President Obama: ‘If You’ve Got a Business — You Didn’t Build That. Somebody Else Made That

Originally posted by MsAphrodite

Originally posted by jude11
Well I could use some help with my bakery but I don't see any politicians coming in to wash pots and pans for me.

Nope...I DO THAT.

Obama..pfffttt...

No but depending on which state you live in they might find some way to fine you for how you are washing those pans.

People just have no clue how business owners are being treated in this country. Government over-reach is at an all time high. They've got to find revenue to pay their ridiculous bills...

I actually live in Canada but it's the same attitude here with the Politicians.

And you're right in the way business owners are treated...like dirt. I can employ 10 people thus helping them stay off the system, pay into their vacation pay, health, worker's comp etc.

I can do that for 10 years and if I lose my business, they all get unemployment...all but me. As a business owner, my taxes are higher, I employ people etc. but I can't get a damn thing if I have to close shop. I guess all of us small business folk are independently wealthy or something.

Never understood that.

Peace

reply to post by Manhater


I know many business owners who are in it on their own. I don't care if someone else invented the airplane or the internet. They were paid for their services. Just like the baker in the previous post is expecting to be paid for his service.

Last week, I transfered my own savings into the account of my freshly incorporated business. I dont plan to hire anyone. If I do, it will likely be because I think they need a job. I'll be taking loans to cover contacts outside my start up budget, but I'll be paying for the service.

Using that line of logic, Obama isn't president, somebody else is. Like maybe his Kenyan teacher.

Oy, the stupid things our politicians say.

Originally posted by stanguilles7

Originally posted by jude11
Well I could use some help with my bakery but I don't see any politicians coming in to wash pots and pans for me.

Nope...I DO THAT.

Obama..pfffttt...

But the government built the road that brings you supplies, and customers. They built the waterlines you use to bring water effortlessly into your dish pit. Since you live in Canada, they have also paved the way for the settlement that brought farms to your region in the first place, by subsidizing homesteaders and even giving away land.

To deny the benefits you gain from living in a country with a healthy government sponsored infrastructure is the ultimate first world delusion.

I paid for those roads and so did my fore fathers. With taxes and sweat. The water lines? Paid for those as well. And then we continue to pay for water that belongs to us rightfully but is being sold to corporations and foreign interests.

Giving away land? Sure. And then taxing their descendants off the land at a later date. If you want to be thankful to someone, choose your neighbors, friends, family etc.

Govt. sponsored infrastructure? Don't you mean people sponsored infrastructure? The Govt. can't operate without OUR money, labor, ideas etc.

But that's only my opinion.

Peace

Originally posted by jude11


I paid for those roads and so did my fore fathers. With taxes and sweat. The water lines? Paid for those as well.

No you didnt. You paid a teeny, tiny portion, and yet benefit from the whole. That's Government. Government isnt a bogeyman in the sky. It's the efforts of a collective of people.

You could NEVER have opened a business if the government hadnt facilitated such work like building the infrastructure you take for granted every day, like supply chains, roads, sewer, gas electric, etc. That's all built by the government. Not you and your grandad.

Govt. sponsored infrastructure? Don't you mean people sponsored infrastructure? The Govt. can't operate without OUR money, labor, ideas etc.

Your mistake is thinking 'the government' isnt 'the people'.It's the same thing. That is a direct effect of corporate propaganda, that has conditioned you to believe that you dont benefit from the infrastructure that has been created by a functioning government.

It's easy to complain about taxes. But a sensible person recognizes the obvious benefits of a functioning government, even with the excesses, etc.

But that's only my opinion.

Peace

I don't see it as the same thing when those individuals in government seem to think they "know" what is good for the people. Functioning government, those two words haven't deserved to be together in decades.

The problem I see with that speech was to me, implying that the government did this on their own. Yes, the government made roads, but to me, doesn't tax revenue generated by business help fund the government? Business employs people, people with income in which the government taxes to generate revenue.

The government didn't do it on their own, again, without the people there is no government.

