supply of nuclear weapons. He believed it was important to spend money on the military so we did not have to use it.  In other words, he believed that if people feared and respected our military, they will not mess with us. Some call this "Peace through strength."

He was also a strong opponent of socialism and Communism abroad. He was so opposed to Communism that he increased American involvement in Vietnam.  When Cuban rebels tried to overtake the Communist Fidel Castro, Kennedy sent troops to Cuba in what became known as the Bay of Pigs. After that failed, Russia attempted to send a ship full of nuclear weapons to Cuba.  Despite calls within his own party to stay out of it, Kennedy ordered the U.S. Navy to take action.

He believed in order to win the Cold War the U.S. had to beat the Russians where it counted. The best examples of this were his military spending and his promise to send astronauts to the moon. He said it was very important to beat them to the moon, "otherwise we shouldn’t be spending this kind of money, because I’m not that interested in space.”

A famous line from his innauguration speach was, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."  This was in reference to the welfare program, of which he was an ardent supporter of reforming. He believed in  "training for useful work instead of prolonged dependency."

In another effort to spur economic growth, he championed Congress for the authority to negotiate tariff reductions in order to lower prices and stimulate economic growth. In a special message to Congress on January 25, 1962, he said:

"The American consumer benefits most of all from an increase in foreign trade. Imports give him a wider choice of products at competitive prices. They introduce new ideas and new tastes, which often lead to new demands for American production... Increased imports stimulate our own efforts to increase efficiency, and supplement anti-trust and other efforts to assure competition. Many industries of importance to the American consumer and economy are dependent upon imports for raw materials and other supplies. Thus American-made goods can also be made much less expensively for the American consumers if we lower the tariff on the materials that are necessary to their production... American imports, in short, have generally strengthened rather than weakened our economy... the warnings against increased imports based upon the lower level of wages paid in other countries are not telling the whole story. (One reason for this is that) American products can frequently compete successfully even where foreign prices are somewhat lower--by virtue of their superior quality, style, packaging, servicing or assurance of delivery... This philosophy of the free market--the wider economic choice for men and nations-is as old as freedom itself. It is not a partisan philosophy."

Perhaps most important, his values and principles were biproducts of the fact he was very religious, attending Catholic Mass every week. He was an ardent supporter of life, and when asked about the topic of abortion, he said, "Now, on the question of limiting population: As you know the Japanese have been doing it very vigorously, through abortion, which I think would be repugnant to all Americans.”

We would not be talking about Kennedy the way we do today if he had listened to his advisors. Polls show that 85 percent of Americans still hold a favorable view of him, and he continues to rank as one of the best presidents of all time. This is probably the result of his conservatism. He was, in fact, the last conservative democrat.

Further reading:

• American Rhetoric: John F. Kennedy: Address to Economic Club of New York
• Heritage Foundation: Capital Gains Tax Cuts: Myths and Facts
• Heritage Foundation: A History Lesson of Lower Tax Rates
• Buzzfeed: 21 Reasons JFK Was Actually Conservative
• The American President Project: John Kennedy: Special Message To Congress on Foreign Trade Policy
• Forbes: Modern Democrats Would View John F. Kennedy As a Reagan Extrimist
• IRA Stoll: JFK Conservative, 2013
• Why Low Tariffs And Free Trade Are Good For Economies."      

The Best Way to Help Poor Children is sans Obama

This is a teaching moment here, and this is the purpose of this blog. We'll keep the individuals I'm referring to anonymous, calling them Carmen and Jeff.  Hang on a moment, and you'll see this post is a quintessential example of something I wrote about a few months ago.

Jeff said that he felt bad because many kids don't get much for Christmas. Their gifts from Santa entail simple things like shirts and pants.  And then their friends talk about what they got for Christmas -- bug things like Stereos, computers, video games, etc. -- the poor kids feel bad. So, he said, we ought to think of this, and give our kids more humble gifts from Santa, and make it so the big gifts, the expensive gifts, are from the parents.

So then Carmen says, "You have a point there."

I said, "That's a perfect example of why we need to get rid of people like Obama."

Carmen and Jeff look at me all offended, Jeff says, "This has nothing to do with politics."

Carmen said, "When I was a kid there was a republican in office, and we were still poor."

I didn't mean to get them so upset, and so I said nothing more. Later I'm sitting with just Carmen, and she said something about our paycheck, about how it's simply not enough money for us to get ahead. And I said, "Bingo. That's exactly what I was talking about.  People suck so much out of paychecks to help the poor to the point that now everyone is poor. That's what people like Obama want. They want victims."

Yes, it is to the point right now where we feel we can't get ahead.  My parents, and my grandparents, worked hard to get ahead.  They were never rich, but they could afford to buy a nice house with plenty of bedrooms for all the kids.  They had to work hard to get this, but they had it. Today, I work just as hard as my parents and grandparents, make about the same amount of money, and only make enough, after taxes, to buy a humble home where my kids are doubled up.

Look, allow me to explain.  It's easy to see the poor child and to empathise with him. This is what drives liberalism.  They count on you not seeing what is not seen, and that is all the money taken from hard working people to pay for all their government programs aimed to help these victims.

Yet it goes to show that the truth hurts, especially when you're referring to poor children who's parents don't have enough money to pay for gifts.  I was not meaning to sound like I don't care, but my point was that liberals feed into stuff like this. Liberals want poor kids, and they want people like you to feel bad for them, because that makes you all victims. Now, here me out here.

