Thread: "If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen."

Originally Posted by wooyarn

That sounds all fine and dandy, lets take a look at the other side of the coin. Without the Country as a whole to build those roads and bridges, how would you get product in your store to sell? Without the power grid how would people be able to see what products you are selling? As far as that goes, how would customers even know you have a store and how would they get there. It's true it takes a brave person to finance and start a business, to put in the long, hard hours to make it successful. But without what the Country as a whole it would be almost impossible to be successful.

How did businesses do it before paved roads and electricity?

If there was no government we'd still have paved roads but you'd be driving on the Walmart highway and paying a toll. You probably wouldn't have paved roads in your neighborhood unless you and your neighbors got together to do the job yourselves. Think about it, most of the power lines and electrical generation is done by businesses, not government.

Originally Posted by lutherf

Remarks by the President at a Campaign Event in Roanoke, Virginia | The White House



And he's off on the "you can't do it without government" rampage again.

Does building a successful business take people other than the business owner? Damned right it does but that business isn't going to exist at all without that individual at the top who had the vision, endurance, enthusiasm, ingenuity and sheer willpower to make it successful.

When some guy wanted to start a general store in a town in California that was little more than a mining camp he had to be the one that figured out how to bring the necessary resources together to get that store off the ground. He had to risk his time and personal assets (and in many cases his life) to get the store open, keep it stocked and meet the needs of his customers. Hell, people were starting businesses in the western territories long before there was a government there to "make it possible".

Meanwhile, we have government providing vast amounts of support to....Solyndra? We have government providing support to labor organizations such as the UAW that made GM so successful.....until they killed it. Did I hear that GM just announced a nearly 16% increase in sales for June? Yes, I did. But when I look at that number it turns out to be that that figure is a comparison between June 2011 sales and June 2012 sales. Year to date retail sales for GM are up just 3% which is, by any definition, anemic and sales of the Cadillac line are down 8.5%.
http://media.gm.com/content/dam/Medi...lesRelease.pdf

Can government be a help to business? Yes. Is the current administration being particularly helpful? Oh fuck no!!!

Libs have milked the socialist meme until it has a bad name. They are now moving to what they call the "commons" everyone benefits from the "commons" and therefore, those who are the most successful should redistribute what they have to those who were "less fortunate" but actually made the "fortunate" rich. Nothing is achieved, earned, or otherwise gained except for the efforts of the "commons." It is the typical liberal philosophy of never taking responsibility for your own actions and always blaming someone else for your failure.

Originally Posted by OldmanDan

Libs have milked the socialist meme until it has a bad name. They are now moving to what they call the "commons" everyone benefits from the "commons" and therefore, those who are the most successful should redistribute what they have to those who were "less fortunate" but actually made the "fortunate" rich. Nothing is achieved, earned, or otherwise gained except for the efforts of the "commons." It is the typical liberal philosophy of never taking responsibility for your own actions and always blaming someone else for your failure.

Actually, the "commons" are water, air, electricity, gas, interstate highways, state-of-the-art transportation.
NOT WallMart or CostCo.
The issue is one of "is the non-business owner important".
The usual answer is no; the qualified answer is Return on Cost.

Originally Posted by lutherf

How did businesses do it before paved roads and electricity?

If there was no government we'd still have paved roads but you'd be driving on the Walmart highway and paying a toll. You probably wouldn't have paved roads in your neighborhood unless you and your neighbors got together to do the job yourselves. Think about it, most of the power lines and electrical generation is done by businesses, not government.

You've got too narrow of a view. The Gov. provides the water lines that run to your business. Shut off the water and dig a well, don't forget to boil it before you drink it, but you have to use a wood burning stove because the gas lines are likely provided by the Gov, or at least ground they're buried in, same with the sewage, build yourself an outhouse. Same with the electric, not all power is provided by private business. The ground the power poles are sitting in is owned by whatever city you're in, so shut off the power and provide your own power. use candles or lanterns. When you get robbed, don't call the police, they're provided by the Gov. get a pose together jump on your horse and chase down the robbers. For whatever reason you just can't or won't admit that the Country as a whole has put things in place that does help not only business but the public in general. Does the Government step out of line sometimes, yes it does. Could you afford to put in a sidewalk in front of your business. How about traffic control, should we do away with all the traffic lights, they're put in by the local gov, if your business catches fire, don't call the fire dept. that's provided by the Gov. You need to look at the whole thing not just your narrow view.

Originally Posted by wooyarn

You've got too narrow of a view. The Gov. provides the water lines that run to your business. Shut off the water and dig a well, don't forget to boil it before you drink it, but you have to use a wood burning stove because the gas lines are likely provided by the Gov, or at least ground they're buried in, same with the sewage, build yourself an outhouse. Same with the electric, not all power is provided by private business. The ground the power poles are sitting in is owned by whatever city you're in, so shut off the power and provide your own power. use candles or lanterns. When you get robbed, don't call the police, they're provided by the Gov. get a pose together jump on your horse and chase down the robbers. For whatever reason you just can't or won't admit that the Country as a whole has put things in place that does help not only business but the public in general. Does the Government step out of line sometimes, yes it does. Could you afford to put in a sidewalk in front of your business. How about traffic control, should we do away with all the traffic lights, they're put in by the local gov, if your business catches fire, don't call the fire dept. that's provided by the Gov. You need to look at the whole thing not just your narrow view.

