RUSH: The Breck Girl is back. Oh, by the way, there was a great story. You know this sunken treasure they found out there, this hedge fund that the Breck Girl joined to learn about poverty? (Laughing.) His booty is threatened. He’s got a 10% take in the treasure. The treasure is about $500 million. He goes to this hedge fund to learn about poverty. The one thing he learned about poverty is, avoid it! So now Spain is suing the hedge fund over rights to the sunken treasure. Now, a lawsuit is a mating call to John Edwards. This ought to be right up his alley. (Laughing) So people are making claims on his money. But just last week, I think it was just last week, we had a call on this program from a man, very nice guy, but it was exceedingly frustrating for me, your host, because he wanted to say and did say that there is no free market in oil and gasoline, that all the oil companies own the product from the moment it’s discovered in the ground until it’s brought out and refined and put in your gas tank. I said, ‘Are you saying that there’s price fixing?’ ‘Well, not price-fixing, but it’s not a free market in gasoline.’ I spent probably 20 minutes after that call explaining the complexities of the oil business. The largest oil companies in the world — and four of the top five are not even American — the largest oil company in the world is Saudi Arabia is ARAMCO, and then you have number five is ExxonMobil with 3% of the world’s oil as market share.
In the meantime, the Breck Girl ‘says a wave of mergers in the oil industry should be investigated by the Justice Department to see what impact they have had on soaring gasoline prices. During a campaign stop in Silicon Valley on Thursday, Edwards will berate the oil industry for ‘anticompetitive actions’ and outline an energy plan he says would reduce oil imports ‘and get us on a path to be virtually petroleum-free within a generation.” It’s not possible. That is irresponsible to tell anybody we’re going to be virtually petroleum free in 25 years. It’s not possible, folks. It is not and anybody who tried to bring that about is dangerous! It is simply impossible. This is pure populist rhetoric during rising gas prices, and it’s designed to prey on people whose knowledge of economics in general is woeful, or inept. All of these mergers of these companies have not affected the price of gasoline. I don’t want to go through it again. There are factors we can’t even calculate that end up determining the price of gasoline. One of the biggest factors in the price of gasoline, and this came up yesterday on the Today show with Matt Lauer, he had the Conoco Shell CEO, and Lauer said, ‘A year ago we had you on here and you said that the price of gasoline is tied to the barrel price of oil, and if that goes down the gasoline price should go down. Well, oil is ten bucks a barrel cheaper this year and the gas price is higher. How can that be?’ The guy said, ‘Well, normally it’s true, because 60% of the price of gasoline is related to the price of oil. But, Matt, demand is skyrocketing.’ Lauer picked up on it, said, ‘Yes, it’s our fault. We are addicted to gasoline,’ which also set me off yesterday because it’s impossible to be addicted to gasoline.
It is not an addiction. People cannot do with less of it. It’s not something that people use that they don’t need. It’s not a recreational commodity like is associated with other things that people are addicted to. It is the fuel of our democracy. It’s the fuel of the engine of freedom, and that’s why we’re not going to be petroleum free in 25 years. John Edwards, every time I listen to this man speak, folks, this is really unkind to say, but I have never gotten it, I have never understood what it is the hype and the brilliance of all these Democrats. Ted Kennedy has never been right about anything. He’s been proven wrong for 43 years on immigration. Everything he’s done has been proven wrong. The Great Society, all these social welfare programs, what they’re going to cost, the results we’re going to get, all the problems we’re going to solve, nothing has ever worked out the way they said. Mrs. Clinton botched everything she tried when she was first lady. Nothing worked out the way she said — smartest woman in the world. John Edwards, brilliant, brilliant trial lawyer. Some days I think he’s got the IQ of a pencil eraser.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You remember John Edwards, and I guess it was either a debate or it was the Democrat National Convention of 2004, where he says if John Kerry is elected, that Christopher Reeve will walk again. I’m going to tell you something. Oil-free in 25 years, I’m still in a state of stunned disbelief over the absolute irresponsibility and idiocy of this. Nobody will join him in this quest. It isn’t possible. He will be bald before we stop using oil.