These poor kids are victims. Liberals like Obama need victims to survive, and to keep the democratic party going.  They say things like you are saying, "Oh, I feel your pain." And then they create programs to help them that someone else has to pay for.  And so taxes have to be raised on the hardworking people, the rich, the middle class, and also the poor.

On the surface people see Obama's programs come off as good.  They are helping the poor. They are making it so the poor can eat, have a roof over their heads, and so forth.  But what is not seen is all the money filtered from paychecks. By the time you get them they are so small that the value of the dollar goes less far than it did 40 years ago.  In other words, liberalism has made everyone poor. That's what they mean when they say they can create a euphoria.  Their euphoria, their world where everyone is equal, is a world where everyone is poor.

And you can say that when you were a kid you were poor and their was a republican president.  But that is not telling the whole truth.  Since the 1960s, since the death of John F. Kennedy, liberals have controlled the media, they have controlled what our kids learn, and they have controlled Washington. And I'm referring to democrats, but I'm also referring to establishment republicans like George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, Mitt Romney, John McCain, John Kasich, Jeb Bush, and John Boehner.

These are the types of republicans who are also liberals.  Look, just last week presents a perfect example of what I'm referring to here.  In 2010 and 2014 republican voters, in landslide elections, put republicans into office who promised to oppose democrats, and to stop Obama.  Then they sign budget deals like the one last week where the democrats get everything they want funded and republicans get nothing.  Some say Obama got what he wanted with a fight, but there was no fight. Republicans just caved on everything.

Here's a better example.  In the mid 1980s democrat controlled New York was in a depression and about to go bankrupt.  Donald Trump was rich already, and so he had no personal need to invest in New York.  But he did.  By the time he was done, he had created millions of jobs for New York, and billions of dollars.  He had single handedly pulled New York out of a depression. And he was not a politician.  He created no government programs. What he did was encouraged government to get out of the way, give him tax breaks, etc., and he did what businessmen do: make deals.

So who do you think really cares about the poor: liberals or conservatives? Liberals are gutless people who say they care about the poor, and create programs other people have to pay for, such taxes out everything we buy or make, and in the long term make everyone poor. Conservatives look like they don't care for the poor because they don't offer them free programs, but they create environments where everyone has an opportunity to prosper, and where the dollar goes a lot farther.

In other words, even if those poor families made the same amount of money under a conservative government that did not include Obama, those few dollars that bought cheap gifts from Santa would have been able to buy more expensive gifts. So, you see, the best thing we can do for those poor kids is to get rid of Obama.

That said, I'm all for helping poor kids. It's called charity. And less money taken out of paychecks, the more charity people do. For instance, during the 1980s, when taxes and regulations were low under Ronald Reagan, charitable givings were at record highs. So, get rid of the Obama's of the world and poor kids will be far better off. 

Further Reading:

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The Parable of the Broken Window

I think that everyone should read Henry Hazlitt's book "Economics in one lesson."  Thankfully, you can read it for free right here. Or, at the very least, everyone should read chapter 2, "The Broken Window."  This is the best economics lesson ever told, and it's very short.  So I'm going to post it here 

A young hoodlum, say, heaves a brick through the window of a baker’s shop. The shopkeeper runs out furious, but the boy is gone. A crowd gathers, and begins to stare with quiet satisfaction at the gaping hole in the window and the shattered glass over the bread and pies. After a while the crowd feels the need for philosophic reflection. And several of its members are almost certain to remind each other or the baker that, after all, the misfortune has its bright side. It will make business for some glazier. As they begin to think of this they elaborate upon it. How much does a new plate glass window cost? Two hundred and fifty dollars? That will be quite a sun. After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $250 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it, that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor.

Now let us take another look. The crowd is at least right in its first conclusion. This little act of vandalism will in the first instance mean more business for some glazier. The glazier will be no more unhappy to learn of the incident than an undertaker to learn of a death. But the shopkeeper will be out $250 that he was planning to spend for a new suit. Because he has had to replace the window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent need or luxury). Instead of having a window and $250 he now has merely a window. Or, as he was planning to buy the suit that very afternoon, instead of having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window and no suit. If we think of him as part of the community, the community has lost a new suit that might otherwise have come into being, and is just that much poorer.

The glazier’s gain of business, in short, is merely the tailor’s loss of business. No new “employment” has been added. The people in the crowd were thinking only of two parties to the transaction, the baker and the glazier. They had forgotten the potential third party involved, the tailor. They forgot him precisely because he will not now enter the scene. They will see the new window in the next day or two. They will never see the extra suit, precisely because it will never be made. They see only what is immediately visible to the eye. 

The economy is not a Zero Sum Game, part 2

This is what they teach our kids in school.
This is the stuff Common Core Teaches.
This is why parents must be in control
of what our kids learn.
We must explain to them that,
the economy is not a Zero Sum Game:
that they can get rich too. 

So, as I wrote last week, the economy is not a zero sum game.  Still, progressives believe that it is. They teach that if one one person makes a dollar another person loses a dollar.  This is why they believe in taking from the greedy rich, or the top 1%, and redistributing it. This is why progressive programs are set up to punish those who achieve, even turn them into villains.

Yet it's not just rich individuals they despise, but rich nations as well.  They hate the United States because it has become a rich and prosperous nation at the expense of every other nation of the world.  This is why they aim to punish the rich United States, to bring it down to size.

