Obama Insults Entrepreneurs

[Guest ThePunisher]

If you have a sucessful business that you started and created with financial risk, hard work and long hours, then you cannot take credit for your business according to Obama. Obama says your business was created by the efforts and sacrifices of others to make your business a success. You are incapable of being a sucessful entrepreneur without the government and other peoples sacrifices.

This rhetoric is social justice code for wealth redistribution. Get ready business owners to pay more taxes, and have more regulations until it is not feasible to operate your business any longer. Communist don't believe in private business ownership, or private property rights. If you cherish your business and sucess by your hard work, and you want to be able to keep your business, then you better unite behind Romney who will be a pro business president. Re-electing Obama will be like pouring gasoline on your business operation and striking a match to it. The choice is yours to make.

Edited July 17, 2012 by ThePunisher

[Curiousgb]

I am not an Obama supporter. But I listened as this was rehashed add nausium yesterday. I then looked it up and what I read did not in my opinion say what is being reported. He said that at some point successful people had help.

[Guest adurbin]

Something to remember, Hitler did not start out with death camps and terror. His reign started with rhetoric. I truly, truly hate this president and cannot wait until he ousted. Whether or not he meant what he said in the most literal sense, this man hates free enterprise and capitalism. What an arrogant S.O.B.

[TMF]

I am not an Obama supporter. But I listened as this was rehashed add nausium yesterday. I then looked it up and what I read did not in my opinion say what is being reported. He said that at some point successful people had help.

Same here. The teaser on Drudge pulled me in. I read what he said and it wasn't specifically referring to business owners not being the owners of their success. He was referring to perhaps life mentors and inspirations that helped them along the way achieve their goals of success. Of course, the subtext of the whole thing was the justification of government intervention.

[LazyAce]

It has been said that if Obama is re-elected it will be the last election this country will see and America as we know it will be gone forever. Something to think about

[BrasilNuts]

It has been said that if Obama is re-elected it will be the last election this country will see and America as we know it will be gone forever. Something to think about

It doesn't matter, the world is gonna end on 12-21-12 anyway.

[Links2k]

I am not an Obama supporter. But I listened as this was rehashed add nausium yesterday. I then looked it up and what I read did not in my opinion say what is being reported. He said that at some point successful people had help.

That's what I heard him say, but you can't scare people by showing the entire video. When you are the greatest thing since sliced bread it's hard not to believe that all of your success is not entirely based on your own brilliance.

Hard work and smarts plays a HUGE part in a individual's success, but I believe that luck and divine intervention also have a hand to play. Someone or something assisted in creating a environment conducive to success.

[Links2k]

It has been said that if Obama is re-elected it will be the last election this country will see and America as we know it will be gone forever. Something to think about

On the bright side we will be able to say that we were here when it happened.

Edited July 17, 2012 by LINKS2K

[Guest ThePunisher]

Today, Romney on the campaign trail picked up on the commies out of touch entrepreneur insult blunder. Romney said that Obama attacks sucess, but Obama has not created any economic sucess for America. I have a feeling we will be seeing Obama's entrepreneurial insult in campaign clips daily until November.

Also today, Obama tried to backtrack his insults to entrepreneurs by saying a nation rises and falls together. Marxist don't care about about a capitalist nation rising to sucess, but they definitely don't mind a capitalist nation falling into obscurity and failure. Obummer is doing his best to see that America falls together.

There is no alternative other than uniting behind Romney to ensure the commie's defeat in November.

Edited July 18, 2012 by ThePunisher

[Guest ThePunisher]

I am not an Obama supporter. But I listened as this was rehashed add nausium yesterday. I then looked it up and what I read did not in my opinion say what is being reported. He said that at some point successful people had help.

Yeah, according Obama and Hilary, it takes a village and the government to make you sucessful. Individual initiative and work ethic doesn't mean anything along your journey of success. Just sign up for government welfare and be a success in bed all day long.

[TLRMADE]

[bigwakes]

And what if you went from "community organizer" to president? Did you get help along the way by terrorists and and people who hate this country?

[subsonic]

All this poseur has ever done is criticize other people, he's never carried any water himself. I've been self employed my entire life and everything he said is anathema to my existance. Given the chance, I'd piss on his head.

[Spook]

The last two sentences say it all.... Obama believes the government is the be all and end all.

By his reasoning if you started a business and it failed wouldn't it also be the government's fault? He can't have it both ways.

[Spook]

One last comment. Obama was without his trusty teleprompter. When he does not use it you hear his true feelings vice the canned speeches that he has given that sound like a broken record, verbatim.

[Guest ThePunisher]

One last comment. Obama was without his trusty teleprompter. When he does not use it you hear his true feelings vice the canned speeches that he has given that sound like a broken record, verbatim.

I agree he puts his foot in his mouth without his teleprompter. Actually he can't say s#it with a mouthful if he doesn't have his teleprompter. He's such a phony that has pulled the wool over the sheeple's eyes.

