Saturday, July 21, 2012

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

First published in 1957, Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" is eerily reflective of today's political climate.
“He didn’t invent iron ore and blast furnaces, did he?” 
“Who?” 
“Rearden. He didn’t invent smelting and chemistry and air compression. He couldn’t have invented his Metal but for thousands and thousands of other people. His Metal! Why does he think it’s his? Why does he think it’s his invention? Everybody uses the work of everybody else. Nobody ever invents anything.” 
She said, puzzled, “But the iron ore and all those other things were there all the time. Why didn’t anybody else make that Metal, but Mr. Rearden did?”
Excerpted from the speech President Obama gave in Roanoke, VA on July 13, 2012:
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.
Life imitating art. Success is collective. There is no individual achievement.

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



But Milton Friedman had a different take on the same idea.



Obama: If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.

Friedman: That's how the free market works.

3 comments:

  1. Buttercup:
    Our Dear Leader was mentored by a Marxist, spent 20 years listening to Black Liberation theology, was the child of a Kenyan Marxist and an American far-left progressive, and was a self-described radical in college. In 1976, I voted for Roger McBride (Libertarian, thought the zoos should be emptied and the unemployed dressed in animal suits for display; had some unusual theories about gravity, etc.). Even Roger McBride, if he's still around, would make a better president than the current occupant. I hate to sound apocalyptic, but this guy's really scary and it could be close in November.

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    1. It gets worse. Obama launch his career with the serious political help of the Ayers family, was appointed to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) WITH Bill Ayers (just a guy in my neighborhood) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212856075765367.html

      and launched his political career as member of the New Party which was a socialist party. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/06/07/Obama-Caught-Lying-Again-He-WAS-Member-of-New-Party-Says-Kurtz

      there is also some interesting, though not as credible, information that he is actually the son of Frank Marshall Davis, NOT Barack Obama Sr., and there ARE pictures of his mother, Ann Dunham, posing nude for Davis. He was also a pornographer, among his many intellectual and moral achievements.

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    2. I meant Davis was a pornographer.

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