It goes beyond just money. They believe if the United States is using up all the oil, that there is none left for anyone else. They believe we are taking advantage of poor nations to get rich.

Yet they are mistaken. There is enough money to go around for everyone. Likewise, there is enough oil to go around for everyone. At least, it's available to anyone who has a desire to obtain it. It's there for anyone who knows how to get it.

Look, poor nations are poor not because the U.S. is rich: they are poor because of the government they created. If they want to become rich like the United States, then they need to create a democracy, or a republic.  They need to create a capitalistic society.  They need to create a system whereby people with an idea and the desire and are willing to take risks can go with it and prosper; move up the ladder, so to speak; to get rich.

The Bible teaches capitalism. Most poor nations are not God fearing. That's why Muslim nations tend to be totolitarian and not capitalistic. That's why Muslim nations are poor. They do not preach the Bible. They do not preach conservatism.  They do not preach capitalism.  They believe that rich people are evil and should be punished.  They, like liberals, want everyone to be equally poor.

That's not our fault. That's not the fault of the United States.

Progressives believe in a Zero Sum Game.  Obama believes in a Zero Sum Economy.  Obama thinks of everything in terms of Zero Sum.  He believes if the United States has nukes then everyone else should have them, because if we have them no one else can.  If we have them it's unfair to other nations.  That's why he made the deal with Iran allowing them to get nukes.  That's also why they want to take them away from Israel, because they give Israel an unfair advantage over Muslim nations that surround them.

This is why he wants to bring down our military, and the military of Israel, and destroy our nuclear weapons.  He wants to make us equal to nations like Iran; to equal the playing field because it's not fair if we have them and they don't.  This is

Obama is an anti colonialist. This is the same reason Iraq can have nukes and America can't. They think that if America has nuclear weapons, if Israel has nukes, and other nations don't, then America, and Israel, have an unfair advantage.  That's because of the Zero Sum Economy that they believe in. This is what they were taught.  This is what their schools teach our kids.

This is why it is so hard today to push forward with our conservative agenda. This is why the constant attacks on capitalism. This is why the constant attacks on the U.S. military. This is why he does not properly fund the military.  This is why Clinton closed military bases.  

This is why they complained when Reagan spent all that money to build up our military.  That's why they hate the idea of Trumps that he wants to likewise spend money on the military to "make America so powerful that no one will mess with us."  They believe if money is spend on the military that it will not be available for hard working Americans.  And they are wrong.

Look, the liberal solution is to come up with ways to take money from America. This is why they try to get us involved in agreements whereby we have to spend money to fight and prevent global warming.  They use this as an excuse to punish America; to get our money; to redistribute it to poor nations.  They want to take our nukes and our oil too. 

They attack individualism.  They believe it is your job as an individual to make sacrifices for the good of the state, or the collective.  They want to take any money that they decide you don't need and give it to others. They don't want you to invest money in things they decide you don't need.  They think if you are investing in this stuff, you are taking money from other people.  

What they don't see, however, is that you are spending money on that stuff, you are circulating it into the economy.  You are funding other people.  You are not just giving it to Walmart, you are giving it to the distributors, the manufacturers, and also all the people who work for those companies.  You are helping to fund their livelihood as well.

Bottom line, progressives believe in a Zero Sum Economy, and they are wrong.  They believe America is the cause of the worlds problems because of American Exceptionalism, Individualism, and Capitalism.  So they believe the solution to the worlds problems is to take away America's oil supply, take away America's nuclear supply, and and take away our money supply.  They do this by forcing us to agree to regulations that force us to make loans to foreign nations that we took advantage of.

This is the mentality of the people who are teaching our kids. This is the mentality of many members of the media.  This is why we must constantly remind our kids of the truth.  And in this case, the truth is that the economy is not a Zero Sum Game.  If you succeed, others can succeed too.  If America succeeds, other nations can succeed too. 

The economy is not a Zero Sum Game

A zero Sum Game is a situation where one person's gain is another person's loss.  Poker is a good example of this, considering the sum total of the winnings of one player equals the losses of all the other players.  It's any game, according to Dictionary.com, where the winnings minus the losses always equals zero.  Many people believe that the economy is a Zero Sum Game. This is a myth, and I would like to explain why.

Many people think the economy is a Zero Sum Game.  They believe if you have a rich person like Donald Trump, that every dollar he makes is a dollar taken away from someone else, or a dollar that is not available to someone else.  They believe that the rich do not need to spend their money, so it just sits in savings,and investments.  They have it invested in their million dollar houses and their boats.  It is not available for anyone else.

They believe if one person, or group of people (the rich, the 1%) has the money, if one person is hoarding it, that there's no money left for those who are looking for jobs; that there's no money to be distributed. They believe is the top 1% have 40% of all the wealth, that the rest of the population has to fight over the remaining 60%.

It is for this reason that progressives, liberals, socialists or fascists justify taking from the rich and giving to the poor, or redistributing wealth.  They do it to equal the playing field. They do it to give the poor an equal opportunity to have some of the money that the rich otherwise are hoarding.  This is why they constantly attack the rich as greedy and selfish.

The truth is, however, that the economy is not a zero sum game.  In order for the rich to enjoy their money, they have to constantly spend this money.  They have large houses, and so they must hire people, often at higher wages, to clean and maintain these houses.  They have airplanes, and they have to hire people to maintain them. So they are providing jobs for many people. They are creating work.

