O'Reilly Teaches Us How to Save Millions. Annually!
Bill O'Reilly is a lot of things: commentator, author, telephone pervert (allegedly), and now he's adding financial adviser to the list. Yes, Bill is the Suze Orman of Fox News, except Suze can get women into bed without sexually harassing them.
In last week's column for billoreilly.com, the big guy told us what he is thankful for:
One of the things that I am deeply grateful for this Thanksgiving season is that my father was a frugal guy and made a big deal out of it. A child of the depression [sic], William O'Reilly, Sr. hoarded his dollars and lectured his children on saving not spending money.
If you've read any of O'Reilly's books, you know that his pop sounds like an abusive prick. Now we find out he was cheap to boot. So what did Bill glean from the financial teachings of his flinty, hard-boiled Yoda?
So now we are all getting pounded, but some are better off than others. I still hear my father's voice when my paycheck rolls in and much of that check gets deposited in the bank. It does not get spent. It sits there in insured accounts winking at me. But it's there and will protect me and my family if any disaster happens.
Bill's contract pays him $10 million per year. This doesn't include his radio show revenue or book royalties. At 35 percent withholding, Bill's biweekly paycheck would be around $250,000 net. And you know what? He doesn't even spend it all. Nope, he puts most of it in the bank for a rainy day. 'Cause who knows when the furnace might go out? Or what if the roof needs a patch job? Well, Bill's gonna be set. Can you say the same? And as long as those unexpected repairs don't add up to more than half-a-million dollars a month, he should be fine. There's a lot you can learn from Bill.
Along with the saving habit, my father also mocked materialists. Living in Levittown, we had the basics, and that was that. If my dad saw somebody buying something dumb, like a foreign car or something, he'd make fun of it. Our 'pre-owned' Nash Rambler wasn't exactly stylish, but it got us to the beach.
Wouldn't it be great to have a dad who verbally accosted anyone in a Volvo when you were growing up? Okay, it's official. We're working on a pilot for a Bill O'Reilly Sr. sitcom. It'll be Archie Bunker meets Fred Sanford meets the husband from Sleeping With the Enemy.
When my father died, he left my mother no debt and enough cash to live on for the duration. My mom is now approaching 86 years old, and if she wants a steak, it is there for her. My father's legacy is rock-solid responsibility with every obligation met.
Really, Bill? The reason your mother can eat a steak here and there is because of your father's savings? If your dad had been a profligate drinker she'd be waiting for that government check each month so she could upgrade from dry generic cat food to Fancy Feast on the weekends? You can't peel off a couple Benjamins every once in a blue moon for the old broad?
If all Americans were like my dad, the following things would happen.
Oh, this should be good.
First, Starbucks would go bankrupt. Spaghetti joints would replace the overpriced coffee houses.
Starbucks has more than 15,000 locations. It employs hundreds of thousands of people. These employees are paid benefits rarely seen in the service industry. Shut 'em down! O'Reilly's dream is to have those stores replaced with 15,000 Mama Bill's Gut-Busting Carb Stations. Yes, the world would be a much better place if we all skipped the soy latte and started off our day with a nice jumbo platter of fettuccini Alfredo.
There would be no sign of Bentley automobiles.
Yes, Bill. Because $300,000 Bentley purchases are often made by ordinary Americans with maxed out credit cards who spend all their money on cars and fail to save properly. What about those idiots who buy Gulfstream jets only to fly around dodging an old bill from Columbia House?
Costco would rule from coast to coast.
Yeah, right now Middle America is pissing away all its money on luxury items at Wal-Mart.
Nobody would pay ten bucks to see a movie except if Clint Eastwood returned as Dirty Harry.
Oy. We could talk about the fact that budgets for mainstream films have skyrocketed in recent decades. We could talk about the marketing costs that need to be recouped by major studios. However, Bill's analysis is much more thoughtful. But seriously, what's up with the price of popcorn?
Any restaurant with 'fusion' on the menu would be empty.
What does this have to do with ... never mind.
