"You didn't get there on your own"

[francoHFW]

We're talking about the greedy giant corporations whose lawyers and accountants bring the corporate rate down to effective 12%, whose CEOS average 350x the workers' pay, whose lobbyists run the country.. Get it right fcs...

 

[Oldstyle]

Krauthammer gets it.


Did the state make you great? « Hot Air Headlines

Obama is minimizing the 'individual's' drive, determination and persistence in starting/running a business and is pushing the 'collective' end of it as being more important.

Hmmmm, wonder where he got that notion from ...

From your MessiahRushie!!!

What Obama actually said and dishonest CON$ervoFascist scum like the Hreitage Foundation edited out was that business is successful not only from individual initative, but also from working together.

Here is what the dishonest scum always edit out of Obama's speech:

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.

So if I highlight the "but" part of Obama's speech does that counter your argument? Let's face it, Ed...you've got a President sitting in the Oval Office that really doesn't understand how hard it is to run a business because quite frankly...he's never done it. Barack Obama no more understands business than you and I understand brain surgery. Through his words and his policies he repeatedly sends the message to the business community that any profits that they make through their labor REALLY belongs to the government until HE decides that they should get some back. He sends THAT message and then scratches his head and wonders why he can't get them to invest their capital...it's an amusing bit of farce that's been going on now for three and a half years.

 

[healthmyths]

I'm sure, since you printed some excerpts from the article yourself, that you must realize that the headline and text don't match, right? The fact is, that we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. It's also not surprising, given the overly complex nature of our tax law that some corporations don't pay on years when they can find a legal excuse not to. Wasn't it GE under Jeffrey Immelt who, after every sort of sweet government deal one could imagine, not to mention having a warm, fuzzy relationship with Barack Obama, who didn't pay anything recently?

100% of those companies paid employees' Medicare/social security/FUTA taxes!
NO companies could be in USA with out paying those taxes !
That was my point! You never addressed that.

Actually I did!
I pointed out that none of those taxes builds roads or bridges.

So what kind of "taxes" builds roads or bridges?
It is MY understanding any person or company that buys GAS pays the Federal govt 18 cents per gallon and average state is 20.9 cents... and that tax money DEFINITELY is used to build roads and bridges.. guess you've Never heard of the Interstate system???

 

[Foxfyre]

I will concede one component of this discussion that I agree with those on the left, including the President, that 'we are all in this together." But I don't think any of you making the argument that this makes the President correct have a clue of how or why we are all in this together.

We are all in this together because we each profit from our own activity that is made possible by others profiting from their own labor. And despite all the millions of components that go into the process of each one of us doing our jobs, it works pretty well IF government stays out of it and doesn't try to manipulate or micromanage it. Government can't enlist enough people with enough expertise to run an economy. At least to anybody's benefit other than a very few chosen to be blessed by the same government.

Walter Williams explained it beautifully in this essay excerpted here:

Our economic system consists of billions of different elements that include members of our population, businesses, schools, parcels of land and homes. A list of possible relationships defies imagination and even more so if we include international relationships. Miraculously, there is a tendency for all of these relationships to operate smoothly without congressional meddling.

Let's think about it.

The average well-stocked supermarket carries over 60,000 different items. Because those items are so routinely available to us, the fact that it is a near miracle goes unnoticed and unappreciated. Take just one of those items — canned tuna. Pretend that Congress appoints you tuna czar; that's not totally out of the picture in light of the fact that Congress has recently proposed a car czar for our auto industry. My question to you as tuna czar is: Can you identify and tell us how to organize all of the inputs necessary to get tuna out of the sea and into a supermarket? The most obvious inputs are fishermen, ships, nets, canning factories and trucks. But how do you organize the inputs necessary to build a ship, to provide the fuel, and what about the compass? The trucks need tires, seats and windshields. It is not a stretch of the imagination to suggest that millions of inputs and people cooperate with one another to get canned tuna to your supermarket.

But what is the driving force that explains how millions of people manage to cooperate to get 60,000 different items to your supermarket? Most of them don't give a hoot about you and me, some of them might hate Americans, but they serve us well and they do so voluntarily. The bottom line motivation for the cooperation is people are in it for themselves; they want more profits, wages, interest and rent, or to use today's silly talk — people are greedy.

In other words, yes we are all in it together but not in a way that obligates us to each other. He who is obligated to another, other than voluntarily, is not a free person. And certainly a government who obligates us for the benefit of others, most especially itself, takes away freedoms from the people.

