"You Didn't Build That"
you have a business, you didn't build that." Then claims
he was taken out of context, but when you read the
context, its even worse.
This is being talked about everywhere I go. I was in
the barbershop and the 4 guys waiting were joking with
the barber about it. Its on every media, you can't get
away from it.
Is Obama insane? Who says something this blatantly
insulting to the backbone of America during an election
year? And he's not backtracking it, he's not apologising.
I've had businesses, my wife had a brick and mortar
shop for 15 years. She was furious when she got wind
of this. She's still furious. She put 7 days a week into
her business for years and now the president is telling
her "you didn't build that, somebody else did that."
I'm baffled. This is the smartest guy in the room? This
is how he really feels? I don't think its going away,
he may have just jumped the shark..
I'll tell you it was built with human bone and mortared with blood, but I won't say he's wrong.
Quote: odiousgambitWhen I watch the whole thing, it is plausible that he miss-spoke as he says... meaning to say "you didn't build the roads, educate the teachers," etc.
You know, I was going to argue about it, but it doesn't matter. Because the businesspeople he was attacking did build the roads and the schools and paid the salaries of the teacher, and also financed all the welfare and other government waste, by paying taxes.
Besides, any statement you have to explain is a gaffe by definition.
Lastly, he should just let it go. Obviously his intent wasn't well-received by the bulk of the population. But by insisiting he meant something else, which is equally false, he just goes into another lose-lose situation: either he slanders business some more or he loses points as a "brilliant" orator (remember that?)
Quote: 24Bingo...what's so bad about it in context? "That" in context clearly refers to the state infrastructure
But it was my parents and grand parents, and yours,
that paid the taxes from their labor, to hire other
small businesses to build that infrastructure. Its
the dog chasing its own tail. To say to a small
business owner "you didn't build that, somebody
else did", is almost what a Communist would say.
You, small business, can't take credit for anything.
Everybody built your business, not you.
Its an astonishing way for the president of any
free enterprise country to think or talk. If he
intended to get peoples attention, it certainly worked.
But whatever, bloody stupid way to express anything...
used to be a garage, but his father remodeled it in the
50's and opened a barbershop. His son came into the
business, and when the dad retired, the son took it
over. If you were serious about telling him that his father,
and him, didn't build that business, somebody else did,
he would probably invite you outside and knock your
block off. He also sells firewood in the shop and cuts
it all himself and he could take somebody apart if
he wanted to.
Thats what we were joking about today, but beneath
the jokes, I could tell my friend was angry. He has
to be careful about what he says, he can't get political,
he'll lose customers.
Quote: EvenBobIf you were serious about telling him that his father,
and him, didn't build that business, somebody else did,
he would probably invite you outside and knock your
block off.
I wouldn't go to that barber anymore. Trying to take credit for something Obama did (even if it was through his father's hands), is about he worst kind of celebrity stalking there can be. Our bodies are all just tool bits for our dear leader's grand plans.
Quote: EvenBob
Its an astonishing way for the president of any
free enterprise country to think or talk. If he
intended to get peoples attention, it certainly worked.[/q
Perhaps it is not a Free Enterprise Syatem anymore, comrade, which is very much the point.Some people need to reimagine their thinking.
Quote: P90Trying to take credit for something Obama did (even if it was through his father's hands), is about he worst kind of celebrity stalking there can be. Our bodies are all just tool bits for our dear leader's grand plans.
If CEO, chairman, president and sole shareholder of Bain can shed all responsibility for a business, I suppose I'd call it even if Obama lays claim to building one he has no record of being involved in.
People are deluding themselves to think that he somehow miss-spoke. He didn't, because he, like Elizabeth Warren who actually said something very similar, believe these things. They've never run businesses, or had to hold their check and pay everyone else off first while working like crazy. I have, as have many other successful entrepreneurs. Anyone who has actually created a business would never, ever, say anything remotely like he said: it's inconceivable. And it's easy to pick apart: I'm sure there are lots of nice roads and bridges in totalitarian societies over the years, but without the innovation. No Microsoft. No Google. No Ford. And on and on and on...
Quote: TheBigPaybakAnyone who has actually created a business would never, ever, say anything remotely like he said: it's inconceivable.
Thats it, isn't it. Its mind blowingly inconceivable that anybody
would say it, let alone the dang president. Its disturbing on
levels I haven't even identified yet. It strikes at the basic core
of who we are as a country. All my life I've been told to work
hard, get ahead, be a self starter, put in the hours and the
years, and reap the benefits from MY labor. Obama comes along
and tries to take it all away with just a few sentences. I'm
embarrassed for him, he just doesn't get it.