They are also constantly cycling money into the economy.  They are spending money on fuel to heat their homes, businesses, and planes.  They buy food.  They buy wedding rings.  They buy furniture.  They buy electronics, such as televisions and iphones.

Their money is not sitting in a lock box.  It is constantly being circulated in the economy.  This money is available to anyone who has a service, or a talent, that can be tapped into. This money is not distributed. If you want some of it, you have to earn it.  How much money you make is completely up to you.  If you work hard, if you are willing to relocate, if you have a talent, then you will make as much money as you want.

A good example here is the CEO of a hospital.  He makes triple digits.  I hear people complaining about this all the time.  They say things like, "It's not fair.  I make so little, and they make so much."  But it is fair, if you think about it.

One of my coworkers, I'll call him Dave, was a nurse.  While other nurses were content to just be nurses, and live on nurses wages, Dave was ambitious.  He went back to school.  He obtained a bachelor's degree in nursing.  Instead of stopping there, he went on to become a physician's assistant (PA). The next time I saw him he was a PA for a surgeon.

He didn't stop there.  He applied for and obtained a job as supervisor of surgery.  Then he applied for and obtained a job as vice president of the hospital.  He could have stopped there, but he didn't.  He applied for CEO of another hospital, and he got that job.  He was ambitious, he was willing to relocate.  Most people are not willing to do this. So it only makes sense that Dave should be rewarded.  He had a talent, mainly ambition, that should be rewarded.  He now makes triple digits.

You see, there is money available, and plenty of it.  If economics were a Zero Sum Game, people like Dave wouldn't be able to tap into the system.  They might as well just remain as nurses or respiratory therapists. But it is not a Zero Sum Game.  If you want to be like Dave, if you want to make more money, you have to have the talent, the desire, the ambition, of Dave.

You also have to be willing to take risks.  Dave took lots of risks.  He spend thousands of dollars to become educated, and the gamble was that this would pay off.  For Dave it did pay off.  Dave is now in the top 1%. Dave is now the envy of the poor.  Dave, and Donald Trump, and people like them, ought to be put up on a pedestal as examples of what can happen in America. They are examples of the American Dream.

This is what conservatives do.  This is what capitalism does.  Sure some people who take the risk, some with talent, will fall flat on their faces.  This is the risk. But many others will become the Donald Trumps and the Daves of the world.  The opportunity is there, you just have to tap into it.  The money is there, you just have to tap into it.

Liberals, however, and progressives, and socialists, and communists, and fascists believe, and falsely so, the economy is a zero sum game.  By teaching this, people develop an "it's not fair" attitude toward the rich, or toward those who achieve.  They think there is no money available, so they might as not even try to obtain it. So they become content to just be nurses and respiratory therapists. Some don't even try to get those jobs, and they sit around their homes waiting for a check to come from the government through government redistribution of wealth policies.

Look, I'm not mocking nurses and respiratory therapists or any other hard working American.  All those jobs are essential for the economic prosperity of the nation.  After all, I am a respiratory therapist.  I am not content with my job nor the money that I make, but I also don't have the ambition of Dave.  I also do not have the desire to sacrifice many years of schooling.  I am also not a risk taker. So it is my own fault that I am where I am in life.  And I am content with my lot in life.

Regardless, for those who want to tap into it, the money is available.  The economy is not a Zero Sum Game.

Economy worse today than Great Depression

There is a neat article at Zero Hedge blog called "Why this feels like a depression for most people" by Jim Quinn from the Burning Platform Blog.  He said that even though there are no soup lines, the statistics confirm that we are presently living through economic hardships that are far worse than the Great Depression.

Surely we must consider there were fewer people in the U.S. during the great depression, but these statistics are overwhelming regardless.  Consider.

• There were 12.8 million Americans unemployed during the Great Depression. These were the men pictured in those soup lines. This is estimated, because the Department of Labor did not keep official unemployment numbers until 1940. That comes to 24.9% of the Labor Force. 
• Today, there are 46 million Americans unemployed. This is the U3 number that is reported, which comes to 5.1% of the Labor Force.  It does not include the people who have stopped looking for work, so it actually makes the economy look better than it really is.
• Today, there are 94 million people not working or not participating in the Labor Force, this is the highest this number has been (or the lowest labor force participation rate) since 1977. This is the U6 unemployment number, which comes to about 14%. It includes all the working age people who are currently not working.  
• Those 94 million not looking for work are not starving; they have become official dependents of the government
• 94 million not looking for work, 8 million officially called unemployed, equals 40% of the population not working. 
• Sixty-two percent of the labor force is working; 38% not working
• Today, there are 123 million households in America and 23 million of them are on food stamps. Therefore 19% of all households in America require food stamp assistance to survive. So food stamps have replaced soup lines, so they are not seen.  We do not see hungry people in the U.S. today, so we do not know how bad the economy really is. 
• In 1933, there were approximately 126 million Americans living in 30 million households.  
• In 1933 there were no food stamps
• In 1933 there was no welfare
• In 1933 if you did not work you didn't eat
• In 1933 there was no incentive to stay at home and collect welfare, because if you didn't work you didn't eat.  You see, people did not give up looking for work, because they needed to feed themselves and their families.  
• In 1933 people didn't become dependents of the state
• In 2015, greater than 109,631,000 live in households receiving federal welfare benefits, according to the Census Bureau. That equals 35.4 percent of all 309,467,000 people living in the U.S.
• In 1933, you had to work, you had to walk to and stand in, soup lines to receive charity
• In 2015, you can be among the 94 million not working and have a roof over your head, have a cell phone, a car, your home is probably air-conditioned, and you're eating as much as you want.
• Daily Caller: "Fifty-one percent of working Americans make less than $30,000 a year." This data from the Social Security Administration. That's $2,500 a month before taxes. That is just above the federal poverty level for a family of five. "The new numbers come from the National Wage Index, which SSA updates each year based on reported wages subject to the federal income tax." So half the folks who are working don't have any disposable income, and therefore are unable to propel the economy.