Williams went on:

Adam Smith, the father of economics, captured the essence of this wonderful human cooperation when he said, "He (the businessman) generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. ... He intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain." . . . And later he adds, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

Walter Williams

 

[Mac1958]

.

I think the final score here is that business owners need to shut the fuck up because they drive on roads.

Next?

.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Everyone of you right-wing idiots are total morons. You deliberately took Obama's statements out of context and changed the entire meaning of what he was saying. He did not say what you say he said. You're bunch of fuckin' liars and I see no reason why anyone would vote for your kind of bullshit!

Obama was talking about the roads and bridges businesses use to transport their products to market. Those businesses did not build the roads and bridges. We did. The American taxpayer built those roads and bridges and made it possible for businesses to flourish.

I swear to God, you people are as dumb as it gets.

So far no one has been able to take those words, put them into context, and prove to me that he did not mean what he said. That probably explains why he is running an ad saying that Romney is lying when he quotes Obama.

 

[tjvh]

.

I think the final score here is that business owners need to shut the fuck up because they drive on roads.

Next?

.

Roads paid for with Gas taxes, and Tolls by the people... NOT by the Government.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I think its gonna turn around and bite him in the ass.

Try telling a business owner that he didn't pour his heart, soul, capital, time and effort into his business. Tell him he didn't make sacrifices to keep his dream alive. Tell him someone else did it for him. Tell him he owes it all to someone else.

Yeah. That oughta go over big with business owners especially coming from a guy who's never held a real job in his entire life.

Jesus. Obamas a schmuck.

The fact is, most businesses couldn't survive without government. It's just most of them are too arrogant to admit it.

Your store couldn't exist without government run utilities, government provided protection, and government provided roads so goods and customers could get to it. Nor would you be able to educate employees to the level of competence if the government hadn't taught them how to do math and read first.

Conservatives used to be for more efficient, more lean government. Now government has become the enemy... and that's just kind of sad.

Strange.

There are lots of stores on the East Coast that stayed open despite the fact that the government run utilities crapped out in a thunderstorm. Best part of that story, it isn't the businesses that want to force people to pay for the lost revenue because of the storm, it is the government run utilities that think they should get paid despite the fact that they didn't provide a service.

You cannot win this one. Go tell your momma I was mean to you.

 

[Foxfyre]

You claim that the paid trolls are gone and then devolve into partisan nonsense and historical bullshit.

Have you even read the Declaration of Independence?



You think that means "every man for himself"?

It's not the Individual States of America. It's the UNITED States of America.

Just what do you think all of this means?

And do you think that 'for the support of this declaration' translates into for the support of each other? Do you really think that is what it says?

I read the rest of the sentence. Pledge to each other our LIVES, FORTUNES AND SACRED HONOR.


It means exactly what it says.

And just like Obamas statement, it not means what you think it means if you take it out of context and put partisan spin on it.

To accomplish the REVOLUTION Vidi, to accomplish the REVOLUTION, not for all purposes for all reasons for the rest of their lives. To a man they were almost 100% opposed to ANY form of welfare state or ANY action of government that would obligate anybody beyond the most narrow of definitions.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Obama has never said or inferred that which you are claiming he did. You say you are reading between the lines. What you are doing is making shit up.

That explains why he is running an ad calling Romney a liar for quoting exactly what he said.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Dumbass. Taxpayers ARE the government. The humans that make the decisions regarding how we are governed are duly elected to do so as per the USC.

This is simple stuff. Why can't you grasp it?

No, the government works for taxpayers. Most of the people in the government making decisions are not elected by anyone.

 

[GuyPinestra]

Yes you did edit something out and it was Obama's own sumation that HE gave to represent the whole. And you know it!

Here is what dishonest CON$ deliberately edit out of Obama's speech:

What a coincidence... I was just fixing that on another thread for you.

#2079

And what a coincidence, I gave you some missing info there.

And you are trying to deny credit where credit is due. Businesses do not pay their fair share, most Fortune 500 companies pay nothing. See the below report for the BOOM years 1998 to 2005!!!!

The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.

More than half of foreign companies and about 42 percent of U.S. companies paid no U.S. income taxes for two or more years in that period, the report said.

There are almost 6 million individual businesses in the US, and all you can talk about is the Fortune 500.

If 57% paid no tax in at least one year of 7, one of 2 things happened. Either that business A.)made oodles of money and paid a sharp accounting firm, or B.)they barely made ends meet. Since the average business usually takes 3 years to actually make a profit, chances are better than 50/50 that the answer is B.

Also, 57% over 7 years breaks down to 8% per year, meaning 92% of businesses PAID taxes EACH AND EVERY YEAR.

