|
|
On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:
Again, this is saying that infrastructure (which is nearly constant for all business owners so it actually has almost no baring on who survives and who doesn't) and education had more to do with the success than working 60-70 hours a week for the first year (sometimes years!) after putting up everything you own to try to start your business. Funny thing that the unbelievable American system is built on the idea of self-reliance and government staying out of individual's lives; the exact opposite of what he's talking about here!
Yeah, try starting a business in Ethiopia.
I guarantee that those 60-70 hours a week won't mean a damn thing.
|
On July 26 2012 01:30 Lightwip wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:
Again, this is saying that infrastructure (which is nearly constant for all business owners so it actually has almost no baring on who survives and who doesn't) and education had more to do with the success than working 60-70 hours a week for the first year (sometimes years!) after putting up everything you own to try to start your business. Funny thing that the unbelievable American system is built on the idea of self-reliance and government staying out of individual's lives; the exact opposite of what he's talking about here! Yeah, try starting a business in Ethiopia. I guarantee that those 60-70 hours a week won't mean a damn thing.
This is an impressively bad deflection. Maybe if we were talking about starting small businesses in Ethiopia you would have a point but we're not; we're talking about businesses in the United States so my point still stands!
VVV Again, talking about the United States and successful business here, not other places!
|
On July 26 2012 01:30 Lightwip wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:
Again, this is saying that infrastructure (which is nearly constant for all business owners so it actually has almost no baring on who survives and who doesn't) and education had more to do with the success than working 60-70 hours a week for the first year (sometimes years!) after putting up everything you own to try to start your business. Funny thing that the unbelievable American system is built on the idea of self-reliance and government staying out of individual's lives; the exact opposite of what he's talking about here! Yeah, try starting a business in Ethiopia. I guarantee that those 60-70 hours a week won't mean a damn thing.
Or not even Ethiopia, try a host of first-world countries in which the infrastructure is just not able to support a proper ease of doing business. For something a little more concrete, take a look at http://www.doingbusiness.org/methodology. Herein is the World Bank's methodology for how it measures the ease of doing business, and many of the most important factors are government provided regulations and structural supports. Everyone likes to point out Singapore as the gleaming example of free market capitalism, and yet even their economy is highly dependent on the incredibly efficient provision of certain business essentials via government infrastructure.
|
On July 26 2012 01:40 Budmandude wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 01:30 Lightwip wrote:On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:
Again, this is saying that infrastructure (which is nearly constant for all business owners so it actually has almost no baring on who survives and who doesn't) and education had more to do with the success than working 60-70 hours a week for the first year (sometimes years!) after putting up everything you own to try to start your business. Funny thing that the unbelievable American system is built on the idea of self-reliance and government staying out of individual's lives; the exact opposite of what he's talking about here! Yeah, try starting a business in Ethiopia. I guarantee that those 60-70 hours a week won't mean a damn thing. This is an impressively bad deflection. Maybe if we were talking about starting small businesses in Ethiopia you would have a point but we're not; we're talking about businesses in the United States so my point still stands!
No, it's not a deflection, it's spot on. The infrastructure and environment that enable businesses to be successful exists in America because the US government built it, and it does not exist in Ethiopia.
In your previous post, you claim that infrastructure is a constant so it has no effect on business success. But infrastructure is NOT a constant. There is no infrastructure to support Microsoft in Ethiopia. Microsoft could not have been founded in Ethiopia even had Bill Gates been born there.
Infrastructure is (mostly) a constant in the US, because the US government built it.
|
Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On July 26 2012 01:30 Lightwip wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:
Again, this is saying that infrastructure (which is nearly constant for all business owners so it actually has almost no baring on who survives and who doesn't) and education had more to do with the success than working 60-70 hours a week for the first year (sometimes years!) after putting up everything you own to try to start your business. Funny thing that the unbelievable American system is built on the idea of self-reliance and government staying out of individual's lives; the exact opposite of what he's talking about here! Yeah, try starting a business in Ethiopia. I guarantee that those 60-70 hours a week won't mean a damn thing.
Henry Ford was a self-made man, but a Model T wouldn't sell if governments didn't build roads and highways. I mean, it's pretty clear that the reason we have a government at all is it's necessary for society-- it's so expensive that if it weren't necessary, we wouldn't have one, right?
On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 00:49 kwizach wrote:On July 26 2012 00:44 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2012 00:36 farvacola wrote:On July 26 2012 00:24 xDaunt wrote:On July 25 2012 23:34 Mohdoo wrote:On July 25 2012 10:30 xDaunt wrote:On July 25 2012 10:09 Defacer wrote:Hey xDaunt, this one's for you. It's a interesting quote that points out the obvious weakness in Romney's economic policy. "Romney does not have a plan to fix the short term crisis, in the sense that he’d be proposing exactly the same things if the economy were doing great. But the politics of the presidential race are such that Romney needs to promise that electing him would fix the crisis. To make this case, he has to sell the American people on the idea that government — and Obama’s hostility towards individual initiative and American free enterprise — are to blame for holding back the recovery, and that shoving both of those things “out of the way” will reignite the economy. That’s why Romney continues to falsely claim that stimulus spending only succeeded in growing government and didn’t help the private sector at all. That’s why he continues to falsely claim that Obama “demeans success.” That’s why he continues to falsely claim that Obama thinks only government, and not individual initiative, creates jobs — and that this is why you’re suffering. These ideas are essential to Romney’s entire argument. Without them, he doesn’t have one," - Greg Sargent. Going to be a fun election this year! Sure, I'd love to see Romney flesh out his economic plan more, and lots conservatives have called upon Romney to do just that. Nonetheless, I have no doubt that Romney would be a better steward of the economy (if for no other reason than he is neither a democrat nor Obama), and polls are showing that my opinion is in the majority on the point. As for the rest of the quote, let's just say that I disagree with Sargent and fall into Krauthammer's camp as I mentioned in a previous post. At a minimum, it looks like democrats, liberals, and the Obama campaign have finally figured out how badly Obama fucked up with that Roanoke speech. The root problem is that, regardless of what Obama actually believes, Obama has enough of the stink of being anti-enterprise that his speech has done nothing but confirm the suspicions (or fears, if you will) of many Americans. I don't think he is anti-enterprise. I believe his point was that businesses don't need to hire guards to keep their businesses safe like they used to due to police and the military. They don't need to treat their sewage and find their own water sources or their own power generation or lay their own roads. While they are good business people, these people did not do it 100% on their own like people try to pretend. All the things I listed significantly decrease the cost of business operations and aren't things that magically fall from the sky. There's nothing wrong with reminding businesses of that. You're liberal, so you don't see him as being anti-enterprise and you are viewing his statements from a different, friendlier perspective than many (if not most) Americans. Consider how someone with a different perspective would take his comments. Many people see Obama's rhetoric as being divisive. In particular, they see Obama playing the class warfare game and going out of his way to demonize "the rich." They also see Obama promote many policies that harm businesses, whether it be enacting new regulations (Obamacare certainly hurts him here) or obstructing obviously beneficial projects (like the Keystone XL pipeline). Consider all of the other people who look at Obama's past and see a slew of leftist radicals with whom Obama has been closely affiliated at one point or another during his life. How do you think all of these people take Obama's comments? Hell, just compare what Obama said to what other presidents have said (go look at the new Scott Brown ad). When you consider all of the above, it becomes very obvious why Obama's comments have damaged him so badly. I guarantee you that a majority of independents aren't reacting well to what Obama said. You've done a rather poor job of tying mainstream Republican thought with your own, so I'm inclined to simply shake my head every time you use words and phrases like "many (if not most) Americans", "They", and "all of these people". Your source material is and has been summarily extremely activist right-wing, and if you want anyone to follow your logic and accept your collective declarations, some sort of centrist evidence would be nice. Because otherwise I can't help but feel as though you are simply putting words and ideas in peoples mouths and heads. For example, you clam that many consider Obama's rhetoric divisive. Do you not accept that many people also consider the entirety of the Republican platform as one which lives and dies on tactics of division? Mitch McConnell even says as much. Like I have said many, many times in this thread, all I'm trying to do is explain why what Obama said is damaging to his campaign. For whatever a reason, a majority of you simply refuse to accept that Obama's Roanoke speech was incredibly stupid and harmful, despite the fact that the Obama campaign has finally figured out Obama stepped in it and is now actively doing damage control. If you really want to put your head in the sand and simply dismiss me as a "right-wing extremist," go ahead. Like I have said before, I'm all for democrats and liberals not figuring out what their weaknesses are. You are trying to paint the speech as "stupid and harmful" by itself. It wasn't. The only reason why some of Obama's comments could be damaging to him is that his opponents actively took them out of context. That's the only reason. The entirity of that section of the speech implies that infrastructure deserves just as much, if not more, credit for a successful business than the sacrifices and work of the people who built it. "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."This implies it was primarily luck that chose the people who succeeded in their businesses. My parents in particular found this the most insulting part of the speech. My mother and father put all of their net worth up for collateral for a business loan to get started. They then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year without drawing a regular paycheck, the employees, bills, and inventory had to come first. Our family got enough to pay the bills and eat, that's about it. This comment is incredibly demeaning to people who have gone through this (which is, surprise surprise, the overwhelming majority of small business owners).
