Over 20 people fainted during this speech in Roanoke, Va., probably from his “awesomeness”.
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TOTUS must have had the day off.
Not to defend the guy, but I’ve heard this meme before — The *government* built and maintains the roads, provided the tax deferments, police and fire protection, etc.
“You’re nothing without us”, in other words…
All right, Einsteins, here is the quote:
“if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own.”
What exactly do you disagree with? And if you do, try go somewhere else and try to build your “empire” in another country.
You must be an Alien; from planet Dumbass.
Next time you might want to follow these three easy steps.
Step #1 Watch the video.
Step #2 Comment on video.
Step #3 Don’t look like an idiot by “quoting” words that are not in the video.
These days, business survives in spite of the gov’t. not because of it.
Gov’t has never helped my busines, not ever.
lets make the “our government”, ie.. those elected, responsible for the mistakes they make in office. they’ll just have to carry insurance to cover any liability. that will help make government a lil more careful about what it does.
and they shouldnt think of it as a tax, just a way of being more american, like the rest of us are required. 🙂
Time for everyone building businesses to quit, the President will take over. Relax, your check will be in the mail.
I read the rest of his speech to see if this was just a soundbite taken out of context.
Nope.
He truly believes that everything you are is because government enabled it.
He literally has no concept of “payment for services rendered.”
I hate to tell you this Barry, but everything I have is because I worked for it. Nobody taught me my trade during their spare time. Nobody built the roads out of charity. Nobody grew the food and gave it to me.
And nobody, I mean nobody, contributed to the growth of my business unless they were getting a paycheck.
This guy is so far out of touch with reality it is downright scary.
Hey, BO! The People enable government, not the other way around.
Did you use the internet to learn your trade at all? The base protocols for it were developed by the government.
Your food gets to the grocery store by trucks traveling over government-built roads from a farm receiving government subsidies to offset the loss caused by the huge over-supply of corn we have.
If there’s a fire at your business, who puts it out? Probably government firefighters.
If someone breaks in to your business, who arrests the criminals? Police officers, who are also a part of the government.
Who delivers your mail? The government.
I find it hard to believe you live your life not using anything the government didn’t contribute to. You must be a hermit who lives under a rock.
The fact is, that unless you’re a hermit who lives under a rock, you wouldn’t be where you are today without the government. The days of the wild west ended over a century ago. Time to live in the present.
They didn’t happen out of thin air. Fireman get paid a salary. Policemen get paid a salary. The postman gets a salary. And those salaries are paid for by taxes
Services rendered for a product.
The teacher didn’t teach me for free.
The truck Driver paid taxes on that road to enable him to get the product to market.
The farmer grew the food to sell.
It was all done for money, not because it would make a better society. A better society exists because people did it for money, not the other way around.
That’s a warped worldview. Why do people decide to go into careers such as teaching rather than something more lucrative like being a CEO? If self interest was 100% of the motivation and the betterment of society just a side effect, we’d still be in the gilded era of robber barons.
And comparing paying taxes to buying things from a company is a flawed analogy. You choose to buy the thing from the company, and you pay in proportion to how much it’s being sold for. With taxes, you pay no matter what, and you pay in proportion to your income (more or less).
And if the mission of the government of the government was profit, it’s failing miserably.
Warped? Not really. It’s what built this country.
And I didn’t say there wasn’t selfish motives in deciding to teach for low wages. But ask any teacher if they would do it free.
AFA taxes, you do have a say. You vote.
Those who can, do. Those that can’t, teach.
Most teachers aren’t there for altruistic reasons, they’re there for the paycheck although you’re right about not comparing paying taxes with buying goods: I have a choice to buy what I like from where I like (or not). No choice about the taxes taken and hosed up against the wall to buy votes.
Just like the real world, just because you want something to happen a certain way doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.
I’ve had to change my plans for my company on numerous occasions because things didn’t work out the way I intended.
