OT - You Didn't Build It

[SMenasco]

Boy, am I glad to find out I had so much help building my small business. I thought I took all the risks, put up all the capital, and built it up from scratch. But wait; I didn't build it. He said it, so It must be true. Now that I know it wasn't me, I'll be forever grateful for all those government programs, federal and state business requirements, interstate highways, bridges, roads, rules, regulations, the internet (thanks, Al), the EPA, social programs and the collective community efforts that were mainly responsible for my business planning, employee recruitment and retention, marketing thrust, sales activities and luckily, some resultant profits. My individual efforts were apparently just a small contribution to my success. I'm glad I finally understand and it makes me really feel warm and good, knowing that all these groups would have been there to cover my losses, repay my business loans, and make me whole should I have gone belly up. How about that, all you small business owners. Were you laboring under the false assunption that you weren't the main driving force in your business? Now you know who's really responsible.

[themonk]

We’ve already made a trillion dollars’ worth of cuts. We can make some more cuts in programs that don’t work, and make government work more efficiently…We can make another trillion or trillion-two, and what we then do is ask for the wealthy to pay a little bit more …

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me, because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something – there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That’s how we funded the GI Bill. That’s how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That’s how we invented the Internet. That’s how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for president – because I still believe in that idea. You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.”

[MaxDarkside]

Ya, well, the full quote has even more wrong thinking in it. I understand his intent, but boy did he go about it wrong, but this guy values society over the individual, as others of his ilk before him. The overlying premise is "society" enabled you, the word he used was "allowed" you to thrive and that you owe society, which in his mind government is a proxy. I'll tell you what, I did pay society, when I wrote checks to my vendors and employees based on the value they contributed, and they in turn wrote checks to their vendors and it rippled backwards through 10s, 100's and thousands of hands. Along the way, each time, the gov't took a cut of any "excess" (profits) that stopped along the way, but hey, even profit's are spent and sent onward through society. As he sees it, even though I paid almost all of what I earned already, in bills and taxes, somehow I still owe more. I paid enough federal income taxes personally to hire people, but instead of me hiring someone, it was given to a guy needing a job. The recipient loses: no job still, I lost: no one to do the work, yet the gov't got the power to allocate my money instead of me. (scratches head).

My view is that 330,000,000 minds making value decisions many times per day, allocating their hard earned money as they see best, a super-computer of human minds, truly society in it's glory, is a lot better than a power center taking money by force if necessary in the name of society to dole it out according to their maintaining power. Charity by force is not charity. Charity comes from the heart.

/off soapbox

[DiverCTHunter]

Feedest ye not yon trolle

[BlackSpinner]

Go and build a business in Somali. Get back to me on it in 5 years.

[MaxDarkside]

Go and build a business in Somali. Get back to me on it in 5 years.

Actually, I probably could. All I need is an internet connection. Software business. Don't need an airport much anymore either. I don't drive much, so don't need roads much either. Everyone works from home in our company, and home is where the internet is, um, hat, ah, wife, ya... is. The hard places to do business for us are India and Vietnam. Both are very corrupt. Lots of opporutnities there, but alas I won't make the necessary "fee" payments in order to get bids, nor the fees I have to pay to submit bids, nor the "huge deposit" I have to pay when I'm awarded a bid which with a bat of an eye I have to forfeit because I didn't cross a "T" in a report along the way.

[SMenasco]

If I were trying to learn how to be a "smarter than everyone else" elitist, I certainly would study both your posts.

[MaxDarkside]

Well, in my priorities this all really does not matter much, it's more of a hot button for people, somewhat to me as a business owner. I use the spheres of influence to judge importance, what I can help and influence; me, my wife/kids/family, my friends, my neighbors, my community, my county, my state, radiating outward... the last on the list are the pompous federal elitists and the globalists. Right now, my wife is not well and for me that's #1.

[themonk]

Ya, well, the full quote has even more wrong thinking in it.

I just wanted to share the full quote for people to consider. Agree or disagree - I don't care personally. Ultimately, the opinions of the minions are not particularly important except to provide distractions to each other. Our soapboxes aren't filled with enough money to matter.

[MaxDarkside]

I just wanted to share the full quote for people to consider. Agree or disagree - I don't care personally. Ultimately, the opinions of the minions are not particularly important except to provide distractions to each other. Our soapboxes aren't filled with enough money to matter.

Agree and I think most of us here have bigger issues

[tooter]

Go and build a business in Somali. Get back to me on it in 5 years.

How does this quote affect Canada?

[RandyJ]

From "Agrarian Justice" by Thomas Paine (1779):

Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.

(You didn't build that.)

[BlackSpinner]

Go and build a business in Somali. Get back to me on it in 5 years.

How does this quote affect Canada?

We have idiots here too that think they owe nobody nothing. It is part of the crap that gets imported.

[ChicagoGranny]

From "Agrarian Justice" by Thomas Paine (1779):

Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.

(You didn't build that.)

Make not the mistake to believe that Paine was speaking of government and rulers. He was clear that his speaking was of society, and a free society at that, in the passage cited.

Here are some examples of what Thomas Paine thought of governments.

“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.”

“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”

“Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness.”

"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

[ChicagoGranny]

Ya, well, the full quote has even more wrong thinking in it. I understand his intent, but boy did he go about it wrong, but this guy values society over the individual, as others of his ilk before him. The overlying premise is "society" enabled you, the word he used was "allowed" you to thrive and that you owe society, which in his mind government is a proxy. I'll tell you what, I did pay society, when I wrote checks to my vendors and employees based on the value they contributed, and they in turn wrote checks to their vendors and it rippled backwards through 10s, 100's and thousands of hands. Along the way, each time, the gov't took a cut of any "excess" (profits) that stopped along the way, but hey, even profit's are spent and sent onward through society. As he sees it, even though I paid almost all of what I earned already, in bills and taxes, somehow I still owe more. I paid enough federal income taxes personally to hire people, but instead of me hiring someone, it was given to a guy needing a job. The recipient loses: no job still, I lost: no one to do the work, yet the gov't got the power to allocate my money instead of me. (scratches head).

My view is that 330,000,000 minds making value decisions many times per day, allocating their hard earned money as they see best, a super-computer of human minds, truly society in it's glory, is a lot better than a power center taking money by force if necessary in the name of society to dole it out according to their maintaining power. Charity by force is not charity. Charity comes from the heart.

/off soapbox

Max, That is so very beautifully said. Odds are you did have some good teachers and travel on some good roads along the way. But so did hundreds or thousands of others have these same teachers and roads. And how many made a contribution as great as yours? Only a few strived and succeeded. Congratulations and thanks for your contribution to society.

All the best to you and your wife.