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RUSH: Here’s Rob in Austin, Texas. We head back the to phones and Open Line Friday. Thank you for calling and waiting and welcome to the program, sir.

CALLER: Thanks, Rush. It’s an honor. Hey, I know you’ve been talking about the Millennials last few weeks and kind of how they’re not buying things and all that. I have a 23-year-old who just got married, and the thing I notice about him is that he wants to buy quality merchandise as opposed to just going out and buying something. It’s not necessarily… You know, we bought him a PC for graduation. He saved up enough money to buy himself a Mac ’cause he knew it was a better computer. I see that with clothing and other purchases that he makes as well. So I’m not sure… I mean, I can only speak for mine, but that’s kind of the difference I see in maybe some of the past generations to where they just go out and buy disposables as opposed to buying really good quality things and saving money for that.

RUSH: You know, this is… I know yours is anecdotal and it’s just one. Your son is just one person.


CALLER: Sure.

RUSH: So you’ve gotta factor that in. I’m always amazed, however, by all of the reporting on whatever generation. We went through Generation X, and we went through it with Generation Y, and there was one other generation — Generation Loser or whatever — and now we’re going through it with the Millennials. The Drive-By Media reporting always tries to highlight the things about each young generation that I think the Drive-Bys like and think represent a vast improvement on the cultural losers that were their parents and grandparents.

An example of this is this so-called vast move into the “sharing economy,” and it supposedly… It’s reported with great zeal and approval that Millennials, they understand. They’re light-years ahead of their moms and dads and people that are much older than them. They’re light-years ahead! They understand the stupidity of owning something and going into debt for your life to own something when you don’t really own it and instead willing to share everything from car rides to accommodations, living spaces to what have you.

This is portrayed as enlightened, and I think there’s always something missing in this. Another aspect… I’ll never forget this, and it’s within the last two years. It was a story. I know, Snerdley, you’ll remember this because we made sort of a big deal about it. There was a story on how Millennial men just disdained automobiles. They have no desire to own a car. Now, it’s Millennials who had no money to buy one anyway and lived in places like San Francisco and New York where having one would be impractical.

So they go out and they find people like that and then they report on them as representing the entire generation. “They don’t like cars!” Oh, and there was another. They don’t like country clubs, don’t like golf. You never catch ’em doing anything. They don’t get into this elitist, exclusionary stuff. They engage in lifestyle activities that include and welcome everyone. I will just bet you that a lot of that is bogus and is rooted in the fact that they don’t have any money.

Remember when the unemployment rate was really being reported honestly how bad it was? What did the Drive-Bys tell us about it? Why, that it was wonderful news! That being unemployed was maybe one of the greatest things that could have happened to people because it afforded people a chance to reconnect with their families. They even came up with a name for it, “funemployed.” The implication was that the hip thing to do if you lose your job, is to welcome it, embrace it.

Realize the opportunity it presents to broaden your life and to deepen relationships with those closest to you, because now you have the time. You have no excuse to avoid them, ’cause you don’t have a job you have to go to. I think, “Okay, you do a story like that when you can’t find a job anyway, when the unemployment rate’s sky-high, then you fall for something like that.” But people haven’t changed. Most people would rather work, and most people want careers, and most people want to do well in their careers.


And they want to do financially well. They want to do well in terms of acclaim. That hasn’t changed. That’s not gone out of style. But the Drive-Bys try to tell us that all these traditional things that you and I aspire to are now considered unhip and uncool by the know-it-alls and very-way-ahead-of-everything Millennial generation. And I think it’s all predicated on the fact that Millennials can’t find a job, and they don’t have any money, and they’re vastly in debt.

So they are making rationalizations and adjustments to explain their circumstances and trying to turn it into a positive — which is fine and dandy with me attitudinally, but it’s all bogus. But it is like this guy just said: His son is different. He doesn’t care about quantity, he wants quality. Is that new? People wanting the best is new? (interruption) You’re kidding me. This is new? (interruption) Give me a break. Don’t tell me that you have fallen for this cockamamie line yourself.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, to the extent that I’m wrong and let’s say that these Millennials, as they grow older, are gonna continue eschewing wanting the best and all the things associated with that. Maybe it is that socialism has become their belief system. Because socialism leads to sharing — mandatory sharing, whether you like sharing or not. And if they buy into this total equality business, I don’t know.

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