I really don’t like to give President Obama any more attention, he’s had way more than he deserves based on his poor performance in office, but I recently perused the Internet and ran across his “You didn’t build that” nonsense that he uttered a few years ago. I understand people like him, people that talk a great game but never did anything positive in their lives. Talk is cheap and his rhetoric was abundant as were his foolish ideas on the economy (“cash for clunkers” comes to mind).
I have a friend who started a business on a shoestring, with an idea for a product that is used in conference rooms, schools, colleges and many places that want to write ideas on a whiteboard. He and his relation chipped in, hand built their first whiteboards, sold them to clients after displaying them at a building exhibition. From a few hundred to thousands, they built their business slowly and with purpose, keeping expenses and liabilities to a minimum to maximize profits.
Those profits were put back into expanding the business and leasing a large building. It didn’t take long to fill it up with production and product. They carefully grew the business, bought their own trucks to deliver and service their products. They now have a large share of the market and are still growing.
Yes, they used banks for short-term loans, and the highway system to deliver product, but the idea to create the product was their own. They came from local schools and I’m sure had some amazing teachers to learn from, but learning and using that knowledge to actually create something of value was all theirs.
Politicians like President Obama, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and many others on the “D” side of the aisle think the government is the secret to success. They couldn’t be more wrong. Government is a roadblock to success — from local, state and federal levels .
If you want to establish a business by building a store or manufacturing plant, you must start with local government for planning and approval of the site and building, zoning changes, sewer and water, water retention, parking, down to how many trees (and sometimes what species) to plant, and among other things, property taxes.
Then you have the state to contend with, especially if you have employees. Minimum wage requirements, unemployment insurance, state licenses to do business, DBA (doing business as) registration, state income taxes, etc.
Then the federal government; federal income tax, social security tax, OSHA, corporation/business taxes, etc.
By the time you’re compliant with all local, state, and federal government requirements and hiring people to address all requirements and product, the burden before you make a cent is immense. You better be successful because by the time you have this much money and credit on the line the downside is the risk might be too great. Many businesses fail, a small number succeed, and those that thrive have great products, great service, and great employees.
Government does nothing but stand in the way with their hands out waiting for cash to roll in. We pay for the schools and roads (not the government) and any time government bails out businesses because they are too big to fail (what a crock of BS!), they print money to loan, making what money you have worth less. If they would let businesses fail, their assets and liabilities would be bought by others, or if they weren’t viable, they would be sold to the highest bidder.
The best example of government intervention into business is Penn Central Railroad. It was bought by the government and made into AMTRAK (passenger train service) and CONRAIL (freight train service). Both were government run – AMTRAK has never made a dime and is billions in the red, requiring billions over the years to be loaned by the government (taxpayers!). CONRAIL was sold in a public offering in 1987 and is owned by employees and investors – it is running a profit and is a taxpayer instead of consuming them. Government can’t run anything efficiently. And they know it but don’t admit it.
About the best thing government does run is Social Security, but even that fund is slowly being drained as more retire and less people support the system. But again, that is our money, not the government’s. We paid into it for years and expect to get some return when we retire.
To those thinking socialism would be preferred over capitalism, just look at Venezuela. Eventually, all socialistic governments turn into elites and dictators. There are the haves and have-nots. Nothing in between. Socialists on the have-not side are equal — equally miserable.
The rotting of America from within continues…
