Do You Condemn Rush Limbaugh (ZOT!!! How to wear out your welcome here.)

Listen to Rush… (…prove why this torture picture scandal is really just political) (…play more audio of "the media" politicking and pointing at El Rushbo)

RUSH: Let's go to the NBC Nightly News last night. Chip Reid, reporter, is doing a report on the uproar on Capitol Hill over the possible resignation of Rumsfeld. He's on with Brokaw. He says, "Now a backlash from many conservative Republicans today during debate in the House on a resolution to condemn the Iraqi abuse some Republicans also condemned the Democrats accusing them of using the issue to score political points against the Bush administration."

Then plays DeLay saying, "Democratic leadership's decided to take a political position and is undermining our troops in the field." And Reid says, "conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh is now leading the charge in accusing the media and the Democrats of hyping the Iraqi abuse story." And he played this clip from yesterday's show.

RUSH ARCHIVE: Welcome to the real world. They're not pictures of violence, they're not pictures of death, they're not pictures of horror. I am not going to join the chorus of people who aren't even thinking, who are just reacting with emotions.

REID: The abuse of Iraqi prisoners, a story that was initially greeted with bipartisan revulsion, now at the center of a furious political debate.

RUSH: And then last night, or yesterday afternoon on Crossfire, The Forehead was on there hosting on the left side. Paul Begala who was on with Novak, and they had a couple of guests, Bob Wexler, the congressman from down here in Florida, a Democrat, and Republican Eric Cantor. And The Forehead said to Cantor, said, "Congressman Cantor, in the last segment you said, and I quote, 'You have to be accountable for the words you use.' Well, Rush Limbaugh says what happened over there was no different than a fraternity initiation. He said these guys just blowing off some steam, having a good time. Do you endorse or condemn Rush Limbaugh's words?"

CANTOR: I do not take lightly the incidents that occurred in Iraq. No question, the individuals responsible need to be held accountable. The president said as much --

RUSH: So the question on Crossfire was, "Do you condemn Limbaugh?" Now, why? Why on the NBC Nightly News and why on Crossfire does my name come up, and why do I have to be challenged? I don't mind that I am, don't misunderstand, but, "Do you condemn Limbaugh?" "I condemn Limbaugh." So Wexler's got his hand up, gets a badge of honor, he condemned Limbaugh. And then on NBC, of all the people they could go out there and play highlights of. What do you think, Mr. Snerdley, what's the reason for this? What is the reason? [talking to program observer] No! The '04 election is all politics now, but I'm just going to tell you what I think, folks, I'm not going to hold back.

I think the reason that I have to be condemned, and they've got to play sound bites from this show, and have people pooh-pooh it is because it's effective. It's because there's one voice in this country that's contrary to the herd, to the mentality here that has picked up steam; and everybody is in that herd, and everybody is making a rush in that certain direction, and there's one voice out there which is saying, "Whoa, wait a minute, this is not what everybody is saying it is." And because it is political, Mr. Snerdley, you're right, because it is political, and of course they're not playing me in context. I don't care about that.

The point is that they're using me because I'm the most prominent, maybe not the only, but I'm the most prominent voice that's not in this pack mentality. And since this is political, they have got to play this voice of mine and have people refute it and say it's not right. It's wrong or it's condemnable, or some sort of thing proving that this is political. Because I'm not an elected official. I'm not part of the Joint Chiefs. I'm not in the command structure. I'm not in the chain of command at all, and yet I have to somehow be condemned and discredited? It proves it's politics, folks!

RUSH: Let's go back and review some of the sound bites I played earlier that mention me. And again, I want you people to understand that this is simply to show you that there is a total political context here rather than some serious supposed outrage over abuse.

Now, I'm not saying there isn't any of that, that's not what this is. This is an opportunity. This is a political opportunity for opponents of the president that continue to take more shots where there's blood in the water and so they're do doing everything they can to win this election for John Kerry since he's so inept at doing it himself. How else do you explain the NBC Nightly News, Crossfire, and the White House press briefing bringing me up in official questions to elected officials about my opinion of this? I'm not elected, I'm not in the chain of command, I have no authority over anybody involved in any of this. And yet, as you will hear, I'm either be criticized or illustrated as an example of the opposition. Criticized on Crossfire as a man who needs to be condemned, and being asked by a reporter of the White House press spokesman whether or not the president disavows what I'm saying or agrees with it.

