RUSH: ... Now, let me see if I can put this GDP number into context for you, 'cause it's phony. It is a fake number. Gross domestic product needs to be understood as the sum of three things: consumption by consumers, investment by business, and spending by government, CIG. Consumption, investment, spending by government. So they say the total GDP went up 3.5%. But was there any new consumption by consumers? No. Was there any new investment by business? No. Was there spending by government? Yes. That's the G. The increase is in G, spending by government.
There was no investment in business. There was no consumption by consumers. You've seen all the numbers. Home sales down; consumer spending down. There was no economic growth. What happened here, you had the Clash for Clunkers fiasco and now the Edmunds.com bunch estimates that that program cost taxpayers $24,000 for every car sold, and then there was that first time home buyers fraud, all kinds of government spending which was government borrowing. So the government spending sector goes up, and they, oh, the economy grew by 3.5%. It did not. Government grew. All that's happened here is that money has been shifted from taxpayers today and tomorrow into Obama approval ratings today.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to take another stab at this GDP thing, because checking e-mail during the break, "What do you mean, Rush, you have never said that gross domestic product increases in the past were fake. You're just anti-Obama." No, no, no, no. I am anti-Obama, but don't you find this suspicious right before some elections hit next week? You know that this number is going to be revised downward later this month and nobody is going to pay any attention to it. But folks, there is no economic growth, at least in the private sector, and that's what everybody cares about. The private sector is where you and I operate. The private sector is where you and I test the waters. It's where we pursue the American dream. Gross domestic product equals the sum of consumption by consumers, investment by business, and spending by government, so the total goes up by three-and-a-half percent, it seems like growth, but all the increase is in G, spending by government, financed by an increasing deficit. It's fake.
Look at it this way. It's called the Keynesian fallacy. If I buy a refrigerator, that's a real transaction. It counts toward C, consumption. If I own a business and I buy a new machine tool or a forklift or whatever, that's real also. It counts toward I, investment. Real recoveries are led by consumption and investment, and there ain't any of that going on, I'm sorry. I wish there were. Now, the Keynesian fallacy is based on the multiplier theory -- I've done my economic homework on this -- and it is that government spending causes growth. That's what Obama believes, that's what all these liberals believe, the government spending, that's the engine. They think government creates jobs. They think government does all these wonderful things. The private sector is where all the fraud takes place. The private sector is where all the cheating goes on, the private sector is where the real people get cheated by the big shots on Wall Street and ExxonMobil and Big Oil, Big Pharma, big whatever. They think government is the engine. And so when it grows, ooh, baby, we're smoking, cool. That's the Keynesian fallacy.
Now, government spending could cause growth if the money is spent on certain things like infrastructure and keeping us safe. But then the growth that it causes comes from the consequences later that increase in consumption and investment. Now, this growth that they're talking about here today, this GDP number, is just an accounting trick. Suppose I borrow $10,000 on my credit card, and then I tell my wife, "Look, honey, here's the $10,000, I just got a raise." And then I go out and I spend that income on a new car or boat or whatever. You know, my wife, my girlfriend, whatever, would hit me with a chair. Borrowing money and spending it is not increased income. It's sort of like baseline budgeting, if I can remind you of that lecture. Let's say you go and buy a car, you're looking at buying a car, and you want to spend, oh, $70,000 on a car.
So you go to some dealerships, start kicking the tires, look around. You go to Mercedes, you go to Ford, go to Chrysler, go to GM. And the car you end up liking costs $50,000, not 70. And you tell your family, we just saved 20 grand, when you didn't. You just spent 50. It's the same thing here. You borrow $10,000, you go spend it on something, and you tell yourself you got a raise, your income went up. That's what's happened here with this GDP number. This 3.5% growth is all in government, and as we know government doesn't have any money. Government's printing money. We're running a deficit of $1.4 trillion this year. We don't have any money. So this growth is fake, it is fraudulent, it is phony, it doesn't exist, there is no growth, and Obama himself even admitted it out there.