Then you can add the following, and it gets even worse.

• Open borders so anyone can get in, legal or not
• Our borders are flooded with low skilled, low educated people who cannot command any kind of a decent wage because they're not qualified, and most qualify for entitlements that we pay for
• People who work are paying for it, whether they want to or not.
• Government controlling what kids learn, and not parents. It's called Common Core, although most schools won't call it that because 54% of Americans hate Common Core.  It's faceless bureaucrats in Washington deciding what kids should learn instead of parents. 
• We are $18 trillion in debt
• We are printing money left and right and dumping it into the stock market (called quantitative easing) to maintain the stock market bubble that is going to pop some day
• We are paying people not to work

What these statistics show, other than that we are in a depression, is that liberals like Obama are buying votes. That's why we have 94 million people not working and they are all eating; they are all living comfortably off the government, and that's why these numbers keep getting worse; that's why so many people vote for liberal democrats, and why Bernie Sanders even has credibility in the democratic party despite publicly claiming to be a socialist who hates capitalism. That's why Obama got elected two times. He, in essence, bought votes with our money. That's what FDR did too.

And don't get me wrong, I do want to help the needy. I'm all for charity.  However, the best way to help the poor is not by giving them something for nothing.  The poor must work for what they receive. We need to put them to work if they receive assistance.  We need to make the poor uncomfortable so they have an incentive to keep looking for work.  

Look, these statistics show that, even adjusting for the population increase, current abysmal economic statistics are far worse than during the Great Depression.  We have more people not working, and more people not looking for work.  And it isn't getting better, won't get better, by creating more programs that take from those who work to create more government programs that give to people who quit looking for work; who have no incentive to look for work.  

Related Links.

• ZeroHedge: Why This Feels Like A Depression For Most People
• ZeroHedge: Record 94 Million Americans Not In The Labor Force; Participation Rate Lowest Since 1977
• Millennials Are Coming of Age in a Depression -- They Just Don't Know It
• Ed Source: Poll shows most parents hate common core

Reduce Poverty By Teaching How America Became Great

I recently had an opportunity to sit down with Rush Limbaugh. We discussed why people outside our nation are envious of us and want to bring down our great nation, as opposed to trying to become more like us. We also discussed what needs to be done to increase prosperity around the world. Here are the transcripts.

Me.  Hi Rush.  Long time listener. It's an honor to have this opportunity to talk with you. 

Rush. Thank you, sir. 

Me.  There are a lot of people who, I don't know if they hate America, but they seem to be envious of us. They see how prosperous we are.  But instead of trying to understand how America became so prosperous, they talk bad about America.  They say that we are overly materialistic. They say that we have become prosperous at the expense of other people or other nations. You have people like the pope saying we need to create a larger government to take money from greedy Americans and share it with poor people in America and poor nations around the world. They say that we need to keep our borders open and allow anyone who wants in in. You even have people inside our own country who think this, such as Obama, which explains why he won't do anything about the invasion of immigrants. What do you think?

Rush.  Let's start with the pope. It's almost as if in his mind and in the minds of many other people, in fact, that you have the world, and it is what it is and then there's this one place in the world where it's much, much, much better than anywhere else in the world. It's richer. It has more opportunity. It has more freedom and more liberty. It's vastly more prosperous. The standard of living is way, way higher. It's got all kinds of weapons to protect itself and so forth. It's just better, it's just demonstrably better. 

Me. Uh huh.

Rush. And then the rest of the world is kind of eating the dust of this one really special place. And it's as though nobody ever stops to ask how did this one special place become special? They just assume that it was made that way, or that fate, or maybe in this case God, ordained it. And because there's only one special place in all the world, one place that's so much better, so much more advanced, so much more prosperous, however you want to define and characterize it, this place is so special, but it just happened. It's just the way it is. 

Me.  Exactly.

Rush.  And, as such, everybody else in the world is entitled to go there, simply because it exists. Everybody's entitled to go there, and anybody who wants to go there should be permitted to go there. And there ought not be any complaining about it, because in this special place, this one place that is far and away better than anywhere else on earth, everybody that's there was once from someplace else.

So everybody that's there had to go there to get there. So why should people going there to get there today not be permitted when everybody in the past was? No, I'm talking about the United States of America, not the Vatican. One special place, United States of America. It's far and away superior to every other place on earth, in terms of lifestyles, liberty, and freedom. In terms of the human condition, there's no place like it. 

Me. Exactly. 

Rush.  It's so special, everybody wants to go there. And there's not a thought given to how it got special. It's just assumed it was made that way, I guess. It's just assumed that it's just there. And it's also assumed that it's always going to be there. Call it the golden goose or whatever you want but everybody saying that we have no right to keep anybody out because nobody kept us out, we all had to get here. Nobody here now actually started here. Of course, that's no longer true.

But the whole construct of this is that, yeah, this is a special place, but not because of anything the people here did to make it special. It just happens to be. And the people who were here are here simply by winning life's lottery. It's all fate; it's all luck. And if anybody else in the world wants to come to this one special place, then nobody has the right to tell them they can't because we are all immigrants.