I know people whose parents put up all their net worth up for collateral for a business loan, then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year, etc etc and their business failed, because shit man, people get unlucky! That's how the world works. Life isn't fair. Just because your business happened to succeed doesn't mean you weren't lucky. It obviously wouldn't have succeeded if your parents didn't work their asses off for meagre pay for a long time, but that's not the only factor.
Like, it's like almost everyone in this thread is examining a stool. This stool is named "success". We are trying to determine how this stool stands up. One guy looks and sees a leg holding up the stool. This leg is called "hard work"-- he says, "hey guys, check it out-- this is why the stool stands up! hard work! anyone who disagrees with me is short-sighted" and his friends gather around, and they see that why, yes, you need to work hard to succeed.
Then another guy comes along and he sees a different leg. This leg is called "the development of infrastructure, public goods, and public services by the government". He says "lol, wtf you're a noob guy #1, I'm looking at the stool and it is definitely being held up by government services and shit. you didn't build it! we built it with the government. God what an idiot" and HIS friends gather around and they see that yes, government infrastructure and public goods exist, and without them success would be impossible.
Then a third guy comes along and he sees the third and final leg of the stool. This leg is called "Being lucky enough to happen to succeed at your business as opposed to failing due to unforseen market forces, to be born without debilitating disease, in the modern era, in a place that isn't utterly crushed by poverty and famine like many places in the world, and having access to the financial resources and know-how to even think about looking beyond where you're getting the next meal". He calls his friends over and says "both of you guys are wrong, it's all about luck! how could you be so blind?"
And each of the three guys no longer examines the stool, because he's seen what it looks like. Now they just argue with each other about which leg is holding it up, and completely discount each other's story of what the leg looks like. Maybe people don't consider that the stool has 3 legs. Maybe they don't want to, and just want to argue about it. Maybe this argument is really about something else. Maybe they should focus on making the stool bigger, or how to go about making more stools for other people.
Or maybe we can argue which single leg is the sole leg responsible for holding up the 3-legged stool.
Q&A
"Oh shoot Blazinghand how r u so smart"
Well, I read a bunch of books and things-- you'd be able to do that too.
"why did u use a stool 4 ur analgy"
A stool with fewer than 3 legs falls, even if the other 2 legs are sturdy. The idea is that people could be right but also disagree, and yeah.
"why not use chair"
well, in theory a 3-legged chair could stand up, but due to the nature of chairs, it would be much less stable than a stool.
|
Pffff, who builds a stool with three legs? Sounds like commie talk to me.
|
On July 26 2012 01:43 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 01:30 Lightwip wrote:On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:
Again, this is saying that infrastructure (which is nearly constant for all business owners so it actually has almost no baring on who survives and who doesn't) and education had more to do with the success than working 60-70 hours a week for the first year (sometimes years!) after putting up everything you own to try to start your business. Funny thing that the unbelievable American system is built on the idea of self-reliance and government staying out of individual's lives; the exact opposite of what he's talking about here! Yeah, try starting a business in Ethiopia. I guarantee that those 60-70 hours a week won't mean a damn thing. Henry Ford was a self-made man, but a Model T wouldn't sell if governments didn't build roads and highways. I mean, it's pretty clear that the reason we have a government at all is it's necessary for society-- it's so expensive that if it weren't necessary, we wouldn't have one, right? Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:On July 26 2012 00:49 kwizach wrote:On July 26 2012 00:44 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2012 00:36 farvacola wrote:On July 26 2012 00:24 xDaunt wrote:On July 25 2012 23:34 Mohdoo wrote:On July 25 2012 10:30 xDaunt wrote:On July 25 2012 10:09 Defacer wrote:Hey xDaunt, this one's for you. It's a interesting quote that points out the obvious weakness in Romney's economic policy. "Romney does not have a plan to fix the short term crisis, in the sense that he’d be proposing exactly the same things if the economy were doing great. But the politics of the presidential race are such that Romney needs to promise that electing him would fix the crisis. To make this case, he has to sell the American people on the idea that government — and Obama’s hostility towards individual initiative and American free enterprise — are to blame for holding back the recovery, and that shoving both of those things “out of the way” will reignite the economy. That’s why Romney continues to falsely claim that stimulus spending only succeeded in growing government and didn’t help the private sector at all. That’s why he continues to falsely claim that Obama “demeans success.” That’s why he continues to falsely claim that Obama thinks only government, and not individual initiative, creates jobs — and that this is why you’re suffering. These ideas are essential to Romney’s entire argument. Without them, he doesn’t have one," - Greg Sargent. Going to be a fun election this year! Sure, I'd love to see Romney flesh out his economic plan more, and lots conservatives have called upon Romney to do just that. Nonetheless, I have no doubt that Romney would be a better steward of the economy (if for no other reason than he is neither a democrat nor Obama), and polls are showing that my opinion is in the majority on the point. As for the rest of the quote, let's just say that I disagree with Sargent and fall into Krauthammer's camp as I mentioned in a previous post. At a minimum, it looks like democrats, liberals, and the Obama campaign have finally figured out how badly Obama fucked up with that Roanoke speech. The root problem is that, regardless of what Obama actually believes, Obama has enough of the stink of being anti-enterprise that his speech has done nothing but confirm the suspicions (or fears, if you will) of many Americans. I don't think he is anti-enterprise. I believe his point was that businesses don't need to hire guards to keep their businesses safe like they used to due to police and the military. They don't need to treat their sewage and find their own water sources or their own power generation or lay their own roads. While they are good business people, these people did not do it 100% on their own like people try to pretend. All the things I listed significantly decrease the cost of business operations and aren't things that magically fall from the sky. There's nothing wrong with reminding businesses of that. You're liberal, so you don't see him as being anti-enterprise and you are viewing his statements from a different, friendlier perspective than many (if not most) Americans. Consider how someone with a different perspective would take his comments. Many people see Obama's rhetoric as being divisive. In particular, they see Obama playing the class warfare game and going out of his way to demonize "the rich." They also see Obama promote many policies that harm businesses, whether it be enacting new regulations (Obamacare certainly hurts him here) or obstructing obviously beneficial projects (like the Keystone XL pipeline). Consider all of the other people who look at Obama's past and see a slew of leftist radicals with whom Obama has been closely affiliated at one point or another during his life. How do you think all of these people take Obama's comments? Hell, just compare what Obama said to what other presidents have said (go look at the new Scott Brown ad). When you consider all of the above, it becomes very obvious why Obama's comments have damaged him so badly. I guarantee you that a majority of independents aren't reacting well to what Obama said. You've done a rather poor job of tying mainstream Republican thought with your own, so I'm inclined to simply shake my head every time you use words and phrases like "many (if not most) Americans", "They", and "all of these people". Your source material is and has been summarily extremely activist right-wing, and if you want anyone to follow your logic and accept your collective declarations, some sort of centrist evidence would be nice. Because otherwise I can't help but feel as though you are simply putting words and ideas in peoples mouths and heads. For example, you clam that many consider Obama's rhetoric divisive. Do you not accept that many people also consider the entirety of the Republican platform as one which lives and dies on tactics of division? Mitch McConnell even says as much. Like I have said many, many times in this thread, all I'm trying to do is explain why what Obama said is damaging to his campaign. For whatever a reason, a majority of you simply refuse to accept that Obama's Roanoke speech was incredibly stupid and harmful, despite the fact that the Obama campaign has finally figured out Obama stepped in it and is now actively doing damage control. If you really want to put your head in the sand and simply dismiss me as a "right-wing extremist," go ahead. Like I have said before, I'm all for democrats and liberals not figuring out what their weaknesses are. You are trying to paint the speech as "stupid and harmful" by itself. It wasn't. The only reason why some of Obama's comments could be damaging to him is that his opponents actively took them out of context. That's the only reason. The entirity of that section of the speech implies that infrastructure deserves just as much, if not more, credit for a successful business than the sacrifices and work of the people who built it. "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."This implies it was primarily luck that chose the people who succeeded in their businesses. My parents in particular found this the most insulting part of the speech. My mother and father put all of their net worth up for collateral for a business loan to get started. They then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year without drawing a regular paycheck, the employees, bills, and inventory had to come first. Our family got enough to pay the bills and eat, that's about it. This comment is incredibly demeaning to people who have gone through this (which is, surprise surprise, the overwhelming majority of small business owners). I know people whose parents put up all their net worth up for collateral for a business loan, then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year, etc etc and their business failed, because shit man, people get unlucky! That's how the world works. Life isn't fair. Just because your business happened to succeed doesn't mean you weren't lucky. It obviously wouldn't have succeeded if your parents didn't work their asses off for meagre pay for a long time, but that's not the only factor.