If that doesn't illustrate to you that this is political and since I am a voice that has not joined the pack on this, and this is a media-led frenzy, "Okay, let's do what we can do to nullify this disagreeing voice or discredit it or what have you." First example, NBC Nightly News last night with Tom Brokaw, Chip Reid is the reporter doing the report on the uproar on Capitol Hill about the possible resignation about Rumsfeld, about which I have seen nothing in these hearings so far, by the way. And Chip Reid starts out talking about a backlash from many conservative Republicans and a debate, resolution in the Florida house, and he quotes Tom DeLay saying the Democratic leadership has decided to take a political position undermining our troops in the field. Then he says, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh now leading the charge. "Conservative talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, leading the charge in accusing the media and Democrats of hyping the Iraqi abuse story."

RUSH: Now, don't give me this business that it was initially greeted with bipartisan revulsion. That's a little bit of misinformation. Doesn't mean it was greeted with bipartisan condemnation and agreement with the liberal left and the media on this. Now, here's Crossfire, you've got The Forehead, Paul Begala, representing the left. The guests are Congressman Eric Cantor, he's a Republican from Virginia, and Bob Wexler from down here in Florida. He's the guy that all those mistaken Buchanan voters called to complain during 2000. And The Forehead says, "Congressman Cantor, in the last segment you said, and I quote, 'You have to be accountable for the words you use.' Well, Rush Limbaugh says what happened over there was no different than a fraternity initiation. He said these guys were blowing off some steam, having a good time. Do you endorse or do you condemn Rush Limbaugh's words?"

RUSH: "I condemn Limbaugh!" I condemn -- do you condemn -- this is Crossfire. I'm proud to be there, don't misunderstand, but if this doesn't prove it's political. I know nobody saw it, that's why I'm playing it.

Let's go to the White House press briefing, not much time here, White House daily press briefing, Scott McClellan. You're going to hear the voice of April Ryan, infobabe reporterette for the American Urban Radio Network.

RYAN: There's a segment of society that differs with the White House as it relates to these pictures and the investigation of U.S. soldiers' conduct to include Rush Limbaugh, who Tuesday, agreed with a caller equating the pictures to a college fraternity prank and said U.S. soldiers should not be punished because it was an emotional release as they were letting off steam. What's the White House say about that?

MCCLELLAN: April, I think the White House says what we said yesterday and what the president has said over last few days.

MCCLELLAN: I actually answered a question earlier today about that matter, and I addressed it then.

RYAN: But to stand out strongly trying to let the Arab world know that this is wrong, and then you have the proverbial spokesperson for the conservative party saying this, doesn't that send a mixed message?

RUSH: Do you get this? "Isn't this conservative party spokesman, Limbaugh, isn't this a mixed message? Can't you guys disavow?" Oh, my friends. I'm just a kid from Missouri that wanted to be on the radio.

(Fox: Democrats Call for Rumsfeld to Resign) (Philadelphia Inquirer: Rumsfeld Could Take Fall for Abuse Scandal)

Do know what Keynesianism is?

Yes, it's a John Maynard Keynes economical treatise / theory that is outdated
and frankly kind of quaint.. you are obviously a student newly exposed to this.

BACK in 1959 there came into print a book which might have changed our world, In painstaking detail, it refuted all the premises of the most influential book on economics since Marx, John Maynard Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, first published in 1936. Other well-known free market economists had attacked Keynes, but this was the first full length analysis, almost sentence by sentence, of Keynes' chief work.

Yet Van Nostrand's original edition of Henry Hazlitt's The Failure of the "New Economics" sold no more than 5,000 copies and a 1973 edition by Arlington has added only 7,000 more. In a world largely controlled by words, why has an apparently monumental work been so completely ignored?

To answer this question we must first look at what Keynesian economics is all about.

Although the writing of Keynes (pronounced "Kanes") is complicated and contradictory, Hazlitt has reduced it to something quite simple. He finds it largely a rehash of mercantilism, a centuries old theory that when business is bad it is due to (1) a scarcity of money, and (2) general overproduction. The first of these is one of the old, populist easy-money theories which still persists to some extent in Congress 200 years after it was first destroyed by Adam Smith. If it were valid, the underdeveloped nations would only need to print large quantities of paper money in order to have instant prosperity.

