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Rick Santelli's Tea Party rant
Thursday, December 31, 2009
CNBC has compiled what they think are their top ten videos for the year along with a poll for viewers to vote. Not surprisingly, with over 2,000 readers having already cast votes, it's not even close - Rick Santelli's Tea Party rant was the winner by a mile.
The now-classic line "President Obama, are you listening?" appears at about 1:20.
Some of the other top ten are pretty good too. Number two in votes was the Obama fly swatting incident ("I got the sucker") and Geithner-Rep. Brady Head-to-Head is entertaining as well ("Will you step down?... Remind me. What post were you holding when President Bush left office?"). And, of course, there's Lenny Dykstra.
It's just too bad you have to watch the ad every time.
7 comments:
It's always good to here the "rich" point of view. But, what does Wall Street "innovate" in, Fraud?
We don't ask the general public where the money should go so that we can direct it to the Most Efficient Use of the Money.
It's all about "Multipliers". Where was Rick when Walmart started exporting US JOBS to China? Complaining about Labor Unions? We direct the money with the most productive Uses and places that have the highest Multipliers. Tax cuts for the rich has Low Multiplier Effects. You save it or you spend it in Germany.
Republicans need to learn about Multipliers: When you lay 1 person off you may be laying off 2 or 3 OTHER People. When you Foreclose on 1 house, 4 -5 other houses lose 20% of their value. When you send jobs to China, we need fewer Managers in America. Oh, it's not all about the rich? The rich need the Working Class to be rich.
It's incredible to me, it was the Dumb-Ass that won.
@anon 8:42
"We don't ask the general public where the money should go so that we can direct it to the Most Efficient Use of the Money."
That's right. In a market economy, the public decides, in a command economy, the gov't decides. There is no other better method in determining what the public "wants" than through the market.
Tax incentives for the rich may have a low "multiplier", but it lifts disincentives toward increasing production.
Job flight to China is a phenomena of global wage arbitrage fueled in part by sovereign currency valuations. It makes toys and t-shirts cheaper for all of us. However, should we be doing business with China (morally and ethically) in the first place?
Multipliers are misused. It's the utilization of existing and efficient capital resources that matters. In the case of the US, we are losing our existing capital resources and their efficiencies.
I think you are confusing multipliers with Bastiat's seen and unseen principle. This would be the same principle which leads one to conclude "death panels" when analyzing gov't run healthcare. While possibly the term "death panel" is too harsh a term, in the case of gov't run healthcare, there will be some form of actuarial tables created by a room full of bureaucrats which will determine the financial feasibility of treating all conditions.
When it comes to healthcare, if you bring up "death panels" based upon a government/scientific/evidence-based-medicine analysis of where the money should be spent [ for better, more productive outcomes ], THEN you should also bring up Healthcare "innovation": Rescission of the 1-3% sickest people every year, i.e. FRAUD and Pre-Existing Conditions, i.e. FRAUD.
But, Rescission is too big a word for the right-wing, or are you just trying to justify fraud? If the Obama healthcare plan shuts down this scheme then it was a success.
Where was the Perfect Market that should have punished Insurance Companies for Rescission and Pre-Existing Conditions policy execution?
The Republican Party has been Usurped to Justify Fraud.
I wasn't arguing either way for gov't sponsored healthcare. I was demonstrating a point about Bastiat's principle and, along with your other points, that both parties are "selective" in their understanding of this. I wasn't trying to slam one party or the other, just citing recent events for perspective. Healthcare is another topic and yes, I can clearly see that it is broken.
Gov't should protect citizens against fraud. However, being the policing force against fraud does not grant license to commit fraud.
There is no such thing as a perfect market, evenly rotating economy, equilibrium etc. Those are concepts of socialized economics and not part of the real world. For some reason or other, this gets thrown up as a straw man against laissez-faire capitalism.
Doesn't laissez-faire capitalism justify itself using the Perfect Market theory?
It would be funny to go to one of those tea bagger parties with a sign that says, "KEEP YOUR GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE!" It would be interesting what kind of reaction it would get.
It is too bad that the legislators won't just lower the age to get medicare down to 40. Medicare is a very efficient government program. Ninty-five percent (95%) of medicare dollars goes into healthcare. About 60% to 70% of the money paid into the private insurance companies goes into healthcare. The private insurance's 30% to 40% that does not go into healthcare makes the insurance CEOs rich billionaires. These CEO's got there by finding ways to not pay out on claims. It's a sick industry literally.
Medicare was originally put in place to have the tax payer take on the burden of providing healthcare for the elderly, those who would cost the private insurance companies too much money. It's all about the private health insurance companies making their billions of dollars in profits. It should be illegal for private health insurance companies to make a profit. They should all be made into nonprofit businesses. Making a business of denying peoples' claims is criminal.
@Anon 3:44
"Doesn't laissez-faire capitalism justify itself using the Perfect Market theory?"
No. Read.
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