RUSH: B.C. in Birmingham, Alabama, you’re next on Open Line Friday. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, thanks for being there for us.
RUSH: Yes, sir.
CALLER: Thanks for at least injecting a little bit of humor into some gloomy-looking times here.
RUSH: Hey, when we’re talking Obama and Hillary, I mean you gotta laugh. They’re funny. I know they pose a threat, but I mean they’re both laughable.
RUSH: Yeah, I hear what you’re saying, that all these people with realized gains that are significant are going to sit around and let Obama tax the cap gains that they’ve experienced over the years to 25%, goes to the current 15, so they’ll just sell out.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: And that will take a lot of money out of the market, is what you’re saying.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Well, this is no comfort, but when Obama was talking about raising the capital gains, do you remember what he said? ‘I’m going to raise the capital gains by at least 25, and maybe even 30%. And somebody said, ‘Senator, do you realize what a tax increase that is on investors?’ (doing Obama impression) ‘Well, okay, then we’ll have a lower increase for middle class investors.’ And people were scratching their heads. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
CALLER: No.
RUSH: He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He has changed his mind on FISA. He has flipped on the constitutionality of the Second Amendment. He probably will flip on this, in the sense —
CALLER: Let’s hope so.
RUSH: I don’t think he’s gonna raise the capital gains rate. I don’t think he’s going to double it. But I’ll tell you, if you’re a broker, you’re looking at the market right now, we don’t need Obama.
CALLER: No.
RUSH: All we need is the threat of Obama. We haven’t talked about this, but there is more fear in this market than I have seen in I don’t know how long. General Motors is trading at a historic low. Ford is at an historic low. They’ve gotta sell bonds. There’s some people reluctant to buy bonds to get in and prop these things up. Those two companies employ 500,000 Americans. I guarantee you, if things keep up we are not going to allow them to go bankrupt. Somebody will step in like a Chrysler bailout, something will happen. But it’s bad in this regard. And why is there so much pessimism in the market? Well, where is all the pessimism today? You turn on the news any day, and you find out gasoline is going to be seven bucks in four years, oil is going to be 200 bucks in four years, then we got everybody focusing on the Federal Reserve every day, what are they going to do with interest rates, what did their minutes say. We’ve got just a number of people worried, all these Democrats talking about raising taxes left and right. They look at the polls, they look at the McCain campaign and say, ‘Oh, my God.’ Don’t tell me that doesn’t have an impact on people and the way they’re thinking of investing.
CALLER: Oh, yeah.
RUSH: What I’m hoping is that enough people will realize this decline is a huge buying opportunity. I mean we’re down in the 1100s today, folks. We haven’t been here since 2006.
CALLER: Yeah. Well, we’re down 72 points right now, and —
RUSH: On top of 300 something. Yeah, but we were down 140, so it’s rebounding a little bit right now, but we were down 300 yesterday. There’s news today that salaries, wages are up and productivity is up, but whatever the fed did by not changing rates and the oil price did hit 143 today. Now, there’s another interesting point about that that I want to make. The oil barrel price — I’ll check, let me find out right now what the oil price; the crude oil price is at 140.35, but it got up to 143.04 not very many minutes ago, it was at 143. Now, what’s happening? While all these speculators are being targeted, every politician in Washington, the speculators, the dirty, rotten speculators, the liberal machine, the leftists, the Democrats have found their demon, and it’s the speculators. Some people are trying to say no, no, no, it’s not speculators. But the Democrats — therefore the media — have identified the demon. The reason your gas price is so high, the reason oil price is so high is because of these speculators.
Now, you would think, would you not, that the speculators would be a little paranoid. By the way, we hear all this talk about regulating the speculators. McCain’s talking about it. Obama’s talking about it. A number of them are talking about getting even with these guys. We all need a demon, and yet the speculators saying, ‘So what? Screw you.’ And they’re going about their business, and while all these brave, courageous politicians who haven’t produced a drop of oil in their lives threatening everybody else that does one way or the other deal with this product. And all these threats and all these promises of heavy-handed action from Washington don’t seem to be deterring the speculators. One forty-three. Speculators are sitting there speculating, gets to 143, they look to Washington and say (blowing a raspberry) you. Which means the free market’s what’s working here, folks.