No one would ever eat 'gelato.' Ever.
Well, then what are they going to serve for dessert with our breakfast spaghetti-and-meat-sauce platters? Moron.
21-Million-Strong Imaginary Americans Against Obama Inauguration!
Remember the army of PUMAs and other Hillary supporters who were going to turn their backs on the enfant terrible Barack Obama and swing the election to John McCain? They were the sexy media story for a time--if by "sexy" you mean they were like a leaky blow-up doll that Fox News anchors took turns inflating while other Fox News anchors stood in line to copulate with it.
Like the biblical apostles, the PUMAs sort of scattered when it became clear that their leader would be crucified. Well, a few are still waiting for a resurrection, even as their messiah rather publicly canoodles with their Antichrist.
Their latest plan is to prove Obama's not a natural-born citizen or that he's a Kenyan spy or that his feet turn to cloven hooves when he takes the Eucharist or when his skin touches the blood of a veteran or something. It's really not important. The fun part is this: They're as delusional as a tone-deaf American Idol contestant who stands in line for 18 hours while being fed a continuous supply of self-esteem and hallucinogenic toads.
Plains Radio Network is the outpost for one of these groups--and by "outpost" we mean it makes that fort you used to build out of couch cushions and pee-stained Boba Fett sheets when you were 8 look like the Palace of Versailles. The network is the very-small-brainchild of Ed Hale, a Texas rancher and outspoken critic of our president-elect who actually appeared on CNN when the Hillary-loving Obama-haters were living their Camelot.
Of course, the Clinton supporter/McCain voter adherents have always been great at inflating their numbers. On Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Cristi Adkins, a leading member of the movement and a Fox News darling who briefly co-hosted a show on Hale's Internet radio network, said, "[A]s American citizens, we will not allow Hollywood and the left-wing news nut media to determine our next president. We have a voice. And there are just millions of Clinton supporters and independent voters out there who need a voice; they need a place to go."
Well, if there actually were millions of former Clinton supporters who needed a place to go, they apparently picked Shakey's Pizza, 'cause they weren't around on election day.
Anyway, here's why the whole Clinton supporter/McCain voter phenomenon went away: It was an inorganic media phenomenon that propped up a handful of people who are as stupid as they are nuts.
Exhibit 5,312: Recently on his Plains Radio Network Web site, the redoubtable Ed Hale claimed the Obama-will-never-be-inaugurated movement was gaining traction, as evidenced by the 21 million listeners his show had attracted in just one night. Now, to put this in perspective (just in case you're as dumb as the Clinton supporter/McCain voter people), if Hale is right, had his show been a television program, it would have topped the ratings for the week of November 17-23, beating Dancing With the Stars by more than a million viewers. It also would have decisively beat Rush Limbaugh's average weekly cumulative rating. We find this unlikely.
A Web site called theregulator.net checked Hale's numbers and figured his show had actually attracted something in the neighborhood of 120 listeners. (We'll just give Ed the benefit of the doubt and split the difference, which gives him a still-respectable audience of 10.5 million and 60.)
But the point is this: The mainstream media, with Fox leading the way, desperately wanted to turn these people into a story. What they got in the end was a monumentally historic election and a drawling Texas rancher who may very well be the dumbest individual in the history of bipedalism. Thanks mainstream media! See you in 2012.
Remember the Part Where the Teacher Wrote A+++++++?
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the release of A Christmas Story, and it's currently providing great filler for morning TV news programs. Of course, the interesting part is watching hosts try to suck an ounce of relevance from this old teat.
The added fun, when it comes to Fox & Friends, is that they assume their viewership is mildly mentally retarded.
Earlier this week, after F & F co-host Brian Kilmeade recounted the basic plot of the story, Steve Doocy added, "And, of course, that's the film where he stuck his tongue, I think it was to the flagpole, and got stuck."
There's no real point here, other than that this is the type of commentary you'd get from the guy at work who is painfully trying to become part of the conversation. Or from a retarded cousin.
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