RUSH: Tony in Indianapolis, I’m glad you called, sir. I appreciate your patience in holding on.
CALLER: Well, I have been waiting since the summer of 1990 to say, ‘Mega dittos, Rush.’
RUSH: I found that story. The hurricane forecasters have lowered the forecast again. They started at 17, then they went to 16. Now it’s 15.
CALLER: Great news.
RUSH: Yeah, it’s global warming. Sea surface temperatures are so scalding out there, that’s what’s happening.
CALLER: Two questions, sir.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: First, I’d like to know the margin of error on that Zogby poll that put the Democrat Congress at 3%, to know if it would be possible to say that inside the margin of error, no one in America likes the Democratic-led Congress.
RUSH: That’s a good point. I think the margin of error in Zogby is like three, three and a half percent. They theoretically could have a negative approval rating.
CALLER: They may not even approve of themselves, is my point.
RUSH: Yeah, unless they’re not in the sample.
CALLER: Well, that is possible. My second question is purely entrepreneurially related.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: I am a partner in a company, a very small company that makes control-of-combustion equipment that basically figures out exactly how much energy a building is using and heating and then just replaces that energy.
RUSH: Right, right, right, right.
CALLER: So we save customers like 72% on their fuel usage — which is a pretty linear equation to figure out, 72% — of stack emission. Now, we are all conservative, red meat Republican kind of guys, and we do not want to sell our product on the falsehood of global warming, but I must admit it’s a pretty alluring little thing to do.
RUSH: Well, I understand you, because it’s like the automakers. They’re coming out with these hybrids and so forth because they think the customers want them because of the media making a big deal about this, and corporate America, the one thing they will not do (other than the news business) is alienate the customer. So they try to make as many products for as many segments of the market as possible. Now, if you have this system that does what you say, and if you think that buildings, large and small, would be more inclined to investigate your system and perhaps buy it if you coupled it with a global warming component, you know, it’s a marketing thing to do. You don’t have to do that. You know what? I’m not against cars that get great gas mileage. I’m not against these hybrids. If you want to buy one, fine. Just don’t tell me that you’re better than me because I don’t drive one. Don’t tell me if I drive a car that gets 12 miles a gallon and you drive a car that gets 50, don’t come sniveling to me and say I’m destroying the planet. Don’t tell me you’re a better person than I am because neither of us are ‘destroying’ the planet and neither of us are ‘saving’ it.
CALLER: That mentality is exactly what we hate. Why can’t we have a market-driven solution? People don’t want to pay money if they don’t have to, that can go into their buildings and make them much more energy efficient and they get paid back for the investment that they’ve made.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: It just seems that the noise in the market to cut through it, you’ve got it hit all the-push-button issues. While I don’t want to give a minute of credence to this idea that if you buy my product, you’ll ‘save the planet’… No. If you’ll buy my product, you’ll make your life better.
RUSH: Right. Don’t put in this ‘save the planet business.’ That’s going too far. If your product does what you say, it will sell itself. To hell with why people want to buy it. They’ll buy it because it’s cheaper in the end run, right?
CALLER: Yes. Well —
RUSH: Is it cheaper for them to operate if they’re saving that much on energy and emissions?
CALLER: Easily.
RUSH: Seventy-two percent, well, I’d market it that way, if I… I’m not you.
CALLER: (Chuckles.)
RUSH: But, you know, you’ve got a great product that does something. You can appeal to the citizenship of people without coupling it to some wacko, left-wing cause.
CALLER: Well, when we buy our advertising on EIB with the confiscatory advertising rates we will certainly do so.
RUSH: Well, it will eat into the profits that you’re going to make.
CALLER: (Laughing.)
RUSH: There’s no question about it. Look, thanks for the call.