Obama caught being a smarmy douchebag?

[Hauldren Collider]

Of course. What Obama should have said was, "You didn't build that alone." I imagine he'd probably rephrase that given the opportunity. Alternatively, he could have meant (but definitely did not clearly articulate), "You didn't build the conditions upon which your success depends." And that's undeniably true. No one knows how to make a pencil, yada yada.

Elizabeth Warren said something very similar a few months ago, and it certainly seemed to me like Obama had co-opted her argument. She definitely thinks that businesses are beneficiaries of government intervention and all that crap.

[BlackCat]

And other companies provide the pens and pencils you use to fill out sheets, microsoft makes your computers, that doesn't mean that it wasn't your individual effort that led to something's creation.

Is this typical for US college kids ?

[Hauldren Collider]

Whatever, computer software. The point stands.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

And other companies provide the pens and pencils you use to fill out sheets, microsoft makes your computers, that doesn't mean that it wasn't your individual effort that led to something's creation.

Milton Friedman's pencil story.

[Lorizael]

Milton Friedman's pencil story.

I already mentioned that.

[Lorizael]

Is this typical for US college kids ?

Microsoft does make computer hardware, just not desktop/laptop stuff.

[Hauldren Collider]

I'd never actually heard of Milton Friedman's pencil thing until you mentioned it, Lori. It was just the first thing I thought of because there's a big cup of pencils on my desk.

[Lorizael]

She definitely thinks that businesses are beneficiaries of government intervention and all that crap.

They are, as I already pointed out, and you did not refute.

[Dauphin]

Of course. What Obama should have said was, "You didn't build that alone." I imagine he'd probably rephrase that given the opportunity. Alternatively, he could have meant (but definitely did not clearly articulate), "You didn't build the conditions upon which your success depends." And that's undeniably true. No one knows how to make a pencil, yada yada.

Without a doubt. The fun part is that Obama is a "clever" guy, but has now made a Bushism or Rumsfeldian logic statement.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I already mentioned that.

The difference being that Friedman described a process of free enterprise not of governmental oversite. Moreover Milton main point was antithetical to practice of governmental intervention in the picking and choosing of winners in the market.

[Lorizael]

The difference being that Friedman described a process of free enterprise not of governmental oversite. Moreover Milton main point was antithetical to practice of governmental intervention in the picking and choosing of winners in the market.

Free enterprise's ability to transform all the raw materials of a pencil into a pencil are quite extraordinary, but it would not function without a foundation laid by the government. Each part is necessary. Too much of one part is bad, of course. Too much lead and scantrons can't read tests. Too much government and Republicans get angry.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

No one argues that a a civil society is not a necessary precursor. However lost in that precursor is that the hand of government really was built on the taxation of the free market. Thus the free market provided all.

[The Mad Monk]

nm

[Lorizael]

No one argues that a a civil society is not a necessary precursor. However lost in that precursor is that the hand of government really was built on the taxation of the free market. Thus the free market provided all.

Chicken and egg. But it was people that provided all, not the free market -- people working together toward common goals. One of the ways in which people can work together manifests itself as the free market; another way is government.

[MRT144]

No one argues that a a civil society is not a necessary precursor. However lost in that precursor is that the hand of government really was built on the taxation of the free market. Thus the free market provided all.

Colonialism, feudalism, etc etc are decidedly non free market and yet there were businesses and merchants and taxes. Free markets are not a precursor to all economic activity or governmental authority.