Like, it's like almost everyone in this thread is examining a stool. This stool is named "success". We are trying to determine how this stool stands up. One guy looks and sees a leg holding up the stool. This leg is called "hard work"-- he says, "hey guys, check it out-- this is why the stool stands up! hard work! anyone who disagrees with me is short-sighted" and his friends gather around, and they see that why, yes, you need to work hard to succeed. Then another guy comes along and he sees a different leg. This leg is called "the development of infrastructure, public goods, and public services by the government". He says "lol, wtf you're a noob guy #1, I'm looking at the stool and it is definitely being held up by government services and shit. you didn't build it! we built it with the government. God what an idiot" and HIS friends gather around and they see that yes, government infrastructure and public goods exist, and without them success would be impossible. Then a third guy comes along and he sees the third and final leg of the stool. This leg is called "Being lucky enough to happen to succeed at your business as opposed to failing due to unforseen market forces, to be born without debilitating disease, in the modern era, in a place that isn't utterly crushed by poverty and famine like many places in the world, and having access to the financial resources and know-how to even think about looking beyond where you're getting the next meal". He calls his friends over and says "both of you guys are wrong, it's all about luck! how could you be so blind?" And each of the three guys no longer examines the stool, because he's seen what it looks like. Now they just argue with each other about which leg is holding it up, and completely discount each other's story of what the leg looks like. Maybe people don't consider that the stool has 3 legs. Maybe they don't want to, and just want to argue about it. Maybe this argument is really about something else. Maybe they should focus on making the stool bigger, or how to go about making more stools for other people. Or maybe we can argue which single leg is the sole leg responsible for holding up the 3-legged stool.
Good analogy. Obama is saying: look, the stool has three legs. And the Republicans are saying that basically only one of the legs really matters and holds the stool up.
|
On July 26 2012 01:40 Budmandude wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 01:30 Lightwip wrote:On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:
Again, this is saying that infrastructure (which is nearly constant for all business owners so it actually has almost no baring on who survives and who doesn't) and education had more to do with the success than working 60-70 hours a week for the first year (sometimes years!) after putting up everything you own to try to start your business. Funny thing that the unbelievable American system is built on the idea of self-reliance and government staying out of individual's lives; the exact opposite of what he's talking about here! Yeah, try starting a business in Ethiopia. I guarantee that those 60-70 hours a week won't mean a damn thing. This is an impressively bad deflection. Maybe if we were talking about starting small businesses in Ethiopia you would have a point but we're not; we're talking about businesses in the United States so my point still stands! VVV Again, talking about the United States and successful business here, not other places!
The US is rated the 4th best country to do business in, and the index sets forth the obvious links between governmental and infrastructural business provisions and the ease of doing business. It's all there, although Blazinghand's analogy perhaps does an even better job of explaining the ties between environment and achievement.
|
Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On July 26 2012 01:51 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 01:43 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 01:30 Lightwip wrote:On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:
Again, this is saying that infrastructure (which is nearly constant for all business owners so it actually has almost no baring on who survives and who doesn't) and education had more to do with the success than working 60-70 hours a week for the first year (sometimes years!) after putting up everything you own to try to start your business. Funny thing that the unbelievable American system is built on the idea of self-reliance and government staying out of individual's lives; the exact opposite of what he's talking about here! Yeah, try starting a business in Ethiopia. I guarantee that those 60-70 hours a week won't mean a damn thing. Henry Ford was a self-made man, but a Model T wouldn't sell if governments didn't build roads and highways. I mean, it's pretty clear that the reason we have a government at all is it's necessary for society-- it's so expensive that if it weren't necessary, we wouldn't have one, right? On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:On July 26 2012 00:49 kwizach wrote:On July 26 2012 00:44 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2012 00:36 farvacola wrote:On July 26 2012 00:24 xDaunt wrote:On July 25 2012 23:34 Mohdoo wrote:On July 25 2012 10:30 xDaunt wrote:On July 25 2012 10:09 Defacer wrote:
Hey xDaunt, this one's for you. It's a interesting quote that points out the obvious weakness in Romney's economic policy.
[quote]
Going to be a fun election this year!
Sure, I'd love to see Romney flesh out his economic plan more, and lots conservatives have called upon Romney to do just that. Nonetheless, I have no doubt that Romney would be a better steward of the economy (if for no other reason than he is neither a democrat nor Obama), and polls are showing that my opinion is in the majority on the point. As for the rest of the quote, let's just say that I disagree with Sargent and fall into Krauthammer's camp as I mentioned in a previous post. At a minimum, it looks like democrats, liberals, and the Obama campaign have finally figured out how badly Obama fucked up with that Roanoke speech. The root problem is that, regardless of what Obama actually believes, Obama has enough of the stink of being anti-enterprise that his speech has done nothing but confirm the suspicions (or fears, if you will) of many Americans. I don't think he is anti-enterprise. I believe his point was that businesses don't need to hire guards to keep their businesses safe like they used to due to police and the military. They don't need to treat their sewage and find their own water sources or their own power generation or lay their own roads. While they are good business people, these people did not do it 100% on their own like people try to pretend. All the things I listed significantly decrease the cost of business operations and aren't things that magically fall from the sky. There's nothing wrong with reminding businesses of that. You're liberal, so you don't see him as being anti-enterprise and you are viewing his statements from a different, friendlier perspective than many (if not most) Americans. Consider how someone with a different perspective would take his comments. Many people see Obama's rhetoric as being divisive. In particular, they see Obama playing the class warfare game and going out of his way to demonize "the rich." They also see Obama promote many policies that harm businesses, whether it be enacting new regulations (Obamacare certainly hurts him here) or obstructing obviously beneficial projects (like the Keystone XL pipeline). Consider all of the other people who look at Obama's past and see a slew of leftist radicals with whom Obama has been closely affiliated at one point or another during his life. How do you think all of these people take Obama's comments? Hell, just compare what Obama said to what other presidents have said (go look at the new Scott Brown ad). When you consider all of the above, it becomes very obvious why Obama's comments have damaged him so badly. I guarantee you that a majority of independents aren't reacting well to what Obama said. You've done a rather poor job of tying mainstream Republican thought with your own, so I'm inclined to simply shake my head every time you use words and phrases like "many (if not most) Americans", "They", and "all of these people". Your source material is and has been summarily extremely activist right-wing, and if you want anyone to follow your logic and accept your collective declarations, some sort of centrist evidence would be nice. Because otherwise I can't help but feel as though you are simply putting words and ideas in peoples mouths and heads. For example, you clam that many consider Obama's rhetoric divisive. Do you not accept that many people also consider the entirety of the Republican platform as one which lives and dies on tactics of division? Mitch McConnell even says as much. Like I have said many, many times in this thread, all I'm trying to do is explain why what Obama said is damaging to his campaign. For whatever a reason, a majority of you simply refuse to accept that Obama's Roanoke speech was incredibly stupid and harmful, despite the fact that the Obama campaign has finally figured out Obama stepped in it and is now actively doing damage control. If you really want to put your head in the sand and simply dismiss me as a "right-wing extremist," go ahead. Like I have said before, I'm all for democrats and liberals not figuring out what their weaknesses are. You are trying to paint the speech as "stupid and harmful" by itself. It wasn't. The only reason why some of Obama's comments could be damaging to him is that his opponents actively took them out of context. That's the only reason. The entirity of that section of the speech implies that infrastructure deserves just as much, if not more, credit for a successful business than the sacrifices and work of the people who built it. "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."This implies it was primarily luck that chose the people who succeeded in their businesses. My parents in particular found this the most insulting part of the speech. My mother and father put all of their net worth up for collateral for a business loan to get started. They then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year without drawing a regular paycheck, the employees, bills, and inventory had to come first. Our family got enough to pay the bills and eat, that's about it. This comment is incredibly demeaning to people who have gone through this (which is, surprise surprise, the overwhelming majority of small business owners). I know people whose parents put up all their net worth up for collateral for a business loan, then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year, etc etc and their business failed, because shit man, people get unlucky! That's how the world works. Life isn't fair. Just because your business happened to succeed doesn't mean you weren't lucky. It obviously wouldn't have succeeded if your parents didn't work their asses off for meagre pay for a long time, but that's not the only factor.