Same with taxes. You have a say — you just don’t get your way all the time.
And you can choose to pay less taxes — just Go Galt.
Black and white, no.
Believe that I didn’t build my business but somebody else did? No.
Believe that I worked together with other businesses through a fair exchange of services to build it? Yes.
It was done to make money. No business starts up simply to help others. It does it to make money. But you are right in that a business cannot exist on its own. But to say I am not responsible for building that business is incorrect.
America’s abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America’s industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
And that’s exactly the point:
The government enabled it. What part of that are you missing?
It’s discouraging that the conniving prick can make statements like that and people applaud.
Hmmmm, I wonder how many businesses Obama has built. Or if he has even had a real job…other than community organizer.
I get it now, he’s talking about the businesses that contribute (re: bribe) to his campaign. His Bankster buddys. They get lots of gov’t. help now don’t they.
Democratic dream tax form:
Step 1) How much money did you warn last year. Place this amount on Line 1.
Step 2) Send it in.
I’m not a big fan of Steve Jobs but this is an interesting quote when he met with Obama in 2010.
“You’re headed for a one-term presidency,” he told Obama at the start of their meeting, insisting that the administration needed to be more business-friendly. As an example, Jobs described the ease with which companies can build factories in China compared to the United States, where “regulations and unnecessary costs” make it difficult for them.
Jobs also criticized America’s education system, saying it was “crippled by union work rules,” noted Isaacson. “Until the teachers’ unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform.” Jobs proposed allowing principals to hire and fire teachers based on merit, that schools stay open until 6 p.m. and that they be open 11 months a year.”
Did you read the story about the Chinese government subsidizing the building of advanced semiconductor technology? Did ya ?
Yup. Chinese government pouring billions to compete with Intel and TSMC. Pretty business friendly for those businesses wanting to build fabs in China using stolen trade secrets.
China agreed to supply Apple the catch nets for suicidal factory workers. Very business friendly of course. What are your thoughts on this?
The government gets the money, too, while the workers live in barracks with one year contracts which are paid at the end of the year. And the Amy they get is pretty small.
When the government gets all the money, it is easy to subsidize who they want to.
A fuller quote:
“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.
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. ”
“If I see far, it is because I stand on the backs of giants.”
oh wait, that last line was Einstein.
Wingnuts don’t do context, Brad Man. You’re casting pearls before swine here. 🙂
But thanks for the fuller context, it does make sense.
I owe the government my taxes. That is all. Once I pay my taxes, I owe our government nothing. Everything else I accomplish is my accomplishment alone. I owe the government nothing more than my taxes. Obama thinks otherwise.
What can I say? Obama believes in giving credit were credit is due and if you worked you butt off to create a business you aren’t due any credit in his view because public taxes paid for the road and the bridge.
This is kind of overlooking the fact that a business is like a vacant lot. It doesn’t become a house with a yard until somebody does a lot of work and it won’t stay a house with a yard long if they stop working.
Yeah I did hear the rest of the speech but he still doesn’t get it. He places no value on your time and effort.
Thanks for another example of the wingnut black-and-white perspective, deowll. 🙂
That’s right, because our taxes paid for the bridges you ship your products over, your success has nothing to do with your own effort!
Geez, do you ever just listen to yourself? Hello? Anyone home there?
His taxes paid for the bridge, too.
And his taxes continue to pay for its upkeep.
I think it was the same speech where he said people fainting should get help from paralegals.
He did… and then he laughed at himself and said “Paralegals. You don’t need lawyers. Paramedics. “
Which came first, the People or the Government?
That’s easy. The people came first.
Just look at the poor dumb asses who came to places like Jamestown Virginia in 1607. They were pretty much without any kind of government when they first arrived. So you pretty much have to say that the people came first.
