You did not do that!

[heironymouspasparagus]

I'm glad you don't think that government policy is the only thing holding back recovery. That would clearly be delusional.

However, Romney and his ilk do steal the fruits of others' labor when they borrow unsustainably large amounts of money in the name of the companies they have purchased to pay themselves large dividends, thus forcing the company into bankruptcy and leaving the creditors unpaid. Funny how it's good business when Romney's targets were made unable to pay their bills, but if a person gets in over their head it's some kind of moral failing. The double standard is...disturbing at best.

That's why bankruptcy laws were changed to make it easier for corporations to discharge their debts, while they made it harder for individuals to do same.

[we vs us]

God, I've missed you, Gassy.  I've missed all of you, honestly, but I've especially missed a certain someone's articulation of the whackiest craziness this side of the Pecos.   (And I'm not even ON that side of the pecos any more!) 

The President's ultimate goal by making statements like this is to make success a defensible action.  He is facing a tough election against a candidate who has been successful in business.  Further more, the President is pushing a tax plan that will affect successful business owners.  His rhetoric must push forward the idea that his track record of failure is as much his fault as a successful person's track record of success. He must make the people believe that they are suffering, not because his policies have staved off recovery, but because successful people have "stolen" the fruits of others' labor.  As he moves in this direction, it makes it easier to point at people like Romney and say "Yeah, like that guy!"

The President's ultimate goal by making statements like this is to do what liberals, centrists, and even moderate Republicans have failed to do very vocally over the last decade or so, and that is defend the idea of government.  Now, it's true that Obama's efforts are far too little and probably way too late, and it's also true that he's a lonely relatively sane voice in a howlingly insane wilderness, but at least he's trying.  Because if you decide to read the transcript of his speech -- and do it for comprehension this time, rather than for confirmation bias -- you might see that his position is eminently reasonable.  In a nutshell:  success in business comes from individual initiative, and it also comes from differing degrees of background collective action (varying decisions to fund education, roads and the internet, as well as firefighters and the army).  Steve Jobs -- as successful as he was -- did not also build the roads to and from the Apple Campus.  He did not pay for his future engineers and marketers and overpierced Apple Store Employees to go to preschool or primary school.   He did not construct the internet, without which his entire slate of niche-breaking products would be mere easy-on-the-eye bricks.  Etc.  I mean, Carlton's already talked about this beautifully at the beginning of the thread but you keep insisting that providing us with infrastructure and quality of life amounts to slavery.  And that, frankly, just doesn't scan.   It's actually kind of warped to think that the benefits of doing things together as a group might somehow make you less human.  That sort of formulation is so retrograde -- so shockingly anticivilization -- that it's almost not worth trying to seriously argue with.  It's as if you're looking at a basic piece of human culture and saying, "Use of language exists only to sap you of your dignity." Or, "Tool use will destroy your sense of yourself as a man."  I mean . . . what? 

[Conan71]

How about listening to the snarky, arrogant, and condescending tone he actually delivered this in rather than poring over the transcript.  That's what has so many people pissed off at him right now.

[Gaspar]

I like We vs us's post.  It's bejeweled.

[Breadburner]

[Hoss]

How about listening to the snarky, arrogant, and condescending tone he actually delivered this in rather than poring over the transcript.  That's what has so many people pissed off at him right now.

Better than the whiny 'apologize or else' from Myth Romney.

[rhymnrzn]

"If you've got a business, you didn't build that.  Somebody else made that happen."

I can't believe that an American president said this.



This is the sentiment President Obama is attempting to cultivate.  The war on the individual starts with disarming him of the responsibility achievement and reward that comes with it.   

How do you feel about this?

At the heart of western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man ... is the touchstone of value, and all society, groups, the state, exist for his benefit. Therefore the enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and abiding practice of any western society. – Robert F. Kennedy

Daniel 4:30  "The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?"

John 4:37  "And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.  (38)  I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours."