I, also, am worried about Obama's speech. Where is his limiting principle? If the government is responsible for your success, why can't the government take all of it? Why should a person who is working hard and making a lot of money, get more than a person who is working hard and not making a lot of money? Why not say we owe everything to government and they will give us what they think we need?

As far as owing things to your customers, you pay off that debt by providing them with what they want at a price they will pay.

This whole thing seems like a thin layer of politician speak laid over the belief that the government should own everything, or at least control everything.

The saddest thing I see here is how deeply ingrained the collectivist fantasy has become in a nation (USA) that should know better. The underlying sentiment is "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine". What kind of perverse culture demonizes the very people who provide their electricity and perform their heart surgeries?

Follow this line of thought and it comes to one conclusion: You owe me. Yes, people cooperate in order to build a civilized society. A thousand voluntary trades and interactions culminate in a functioning society. But what is being implied here is not voluntary trades and contracts of mutual benefit. The implication is that if one produces, one is obligated to give away the product of their labor. The few (and yes, they are few) who are willing to risk their fortunes and even their lives to produce products and services that benefit all of us are told to their faces "You will be our slave and serve us. We will give you nothing but our envy and resentment in return, but you WILL serve us". Why would anyone want to work 18 hours a day to create something only to have it taken away, or taxed away? How many brilliant entrepreneurs that could provide amazing products/services just give up their dreams and stick with their day jobs because they can't face the huge government regulations and punitive taxation? We all lose because of that. Who would dare go into the energy business now when we have a President promising to bankrupt them? Why is earning money being "evil and greedy", but living off welfare noble? Why is some money OK (sports, entertainers, and politicians) but other money (business creators and laborers) bad?

Originally posted by RealSpoke
Regardless of whoever you are, society has helped you in one way or another. I have been greatly helped by highways, postal service, public schooling, community college, libraries, paved roads, public parks, and a million other things. Certain individualistic rhetoric wants you to forget this...people with common sense can see through it though.

A business would be nothing without it's customers

edit on 14-7-2012 by RealSpoke because: (no reason given)

EVERYBODY is helped by the things you mention. Thus it would seem the SUCCESSFUL people add something extra that the unsuccessful one's do not. That something extra does not come from the government.

Originally posted by MidnightTide
I don't see it as the same thing when those individuals in government seem to think they "know" what is good for the people. Functioning government, those two words haven't deserved to be together in decades.

The problem I see with that speech was to me, implying that the government did this on their own. Yes, the government made roads, but to me, doesn't tax revenue generated by business help fund the government? Business employs people, people with income in which the government taxes to generate revenue.

The government didn't do it on their own, again, without the people there is no government.

edit on 14-7-2012 by MidnightTide because: (no reason given)

That's only because you have been conditioned by corporate propaganda to think that 'the government' is anything more than 'the people'. Corporations loathe governments, because they are the only things standing in the way of their complete and total dominance of the worlds resources.

The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

No, The government built the internet to survive a nuclear war. Not for companies to make money.

reply to post by stanguilles7


Not a huge fan of huge corporations, or big brother since they feed each other.

Well, that's a disillusioned statement. I worked hard and long to build my business. I worked cheap at first to build a reputation and then armed with a reputation I got customers who passed on word of mouth advertising. Customers and some of my suppliers helped me get jobs but that's all part of contracting. If I wouldn't have been reasonably priced and didn't do a good job I would never have gotten anywhere.

Originally posted by stanguilles7

Originally posted by jude11


I paid for those roads and so did my fore fathers. With taxes and sweat. The water lines? Paid for those as well.

No you didnt. You paid a teeny, tiny portion, and yet benefit from the whole. That's Government. Government isnt a bogeyman in the sky. It's the efforts of a collective of people.

You could NEVER have opened a business if the government hadnt facilitated such work like building the infrastructure you take for granted every day, like supply chains, roads, sewer, gas electric, etc. That's all built by the government. Not you and your grandad.

Govt. sponsored infrastructure? Don't you mean people sponsored infrastructure? The Govt. can't operate without OUR money, labor, ideas etc.