 

[Murf76]

And you are trying to deny credit where credit is due. Businesses do not pay their fair share, most Fortune 500 companies pay nothing. See the below report for the BOOM years 1998 to 2005!!!!

That was shot down in the other thread too, Ed. #155

What's more, small businesses owners don't typically organize their businesses in the same way giant corporations do. We're talking LLC's and S corps. But the biggest fallacy in this entire argument is that it's not political gamesmanship. Obama and his Democrat cronies already KNOW that "taxing the rich" isn't really a drop in the bucket.
Would Taxing the Rich Fix the Deficit? | LearnLiberty

This is all political rhetoric on his part, designed to divide Americans and create the "class warfare" scenario he thinks will benefit him. Envy is a natural human emotion, easy enough to stimulate. What he's doing is attempting to capitalize on that.

And Your answer was shot down in that thread too.

Your Freudian Slip contradicts your stupid video.
Now of course, it all depends on who you are defining as "rich." If taxing thr rish doesn't work because they are too poor, taxing the poor because they are too rich must be the answer. (sarcasm) In reality the people the Right call "rich" are merely upper middle class WAGE EARNERS, not the truly rich. It's wage earners who pay the taxes, not the wealthy. It is the wealthy who are waging "class warfare" against the wage earner. Even your MessiahRushie admits it.

August 7, 2007
CALLER: And, you know, and the way our tax system works, we have an overly complex system, which in and of itself is a problem, but the way our tax system works and the way the tax laws are written, it's based on a few kind of like hinge numbers like adjusted gross income and taxable income, and while the soak the rich -- or however you choose to describe it -- really doesn't come down that way. It really comes down to much lower income levels.

RUSH: It does, exactly, and here's the dirty little secret if you ever to pull it off. It's hard. This is why most people don't understand the tax-the-rich business. You've got to structure your life so you have no "earned" income. I'm out of time. I'll explain that. There's a category called earned income versus other kinds of income. Earned income is what the income tax rate is on. That's how "the rich" do it. They don't have "earned" income.
END TRANSCRIPT

You seem to be missing the point again. We could confiscate every dime from "the rich" and maybe pay one year of current spending, leaving nothing for any subsequent year.
Bill Whittle On Eating "The Rich" | RealClearPolitics

Obama is playing games with you. And you... are letting him.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

It's not the Individual States of America. It's the UNITED States of America.

Just what do you think all of this means?

Dear, we are united merely as a federation, but we have no national government.

The Founders intent was very very clear. They gave the Federal government a few enumerated powers in the Constutution. When the Founders governed under their Constutition they maintained a very very limited government.

Welcome to your first lesson in American History

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

.

I think the final score here is that business owners need to shut the fuck up because they drive on roads.

Next?

.

but the poor drive on roads too????

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

.
Obama is taking an interesting and dangerous approach on the campaign trail, telling successful business owners that they "didn't get there on their own", that their success is predicated in part on the labor and efforts (and taxes) of others.
.

I applaud you for not just quoting out of context. Your statement I believe accurate reflects what Obama meant.

And frankly, its true. I know that Republicans may feel in their hearts that business success - particularly their own - is 100% due to their efforts, but the facts and the evidence tell us otherwise. Everywhere you look, you'll see the influence of the greatest public-private partnership in all of history - the scientific and technological complex, a web of public and private entities, some motivated by quest for profit, others by quest for knowledge, still others by quest of national defense - all leading to best economy in the world.

Public v. Private is simply not that simple, in other words.

If all of science was funded by the public, there would be a lot more advances in general scientific theories but no concentration on the kind that would benefit the economy. Obviously business would suffer dearly.

If all of science is funded by the private, we'll do fine for a while but over several decades, we'll fall way being in science, and the technology will eventually suffer. Most private enterprise simply has no interest in funding science whose benefits may not be realized for decades upon decades to come. Einstein's relativity would have never come about had there only been private funding of science - yet his theory is now crucial to the functioning of something most of us even take for granted now - GPS.

What Obama meant was that he's finally out of his Marxist closet and lovingly embraces his Inner Mao

I could see how a rightie might conclude that in a feewings based approach, but not ina facts and evidence based approach.

 

[saveliberty]

I will concede one component of this discussion that I agree with those on the left, including the President, that 'we are all in this together." But I don't think any of you making the argument that this makes the President correct have a clue of how or why we are all in this together.

We are all in this together because we each profit from our own activity that is made possible by others profiting from their own labor. And despite all the millions of components that go into the process of each one of us doing our jobs, it works pretty well IF government stays out of it and doesn't try to manipulate or micromanage it. Government can't enlist enough people with enough expertise to run an economy. At least to anybody's benefit other than a very few chosen to be blessed by the same government.