Like, it's like almost everyone in this thread is examining a stool. This stool is named "success". We are trying to determine how this stool stands up. One guy looks and sees a leg holding up the stool. This leg is called "hard work"-- he says, "hey guys, check it out-- this is why the stool stands up! hard work! anyone who disagrees with me is short-sighted" and his friends gather around, and they see that why, yes, you need to work hard to succeed. Then another guy comes along and he sees a different leg. This leg is called "the development of infrastructure, public goods, and public services by the government". He says "lol, wtf you're a noob guy #1, I'm looking at the stool and it is definitely being held up by government services and shit. you didn't build it! we built it with the government. God what an idiot" and HIS friends gather around and they see that yes, government infrastructure and public goods exist, and without them success would be impossible. Then a third guy comes along and he sees the third and final leg of the stool. This leg is called "Being lucky enough to happen to succeed at your business as opposed to failing due to unforseen market forces, to be born without debilitating disease, in the modern era, in a place that isn't utterly crushed by poverty and famine like many places in the world, and having access to the financial resources and know-how to even think about looking beyond where you're getting the next meal". He calls his friends over and says "both of you guys are wrong, it's all about luck! how could you be so blind?" And each of the three guys no longer examines the stool, because he's seen what it looks like. Now they just argue with each other about which leg is holding it up, and completely discount each other's story of what the leg looks like. Maybe people don't consider that the stool has 3 legs. Maybe they don't want to, and just want to argue about it. Maybe this argument is really about something else. Maybe they should focus on making the stool bigger, or how to go about making more stools for other people. Or maybe we can argue which single leg is the sole leg responsible for holding up the 3-legged stool. Good analogy. Obama is saying: look, the stool has three legs. And the Republicans are saying that basically only one of the legs really matters and holds the stool up.
I'm not really sure Obama is saying the stool has three legs per se, but I think it's human nature in general to assume stools have 1 leg, and so people are arguing about which of the 3 legs in the stool is the "real leg" and whether Obama was respecting all 3 legs, or whatever.
|
On July 26 2012 01:48 DoubleReed wrote:
Pffff, who builds a stool with three legs? Sounds like commie talk to me.
I dunno, I smell an Axis conspiracy to supplant our freedoms with an acknowledgement that WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY! DUN DUN DUN!
|
On July 26 2012 01:52 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 01:51 paralleluniverse wrote:On July 26 2012 01:43 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 01:30 Lightwip wrote:On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:
Again, this is saying that infrastructure (which is nearly constant for all business owners so it actually has almost no baring on who survives and who doesn't) and education had more to do with the success than working 60-70 hours a week for the first year (sometimes years!) after putting up everything you own to try to start your business. Funny thing that the unbelievable American system is built on the idea of self-reliance and government staying out of individual's lives; the exact opposite of what he's talking about here! Yeah, try starting a business in Ethiopia. I guarantee that those 60-70 hours a week won't mean a damn thing. Henry Ford was a self-made man, but a Model T wouldn't sell if governments didn't build roads and highways. I mean, it's pretty clear that the reason we have a government at all is it's necessary for society-- it's so expensive that if it weren't necessary, we wouldn't have one, right? On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:On July 26 2012 00:49 kwizach wrote:On July 26 2012 00:44 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2012 00:36 farvacola wrote:On July 26 2012 00:24 xDaunt wrote:On July 25 2012 23:34 Mohdoo wrote:On July 25 2012 10:30 xDaunt wrote:[quote] Sure, I'd love to see Romney flesh out his economic plan more, and lots conservatives have called upon Romney to do just that. Nonetheless, I have no doubt that Romney would be a better steward of the economy (if for no other reason than he is neither a democrat nor Obama), and polls are showing that my opinion is in the majority on the point. As for the rest of the quote, let's just say that I disagree with Sargent and fall into Krauthammer's camp as I mentioned in a previous post. At a minimum, it looks like democrats, liberals, and the Obama campaign have finally figured out how badly Obama fucked up with that Roanoke speech. The root problem is that, regardless of what Obama actually believes, Obama has enough of the stink of being anti-enterprise that his speech has done nothing but confirm the suspicions (or fears, if you will) of many Americans. I don't think he is anti-enterprise. I believe his point was that businesses don't need to hire guards to keep their businesses safe like they used to due to police and the military. They don't need to treat their sewage and find their own water sources or their own power generation or lay their own roads. While they are good business people, these people did not do it 100% on their own like people try to pretend. All the things I listed significantly decrease the cost of business operations and aren't things that magically fall from the sky. There's nothing wrong with reminding businesses of that. You're liberal, so you don't see him as being anti-enterprise and you are viewing his statements from a different, friendlier perspective than many (if not most) Americans. Consider how someone with a different perspective would take his comments. Many people see Obama's rhetoric as being divisive. In particular, they see Obama playing the class warfare game and going out of his way to demonize "the rich." They also see Obama promote many policies that harm businesses, whether it be enacting new regulations (Obamacare certainly hurts him here) or obstructing obviously beneficial projects (like the Keystone XL pipeline). Consider all of the other people who look at Obama's past and see a slew of leftist radicals with whom Obama has been closely affiliated at one point or another during his life. How do you think all of these people take Obama's comments? Hell, just compare what Obama said to what other presidents have said (go look at the new Scott Brown ad). When you consider all of the above, it becomes very obvious why Obama's comments have damaged him so badly. I guarantee you that a majority of independents aren't reacting well to what Obama said. You've done a rather poor job of tying mainstream Republican thought with your own, so I'm inclined to simply shake my head every time you use words and phrases like "many (if not most) Americans", "They", and "all of these people". Your source material is and has been summarily extremely activist right-wing, and if you want anyone to follow your logic and accept your collective declarations, some sort of centrist evidence would be nice. Because otherwise I can't help but feel as though you are simply putting words and ideas in peoples mouths and heads. For example, you clam that many consider Obama's rhetoric divisive. Do you not accept that many people also consider the entirety of the Republican platform as one which lives and dies on tactics of division? Mitch McConnell even says as much. Like I have said many, many times in this thread, all I'm trying to do is explain why what Obama said is damaging to his campaign. For whatever a reason, a majority of you simply refuse to accept that Obama's Roanoke speech was incredibly stupid and harmful, despite the fact that the Obama campaign has finally figured out Obama stepped in it and is now actively doing damage control. If you really want to put your head in the sand and simply dismiss me as a "right-wing extremist," go ahead. Like I have said before, I'm all for democrats and liberals not figuring out what their weaknesses are. You are trying to paint the speech as "stupid and harmful" by itself. It wasn't. The only reason why some of Obama's comments could be damaging to him is that his opponents actively took them out of context. That's the only reason. The entirity of that section of the speech implies that infrastructure deserves just as much, if not more, credit for a successful business than the sacrifices and work of the people who built it. "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."This implies it was primarily luck that chose the people who succeeded in their businesses. My parents in particular found this the most insulting part of the speech. My mother and father put all of their net worth up for collateral for a business loan to get started. They then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year without drawing a regular paycheck, the employees, bills, and inventory had to come first. Our family got enough to pay the bills and eat, that's about it. This comment is incredibly demeaning to people who have gone through this (which is, surprise surprise, the overwhelming majority of small business owners). I know people whose parents put up all their net worth up for collateral for a business loan, then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year, etc etc and their business failed, because shit man, people get unlucky! That's how the world works. Life isn't fair. Just because your business happened to succeed doesn't mean you weren't lucky. It obviously wouldn't have succeeded if your parents didn't work their asses off for meagre pay for a long time, but that's not the only factor.
Like, it's like almost everyone in this thread is examining a stool. This stool is named "success". We are trying to determine how this stool stands up. One guy looks and sees a leg holding up the stool. This leg is called "hard work"-- he says, "hey guys, check it out-- this is why the stool stands up! hard work! anyone who disagrees with me is short-sighted" and his friends gather around, and they see that why, yes, you need to work hard to succeed. Then another guy comes along and he sees a different leg. This leg is called "the development of infrastructure, public goods, and public services by the government". He says "lol, wtf you're a noob guy #1, I'm looking at the stool and it is definitely being held up by government services and shit. you didn't build it! we built it with the government. God what an idiot" and HIS friends gather around and they see that yes, government infrastructure and public goods exist, and without them success would be impossible. Then a third guy comes along and he sees the third and final leg of the stool. This leg is called "Being lucky enough to happen to succeed at your business as opposed to failing due to unforseen market forces, to be born without debilitating disease, in the modern era, in a place that isn't utterly crushed by poverty and famine like many places in the world, and having access to the financial resources and know-how to even think about looking beyond where you're getting the next meal". He calls his friends over and says "both of you guys are wrong, it's all about luck! how could you be so blind?" And each of the three guys no longer examines the stool, because he's seen what it looks like. Now they just argue with each other about which leg is holding it up, and completely discount each other's story of what the leg looks like. Maybe people don't consider that the stool has 3 legs. Maybe they don't want to, and just want to argue about it. Maybe this argument is really about something else. Maybe they should focus on making the stool bigger, or how to go about making more stools for other people. Or maybe we can argue which single leg is the sole leg responsible for holding up the 3-legged stool. Good analogy. Obama is saying: look, the stool has three legs. And the Republicans are saying that basically only one of the legs really matters and holds the stool up. I'm not really sure Obama is saying the stool has three legs per se, but I think it's human nature in general to assume stools have 1 leg, and so people are arguing about which of the 3 legs in the stool is the "real leg" and whether Obama was respecting all 3 legs, or whatever.
He may be drawing more attention to the "government" leg because it's often underrated.
