On his radio show yesterday, Glenn Beck announced that he would do a segment on his Fox News show that night discussing how there really is inflation, because, he says, the dollar's value is declining and commodities such as food will cost more. It all sounds like a perfectly normal Beck monologue -- except he said the exact same thing in a paid radio advertisement for his sponsor Food Insurance the previous day.
Here is Beck's paid advertisement for Food Insurance from his November 1 radio show, where he urges his listeners to buy from his Food Insurance sponsor because he claims food commodities will rise due to a declining U.S. dollar, and food may become unaffordable:
Sponsor this half-hour is Food Insurance. This is what I wanted to tell you about Food Insurance. What was it? Thursday, I get on the phone with a couple of our advisers on the economy, because I'm working on something about what the Fed is going to do with quantitative easing. This is going to be real trouble. This is going to be trouble for our community banks. It's going to be trouble for anybody who holds -- if you hold a loan, it will probably be good for you. If you are giving someone a loan and you're one of the smaller guys, this is going to be trouble.
The big guys are going to get very, very rich from this, but it's going to hurt you. The idea of the Weimar inflation is still a ways away, but these are -- starting on Wednesday, they're gonna decide if they're gonna do this quantitative easing, which if half a -- $500 billion to $1 trillion of printed money and buying our own bonds. It's not going to be good.
When I got this one guy on the phone, and I've had two now tell me this. They have said to me, “Glenn, please, tell your audience -- food. If you're investing, buy corn or commodities, because commodities are going to go up.” One of the guys, who's not a crackpot at all and very, very reasoned, said to me, “It doesn't seem unreasonable that in the next 12 months, a quarter of this country can't afford food, because commodities -- the foodstuff is going up.”
I'm going to share with you in a couple of days -- General Mills is saying that they're going up. I think their food's going to go up -- what is it? Eight percent? Fourteen percent? Already, food has gone up for the manufacturer, and it's already starting to go -- milk, I think, is up 18 percent in the last month. It's bad. It's bad. They'll tell you there's no inflation, but it is, and it's coming.
Please, I beg you. I beg you. Do it any way you have to do it. But please, if you have extra money now, please buy extra food, just in case. If you're a grandparent, please, if you have extra money, buy it for your kids if they can't afford it. Make sure that the family is taken care of.
If you need somebody to help you on this, Food Insurance can. Now, this is different. This is freeze-dried food, but it'll last for 25 years, and it's really good stuff. If your family can't eat, or has a problem or whatever, this is great. And it's small, it's compact, and it's light. And it's really good. Please, please, please, dismiss me as a kook in two years if you want. You will not regret preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. Please go to FoodInsurance.com, FoodInsurance.com, or call 1-866-9-GOT-FOOD. Be a shelter for someone else, do not be a dependent. 866-9-GOT-FOOD.
Now, here's Beck's announcement about his monologue on his Fox News show from last night, in which he says it will deal with the rise in commodity prices due to a declining U.S. dollar:
I'm going to do a monologue tonight -- we're showing you how much food has risen in just the last 30, 60, and 90 days. You probably know it if you go to the grocery store. But it is about to really start to rise. Commodities are going to go up. Your cost of fuel, any kind of energy is gonna go up. Any kind of foodstuff is gonna go up. Any commodity is gonna go up because they're pegged to the dollar, and the dollar is about to lose real value.
And here's the segment of Beck's Fox News show from last night that also discussed the rise in commodity prices, as promised:
All right. If you do the shopping in your house, you may have noticed that prices are starting to rise at the grocery store. Since the beginning of July -- I want to show you these numbers -- milk has gone up 6.5 percent. Remember, they're saying there's no inflation -- 6.5. Butter is up 19 percent. Butter substitute, 6. Women's dresses, 6. Candy, 13. Footware, 45. Beer, 6 percent.
You haven't seen anything yet. Mark my words. Please, please, be prudent. Please. They're going to print $500 billion to $1 trillion. They'll announce it tomorrow. Most of the price increases have not even been passed on to customers yet. I want to show you this other chart.
Now, this -- the blue line is what you're paying for in prices, OK? So you see that it's relatively steady. But it's going up. But this is what the manufacturer has to pay. This is where they are here. This line must catch up. They know that it pretty much balances out. When it's like this, it pretty much pays for itself. They can keep it kind of flat. But when it goes up this much, they have to start going up.
General Mills just announced that they're going to have to raise prices of cereal to keep up. They've announced a price hike for November 15. Coming to a cereal aisle near you. I know it's election day, and we're all hoping for great things. And that's probably bringing you down, I know, I told you that beer is up 6 percent.
But prices are going to go up. Things are going to get tougher for a while. And you need to know that. It's not all sunshine and lollipops. Tomorrow it's going to get tough. And some of it is intentionally tough.
Last November, Media Matters helped expose how Beck promotes gold during his Fox News show while reaping profits from the advertising dollars of gold firms. Subsequent media reports showed that Beck reportedly got into some trouble from Fox for being a “paid spokesman” for a gold firm while also promoting gold on his Fox News show.
Media Matters also documented how Beck announced during a paid advertisement on his radio show in December that he would use his Fox News show to promote gold that same day.
More recently, we noted that Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of Fox News' parent company, seems completely unaware of Beck's constant self-promotion on his Fox News show, saying, “I don't know whether you watch Fox News, but Mr. Beck is the least of our stars who take liberties in promoting their interests.” In that case, Murdoch somehow must think that when Beck takes an argument he used to sell one of his sponsored products on his radio show and then turns it into a segment on his Fox News show, it doesn't count as “promoting [his] interests” -- despite the obvious financial incentive to do so.
Either Murdoch really does know nothing about what happens on Fox News, or Fox News has no problem tolerating such blatant ethical violations and, like its employee Sarah Palin, chooses to “stand with” Glenn Beck, even when he puts his personal business interests ahead of those of Fox News.