Edited July 18, 2012 by ThePunisher

[enfield]

That's what I heard him say, but you can't scare people by showing the entire video. When you are the greatest thing since sliced bread it's hard not to believe that all of your success is not entirely based on your own brilliance.

Hard work and smarts plays a HUGE part in a individual's success, but I believe that luck and divine intervention also have a hand to play. Someone or something assisted in creating a environment conducive to success.

That's not what Obama meant. You don't have to search for the deeper meaning of his words - just take them in their common meaning and context. If you have a business you were a winner in life's lottery. You should share with those who didn't win.

[tnhawk]

Yeah, according Obama and Hilary, it takes a village and the government to make you sucessful. Individual initiative and work ethic doesn't mean anything along your journey of success. Just sign up for government welfare and be a success in bed all day long.

If I am not as sucessful I as want, are obama and Hilary's village going to replace my loss?

[Curiousgb]

Again this is a misquote, a snippet of the speech and taken out of context.

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.

So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That’s how we funded the GI Bill. That’s how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That’s how we invented the Internet. That’s how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for President -- because I still believe in that idea. You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.

http://www.whitehous...oanoke-virginia

I don't agree with all that is said, but I am willing to find out what was said. I do this on both sides of the political fence, because they are both agenda driven. We live in a world of sound bites which are made to drive our emotions, not our intellect.

Edited July 18, 2012 by Curiousgb

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Well the parts of the internet the average guy uses most were nearly "hobby projects" of people working at CERN. USA among others funded CERN. The internet wouldn't have become what it is today if we had relied only on what came out of gov labs, USA or otherwise. It was global evolution of lots of people developing wacky ideas, the vast majority of which didn't pan out. Argument might be made that "accidental side-effects" of funding giant gov research projects, the "accidental side-effects" might be more useful than what the people were actually hired to do in the first place? So does that mean that if the gov just throws money away willy-nilly to real smart people that we will overall profit? Maybe so but I have a gut feel that it is unlikely. The CERN work for instance was a mere kernal nursed into maturity by thousands of non-gov entities.

If the gov was the only one capable of writing computer languages, everybody would be programming ADA. I don't know much about ADA and some folks say it ain't that bad, but in the open market it doesn't look like ADA turned out the best most viable for general use.

Its an open question the contribution of gov to the whole thang. If Sen Albert Gore Jr. actually had the foresight to think to himself, "Self, I'm a gonna blow people's tax money to build a monstrous gigantic anarchic system which people worldwide use for thousands of disparate purposes. We need to give out contracts so real smart people can develop all those thousands of different market niches". The money would have gone to IBM, DEC, WANG, SUN, and whatever other companies happened to be good buddies with Gore or biz sycophants at the time such as Franklin Haney. Maybe the gov would pay the "usual suspects" in the defense industry, cost-plus contracts, to think up and develop Facebook or EBay. Maybe they would even pay some company to set up tngunowners.gov. Problem is, governments usually are not too hot on the idea of creating giant near-uncontrollable anarchic systems. If Gore had actually known how it would turn out it would have probably scared him silly.

I have a sneaking suspicion that not many gov contracts would have been issued to Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds. I have a sneaking suspicion that a gov-invented internet would closely resemble the computer networks in the movie Brazil.

[zapfbroad]

Welcome back to 1957 people...

“He didn’t invent iron ore and blast furnaces, did he?â€

“Who?â€

“Rearden. He didn’t invent smelting and chemistry and air compression. He couldn’t have invented his Metal but for thousands and thousands of other people. His Metal! Why does he think it’s his? Why does he think it’s his invention? Everybody uses the work of everybody else. Nobody ever invents anything.â€

She said, puzzled, “But the iron ore and all those other things were there all the time. Why didn’t anybody else make that Metal, but Mr. Rearden did?â€

- Atlas Shrugged

[kieefer]

Romney's response;

http://www.therightscoop.com/soon-watch-romney-live-in-irwin-pennsylvania/

Here's a good article to go along with it,

http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2012/07/18/you-didnt-build-that-oh-yeah/?singlepage=true

[45guy]

I have been self employed for almost 20 years and I deal with other business owners every day. Some have some success others do not. Many people are happy with a job that pays regularly and has a fixed set of hours. There is nothing wrong with that. Others like me are more driven and more willing to take the risk that comes with owning your own business. I have never met someone that was successful that did not sacrifice a lot to get there. I answer my phone from 7am to 11pm. It goes with me to the beach to the bathroom to dinner and everywhere else I go.

The wealthiest person I know who is also the hardest working person I ever met explained to me like this. Everybody sees my lifestyle now and wants what I have, but they did not see the times I went without pay and the times I had to get my daughters piggy bank to make payroll. When you own a business everybody else gets paid first and if there is anything left you can keep some or as in most cases reinvest in your business with the hope of a greater return.