But he did acknowledge that luck and hard work plays a role, in the way he mentions these factors.
|
Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On July 26 2012 01:55 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 01:52 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 01:51 paralleluniverse wrote:On July 26 2012 01:43 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 01:30 Lightwip wrote:On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:
Again, this is saying that infrastructure (which is nearly constant for all business owners so it actually has almost no baring on who survives and who doesn't) and education had more to do with the success than working 60-70 hours a week for the first year (sometimes years!) after putting up everything you own to try to start your business. Funny thing that the unbelievable American system is built on the idea of self-reliance and government staying out of individual's lives; the exact opposite of what he's talking about here! Yeah, try starting a business in Ethiopia. I guarantee that those 60-70 hours a week won't mean a damn thing. Henry Ford was a self-made man, but a Model T wouldn't sell if governments didn't build roads and highways. I mean, it's pretty clear that the reason we have a government at all is it's necessary for society-- it's so expensive that if it weren't necessary, we wouldn't have one, right? On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:On July 26 2012 00:49 kwizach wrote:On July 26 2012 00:44 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2012 00:36 farvacola wrote:On July 26 2012 00:24 xDaunt wrote:On July 25 2012 23:34 Mohdoo wrote:
[quote]
I don't think he is anti-enterprise. I believe his point was that businesses don't need to hire guards to keep their businesses safe like they used to due to police and the military. They don't need to treat their sewage and find their own water sources or their own power generation or lay their own roads. While they are good business people, these people did not do it 100% on their own like people try to pretend. All the things I listed significantly decrease the cost of business operations and aren't things that magically fall from the sky. There's nothing wrong with reminding businesses of that. You're liberal, so you don't see him as being anti-enterprise and you are viewing his statements from a different, friendlier perspective than many (if not most) Americans. Consider how someone with a different perspective would take his comments. Many people see Obama's rhetoric as being divisive. In particular, they see Obama playing the class warfare game and going out of his way to demonize "the rich." They also see Obama promote many policies that harm businesses, whether it be enacting new regulations (Obamacare certainly hurts him here) or obstructing obviously beneficial projects (like the Keystone XL pipeline). Consider all of the other people who look at Obama's past and see a slew of leftist radicals with whom Obama has been closely affiliated at one point or another during his life. How do you think all of these people take Obama's comments? Hell, just compare what Obama said to what other presidents have said (go look at the new Scott Brown ad). When you consider all of the above, it becomes very obvious why Obama's comments have damaged him so badly. I guarantee you that a majority of independents aren't reacting well to what Obama said. You've done a rather poor job of tying mainstream Republican thought with your own, so I'm inclined to simply shake my head every time you use words and phrases like "many (if not most) Americans", "They", and "all of these people". Your source material is and has been summarily extremely activist right-wing, and if you want anyone to follow your logic and accept your collective declarations, some sort of centrist evidence would be nice. Because otherwise I can't help but feel as though you are simply putting words and ideas in peoples mouths and heads. For example, you clam that many consider Obama's rhetoric divisive. Do you not accept that many people also consider the entirety of the Republican platform as one which lives and dies on tactics of division? Mitch McConnell even says as much. Like I have said many, many times in this thread, all I'm trying to do is explain why what Obama said is damaging to his campaign. For whatever a reason, a majority of you simply refuse to accept that Obama's Roanoke speech was incredibly stupid and harmful, despite the fact that the Obama campaign has finally figured out Obama stepped in it and is now actively doing damage control. If you really want to put your head in the sand and simply dismiss me as a "right-wing extremist," go ahead. Like I have said before, I'm all for democrats and liberals not figuring out what their weaknesses are. You are trying to paint the speech as "stupid and harmful" by itself. It wasn't. The only reason why some of Obama's comments could be damaging to him is that his opponents actively took them out of context. That's the only reason. The entirity of that section of the speech implies that infrastructure deserves just as much, if not more, credit for a successful business than the sacrifices and work of the people who built it. "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."This implies it was primarily luck that chose the people who succeeded in their businesses. My parents in particular found this the most insulting part of the speech. My mother and father put all of their net worth up for collateral for a business loan to get started. They then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year without drawing a regular paycheck, the employees, bills, and inventory had to come first. Our family got enough to pay the bills and eat, that's about it. This comment is incredibly demeaning to people who have gone through this (which is, surprise surprise, the overwhelming majority of small business owners). I know people whose parents put up all their net worth up for collateral for a business loan, then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year, etc etc and their business failed, because shit man, people get unlucky! That's how the world works. Life isn't fair. Just because your business happened to succeed doesn't mean you weren't lucky. It obviously wouldn't have succeeded if your parents didn't work their asses off for meagre pay for a long time, but that's not the only factor.
Like, it's like almost everyone in this thread is examining a stool. This stool is named "success". We are trying to determine how this stool stands up. One guy looks and sees a leg holding up the stool. This leg is called "hard work"-- he says, "hey guys, check it out-- this is why the stool stands up! hard work! anyone who disagrees with me is short-sighted" and his friends gather around, and they see that why, yes, you need to work hard to succeed. Then another guy comes along and he sees a different leg. This leg is called "the development of infrastructure, public goods, and public services by the government". He says "lol, wtf you're a noob guy #1, I'm looking at the stool and it is definitely being held up by government services and shit. you didn't build it! we built it with the government. God what an idiot" and HIS friends gather around and they see that yes, government infrastructure and public goods exist, and without them success would be impossible. Then a third guy comes along and he sees the third and final leg of the stool. This leg is called "Being lucky enough to happen to succeed at your business as opposed to failing due to unforseen market forces, to be born without debilitating disease, in the modern era, in a place that isn't utterly crushed by poverty and famine like many places in the world, and having access to the financial resources and know-how to even think about looking beyond where you're getting the next meal". He calls his friends over and says "both of you guys are wrong, it's all about luck! how could you be so blind?" And each of the three guys no longer examines the stool, because he's seen what it looks like. Now they just argue with each other about which leg is holding it up, and completely discount each other's story of what the leg looks like. Maybe people don't consider that the stool has 3 legs. Maybe they don't want to, and just want to argue about it. Maybe this argument is really about something else. Maybe they should focus on making the stool bigger, or how to go about making more stools for other people. Or maybe we can argue which single leg is the sole leg responsible for holding up the 3-legged stool. Good analogy. Obama is saying: look, the stool has three legs. And the Republicans are saying that basically only one of the legs really matters and holds the stool up. I'm not really sure Obama is saying the stool has three legs per se, but I think it's human nature in general to assume stools have 1 leg, and so people are arguing about which of the 3 legs in the stool is the "real leg" and whether Obama was respecting all 3 legs, or whatever. He may be drawing more attention to the "government" leg because it's often underrated. But he did acknowledge that luck and hard work plays a role, in the way he mentions these factors.
I've actually only read a few excerpts of the speech. Could someone link me to the full text of the thing? Google searches are just leading me to blogs talking about it rather than the text itself.
|
On July 26 2012 01:55 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 01:52 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 01:51 paralleluniverse wrote:On July 26 2012 01:43 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 01:30 Lightwip wrote:On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:
Again, this is saying that infrastructure (which is nearly constant for all business owners so it actually has almost no baring on who survives and who doesn't) and education had more to do with the success than working 60-70 hours a week for the first year (sometimes years!) after putting up everything you own to try to start your business. Funny thing that the unbelievable American system is built on the idea of self-reliance and government staying out of individual's lives; the exact opposite of what he's talking about here! Yeah, try starting a business in Ethiopia. I guarantee that those 60-70 hours a week won't mean a damn thing. Henry Ford was a self-made man, but a Model T wouldn't sell if governments didn't build roads and highways. I mean, it's pretty clear that the reason we have a government at all is it's necessary for society-- it's so expensive that if it weren't necessary, we wouldn't have one, right? On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:On July 26 2012 00:49 kwizach wrote:On July 26 2012 00:44 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2012 00:36 farvacola wrote:On July 26 2012 00:24 xDaunt wrote:On July 25 2012 23:34 Mohdoo wrote:
[quote]
I don't think he is anti-enterprise. I believe his point was that businesses don't need to hire guards to keep their businesses safe like they used to due to police and the military. They don't need to treat their sewage and find their own water sources or their own power generation or lay their own roads. While they are good business people, these people did not do it 100% on their own like people try to pretend. All the things I listed significantly decrease the cost of business operations and aren't things that magically fall from the sky. There's nothing wrong with reminding businesses of that. You're liberal, so you don't see him as being anti-enterprise and you are viewing his statements from a different, friendlier perspective than many (if not most) Americans. Consider how someone with a different perspective would take his comments. Many people see Obama's rhetoric as being divisive. In particular, they see Obama playing the class warfare game and going out of his way to demonize "the rich." They also see Obama promote many policies that harm businesses, whether it be enacting new regulations (Obamacare certainly hurts him here) or obstructing obviously beneficial projects (like the Keystone XL pipeline). Consider all of the other people who look at Obama's past and see a slew of leftist radicals with whom Obama has been closely affiliated at one point or another during his life. How do you think all of these people take Obama's comments? Hell, just compare what Obama said to what other presidents have said (go look at the new Scott Brown ad). When you consider all of the above, it becomes very obvious why Obama's comments have damaged him so badly. I guarantee you that a majority of independents aren't reacting well to what Obama said. You've done a rather poor job of tying mainstream Republican thought with your own, so I'm inclined to simply shake my head every time you use words and phrases like "many (if not most) Americans", "They", and "all of these people". Your source material is and has been summarily extremely activist right-wing, and if you want anyone to follow your logic and accept your collective declarations, some sort of centrist evidence would be nice. Because otherwise I can't help but feel as though you are simply putting words and ideas in peoples mouths and heads. For example, you clam that many consider Obama's rhetoric divisive. Do you not accept that many people also consider the entirety of the Republican platform as one which lives and dies on tactics of division? Mitch McConnell even says as much. Like I have said many, many times in this thread, all I'm trying to do is explain why what Obama said is damaging to his campaign. For whatever a reason, a majority of you simply refuse to accept that Obama's Roanoke speech was incredibly stupid and harmful, despite the fact that the Obama campaign has finally figured out Obama stepped in it and is now actively doing damage control. If you really want to put your head in the sand and simply dismiss me as a "right-wing extremist," go ahead. Like I have said before, I'm all for democrats and liberals not figuring out what their weaknesses are. You are trying to paint the speech as "stupid and harmful" by itself. It wasn't. The only reason why some of Obama's comments could be damaging to him is that his opponents actively took them out of context. That's the only reason. The entirity of that section of the speech implies that infrastructure deserves just as much, if not more, credit for a successful business than the sacrifices and work of the people who built it. "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."This implies it was primarily luck that chose the people who succeeded in their businesses. My parents in particular found this the most insulting part of the speech. My mother and father put all of their net worth up for collateral for a business loan to get started. They then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year without drawing a regular paycheck, the employees, bills, and inventory had to come first. Our family got enough to pay the bills and eat, that's about it. This comment is incredibly demeaning to people who have gone through this (which is, surprise surprise, the overwhelming majority of small business owners). I know people whose parents put up all their net worth up for collateral for a business loan, then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year, etc etc and their business failed, because shit man, people get unlucky! That's how the world works. Life isn't fair. Just because your business happened to succeed doesn't mean you weren't lucky. It obviously wouldn't have succeeded if your parents didn't work their asses off for meagre pay for a long time, but that's not the only factor.