But in the case of Jamestown around 1610, most of them died. And the reason they died was because no one really knew how to effectively work the land or how to prepare for the future by setting enough supplies aside for the winter months. They also believed their new leaders had all the answers and would actually make things better once new rules (laws) were imposed too. But we now know it only sped things up because almost everyone died of starvation. Even the few people who were actually producing something died because they weren’t allowed to keep anything for themselves.
Sound a little familiar?!
The people of Jamestown were told at the outset that they would be travelling to a land of milk and honey where the fish jump out of the rivers into the frying pan and the natives are friendly and educated in agriculture and the streets are paved in gold and life in paradise could be theirs for a small investment.
They were duped by bankers and speculators.
Sound a little familiar?!
40 people fainted from the heat. it wasn’t the heat, it was the overpowering stench of all the fresh bullshit
I would like to hear the full quote. Not some bias edit.
Bill,
It’s not had to find and it’s not a bias edit. Obama has no idea how the real world work because he has always had someone helping him move up the ladder. He thinks that how everyone gets a head.
So Brug, You mean the full quote that has him calling for para-legals to assist the fainted? The full quote that has him calling a stick shift a “clutch car”? The full quote where he states the US has 58 states? The full quote where a so-called ChiSox fan calls Comiskey Park, “Cominsky Park” – REALLY? You mean those full quotes?
….and I don’t want my President to throw a baseball like a girl, good grief.
DB
So every musician that made it didn’t spend hours “woodshedding” to get good at his craft. Someone handed him his talent? hmmmmm
Context people, context. I could snatch ten words from your mouth and make you sound any way I wanted you to sound. Stupid bull crap that should never even have been posted.
Haven’t heard the speech in its entirety but the 1st thought that came to mind by that excerpt was you can’t have a business without customers no matter how business savvy you might be.
I don’t know the context of this speech, but the statement itself is true.
I started a business, but it was the customers that made it happen.
If he was referring to a corporation, the shareholders and the customers make it happen.
If I write a book, the publisher and the readers make it happen.
I suppose one could argue what he meant by “make it happen.”
I tried to post the entire paragraph it came from but the site won’t let me. You can find the speech on the White House site. Basically he goes from teachers helped you become what you are to the government helped you become successful. At the end he says that the internet came from government research. True it did come from government research but in the end it was the telecoms that made internet around the US a reality… with some tax dollars which was wasted. He was trying to spin the facts to his advantage like any other candidate.
While I understand the idea that government is responsible for much of the infrastructure that a supply chain requires to sustain business, and that consumers supply the demand for products that grow and cause business to profit, there is no denying that if NOBODY bothers to open a business, then that business will not exist.
An entrepreneur may do market studies and look at transportation costs, but the bottom line is that if he decides that the outlook for profitability is poor, he won’t do it.
For example, a government is completely free to build a network of dirigible mooring stations across the country, and then to provide subsidies for their own perceived demand for slow, cumbersome, lighter-than-air travel. If a company doesn’t think there is any profit in it, then all the government infrastructure isn’t going to create a growing, profitable business. In this case, government created an environment for a business, but they created nothing of worth.
This is an example of how Obama doesn’t understand how business works.
Do tell, George. What network of dirigibles has Obama proposed?
Thanks for your unique contributions to this blog, pedro.
Now George — are you going to answer? Obama says it takes government-provided infrastructure for businesses to be successful, and you’re babbling about dirigibles. What is Obama doing that indicates he doesn’t understand how business works?
If you don’t understand the value of government-provided infrastructure, looks like you don’t understand how business works.
That’s not what Obama said.
Obama said that businesses owners are not responsible for building that business but that it was built by somebody else. That is incorrect.
Without the TAXES to hand out to the cousins and cronies who built the roads and “crumbling infrastructure” where else would the government come up with the money? And if you look at the history of paved roads – those were PRIVATE enterprises, including the Pennsylvania Turnpike. And if we’re going to look at the history of governments moving people and goods along – let’s have that argument. How’s the Post Office doing? How’s Chicago’s CTA doing right now?
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