It seems that the more I point out that our president is economically illiterate the more he goes out of his way to prove me correct. President Obama gave us our first taste on a national level of his ignorance with his "Spread the wealth" comment when he met Joe the Plumber. Being given such an excellent glimpse into the belief system of a man who the American people knew so little about our investigative press did its job and went… dumpster diving into the background of this man who had the audacity to do the job that journalists weren’t willing to do themselves. Once in office Obama helped to sell us on his health care reform by informing us that if you liked your health care plan you could keep it and that your rates would not go up. Only somebody who is completely out of touch with reality could make a remark like that, but the left still swooned over the brilliance of our president.
Recently the president decided to not only make a fool of himself by showing his inability to understand the difference between outsourcing and offshoring (outsourcing is when the president authorizes the government giving money to Solyndra rather than have the Department of Energy build solar panels themselves, while offshoring is when the president suspends offshore drilling in the US and supports it for Brazil), and when Romney pointed out that there is a difference the president double downed on stupid and mocked Romney for pointing out that there is a difference.
Now, he is at it again with his "You didn’t build that" speech. Yes, the president gave a brief nod to what the private sector accomplishes, but statements like his show the arrogance and disconnect from reality that our president suffers from. If government "created" all of these roads and schools, where did the money to pay for them come from? The fed’s printing press is not an ATM, and everything that the government spends is paid for either by lessening how much capital is available to spend or invest today, or as we have been doing robbing future generations for politically expedient promises today.
To give another example, the president is putting the cart before the horse. The government can be helpful toward business, in the same way that a cart (government) can help a person bring more goods to market than by simply what he can carry on his horse alone (the private sector). Without his cart the salesman can still function, if not as effectively as he would like. Take away the horse though? That cart is going nowhere, and overloading the cart just wears out the horse.
Yes, the government plays an important role in our society, but it is not greater than that of a vital private sector. More importantly, the government does not "create" jobs, and by definition can not create wealth. Yes, the government built those schools and roads, but these are things that the private sector can do but ultimately chooses not to. If you don’t believe me look no farther than the private school where the president sends his children rather than force them to mix with the offspring of the common folk in DC’s public school system. Yes, it is the president’s right to choose how his children are educated, but I’d have less of a problem if one of his first efforts in office was an attempt to kill off school choice for DC residents less affluent than he is. As for building highways? Look at the first turnpikes – privately built. The name originated with this effort by the private sector, not the government.
Sadly, Iowahawk made a great observation – Our press and leftists are more interested in how Romney spent his own money than how the president is spending ours. The real issue is how so many can still have blind faith in a man who continues to prove that book smarts (albeit unproven) equate any common sense or grasp of reality. What makes the president’s comments even more offensive is that someone who has spent his life as a parasite on society should show some appreciation for what fed him. Maybe someday we’ll see a biography of the president – "The audacity of a dope"
On the plus side, this incident has inspired some great snark! Going back to Iowahawk, for those of you who follow him on Twitter he’s been on fire over the last few days. Here are a few of his greatest hits on this issue:
“Like, we’re like all connected, you know? Like this choom in this bowl, like, somebody else made that happen, man.” Obama, dorm room 1981
Breaking: Government to shut down Build-a-Bear for false advertising
“successful people shouldn’t take credit for their successes, and failures shouldn’t be blamed for their failures.” – Every Failure Ever
“Oh, you get laid last night? Sure, thanks to government roads. You’re WELCOME.” – Barack Obama
Who put the bomp in the bomp shu-bomp shu-bomp, who put the ram in the ramalama ding dong? Government.
That freeway ramp you’re panhandling under? Someone else built that .
What came first, the chicken or the egg? Neither. Chicken government built both.
"Next, a look into the causes of America’s debt crisis" – State-funded radio show
Iowahawk also had to break the bad news to Ministry fans that Jesus did not build their hotrod.
But he summed it up best with this gem:
The only thing funnier than Obama’s comments are the mediots who can’t fathom how anyone could find them offensive
Tumblr also has also inspired a new great meme: You didn’t build that. Here are two tastes:
If nothing else, the president’s inspiration for satire may end up as his greatest accomplishment.
To close out on a more serious note, National Review’s Jay Nordlinger used Obama’s remarks to offer some advice for Romney:
Obama and his team are talking nonsense about outsourcing and other economic matters. Romney should say, more or less straightforwardly, “These people are total ignoramuses when it comes to business. They know nothing. They wouldn’t know a real payroll if it bit them in the butt. Free enterprise is completely foreign to them. They know ACORN, they know lawsuits, they know ‘community organizing,’ whatever that is. But they know nothing about an economy, and this is the knowledge we desperately need now.”
It looks like Romney has taken this advice; let’s hope that the American people can get the message.
Cross posted from Brother Bob’s Blog
@ Brother Bob,
There are two leading, and now boring, excuses Obama and all of his trolls regurgitate ad nauseam: “I inherited this mess” and “It takes time to work out of it, give me 4 more years.”
The beauty of his “You didn’t build that” speech is that he went off-teleprompter, and demonstrated his ignorance, as you point out. He’s become a greater handicap to his own re-election than Biden is.
