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It's not even the place of Obama or Elizabeth Warren who basically issued the same sophistry to speak to what work is involved in success, they've never had to do it. Obama was propped up from a young age by political connections and Warren pretty much lied her way into prominence using a made up ethnic heritage and misuse of affirmative action. I did have a business for most of my twenties, I was an independent insurance agent while I was also working elsewhere and in college , I didn't make it but put in ten times the work of my peers. Free time to me was getting to hang out with friends and EVEN then I was thinking shop. I guess we could speak to the hospital position Michelle Obama was granted that didn't involve much work and dissappeareed when Mr. Obama took the office of president, it was considered a "do nothing" position, but then again not everyone has the easy money connections and have to do things for ourselves.Μολὼν λαβέ;1060694263 said:Most everyone understands that very few people were born with a silver spoon in their mouths and received help along the way, but this statement is offensive to those who have worked hard to get where they are. It just shows how out of touch he really is.
Well said, but many people like to BELIEVE that they did everything on their own. My brother-in-law is a doctor. Smart hard working fellow. Loves to tell every how he did it all on his own. There's just one problem. His grandfather on one side paid for his education, and his grandmother paid for his expenses, including $5,000 a month living expenses. I take nothing from his hard work, as without that he would not have succeed. But the fact remains he had help. Most of us do. The difference is some recognize this, and others seek to take all the credit.
I don't buy that Zpyh. While it's true that overall the market dictates whether an idea is viable at a particular time or even at all, it takes work to sell the idea to market, it takes work to make the idea conform to the environment. Things that are on shelves today had to be sold prior to that.Chicken and egg, chicken and egg, chicken and egg.
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Almost every individual effort is shaped in part by environmental conditions which were likely shaped in part due to individual efforts which....on and on.
Subccess boils down to personal choices, with some luck involved. For instance I've known wealthy kids who literally snorted, stuck, and toked away their inheritance and now work at Taco Bell, I know millionaires who started with nothing.As I said to a few friends on email...the funny thing is…he’s right, but he’s wrong as well. The reality is, often, success is a mixture of environment/community and the individual. Sometimes environment almost alone can spur it…sometimes the individual almost on their own can do it, but usually it’s a mix. The difference is…and it’s so interesting read it because it’s often a great dichotomy between the two poarties…is which of those two ingredients do you choose to highlight, promote, and give adulation to and which do you downplay or degrade or write off.
The problem is that Obama is ignoring the initial work that allowed the people he focuses on to have an opportunity in the first place. If I start a restaurant and set the menu I can find hundreds of people who can read my recipes and cook. How many of them can create a recipe that I would be proud to serve?Obama chooses to highlight and promote the community while devaluing and downplaying the individual. Traditionally, Republicans hype up the individual while downplaying the community. What becomes interesting is which of the two arguments will win over the fickle American people this time around.
The problem is that Obama is ignoring the initial work that allowed the people he focuses on to have an opportunity in the first place. If I start a restaurant and set the menu I can find hundreds of people who can read my recipes and cook. How many of them can create a recipe that I would be proud to serve?
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.
I suspect this will hurt him with those who cannot see how anyone every helped anyone who was successful. The individualism myth is a large one, and American mythology is powerful.
If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
President Barack Obama
Ah but wait, if I go to culinary school that is a traded value, I've already paid someone to share that knowledge with me, same thing with any design help in the restaurant, they aren't partners in my business, they make a value determination upon materials and time used to do that service for me and then the partnership ends upon my last payment, they aren't doing it for "me" or for my restaurant but rather for compensation. Same thing with the loan I would take out, the bank isn't doing it for "me" or because they want to be partners in my restaurant but rather to make money on the interest accrued by lending me the money, it isn't neutral like a grant. I guess my point is that values are already traded, the other side is trying to change the values in lieu of the workers who have already taken the job at X compensation for the Y conditions. The major failing with the "community effort" value judgement is that it completely ignores the driving value of initial ideas, labor, investment and reinvestment. The community valuation also ignores that every tax dollar spent by employees came from employers who in turn tend to have larger tax bills on top of overhead.Sigh.
Here's my point LMD.
How'd you learn to create that recipe? Did you just spontanteously figure it out? Or did you gain cooking skills from a culinary school, or reading books related to cooking, or helping your father or mother cook, or watching cooking shows? How did you start that resturant? Did you take a loan from someone, even a bank? Did you have any help with investing in capital. Did you have anyone help with the design and decor of the shop or advertising it? Did you have friends spreading the word about your place for you?
Now on the flip side...no matter how you learned how to make that recipe, it still took individual effort to actually learn it and perfect it. Regardless of how you got the money to start up the business, you actually took the initiative and took the risks and chances associated with it. If you had help with advertising or design, you built the individual relationships with people who helped and took actions in a way that inspired them to help you.
And then it can go on and on.
It's a never ending wheel. Almost nothing is done for a reason that can be traced back singularly to individual effort....and the same can be said in regards to environment/community. The difference is which part of that cycle a person feels deserves greater weight and importance. You feel the individual deserves greater importance...boo feels the community aspect deserves greater importance....neither of your are necessarily wrong or right because it's an entirely subjective thing. Can you point to extreme examples on your end of individuals working hard and succeeding even though some environmental or community factors should've hindered them? Sure. You can also point to individuals whose individual actions should have resulted in great horror and no good at all and yet through community and environment end up gaining beneficial things. However, by and large, in most cases, it is almost always a mix of the two in some fashion or form.
