RUSH: This is Reuters: ‘The number of mass layoffs by US employers edged up in January as manufacturers stepped up job cuts, data showed on Tuesday.’ Massive layoffs by US employers, edged up in January. But, but, but, but, but, but, but all of these new jobs the stimulus created. Remember those two babes we had on CNN some months ago saying, ‘Oh, yeah, good news in the economy, it’s really, really coming back.’ Mass layoffs continue. Consumer confidence is at its lowest since 1983. That is 27 years ago. The Conference Board measures this, and consumer confidence at its lowest since 1983. Wall Street bonuses, though, up 17%. This is from the Associated Press: ‘Wall Street bonuses were up 17 percent to over $20 billion in 2009.’ Now, stick with me on this, folks, I’m going to go a different direction than you might think. I’m just giving you the facts now in the story. Twenty billion, 17%, bonuses were up that much in 2009. That’s the year ‘taxpayers bailed out the financial sector after its meltdown, New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said Tuesday. Total compensation at the largest securities firms grew beyond that figure and profits could surpass what he calls an unprecedented $55 billion last year, DiNapoli said. That’s nearly three times Wall Street’s record increase, a rate of growth that is boosted in part by the record losses in 2008 of nearly $43 billion, the Democrat said.’
Now, don’t worry, there’s a ‘but’ coming here from AP, and here it is: ‘But for most Americans, these huge bonuses are a bitter pill and hard to comprehend. … Taxpayers bailed them out, and now they’re back making money while many New York families are still struggling to make ends meet.’ The MTA is laying off a thousand more workers in New York. San Francisco is laying off close to a thousand teachers. The city and state layoffs predicted by me continue to unfold right before our very eyes. And yet here’s Wall Street with their bonuses up 17%. Now, my observation about this is very simple. As you know, I don’t think the White House ought to be deciding who earns what in this
Now, if Obama cannot control bank bonuses with a direct liaison to the industry called the pay czar, if he cannot control bank bonuses going up, when he set up an office to do just that, why do we assume that his health care reform proposal will reduce costs or do anything that he says it’s going to do? We shouldn’t. By the way, about the health care bill — well, I gotta take a break here. But we got a lot to say on this. There are three provisions in this thing to fund abortions in Obama’s health care bill, three different ways, spending even more money on it than in the original Senate bill. The CBO is refusing to score it because there is not enough information. Obama’s out there saying, yep, yep, yep, just under a trillion dollars is the cost of my bill. CBO said I don’t know about that. This is not a piece of legislation. It is simply a campaign document, a campaign statement, and they’re out there saying, no, no, no, no, this is just a starter, this is our starting position here with the Republicans on Thursday at our bug summit. And even David ‘Rodham’ Gergen is laughing about that. It’s not a starter.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We’re gonna go back to the audio sound bites. We’re gonna go back. We go to two of these here from July 1st of 2009 and June 30th of 2009, both from CNN. One is from anchor Melissa Long with the Wall Street correspondent Susan Lisovicz and the anchor Betty Nguyen speaking with Your Money host Christine Romans. And the thing I wanted to hear them reacting to is not that… Well, here’s the news today: ‘The number of mass layoffs by US employers edged up in January as manufacturers stepped up job cuts.’ Mass layoffs edged up in January! They don’t even say they’re shocked. They don’t even say they’re surprised. They’re just now reporting it: Mass layoffs. Yet just last summer we were hearing this on CNN…
LONG: Nearly half a million jobs lost during the month of June, but is it possible to find a silver lining in all this? We want a silver lining. Susan Lisovicz at the floor of the New York Stock Exchange with more. Is there one?
ROMANS: The silver lining, if you will, is that May was revised — uh, the previous month, I should say, uh, was revised lower — and that was May. Also we have a separate report from Challenger Gray & Christmas, which shows the planned job cuts, the announcements slowed, and that is the fifth straight month, so that is encouraging. What is also high — and this is also silver lining — is the first day of July starting off on a positive note, the Dow is up 128 points, the NASDAQ is up 25. Good start. Tough act to follow, though, the second quarter rally that we saw.
RUSH: CNN infobabes giddy over the economy last July. Remember: Mass layoffs edged up. Consumer confidence is at an all-time low not seen since 1983. Here’s the next CNN example last summer.
ROMANS: (giddy) We’ve seen a spring stock market rally that has been quite incredible! Job losses are slowing! Consumer confidence is improving! People are feeling a little better. They’re feeling better because they’re spending less. They’re saving more money. They’re getting back to basics. There’s a new frugality that’s —
RUSH: Hold it a minute! Stop the tape. Do you remember this? This was at a time that everybody was loving the fact that they were outta work, loving the fact that they were able to ‘get closer to their families’ and ‘renew their relationships with people’ and learn ‘frugality.’ Oh, it was all so wonderful last summer!
LONG: There’s a new frugality that’s making them feel better. There was a hu-u-uuge rally in the stock market in the second quarter. The stock market [is] telling us that it thinks things are going to get better eventually, and you’re going to see that rally. If you are still invested in stocks — if you had faith and you were buying stocks along the way this spring, you’re buying them at cheap prices — you’re going to see that rally when you open up your 401(k) statement.
RUSH: (laughing) There’s ‘a new frugality’ that is back. This is from last summer. What we do here is love illustrating the absolute incompetence, bias — whatever you want to call it, phoniness — of the State-Controlled Media. Now, I got a note from a friend of mine today: ‘Rush, does it ever get old being right?’ I want to be honest with you, my friends: It never does. I play golf a lot with some PGA Tour pros, and I say, ‘Does it ever get boring every shot going where you want it to go?’ They smile and they say, ‘Never.’ Well, my friends, I never, ever get bored being right. The reason I was asked the question was because of a series of headlines in the news today. ‘FDIC Says Number of Problem Banks Jumped 27%.’ ‘Consumer Confidence Falls to a Ten-Month Low in February.’ ‘Home Prices Fall in December, But Annual Slide Slows.’ From CNBC: ‘Stocks Likely to Double-Dip After May,’ and from Bloomberg: ‘Harvard’s Rogoff Sees ‘Bunch’ of Sovereign Defaults?.’ I’ve got every one of these stories in the stack, every one of them, if you want the down-and-dirty details. I’ve also got a story by a political scientist from some Ivy League school, and I’ll tell you: The Secret Service better get on this guy. He is an admitted liberal and this guy is as livid at Obama and the Democrat media as I’ve seen anybody.