Hypocrites do not help carry the burdens with one finger, nor acknowledge what will happen after they are long gone: the others are cooperators toward reasonable ends.

[AquaMan]

If that's Henry Ford...why no, he didn't. There were cars built years before Ford. He simply used someone else's concept of interchangeable parts (Winchester or Remington I believe) and someone else's concept of assembly line production, then took the concept of vehicles the French had made years earlier and changed the power plant to a smelly, noisy, less powerful gasoline driven motor that, yes...someone else had invented.

Not a very good example the Republican's put together so quickly.

[Red Arrow]

If that's Henry Ford...why no, he didn't. There were cars built years before Ford. He simply used someone else's concept of interchangeable parts (Winchester or Remington I believe) and someone else's concept of assembly line production, then took the concept of vehicles the French had made years earlier and changed the power plant to a smelly, noisy, less powerful gasoline driven motor that, yes...someone else had invented.

So Henry gets NO credit for putting the pieces of the puzzle together?

[Red Arrow]

We all have access to roads, school thru high school, some college.  We all could have had access to the beginnings of DOS (if you are old enough).  If our house catches fire, the FD will come (I hope).  We all have as much police protection as pretty much anyone else.   Most of us aren't fabulously rich.

I guess Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett ... got it all so now we have to take some back.  Steve Jobs won't miss his.  Let's take his first.

[Red Arrow]

That's why bankruptcy laws were changed to make it easier for corporations to discharge their debts, while they made it harder for individuals to do same.

That's why corporations were classified as persons.  You can go after them if you want to make sure they don't get away with anything.

[Red Arrow]

How about listening to the snarky, arrogant, and condescending tone he actually delivered this in rather than poring over the transcript.

He's always sounded that way to me.  I don't understand why so many people think he relates so well to the regular people.  He acts like he's their daddy and will take care of all their problems.

[Red Arrow]

Romney and his ilk do steal the fruits of others' labor when they borrow unsustainably large amounts of money in the name of the companies they have purchased to pay themselves large dividends, thus forcing the company into bankruptcy and leaving the creditors unpaid.

The creditors were all rich people, why do you care if some of them got taxed by a private entity rather than the government?

[AquaMan]

So Henry gets NO credit for putting the pieces of the puzzle together?

Gas thinks he gets all the credit. That's the point. Ford was a genius! An innovator! An entrepreneur! blah, blah, blah. He was a successful businessman who put the pieces together in the right country with the right government, but many were working on the same designs at the same time all over the world. The elements were converging. Why didn't they become geniuses? Little support available for most of them. At the time Ford, Edison and other so called geniuses were busy stealing their employees and others' truly innovative ideas and claiming them as their own (Tesla comes to mind).

I often relate the story of the man who designed the ratchet. He did it on his own time in his own garage and Sears paid him $15 for the idea and turned it into an industry standard tool. The guy would have died destitute had the taxpayer not funded government, that provided courts that decided in his favor and forced Sears to pay him for his hard work. Would he have been a genius had he failed in court? Would Ford be a genius had the government not subsidized railroads, highways, oil drilling etc? Would the entrepreneur, innovator, fellow who developed Granola be a genius had he sold the rights to General Foods instead of marketing them himself and watching in horror as GF copied his product? They succeeded or failed based on the support they gathered from many people all over the world.

No one does it all alone. Not even Ford and he would be the first to admit it. Edison not so much.

To follow his logic, when an idea fails for lack of timing, location, lack of governmental support, and a host of other critical elements, then that person must be a dolt, a loser, a business failure. That just doesn't wash.

[nathanm]

The creditors were all rich people, why do you care if some of them got taxed by a private entity rather than the government?

I guess you're not aware of joint stock companies. Welcome to the 17th century.

And just to be clear, I care about fraud being prosecuted no matter who is on the receiving end of it.

Or this may better fit your notions: Theft from a thief is still theft.