Walter Williams explained it beautifully in this essay excerpted here:

Our economic system consists of billions of different elements that include members of our population, businesses, schools, parcels of land and homes. A list of possible relationships defies imagination and even more so if we include international relationships. Miraculously, there is a tendency for all of these relationships to operate smoothly without congressional meddling.

Let's think about it.

The average well-stocked supermarket carries over 60,000 different items. Because those items are so routinely available to us, the fact that it is a near miracle goes unnoticed and unappreciated. Take just one of those items — canned tuna. Pretend that Congress appoints you tuna czar; that's not totally out of the picture in light of the fact that Congress has recently proposed a car czar for our auto industry. My question to you as tuna czar is: Can you identify and tell us how to organize all of the inputs necessary to get tuna out of the sea and into a supermarket? The most obvious inputs are fishermen, ships, nets, canning factories and trucks. But how do you organize the inputs necessary to build a ship, to provide the fuel, and what about the compass? The trucks need tires, seats and windshields. It is not a stretch of the imagination to suggest that millions of inputs and people cooperate with one another to get canned tuna to your supermarket.

But what is the driving force that explains how millions of people manage to cooperate to get 60,000 different items to your supermarket? Most of them don't give a hoot about you and me, some of them might hate Americans, but they serve us well and they do so voluntarily. The bottom line motivation for the cooperation is people are in it for themselves; they want more profits, wages, interest and rent, or to use today's silly talk — people are greedy.

In other words, yes we are all in it together but not in a way that obligates us to each other. He who is obligated to another, other than voluntarily, is not a free person. And certainly a government who obligates us for the benefit of others, most especially itself, takes away freedoms from the people.

Williams went on:

Adam Smith, the father of economics, captured the essence of this wonderful human cooperation when he said, "He (the businessman) generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. ... He intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain." . . . And later he adds, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

Walter Williams

As a side note Foxfyre, I think when you add government there are winners and losers choosen. Rarely does government help everyone equally.

 

[The T]

I applaud you for not just quoting out of context. Your statement I believe accurate reflects what Obama meant.

And frankly, its true. I know that Republicans may feel in their hearts that business success - particularly their own - is 100% due to their efforts, but the facts and the evidence tell us otherwise. Everywhere you look, you'll see the influence of the greatest public-private partnership in all of history - the scientific and technological complex, a web of public and private entities, some motivated by quest for profit, others by quest for knowledge, still others by quest of national defense - all leading to best economy in the world.

Public v. Private is simply not that simple, in other words.

If all of science was funded by the public, there would be a lot more advances in general scientific theories but no concentration on the kind that would benefit the economy. Obviously business would suffer dearly.

If all of science is funded by the private, we'll do fine for a while but over several decades, we'll fall way being in science, and the technology will eventually suffer. Most private enterprise simply has no interest in funding science whose benefits may not be realized for decades upon decades to come. Einstein's relativity would have never come about had there only been private funding of science - yet his theory is now crucial to the functioning of something most of us even take for granted now - GPS.

What Obama meant was that he's finally out of his Marxist closet and lovingly embraces his Inner Mao

I could see how a rightie might conclude that in a feewings based approach, but not ina facts and evidence based approach.

Feewings Gracie? WTF are you bantering about?

Why don't you just spell out that YOU are projecting?

 

[regent]

At times we are so used to seeing something that we are blind to the implications of what we are seeing. Sort of reminds me of the law of gravity; how many people were aware of gravity as being unusual until Newton.
How many of us believed that we we're independent creatures not needing anyone or any thing but ourselves. Then we think about it and realize how dependent we really are. People certainly seem to flock together and seem dependent on others despite the Republcian handbook on rugged individualism. And so another Republican truth falls to the floor with so many others. But not to worry, a new manual of snappy Republican truths and phrases will soon be out. How about, "Please Uncle Sam, I'd rather do it myself," it was a grabber in the Sixties?"

 

[Mr. Shaman]

"There's nowhere else in the world, nowhere else in the world, that people can accrue the kind of fortunes that happen here. And that's because of the kind of country we have.

And the kind of country we have is a function of the taxes that we pay to provide security, we have a stable market, you can predict next week will be pretty much like the week before.

We have the most immense investment being made by our government in advancing businesses by supporting the enormous research industry that's going on in this country. And it's that piece of government expenditure that which has everything to do with the health and robustness of our economy."

Bill Gates, Sr.

(More business-wise than the average Teabagger)​

​