Quote:You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.
And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations
The people in Pennsylvania must be dead by now.
Quote: EvenBobThats it, isn't it. Its mind blowingly inconceibable that anybody
would say it, let alone the dang president. Its disturbing on
levels I haven't even identified yet. It strikes at the basic core
of who we are as a country. All my life I've been told to work
hard, get ahead, be a self starter, put in the hours and the
years, and reap the benefits from MY labor. Obama comes along
and tries to take it all away with just a few sentences. I'm
embarrassed for him, he just doesn't get it.
Exactly right. I tend to think all of the campaigning makes him tired, and he may let his defenses down and say things he really feels, bypassing his internal censor.
Anyone in this country can become a millionaire working even low-wage jobs- but not if you want iPhones and fancy clothes. People have choices but they feel they are entitled to have it all- and on my dime!
Quote: odiousgambitWhen I watch the whole thing, it is plausible that he miss-spoke as he says... meaning to say "you didn't build the roads, educate the teachers," etc.
Shipping companies and others pay for the roads they use every day in fuel taxes, registration fees, weight fees, vehicle license fees, etc.
For this naked communist to hold it against them is wholly unamerican.
Show the math
Quote: WongBoAnyone can become a millionaire even on low wages?
Show the math
$5 bucks per day.
Age 20 to age 65; 9% return = millionaire.
Quote: WongBoAnyone can become a millionaire even on low wages?
Show the math
The short version is: save your money, don't spend it going out to eat, buying iPhones, living large, etc.
Then invest it and don't touch it.
Then wait and it will happen assuming you live a reasonably long life.
The Wizard can do a better job with the math then I can, although I could take a crack at it next week.
Most people today just aren't willing to do this but they have the choice- they choose not to.
And yes, I have personal experience with the above so I know it to be true and not hypothetical.
Quote: QuadDeucesShipping companies and others pay for the roads they use every day in fuel taxes, registration fees, weight fees, vehicle license fees, etc.
For this naked communist to hold it against them is wholly unamerican.
Thats the thing of it. Roads are built with the businessman's money
in the form of taxes. And gov't doesn't build the roads, it hires a
small business construction co to do it. Without commerce there
would be no roads and without roads there would be no commerce.
To pit one against the other, as Obama tried to do, is ludicrous.
When you watch the whole clip, he's just oozing sarcasm and
condecention. Business people think they're so smart, well there
are a lot of smart people out there, he says. What is that even
supposed to mean? I should feel bad because I have a successful
business and some other smart guy doesn't? Whose fault is that.
Quote: EvenBobThats the thing of it. Roads are built with the businessman's money
in the form of taxes. And gov't doesn't build the roads, it hires a
small business construction co to do it.
Obama was really talking about the spirit of original settlers who had to work together just to survive the hard winters.
SEE: The Settlers, the early years.
Then see: The Settlers, movin' on out
Then : The Settlers, movin' on up, to the Eastside.
.
Quote: EvenBob
This is being talked about everywhere I go. I was in
the barbershop and the 4 guys waiting were joking with
the barber about it. Its on every media, you can't get
away from it.
Is Obama insane? Who says something this blatantly
insulting to the backbone of America during an election
year? And he's not backtracking it, he's not apologising.
I've had businesses, my wife had a brick and mortar
shop for 15 years. She was furious when she got wind
of this. She's still furious. She put 7 days a week into
her business for years and now the president is telling
her "you didn't build that, somebody else did that."
I'm baffled. This is the smartest guy in the room? This
is how he really feels? I don't think its going away,
he may have just jumped the shark..
Obama has cut an ad saying he was taken out of context and walking the quote back. I can rarely remember that happening with any gaffe of any pol, and never so quickly. I think they got back some really, really bad internal feedback.
To me, this is another, "I told you this in 2008" moment. Obama never even worked in the private sector in any real way. He is the 25 yo kid with the MBA who goes into the mill and tells the millwright who has been doing his job for 30 years how he is doing it all wrong. And he is part of a party and movement that thinks Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (RIP) did not build their outfits because "they did not write the code!"
His views are marxist, this quote just proves it. And not the anger when he said it off-teleprompter. Remember "spread the wealth around" and Joe DePlummer? I am serious, he is radical and dangerous. But people vote for him because, "hey, look at how good his speeches are!"
