We Are Not All Entrepreneurs

[CactusCarlos]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021242251

phantom power (21,293 posts)

We Are Not All Entrepreneurs

It's the age old conservative myth - everybody could be a Rich Successful Entrepreneur(tm) if we'd just suck it up, or stop sucking on the govt teat, or whatever.

I'm pretty sure it's macro-economically impossible for everybody to be rich and own a business. Not that conservatives ever let reality get in the way of their world view.

Scott Galupo makes an important point in his post on Paul Ryan’s speech last night. Measuring the distance between Ryan’s vision and the lived experience of many Americans, Galupo observes that:

In Ryan’s intellectual bubble, there are job creators and entrepreneurs on one side and parasites on the other. There is no account of the vast gray expanse of janitors, waitresses, hotel front-desk clerks, nurses, highway maintenance workers, airport baggage handlers, and taxi drivers. They work hard, but at the end of the day, what can they be said to have “built”?


This disconnect goes beyond Ryan. Again and again last night, we heard stories of poor people who became successful because of their hard work and smart decisions. Susanna Martinez described the growth of her parents’ security business “from one 18-year-old guarding a bingo-to more than 125 people in three states.” Rand Paul told the story of his constituents, the Tang family. According to Paul, Mr. and Mrs. Tang are Cambodian refugees who work long hours in the donut shop they own, but how have sent their children on to extraordinary academic achievement. Even Ann Romney contributed to the rags-to-riches story contest. Although many Americans know her as a quarter-billionaire enthusiast for equestrian sports, Mrs. Romney thought it important to inform us that she is the granddaughter of a Welsh coal miner.

These stories make us feel good about America. But their repetition ad nauseam reveals the insularity of the Romney campaign. Most Americans are not entrepreneurs or business owners. And the ranks of employers aren’t limited to the blue-collar types Galupo mentions. They include vast swathes of the middle class, including millions of government employees who would presumably lose their jobs if the Ryan budget were enacted. (People who work for military contractors would apparently be safe.)

We heard a great deal last night about what a President Romney would do about America’s enemies, at least as John McCain and Condoleeza Rice understand them. We also heard something about Romney’s dedication to freedom, although without much explanation of what that means. But we heard almost nothing about what another Republican administration offers Americans who work jobs rather than “creating” them.

It’s part of the so-called American dream, as Sen. Paul put it, that “any among us can become the next Thomas Edison, the next Henry Ford, the next Ronald Reagan…” Another part is that those who don’t reach the towering heights of achievement can hope for stable lives that include a reasonable measure of comfort. Republicans once endorsed this rather modest ambition. Does anyone believe they care about it now?

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/we-are-not-all-entrepreneurs/

[JohnnyReb]

We Are Not All Entrepreneurs....we know that DUmmies, that's why you work for rich people. But some of us would rather do things different and take a chance on doing better than existing....but you don't want anyone doing better than you so you want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

[DumbAss Tanker]

It's entirely true that we're not all entrepreneurs, and for that matter few entrepreneurs could build much of anything without good employees doing the work that needs to be done for fair pay.  But to equate the gainfully and honorably employed with the sort of blood-sucking welfare case LOSERS that typify DU is ridiculous.

[LC EFA]

There will always be someone with more than you - and there will always be someone with less than you. If you can't deal with this, then you may as well go suck start a shotgun right now and save the rest of us from your misery.

If you dumb assholes would just put aside your petty jealousy for those with more and fake sympathy for those with less, to go about your life and live it to the best of your ability the world would be a far better place.

[GOBUCKS]

I'm kind of surprised the DUmp runs as many poverty contests now as they did when W was in the White House. In fact the squatter's useless wife Sparkly got her ass handEd to her for bragging about getting health
insurance from one of her former husbands.

[miskie]

This thread made me realize something- Maybe I should follow Eastwood's lead, and address an empty chair instead of making sense of what some idiot on DU is spouting off about instead.

Or even distill it to a single tweet ;

"I can't run a business, by I can work in one, and rob it blind with the help of a union ! YAY !"

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

"Well, the world needs ditch-diggers too."

[JohnnyReb]

"Well, the world needs ditch-diggers too."

Have you forgotten already? DUmmies don't dig ditches, they live in them.

[jukin]

No you are not.  In fact, it takes a specials person to throw it on the line and start a business. I would say less than 10% are. I was lucky. I got a drafting job in high school. Now that company was an entrepreneurs womb. One guy started it and at least 25 other companies in various fields were later spawned. I was involved with four. Those companies fed a  lot of people. That one success showed others it could be done and was an unbelievable incubator. One strong leader and businessman did that. Then they  bought by a big company and that type of motivation was looked down upon. Within a few years that company died.

What the 0bama regime is doing is killing those few people that want to be entrepreneurs. Sadly this is a geometric response curve.  Take kalifornia where the above happened.  Not one new mechanical machine design company is being created. The reason, to the leftists is that we are not patriotic. This is not the case. We are being stifled from people that have no imagination and can only enforce laws of non-performance.

[Ballygrl]

We promise equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. Paul Ryan

[Vagabond]

The waitress, the janitor, the nurse, the hotel front desk worker, the baggage handler, and the highway crewman are all entrepreneurs.  They do have something to sell and they are selling it.  That is they sell their time and effort to a perform a task that needs doing.  They may be drawing a paycheck from a business, but what is the business to them?  It is the next customer that appreciates a waitress that is busting her tale and keeping the glasses full.  It is the next traveler checking in half asleep with kids in the car asleep that is asking for a clean room.  It's the next stretch of highway, that if done right, saves the government some money and lasts a little bit longer.  It's that next set of bags that has some glass in it that the handler doesn't toss or smash under three hundred other bags.

DUmmies (and too many reasonable people) are all hung up on whether or not a paycheck comes directly from the customer.  It doesn't matter.   Each one of them can ask themselves how would I do want to be served, or how would I like to travel this road.  It is not the employer that is important, it is the task.

/rant off

[Bad Dog]

I grew up in a union family & I saw the same short sighted greedy attitudes that have destroyed many enterprises.  And, now they want to make it the business of the Federal Govt. to destroy the rest.