Obviously to you, Keynesianism means worshipping Limbaugh and using his opinions when
you are unable to formulate your own.. perhaps due to lack of intellect or possibly
because of outright ignorance.. I can't say which.

Also, newbie, you ought to learn how to conduct yourself around here.

I knew it. You a freakin' "open-minded"(stupid and wrong) retard.

Yes, I a freakin' retard. Go axe your friends, they be say "true dat."

Excuse me?

I only drink coca-cola.

US economy and recession: theory and counter theory
Gerard Jackson
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 1 March 2004

Although the causes and course of the recession are still being hotly debated, with some focusing on monetary factors, the overwhelming number of commentators still haven't got it right ? including the Democrats, who couldn't care less anyway.

Regular readers know that I have continually stated that Austrian analysis easily explains what really happened. Armed with the Austrian approach one could only predict recession.

However, there is still considerable confusion regarding the role of money in causing the recession, with most commentators even denying that monetary expansion had anything to do with it. One reader sent me a lengthy e-mail in which he argued that Ralph Hawtrey?s monetary approach was superior to the "overinvestment analysis that the Austrians us".

From the references he used I presume he had drawn on Gottfried Haberler's Prosperity and Depression for his information. Fortunately I too have read Haberler.

Hawtrey explained booms and busts in pure monetary terms. An inflationary monetary policy (credit expansion) triggers the boom while depression is caused by a reduction in expenditure. This view led him to argue that stabilising the price level is all that is needed to eliminate the so-called trade cycle.

Therefore the central bank can tame recession by keeping general prices from either rising or falling by adjusting the money supply accordingly, which really meant implementing a 'cheap money' policy. But as Benjamin M. Anderson wrote in his Economics and the Public Welfare: "Cheap money plays no such dominating role as Keynes and Hawtrey and their followers would have us believe."

What Hawtrey's supporters do not realise is that his stabilisation policies will also trigger the so-called boom-bust cycle. His great error was in failing to understand that money is not neutral. This failure led him to declare: "The American experiment in stabilisation from 1922 to 1928 showed that an early treatment could check a tendency either to inflation or deflation . . . [and that] the American experiment was a great advance upon the practice of the nineteenth century."

And while Hawtrey was lauding the Fed's price stabilisation policy Hayek and Mises were warning that the very same policy would result in a severe depression.

Because the Austrians understand that money is not neutral they fully realise the microeconomic consequences of inflation. They are the only ones to explain that expanding the money supply affects individual prices in a way that distorts the pattern of production.

The effect is particularly pernicious when the monetary expansion consists largely of credit expansion, which is usually the case. Hawtrey's assumption, therefore, was that monetary expansion only affects the general price level while leaving the structure of prices unchanged.

Now Haberler greatly erred in presenting the Austrian explanation for the trade cycle as being an "overinvestment" theory. It was nothing of the kind, something that Haberler of all people should have known. As Mises pointed out in Human Action:

"It is customary to describe the boom as overinvestment. However, additional investment is only possible to the extent that there is an additional supply of capital goods available?. The boom itself does not result in a restriction but rather an increase in consumption, it does not procure [emphasis added] more capital goods for new investment. The essence of the credit-expansion boom is not overinvestment, but investment in the wrong lines, i.e., malinvestment on a scale for which the capital goods available do not suffice."

In other words, credit expansion causes relative overinvestment, meaning excess investment in some lines of production at the expense of other lines, most of which are at the lower stages of the production structure. The idea of general "overinvestment" struck the likes of Mises and Hayek as absurd ? and they were right.

The Austrians are the only school of economic thought to provide a satisfactory explanation of the trade cycle. The only one whose theory adequately explains why the boom starts in manufacturing and why manufacturing is the first to suffer the effects of an emerging recession.

Manufacturing, not consumption, retail sales or the stock market is the real leading indicator. To sum it up, Austrians would say that that though the recession had monetary roots it still consisted of real factors, something that a purely monetary explanation would ignore.

This reader also wondered whether money substitutes vitiated the Austrian theory. Not at all, is the answer. It ought to be noted that the rapid growth of money substitutes follows rapid credit expansion. Rather than causing the boom, they are one of its misbegotten products.

When the boom finally comes to an end many of the money substitutes will become virtually worthless, their claims having as much value as those issued during the South Sea Bubble by a "company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is."

Gerard Jackson is Brookes' economics editor

Reverse pschology? Don't think so.

Just superior arguements.

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