I hope Romney keeps hammering this. He needs ads of hard-working businessowners saying, "If someone else built my business, why did I have to get there at 5:00 AM so many mornings?"
Quote: AZDuffman
I hope Romney keeps hammering this. He needs ads of hard-working businessowners saying, "If someone else built my business, why did I have to get there at 5:00 AM so many mornings?"
My wife is a very tolerant person, but she is still irate
over this. She hasn't had the business in 10 years, but
it hit her really hard. She didn't like Obama, but now she
says she despises him and can't even stand the sound
of his voice.
If this is upsetting somebody as mild mannered as
her, I wonder how less gracious business owners
are feeling.
Quote: EvenBobMy wife is a very tolerant person, but she is still irate
over this. She hasn't had the business in 10 years, but
it hit her really hard. She didn't like Obama, but now she
says she despises him and can't even stand the sound
of his voice.
If this is upsetting somebody as mild mannered as
her, I wonder how less gracious business owners
are feeling.
I worked with a woman last year that was the typical "I don't even pay attention to politics" type. She said she registered to vote for the first time solely to vote Obama out of office. Remember, this was LAST YEAR she registered! I still would like to see Rasmussen do my "conquest poll" of likelys who will switch. I also have to wonder if his media push will go all the way or at some point the lamestream media starts to realize their bias is costing them viewers?
Quote: AZDuffmanI worked with a woman last year that was the typical "I don't even pay attention to politics" type. She said she registered to vote for the first time solely to vote Obama out of office. Remember, this was LAST YEAR she registered! I still would like to see Rasmussen do my "conquest poll" of likelys who will switch. I also have to wonder if his media push will go all the way or at some point the lamestream media starts to realize their bias is costing them viewers?
I'm doing the same thing too, fwiw.
While I like radio for news and sports, I do not like TV for such things... in fact, if it isn't a decent (IMHO) movie, I have no use for TV at all.
The lamestream media is getting over-polarized, puppets like Obama, only worsen the problem.
But then again, being over-connected worsens the problem.
Consider the former as supply-side dung, and the latter as demand-side.
It appears a few folks have traded in the shovel for a bucket-loader.
Quote: EvenBobIf this is upsetting somebody as mild mannered as
her, I wonder how less gracious business owners
are feeling.
Unfortunately, Bob, this translates WELL at the polls for Obama. He is no fool. So the hard working business owner, who most likely wasn't voting for him anyway, decides to vote against him. But ALL his workers, who are jealous of the success of the business owner, and feel that THEY are responsible for the business's success, now have even more reason to vote for Obama. "Yeah, its not the owner who did this, it is me who made this business a success, just look at how even I stock the shelves!"
To openly hold people who put everything on the line to build a business in contempt is ridiculous. Of course they built the roads, schools, and the rest of the government-owned infrastructure AND they built a business. Everyone who pays taxes builds those public projects. The people who build businesses take an idea and make something of it...and many fail along the way. They work hours most of us find unacceptable to do in order to make it work. They deserve credit; not contempt.
Quote: MakingBook$5 bucks per day.
Age 20 to age 65; 9% return = millionaire.
Do you really mean $5 bucks a day?
Where can I get a 9% return on my investments?
That will take more like $17.50 per day or roughly $500 per month, still very achievable by anyone providing value via their labor efforts. Particularly if done in a tax deferred vehicle like an IRA or Roth IRA.
Quote: weaselmanI think he did it on purpose. You are right, it is a very Marxist thing to say (regardless of even how you choose to interpret it, as it has been pointed out before). .
Sounds kinda like Christian Amish and doing things like barn raising for their neighbors. And also early pioneers who often had to work together to survive.
Colonies weren't built by survivalist attitudes of doing it all on your own.
Perhaps early pioneers were Marxists.
Quote: rxwineSounds kinda like Christian Amish and doing things like barn raising for their neighbors. And also early pioneers who often had to work together to survive.
Colonies weren't built by survivalist attitudes of doing it all on your own.
Perhaps early pioneers were Marxists.
Sorry, I don't get the analogy. The Marxist view I am referring to is that the workers create the value, while the capitalists exploit their labor by keeping a part of that created value to themselves. So, if you own a business, it is your employees that have built it (as well as all the infrastructure it uses), not you personally. You are simply enjoying the value they created. Not sure what it has to do with early colonists. But, in a way, they, like any communal society have indeed be using some of the Marxist principles.
Quote: SOOPOOUnfortunately, Bob, this translates WELL at the polls for Obama.
LOL, sure it does..