Like, it's like almost everyone in this thread is examining a stool. This stool is named "success". We are trying to determine how this stool stands up. One guy looks and sees a leg holding up the stool. This leg is called "hard work"-- he says, "hey guys, check it out-- this is why the stool stands up! hard work! anyone who disagrees with me is short-sighted" and his friends gather around, and they see that why, yes, you need to work hard to succeed. Then another guy comes along and he sees a different leg. This leg is called "the development of infrastructure, public goods, and public services by the government". He says "lol, wtf you're a noob guy #1, I'm looking at the stool and it is definitely being held up by government services and shit. you didn't build it! we built it with the government. God what an idiot" and HIS friends gather around and they see that yes, government infrastructure and public goods exist, and without them success would be impossible. Then a third guy comes along and he sees the third and final leg of the stool. This leg is called "Being lucky enough to happen to succeed at your business as opposed to failing due to unforseen market forces, to be born without debilitating disease, in the modern era, in a place that isn't utterly crushed by poverty and famine like many places in the world, and having access to the financial resources and know-how to even think about looking beyond where you're getting the next meal". He calls his friends over and says "both of you guys are wrong, it's all about luck! how could you be so blind?" And each of the three guys no longer examines the stool, because he's seen what it looks like. Now they just argue with each other about which leg is holding it up, and completely discount each other's story of what the leg looks like. Maybe people don't consider that the stool has 3 legs. Maybe they don't want to, and just want to argue about it. Maybe this argument is really about something else. Maybe they should focus on making the stool bigger, or how to go about making more stools for other people. Or maybe we can argue which single leg is the sole leg responsible for holding up the 3-legged stool. Good analogy. Obama is saying: look, the stool has three legs. And the Republicans are saying that basically only one of the legs really matters and holds the stool up. I'm not really sure Obama is saying the stool has three legs per se, but I think it's human nature in general to assume stools have 1 leg, and so people are arguing about which of the 3 legs in the stool is the "real leg" and whether Obama was respecting all 3 legs, or whatever. He may be drawing more attention to the "government" leg because it's often underrated.But he did acknowledge that luck and hard work plays a role, in the way he mentions these factors.
I think so too. A lot of people hear the argument of "Well you need roads to do business!" and think "Well duh, I live in America, no shit we have roads. We aren't some 3rd world country". But that's just the point. We live in the united states and enjoy the benefits of living here. Roads aren't magic even though people often take them for granted. Government is absolutely essential and facilitates business. Without government services, the US would not have nearly the business success that it has.
I think the outrage comes from Republicans who have built this wild fantasy that all they've done is pull themselves up by the boot straps and made everything happen on their own. But in reality, there is a massive infrastructure that is making it 100x easier than it ever would be if there were no government. Its like a weird ego-boosting lie they tell themselves.
|
On July 26 2012 01:57 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 01:55 paralleluniverse wrote:On July 26 2012 01:52 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 01:51 paralleluniverse wrote:On July 26 2012 01:43 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 01:30 Lightwip wrote:On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:
Again, this is saying that infrastructure (which is nearly constant for all business owners so it actually has almost no baring on who survives and who doesn't) and education had more to do with the success than working 60-70 hours a week for the first year (sometimes years!) after putting up everything you own to try to start your business. Funny thing that the unbelievable American system is built on the idea of self-reliance and government staying out of individual's lives; the exact opposite of what he's talking about here! Yeah, try starting a business in Ethiopia. I guarantee that those 60-70 hours a week won't mean a damn thing. Henry Ford was a self-made man, but a Model T wouldn't sell if governments didn't build roads and highways. I mean, it's pretty clear that the reason we have a government at all is it's necessary for society-- it's so expensive that if it weren't necessary, we wouldn't have one, right? On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:On July 26 2012 00:49 kwizach wrote:On July 26 2012 00:44 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2012 00:36 farvacola wrote:On July 26 2012 00:24 xDaunt wrote:[quote] You're liberal, so you don't see him as being anti-enterprise and you are viewing his statements from a different, friendlier perspective than many (if not most) Americans. Consider how someone with a different perspective would take his comments. Many people see Obama's rhetoric as being divisive. In particular, they see Obama playing the class warfare game and going out of his way to demonize "the rich." They also see Obama promote many policies that harm businesses, whether it be enacting new regulations (Obamacare certainly hurts him here) or obstructing obviously beneficial projects (like the Keystone XL pipeline). Consider all of the other people who look at Obama's past and see a slew of leftist radicals with whom Obama has been closely affiliated at one point or another during his life. How do you think all of these people take Obama's comments? Hell, just compare what Obama said to what other presidents have said (go look at the new Scott Brown ad). When you consider all of the above, it becomes very obvious why Obama's comments have damaged him so badly. I guarantee you that a majority of independents aren't reacting well to what Obama said. You've done a rather poor job of tying mainstream Republican thought with your own, so I'm inclined to simply shake my head every time you use words and phrases like "many (if not most) Americans", "They", and "all of these people". Your source material is and has been summarily extremely activist right-wing, and if you want anyone to follow your logic and accept your collective declarations, some sort of centrist evidence would be nice. Because otherwise I can't help but feel as though you are simply putting words and ideas in peoples mouths and heads. For example, you clam that many consider Obama's rhetoric divisive. Do you not accept that many people also consider the entirety of the Republican platform as one which lives and dies on tactics of division? Mitch McConnell even says as much. Like I have said many, many times in this thread, all I'm trying to do is explain why what Obama said is damaging to his campaign. For whatever a reason, a majority of you simply refuse to accept that Obama's Roanoke speech was incredibly stupid and harmful, despite the fact that the Obama campaign has finally figured out Obama stepped in it and is now actively doing damage control. If you really want to put your head in the sand and simply dismiss me as a "right-wing extremist," go ahead. Like I have said before, I'm all for democrats and liberals not figuring out what their weaknesses are. You are trying to paint the speech as "stupid and harmful" by itself. It wasn't. The only reason why some of Obama's comments could be damaging to him is that his opponents actively took them out of context. That's the only reason. The entirity of that section of the speech implies that infrastructure deserves just as much, if not more, credit for a successful business than the sacrifices and work of the people who built it. "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."This implies it was primarily luck that chose the people who succeeded in their businesses. My parents in particular found this the most insulting part of the speech. My mother and father put all of their net worth up for collateral for a business loan to get started. They then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year without drawing a regular paycheck, the employees, bills, and inventory had to come first. Our family got enough to pay the bills and eat, that's about it. This comment is incredibly demeaning to people who have gone through this (which is, surprise surprise, the overwhelming majority of small business owners). I know people whose parents put up all their net worth up for collateral for a business loan, then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year, etc etc and their business failed, because shit man, people get unlucky! That's how the world works. Life isn't fair. Just because your business happened to succeed doesn't mean you weren't lucky. It obviously wouldn't have succeeded if your parents didn't work their asses off for meagre pay for a long time, but that's not the only factor.