I have a well, I boil water if I want hard boiled eggs but not to drink. Gas lines are put in by the gas company, electric lines by the electric company. In many towns, water lines are put in by a water cooperative that has nothing to do with government. There is no reason for government to get involved with utilities at all. Every time government gets into utilities, prices go up. All of the things you mentioned are currently paid for by the producers. They could pay for them more easily without the intervention of government.

Originally Posted by wooyarn

You've got too narrow of a view. The Gov. provides the water lines that run to your business. Shut off the water and dig a well, don't forget to boil it before you drink it, but you have to use a wood burning stove because the gas lines are likely provided by the Gov, or at least ground they're buried in, same with the sewage, build yourself an outhouse. Same with the electric, not all power is provided by private business. The ground the power poles are sitting in is owned by whatever city you're in, so shut off the power and provide your own power. use candles or lanterns. When you get robbed, don't call the police, they're provided by the Gov. get a pose together jump on your horse and chase down the robbers. For whatever reason you just can't or won't admit that the Country as a whole has put things in place that does help not only business but the public in general. Does the Government step out of line sometimes, yes it does. Could you afford to put in a sidewalk in front of your business. How about traffic control, should we do away with all the traffic lights, they're put in by the local gov, if your business catches fire, don't call the fire dept. that's provided by the Gov. You need to look at the whole thing not just your narrow view.

Please, tell me you're not serious.

The water lines that run throughout Tucson are owned by the city and city employees do most of the maintenance but for major expansions....hey call in private contractors. Roads? Same thing. Electric and Gas....supplied by private companies. Fire? well, if I live in the city it's a city crew that handles things but if I live in the county I deal with a privately owned fire company.

Wooyarn, it isn't that the government must provide certain services. It's just that for the sake of convenience we have chosen government for that purpose. It could change back in a heartbeat if we wanted it to.

Originally Posted by OldmanDan

I have a well, I boil water if I want hard boiled eggs but not to drink. Gas lines are put in by the gas company, electric lines by the electric company. In many towns, water lines are put in by a water cooperative that has nothing to do with government. There is no reason for government to get involved with utilities at all. Every time government gets into utilities, prices go up. All of the things you mentioned are currently paid for by the producers. They could pay for them more easily without the intervention of government.

In Massachusetts we have some communities with municipally owned power and some with investor owned power, the rates are almost identical, but the service is far more reliable in areas with municipally owned utilities. We had a big storm this winter that knocked out a lot of power, every customer of the municipally owned utilities was back online within 24 hours, some customers of the investor owned utilities went as long as ten days without power. The difference was that municipal utilities tended to have more utility workers, who did more maintenance of right of ways, trimmed more branches away from power lines in the summer.
The investor owned utilities had cut back on maintenance, thus generating larger profits, and sizable bonuses for executives. The difference was that money spent on maintenance and making the system more reliable in the municipal power companies was spent on executive bonuses in the investor owned companies, resulting in more outages and longer outages, for the same money.....

Originally Posted by lutherf

Please, tell me you're not serious.

The water lines that run throughout Tucson are owned by the city and city employees do most of the maintenance but for major expansions....hey call in private contractors. Roads? Same thing. Electric and Gas....supplied by private companies. Fire? well, if I live in the city it's a city crew that handles things but if I live in the county I deal with a privately owned fire company.

Wooyarn, it isn't that the government must provide certain services. It's just that for the sake of convenience we have chosen government for that purpose. It could change back in a heartbeat if we wanted it to.

The real reason is because if people had a choice, they would choose to drive on dirt roads over paying for paving. A lot of govt is simply the majority forcing the minority to pay for things they cant afford. Kinda like how the federal govt forces the rich to pay for everything.

I have a ton of work that needs to get done this week... when can I expect someone from the government to arrive to help with it?

Originally Posted by tsquare

I have a ton of work that needs to get done this week... when can I expect someone from the government to arrive to help with it?

Be careful what you wish for!!!

Originally Posted by Wlessard

Strange, I thought putting in 80-100 hours a week for many months with no one else was just me building a business.

To think my taxes paid for the roads I use but that means according to Obama that everyone helped me build the business. Where's my share of Microsoft?

Tell the truth, the government helped........they gave you FREE tax forms didn't they?

Originally Posted by lutherf

Be careful what you wish for!!!

True... but right now I'd be happy with someone to take out the recycling and run and buy office supplies.

Originally Posted by jviehe

The real reason is because if people had a choice, they would choose to drive on dirt roads over paying for paving. A lot of govt is simply the majority forcing the minority to pay for things they cant afford. Kinda like how the federal govt forces the rich to pay for everything.

Just a guess here but I'd be willing to bet that if we left roads to go back to dirt it wouldn't be too long before we got something like a 80% vote to put them back to paved. There are certainly some cheap bastards out there but when they start looking at what the dirt roads cost them in vehicle maintenance as compared to just forking over for public roads they'll generally come to their senses.