Glenn explains the economy with bunnies, foxes and vampire bats

On Thursday’s episode of the “Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn Beck shared a simple breakdown of economic principles using foxes, bunnies and vampire bats.

“If you have a valley of bunny rabbits, there’s a certain number of blades of grass that can grow in that valley,” Glenn said to set the stage for his analogy. Because only so much grass will grow, one valley can only support so many rabbits. Foxes can live in the valley and feed on the rabbits, but the area can also only support so many foxes.

“There’s no growth,” Glenn noted. “That’s nature. In everything, if I’m eating a bunny rabbit, I’m literally taking that bunny rabbit out of the mouth of another fox.” Glenn compared this natural order of things to the talking points that people use to argue that capitalism is evil: “You have it and therefore I do not.”

The animals are also in competition; if one fox eats more than its “share” of rabbits, another fox will go hungry. Generally, nature works on this principle. But one unusual creature breaks the rules by living in a sharing economy: the vampire bat.

“Nature has made these vampire bats in a very weird way,” Glenn described. Vampire bats, which live solely on a diet of blood, have a surprisingly social existence. If a vampire bat misses a meal, it can approach another bat to see if it is willing to regurgitate blood. The bats know they can depend on other bats to keep from starving, and they reciprocate by sharing blood with bats that previously shared with them.

To see more from Glenn, visit his channel on TheBlaze and listen live to “The Glenn Beck Radio Program” with Glenn Beck, Pat Gray, Stu Burguiere and Jeffy Fisher weekdays 9 a.m.–noon ET on TheBlaze Radio Network.