Quote: weaselmanI think he did it on purpose.
So it wasn't an incredible gaff, tatamount to Dukakis
in the tank with the helmet on, Obama is just wascally
smart and see's the inside of the inside of the inside.
Especially when the prompter is off.
I hate to break it to you, but it turns out not only is
Obama not the smartest man in the room, he's
usually not the smartest man wherever he happens
to be.
Quote: ParadigmSetting aside $5 per day and investing the $150 per month for 45 years at 9% will net you $1,110,732 in year 45.
The problem is: where do you get 9% APR near-zero-risk investment?
Quote: rxwineSounds kinda like Christian Amish and doing things like barn raising for their neighbors. And also early pioneers who often had to work together to survive.
Colonies weren't built by survivalist attitudes of doing it all on your own.
Perhaps early pioneers were Marxists.
Not at all. Sure, when you forst got somewhere there was some collective work to be done, but US pioneers were very individualistic. You might loan your neighbor a tool, but you did not collectivize your crops. And read some history of the Plymouth Colony--socialism almost killed everybody. It was not until every family worked their own plot that the storeroom overflowed with crops.
You need to learn what "survivalism" is about. Nobody expects to do everything as one person. But you learn to provide for yourself. You learn to specialize in things that give valuable trade. You don't wait for the government to come help you.
Quote:You might loan your neighbor a tool, but you did not collectivize your crops
See, I mention barn raising as spirit of effort to build someone's home, and you come up with collectivism. That's where you go too far assessing what Obama meant.
Quote: AZDuffmanAnd read some history of the Plymouth Colony--socialism almost killed everybody.
Wherever socialism is tried, it ultimately fails. It has to fail,
it goes against human nature. Yet intellectual types like
Obama (and the Clinton's) love the idea of socialism.
Because they think they're smarter than everybody else,
and never doubt they beileve that down to their core,
they feel if they could only get us stumblers and bumblers
to accept it, and let them lead us in it, the world would
be a better place.
Of course they would be living in the glass palaces
and we'd be living in the mud huts, but thats our punishment
for not being born as bright as they are.
To become financially wealthy, you have to take risks somewhere in the the micro-economy that we sometimes refer to as your own economic choices.
Quote: EvenBobWherever socialism is tried, it ultimately fails. .
I think almost every major democratic government has elements of socialism built in. Some more than others. So, it's been around as long as those governments and will continue, and even in failed states, it will return evenutally, it will just get reworked.
I guess you can piss yourself worrying about it, but that's just the way it will be. I believe that's human nature.
Quote: EvenBob
I hate to break it to you, but it turns out not only is
Obama not the smartest man in the room, he's
usually not the smartest man wherever he happens
to be.
I believe, a big part of the reason US is as deep in a hole as it is, is the popular but incredibly counter productive culture of underestimating the opponent while overestimating oneself. Proclaiming 10000 times in a row, that US health care (or military, or whatever else) is best in the world, does not made it one iota closer to the truth. Likewise, calling a sitting and democratically elected US president stupid, does not help the cause of his opponents one bit. To the contrary, in reality if hurts it a lot. This is exactly the attitude that got him elected the first time ... and is probably about to do it again.
This approach must have worked well for strausses in the past (since they still have not died out completely), but is a very self-destructive trait in humans.
Quote: weaselmanLikewise, calling a sitting and democratically elected US president stupid,
Who said Obama is stupid? Just because he says really
stupid things whenever he's off the prompter and has
to tell the truth doesn't make him stupid. Just ill prepared.
"We're the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad."
"UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? It's the Post Office that's always having problems."
"The Cambridge police acted stupidly."
"No, no. I have been practicing...I bowled a 129. It's like -- it was like Special Olympics, or something."
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
"What I was suggesting -- you're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith..."
"I've now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go."
"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."
"You didn't build that, somebody else built that."
Now be sure and find some Bush quotes because we know this
is really all about George Bush. Its his fault.
Quote: s2dbakerThe Romney campaign must be floundering if "Thisgate" is all they got. I'll look for this thread in November, after the election. Fun times :)
Yeah, its all they got. Before Friday the 13th they had nothing. There
were no anti Obama ads cause up till then he had such a sterling record.
People are chomping at the bit to get 4 more years of this crap.
Quote: EvenBobchomping at the bit
Bob! Champing.....
Quote: P90The problem is: where do you get 9% APR near-zero-risk investment?
crowd-lending sites? www.prosper.com is around 10% in net return (after fees & bad-debt write-offs).