Μολὼν λαβέ;1060694408 said:I'm rather surprised you don't seem to understand Obama's statement. There is no context to infer, or conclusion to be drawn. His words verbatim stand alone. Obama gives no credit to those who have become successful. He said, "You didn't build that. Someone else made that happen."
Ah but wait, if I go to culinary school that is a traded value, I've already paid someone to share that knowledge with me, same thing with any design help in the restaurant, they aren't partners in my business, they make a value determination upon materials and time used to do that service for me and then the partnership ends upon my last payment, they aren't doing it for "me" or for my restaurant but rather for compensation. Same thing with the loan I would take out, the bank isn't doing it for "me" or because they want to be partners in my restaurant but rather to make money on the interest accrued by lending me the money, it isn't neutral like a grant. I guess my point is that values are already traded, the other side is trying to change the values in lieu of the workers who have already taken the job at X compensation for the Y conditions. The major failing with the "community effort" value judgement is that it completely ignores the driving value of initial ideas, labor, investment and reinvestment. The community valuation also ignores that every tax dollar spent by employees came from employers who in turn tend to have larger tax bills on top of overhead.
Every bit of that is factually incorrect. If I own a business based off of my ideas and the employees all pissed me off I could fire every last one of them, rehire a new crew, and still have my business. For that sentence to be true it would have to follow that I created the business, not my employees, and frankly it is true.i fail to see anything in that quote that is factually incorrect or even mildly controversial.
another fox news distortion.
I get all of that, here's the catch: If no businesses exist requiring the services of secondary business then their labor has no demand, yet if the secondary business didn't exist I could probably design my own dining room/bar layout, if I went gourmet I could get away with less employees by serving and cashiering while the sauces cook, etc. I guess I'm getting at this, while laborers are important they don't exist without the investment class(bosses, money, ideas).Regardless of why they do it, the fact they do it is part of what's allowing you to do it. But you highlight my point that it's all a cycle. Their help or service to you is instrumental to the individual things you do, but that help or service is made possible due to individual actions or choices. Which wre likely helped out in some way through community/environmental situations. And on and on and on and on.
You don't see anything at least POSSIBLE to be controversial about "If you've got a business - you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen".
That's no different than saying "If you've got a business you've got it becaues of yourself. No one else helped you make that".
It completely devalues, and in that particular instance completely removes, any individual effort or activity placing ALL the responsability and praise onto the community. That's ridiculous to suggest.
If you can't honestly see how there is something even mildly controversial then to be quite frank you're not looking at it very objectively.
Every bit of that is factually incorrect. If I own a business based off of my ideas and the employees all pissed me off I could fire every last one of them, rehire a new crew, and still have my business. For that sentence to be true it would have to follow that I created the business, not my employees, and frankly it is true.
Why would the infrastructure exist if not to facilitate business? If businesses decided to stop producing in a bad market, do you think those roads would be maintained frequently?does your business use infrastructure that it didn't build by itself?
Chicken and egg, chicken and egg, chicken and egg.
Almost every individual effort is shaped in part by environmental conditions which were likely shaped in part due to individual efforts which....on and on.
As I said to a few friends on email...the funny thing is…he’s right, but he’s wrong as well. The reality is, often, success is a mixture of environment/community and the individual. Sometimes environment almost alone can spur it…sometimes the individual almost on their own can do it, but usually it’s a mix. The difference is…and it’s so interesting reading it because it’s often a great dichotomy between the two parties…is which of those two ingredients do you choose to highlight, promote, and give adulation to and which do you downplay or degrade or write off.
Obama chooses to highlight and promote the community while devaluing and downplaying the individual. Traditionally, Republicans hype up the individual while downplaying the community. What becomes interesting is which of the two arguments will win over the fickle American people this time around.
I get all of that, here's the catch: If no businesses exist requiring the services of secondary business then their labor has no demand, yet if the secondary business didn't exist I could probably design my own dining room/bar layout, if I went gourmet I could get away with less employees by serving and cashiering while the sauces cook, etc. I guess I'm getting at this, while laborers are important they don't exist without the investment class(bosses, money, ideas).
And you are correct, but this does not allow for the logic that a business owner didn't build his business or that society had a greater role in it than trading for value which is my overall point. If following the logic of a communal effort then it becomes logical that the creators and investors of a business don't own the idea, this is dangerous and frankly dishonest and is always used as an excuse to take more money and exert more authority.Laborer's aren't the only other part of that community aspect though. Customers are. Other businesses you interact with...from advertising to cooking supplies to farmers etc...all play into it.
Unless you're suggesting you raise your own food, smelt your own metal, create your own silverware, forge your own ceramic plates, built your own building, advertise singularly by your own word of mouth, completely taught yourself how to make the food, burn your own compost to power your resturant, etc.
The Individual and their Environment is a symbiotic relationship. How the individual works and how that environment functions can be changed, arguments can be made with how much impact each may have at any given time, but the reality is that if you remove either component to that relationship the other does not survive in the manner that it is at the current point in time.
Why would the infrastructure exist if not to facilitate business? If businesses decided to stop producing in a bad market, do you think those roads would be maintained frequently?
You don't see anything at least POSSIBLE to be controversial about "If you've got a business - you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen".
That's no different than saying "If you've got a business you've got it becaues of yourself. No one else helped you make that".
It completely devalues, and in that particular instance completely removes, any individual effort or activity placing ALL the responsability and praise onto the community. That's ridiculous to suggest.
If you can't honestly see how there is something even mildly controversial then to be quite frank you're not looking at it very objectively.
Good points. The people created the gov't not the gov't created the people.
And you are correct, but this does not allow for the logic that a business owner didn't build his business or that society had a greater role in it than trading for value which is my overall point.
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