Can anyone tell me what Rick Santelli is trying to say here? For those of my readers who are not familiar with Mr. Santelli, his comments as a CNBC correspondent from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 2009 were thought to have started the Tea Party movement.
Now I realize that the Tea Party had its wings clipped by the electorate in the last election and that some had to be medicated so that they were able to continue functioning, but Mr. Santelli talks like someone who has been overmedicated (he reminds me of a person I met who had just taken an overdose of Prosac). If I'm right, someone needs to rush Mr. Santelli to the ER.
Or maybe it's just the constraints of the medium. If Mr. Santelli had a bigger white board, possibly he would be able to more fully develop his ideas.
Or maybe it's Mr. Santelli's genetics. His Wikipedia page (here) says he has four Italian parents. I have one Italian parent and I can understand two, but I don't understand four (Hey, compatriota, check yourself in, OK)!
In any event, what's all this about "trust and honesty," "fibbing going on with statistics" (Is he talking about himself? Or, as Curly of the Three Stooges once said "I resemble that!"), "250 grand isn't a million" (yes, that's an accurate statement), "how long will it be before they get in your pocket" (the British would say "knickers"), etc. "Breaking it down like no one else can" indeed Mr. Santelli.
Here's the transcript, if that will help in any way figure out what's being said here:
...let's get to the group this monday morning, check in with rick santelli and get saelli exchange. good morning, carl. to me, if you're trying to work with individuals to solve the problem, trust and honesty are very big components of that relationship working. and i'll tell you what, my theme of late has b that there's a lot of fibbing going on with statistics. but to the point where we take so many things for granted, we miss so many nontru and i'll you a nontruth. we always talk about the 1993 income tax of president clinton, and the top tax rate was 39.6%. threshold, $250 thud. so flash forward from 1993 to present, okay. well let me tell you something, there is this little thing called inflation. i know this might be nitpicking. but $250,000 today well, started out if you want to be apples to apples would be about $165,000 then. in other words, we are not adjusting even for inflation. so, if we're talking about $250,000 today being the same as then, we're wrong. it would be $165,000. so the point is, is that the difference between these two is $85,000. okay? is a 35% miss when it comes to being honest about it. oh, even worse let's take this. how many times, of course you've heard a million times, taxes on million favors and billionaires, even though, and i know this is adjusted, okay, but let's just keep it $250,000. well, 250 grand isn't a million. so it's off by 750-k over 1 million. okay? so, in essence, what we're doing is we're off on this one by 75%. we're off by 35% and 75%. so why am i doing this? because i'll tell you what, middle-class america, pay attention. because if the misses on income tax are this large when they're talking to you over simple numbers, how long, exactly, do you think it's going to be before they get in your pocket? people making $50,000 to $100,000. if we really want to come up with honesty in negotiating, first of all, if you're going to tax millionaires and and billionaires on it the 250 grand threshold, okay, fine. but make sure their net wealth really is a million or higher. and any tax increases should go direct to deficit reduction. take away the hey, everything goes into the general fund because it certainly seems like when you're fibbing about 35% and 75% truths that really all they're after isn't fixing the economy, it's your bucks. back to you. all right. rick, breaking it down like no one else can. rick santelli with the santelli exchange.
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