And nobody ever stops to ask in this debate, nobody ever stops to consider how did it get special? Because it wasn't made that way. We didn't just wake up one day and here is the United States of America, and it is the gem, the shining city on the hill, however you want to describe it, it had to be built. It was not there. But from the moment it began to be built, isn't it interesting that everybody in the world who heard about it wanted to go there?

Me.  It is.

Rush.  Maybe I should change the tense. Everybody who heard about it wanted to come here. And now the people who lead this special place don't seem to have any appreciation for how it became special. In fact, if they have anything, it's guilt over how it became special. And so they either want to open the borders and let anybody in because it's not fair that we are here and we're able to get here and others who want to come here are not, it just isn't fair.

So this special place in the world, the United States of America, it just happened. It just is. And it's our responsibility, as those who are lucky and fortunate enough, to happen to have been born here. It is incumbent upon us to share that same luck and good fortune with everybody else. Otherwise we are mean, selfish, polarized, partisan, extremist, racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, whatever. 

Me.  And Greedy. 

Rush.  So it seems even from the pope, immigrants, anybody who doesn't live here, has an automatic right to come here just because there's no other place like it on earth. And what is never discussed is how it got so special. How did it happen? Why is it so prosperous? Why is it so free?

See, the correct thing to do would be to answer those questions and spread those answers all over the world. And that's what, to me, if I had the ability to command the attention of the peoples of the world, that's what I would tell them. I certainly wouldn't stand for policies that are gonna end up destroying this special place, because once this special place is destroyed and is no longer special, then where is everybody gonna go?

Me.  So, basically, rather than look at America as the model and trying to reproduce it, rather it seems everyone wants to tear it down.  I think it points to the root of the problem we have in this culture and around the world. There's envy and there's a begrudgingness. Envy is something that can be a positive because I can be envious or you can be envious of someone's possessions and use that as a positive to try to strive to achieve whatever you need to, to get those possessions in terms of a job, education, whatever it is. And neighbors can be envious of what the other person has yet still be happy for what they have and the relationship will endure. However the problem we have is a begrudgingness. People see what other people have and they don't want them to have it. And if neighbors have a begrudging feeling towards their friends' possessions, eventually it's gonna eat away and destroy the relationship and they're gonna look at ways to try to take away what their friends have.

Rush.  There's no question, that happens in neighborhoods, I mean, that happens among friends. I mean, you're right, that's a natural human emotion. That's called jealousy. That's called covetousness. If you covet what somebody else has.

Me.  Right. And that's why I think the problem is people are so busy worrying what other people have and looking for ways of taking it away from them, they don't appreciate the things they have, and people can really work on not looking to take away what everyone else has, you know, look at it as a positive. I'd much rather be in a country where the median income was maybe a hundred thousand dollars because it tells me, okay, I have a chance of getting that median income, rather than living in a country where no one has anything so I can't be jealous of someone's fancy cars.

Rush.  Exactly. But let me refocus the question, because I was not speaking per se. I'm glad you called to enable me to make this clarification. When I asked the question when others around the world look at the US, why don't they seek to emulate it and spread that specialness all over the world rather than everybody trying to get here. You're right, there's someone to tear it down. But the answer to the question, "Who wants to tear it down?" I'm asking about other leaders, powerful people, people who have the ability to lead movements that would emulate the United States around the world or Americans who would try to proselytize about the American way of life.

We've had those. And they've been called renegades and conquerors and imperialists and so forth. But the real reason is that most of the world's leaders are tyrants. That's another reason that we are special and why we are so hell-bent opposed and frightened of tyrants. We don't want dictators, which is what most people live under. Most people were born to tyranny and bondage and dictatorship, and most, to this day, are still subject to it in one way or another, or in many ways. Those people, the tyran... Do you think Fidel Castro wants his people to be free? Do you think Raul Castro wants his people to be free? Do you think Stalin, old Joe, wanted his people to be free, or Lenin? Do you think Hitler wanted his people to be free? How about the ChiComs? Do you really think they want their people to be free? 

Me. No. 

Rush.  No. They want them to be controlled. 

The leaders in these tyrannies and dictatorships do very well economically. They are literal thieves. They plunder and steal the national wealth of the countries they lead, a la the Castros, a la the Soviet leaders. Look at the oligarchs even today there, Putin and his buddies. The thing that stands in the way of that is a free people and a runway economy. A growing economy with prosperity for all. That's, again, what explains, illustrates, defines the specialness or uniqueness of the United States, and it really is a rarity. 

Me.  Most people want to make their nations like ours, but their leaders don't want that. So most people around the world continue to have their natural rights denied. 

Rush.  My question was all of these leaders that I'm talking about, these tyrants and dictators, if you listen to them, what are the names of their countries? The People's Republic of whatever. The people don't have a say in anything in these countries. The leaders who claim to be for the little guy, who claim to care about the oppressed, who claim they're gonna get even with the rich, claim they're gonna get even with those who have their jackbooted thugs on the necks of the little guy, don't mean it.

If they did, they would be trying to emulate the United States, and they would attempt to seek the stature and credit one would attain from founding, establishing, leading such a nation, such a prosperous nation. But that's not who these people are. They're dictators. They're tyrants. They rule by the use of force and intimidation and imprisonment. And that is the story for most of the people in the world. And in light of that fact, it infuriates me even more when I have to listen to people both in this country and visitors to this country blame us for the problems in the world. 

