Skip to content
quotesby

The United States is not a zero-sum game. Meaning when somebody gets hired, it does not mean somebody gets fired. Meaning when somebody earns an additional five dollars, somebody has lost an additional five dollars. It doesn't mean that it's either oil or else. The whole concept of the United States, the capitalist system, is the free market - and the free market is fueled by freedom! Freedom leads to ingenuity, invention, entrepreneurism, and what is the pursuit? The pursuit is profit. The profit derives from success. Now, there's some charlatans in our free market. The people in carbon offset businesses are sharks. They are pure frauds! They are convincing people to pay them X-amount of dollars for whatever, to plant trees, to soak up the additional carbon footprint of what is 'allowed.' Allowed by who? Who says that there is a maximum carbon footprint? There is no such law, there is no such standard, because we have freedom! If you want to have a 30,000-square-foot house and a big-ass swimming pool and a bunch of outdoor lights and you can afford it and you pay for it, and there are people that provide it. End of story. You are not guilty! You are not guilty. No, you are not. Just because somebody else doesn't have a 30,000-square-foot house, doesn't have a big-ass swimming pool and outdoor lights, doesn't mean they're innocent and you are guilty. As this relates to alternative fuels, oil is the most plentiful energy source we have. It's the most efficient. But while oil is being used, and while it is being exploited, the United States taxpayer, ladies and gentlemen, already spends billions of dollars on alternative energy research - and you can bet that the private sector is investing in it, too, and do you know why? Because we are a growing country and everybody needs energy! We're not going to stay the United States if we start reducing energy usage. Conservation is not the answer. So because a free market's percolating and gurgling and burbling out there, somewhere in this mix will come the magical alternative fuel source. It may not be for a hundred years, it may not be for 50, but it will happen, and it will happen all by itself ... if we stay free.

Rush Limbaugh#64

EconomicsBusinessCapitalismEnvironment

About this quote

What does it mean?
The speaker claims the US capitalist system is not zero-sum, where gains do not require others' losses. He praises freedom and profit while criticizing carbon offset businesses as fraudulent.
In plain terms
One person's gain doesn't mean another's loss in capitalism; freedom drives success, but some businesses cheat.
What can you take from it?
Believe in free markets but watch out for fraudulent schemes.

Where it applies

  • economic debates
  • business ethics
  • policy discussions

Putting it to work

  • Support free enterprise
  • Scrutinize greenwashing

Questions to consider

  • Is the economy a zero-sum game?
  • How do you verify ethical business practices?

Another view

The claim that carbon offsetting is purely fraudulent ignores verified environmental market mechanisms.

More from Rush Limbaugh

  1. They feed off of your rage that they have made you believe, things like: 'You are getting shafted by everybody else, and only government can protect you and ma…

    Permalink to quote #63
  2. Oil is not the enemy. We can peacefully co-exist with oil while looking for the miracle alternative fuel source that everybody wants, but we're going to have t…

    Permalink to quote #65
  3. I maintain to you, if you have any agreement with things that I have exaggerated here - if you do hate the automobile industry, if you hate Wall Street, if you…

    Permalink to quote #62

Related quotes

  1. The broader and more influential organisations of businessmen have acted to undermine the basic foundation of the free market system they purport to represent …

    Milton FriedmanMilton Friedman quote #10
  2. 'But I make a profit of three and a quarter cents an egg by selling them for four and a quarter cents an egg to the people in Malta I buy them from for seven c…

    Joseph HellerJoseph Heller quote #18
  3. On eroding, ecologically degraded, increasingly toxic landscapes, worked by failing or subsidy-dependent farmers and by the cheap labor of migrants, we have er…

    Wendell BerryWendell Berry quote #35