Here's the part of the comment I'm addressing (the rest of the comment was addressed to another comment):
"Your business idea was your own, the majority of the hard work and possibly the capital to start it was your own(but I doubt the capital really was) and certainly the risk of failure was all your own, but ....your success was not all yours alone..I am sorry to bust your bubble buddy. Without existing infrastructure, built from taxpayers money for decades previous to your success, without supply and transportation pipelines to ship and deliver the necessary components of your business's product, without customers and, most importantly, without competent and dedicated, hard-working employees...your success would never have happened at all. Sure, the President said something supremely stupid here but for all of you clowns who think that one person is responsible for an entire company's success? Time to wake up. Unless that business is a single owner/operator that deals in purely intellectual or informational products(and even then they use the discoveries and inventions of thousands before them) then your argument is as useless as your cries of tyranny and socialism."
This is, as you can see, pretty standard Marxist rhetoric, but let's break it down.
"Your business idea was your own, the majority of the hard work and possibly the capital to start it was your own(but I doubt the capital really was) and certainly the risk of failure was all your own, but ....your success was not all yours alone"
So, you had the vision. You took the risk. You found the capital (and, yes, buddy, it was "their own" in the vast majority of cases, or did you think loans were just free money?) But, despite these things, "your success was not all yours alone." Oh really? Why?
"Without existing infrastructure, built from taxpayers money for decades previous to your success, without supply and transportation pipelines to ship and deliver the necessary components of your business's product, without customers and, most importantly, without competent and dedicated, hard-working employees...your success would never have happened at all."
Oh. Right. The People made it happen. You don't actually get credit for your business because you're using "infrastructure," and you have vendors, and you have customers. So, to liberals, unless you mined the ore used in the steel girders of your building yourself, unless you invented metallurgy to turn that iron into steel, unless you forged the girders yourself, unless you laid the roads, unless you wired the building, unless you bought your own product yourself like some perpetual motion machine- then you "owe" your success to others.
Sorry, Charlie, it doesn't work that way. See, I'm a tax payer. People who own small businesses pay a very large percentage of the taxes in this country, which means they've already paid "their fair share," and more, for that "infrastructure." Yes it was the "taxpayers" money, but who are the taxpayers? By and large, it's those small business owners.
As for needing "supply and transporation pipelines," well, yes. And a business owner could invest in doing that himself, but other people already do it more cheaply and efficiently. A business owner no more "owes" his success to his vendors than he does "the taxpayer." He selected which vendors he's using; he pays them (or they don't continue to supply their goods or services).
Employees? I owe them nothing either. I selected the right group of employees (and if I didn't I wouldn't be successful). As their boss, I'm responsible for their conduct while acting as my employees. I pay them their wages. I don't "owe" them anything. Surely them being good employees contributed to my success, but they weren't working for me out of the goodness of their hearts, they were working for a regular paycheck.
And Customers. You're absolutely right that, without customers, my business would fail. However, as a business owner, I can't simply sit and wait for customers to come to me. I have to cultivate a customer base. I have to provide a good or service for which they are willing to pay. I have to make sure they know I provide said good or service. I have to treat them right and have competative prices. All of that falls on me.
My success is mine, and mine alone. If I succeed, it is because I had the vision, gumption, smarts, and work ethic to make my enterprise work. In most cases, that means I'm smart enough to use things already existing to help me. I owe "the taxpayer," that abstract concept, no more of my success than I owe the cash register I use, or desk at which I sit.
The attempt to make business people feel that they "owe" others for their success is nothing more than class warfare, Marxist rhetoric. The target isn't even the business owners, but everyone else. You see, if that business owner wasn't "successful" on his own, then he does, indeed, owe "more" than others. Why, he's built his success on the backs of others, how dare he!? But it doesn't work that way. That business owner has paid his dues, he built the business, he overcame the obstacles (and there are always obstacles), and he is the primary reason for the success of his company.
If you want to get into "owes," it's the working class who "owe" the visionaries who open and run businesses, who take all that risk, for providing them a place to work and a way to feed their families. It's the customers who "owe" the businesses for providing them things they couldn't provide themselves. It's government who owes those business owners for being the primary tax payers. But even that is class warfare rhetoric. In truth, no one "owes" anyone anything here. My success is mine, and if I fail, that's mine, too. I didn't succeed or fail because of "infrastructure" or "supply and transport pipelines," or "employees," or even "customers." I succeeded or failed because of a vision, the courage to implement it, the smarts to plan properly, and the hard work necessary to bring it to fruition.
You see, the problem lies with the fact that libs and Marxists (BIRM) think that government is this magical entity that has its own money-making factory. Actually, it's not a money-making factory. It's a *magician* who snaps his fingers, and money comes floating to the ground.
ReplyDeleteGovernment is god from which all things flow and to which all owe their allegience and possessions.
This is probably the reason libs and Marxists (BIRM) are ever eager to spend, spend, spend without any cares. Of course, one would think they would realize that the money actually comes from taxpayers, including those arrogant business owners and the people they employ, since they are always going on and on about raising taxes. However, it is not convenient for those things to be connected in a liberal mind, so what does a liberal mind do? Just ignore it and plow ahead.
They won't talk about the freeloaders who contribute *nada* to the federal coffers but still use said roads and bridges. No, it's hardworking people trying to make their way in life who are to be vilified.
And those sheeple who were cheering him think that he's saying they're entitled to the fruits of the labor of productive citizens, not knowing that when a commie or commie wannabe "leader"/agitator says that the money belongs to all of us, he really means to him and his cronies, who will wield tyrannical power over everyone, including said sheeple.
Oh, and notice how he doesn't mention parents, other family members, friends, mentors, churches/synagogues/religious organizations, etc., in his diatribe, people and entities one could actually say we owe a debt (of gratitude, not necessarily money) to. Only government, government that usually doesn't feel that it's doing *something* unless it's putting up barriers in the way of people trying to go about their lives. (I know government does have useful and proper functions, but it seems to be paying less and less attention to those.)
I won't even go into the fact that some people were home-schooled or went to non-government schools, and not all roads are built by the government, because that misses the point.
/rant off