Me.  And they do try to blame us.  They blame us for all the poverty of the world, such as the pope is saying nearly every day; that we need to spread the wealth rather than create it. 

Rush.  It really steams me. It really ticks me off when they start going down this road of climate change and how we're destroying the world and we are destroying the planet. I can't tell you, I get so insulted, I get so angry when I hear this. The dictators, and many others who seek to run and rule countries, do not want a free people.

Me. So if these dictators truly wanted to help people. If the pope truly wanted to help the poor, what is it that he ought to be preaching. What is it that dictators need to be doing to truly create wealth and benefit the people of theire countries.?

Rush.  You cannot distribute wealth or redistribute it unless what happens first? 

Me.  It has to be created. 

Rush. Sure, the U.S. is going to give 350 million, governmentally, and that's probably not the last figure. Privately, U.S. citizens are going to donate even more, probably double that amount before it's all said and done. Where does this money come from?

Me.  Capitalism.  

Rush.  So the real point of this, to me, as a great economic exercise, is to note that the real important thing that makes all this possible is the creation of wealth. Many of our nation's teachers also don't realize why poverty in developing countries is declining at such a rapid rate." It's not because of the redistribution of wealth. It's because of the redistribution of resources and the redistribution of capitalism, something I have long advocated on this program. We don't need any more wealth redistribution. We need a more widespread distribution of capitalism, and it's happening.

Me.  Right.

Rush. I have an interesting story that cleared yesterday from, of all places, the San Francisco Chronicle, and it is a piece by Jim Klauder, who is a vice president for the Foundation for Teaching Economics, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving economic understanding amongst the peoples of the world, and listen to some of this. Here's the headline to the story: "Ignorance Shrouds Capitalism's Profound Impact on Reducing Poverty ? It should come as heartening news that 2004 was one of the most prosperous years in history. Not because the U.S. economy grew by a solid 4.3%, but because developing countries experienced an explosive 6.1% economic growth. According to a recent study by the World Bank, 2004's growth reflected 'an expansion without precedent over the past 30 years.' Equally encouraging, the report notes that 'the rapid growth of developing economies ... has produced a spectacular, if not historic, fall in poverty.'

Me.   So why don't teachers teach this? Why is it that our kids don't learn that it's capitalism that creates wealth?

Rush.  They have to be taught themselves that capitalism is good for the poor because they think it's bad. They think capitalism is bad. It's like the left's definition of trickle-down economics. The left defines trickle-down economics as the rich leaving their homes, going to the park, robbing the homeless of what they have, and getting even richer. I know it makes no sense, but that's how they argue it. They argue that rich people become rich because they steal from the poor or they deprive the poor of their "fair share" or what have you. It's bogus. It's outrageous. It's stupid.

Me. So what should teachers be teaching?

Rush.  The poor get out of poverty by virtue of capitalism and opportunity: the creation of wealth.  This culture, if spread to the rest of the world, would be the greatest thing that could happen for the people of the rest of the world

Me.  We are running out of time. Do you have any concluding words. 

Rush.  Well, if they (the left, dictators) really cared about the little guy, if they really cared about the little guy, and want the little guy to have an improved life, more contentment, more happiness, then the United States is what you would emulate. You certainly wouldn't tear it down. So it must not be true when they tell us what they really want is to help and assist and elevate the little guy, 'cause they don't elevate anybody. The people I'm talking about try to make things fair by punishing and penalizing people at the top. They seek equality and fairness by reaching for the lowest common denominator they can find. Equally shared misery seems to be what their utopia is. 

Me.  If you could influence all the people of the world...

Rush. So if I had the good fortune of having the ability to influence people all over the world every time I spoke, I would do my best to make sure people understood why the United States of America is special, and then I would suggest that everybody who wants to come here, "I don't blame you, fine and dandy, there's a legal mechanism for this. We're not denying people the right to come to our country. There's a legal way to do it." That's another thing people forget, including the pope.  We're not talking about being anti-immigrant. We're talking about obeying the law. The law exists for lots of reasons. In this case, the law exists to maintain the integrity of this special place. We allow immigrants here, happily so.

Me.  Right.

Rush.  You have this special place, you want it to remain special, you better find out why it became special. And then after that, as I say, if I had the ability to influence people all over the world just by speaking or writing, one of my objectives would be to find out how this special place became special and then tell everybody. "If you want what happens in the US, it can happen where you are, too. This is how." And I'm not talking about replicating our history with wars and this kind of thing. I'm talking about economic systems, human rights systems, everything that is combined to make this place special. This is no means the only place that can be special. Isn't it odd that it's the only place that is? And isn't it even further intriguing, so many people want to blow it up. Why? Obviously it's a threat. There hasn't been a military force like the United States of America in the history of the world.

Me.  Thanks, Rush, for taking time from your busy schedule for this interview. I could listen to your wisdom all day long.

Rush.  Thank you. 

Further reading:

• Rush Limbaugh: Our freedom threatens the world's tyrants
• Rush Limbaugh: How liberalism advances
• Rush Limbaugh: Redistribute capitalism, not wealth

Myth Buster: All rich people, corporations, nations are greedy

Quite often my liberal friends say things like, "Donald Trump is greedy," "It's a rich, greedy corporation." They refer to any rich person as greedy, not just Trump.  Any corporation that makes money is greedy, such as, "Greedy pharmaceuticals" set their prices too high. I think It's frustrating to me when they say stuff like this, but I think I understand why they do: it's based on a fallacy.