Like, it's like almost everyone in this thread is examining a stool. This stool is named "success". We are trying to determine how this stool stands up. One guy looks and sees a leg holding up the stool. This leg is called "hard work"-- he says, "hey guys, check it out-- this is why the stool stands up! hard work! anyone who disagrees with me is short-sighted" and his friends gather around, and they see that why, yes, you need to work hard to succeed. Then another guy comes along and he sees a different leg. This leg is called "the development of infrastructure, public goods, and public services by the government". He says "lol, wtf you're a noob guy #1, I'm looking at the stool and it is definitely being held up by government services and shit. you didn't build it! we built it with the government. God what an idiot" and HIS friends gather around and they see that yes, government infrastructure and public goods exist, and without them success would be impossible. Then a third guy comes along and he sees the third and final leg of the stool. This leg is called "Being lucky enough to happen to succeed at your business as opposed to failing due to unforseen market forces, to be born without debilitating disease, in the modern era, in a place that isn't utterly crushed by poverty and famine like many places in the world, and having access to the financial resources and know-how to even think about looking beyond where you're getting the next meal". He calls his friends over and says "both of you guys are wrong, it's all about luck! how could you be so blind?" And each of the three guys no longer examines the stool, because he's seen what it looks like. Now they just argue with each other about which leg is holding it up, and completely discount each other's story of what the leg looks like. Maybe people don't consider that the stool has 3 legs. Maybe they don't want to, and just want to argue about it. Maybe this argument is really about something else. Maybe they should focus on making the stool bigger, or how to go about making more stools for other people. Or maybe we can argue which single leg is the sole leg responsible for holding up the 3-legged stool. Good analogy. Obama is saying: look, the stool has three legs. And the Republicans are saying that basically only one of the legs really matters and holds the stool up. I'm not really sure Obama is saying the stool has three legs per se, but I think it's human nature in general to assume stools have 1 leg, and so people are arguing about which of the 3 legs in the stool is the "real leg" and whether Obama was respecting all 3 legs, or whatever. He may be drawing more attention to the "government" leg because it's often underrated. But he did acknowledge that luck and hard work plays a role, in the way he mentions these factors. I've actually only read a few excerpts of the speech. Could someone link me to the full text of the thing? Google searches are just leading me to blogs talking about it rather than the text itself.
Source from the White House
The direct "you didn't build that" quote is about 3/4 of the way down.
|
On July 26 2012 01:57 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 01:55 paralleluniverse wrote:On July 26 2012 01:52 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 01:51 paralleluniverse wrote:On July 26 2012 01:43 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 01:30 Lightwip wrote:On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:
Again, this is saying that infrastructure (which is nearly constant for all business owners so it actually has almost no baring on who survives and who doesn't) and education had more to do with the success than working 60-70 hours a week for the first year (sometimes years!) after putting up everything you own to try to start your business. Funny thing that the unbelievable American system is built on the idea of self-reliance and government staying out of individual's lives; the exact opposite of what he's talking about here! Yeah, try starting a business in Ethiopia. I guarantee that those 60-70 hours a week won't mean a damn thing. Henry Ford was a self-made man, but a Model T wouldn't sell if governments didn't build roads and highways. I mean, it's pretty clear that the reason we have a government at all is it's necessary for society-- it's so expensive that if it weren't necessary, we wouldn't have one, right? On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:On July 26 2012 00:49 kwizach wrote:On July 26 2012 00:44 xDaunt wrote:On July 26 2012 00:36 farvacola wrote:On July 26 2012 00:24 xDaunt wrote:[quote] You're liberal, so you don't see him as being anti-enterprise and you are viewing his statements from a different, friendlier perspective than many (if not most) Americans. Consider how someone with a different perspective would take his comments. Many people see Obama's rhetoric as being divisive. In particular, they see Obama playing the class warfare game and going out of his way to demonize "the rich." They also see Obama promote many policies that harm businesses, whether it be enacting new regulations (Obamacare certainly hurts him here) or obstructing obviously beneficial projects (like the Keystone XL pipeline). Consider all of the other people who look at Obama's past and see a slew of leftist radicals with whom Obama has been closely affiliated at one point or another during his life. How do you think all of these people take Obama's comments? Hell, just compare what Obama said to what other presidents have said (go look at the new Scott Brown ad). When you consider all of the above, it becomes very obvious why Obama's comments have damaged him so badly. I guarantee you that a majority of independents aren't reacting well to what Obama said. You've done a rather poor job of tying mainstream Republican thought with your own, so I'm inclined to simply shake my head every time you use words and phrases like "many (if not most) Americans", "They", and "all of these people". Your source material is and has been summarily extremely activist right-wing, and if you want anyone to follow your logic and accept your collective declarations, some sort of centrist evidence would be nice. Because otherwise I can't help but feel as though you are simply putting words and ideas in peoples mouths and heads. For example, you clam that many consider Obama's rhetoric divisive. Do you not accept that many people also consider the entirety of the Republican platform as one which lives and dies on tactics of division? Mitch McConnell even says as much. Like I have said many, many times in this thread, all I'm trying to do is explain why what Obama said is damaging to his campaign. For whatever a reason, a majority of you simply refuse to accept that Obama's Roanoke speech was incredibly stupid and harmful, despite the fact that the Obama campaign has finally figured out Obama stepped in it and is now actively doing damage control. If you really want to put your head in the sand and simply dismiss me as a "right-wing extremist," go ahead. Like I have said before, I'm all for democrats and liberals not figuring out what their weaknesses are. You are trying to paint the speech as "stupid and harmful" by itself. It wasn't. The only reason why some of Obama's comments could be damaging to him is that his opponents actively took them out of context. That's the only reason. The entirity of that section of the speech implies that infrastructure deserves just as much, if not more, credit for a successful business than the sacrifices and work of the people who built it. "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."This implies it was primarily luck that chose the people who succeeded in their businesses. My parents in particular found this the most insulting part of the speech. My mother and father put all of their net worth up for collateral for a business loan to get started. They then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year without drawing a regular paycheck, the employees, bills, and inventory had to come first. Our family got enough to pay the bills and eat, that's about it. This comment is incredibly demeaning to people who have gone through this (which is, surprise surprise, the overwhelming majority of small business owners). I know people whose parents put up all their net worth up for collateral for a business loan, then proceeded to work nearly every day of the week for the next year, etc etc and their business failed, because shit man, people get unlucky! That's how the world works. Life isn't fair. Just because your business happened to succeed doesn't mean you weren't lucky. It obviously wouldn't have succeeded if your parents didn't work their asses off for meagre pay for a long time, but that's not the only factor.
Like, it's like almost everyone in this thread is examining a stool. This stool is named "success". We are trying to determine how this stool stands up. One guy looks and sees a leg holding up the stool. This leg is called "hard work"-- he says, "hey guys, check it out-- this is why the stool stands up! hard work! anyone who disagrees with me is short-sighted" and his friends gather around, and they see that why, yes, you need to work hard to succeed. Then another guy comes along and he sees a different leg. This leg is called "the development of infrastructure, public goods, and public services by the government". He says "lol, wtf you're a noob guy #1, I'm looking at the stool and it is definitely being held up by government services and shit. you didn't build it! we built it with the government. God what an idiot" and HIS friends gather around and they see that yes, government infrastructure and public goods exist, and without them success would be impossible. Then a third guy comes along and he sees the third and final leg of the stool. This leg is called "Being lucky enough to happen to succeed at your business as opposed to failing due to unforseen market forces, to be born without debilitating disease, in the modern era, in a place that isn't utterly crushed by poverty and famine like many places in the world, and having access to the financial resources and know-how to even think about looking beyond where you're getting the next meal". He calls his friends over and says "both of you guys are wrong, it's all about luck! how could you be so blind?" And each of the three guys no longer examines the stool, because he's seen what it looks like. Now they just argue with each other about which leg is holding it up, and completely discount each other's story of what the leg looks like. Maybe people don't consider that the stool has 3 legs. Maybe they don't want to, and just want to argue about it. Maybe this argument is really about something else. Maybe they should focus on making the stool bigger, or how to go about making more stools for other people. Or maybe we can argue which single leg is the sole leg responsible for holding up the 3-legged stool. Good analogy. Obama is saying: look, the stool has three legs. And the Republicans are saying that basically only one of the legs really matters and holds the stool up. I'm not really sure Obama is saying the stool has three legs per se, but I think it's human nature in general to assume stools have 1 leg, and so people are arguing about which of the 3 legs in the stool is the "real leg" and whether Obama was respecting all 3 legs, or whatever. He may be drawing more attention to the "government" leg because it's often underrated. But he did acknowledge that luck and hard work plays a role, in the way he mentions these factors. I've actually only read a few excerpts of the speech. Could someone link me to the full text of the thing? Google searches are just leading me to blogs talking about it rather than the text itself.
