Obama proves liberals don't know how wealth is created

[Guest]

The highway system was created by business? The government and the tax dollars they collected had nothing to do with it?

The highway system was created because someone created the internal combustion engine and then the automobile. The system itself was created from tax dollars acquired from the private sector.

Let’s compare the wealth you’ve created in your life to the wealth Warren Buffett has created. Why do you think he did so much better than you? Did he work several million times harder? Is he several million times smarter? Both?

He's a different, unique individual with a set of different, unique talents and attributes, and that is all there is to that, Analytics.

[_Droopy]

Can you clarify your point? Does leadership and organization count as "work"? If the government wouldn't have collected the taxes, made the plan, and hired the contractors, the work wouldn't have gotten done, and the "wealth" associated with an extraordinarily valuable highway system wouldn't have been created.

This kind of strained, straw-grasping form of argument is always where leftists have to go when confronted by the clear conceptual and logical hollowness of their fragile ideological models of reality. Government is purely parasitic and purely administrative in nature. bc is correct, it didn't create the wealth used to build the highway system, and it didn't do the work - private contractors did, just as private contractors build, test, and sell to the government every piece of military equipment its ever used.

And if the highway system wouldn’t have been built, every fortune that was made which depends upon it wouldn’t have been accumulated, despite the genius and hard-work of those people.

Without fortunes having been made in an open, competitive, free market capitalist economic environment, the roads never would have been built either, because the wealth necessary to build them never would have existed, and the government, like most governments throughout ancient history, would have had to resort to conquest and plunder to acquire the wealth to construct that infrastructure.

The chicken is always the state, and the egg is always free, unshackled, cooperating, acting man.

[_Analytics]

And if the highway system wouldn’t have been built, every fortune that was made which depends upon it wouldn’t have been accumulated, despite the genius and hard-work of those people.

Without fortunes having been made in an open, competitive, free market capitalist economic environment, the roads never would have been built either, because the wealth necessary to build them never would have existed, and the government, like most governments throughout ancient history, would have had to resort to conquest and plunder to acquire the wealth to construct that infrastructure.

The chicken is always the state, and the egg is always free, unshackled, cooperating, acting man.

Your answer makes me not only doubt that you know how wealth is created, it makes me doubt you even know what wealth is. Of course government can create wealth.

[_EAllusion]

If roads were simply privately funded, they would've grown out in a more organic, chaotic way tied more directly to population density and demand via toll systems. There would've been dense connections in urban areas and fewer veins out into undeveloped territories, thus further concentrating urbanization. It would've been like spiders webs on a tree. The highway system wouldn't look anything like it does now. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The highway system is responsible for a variety of evils in the US stereotypical liberals would bemoan in other contexts such as suburban sprawl, low utilization of mass transit, intense oil dependence, energy inefficiency, etc. But it's kind of foolish to assume the system would be the same without the governments overarching ability and authority to concentrate huge amounts of wealth and spend them with some central planning without anticipation of a profitable business model.

[_moksha]

The chicken is always the state, and the egg is always free, unshackled, cooperating, acting man.

But don't those unfertilized eggs always produce capons?

[_krose]

Wingers have been going bat-guano over this quote, whining that the "commie-in-chief" thinks we didn't build our own businesses.

... 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...

Having listened to the speech, and judging by the cadence as it was delivered, I can assure you that this transcript is not punctuated correctly above. The line in question should be written like this:

"Somebody invested in roads and bridges; if you've got a business, you didn't build that."

The antecedent for the pronoun "that" at the end was clearly "roads and bridges." The confusion is due to a simple grammatical error (using "that" instead of "those"), rather than an accidental revelation of a Marxist bent.

[_Analytics]

Wingers have been going bat-guano over this quote, whining that the "commie-in-chief" thinks we didn't build our own businesses.

... 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...

Having listened to the speech, and judging by the cadence as it was delivered, I can assure you that this transcript is not punctuated correctly above. The line in question should be written like this:

"Somebody invested in roads and bridges; if you've got a business, you didn't build that."

The antecedent for the pronoun "that" at the end was clearly "roads and bridges." The confusion is due to a simple grammatical error (using "that" instead of "those"), rather than an accidental revelation of a Marxist bent.

+100

It's quite clear what he meant; the talking heads who say he meant something else are simply lying.

[_bcspace]

Whoa! Whoa! Let's get back to basics and demonstrate once again why liberals don't know where wealth comes from or how to create it.

God created you and everything around you. Yet there are no farmers who stand in the middle of the field and say "I want corn!" and corn suddenly starts to grow.

Another prime example is the public school. That fine building and all those materials and that great teacher, all provided to you by the government. And yet each child gets a different grade. The metaphor for the economy of course is where liberals try to give everyone the same grade and that is where the economy tanks.

All this is illustrative of Obama's mind and background. There can be no doubt he is the most liberal president America has ever had. A Marxist even because that is Marxthink spewing from his mouth. This further shows that the media didn't do it's job and vet Obama at all before his first term.

[_krose]

A Marxist even because that is Marxthink spewing from his mouth.

Wait, where is this "Marx think"?

Was it this, from the speech in Virginia the other day?

And what this reminded me of was that, at the heart of this country, its central idea is the idea that in this country, if you’re willing to work hard, if you’re willing to take responsibility, you can make it if you try.

Maybe this, from the same speech?

And I think about all those previous generations -- our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. Some of them came here as immigrants, some were brought here against their will. Some of them worked on farms, and some worked in mills, and some worked in mines, and some worked on the railroad.

But no matter where they worked, no matter how times were tough, they always had faith that there was something different about this country; that in this country, you have some God-given rights: a life in liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and a belief that all of us are equal -- and that we're not guaranteed success, but we're guaranteed the right to work hard for success.

God, what a Marxist!