Your mistake is thinking 'the government' isnt 'the people'.It's the same thing. That is a direct effect of corporate propaganda, that has conditioned you to believe that you dont benefit from the infrastructure that has been created by a functioning government.

It's easy to complain about taxes. But a sensible person recognizes the obvious benefits of a functioning government, even with the excesses, etc.

But that's only my opinion.

Peace

Wow!

There are so many pro government statements in that post that it's hard to know where to begin...so I will just cover it with a blanket statement.

The Govt. has not been a part of the people for so long that not many can say when the separation began. And of course we all understand and even want a functioning Govt. That isn't the issue here. The issue is that there is no such thing.

Functioning Governments put people first. They listen to them and do what is in the collective best interest...not their own pocketbooks. They aren't functioning when bridges, roads, schools, hell the entire infrastructure is falling down and being sold to foreign interests. And then turn around and give those tax dollars in the form of billions to bankers, spend trillions on wars and purchase $700 toilet seats from their friends at the toilet seat company. This isn't functioning at all.

People all over the World are waking up to see their functioning Govt. for what they really are. Puppets of the Elite. Take a look around you and at the faces of people on the streets of what was once the greatest Country on Earth. Ask yourself what they think of the functioning government that would rather let them starve, go homeless, be forced to buy health care, losing jobs, their kids dieing overseas in countless wars of greed, taxed to the point of having nothing left etc. Functioning? Sure...for themselves.

Nope, no matter what you say on this and how much you believe that they are doing the right thing for the collective, how much they want to help, protect, feed, educate, employ...it isn't happening because they are NOT functioning one bit.

In fact they are the most dis-functional, immoral, unethical, vile, corrupt group of vermin on the planet.

Did I miss anything?

Peace

Trying to verify if this quote was accurate or not I noticed the only video clips of it online are 12 seconds long - which tells me those clips don't want you to hear the full context in which the clip is pulled from.

So here is the full context of the speech, from the WH Web siteL

Remarks by the President at a Campaign Event in Roanoke, Virginia
(whitehouse.gov)

And the 3 paragraphs from which this quote is pulled:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

When he says "you didn't build that", he is not telling business owners they didn't build their business, he's saying they didn't build this "unbelievable American system" in which they thrive. The roads, the infrastructure (including the Web), even the teachers.

While it's not the greatest speech, it's not the nefarious statement the right-wing media is making it out to be. That's just politics as usual.

reply to post by jude11


I note the irony of a relatively prosperous Canadian, living under the protection of a relatively well functioning government (your water works your sewer works, armed gangs dont roam the streets, you have paved roads farms that are subsidized to keep them financially viable) complaining about government.

Government is 'vile'? See you in Somalia, then!

I think the kids call that 'first world problems'.

"Somebody else made that happen".

- unless your buisness is failing- than its all the buisness owners fault and not everybody elses.

double standards suck.

Originally posted by rickymouse
Well, that's a disillusioned statement. I worked hard and long to build my business. I worked cheap at first to build a reputation and then armed with a reputation I got customers who passed on word of mouth advertising. Customers and some of my suppliers helped me get jobs but that's all part of contracting. If I wouldn't have been reasonably priced and didn't do a good job I would never have gotten anywhere.

So you built the roads and the infrastructure your business needs to thrive?

ow! Good work! You must be tired!

reply to post by Blackmarketeer

Even with the full context of the quote, the message doesn't change. "Somebody else created . . . " As has been pointed out, it seems that he is leading to "So 'somebody else' should get the proceeds from your work. Since we can't identify those individuals, the government will take it and spend it as we see fit."

Which seems to be what his actions indicate.

Originally posted by stanguilles7

Originally posted by rickymouse
Well, that's a disillusioned statement. I worked hard and long to build my business. I worked cheap at first to build a reputation and then armed with a reputation I got customers who passed on word of mouth advertising. Customers and some of my suppliers helped me get jobs but that's all part of contracting. If I wouldn't have been reasonably priced and didn't do a good job I would never have gotten anywhere.

So you built the roads and the infrastructure your business needs to thrive?

ow! Good work! You must be tired!

He also had no employees to help him, apparently.