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.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/13/remarks-president-campaign-event-roanoke-virginia
|
On July 25 2012 14:28 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2012 13:17 aksfjh wrote:On July 25 2012 11:07 coverpunch wrote:On July 25 2012 08:37 aksfjh wrote:
We refinance daily through long and short term bonds. What DOES happen is that, while paying the interest, the economy and interest erode our debt for us. As long as the combination of the 2 is larger than the deficit, the debt as a percentage of GDP shrinks, which is essentially the same as paying it off. The key is to use the low bond rates when we can, and cut back on deficit spending when rates increase. The notion that the rates will increase to an unsustainable amount very rapidly just isn't true for a country that has control over its own currency and a diversified economy. We will have plenty of warning, and plenty of opportunities to reign in spending before the debt becomes too large to service (without cutting a bunch into government services).
Edit: SEIGE TANK WOOOO! (2k posts) This is so terribly naive. I've never heard anyone try to claim that interest erodes debt (I think you might mean inflation). But you can't find any examples of a debt crisis where a country had plenty of warning and jumped out of the way just in time (edit: maybe Clinton in 1993). More than that, you can't find any areas where the US can plausibly cut enough spending to rein in the debt to serviceable levels and it's far less realistic than you think for the US to just print its way out of trouble. Ironically, this has become especially clear under Obama, who has committed himself far more to global stability than he has to what's solely in America's best interest. The US can't just shuck off these de facto obligations to avoid a crisis and in most cases it would just make things worse. Japan is a good test case. They have sky-high debt (the highest in the OECD at 200+% of GDP). They don't have a problem yet but they also don't have any clear ways to pay it off. If anything, the government is committed to doing anything to avoid interest rates from rising and maintaining the status quo at any price. The EU's woes are added examples of how it's never as easy as you think to just slash spending to sustainable levels. I don't think debt is necessarily a bad thing, especially in the short term. But there's no doubt that Obama has more problems than he has answers to and that he's done a piss-poor job of managing them with the resources that he used. Can Romney do better? To be honest, I doubt it. Whenever he faces of question of "Okay, Obama botched that. What would you do differently?", he never has a good answer. Yea, I typed that in a hurry. It's supposed to read "economy and inflation erode our debt." Also, it took 4 years for rates to go from just under 8% to 5.5%, back to 8%. Even when it did bounce, it only went back to levels we had recently seen. If that is any example to go off of, we would see interest rates go back up to 2.5% at most. As for Japan and Europe. Japan has been, for a long time, proof that high debt levels aren't cause enough alone to incite bond vigilantes to stop buying debt. What will spark a run on interest rates is a lack of control in monetary policy, fiscal policy, and economic outlook for the country in question. We're seeing just that with EU. Spain and Ireland have no control over monetary policy, and only a shadow of control over fiscal policy. To that point, their economies are very small and specialize in very few goods to export. Their economies rely heavily on the health of the economies they do business with, and those too are doing less than stellar. So, when the governments had to take on huge loans to give to backs in the wake of last housing bust, there was no confidence that they could pay back that loan because of poor growth and bad inflation numbers. The reason why EU is having troubles slashing spending right now is because so many people rely on the government in hard times. It's hard to make cuts to pensions, unemployment compensation, healthcare, education, and safety, when those are the services we need more than ever. Well, I do agree with the bottom line point, which is that there isn't a mathematical formula here. There's no bright line at which the bond market erupts and a debt crisis ensues. But that's very different from insisting that high debt isn't a problem and doesn't present the dry powder that can explode into a crisis. Suggesting that the US take advantage of low bond yields and try to buy its way out of a crisis is an all-in strategy. If the president tries it and the economy remains in stagnation, the country will really be in a tough spot. But IMO, if your economic plan doesn't provide a way out for debtors and deal with the housing market, it ultimately fixes nothing. The real basis for my objection to that kind of plan is that it is our generation that ends up paying off the debt through increased taxes. So pretty much you want to bet all the increases in my future income so that plausibly it could be the year 2042 and my after-tax income is exactly the same as it is now, which I definitely do not want to happen.
We're already paying for it though through long term harm in high unemployment. It depresses wage growth, productivity, andlong term investment. By accepting the crisis as natural and sitting on our hands, we'd suffer even more.
|
Great Q & A Blazinghand, I'm always impressed by your foresight to add those things in  .
But really the stool analogy needs to be significantly improved. Its probably closer to being a really weird, monstrous looking stool that has one gigantic leg closer to the middle that can stand on its own if you balance the stool just right, but its precarious - so then someone jammed in another leg that sticks outwards at an awkward angle to balance the stool a little better - although it still will fall over if the wind blows hard enough. So you need a third leg, that balances it in all three directions!
So basically you end up having legs that are of greater and lesser degrees of importance - the main leg of the stool is probably personal initiative; while a lesser leg of the stool is government assistance or luck. We all know the stories of those great entrepreneurs who came to a country with $100 and created a multinational corporate empire.
Anyways, I hope some people here can add some drawings of this hypothetical stool 
|
On July 26 2012 02:05 radscorpion9 wrote:Great Q & A Blazinghand, I'm always impressed by your foresight to add those things in . But really the stool analogy needs to be significantly improved. Its probably closer to being a really weird, monstrous looking stool that has one gigantic leg closer to the middle that can stand on its own if you balance the stool just right, but its precarious - so then someone jammed in another leg that sticks outwards at an awkward angle to balance the stool a little better - although it still will fall over if the wind blows hard enough. So you need a third leg, that balances it in all three directions! So basically you end up having legs that are of greater and lesser degrees of importance - the main leg of the stool is probably personal initiative; while a lesser leg of the stool is government assistance or luck. We all know the stories of those great entrepreneurs who came to a country with $100 and created a multinational corporate empire.Anyways, I hope some people here can add some drawings of this hypothetical stool
And I assure you that country was definitely not Ethiopia or Sudan. It was almost surely, a 1st world country, with a stable government, a functioning democracy, a high degree of personal and economic freedom, and superior public infrastructure and institutions.
Did the entrepreneur found the 1st world country? Did he personally setup a stable government with a functioning democracy and high degree of freedom in this country? Did he build the public infrastructure and institutions in the country?
|
I think we should parse out what we're trying to say because both sides have a point.
A stable and consistent government that protects its citizens' freedoms and maintains good infrastructure is a necessary but not sufficient condition for businesses to thrive.
If you don't have the rule of law to protect property rights or protect citizens from abuse or misrepresentation, then businesses definitely cannot succeed in a sustainable or desireable manner.
But at the same time, you can't treat business as "if we build it, they will come". Just because a country has good roads, reliable service for electricity and water, and well-constructed buildings is no guarantee that it will birth good businesses. A country with better roads, more reliable services, and better buildings is not necessarily a friendlier country for business or a better cradle for creativity and innovation.
I think there is a non-trivial question of how the US can maintain the competitive edge its has been able to assume since the end of World War II. It's obvious that the rest of the world is catching up so that Americans can no longer assume they are better educated, harder-working, or more creative than other people. Is there something the US can do to restore that assumption? I'm highly skeptical that more schools and more roads are the key to a good solution.
|
On July 26 2012 01:48 DoubleReed wrote:
Pffff, who builds a stool with three legs? Sounds like commie talk to me.
Someone give this poster a medal for being so witty and contributing so much to this thread!
------------------------------------
Wow this is amazing, you guys missed my point entirely.
Infrastructure is constant for all people in the United States, therefor it has no impact on the success rate of businesses in the United States (which is what we are talking about by the way). If it had such a large impact, then why doesn't every business succeed? Every business owner (and citizen with an IQ higher than 50) knows that roads are important, and that everyone pays for them, but it's a constant and therefore not relevant when it comes to talking about successful businesses in the united states, so why draw attention to it when talking about businesses succeeding? I've never seen anyone, business owner or conservative, arguing against the government keeping up roads, bridges, fire, and police so why bother bringing it up other than to just pat yourself on the back for a business you didn't have any part in building or making successful? (remember, they paid for it as well)
Additionally, what lead to the infrastructure being built? Oh, that's right, business and trade! Which existed first: the mining town in Nevada, or the railroad that went past it? The government owes everything to business, not the other way around. By the way, roads were dirt before the Model-T, the automotive industry is the reason that the Department of Transportation is so successful, so why aren't we talking about that?!
Also, now people are seriously arguing that luck is the make-or-break in whether a business succeeds or not? If that's the case why doesn't everyone just roll the dice to see if they can be the next millionaire? They don't, because that's not the largest contributor; the market research, business plan, accounting, employee selection, location, smart inventory, and risk and brutal amounts of work that are the real major contributors.
Finally, you missed the most important part of my post, but I guess that's my fault for putting it at the bottom. So here we go, I'm not putting it at the bottom again! (and adding clarification in brackets)
On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:
In this speech he listed constants (society, infrastructure) as if they were the variables. This leads to a perception of an attack on small business [no matter what was intended], and perception is reality.
This line is to make sure the quote isn't at the bottom of my post
tl;dr: Stop being lazy in a discussion thread and read my post.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
