RUSH: This is Fred in Homer, Alaska. It’s great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: It’s great to be here, and greetings from Alaska.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, clear something up for me. I was at Dan’s Bake Sale, and I was just far enough away from you — you were elevated in the crowd. Were you riding a horse when you came into town?
RUSH: No, I was walking behind a horse and almost got kicked by the son of a gun. The crowd was huge. I was riding behind a uniformed police officer on a horse. I was walking behind, and the crowd was descending upon the entourage walking. That horse got spooked, and I was afraid it was going to start kicking.
CALLER: Well, I remember being there. It’s always been a puzzle in my mind if you were on it or what.
RUSH: No. In fact, I think at the time Colorado senator Hank Brown actually got kicked by the horse, if I’m not mistaken. Yeah, it was Hank Brown who got kicked by the horse. I almost did.
CALLER: Well, I’m glad you didn’t. (chuckles) Anyway, my question is kind of a two-part one. What if we just had everybody forgive their debt, and we all just started over and then it would give us an opportunity to have how many decades to get back in the current situation we are now — and the other side of that is, my grandfather who died in 1964 (I was nine then so I don’t know how old I was like when he told me this, but) he said, ‘If you took all the wealth in the land and you distributed equally amongst all the people, those that had it before would have it back again.’ Your thoughts on that.
RUSH: That’s true, inside a certain time frame.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: If you take the money away from entrepreneurs, they’ll find a way to get it back. That’s just who they are. Well, now, this forgiving debt. That’s really magical. That’s a wonderful idea. Ah, just forgive the debt!
CALLER: They aren’t going to pay it anyway.
RUSH: That’s a great idea for everybody except those who lent the money.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: (laughing) Yeah, you get to keep the house, you get to keep the car, you get to keep everything you’ve bought on your credit card, but nobody’s gonna get paid for it. Nobody’s gonna even get the interest on it. With as much indebtedness as there is, if we forgave every loan out there, we’d still be in the same economic circumstance because even more people would be in trouble who have zero income coming in. I mean, there are people who lend money as a business. There are people who finance other people’s actions, lifestyles, purchases, as their business. So we’re going to say to the consumers, ‘Guess what? Everything’s been free for the last 30 years. You don’t have to pay a damn thing anymore.’ The people that lent the money, ‘Sorry, you gotta start over.’ (interruption) Well, the lenders are evil.
This is why this argument has some traction with people because lenders deserve to take it in the shorts. ‘The lenders deserve to get kicked in the gut. The lenders deserve to be poor. The lenders deserve to be out of money because that’s the way they’ve made all the rest of us,’ goes the theory. There’s no magic out of this. There’s no way a lot of people don’t get hurt here, and your solution honors the irresponsible. Your solution, forgiving loans, rewards those who have been irresponsible and penalizes the lenders. Now, you might say, ‘Well, some of these people shouldn’t have lent people they shouldn’t have lent to, people they knew couldn’t pay it back.’ Yeah, because that’s people Chris Dodd and Bill Clinton and there are others made them do it. But, yeah, forgive all the loans, forgive all debt, and just start again. Anyway… (interruption) Yeah, it’s like Christmas. Health care for everybody, no charge!