4 Rush Limbaugh Quotes on Economics

Rush Limbaugh quotes on economics

6. I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back; I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.

   Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

60. I want to continue this discussion about oil and alternative fuel sources and so forth and the whole notion of a free market, and entrepreneurism, and zero-sum games. Way too many of you, because of the effort to demonize oil - not just because of the mistaken notion that our purchases of oil are funding terrorism. That's ridiculous. Terrorists are not using oil revenues to be funded. Even that aside, oil has been successfully demonized in this country to the point that otherwise intelligent, educated people think we can just get rid of it tomorrow. They're operating under the assumption that there is an alternative energy already out there, 'We just refuse to use it,' because Big Oil and Big Lobbyists and Big Republicans are keeping us from this alternative energy. Let me tell you. Look at me, folks. Look at me. The only alternative energy that we have right now or for the next 20 or 30 years, is the energy we refuse to drill for in ANWR: oil. The only alternative energy we have for the next 20 or 30 years is oil in the Gulf of Mexico that we refuse to drill for but the ChiComs and the Cubans are drilling for it in the Gulf, and the Mexicans are. We did lay claim to a huge field up in the Arctic Circle recently. But the liberal Democrats will not let our country pursue this alternative energy. They will not let us drill for it; they will not let us refine it. They will not allow it to happen. Above and beyond that, this zero-sum game aspect, the idea that we can just get rid of oil tomorrow or next year or five years from now, and replace it with something that's just as productive, efficient, and economical is absurd. It is just intellectually absurd. So is the notion that oil is evil. So is the notion that it has been so demonized. Oil is not evil. Oil is our friend. It is one of our best friends. It is one of our most valuable friends.

62. 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 hate the banks, if you hate the financial industry, if you hate the airline industry, if you hate the pharmaceutical industry, if you hate retail - if you have resentments for all these industries, and think that your only protection is government - then you really, really need to grab yourself by the wrist as hard as you can and ask yourself, 'What the hell happened to you and who made you feel this way?' The one area of the media that people respect and like in conjunction with American liberals and socialists has made you feel this way. You hate oil? Is it rational? What the hell, folks? 'That's right, Mr. Limbaugh! It's five dollars in California, four dollars elsewhere, three dollars other places. It's not right. Somebody's gouging us.' Wait a minute! I thought you guys were all hoping for high prices down the road so it would lead to conservation? You can't make liberals happy no matter what they get. Even if it's what they want, it's never enough. There's a political party, and its allies who feed off of your paranoia, feed off of your hatred for all things great in America.

64. 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.