I look at the taxes I have to pay every month (payroll and income) and it is the least productive money I spend. I sometimes wonder what I would do if I could keep some of that money. Donating it to the government to waste is a crying shame.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Welcome back to 1957 people...

“He didn’t invent iron ore and blast furnaces, did he?â€

“Who?â€

“Rearden. He didn’t invent smelting and chemistry and air compression. He couldn’t have invented his Metal but for thousands and thousands of other people. His Metal! Why does he think it’s his? Why does he think it’s his invention? Everybody uses the work of everybody else. Nobody ever invents anything.â€

She said, puzzled, “But the iron ore and all those other things were there all the time. Why didn’t anybody else make that Metal, but Mr. Rearden did?â€

- Atlas Shrugged

Yep Rand had interesting ideas and wrote great. Thinking out loud here-- For sake of explication Rand created a "lone genius" scenario uncommon in the real world? Undoubtedly sometimes "very special people" spark dramatic advances. On the other hand certain leaps seemingly happen because "it was time". Breakthrus "simultaneously invented" by multiple people.

If Newton hadn't "invented" calculus then it would have been invented in that era because other people were plowing the same field. Had Newton been trampled by a rampaging ox, then someone else would have invented calculus. Newton wasn't an accidental lottery winner. King Charles II didn't make it happen. Newton made it happen because Newton was brilliant and industrious.

OTOH Leibniz would have invented calculus had Newton been trampled by a rampaging ox. Had Leibniz also been trampled by a rampaging ox then it would have been someone else. Maybe King Charles could claim to have invented calculus by having established the Anti-Rampaging Ox Initiative and having thereby prevented Newton's tragic demise?

Wright Bros were smart, diligent and first with a workable aircraft control system but many others were contemporaneously developing heavier-than-air flight. It does not diss the Wright Bros to expect that somebody would have been first in the air had it not been the Wright Bros? Borne out by history-- In short order other folk made better planes than the Wrights. The Wrights didn't innovate aircraft past being first and proving it possible, which is certainly a world-class achievment in itself. Had the Wrights been granted broad patent on (and been able to enforce) any and all heavier-than-air mechanisms, then aviation wouldn't have significantly advanced in the ensuing 20 years. Better engineers would have been locked out of the market til the patent expired. Imagine WWI fought with crude Wright Flyers!

Ain't siding with Atlas Shrugged bungling socialists but consider if Reardon turns out capable of contributing exactly the same to metallurgy as the Wrights contributed to flight? Given a total patent lock then after 20 year Reardon would still be capitalizing the first-generation product! On the other hand if other smart engineers are allowed to compete right away then there would be faster advances and better-cheaper-quicker improvements to Reardon metal?

Am not making policy recommendations. Just thinking about it. In order to completely hobble the march of progress, the socialists need to make the biz environment so hostile that NONE of millions of brilliant people are willing to put up with the hassle? Assuming Reardon is already a multi-millionaire and the gov prevents more than a million bucks profit per year-- Then sure, Reardon can afford to shrug. OTOH that million bucks per year looks mighty attractive to a young penniless genius, even if the gov collects 99 cents on the dollar. After a few years maybe the new guy makes enough money and also gets mad and shrugs. However, provided the gig pays "a lot more than average" then there will always be penniless geniuses who think the pay looks damn good.

The only way the socialists can completely kill the golden goose-- Not only make biz too unpleasant for a wealthy Reardon, but also make biz so unpleasant that millions of penniless geniuses would rather flip burgers than run a biz?

It is complicated because money is not the only motivator and in fact many creative people are not especially motivated by money. That is what makes creative people so easy to exploit. Admiration, status, fame, power, and primarily the sheer joy of doing their thang. Ain't claiming that creative folk deserve to be ripped off but for instance does anyone believe that Beethoven would have written symphonies twice as good had he been paid twice as much? Nikola Tesla for instance-- Does anybody think he was doing it for the money? He most likely didn't consider himself a selfless saint working for the good of mankind but if Tesla was doing it for the money then he wouldn't have blown his fortune obsessively chasing more-better inventions. The Atlas Shrugged socialists, if they happened to be "just smart enough" to recognize Tesla's ability, could hire him cheap. Room, board, plenty of money for equipment and helpers, and an occasional pat on the back. Tesla would have been happy as a pig in mud.

Where the money rewards might be most important attracting good folks, might be ultra-boring tedious work which requires superior ability? Nobody's gonna take that gig unless it pays pretty good. There are numerous jobs and products which fit that description. Perhaps the majority of niches fit that description?

I don't think people live their lives "for the gov" or "for the people". They don't do their thing at the sufferance of the state and for the benefit of the state. I just don't think the talent pool is nearly as shallow as depicted in Rand's novels.

Edited July 19, 2012 by Lester Weevils