While he continues to address the crowds which in his mind are the Great Unwashed, and persists in telling them lies in everyone of his addresses, the large middle swath of the Great Unwashed are finally beginning to see the extent of his impediments and his utter incomprehension of the engines that make America successful.
After 3.5 years in the Oval Office, he still doesn’t care. If he did he would have educated himself. All he knows is rabble rousing by telling the Great Unwashed what he thinks they want to hear. Positively lead a great Nation? Not a chance.
What Obama is doing is insidious.
He is trying to get America to buy into the collectivist ideal.
If ”you didn’t build that!” is true, then who owns it is the next logical question.
Oh!
The GOVERNMENT built it!
So, you must give the government all they deem their own and MAYBE they might give you back some!
Risk is not going to be rewarded under Obama’s collectivist ideal.
Now, I ask you, who will take risks of 60+ hour weeks and plunging in all their savings and all the headaches from the hoops they have to jump through for NOTHING?
Yeah.
That is the minor problem with the plan.
They should make a pic with oboma saying “I am the father of 2 girls” and mooshell saying “some other guy made that happen”
@1stworlder:
Someone did: Check Pookies Sunday Funnies links.
@James Raider: To the 1st excuse I offer this: How often did you hear Bush complain about inheriting the dot-com bubble and 9/11? For that matter, what was the junior senator from Illinois doing while this mess was brewing from 2005-2008? As for the second, I ask what measures you’re going by, and what signs should we be seeing? And is it possible that the problem isn’t that situation was much worse than we realized but that Obama’s knowledge of economics is much worse than we realized?
@Ditto: Got a link? Inquiring minds want to know!
@Brother Bob:
Ask and ye shall receive http://i49.tinypic.com/6omtqp.jpg:
@Ditto – LMAO – thank you!
Three straight years of record breaking corporate profits . . . I guess that’s what you get with an “anti-business” president.
We’ve also had 3 years of his opponents hoping for, predicting, and relentlessly working for his failure. That may finally be paying off. My guess is that corporate America isn’t going to like the results. Those record profits are now showing sign that they’re about to fly south. (Talking down the recovery for 3 straight years eventually erodes consumer confidence. The drought won’t help–food prices, you know. Nor will the deteriorating situation in Europe.)
Do you think Meh Romney has a plan to fix all of that?
Of course, predatory capitalists may benefit from having more carcasses to pick clean. I hear some people have made a lot of money that way. Didn’t Bain realize a 372 percent return on their leveraged buyout of the KB toy chain? That move only cost 3,000 or so people their jobs. Bain fronted $18 million to gain control of KB in late 2000, extracted $85 million by paying dividends from KB to itself, and then filed for bankruptcy for the company in January 2004. Then they walked.
KB had been around since 1922.
That, apparently, is how Americans are supposed to build things.
I suppose I should at least congratulate the Romney campaign on what they’ve managed to build on an out of context statement that didn’t mean what they claim it meant in the first place.
Greg, are you saying that having someone who is able to make tough decisions to close or reform failing enterprises is a bad thing?
So since you didn’t pay for that bridge or road, where did the money to pay for that come from? And better still,where is the money going to come from to pay for the debt that’s making George W. Bush look fiscally responsible?
@Brother Bob:
I’m waiting for a liberal/progressive to name one, just one, thing that Obama actually built.
It’s hard to nail it better than Bill Whittle does HERE.
@James Raider: Great link. It’s tempting to embed a Bill Whittle video in almost everything I post!
If you vote for Mitt Romney, you could be putting America in serious danger of four years of things like this.
Mitt Romney’s 2002 Olympic speech; does the part beginning at 1 minute and 30 seconds sound oddly familiar?
Obama hasn’t had time to meet with his Jobs’ Council for 6 straight months.
But he took the time to memorize a 30 second spot to deceptively twist his own walk back from his own words about ”you didn’t build that.”
See it here:
(I don’t know. I looked at it again. He has a reading device near the camera lens making it look more like he’s speaking without READING.
Sheesh!
Not even a 30 second spot!
And he now claims he MEANT we’re all standing behind you?!?!
Sounded like he MEANT, ”you need it?” (a road, a school, a bridge) then you better be prepared to PAY a whole lot MORE for it!
@Greg, I’m assuming the Olympic speech is the one that MSNBC dug up? Please tell me you don’t need the difference explained to you?
johngalt
yes, I got it, OBAMA BUILT MANY RIDGES TO DIVIDE THE NATION,
BECAUSE HE COULD NOT HANDLE THE WHOLE NATION,
AMERICA WAS TOO MUCH FOR HIS ABILITY TO HANDLE,
SO HE CUT IT LIKE A PUZZLE ,PIECE BY PIECE ONE AFTER ANOTHER,
AS THEY CAME IN, HE HIRED PUBLIC EMPLOYEES TO GO AND INTIMIDATE
each piece of his puzzle, there was so many pieces that he had to hire more of the same robots,
and of course he bet on the tolerance and obedience of the people toward the GOVERNMENT RULES,
he have succeeded to disturb THE GOOD AMERICANS, WITH HIS SCARE TACTICS.
HE IS UN AMERICAN in his thinking,
by the way, what SECRET deal is he planning to achieve with
COMMUNIST RUSSIA, AS HE SAID AFTER HE GET RE-ELECTED?