It almost seems as if liberals hate success, as they are often trying to punish people who succeed. They falsely believe, that left to their own devices, people will not give to charity; they will not help the poor. I attempted to allay this myth in my post, "Pope Francis Wrong About Capitalism."  Capitalism creates opportunities, and people under capitalistic societies donate more to charity than people under any other form of government.

I think the big misconception, the big fallacy of progressives, is that they believe there is only so much money in the world, and if one person, or one corporation, becomes wealthy, that this comes at the expense of everyone else, especially the poor.  In other words, if one person makes a million dollars, this is a million dollars that will not help the poor; in fact, it hurts the poor.  That's why they refer to rich people like Donald Trump as greedy and selfish.

The truth is that there is plenty of money to go around so that everyone can get rich.  This what Trump is saying when he says, "I'm rich, and I will make you rich too."  There is no shortage of money in the world. Rather than trashing people like Trump who succeed, we ought to put them up on a pedestal with an inscription under saying, "You can be like Trump: You can get rich too."

That's the whole point of American exceptionalism.  It's not that we are better than other nations, it's that, before American, 90% of people lived in poverty. America -- more specifically: American Exceptionalism -- has made it so that anyone can rise up to be as rich as kings or queens or totalitarian leaders. This was never possible before America.

People like Trump are a rare breed who sacrifice all to succeed.  Trump had to sacrifice years and money on educating himself, and he had to take great risks to succeed.  In fact, he was so focussed on succeeding that he risked his first marriage to Ivana. I don't mean to ramp up Trump here, I'm just trying to give an example of how getting rich is not bad.  Trump got rich by creating hundreds if not thousands of jobs. As Trump rose to the top he took many people with him.

That's the whole purpose of unfettered capitalism or capitalism.  Some call it supply side economics.  As Jack Kemp used to say, "A rising tide lifts all ships."  During the 1980s, when regulations and taxes were cut, people of every class rose to a higher class. In fact, when regulations, taxes, and government programs were cut in the 1920s, there was no unemployment (it was 2%, while most economists consider 4.5% no unemployment as there will always be people between jobs).

It's not only just individuals and corporations that are greedy, it's America. There are literally people, even within our own country, who think this is unfair; it's unfair that Americans are so rich, because they get rich at the expense of every other nation. They think we are the reason other nations are poor because we absorb all the money in the world.  They think it's not fair that we have all the wealth and no one else does.

What they fail to see is that 99.9% of the world was poor prior to America. Before America, there was no place in the world you could go to be free; there was no place in the world where you could worship what are religion you wanted; there was no place in the world you could go to take an idea you had and prosper.

Again, what they should do is put America on a pedestal and teach rulers of other nations how to accomplish what America has accomplished. Instead of saying Americans are greedy, they ought to ask: What made America so great? What made Americans so prosperous? Why does everyone want to go to America? How can I do that for my country?

Let me word this another way. People who really care for the poor, for the little guy, should want the little guy to have an improved life: more contentment, more happiness, more stuff.  If this is true, then they should want to emulate the United States. You certainly wouldn't want to tear it down.  If you truly cared about the poor, you would create a nation just like the United States.  You wouldn't teach them that America is selfish and greedy and rich at the expense of everyone else.

America is about freedom, liberty, and prosperity.  So if you want people to succeed, you should teach American principles, not deride them. Because before America there was no prosperity. The people who teach that America is rich and greedy try to make things fair by punishing and penalizing people at the top. Then when those people are gone, there are no jobs. This is substituted for government checks, which will disappear when the U.S. is gone. Then everyone will be equally poor. That is the utopia they seek -- fairness, equality of poverty.

It doesn't make sense. Why try to destroy the one beacon of hope, the one shining city on a hill, where every person has an equal opportunity to succeed.  Why destroy that by telling people that those people are greedy in their materialism? Why, if you truly love the poor and want to help them, wouldn't you teach them how to get it too? Why not teach your people how to prosper?

You have a special place, you want it to stay special, you better learn how it got special. Otherwise, you are going to have people want to destroy it, and you won't have a reason to stop them. Or, if someone were to come into our nation (as progressives have) and try to tear it down one piece at a time, and you didn't know why it was great in the first place, you might just stand by and let it happen.  In fact, you might even be willing to give up your liberties for the cause. You might be convinced to do just that.

And that's what's wrong with our country today, is our schools are not teaching the answers to these questions, so kids are growing up in the most prosperous nation in the history of the world, and yet they think it has always been this way. They think people were always free. They don't understand that 99.9% of people lived under totalitarian dictatorships or monarchies before the U.S. came about, and that freedom had to be fought for. They aren't taught this, so they don't feel the need to protect and defend it against the onslaught of liberalism.

That's why they can so easily be taught that anyone who succeeds in life is greedy and selfish; that anyone who gets rich does so at the expense of the poor; that capitalism breeds poverty. When the truth is that everyone was poor before the Unisted States, and capitalism creates prosperity not poverty.

Anyway, America is special, and to keep it special we must know how we got to where we are.  Once we know that, it will be easy to see how capitalism creates jobs; capitalism creates prosperity.  Capitalism makes life better for the poor, not worse.  If you really, truly love the poor, then you will tell them that they can have it too if they want.  And that's why Trump says, "I am rich, and I want to make you rich too."