I was flipping around the radio dial today, and momentarily tuned into a little wingnut talk. Rush Limbaugh is on some idiotic rant about the AIG bonuses. I’m about to change the station when some guy named Nathan calls in, so I hang on for a sec to listen. It was better than I expected.
The guy comes on and makes a point about the AIG bonuses:
CALLER: Yeah. There you go. There you go. But I just wanted to say, the one thing about this I do agree with, is Obama trying to get these bonuses back from the AIG execs, because that's our money. That's the taxpayers money. I don't think their bonuses should be funded with taxpayers money.
RUSH: Let me ask you a question.
CALLER: That's just my thought.
After some long-winded bullshit by Limbaugh about corporations and production, the conversation turns:
RUSH: [....] So why in the world, or how do you get to the point that you're going to bail out the company but you don't want the employees to get paid?
CALLER: No. Have the employees get paid, yeah, but... I mean, bonus? A bonus for tanking?
RUSH: No, this is not just executives, but executives are employees, too, and in --
CALLER: I understand that.
RUSH: -- many of these firms, Nathan, their salaries are pretty small. They work on bonuses, via contract based on merit. Now --
CALLER: Tell you what I would love to have their salaries. We'll switch salaries. I guarantee you, they would not be happy with my salary. (laughs)
RUSH: Well, now, that's... Can I talk about that with you, too?
CALLER: Okay, go ahead. Go ahead.
RUSH: What's stopping you?
CALLER: What's stopping me from what?
RUSH: From having the kind of money that that these people make, in your mind. What's stopping you from making it?
CALLER: Well, basically I -- I haven't gone back at school for it yet, to tell you the truth, and I haven't really been in that type of business for very long.
RUSH: [....]What would you want to earn per year? Forget the bonuses, forget anybody else. What would you like to earn?
[....]
CALLER: Oh, I would love to earn about 200, 250,000 a year. That will be perfect.
RUSH: You want to earn 200,000.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Two-fifty a year. Well, no, you want to earn $240,999 so you don't get the tax increase. But you want to earn 250. Do you know what? And I mean this from the bottom of my heart, Nathan. The only person stopping you is you. There's 250 --
CALLER: (click)
RUSH: He hung up! Damn it, he hung up. Right? Nathan, if you're listening, there's $250,000 out there for you, Nathan. If you really want it, if you really want to earn that kind of money, it's out there. Now, it's going to take -- I'm not being insulting. It's going to take hard work. [....] it takes 10,000 hours, and ten years of concentrated hard work. It doesn't just happen even in the case of athletes. But the point is, Nathan, find out what you want to do. There's $250,000 out there for you if you want it. This is the United States of America. There still is that chance. It hasn't been destroyed yet.
And, Nathan, I tell you this from the bottom of my heart: your only putting obstacles in you're own way [....]
It was great, Rush really sounded mad that the guy had the temerity to hang up on him.
But I’m thinking, what the hell are Rush’s listeners making of this? Limbaugh just said that if a person isn’t making 250 grand a year, it’s their own fault! WTF!? Less than 2 freakin’ percent of US households make that much money. And most of them ain’t listening to Limbaugh on a daily basis. How many of his listeners have put it 10,000, 20,000 hours, a lifetime, of hard work but are not earning anywhere near 250,000, if they even still have a job in the recession?
I don’t listen to Limbaugh much at all, so I don’t know how often he makes this kind of ridiculous argument, but it can’t be a very effective way of gaining followers.
Maybe the guy hanging up is a sign of the times. Maybe more and more people are finally deciding that it’s time to hang up on Rush Limbaugh.